The Salem Witch Society (21 page)

“Yes.” Grey’s disinterested tone caused her to look sideways at him, and she realized that he was paying no heed to the fireworks. He was instead using their illuminating effect to scan the faces in the crowd.

“What’s wrong?”

“We should be going.” The sky began to darken again, and Grey reached out to guide Helen up the last stretch of hillside. As they stepped onto the pavement of the Eastern Promenade, Helen turned and saw a soldier following after them. He motioned to some unseen comrade, then pointed in their direction. Grey urged her forward to one of the carriages that sat in a row, awaiting fares at the end of the fireworks show. He helped her up into the enclosed four-wheeler.

As Grey climbed in, the driver called out, “It’ll be a bit of a wait, sir. Packed in here tight until them in front of us move out.”

“Yes, thank you,” Grey said. Inside, he did not take a seat but moved directly across to exit the opposite door, then assisted Helen down on the street side of the carriage. Her choice of shoes, bowed Dieppe ties with Louis XV heels, was not conducive to flight, so Grey held on to her as they hurried over the Promenade’s uneven paving stones. Once across the
wide avenue, they turned in to the corner of Moody Street to escape from view.

Helen glanced back and didn’t see anyone following them, but Grey pressed her along the sidewalk, moving up Munjoy Hill to where Rasmus waited with Dr. Steig’s carriage. Between the excitement and the slope they were facing, Helen’s breathing became quick.

“Are you all right, Mrs. Prescott?”

“Perfectly fine, thank you. An evening of dancing, fireworks, fleeing from angry soldiers—what more could a lady ask for?”

“I do apologize. This was needlessly risky on my part.”

“Oh, I’m just having you on a bit. I’m fine. Truly.”

“Shh!” Grey held a finger to his lips as he pulled Helen toward a recessed doorway. She glanced about as she stepped in but didn’t see or hear anything that would cause alarm.

“What is it?” she whispered.

Grey waited, then leaned forward several inches and peered down toward the boulevard. Helen risked a peek. Two men, silhouetted against a streetlamp and wearing army hats, were standing in the middle of the street, one block away. They looked all around, then moved on toward the next side street.

“That was him with the blond hair,” Helen said.

“His name is Simon Gould. He’s one of the men who chased you in the alley?”

“Not the alley—the library. He was the man in the lobby.”

“But is he the man who actually pursued you in the library later that night?” Grey asked.

“Maybe. He might have been.”

“Could you swear it to the police? Or a judge?”

Helen sighed. The rush of excitement drained out of her. She couldn’t honestly swear that Simon Gould was anything other than an unnerving man who had asked about books on witchcraft. If she accused him now, the authorities would dismiss her as quickly as Archie Lean had the morning after that incident. No one would arrest one of Colonel Blanchard’s close associates on the uncertain word of a nervous woman, frightened out of her wits in the dark, rushing through the library at night in fear for her
life, after spending the evening listening to a lecture on witchcraft.

“I’d like to get home to Delia now.”

Grey nodded and took Helen’s hand as they hurried along the rough sidewalk toward the waiting carriage.

A
week had passed since the return from Scituate and the subsequent revelation by Helen Prescott that the killer was using aliases drawn from Salem’s male witch-trial victims. July’s arrival had broken a long pattern of rainy weather. More important, the Independence Day weekend had brought Lean some welcome time with his family and a respite from the mayor’s requests for updates. When he saw Grey waiting by the steps to the public library and historical society, all such pleasant thoughts faded.

As they made their way to the top floor to meet Helen, Grey relayed her identification of Simon Gould as the man in the library, further solidifying the theory of a connection between the Portland Company murder and the temperance union. When they reached the third floor, Helen was sitting at the reference desk. Only one other person occupied the room—a thin, scholarly man who looked as if he were intentionally ignoring the newcomers.

“Is there somewhere we could talk in private?” Lean asked.

Helen glanced at the wall clock. “We close in another fifteen minutes. Though, I suppose once the last visitor leaves, I could shut the doors early.”

Grey sauntered over to where the visitor, a mousy-faced man with a twitchy mustache, was perusing a book. He studied the man as if he were an amateurish painting hanging in a gallery that ought to show better. Eventually the man acknowledged his discomfort by asking if there was some way he could help Grey.

“No. But aren’t you running late for your birching?” Grey flicked his arm, mimicking a whipping motion.

“I beg your pardon.” The man drew himself up to his
full, but still unimpressive, height.

“Keeping that burly woman in high leather boots waiting isn’t going to improve her mood any. Or is that the whole point?”

Helen’s face turned a violent shade of red reserved for occasions of deep personal embarrassment. Lean bit his lip to keep from laughing as Grey followed the nervous man to the exit and shut the doors behind him.

After Grey rejoined them, no one spoke for several moments until a stunned Helen uttered, “Was that really called for?”

“I certainly hope so,” Grey said. “It depends on how rewarding your research has been.”

“Yes, well …” was all that Helen managed as she led them into the back room of the historical society. The space, used for storage and organization of archived documents and material, was an eruption of books and stacks of papers. Small wooden crates dotted the floor, some with lids off, revealing their cargoes of texts like recently unearthed treasure chests left by long-dead, and strangely erudite, pirates. Stuffed bookshelves lined the walls, and a few pitiful tables sagged under their loads.

