Invisible World (13 page)

I
T WAS THE MIDDLE OF MARCH AND I WAS AWAITING
Aakif, who would, under the cover of darkness, meet me in the abandoned barn we had selected as our regular meeting place.

On March 1, when the judges questioned Tituba, she told them honestly what had happened. She had been ambushed by a terrible demonic force and kidnapped. Tituba
had
seen Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne there. When she tried to explain that these women, like herself, had been inhabited by evil spirits, no one credited it, or even understood what she meant. “There is a conspiracy of witches at work in Salem,” she told them, speaking the absolute truth.

Tituba was still in jail, as were the two Sarahs. All were awaiting trial. But they were not alone. Every day, the jail was more and more crowded as Abigail, little Betty, Ann Putnam, Jr., Elizabeth Hubbard, a girl named Mercy Lewis, and others continued to have mad fits and accuse one person after another of bewitching them.

I didn't think they were lying, either — not for the most part, anyway. This demon that had invaded Salem was running havoc, having its attendant witches jump from body to body.

“These courtrooms are like carnivals,” I said to Aakif when he arrived and sat on the floor of the barn beside me. “The girls claim evil spirits are right in the room with them. Every time one of the accused even moves a hand, they think they are under attack. They shake and quake and go into deep trances. I know the demon is responsible, but I wonder if there is some other cause as well. Maybe it's a sickness of some kind. I can't believe they're being bewitched at every second.”

“I've been thinking of something, Betty-Fatu. Do you remember the cone grass Aunty Honey showed you how to use?”

I nodded, remembering it well.

“What if they're eating something like that and it's affecting them?”

“It's possible, I suppose. I don't know. They might still be eating those dream cakes. But the cakes are only just rye flour, butter, milk, and some sugar.” Reaching into my apron pocket, I took out a few pieces of the black-specked rye that I had wrapped in a piece of cotton. I'd saved it to show Aakif.

Aakif inspected it. “What are those specks? The Osbornes' rye doesn't look like that.”

“I don't know.”

“I wonder,” Aakif said. He picked up a few specks and smelled them. “It has no odor,” he noted.

I dropped some on my tongue. “It's tasteless too.”

Leaning back into Aakif's shoulder, I suddenly felt a powerful fatigue and drifted to sleep. How long I slept, I can't be sure, but I suddenly felt a sharp pinch on my arm and was instantly awake. Turning to Aakif to ask why he'd pinched me, I saw that he was sleeping soundly.

A low growl made me look abruptly to the source — and my heart turned to ice.

Scared, I clutched for the marble I always wore at my neck. It wasn't there.

Evil Bronwyn, her three attendant witches, and the black hound stood in a row staring at me.

“Serve me!”

The voice was definitely male and it had come from the dog.

A disturbing ring of numbness banded my arms and ran up and down the length of them. On the periphery of my vision, colored lights sparked, and I felt dizzy. Trying to rise, I fell backward.

“You've eaten the ergot rye,” Evil Bronwyn said with a laugh. “You can't get away from us.”

I suddenly felt as though an army of ants was crawling the length of my legs and was nipping at me as they went. Horrible! But were they real or only in my mind? Swatting at them, I discovered that they were indeed there.

Repulsed, I began to scream. “Stop it! Make them stop!”

“Serve me,” the black dog growled again, his voice an unnerving rumble.

“No! No!” I shouted, quaking in fear yet determined not to submit to this horror.

My screams awoke Aakif. I could see and hear him but felt that he was too far away for me to reach. “Betty-Fatu,” I heard him cry, “what's the matter?”

What was the point in answering him? He was so far away. So I turned back to the demonic crew. To my surprise, they had been joined by a sweet little child with bouncing blond curls. It was Dorcas Good. She began to sing and dance around me. “Little ants bite. They bite me and you. Little ants will eat Betty-Fatu!”

“How do you know I'm called Betty-Fatu?” I demanded, my voice quivering.

The little girl suddenly transformed into the slave master Parris. He lashed the ground beside me with his whip. “I know you, Betty-Fatu!” he growled menacingly. His form melted and he was once more a little girl singing about ants.

I covered my ears as the ants swarmed me.

“Serve me and I can make it stop!” the voice once more emanated from the black hound.

The ants were in my hair, crawling into my ears. I swatted at them, rolling and screaming.

