A Suspicion of Witchcraft

WITCHCRAFT

Stephen Lewis

Chapter One

Not far from Salem in 1692, on a hill overlooking a dried stream bed, stood an ancient oak. The area around the tree had been cleared, leaving scattered stumps of the trees that had been cut down. These stumps served as seats for the older men and women who labored up the hill to witness the event that the pounding drum had announced an hour earlier.

Extending out from the tree’s thick trunk, horizontal to the ground and seven or eight feet above it, was one large limb. Although all the other branches on this late summer day were fully leafed out, this limb was bare, its bark beginning to peel off.

But no matter. It was, after all, fitting that this dead limb would soon fulfill its new purpose as a natural gallows. There were witches to be identified, tried, and hanged, and here was this tree limb ready for the final act in this grim process. No doubt that some of the spectators now gathered before the tree believed that at this most dangerous time, God intervened in the natural processes to make this limb available, dead wood to support the rope around the neck of one of Satan’s minions.

On the cart that had carried her to this spot was a woman of about thirty years old with the ignominious hemp already around her neck. Standing off to the side of the cart, separated from the crowd, was a man of about the same age as the woman. In each of his large, farm labor-stained hands were those of his children, a teenage girl on his right, a younger boy on his left. Their eyes did not move from the woman until the boy, yielding to his nerves, started to turn toward the crowd. His father leaned down while squeezing his son’s hand.

Your mother, he said, look at her, and only her.

The girl took a step forward.

Can’t we…

But she knew there was nothing to be done now.

Even now, Judge John Hathorne was reading the death warrant. When he finished, he spoke quietly to the woman. Without hesitation, she shook her head violently from side to side.

I have offered Goody Purdy the opportunity to live, but she had declined my offer, Hathorne said to the crowd.

I cannot tell you what I do not know, Goody Purdy said. And I will not confess to what I have not done.

Mother, her daughter cried out. Please.

Yes, Ann, for the children, her husband added.

Again she shook her head.

Hathorne beckoned a man forward.

Minister Linton, perhaps you can prevail upon Goody Purdy to reveal the names of those she has consorted with.

Linton stood with his head bowed, then lifted it.

I have prayed with her. And now I must pray for her, he said.

So be it, Hathorne declared. Executioner do your duty.

The cart lurched forward and Matthew Purdy gathered his children to his side, wrapped his arms around them, and placed his hands over their eyes. The boy stood still, but the girl struggled to free her head, using her two hands against his one. She managed, at the moment the cart moved far enough for her mother’s feet to dangle unsupported over the ground, to watch as the body at the end of the rope jerked into its final spasm.

I wanted to see, she said, so that I will be able to remember.

* * * *

At the very rear of the crowd, Rebecca Martin averted her glance at the climactic moment, staring at the ground where a large brown spider was scurrying away. She watched the spider until she heard the satisfied murmur of the crowd and the shuffling of feet moving toward her. Even before she lifted her eyes, she felt those of her neighbors burning into her, sensing their suspicions, inflamed by what they had just witnessed, burn into her back as she made her way home.

Other eyes, far friendlier, also watched Rebecca walk away. When he could no longer see her as she disappeared around a curve on the path, Master Linton turned to supervise the disposal of the body, which was to be buried in a shallow grave where the clearing gave way to the dried stream bed on the slope on the other side of the hill.

Chapter Two

In a low slung house, crudely sheathed in mud and wattle, Rebecca and Ann Fallows helped Sarah Tomkins rise from the birthing stool and walk between them to her bed.

The babe is not coming. She’s exhausted, Ann said. I fear for them both if she does not rest.

I’ll fix her my tea, Rebecca said.

Be careful what you give her, came the rasping voice of Goody Tomkins from a perch on a chair in the corner. Goody Purdy liked to give those who were sick her own special tea. Only those that drank it didn’t get better, now did they?

Hush, now, Ann said. Wasn’t it you yourself that summoned Rebecca?

So it was, Goody Tomkins replied. You were not managing. What was I to do? It is for my son’s baby I am here.

Oh, I shall die! Sarah groaned.

No, child, you won’t, Ann said, and to Rebecca, she added, the tea, get it now.

