The Lace Reader (8 page)

Ann’s evolution into “Town Witch” was gradual. To hear Eva tell it, you’d think that Ann just woke up one day and realized that she was a witch. In fact, it wasn’t a decision; it was an evolution. But her family history was what made her famous. The witches of Salem—

the locals who have taken up the practice or the ones who’ve been practicing and have come to Salem because it has been declared a safe haven for witches—have all rallied around Ann Chase. They wear their association with her like a badge of courage, one that proves that the Salem witches really did exist here all along, a kind of “look how far we’ve come” thing. It proves nothing of the sort, of course (because Giles and Martha Corey were not witches, just unfortunate victims), but the connection, once made, was difficult to erase. I wonder as I sit here how Ann feels about being their mascot. She has been talking now for several minutes: about Eva’s gardens and her plant conservation, which has been written up in magazines I’ve seen over the years. I want to hear what Ann has to say, but that same person is whispering again, and it’s interfering with my concentration. I look around, but I can’t find the source, and so I try again to concentrate on Ann’s speech and on the details of my aunt’s life.

“Eva saved at least one plant species that I know of from extinction,” Ann says.

“Wild exaggeration, load of malarkey,”
the same voice whispers, loud enough for me to hear this time. I reel around, shushing the women to my left, thinking it’s one of them. They look at me strangely.
“As
if you have two heads,”
the voice whispers in my ear, louder this time, much closer. I recognize the voice. It is Eva. She is speaking loudly enough to fill the church, or at least to be heard in the rows around me, but it is clear that I am the only one hearing her voice. 62 Brunonia

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“Eva Whitney was one of us,” Ann begins, and some of the witches clap. “Not officially, of course, but she was.”

I’m looking at the reverend now, which is where Eva wants me to look. I don’t know how I know this, but I do. He was a good friend. I have memories of him at the house, discussing Scripture and literature late into the night. I look at Dr. Ward. I can tell he’s distraught. He’s trying to hold himself together for the sake of the congregation.

“I am reminded of a quote that was a favorite of Eva’s,” Ann says.

“ ‘The grass will grow green again next year. But you, beloved friend, will you return?’” Ann looks right at me as she speaks that line. Ann is stepping down now, and Dr. Ward is heading back toward the coffin. As Ann descends the stairs, her dark robes inflate, and I am reminded of flight, and of witches on broomsticks. Then Eva tosses me a snippet of memory, of us all sitting here—Beezer, and Eva, and me—“the day the man flew,” or at least that’s how Beezer always referred to the incident.

It was Christmas Eve. Dr. Ward was new then, and Eva was showing her support for him by making sure everyone attended services. Beezer had been selected to play the bells that year, along with twelve other children, who all wore matching red robes. Each child had one bell, and together they played an oddly timed “Ode to Joy,”

each child lifting his bell on cue and shaking it as if his very salvation depended on it. When Beezer finished, he made his way back to the booth. He was blushing from all the attention and from the heat, which Dr. Ward had cranked high to make sure the children stayed warm in the drafty old building.

The pews in the center aisle are slightly elevated, about six or seven inches, which is unusual, and if you forget about it for even a minute, it can be treacherous. I remember sitting in this box with Beezer that night. The service was ending. The choir was singing, just as it is now. An older gentleman, in a hurry to get home and The Lace Reader 63

seeing a break in the procession, violated protocol and jumped in line, but he must have forgotten about the step down. What I remember most is the look on Eva’s face as the man came hurtling into our box, headfirst, as if he were flying, his legs almost parallel to the floor. Beezer spotted it before the rest of us and yelled “Holy shit!”

which was something Eva would have slapped him for if we’d been at home, but before she could reach him, he was down on the floor of the box pulling me with him. Everyone in the church turned in time to see Eva reach both hands up over her head and grab the old man midflight, like a gymnastics coach spotting a vaulter. It changed the man’s trajectory and probably saved him from a broken neck. And for a moment, before he came down, the man was weightless and flying. I remember thinking he’d be okay if he could just believe he was really flying and not that he was about to get hurt. But the old man lost it, his face contorted, bracing. He landed hard, half on Eva’s lap and half on the gate to the box, shattering the mahogany as he did. By some miracle the man wasn’t hurt. And neither was Eva. I remember how impressed Beezer had been by Eva’s catch and by her courage. He talked about it for days.

