A Break With Charity: A Story About the Salem Witch Trials (19 page)

A lone figure approached us, walking with the aid of a cane. It was Goody Bibber. I had not seen her since that day last winter when she advised me to seek entrance to the parsonage. "They call this place Salem," she said to us. "Know ye what that name means, Susanna English?"

When I did not reply, she answered with a cackle. "It means 'City of Peace.'"

Where had I heard this before? From Tituba, I recollected, that first day I went into the parsonage. Oh, it seemed so long ago! I drew closer to Johnathan. Goody Bibber watched us. There was a knowing light in her eyes but no malice that I could perceive.

"It's been a while since we last met, child."

I did not answer.

"Ye told me one day long ago that God reveals all things to us in His own time," she said. "What has He revealed to us this morning?"

"God has naught to do with what happened here," I said.

She nodded. "He has abandoned Salem."

"Salem has abandoned Him," I retorted.

"What do you want with Susanna?" Johnathan asked her. "You are one of the afflicted, are you not?"

"I am and I am not," she said. "They allow me around the edges of their circle. Never inside. I'm like John Dorich."

"John?" My eyes went wide. "John is one of the afflicted?"

"He is, poor lad. He's sat with them in court, where they let him tell, on occasion, of a vision. But they suck all the power from us. They don't allow us to be part of their dark fantasies."

"Who would want to be?" Johnathan asked.

"And why wouldn't one? No people in all of Massachusetts Bay Colony have such power. Aye."

"What do you want from us?" Johnathan asked.

"Susanna knows," she said softly. Then she turned and pointed to the lifeless figure on the end of the rope, etched against the blue June sky. "See how she swings in the breeze. Hear the creaking of the tree branch. How many others will swing on it, hey?"

"You're frightening Susanna," Johnathan said sternly. "Go back from whence you came. Go back to your friends."

"They're no friends of mine, lad."

"By your own admission, you're in league with them."

"Aye. But I've cast my lot with them because I choose to live. And not swing from a tree. I have no man, and that means no power. I'm poor, an old hag. No one listens to my mumblings. I'm sensible of such. I've no fancy to be cried out on. How many more do you think will swing from that tree, Susanna English?"

"I don't know." I buried my face in Johnathan's doublet. "Make her go away," I whispered.

"Go now, Goody Bibber, or I'll tell my father what you've said this day."

She cackled again. "And what is that, lad?"

"That you dissemble. To save your own skin."

"Many do, lad. Many do. Tell him and I'll deny it. He'll believe me. The magistrates have given us this power. How many more, Susanna English, hey?" And she burst into that cackling laugh of hers and moved away.

"She's a dafter," Johnathan said. "Don't let her bother you, Susanna. Joseph is right; henceforth you stay at home. And forget what she said. It has naught to do with you."

But I could not forget it. I went home and marked it well. Goody Bibber was the only one now, except for me, who could tell the truth about the beginnings of the circle. And no one would listen to her, for she was poor and powerless and a crazy old hag.

She had appealed to me. How many more would swing from that tree before I stepped forward to tell the truth, she had asked.

I pleaded a sick headache that evening, which indeed I did have. Elizabeth put me to bed with warm broth and cold rags on my forehead. But whenever I closed my eyes, all I saw was Bridget Bishop swinging from that tree.

How many more, Susanna English, I now asked myself. But how could I speak out? From April 21 until May 12, Mary Warren had attempted to speak out. And no one would listen to her until she reverted back to her original lying testimony. Then they cleansed her of her sin.

Almost at the same time, Sarah Churchill defected from the circle. After her master, George Jacobs, was accused, she became frightened and tried to discredit the lies of the afflicted girls, who then named her a witch. What followed was now accepted. No one could believe the testimony of a named witch. So Sarah recanted and was taken back into the circle.

In my throbbing head, however, one thought persisted: I have Joseph and Elizabeth. They will believe me.

As if by some predestined sign then, Elizabeth came into the room to give me to drink of bitter potion. It soothed my head and made me sleepy. And just before I fell off to sleep, I made my decision. I will go in the morning to Joseph. I will tell him what I know. I finally fell asleep in peace.

But in the morning I did not do it.

I slept late. Elizabeth had not wakened me, and I came into the sunny kitchen, where Ellen gave me a large breakfast. Elizabeth was nursing the baby.

"Where is Joseph?" I asked.

"Gone off to a meeting. You know how secretive he is. He'll tell us when he returns."

Joseph came back midafternoon. "Good news," he said, taking a mug of ale from Elizabeth and removing his doublet. "Saltonstall has resigned from the Court of Oyer and Terminer."

"Resigned?" Elizabeth could not believe it. Neither could I.

"Your father was right, Susanna. There is division amongst the judges. My information is that Saltonstall objected to the haste with which Bridget Bishop was convicted and executed. He is against spectral evidence. My information is that he said she was hanged because she wore a red bodice."

Silence in the kitchen. Joseph reached for bread and meat. "There will be a delay now until the court sits again. The judges are in an uproar, looking to the ministers now for reinforcement. But the public is not to know of it."

"The ministers started all this," Elizabeth noted.

"Aye," Joseph agreed. "All is confusion. I'll wager we'll not see another witch hanging in Salem for a while."

And so I did not speak out. I waited to see what would happen. After all, I told myself, if the wisest men in the colony were confused and needed time, so then, didn't I?

The lovely days of June passed. On the fifteenth, twelve learned and holy ministers met in Boston, not the least of whom was Reverend Cotton Mather. They decided that care was to be exercised in regard to spectral evidence, "lest by too much credulity for things received only upon the Devil's authority there be a door opened for a long train of miserable consequences."