Rebecca dipped a pewter mug into the boiling water in the cast iron kettle hanging over the flame in the fireplace. The water splashed over the top of the mug onto her finger. She clenched her teeth against the pain, and then placed the mug on the floor next to the hearth. From the bag tied to her waist, she pulled out crumbled root of valerian and dropped it into the mug. When the water darkened, she held it in front of Sarah’s face.

No, I can’t, Sarah said.

Rebecca stroked Sarah’s forehead.

Of course you can, she said. She ran her fingers over Sarah’s lips and pressed the lower one down until Sarah’s mouth opened. Slowly, she lifted the mug to Sarah’s mouth and tilted it until the tea slid down the young woman’s throat.

By the time Sarah swallowed half the tea, her eyes began to close. Rebecca had seen the calming effect of her tea many times before, but she did not know the source of its power. Sometimes, in moments of self doubt, she believed that when she administered the soothing beverage, she was actually calling upon unholy assistance. Was that not what Goody Purdy was accused of doing? But how could she deny that assistance, when other means, even and most especially prayer, failed?

See that she wakes, Goody Tomkins said, her fierce old eyes fixed on Rebecca. Not like what happened to my Robert, a good man he was until you…

 Rebecca opened her mouth to once again explain how she only had visited Goody Tomkins’ house in a futile attempt to defuse the feud between her husband and hers, a quarrel about a pig that wandered from the Tomkins’ property to root in the Martins’ garden.

Ann stepped between them and turned a hard stare at Goody Tomkins.

None of that, she said.

Don’t you hush me, Goody Tomkins snapped. First it was the pig, then my Robert in the ground.

Your son’s wife, there on the bed, that is what you need be thinking about, Ann said.

I know what I know, Goody Tomkins insisted.

The three women took turns glaring at each other. Only Sarah’s labored breathing filled the room. Rebecca walked to the bed and looked down at the young woman. She knew that Sarah was fighting the birthing process. She remembered how her own terror overwhelmed her joy when her John was delivered. Fear gripped her as it did all women, especially those who were giving birth for the first time. It was a simple but deadly formula. The woman tensed her body against the pain, or her fear, and the labor became prolonged until she would be dangerously weakened and exhausted.

Now, Sarah, Rebecca said, you must sleep. You need not worry, for we will not leave you alone. Why, Ann had me drink the very same tea before my John was born.

Aye, the devil’s child what was taken from you. Just like your husband was.

Rebecca stared over her shoulder at Goody Tomkins.

Taken yes, Rebecca replied, by God.

For your sins, Goody Tomkins said, for your sins.

A moan rose from the bed.

I fear, Sarah said and closed her eyes. Her thick brown hair framed a pretty, oval face. As her breathing became regular, she looked more like a sleeping child than an expectant mother. Before Sarah’s recent marriage, stories circulated among the women in the village about how she was pursued by several young men, including Ephram Tomkins, now her husband, and Ephram’s friend Hosea. It was thought she had rebelled against her father’s strict rule by permitting liberties to these suitors. Such gossip, Rebecca knew, often attached to attractive women, and she refused to speculate whether in Sarah’s case it was anything more than the idle talk of villagers.

Sarah’s eyes snapped open, as though waking from a nightmare.

Ephram, she said and looked toward the window.

* * * *

 From his plain pine pulpit, raised several feet but devoid of ornate carving, Henry Linton looked out toward the rear of the Salem meeting house. There on one side sat several Indians, and next to them Judge Hathorne’s house servant Charity, a plump black woman Hathorne had bought from a plantation owner in Jamaica when she was just a girl. On the other side, he saw again only the empty bench. It was not like Rebecca Martin to miss a service. She must have been called away to help midwife Ann Fallows deliver Sarah Tomkins’ babe. Sarah’s husband Ephram had set out this morning with the others, after the whale whose spout had been spotted on the horizon.

