By the time the bee pollinates the flower, nature works as some sort of wicked injection. Dark spirits inject themselves into the fierce bark of a willow tree. Berries like the apple — like Satan’s ruse — plump themselves for poisoned consumption. In fact, nature was as close to hell as they could get; so, the mob marched, holding lanterns and axes. They needed to weed out evil like a forest blight.
When day turned to night, New England’s cold bit the foreigners’ noses. The magistrates had to stop. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t survive long enough to find the meeting circle of wickedness. That’s why the fire sparked and the men, young and old, gathered around to heed its protection. Contradictory in some ways. For, if they stumbled across a group of bare women around a flame, they would attack with fierce dedication.
George Putnam pulled out his list of names and read it once over: Elizabeth Rowley, Doraty Rodgers, Sarah Blythe, Abigail Osbourne. Two hundred and thirty-nine names. The exhaustion of the witch hunt set in, but George was firm in his action. The colony needed to be purged for the sake of souls. For the sake of eternity.
“What have you, George?” Goody Hobbs asked by his side, offering a piece of bread.
“I hunger not. Only for this ambition,” George said.
Goody Hobs bit the bread. “Pray pardon me, yet I dare to say we’ve found all that hath signed the book. There’s nothing but wild mousers about.”
George shook his head. “Familiars, those mousers are. The children are still tormented because of what they conjure. Their earthly evil lingers. I know it.”
George glanced across the fire to the group of men poring over a map. What good would a map do in this place? One cannot chart an eternal hellscape, nor can they predict its meaning. Yet, those men were young, their eyes wide with mania, fueled by the desire to hunt— to rid the world of imperfection. Hungry to be the saviors. Charles Becker must have known this, because George watched as he approached the group of young man to advise their madness. He was always a more rational voice, rarely leading by emotion. When George caught his gaze, Charles looked back down at the map.
Holy Lord, I have sinned times without number, and been guilty of pride and unbelief…
The group prayed before venturing into the Devil’s night. Eight men would go, two in every direction while the remainder rested. Yet, fatigue plagued poor George’s body, one that hadn’t been the same after surviving smallpox. There was no vanity with a face covered in scars. He could not walk assuredly with muscles torn to an old man’s ache. At forty-one, he limped through the forest with a cane and scowl.
Charles Becker walked by his side, slowing down to match his pace; something that infuriated George. He was angry at a man of the same age existing in better health, of dimming himself for the sake of George’s pride. Everything was dim in this place. The moon, the lanterns that attracted angry mosquitoes. And, for a long while, they didn’t speak. Charles only broke their silence enough to inquire if they were still going East.
He was older than George remembered. His hair, once obsidian, was now thinned and stricken with gray. His body curved slightly in a hunch. His eyes were a lighter shade of gray, less vibrant than they had been in the younger man. Charles caught George inspecting him in the dark and must have worried if the man suspected witchery.
“I was sorry to hear about your Jane. She was a woman of great virtue,” Charles said.
George continued to look ahead. His wife had died of a dropping sweat three months prior.
“She walks in the light of God; as does she walk with the procession of my heart,” George said, and he himself was unsure what he meant by it. “I am certain it… must mean something. The Lord will show me what it all means. I… know he will show me what it means.”
Everything in their natural world had great, unchanging meaning. Everything was a sign. That’s why they’d left England in the hopes of being the chosen ones— at least, that’s why their parents had taken them as children. Spoiled butter meant misfortune. A sick cow was a curse. George spent his entire life reading between every line of the universe. He knew his sickness was punishment, and his wife’s death was a part of a great plan. He only sometimes wished that God’s will would be clearer.
For a long while, they continued walking silently until Charles finally spoke.
“Dost thou hold true in this belief? We… we will find witches yonder?”
“Aye,” George said quickly.
“Then I must query a heavy burden. Speak true,” Charles said. “In this… task God has given you. There is a risk of harming the innocent in the name of finding the guilty. ‘Tis a risk worth taking?”
George stopped walking and turned to face Charles. “Of course.”
“Pray speak true, George.”
“I do.”
“I will offer thou this.” Charles took a breath. “In a situation where we hang three witches, there is the chance that one is not. She is pious and good, and God favors her. Would thou still take such a chance?”
George opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came. He hadn’t directly looked at Charles in a long time.
“I must confess something thine mind may object, but thine soul will understand,” Charles said. “Six hanged so far. Six, George. I haven’t felt right about a single one. George… I have not seen this wickedness we claim to reject— I do not see it here. I truly in my soul do not feel it.”
They were the same height now, a stark contrast to how it had been when they were fourteen in the bell tower. Every day at noon they climbed the creaky staircase above the world to ring the church bell. Of course, it didn’t require two people, but they had made it so. The reverend always tasked them with the chores that required more sprightly bodies. They’d carry the large wooden cross up and down the altar and hammer down nails that stuck out at pews. But every day at noon, they stood between Heaven and Earth, somehow isolated from it.
But now, they stood on the ground, cocooned in darkness. The wind that brushed through the trees allowed for the peering gaze of nature to avert itself.
“Evil torments,” George said quietly. “I’ve seen it.”
He had. He had witnessed those tormented girls in front of his very eyes. He saw them convulse in their beds; their bodies tossed and thrown into walls. They bruised from apparitions and were raw with claw marks. How could Charles deny such an evil?
“And Goody Benjamin Burnell confessed. He confessed that he was compelled by evil to commit wickedness. Words from his very tongue,” George said. “Same goes for Goody Abbott. Everyone is confessing their sins.”
