Another suspicious death.

Rebecca Nurse’s father, Jacob Towne, had been Thomas’ stepfather, but late in life, he’d remarried, become a Goodman to that Easty woman. This marriage secured the land for three daughters borne of the Towne-Easty union. One had been Rebecca Towne, who’d become Rebecca Nurse when the witch had taken Francis Nurse as her husband.

And now? To learn from the spirits afflicting her—for some twenty years—that their message, however garbled, translated into the murder of her every child, save the one—Anne Junior. How terribly coincidental, as none of the midwives of that Towne-Nurse-Easty crowd had overseen Anne Junior’s birth, yet they’d been among the concerned hot-water brigade during the deaths of the other children. They had been on hand with hidden deadly weapons—as Anne had been told by Henry.

She looked from the lights out at the Nurse home to the sky with its onrush of storm clouds to the small black-haired head of her daughter knitting quietly away across the room. She still wondered if her only daughter left would live to marriageable age, if she would bear her grandchildren to replace the lost ones. She wondered if the child had inherited the cursed womb.

She’d been giving more thought to it all, not the least being that her own womb had brought into the world children who’d withered and died like unnourished flowers. She wondered if she and little Anne would ever know any happiness in this world.

She’d heard the news of Serena Nurse’s having married that imposter Jeremiah Wakely. She trembled when recalling how that man, a liar, cheat, and a thief had stood right here in her home alongside the noble, caring Reverend Parris, all the while involved in a charade.

Perhaps he’s a disciple of Burroughs. If so, then a disciple of Satan. If so, then the Nurse’s youngest daughter, was now locked in matrimony to a follower of Satan. With mother a witch and husband a Satanist, what must Serena herself be? Her pleasant smile notwithstanding?

Why didn’t my dead brother’s ghost tell me the truth sooner? Why, indeed, she wondered, glancing anew at the expanse of land deeded over to the clan she’d instinctively hated all these years—and now I know the reason why. She looked again on her sweet if feeble Anne, and she saw that Anne placed an arm around Mercy’s neck and hugged the now cleansed and gifted Mercy who’d been returned to their home since bravely exposing that Bishop woman for what she was.

Anne saw that her daughter exhibited a small measure of happiness tonight, perhaps for the first time in her life. Anne Senior exhibited a newfound pride in both her daughter and herself—and even for Mercy Lewis. And why not?

Why not feel pride indeed? After all, she’d given birth to a child capable of seeing into the Invisible World . . . and for that matter, although she’d never thought of her night terrors as either a blessing or a gift, they were indeed just that now that they’d become so clearly interpreted. Once the language of her spectral visitors—brother Henry and the stillborn children—had finally come clear, that they were pointing their dead fingers at their killers, Mrs. Putnam realized she, too, had been seeing into the Invisible World. She too was gifted, a seer like her child who’d led her to this conclusion. What was the line in the Bible? And the children shall lead them.

Anne and Mercy joined Mrs. Putnam at the window, all three staring out at the Nurse lights. “Looks like a witch gathering out there,” Mercy muttered.

“Prob’ly so.” Little Anne clutched Mercy’s arm.

Mrs. Putnam placed a motherly arm around both her daughter and maidservant. “Come away now, children. There’s your evening Bible lesson to get before bed.”

“We don’t want need no lesson tonight.” Little Anne’s eyes looked sternly through her mother.

“Hold your tongue, child.”

The girl repeated it: “We don’t need any lesson.”

Mercy added, “What Anne’s trying to say, Goodwife Putnam, is that we’re beyond lessons now.”

Little Anne shouted, “We’re under the blood of Christ.”

“We’ve done talked about it, Mrs. Putnam,” Mercy put in, “and Anne’s right. There’s nothing more we can learn.”

“Whatever do you mean? You can always learn more—”

“We’ve been touched by the Lamb himself!” Mercy countered.

Anne nodded vigorously. “Mother, we know more than Reverend Parris about it all now.”

Mrs. Putnam breathed deeply and swallowed hard. “Perhaps you do.”

“We do.” Little Anne turned back to stare out toward the Nurse home. “We truly do, Mother.”

Several days later

Jeremiah had received a note from Mrs. Elizabeth Parris, a cryptic message stating that Betty Parris’ illness had taken a horrible turn. She requested that he come at once to the parsonage home, adding that she required his counsel.

Jeremy didn’t hesitate, saddling his horse here in the large barn where Serena’s pleas to pay no heed to the minister’s wife echoed about the rafters. “It’s some sort of trap they hope to spring—”

“A ruse to arrest me along with Reverend Burroughs?” He snatched at cinches.

“Who is now behind bars along with Samuel Wardwell, the blacksmith from Andover.”

“The so-called Wizard of Andover, yes.”

“You’ll be taken! Called a warlock!” She grabbed onto him and held tight.

More men were now being arrested, called witchmen, warlocks, and wizards.

“Mrs. Parris’ note says it is to do with the child, Betty.”

“But it could be a lie.”

“She has remained all this time in a state of horrific illness and pain. Her symptoms are real.”

“Real?”

“Those of the afflicted I have seen in other towns, yes. The very symptoms those other girls in the village mimic so well—each chance they get.”

“Are you saying that Parris’ daughter is bewitched?”

“She is closer to it than any other I’ve seen, yes.”

“What are her symptoms?”

Dancer turned her head as if curious to hear his answer.