Scanning his congregation, he heard the excited buzz that pushed against the restraint of meeting house decorum and threatened to drown his words. Francis Ingraham, no longer able to quiet her fidgeting daughter Deborah, escorted the child to the door and then resumed her seat, her face red with her embarrassment. The eyes of his congregants followed the girl as she walked through the rear door. Henry understood that their hearts and minds, in spite of their best intentions, were drawn to the ocean, close enough to the meeting house that the sound of surf on this windy day competed with his delivery of the Word. And today, the pull of the water was especially strong, not for itself, but because of the whale, and the boats that had gone out to hunt it.

As he finished the benediction, his congregants abandoned any pretense of comporting themselves in accordance with the solemnity of the day. They rose, and with hardly a nod toward their minister, hurried out into the gray gloom of an overcast morning. Henry hesitated, unsure whether to follow those he usually led. After a moment, he too made his way toward the door, but at a measured pace consistent with his sense that he, at least, must preserve the dignity of the Sabbath, if he could. As he exited the building, he saw Goody Williams, her hands out, her mouth moving in silent imprecations, accosting each member of the congregation in turn. Most tried to ignore her, but one or two reached into a pocket or a purse for a coin, which they dropped into her gnarled old hands. She offered her thanks in a voice somewhere between a snort and a laugh.

When the congregation reached the beach, they saw Deborah playing in the sand at the water’s edge. She waded into the roiling surf to retrieve a piece of wood being carried in by the tide. The wood was gray, about a foot long and irregular in width ranging from a couple of inches to four or five at the wider end.

With her index finger she traced what appeared to be a line burned into the wood, but then plied the piece as a shovel, digging into the moist sand near where the breaking waves climbed up the incline of the shore. When Francis reached her, she took the toy from her daughter and studied it. Before long, other adults gathered about the child whose face tightened into a frown as she held out her hand.

Stomping her feet into the moist sand, the child demanded, Why can I not have it?

Nobody answered. Instead, the adults in turn scrutinized the mark on the wood, holding it this way and that, before then shifting their gaze to the horizon. They were wearing their best clothes, gowns and bodices on the women and doublets and breeches on the men, in somber colors verging on black; a few who weren’t so dressed stood, shamefaced but curious, on the fringe of the crowd. Joining this group were two scraggly bearded young men. Tall and thin, James Smart looked back over his shoulder at Frank Dawes, short and barrel chested, limping on his club foot. When they reached the edge of the crowd, it was clear from their expressions that they did not share the embarrassment of standing in the presence of the minister whose service they had ignored.

 Farther up the beach, George Hansen stood with the five men of his crew at the side of his shallop, a small craft propelled by oars and a single sail, that had been hauled up out of the water after having sprung a leak. George said something to his companions and then walked toward the girl. Francis, still holding the piece of wood, knelt next to her daughter. Deborah grasped the wood and tugged.

No, child, Francis said.

But I am not through digging, Deborah insisted.

This is not the time for such.

And why not?

Hush, child. Let go.

Deborah’s eyes teared, but she released the piece of wood and walked away, head down until she picked up a clam shell. Face again bright, she skipped back to her hole and resumed digging.

 Henry, still maintaining his stately pace in spite of his desire to know what everybody was looking at, arrived and placed his hand for a moment on Goody Francis’s shoulder, and then waved to Hansen, who slowed as he reached the circle around the girl. George looked past the adults to the piece of wood. His eyes were sunk into their sockets, as though from exhaustion, and his tanned face wore a thick layer of gray stubble. He had a wool cap on, and his shirt was stiff from the spray of salt water. He extended his hand toward the piece of wood. Two of his fingers were bent as if their knuckles had been broken and then healed badly. Francis handed the wood to him. He examined it slowly, turning it over and over in his rough hands, and then ran his ruined fingers first over the jagged edge where the wood had been broken off from whatever it once was a part of and then, as Deborah had done, over the mark. He shook his head.

Sharpdale burned a picture of a whale onto his boat, he said and handed the piece of wood to Henry.

Think you… Henry began, then held the piece of wood close to his eyes. I cannot tell if this mark is part of that picture, he said.

Nor can I, George replied. What is it you men of the cloth say?

He’s in God’s good hands, Henry answered.

That he is, George said, that he is.

Wasn’t Ephram on Sharpdale’s boat? one man asked.

