The crone bewitched my horse, made him throw me, he thought while struggling to remount and move on—twisted ankle, cuts, bruises, and a curse of his own on his busted lip for Goode, and one for Sheriff Williard for good measure for having held him over at Bray’s place. Had Williard not shown up with his self-righteous speechifying, Thom Putnam would not have crossed paths with this despicable witch.

Chapter Nine

Not long afterward, Sarah Goode saw Susana Sheldon at their private meeting place in the woods near Will’s Brook at the bend called Three Forks. With Susana’s grimy face tear-stained and smeared, she spoke between sobs. “I hate them! I hate both of them and their friends!”

“The Wilkinses is ugly people sure.” Goode gave the child a smoking pipe to suck on. “They all calls me ugly, and sure I am on the outside—ha! Given me age, and me spots, and me warts, but they’re uglier’n me by degrees with their black innards and their black hearts.”

“They never let up.”

“But is the bear grease helping, child?”

“Helps when he’s sober, but not when he’s drunk.”

“Never know’d a man with no sense-a-odor like Bray; likely all that tobacco he chews and snorts and smokes.”

“He’s disgusting, and she’s hateful—and now I’ve got that other one after me, too.”

“We’ve got to find of that snake pit, child. We must.”

“You got your own worries now with Dorcas.”

“Aye, I do. But I’ve not forgotten ye! Maybe, if we work things right, dearie, you can come live with Dorcas and me, and I can teach you the arts.”

“The black arts?”

“Them arts, too, but mostly the art of protection.”

“What’d you bring me this time?” asked Susana, hands behind her back, eyes closed, swaying as if a toddler again.

Goode held up a small sack. “Open yer eyes, girl! Put this into his bed.” The sack moved, wriggling with some life within.

“Wh-h-h-at is it? A rat?

“Nay, a poisonous snake.”

“I-I ain’t sure I-I can . . . ”

“Yes you can. Choose which of the two you hate most—Bray or the hag he calls Goodwife, and use the snake. He’s charmed against harmin’ you.”

The wool bag changed hands. “I best get back.” Susana rushed off, going back toward the house, wondering where to hide the snake until she might use it.

“Men’re an ugly, sorry lot, they are!” shouted Goode after Susana.

Susana shouted back, “They ought hang every sorry one of ’em, ’specially those calling themselves reverend and deacon and elder and captain!”

“Reverend, ha! Nothing reverent ’bout Sam Parris. May he rot in hell for his dirty blasphemies. Using the Lord’s own words when he’s got nothing but evil for a heart.”

# # # # #

The following day in Salem Village

Samuel Parris called Jeremiah into his sparse private quarters. He asked Jeremy to sit in a chair in one corner while he straddled a second, nothing between them. “I want to count you more than my apprentice alone, Mr. Wakely,”

“Really, sir? How so? I mean, whatever I can do to be of service, you know—” Jeremy had affected his role as naïve stumbling apprentice well up to this time, and he hoped to continue on with his true nature invisible to the minister and his network of friends, relatives, elders, and deacons.

“I wish to count you, Jeremy, as . . . as a reliable Goodfriend.”

Goodfriend Wakley, Jeremy thought, a nice ring to it. There were Goodmen, Goodwives, and Goodfriends in Puritan life. “Ah . . . Goodfriend, me, sir?”

“I hope in our short acquaintance, Jeremy, that I have earned the title along with your trust and companionship? Jeremiah?”

“Yes. . . yes, Goodfriend Samuel, you have it.” The lie had Jeremy biting his tongue.

“And your backing in all things.”

“I would likewise hope for the same in re-reciprocation, sir . . . ah-ah Goodfriend.” Jeremy had been taken by surprise at this turn of events, and he wondered what he’d done to warrant this declaration of trust from the reverend.

“Good, good!” Parris smiled in a manner Jeremy had never seen from him before except when he played with little Betty, tossing her in the air. “I need to know you are on my side in any fight, Jeremy.”

Jeremy swallowed hard. “I hope you have no fights you cannot win, sir. . . I mean Goodfriend.”

“I like the sound of it, Jeremy. Like the arrangement, and you can dispense with the sir-sir-sir.”

“But in public, sir.”

“Yes, most likely best, and perhaps best that we keep this between us for the time being, not to be too openly aligned. Most of all, I like you, young man! And I will do my utmost to be a good friend to thee.”