Jeremy described the horrid times when Betty would become stiff as cordwood, her limbs immovable, and how at other times she all but climbed the walls as a lizard might, of her cursing like a demon, spitting up foul vomit with her curses, and choking her own mother when Mrs. Parris got too near.

“Does sound horrible. But suppose it is a trap Parris has put his wife up to?”

“She writes that her husband is away, leading the seer children over to Wenham and Beverly as he did with Andover—to seek out victims beyond the village.”

“Any child of Salem has heard of Wardwell, his reputation.”

“As ready a reputation as George Burroughs’?”

She grabbed him by the arm this time, still hoping he would not go. “And now your reputation precedes you, Jeremy. Don’t you see?”

“What reputation?”

“Ha! The locals are just short of writing a ballad about—”

“Ballad? Me?”

“Yes, about your coming in the night down from Watch Hill to Parris’ home in disguise!”

“Should be quite a ditty.”

“Be serious and Jeremy, do be careful in the village. Promise, Jeremy.”

“Be careful? Me? What about you? I think it’s far too dangerous now to visit your mother at the jail.”

Serena had daily taken coins to Weed Gatter and Daniel Gwinn—the jailers. Payoffs for allowing her to return again and again with baked goods for the prisoners at both village jailhouse and Salem Town jailhouse. She did so with Mrs. Hale, the Wavery minister’s wife, reminding Jeremy of Mrs. Phipps’ like generosity in Boston.

In fact, a story circulated of how the governor’s wife had defied her husband’s wishes in order to continue to see to the needs of prisoners at the Boston jailhouse. Rumor, exaggeration or not, Serena had chosen to believe it and emulate it here.

“Father pays Gatter and Gwinn well to allow me to see mother and to get bread to her and the others. It’s the least I can do.”

“And how is your mother?”

“Terrible. Likely to die in that rabbit warren if we don’t soon get her home. You should be helping in that matter and not traipsing off to the village to that . . .that vile home where all this started.”

He mounted and was ready to ride. “I must know what the minister’s wife wants of me.”

“Fine! Fine, but nothing will keep me from seeing Mother, then!” she warned.

“Serena, even Rebecca has pleaded you stay away from there.”

“Nothing will stay my going.”

Seeing she was adamant, he nodded and bent from the saddle and kissed her again. “Perhaps then, my love, I’ll look for you there at the jail—as soon as I’m finished with Mrs. Parris.”

He rode off, leaving Serena fearfully looking after his dust. The rains had stopped some days ago, and the land had become dry and cracked. Few people had planted crops as yet, their fieldwork held up by all the to do in Salem, many now going into the village or the town to witness the trials.

The Nurse men tried to keep to their fields, but the future didn’t look good for any of the wheat, beans, potatoes, and corn, but neither Francis nor Serena could concern themselves now with mundane matters like crops. This morning, she’d baked enough rolls to fill two baskets, and she returned for the goods, found Ben and asked him to harness a pair of horses to the buggy as she was ready to go.

She’d blessed the bread, and she’d prayed with her father for an end to the madness today as they did each day.

When she returned to the barn with her baskets in hand, she found Ben secreting a pair of guns beneath the buggy seat. “What’re those for?”

“Loaded and cocked, in case we run into trouble.”

“What sort of trouble?”

“Word is more warrants are being served.”

She placed the bread in the back and climbed up and onto the seat. “Let’s go.”


# # # # #

Jeremy approached the parsonage with a mix of anxiety, dread, and a stomach telling him to turn around and not look back. Even by daylight both village and parsonage had a grim darkness overall, like some ancient shroud had been laid over the place. The parish house in particular reeked of a solemnity that bordered on an unspoken evil; an evil not of the otherworldly or invisible sort, but one all too earthy—like a decaying corpse.

Within the parsonage walls so much had happened, and those two, mother and child, had remained within these many months. Mary Wolcott had been placed in another home, further isolating Mrs. Parris with her afflicted daughter, and no one had seen her or Betty without the minister’s opening the door and parting the curtain. They’d become virtual prisoners to the affliction and to the care of ill-equipped, stupefied doctors and to Reverend Parris and his gambit.

Jeremy thought it best to tie his horse in the barn in the futile hope he would not be seen going in. The place brought back images of Tituba and blood spatters about the place. The little Barbados native most assuredly had been in the habit of sacrificing animals to her own god.

In a moment, he was before the door about to rap when it opened on a sunken-faced, shaken Mrs. Parris. She was entirely ill herself, having been left to deal with her child’s infirmity alone all these weeks. The strain had taken such a toll as to turn her blonde head white. She looked a scarecrow, a shell of her former self.

“Please, inside at once,” she said almost inaudibly, her eyes darting about, as if fearful that any villager might see them together. “Thank you so much for coming.”

“You realize, Mrs. Parris, that I am no minister,” he said, once inside with the door closing on the dark interior, sending both into shadow.

“I am aware of your true calling, but I must have a man of your . . . your worldliness.”

“Worldliness?”

“I understand you have witnessed witchcraft outbreaks before, in other communities?”

“I have seen this before, yes; it’s why I’d thought it’d be over with Goode and Osborne’s convictions, that and your servant’s.”

“My servant? Tituba? She never was that.” From the tone of her voice, Jeremy felt certain that Elizabeth Parris knew of her husband’s indiscretions with the servant that may or may not have led to a child being born, and may or may not have led to a disposal of said child in a most unchristian manner.

“What can you tell me of Tituba?” he asked, helplessly watching her hands shake.