“That was the original report, sir,” replied Parris, “but the crisis has deepened and changed.”

“Evidence against the woman has increased,” added Hathorne.

It was the first moment that Jeremy was privy to the fact that all these men had met on this matter before tonight. That this night’s meeting was a continuation of suspicion of witchcraft running rampant in the village. Was this the information that old Higginson had wanted to convey to him before he entered the village that first night? The information that had never come?

“What evidence do you have that condemns this woman before us now?” asked Jeremiah, emboldened by Higginson’s example.

“Goode tells a different story,” replied Parris, staring out at the rain-soaked village. “According to the old bat, Tituba here created the conditions necessary to the efficacy of the coven’s curse on my house.”

Jeremy thought of the doll stuck with pins, the sword, the blood at the hearth, and the blood in the barn.

“—And what Mr. Parris calls a deepening of the crisis,” added Hathorne, a hand on his buttons, “refers to a terrifying increase in the number of children in the village suddenly and inexplicably afflicted in the same manner as his daughter.”

“I’ve heard rumors, but who?” asked Hale, going stiff at the fireplace. “Whose children?”

Parris turned from the window and his thoughts. “My niece, Mary Wolcott under my roof, exhibiting signs, and my other niece, Mercy Lewis, in the Putnam household, along with the Putnam girl.”

“Oh, poor woman, that Mrs. Putnam,” moaned Corwin, “to have this put upon her after enduring so much.” Corwin swallowed more Brandy.”

“Thomas Putnam’s child is it?” asked Hale, who has his own flock to worry about in Waverly. “Thank God we’ve had no such troubles in our village.”

“Convulsions and fits she endures, the little one,” continued Parris.

Higginson held a hand up. “Hold, that child’s been afflicted in one manner or another all her life.”

“Not my Mercy and not my Mary but they’re falling prey to the same fits and discontent and disobedience!”

“Mary Wolcott, Mercy Lewis, Anne Putnam, Betty Parris,” Noyes quietly enumerated. “I heard too that Bray Wilkins’ maidservant, the Sheldon girl, that she’s of a sudden down with an awful sickness, too. Perhaps she’s also under attack by invisible forces?”

Parris nodded solemnly. “It is spreading like a disease, I tell you. It is a disease, one spawned of Hades.”

“Attack the children,” mumbled a frightened Noyes.

“It’s what the Fallen Angel does,” declared Parris. “Attack the weakest among us.”

Shaking his head, Noyes added, “Exactly as the books tell us how He will come with his invisible minions.”

Jeremy didn’t like the way this was going.

“How many children must suffer and die before we take action?” cried out Parris.

“By what stretch do you prove death and murder, Mr. Parris?” asked Higginson.

“I point to Thomas Putnam’s nine dead children, and it can’t be long before my own is dead of her contortions and afflictions. Thomas Putnam’s also informs me same as Noyes here of a young girl named Susana Sheldon, also showing signs of it. He has seen her up at Will’s Hill, Wilkins’ place. I am told, she had been seen in the company of Sarah Goode.”

“In all the years no one has ever suspected foul play in the deaths of the Putnam children, so why now?” pressed Higginson, fire in his ancient eyes.

“It has taken an outsider to see it clearly,” countered Parris, going to the old minister and standing over him where he sat. “It took me, sir.”

“I see. So now you can see into the Invisible World of Satan?”

“I have it on authority of those arrested, Goode and Tituba here, that those Putnam infants were murdered by those who midwifed at what should’ve been their birthing.”

“Confessions beaten from an addled hag and a frightened servant?” asked Jeremy, going to Hathorne t plead for logic. “You can’t trust a confession tortured from a man or woman.”

“You stay out of this, Mr. Wakely,” Parris said, rushing at him, their noses nearly touching. “You are not one of us, and you have no stake here.”

“You said yourself it might take an outsider’s eye here, Mr. Parris.” No one challenged this, not even Higginson. Jeremy dared continue. “Your evidence of murder of the Putnam unborn appears as flimsy as blank parchment, sir.”

“I have more evidence. Much more.”

“Then reveal it.” Higginson tapped his cane hard on the floor.

“Very well.” Parris went to a door, opened it and called to someone in an anteroom to come in. “I’d hoped to spare the children this, but you press my hand, Mr. Higginson, you and Wakely. Though I know not why.”

