“If I were a suspicious man, I’d say they drove the old man into his grave, the vultures. Wonder if he wasn’t poisoned by Noyes.”

“That’s a terrible accusation! Have you any proof of it?”

“No, none, but Noyes has one strong trait—ambition.”

“Father will take this news badly.”

“From the beginning . . . my first day in Salem, dear, even before arriving, I knew of the factions within Parris’ congregation, but only recently have I had my eyes opened to the fact that Judges Hathorne and Corwin are in the Parris-Putnam camp as well.”

“Those who intend to run against the judges in the next election stand with our side.”

“Our side, eh?” Jeremy considered this for a moment. “The witchcraft scare has changed the face of the elections even before they’ve begun.”

Her laugh was hollow and angry. “You mean who’s going to vote for Francis Nurse or any of his cronies so long as his wife is jailed as a witch?”

He nodded solemnly. “So your father was planning to run for Corwin’s seat?”

“Yes.”

“And even should they come to their senses and release your mother—”

“The taint of having been accused, arrested, excommunicated and humiliated would follow her, and Father, I know.”

“And her family, you and me! No matter the real issues as in where Corwin and Hathorne stood during the Andros years.”

“When will it end, Jeremy? When will they come to their senses?”

He smiled and held her close. They shared a warm kiss and turned to walk to the porch, arms locked.

Finally, Jeremy said, “I’m afraid that fat-headed Governor Andros filled positions of state with clergymen, and this has led to widespread abuse of power. Sir William Stoughton is shaping up as a fine example.”

Overhearing from his rocker on the porch, Francis added, “Andros men used the clergy in shrewd measure. Whenever any person was excommunicated from the church, they were typically prosecuted for some exaggerated real offense simultaneously.”

“Evening to you, sir.” Jeremy took off his hat with a flourish. “Know you that the elder Mather, Increase, like myself—and many another man—wants a safe division of church and state, so that such fiends as Andros must never again wield such power over us.”

“But here it comes again, Jeremiah,” countered Francis. “Andros had declared whole tracts of land his on the basis of bogus trials, overturning original land grants. A circumstance that made many a magistrate and minister wealthy.”

“I see the parallels, yes, but we must believe it can’t occur again.”

“Increase Mather himself rose to prominence and great power and influence in the colonies due to the marriage of church and state,” concluded Francis.

“But he abhors the abuses he’s witnessed, especially those committed during the Andros era. He is a man with foresight, who sees the future cannot sustain a theocracy on these shores.”

“I am a simple man, Jeremiah, but what is happening in Salem with these church excommunications and courtroom trials, this is pure theocracy of the deadliest sort.”

“It may’s well be another Papal State!” cried out Serena. “And we can all become Papists if they can run their own bloody Inquisition here.”

This made the men laugh.

“Why do you find that funny?”

“Because it is so true,” replied Jeremy.

“Because it is either laugh or cry,” added Francis.

“Besides, Serena, you are so beautiful when you’re angry.”

“Remember on your firs return home, Jeremy?” asked Francis. “Serena holding you at bay at gunpoint?”

Again the men laughed. Serena frowned, turned, and stomped inside.

# # # # #

At the meetinghouse, the following Sabbath Day, little Anne Putnam Junior shouted above Mr. Parris’ sermon, “Why does God punish the unborn? Tell me that, Mr. Parris!” Anne’s tone was both authoritative and accusatory.

Parris stared blankly at the sickly, thin child who’d suffered so much harm from the invisible agents of Satan. “Anne,” he finally responded, coming around the podium, “you know the answer to that as well as anyone here.”

Mercy Lewis, as if on cue, stood up and spread her arms wide, pleading, “Mr. Parris, why does God allow Satan to have his own kingdom?”

Parris stammered something unintelligible and was cut off by little Anne’s screaming, “Where are my brothers and sisters who died before being baptized? Where is Hopestill’s soul now? William, Henry Junior, Matthew, Luke, all of them?”

Parris composed himself, but then one of his adult congregation asked, “Why don’t you answer these children?”

Parris stared hard at John Tarbell, a relative of the Nurse family. It was a clear challenge.

“And where is Tituba’s child’s soul?” shouted Mercy Lewis.

