Wicked Girls (7 page)

I scan Ingersoll's.

There's only a smattering

of folk in from the rain,

which sounds like fingers

drumming 'pon the roof.

I turn to sally home.

I scream liken the angels

might hear me,

and hold up my wrist.

Visiting Reverend Lawson

and Uncle Ingersoll catch me

fore I hit the earthen floor.

They settle me at a table

and examine my arm.

By candlelight all see

that I been bit.

The Lord adds me

to the group

of those who see.

I am not left behind.

My eyes bloom wide

and pretty as the rest

of the flowers

growing wild

in the witches' garden.

The mayflowers

bloom now.

Heart-shaped pink and white

blossoms sweeten the wind.

Winter's scraggly witch hazel

and furred pussy-willow buds

crouch not alone

on the hillside.

The spring air smells

ripe and ready.

Meeting seems smaller near the pulpit.

'Tis like we be closer to the Lord.

The front pew smells not

of dung-covered boots.

Martha Corey grips her bench,

refusing to look on us girls

now she been accused.

Though none dares defy

a preacher during sermon,

Abigail do rise and say

to the visiting Reverend,

“Stand up and name your text.”

Ann announces that Goody Corey's

spirit and her yellow bird

perch high above the congregation.

She says the black-eyed bird flies

to Reverend Lawson's hat

hanging on the front door peg.

“I see it too!” Betty says.

Mercy and Elizabeth nod and agree.

Do they all really see except for me?

Abigail cries and points at Goody Corey,

“Witch and her familiar!”

Isaac shakes his head

when she cries out.

His eyes scold and judge.

His face full of disgust

like Abigail speaks

in drunk soldier's tongue.

Reverend Parris and Mister Putnam

hush us then: “Quiet your tongues

and let good Minister Lawson

finish his sermon.”

I sneak behind the meetinghouse

before afternoon sermon,

but for the first time

Isaac be not there.

My stomach squeezes

and I trip over a rock.

Why is he not there?

What have I done?

Did he not like what I did

in the forest?

Where is Mercy?

Someone seizes my shoulders.

Martha Corey turns me to her and scolds,

“I will dispel these accusations.

I am a Gospel woman.

I will stand victorious

against you and your mischievous friends.”

Her breath steams across my cheek.

But before I can speak one word,

the other girls circle round me

like the Queen's guard

till Martha Corey be gone.

Ann says, “Do not fear, Margaret,

that witch will be known.”

I nod at her and the other girls.

Except for Mercy. I stare on her.

Sunlight runs over Mercy

and her golden temptress hair

liken some waterfall of jewels.

Who will protect me

from the witch

among us girls?

The courtroom chatters and churns.

Goody Corey raises her eyes at us,

as if to say, “I'll get you girls.”

Ann's eyes roll back until

only the whites show,

and someone in the crowd cries,

“Bewitched!”

“We must not believe

all that these distracted children say,”

Martha Corey insists as she stands

for examination. Her eyes twitch

gray as a storm. She smooths her skirt,

then rubs her hands together.

Ann, Abigail, Margaret and Betty

all mimic Martha Corey

with the sharp jerking movement

of a wheel catching in a rut,

then pulling free.

“Stop praying, Elizabeth,”

Ann speaks without moving her lips.

She pulls Elizabeth up from her knees.

“Forget not, Martha Corey beat you too.”

“Perhaps I was deceived.

Perhaps we were all deceived.

It is not too late to beg forgiveness.”

Elizabeth looks to Margaret.

“I know Goody Corey is a witch, Lizzie.

She pricked me last night.”

Margaret reveals red bumps on her back.

Elizabeth nods. She rubs her arm

and curls her hands into her sleeves.

Abigail says, “The Devil whispers

in Goody Corey's ear.”

Ann hollers, “I see the turning spit

and a man roasting on it,

just beside Goody Corey.”

Abigail speaks again,

a cavern's echo of Ann,

“Goody Corey roasts a man

for the Devil.”

Margaret and I are to suffer next.

We feel jabbed and strangled

and collapse to the floor.

Margaret kicks her boot

a little too close to my head.

Through clenched teeth I tell her,

“Mind yourself.”

Margaret points at Goody Corey,

but it is me she names sinner

with her eyes as she screams out the word.

“Any woman who bears babies

out of wedlock must be a witch.”

They bind Goody Corey's hands

with sailing rope. Still,

she flutters her fingers.

Each time she does, our fingers wrench,

shot up by her Devil's lightning.

I stare at my hands,

fingers hooked in pain,

and see something new.

These hands are not just

implements to serve.

They are weapons.

The gavel smashes down.

Goody Corey,

like all other witches

the girls and
I
name,

shall face trial.

“I told them witches

I will not eat. I will not

drink. It is blood. It is not

the Bread of Life.

It comes not from Christ.

And I spat at Goody Proctor,

the wife of the tavern keeper,

the one selling whiskey blood.”

I pant, uncertain whether I can continue.

Mister Putnam strokes my hand

as though I am his child and says,

“Do tell us, Mercy, what next ye saw.”

“A shining figure comes

and all the witches fled.

