Children of Salem

Higginson wanted this man Paris out, they’d find a way to uproot him with or without any dirt that Jeremiah might dig up.

“Porter is his cousin,” sneered Higginson, a bit of uncontrolled spittle escaping his mouth. “He and that fool Thomas Putnam, brother-in-law, went clear to Barbados to entice the devil to come to Salem!”

“These men you name,” began Jeremiah, “they led the delegation to Barbados?”

“Trust me . . . they’re all abed together in all these nefarious affairs.”

Jeremiah asked at this point. “Will you, sirs, and your father, Reverend Mather, will all three of you back me if I am exposed?”

Higginson didn’t hesitate. “If you can prove this hiring of Samuel Parris three years ago was an ill-conceived contract, that there are holes, young man, you have my undying gratitude—which means that of Increase Mather as well.”

“Demonstrate your ability with the law,” added Cotton Mather, “demonstrate that it is an illegal contract. And yes, absolutely, we’ll back you, Wakely. And the more evidence we can bring to bear . . .well…. ”

“We need your experienced eye and ear in that parish, man,” added Higginson. “Meet me at midnight tomorrow night before going into the village.”

“Midnight? Where?”

“At Watch Hill—” he coughed roughly—“before you enter the village for the parish house. When we meet in public, no one can know that we’ve had any contact.”

“Understood but Watch Hill at the witching hour?”

“This fiend, Parris, believes himself the owner of the entire parish and its buildings.” More coughing interrupted the old man. “I will have additional papers, affidavits you should see and read before you go much further.”

“I hope your confidence in me is not misplaced, Reverend Higginson.”

Mather laughed and poured more ale for them all. “Come, come. This is a challenge for a man of your talents, and if you rise to it, Wakely, your star will rise as well. You will’ve finalized your indenture to our family and take up your final education in the law. My father will see to it that you are well rewarded.”

Jeremiah kept his eyes pinned on the elder statesman of the church. Higginson did not flinch or blink. “Increase spoke of a magistrate’s seat opening up…an appointment in a district along the Connecticut, I believe. Once this is over.”

Jeremiah turned to Mather. “I’d like that in writing, sir.”

Again Mather laughed. “That’s why my father likes you, Jeremy! Preparation and reparation. You’re wise enough to cover your backside.”

The powerful Mathers had obviously discussed this matter at length with the patriarch Higginson some time before Reverend Increase Mather had sailed for England in a bid to negotiate a new Charter for the colonies with the new King of England. The Mathers and Higginson believed that an insider was needed, one the powerful ministers, in the end, could control.

Mather now lifted his ale cup and toasted: “Get word back to us, Jeremy.”

Jeremy stayed his hand for any final toast. He feared his coming off as ridiculous in Serena’s eyes— no matter her current situation—when he should show up in that cursed village as a Prodigal Son who’d turned to the clergy. There as an apprentice working toward being ordained a Puritan minister. Far from the promises made to Serena in the letter he’d penned and left behind, that he’d return when he made his way in the world as a man worthy of her. As a result of these careening thoughts, Jeremiah’s ale cup was the last to go up in toast to seal this backroom deal.

The sloshing cup in Higginson’s hand shook like a windblown sheaf of paper. The old man’s other hand, planted firmly on his cane, shook as well, so hard that it sent the cane from side to side. Still, the three men drank to success while Jeremiah thought, but dared not say: Higginson’s one foot is in the grave, the other slipping, while Cotton Mather is the definiton of an opportunist. What private conversations have they had? What do they figure to collect from their schemes? Have I struck a bargain with the devil?

All three men now emptied their cups, but this caused even more ghastly coughing coming from deep within Higginson’s gut. Regardless of Higginson’s difficulty, they all shook hands after Mather, at the last moment, snatched on a white glove.

Then Jeremiah Wakely put aside his cup and said, “I’d best be off…prepare for my trip back to Salem.”

As Jeremiah rushed off, he gave a fleeting thought to Serena Nurse. She represented the only true penitence that’d come of his having left Salem a decade ago. She’d likely be well married by now, perhaps with a toddler if not two, and she’d scarcely give him a glance. As for his giving her a glance, it’d likely be from afar if at all.

She’d be untouchable of course, and she’d surely have forgotten all about him by now. Serena hadn’t been the only reason he’d not wanted this duty, but she remained the only reason he’d not spoken of. To speak of the depth of his pain and longing to such men as Mather and Higginson might well have gotten him a cheery pat on the back and a bit of a chuckle but hardly understanding. At least he imagined as much now as he made his way along the closed-in, dark streets of Boston’s North End, going for his lodgings.

The few lamps that lit his way only made the darker corners and hideaways blacker still: places that cloaked piratical Portuguese sailors waiting for a berth alongside the usual scoundrels and human jetsam. His path took him within speaking and hearing distance of such men lolling about a tavern or locked away in the North End jail. All signs said that a cutthroat might leap out at him at the next footfall. Someone who might as casually kill him for what loose coin jingled in his pouch as say “G’evenin’ gov’ner.”

As he passed ships in the harbor, the rigging beating an ominous sound in a building wind, he thought of how Reverend Mather had meant to keep Reverend Higginson’s presence in Boston their little secret until the old man came storming from behind that door.

Did everyone in the church have a secret passion or something to hide? What did it gain Mather the Younger to align himself with the most powerful churchman in Salem Town, a seaport doing twice the business with England and foreign ports as Boston these days? A seaport destined to become the center of all commerce in the Massachusetts Bay Colony?

Sleep on it, he told himself.

It’d been a long journey to Boston from Casco Bay, Maine, where his last assignment had taken him to another troubled parish. Then the Puritan leadership kept close watch on a former minister of Salem Village, Reverend George Burroughs.

The minister had left Salem in disgrace and under a dark cloud; in fact, he’d left from a jail cell. Nonpayment of debts that’d accrued from two funerals—one for his wife and the other his children, all dead of a plague. Reverend Burroughs had resettled in Maine as a possible heretic. However, Jeremiah’s reports, he believed, vindicated the man, and so he imagined that was one fire he’d doused—and that perhaps his work served a noble purpose after all. But thus far, only Reverend Cotton Mather had read his reports on the matter and no action one way or the other had been taken in the Burroughs affair.

To be sure, George Burroughs proved a colorful character indeed for a man who earned his living from behind a pulpit. Jeremy thought him a minister who might fit in with that colony of misfits—Rhode Island.

By the time Jeremiah found his bed and undressed for sleep, as sleeping naked was his preference, it’d grown quite late. He lay on his rough mattress and pillow in the crowded Red Lion Inn, wakeful yet.

Again he was thinking far more of Serena Nurse than he was of riding off to Salem out of some sense of duty. He worried far more about his first confrontation with her than any eccentric minister or possible heretic, or of Mather’s cow-towing to Higginson, for that matter.

In fact, the image of Serena, ten years younger than today, swept out all other thought. He remembered her golden hair, often flowing loose, always luxurious and framing a heart-shaped, smiling face. He recalled how she smelled as fresh and wonderful as the new morning’s dew that once they rolled about in as foolish and young hearts. He recalled how creamy and smooth her skin was against his, and how sweet her lips to his taste. Her hands so tender and warm, her arms welcoming. All romantic memories that wanted so much to push away the awful reality of the situation.

Bittersweet memories of Serena afforded some comfort, despite his losing her, despite the ache in his heart. It was an image to lull and to anchor a man. Even a man without a home; to lull him into a desire for slumber over drink or gambling or worse vices still. Serena, he asked himself as he dozed off, do you remember or care to remember what we once had?