Wicked Girls (12 page)

Outside the Proctors' gutted tavern

a silver-whiskered man balances himself

on his tangled branch cane and hollers,

“Good folk cannot all be witches.

Think ye.”

A crowd gathers round the yelling

like wasps fly to spilled ale.

“Yea,” most of them agree.

Me and Ann and Mercy would

but duck away, except we stroll

with Uncle and Aunt.

They hold us to eye level.

Uncle says, “How know ye, sir?

Speak ye with the Devil?”

The wasps quiet their clamor.

“These girls be a menace!”

“'Tis true.” One calls from the crowd.

I crumble to see it be Isaac.

He motions for me to follow him

after he speaks.

“These girls be innocent,” Uncle says.

Aunt Ann clasps my hand

meaning to reassure me,

telling me to stay with my family.

I know not whether to move my feet

to Isaac or stay.

“Margaret, be you part of the group?”

Ann looks on me like I be a traitor.

“Yea,” I say. “I have nothing

against your group.”

Ann shakes her head.

“We are not fools, you and I,” she says.

“I beg thee, cousin. Thou art given warning.”

I pick up my skirts and march

from the room. I could smash

all around me to shipwreck.

“Think on this well,”

my cousin's voice rattles

down the hallway.

I will pack and leave this house.

I will go back home and stay

quiet in my house till spring

and I wed Isaac. I'll not be ruled

by some little brat and her servant.

“Margaret, that dress looks smart on thee.”

Aunt Ann waves me into her room.

“Didst thou sleep with peace

or were the witches at thee?”

I nod. “The witches were 'bout.”

“Poor dear,” she says.

“Come and stay with me as I spin.”

She drafts the wool between her hands.

“I am so glad that you are here.

Ann needs a proper influence.

She looks to that Mercy.”

Aunt spits as she says the servant's name.

Aunt quits her drafting.

She sits me at her dressing table

and pulls from a box

a necklace of red jewels

liken I never laid eyes 'pon.

“Let me see how this does look on thee.”

Aunt gasps and my jaw does fall wide.

“You shall wear it on thy wedding day.”

“But 'tis very—”

Aunt shakes her finger at me, “I insist.”

“Now come, I shall teach you

how best to treadle the wheel.

When you make a wife

you must know these things.”

She lumbers a bit into the chair

but then her foot

be like one possessed and pumps

fast as a horse at gallop.

“You must keep a constant pressure.”

She releases her foot and the threads

do twist apart.

“Now tell me. What witches?

Who didst thou see last night?

John Willard, did he visit thee?

Our old preacher, Reverend Burroughs?

Or perhaps Charlotte Easty, the other

sister of Rebecca Nurse?”

Aunt looks on me

like I be not only

the light in the room,

but the greatest light

in the house.

“Oh, he bites me!”

Ann cries and rubs her arm.

The court orders John Willard

to stop biting his lips

and keep his mouth wide.

Abigail screams

and all eyes draw to her.

Elizabeth's seizures mount

and her joints double and turn

nearly inside out.

Fingers point at the wizard Willard,

but still he claims, “I am innocent

as the child unborn.”

Susannah Sheldon shrieks,

“The Devil whispers in his ear!”

She takes watchful steps

across the courtroom

and collapses ten feet

in front of John Willard.

Constable John Putnam,

another uncle of mine,

carries her forward,

tips a bit under her weight.

They place John Willard's hand

'pon her forehead. Susannah screams

when he touches her

like she's been branded

by a hot iron,

when instead she should silence.

The good folk rumble,

“Why does not the touch test work?

Is Willard not a wizard?”

I be not sure what to do.

Isaac's eyes spear the other girls.

Ann mouths, “Margaret, please.”

I scream loud enough to curdle milk

and tumble into fit, jerk and twitch

better than them all.

I be lifted by Marshal Herrick

and before I feel my feet

leave the ground, my shaking bones

are brushed by the scaly hand

of Goodman Willard.

He touches me, and as the touch test says,

the wickedness flows back into him.

I stop all my rattling.

Pointed fingers and righteous eyes

hang Willard. Order restores.

Ann and even Mercy flash smiles at me

quickly between their spasms.

'Tis Susannah who Mercy severs

with her eyes.

When asked, Goodman Willard

cannot recite the Lord's Prayer,

but stumbles over it

and adds his own words of the Devil.

He must truly be a wizard.

I did then right,

so why does Isaac turn his back?

We huddle quietly down by the stream,

summer's full heat upon our backs,

only Wilson wise enough to seek shade

under the maple tree.

Ann speaks to Susannah in a voice

gentler than was my mother's:

“In court you have fit and scream,

and then when you are touched

by a witch, you are cured.”

Susannah nods, but she looks

as the dandelion seedling

blown by the wind,

as though the meaning of Ann's words

scatters far from her.

I wait for Ann to repeat herself,

or at the least, to see Susannah

acknowledge that she understands.

But Ann and Susannah just smile

at one another.

Abigail pulls a letter from her pocket,

one she swindled from the Reverend's desk.

I read aloud a passage:

“Dear Sir,

Girls in my parish and I hear tell,

throughout Essex County,

are falling to Affliction.

It spreads like the fever.

We cannot find room in our jail

for all the witches. Please advise,

brave Reverend Parris,

what sound words hast thou for me?

