Children of Salem

She turned her head and the beautiful features he expected behind the long, loose, yellow hair turned into those of Sarah Goode, the witchy woman. “Can I help you, Goodman Putnam?”

“No, no, no! I mistook you for-for someone else.”

“If it’s a warm shanks you’re needin’ Goodman, it’ll cost ya two shillings.”

“You vile old woman! Wash your mouth while you’re at it!”

“My mouth is not so vile as your mind!” she countered and cackled.

“Steer clear of my hearth and family!”

“If you’ll have a word with Paris, restore my child to me!”

He gritted his teeth. “Someone ought to see you to the hangman!”

Goode had regained her feet, and now she again cackled and leapt into the brook and splashed and danced like a madcap monkey.

Putnam rushed off for village and home and the semblance of safety, realizing that if she was a witch, he could be at mercy of her curse here and now. He turned his horse and kicked. Forgetting the rough terrain, he was taken by surprise when his mare snorted and abruptly balked, throwing him headlong between the nag’s ears to land among fallen tree limbs and stones.

Putnam’s body hit with a horrendous thud to Goode’s cackling delight. He sat up, her awful laughter filling him with a venomous rage when he realized he could not stand, that one ankle was broken. He’d need a crutch; he’d have to go about the village like an old man. And it had all happened the moment old Goode had cast her eye on him.

The crone bewitched my horse, made him throw me, he thought while struggling to remount and move on—twisted ankle, cuts, bruises, and a curse of his own on his busted lip for Goode, and one for Sheriff Williard for good measure for having held him over at Bray’s place. Had Williard not shown up with his self- righteous speechifying, Thom Putnam would not have crossed paths with this despicable witch.

Chapter Nine

Not long afterward, Sarah Goode saw Susana Sheldon at their private meeting place in the woods near Will’s Brook at the bend called Three Forks. With Susana’s grimy face tear-stained and smeared, she spoke between sobs. “I hate them! I hate both of them and their friends!”

“The Wilkinses is ugly people sure.” Goode gave the child a smoking pipe to suck on. “They all calls me ugly, and sure I am on the outside—ha! Given me age, and me spots, and me warts, but they’re uglier’n me by degrees with their black innards and their black hearts.”

“They never let up.”

“But is the bear grease helping, child?”

“Helps when he’s sober, but not when he’s drunk.”

“Never know’d a man with no sense-a-odor like Bray; likely all that tobacco he chews and snorts and smokes.”

“He’s disgusting, and she’s hateful—and now I’ve got that other one after me, too.”

“We’ve got to find of that snake pit, child. We must.”

“You got your own worries now with Dorcas.”

“Aye, I do. But I’ve not forgotten ye! Maybe, if we work things right, dearie, you can come live with Dorcas and me, and I can teach you the arts.”

“The black arts?”

“Them arts, too, but mostly the art of protection.”

“What’d you bring me this time?” asked Susana, hands behind her back, eyes closed, swaying as if a toddler again.

Goode held up a small sack. “Open yer eyes, girl! Put this into his bed.” The sack moved, wriggling with some life within.

“Wh-h-h-at is it? A rat?

“Nay, a poisonous snake.”

“I-I ain’t sure I-I can . . . ”

“Yes you can. Choose which of the two you hate most—Bray or the hag he calls Goodwife, and use the snake. He’s charmed against harmin’ you.”

The wool bag changed hands. “I best get back.” Susana rushed off, going back toward the house, wondering where to hide the snake until she might use it.

“Men’re an ugly, sorry lot, they are!” shouted Goode after Susana.

Susana shouted back, “They ought hang every sorry one of ’em, ’specially those calling themselves reverend and deacon and elder and captain!”

“Reverend, ha! Nothing reverent ’bout Sam Parris. May he rot in hell for his dirty blasphemies. Using the Lord’s own words when he’s got nothing but evil for a heart.”

# # # # #

The following day in Salem Village

Samuel Parris called Jeremiah into his sparse private quarters. He asked Jeremy to sit in a chair in one corner while he straddled a second, nothing between them. “I want to count you more than my apprentice alone, Mr. Wakely,”

“Really, sir? How so? I mean, whatever I can do to be of service, you know—” Jeremy had affected his role as naive stumbling apprentice well up to this time, and he hoped to continue on with his true nature invisible to the minister and his network of friends, relatives, elders, and deacons.

“I wish to count you, Jeremy, as . . . as a reliable Goodfriend.”

Goodfriend Wakley, Jeremy thought, a nice ring to it. There were Goodmen, Goodwives, and Goodfriends in Puritan life. “Ah . . . Goodfriend, me, sir?”

“I hope in our short acquaintance, Jeremy, that I have earned the title along with your trust and companionship? Jeremiah?”

“Yes. . . yes, Goodfriend Samuel, you have it.” The lie had Jeremy biting his tongue.

“And your backing in all things.”

“I would likewise hope for the same in re-reciprocation, sir . . . ah-ah Goodfriend.” Jeremy had been taken by surprise at this turn of events, and he wondered what he’d done to warrant this declaration of trust from the reverend.

“Good, good!” Parris smiled in a manner Jeremy had never seen from him before except when he played with little Betty, tossing her in the air. “I need to know you are on my side in any fight, Jeremy.”

Jeremy swallowed hard. “I hope you have no fights you cannot win, sir. . . I mean Goodfriend.”

“I like the sound of it, Jeremy. Like the arrangement, and you can dispense with the sir-sir-sir.”

“But in public, sir.”

“Yes, most likely best, and perhaps best that we keep this between us for the time being, not to be too openly aligned. Most of all, I like you, young man! And I will do my utmost to be a good friend to thee.”

“Excellent…excellent.” Jeremy felt a rising sense of guilt. He had always been told that people warmed to him, even strangers; that he had a gift for putting people around him at ease, and that it was not so much what he said and did as what he didn’t say and didn’t do that afforded him the trust of others. It was a trait that Increase Mather had ceased upon early on.

“Now about our talk yesterday?”

“We’ve had many talks, sir.”

“Regarding George Burroughs.”

“Ah, yes, the former minister here.” Parris seemed to have a fixation on this man who had preceded him in the village parish. Time and again, he brought up stories and rumors that had swirled about the name Burroughs for years here.

“Do you know there is talk among my enemies about this man.”

“Talk? What sort of talk?”

“Talk of importing him back here to reinstate him in my position. Can it be