“Thank ye in public
for my condition did but improve.
I do rightly believe the Devil deceived,
and we girls did but speak falsely.
The magistrates might as well
listen to someone insane
and believe what she said
as any of the afflicted persons,
for I submit there be as much truth in madness
as in any of the girls’ claims.
Our fits and pains may be put to end
by the Lord’s will and concentration of mind.
I humbly ask ye all to forgive
my weakness against the Devil.
Your gracious servant, Ruth Warren.”
“I’ve a mind to whip
that Ruth Warren
same as Goodman Proctor did,” I say.
Ann flicks my arm.
“Quiet your tongue.
Cause not disturbance, Margaret.”
I want to say, Or else what?
What’ll ye do? Who crowned
thee queen? But I hold in
them words for now.
“Do you suppose Ruth be beat
into writing all that?”
I whisper to Elizabeth.
Inside the meetinghouse
all the eyes of the church
lock on us Afflicted
tighter than a bridle.
The question whirling
o’er the rafters, gathering
fast as storm clouds—
If Ruth Warren
recants that she was tormented,
if she can stop her fits,
why then do we other girls
not quit ours?
I stare straight at the pulpit,
try not to let the fire
of their eyes burn my cheeks.
I glance over at Isaac,
want to wave up my hand
and have him lead me out of
this stomach-churning church.
But he never looks my way.
After meeting the sky’s
still and gray as a dead fish.
We girls gather in a cluster.
Uncle Thomas speaks loud, so many hear,
“I believe Ruth Warren must have signed
or at least placed her hand upon the Devil’s book.”
The crowd gasps and nods.
Doctor Griggs adds, “Were our girls
to do that, their aches would leave them too.”
“But their souls be blackened.”
Reverend Parris’s voice shakes the trees.
Abigail steps in the center
of the churchyard
and wilts onto the ground,
falling like a leaf blown down
in a rustle of wind,
her face red as the Devil’s book.
“What be she doing?” I say
to the other girls. Ann’s eyes boil.
Reverend Parris clasps his scaly hand
on my shoulder. “Be you brave, Margaret Walcott?”
He looks at Mercy and Ann and Elizabeth and me.
“Do not sign that book of blood.
Push away Satan’s quill.”
We all nod our heads.
Reverend tears down
the note Ruth Warren tacked
to the meetinghouse door.
He rips down her recant
of seeing witches,
her attempt to cast
the rest of us liars.
Soon as he be gone
my step-cousin says,
“Five of us. One of her.
Ruth Warren will face regret.”
BAG OF WOOL
Mercy Lewis, 17
All look on Abigail,
fainting skirts upon the ground,
but one.
I feel him once again
wrap gaze around my shoulders
like a shawl, a woolen cloak I need not
on this steam-hot day.
I turn my back to Isaac
though I wish to turn round.
Ann pulls me aside.
“Mercy.” She sounds
as though she holds stones
on her tongue. “Ruth Warren,
how shall we make her pay her trouble?”
I whisper to Ann,
“Does any yet look on us?”
“None.” Ann taps her foot
as though she has somewhere else to be.
When I draw up my eyes,
his look is still roped upon our group.
I point Ann with my glancing,
“But what of that one with your uncle?”
“None stands by Uncle and Father,
save Isaac Farrar, Margaret’s betrothed,”
Ann says. “And he always be staring this way.”
“Your cousin will be wed?”
I choke out the words.
Ann nods, then insists,
“What of Ruth Warren?”
“Call her a witch,” I say.
BEWARE
May 1692
Ruffle the goose
and she’ll snap at your tail,
kick you to stream
and bar you
from the row of ducks.
The water muddies.
’Tis hard to know
where next
to dunk your head
and bite the new fish
when you be
scouting the sea
alone.
UNEXPECTED EXPECTATION
Margaret Walcott, 17
I be weeding the garden
and mending the fence round it
to keep the vermin out
when a large shadow falls
over the seedlings.
Isaac bends to my ear.