“Excellent…excellent.” Jeremy felt a rising sense of guilt. He had always been told that people warmed to him, even strangers; that he had a gift for putting people around him at ease, and that it was not so much what he said and did as what he didn’t say and didn’t do that afforded him the trust of others. It was a trait that Increase Mather had ceased upon early on.

“Now about our talk yesterday?”

“We’ve had many talks, sir.”

“Regarding George Burroughs.”

“Ah, yes, the former minister here.” Parris seemed to have a fixation on this man who had preceded him in the village parish. Time and again, he brought up stories and rumors that had swirled about the name Burroughs for years here.

“Do you know there is talk among my enemies about this man.”

“Talk? What sort of talk?”

“Talk of importing him back here to reinstate him in my position. Can it be believed?”

“Smells of a bad rumor, sir, and you know how people love to talk, but honestly, I’ve heard nothing of it.” This was new information, and Jeremy tried placing it in the scheme of things and in the context of Higginson’s wishes and Mather’s string-pulling. When Parris said no more but fell silent, running both hands through his hair, Jeremy offered, “Why would anyone in his right mind speak of such foolishness? The village parishioners ran this Burroughs fellow off for nonpayment of debts!” Jeremy thought of how Reverend Burroughs’ debts had been incurred. They’d accumulated due to successive funerals for his three children and his wife.”

“There was more to it than simple nonpayment of debt, although that was the charge that placed him in lockup.”

“There were other charges brought against him?” Jeremy had perfected wide-eyed wonder with Parris, who responded well to any facial cues Jeremy sent.

“Not any that could be proven, but the baser people here began rumors to do with Burroughs’ athletic prowess. Or so Thom Putnam tells me.”

“Ah! His reputed superhuman strength, yes! I’ve heard, but the man was a gymnast at Harvard where he studied Divinity and he ran track. I understand you did most of your studies at Harvard? Were you, too, an athlete? Did you know James Burroughs?” Jeremy hoped to hear more about Parris’ time at Harvard and perhaps why the college had no record of his ever having been ordained.

“His name is George, not James. James was Bailey—James Bailey—before him, and no . . . I must’ve been at the college different years.”

“But you were on an athletic team?”

“No, no! I was in the study of Business Practices, but I changed to Divinity a bit later. Look here, worse yet is this business of rumors that this Burroughs fellow . . . that he had some dealings in the dark arts.”

“Witchcraft? Charges brought or was it talk of witchcraft?” Jeremy’s face gave way to horror.

“Some say there was no confusion of his being a necromancer or wizard. In league with the Wizard over all wizards.”

“Satan? Really?” Jeremy had heard such charges leveled at any man others despised or disliked for any number of reasons. In fact, the charge was so common as to be foolish, yet the lower church assize courts collected heavy revenues on trying such cases, and so it went.

“You know as well as I, Jeremy, that any time that a congregation, or half that population wants to rid itself of a man or woman . . . to ban or worse, to excommunicate as in your father’s case, the foul slander of being in league with Satan and his invisible minions is leveled.”

To excommunicate as you did with Sarah Goode, Jeremy thought but said, “You speak the truth, Reverend Parris.”

“In private moments, please, call me Samuel or Goodfriend,” he reiterated.

“Well then, Samuel, as I mentioned, the charge of heresy was leveled at both my parents when it was expedient to dredge up invisible evidence, so I am not convinced of your predecessor’s having used his pulpit badly.”

“Expedient invisible evidence . . . using his pulpit badly,” Parris repeated and laughed. “How politic your are, Jeremy.” Parris continued mulling over Jeremy’s words like a chant. “And now I, Jeremy, I am in line for their poisonous gossip, innuendo, half-truths, rumor and slander—for which they will pay if the courts in these colonies are fair and impartial! God, how I miss London. Even in Barbados a man of my stature could count on speedy redress of slander from the courts.”

“I am sure that’s true, Samuel.”

“They’d love to prove me a heretic and a Satan worshipper, the dissenting ones here!”

They might settle for liar and thief, Jeremy thought. “Some say you’ve slandered them in your sermons.”

Parris’ most dangerous stare drilled into Jeremy.

“I mean . . . this is what I have heard bandied about.”