“I’d like to interview Tituba, sir,” he said to Parris who looked stricken at the suggestion. “You say she’s confessed, so I’m sure she’ll not burn at the stake or hang for that matter, and I should like to learn as much from her as I might—about how these dark measures can seep into the thoughts of a servant.”

“You beware, Jeremy, lest she taint you. I suggest you keep your distance. She’s not fully confessed.”

Is this a confession on your part? Jeremy wanted to ask but thought it wise to simply listen.

“I mean, Tituba’s only confessed to an association with Goode whom we know to be guilty beyond question.”

“Tituba confesses only to entering into a covenant with Goode?”

“Thus far, yes.”

“A conspiracy to make your child fall ill?” Jeremy again recalled the strange doll that he’d seen in Goode’s possession not once but twice.

Parris looked off into the distance as if studying the Nurse homes nestled a-ways off. “But that Barbados black knows more, Jeremy . . . far more. And I will break her. Make no mistake about that.”

Chapter Eighteen

April 13, 1692, late evening

Two weeks had passed and tonight at the village home of Judge John Corwin, Jeremiah Wakely sipped brandy where he stood at the hearth fire. Corwin had opened his wine cellar and brandy cabinet to his guests, and none had more spirits in the village than did the judge. Jeremy stared hard at the accused witch, Tituba Indian, who was bound hand and foot to a chair in the middle of the common room. Her back made stiff by the ladder-back chair that’d become a part of her, she quietly wept as the men talked of the weather, the poor crop season, the news from Boston and London, and little Betty Parris’ condition, which had, like a disease, begun to infect other village children, most notably Mary Wolcott and Mercy Lewis, the minister’s nieces, and Anne Putnam Junior, the daughter of a militia lieutenant and deacon in Parris’ church. Furthermore, as Putnam and Parris were related, and so too the children, it appeared on the surface an attack against a single godly family of the village parish.

People were aghast at the notion that bewitchment could be so contagious but somewhat pleased to think it directed at one family and not everyone in the Salem.

“Don’t you see the pattern here?” Parris burst out when Judge Jonathan Hathorne suggested a medical condition and mentioned the lack of proper medical people in the village, and that he’d never had any relief at any time in his own ailments from Dr. Porter.

“But sirs,” continued Parris, palms extended in a plea, “they strike at my daughter, nieces, I tell you, and now my cousin’s daughter!” Parris paced and ranted. “Who’ll be next? Your honor’s grandchildren? Not that I’d wish it ’pon anyone’s child but if they dare strike at a minister, why not a magistrate like yourself?”

Hathorne stricken features at the suggestion spoke of sheer horror.

Parris continued. “I tell you this is Satan transformed, working through the weak-minded Goode and this—” he pointed at the bound Tituba—“this disturbed and misguided servant of mine.”

The sheriff had escorted Tituba to the Judge’s house in chains. The chains remained rattling about the thin woman now as she heaved with fear and whimpering.

“So you see it as a run at us from the Devil himself, Mr. Parris,” said Mr. Noyes, who’d been caring for Reverend Higginson and taking up the slack at the First Church of Salem Town.

“Aye, precisely what it is!” Parris turned on Noyes, who’d come as eyes and ears for the ill and bedridden Reverend Nehemiah Higginson.

Jeremy had carefully watched Noyes, trying to ascertain if he did or did not have Reverend Higginson’s complete trust—if he did or did not support Samuel Parris’ bid for the parsonage deed. If he did or did not know of Jeremy’s ruse.

So far, Jeremy feared Noyes a noisy little man not capable of forming his own opinion on the matter of the threat to Salem either way—be it Parris or the forces of the much-touted forces of the Invisible World. So far, as with Judge Hathorne, Parris handily led the man.

In fact, Noyes—and it seemed both village civil magistrates, Corwin and Hathorne—were all too willing to follow Parris’ twisted logic as he spewed forth his version of events. He even recounted the parlor trick that day at the Putnam hearth when he “exorcised” a pile of vomit from a frightened child.

Not one of these supposed learned men had questioned a single precept or assumption that Parris had laid before them.

Outside yet another drenching winter rain had settled over a sodden gray Salem. Corwin’s home and jurisdiction extended only to the village limits, whereas Hathorne’s bench was in Salem Town, but both courts handled small claims and suits, and whenever a case smacked of a theological matter, the judges bowed to the churches to conduct their own trials, as in the decision to excommunicate Sarah Goode and to divest her of her child. Corwin had signed off on that bit of justice.

If a farmer believed by some means his cart wheel had been sabotaged by a neighbor, if his cows, hens, pigs, or sheep had been bewitched, if his crops had in any manner been tampered with—often the claim being witchcraft or devilish chicanery and curse—again Corwin and Hathorne acted in the best interest of everyone by keeping it a local matter and most often a church assize matter, wherein the church elders and minister made the final ruling on a matter.

At the same time, Jeremy knew that such magistrates earned their living by the number of cases they decided. All quite loose for a ‘system of government’, and Jeremy was often aghast at what provincial judges moved forward with—cases that should never have seen the light of day.

Even so, Jeremiah Wakely hoped and fervently believed that the judges of Salem would nip Parris’ fiery claims in the bud, here and now, tonight. Before this witch-hunt went any further or got out of hand. After all, Corwin and Hathorne were the two wise men in this, Jeremy told himself. But he had misgivings. It seemed everyone was following Parris’ lead like so many puppets on a string, and so he cleared his throat and commented.

“Gentlemen, I have seen this sort of thing in Maine and in Connecticut, and I can tell you that you do not want to turn matter into a spectator sport.”

