is listened to like it comes from the town council.”
Ann’s eyes double their size.
“It was not like this where I came from before.”
I pace my room.
“When the children were bewitched, the preachers
tried always to stop them from fitting.”
Ann bends to pet Wilson,
but he pulls back his head
like a riled tortoise.
“Not so with Betty and Abigail.
Father stays at the parsonage late
into the night watching them.
Many church members do.
They have chained Tituba up in jail.”
I scratch my head.
“Men listening to the words of girls?
Are you certain, Ann?”
“Yes, ’tis true.”
“If only ye could visit the parsonage
and see the girls.”
“Oh, but I have seen Abigail
this very day. I saw exactly
how she does twitch and shake.
I know what the witches do to torture her.”
Ann twists her torso tight as a rope,
then juts her bones inside out.
Much as I might like to cover my eyes
as Ann cripples her body into a sailor’s knot,
my arms hang at my sides.
My mouth droops open.
“They call it Affliction,” Ann says.
“All are in awe of it.”
A flash of mischief crosses Ann’s eyes
as she watches me watching her,
like the torch that smokes
heaven’s white edge.
I AM AFFLICTED
Ann Putnam Jr., 12
Someone makes my legs
whip about like sheets in the wind.
Someone curls and bends
my arms behind my neck.
All turns black and cold.
“Who goes there?” I cry.
I scream until the room comes lit,
and then I see witches
the same as the Minister’s girls—
Tituba, the Parrises’ slave, and Goody Good.
I swear to Father ’tis the witches
who twist my limbs and cause me ache.
I blink my eyes and the witches disappear,
but I saw them stand before me,
felt them pinch my arm,
I know that I did.
INTO THE WOODS
Margaret Walcott, 17
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.
WHAT BOYS SAY
Margaret Walcott, 17
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,
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.
ON THE WAY TO ELIZABETH
Margaret Walcott, 17
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.
TURN YOUR BACK
Ann Putnam Jr., 12
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.
SECRETS
Margaret Walcott, 17
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 b
reath. “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.”
PRECIOUS
Mercy Lewis, 17
“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.
INGERSOLL’S ORDINARY
March 1692
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.
FIRST TIME IN THE COURTROOM
Ann Putnam Jr., 12
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.
FLATTERED
Mercy Lewis, 17
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.
MOTHER’S ORDERS
Ann Putnam Jr., 12
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 PAIN OF AFFLICTION
Mercy Lewis, 17
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.
A REAL PROBLEM
Margaret Walcott, 17
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!”
GROUP OF AFFLICTED
Mercy Lewis, 17
Outside Sunday meeting
Betty and Abigail stand
stationed aside the Reverend.