Wicked Girls (16 page)

Elizabeth and I stride straight by

the meetinghouse,

knock on the door of Goodman Holten.

I clasp Elizabeth's hand,

and as the door opens

we both erupt to shaking.

Goodman Holten clutches his stomach.

He bends over in pain and asks,

“See thou the Invisible World?”

“Aye, 'tis John Proctor pressing on your belly,

and so his wife, Rebecca,” I say.

Elizabeth acts as if she sees nothing,

and I shake her arm. She flinches

and pulls down her sleeve.

I rattle. Finally Elizabeth rattles too.

Her forehead furrows in pain

and sweat streaks down her back.

“The Proctors do trample ye, Goodman Holten,”

I say, and stare on Elizabeth,

who stands there unmoving.

At long while, she thrashes at the air

as though real demons dart about her head.

Be she losing her wit?

James Holten straightens his back,

lifts his hand from his stomach.

“The pain be relieved!” he cries.

He gives to us chocolate

and bids us stay in the shade

for a while, but I tell him,

“No, we must go back to meeting.”

Outside I unlace my boots,

walk toward the pond

away from the parsonage.

“Shan't we join meeting?” Elizabeth says.

She rubs one elbow.

“They will not know

when we left the Holten home.”

I wave her toward the water.

Elizabeth stares at the meetinghouse.

She looks at me as though

my feet be on fire, as though

I be walking toward hell.

“But 'tis a sin. The Lord—”

“Oh, Elizabeth, one can pray

anywhere,” I say.

She shakes her head and whispers,

“Perhaps not when one lies.”

I hug Elizabeth to my chest.

Her body tenses against my touch.

“You be so perfect. You need not be.”

She says nothing.

I pull up her sleeve.

“These lashes, Elizabeth?

What does the Lord mean

by this beating?”

Tears puddle upon her face.

“That I am a horrible sinner.

That I must be punished.”

“Don't be a fool's slave.

He that does this to you

works for the Devil.

No man should beat thee.

That meetinghouse holds

as many devils as Christians.”

I slip off my bloomers

and, for the first time, reveal

the hardened crevasse of scar

the color of poisoned blood

that snakes my inner thigh.

“Reverend Burroughs's blade,” I say.

I pat the riverbank.

“Stay here, where the Lord makes peace.”

Elizabeth hesitates but then

crouches down beside me.

I cup water over her wounded arm.

“Don't you see, we girls must protect ourselves.

But for the first time we do so not alone.”

Cross us not, for thou shalt see

be there power in not three,

but in four or six or five:

this is how we will survive.

For the man who calls us mad,

claims we're lying, deviling, bad,

is named a witch, his ankles clad.

I arch my back like a cat

and spew from my mouth

so bright a red that some in the jury

do not believe 'tis blood

till they swab their fingers

and taste the iron and bite.

The court clerk mops up

my mess, and I shoot Mercy

a crooked half smile.

I yell at the witch in the box,

“I will not drink your Devil's blood.”

Like they be offering flowers,

one by one, neighbors and kin

of old Goody Nurse

lay petition papers

on the judges' bench,

hoping tulips and roses

might stop her dying.

The jury hands Foreman Fisk

the verdict slip and he reads,

“Not Guilty.”

Ann melts 'pon the floor,

howls louder than ever before.

Abigail throws herself backward,

her legs bent behind her head.

Elizabeth follows

like another stitch in a quilt.

Mercy's hands dance.

She pulls the strings

to make the girls move and moan.

Mercy wiggles her finger left

and Ann collapses on her left side.

Mercy yanks hard all at once

and seizures erupt o'er the floor.

Mercy grabs me by the collar

and we roll to the ground

like two restless pups.

She whispers,

“We must roar,

big as the mountains.”

A holler with a whitecap

bellows out of my mouth.

I'll not 'low Rebecca Nurse

go free as did her sister

Goody Easty afore.

Rebecca Nurse shall be judged

the witch we say.

The courtroom freezes.

Folk cannot shift their feet,

but just gaze at our explosion.

Presiding judge Stoughton

strokes his whiskers,

questions whether the court

ought not reconsider the testimony.

Goody Nurse is asked

what she means when she says

Goody Hobbs is “one of us,”

but the old woman stands silent.

She don't deny her fellowship

with the confessed witch.

Goody Nurse blinks and gazes

out at her family, a half smile

pinned across her face.

They prod her to speak,

but her lips be sealed.

The jury writes down

Rebecca Nurse's fate

a second time,

and Foreman Fisk declares,

“She will hang.”

Elizabeth grasps my hand

and that of Mercy,

and I clutch to Ann, and Ann to Abigail.

A chain, we bow heads and raise prayerful arms.

None of us can stand.

We send another witch

to the hill and rope.

