“I think it best you come ashore immediately,” Chester called up to Ronald once the skiff was made secure against the larger craft.
A ladder was extended into the small boat, and after a quick consultation with the captain, Ronald climbed down. Once he was sitting in the stern, they shoved off. Chester sat next to him. The two seamen amidships lent their backs to their oars.
“What is wrong?” Ronald asked, afraid to hear the answer. His worst fear was an Indian raid on his home. When he’d left he knew they’d been as close as Andover.
“There have been terrible happenings in Salem,” Chester said. He was overwrought and plainly nervous. “Providence has brought you home barely in time. We have been much disquieted and distressed that you would arrive too late.”
“It is my children?” Ronald asked with alarm.
“Nay, it is not your children,” Chester said. “They are safe and hale. It is your goodwife, Elizabeth. She has been in prison for many months.”
“On what charge?” Ronald demanded.
“Witchcraft,” Chester said. “I beg your pardon for being the bearer of such ill tidings. She has been convicted by a special court and there is a warrant for her execution the Tuesday next.”
“This is absurd,” Ronald growled. “My wife is no witch!”
“That I know,” Chester said. “But there has been a witchcraft frenzy in the town since February, with almost one hundred people accused. There has already been one execution. Bridget Bishop on June tenth.”
“I knew her,” Ronald admitted. “She was a woman of a fiery temperament. She ran the unlicensed tavern out on Ipswich Road. But a witch? It seems most improbable. What has happened to cause such fear of malefic will?”
“It is because of ‘fits,’~” Chester said. “Certain women, mostly young women, have been afflicted in a most pitiful way.”
“Have you witnessed these fits?” Ronald asked.
“Oh, yes,” Chester said. “The whole town has seen them at the hearings in front of the magistrates. They are terrible to behold. The afflicted scream of torment and are not in their right minds. They go alternately blind, deaf, and dumb, and sometimes all at once. They shake worse than the Quakers and shriek they are being bitten by invisible beings. Their tongues come out and then are as if swallowed. But the worst is that their joints do bend as if to break.”
Ronald’s mind was a whirlwind of thought. This was a most unexpected turn of events. Sweat broke forth on his forehead as the morning sun beat down upon him. Angrily he tore his wig from his head and threw it to the floor of the boat. He tried to think what he should do.
“I have a carriage waiting,” Chester said, breaking the heavy silence as they neared the pier. “I thought you’d care to go directly to the prison.”
“Aye,” Ronald said tersely. They disembarked and walked quickly to the street. They climbed aboard the vehicle, and Chester picked up the reins. With a snap the horse started. The wagon bumped along the cobblestone quay. Neither man spoke.
“How was it decided these fits were caused by witchcraft?” Ronald asked when they reached Essex Street.
“It was Dr. Griggs who said so,” Chester said. “Then Reverend Parris from the village, then everyone, even the magistrates.”
“What made them so confident?” Ronald asked.
“It was apparent at the hearings,” Chester said. “All the people could see how the accused tormented the afflicted, and how the afflicted were instantly relieved from their suffering when touched by the accused.”
“Yet they didn’t touch them to torment them?”
“It was the specters of the accused who did the mischief,” Chester explained. “And the specters could only be seen by the afflicted. It was thus that the accused were called out upon by the afflicted.”
“And my wife was called out upon in this fashion?” Ronald asked.
“~’Tis so,” Chester said. “By Ann Putnam, daughter of Thomas Putnam of Salem Village.”
“I know Thomas Putnam,” Ronald said. “A small, angry man.”
“Ann Putnam was the first to be afflicted,” Chester said hesitantly. “In your house. Her first fit was in your common room in the beginning of February. And to this day she is still afflicted, as is her mother, Ann senior.”