Susannah Morrow (43 page)

“Hannah, I am not a witch.”

“Please. For the sake of your own soul, confess the truth. Would you be hanged as a liar? Would you die unregenerate?”

I was stunned by her words. “I am not going to die. This is a mistake. I will be redeemed at my trial.”

“You will not be redeemed unless you tell the truth. You must confess to your covenant with Satan. I’m begging you, Susannah,
for the sake of your soul.…”

“How can you believe this? How can you put this babe in my arms and believe I am yet a disciple of evil?”

Hannah’s eyes became bright with tears. “I am hoping the child will move you to do what you must. Lucas gave me leave to bring
her. Do not leave this world unredeemed, Susannah. Cleanse your heart.”

“Lucas…gave you leave? Does he know…why you’ve come here?”

Hannah sighed. “My dear Susannah, there is not a one of us who would have you end your life as a reprobate.”

I could not believe Hannah could know me, and yet still believe…But this place, this town, how dark it was. How afraid they
all were.

“Lucas is in a sad way,” Hannah went on. “To testify against his own sister.…How much easier ’twould be for him if you admitted
the truth.”

I wished she would leave, but because I wanted Faith a bit longer, I suffered Hannah’s presence until the babe fell asleep
in my arms and I handed her back and watched the two of them go.

I felt Faith’s warmth in my arms for a long while after. I opened the bag Hannah had brought: a blanket and another skirt
of rich green, some clean linen. And there, at the bottom of the bag, lying in wait like some wretched viper, was the red
paragon bodice.

The next day, Sarah Cloyce was brought to jail, along with Elizabeth Proctor and her husband, John, who had called the girls
liars at his wife’s examination and had been accused himself. They all spoke of how the moving of the examinations to town
to accommodate Thomas Danforth and another man, Samuel Sewall, a judge from Boston, had turned what was already chaos into
unimaginable horror. Danforth had taken over the questioning, Sarah told us, and the exams had become as talked about and
well attended as a hanging—which, she said bitterly, there soon might be. My isolated days in prison were over. Now we were
visited often. People had begun to come and stare at us through the door as if we were the poor wretches of Bedlam, or the
mangy animals in the Tower of London’s menageries.

I began to suffer from nightmares. Deep in the night, I would jerk awake to find Dorcas Good curled into my arms, her body
tight against mine. I would hear the weary pleas of the latest residents, begging for sleep as Jem prodded them awake to question
them, to watch for familiars that never came. In my head was the single word:
Confess. Confess.
I woke exhausted and undone.
Confess.
The word was a constant echo in my head.

’Twas soon after, that Rebecca and the Proctors and Sarah Cloyce were moved to the Boston Jail to make room for four others:
Martha Corey’s husband, Giles, among them, and someone else who surprised me, someone I had not expected ever to see held
a prisoner in the dungeon. Charity’s friend, mousy little Mary Warren, the Proctors’ maidservant.

When the girl was brought in and saw me, she turned back to the door as if she might try to scratch her way free. But Jem
closed the door in her face, and she sank to the floor and buried her face in her arms, sobbing piteously.

’Twas a mystery why she was here; she had been seeing specters only last week—Elizabeth Proctor among them, from what the
talk in prison had been. There was a part of me that hoped…for what, I didn’t know. That perhaps clearer heads had indeed
prevailed. But with that thought came a fear. I had been afraid for Charity; now my worry grew stronger.

I approached Mary as if she were a wild animal I did not want to frighten away. Giles Corey said gruffly, “Leave the little
bitch be. Let her suffer; ’tis what she deserves,” and Abigail Hobbs, who’d been brought only the day before, loose-haired
and wild-looking, chuckled and said incomprehensibly, “Aye. She knows, she does. She knows.”

I ignored them both. I knelt beside Mary Warren. She jerked away from me in a jangling of chains. The shoulder of her bodice
slipped and I saw the healing marks of a good thrashing.

“What happened?” I asked. “Why are you here?”

She steadfastly ignored me.