And his wife now about to have their babe, added a woman. May the Lord protect him.

And all, murmured several others.

George, did you not see Sharpdale? asked the first man.

Aye, we did, George replied. Fool that he is, going after that whale with just his one boat.  I told him my boat was leaking, we should go another time, but he said it would be sacrilege to pass up the Lord’s bounty. Remember Jonah, says I, and he said he had no intention of winding up in that whale’s belly, that he would take the whale first. I watched him catch the wind in his sail.

George headed back toward his crew and his shallop, and the crowd lapsed into a troubled silence. From time to time one would peer out at the water from whose surface the morning clouds had begun to lift, point at something that nobody else could see above the waves though all looked, and then return to their conversations or their silent thoughts. Nobody went home.

By midafternoon, the sun forced its way through the overcast, and thinned the lingering clouds so that a speck of black on the horizon now visible drew everybody’s eyes towards it. Aside from that dot there was only the line between the dark blue of the waves and the gray sky, broken from time to time by the arc of a swooping gull intent on its dinner. With their hands shielding their eyes against the strengthening sun, those remaining on the beach stared at the place where the sky met the water.

Deborah began wading out into the surf. A large, gray cloud lowered and settled in front of the sun, hovering just above the horizon, and the water turned black. The girl disappeared except for the white linen of her cap, which reflected what little sunlight worked its way through the cloud. Francis called after her daughter, but the cap pushed out farther until it seemed level with the water. The mother’s voice called again, with greater urgency, and the cap stopped its outward motion. Seeing that nobody was following the girl to protect her from her own folly, Henry walked through the surf until the water reached his thighs and he felt it against his flesh. He was only a few feet from the cap, when the girl pointed toward the dot, and then turned toward Henry.

It is the whale, she cried.

* * * *

The tea and her own exhaustion put Sarah into a sleep deep enough to resist the pain, for a little while, of her labor. Ann sat at the table, eying the pitcher of groaning beer. She reached for it, then pulled her hand back.

She will rouse before long, Ann said, and I will need my wits.

I will look before she does, Rebecca replied. She walked quietly to the front door, out of the house and climbed the ladder on the watch tower, raised twenty feet above the ground, and positioned between two pine trees so that it afforded an unobstructed view of the harbor. She noted the activity on the darkening shore where figures milled about at water’s edge. Approaching the shore a black shape rose large and menacing. She studied the people and the form for a few moments, but then she heard moans coming from the house, and saw the thick shape of Ann standing in the doorway. She clambered down the ladder with a studied haste, feeling for each rung through the thick leather of the sole of her shoes until the heel of her right foot reached the ground. She hesitated only for a moment, and then she strode toward the house.

Something is coming ashore, she said.

Sarah calls for Ephram, Ann replied. She strained her eyes to see the water. Is it the boat?

I cannot say. I do not think so. I pray it is.

Michael, your son, is he not on Sharpdale’s boat with Ephram?

He is.

Ann took Rebecca into her arms.

Go down to the beach. To wait.

Rebecca began to assent, but then shook her head.

I am better here, she said, and walked into the house.

They found Sarah sitting up in the bed, staring at the rounded swell of her belly beneath her shift. Although the breeze coming in off the water cooled her house, her face was clammy with perspiration, and her skin was pale. She looked up for a moment when Rebecca and Ann entered, but then she resumed staring at her swollen belly as though it did not belong to her. For a moment, her eyes softened into the look of a woman contemplating the wonder of birth, realizing that the life she had carried under her heart for so long, and which now so distended her flesh, would soon be a babe in her arms. But the look disappeared almost as soon as it formed, as another contraction gripped her.

I heard shouts coming from the beach, she said, and then you and Ann talking, but I could not make out what you said. Tell me.

There’s nothing to tell yet, Rebecca replied. Lifting the thin blanket bunched about Sarah’s hips, Rebecca’s fingers probed for the baby’s head.

Have you pain? she asked.

Yes, Sarah replied and started to sit up in the bed. But I do not think it is coming now. Perhaps the Lord is punishing me.

And why should He be doing that? Rebecca asked.

Sarah began to open her mouth, but then she lay back down again as a cramp clenched her.