Devil's Mistress

For my sisters near and far,

Victoria Graham Davant
and Jenifer Anne Graham

In the late afternoon the fog began to roll in, curling across the water like a misted silver blanket. It slowly moved to the wharf, and danced and shivered over grass and road, shimmering with its ethereal magic. It rose high above the bluffs and cliffs of the old Burial Point, and spiraled downward again, swirling with a haunting intrigue around the ancient markers and the bases of the few skeletal trees. When I first arrived, the day had been overcast and from the sea, a breeze—the same breeze that now carried the fog—seemed to have cast a spell over the Charter Street Cemetery.

In this place the wind seems to whisper plaintively of dramas gone by, of lives played out, in joy and in travesty—and in tragedy. As is the play of nature, some stones are better preserved than others; some stand straight, others are worn smooth. Some even appear to arise from the gnarled roots which have grown about them. Some stones can be read, and others are unreadable.

In that cemetery in Salem the past came to life for me. Closing my eyes, I could feel the breeze, touch the ancient stones—almost seeing the people who had been buried here approximately four hundred years ago. Among them is the grave of John Hathorne, one of the original magistrates and most ardent examiners of one of our country’s greatest tragedies and controversies.

While kneeling at his marker—old and worn and bolted together—I first had the strange feeling that I was no longer alone. Of course I wasn’t “alone”; Dennis was wandering about somewhere. But suddenly I had a feeling that crept along my neck, chilling my spine—I sensed someone near me. It was frightening in this place covered by fog where the naked trees let down their branches like bony fingers reaching out.

I jumped up and saw a young woman about twenty years old. She seemed to have been cast straight from the fog, coming from nowhere, and I must have started severely, for she smiled apologetically. She was one of the most striking individuals I’d ever seen, with brilliant blue eyes and feathered hair as dark and sleek as India ink. She pointed toward the grave and said, “A witchcraft student, eh?” and I laughed a little self-consciously, for I had been caught touching the old gravestone with my eyes closed.

“Sort of—but really just a dreamer,” I told her.

She smiled again and pointed past the cemetery to the street. “Once the Burying Point’s base was swept by the seawater of the tidal river. They filled in and made Derby Street, oh, somewhere in the eighteen hundreds. The oldest stone still standing here goes back to ’73—1673, that is. Bradstreet’s here, and more of the members of the court.”

“The court?” I asked her curiously. As I talked to her the street seemed to slip away in mist. I could almost hear the tidal wash again, and the gray day seemed to turn into a shrouded, swirling twilight.

“The witchcraft court,” she told me solemnly, but her eyes were a blue that twinkled even with darkness. She looked off into the distance then. “What tales the earth could tell! But then it wasn’t so very bad here, you know. They burned and hanged ‘witches’ by the thousands in Europe; we killed but a few dozen.” She looked at me again. “But then tragedy is a personal thing, isn’t it? One thing that hasn’t changed in all this time is human nature. They were dreamers too. They knew happiness, and they knew sorrow, and some survived and some did not.” Then she winked as she rose, beckoning me over to the base of a tree.

There was a grave marker on the ground, but one I wouldn’t have taken much interest in, since it was twined with metal, badly broken, and not at all legible. “A dreamer, eh?” she asked me. Her fingers, delicate and fine, moved over the stone, and I saw the date, 1756. “The year she died,” she told me. “Having outwitted them all! You see, they say that none of the ‘victims’ are buried here—this ground was for the affluent. But she wanted to come here.”

Well, of course I had to ask her “Who?” And then, “How do you know all this?” in the same breath.

She laughed and waved to the row of houses beyond the street. “I’m from here and there’s all sorts of local gossip and legend. But I’ve always been especially fond of this story. Just the type of thing for a dreamer …”

She then sketched out a picture for me of seventeenth-century Europe and the Colonies, and of some special, individual people. For as she had told me, life cannot always be seen in numbers and dates, we must know the people of the times—for human nature never does change. No matter how far we come along, we will love and laugh and suffer—and love and laugh again.

I listened to her story with eager fascination. I fingered the stone again, and I could almost see the people she described—their gowns and old-fashioned trousers, caps, and hats; horses on unpaved roads; vast ships with tall white sails—I thought I heard their whispers, and their tears, and their laughter.

I don’t know when she ended her story, but when I turned around again, my husband Dennis was there, and the girl was gone. I frowned and asked Dennis if he had seen her; he shook his head and smiled a little ruefully. “I didn’t see anyone at all.”

