take them by the jail again. “Forget about Salem; imagine us flourishing here in Boston.”
“Safe from superstitious minds? Liars and thieves?”
“Not entirely, of course, no, but—”
“And strangling notions of right and wrong?”
“Not entirely, no. But things here are better. You can’t argue that.”
“I can always argue. You forget how many brothers I have.”
“Serena.” He took hold of both her shoulders and turned her to face him, staring into her eyes. “I could make you happy here. In time, we could find a plot of land, build a house, have children.”
She nodded, still fighting back tears. “And wash our hands of Salem, eh?”
“It’s a temptation I am willing to give into, yes.”
“And what of the accused, those awaiting trial?”
“In time, this fire storm will pass. It’s tempest in a teapot.”
“You don’t believe that, now do you?”
“It will whistle and brew hot, but-but an end to it will come; just a matter of time.”
“I’ll give it some thought,” she conceded, “but I have to know that my parents, my brothers, my sisters—that they’re all right.”
“Write to them.” He shrugged. “I’m sure that with Goode’s execution, this entire ordeal will burn itself out like the crucible it is. I mean look how they’ve sent Tituba out of the fray. Parris could not see her hung.”
“Do you think it’s so?”
“It appears so.”
“Still, in any crucible, the circumstances subject people to forces that test them.”
“And often make them change, Serena, and we have a right to choose our destiny and make our own changes amid this . . . turmoil.”
She leaned into him as they continued, man and wife, toward Mrs. Fahey’s. “A place of our own,” she whispered in his ear. “Find a place of peace. Is it possible?”
“We will make it so.” Even as he said it, even as he felt her on his arm, even as others stared at the unfamiliar pair, even as Jeremy wanted to believe it himself, he desperately wanted to know the secrets held back by one Tituba L’englesian. In fact, he felt an irresistible urge to seek the Barbados woman out tonight, perhaps on his way to his meeting with Reverend Mather.
However, on his way to Mather’s Jeremy could not get near the jail window to speak to Tituba, and he hadn’t the money to pay the jailer for five minutes with her. He determined to get Mather to have Tituba brought to them, to interrogate her about her time with Parris in Barbados, the true nature of their relationship, and how she had lost her child. But when Jeremy sought Mather, he was confronted by Mather’s apprentice in the ministry at the North Church and told that Mr. Mather had left the city.
“Left the city? For where?”
“For Salem. Eveyone’s gone to Salem.”
“He’s followed Saltonstall and the court to Salem?”
“Now you’ve got it.”
“But we had an appointment.”
“He left me to make his apologies to you, Mr. Wakely.”
“But I have secret papers for him!”
“I would be happy to take anything you’d care to leave for Mr. Mather and keep it in a safe place.”
Jeremy stormed off, angry and upset at the turn of events, and again when he tried to get near Tituba, he saw this, too, was an impossibility.
His head filled with a burning, hot frustration when he saw a discarded copy of the newspaper he’d been thrown off of. Its headline read that Governor Phipps had left Boston as well, and scanning the story, he learned that William Phipps was quoted as saying, “I’d rather fight pagans of this world than any creatures in the Invisible World of Satan.”
Chapter Six
Magistrates Jonathan Hathorne and John Corwin stood as the stalwart enforcers of the Inferior Court Sessions in Salem Town and Village; together they formed a two-man commission in an area extending to the borders of Essex County. Still the two magistrates who dealt principally with minor offenses, complaints, and misdemeanor seldom to never entertained spirits or supernatural elements in their courtrooms save for the rantings of farmers who believed a broken cart wheel or a dried up cow had to do with a curse. They tried minor cases, and they seldom entertained members of the Superior Court of Assistants of the true seat of power, Boston.
However, tonight was a special occasion indeed as Sir William Stoughton, Chief Justice of the Colonies, had come to Salem to confer with the local magistrates. With him came Judge Richard Addington, and the well- published, popular Judge Samuel Sewell and David Saltonstall. They’d come to confer over the recent discovery of widespread witchcraft in these environs.
The gentlemen from Boston did not come quietly in the night as had Jeremiah Wakely, but rather in fine carriages by day, carriages that effectively blocked the small mud street before Hathorne’s black-shuttered, white house.
Inside, Hathorne was saying, “I have survived as Judge Advocate of Salem Farms longer than any before me. Elected and reelected by the freeman vote. Through the Mason threat, when thieves in Plymouth Bay Company claimed title to all lands between the Kennebec and the Merrimac, gentlemen—and I was instrumental in quelling that nasty bit of business, I can tell you.”
“Massachusetts Bay Company property,” added Judge Corwin, toasting. “Here, here! Mr. Hathorne was in office through King Phillip’s War.”
“Aye. . . . 1675, a difficult time,” muttered Addington, sipping his brandy.
“Yes, indeed,” Hathorne piped back in, a smile on his face. “When that savage who took the title of King and the name Phillip, led his people against us in that unholy war, I was here in the forefront.”
“Metacom,” said Sewell thoughtfully.
“Sir?” asked Corwin.
“King Phillips true name, Metacom.” Saltonstall, the eldest of the group, chewed on sore gums.
“
“Do you mean to say you took up arms? Went out into the wilderness?” Chief Justice Stoughton’s expression conveyed how this news had hit him. “I’m impressed.”
“No, I didn’t mean to imply . . . that is, I meant.” Hathorne back-peddled
Stoughton frowned. “What
“During time of war, civil order is even more important.” Hathorne gulped his drink.
Corwin continued to support his colleague. “Scarce a man in all of Salem who doesn’t owe Jonathan some debt of gratitude.”
“Or some debt,” joked Hathorne. “On my books at my Customs House at the Harbor, eh what?”
This drew a mild laughter from the others.
Corwin quickly added, “He’s helped many a drowning man stay aloft through famine and want.”
Addington pointedly asked Hathorne and Corwin, “But where did the two of you stand during the Andros years?”
The question unsettled both the Inferior Court judges. They shrugged, hemmed, hawed for a moment, Hathorne exchanged glances with Reverend Higginson, who’d forced his weary body from his sickbed to be on hand, and beside him, Nicholas Noyes, who, along with Reverend Hale and Samuel Parris had been summoned to meet the Superior Court judges. The lower judges had made a festival of it; all present had consumed food, ale, and canary wine at cost to the Salem judges. Reverend Parris today stood mute, not offering a word, as if he’d been castigated or ordered to remain silent before the meeting.
“Gentlemen,” began Hathorne, “we’re not Boston by any stretch, and we may be small, but our seaport thrives as well as any, and we are a
Reverend Higginson raised his cane and banged it like a gavel. “I knew the great John Winthrop, first
