Tags:
United States,
Fiction,
General,
Historical,
Juvenile Nonfiction,
People & Places,
Juvenile Fiction,
Fantasy & Magic,
Occult fiction,
Girls & Women,
Witchcraft,
Poetry,
Novels in Verse,
Trials (Witchcraft),
Salem (Mass.),
Salem (Mass.) - History - Colonial period; ca. 1600-1775
eyes focus on the doors
like she herself feels chained
and examined and awaits her moment
to run.
I exhale.
This feels nothing
like a court examination
but as though
one might next see
a three-headed horse
parade round the pulpit.
LESSONS TO BE LEARNED
Margaret Walcott, 17
âThey be needing aid at the Wilkins home,â
Uncle Thomas says to Ann and me
and stinking Mercy.
âBray Wilkins suffers and they believe
âtis witchcraft what causes his grief.
You girls must visit and tell all
what ye can see of the Invisible World.â
Mercy look at Ann, and I know
Mercy been deviling with Annâs mind.
Ann clutches her fatherâs arm.
âLet Mercy travel on first.
I have a lesson to finish
and so does Margaret.
Ye shall check our pages
and when they are correct
send us forth to join Mercy.â
I contain my grumble,
the stove of my anger
so hot I got fever.
Mercy grins at me out of
the side of her lips.
âIâll set a carriage for Mercy
and ye girls shall follow,â Uncle says.
Aunt Ann swells with a new baby,
but none in the house dare speak
about it, for Aunt fears it will curse the birthing.
Aunt says, âI do not think âtis wiseââ
Ann stares at her and she stops
talking like she lost her throat.
Ann tugs my arm.
âCome quickly. I must finish my copy
so I can join her,â she says.
âI donât want to do that healing
to none anyway. âTis work of heathens
and slaves.â I yank away my arm.
After Ann leaves
I rip my paper into dust.
I pound my fist so all them pieces
shower round me, hiding the rain
of my tears. How can I lose
both Ann and Isaac to Mercy?
HEALERS
Mercy Lewis, 17
Benjamin Wilkinsâs eyes cling
to me. I toss my cloak
so that it covers his head,
and the room laughs.
Poor old Bray Wilkins
sits in his armchair,
his legs elevated,
his face a place of pain.
His water stopped for over
a week now, and like a stream
clogged by a fallen tree,
his river swells.
His faceâs red
and bloated enough to burst.
Goody Wilkins asks,
âMercy, can ye tell us
what happens here?â
I hush the room
with a lift of my hands
and close my eyes.
When I open my lids
I say, âI see the Invisible World.
John Willard jumps upon
the belly of his grandfather, Bray Wilkins.
The same man I am told tended
Missus Putnam as a child.
He presses down on old Bray Wilkins
hard enough to crack ribs.â
I begin to faint,
draw my backhand
across my forehead,
and my legs go limp.
Benjamin catches me.
His eyes no longer paw.
He looks at me now
as though I am a spirit.
Ann blusters through the door.
âYes, John Willard,
whose specter I saw whip
my baby sister Sarah to death.
I see him too.â
Annâs uncle, the Constable,
punches the air where we point
the invisible witches to be.
My legs jerk and my arms spasm
each time he strikes a witch.
They lift Ann and me out
of the Wilkins home,
nestle us in the horse cart
as my feet are too weak
to hold up my body.
Benjamin bounds toward me.
âGrandfather, he looked not pained.
He smiled, teeth and all,
and said his aches were released
for a spell when Constable Putnam
hit those witches. Thank you.â
I nod at him, wave him well.
Parched now
and tired beyond sleep,
I look out at Salem Village
and feel like this place
calls me its own.
TOWN UNREST
Margaret Walcott, 17
Outside the Proctorsâ gutted tavern
a silver-whiskered man balances himself
on his tangled branch cane and hollers,
âGood folk cannot all be witches.
Think ye.â
A crowd gathers round the yelling
like wasps fly to spilled ale.
âYea,â most of them agree.
Me and Ann and Mercy would
but duck away, except we stroll
with Uncle and Aunt.
They hold us to eye level.
Uncle says, âHow know ye, sir?
Speak ye with the Devil?â
The wasps quiet their clamor.
âThese girls be a