“Let her rot,” Giles said again. “She’s as much a liar as the rest of ’em. Proctor said he beat the Devil out of her and well
he should.”

Mary glanced at him with burning hatred in her eyes—a look so intent it transformed her mousiness into something almost strangely
pretty.

“They claim she signed the Devil’s book,” Giles told me. “No doubt she’s confessed to it too.”

“Is it true, Mary?” I asked her. “Did you confess to being a witch?” When she said nothing, I whispered, “What of Charity?”

She looked back at me, expressionless. “What of her?” she asked. The contempt in her words took me aback. She turned away
again, and though I longed to ask more questions, ’twas clear she wouldn’t answer. Finally I did as Giles suggested; I left
her alone.

It was not long before the magistrates came to the cell to take her out. They did not take her from the dungeon—I heard the
opening of another cell door; here, everything echoed against the stone. I knew they’d put her into one of the other cells—I
had seen them all, and I knew how small it was. ’Twas hardly room for Mary Warren and those men to stand one up against the
other.

Their voices rang out, loud enough that we could hear as well as if they stood in this cell with us.

’Twas Hathorne’s voice first, relentless from the start. “Abigail Williams has said that Goody Proctor made you sign the Devil’s
book. When did you do this?”

Her voice was soft, a whisper. I could not catch it.

Hathorne said, “You confessed to it.”

“No, no, I did not. I was confused. I did not understand.”

“When did you sign the book?”

“I did not sign. There was no Devil’s book.”

“You have said before there was: Which is true? Is there a book? Did you not say your mistress signed it?”

“I did. But…’twas not true.”

“Not true? She did not sign the book?”

There was silence. I heard Mary sobbing, such a quiet sound, so loud against these walls.

“’Tis a lie,” she said finally. “’Tis all a lie.”

At this, the others in the cell with me perked up.

“A lie?” ’Twas Jonathan Corwin. Well did I remember his cruelty. “What is a lie?”

“All of it. All of it.” Mary was sobbing so hard now ’twas difficult to understand her. “They have dissembled.…I have dissembled.
You might as well examine a madwoman and take notice of what she said, as take the word of any of the afflicted.”

“Dear God,” Martha whispered. “Did I hear…?”

“Ssshhh,” hissed her husband.

“A lie? Did she say a lie?” Abigail Hobbs went to the door, peering out as if she hoped to see something. “Why, ’tis not a
lie, none of it. I have seen them witches dancing in the dark with the Devil. In the woods, off Parris’s field. You can hear
the spade-foot frogs there now, loud as you please, singing the Devil’s song, them evil things.…”

“Quiet yourself, you crazy witch,” Giles said, but I was as shocked by the woman’s words as I had been by Mary’s. When I turned
to stare at her, she looked right at me with her dark eyes. She smiled as if she knew me.

“Aye, you too,” she said. “I seen you there too, didn’t I?”

I was shaken. Hannah’s words—
Confess
—and then Mary’s
They dissemble, all of them,
and now this madwoman staring at me with eyes that seemed to see beyond these dungeon walls.…

Hathorne said, “You testified against your master. Was this a lie?”

“I never accused him,” Mary cried out. “I would not accuse him!”

“Tell us the truth, Mary,” Corwin said. “What has afflicted you now so you cannot tell us the truth? Who has blinded you?
Goody Proctor? Her husband?”

“No one. I tell you, no one! I am telling the truth. All are lies.”

“Your fits were only deception? How can that be? Were you not in fact fighting the Devil? Did he not attack you when you resisted?”

She burst into tears, piteous sobbing that did not let her speak, and though they kept questioning her, Mary Warren did not
answer again, but only cried as if her heart would break. Finally the magistrates called Jem down and I heard their footsteps
along the hall as they left her; their shadows passed fleetingly by the door.

Martha Corey sighed and went back to her bed, and the madwoman began to pace the length of the cell. I went to my own pallet,
turning away from them all. But Mary’s words kept me staring into the dark for a long while, and I wondered: What had happened
between those girls? What secrets did they hide? Why had they banded together this way? What had caused it, what were they
hoping for?

