Children of Salem

“I know that my letters, notes, and observations have had no effect on the younger Mather. Your news is old news to me, Ben, but I’d like very much to know how you came by it.”

“How I came by it? Ingersoll confessed to me.”

“Ingersoll?”

“You did entrust him with your mail, correct?”

“He’s the postmaster, so yes!”

“He’s also in Parris’ pocket and has been for years.”

“Are you saying,” began Serena, “that Jeremy’s sealed letters never arrived in Boston? That Mather had no inkling of Jeremy’s opinions until a few days ago?”

“That’s precisely what I’m saying.”

“Mather said not a word about this fact, why?” Jeremy paced, chin in hand. “Why would he not inform me of it?”

“Perhaps the son of the great and powerful Increase Mather has had a design of his own from the beginning, maybe?” ranted Ben, pacing. “Don’t you see? He’s the one set the Court of Assistants onto the matter from the beginning!”

“Men in high office, circling about like buzzards.” Jeremy met Serena’s stare.

“It’s all been a conspiracy from the beginning.” Serena saw past Jeremy that her father now stood in the doorway.

“No doubt of it anymore. To win the elections—set up his men!”

“Making the high court his,” Jeremy said, shaking his head and angry with himself. “They’ll all who owe him a debt of gratitude now and forever—like me, well paid off, and—”

“Bastards all.” Ben slammed a fist against the wall.

“—and to grab off the lands and reissue land grants,” muttered Jeremy, his eyes going to the piece of paper on the bureau.

Serena’s glare bore into Jeremy now. “And the first went to you!”

“What?” asked Ben.

Francis’ face could not mask his rising anger, frustration, and sense of betrayal.

“I earned that land in Connecticut! Earned it over years of service!” Jeremy paraded the land grant about the room. “Look at it. This is my chance to rid myself forever of Salem, and you with me, Serena!”

“The sitting judges have all signed it.” Serena stood toe to toe with Jeremy.

“Earned it, I tell you, and-and not by condemning anyone! Certainly not your mother, Ben, Serena! If I’ve condemned anyone in my letters it was Parris.”

“Why did Ingersoll confide this news, Ben?” asked Serena, going to Jeremy and standing with him.

“I’m not sure, save to throw us in to dissension with one another, perhaps, or perhaps—”

“Perhaps he’s seen one too many neighbor thrown in prison,” finished Jeremy.

Francis added, “Nathaniel’s a good man at heart, always has been. Seeing all this madness, being in the middle of it daily has to work on a man’s conscience.”

“And recently one of the seer girls pointed her finger at Deacon Ingersoll.” Ben, a smug look of satisfaction coming over him, let out a snicker.

“I’d heard Nathaniel came under fire when he dared speak up for old Nehemia Abbott,” said Francis, who then lit his pipe.

“Abbott’s been thrown in jail for wizardry,” Ben added. “His two gnarled canes and all.” Abbott was well known for using two walking canes when he ventured out, and for his advanced age of eighty-two. Few men lived to be so old, and this proved yet another ‘blessing’ turned inside out—as proof of his consorting with Satan, to live to such an age. He must surely have struck a deal with the black minister of the Antichrist, his signature in the black book for the price of his eighty-two years.

Serena rushed out and into the living room area. The others followed Serena out of the room and into the main room and kitchen where she put on some tea.

“So Parris learned of my true purpose early on,” Jeremy commented. “He must have had something on Ingersoll to get the man to rob the mail. Who can trust in the mail, if the postmaster is in the business of breaking seals?”

“Imagine it,” agreed Francis. “Seals broken, contents read. Letters unsent. All at the behest of that devil in the pulpit.”

“He’s a cunning man, Parris. I’d thought he’d kicked me out due to my meddling in his family affairs with respect to Betty’s affliction, and the things I’d said at Corwin’s that night.”

“He feared others might begin to listen to your more rational diagnosis of his daughter’s condition, the way you tell it,” Serena added as the tea kettle whistled, shooting steam into the air.

“He thought my diagnosis quaint and hardly exotic enough.”

“The man uses his own daughter to gain his ends,” Serena said, pouring each of the men seated about the table a cup of tea. “He’ll stop at nothing till he’s gotten everything he wants.”

“And those are considerable wants,” added Ben.

Francis nodded. “Far more than simple ownership of the parsonage home and lands.”

“Ingersoll says he’s quite angry with you, Jeremy,” Ben spoke between sips, “for convincing his wife to remove herself and her daughter from the village.”

Jeremy recalled how Ingersoll had watched as that little drama had unfolded.

Francis emptied his cup. “Using a captain in the militia, a deacon in the church, and a postmaster for his ends is—small measure compared to using his wife and child.”

“Tell us now, Jeremy,” asked Ben. “About your diagnosis of Betty Parris’ condition. I’ve not heard it.”

“Anne Putnam Junior has been afflicted with the fits her entire life, correct?”

“Always, yes. General knowledge that.”

“Parris comes to live here; Betty is in the company of Anne, sees such fits. Anne is bewitched, or so many tell Betty. Betty, being even younger and smaller, must build up terrible fears of being bewitched and thusly afflicted.” Jeremy sipped at his tea, allowing these facts to sink in. “Then this poor child is convinced by a series of circumstances controlled, I suspect by Tituba Indian and Sarah Goode—adults—that she is bewitched by Goode, who has Betty’s likeness and shows it to her stuck with pins and needles.”

Francis and Ben considered Jeremy’s take on this in silence. Serena had heard it while sharing Jeremy’s bed. Francis piped up. “So little Betty, what seven, six? She falls to fits because she is in mortal fear of precisely that?”

“On learning Goode has bewitched her, yes.”

“A thing driven home by Tituba.” Serena pulled Jeremy into her, him sitting, she standing. “My Jeremy is a wizard himself in a way. Tell them of your suspicions surrounding the arrest warrant for Susannah Martin of Amesbury.”

Francis insisted on knowing what Jeremy knew of this matter.

“Ingersoll talks a lot of gossip; I spent a good deal of time around his inn and apothecary for just such information. He told me a queer old tale one day when I asked after the mental state of Mrs. Putnam, Anne’s mother.”

“She’s an addled woman; has been all the years I’ve known her,” replied Francis. “Go on.”

“Ingersoll said she was haunted by the ghost of her brother Henry, whose body had never known hallowed ground as he’d committed suicide by hanging.”

“It is a familiar story in the village.”

“We heard little of the details,” added Serena.

“Anne Carr, Mrs. Putnam was known then, was much older than Henry and she wielded some influence, as she’d been mother to him—their mother having died in a fire. At any rate, Anne refused to allow Henry the hand of a young woman in marriage, which led to the young man’s hanging himself in the home.”

“That’s about how I recall events.” Francis sighed heavily. “To the point, man.”

“The young woman who’d stolen Henry’s heart, his sister refused—was none other than one who stands accused today, whose name is—”

“I recall, Anne’s having said the woman had bewitched her brother,” interrupted Francis. “She put up a big fuss over his not being buried in church ground at the village. Said it wasn’t fair, that a