The Shape of Mercy (15 page)

Still it goes on, this endless exercise. The Village is mad with interest in the Devil’s ways. Who among us remembers it is God’s ways we are to embrace? Townsfolk see the shape of Sarah Goode in their barns, in their cottages, in their dreams. She comes to them with knives and threats. Ann Putnam now says she saw the shape of Elizabeth Proctor among a company of witches and that Goodwife Proctor proceeded to bite and choke her. I do not know what to make of any of it. Elizabeth Proctor’s husband, Goodman John Proctor, owns a tavern and is wealthy. She is not what anyone would call strange. And she is with child.

I did not go to the meetinghouse today.

Papa did not ask me to.

Tituba, Goody Goode, and Goody Osborne have been sent to Boston in chains to await their trial.

I have no zeal within me for stories.

Mercy Lewis, Mary Walcott, and Mary Warren have joined the ranks of the afflicted. Ann Putnam has accused Martha Corey of witchcraft. Goody Corey is not a foreigner like Tituba, not odd like Goody Goode, and not ill like Goody Osborne. She is a godly woman. She is like any woman of good standing in the Village. And yet the charges are heeded.

Betty Parris has been sent away to live with family in Salem Town to ease her afflictions.

I told Prudence Dawes when I saw her at Ingersoll’s that it was wise for Betty to have been sent away. I think Prudence mistook my meaning She looked at me as though I had said Betty was the cause of all the trouble.

T
he end of the week came swiftly. By Thursday I was halfway through March in Mercy’s diary. I finished the March 13 entry a few minutes before six, and Abigail, who knew I was going home again that weekend to work on my dad’s proposal, told me I could stop there. But she wanted me to eat dinner with her anyway.

I correctly assumed she was in the mood to talk that particular afternoon. She wouldn’t have asked me to stay if she weren’t.

I waited to see what was on her mind before telling her what was on mine. She had only taken one bite of her
brie en croûte
before launching into book talk. I should’ve guessed it would be about a book.

“What are you reading for pleasure these days, Lauren?”

I felt my face color. I hoped she didn’t notice.
“Um … Robinson Crusoe?

She did.

“Well, that’s nothing to be ashamed about, Lauren,” she said, cocking her head, waiting for me to spill the reason reading
Robinson Crusoe
made me blush.

“I know it’s not.”

She waited and I chewed.

“You’ve not read it before?” she said.

“No.” I took a sip of water.

“I’m surprised.” Abigail blotted the corner of her mouth with her napkin. “You’re such a fan of British literature.”

I shrugged. “For a long time I just didn’t think I would enjoy reading about a man marooned alone on an island.”

“Mmm. And now you think you would?”

I coughed on a flake of phyllo dough and looked up at Abigail, She was smiling. “No. Not really,” I said.

“Someone recommended you read it?”

“Yes.” I took another sip of water.

“A professor?”

I set the glass down. “A friend.”

“You know, I’ve always thought that Mr. Crusoe was a bit elitist for all he learned about life on that island. Even when he had no one and nothing, he set himself up as master of all that he saw. He taught the native he named Friday to call him Master instead of Friend, when what he really needed at that point was a friend, not a servant.”

I didn’t know if Abigail was really that annoyed with the fictional hero or playing the devil’s advocate.

“Well, I don’t know that he thought of himself as master of everything. I think his attitude of subduing the island was more about survival. Doesn’t the island deepen his relationship with God?” I said. “Doesn’t he begin to see himself as the created and not the Creator?”

“And yet he introduces Friday to Christianity and keeps him as a slave.”

“I guess Defoe was just keeping it real,” I ventured. “That was the custom of the day, to own servants. I do think Crusoe wishes he had listened to his parents instead of running off to do whatever he wanted. He seems repentant about that.”

“Oh, I’m not saying Mr. Crusoe didn’t wish he had listened to reason before he left England. It’s just that he repents as a lord and not a pauper. He learned his lesson, but he saw himself as a privileged man in a hostile environment, not a broken man in the everyday environment of need.”

I hadn’t read enough to know if she was right. I wondered what Raul would have said had he been there.

“I used to think that way,” Abigail said, her voice soft.

Pardon?”

“I used to think I was a privileged woman in a hostile environment.”

“Why did you think that?” I kept my voice soft too, coaxing her to continue.

“Because I was raised like you were, in a home where money was as abundant as expectations. What couldn’t be controlled with money seemed grossly unfair. Hostile, even. But that was just the ordinary world I’d come up against. That was everyday life, and everyday life is full of choices. The privileged have very few truly difficult choices thrown upon them, Lauren. So when we’re called upon to make them, we’ve no history of success or failure.”

I didn’t quite agree with her there. It’s a ridiculous notion that the rich have no troubles. But I wanted her to keep talking. I was certain she was reminiscing about the man she wished she had married. “What was it you came up against?”

“I had to make a choice. I made a poor one.”

“What did you choose?”

She hesitated for only a moment. “I chose the easy way.”

“The easy way?”

“The way that left me alone.”

Esperanza appeared at that moment to take away the brie and replace it with scallops in a sherry sauce.

I waited until she left. “Who said that was the easy way?”

Abigail raised her head and smiled. “Who, indeed?”

She said nothing else. She thought I was being facetious, but I wasn’t. I really wanted to know. Why had Abigail not married the man she loved?

I could only think of one reason a rich young woman wouldn’t
marry the man she loved: he had no money, and that woman feared losing her social standing, the respect of her family, or perhaps even her wealth. So she chose ease over love.