Evil Bronwyn howled with laughter, clapping her hands with demonic glee. “Ah, the ergot rye is marvelous! It lets us in! It lets us in! And you can't get out.”

I saw that three more women had entered the barn. I knew them from my trips into town. One was elderly Rebecca Nurse, and the others were her two sisters, Mary Easty and Sarah Cloyce. They stood where the three witches had been.

All three sisters seemed to be in a trance as they walked toward me. Frail and elderly as they were, they easily lifted my squirming, resistant body and carried it toward the black dog. The dog's face had taken on an oddly human and sinister expression.

“Serve me.”

“Make the ants stop!” I implored. I was covered from head to toe with the maddening insects.

“Serve me and it will stop,” the black dog spoke.

The sisters and Evil Bronwyn began to chant. “Serve him. Serve him. Serve him.”

“Serve who?” I shouted. “Who am I serving?”

“You know who he is,” Evil Bronwyn scolded. “You know his name.”

Suddenly, two strong hands pulled at my stomach and I was lurched away from the sisters. Ice water was being thrown in my face and I was being shaken. Aakif's voice was shouting at me. “Wake up, Betty-Fatu! Wake up!”

I was in the barn and the first light of morning was filtering through. “Betty-Fatu, come back! Come back!” Aakif's voice was thick with urgency and he was waving something over me. It was the blue marble necklace. He had found it! He'd used it to dispel the evil spirits just as Aunty Honey had said it would.

Evil Bronwyn, her witches, the dog, the little girl, Rebecca Nurse, Mary Easty, and Sarah Cloyce were all gone. There was no sign of them, not even a footprint, as though they had never been there at all. “Was I having a nightmare?” I asked Aakif.

Aakif shook his head. “That was no dream. You were floating, Betty-Fatu! Floating in air! And look at your skin.”

My arms, chest, and neck were scratched and clawed at. In some places, my skin bled. Even my cheeks were scratched.

“Were there ants crawling on me?” I asked.

“No, but you were acting as though you were covered with them.”

He had seen nothing other than my frantic scratching and my body being lifted. He saw no one else in the room.

Suddenly faint, I slumped into Aakif's arms and he caught me. We settled down by the wall and, still lying in his arms, I told him all I'd experienced. “This is a lot like what those girls are saying,” Aakif noted. “You say that Evil Bronwyn said that eating the rye is what lets them in. And we have this odd, speckled rye.”

“This rye is in those dream cakes they're eating,” I pointed out. I pulled the speckled rye seed from my apron pocket and thought of Van Leeuwenhoek. If he inspected this with his microscope, would he discover what they were?

“Van Leeuwenhoek's ship is still docked. We are repairing its rudder, which was greatly damaged,” Aakif said, obviously having the same thoughts as I. “I haven't seen him leave on any other ship.”

“Then maybe he is still at Harvard,” I guessed hopefully. “Do you think perhaps you could get a sample of this rye to him and ask his opinion of it?”

Aakif nodded. “I am well thought of at the shipyard and not watched closely. I can say I need some replacement part from the Boston yard.”

Pouring the rye into his hands, I nodded. “We should leave now. It would not be good to be found here together at daybreak.”

Despite the danger, we sat for a while thinking about all that had happened. “I'm not doing enough,” I said after a moment. “I have to tell them what I know.”

“You will get yourself into trouble,” Aakif warned.

“This is a demon, Aakif, and I brought it with us! We caused all this grief.”

“You can't blame yourself,” Aakif said, taking me in his arms. “How could you have known?”

“But I do know now. It's too powerful for me to fight, even with your help and Mary Carmen's. But maybe if I reveal what I know, the whole town together can fight it.”

“Don't do it, Betty-Fatu. I beg you not to. The way things are in this town, it will come back to hurt you. You mustn't draw attention to yourself. You'll become a target.”

“I have to,” I insisted as I tied the cord with the necklace back around my neck.

“You'll be naming Mary Carmen and me. I'm still a slave. I have even less protection by law than the other people being accused.”

“I won't name either of you.”

Aakif threw his arms wide in exasperation. “I didn't come all this way just to see you hanging at the end of a gallows rope,” he cried.

To stay silent any longer was not right. “I have to,” I said.

Aakif walked with me back to the parsonage. “I have to go get Bronwyn back,” I said to him. “I've waited much too long.”

