However, when Jeremy returned to the parsonage home, first rushing to the barn, half-expecting to catch Parris in the despicable act, he found no one but Dancer and Parris barnyard animals.

When he did catch up to Parris, the man was sitting alongside Mary in the bed he’d laid her in, smoothing back her sweat-soaked hair, tearful, saying kindly, fatherly words to her, his hands clasping hers as he prayed for her soul.

A big disappointment, he silently decided, and damned hypocritical of Parris to suddenly decide that Mary was worthy of his attention.

Elizabeth Parris, tearful, exhausted, had fallen asleep sitting beside Betty’s bed. Betty sat up and with the widest marble eyes Jeremy had ever seen, she glared at him as if she wished him gone or dead, but she remained silent. She’d been watching her father intently, curious about his sudden concern for Mary. In fact, Betty seemed upset with Jeremy for bursting in on the scene. She also seemed somehow to have matured by several years.

So he backed down the steps, leaving the afflicted family to itself, wondering how much incest characterized these people. Betty had appeared jealous; Mary had gotten the attention she wanted. Tituba was jailed. Mother Parris? Blind?

Instead of catching Parris in a supposed lewd or compromising act with his niece, Jeremy ended these notions with no evidence beyond a vague suspicion, one he felt might find verification in a solid interview with Titutba Indian L’englesian.

Jeremy imagined her heritage—part French, part Barbados, part English. He also imagined that her seeming lack of understanding of English a method of getting by.

At the foot of the stairs in this sad house, Jeremy recalled Judge Corwin’s invitation to return for brandy this evening.

As it was growing late, Jeremy decided Corwin and Hathorne might well be the authorities he needed to see in private. To this end, he walked briskly out of the house and made straight for Judge John Corwin’s village home.

As a student of the law, he truly wanted to know what was going through the minds of the judges now that they’d had time to digest all that had gone on. Perhaps cooler heads would prevail after all, even in light of the performance that a simple scullery girl like Mary Wolcott could bring to bear—or because of it. Word spread through the village of this incident like fire in a butter churn. No doubt by now Mary’s wild accusation against Martha Corey had traversed the village and beyond to Wenham, Topsfield, Beverly, Salem Town, and other settlements. Jeremy suspected if there was anyone in the area who had not as yet heard of a young girl’s having been attacked by invisible hands on a broomstick, that it must be the now accused witch, Martha Corey.

# # # # #

Evening of April 14, 1692

Jeremy was soon warming his hands at Judge Corwin’s hearth. He’d been welcomed to join Judge Hathorne as well, the two magistrates discussing the best course of action to take at this time. They claimed to welcome Jeremiah’s opinion on the matter.

On a table at the center of the room, a small stack of books lay open or marked. Jeremy accepted a brandy, and while sipping, he took a moment to browse the various titles of books lying about, books the magistrates had consulted before his arrival. Guide to Grandjurymen came as no surprise, nor that it’d been opened to the method of dealing with charges of witchcraft. Jeremy knew the text well, written half a century before and based on precepts dating back to the bloody Middle Ages. A pack of nonsense for the most part. “Please tell me that you modern good gentlemen of fine sensibilities are not basing judgment of this matter on outdated texts?” He posed it as a question.

“Mr. Wakely,” erupted Corwin with a bit of fire, “what would you have us consult?”

“This musty book is not the answer.”

“What then?” Corwin snatched at his right ear which seemed to be ailing him as if some insect buzzed within.

Jeremy lifted the tome entitled Trial of Witchcraft, Showing the True and Right Method of Discovery.

Judge Corwin smiled, his powdered wig slightly ajar. “Look, young man, you can’t take issue with Cotta’s methods, now can you?”

Jeremy finished the brandy offered him earlier. He knew he’d need more spirits if he were to deal with these two. “Cotta’s a fool,” he announced. “A bumbling fool.” Jeremy then lifted book after book on the table and slammed each down, seven in total. “These books are littered with superstitions long put away since King James but perpetuated by idiots and men who made their living burning witches at the stake in the last century.”

“The Devil’s Maelstrom? Morgan’s treatise on Witchcraft Dealings?” asked Hathorne.

“This is 1692, gentlemen; we are on the verge of 1700—a new century in eight years! Are we to drag the bloody roots of the Dark Ages into the future with us?”