From the anteroom, Thomas Putnam ushered in both his charge—Mercy Lewis—and his daughter, Anne, to stand before the ministers and the magistrates. “We’re here to give in evidence,” said Putnam as if he’d practiced the line.

I’ll bet you are, Jeremy thought but held his tongue.

Higginson shook his head. “These, I suppose, are two of the so-called afflicted girls?”

“Two of the bewitched, sir, yes,” replied Putnam. “Me daughter and Mr. Parris’ niece, Anne and Mercy beseech you, sirs, respectfully so.”

The girls both looked as if they’d not bathed since Mercy had been taught her lesson by Parris at the hearth; in fact, the two girls appeared so disheveled they might’ve been in a fight with one another just before coming here.

Higginson stepped close to the two children, who huddled together. It seemed to Jeremy that they were working hard to not meet Tituba’s eyes even as they stole glances her way. Seeing Tituba in chains and bonds seemed to have a chilling effect on the girls, or so Jeremy secretly prayed. This situation needed a bucket of cold water thrown on it. Perhaps Parris had just overplayed his hand.

“And I thought not to see any Mercy here tonight,” Higginson attempted to lighten the moment, but it could not be done. “And here is Mercy genuflecting and respectfully doing so. Two lovely children, Mr. Putnam, Mr. Parris, and you believe them witches, too?”

“No, no sir. You have it wrong,” complained Putnam. “These girls are victims of cruel witchcraft at its foulest, the sort that’s killed my other children!”

Chapter Nineteen

Both the anemic, frail-boned Anne, and the lusty pink-skinned Mercy Lewis, older, taller, more robust, appeared sheepish among the gathered power brokers of the village and town. The whimpering of Tituba Indian and her rattling chains acted as a counterpoint to what was being said.

“Tell them, Anne,” said her father. “Tell them what your brothers and sisters’ve told both you and your mother.”

“Hold on,” interrupted Jeremy. “I thought the girl’s siblings died at or near birth? How can they’ve told her or her mother anything?”

“They came to us in the night,” said Anne, her voice hardly audible, making Corwin erupt with, “What? What’d she say?”

“She said,” began Mercy, a good deal bolder, “that they’ve haunted her and her mother ever since.”

“Ghosts? Spirit?” asked Noyes, eyes wide.

“Your evidence is the word of a ghost?” said Jeremiah, a startled laugh escaping him. “Your honors, you mustn’t start down that road. It’ll open your courts to every kind of—”

“They told me they was murdered!” Anne suddenly shouted, startling the grownups. Her eruption also caused every man in the room to lean in to hear what else she might say. “Murdered with long knitting needles the midwives hid in their petticoats.”

“Needles jammed into their little brains,” added Mercy, demonstrating with a bony finger, “right back here,” added Mercy, pointing to the base of her skull as she pirouetted so as they might see. “And sometimes here!” She indicated her under arm. “To puncture the hearts.”

Jeremy saw that the back of her neck remained bruised from where Parris had held her head at the fire that day he’d exorcised her demon.

“Some got the needle up under their arms,” agreed Anne. In the armpit . . . sidewise to the heart,” she repeated Mercy’s assessment. Anne then held up a pair of long, sterling knitting needles that shone in the light, reflecting the flames from the hearth.

“And your ghosts, will they come to court to testify?” Jeremy’s question drew a half-snarl from Mercy Lewis and a glare from Anne who erupted. “You don’t believe me? Then talk to Mother. She’s been visited by all my dead lovelies, too.”

“We will speak to your mother,” replied Higginson, giving the girls a stern look that made him look the picture of God casting thunderbolts. “And child, if you are lying about this murder business, you will be severely punished, I can tell you. Severely.”

Parris, a hand on the Mercy’s shoulder, said, “Tell the judges and ministers, Mercy, what you told me about Tituba here and Goode.”

“I-I saw them dancing naked round a fire in the woods, I did.”

“Naked? Not a stitch of clothing between them?” asked Noyes.

“It’s true!” shouted Anne. “I saw it, too.”

“In another dream?” asked Jeremy.

“No, not a dream. When Mercy and me was playing about the apple orchard near the church, we saw a fire, and we went to warm ourselves.”

“That’s when we saw her,” added Mercy, pointing to Tituba, “and-and Goode, and others I could not make out, all dancing and touching one ’nother, and-and taking turns hurting Betty—or a likeness of her.”

“Taking turns hurting Mr. Parris’ child?” asked Hathorne.