Children of Salem

“Gentlemen, I have seen this sort of thing in Maine and in Connecticut, and I can tell you that you do not want to turn matter into a spectator sport.”

“Sport? You talk of sport?” countered Parris immediately. “What’re you saying, Mr. Wakely.

“I am saying that to feed fears of witchcraft among us to the general population only breeds the worst kind of chaos, and you might well have lynchings and barn burnings on your hands.”

“Mr. Wakely, you of all people,” shouted Parris, charging toward Jeremy. “You’ve seen my daughter’s affliction. You heard what Dr. Porter and Dr. Swain have diagnosed.”

“True I’ve seen her condition, and I did hear Dr. Swain pronounce her beyond his help.”

“Beyond his help? He said the same as Porter—bewitched—which put her condition beyond them both, beyond medical help.”

Jeremy’s last look at Betty had come only hours ago when Parris insisted he see her condtion at its worst. He had for once not exaggerated the circumstances. While Mary Wolcott suffered from fever and nightmares and talking gibberish, Betty’s body lay twisted in poses impossible to imagine or to be believed without one’s having seen it. The girl had gone into a catatonic state. All the same, Jeremy defended his position in a calm manner.

“I am only suggesting that we have a duty, sir, to seek other answers, other solutions, more experienced medical help perhaps . . . before we begin hanging witches from every tree and turning Salem Village into a-a Goya painting.”

“Sound idea,” said Reverend Joseph Hale of nearby Waverly. Hale had entered from the storm late, removing his wet overcoat just as Jeremiah and Parris had crossed swords. “We must go slowly, carefully, gentlemen.”

“Who is Goya?” asked Corwin, pouring himself another brandy.

Parris had cornered Judge Hathorne now and whispered in his ear while the fire at the hearth invited Hale near, spitting embers and blue flame within the red. Flames were tamped now and again by rainwater seeping down the flue. The flames were welcomed by Hale, a tall, good-looking man below the black uniform of minister as he kept up a noisy appreciation of warming his hands.

Jeremy stood near the hearth as well, but the same flames that warmed Hale only recalled Parris phony exorcism to Jeremy’s mind. He imagined Noyes would have applauded Parris’ performance at the Putnam hearth, but he withheld judgment on Hale for now.

Then everyone was surprised when at the door stood the stooped over Reverend Nehemiah Higginson. Young Reverend Noyes immediately flew to him, helping him with his coat and hat. “What, sir, are you thinking? Coming out in this weather? In your condition? You could catch your death.”

“Quiet Nicholas!” The old man was interrupted by a chronic, gut-wrenching cough. “We both know I’ve already caught my death.” More coughing as the others muttered and mumbled their welcoming words to the elder minister. “What little time I have left, I mean to make the best of, gentlemen. Now, please, shall we dispense with curtseys and courtesies, eh? For the sake of time and an old man who has precious little of it?”

“You know the purpose then of our meeting?” asked Jeremy, who had been fawning as if meeting a saint, saying how much he had heard of Higginson’s good works in Salem Town. Meanwhile, Jeremy was thinking: This is the man who’s pinned his final hopes on me.

“I am well aware of the accusations flying about, Mr. Ah . . .Wakely is it? Mr. Parris, are you at all aware of the demons you’ve already let loose?”

“I’ve let loose? Me?”

“Rumor and gossip already has it down, sir, that the village is rife with bewitched children. The population is no longer content with bewitched mules and cows, now it must be children.”

“There’s no gossip about it!” countered Parris, pacing before them. “My child and others’ve fallen victim to witchcraft.”

“And you’re sure of that?” asked Hale.

Parris pointed to the unfortunate Tituba in her bonds. “As sure as you see this witch before us!”

Higginson found a seat for himself, gaffawing as he did so. “Samuel, your house is not in order.”

“Order? Order? What order can there be in a house that’s long before me become a-a fulcrum for attack?”

“And your parish, all of Salem Village, is it all under attack too?”

“I tell you, sir, it is all true! Not rumor. Invited in is He and not by me!”

Higginson’s eyes bore into Parris. “ By He, you refer to Bael, Lucifer, Loki, Beelzebub?”

“He who has many names, yes.”

It seemed Higginson wanted Parris to say it. “He who calls himself Legion?”

“Satan. Yes, the Devil himself, Mr. Higginson.”

Higginson struggled to his feet, Noyes helping at his side. The old man’s cane tapped out an anthem as he moved toward Tituba and circled her prison chair. “You, Mr. Parris, you look on this servant of yours and you see a devil worshipper?”

“Indeed, I do, sir.”

“What of you other men? Mr. Hale, Corwin, Hathorne?” Hale held his tongue. Corwin sipped his brandy. Hathorne shrugged.

“I know what Mr. Noyes believes, sadly I do. He is among the most superstitious men I have ever encountered, but what about you, Mr. Wakely?” asked Higginson. “What do you see looking on this woman of color?”

Jeremy found all eyes on him. “I see a frightened untutored child without Christ.”

“Is that truly what you see, Mr. Wakely? Can you be sure of your senses?”

“I am sure.”

“Anything you wish to add?” Higginson rounded Tituba like a scientist studying a specimen.

“I have it on good authority that a confession was beaten out of the woman.”

“Good authority? What authority?”

“Her master, here, Mr. Parris.”

Parris leapt in, shouting, “I have labored years trying to educate Tituba to Christ’s teaching, and she was doing well for a time. She sat in God’s house with my children and my wife, but some cruel evil filters through this place, a passion for wickedness fanned by my enemies, and they latched onto poor Tituba here to turn her from Christ and from my teachings.”

Higginson understood the twisting, gnarled roots of Parris’ arguments better than any man present. As a result, Parris’ words left the old man cold. The others in the room waited in rapt attention to Higginson’s rebuttal. It came as a long, halting, ratcheting cough.

Fearing the moment lost, Jeremy leapt in. “What Mr. Higginson is saying strikes me as sound. Caution must be taken. Caution must be our watchword.”

“Good,” said Higginson between coughs. “Goode, the woman Sarah Goode is a vile and dirty person whose soul is likely the devil’s own for many years now. Hang her and be done with it, Hathorne. Sacrifice Goode and send everyone home happy, and do it quickly and efficiently, so as to move on with your real duties.”

It’d worked before, Jeremy thought. Throw one sacrificial lamb to the mob and they often went home and tended their farms and the witch-hunt was over. “It’s perhaps our best and only option,” agreed Hale, which lifted the man in Jeremy’s opinion. Better that one should die than two or three or to see this witch hunt multiply.

“Fools, all of you!” countered Parris. “This is not Goode’s doing alone! That old bat has no power to harm me, and yet she has. I ask you from whence this sudden power comes?”

“Of course, a minister attacked,” challenged Hathorne. “This is no simple case, and certainly no simpleton’s curse!”

“What gall it must take to attack a minister’s daughter with their black arts!” agreed Mr. Noyes, shaken. “It could be any one of us next.”

“There is a war raging, and you men sit sipping brandy and talking as if this nigger here is innocent!” added Parris. “I tell you, she and Goode are but the tip end of this iceberg.”

“Don’t go down that road, Samuel!” warned Higginson.

But Parris raced down it. “There’s an entire coven meeting some nights just beyond my apple orchard in those deep woods, and the coven, not Goode or even Tituba here alone’ve cursed our parsonage and parish, but a