and then slink up the stairs.
I will see my mother.
I need to lie beside her crying
and let go tears.
LITTLE SPY
Mercy Lewis, 17
I stand silently behind her,
still as a stalk on a windless hill.
Abigail peers into the meetinghouse window.
I jiggle her shoulder.
When Abigail begins to scream,
I cup her mouth.
“Abigail Williams, what art thou about?”
I whisper to her ear.
“I be listening to their talk,”
she says, and looks down.
“Fine idea,” I say. I join her
on the embankment. Abigail smiles.
We watch the men fastened to their benches.
They shake their heads like weeds
do twist in the wind.
Reverend’s voice rattles through the pane,
“John and Mary Tarbell, Samuel and Mary Nurse,
and Peter Cloyse all have been absent
from worship many Sabbaths now.
What say you we do?” He steps away
from the pulpit and sits aside Thomas Putnam.
“A committee ought to be formed to talk
to them,” the Constable suggests.
“Let them rot with their devil kin,”
says Ann’s father, Thomas Putnam,
and straightens his hat. “Need we their kind?”
I clasp Abigail’s hand.
“I need you to do something for me.
Remember how you stole letters
from your uncle’s desk before?
I want you to take the letters
the Reverend receives this week
and bring them to me each day.”
I narrow my eyes.
“But Reverend must not know you take them.
Abigail, you are being given
a very important job. Can I trust you
or need I ask Ann to do this?”
“Oh no, I can do it. I will sneak them
so he cannot miss the letters,” she says,
and skips quickly down the path.
I inhale large and climb away from the window.
The sun heats my steps, and when I look down
I see the outline of myself expand on the grass—
big, black and important, taller than I ever imagined
I would stand. I stumble to think of why.
REVENGE
Margaret Walcott, 17
The sun causes me to sweat
and tremble like the old ladies.
“I can’t be sure we should do this,”
I say to Mercy.
Before I can say more, she faints
outside of the parsonage
as the bell sounds for meeting.
Her fingers clutch round her throat,
choking her breath.
“Who torments thee, child?”
Reverend Parris kneels over Mercy
in front of the whole membership.
Mercy can’t make full words,
but she ekes out, “Eye Ah,” and gestures
toward Isaac with her eyes.
Ann and Abigail squint dumbstruck
in the morning sun when Reverend
asks them to confirm, “Isaac?”
They do nod heads and repeat, “Isaac.”
The Reverend cradles Mercy in his arms
as she moans and quivers. “Poor girl.”
He shakes his head and scowls at Isaac.
Someone cries, “Arrest the wizard!”
Folk circle round Isaac and his family.
“I be innocent,” Isaac says as the Constable
pins Isaac’s arms behind him.
Isaac spits at Mercy twitching in the dirt
and folk scream. Isaac calls her “Lying witch.”
“To the jail with ye, boy!” The Reverend
points a finger direct to prison.
I hold up my hand. “No, stop, sir.
’Tis the wrong man.” I look at Isaac direct.
“The specter who chokes Mercy
be Giles Corey. I see him clear.”
I repeat, “Giles Corey.
Mercy, Giles Corey
be the one tormenting ye?”
Mercy nods and the crowd gasps.
“But she said Isaac.”
Reverend’s face bulges like
an overgrown trunk.
“Mercy said, ‘He was,’ and pointed
at Goodman Corey,” I explain.
Constable releases Isaac.
Folk shake heads and shrug shoulders.
They settle down and then file
into meeting.
I hold Mercy’s hand as she is too
weak to stand or go into church
just yet.
Isaac don’t even look on us
as he shuffles lastly in the meetinghouse,
but he do know what did happen.
I should feel right good,
but I feel quite bad.
MOTHER AND BABY
Ann Putnam Jr., 12
My fingers touch not
when I wrap my arms
round Mother and the baby
kicking at her belly.
I kneel before her
and kiss her fair hand.
“Please forgive me.
I have been devilish to thee.”
“You have been bewitched
for certain. I forgive thee, my firstborn.
Now fetch me my broth.”