“Follow me, fair Margaret.”
I can’t protest, for as I stand
he be already to the stream
beyond our house.
The sun squints my eyes.
I wipe my hands ’pon my apron
and dash into the woods
past the barn till I find
my sweet one lying in the clearing
flooded in sparkling light
looking more handsome
than Christ himself.
He pats the ground, says,
“’Tis a fine day.”
I nod and lie beside him.
He curves me against him
like a belt drawn into a loop.
His kisses tender but brutal,
I wish them never to end.
He begins then at unlacing
my dress. I shake my head.
“But we are betrothed,” he says,
and slides a hand beneath
my petticoat.
I feel cold with fright
as though the day be winter ice.
I skirt away from him.
“I think I hear Father call me,” I say.
Isaac’s eyes roll
and he blows out
an angry sigh
as he places my hand
in that same unholy place
beneath his clothes
he did afore in the woods.
“Not all be as cloistered
in their stockings as thou,” he says.
I pretend not to know
what he does imply,
close my eyes
and set to work
while whirling high above us
the wind screams
wild lashings
across the leaves.
THREE SISTERS
Mercy Lewis, 17
The breeze smart
against my neck,
dewy leaves and grass
tickle my nose.
Wilson and I wander
a new route
this morning
on the way to Ingersoll’s.
Across the field
out in their garden
they praise the day
like three
smiling
blossoms.
Rebecca Nurse
and her two sisters
plant and weed.
Laughter sprinkles
across the soil
as Charlotte slips
in the mud.
Rebecca
lifts Charlotte to a stand,
brushes off her skirt.
I wish to rush across
the meadow
offer my hand,
and join the row of happy sisters.
I stare at my hands,
my horrible filthy hands,
and run.
ANN DECIDES
Mercy Lewis, 17
She knows her little fists
like cannonballs
have the power to crumble
fortress and family.
She decides that Goodwife Cloyse,
the sister of Rebecca Nurse,
will be next accused.
“Sister of a witch.
She must also be a witch,”
Ann says.
Abigail’s words jump from her mouth
so she be the first to say,
“Goodwife Cloyse did flee meeting
last Sunday right in the middle,
and she has not been back to the parsonage.”
Margaret nods. “And she has been speaking out
against the accusation of her sister.”
Ann looks to me to add comment,
but I just stroke Wilson’s head.
“But I never did see the specter
of Goodwife Cloyse.
Did ye all?”
Elizabeth’s voice be quiet,
but her words be loud.
Margaret clasps Elizabeth’s hand.
She says the words that Ann
wishes would come from my lips.
“This matters not.
Kin what stand up for each other,
must make their home in jail.”
Elizabeth rises to leave our table.
Her uncle enters the ordinary
and she quickly sits down.
Her body trembles
as she tugs upon her sleeves.
KEEP QUIET
Ann Putnam Jr., 12
Just before sun’s at mid-sky,
the meetinghouse stacks with people.
I grab Abigail outside the courtroom.
“You best keep quiet sometimes.
You cannot see everything.”
Goody Cloyse stands first in the confession box.
Abigail says, “I saw Goody Cloyse
and Goody Nurse serve our blood
at a meeting of the Devil’s
where forty witches come to my uncle’s pasture,
congregating till a fine man in white
scared them away.”
When Goody Cloyse faints
and the crowd’s eyes are diverted,
I kick Abigail hard enough she squeals.
A second witch appears chained before us.
When the magistrate asks,
“Does Goody Proctor hurt you?”
Mercy and Elizabeth and I cannot form words.
Abigail opens her mouth wide as a baby bird.
I stuff it with my bonnet.
The rest of us flap like geese in a pattern.
I head the formation,
and our wings fly all the same speed.
We girls shake together
whenever a witch looks our way.
And the witches become felled birds
the constables chain and cage in jail.