My flock trembles afraid.

What say I before them at Sunday lecture?”

I hand her back the letter.

“I know this came not easily to obtain.

Thank ye, Abigail,” I say to her.

Ann acts as if this be of trifle import,

this gift from a child, as if she forgets

Abigail and she are but one and the same age.

Elizabeth bows her head.

“We should pray for their souls.”

Margaret looks at Susannah.

“What be it like in your Salem Town?”

“Oh, they be against the witches.”

Susannah pulls up some blades of grass.

“Yes, of course,” I say. “But more exactly,

what of the seers, how behave they?”

Susannah shrugs.

Margaret and I lean in toward her

and Margaret asks, “Well, how do thy

Mister and Missus treat ye?”

“The Shaws give me my chores,”

she says with a giggle, and looks to Ann.

“Well then, and sometimes they don't.”

“Do you not torment at home?” I ask.

“No. Not so much as when I am about,”

she says. “Is that not as it should be, Miss Ann?”

“Susannah,” I turn her face to me.

“Margaret and I speak to thee at this moment.

Witches do not pinch only

in the courtroom or public squares.”

When Susannah answers me not,

I stand to leave and then, strangely,

so does Margaret. Elizabeth also

stops her praying and rises to return home.

“Come, Abigail.” I offer her my hand.

I expect Ann to rise and join us.

I wait a solid breath. Finally I take steps

away from the riverbank into shorter grass.

Abigail clings tightly to my hand.

She swerves not. She clutches Reverend's

letter to her side and lets me direct the turns,

speed and style of our walk.

Ann runs up behind us.

“Susannah left for her home.”

I look not on her, nor do I stop my walking.

Margaret snickers.

“I am dreadfully sorry,” Ann says.

“It will not happen again.

Mercy, please. Please tell me

now that thou dost forgive me.”

I swirl to Ann

and spin Abigail with me.

I hug Ann and say in grand tone,

“Of course I forgive thee.

We are friends.”

I hold out Abigail's hand

and place Ann's upon it.

“You also are friends.”

Margaret's mouth unhinges,

and she cannot speak to say

how ill this syrup turns her stomach.

She grabs the arm of Elizabeth

and causes them to take swift leave.

“That Mercy believe she be

both morning and night.”

I kick at the tree root in front

of the Griggs's gate.

Elizabeth stares as Doctor Griggs marches

toward us fast enough dust whirls

in his path. He grabs Elizabeth

by the arm, so she stumbles and nearly falls.

“Where ye been?” He looks like a dog

what some other dog stole his bit of meat.

“We were, ah, um,” Elizabeth stutters.

“Praying,” I say, and clasp her hand.

“At the parsonage.”

“Missus Griggs needs your aid!” Doctor Griggs

hollers, but then smiles kindly at me

and swipes his brow with a hankie.

“Ye girls be missing awful lots lately.”

Where Doctor grabbed Elizabeth

a red welt appears on her skin.

She runs into the house.

“Till morrow!” I call after her,

but I can't rightly be sure she hears my words.

Ipswich, Topsfield, Marblehead,

Reading, Andover, Malden,

Boston, Rumney Marsh, Billerica,

Wenham. We see witches

from everywhere, their names

on the wind, whispered tree to tree.

We see specters all, feel

them choked about our necks,

pricking us, raking us.

We pass hand to hand the name

of the witch. Who heard it first,

none can rightly say,

just as none can rightly know

which way the wind blew in first.

All you know is

you must change sail

to catch it.

Mother stands like Father.

She ought wear his hat

and ride his mare.

Father lifts Mercy into the carriage

like a coachman.

“For how long will she be gone?”

I ask Margaret,

and she just smiles.

“For how long?”

I demand of Mother,

and she pats my head.

“For how long?” I beg Father.

“As long as she is needed, I suppose,”

he says.

Constable Putnam

is almost too large

for his chair at the table.

Big as a bear

but mild as an old hound,

they call him Giant,

for he has to bend his head

to cross through the doorway.

“Mercy, sit ye near the stove

by the children.”

The Giant's wife

tucks me onto the bench

so I sit many persons away

from her husband.

“The new governor established

a Court of Oyer and Terminer,

likes of which you'll be testifying in.”

Constable's overgrown teeth stick

with food as he chews.

“Pardon, sir,” I say.

“But where will the court

be held—in the meetinghouse

or Ingersoll's ordinary?

“Not a one,” he says.

“It be held in Salem Town

in the courtroom of the Townhouse.

A jury will hear the trial

and decide if the witches hang.”

Hanging. I cannot carry the spoon

to my mouth. Everything

in my bowl suddenly reeks

of fish scales and rotted meat.

I look at Missus.

“I am not well. Might I

please go and lie down?”

First time she smiles at me,

her words fast and excitable,

“See you a specter?”

“No, my stomach has unrest.”

Her face sags downward.

She purses her lips.

“Fine, then, off you to bed.”

The room where I board is darker

than my old servant's quarters;

and without Wilson's two eyes as tapers

this chamber's black devours me.

Out the window an owl,

the king of the night,

blinks his gray-green eyes.

He cries plaintive hoots,

then spreads his wings

and twists his sorrowful neck,

as though he might dive

from his perch

and bury himself

once and for all

in the underbrush.