Children of Salem

And why wasn’t the old woman’s curse on Parris’ house working?

And why’s it seem I have more influence over Anne and her family than that so-called witch, who can’t even regain her own daughter from Uncle Samuel?

In the short span of time that Mercy had been under the Putnam roof, she’d been frightened countless times by the night screams. Shortly after her first night the father attempted to corner her in some private place, obviously wanting to put his hands on her. This followed by Anne’s mother’s beating her with the tattling rod when she dared complain. Add to it all how little Anne now hung on her to forget her dead brothers and sisters, and the entire mix boggled the mind.

Mercy lifted Anne’s frightened little face, tilting it to her lips, and she kissed the younger girl full on the mouth, her tongue exploring. Anne responded to the sensations that Mercy imagined the younger girl had never experienced. Anne hungrily returned the kiss. Mercy then moved Anne’s mouth to her bared breast, offering a nipple, which young Anne grasped with hungry lips and smothered with lapping tongue. “Right . . . right . . . good, my little doll, my little darling. You do this, and I’ll ask Goode to lift the curse on your home.”

Anne’s warm breath and small mouth filled Mercy’s nightshirt, and the two fell asleep in one another’s arms.

Chapter Eight

At the Nurse home the following morning

Twenty-four-year-old Serena Nurse awoke that same morning with the unhappy condition of still living under her father’s roof. Her three sisters, and all of her older brothers had all married and were raising children. They each busied themselves in building their own homes and families while Serena was becoming increasingly referred to as the unfortunate one—a role fate had placed her in since birth, or so it went. A huge invisible S hung about her next like an albatross—S for spinster. She might just as well stitch the word to her dresses and shirts.

Her mother had said only last night, “Your sister Becca’s to have another child.”

Becca’s third. Serena had replied with a pasted on smile: “Sweet, smart, beautiful Becca, how wonderful for her and John Tarbell.”

Becca was the eldest sister, named after her mother, Rebecca. Mary, the younger sister, already had three boys, Elizabeth a boy and a girl. Nephews and nieces to spare for Auntie Serena.

Dressed in a shift-dress and her brother’s white shirt tucked and covered by a cowhide vest, Serena frowned at her reflection and angrily pulled a brush through her hair as if the effort might push unwanted thoughts away. She hoped Mother might later braid her hair, but for now, she tidied it into a ponytail. She was so very tired of having it up in a severe bun in the style of her mother and grandmother; she was even more tired of wearing plain and colorless, baggy clothing—gray, beige, and brown items that hung like a sheet from thick, ugly shoulder straps as big as a harness. To make matters worse, people expected her to then cover this with an equally ugly apron—a symbol of oppression so far as she was concerned. The damnable apron and bonnet. In general, women had one purpose in life—to learn the trade of the good and dutiful wife—the Goodwife or slave to a Goodman! She must conform—as assuredly as all men must learn the frugal and sensible management of resources or husbandry.

She said to her reflection, “Serenity Nurse—despite your name—you’ll never be treated like someone’s herd animal.” She would never be a resource in that sense, but most good men in their society thought of and treated their wives and children as chattel, and their maid servants had it even worse.

She picked up an awful gingham bonnet that her father always pestered her to wear. She flung it across the room. Finished primping, she stepped away from the mirror and out of her bedroom and into the great room to find it empty. Unusual. Where is everyone, she wondered. “Mother? Father?”

No answer.

Stillness. The house felt heavy with emptiness.

The night before they’d celebrated with ale and melon when Mother Nurse had found the strength to climb from her months’ long sickbed. She’d been ill the entire winter. Mrs. Rebecca Nurse had aged over those months, losing much of her hair, her sight weakening, the old strength in her voice and body now a ghost of itself—until last night. Last night she’d spent several hours at the hearth here in the great room in grand spirits and having a dram of spirits as well.

But where was Mama now? And Papa for that matter?

“Can ya do something with your mother, Serena?” Her father poked his head in at the window. He stood out on the porch, waving his arms.

Serena rushed to his side. “What is it?”

Francis Nurse, stooped with age and a head shorter than Serena, nodded in the direction of the three oaks. “Look at her. Fool woman.”

Serena watched her mother walking amid the snow-covered ground where outdoor tables for picnics stood upended against the oaks. While she had a homespun shawl pinned over her shoulders, Rebecca wore a thin sack- cloth dress, socks and shoes. “I don’t understand. What is she doing with that broom?”

“Dusting the snow away. She’s insisting we ready the tables for a meal.”

“What? Now? In this cold? How could you let her, Papa!”

“I tried to stop her! You know how stubborn she is!”

Serena watched her mother, broom in hand, waddling about beneath her three oaks. Her “precious trees” as she called them. The huge oaks adorned their front yard. Rebecca whisked snow from the upturned tables that leaned in against the trunks. Serena leaned into her father and said, “But it’s so cold; it’s only March.”

“Tell her that. I’ve tried.”

“Obviously not hard enough.”

“‘No sitting on cold ground or benches in any month with an R in it’ I told her!”

“Is she out of her head?”

“Stubborn, ornery is what, like I said. Like you, she is.”

Ornery or uncertain, ornery or fearful, Serena wondered. Was her mother afraid if they waited longer for the traditional Easter gathering beneath the oaks that she wouldn’t be on hand? That she would’ve passed on before April or May when the more clement weather prevailed?

Her long illness and convalescence had had the entire family thinking such thoughts, Serena included. But now her mother was putting down the tables, dusting them with broom. “Perhaps you should lend a hand, Father.”

“I thought it’d dissuade her when I refused to help,” Francis said, a year older than Rebecca.

Serena stared a moment at her square-shouldered, short father, his skin as brown the bark on the oaks, a result of years of labor beneath the sun. “Now you’re being stubborn.” Barefoot, Serena rushed to help her mother with the chore.

“Persuade her away from there and back inside,” he shouted after Serena.

“Why’re you still under my roof, child?” Rebecca Nurse asked Serena now alongside her, helping her to bring down a second table to set it upright.

“I’m too tall perhaps? Too thin maybe? Perchance too awkward . . . ”

“Men like women with rumps as soft and round as the bread we bake.”

This made mother and daughter laugh. Then Rebecca added, “I think it’s your mouth, child.”

“But I don’t swear . . . not often.”

“No, but you’ve never learned to hold your tongue. Men can’t abide a woman—”

“—Who talks back! I know, I know.” Serena had heard this now habitual remark so often that it no longer held any hurt. “Little wonder no one will have me, eh, Mother?”

“Indeed. Candlewick.” It was an endearment Rebecca had given Serena when she was a preteen, one that spoke of her thin and sinewy stature then but hardly anymore. She had filled out, her tomboy appearance gone with her curvaceous body.

From beneath her bonnet, Rebecca said,“I sent your brother, Ben, to call everyone here.”

Serena hadn’t heard the nickname, Candlewick, in perhaps six or so years, but here was Mother saying it as if her youngest daughter was still a child and a tomboy at that.