Children of Salem

“I know this woman, Mother Nurse, and such an allegation against one so pious as she, well it is an out and out lie!” Jeremy said, crossing the room and standing in Parris’ face.

“It’s no lie, no prediction,” countered Parris, fuming, “but an inevitable conclusion. And that sermon appears to’ve been stolen from my desk! I’ll have it back.”

Hathorne held the sermon pages overhead. “No, no Samuel,” he began, “you’ll not have it back.”

“But it is my personal property.”

Knowing he’d worn out his welcome, Jeremy found his cloak and hat.

“Sorry, Samuel, but it’s no longer personal or private.”

“Whatever do you mean, Jonathan?” replied Parris, stunned.

For a moment, Jeremy thought that he’d won this argument. That the sermon predicting who next to be arrested proved Parris’ manipulating and orchestrating of events.

Hathorne firmly added, “Your notes, too, Mr. Wakely are now a document of the court as you have your wish.”

This froze Jeremy in place until he realized the magistrate was speaking of notes he’d made on the single sermon he had brought to their attention.

“And you, too, Mr. Parris, you have your wish,” continued Hathorne.

“My wish?” asked Parris.

“The witch trials for Tituba Indian, Sarah Goode, and Sara Osborne are on.”

“That pleases me to know, sirs. What of Bishop?”

Corwin replied, “We are unsure of Mrs. Bishop; that there is enough evidence against her to bind her over for trial.”

“Our ruling should please both of you, Mr. Parris, Mr. Wakely—as well as Mr. Higginson and Hale. But, Samuel, this—” he held up the noxious sermon and call to excommunicate Rebecca Nurse overhead—“this notion of slandering the Nurse name, and the Towne name by decree . . . ” Hathorne shook his head. “We must not allow our passions and past petty squabbles and prejudices to get the better of us in this ordeal.”

“Here, here,” added Corwin. “An ordeal that God Himself has set before us, to test us.”

“Perhaps I was a bit hasty in my fervor against the Nurse woman,” replied Parris.

“And this should please you as well, Mr. Wakely.” Corwin stood and stepped closer to Jeremy, “to know that we mean to contain this thing as you put it. I know Mr. Higginson was pleased to learn it.”

Jeremy pulled his cloak tight, grabbed his hat from a rack that looked like a sceptor, and started away. “I simply hope you men will heed my suggestions, as I am in fact an emissary of the First Church of Boston, the Reverend Increase Mather.”

“An emissary?” asked Corwin, crestfallen.

“Increase Mather?” Hathorne eyed Jeremy more suspiciously than ever. “We were given to understand that you were placed under Mr. Parris’ tutelage with a letter of introduction from Mr. Mather. Now this?”

“I have the letter from Mather right here,” announced Parris who dug the multi-folded parchment from his pocket, “but from the first, I suspected it a forgery—and perhaps my first instinct was right.”

He’s just called me a liar, a forger. “Gentlemen, I can assure you that I am the emissary of Increase Mather.”

“Then Mather sent you to Salem for what reason?”

“To better understand the continued turbulence in the village parish.”

“And here I thought all along the young man was sent to apprentice in the ministery, under my direction, but as you see, Wakely here doesn’t have the stomach for the work.”

“For spying or for ministering to your parish?” asked Hathorne.

“Both I think.” Parris laughed and Corwin tentatively joined in, pouring Parris a drink, while Hathorne remained stern.

“I report only to Mather.”

“You do that, Goodfriend,” said Parris as Jeremy prepared to leave. “But get your facts straight first.”

“I will. I was sent to determine your fitness administer to your flock, Good Reverend, and I fear I’ve find you lacking.” Jeremy stormed out, intent on getting his horse and bags from the parsonage, and to locate new lodgings. Over his shoulder, he was faintly aware of the three faces in the windows watching him go, but when he turned, they’d all dropped the drapes into place and returned to parlay with one another. Jeremy cursed the fact that neither Higginson nor Hale had been on hand to support him. He could only pray that Hathorne, the seemingly stronger of the two judges, would act on his counsel—and perhaps the fear of moving too fast would stay his hand, if only to curry favor with Increase Mather.

Jeremy sloshed through the muck that the spring rains had made of the village walkways and footpaths, a feeling of euphoria coming over him with the relief of telling no more lies—the freedom of not being Parris’ lackey a moment longer when from behind her heard that man’s grating voice.

It came from Jeremy, from Corwin’s door, Parris’ last angry words. “You can count on me, Mr. Wakely, to make my own report! Filled with details of your thievery and conniving!”

Jeremy kept going. When he refused to turn and engage the man in a verbal duel, Paris shouted loud enough for the dead to hear: “Satan strikes the most devout and saintly among us, Jeremiah Wakely! Even as his minions feed and clothe the vile and heretical among us!”

Satan strikes at the most devout and saintly among us, Jeremiah repeated the contention in his mind. “And who among us is chosen?” he muttered under his breath as he continued to march off. He wanted to argue but knew it was hopeless. That a graceful exit was called for.

As he marched in quick step now, anxious to rid himself of Parris and the village, he continued to mutter to himself. “Most devout and saintly in Samuel Parris’ mind is himself! Playing the martyr to his parishioners.”

At the end of the day, he told himself: I must save myself, get as far from his sight as possible, but first I must warn Serena and her family.

Epilogue - Book One

At the Parris home

Jeremiah had returned to the parsonage home when a silvery moon slipped from behind smoldering indigo clouds to rain down a pale pink light over the apple orchard where, without looking for it, he thought he saw an animal scurrying, something large yet quick. A deer perhaps? At the same time, this eerie peripheral movement at the edge of his eye instantly recalled Tituba’s testimony of a coven beyond the orchard —which news Parris or Putnam had scattered, and it had grabbed hold of the public imagination. A tale that’d taken on new, weighty and exaggerated detail. The tale of hundreds of witches now, as it took that many to be so bold as to steal Sam Parris’ sword and fruit, and now his child from him. Details of how these creatures, in league with Satan, had spewed their chewings into Tituba’s face while they’d beaten her with hot pokers as she bravely refused to make her mark.

He squinted and went closer to the tree line and forest, and most certainly saw definite shadows in human shape. This was not the swaying of trees, or mere moonlight reflection against the waving branches and thickly clumped bushes. This wasn’t animal movement either, but human. More than one.

Now they dashed as he stepped into the orchard to have a closer look. Long, thin shadows, but hardly adult. Yes, most of these scurrying people were the size of elves, leprechauns, or children. Despite the length of the shadows they cast, these were village children, girls, he guessed from the giggling and unintelligible chatter getting farther away.

From inside the Parris home, Jeremy heard the continued distinct wailings of two girls behind a second floor window—Betty and Mary. Their wailing momentarily pulled his eyes to the lighted second floor pane. When he returned his gaze to the wood beyond the orchard, he saw nothing, no one. But scanning the ground around the orchard and house, he found the telltale naked foot and shoe prints, and he put two and two together.