Children of Salem

to make Jeremy fear a cinder might blind her.

“Confess and Satan can do no harm!”

Putnam took this up like a chant. “Confess! Confess and the Devil himself can do you no harm! Parris held her by the neck now, the flames licking closer toward Mercy as if curious and interested in the child. “Through contrition and pleading God’s merciful help, we rid you of this devil plaguing you!”

“Leave her alone!” shouted the scrawny, bird-legged Anne Junior, rushing at Jeremiah and grabbing his hand, pleading, “Don’t hurt Mercy! She’s my only friend! Please don’t let them hurt her!”

This prompted Jeremy to intervene. “Reverend, you’ll blind the child so near to the flames!”

“Then blind she’ll be if necessary!” he shouted back. “Whatever it takes to rid the devil that plays within’er!”

“She’s a child, sir!”

“A possessed child!” He pushed Jeremy out of his way and forced Mercy’s already reddened face back toward the flames. “We have my black servant and old Goode under lock and key for bringing this child and others to Satan! So don’t interfere, Mr. Wakely!”

“Tituba? Goode, locked away?” Jeremy asked. “But I saw Goode only last night wandering about the storm like a mad-hatter.”

“Williard rounded her up. Warrants’ve been sworn out against the two of ’em!”

Mercy’s singed hair filled the room with a bad odor, and Mercy began a horrid screaming as her torso and face felt the flames, even as burning embers from the hearth continued to sizzle her long, red hair. Jeremy rushed back to snatch the crazed Parris off the child when suddenly Mercy began a ratcheting, stuttering growl that came up from deep within, and she suddenly began gasping, her body heaving and convulsing until vomit spewed forth in a rich brown gruel looking like something dredged from an outhouse.

The Putnams and little Anne had jumped back, and Jeremy held himself in check, but Parris grabbed Mercy by the neck and pushed the girl’s face toward her own vomit and shouted, “There! There it is in its raw, ugly form! The demon has leapt into the flames, leaving a vile residue of itself!”

Mercy continued spitting and spewing and attempted to pull away from her uncle’s grasp.

“Enough!” Jeremy shouted.

“Thom! Get the dustbin and sweeper!” Parris’ huge hands flew about his head like two angry birds.

Putnam shouted, “What?”

“Do it! Sweep the vile stuff up and cast it into the flames after the source that your home be rid of it! The smoke will take it up and out the chimney, man!”

Putnam, fearful, stood with dustbin and broom, shaking. Mrs. Putnam grabbed these items from her husband. “For God’s sake, Thomas! I’ll do it.”

Do-as-Parris-says appeared the watchword here, and Jeremiah caught his glare, as he had dared to interfere. Parris still held Mercy in his grasp, and he spoke to Mrs. Putnam as she ‘handled’ the demonic residue, working it into the black dustbin, careful not to come into contact with the brown gruel.

Parris told her, “Leave not a trace of it in your home!”

Parris, triumphant the moment Anne Carr Putnam cast the vile juices of Satan into the flames, finally released Mercy, who, simpering and panting, her face scorched by the fames, crawled into a corner in the manner of a frightened animal. Young Anne took tentative steps toward Mercy, but her mother swiftly lifted the black, wrought iron dustbin like a stout wall between the two children. Mother Putnam then asked, “Reverend Parris, do you think now that it is safe for these two children to hug as normal children might?”

“I do not think so, Goodwife Putnam. I know so. You saw for yourself the result of my exorcism of the demon. Poor Mercy, all this time misunderstood and maligned.” He patted her red head several times, Mercy flinching with each touch.

Thomas straightened as if at attention. “Seen it with our own eyes, even your apprentice can attest to it, right, Mr. Wakely?”

Jeremy sucked in a deep breath of air, frustrated as the superstition of the backwoods people and how adroitly Parris played this instrument. “Yes, yes, Goodman Putnam. We all saw it.”

Something in his tone caught Mrs. Putnam’s ire. “Did you not, Mr. Wakely?”

Back to the wall on the point, Jeremy, knowing he must remain the doting apprentice a little longer, nodded as vigorously as he could muster, but at the same time, he could muster no sincere words of agreement.

“Rest assured, this child is without an evil bone now,” came Parris’ final word on the subject. He then shook Putnam’s hand and bowed to Mrs. Putnam. With a quick glance at Mercy, still in a ball in the corner with Anne holding her, Parris bid the family adieu. Jeremy, too, glanced back at the sad little scene of the two girls in the corner. They had the look of a pair of trapped animals.

On the street and in public view, Samuel Parris lambasted Jeremiah, shouting at the top of his lungs. “You are here to back me up, not to challenge my—”

“I’m sorry, but I feared the girl’s hair afire, sir!”

“Quiet! I’ve not finished.”

“Sorry, sir.” Jeremy fell silent, thinking, how much more cow-towing to this miscreant can I stomach?

“You weren’t sent here to undermine, to question or raise doubt, or—”

“But isn’t it in the nature of theology to ques—”

“Never! Not in my philosophy are you to-to knowingly challenge my word or my procedure, to destabilize, demoralize or dishearten or deflate my efforts, Jer—Mr. Wakely! Is that clear?”

“Sir, I am not one of your servants!”

“You are my apprentice, which by definition makes you my inferior, young man, and if I deem you a servant, then you shall be a servant—”

“I serve only God, sir,” he retaliated, immediately sorry but he could not stop himself. “God and truth! And what I saw inside the Putnam home is—was—hardly truth. More like a parlor trick.”

Parris took him aside and between two buildings for more privacy. “Aye, to some degree, yes, I confess. A parlor trick as you call it, but Jeremy, you see its effectiveness. Its efficacy, my boy! You must see that!”

“Then you agree with me?” asked Jeremy, his jaw set.

Parris frowned at this. Then he gave out with a light, birdlike chuckle. “I suppose I do. That is to say, yes, we do agree on something at last.”

“To use such superstitions, Mr. Parris, it can only, in the long run, perpetuate superstitious notions and misleading beliefs.”

“Damn it man, can you for a fact say that the devil is not the root cause of illness in body, mind, and soul?”

“No, but by the same token—”

“That the Sly One is not behind all corruption?”

“—but in terrifying children—”

“Can you say it is not so?”

“No, but—”

“Not our finest physicians, judges, or theologians know the answer to that—not even Increase Mather. I’ve read his sermons!”

Jeremy gritted his teeth, but to end the friction over this event, he quietly nodded and muttered, “Agreed, sir.”

They continued homeward, Parris slapping Jeremy on the back now. “Just in future, man, always, always back me up.”

“Yes, of course.” Jeremy must maintain his cover, but it tasted like bile.

“Good, good. You’re about to have another opportunity to back me, Goodfriend, sooner than you realize.”

“Oh? Has it to do with the Goode woman and Tituba Indian being arrested?”

“It has all to do with those two conniving wenches and the problems plaguing both this parish and my house.”

“Can you be more precise, sir?”

“I’m afraid somehow—I know not precisely how—they have poisoned Betty.”