Children of Salem

And so troubled minds abounded at 3AM. Jeremy had certainly awakened to the noise resulting at that satanic hour emanating from Parris’ room.

“Aye, we’re all a bit crazy at that hour, e’en more than at the witching hour.”

“The stroke of midnight, yes.”

“Why do you suppose evil spirits and followers of pagan religions and Satan keep to such a rigid time clock, Mr. Wakely?” Ingersoll’s emphasis on Mr. Wakely was said with a wink.

“Ah, a test of my studies, Deacon?”

“Just a question to a budding minister and spiritual guide is all.”

Jeremy smiled at the deacon’s addressing him as a spiritual guide. “Perhaps it’s allowed by our Maker as He allows Satan to roam among us—to drive us into temptation, to test our mettle as they say?”

“By the planets, you’re a minister after all!”

“Not technically so, not yet.”

“But well on your way.” He toasted to Jeremiah’s health.

“And to yours, sir.” Jeremy got the distinct impression that Ingersoll, among other elders and deacons, had been asked to throw theological questions at him, and then to report back to Parris on how well or how poorly Mr. Wakely performed. Perhaps it was not so. Perhaps it was all in his imagination, but it certainly seemed so—for at every turn some elder was picking at some bit of religious quibble intent on a solution out of Jeremy’s mouth.

“And to providence!” declared Ingersoll, who had poured himself a rare dram for this time of day.

“And to the continued health and wellbeing of-of the village and all in it, sir.” Again they toasted and soon their pints were drained.

“Well, I’ve yet to put up today’s notices,” said Ingersoll, his beard glistening with the ale that’d passed over the bristles. He lifted a handful of notices along with hammer and tacks. Jeremy saw the usual notices: births, deaths, and all the minutia in between: taxes, weddings, a newly foaled pony, a calf born with two tails and three legs to Mr. Putnam, an illness befalling Betty Parris having been lifted by the Grace of God, signed by Reverend Parris, and a dog gone mad alongside a small notice of a mine collapse that’d killed two men outright, a third after being dragged out, and several injured. This notice listed the names of the dead alongside the injured. The final notice that caught Jeremy’s gaze had apparently been up for some time—the official notice of excommunication of one Sarah Goode. Staring at the order from the church assize of one Samuel Parris, Jeremy said, “Some things never change, do they?”

“Oh but Jeremiah, if anyone deserved banning and shunning, it’s that wild, mindless, foul-mouthed woman. It’d be a blessing if she’d leave—join all the sinners in Rhode Island.”

“The place for all spiritual lepers, yes, and she deserves it no less than my mother and father?”

Ingersoll looked stricken, but he quickly continued posting the new notices and tearing away the old. Jeremy could let it go, but he instead added, “The subject of Rhode Island came up then, too.”

“Two entirely different situations, Jeremy. You can’t compare the need we have of ridding Salem of this Devil’s whore to-to . . .”

“This is why Reverend Parris took her child from her? The first step in ridding the village of old Goody Goode?”

“No one’s called her Goodwoman for a decade. She once did only white magic, yes, sure. I even partook of her services from time to time, but Jeremiah, nowadays . . . well she’s turned to black magic.”

“The black arts or love, take your pick, either is reason enough to excommunicate a neighbor, eh?”

“Love? Ah, as in the love between your father and step-mum.” Ingersoll banged the last tack into the last notice he’d put up. He turned and with the hammer upraised, stared straight into Jeremy’s eyes and said, “I voted against that sour business, Jeremy. You must know that.”

Jeremy held his gaze. “No . . . no, I never knew that; I assumed everyone was equal to the task of driving my father out.”

“’Twas far from a unanimous decision.”

“News to me.”

“You were young.” The big man shrugged. “The young assume everything.”

“Too bad we didn’t have a cannon back then, eh?”

“You were a good watchman and mate.”

“With a cannon, I might’ve fired one off at the meetinghouse door.”

Ingersoll stood mute at this a moment before bursting out in laughter.

Jeremy slapped him on the arm. “Look here, my calling on you this morning is twofold, Lieutenant Ingerstoll.” Jeremy held out a folded piece of paper to Ingersoll.

“A notice from you, Jeremy?”

“Notices, actually, two from—”

“Say no more. Reverend Parris.” Ingersoll’s wide jaw quivered.

“Are you all right, Mr. Ingersoll?”

The big man frowned and shrugged. “The man has taken up half my board.” He indicated the other notices. “What’s it now?”

“He does strike me as a . . . contentious man.”

“A single word that sums ’im up, sure.” Ingersoll then read the latest notice from Parris.

“A brief announcement of my being his apprentice,” muttered Jeremy. “The other regards his daughter.”

“I’ve already a notice regarding his daughter’s recovery.”

“This is no recovery; Betty’s had a relapse.”

Ingersoll looked stricken, his tongue silenced. “I prayed her illness at an end.” Ingersoll shook his head and his hammer. He stripped away the older notice and tacked up the new one which read:

To All Whom It Concern dated this day of March 11:

Please you everyone in the parish pray for my little Betty as she’s had a relapse and your minister and the physician seeing my child doth fear her under attack by forces of darkness. Dr. Porter has corroborated this diagnosis. The forces of evil are using the child to get at your minister, as they haven’t the nerve to directly attack a man of God. Again I ask for prayers, and those of your families—not for me but on behalf of my beloved daughter, so as to beat back the invisible enemy.

Yours in all sincerity,

Rev. Samuel. Parris

“A lot of sickness going round this winter?” asked Jeremy.

Ingersoll solemnly nodded. “For a time, I feared the plague’d returned.”

“Betty was up and about yesterday, but I looked in on her while her father kneeled and prayed at her bedside. She was flush with a scarlet hue. The family is distraught to say the least.”

“All on the heels of his brave challenge to that witch, Goode.”

“I was with him when she laid on a curse. She was angry,” explained Jeremy, “over his having taken her child from her.”

“Prelude to banning her entirely from our midst. I’d say it’s a clear case of an eye for an eye.”

“Eye for eye?”

“Child for child. He takes hers, she his—” Ingersoll pointed to the notice he’d tacked up as if it perfectly summed up the situation. No need of another word.

“You can’t really believe that?” asked Jeremy.

“Aye, indeed I do, as do many who parade through here. We all thought seeing Mr. Parris walking about with his whole family intact these last few days that . . . well it was taken as a favorable sign indeed! But now this.” He banged a fist into a post, shaking loose some goods.

Jeremy stared at the request for prayers posted by Parris, which somehow seemed more about him than the child. “Perhaps if we all pray for the child?” began Jeremiah, noticing others filing into the Inn and remembering the role he was playing. “Perhaps her condition will then improve.”

“Of course, Mr. Wakely,” replied Ingersoll. “Of course.”

Jeremy handed Ingersoll the pouch of notes he’d come to post to Boston. His understanding was that Increase Mather’s eldest son, Cotton, would be reading and responding to his correspondence. Ingersoll promised