Laughter erupted from her. Unabashed, unleashed. To others it may well sound like the laughter of the mad. As for Thomas beside her, he continued to snore. He’d become so enamored of her night visitors and her erupting in either screams or laughter that her bedtime antics disturbed him no more than did God’s thunder just outside.

# # # # #

The following day in the village

Jeremiah had gotten back to the parsonage the night before at so late an hour as to have found everyone fast asleep, and not wishing to disturb the house, he’d discovered the stable empty, and bedding down his horse, he decided to sleep here. He had given only slight curiosity to the whereabouts of Tituba, but he had been far too weary to concern himself beyond a thought. The night’s storm had abated somewhat when, shadowing Serena, he’d seen that she’d indeed gotten safely back home. From the Nurse home, he’d ridden back to the village, the euphoria of having made love to Serena crowding out every other thought.

Asleep in the hay this morning, dreaming of Serena and undisturbed by the mewling of animals and chickens clucking about him, Jeremy was rudely awakened by the booting of one Reverend Samuel Parris, insisting that the young apprentice go with him once again to the troubled Putnam home.

Jeremy, eyes still encrusted with sleep, brushing away straw from his clothes as they went, asked in a tone reminiscent of Mrs. Parris on the subject of the Putnams: “What is it this time?”

“Appears a regular demon inside that niece of mine.”

“Mercy or Mary?”

“Mercy. They’ve evidence she’s corrupting their daughter, Anne.”

“Corrupting? How?”

“Please, sir, don’t be naïve. How do you imagine?”

“Ah, I see.” Jeremy knew that corruption was a euphemism for any sexual contact outside of a man’s bearing children with his wife. Something he himself was guilty of now, but if this feeling for what he and Serena had was corrupt, then he privately asked for more corruption.

They arrived at the Putnam doorstep, the trip uneventful—no street altercation between Parris and Goode or any other of his parishioners—and Jeremy, still woozy from lack of sleep and all that’d happened the night before, thanked God for that. Even now set on this grave business at this grim house, all he could think of were the welcoming arms of his love.

At the same time, facing the stout Putnam door before them, Jeremy again wondered at the noticeable absence of Tituba Indian from the barn, and now the seeming disappearance of the old bottle collector, a typical sight about Salem streets this time of day, as it was early mornings that Goode went about trash piles. However, Jeremy believed it wise to not bring up either ‘lady’ at the moment.

Mrs Putnam opened the door this time, dark circles like gray coal sludge deepening her sad eyes. Inside the cramped little Putnam home, Thomas and his wife had the two girls standing at attention and awaiting the ministers. Parris immediately took charge, going to Mercy and pinning her by the ear. He began not a lecture but an exorcism of sorts so far as Jeremy could see.

Parris first made the girl kneel before the fire, then to stare hard into the flames. So close was Mercy’s face to the hearth fire that her skin glowed and reddened.

“The devil loves fire, Mercy! The devil wants to boil all of us in his churning sea of flame and brimestone, and you, child, are well on your way! Confess now of your sins, Mercy, and be done with it!”

“I didn’t do nothin’ to confess!” Mercy defiantly cried out, despite the heat so close to her cheeks and eyes as to make Jeremy fear a cinder might blind her.

“Confess and Satan can do no harm!”

Putnam took this up like a chant. “Confess! Confess and the Devil himself can do you no harm! Parris held her by the neck now, the flames licking closer toward Mercy as if curious and interested in the child. “Through contrition and pleading God’s merciful help, we rid you of this devil plaguing you!”

“Leave her alone!” shouted the scrawny, bird-legged Anne Junior, rushing at Jeremiah and grabbing his hand, pleading, “Don’t hurt Mercy! She’s my only friend! Please don’t let them hurt her!”

This prompted Jeremy to intervene. “Reverend, you’ll blind the child so near to the flames!”

“Then blind she’ll be if necessary!” he shouted back. “Whatever it takes to rid the devil that plays within’er!”

“She’s a child, sir!”

“A possessed child!” He pushed Jeremy out of his way and forced Mercy’s already reddened face back toward the flames. “We have my black servant and old Goode under lock and key for bringing this child and others to Satan! So don’t interfere, Mr. Wakely!”

“Tituba? Goode, locked away?” Jeremy asked. “But I saw Goode only last night wandering about the storm like a mad-hatter.”

“Williard rounded her up. Warrants’ve been sworn out against the two of ’em!”

