“You believe then that Jeremiah Wakely is right? That their true interest is in our holdings?”

“You knew it before him, Francis. We both did.”

“That young man is wise beyond his years.”

“But you knew it all along.” She patted his cheek.

“Aye…I suppose so. Suppose I didn’t want to believe human greed could be so bloody awful, not here…not in Salem.”

“Watch that saucy tongue!” She ran her fingers gingerly through his thin hair. “I too denied my intuition.”

“Bastards.” He got to his feet, paced the porch.

“Aye, they are that!” She managed a hearty laugh. “Francis, we may well be dealing with the worst thing ever created in God’s image—a cunning minister.”

In another time and context, this would have made Francis laugh. But he didn’t laugh. Nothing to do with the minister in the village seemed funny anymore.

Chapter Four

On the cow paths between Salem Village and Andover

Thomas Putnam meant to do his duty.

He was the first man in the village to again wear his military uniform about, his cutlass dusted off and dangling from his belt, his flintlock on his arm. Furthermore, he’d contracted with a known cunning man in Andover—a notorious blacksmith with the gift of sight into the invisible world of Satan, a man with ample knowledge and perhaps truck with Witches. It might be risky business in such times as these, seeing a fortuneteller and seer, but Putnam meant to protect himself, his wife, and his child along with Mercy to whom he’d come to care for in the best sense of it. In fact, since her affliction—so similar to his daughter’s suffering—Thomas wished to nurture Mercy as if she were his own.

He certainly wanted nothing more to befall his accursed house. But he must learn the truth. He must have concrete evidence, not merely conjecture on the part of his wife, or his child, or the supposed ghosts who’d informed them that all his previous children had been victims of murder. Not even the faith in these matters held by his relative, Reverend Samuel Parris was enough for a man whose feet were solidly in this world alone.

This errand without benefit of moon or star, below a black sky and a raging wind forcing him to tie down his hat and hold firm to his cape, pressed like an intolerable weight. Thomas breathed deeply. He’d traversed the hills on horseback, his stiff, sore leg still aching whenever mounted. But he would see Samuel Wardwell, who some called the Wizard of Andover, for a second time.

His first visit had netted nothing of substance, only a slew of innuendos and sly nods and agreements from Wardwell, who had a knack for getting a man to relax his tongue. On their first meeting, the blacksmith and cunning man had asked Putnam many questions, and then suddenly ordered him away, telling him to return in seven nights hence, muttering that at the toll of the seventh night that all answers sought would be revealed to him.

Tonight was the seventh, and so here he was on a fool’s errand or a wise man’s journey? He hoped to soon know which it might be.

The wind chilled his bones, making him believe the old texts that declared Satan the Prince of the Power of Air. That God had offered Satan power over one element, and that the Archangel, being a cunning one indeed, selected the wind over water, earth, and even fire. No doubt old Beelzebub had enough of fire already. The thought made him chuckle and then immediately regret it as it felt like a taking of the Devil’s name in vain, a more fearsome error than taking the Lord’s name in vain, for the Lord had pity from time to time, whereas Satan had none. This fearful worry came as accompaniment to a gust of air so strong it threatened to unseat him from his old mare. Then the eerie coincidence of this happening at just this moment raised the hair on the back of his neck.

Even his horse seemed to shiver beneath him at the precise moment as if it sensed the same. Animals know these things. Putnam shivered at both the gust and the thought of the power behind it; shivered for being alone with it . . . alone with the Devil. How long had he been blind to such subtleties as this? For how long had he remained blind to the old fiend’s straddling his rooftop? Cursed all me bloody, blimey life.

How his and Bray’s and Samuel’s business had become a curse began to make sense with all the other areas of his life, all the failure and death following in his wake. The Salem Iron and Copperworks Mine had seemed so very marvelous when he’d first hatched the idea. So certain was he that the scheme would pay in a year, and if not one then two. For a time, everyone connected with it agreed to the point of investing, and none more enthusiastically than Samuel.

Thomas had several other influential backers with ties to mills in England by way of the West Indies thanks to Parris. These included his cousin John Wolcott, Judge Corwin, Judge Hathorne, and more recently young Nicholas Noyes, clergyman at the First Church of Salem Harbor soon to be. Soon as Old Higginson kicks off. All enthusiastic, true enough, until the cave-in. More failure plaguing my house..