“Holy shit!”
the voice whispers then, and I see Beezer smile. I realize that this memory was meant for him, not me. He’s half laughing now, half crying as he remembers. Then the soloist begins to sing

“Raglan Road,” which is an odd choice but a good one, one that my brother picked out and that I know Eva would have liked. I see Ann smile as she passes, her robes still flowing, and there’s movement as Eva’s spirit jumps from our box to Ann. I look at Beezer to see if he has noticed, but he’s up and moving toward the coffin along with the other pallbearers, and he hasn’t seen anything. We follow the coffin then, all of us. As the massive church doors open, the cool inside air condenses into a fine mist, steaming as it releases us to the burning pavement below. But before we go, there’s a moment when everything stops. No one wants to go back outside. 64 Brunonia

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A step outside is the end of something, a huge change. We can all feel it. Never mind that it feels like about ninety-seven degrees out there. This is something else. For a moment the threshold seems too high to step over, not only for the pallbearers but for everyone else as well. No one wants to be the first to take that step. Eternity is in this one moment, and we are all suspended in it. It is finally Dr. Ward who breaks the spell and steps outside.

Waves of heat rise off the asphalt driveway, distorting the figures of the people as they step into sunlight, blurring everybody’s edges then, not just Ann’s. It’s as if we were all spirits and the coffin with its dark horizontal lines is the only thing that has any true weight and mass. People move slowly, deliberately, down the steps, their eyes adjusting to the bright sun.

There is no hearse waiting. Instead the pallbearers have opted to carry the coffin to the graveyard—Beezer, Jay-Jay, and some other young men I don’t recognize, friends of Eva’s, maybe. A few doors down at the Witch House, a group of day-camp kids, preschoolers, is lined up on either side of a thick yellow rope with loops every few feet. Each child holds on to a loop with one hand; some are absently sucking thumbs with the other. A few of the older ones, more used to the buddy system than to the rope, clutch a loop with one hand while holding hands under it, not taking any chances. It would be difficult to walk this way, but they’re not walking now, they’re just standing in line waiting to get inside. I wonder at their teachers, bringing them here to the house of Jonathan Corwin, who was one of the hanging judges, though he was far more skeptical and less committed to the sad practice than were the rest. The kids won’t get it. They’ll think, as I did at their age, that the Witch House is a place where witches lived. If they think of anything, they’ll think of Halloween and candy and what their costumes are going to be for next year. They won’t get the rest of the dark story, which is just as well. Some are sleepy with the heat, distracted, looking for some-The Lace Reader 65

thing to pull them out of their dazed state. Their eyes catch the coffin as it moves slowly out of the church driveway, and they watch as it bobs down the street, locking onto it, going for a ride with their eyes, unaware that they shouldn’t. They have no frame of reference for death; to them it’s just part of a tour they got tickets for, or perhaps they think we’re like the street performers they’ve seen wandering the town doing skeleton skits, trying to lure you to the Salem Witch Museum or the Witch Dungeon or even one of the haunted houses. We pass the gardens of the Ropes Mansion. The cars are stopped in both directions as we cross Essex Street and head up Cambridge toward Chestnut Street, which was Eva’s favorite street in town. The Whitneys had originally lived on it, before politics drove them down to Washington Square with the rest of the Jeffersonian Republicans. It is Beezer’s intention to turn right on Chestnut Street and pass the old Whitney house before turning up Flint Street and down Warren, then looping back up Cambridge Street again toward the Broad Street graveyard. It’s an idea that sounded good at the time (and would have made Eva happy), but it is far too ambitious. The heat makes it almost impossible. Already I’m exhausted and out of breath. I’m thinking it would be better if they went straight and didn’t make the detour at all. I try to send Beezer that thought, but when the procession gets to Chestnut Street and Hamilton Hall, Beezer steers them right, as planned, and the coffin follows, the back end swinging wide like the stern of a boat. Chestnut Street is decked out for summer with window boxes and flowering planters on the front steps of the old Federal houses. It’s beautiful at any time, but it’s never been the easiest place to walk. The old brick sidewalks are like waves dipping up and down to accommodate the twisted tree roots and frost heaves of the last two centuries. It’s a moment in time, this street, but it’s as uneven as Salem Harbor in a storm tide, and the coffin bobs along as if it were floating on the water. A tourist trolley pulls around the corner, and 66 Brunonia

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some of the visitors, sensing a photo opportunity, lean out to snap pictures as they pass. As the trolley rings its bell, an older man playing solitaire at a window table shoots a look of tolerant annoyance at the trolley, only to be surprised as the coffin floats by his window at eye level, our entire parade behind it. He gets up, walks to the window, and closes the Indian shutters.