All I could see was a glorious light,

and the voices of Christ

singing like crystal bells

and telling me I am worthy

to take the book, the Book of Life

from Christ. And then the angels,

all of them in rows singing psalms,

and I pled, ‘Please let me stay here,

let me not leave.' But then I woke.”

Ann says, “Mercy is chosen.

She's been shown good, not evil,

in the Invisible World.

She is the first to see it.”

But Missus Putnam is quick

to shake her head,

“No, Ann dear, others

have seen a man in white.”

Mister Putnam hovers near my cheek.

He kisses my forehead.

“Mercy, Satan doth love to present

himself as an Angel of Light.

Good that you did not sign that book.

It were Satan in disguise.”

The tears come fast

as a mudslide down my cheeks.

We must see evil.

But then the man I serve

kneels to me,

comforts
me

with his kerchief.

What shall I do?

The meetinghouse during lecture

might well be the courthouse.

All of us girls sit in the front pew

like we are the town council,

the heads of family, like we are

disciples of his Grace.

The Reverend blasts,

“Have I not chosen you twelve?”

He looks past us girls and declares,

“And one of you is the Devil.”

Whispers whirl around the room.

Eyeballs wander like seeds in wind.

Who is the Devil among us,

the one who betrays?

Which of the good folk

is really a witch?

And then the eyeballs settle,

how water smooths after storm.

The eyes look not

to the preacher to answer

their questions, to guide them,

but to us girls, the Afflicted.

We are the ones who see witches.

The good folk nearly plead,

“Pray tell us who be the witches,

who are the devils in our midst?”

Isaac gone before

I might turn to look.

The meetinghouse drains

of members, except for Elizabeth,

who kneels on the hard floor,

her head bowed down.

“Oh, Margaret, fall to your knees

and pray with me.”

She grasps my hand

and drags me to the ground.

“Dear Lord, guide our spectral sight.

We follow your call

and bow humbly before you.”

Elizabeth's eyes pulse

and her body quivers.

“They wait for us outside.”

I tug her arm now.

I do not want Mercy Lewis

broken from my sight

such that Mercy might make

her eyes fall 'pon Isaac,

or worse, his eyes fall 'pon her.

I kneel and whisper in Elizabeth's ear.

“I see you be cleversome,

but pray let us do this not today.”

Elizabeth just stares forward

as in a trance. She lies down

'pon the floor with her hands

laced in worship above her head.

“O Lord, lead me in your ways.”

She stops all moving

and seems not to breathe.

Be she truly tormented by a witch?

The Reverend stalks above us.

“Has a specter hold of Elizabeth?”

he asks me.

I nod yes.

But then Elizabeth pops up,

as if she's possessed, and shakes her head.

“There are no specters here.

We pray to the Lord for guidance.”

How dare she defy me?

She must be ill. I clench her arm

tighter than I did intend.

Lizzie tugs down her sleeve.

“Or perhaps Margaret did see a specter,”

Elizabeth says, and lowers her eyes.

Not everything in a garden

belongs.

Ruth Warren,

the Proctors' maid,

starts crying witch,

naming the same

witches we do see.

She follows Ann

around after meeting,

inquires about joining

us later at Ingersoll's.

Ann asks if we should

fold Ruth into the blanket

of our group.

I scratch my head.

“What know you of Ruth Warren?”

“She be maid to John

and Rebecca Proctor.

And my father and John Proctor

stand on different sides

of the church aisle.”

I advise, “Let us not invite

her into the group yet,

but test her loyalty.

We have been given

a power here together,

we best retain—

to do so we must be strong

and we must be stable.

Nothing foul among us.”

Mercy and I agree—

in order for us to be stable

someone must take up the head,

must direct the troop through battle,

one of us hold the torch

and shout out command,

else we shall see things unlike

and our voice be scattered,

the body that makes us strong

cut into many pieces.

Betty too young, Abigail too eager,

Elizabeth wavers like a loose tooth,

and Margaret without rank and stature

and breeding and brain—

It must be me.

I am the rightful leader.

“They sent Betty away.”

Abigail heaves and snorts as she speaks.

She wedges next to me, so I squeeze

into the back of the bench.

I search for Mercy, who was to meet me

at Ingersoll's an hour ago.

“Reverend now depends on me alone

to tell him of the Invisible World.

I seen witches all last night. Goody Proctor

and Goody Nurse and Goody Good.”

“Abigail.” I wish to fasten my hand

over her mouth. “Tell not our elders

what you see without first speaking to me.”

“But Reverend wants me to—”

I cut her words. “Speak not.

Do ye understand me?”

She nods. At this moment,

the sight of Abigail, the scratch of her voice,

brings my lunch to my throat.

Where be Mercy?

“I must go,” I say.

“Oh, me too. I'll come with thee,”

Abigail chirps.

I hurry toward the door.

“What have ye seen?” Goodman Rhea

asks as I make to leave the tavern.

“Goody Proctor did bite and pinch me.”

Abigail thrusts forth her arm.

“Let us see.”

Goodman Rhea bars my exit.

I wish to box Abigail in the cheek:

again she acts without my instruction.

If only Reverend Parris had sent away

both his daughter
and
his niece.