Susannah Morrow (38 page)

She was sober and quiet. I did not need to ask her what had happened; I knew by the look on her face what her visit to Putnam’s
had been like. She seemed shaken and fearful, and I, with my knowledge of what would likely happen on the morrow, could not
stay in the room with her. Hastily I put Jude to bed and curled up myself on Charity’s feather bed, which had lately held
Susannah too. My dreams were dark and lingering, and I woke exhausted and anxious.

They came for Susannah in the late morning. Jude and I were at the table, while Susannah chopped soaked cod for dinner. Susannah
had been preoccupied and silent all morning long, her movements hurried and short. At the sound of the knock, she dropped
the knife. It clattered to the hearth, and she let it lie. She put her hands on the board and bent her head. I saw her expectation
in the stiff set of her shoulders—she knew what this was.

I rose and went to the door, and though I had expected it to be the warrant for her arrest, when I saw George Locker—one of
the constables—standing at the door, I was startled anyway.

“George,” I said. “Good morning.”

“Not so good, I’m afraid.” He handed me the paper that held the order, and I read it quickly:

Whereas Messers. John Londer, Lucas Fowler, Thomas Putnam, and Samuel and Sarah Shattuck of Salem Village in the County of
Essex, personally appeared before us and made complaint on behalf of Their Majesties against Susannah Morrow, for suspicion
of witchcraft by her committed, and thereby much injury done by Mary Walcott, Charity Fowler, Abigail Williams, Ann Putnam,
Jr., and Mercy Lewis, all of Salem Village, contrary to the peace of our Sovereign Lord and Lady William and Mary, King and
Queen of England, etc.—You are therefore in Their Majesties’ names hereby required to apprehend and bring before us the said
Susannah Morrow about eleven of the clock to the meetinghouse in Salem Village, and there to be examined, and hereof you are
not to fail at your peril.

It was signed by John Hathorne and Jonathan Corwin. ’Twas exactly as I’d imagined it would be, except for the inclusion of
my name, which startled me, so that George Locker said again, “I am sorry, Lucas, but I must insist—”

Dutifully I stood back. Susannah had turned, and she was pale, though she faced us with a quiet equanimity that made me feel
my name on that paper as if it were burned there. George Locker pushed past me in a disconcerting jangling of metal.

“’Tis a warrant for my arrest, is it not?” Susannah asked.

I held out the paper. “I—everything seems in order. ’Tis naught I can do—”

“And naught you would do, in any case,” she said, her voice low as a whisper. Her words settled on me uneasily, though I should
not have cared. Her punishment was just; I had only followed God’s orders in making sure ’twas carried out.

George pushed back his cloak and reached for something. Black iron, chains—’twas a moment before I realized they were manacles.

“My God,” Susannah murmured. It seemed her knees buckled for a moment; then she gained composure.

“Father?” Jude asked from the table. Her voice was high and plaintive. “Father, what is happening?”

“’Tis nothing, Jude,” I said.

Jude stood, frowning in worry. “Auntie—”

Susannah smiled, though it seemed an effort. “’Tis nothing to fear, Jude. I’ll go with the constable. ’Twill only be a few
days, you’ll see.”

“I’ll explain it to you later,” I told my daughter.

Jude would have none of me. Her face was pinched and white. She did not take her eyes from Susannah. “You said you would not
leave me.”

“And I shall not. I shall not.”

Jude began to cry. I went to her and pulled her tight against me. When George put the chains on Susannah, Jude gasped, and
I whispered a prayer in her ear. She did not mind me. She went still as George opened the door to take her aunt away.

George said, “You’re needed at the meetinghouse now, Lucas.”

Then they were gone.

“Where have they taken her?” Jude asked.

“We must pray ’tis to her redemption,” I said.

Jude jerked from me. “She is not a witch,” she said, and ran to the door before I could stop her, wrenching it open. There
was only rain beyond, gray and cold; they had already disappeared down the path, though the rattle of Susannah’s chains still
echoed, a mournful, eerie sound.

