Children of Salem

sins of her mother in the form of quaking fits and an unhealthy body. In fact, all of the mother’s nine other children had paid the ultimate price. Nine dead children before Anne Junior—all lost.

How many times had mother told Anne the story? How could a minister, a man of God, a man Mother professed her love for—how could he place such a terrible curse on the unborn, on all of the issue of Thomas Putnam? Unless . . . unless Bailey was not a man of God after all but an imposter! Else his grief over the sudden end of his own family had turned him to the darkness and the Devil.

Perhaps . . . or worse.

Some word went around that Bailey, being the Devil himself used the parsonage badly, and was punished by an angry God. How else to explain why his entire family was destroyed?

Some went further to say that the next minister, a man named Burroughs, who displayed superhuman strength on more than one occasion, was Bailey returned in a new guise as Salem Village parish minister, again bringing a family with him, and again watching that family wither and die in yet another plague on the parsonage home. A necessary plague brought down upon it by the wrath of God Himself.

Some went further to say that the next minister, Samuel Parris, was again the Devil who’d found yet another family in order to cover his cloven hoof prints, so as to rejoin the battle for the cursed parish and parsonage home, and that this time the Devil had hold of the deed!

Anne now believed, magically enough, that Mercy’s presence had dispelled the decade’s curse, and in Anne’s eyes Mercy had indeed cast off the ghosts bedeviling the Putnam home—and quite possibly the entire parish. Now Anne saw Samuel Parris as just a man with a family and a desire to do right and good in the parish. The Devils— if there were any in the parish—were those who stood against their minister, just as her father and mother had said so often in conversation, and to which Mercy agreed.

For Anne, Mercy proved a godsend. Mercy truly loved Anne, who’d never felt anything approaching unconditional love or even simple affection from anyone, including her parents. The relationship between Anne and her parents had the character of a deathwatch even now after nine years.

Besides, Mercy told fortunes by the sieve and scissors—a proven method. She also told the future by flames on a log, ripples on water, tealeaves even. Mercy knew all about the planets, stars, stones, and plants. She knew something of poisons too. She knew the magical properties needed to make a person fall sick or come well and heal, and she claimed to know how to bake a witch pie.

Again in the middle of the night, the children were awakened by Anne Putnam Senior’s night terrors, or rather the result of these—screams and loud argument. Mercy lifted the trap to hear the details. From below, Anne’s mother shouted, “I’m only one person! A woman at that! What can I do? It’s nothing I can manage alone! Haunt Thom! Strike Thom! Bite and pinch and tear at Thomas as ya do me! Wake him with hot coals and bloody pins and needles!”

Mercy, seeing that Anne had awakened and returned to her bed to sleep alone, asked, “How come these ghosts never go after your father?”

“Never,” mumbled Anne. “He’s blind and deaf to ’em.”

“Afraid of him are they?”

“No, he’s got no eyes for spirits.”

“No eyes for ghosts?”

“Like most men, blind to the Invisible World all round us.”

Every child of Salem Village had the notions of the Invisible World with all its punishments drilled into them.

“You sayin’ it’s a woman’s lot to be haunted?”

“Women being more open to invisible creatures, yes.”

“Women and children like you, you mean?”

“Yeah, women and children.”

“Why do you s’pose it’s so?”

“Dunno.”

“I could ask Goode or Tituba to do some magic that’d stop the curse on your family forever, Anne, if you wish me to.”

“You can?”

“I could.”

“You think it’d stop my mother’s being haunted?”

“Depends on how strong the curse is.”

Anne sat considering this for several silent moments.

Mercy climbed in beside her and took her hand in hers. “You know on dark nights when there’s no moon, that’s when Goode gets past the sheriff and the curfew.”

“Yes? And?”

“And she goes to somewhere in the woods.”

“Woods?”

“Swampscott, it’s called. It’s where she meets with the others.”

“Others?

“Other witches, and together—well together, their magic is stronger. Tituba has met with Goode out at the swamps in the forests.”

“Have you?”

“Have I what?”

“Met with Goode in the forest.”

“Me and Betty have, yes.”

“Betty Paris? When?”

“The last night I was in my uncle’s house. Tituba woke us and guided us.”

“Tituba? Did she fly you and Betty on a broomstick?”

Mercy laughed. “No! We walked, but I saw a black wolf following us.”

“A wolf?”

“A wolf who turned into a man, and we all knew a man wearing the black robes who watched everything.”

“A minister? A werewolf?”

“A minister with cloven feet, and he slobbered and drooled.”

“God, a wolf man. W-What’d you do?”

“Danced with ‘im.”

“No!”

“Round a fire, it was.”

“No! A bonfire?” Anne’s eyes went wide. “I’d love it!”

“Was only a small fire. We didn’t want to draw attention.”

“Then Tituba is a witch like Goode?”

“She’s a good witch.”

“But Goode is not?”

“Depends whether she likes you or not.”

Anne scratched her head over this.

Another horrid scream came from Mrs. Putnam’s bedroom. Anne shivered and confessed that since Mercy’s arrival, she’d had no visits from her dead siblings.

“I’m a charm, a good luck charm,” Mercy told her. “Tituba made me a charm.”

Another scream from below and Anne clutched to her newfound charm.

“Easy, my little doll,” said Mercy. “Why’re you so afraid? Don’t be afraid. I’ll protect you.”

Mercy tightened her hold on Anne. For whatever reason, Mercy pictured the old crone, Goode going about her day in Salem Village. It’d always been Goode’s habit to go door-to-door, begging scraps, begging for tatters of cloth, collecting bottles, tin cups, bells. She liked bells and jars. Mercy would see her at the seashore, collecting shells, pebbles, and periwinkles for periwinkle stew. Mercy always saw little Dorcas with her mother, and she imagined what it must be like to be the child of a witch. Yet it made no sense; if Goode were such a powerful cunning woman, then why couldn’t she fix her own daughter’s addled brain?