Wicked Girls (5 page)

Trees don't talk

so we walk far enough

into the thicket

me shivering under Isaac's cloak

so he can kiss me full

on lips, forehead, eyelids,

earlobes, neck, chest

and lower,

and his hands are branches

and he shakes me loose

until it seems I will be

bare as the winter trees.

But the wind kicks up

and I wake and I smell

pine needles. I am an evergreen

I think. I tell him

I don't shed my leaves,

well, not today,

and he takes my hands

and I become the branch

shaking him loose

amidst the flurries of snow.

Girls play

at who will make us husband,

but not boys.

But Ann overheard her mother say

that when they asked Isaac

who he might take in hand

after he returns from the battles,

he did say if he must, well then,

perhaps, Margaret Walcott.

My pulse be fast as a hound after a hare.

“Do tell it again, but more slow

and with all the senses of it,”

I say to Ann.

Ann rolls her eyes

such that I want to pluck

them from her rag doll head.

“'Tis nothing to have a boy

like you; Mercy makes all men turn stare.

Do you not want to hear

of how the witches

did pinch me

and Father told the magistrates?”

Ann asks.

If once and again I hear tell

of Ann and her witch prick,

I might pinch her my own self.

“I feel not well,

and best go home,” I say.

I swaddle up for the cold.

But as soon as I leave

I turn up Ipswich Road

toward the dwelling

of my new friend,

Elizabeth.

The snow must haze my eyes.

I stand as ice, feet to bonnet,

froze still. Isaac,

all chest thrust forward,

struts across Ipswich Road.

His arms be stacked with firewood.

I look heavenward

to thank the Lord for this good day.

I pull down my sleeves

and hitch up my skirts to meet him.

Then I see her, with her scurvy smile,

the ugliest sinner in Satan's den!

She right traps my Isaac.

She lifts her crinolines over a puddle

and he follows her,

carries that firewood for her

like
he
were
her
servant.

My Isaac trails after a serving girl,

his eyes upon her

like he might lick the snow

from her boots.

I rub mine eyes,

but still that horrible Mercy.

I pick up skirt and run.

A wind blows outside the parsonage

and slaps my hair to my face.

“Margaret,” I call her name,

but she pretends not to hear.

Margaret thumps over to that new girl,

Elizabeth. And without Betty or Abigail,

the eyes of the town stare on me alone,

the new afflicted girl. I shudder, a single

leaf dangling a barren branch.

“Ann.” Mercy's hand rests upon my shoulder.

“How fare ye? Feelest thou any pricks or pinches?”

I shake my head.

Mercy nods and says, “Still, I shall sit

aside you, lest you need aid.”

This will be the finest Thursday lecture

I ever did attend.

Elizabeth hesitates.

She fixes on her boots,

battered and mud-splashed.

“Well, take them off and come in,” I say.

Her fingers twitch

like the pulse of a bird's neck

as she corks off her shoes.

Her eyes avoid me.

She wears no stockings

and her legs be spotted purple and blue.

“What happened?” I ask.

“I have no stockings and 'tis cold,”

she says quickly, hiding away her feet.

“Keep these couple then. They be old,

but will give thee some warmth.”

“Thank ye.” Elizabeth smiles.

Sunlight forms a patch 'pon my quilt.

“'Twas my mama's. We sewed it together

from the dress Mama wore on the boat

crossing to here.”

“'Tis pretty.” Elizabeth begins. “My mother—”

“Lizzie, can you keep a secret?”

I close my bedroom door.

“For I must tell someone, but only one I can trust.”

“None shall know what you say to me,”

Elizabeth says, and falls hush.

I let go my breath. “Isaac Farrar,

he says he will marry me,

and I do love him.

But I spied him handling wood for Mercy,

the Putnams' servant girl,

them alone in the forest together,

Isaac smiling at her like he covet her,

and I know not what to do.”

Lizzie follows each of my words.

“The Lord will guide you, Margaret.

We must pray for Isaac.”

She bows her head.

Two minutes pass

and I can bear no more silence,

no more praying on this.

I pull Lizzie off her knees.

“What hear ye 'bout the third witch accused?”

“Uncle Griggs says Sarah Osborne

be old, mad and bedridden,” she says.

“But didst thou know Goody Osborne

lived in sin before marrying her own servant?”

Elizabeth gasps and shakes her head.

“Yea,” I say. “And Goody Osborne

tried to cheat Ann's father and his brothers

out of her late husband's trust.”

“That be a sin,” Lizzie says.

I nod and say,

“And Goody Osborne be a witch.”

“Ann, dear, pray come out

from behind the drapery,”

Missus Putnam says,

her voice honey spun and soft.

Missus motions for me

to pick up Ann,

no longer a baby.

I cannot breathe

until I set Ann on the divan.

Ann grabs my hand.

