The Putnams of Salem, page 20
My wife does not respond to my words, but I can see the hint of a slight smile breaking across her lips. It seems I have been able to get through her, thank God. She is safe, for now. Yet I fear that I have used up all my wit in this battle. I do not have much left to give. Still, I am proud of the fight I have brought to the devil. It is a battle I would wage a thousand times over.
Father has allowed me to leave the house for the first time in weeks, and as I walk by Ingersoll’s, I see Betty standing by herself. I have not seen her for nearly a year. She looks wearier than I remember her being, but otherwise she is the same bright and eager girl. For a moment, I think about slipping away and going about my business, but she catches sight of me before I can formulate a plan, and there is nothing left for me to do but flash a weak smile and approach her.
“Good morrow, Betty,” I say in a quiet voice.
“Good morrow,” she says with a smile, seemingly eager to see me.
Without saying much more than our greetings, we stroll together into the forest and find our way to our usual place. It seems we’ve headed there without a thought, as if it were natural for us to do so. It is the place where many of us girls go to have our own time together, away from the prying eyes of the village. I find it nice to be here again after such a long absence, despite it being the place where everything began. It is nice to feel what I used to feel before, even if it is only for a moment.
“This is where we did it,” Betty says, almost as if to herself.
“Yes,” I say meekly, with a slight nod.
I am surprised that Betty is so free in her talk about fortune-telling, even after all that has happened.
“It was an obsession for me, I suppose,” she says in a wistful manner, her eyes pointed up to the sky.
I want to know if Betty still engages in fortune-telling, but I am afraid to ask her. I am envious of the freedom she seems to possess. But then, I suppose I have been envious of Betty about many things over the years.
“When Father sent me away, I was heartbroken,” she tells me, then waits for a sympathetic response.
“I am sure it was difficult for you,” I say, doing my best to comply with her expectations. “How were you able to manage it for so long?”
“Captain Sewall’s home is so far away and so different from everything I know. It felt like I had been sent off to a dungeon. Father gave the captain strict orders not to allow me to leave or to even have a doctor summoned to attend to me. It was dreadful!”
“I am sorry,” I say, trying my best to feign sympathy. “That could not have been easy to bear.”
As Betty continues to speak about her experiences at Captain Sewall’s home, my thoughts drift away, meandering in all directions, as they so often do now. Then, suddenly, I heard Betty utter something about a black man, and my mind snaps sharply back into focus.
“Father has always said that the devil is capable of taking many shapes,” Betty explains. “But he most commonly appears as a large and menacing figure who is entirely black from head to toe.”
“Yes, I remember that, too,” I say, not indicating in the least how well acquainted I have become with the Black Man over this past year.
“When I first saw him,” Betty continues, “I knew immediately that it must be the devil himself and that he must be trying to deceive me. I knew exactly what I needed to do to chase him away.”
“You did?” I ask. “What did you do to chase him away?”
“This Black Man told me that if I submitted to him, he would give me all I have ever wished for in the world. He said I would immediately be whisked away from my awful captivity at the captain’s home to a large and gleaming city of gold, bathed in beautiful bright light.”
“You must have been so frightened,” I say, with eagerness in my voice.
“Not as much as you might expect me to be,” she responds with great confidence. “This dark being was tempting me with the finest things. He did not try to frighten me in the least. So I was not scared, even though I knew he was the devil.”
“But how were you able to avoid his evil grip? How did you avoid getting taken to the devil’s lair?”
I am eager to hear Betty’s response, but she ignores my question and continues to tell me more about the fine offerings that the Black Man presented to her. “Once I arrived in this city, the Black Man told me, I would be ensconced upon the most beautiful throne of the finest and shiniest gold and jewels, gleaming in the light. I would then receive the title of queen of this magical city and rule it for all eternity.”
“He would make you queen?” I ask, fighting to ensure that Betty does not notice the derision in my voice.
“Yes! And my only sacrifice to gain this unimaginable bounty was to sign the devil’s book. Yet once I had accomplished this simple task, the Black Man assured me that I would not face eternal damnation at all, only that I would be installed in this paradise of the underworld and would not suffer in the least.”
“But, Betty, is signing the devil’s book not an improper thing to do? What would your father say of such a thing?”
“Because I am the daughter of a pastor, the Black Man told me I was a great prize for the devil, perhaps the greatest prize of all. And it is because I am the daughter of a pastor that the devil was willing to pay handsomely to have me by his side. I would not have to fear him or be concerned at all about damnation.”
“I see,” I respond with mock enthusiasm. “What a remarkable tale!”
“That is not all, Anna,” Betty responds, eager as always for more attention. “As soon as the dark man had finished making this glorious proposition to me, I responded, without the slightest hesitation and in my loudest voice, that he was a liar and that I never wished to see him again.”
“You spoke to him?” I ask, throwing a hand over my mouth.
