Wicked Girls (21 page)

Ann flurries into the house

and unstrings her bonnet

with fierce excitement.

“Elizabeth be dead!”

I cannot stand.

My legs suddenly made of dust,

not bone, I crash to the floor.

“She was run down

by an oxcart.

Some did say

'twas the Devil

taking back his own.”

The tears flood me.

I wish to pound the floor

like a mad gavel

and scream, “Why?”

But none in this house

would care,

so I swallow

the hot iron brand

of my anger.

Ann looks to her mother.

“The driver said he never

saw Elizabeth in the road.”

Missus Putnam nods to Ann

with an almost smile,

“Well, 'tis a pity, but she should

have been more mindful

walking in the road.”

The floor beneath me

opens as a pit in my mind,

bottomless,

and I know I will never find

footing in this house.

Never will my father speak

of what we girls done

the past year, for the Devil does deceive.

'Tis better to pretend nothing

happened than to admit

we girls were wrong.

But there is no lying in my father's house,

and I am not to speak

lest I be answering back.

And if I wish to be wed

I best never step boot

out of the house

(except when my father commands).

And I shall eat all what's served me

and show proper gratitude for it.

But most important of all

I must, at all times,

act a lady

or find home elsewhere.

Father smacks the table,

grabs his coat and hat

and gusts out the door.

Step-Mother sneers at me

like a dockside rat.

She drops the largest basket

of laundry and mending to my feet.

She smiles and gives me

a nasty little “Hmmph,”

testing whether I be fool

enough to talk out of turn.

I be muted now like one what

cut off her own tongue.

I straighten my bonnet.

At least no bastard grows within me.

Father's edict and Step-Mother's tricks

be temporary as a storm;

come spring I
shall
live elsewhere.

Before the hearth, I kneel

and fold prayerful hands,

asking the Lord and my mother

for strength.

I treadle. I mend. I scour

better than the maid.

None says, “Fine work,”

but I know what I have done.

On my way back

from town

I lose my trail

in the thick forest snow

and pass Gallows Hill.

I hold my breath

as even after all these months

it smells of blood.

Ghosts wander the grounds

where no birds lay nest,

no fields bear crops,

no trees can root,

except the scraggly one

which dangled the dead.

“Witch!” I scream it

to the stillness,

for there are none to hear me.

But I wonder if somehow

my mother can hear me now.

I have not thought of her

all these months of trials;

perhaps if I had

no bodies would have

swung from that tree.

Mother, we did wrong,

we were deceived.

Pray we will be forgiven

as we are forgotten.

A villain and a vagrant,

must I lay root elsewhere?

I have accused.

Perhaps I cannot stay here.

Hollow as a gutted

fish.

Lonely as

driftwood

banked to shore.

Not a friend,

not a foe—

would any really

care if an oxcart

crushed me?

She sweeps the meetinghouse floor,

the look of the doe been shot

in her wide blue eyes.

“Mercy!” Abigail runs to unlatch

the doors and let me in.

She clings to me like I am

her mother lost and now returned.

“What be about the parsonage

of late?” I whisper.

She too hushes her voice.

“Betty come home.”

Abigail looks to cry.

“'Tis wretched. The Reverend

be feared they what lost kin

in the witch trials will come

after him.” She glances down

and says in a quiet

that does rival Elizabeth,

“And he blames me.”

She bunches up her sleeve—

scars of burning begin

at her shoulder and line

to her wrist.

“How dare he!” I grab the broom

and charge toward the entrance

to the residence to
blame

the monster himself.

“Mercy, I beg thee no.”

Abigail hugs tight my leg

so that I must drag her.

I stop. She is right.

'Tis not worth hanging

to harm the Reverend.

Abigail looks up at me.

“I have written to my aunt

in Maine, and soon I will live there.”

I pat the front wood bench

where we resided most

of the year, fitting and screaming

in Affliction.

I motion Abigail to lay her head

in my lap such that I might

stroke her hair.

“But until you depart,

what will you do?”

With closed eyes

but a direct tongue she says,

“I just never speak

so as to be forgotten.”

Baby Hannah curdles

the night air with her screaming.

I rush into the hall,

but the crying be gone.

'Tis almost as if I imagined

the sound.

I shake from cold,

cannot find warmth

beneath my covers.

