Children of Salem

wives. “How do you know for a certainty, Wardwell? How? Whom do you consult as I consult you?”

“I consult Endor.”

“Endor? The Witch of Endor as in the Bible?”

“No, Endore is she!” He pointed to an old nag in the first stall. After seeing Thomas’ pinched expression, he laughed like a madman. “Come, come, Deacon. I can’t give away my trade secrets, now can I?”

“All right but tell me, these enemies of mine, can I destroy them? Is there a way? What can I do, Wardwell?”

“You need do nothing, Deacon”

“What do you mean, nothing?”

“It’s all taken care of.”

“How? How is it taken care of?”

“Trust me.”

“Tell me how.”

Wardwell took a final whack at the red poker of metal he’d been shaping, its tip glowing and smoking. H e held it up to Putnam’s eyes so close that the Salem man feared his eyebrows might singe. “I’ve made a curse for you, Thomas—may I call you Thomas?—made it a general one to guard against all thy enemies.”

“I paid for a lousy curse? A curse to guard me? I want names and I want to swear out warrants against those who harm my child and have murdered others before her.”

“I know full-well what you want, Thomas, but this is no ordinary curse. This one has the ear of Satan himself. This curse will loose Satan on your enemies.” He jammed the poker of blazing metal into a water barrel and the resultant noise and smoke cloud steamed about the barn like a mad banshee.

“You expect me to believe you have the ear of the Devil ’imself?”

“If not, why’re ya be here on the seventh night?”

Thomas slowly nodded. “I must be sure.”

“Understood, Thomas. Come with me.”

Putnam followed Wardwell to a full-length mirror on a wrought iron frame filigreed with leaves and wrought iron black birds. Beside the mirror, smoke rose from pitch fires in pots. “Gaze close into the looking glass, Thomas.”

“I only see my reflection. So?”

“Stare longer, harder. Seek in the looking glass your answer.”

“I see nothing.”

“Close your eyes, man, and think on your suffering, your hardship.”

Putnam did as told.

“Think on all the horrors you’ve shared with me here. Think, man, think.”

Putnam’s eyes were closed, but fearful Wardwell meant him some harm, he peeked from time to time as the blacksmith increased the smoke billowing about the mirror.

“Now open your eyes and see—see into the invisible world to behold the devils let loose to harm you and yours, Thomas, and to see who has brought misery upon ye and ye family.”

Putnam gulped and opened his eyes on the mirror where he saw shadowy figures trying to form into whole from the broken, curling threads of smoke like fog trying to find a hold, trying to find rule and order.

“Drink this,” Wardwell said in his ear. “This may take some time but the tea, it will help. Drink . . . drink up.”

Thomas, thirsty from the trip, eagerly gulped down the warm tea, and then he again began studying the curling smoke and his own reflection in the mirror, and he thought if he concentrated that he saw other faces peeking about in the mirror, one set of eyes on his left shoulder, perched there, but then they dissipated, but other shapes wanted forming. Wardwell refilled his warm, herbal tea as he called the bitter drink.

“Takes time this,” muttered Wardwell. “Be patient and you shall see for yourself.”

Thomas drained the second cup of tea. “What am I looking for? I only see me.”

“Exactly what they want you to see and believe! That you are the root cause of all your own problems, thereby casting off any suspicion that that root stems from another source, you see. Clever are the minions of Satan.”

“I see.”

“Yes, you will with patience, if you will only stare hard enough and long enough in the mirror.”

“I am.”

“I know you are trying but it takes some working of your inner mind, man.”

“I have no imagination for such games and parlor tricks, sir.”

“You will! Will it, man, the faces of your deadliest enemies. Not the ones bent on spitting after your heels but those bent on harming you beyond all reason.”

“Those who would murder my progeny, yes.”

“Exactly. Thomas, you and you alone can bring this about. I cannot.”

“But then why did you have me go and return on this day?”

“You alone can see the images of evil here . . . tonight . . . on this the seventh day of our covenant.”

The word covenant made it clear, that he was in league with Wardwell, and God knows who else by virtue of Wardwell’s unusual covenants. A covenant begot a covenant. Then Thomas began seeing movement in the smoke and mirror, a kind of life there, sometimes spherical, sometimes wormlike but all of it moving, swirling, casting ethereal shadows where there ought not be any.

With the drugged tea and in due time, Wardwell had Thomas Putnam seeing what he—Thomas—wanted to see and believe all along, right here and now inside the smoke and inside the looking glass as Thomas’ features coalesced into those of his enemy in slow, sure succession.

In fact, Thomas Putnam was face to face with those who’d murdered his children, and those who’d put an affliction on his womenfolk today back in Salem.

# # # # #

Thomas set to building a fire, not wishing to wake anyone in the house, as for the first time in recent memory, all was quiet and peaceful on his return from Andover and the wizard. But when he lifted a log from the woodbine, a frog croaked up at him and leapt out at him, its eyes wide and accusing. If the thing had had fingers, it would have been pointing at him. It seemed a demonic, ominous omen, this creature that’d gotten into his home, a possible familiar sent to spy on them, as a familiar’s eyes, read by a witch, could see all and all that the creature, be it frog, mouse, or lice had recorded in its eye.

Putnam stumbled back and fell on his rump, and the frog leapt forward between his stockinged feet.

“My God! Wardwell said they’d send their familiars.” Wardwell had warned of spiders, vermin, such things as flies, centipedes, lizards, or toads. “Any one of which,” Wardwell had insisted, “could be acting as eyes and ears for the evil ones—spying on you and yours.”

The green animal housing a demon certainly acted like a witch’s familiar; it was quite well known and documented that witches not only communicated with such vermin and low forms of life, but that they directed their movements. It was reason enough to stomp a spider, or in this case a frog whose fishy eyes blinked at him a moment before it again croaked as if trying to speak Thomas’s name.

Thomas pulled himself together and crawled to his knees. The log he’d lifted lay beside him. “Too much to drink,” he tried to tell himself, “on top of whatever was in Wardwell’s tea.”

Ever so slowly, gently, he lifted the splintery log, thin enough to get a single hand around, and he brought it into his body. He raised the log overhead, preparing to bring it crashing down on the bulging eyes as the spirit continued to stare as if placing a curse on him. It made him wonder if it were possible for jailed witches such as Goode and Osborne—one of whom he’d helped corner and haul to jail—could do as Goode said to him—take the form of a creature like this and give him the evil eye through a toad.

Thomas let the log fall, and a loud gunshot-like sound replied as it smacked the wood floor. He lifted the log and to his astonishment no smashed green thing lay below it. It was as if the toad had vanished and magically so. He imagined old Goode in her cell at this moment cackling at his fear.

A single candle lit the room, leaving most of it in shadow and sharp-cut, black corners. Where