Children of Salem

Parris stared hard at John Tarbell, a relative of the Nurse family. It was a clear challenge.

“And where is Tituba’s child’s soul?” shouted Mercy Lewis.

Parris’s jaw quivered with rage at this. How does Mercy know about the child in Barbados, he wondered.

“She told me,” continued Mercy, “that she never once saw her dead child, not ever!”

“The child was born deformed and dead!” Parris retreated to his podium. “Tituba was only your age then. She didn’t need to see it; it’d’ve done no good. As to the child’s soul—same as with Anne’s brothers and sisters, same as with any who’re un-baptized— every child knows. So say it with me.”

Several adults shouted at once, “Their souls belong to Perdition!”

“And as such—” continued Parris—“out of our hands!”

A chorus of men and women in the pews shouted, ”Amen.”

Others sat unmoved.

Parris sighed heavily at the unmoved people in particular. He picked up his hourglass and turned it over. “It appears we need another hour’s worth of his wisdom.”

After a few muffled groans, the congregation made up its mind to stay.

“Just as the child is born with the mark of Cain, Original Sin, these facts we have no power to change,” the minister spoke extemporaneously. “So too the unborn child has this mark and cannot escape the sinful condition to which it is born. Death, not even stillborn death, nor death by foul means, or murder by demonic interference can expel the mark of Cain, no!”

Most in the congregation sent up an uproar of amen’s that covered the few groans. The majority these days followed Mr. Parris’ remarks slavishly and silently, save for little Anne Putnam who began a low, growling chant.

“Death does not discount the Book of the Lamb.” Parris leaned heavily into his podium. “Death does not offer an escape unless you are among the chosen!”

More halleluiahs and amen’s.”

“The chosen of God.”

“How do you know they weren’t chosen of God before they were born?” asked Anne Junior. “Which means, they could be in heaven right now?” Anne’s glassy stare stopped the minister from another word.

Finally, Parris replied, “God saves the humble, Anne, and the meek shall inherit the earth. There is no one among us who can know who is chosen and who is not. Not even your minister.”

“What about us?” asked Mercy Lewis, standing beside Anne now. “If we’ve been given this gift of sight . . . if we are now seers into the Invisible World of angels and demons, then mightn’t . . . I mean perhaps we are the chosen!”

Everyone in the meetinghouse silently considered this, none more so than Parris himself.

“Then it was even more glorious than we had thought, Mercy Lewis,” Parris calmly replied, “when on that day under Deacon Putnam’s roof when I banished the devil residing within you. Remember that day.”

“Yes! Yes, sir. I shall never forget it, Uncle.”

“I’m not asking if you remember; I am telling you to always remember.”

She shouted as if on cue, “It truly is a miracle of miracles you’ve performed, Reverend Uncle Parris!”

Parris saw the eyes of his congregation settle on him in wonder. “How long have I been your spiritual leader?” he asked them, coming away from the podium again. He awaited no answer. “And how long have some among you, the dissenting brethren among you, denied my sincerity and denounced my character?”

A general consensus followed as many of the so-called ‘dissenting brethren’ had days before, with the excommunication of Rebecca Nurse, left the congregation. Now the remnants of them had quietly inched from the meetinghouse, never to return.

# # # # #

Some of these final holdouts among the dissenting brethren still going to Parris’ sermons—like John Tarbell —went directly to Francis Nurse’s house, daring to report on Mr. Parris’ new role as leader of the seer children, the afflicted girls who’d become cause for celebrity, and gifts, and attention by adults who days before had treated them as invisible members of society—people to fetch their water, scrub their floors, wipe the noses of their children.

The Eastys, the Cloyses, the Prescotts, the Russells, the Tabells, and many of the Proctors stood as the last remaining adult members of the village who questioned the seer children of Salem Village, and their ability to see into and interpret the Invisible World of Satan. But they had too soon and suddenly found themselves no longer among the silent majority of those who stood by, said and did nothing. They were now in the vocal minority.

A minority finding itself making up the bulk of names on arrest warrants. Warrants now coming at a head- spinning pace, and now being executed by the new Sheriff, Herrick.

Chapter Ten

The following Sabbath Day

Jeremiah, Serena, her brothers, uncles, aunts and many in the families of the ‘dissenting brethren’ went about attempting to appeal to the good judgment and reason of neighbors far and wide, in and around Salem; they carried petitions with them, the acceptable practice of the day.

Enough names on a petition had worked in times past with the magistrates and the ministers in their church courts. They petitioned primarily on behalf of Mother Nurse, to revoke her excommunication and her arrest as an impossible wrong done this saintly wife, mother, and neighbor who’d lived all her life under the rule of her Bible and the teachings of Christ. They also petitioned on behalf of Elizabeth Proctor who’d been determined pregnant and sitting in the same damnably awful dungeon as Mother Nurse, the Salem Village jailhouse operated by Weed Gatter to whom they must pay a daily growing tax for his part in taking care of their daily needs.

However, so far as anyone could tell, the petitions were failing to reach anyone who supported Nurse and his family in this their hour of need. Those courageous enough to sign were among the well-defined ‘dissenters’— enemies of Parris.

Young Benjamin Nurse worked to control his anger and frustration by shouting at the other Nurse men that these petitions proved useless against what they’d begun to call the Village Madness. Ben was right, but worse yet, some of the names on these petitions were next targeted—seen as being a wee bit too helpful to the accused.

Those signers seen as anxious to help out the accused were being viewed as if they might be in covenant with the accused rather than simply related or lifetime friends. In fact, blood relation to an accused proved enough for a person to fall under suspicion. After suspicion came accusation, followed by an arrest warrant, followed by yet another imprisonment.

Daily now, Serena insisted on going down to the jail to give support and food through the bars to her mother, and Jeremiah stood watch and took the measure of the prison Mother Nurse found herself in. It would take little to storm the place, overpower Gatter, free Mother Nurse and anyone else within, but it would require a plan of escape, a plan of flight to a whole new place, as far from Salem as one could get—perhaps a ship in the harbor bound for the Netherlands.

Discussions of how to accomplish such a feat had begun at the Nurse home, and just when these discussions were taking root and men emboldened, news came that Reverend George Burroughs had been dragged back to Salem to stand trial before the judges for his leading these witches in their sinister attack on the village children where he, Burroughs, had once ‘ministered’—or rather used a guise as minister to recruit Satanists.

“A familiarity there to you, Jeremy,” said Ben, staring a hole through him.

“I admit, it’s too close for comfort.”

“You could be the subject of a warrant any day.”

“As could you, Ben—as could any one of us.”

Ben stood eye to eye with Jeremy. He’d been a small boy when Jeremy had left ten years before, but now he was a young man full of passion and anger for those who’d wronged his father and maligned his mother. The young man had intense, smoldering eyes, and what seemed a perpetual snarl took turns with a frown and a pout.