Parris’s jaw quivered with rage at this. How does Mercy know about the child in Barbados, he wondered.

“She told me,” continued Mercy, “that she never once saw her dead child, not ever!”

“The child was born deformed and dead!” Parris retreated to his podium. “Tituba was only your age then. She didn’t need to see it; it’d’ve done no good. As to the child’s soul—same as with Anne’s brothers and sisters, same as with any who’re un-baptized— every child knows. So say it with me.”

Several adults shouted at once, “Their souls belong to Perdition!”

“And as such—” continued Parris—“out of our hands!”

A chorus of men and women in the pews shouted, ”Amen.”

Others sat unmoved.

Parris sighed heavily at the unmoved people in particular. He picked up his hourglass and turned it over. “It appears we need another hour’s worth of his wisdom.”

After a few muffled groans, the congregation made up its mind to stay.

“Just as the child is born with the mark of Cain, Original Sin, these facts we have no power to change,” the minister spoke extemporaneously. “So too the unborn child has this mark and cannot escape the sinful condition to which it is born. Death, not even stillborn death, nor death by foul means, or murder by demonic interference can expel the mark of Cain, no!”

Most in the congregation sent up an uproar of amen’s that covered the few groans. The majority these days followed Mr. Parris’ remarks slavishly and silently, save for little Anne Putnam who began a low, growling chant.

“Death does not discount the Book of the Lamb.” Parris leaned heavily into his podium. “Death does not offer an escape unless you are among the chosen!”

More halleluiahs and amen’s.”

“The chosen of God.”

“How do you know they weren’t chosen of God before they were born?” asked Anne Junior. “Which means, they could be in heaven right now?” Anne’s glassy stare stopped the minister from another word.

Finally, Parris replied, “God saves the humble, Anne, and the meek shall inherit the earth. There is no one among us who can know who is chosen and who is not. Not even your minister.”

“What about us?” asked Mercy Lewis, standing beside Anne now. “If we’ve been given this gift of sight . . . if we are now seers into the Invisible World of angels and demons, then mightn’t . . . I mean perhaps we are the chosen!”

Everyone in the meetinghouse silently considered this, none more so than Parris himself.

“Then it was even more glorious than we had thought, Mercy Lewis,” Parris calmly replied, “when on that day under Deacon Putnam’s roof when I banished the devil residing within you. Remember that day.”

“Yes! Yes, sir. I shall never forget it, Uncle.”

“I’m not asking if you remember; I am telling you to always remember.”

She shouted as if on cue, “It truly is a miracle of miracles you’ve performed, Reverend Uncle Parris!”

Parris saw the eyes of his congregation settle on him in wonder. “How long have I been your spiritual leader?” he asked them, coming away from the podium again. He awaited no answer. “And how long have some among you, the dissenting brethren among you, denied my sincerity and denounced my character?”

A general consensus followed as many of the so-called ‘dissenting brethren’ had days before, with the excommunication of Rebecca Nurse, left the congregation. Now the remnants of them had quietly inched from the meetinghouse, never to return.

# # # # #

Some of these final holdouts among the dissenting brethren still going to Parris’ sermons—like John Tarbell—went directly to Francis Nurse’s house, daring to report on Mr. Parris’ new role as leader of the seer children, the afflicted girls who’d become cause for celebrity, and gifts, and attention by adults who days before had treated them as invisible members of society—people to fetch their water, scrub their floors, wipe the noses of their children.

The Eastys, the Cloyses, the Prescotts, the Russells, the Tabells, and many of the Proctors stood as the last remaining adult members of the village who questioned the seer children of Salem Village, and their ability to see into and interpret the Invisible World of Satan. But they had too soon and suddenly found themselves no longer among the silent majority of those who stood by, said and did nothing. They were now in the vocal minority.

A minority finding itself making up the bulk of names on arrest warrants. Warrants now coming at a head-spinning pace, and now being executed by the new Sheriff, Herrick.

Chapter Ten

The following Sabbath Day

Jeremiah, Serena, her brothers, uncles, aunts and many in the families of the ‘dissenting brethren’ went about attempting to appeal to the good judgment and reason of neighbors far and wide, in and around Salem; they carried petitions with them, the acceptable practice of the day.