Children of Salem

“But if they see advantage in it, Mother, as you say—”

“What advantage in arresting and condemning the innocent?” asked Francis. “We have God on our side.”

It seemed each privately considered this, everyone staring now into the flames at the hearth.

“In the face of all that’s going on in Salem,” began Rebecca, breaking the silence, a little shake of her grayed head punctuating her remarks, “what is the right thing to do, Jeremiah? If you are Mather’s man, what would our Increase Mather have us do?”

Serena agreed, almost nose to nose with Jeremy. “You’re a student of the law. You tell us.”

Jeremy squirmed in his seat at the question. “Honestly, I suspect there will be a hanging—if not two, possibly three.”

“A hanging indeed,” muttered Rebecca. “I dreamt as much, Mr. Wakely.”

“And I predict as much. Possibly Sara Osborne, possibly Tituba Indian, and most assuredly—“

“Sarah Goode.” Rebecca’s eyes glazed over with some long ago memory. “We were children together, she and I. She early on was given to the dark side of life, thanks to her mother, a truly evil woman.”

“With that hag swinging from a tree,” Francis said, warming his wife’s tea, “I suppose some will be appeased.”

“While others will find it lacking,” countered Rebecca, her mind sharp. “This accusation hurled at me is pure nonsense, yet I can imagine all of those who’ve ever held an ill thought of us, Francis, since you took possession of the Towne lands, who believe it the truth.”

“Balderdash, and libelous venom is what it is!” Francis’ eyes flared, his teeth grinding. “I plan to sue!”

“You men are all so anxious to take one another to court,” Rebecca chastised and laughed.

“Are you laughing at me?” asked Francis.

“Such a litigious lot. I tell you, Mr. Wakely, our menfolk will take to court whenever a sow dries up, a crop fails, or hens refuse to lay.”

“This is not about hens and crops, Goodwife Nurse,” countered Jeremy. “They’re saying you and your sisters murdered infants, that you midwives used knitting needles to their brains and hearts.”

“What?” asked Serena, who’d not gotten this news before now.

“At or near birth, aye, with needles to the brain and heart,” added Francis, pacing now.

“Then you’ve heard the details of this terrible accusation?” asked Jeremy.

“As has half the village.” Francis yanked at his beard. “Thanks to our enemies who’ve pounced on it.”

“Oh, my,” began Rebecca, “and I thought I’d only offended Mr. Parris with sermons from my sickbed.” She giggled like a school girl.

“He’s convinced the Putnams,” added Jeremy, “Thomas and his wife Anne, who apparently didn’t need much convincing, and now their daughter and Parris niece—”

“The Wolcott girl,” interrupted Rebecca. “Poor thing.”

“That poor thing stood before the judges and condemned you and your sisters—calling you all murderesses.”

“Mr. Wakely, that child and the Putnam child, they have had horrendous lives and are to be pitied, sir.”

“Mother, those little witches have accused you and my aunts of . . . of murder and witchcraft for the purpose of murder! How can you be so calm and for-forgiving?”

“What possible motive? Other than that which’s been stirred and boiled in the parish for years?” asked Fancis, still pacing until he stumbled.

Serena then made him sit, and she poured more tea for everyone.

Jeremy, hands raised, continued. “Apparently, it’s to do with some vague notion that you and yours’ve faired so well here in Salem, accumulating wealth and land that—”

“But our religion teaches us that if we live well, God’s grace will bathe us and deposit all our needs at our feet,” Rebecca countered.

“Exactly,” added Francis while Serena finished off Jeremy’s cup. Jeremy could see from her features that Serena’s concern had increased, despite her mother’s inner calm and her father’s attempt to understand a rationale for these events that had come back to point a finger at his wife.

“They twist it entirely round to suit their needs!” Serena’s voice shook the others.

“Serena’s right,” agreed Jeremy, going to her, putting an arm about her.

“I’ve heard it all my life,” Serena continued, tears freely coming. “Must be magic! Must be enchantment; work of the Devil! And his invisible minions at our side to make this place work so well!”

“Calm yourself, child,” counseled Rebecca. “No thinking person can possibly— at his core—believe such nonsense of us.”

“But they do, Goodwife . . . ” muttered Francis. “Some want in their bones to believe it. Have you forgotten our quarrels with the Wilkinses? The Putnams? The Porters?

She shushed him. “Old news, trash!”

“No, don’t shush me! Since the day we married, how often’ve we been hauled into court with them that want your father’s land returned to the public trust?” Francis looked keenly at Jeremy when he said this, nodding firmly. “You know it’s true, Mr. Wakely! How many times’ve they attempted to divvy it up? Hathorne and Corwin among them?”

“Hathorne? Corwin?” asked Jeremy. “They’ve wanted the same with respect to your property? I’ve seen the Boston court records, sir, but I didn’t know of any lesser court involvements.”

“Tried desperately they did.”

“To take your land?”

“To create a law against a man or a woman inheriting property originally given out as a land grant.”

“I think the wording I saw,” added Rebecca, “ was that a man’s daughters marrying into other families cannot use land-grant property as part of her dowry.”

“I’ve never in all my studies heard of such an attempt at land theft.” Jeremy’s mouth hung open with a frightening thought. “Parris knows the history of this business?”

“It’s public record and back fence talk!”

“Of course.”

“And you, Jeremiah,” shouted Serena, pulling loose from his touch, “you fool.”

He knew instantly what she meant, as did her father and mother, but Rebecca

scolded her daughter for her lapse in manners.

“Mother, he’s left this sermon that predicts your guilt and orders your excommunication as Goode’s cohort in the hands of our enemies.”

“I admit that I trusted Hathorne. He and Corwin assured me.”

“Aye,” moaned Francis, “as they might, until Samuel Parris whispers in their ears.”

Rebecca sipped at her tea. “Whispers the words land grant retrieval.”

“How? How can we get their land?” Serena paced round the room, taking her turn at it—angry and at one point lifting the blunderbuss that had a place beside the door. “It’s the chief question tumbling through their heads. Well, just let them try to take my mother to use as a pawn in their land grab.”

“This is a witch hunt, not a land hunt,” argued Jeremiah but weakly. “I mean Tituba Indian has nothing to speak of, and Goode has no property but what she carries on her back, and Osborne has a fallen-down shack and a few acres of weed and a bean field.”

“These so-called witches are a smokescreen, don’t you see?” she countered, shaking the gun in her hand. “Them that’ve been arrested so far, they look like witches, act like witches, have history as having delved in the black arts, and frankly, if a person could be hanged for their evil thoughts, the entire village must go to the gallows.”

“Easy, dear! Watch yourself,” pleaded Rebecca.

“And put that blunderbuss away before you hurt someone!” added Francis. “We must do as Mother says by her example—remain calm. In the end, it will go well with us, as it always has. We have faith, and they don’t dare come out here with their damned arrest warrants.”

“But suppose your daughter is right, Mr. Nurse,” asked Jeremy. “Mrs. Nurse?”