And worse…why had no one yet asked them?

I did not expect to see Lucas again; so when, a few days later, he came again to the cell to see me, I stared at him in surprise.
How long had it been since his last visit? Two weeks? More? He looked more haggard than before, his eyes red-rimmed. There
was a translucent fragility to his skin, deep shadows, hollows.

“Lucas,” I whispered. “Dear God, what has happened to you?”

“I cannot live with this,” he said in a strangled voice. “I cannot do it.”

Warily I said, “You cannot do what?”

He glanced to the others, who were paying us no attention, and I took his arm and led him to my bed. When we sat, he said
in a voice heavy with tears, “When Charity accused Rebecca, I could scarce believe it. Then…last night, Charity told me she
saw Judith come to her in a winding sheet. She says Judith’s spirit accuses you of murder—a small child whom you drowned in
England; a crew member of the
Sunfish
you stabbed with a meat knife and pushed overboard; and another man, a stranger you met in Salem Town, whom you strangled
with your bare hands.”

I stared at him. The charges were so absurd I had to resist an urge to laugh.

Lucas closed his eyes briefly. “I do not believe her. I know it cannot be true. ’Tis…madness.” Tentatively he took my hand,
and when I did not protest, he held it tight—something he had never done before. “This is all…madness. And yet…it has moved
beyond me, Susannah. It has moved beyond us all. The ministers cannot stop it, no matter how they pray and fast. Last week,
our old pastor, Deodat Lawson, came to pray for the girls, to try to stop this. Instead, there are seven more afflicted—not
just girls, but four women now—and here Rebecca is accused, and her sister. And now I ask myself—if the things Charity says
now are not true, if she is truly…deluded…then…can there be truth in anything else she’s said?”

I did not know what to say.

“What happened between her and Sam?” he asked me.

I was surprised by the question, but I answered as well as I could. “I suspect Sam…seduced Charity, that she…did not resist
him, perhaps she even fell in love with him. I believe Judith felt ’twas an unsuitable match, and she paid him five pounds
to leave, and that he did so without a backward glance.”

Lucas’s face was grim. “Judith had said something to me, but I…I didn’t heed it. I saw Charity as a child, and yet…she is
no child. She is sixteen now.
Sixteen.
” His voice turned bitter. “The days have leaped by, and I did not mark their passing. I look at her and I wonder: Where have
I been? ’Twas my task to keep the Devil from her, and yet here he is. How could I have failed her so completely?”

In the corner, Dorcas began to cry that the chains at her wrists were hurting. Martha went to soothe her. Lucas’s glance went
to her. He watched as the child went into Martha’s lap and the woman pressed her hand against the child’s hair and murmured
some little comfort. When he looked back to me, it seemed that something had changed in his manner. I could not tell what,
only that there was a change; there was sudden purpose in the way he squeezed my hand and released me, in the way he stood.

“I will not leave you here,” he whispered, and then, before I could protest, he went to the door and demanded, “Jailkeep,
open the door.”

“Lucas,” I called out, hurrying to him, but he was already outside the cell, and Jem closed the door in my face.

Lucas paused. I had curled my fingers around the bars of the window, and he touched my knuckle and smiled—such an astonishing
thing. I had not seen anything like it on his face before—not bittersweet, not sad, but soft and sweet.

I watched until I could no longer see him, as he followed Jem up the stairs, out of the dungeon. The things Lucas had told
me, his concerns about Charity, his struggles…There was nothing easy in them, nothing to hope for. But as I turned back to
the others, I felt for the first time a strange and wonderful fullness in my heart.

T
HE NEXT MORNING, LITTLE
D
ORCAS
G
OOD WAS LED AWAY
. S
HE
clung to me and cried as the other jailkeep, Richard, tried to pull her from the cell, until he commanded her to quiet, and
said, “You’re goin’ to see your ma.” She, too, was on her way to the Boston Jail, and I was lonely again when they took her,
even in this cell full of people.