“Let me understand this,” began Jeremy, setting his empty glass down. “A known witch, known to be practicing witchcraft in Salem, her heart set in stone against Parris, who has sold her soul to Satan to affect her ends, yet you sirs are willing, nay anxious, to take her word against Osborne and Bishop?” Jeremy paused to let this logic sink in. “What sense is in it, gentlemen? How can you trust her implication of another anymore than you can Tituba Indian’s?”

“I saw nothing wrong with our taking Tituba’s confessions last night,” countered Hathorne.

“Coerced confessions are highly questionable, sirs. And where will it stop?”

Hathorne hefted Guide to Grandjurymen in his regal hands and read a section he’d left his marker at: “Those who use, practice or exercise any witchcraft, enchantment, charm or sorcery, whereby any person should be killed or destroyed—”

“But what evidence that anyone has been killed save the word of ghosts supposedly whispered into the ear of a child and her disturbed mother?”

“—such councilors and aides of Satan shall suffer punishment of death!”

“An eye for an eye,” added Corwin.

Jeremy wanted to send a fist into a table, but he controlled his anger. “But no one has died here of witchery or sorcery.”

“Yet Parris daughter is near death, and now his nieces, and this Putnam child, and we are hearing reports of other children being attacked.”

Jeremiah thought, I’m fighting upriver with both hands tied. “Would you have some reckless, poor woman or farmer hang, sir, for-for curing a cow with beetles and bitterroot, or make a protective prayer over roseroot?”

“Nay, nay!”

“For burying a dead cat in a cemetery with tea leaves and rune stones?”

“Of course not, but—”

“For an incantation or curse directed at a neighbor?”

“If she be guilty of bringing on a scourge on an entire community,” began Corwin.

“Or of attacking our children! Throwing them into fits,” finished Hathorne.

“Aye, the children. Recall too the death toll of our every minister in the village before now—Bailey’s family, Burroughs’ family.”

“But it makes poor logic then to point a finger at George Burroughs if his family was also under attack.”

“Mr. Wakely, there are patterns and connections here that you are unaware of,” said Hathorne with a little wave of dismissal.

Corwin toasted. “It’s really all about saving the children from harm, and not allowing our current minister to fall to this village parish curse.”

Jeremy shook his head, paced, found himself at the window. Through the waves in the pane of glass, he saw Parris approaching. He knew he had to talk fast. “These apparitions the children report giving up secrets and pointing fingers at their murderers, sirs, I beseech you. Do not take heed of anything smacking of ethereal evidence, or anything supposedly spoken by spirits! If you do not condone hearsay in your courts, why would you ever consider spectral hearsay? I tell you, it will make a mockery of you both—and history will not be kind to either of you. Think of your reputations, not the land and property holdings of the accused.”

“I resent that, young man!” shouted Hathorne. “We are not after acquiring land and property in this matter but souls!”

Jeremy nodded at this, unable to hide his disdain. “Osborne and Bishop have holdings, and I have it on excellent authority that others who are facing warrants sworn out by Parris, or those he controls, will most assuredly have many contested holdings as a result—holdings that will go to the court for redistribution.”

“Careful, young man,” shouted Hathorne. “You tread on thin ice.”

“This epidemic of fits and seizures among so many girls of the village I’ve seen before in my travels. But here, the finger pointing children are working at Mr. Parris’ behest, whether you know it or not—indeed whether Mr. Parris knows it or not.”

“That’s a bloody awful accusation to make, sir!” Hathorne’s face had become livid, the pale neck throbbing with arteries.

“Which of the two allegations offends you, sir?” countered Jeremy.

Hathorne bristled more, pacing like an angry, rabid dog now in circles about the room as if searching for something to throw at Jeremy. “You are a smar-mouthed fellow, aren’t you, Mr. Wakely.”

“I know human nature, and I know the law, sir. Think how it will look in Boston.”

“How it will look in Boston?” asked Corwin as if he’d not given it a single thought.

“And the rest of the world, if you put spirits coming to children in the night with accusations of murder as witnesses in your box. What’s the implication? That you two are provincial dupes, or that you had much to gain or . . . or too much to drink.”

“This is not just children at games, Mr. Wakely. You’ve seen the condition of the Parris girl.”

