Children of Salem

before? How much now?”

“Tell me everything you remember—every second, every mother’s instinct and emotion when you asked him about the infant that very first time.”

“I had hard time wid de birthing; hours wid de pain. So much, I faint.”

“Faint?”

“He give me opium.”

“Opium?”

“Like he use all de time in Barbados—and a strange drink.”

“Opium and a strange drink?”

“From de doctor he pay. Doctor make drink.”

“Were you at all aware of your surroundings when the baby was delivered?”

“No, no! I not never see de child.”

“Not even afterward?”

“No, not once.”

“Your child was delivered while you unconscious?”

“Un-con-see-us?”

“While you were asleep?”

“Asleep, yes.”

Jeremy imagined it an abortion. You don’t knock out a pregnant woman with opium and other concoctions if you want to deliver a baby. “Were you sore? Did the doctor cut you?”

“Cuts, yes. Plenty blood. Sore and sick. Long time.”

“You saw no evidence of the child at all?”

“I wake up and doctor gone! And my baby gone! Mr. Parris, he tell me baby dead.”

“Do you recall the doctor’s name?”

“Cabbage. No Cobb. No Cable. Yes, a man named Caball.”

“Had you ever seen this doctor before there in Barbados before?”

“No not never. Mr. Parris say Caball is from de ship.”

Jeremy shook his head. “What ship?”

“It from England, he say, and he say Dr, Caball knows best.”

“I see. Don’t suppose you recall the name of that ship?”

“Elizabeth—like Mrs. Parris.”

“Good, good! Ships’ records could be consulted, but finding this particular ship and doctor could take months if not a year. Still if Parris were confronted with the ship and the doctor’s name, he might just give himself away. The irony of Parris’ having aborted a child hadn’t escaped Jeremy, as the accused had been charged with murdering infants.

“I beg massa,” Tituba went on, “beg him to let me see my baby—dead even—to hold it, but he tell me, ‘No’, and he show me de ugly face like you see he make.”

“Yes, I’ve seen it.”

“He-He tell me it not best thing for me to see de baby. Say it be bent here—” she indicated her head, “and it buckled here—“she indicated her body. Tell me he axe de doctor to take it away. Say it for my sake.”

“I see. And it was his child, Tituba?”

“His child, a son.”

“A boy. He told you it was a boy?”

“No, doctor say.”

“When did this doctor tell you this?”

“I hear him first time I wake. I see dem talking.”

“Who?”

“Massa and doctor. Doctor say, ‘It a boy’. But massa yell at him to get rid of it.”

“Don’t make it up as you go, Tituba. I only want the truth.”

“Dis be de truth! I saw and heard like in dream.”

Or a drugged state, Jeremy thought. It has the ring of truth, and Tituba seemed to have no guile about this story. All the same, Jeremy felt paralyzed. It amounted to hearsay. Hearsay from a black woman and a prisoner no less, herself accused of aiding and abetting Goode to attack the minister’s daughter through machinations of witchcraft, one who may or may not soon face the gallows—if she did not die of jail fever first. She looked awful in her unbathed state, and her tattered clothes reflected a shredded will and all her former fiery soul seemed lost.

The story of Anne Carr Putnam’s having a decades-old grudge between her and Susannah Martin had not moved the court or anyone in authority. What good would this information provided by Tituba Indian do?

Jeremy looked again into the bottomless black eyes of the Barbados native. The woman perspired, retched, and grew more tired before his eyes.

“I’d’ve thought Parris would have had you released and placed onboard an outgoing ship for Barbados or anywhere by now.”

“He try but no ship will take a witch on board.”

Sailors were more superstitious than the inhabitants of Salem Village, Jeremy realized, and he pictured Parris attempting to bribe a ship’s captain to stow her away in a hole someplace but unable to come up with the certainly high price that would have been exacted.”

Tituba laughed. “Master forgot another promise.” Jeremy assumed she meant precisely what he was kicking over in his head. “Tituba, if we could find this doctor in Barbados . . . Are you sure of his name?”

“Only one white doctor in Barbados—Noah. Dr. Noah. Dis other man go away.”

“Noah—sounds like a first name. Do you know his full name?”

“I only know name on sign—Dr. North.”

“Noah North?”

“Yes, Noah North.”

“That could be of great help, Tituba. Thank you for speaking with me.” Perhaps North knew something of Parris’ dealings with the mysterious doctor or murderer, who came ashore from the Elizabeth that night.

“Can you help me?” Tituba now asked, her right hand wrapping around Jeremy’s. It pulled a thread of pity from Jeremy. So far as he could see, she was a victim several times over, and likely to die of consumption in this place.

“If I can get the Governor to listen to your story, perhaps you’ve helped yourself. Have faith in God, and hold firm to your innocence.”

“Then I will die here.”

“I’ll do whatever I can to keep that from happening, Tituba.”

She grasped his hand tighter with what little strength she had left. “Thank you, Mr. Wakely. You are good man.”

The entire time she had her hand on him, Jeremy worried he’d catch some awful death-dealing disease from her, and one reason he’d given her the handkerchief was so she’d cover her mouth before coughing on him. He pulled away and kept his hand at his side. Mrs. Fahey had plenty of lye soap back at the barn along with a pale of water. But even as his mind filled with the fear of being ravaged by some nasty disease, his heart went out to the once proud little woman.

Abraham, the jailor, retuned from his smoking and pissing the other end of the jail and said, “I can give ye no more time, ‘’less you have more coin for a crippled old salt, Mr. Wakely.”

“We’re done here, but I have a question for you.”

Abraham instantly presented his palm. “If I can be of service, sure it is.”

Jeremy handed him a half crown that he bit into and pocketed. “What question is it, sir?”

“Has any minister come to you to ask that you seek a berth on an outgoing ship for this black prisoner, Tituba? Perhaps to take her off to Barbados?”

“Well ahh . . . I think that’s two questions.” He again held out his hand like a cup held by a beggar.