What else can we do?

Yea, the fruit be ripe,

eat it.

Things do fall.

The leaves promise

to hold tight their branches,

but their colors soon be changing.

Green unfolds

its beauty and anger,

as scarlet, maize, amber.

For all that be ripe today

will crumble

into brown

into a pile

of wither

and indifference.

Father kisses my hand.

“Off you to help

the good folk of Andover.”

Margaret and I ride without chaperone

on the velvet-cushioned seat.

She leans back. “Feel the breeze.

We could be at the spinning wheel.”

Margaret's mouth snaps at me like a bear trap,

“We'll do as I say when we arrive.”

She jabs a finger in my arm.

“Do you hear me?”

“I haven't cobwebs in my ears.”

I turn away.

The reins pull back.

My uncle, the Constable,

lumbers toward the carriage,

Mercy on his arm. I want to turn away,

but she is like lightning on the ground.

I can't help myself but to look.

Margaret scowls and wipes her hands

on her apron.

“Mercy has been blinded,” he tells us

as he lifts her onto the seat.

“But still she feels the Lord

needs her to go to Andover.”

I stroke Mercy's hair,

and she leans against me.

Shivers flare up my arms.

As soon as the carriage pulls off,

Mercy yanks away,

shakes herself out

like a dog after a bath,

her faked blindness

cast out the carriage window.

“When we arrive, Margaret,

ye shall faint,” Mercy states.

Margaret nods.

“But Margaret, I thought—” I begin.

“Ann, may I not have my say?”

Mercy looks at me.

“What are you become: a problem,

another Susannah? Will we have to

fit a muzzle to your face?”

Margaret laughs, and Mercy switches

sides of the carriage so she sits

aside Margaret instead of me.

“Now listen.”

She pauses with an odd gulp,

turns her face to profile

so she stares out the carriage

as she rattles command.

“We haven't time to dally.

We must work our plans.

We bring sight to those in the dark,

but we must know what it is we see.”

When did she take charge?

Minister Parris's eyes

swoop around his congregation.

He collects our attention

like a chimney gathers smoke.

“And Reverend Noyes pronounced,

‘Rebecca Nurse,

thou art spiritually unclean

and today art severed from the church.

Thou art alone against the Devil

and his wiles.'

The rope that hangs

kills you but once,

damnation lasts eternity.”

Abigail tugs my sleeve and whispers,

“Reverend said Rebecca Nurse

cried till the tears drenched her dress,

repeating over and over like one mad,

‘You do not know my heart.

You do not know my heart.'”

I cover my own heart

and look down at my feet.

What have we girls been doing?

I stand up to speak against Rebecca Nurse's

excommunication and Reverend cries,

“Witches force Mercy rise to her feet!”

He looks at us girls for confirmation.

I start to shake my head.

But Ann, Abigail, Elizabeth and Margaret

all cry out, “Witches be upon her!”

Reverend slaps my shoulder

and pushes me back in the pew,

“Poor serving girl.”

Poor servant, indeed! My fingers prick and burn.

“'Tis Rebecca Nurse who forces me stand.”

I stand and say it clear and loud.

All in church nod their heads,

looking on me not with leering eyes,

but as though I be strong and right.

And the Reverend bows his head behind his pulpit

as long as I call witch.

The cart pulls the women

through the streets,

and my fingers unclench.

I stop gnawing

the side of my cheek.

No specters fly.

They drop the noose

over Goody Nurse's head.

All's quiet and still

as the air

round a loaded gun.

The old woman

kicks her knees,

torments

as she's snuffed into hell.

I turn my eyes to the dirt.

Before she's hanged,

the next witch,

Goody Good, the old beggar woman,

one of the first witches accused, hollers,

“I'll not lie to thee now

as I never would afore.

I am innocent.”

Reverend Parris holds up

his right hand, a Bible tucked

under arm, “Clear ye soul now.

Go not to death in hatred.

Admit that thou art a witch.”

Goody Good kicks her heel.

“I am no more a witch

than you are a wizard.”

She looks to cast spittle

'pon Reverend Parris's face.

“If you take my life away,

God will give you blood to drink!”

She sprays her curse

and he quickly bags her head.

Reverend Parris looks to push

Goody Good to her death,

speed her along to hell,

but she dies the same

slow speed as the others.

I spin round and see Isaac sneaking

glance at that l'il Lila Fowler.

First I want to stab myself

but then I want
him
to be the one

what pains. How dare he?

I wish I could march up to Isaac

did to Reverend Parris, tell Isaac

to drink the Devil's blood!

Mercy notes the rage clenching

my hands.

“Fear not,” Mercy says.

“Isaac shall pay you out.

We shall see to that.”

“Have ye a plan?” I ask.

Mercy smiles and nods, “In time.”