“That wasn’t your father’s entire protest.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“It was all to denounce Governor Andros, at a time when no one was speaking out against that tyrant.”
“Governor Andros?”
“Yes, for his being a liar and a thief, stealing from the church coiffures.”
“To lay down and die for a belief and for love at once . . . A protest beyond what the villagers did to him? I never knew.”
“Now you know, so perhaps the entire village isn’t to be painted with black tar.”
She reached across the divide between them and took his hand in hers.
Jeremy dropped her reins, returning control of her animal. “Still, Serena, though I love you, the idea of settling down on this land and becoming another farmer under your father’s hand, and in this village, it just isn’t appealing. I have larger plans.”
“I want to hear these larger plans then.”
Jeremy laid out his every movement from the night he met with Cotton Mather and Reverend Higginson until now, but this history only made Serena more adamant in her desire to see him out of such intrigue.
“Come away from that bed beneath Parris’ stairwell and stay at the house with us. Get to know father and mother again.”
“I’d like nothing better, dear one, but I have to finish what I’ve begun. It’s part of my larger plans—and how did you know I was sleeping beneath Parris’ stairs?”
“There is little goes on in the village that isn’t known by all, Jeremy.”
“Except that I am no minister.”
“Come away now, Jeremy, please before you are unmasked and thrown in the stocks as an imposter.”
“Parris hasn’t the power to affect an arrest on such charges! I have Mather’s backing in this affair.”
“Don’t underestimate what that man is capable of,” she warned.
“I’ve no doubt he is of a vile spirit, but, Serena, I have to finish what I’ve begun.”
She gave him a stern look of disapproval.
“I’ve told you how serious my work is.”
“Is it your plan to be Mather’s
“That’s not fair, Serena. When this is over, I’m promised a judgeship in the colonial province of my choosing, perhaps even Boston.”
“The scars of your past are still dictating your life, Jere.”
“That’s not—”
She snatched at her reins, and her horse reared on its hindquarters in response to her expert signals, and she shouted, “Find me then when you’re finished playing games, Jeremy! When you are once again your own man!”
“A man fulfills the contract he signs!” he shouted after her.
But Serena had galloped off toward home, leaving Jeremy alone with the final weak, winking stars before twilight. He feared losing Serena, feared their love could disappear like the night sky if it were not nurtured with care. He’d felt that way even as they were locked in embrace.
Then a looming fear filled Jeremiah. Suppose he lost his quiet war against Parris? Suppose he lost everything. Mather’s trust, his appointment, and most of all his fair-haired Serena? Losing her a second time, he’d never again have this gift in hand, and he knew it.
Chapter Sixteen
Reverend Samuel Parris carefully outlined his argument. Unfolding it point by point to the mesmerized senses of one Thomas Putnam who listened in rapt attention. Putnam, although related to Parris, had great admiration for the other man’s obvious learning and worldliness, and Thomas felt proud that Parris had singled him out for this talk of impending doom about to befall their parish. Thomas straightened his stiff, splintered leg toward Parris’s hearth fire, and he accepted yet another cup of the Canary wine the minister plied him with. “Go on, Samuel, go on,” he muttered.
“There is a coven, Thomas, a witch coven operating under our noses.”
“You don’t say?”
“An entire nest of devil-worshipping monsters in our midst.”
“Who? Who are they?”
“I can’t supply you with all their names.”
“No names?”
“I know two for certain.”
“
“Goode and—”
“No surprise there.”
“And my Indian woman, Tituba.”
“A vanguard for worse yet?” Thomas poked.
“Vanguard, yes.”
“These Satanists’re all about us, you say?” Putnam searched every corner of the dark house that’d been so difficult on every minister who’d ever inhabited the parish home. “I see the wisdom of your point.”
Parris paced. “They dare attack me, Thomas, through Betty!”
“My God, no!”
“And you! Are you blind?”
“Whatever do you mean?”
“Blind to the suffering of your little Anne, and the torments that your wife endures?”
“Of course, not! I see the suffering. Damn it, man, I hear it nightly.”
“But have you given thought to the root cause?”
“Root cause?”
“Think on it, Thom!”
“Do you mean to say . . . ”
“Yes! Nine Putnam children—your progeny—stricken down before they might take hold of life! What else but witchcraft? Murder of the innocent by chicanery.”
“My children . . . murdered by witches?”
“How else do you lose nine innocents, and Little Anne bravely holding on?”
“M-My wife and one living child b-b-bewitched?”
“Bedeviled, your wife and daughter are constantly being attacked in the same manner as my own Betty by-by those who’ve taken
“No witch can think she can work her magic on you, cousin,” Thomas mused, snatching at his beard. “Yet Goode has made threats against Betty. I heard it.”
“Unable to work her magic on we who are strong, Thom, they attack our women.”
Thomas Putnam’s eyes widened. Every illness, each hardship he’d ever faced had this moment a new light flooding over it. “I see.”
“You need but open your eyes, man.”
“What do we do, Samuel?”
“Women and children they attack, you see, because they’re more easily deceived.”
“Stands to reason.”
“Weaker of mind and body, you see.”
“More easily attacked, yes.”
“And they’re more easily tempted away from the light.”
“So true.”