Her tremors grow so powerful

that they tumble into me,

and I too jitter and twitch.

Missus says, “Ann, dear,

you will be better.

Father and Uncle Edward

and Mister Hutchinson and Mister Preston

are off to the magistrates.

The Constable will arrest those witches.

Before 'morrow Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne

will be with Tituba in shackles. And, my dear child,

I pray you will terror no longer.”

She strokes Ann's hair

as she screeches for me to

“Fetch the child some tea!”

“Yes, ma'am,” I say, and turn

toward the kitchen.

The Missus cradles

little Ann in her arms.

And for the first time I can recall

Missus looks at Ann

as though she is something

precious,

dear as her necklace

of gems.

Cider flows inside the tavern,

for Ingersoll's serves

a hearty stew

of witch fever.

All who enter and imbibe

do lick their lips for more.

Sure as meat makes a pie,

the villagers be certain

that Satan is among them.

The brisk spoons of girls

ladle fear

into everyone's bowls.

I sit not aside Mercy or Margaret,

but next to Abigail and little Betty.

They drag in Goody Good

for her formal examination.

Shall she remain in jail?

Shall she face trial?

I wish to run from the room.

The others kick and scream.

I kick and scream too,

for I know not what else to do.

All the people packed into the meetinghouse

believe the witches do harm us.

And our elders cannot be wrong.

Certainly the Reverend

and the magistrates

and Father

can tell what be false

and what be the truth.

Uncle Edward back from the north

with a slanted nose

and a hollow space

instead of a bottom tooth,

he wishes to trap me

like he traps dinner

with one eye down the barrel.

In the day I curve him off my trail,

never to be caught by manners

well and polite, his friendly smile,

his buttons right and tidy.

Most girls would blush and curtsy

and feel flattered as a pretty dress.

I know better.

Living with Reverend Burroughs's

roving hands schooled me well.

Night crawls over the house.

Footsteps creep down the hall

like a low drumbeat.

Two eyes flash against the dark,

husky breath at the doorframe,

a glint of leather boot.

Edward be leaning there.

The scream starts

inside my stomach,

what shall I do?

Fore I can move,

I be sheltered by fur.

Wilson bares his teeth

and threatens to wake the house.

Edward fists his anger,

but he cannot harm

Mister Putnam's favorite dog.

Edward turns his heels

and leaves me with my Wilson.

Mercy nuzzles Wilson

as she sets down his bowl.

Her eyes look bruised and tired.

“Can I help thee?” I start to ask her,

but Mother summons me, “Ann!”

“Follow not our serving girl.”

Mother lies still in her bedclothes.

“Bring your lessons in here,”

she commands.

I grind my teeth.

Oh, the day will be long and dull!

I scratch my head.

Perhaps I shall fall prey to the witches.

The Missus and I

tend Ann by turns.

I grasp Ann's hand

and try to pull her

from her nightmare.

The specter she sees today

she names as Goody Proctor,

wife of the tavern keeper

who sells drink to traveling men

who act like slant-eyed, heavy-tongued dogs

come springtime.

Goody Proctor is known herself

to have cursed her neighbors'

calves and horses

and husbands.

Ann squeezes my arm.

Her hand is almost

as big as my own,

and she is strong

as a fuming bull.

Her fingers are brittle pins.

She clenches my wrist

as though she wants

to lead me somewhere

in her half sleep.

She reaches toward my face.

“It hurts,” she yelps.

“Make it stop. Make her stop.”

Ann's mouth foams like surf

on a stormy morn. Her face pales.

But her eyes blaze.

They bid me,

Come into the madness, Mercy.

And then I see it,

in the deep black of her eye,

a cavern,

a place

amidst the suffering

it seems

a girl might escape.

Her room be bare,

except for the wood cross on her wall.

What kind of girl got nothing,

not even a brush or a porcelain pitcher?

“Elizabeth, Isaac can't like

Mercy over me?”

I twist hair round my finger

and yank a few strands from my head.

“Could be he was just being

helpful carrying that wood?”

I pace round the bed.

“Or could be worse than I suppose!

Lizzie, what'll I do?

He is all I want in this world.

I'll give him many good sons.

I wish the unrighteous on that Mercy!”

I look at Elizabeth, who should

be nodding her head to agree

with me or calming me

with her sweet assureds,

but she just glares forward,

tugging down her sleeve.

I wave my hands before her eyes

and not a blink of her lids.

Her arms twist behind her

slow and tight like roots

of a tangled old tree.

I try to move them back

to place but have not the strength.

I scream, for the pain

crashes over my friend's face

like a tidal wave,

but she cannot make noise;

barely can she make breath.

“Help! Doctor Griggs!

Somebody! Help!

Elizabeth be afflicted!”

Elizabeth's hand nearly

strangles my wrist

as if to shout, “No!”