Other village children had dared Parris’ wrath to approach the house in an effort to get a look at the afflicted girls through the windowpanes. There was even a ladder left lying at the base of the house. Then, the children hearing and seeing Jeremy’s approach—a black-clad man coming at a quick pace straight for the house—had panicked and ran. He may well have been mistaken for Parris.
“Enough to terrify any child,” he muttered, and then heard a straggler lift from the earth near the barn and strike out across the orchard like a terrified field mouse. “Bugger off!” he shouted to encourage this final mouse to go home and to bed.
“This time of night,” came a feminine voice behind him. It was a harried-looking Mrs. Parris.
“Breaking curfew to dare witches strike them, it would appear,” Jeremy replied.
“Seems, despite what my husband says, the village children are unafraid of the contagion.”
The horrid wailing from inside the house signaled Mrs. Parris to return to her daughter and niece in their sickroom.
Jeremy entered the home to the chorus of suffering above. Jeremy grabbed up his bedroll and saddlebag, which held any notes remaining. He’d posted all of his earlier notes to Reverend Cotton Mather.
He’d wisely prepared for this day, and almost all of his things were packed. Part of him felt he’d failed miserably. He’d not had the tenacity and patience of a spy who must swallow everything thrown at him. At least not in dealing with so intolerable a man as Samuel Parris . . . and not in the face of what was happening here.
Still, another part of Jeremy felt he’d done a
To be sure Goode had brought this fate down around her own ears, and Tituba was no innocent either. As for Osborne, he knew not except that the woman had, for years, brought suspicion on herself.
Then there was the part of Jeremy that must concern himself with his own sanity and safety, that part of him simply wanting out of this man’s sphere of influence, out of this village of broken and sad people—and out now!
To get back to the arms of his love, to bask in Serena’s love and warmth and kindness. It was what he wanted above all things now that his duty to Mather had been fulfilled. Now that the truth sat square on the proverbial table for all to partake of. He must also race to the Nurse compound for another reason, to warn Serena and her mother and father of the depth of danger her mother and her aunts faced thanks to Parris’ accusations along with those he had, Jeremy believed, nursed out of Little Anne Putnam and her mother—that the midwives attending the Putnam birthings through the years had actually been on hand to slyly kill the very infants they pretended to usher into the world. A diabolical tale if ever there was one.
To a chorus of shrieks that might be cats stuck between the walls of this home, all coming out of Betty Parris and Mary Wolcott’s sickroom, Jeremy rushed from the dark house. He wanted out before Samuel Parris should return. He wanted no more confrontation with the man. To this end, he rushed for the barn and his horse, perhaps the only creature at the moment in this place that he might speak openly and honestly to without fear of retribution. In fact, in the current climate, perhaps the only safe place to unleash pent up emotions and opinions, was the ear of a horse, cow, or family pet.
Jeremy wasted no time saddling Dancer. As quickly as he could effect his escape from the parsonage, Jeremy was in the saddle and racing out the barn door when suddenly, his mare reared back on her haunches at the sight of Samuel Parris, who’d very nearly been run down and killed but had leapt and fallen to safety at the last moment. Jeremy left the minister lying in a hard-frozen pigsty of mud, not slowing, racing toward the Nurse family compound, unaware that he horse’s hooves sent up great gobs of dirt and mud in the wild dash from the Salem Village.
BOOK TWO
Chapter One
“A challenge to every Puritan,” said Reverend Parris where he stood drinking ale at Ingersoll’s Inn. He’d come uncharacteristically late to the Inn. Ingersoll was in fact closing, but when he found the minister at his doorstep, he remained in business, his light on. He had poured a pint of ale for Parris, whose bill with Ingersoll had been settled recently with a bushel of beans and potatoes, goods others had paid the minister in. Parris had need of someone’s ear and Ingersoll had been elected. He informed Ingersoll of the truth of Jeremiah Wakely’s identity and his true purpose in the village, and that he’d been sent in to spy on the minister, and all those letters he asked you to post, Nathaniel—I was right to intercept them. He was a fraud from the beginning, and he thought I didn’t know.
Ingersoll solemnly nodded. “
“It’s the same with the Falllen One.”
“Aye,
“What angel?” asked the carpenter, Zachariah Fiske, who’d seen the light on and had stopped in for a dram.
“Satan, of course!”
“Aye, indeed.” Fiske put down a coin on the counter, and Ingersoll poured him a pint.
“So how do the judges intend to proceed?” asked Ingersoll, pressing Samuel Parris for information.
“As precisely and as carefully as they should!” continued the uncharacteristically prudent minister.
“And how is that, precisely?” nudged Ingersoll with a wink for Fiske.
“Why, as men of honor,” replied Parris, “courage, and integrity.” He lifted his pewter cup and toasted.
Ingersoll nodded and met the minister’s eye, and all three men drank to this. “I’ve always heard it said, Samuel, that Bridgett Bishop’s a witch if ever there were one, so why was she not kept in jail?”
“A scarcity of evidence there, but they’ve got their eye on her, that one.”
“They’ve found it with the others but not Bishop?”
“The innkeeper on North Ipswich road here?” asked Fiske, his face pinched in confusion.
“The very one,” replied Parris, taking another drink. “If that witch is shut down, Nathaniel, imagine the business you’d have here.”
Ingersoll added, “Aye, but that’s no good reason to cast aspersions.”
“The one whose husband, Malachi Bishop—may he rest in peace— died in the throes of something horrible, Mr. Fiske,” continued Parris, nursing his drink.
“Horrible and mysterious, so far as anyone’s able to determine,” Ingersoll felt compelled to admit with Fiske searching his features.
“I recall it, I do,” replied Fiske, nursing his own ale now. “Happened just before your arrival here, Mr. Parris.”
“Three years,” muttered Parris. “Yet no one thought to bring the woman up on charges back then?”
“Oh, but there was charges made,” Fiske disagreed, “but there weren’t no evidence, so they let her go free, and ever since she’s run Bishop’s Inn.”
“Some say she spins her witchery down below the floor of that inn,” muttered Parris. “Maybe hides the evidence down there.”
“Do you think so, Mr. Parris?” asked Fiske, swallowing hard. “I run afoul of that woman once; she run me outta her place with that club of hers.” Fiske looked about, shaken at the idea a witch might have it in for him.
“I have it on good authority, Mr. Fiske, Nathaniel. Can you keep a secret among us?”
“By my word,” replied Ingersoll.
“You can trust me, Mr. Parris,” added Fiske.
“We’re going to need a good deal of carpentry work done here in Salem.”
“You mean a gallows?” asked Fiske.
“I mean the sheriff and his men will be taking Bishop’s Inn and the woman’s quarters apart for the evidence they need—and soon, very soon.”