“But Mr. Wakely, these before you . . .” protested Hathorne, “this is the sum of our combined library on the subject,”.

Jeremy flipped through Demonology, the work penned by King James himself, and then he thumbed through William Perkins’ Damned Art. “So, your intention is to hang these women?” asked Jeremy. “No bonfires to be made of them?”

“It would appear so, if they are found guilt by the duly appointed court of the Crown,” replied Corwin.

“If they do not repent,” added Hathorne. “And I suspect that after a few more days in the holes we have them that they will repent.”

“I understand the number has risen to four now.”

“That is accurate. Four arrested.”

“Doubled in twenty-four hours. Can’t you see how this might spread?”

“Everyone at every level is working to contain it,” countered Corwin.

“We may not be worldly nor wise as some, Mr. Wakely,” added Hathorne, stepping close to Jeremy, “nor as well-traveled as thee; we may even be called parochial by some—”

“Never by me, sir.”

“—but everyone in Salem is doing his duty this day, and for that we hold our heads high.” Hathorne toasted the early successes.

Corwin smirked and said, “There is talk now that those who’ve been suffering are coming round to wellness as a result of actions taken.”

“And as for Bridgett Bishop and Sarah Osborne? They’re to forfeit anything they might own if and when they testify before God that they’ve dabbled in witchcraft?” asked Jeremy.

“Ahhh, so you do know something of the law, Mr. Wakely,” said Corwin, still grinning. “Do ye hear this young man, Jonathan? I’m impressed.”

“These women haven’t any holdings to speak of,” countered Hathorne.

“Osborne has her husband’s holdings in her name,” Jeremy challenged. “Bishop owns an inn on your main thoroughfare.”

Corwin’s eyes went from Jeremy to Hathorne. “Is that right, Jonathan?”

“The key phrase here is her husband’s holdings. True in both cases. In a sense, they never held a thing. They are women, Mr. Wakely, and women do not hold title in the colonies.” Hathorne poured himself another brandy. “The property never properly belonged to these two Goodwives, especially if gained through nefarious means . If you really knew your law . . .”

Corwin nodded approvingly. “Which is the rumor—ah, the common belief, which so often has more than an element of truth to’t.”

“Yes, but common belief is not law,” Jeremy countered.

“Nay, but the law is often common!” Corwin joked.

“And getting commoner by the day in Salem Village,” Jeremy replied, refilled his glass, and raised it to them, seeing that while Corwin laughed at the sparring that Hathorne bristled. Jeremy then asked, “Are you sophisticated men really going to hang Goody Goode for jabbing pins into a wooden doll and cursing Parris on the green?”

“For murder of children! Not for curses or pins,” shouted Hathorne, silencing the room.

After a moment and several sips of his drink, Jeremy muttered, “Then you, sirs, are actually thinking of accepting this spectral evidence from the Parris girl’s fevered brain, and that of the Putnam girl, who we all know has had fits and seizures her entire life?”

“Evidence of a nature, we feel corroborated by Anne Junior’s mother—Anne Putnam.”

Jeremy pictured the grim, bone-thin Mrs. Putnam standing guard at that dark house he’d visited once too often.

“Didn’t Mr. Parris inform you?” asked Corwin, genuinely surprised.

“We interviewed her earlier today,” added Hathorne.

“I’m sure she made a believable witness.” Inwardly, Jeremy knew they’d not understand the irony of this interview with Anne Carr Putnam.

“She was most convincing, I’d say.” Corwin paced, glanced out a window as if expecting someone, and sipped at his drink.

“Does it occur to you men that Mr. Parris is manipulating ahhh—” Jeremy stopped short of suggesting that they were easily manipulated—“Things.”

“Manipulating things?” asked Corwin as if Jeremy had slapped him.

“Orchestrating the whole business, this entire witch hunt.”

Hathorne stared at Jeremy as if he were a witch. “No man can control such events—and certainly not our courts, Mr. Wakely! Such matters are in no one’s hands but God’s. Being a man of God, you most certainly know that.”

“I hadn’t the impression God was with us last night with Tituba chained to that chair.” Jeremy indicated the chair now replaced in a corner.

“Goode has informed us—independently—that Osborne and Bishop are both as much witch as she, but that they hide their mischief behind their aprons,” said Hathorne as if he had struck Jeremy with a thunderbolt.