I
TOOK
J
UDE TO THE
P
ENNEYS’ AND RAN AS QUICKLY AS
I
COULD INTO
the village. Already the crowd had gathered, with members of the village militia lined up before the door to guard the way.
Susannah and Locker were not yet here, though I could not have beat them; I assumed they held her somewhere until the girls
could be gathered, and just as I had the thought, I looked up to see them led over from Ingersoll’s. I searched the group
until I found my daughter, who looked calm and at peace. Though I stood at the doorway, she did not seem to see me as Thomas
Putnam and his brother took them inside. I followed, pushing my way to the bench behind where they were seated. Charity turned
as if she sensed my presence.

“Do not be afraid, child,” I reassured her. “All will soon be well.”

’Twas then I heard the whisper starting from the back, the unmistakable sound of the accused being brought to the meetinghouse,
and Charity cried out, leaping from her bench and falling to her knees along with the other girls. I grabbed her, holding
her still, while Thomas Putnam did the same for his daughter, and my neighbors came forward to help some of the others. Charity
struggled mightily in my arms. ’Twas nothing but sound and chaos, and through it all, I saw the top of Susannah’s head as
Locker led her down the aisle; I heard the clank of those chains.

They brought her to the front, and she turned to look at the girls. Her gaze went from one to the other, finally lighting
on Charity…then looking past her. To me.

She moved toward me, crying out, “Lucas—”

Locker yanked on the chain, and she stumbled back; whatever other words she’d meant to say died in her throat. The sound of
my name lingered in my ears. Charity’s fingers curled like claws around my arm.

“Turn her away from them!” Corwin shouted from the magistrates’ table, and Locker obliged, roughly turning Susannah from the
girls, pushing her to the makeshift bar of justice.

Joseph Herrick, one of the other constables, came rushing up to stand on her other side, penning her in. “Do not look at them!”
he shouted at her when she tried to turn back again. “Keep your eyes away.” He put her hands on the bar. She stood facing
the judges, her eyes directly on them, never glancing to the chaos of the girls.

The girls did not cease their afflictions. The crowd was unruly and loud; Susannah was the stillest person in the room.

John Hathorne went to stand before her. The crowd hushed, and Susannah glanced up as if she’d just realized Hathorne was there.

The crowd gasped. Someone said, “Dear Lord, she smiled!” and I saw Susannah’s confusion, the way she looked to us as if searching
for her error. Hathorne, too, seemed shaken, but only for a moment. Then he stepped closer, and his words were loud and ringing,
unaffected by the vibrant presence of her.

“Susannah Morrow, you here stand charged with sundry acts of witchcraft. The afflicted persons are even now dreadfully affected
by you.”

“I am innocent,” Susannah said in a low voice. “I have done no witchcraft.”

Hathorne turned to the girls. “Look upon this woman and see if she be the one who has been hurting you.”

Mary Walcott shouted out, “Aye! ’Tis her! ’Tis her!”

Charity shoved against my arms. “Oh, Aunt, why do you torture me so!”

Hathorne said, “What do you say now that they charge you to your face?”

“I have never hurt them,” Susannah told him. “I barely know them.”

“You barely know them? You barely know your own niece? Your sister’s child?”

“Oh, aye.” She lifted her hand weakly, and the girls went suddenly still, each lifting a hand as well. ’Twas an affliction
too horrifying to stand, as if they were mere puppets, controlled by Susannah’s strings. The crowd quieted; every eye was
on the girls as Susannah said, “Of course I know Charity. I love her as if she were my own. I have never hurt her.”

“’Tis not what she says.”

“’Tis her imagination then. I have never intended to hurt her.”

“What contract have you made with the Devil?”

Susannah shook her head. As if pulled by a single string, each girl shook her head.

“Dear God!” someone called out. “What horror is this?”

Susannah paused. She tried to turn her head farther, to look at the girls, but Herrick stepped up closer, and she frowned
and turned back to Hathorne.

“What contract have you made with Satan?” Hathorne pressed.

“None. I have made no contract with him.”