QUESTIONING OUR POWER
Mercy Lewis, 17
I scan around the tavern
and could pinch myself
that we girls should sit here
nearly daily now,
but as the witches pinch us first
and so many folk
be ripe to believe,
I try to accept my seat.
Across the street
some whose family
stand in the confession box
or those who never did like
the selection of Reverend Parris
as village minister,
they eye us girls
with tar and gravel
as though we ought
be the ones chained
to the jailer’s wagon.
Abigail rattles her mouth,
the excited babe showing
off how she has learned to speak.
“I saw the specter of Reverend Burroughs,
one who was pastor before
in Salem Village, leading
a group of witches outside
the parsonage last night.”
How names she my old master?
How knows she what a true wizard he was?
Margaret laughs. “You cannot know
’twas Minister Burroughs.”
“Reverend told me it was so,”
Abigail nearly shouts. “He said
that Reverend Burroughs was acting
the Grand Conjurer, the leader of the witches.”
“What matters what your uncle says?”
Ann thrusts Abigail into the back of the bench.
A grand hush ripples across the tavern,
and all the folk stare on us.
Even Ann quiets then.
She nods at me. “Come, Mercy,
we best be heading home.
All of you best go home and pray.”
PROBLEM CHILD
Mercy Lewis, 17
“I just sit there and stitch
while Abigail screams and runs
about the room till they carry her out,
and it is always like this with her,”
Margaret says, and narrows
her eyes in a sneer.
“Why does she not listen to me?”
Ann shakes her head.
Under our table at Ingersoll’s
Wilson snuggles beside me
without so much as a yap.
Margaret’s feet stack one upon the other
in a tangle. Her skirt sticks under her rump
in a ball like she’s a little beggar girl.
How can one so uncouth be betrothed?
“What are you looking at?”
Margaret asks me.
“Nothing,” I say.
“Pay attention,” Margaret says.
Her voice slaps my hand.
“We’ve a problem with Abigail.”
Ann says, “Something must be done.
Nothing foul must be among us.”
My feet go cold like I’ve slipped
into winter’s pond without boots.
Why did Ann not discuss this with me?
Margaret flicks her hair behind her shoulder.
“Ignore her. Act as she does not exist.”
She knocks over a mug of ale.
I turn from the smell.
“But Abigail knows not what she does,”
Elizabeth says as she mops the table
with her apron.
The threat in Ann’s stare
could frighten a wolf.
“Elizabeth, you are wrong!”
Elizabeth shrinks back.
Ann then softens her tone.
“I fear if we teach not Abigail
a lesson, she shall place
her hand upon Satan’s book
as Ruth Warren hath done.”
Ann stands up, makes herself
the height the rest of us are
when seated. She declares,
“Abigail is as one laid to grave.
Speak to her no more.”
Not another word to be said.
RANDOM
Incantation of the Girls
Sour voices on the wind
name us liars, say we sin.
Listen not
to girls but men.
For the witches we do name
pass their
days in public shame
or come from families
Putnams blame.
So if we girls shall keep our place
we’ll see some witches none can trace,
folk we’ve never
seen of face.
OUTCAST
Ann Putnam Jr., 12
Abigail’s sightings mismatch
ours like sleeves cut
from different fabric.
Margaret, Mercy, Elizabeth and me
call new witches into court,
the first of whom we have never seen,
Bridget Bishop of Salem Town,
the woman they say bewitches
children to death.
We also name Giles Corey
and his gruesome acts,
the old man who,
before any of us we were born to see it,
beat his servant to his last breath.
But Abigail sees neither
Goody Bishop nor Goodman Corey.
She can no longer sit beside us
on the testimonial bench.
The villagers see her not.
She be as a ghost to them.
For I have made her invisible.
A WITCH I HAD NEVER SEEN BEFORE
Ann Putnam Jr., 12
“I know her to be Deliverance Hobbs.”
I point my finger at the old witch
in the dark green cloak
who none of the other girls
know by face.
I only know the witch
called to question
because Mother pointed her out to me
before she sat me down upon my bench.
We rattle and roll upon