Wicked Girls (20 page)

The house quiets

after so many footsteps

in and out of our door.

I rock my little sister

Hannah in my arms.

Mother will not hold Hannah

or look on her. The last baby

she held was blue and still,

and Mother could not nurse it to life.

“Witches killed my baby.

Witches will murder this new child,”

Mother keeps repeating

as she pulls at her bedclothes.

Her bleeding not stopped

since she birthed Hannah.

“I will take care of you, little sister.”

I kiss the baby's forehead.

“Protect you from the witches

and devils in our midst.”

Mercy appears in the doorway,

her apron clean, her hair brushed

and swept up on her head like a crown.

“Can I hold the baby?” she asks me.

I raise my eyebrows. I stroke

Hannah's head with my hand.

Mercy looks on us with a smile

soft as down feathers,

and I slowly roll the infant

into her arms.

“All of our kin except Joseph,

my father's youngest brother,

came to the baptism,” I say to Mercy.

The baby purrs in Mercy's arms.

Mercy could have her own child by now.

She could be with a husband,

not minding our house and playing

scotch-hoppers with my siblings.

“Is Joseph not the one with whom

your father does not get along,

the one your grandfather favored

and gave most of his estate?” Mercy asks.

“Yes, Joseph is my father's half-brother,”

I say.

“Is it true that he keeps a horse saddled

and goes about always armed

for fear they'll arrest him for witchcraft?”

Mercy looks at me with saucer-sized eyes.

She rocks Hannah in her arms, squeezes

the baby close to her chest.

“Yes,” I say.

“Mercy, you do not know Joseph.

He is not like one of us.

He does not believe we fight the Devil.”

Mercy nods. “No, I understand.

He is not really a
Putnam
.”

I snatch Hannah away from her.

I want to scream, And
you

are
definitely
not a Putnam,

but instead I say,

“I need to put my sister to sleep.”

When I learn Mercy

told Elizabeth to quit

my group of seers,

I punch and kick and stomp

my pillow. I feel not better.

I smash the candelabra

Mercy stole from my uncle.

Still I fury. I toss all her clothes

upon the floor and trample

them with my muddy boots.

But I am still mad.

Mercy coos Hannah

on the divan.

I snatch my sister

from her claws.

I say to Mercy,

“You shall never again

tend Hannah.”

The baby screeches full-throat

in her gosling torment.

Mercy raises suspicious eyes.

“Mother says,” I say.

The Reverend opens

his arms as he reads,

“Canticles chapter one, verse two:

‘Let him kiss me

with kisses of his mouth,

for thy love is better than wine.'”

Feet shuffle and someone

releases a frustrated “humph.”

Isaac sits among the Nurse family

and friends, those who were not hanged

as witches. They all track the Reverend

as he staggers 'bout the room,

like the Reverend were a wolf

they might musket.

Reverend Parris's voice breaks

like a boy's, and he clears his throat.

“All true believers are urgently

and fervently desirous of sensible

and feeling manifestations

of the love of Christ. That is what

this text says to us.”

I glance to my left.

Elizabeth hunches in her pew,

her eyes closed, her hands

pressed so hard together in prayer

she could crush her own bones.

She looks guilty as a thief

wearing stolen shoes.

Ann and Mercy sit beside each other,

across the row from me,

but you wouldn't know

they knew each other's names.

Ann scoots forward on the bench,

places Mercy behind her

and refuses to look back.

Reverend continues his sermon

and folk shift and murmur.

“Kisses are very sweet

among true friends

after some jars and differences,

whereby they testify

true reconciliation.”

But no one looks to kiss

one another. Only me and Isaac

seem able to do that.

This room cracks right apart,

like a great earthquake shook

the village and broke

east from west. Families firm

on their side of the land.

They wish ill, not kisses, on their neighbors,

each side believing the other

conspires with the Devil.

And I just changed my side

of the bench. I scoot closer

to Missus Farrar and lower my head.

Sent to the cordwainer

to pick up shoes for Mister Putnam,

I see six girls stretch into daylight,

released from Salem jail.

They mount their fathers' oxcarts

pointed northwest toward Andover.

Thin as spider legs,

with blackened hands

and soiled dresses,

still they walk regal.

Their fathers smile

in the way they hold

their shoulders, all of them

grateful as Sunday prayer.

I smile joyous for their release.

“They put up bail for 'em girls,”

a man with a crooked hat

and a missing front tooth

whispers on the street.

“'Tis all come round. Now those

what confessed say they were scared

witless and confessed only what

they were told—that they are innocent,

not witches,” his friend with a cane

and an eye that never moves says,

and licks his lips.