“I screamed at him,” she responds. “And the Black Man was so taken aback by my forcefulness that he became terrified. He was entirely confounded. Such opposition was apparently something to which he had been wholly unaccustomed. In fact, this strange dark being was so shaken by my response to him that he fell into a deep silence and bowed his head in defeat before me.”
“And then he left?”
“After I shouted at the top of my voice: Away, you devil! You are not welcome here! He immediately turned and shuffled away from me with a whimper, never to reveal himself to me again.”
“I have never heard such a tale,” I say. “Have you told your father about it?”
“It is best for me not to repeat such tales to Father,” she says with a sudden look of seriousness on her face.
It takes every ounce of my strength not to tell Betty that I too have screamed frantically at the Black Man, that I too had called him a liar at the top of my lungs, and that I too have tried to live my life as piously as I can. Yet my hauntings with the Black Man have not ended. In fact, they continue, still today.
But I hold my tongue and allow Betty to remain the hero of the day, unsullied by the inconvenience of tragedy.
Chapter 31
. . . yet there will not one sinner in all the reprobate world, stand forth at the day of judgment, and say, Lord, thou knowest I did all that possibly I could do, for the obtaining grace, and for all that, thou didst withhold it from me.
—Increase Mather
January 23, 1693
Salem Village
I do not often gather my thoughts in a diary. Yet, given our present circumstances, I find it necessary to do so as a means of demonstrating the importance of my work and the value of our actions over this past year. It is unfortunate that there are now a great many here who are reveling in their accusations against those who were only doing their duty. Therefore, I hope that my writings will offer whomever might read these words some clarity and comfort. I pray that the Almighty will bestow His grace and mercy upon me for what I have helped to accomplish here in His name.
I must convey at the outset that my means will probably strike you, my dear reader, as rather unorthodox. It must be said that I knew with complete certainty that my oldest daughter, Anna, was strong enough to endure the trial set before her. Because of this, I did not hesitate for even the slightest moment to take the actions necessary to carry out my plan. You must understand that I knew from the very beginning—from the first moments when I saw Elizabeth Parris upon the floor of the parsonage, gravely inflicted—what I had to do. I never once wavered about these important responsibilities.
It must also be clear that Anna, my daughter, was not aware of my plan in the slightest, though, had she been aware, I have no doubt whatsoever that she would have been most agreeable to it. In truth, I did not wish to burden her with the responsibility of knowing about my plan. Anna has always done what is right, regardless of what it costs her. Like her father, she believes in Salem, and in our ability to achieve what God has always meant for us to accomplish in His name. Had she known about my plan, Anna would have carried it out without a moment’s hesitation for the sake of her future children and their children. Anna wholeheartedly believes, as do I, in our sacred City on the Hill. For this, I am enormously proud.
I handled the substance just as Father had shown me in the forest all those years ago. Of course, he had never intended for it to be used in such a manner—how could he have foreseen the horrors we would face? The rye produced the mysterious substance exactly as he claimed it would if grown in the manner he described. After being carefully administered through bread, it produced the desired results exactly as I expected. The strange substance effectively elucidated Anna’s visions without destroying her mind or body. This substance is a remarkable and powerful one, and only God knows quite how it works. Yet He has blessed us with its remarkable powers, and therefore, I took advantage of them. I suppose there are a great many mysteries in this world that we have yet to harness.
Anna identified more than sixty of those wretched souls, and she would not have been able to accomplish this remarkable feat without my guiding hand, or without the mysterious substance that grows in the rye. Even with Anna’s relentless pursuit, too many of those evildoers managed to slip through our fingers like sand.
Still, I pray that our efforts have preserved the sanctity of our great community and put us on the righteous path God has always intended for us. Perhaps you, dear reader, know the answers I will never know. One can never escape the judgments of God or history, nor can one decide when those judgments shall be brought to bear. Such noble decisions are out of our hands, yet I believe I stand upon firm ground. I do not expect to be judged by the Almighty or by posterity as anything less than a God-fearing man who chose to do his duty, as a leader among men.
Perhaps, however, in some great twist of irony, I will be the one to be judged ill-fated in this matter. Perhaps one day there will even be witches who believe they are doing God’s work. Alas, I am treading on perilous ground. It is not for me to say what the work of witches is.
Ever faithfully yours,
Thomas Putnam, Jr.
I have never seen a face as bright and beautiful as Mercy’s on this day. Her fresh and surprising youthfulness is bursting forth in full bloom and her smile instantly warms my heart as I open the door.
I linger in our embrace, holding her as tightly as I can for as long as possible. I am enraptured by the safety I feel in her warmth. I have not experienced something as remarkable as her arms wrapped tightly around me in a long time.
“I have missed you,” Mercy says.
I am glad she is the one to speak first. I am not sure I am able to say anything now. A bubble of emotion has overcome me, and there is a lump firmly planted in my throat. My only response is an attempt to smile and another firm embrace as tears fall from my eyes. Mercy is moved, too; I can plainly see that. Still, there is much that is not being said between us.