Mercy’s singed hair filled the room with a bad odor, and Mercy began a horrid screaming as her torso and face felt the flames, even as burning embers from the hearth continued to sizzle her long, red hair. Jeremy rushed back to snatch the crazed Parris off the child when suddenly Mercy began a ratcheting, stuttering growl that came up from deep within, and she suddenly began gasping, her body heaving and convulsing until vomit spewed forth in a rich brown gruel looking like something dredged from an outhouse.

The Putnams and little Anne had jumped back, and Jeremy held himself in check, but Parris grabbed Mercy by the neck and pushed the girl’s face toward her own vomit and shouted, “There! There it is in its raw, ugly form! The demon has leapt into the flames, leaving a vile residue of itself!”

Mercy continued spitting and spewing and attempted to pull away from her uncle’s grasp.

“Enough!” Jeremy shouted.

“Thom! Get the dustbin and sweeper!” Parris’ huge hands flew about his head like two angry birds.

Putnam shouted, “What?”

“Do it! Sweep the vile stuff up and cast it into the flames after the source that your home be rid of it! The smoke will take it up and out the chimney, man!”

Putnam, fearful, stood with dustbin and broom, shaking. Mrs. Putnam grabbed these items from her husband. “For God’s sake, Thomas! I’ll do it.”

Do-as-Parris-says appeared the watchword here, and Jeremiah caught his glare, as he had dared to interfere. Parris still held Mercy in his grasp, and he spoke to Mrs. Putnam as she ‘handled’ the demonic residue, working it into the black dustbin, careful not to come into contact with the brown gruel.

Parris told her, “Leave not a trace of it in your home!”

Parris, triumphant the moment Anne Carr Putnam cast the vile juices of Satan into the flames, finally released Mercy, who, simpering and panting, her face scorched by the fames, crawled into a corner in the manner of a frightened animal. Young Anne took tentative steps toward Mercy, but her mother swiftly lifted the black, wrought iron dustbin like a stout wall between the two children. Mother Putnam then asked, “Reverend Parris, do you think now that it is safe for these two children to hug as normal children might?”

“I do not think so, Goodwife Putnam. I know so. You saw for yourself the result of my exorcism of the demon. Poor Mercy, all this time misunderstood and maligned.” He patted her red head several times, Mercy flinching with each touch.

Thomas straightened as if at attention. “Seen it with our own eyes, even your apprentice can attest to it, right, Mr. Wakely?”

Jeremy sucked in a deep breath of air, frustrated as the superstition of the backwoods people and how adroitly Parris played this instrument. “Yes, yes, Goodman Putnam. We all saw it.”

Something in his tone caught Mrs. Putnam’s ire. “Did you not, Mr. Wakely?”

Back to the wall on the point, Jeremy, knowing he must remain the doting apprentice a little longer, nodded as vigorously as he could muster, but at the same time, he could muster no sincere words of agreement.

“Rest assured, this child is without an evil bone now,” came Parris’ final word on the subject. He then shook Putnam’s hand and bowed to Mrs. Putnam. With a quick glance at Mercy, still in a ball in the corner with Anne holding her, Parris bid the family adieu. Jeremy, too, glanced back at the sad little scene of the two girls in the corner. They had the look of a pair of trapped animals.

On the street and in public view, Samuel Parris lambasted Jeremiah, shouting at the top of his lungs. “You are here to back me up, not to challenge my—”

“I’m sorry, but I feared the girl’s hair afire, sir!”

“Quiet! I’ve not finished.”

“Sorry, sir.” Jeremy fell silent, thinking, how much more cow-towing to this miscreant can I stomach?

“You weren’t sent here to undermine, to question or raise doubt, or—”

“But isn’t it in the nature of theology to ques—”

“Never! Not in my philosophy are you to-to knowingly challenge my word or my procedure, to destabilize, demoralize or dishearten or deflate my efforts, Jer—Mr. Wakely! Is that clear?”

“Sir, I am not one of your servants!”

“You are my apprentice, which by definition makes you my inferior, young man, and if I deem you a servant, then you shall be a servant—”

“I serve only God, sir,” he retaliated, immediately sorry but he could not stop himself. “God and truth! And what I saw inside the Putnam home is—was—hardly truth. More like a parlor trick.”

Parris took him aside and between two buildings for more privacy. “Aye, to some degree, yes, I confess. A parlor trick as you call it, but Jeremy, you see its effectiveness. Its efficacy, my boy! You must see that!”