“Then how true is the matter? It is beginning to sound of a guise to lift the weight of one’s chest,” Charles spat out.
It was a buried observation, but George couldn’t deny its existence. The confessions were convenient. One could be absolved of all faults if they confessed to being tempted by dark magic. The old medicine man confessed to seeing the specter of a nude woman at night, touching him whilst his wife slept by his side. Lust was a sin; dreaming of it was worse. It shows what your soul yearns for without the guidance of a conscious mind— of a godly mind. Corrupted. It was good that the old man confessed, even better that his soul was saved by being the victim of evil torment.
“Thou dare question God?” George asked.
“No, I dare question man.”
The dullness of the lantern shrouded Charles’ face in shadow. He looked like a ghost story, and George couldn’t help but listen and be frightened by the fact.
“It is a greater sin to act as God than to question judgment,” Charles said. “I have not felt God’s presence on this ground amongst these wretched people. Prideful people. I haven’t felt God since the bell tower.”
At that moment, George could feel the ringing of a monstrous bell, biting through his body. He remembered the height. He remembered the threads of white they were made to wear. He’d watch Charles’ hands as they wrapped around rope before turning to the window in search of coolness. He looked down at the village and its people. Small people in a small world. The sound of the bell was deafening; and somehow, George became sound. He could exist inside of vibrations and nothing else.
When Charles was done ringing, he took to one of the windows, sticking his head out. Then he turned backwards, letting his dark hair hang.
“Thou wilt surely fall,” George said.
“I haven’t a moment of worry from this height,” Charles proclaimed. “I am closest to God. Certainly, closer than all the people down there.”
The young George made his way over to Charles as he hung backward out the window.
“What sayest thou?” George taunted. Then, he grabbed Charles’ shoulders, causing him to jump and quickly sit upright.
“You fear not yet yelp like a maiden,” George said.
The bright world snuck in through the surrounding openness, and Charles’ laugh faded to a smile.
“What is it?” George asked.
Charles did not look away, and it brought George to realize he was still holding his shoulders, keeping them pressed close. That’s when George released, and Charles grabbed his sleeve to stop him.
“You’ve got a spec on your cheek,” Charles said. George rolled his eyes. “I know your tricks, Charlie.”
Usually, Charles would pinch George’s cheek after saying such a thing, bringing George to smack his shoulder.
“I sayest true.” Charles stepped closer to him. That’s when he brought his face to his, staring at George’s cheek in deep concentration. Young George never quite knew how to stand still, or move correctly, or breathe at the closeness of another person. So, he studied him as Charles brought his thumb to George’s cheek, wiping away a brush of dirt.
George’s chest thumped uncomfortably at their proximity, at seeing him so close. And even then, in the darkness of the forest, George didn’t know what to do with it.
“What can we make of sin, George?” Charles whispered.
He stepped closer and brought a tender hand to George’s cheek, the same way he would’ve done in their forgotten youth. George looked away, ashamed of his scarred appearance.
“I know you have not changed. I see you, do not think me indifferent,” Charles said. “There is no outer affliction that could ever change your soul. I beg of you, do not allow yourself to be swept into this madness any longer. Petition with me.”
“Charlie, I cannot—”
“I dare say we can find others who question the hunt—”
George pulled away. “Do not! Thou entertain an evil I cannot. I will not! What do I make of sin? Good does not sin without the temptation and corruption of evil!”
Feeling is the most discrepant of ambitions. We fear it. In legend, everything beautiful is evil. Beautiful women are demons in disguise, made to lure and corrupt. Beauty elicits lust. Lust blurs reason. It opens one up to being hurt. It cannot be charted and planned. It cannot be read in an ancient book. It cannot be destroyed with prayer.
George felt that way then. Shoving everything into his aching joints, making him sick and angry.
“You… you…” George tried to find the words.
Looking at Charles, he knew what he meant about God; about feeling God. George knew that in the bell tower he had leaned into the young Charles. They had folded into each other in the purest serenity. It was the kiss of someone who had never kissed anyone before, uncertain, awkward, but lovely. And they never mentioned the loveliness of it all. Even when it happened three more times by their twenty second birthdays.
Now, he stepped away from Charles to stop his heart from thumping so furiously.
“Thine heart knows all of Salem is corrupt. Not by wickedness, but by the malice of man. You must see it,” Charles said.
“It does not matter what I think!”
“Of course it matters,” Charles urged. “Imagine in was your Jane at the gallows. Accused and condemned by man, not God.”
“Do not speak of my wife.”
“I know you have questioned it! Even for a mere moment, reason has gotten to you! We are becoming common animals!” Charles shouted.
And his words continued in the background of George’s swarming mind. He was dizzied by the memories and the phantom hand of that terrible fever. The memory of the bed he’d nearly died in. The heat of his head and his burning skin. Pinched skin like hell fire. Vibrations like the belltower, numbing him and all of his reason. Charles’ words sounded as if from beneath harbor water. Drowning. Tied up. Condemned from conjuring. The noise finally met George’s ears.
“How dare thou look down on the corrupt when your distance is propped up by thine sins!”
George struck him across the face.
The echo. The sting in his palm and in Charles’ stunned blinks. Everything about the sound reminded him of being above the world. The vibration in his ears made him a child again, staring at a boy who held his cheek, now gone red.
“Charlie, I—”
Charles put his hand up to stop him from speaking, and George stilled. He watched him slowly raise a straight-back and a stern expression.
George went to speak. “I’m sor—”
“Let us continue on,” Charles said. “Perhaps then you’ll find the source of your every sin.”
Photo by Eugenia Cheskidova on Unsplash