“Are you feeling better, Anna?” Mercy asks as she pulls away from our embrace. It is the question on the lips of nearly everyone I meet these days.
“Yes,” I say, hoping not to have to go into more detail.
It is true that my days are better now, clearer, but not quite what they used to be. The nights, however, still haunt me.
“How are you feeling?” I ask Mercy, hoping to direct our conversation away from me.
“I am better, my dear. Thank God for that.”
I smile at this news and genuinely feel grateful for it. I have not seen Mercy in nearly four months, but seeing her now, at my home, at the place where we shared so many moments—both gleeful and awful—is almost too much for me to bear. I find it difficult to speak with my emotions getting in my way.
“How do you find Boston?” I am finally able to ask her.
Mercy smiles at my question. “It is better there for a girl like me,” she says. “It is not always easy, but I am making my way and I am content.”
I am grateful that Mercy knows not to ask too much about me, about how I am doing. She has always been so clever. Yet I cannot not help but wonder what she must be thinking as she looks at me with that beautiful smile on her face. Is that pity I see in her eyes? Is it shame? Perhaps it is sadness.
It does not take long before there is little left for us to say. We smile at each other, but our smiles seem somehow hollow. They seem like reflections of a past that will never return, shadows of some distinct moment that has been lost forever. My feelings for Mercy have not changed, but we both recognize that we can never be who we once were. That moment has slipped away now, like sand through our fingers.
As I watch Mercy walk away from me for the last time, I cannot help but feel a cold and dark loneliness descend. It seems to be replacing the momentary lightness that had come over me upon seeing her. I am alone again, draped in its darkness.
But, of course, I am never alone.
Epilogue
August 1706
Fourteen Years Later
. . . that I, then being in my childhood, should, by such a providence of God, be made an instrument for the accusing of several persons of a grievous crime, whereby their lives were taken away from them.
—From Ann Putnam’s confession,
August 25, 1706
I am thinking about Reverend Green’s sermon as I mill about outside of the meetinghouse. He is a fine orator, and he has worked very hard to bring us together during his decade with us. He is perhaps the finest preacher I have ever heard. His voice is somehow comforting to me, although it is difficult for me to understand why, exactly. I find myself appreciating meetings for the first time in many years.
Still, I cannot deny my nerves now as I stand waiting for him to collect me. He seems to be taking his time after finishing his sermon. The meetinghouse has been empty for nearly a half hour, yet I remain here alone, waiting in the summer heat.
After several more minutes, the door to the meetinghouse finally opens and Reverend Green—he is a small man who often wears an impish grin on his face—emerges into the sunlight.
“Mistress Putnam, please, step inside.”
He motions for me to come into the meetinghouse, and I make my way up the steps and into the relative coolness of the building. I follow the reverend to a small room that he uses as an office to prepare his sermons.
He wastes no time getting into our business, before I can even sit down in the small chair near the door. “Am I to understand, Mistress Putnam, that you wish to become a member of the church?” The reverend asks the question with more ceremony than I would have expected.
“Yes, Reverend Green,” I reply simply, unsure of what else I should say.
He nods solemnly and then looks down at some papers sitting on his desk. He seems nervous now, unsure. “You have lost both of your parents, have you not?”
I am surprised by the question and uncertain why he is asking me such a thing. The reverend offered prayers at both my parents’ funeral seven years ago, when they died just weeks apart from each other. He knows I am an orphan.
“Yes, reverend,” I respond flatly. “I lost them both, in quick succession, seven years past.”
“And you are responsible for your younger brothers and sisters, are you not?”
“I am,” I respond. “Though they are mostly old enough to care for themselves now.”
Reverend Green nods absently at my answer and pauses for a moment, as if he is thinking about what he should ask next. “Mistress Putnam, I consider myself a student of history,” he says to my surprise, “and, with regard to your application for membership in the church, one cannot so easily ignore history.”
I suppose this is how the reverend is choosing to address my illustrious past. Of course, I had expected him to bring it up in some way. How could I expect to become a full member of the church without answering for my past? Still, his manner seems unorthodox.
“As you are well aware,” he continues, “our recent history in Salem has been quite unfavorable, to say the least.”
I can tell that Reverend Green is choosing his words carefully. I take care to look at him solemnly, with an expressionless face, as he speaks, but I cannot deny that I am deriving a certain enjoyment from his discomfort in addressing this issue.
“You are well aware of your place in that history,” he tells me in the tone of a school master. “I do not have to recount those events to you, of course, but, given your role in them, it would be expected that you offer some sort of acknowledgment as to what you have done.”
I offer an almost imperceptible nod, and, after a brief pause—perhaps he was expecting more of a response from me—the reverend continues. “It will be a concession of sorts, Mistress Putnam,” he says, drawing out the word concession to make it sound more hopeful. “A recognition, you might say, that our community has moved forward in the spirit of harmony and conciliation.”