In other words, if one of the afflicted girls said that someone's shape had visited her to do mischief, such evidence weighed less than before. I rejoiced at the news. Surely, now, no more people would be condemned.

The court sat again on June 28, in Salem Town, not Salem Village. Mayhem prevailed. The girls were at the height of their powers, and their howls could be heard up and down the street outside.

Rebecca Nurse, Elizabeth How, Sarah Good, Sarah Wild, and Susanna Martin were tried that day.

The girls charged Susanna Martin with bewitching John Allen's cattle so they ran out to sea and drowned. At Sarah Good's trial, young Ann Putnam wrestled with an invisible knife at her breast. Then she said the specter of Elizabeth How had stuck needles into her hand. Another afflicted girl said that Sarah Wild had overturned people's hay wagons and sent demons to fly out against them.

All the accused pleaded innocent.

But the judges paid no heed to the document recently issued in Boston by the ministers. They condemned all the accused to hang on July 19.

Once again, no one believed the hangings would take place. They would not dare to hang Rebecca Nurse! I must speak out, I told myself. But then Joseph went with the kinsmen of Rebecca to Boston to see Governor Phips in her behalf. And they had a meeting with the governor, who was having an interim stay in that town.

They came back with a reprieve from the governor for Rebecca Nurse. I breathed easier. Rebecca was safe for now. Yet I must still approach Joseph or the others would hang.

But he was back only a few hours before he was off again. He'd come home at two in the morning from Boston, Elizabeth told me at breakfast, so she was allowing him his sleep. When he awoke I would speak to him, I decided. Then a rider came to the house with news, and Elizabeth had to wake him.

Somehow, the Devil had been loosed in the town of Andover. Joseph was needed there.

The wife of one Joseph Ballard took sick and Ballard sent to Salem Village to summon two of the afflicted girls, the messenger told Elizabeth.

So Joseph packed to go to Andover to try to put down the panic. I could not speak with him that morning.

But the townsfolk of Andover did not want the panic put down. They welcomed young Ann Putnam and Mary Walcott, offering them every comfort and want. Ann and Mary were asked to visit many sickrooms. Needless to say, in every household they saw witches, though they could name none. How could they? They did not know the names of the citizens of Andover.

Such details did not bother the good people of that town, however. Before Ann and Mary were finished there, forty warrants were written out for the arrest of witches. Who would dare speak out against the testimony of the afflicted girls?

Dudley Bradstreet, the justice of the peace, for one. After signing the forty warrants, he announced himself done with the witch business. The girls cried out on him, and he fled to New Hampshire with his brother John, who was also named.

Reverend Francis Dane, for another, with whom Joseph was staying, begged his parishioners to listen to reason.

Elizabeth and I saw Joseph's hand in all of this.

As a matter of fact, everyone in Salem was so concerned by what was going on in Andover that they scarcely paid mind to the fact that July 19 was fast approaching.

And then more unfortunate news came to us. Governor Phips had also granted an audience to the proponents of witchcraft, who told him that devils had brought sickness to some of the afflicted girls in Salem. Indeed, they told the governor, some of the girls were dying. And they had said that the devils had come in the name of Rebecca Nurse.

So the governor made void his reprieve for Rebecca.

July 19 was but a few days away, and I waited, feverishly, for the return of Joseph from Andover. I peered out of windows constantly, looking for his carriage down the road. I walked to the end of his property line and stood by the gate by the hour. But no Joseph came.

I was in a state of near-hysteria on the morning of the nineteenth. Elizabeth saw my affliction and put it down to concern for my parents, so she said nothing when I harnessed Molasses to the cart and rode off.

In my little cart I sat a distance from Gallows Hill, but not so far away that I could not see the figures carried up the ladder and hanged.

I could not tell one figure from another, but I did not have to. I counted them. Rebecca Nurse, Susannah Martin, Elizabeth How, Sarah Good, and Sarah Wild. One by one the hangmen carried them, bound hand and foot, up the ladder, put hoods over their heads, ropes around their necks, and swung them free.

I was sick at heart.

Joseph came home in the early hours of the following morning. I put a shawl around me when I heard him come into the house, and I went downstairs. He was in the kitchen, at the table, half leaning over it, drinking something from a mug.

He looked bleary-eyed and discouraged and exhausted.

"Joseph," I said.

"Yes, Susanna." He looked up at me. His face was lined with the pain and terror of all that had transpired.

"I would speak with you, Joseph."

"I am weary, Susanna. Is it important?"

"It is very important, Joseph."

He met my eyes, and I saw the dark shadows under his own, saw the day's worth of stubble on his face, the smoky gray intensity of his eyes, and I could have sworn he knew what I was about to say. "Very well, Susanna," he said. "Come and sit."

JOSEPH HAD
taken off his doublet when he came in. It was over the back of a chair. As I took my seat at the table, he loosened his waistcoat and collar.

"What matter is so serious that it cannot wait until first light, Susanna?" he asked. "Concern for your parents? They are faring well in Boston."

I decided to get directly to the heart of the matter. "I have not been worthy of your friendship, Joseph. Or of Elizabeth's."

"You have been a friend to Elizabeth as well as a help," he assured me. "She would have suffered much loneliness these past weeks, with my being away so much. And this day, after a few hours' sleep, I must be off to Boston to a prayer meeting at John Alden's. After which I meet with Nathaniel Cary, who is trying to have his wife's trial changed to Suffolk County. I tell you this in strictest confidence."

"I will honor your confidence, Joseph. But you must honor mine."

He leaned forward with interest. Candlelight played across his handsome face. "Speak, then," he said. "What besets you, to have you roaming the house at this hour?"