“She lies!” young Annie Putnam called out. “She calls the Devil her God!”

Mary Walcott shouted, “She asked me to sign the Devil’s book! She took my hand and said if I did not, she would cut it off!”

“It is not true,” Susannah said, but the other voices drowned her out. She quieted, biting her lip.

“Look how she bites her lip!” Charity screamed. She jerked out her arm, which held the proof, a bite mark so pronounced that
I was amazed. How had the specter done this, when I was holding her so tightly? “She is biting me! She bites me! Owww! Look
at this! Look at this!”

“And me!” Elizabeth Hubbard, the doctor’s niece, leaped up.

“And me!”

Hathorne turned away in concern, walking to where we stood. He motioned to me to release my daughter. When I did, Charity
and Elizabeth Hubbard and Mary Walcott ran up to the magistrates’ table, where they pushed in between Ezekiel Cheever, who
wrote feverishly, and Jonathan Corwin. The crowd was silent as Corwin looked them over.

“There are bite marks,” he said grimly to Hathorne. “These poor children have been bitten.”

“No,” Susannah said. At the desk, Charity and her friends fell into convulsions. Susannah lifted her hand as if to halt them,
and they each lifted a hand, even from where they lay on the floor, as if forced to the movement.

“Dear God, stop her!” Tom Putnam called out in anguish. “Hold her still!”

Joseph Herrick grabbed Susannah’s hand, and forced it again to the bar. Locker leaned over to whisper something in Hathorne’s
ear, and the magistrate nodded sternly and went over to Susannah again.

“How came it that when you passed the meetinghouse this hour a board fell?”

She looked confused. “I…I don’t know. ’Twas loose, I think.”

He waved to Locker, who stood smugly by. “This witness says ’twas solid.”

“I have no power to affect buildings,” she said.

“What power do you have?”

“None. I have no power.”

Hathorne’s voice rose. “What contract have you with the Devil?”

“I’ve made no contract with him.”

“She lies!” Charity called out. She rose to her knees. “She brought the Devil into our house! She bade me lie to my father—not
once, but many times!”

The words she said brought such a misery into my soul I could hardly stand to hear them. The room now was charged with my
failure, with the true horror of what I had allowed to happen to my family. Tom Putnam looked at me, a measuring glance that
was at once pitying and satisfied, and I looked away, wishing this was over, wishing Susannah were gone. Locked far away,
someplace where I might never see her.

“What say you to all this you are charged with?” Hathorne asked Susannah. “Can you not find it in your heart to tell the truth?”

“I do tell the truth.”

Hathorne turned to look at my daughter. “What say you, Charity Fowler? What testimony do you make against your aunt? What
is the truth?”

At the question, Susannah’s fingers gripped the back of the chair so hard her knuckles stood out in clear relief.

Charity stood. She was calm, and her voice was even, almost a recitation, as if she had the words from another place. She
did not look at me, or her aunt, but only at Hathorne. “She knows spells. She taught them to my sister, to make her sewing
neat, to make the butter come. She has tormented me in visions. She bade me join the Devil. She followed me where I went and
told me to lie to my father. I have seen her with the black man—there he is now, beside her! Oh, look how he whispers in her
ear!”

“He strokes her cheek!” Mary Walcott called out. “He has given her a little bird to suckle!”

“A yellow bird!” another shouted.

“I have no bird,” Susannah whispered.

From the back of the meetinghouse, a woman said, “Did you see the way she calmed that baby in meeting? Why, ’twas the Devil’s
song she whispered!”

“She wears the Devil’s clothes! Such a worldly woman!”

“No,” Susannah said—uselessly; the evidence was mounting before her. “These things are not true.”

“How came you into my bedchamber one morning and held me down by my throat?”

For a moment, I thought I’d spoken. They were my words. I saw Susannah jerk around, searching the crowd for me; then, in confusion,
she looked beyond me, to the man who’d spoken, to John Londer. The girls fell back as if her glance had pushed them. The constable
grabbed her arm to hold her in place.