Children of Salem

“All the same, I wish to see them.” The rough road made her slip and slide into him when the wheels hit a particularly bad spot. He took advantage of her being almost in his lap, and he kissed her passionately. She returned his kiss, very much in love with this man. But when she pulled away, she said, “Don’t think you can distract me. I still want to see those reports that should have come to Cotton Mather and then to your hands in the first place.”

“All right,” he conceded to the sound of the creaking coach. “After which the flames will see them.”

“You mean to destroy it all?”

“What good to perpetuate what has happened here. News of what really went on here gets back to England, it will make a mockery of what we’re here to accomplish on these shores, Lizbeth—a horrid mockery.”

“Ah, I see . . . politics?”

“More than politics. It could mean the survival of this-this experiment. We came here to build a New Jerusalem, to glorify God with a paradise on Earth. What will all the enemies of Puritanism make of what’s happened here?”

“Aye, plenty of people want us to fail. Among them my father.”

“The old cussed doctor, yes. He’s never believed in me, has he?”

“Afraid not, and I wish you’d forgive him that. I have.”

“He hasn’t any belief in our dream here in New England, and he has cursed me for taking you away from him.”

It was a sore point in their marriage and had always hung over them. He took her hands in his. “Write to your father in Barbados. Ask him directly about this man Caball and this Reginald’s origins—if you wish to pursue this Parris business any further —which I do not, my lady. Otherwise, it is dropped.”

“What of Parris then—the so-called ordained minister?” The coach again bucked hard and the driver slowed. From above they heard his urgent apologies for the road.

“Parris is done on these shores, Liz. I’ve ordered him out of the jurisdiction of the Bay Colony.”

“But then he will simply go elsewhere and spread his venom in Rhode Island or—”

“Drop it. The man has lost all influence and—”

“Lost his influence? While others’ve lost their lives, William!”

“—and-and any hold he may have had on this parish, including any land holdings he thought he had in Salem.”

“Lost his parish house did he?” She remained sarcastic.

“Including a tract he thought he had that touched on the Frost Fish River, a tract that would have set him up as an ore magnate. Turns out he held an interest in a nearby mine with his relatives here.”

“He should be taken out to those awful gallows we saw on the way in and hung!”

“An eye for an eye? That’s not like you, Liz.”

“If anyone deserves it in all this, if capital punishment means anything—”

“Lizbeth! He fades away quietly from this place.”

“And pays no price?”

“God will repay him in due course.”

“Twenty-one dead that we know of, dead by these witch trials, and he walks away untouched? Is that justice?”

“We are interested in healing at this time.”

“And justice be damned?”

“Justice? There is none to be found here, and-and—twisted justice—is what has got us to this cross.”

She reached out to her husband and with a finger to her lips shushed him for the sake of the carriage driver and gossip. “It’s none of your doing, William. You put your trust in our beloved faith—and in the highest court in the land.”

“I should’ve held faith with you.”

“True but you didn’t; still, recriminations against yourself now are of no use.”

“Should have paid attention to your intuition. Early on you had your suspicions on this matter.”

“Yes, I did, and I predicted it would hurt us all badly in the end.”

“And it has indeed.”

“I will write father in Barbados, but I fear he will not be forthcoming on the subject of his part in hiding the child, but now that so much time has passed, perhaps. Be if true, think how clearly the line is to be drawn from the death or rather near death of an infant by a needle in Barbados to the multiple deaths of infants—so-called by witchcraft and by needle—aborted, here! Coincidence?”

“All the same, any further attack on the ministry and the court can only weaken our government here, Elizabeth.”

“And we can’t have that, now can we?”

He glared at her but was at a loss for words. The coach had maintained a steady pace now as if the driver was being more cautious or curious; it was impossible to tell. All around the carriage uniformed militia— the Governor’s private guard—rode in formation, cheering suddenly. This made both governor and wife look outside where they saw some burly Salem farmers had sent the Watch Hill gallows tumbling down.

Inside the coach, Mrs. Phipps’ expression was of a bittersweet smile. “What of the lands and properties seized by the court?”

“They are in question yet, but I will look them all over with Wilburforce, entertain petitions, attempt to return lands rightfully to those who have lost due to this . . . this—”

“Debacle you may call it.”

He nodded and smiled at her. “That’s a proper word for it.”

She muttered under her breath, “Over three hundred of our citizenry have been jailed in disease-ridden, rat- infested prisons where the numbers of dead have not been kept.”

“Do you know what Sir William Stoughton said to me, Elizabeth?”

“I warned you about that man. I’ve always detested his arrogance and love of power.”

“Do you wish to hear what he had to say then?”

“Of course, I do. I may want to write a book one day.”

“Don’t think of it. A governor’s wife penning a book!”

“So what did he say?”

“He said of his judges, and I quote, ‘We are in one agreement. We have no intention of putting an end to God’s work until every single witch and wizard is found out, confesses—as hundreds have done—or are executed as only a handful have been.”

“So your words to him and the high court fell on deaf ears?”

“Afraid so.”

“Righteous men with a righteous cause are often blinded by their very righteousness. So how will they proceed without a court? If they go against your edict then—”

“Then they will be arrested, and they know it. They have no court overseeing cases of witchcraft no longer.”

“Did you tell them our suspicions against Parris?”

“Only in the most general terms. I didn’t want to cast eyes or aspersions on your father, who some might think this mysterious Dr. Caball.”

She hadn’t considered this and it took her aback, but she dropped it and instead asked, “But you made the point that Parris is an ambitious oaf capable of doing anything to get what he wants?”

“I did; I made that plain enough.” Governor Phipps, a hero of the Indian wars, banged the top of the carriage with his cane, using the signal for speed. The carriage moved faster over the road to Boston and home.

# # # # #

In further public forums, the Governor declared repeatedly that every jail door be opened in a General Amnesty to all prisoners within and specifically anyone accused of witchcraft or murder by means of witchcraft. William Phipps went on to publicly denounce the use of nightmares, ghost stories, or spectral evidence of any sort in any court in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.