“I am required to give progress reports—ahhh reports of my progress, that is.”

“Of course. Isn’t that one purpose of your being sent to me after all?” Parris actually sounded hopeful that Jeremy would indeed be informing the authorities in Boston of the dire situation poor Mr. Parris found himself faced with. “After all, they’ve not paid my rate, Jeremy, for several months now.”

“I should be happy to report your side of the story, sir, if it’s your wish, but in truth, I only meant to inform only in so far as my growth and progress goes, sir.”

“Hmmm . . . but perhaps you will be persuaded to make amendments to your personal reports—perhaps even attach a sermon I am preparing for next meeting day.”

“Amendments…sermons, sir?”

“Attachments!” Parris caught himself. “Must I spell out everything to you, Mr. Wakely?”

Jeremy gave him a coy schoolboy look. “Are . . . are you saying there’s ah . . . something in it for me, Mr. Parris?”

“I merely mean, Jeremiah—I can call you Jeremiah, can’t I?” The man had been doing so all morning. “While privately addressing you, I mean?”

“Surely you may.”

“I mean once you, too, are a victim of such utter disrespect and heartless actions as I’ve endured since my tenure here, that you will want to report the slander, the double dealing, the back-stabbing, and the venom.”

“The Burroughs contingent, you mean?”

“They set the example, yes. But others follow.”

A jet black raven with blue shimmering about its wings landed on a nearby limb where they stood, curiously looking as if eavesdropping.

“But I was given to believe—told that is—that the previous minister here left this parish a broken convict, a man pitied as much as despised, his family lost to the fever, and he a debtor and broken man.”

“All too true.” Irritated by the staring raven, Parris showed it off.

“I heard talk of the other minister before Burroughs, too, that his family also died while he served in this parish. Of course, I don’t believe in curses, but some in Boston’ve called it a parish cur—”

“Don’t say it! It’s nonsense.” Parris then shouted for anyone caring to hear, “Only hex on this place is human gullibility, greed, jealousy, and sin.”

Parris began to cross the green to finish their walk to the Putnam home. Jeremy rushed to keep up. The other side of the green, Jeremy goose-stepped over sludge that ran down the middle of the village’s main thoroughfare in a foot-wide canal cut for delivering human waste and other foul matter away from the settlement.

They’d stopped in the middle of a cow path, their discussion so intense that neither of them saw the gathering crowd growing around them.

“I was given to understand that a great deal of piety, love, and humane actions had been taken on behalf of both Bailey and Burroughs,” said Jeremy, shaking his head. “That some took pity on these poor ministers, paid their bills, even jail fees in Mr. Burroughs’ case.”

“Yes, so I’ve been told . . . and that they sent him off with the clothes on his—”

“Same with the man before these two, Deodat Lawson.”

Suddenly Parris’ face went white. “How much of the parsonage history do you know, Mr. Wakely?” Parris looked and sounded again like the suspicious creature that Jeremy had encountered the night before.

“I know Salem’s history, especially its theological history, well sir.”

“Aye . . . before coming here.” Parris had retreated tenfold due to thoughts rumbling inside now. Jeremy could see the confusion on his face. “Did much study then before arriving, did you, Mr. Wakely? But never knew Burroughs, despite spending time in Maine, eh?”

“Maine is a large place, and truth be told, sir, I was never one for study, not in truth.”

Frustration made the man stomp, sending a cascade of mud over Jeremy’s boots. “Then how in the name of Jehovah do you know so much about our affairs in Salem?”

“I suspect, Mr. Parris, you knew nothing of the so-called curse when the Select Committee hired you without full consent of the parish.”

Parris blanched. “Verily…next to nothing, in fact—but plenty of gossip since, which is how I’ve always taken it.”

To test the man’s responses further, Jeremy took it a step further. “I thought not; perhaps had you done your homework before accepting—”

“This chat is at end, Mr. Wakely.” He indicated the small crowd in the street gathered around them. Too many prying eyes and ears. But when Parris stepped ahead of Jeremy, the younger man could not help but couch a grin. At the same time, Parris, and to a lesser degree, Jeremy, faced a terrible greeting when the ragged, bottle and rag woman of the village, the crone Sarah Goode blocked their path. She held a crooked old Shillelagh like a wand, and with the walking stick, she punctuated the vile, angry curse spewing from a near toothless mouth. “May your hearth belch fire to burn your house t’ground, Parson!”