“Yes, something has terrified Betty straight out of her little mind,” he agreed, again wondering if it were not her own father who’d triggered her attack. What if her father had threatened her with sending her away? He brokered in children, after all. What if her father were at her with his switch for some slight? How better to deflect her feared father than to convince him she’d been touched by evil, bewitched—and of course, there was no telling what Tituba may’ve conveyed to the child about a likeness stuck full with pins and in the hands of Goode.

Parris rapped at the door.

“Who might that be?” asked Corwin.

“It’s Mr. Parris,” replied Jeremy, “but before you welcome him in, gentlemen, have a look at his upcoming sermon.” This got their attention. Jeremy produced the document and the two men scanned its contents as Parris knocked a second time.

They heard Parris the other side of the door now tapping at the window and peering inside, curious why no one had answered. Finally, Corwin called out the single name Hosanna! This roused his maidservant to open the door for Parris.

Parris came stomping in like a stallion, certain something was being discussed behind his back, or so his expression said. He stared hard at Jeremy. “Gentlemen, your honors, Mr. Wakely, I can only report that things’ve only worsened since last we met.”

“What’s happened?” asked Hathone.

Parris removed his cloak. “We must act quickly, set an example.” He then stopped and stared back at the three men staring at him, realizing Jeremy’s empty brandy glass on the mantel meant he’d been here for some time. “What have your honors been talking about?”

Corwin hemmed and hawed and pointed at the books on the table. “Going over precedent.”

“There is no precedent for this,” said Parris. “This is open warfare.”

“Mr. Hathorne has doubts about accepting the word of spirits in his courtroom—as does Mr. Corwin,” Jeremy boldly spoke for the judges.

“What of the afflictions then? Never mind the word of spirits! Betty’s bruises and burns and puncture marks, these are not invisible.”

“We fear taking this too far, Mr. Parris,” Hathorne said now.

“No matter how many books you consult, you can only stop Satan lovers with execution!”

“Ah-then you have the accused already executed, sir?” asked Jeremy.

Parris glared at his apprentice.

“Do you plan to arrest every old mother who’s lost her teeth or who has cured the giddies or the heaves with a home-made brew? Or are you also after those you call the dissenting brethren?”

“You overstep yourself, Mr. Wakely, and you saw what happened at Ingersoll’s!”

“And you, sir? You create trouble here, wantonly so. Show him the evidence of it, Mr. Hathorne, Mr. Corwin.”

“I say again, Wakely, you overstep your position!” The veins on Parris neck looked as if they were made of ship’s rigging.

“Do I? When there are lives at stake, and the peace and tranquility of the region?”

“I want you out of my home, Mr. Wakely, tonight!” he countered. “Do you understand? I’ll write you up well for Mather, but your time here is over.”

“I am packed and prepared to leave at any time, Goodfriend.”

The use of the term had Parris gritting his teeth. “Tonight, now!”

“Please, please, gentlemen,” began Corwin. “You will wake my ailing wife.”

Jeremy held up a hand to the judge. “Well now. What Mr. Parris proposes is best all round, your honors, but before I take my leave, I will know what you intend to do about that sermon in your hand, Magistrate Hathorne.”

“Sermon?” asked Parris. “What sermon?”

“The sermon and excommunication you’ve planned for Rebecca Nurse.”

Parris looked stricken and trapped for a mere moment. “There is ample reason to believe the woman one of them! She was among those midwives to Mrs. Putnam during several of the murders of Mrs. Putnam’s children!”

“You’re now predicting who next will be called out a witch, sir?” asked Hathorne of Parris, a stern look passing between them.

“Why, sirs, it’s no secret among the knowledgeable!” countered Parris. “The Nurse woman and her sisters all at one time or another attended Mrs. Putnam at child killings disguised as birthings, pretending the goodness of midwives!”

“I know this woman, Mother Nurse, and such an allegation against one so pious as she, well it is an out and out lie!” Jeremy said, crossing the room and standing in Parris’ face.

“It’s no lie, no prediction,” countered Parris, fuming, “but an inevitable conclusion. And that sermon appears to’ve been stolen from my desk! I’ll have it back.”

Hathorne held the sermon pages overhead. “No, no Samuel,” he began, “you’ll not have it back.”