Witch Hunt (7 page)

Rebekah looked at Margaret and uttered a brief, bitter laugh. “Because I’m a witch, of course.”

“The authorities will do nothing?”

Rebekah shook her head.

Margaret set her jaw and injected strength into her voice. “Well, then. We’ll just have to see to the situation, won’t we? When my daughter Bridget comes to visit me next, I’ll ask her to brew us some herbs. A golden seal wash will clear up his little eyes, and a chamomile poultice will soothe those bites. Pennyroyal oil will keep the bugs from biting him, and marshmallow will increase your milk flow. You’ll see. It’ll be fine.”

Rebekah’s eyes lit up with hope. “You think it’ll be all right if I name him?”

“What would you have named him, if things had been different?”

“Daniel.”

Margaret smiled. “Daniel is a fine name.”

“Daniel,” Rebekah said.

There was a loud commotion at the cell gate as the examiners arrived for Margaret and Priscilla.

Six women entered. Several of them quickly placed handkerchiefs to their faces, protecting their noses from the room’s stench, but the others seemed unmoved by the odor. Margaret immediately noted their hard expressions as they scanned the room.

The oldest woman, who seemed to be in charge — Margaret guessed her age to be around fifty — pointed a finger at Priscilla’s sleeping form. “There’s the one.”

Margaret stood up and moved to her daughter. “What do you want?”

“Ah, and there’s the other.”

The six women moved to surround Margaret and Priscilla. “We’re the jury sent to examine you,” the eldest woman said. “Rouse your little witch, and the two of you strip yourselves.”

Margaret was stunned. “What?”

“Are you deaf? Strip your clothes. We’re here to look for teats and devil’s marks. On with it.”

Margaret knew she had no choice but to comply. She shook Priscilla awake. “Get undressed, Prissy. These women are here to examine us.”

Priscilla rubbed her eyes awake as she sat up. “Examine?”

“Yes. Do as I say.”

Priscilla removed her dress.

Margaret, too, began to strip away her clothing. Although she knew no shame for her own body, she cringed under the jurors’ eager and greedy appraisal of her growing nakedness.

Margaret looked over the heads of the women who surrounded her and could see the lust in the face of the jailer as he strained to catch a glimpse of flesh. She flushed with embarrassment.

“What exactly are teats and devil marks?” Margaret asked.

The spokeswoman put her hands on her hips. “Well, if you’re a witch, you know. If you’re not — which I very much doubt, from what I’ve heard — I’ll tell you that they’re marks left by the Devil’s incubus where familiar spirits are given to suck. The teats feel no pain.”

Margaret stared in mute horror as the woman removed a long, sharp needle from the pocket of her apron.

“So, let’s get on with the pricking,” the woman said.

Each of the six women withdrew needles of various types and sizes and poised ready for attack.

“Mother?” Priscilla’s voice quavered.

Margaret felt her own rising panic. She could easily bewitch Priscilla so she would feel no pain, but that would damn them both as witches. She realized that she had no option but to let them torture her daughter. “Don’t fight them, Prissy.”

Six pairs of eyes and hands probed Margaret and Priscilla’s bodies. The jury immediately zeroed in on a birthmark above Margaret’s right nipple. She closed her eyes as a needle punctured her flesh, and she did not even attempt to mask the pain it produced. Tears came to her eyes, unbidden, as the hand holding the needle jerked to pierce her nipple as well. She glanced at the woman who was holding the offending needle and wasn’t surprised to see a slight look of triumph on her face. Margaret swallowed her bile as she felt the blood trickle down her body.

Shrill screams pierced the air as a needle slid into a small mole on Priscilla’s arm. “Mother!”

“The pain will pass, Prissy.”
Please, gods, protect my daughter
.

A needle ripped a freckle on Margaret’s back, and she winced.

“Mother!” A needle found a reddened fleabite Priscilla had gotten while asleep on the pile of straw.

“Bend over,” a voice demanded of Margaret.

Margaret was filled with revulsion as the women began to probe her anus and vagina, looking for suspicious marks.

A finger prodded an area behind her vaginal opening. “There. Look at that.”

“It’s a scar caused by childbirth,” Margaret said, but the jurors were unconvinced. The darning needle plunged into the scar.

“
Mother!
Make them stop.”

One of the jurors began to laugh.

Bent over as she was, she grew dizzy. Priscilla’s cries grew more frantic and filled Margaret with an overwhelming sense of helplessness. The jurors’ laughter rang obscenely in her ears, and the needle tore into her again, off target, and stabbed her urethra.