The first old man motions

with his chin to me.

“Is that not one of the afflicted girls?”

I turn my head away from them,

pull my shawl to cover my cheek.

“I surely know not,” the second man

says, and leans on his cane.

“Crazed of mind, that's what

those afflicted girls be, not no angels

of the Lord,” says toothless one.

“What become of them?” says the man

with the cane.

“Who does know and who does care,

now that the court be closed down?”

The man without his tooth looks on me again.

“You sure that ain't one of the Afflicted?”

“No, fool, that be some two-bit girl

from the docks.” The second man lifts

his cane to me with a wink and a leer.

They turn their view

to a lady on the street

holding her daughter's hand.

I toss off my shawl and walk into the crowd.

I look for my shadow tall on the ground.

I look for someone to point at me

and say, “Sinner, face thy punishment!”

But I am less visible than a witch's specter.

I stand too long outside

of the door. The wind blows

and clears his horse's hoofprints.

“It will only be six months,”

Isaac said, and raised my chin.

“They need as many men

to finish the fort at Pemaquid.

The French boats swarm

the waters already.

And the Canadians press down

from the north.”

I clutched his arm so tight

my fingers branded his skin.

He told me, “I must go.

I will be back.” Isaac kissed

my cheek and mounted his steed.

I stand waiting for him

to turn round, waiting for the winds

and God and the governor

who calls fasts and the convocation

of ministers today, to call off the war

and ship home soldiers, not send

them away to be captured or killed.

Step-Mother yells, “Maaargaret.”

She trots outside.

“Come inside now, you'll die of cold.”

Whether it be lack of food,

or lack of Issac, I desire for the first time

to put my arms round Step-Mother

and lay my head in her lap.

But when I draw near her

she smells sour as old dog's tongue

and her manner be suited to fit.

Cold restores order.

Shrill winds muffle

screaming, and the trees twist

more deviant arms and legs

than Affliction.

The witch hunt is snuffed.

The accusers slip

under the silent ice

of indifference.

Cold as a January snowstorm,

I rub my hands by the hearth

and tiptoe into the hallway.

“Now Reverend Hale too

is against us,” Master Putnam says.

I cannot see Master Putnam speak,

but his boots smack the ground

quick and anxious.

“He now believes that the Devil

impersonates innocent people,”

Reverend Parris responds.

Ann bumps my shoulder.

“I thought you did not care

anymore about witchcraft?”

Ann talks as though she stands

on stairs above me and must

stoop to speak with me.

“I don't,” I say.

Ann smiles sweetly and calls,

“Reverend Parris.”

She licks her lips.

“Father!” She yells loud

as though her hand were on fire.

Ann's father and Reverend Parris

rush into the room.

“What see you, child?”

Reverend Parris asks.

“Mercy stands about idle,”

Ann says. “And when I told her

Mother asked for aid, she refused

to come.”

I clench my tongue.

None would hear my speech

if I dared.

Master Putnam looks at me,

and with a voice of thorns

he says, “Be off this moment, girl,

to help Missus Putnam!”

The Reverend shakes his head at me,

eyes me as though

I had ripped pages from his Bible.

I gather my skirts. “Yes, sir,”

I say without another look to Ann.

I survey that no familiar eyes be about.

“Elizabeth,” I call from the weaver's shop.

I wave her come near and ask,

“Why be you in town?”

“I come to buy flour and salt,”

she says like she speaks to a stranger.

We stand looking at each other,

none talking.

“So you are staying longer at your uncle's?”

I say.

Elizabeth nods yes and tugs down her sleeve,

trying to cover the bruise on her forearm.

I expect her to say something,

but I know not what.

“I will marry Isaac in the spring,”

I finally say, and square my hands

on my hips.

The snow falls in pieces

thick and wet. Elizabeth's hair

looks full of Queen Anne's lace.

She sees something over my shoulder

and backs away as though

a beast crept up behind me.

I turn round.

My father looms over me.

“Ye are not to be alone and speaking

on the street, Margaret!”

He snatches my arm

and looks on Elizabeth as though

she has the curse of the leper.

Elizabeth keeps backing

into the street.

I hear the wheels

and run of an oxcart.

“Out of the way!” a voice hollers.

I should grab after her.

But, dear Lord, I cannot move.

Elizabeth trips, stumbles upon

her boot and falls into the street.

A horse whinnies and moans.

A terrible screech sounds,

like a thousand birds crying

all at once.

I start to run forward,

but Father holds me back

and turns me round.

“Do not look behind ye,”

he commands.

And I do as I be told.