“Get from my sight, woman!” shouted Parris, continuing past the obstacle with Jeremy keeping step.

But the wrinkled old woman pursued, chanting. “May your black servant cut your throat as ya sleep! ‘Cause ya stole and sold her baby like you did mine! For pieces of eight!”

Parris grabbed up a huge dirt clod and hurled it at the woman, barely missing.

“May your wife wither and dry up like a diseased cow!”

Parris rushed at her like an angry dog, baring his teeth. “And may God strike you down for the witch you are!”

“If God loves justice, it’ll be you struck down!”

“Your own daughter,” spewed Parris, “Dorcas, she told me of your dark contract with the Devil.”

This did not in the least slow Goode. “And may your child suffer the torments of Hell, till you give my Dorcas back!”

Jeremy feared he’d have to intervene somehow, as the venom between these two threatened to erupt further unless someone broke off. Parris threatened her under his breath. “I swear out a warrant and have you arrested, ye old—”

“Mind my words!” warned Goode. “Return my Dorcas or face my curse on ya and all ya hold dear!”

“The curse of God upon you, hag, bitch!” cried Parris.

“Aha! Swearin’ like a common sailor!” She cackled a sound that filled the street and brought people to their windows and shop doors. “Ya’ll heard ’im . . . swearin’ at a poor old woman now are ya?”

“Foul, filthy creature!” Parris grabbed for her cane, but she snatched it away at the last moment.

“You men in black, all alike.” Goode gave Jeremy a look from head to toe. “Deceivers!” She then pointed her cane at Jeremy and shouted to the maddening crowd, “I seen this one come to the parsonage by cover of night! Him on a white charger, but we all know the Devil does take a pleasin’ form, and that horse looked at me with one eye belongin’ to Beelzebub, or Belial sure ’nough!”

“Shut your ugly hole, you witch!” Parris belted back.

“You may have others fooled—” Goode pointed to her left eye—“but not these eyes.” She ambled off, disappearing between the livery stable and Ingersoll’s Ordinary & Inn. Bottles tied to her, dangling about neck and hips, rattled as she moved off, and yet neither Parris nor Jeremy had earlier heard her approach. Parris remarked on how uncannily the old woman had taken them unawares. Then he waved it off, saying, “Devil take her.”

The battle over, his flushed features softening, Parris waved at someone in the Putnam house at the window on the ground floor. Another window displayed two children’s faces pressed against an attic window.

Jeremy wondered if the children had seen the altercation in the street between Mr. Parris and Witch Goode. But for now, he found himself on the doorstep of Mr. and Mrs. Putnam, where on the inside they could hear faint, whispered yet highly charged argument.

# # # # #

After several raps on the oak door, Parris and Jeremy still stood on the doorstep of the Putnam house—a modest, two-story saltbox-styled cabin home. From all appearances, Jeremy felt that a rather dreary, dark interior awaited within if and when someone opted to open the door and welcome them in. Samuel Parris vigorously knocked on the Putnam door again. “We are come!” he shouted at the door. “Come at your bidding! Hello, inside the house!”

The door creaked in on rusted hinges to reveal a fire at the hearth in the common room, but Jeremy felt only the coldness of this place engulf him. A grim couple stood apart from one another, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Putnam. The man a scarecrow figure with bloodshot eyes, the wife a dried up, frail-looking stick figure herself, her eyes ringed with darkness, and at the center of each—a frightful, unfathomable deadness. How deep can melancholy go, Jeremy silently wondered. How strong can its grip become? He knew it intimately, but gauging by this woman, Anne Carr-Putnam Senior, he’d merely scratched the surface of depression in those darkest hours when he’d given up Serena.

“Welcome, Reverend Parris,” said Thomas Putnam. “Welcome to our humble home.”

Understatement, Jeremy noted, a familiar characteristic of people hereabouts to understate the obvious.

“And do tell,” said Thomas as if the spokesperson here, “who is this young gentleman in your company?”

Suspicion, Jeremy noted in the tone of the otherwise welcoming words and accompanying smile, as the Putnams awaited Parris’ introductions.

Parris formally, stiffly introduced Jeremy as his apprentice, being sure to add that Increase Mather himself had sent Jeremy “to be among us, to be my helpmate, and to apprentice in the Lord’s work under my tutelage. I have a letter signed by Mather to the effect, Thomas, Goodwife Putnam.”