With the echo of her own screams following her into the blessed darkness, Margaret fainted.

Bridget watched helplessly as the sheriff seized the family goods.

“But don’t you have to wait until the trial? And then only if they’re found guilty?” Bridget tried to make her voice sound strong, but wasn’t having much luck.

Phip hid behind her skirt.

The sheriff chuckled. “Merely a technicality.”

He continued to heap the Hawthornes’ pewter, furniture, lamps, clothing, cooking utensils, foodstuffs, and tools onto the bed of his wagon. He tied two cows and three horses to the back, and topped off his load with three cages of chickens.

“But how will Phip and I live?”

“By your wits, child. By your wits.”

The sheriff drove away in a cloud of dust, and Bridget resisted the urge to hurl rocks after him.

“What are we going to do?” Phip asked.

Bridget’s anger, overshadowing her fear, gave her the edge of defiance she needed. “We’ll show them … we’ll survive.”

“I’m hungry,” Phip said.

“Get used to it.”

When Bridget came home from Boston to find the sheriff gathering together the livestock and loading his wagon with the family belongings, she had stopped a distance from the house, dismounted her horse, Silver, and slapped him hard. It took five days of searching the countryside on foot before Bridget found Silver in a distant meadow, courting a beautiful filly. Because of the delay, Bridget did not make it back to Boston in time to deliver the herbs needed to save baby Daniel’s life.

The despair that filled the cage containing her mother and sister was so thick Bridget began to tremble. “I’m sorry I didn’t get here in time.”

Margaret’s face was sad. “You did your best. Don’t fret about it.” She paused. “So, they took it all?”

“We still have the house and land. I still have Silver.” Bridget passed a small basket of dried herbs through the bars. “Here, I gathered these. There’s kelp, dandelion, and alfalfa. You always said the combination will keep a body healthy. I guess you’ll just have to eat them. I’m sorry I couldn’t brew them for you, but … I don’t have a pot.”

Margaret examined the basket she held. “You made this?”

Bridget nodded.

“It’s a fine basket.”

“Thank you.”

“If you make a real tight weave — tight enough to hold water — you can heat water in it by dropping in hot rocks.”

“That’s good to know.”

“Have you seen your father?”

“Yes. He sends his love to you and Prissy.”

They glanced over at where Priscilla sat, hollow-eyed, staring vacantly into space.

“She looks awful,” Bridget said.

“They keep coming back to hurt her.”

“Will she be all right?”

“I’m trying to get her to visit Samara more often.” Margaret raised the basket of herbs. “This’ll help, too.”

“I wish I could have brought you other things to make it easier for you, but …” It was unnecessary for Bridget to finish the sentence.

“I love you.”

Their fingers embraced through the bars.

“I love you, too, Mother.”

There were far fewer men than women arrested by Salem authorities for witchcraft. As a result, the conditions the accused wizards enjoyed were, if not more luxurious than those of their female counterparts, at least less cramped.

The cellmate William had been sharing his small cage with since his arrest — an irascible old man who had the unfortunately damning habit of talking to himself — died of the hardships of his imprisonment. He was replaced by an equally irascible young man named Jansen Van Carel.

“Damned self-righteous, sexually inhibited, Puritan clowns,” Jansen said to William in greeting.

William grinned. “Well, for a society that can have twelve to fourteen children per family, I’d say they really aren’t that sexually inhibited.”

Jansen grunted. “So, are you one of them that stepped out of line or what?”

“I’m not one of them.”

Jansen waited for William to explain, but after a considerable period of silence passed, he shrugged and said, “I’m Jansen Van Carel, out of New York City. Call me Jan.”

“William Hawthorne. What did you do to get yourself damned by Salem’s fine folk?”

“My ship ran into trouble, and I dropped anchor in their port. While I was waiting on repairs, I came ashore to conduct some business, and … well, I have an affliction … and it attracted the wrong sort of attention, and here I am.”

“You’re a ship’s captain?”

“I own a shipping and trading company. Caribbean Ventures. Heard of it?”

William shook his head apologetically. He studied the other man’s rich apparel and jewelry. Caribbean Ventures seemed to be a lucrative venture. “Has your ship got a load on it?”

“Sure. Why?”

“What became of your ship?”

Jansen’s expression was grim. “They’ve seized it while awaiting the outcome of the trial.”

William sighed. “Then prepare yourself to meet the gallows, man, because they want your cargo.”