“Cursed,” he repeated to hear some sound other than the swirling wind. “I was once destined for great things in Salem, but others have stole’ everything from me.”

He reached for and found his flask of whiskey, gulping deeply. It warmed him. He knew the truth. That his wife had married him after being rebuffed by James Bailey. Marry a Putnam, she was thinking that she’d be marrying a man who’d become a regular squire when he gained his inheritance. But the old man had remarried late in life, and he had left it all to Thomas’ stepmother who in turn had remarried a Tarbell. As a result, Thomas had lost all hope of the property rightfully his.

The horse whinnied, upset with the rain that began to blanket them. In the distance, Thomas made out the light on the outskirts of Andover, Wardwell’s barn and workshop. As if knowing the rutted path and the destination, the horse continued on without urging.

Thomas wondered if his money might not be wasted on this man named Wardwell; wondered if the blacksmith could really do as rumor said; wondered if he’d have any answers as promised tonight. As he neared, he saw Wardwell as if he’d never left, right inside that brightly lit double doorway, pounding on a piece of flaming metal, shaping it, sculpting it into anything the ‘wizard with wrought iron’ might want or imagine.

Wardwell hardly looked up when Putnam, yet astride his horse, came into his view—coming right through the smithy’s door. In fact, the wizard acted as if it weren’t the seventh night since last they met. Still, with that booming voice of his, Wardwell filled the night with a handful of words. “I see you’ve chose to return, Squire Putnam.”

“Squire? How come you to determine me a squire?” Putnam thought it odd as he’d just been thinking he ought to’ve been a squire and would have if not for circumstances created by his father in the old man’s foolish dotage. “I am Deacon Putnam and Lieutenant, sir but no squire, and now ’tis the seventh day we agreed ’pon, Mr. Wardwell, so why should I not be back?”

“Many who come seeking answers of me, once they have gone never return.” He shrugged and dropped a pair of burning red tongs into water, sending up a cloud of smoke and mist to the ceiling rafters.

Thomas got down from his horse. “But I am here, so have you information I seek?”

“I do indeed have information, sir. Indeed I do.”

“No riddles this time. I want facts, truths. Who are those who would harm me?”

“Those you most suspect, of course.”

Putnam thought about this; thought of all those he’d ever suspected of holding grudges or who held him in low esteem. One such man was Sheriff Williard, Bray’s nephew. Another who came immediately to mind was Francis Nurse, followed by John Proctor, but he must remember what Anne and Anne Junior had said of these men’s wives. “How do you know for a certainty, Wardwell? How? Whom do you consult as I consult you?”

“I consult Endor.”

“Endor? The Witch of Endor as in the Bible?”

“No, Endore is she!” He pointed to an old nag in the first stall. After seeing Thomas’ pinched expression, he laughed like a madman. “Come, come, Deacon. I can’t give away my trade secrets, now can I?”

“All right but tell me, these enemies of mine, can I destroy them? Is there a way? What can I do, Wardwell?”

“You need do nothing, Deacon”

“What do you mean, nothing?”

“It’s all taken care of.”

“How? How is it taken care of?”

“Trust me.”

“Tell me how.”

Wardwell took a final whack at the red poker of metal he’d been shaping, its tip glowing and smoking. H e held it up to Putnam’s eyes so close that the Salem man feared his eyebrows might singe. “I’ve made a curse for you, Thomas—may I call you Thomas?—made it a general one to guard against all thy enemies.”

“I paid for a lousy curse? A curse to guard me? I want names and I want to swear out warrants against those who harm my child and have murdered others before her.”

“I know full-well what you want, Thomas, but this is no ordinary curse. This one has the ear of Satan himself. This curse will loose Satan on your enemies.” He jammed the poker of blazing metal into a water barrel and the resultant noise and smoke cloud steamed about the barn like a mad banshee.

“You expect me to believe you have the ear of the Devil ’imself?”

“If not, why’re ya be here on the seventh night?”

Thomas slowly nodded. “I must be sure.”