This is what Abigail had done. I was certain of it.

“Abigail, what was his name?” I asked.

She cut a scallop in two. “It doesn’t matter.” She didn’t look at me.

“Yes, it does.”

Abigail pierced the scallop with her fork. “Not anymore.”

But I could see it did matter. Anyone could see it.

For several long minutes, we said nothing to each other. We ate our scallops, the breeze toyed with our napkins, and a lone bee buzzed about the floral centerpiece.

“The transcription work was hard today,” she finally said, letting me know we were done rummaging around in her past.

“Yes.”

The bee flew away.

“There are more entries like that one, I’m afraid,” she said. “Time has not been overly kind to the diary.”

Or to you
, I thought. “I hadn’t heard of someone appearing as a shape to someone else. Those sentences threw me, especially since they were so hard to read,” I said.

“That was called spectral evidence. Many of the Salem convictions were based on spectral evidence. By autumn of 1692, it was no longer allowed, but by that time it was too late.”

“And spectral evidence was …?”

“It was one person saying he or she saw the specter or the shape of someone else, sitting in the rafters above their cooking fire, prancing about their kitchen, or hovering over them as they slept, sticking them with pins and knives.”

The thought sent a shiver down my spine. “Like ghosts?”

Abigail inhaled deeply. “Well, yes, sort of like ghosts, only those
whose shapes were seen about the village terrorizing innocent people, those people were still alive, many of them sitting in prison in chains at the time.”

“No one else saw these shapes, though?”

“Apparently only the bewitched could see the shapes. No one else.”

I was beginning to understand. “So no one could refute them.”

“No. No one could. And it went on for months. By the time spectral evidence was finally banned in late November, Mercy was already …” Abigail’s voice trailed off.

Silence filled the air around our table and uneasiness enveloped me.

I knew what was coming in the pages of the diary. Not the exact details, but I knew how the story would end. Abigail didn’t have to finish.

I knew assumptions were going to be made about the girl I spent my afternoons with. Accusations were coming. Mercy would be asked to choose. There was no easy way. Confess or face execution. There would be a trial. A conviction.

A hangman’s noose.

I pushed my plate away.

Papa brings home news every day. Goody Corey was taken to the Putnam house to determine if she is indeed the one torturing Ann Putnam. It is said when Goody Corey walked into the Putnam house, Ann fell to fits and horrible writhing and screamed that Goody Corey suckled an evil yellow bird between her fingers
.

And then Ann screamed she saw a man roasting on a spit in the fireplace. Mercy Lewis, who is a servant at the Putnam house, said she saw it too. And she also fell into fits.

And now Goody Nurse is accused! Goody Nurse is wise and good. We should all laugh to think Goody Nurse is in league with the Devil. But nay, Abigail Williams screams Goody Nurse torments her and she is believed. Is not Goody Nurse also tormented by such horrible accusations? How can so many good women in the Village be witches?

John Peter comes to get eggs, and we do not talk of what is happening in the Village. But since nothing else is happening, we barely speak.

Today he asked if I was writing stories.

I told him I have no heart for happy stories when all around me is madness.

He held my gaze before he turned to go back to his own cottage. For a moment I thought he might reach out to touch my face. There was no straw in my hair this time.

I don’t know how I know he almost did this. His hand, the one not holding the basket of eggs, stayed close to his body. But I believe he almost did.

A warrant has been issued for Goody Corey’s arrest. She was examined today, but I did not attend. Papa, I think, has begun to see these unseemly meetings distress me. He told me Goody Corey maintained her innocence and the girls who accuse her displayed their awful evidence. They claimed to see a man whispering evil words in Goody Corey’s ear. They moaned in agony.

I do not know what to think. Goody Corey has always been kind to me and Papa.

I am fast running out of ink. Papa does not speak of going to Boston. I will have to find some walnut shells to crush.

Elizabeth Proctor has been accused of witchcraft. So has the child Dorcas Goode. The Village may as well accuse Lily, my milk cow, of bewitching young girls.

Papa is coughing again. Tonight he did not eat.

T
hat weekend, I brought the schematic design for the art complex my father wanted my help with back to the dorm. Clarissa, who had no interest in the project the weekend we were at my house, had asked to see it. I think she was really interested in spending another weekend at my parents’ home in hopes of seeing Cole again.

My rich, single cousin.

When she asked to see them, I told her I could probably bring the drawings back to the dorm. She gave me a funny look. I’d had many restless nights dreaming of yellow birds and screaming girls, but even though my thoughts were scattered, I knew what she was really after. Another beach party at Malibu. More face time with Cole. Another silver-domed meal served to her on the patio.

But Clarissa would have been disappointed had she come. Cole wasn’t home. There were no beach parties. And Eleanor had the weekend off; we went out to eat. No silver-domed meals on the patio.

But Dad did let me take the drawings back to Santa Barbara. I think he liked that I wanted to show them to Clarissa.

When I got back late that Sunday afternoon, I spread the drawings out on our dorm room floor. Clarissa knelt over them and asked me if I had seen Cole and Raul while I was home. I wondered if she really cared at all about what she was looking at.

“No,” I said.

She paused for a moment and then pointed to the drawings. “So what exactly is this? I thought you said it was an art gallery.”

“It’s a group of buildings, really. Like a family of galleries all in one place, connected thematically and centered on a garden in the middle of the complex. But it’s not just art that will be on display. There will be a viewing library of rare books, and a museum of antique musical instruments, and a gallery of rare china and furniture.”