Well, I wasn’t about to argue with him, but I was confused about the disappearance of my visitor. When Dennis suggested we find a place for dinner, I agreed that it was time to go.

In the days that followed, we went on to see Salem, Massachusetts, and the town now called Danvers which was once Salem “Village,” where the witch-hunts really began. I was never really sure if there was a girl in the cemetery or not that day. But then, Salem had long ago proven to be a place of illusion—and delusion.

So if you will, come along with me. Bear in mind that witch hunters were different men from different times who had not long left the dark ages behind. A medieval world was shifting and changing and the feudal system had reached its dying stages. Many men believed in the power of witchcraft, in charms, in curses, and in evil eyes.

Keep in mind also that reality—like fantasy—is often a state of the mind.

“Thou shall not suffer a witch to live.”

King James version of the Bible

Glasgow, Scotland: August, 1688

The sky was ominously gray. People lined the common and the streets, their faces resembling that silent, brooding sky. Oh, there were those with bloodlust in their eyes, but most of the spectators awaiting the execution were as somber as the air with its hovering expectancy, as grave as the death pall around them.

“She comes! She comes! Blessed saints preserve us!” The cry went out as the procession came forward led by fat old Father Timothy, his jowls heavy, his rheumy eyes bleary with tears, for he was a kind old man, only carrying out his duty. Behind him walked Matthews, a tall handsome man, with broad shoulders, wearing his tall hat and cape with an arrogant air. His intense eyes were as dark as his hair and filled with determination and the wrath of God. His face was young, his eyes as old as death. Following him was the cowled executioner, the man who would light the flame.

And then … came the witch.

The woman in the rickety cart that was made more unsteady by the mud and pockmarked road and was surrounded by the official witchfinder’s lackeys, was not ranting or raving. She did not stare at the spectators with fire and brimstone in her eyes. She threatened no repercussions upon those who so self-righteously abused her. Instead, her beautiful blue eyes were filled with sadness and pity for those about her. Her eyes were about all that was left of her once great beauty!

Torture was illegal in these times. But a murmur went through the crowd, for it was obvious that she had, indeed, suffered serious abuse while the court sought her confession. Her gown was stained with blood, her complexion more pale than a summer’s cloud, and she could barely stand.

“God bless you and keep you, lady!” a voice called out.

The witchfinder stopped in his tracks, his eyes raking over the crowd. His silence created a tension as still as the day, as terrifying as the portent of lightning.

Nothing else was said. He began to walk again.

The cart drew up before the stake. The kindling set below the stake was raw, damp, and thick. The region executioners’ duty was abhorrent to them; therefore they had done everything in their power to assure that dense smoke would rise quickly, asphyxiating the poor lady before the flames touched her flesh.

A sob suddenly broke the stillness but was quickly hushed. To sympathize with one condemned for witchcraft was a quick path to inquisition by the witchfinder. And once the witchfinder had pointed his finger, there was little chance of remaining alive …

Pegeen MacCardle, her midnight hair caught by the wind, tried to stand. “Help me, good sir,” she told her executioner with quiet dignity. The man’s body spoke of his fear. Beyond the ashen gray of her features Pegeen offered him a beautiful smile. “If they would burn me, good sir, they must first attach me to the stake.”

The witchfinder nodded to the executioner. Pegeen was carried and tied to the stake. She offered no resistance as she was bound. Her crimes and sentence were read to the assembled crowd; then she was given her last chance to speak.

“Pray for me, friends,” she said, her voice gentle yet ringing clearly through the somber air and rising tension. “Pray that I meet my Maker quickly, and that I may abide with Him, as I will pray for you that He may guard all of you from the demons that walk the land under the order of a pathetically misguided king. I do, even here, pray for our sovereign James, that he may see the error of his ways, and find his own welcome in the home of our merciful God.”

“Enough!” roared the witchfinder. Merciful God, he wondered, could he not get this over with! He was not a man immune to temptation, and he had fallen prey to her great beauty himself. He had fallen into wicked ways, for she had bewitched him. He would have saved her—oh, God, he would have saved her—had it not been for her pride, and surely for her lust for the devil. He had been so bewitched he had almost forgotten his commitment in life, his determination to fight the devil. He had begged to take her into his own bed, to take her away, and she had denied him. When he looked at her, he saw his own failure, the weakness of his own flesh.
Die!
he cried out silently.
Die with your carnal lust for the devil in your heart, and leave me in peace.

The witchfinder nodded his head gravely toward the executioner.

The masked man was trembling. Pegeen closed her eyes tightly for a minute. “Before God!” she said, weeping quietly. “Light the flame! Let it end!”