T
HAT MORNING, I WAS WAITING FOR REVEREND PARRIS
. He went to the court every day and transcribed the testimony given. He brought the transcriptions home every night, which was how I knew all the details of the court procedures.

“Reverend Parris, I must talk to you.”

He stopped and gave me his attention. I told him everything I knew.

“So you're saying that it was you who brought the demonic witches to Salem.”

“It was not my intention, but yes.”

“Come with me, please,” Reverend Parris said calmly. He guided me toward the stairs and walked with me to my room. Althea was just finishing doing her hair and he ordered her to leave. “You will stay in this room, Mistress Betty, until I send the authorities to come for you.”

“The authorities?”

“You have confessed to consorting with the Devil, have you not?”

“No!” I cried. “I've not consorted. I have been the victim of some great evil, just as everyone involved in these trials has been a victim. No one has willingly
consorted
. In her testimony, Tituba told the truth. It happened exactly as she has told you. And the rye in your storage cellar creates an altered state that so weakens anyone who eats it that the Devil may work its evil.”

“
My
rye?” Reverend Parris's tone was scornful. “You are saying it is
I
who am to blame for this plague of witchcraft?”

“I'm not saying you intended it.”

“How dare you attempt to sully my good name with such an accusation!” Reverend Parris shouted, his face red with fury. “I am a member of the clergy! I do not aid Satan's work!”

“I am not aiding it either! I am clear of any wrongdoing.”

“It does not sound so to me. We will let the courts decide what to make of it.” He shut the door and I heard the lock click. “My wife will not let you out under any circumstances, so don't bother making a fuss.”

Pacing the tiny room, I cursed my own stupidity in believing I could trust Samuel Parris.

I had to stop this. I had caused this mayhem — however unintentionally — and it had to end.

I pulled Tituba's book of spells out from under my mattress, where I'd hid it after she'd been arrested. The book was thick and I didn't know how I'd find the spell Tituba had selected, but when I came to the page with the streak of dirt from her hand, I knew I'd gotten to the right place.

There was a knock on the door. “Betty, it's me, Althea. Are you all right?”

“Althea, I need your help. Could you undo the outside bolt for me? Reverend Parris has locked me in.” Immediately the bolt slid open and Althea appeared. I kissed the top of her head. “Althea, you might hear that I'm a witch, but I'm not. I have to leave this house right now and I may never come back, but I've loved sharing a room with you.”

“Are you on the run?” she asked.

“In a way.”

“Can I come? You might need help.”

Her bravery and generosity touched me. “Not now, but I have a feeling we'll meet again some day.” Then I thought of something she could do and asked her to check if anyone was around.

“Just John Indian working in the yard,” Althea reported when she returned.

With Tituba's spell book gripped beneath my arm and Aunty Honey's jar of special honey in my hand, I sneaked down toward the kitchen. On the bottom floor, through the front windows, I saw two soldiers coming to arrest me. Keeping low, I was able to duck into the kitchen and out the door to the yard.

John Indian was chopping wood. He saw me run toward the rye field but kept on with his work. The rye had not yet sprouted but its stalks were high, providing good coverage. Bent low, I made my way through them until I could slip into the woods.

When I was deep among the trees, I stopped and sat cross-legged at the base of an extremely large pine. I breathed out slowly and then, even more slowly, I inhaled. I did this for almost ten minutes until my breath was deep and even. The energy in my body began to flow along my veins. Concentrating, I pushed that energy up along my spine until it circled in my forehead, filling my inner space with different shades of light. I gave myself over to the illumination in my head until there was no reality for me other than the swirling colors.

And then I was off, traveling the astral plane, zooming over landscapes, journeying through clouds, flying even higher into a place where it was all whiteness. I felt I was moving very swiftly, calling out to Bronwyn as I went.

She wouldn't answer.

Finally, I gave up. It was easy to forget time up here, and I couldn't afford to do that right now. With all my thoughts on returning to my body, I sped back down to it.

When I was grounded on earth once more, I knew the hard task before me. Terrified as I was, I had to move forward. I had to use my mind to contact a demon.

 

On my way toward Salem Town, John Indian came along in the wagon and told me to climb in. At first I said no, because I didn't want to get him into trouble. He scoffed at this. “My wife is imprisoned as a witch. You are her friend. Do you think I would not help you? Get in.”

I climbed in, happy for the ride. He pushed a basket of food toward me. “I am bringing this to Tituba. Prisoners must arrange for their own food. Eat. There is plenty for her.” Gratefully, I ate some corn bread, first clarifying that none of the stored rye had been used.