I pull my knees

into my belly

and again I hear Hannah.

I light a taper

and creak open my door.

Ann paces outside my room,

rocking Hannah.

“Do you want me to take my baby?”

I ask.

“She is not your baby!”

Ann's eyes widen as her tongue whips,

“She is not even your sister!”

Ann backs me into my quarters.

“And thank the Lord, for all kin

of yours find death.”

Though I did not mean

to call Hannah my own,

'twas but twisted words,

I wonder what it would be

to rock my own child.

My arms pretend to cradle

a baby against my chest.

I reach behind the wardrobe

until my fingers find the envelope.

The letter from my father long lost,

but the address

to Aunt Mary Lewis Skilling Lewis

is what I seek.

I must believe that some of my kin live,

for my roots did not take to this soil.

No family tree will grow for me

in Salem Village.

I found only a hanging tree

of more death.

I smooth the envelope.

It feels as though

I clutch a ticket

as important as passage papers

to the New World.

Step-Mother growls

as I hand over my plate.

She removes the bread

and sets the rest down

for Ridley.

“Ann's new sister, Hannah,

must be a month old by now,”

I say. “Might I go visit them?”

Father stomps into the room.

“Does seem that I heard

a voice in this room.

Or perhaps 'twas the wind,

because no one I know

would talk when not required.”

He swings a scarf round his neck.

“No one else leaves this house.”

The door stays cracked open

behind him. I push it closed.

Step-Mother sits at the wheel.

“Ye are not so important

as ye believed, since the governor

closed down that court.”

She smiles sly as a sinner.

“I will chop the wood.”

I find my mittens under the bench.

“Ye are not to leave this house,”

Step-Mother says.

“Or I will tell your father.”

I feel as to burst.

“He meant I could not

go outside
for chores
?”

“Watch thy wicked tongue.

I believe that be

exactly what he meant,”

she says without a glance at me.

She tosses trousers which smell

of horse dung on my lap.

Step-Mother commands,

“Get to work.”

Six months, only six months

more in this house.

Baby Hannah cries and cries.

I almost want to just set her down

and go to my room and close the door.

“You want Mother, don't you.”

I drop the baby in Mercy's arms.

“I can do no other chores,” I say.

“I thought I was not to tend Hannah.”

Mercy hands Hannah back to me.

“She is hungry.

Give her to the wet nurse.”

“Wet nurse left for a family in Boston;

conditions are better there.”

I roll the infant back to Mercy.

Mercy bounces Hannah,

and she stops crying like

Mercy cast a spell upon her.

“Mother
and
Father stricken.

I pray we don't lose them both.”

I lean against the table.

Mercy holds the baby in one arm

and chops the legs off a chicken

with her free hand.

“I would be sent to live with Uncle John.

My brothers and sisters

would be scattered all about,” I say.

White feathers gather like piles of snow

on either side of Mercy.

“Yes,” Mercy says.

Her eyes never rise from her work.

My chest heaves.

I huff and fall into a chair.

“That would be dreadful

to lose our house and farm.”

I touch my forehead and say,

“I might have a fever.”

“Ann!” Mother screams,

loud and troubled.

“Mercy,” I plead.

“I have been tending her and Father

for two days. I
must
rest.”

“What other help do we have?”

Mercy asks. Her eyes are the bull's

“right before he runs.

“None. They are helping repair

“the meetinghouse so that it won't

“be dreadful cold every Sabbath.

Father promised the Reverend

“that he would—”

She holds up her hand.

““Just go.”

“The other little ones are napping,”

I say, and limp to my bedroom.

A scream from the nursery

“feels like knives in my side.

I quicken my steps.

“Ann!” Mother hollers again.

I bury my head under the pillow.

The house creaks farewell.

Gales blow up snow

as sand pebbles are moved

by the tides.

The gate bang, bangs

in the wind, sounds

as if it might fly off its hinges.

Morning cracks over the trees

orange and gold.

All my dresses on,

the blue atop the brown,

each step, I feel how heavy it be.

I grasp the envelope

addressed Aunt Mary Lewis Skilling Lewis

written by Father so many years back.

Pray she will take me in,

for there is no loyalty as strong as family.

The snow falls fresh this morning,

I track no ashes of the Invisible World.

In New Hampshire I start anew.