Broad Street Cemetery sits high on a hill and falls in a subtle slope toward the church. It is not far “as the crow flies,” but it is too distant for the pallbearers in this heat. I can see the strain of it on Beezer’s face; he is wondering if this was a bad idea. We are coming to the burial hill now, the relatives in front with some of the hatted ladies. The cemetery is just up ahead, but the road dips down before it rises up again. Although I can see the gravestones on the hillside, I can no longer see the entrance to the cemetery, so I have no idea what everyone is looking at until I’m almost on top of it. The witches, who are on the rise behind us and can still see the whole picture, have stopped cold and are staring at something in their path.

“What’s going on?” the pastel woman asks her friend. “What are they looking at?”

I can feel the protesters before I see them, and it feels like a wall, or a locked gate. Then I spot the signs: big ones, handwritten on poster board with Magic Markers: no christian burial and sorcery is an abomination unto the lord.

Detective Rafferty, who looks as if he’s been expecting trouble all along, is already on his cell phone, calling for backup. One of the pallbearers, who managed to navigate the sidewalks of Chestnut Street without a false step, stumbles now, although we’re back on solid pavement. He almost falls but recovers at the last second. The ripple of unbalance moves through them, and for a quick moment I think they’re going to drop the coffin right there on the sidewalk.

“Move along,” Rafferty is saying to the protesters as another squad car pulls up. Two officers jump out, blocking the way of the protest-The Lace Reader 67

ers so that the coffin may pass. The pallbearers start up the hill, but it is steep. I can see the sweat soaking through their jackets.

“I don’t understand,” one of the women in pastel says to one of the Red Hats. “Who are those people supposed to be?”

“They’re Calvinists,” the Red Hat replies. I’m suddenly feeling the way Beezer looks. I realize I probably should have eaten something before we came, but I couldn’t. It’s as if I’m looking at the whole thing through binoculars held wrong side out, so that everything in view moves far away into the distance.

“As in old-time Puritans?”

The Red Hat moves carefully past the protesters, sidestepping so she doesn’t get in their way but not daring to turn her back on them.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” the pastel woman says, both to the hatted woman and to the demonstrators. Getting no response, she hurries to catch up. In the distance the sound of a siren draws closer.

“Let them pass,” Rafferty says again, tougher this time, now that reinforcements are on the way. “You want to protest, that’s your right, but you’re not doing it inside this cemetery.” Rafferty steps between the Calvinists and the witches. The witches move together in a silent group, and I can feel something shift. One man crosses himself as they pass, an old superstition from his previous Catholicism, as if he’s not sure (in a pinch) that this new religion he has adopted will hold. Even I can tell that these men are afraid of the witches. Their fear shifts the balance of power, and now the witches feel strong enough to pass; they know that these guys are afraid of them, especially in such a large group.

Anya takes Auntie Emma’s arm, directing her up to the top of the hill, where the Whitney family plot is. I walk behind, keeping an eye on the Calvinists. From below I can see more police cars pulling up. The wind is blowing off the water. Once we’re at the top of the hill, the air finally begins to move. It smells of salt ocean and low tide. I 68 Brunonia

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can feel the stitches from my surgery, still undissolved, throbbing from every uphill step. I look around for a place to sit down, but there is nothing. I want to cry, know I
should
want it, but it isn’t possible for me, not here with these people who are all watching us. Watching me. In front of me is the tall Whitney monument and then the small markers that surround it. I look down at the marker in front of me, my grandfather’s stone, G. G. Whitney. Everyone you meet in Salem can tell you a story about my grandfather. But it is not G.G.’s marker I am looking for today, it is Lyndley’s. By the time my sister was buried, I was already in the hospital. I glance down at the end of the row, to the newest-looking stone, hers.