Mother sips a few spoonfuls,
but then dissatisfaction washes
over her face as though she wishes
to eat something different.
“What else may I fetch thee?”
“Nothing for certain.
This broth does me well.”
Mother exhales loud as an old bellow.
“What you should do for your mother
is to end your allegiance to that servant.”
“But Mercy—” I begin.
“Hush your tongue, child.”
Mother grows apple red.
“Was I not on my deathbed?
A mother knows. Thou shalt see.
That servant be not kin, she be not
fit to walk behind you, less beside you.”
BURNING THE LETTERS
Mercy Lewis, 17
Margaret holds the paper over the fire.
A spark could leap up and eat away
all the words. A corner of the parchment
catches to orange, and I blow the little flame cold.
“You cannot burn that letter,” I say to her,
and snatch it from her hands.
“And it would not change things anyway.”
Doubt descends like nightfall upon our village.
It is still summer, our days longer
than the moonlit hours, but one feels
winter coming, for even in the breathless
heat there grows cold.
I read the letter from Reverend Mather
again. “Reverend Cotton Mather,
like others in our village, questions
whether the specters we girls see
be the Devil,
or innocent people the Devil disguises himself as.”
I look at Margaret. “Understand you this?”
She dips her bread in maple syrup,
swats a bee swirling over her head.
“But still when we fit, the law locks
the witches up and then tries and hangs
the lot of them what don’t confess.”
She lowers her head. “More hang this Friday.”
“One who deserves it, Burroughs,
and four who do not, and we can do
little but stand by and watch.
Still, the Lord calls us to track
and punish the guilty ones.”
I swipe the tea
r trailing down my cheek.
“But it is changing, Margaret,
like a shift of wind.
We will not be heard anymore,” I say.
Margaret says, “We must just remain
strong and united.”
I pick the bread off my skirt and dunk
it in her pot of syrup. I nod my head,
but I am not so sure.
HANGINGS
Mercy Lewis, 17
Four men and one woman
pulled in the death cart.
My old master,
who surely deserves to die,
Reverend George Burroughs,
speaks the Lord’s Prayer
with a noose about his neck,
every word in place,
as a witch should not be able to recite.
The crowd quakes
as though the earth were splitting apart.
“How can he recite the Lord’s Prayer?”
someone asks. Another wonders,
“Did we make a mistake?”
Ann cries, “The Devil stands beside Reverend Burroughs
and whispers the words of the prayer in his ear.”
She gestures to the right of the man.
My tongue weights down my mouth,
and I am not sure whether or not to speak,
but then I affirm, “Aye, the Devil stands there.”
All the girls point and say the Devil
told Reverend Burroughs what to say.
William Burroughs does not kick his way to death.
His neck snaps and his head hangs,
like a broken twig, apart from his body.
Someone in the crowd shouts, “He was innocent!”
Shoves and hollers erupt and soon people are crying,
“We killed an innocent man!” Dirt clouds
around my face as riled hooves kick up the ground.
Not until Reverend Cotton Mather,
the man who has questioned the witch trials,
raises his hands and hushes everyone
with a prayer, only then, does cease
the bickering and yelling.
I bend over and vomit. I turn from the hanging.
I turn from the Reverend Mather’s assurance
that we hung the guilty—something inside me
cannot hold on to it.
PEINE FORTE ET DURE
September 1692
Beware of sturdy branches.
Not only apples hang
from trees.
Oh, ’tis no consolation
that the apples be poisoned,
to shoot them too soon
from the branch,
and know ’twas you
who made the wretched bullets!
For you who are the last log
on the load of lumber,
’tis you what crush them flat.
COLDER
Ann Putnam Jr., 12
Mercy does not answer
when I knock on her door.
“’Tis but Ann,” I say sweetly,
and push open the door.
“What do you want, Ann?” she asks.
She and her room look like a hailstorm
furied down upon them.
“What can I do to help?” I ask her.
“Nothing. Leave me rest,” Mercy snaps,
and turns from me. “I must think.
We have more trials and hangings,
but we must stop harming the innocent.