“The rye is tainted and is to blame for some of this,” I told him. “Destroy what is left of it if you can.”

“All of the rye?” he asked.

“Only the rye in the back part of the storage cellar. The girls who are making accusations have been making dream cakes out of it. I believe the rest of the rye, the rye in the kitchen, is all right. It doesn't have those black specks in it.”

He nodded in his taciturn way.

In Salem Town, he left me off, wishing me well. I made my way to the market and Mary Carmen saw me before I found her. I pulled her off to a side alley, not wanting to be seen or to have anyone notice Mary Carmen speaking to me.

I told her that I had been accused.

“It's going to be all right. Saint Teresa of Avila came to me again last night, Betty-Fatu,” Mary Carmen said excitedly. “She will help us in our battle against the Devil, but she says we must be very brave. It won't be easy.”

I was stunned that Mary Carmen had this to say — how had she known?

“That's exactly what we must do,” I told her. “It's what I came to tell you. No one else will believe what's really happening.”

Mary Carmen took a narrow vial of water from her apron pocket. “It's holy water,” she told me. “I have carried it with me from Barcelona and have kept it for years. I think now might be the time to use it.”

“Keep it close,” I said, “and also the blue marble from Saint Teresa. We're going to need all the help we can get. Somehow, we will figure out a way to defeat this thing.”

I left her then and went to find Aakif at the shipyard. As usual when he spied me, he came off the ship's rigging.

“Let's not talk here,” I warned.

“I have been accused,” I told him once we stood together at the shaded end of the alley, away from the street.

Immediately, he wrapped his arms around me. “We'll go away,” he said. “Tonight, I won't go back to the Osbornes' but I'll meet you at the barn. We'll leave before they find you.”

“No. We have to fight this thing,” I objected.

“You are brave, Betty-Fatu; but how? Do you really think that we can take on the Devil?”

“Maybe it's not the Devil,” I suggested, “but only some evil force.”

“What does it matter? You've seen what it can do. Pride is a sin too, you know. Pride can destroy a person. Don't let it destroy you.”

What he said made sense. I didn't even know how to find these witches and their hideous, terrifying black hound.

“All right,” I agreed. “But we have to bring Mary Carmen with us. I can't leave her behind.”

“Fine. Surely. We will meet tonight at the barn and then go to the Osbornes' together to get her.”

“Did you see Van Leeuwenhoek?”

Aakif nodded. “I just returned minutes ago. He was intrigued and looked at the specks while I was still there. He said to tell you there are animalcules in the rye. His colleagues there said it was a mold called ergot.”

I recalled the evil Bronwyn referring to this as ergot rye.

“When eaten, ergot rye makes symptoms such as the girls display: muscle twitching, nausea, jerking limbs, and delirium. It can kill a person,” Aakif continued.

“This is amazing, Aakif. It must be what allows the evil creatures into the mind of their victims,” I realized. “We have to get them to stop eating those dream cakes.”

“Forget it, Betty-Fatu. Let's just get you away from here where you'll be safe.”

“I don't know. I have to think on it. It doesn't seem right to run.”

“Van Leeuwenhoek is going to write to Governor Phips. He will tell him what he's learned.”

Two guards walked by and one of them glanced at us. My heart nearly stopped but they kept going. “I have to get back into the forest where it's safe,” I insisted. “If they catch us together they will arrest you, as well as me.”

“I will risk that,” Aakif told me as we walked back toward the street. “Nine o'clock tonight at the barn. Bring everything you have that you will want to take with you.”

Aakif left first, and a few minutes later I emerged from the alley. It was too early for John Indian to be done with his work at the tavern, so I set out on foot, my face averted from the passersby, out of Salem Town and back toward Salem Village where I knew the forest well.

My mind raced with the possibilities before me. What good would I be to anyone if I was incarcerated in a cell like Tituba, Sarah Good, and Sarah Osborne? But something deep inside told me that to run away and save only myself was wrong. I knew Aakif was thinking only of me, and I loved that he cared so much. I just didn't know what I should do.

With my head down, I passed through the streets, almost forgetting where I was. But suddenly I started and cried out in shock. Hands gripped both my arms. There were guards on either side of me.

“Elsabeth James, you are under arrest. You have been charged with
maleficium
. Witchcraft.”