“Sport? You talk of sport?” countered Parris immediately. “What’re you saying, Mr. Wakely.

“I am saying that to feed fears of witchcraft among us to the general population only breeds the worst kind of chaos, and you might well have lynchings and barn burnings on your hands.”

“Mr. Wakely, you of all people,” shouted Parris, charging toward Jeremy. “You’ve seen my daughter’s affliction. You heard what Dr. Porter and Dr. Swain have diagnosed.”

“True I’ve seen her condition, and I did hear Dr. Swain pronounce her beyond his help.”

“Beyond his help? He said the same as Porter—bewitched—which put her condition beyond them both, beyond medical help.”

Jeremy’s last look at Betty had come only hours ago when Parris insisted he see her condtion at its worst. He had for once not exaggerated the circumstances. While Mary Wolcott suffered from fever and nightmares and talking gibberish, Betty’s body lay twisted in poses impossible to imagine or to be believed without one’s having seen it. The girl had gone into a catatonic state. All the same, Jeremy defended his position in a calm manner.

“I am only suggesting that we have a duty, sir, to seek other answers, other solutions, more experienced medical help perhaps . . . before we begin hanging witches from every tree and turning Salem Village into a-a Goya painting.”

“Sound idea,” said Reverend Joseph Hale of nearby Waverly. Hale had entered from the storm late, removing his wet overcoat just as Jeremiah and Parris had crossed swords. “We must go slowly, carefully, gentlemen.”

“Who is Goya?” asked Corwin, pouring himself another brandy.

Parris had cornered Judge Hathorne now and whispered in his ear while the fire at the hearth invited Hale near, spitting embers and blue flame within the red. Flames were tamped now and again by rainwater seeping down the flue. The flames were welcomed by Hale, a tall, good-looking man below the black uniform of minister as he kept up a noisy appreciation of warming his hands.

Jeremy stood near the hearth as well, but the same flames that warmed Hale only recalled Parris phony exorcism to Jeremy’s mind. He imagined Noyes would have applauded Parris’ performance at the Putnam hearth, but he withheld judgment on Hale for now.

Then everyone was surprised when at the door stood the stooped over Reverend Nehemiah Higginson. Young Reverend Noyes immediately flew to him, helping him with his coat and hat. “What, sir, are you thinking? Coming out in this weather? In your condition? You could catch your death.”

“Quiet Nicholas!” The old man was interrupted by a chronic, gut-wrenching cough. “We both know I’ve already caught my death.” More coughing as the others muttered and mumbled their welcoming words to the elder minister. “What little time I have left, I mean to make the best of, gentlemen. Now, please, shall we dispense with curtseys and courtesies, eh? For the sake of time and an old man who has precious little of it?”

“You know the purpose then of our meeting?” asked Jeremy, who had been fawning as if meeting a saint, saying how much he had heard of Higginson’s good works in Salem Town. Meanwhile, Jeremy was thinking: This is the man who’s pinned his final hopes on me.

“I am well aware of the accusations flying about, Mr. Ah . . .Wakely is it? Mr. Parris, are you at all aware of the demons you’ve already let loose?”

“I’ve let loose? Me?”

“Rumor and gossip already has it down, sir, that the village is rife with bewitched children. The population is no longer content with bewitched mules and cows, now it must be children.”

“There’s no gossip about it!” countered Parris, pacing before them. “My child and others’ve fallen victim to witchcraft.”

“And you’re sure of that?” asked Hale.

Parris pointed to the unfortunate Tituba in her bonds. “As sure as you see this witch before us!”

Higginson found a seat for himself, gaffawing as he did so. “Samuel, your house is not in order.”

“Order? Order? What order can there be in a house that’s long before me become a-a fulcrum for attack?”

“And your parish, all of Salem Village, is it all under attack too?”

“I tell you, sir, it is all true! Not rumor. Invited in is He and not by me!”

Higginson’s eyes bore into Parris. “ By He, you refer to Bael, Lucifer, Loki, Beelzebub?”

“He who has many names, yes.”

It seemed Higginson wanted Parris to say it. “He who calls himself Legion?”

“Satan. Yes, the Devil himself, Mr. Higginson.”

Higginson struggled to his feet, Noyes helping at his side. The old man’s cane tapped out an anthem as he moved toward Tituba and circled her prison chair. “You, Mr. Parris, you look on this servant of yours and you see a devil worshipper?”

“Indeed, I do, sir.”

“What of you other men? Mr. Hale, Corwin, Hathorne?” Hale held his tongue. Corwin sipped his brandy. Hathorne shrugged.

“I know what Mr. Noyes believes, sadly I do. He is among the most superstitious men I have ever encountered, but what about you, Mr. Wakely?” asked Higginson. “What do you see looking on this woman of color?”

Jeremy found all eyes on him. “I see a frightened untutored child without Christ.”

“Is that truly what you see, Mr. Wakely? Can you be sure of your senses?”

“I am sure.”

“Anything you wish to add?” Higginson rounded Tituba like a scientist studying a specimen.

“I have it on good authority that a confession was beaten out of the woman.”

“Good authority? What authority?”

“Her master, here, Mr. Parris.”

Parris leapt in, shouting, “I have labored years trying to educate Tituba to Christ’s teaching, and she was doing well for a time. She sat in God’s house with my children and my wife, but some cruel evil filters through this place, a passion for wickedness fanned by my enemies, and they latched onto poor Tituba here to turn her from Christ and from my teachings.”

Higginson understood the twisting, gnarled roots of Parris’ arguments better than any man present. As a result, Parris’ words left the old man cold. The others in the room waited in rapt attention to Higginson’s rebuttal. It came as a long, halting, ratcheting cough.