We must have strategy.
Oh, my head does ache.”
I purse my lips to whistle in Wilson
but stop before sound escapes my mouth.
I inch to Mercy’s side and stroke her hair.
“There must be something I can do,” I say.
She brushes off my hand.
“I know you mean to help,
but just go home, Ann.
Leave me my peace.
I will see you come ’morrow.”
I turn to leave.
“Will you not come back home, Mercy?
Mother misses you, Father too.
I miss you most.”
“I know that you do,” she says,
and rushes me out the door.
Even though he sits still and peaceful
as a river on a windless day,
I growl at Wilson.
Though he gnarls not one tooth,
I still kick him: “Stupid dog.”
He yelps, and I muzzle the devilish thing.
MEETING
Mercy Lewis, 17
Ingersoll’s smells of rot,
week-old bones aboveground.
I hold my sleeve to my nose.
“I seen not a specter,”
I say. “Has anyone honestly seen one?”
None speaks.
“This must end.”
I say it bold.
Silence. The drip of a leaky roof,
the pant of canine tongue.
Abigail smiles. Margaret seems
to almost nod, and Elizabeth clasps
my hand.
Ann shakes her head.
“Have you all gone mad?”
she finally says. “We shall return
to nothing, if we are not seers.
The Lord has chosen us
to be guides, and we shall do so
“We are not chosen to see.
We have been choosing who to see.
And who are we to choose?
This must end.”
I pound the table.
Ann grabs my arm
rough enough Wilson barks,
and the few folks in Ingersoll’s
eye us. “Giles Corey.
You are made ill by Goodman Corey,”
she orders me like a servant.
I shake free of her
and march sure-footed
out of that grave-digging hole.
STILL SPREADING THROUGH THE COUNTY
Mercy Lewis, 17
Elizabeth stares out my window.
“It is too quiet,” she says.
I wave her off, pull the brush
through my locks,
but when I listen
the night has lost
its hum and chirp,
no horse hooves sound,
no wind shakes the branches.
We hear the front door
bang open and the Constable
brush off his boots.
He thumps into his seat
at the table. I push Elizabeth
away from the door,
so that my ear presses against it.
“The committee went to see
the kin of those witches.”
I know the voice, but cannot
place the speaker.
Elizabeth’s hand twists the doorknob,
but I stop her from opening the door.
Constable says, “They suffer.
I think Reverend was right
to leave the Nurse family be.”
An insistent tap tap tap
at the door, and another
enters the house.
Elizabeth’s body arches.
Her skin pales, just listening
to the new footsteps, the drag
of her uncle’s cane.
“If he knows I am here,
he will beat me raw.”
Elizabeth slumps to the ground.
“Worry not, we will sneak
you home faster than your uncle
can travel. Hush now!” I say.
“How fare all in Andover?”
The man whose voice
I still cannot recognize asks Doctor Griggs.
“They have caught not only
scarlet fever, but the young girls
be afflicted by witches.
Witches are coming out
everywhere to overtake
Essex County, it seems.”
Doctor Griggs lowers himself
creak by creak into a chair.
“All more reason why we must talk
to our brethren not attending church.”
The mystery voice grows larger now,
powerful enough I wonder if the speaker
be not one of the magistrates.
Constable stands with a dull thud.
He bangs his head on the low ceiling beam
above the table as he always does.
“All these witches in Andover
I hear do confess to signing
the Devil’s book,” he says.
“Who is with the Constable
and Doctor Griggs?” I ask Elizabeth.
She shakes her head.
“Well, never to mind,” I say.
Elizabeth grabs my arm.
“The Devil’s Affliction
is spreading across the county?”
I shrug. “How can that be?”
A FAMILIAR
Ann Putnam Jr., 12
Wilson gnarls his teeth at me.
I drag him to Ingersoll’s,
where Elizabeth and Margaret
and Abigail do congregate.
“What are you doing with Mercy’s dog?”
Abigail asks, and pets the beast.
Wilson nuzzles her hand.
“I would not touch him
were I you. This dog be Charlotte Easty’s