Lean surveyed the random stacks of bound and loose pages. “Looks like the devil’s been holding a rummage sale. This isn’t all for us, I trust.”

“No, we’re just a bit behind in our cataloging. I’ve set aside a work area for materials from the two hundred years since the witch trials.”

Helen stepped toward a small desk that held her notes. “I assume you know the basic facts from 1692. Salem was rife with factions and long-running disputes over land, religious matters, and anything else they could think of. Not exactly the type of great city on a hill envisioned by the Puritans. In the winter some of the village girls had gathered together and done a bit of fortune-telling. Shortly afterward some of them started having spasms and writhing in agony, contorting into unnatural postures, uttering all sorts of nonsense. The village physician examined them and concluded they were ‘under an evil hand.’ Salem’s minister, the Reverend Parris, called the neighboring ministers to his house, and they all
agreed the devil was conducting an unholy assault upon their community.

“You must bear in mind,” Helen said, “it was an established doctrine that the devil could not interfere directly against humans, except through other human beings acting in confederacy with him—that is, witches. The question on everyone’s mind was, who were the agents of the devil that were afflicting the girls? I call them girls, though some adult women soon joined their ranks. Anyway, the constant pressure to identify their tormentors finally became too great. One after another, the girls cried out the names of the Reverend Parris’s Caribbean servant, Tituba, along with Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne.”

“What about the accused men?” Lean asked.

“It was popularly known that women were much more likely than men to be witches. But it was also thought that people closely related to witches were themselves in danger of becoming witches. So, soon after the next group of women was accused, two of their husbands, John Proctor and the very elderly Giles Corey, were also named. The afflicted girls would normally be at the bottom of the legal and social hierarchy. Some of them were servants in others’ households. The fact that they became such important and powerful figures in the witchcraft crisis was a remarkable event. It turned the social order on its head. Despite the afflicted girls’ newfound influence, they were not always able to formally bring charges against accused witches. Often that task would fall upon the male head of the household.

“Some men, such as John Proctor, were openly skeptical of the accusing girls’ fits and their claims of being tormented by witches’ specters. His servant was among the afflicted girls, but he refused to support charges made by her, instead threatening to beat the fits out of her. Not surprisingly, John Proctor’s defense of his own wife’s innocence and his hostile attitude toward the accusers soon earned him a place among the accused witches.

“As for Giles Corey, he was called up for trial, pleaded not guilty, then refused to answer the required question of whether he would be tried by God and country. The traditional punishment for failure to agree to trial was to lay the prisoner down with a wooden board atop his chest. He would be pressed with stones
until he either agreed to a trial or died. Despite the mounting weight, the eighty-year-old only uttered, ‘More weight,’ when his compliance was demanded. It was a slow death, with one witness recalling that Corey’s tongue was forced out of his mouth from the pressure, only to have the sheriff push it back in with his cane.”

“Just so you know,” Lean said with mock sincerity, “I’d do you the same favor. If it ever came to that.”

Grey nodded. “Thank you. It had been preying on my mind.”

Helen cleared her throat. “The old and infirm George Jacobs was accused by a servant as well as by his own granddaughter. His body was searched and revealed several apparent witch’s tits. The servant had accused Jacobs of wickedness and failing to pray. Jacobs responded that this was because he could not read. When instructed to recite the Lord’s Prayer, he made several errors and could not repeat it correctly despite numerous attempts. This inability to recite the Lord’s Prayer perfectly was considered a sure sign of guilt.”

Lean started to fidget as his old questions on the subject resurfaced. “Our man is quoting the Lord’s Prayer as well, only in Abenaki. There must be a connection. Hardly anyone alive, other than an Abenaki, knows that tongue today.”

Helen nodded. “The same was true back then. English colonists typically considered the Indian language, as well as their culture, to be crude and savage, even satanic.”

“Is that it?” Lean gave Grey an elbow nudge. “Is he conducting some sham ritual? Reciting the prayer in the devilish language of Satan’s Indian allies?”

Grey refused to match Lean’s outburst of enthusiasm. “It’s a plausible theory.” He eased a step further from the deputy and addressed Helen again. “There were other accused male witches?”

“Yes. John Willard was one. Accused by Ann Putnam as well as Susannah Sheldon, who had been a young child in Maine during the first Indian war when several of her relatives were killed. Susannah reported visions of four dead people who claimed Willard had murdered them. She also saw his specter suckling
two black pigs at his breast and kneeling in prayer before the black man.

“Another was George Burroughs, a minister who’d lived here in Portland and was suspected of working in league with the Abenakis. After successfully accusing such a prominent man, the girls became bolder, and the number of accusations increased dramatically. Documents don’t survive for all of them. Many of the newly accused were men, though some were never formally charged due to a lack of credible evidence. Others, such as John Alden, simply fled the area or escaped from jail rather than await trial. Like Burroughs, Alden seems to have been named due to the belief that he had allied himself with the Abenakis and the French, and so was in league with the devil. Alden was a wealthy shipowner and merchant who was active in trading along the Maine coast. He was well known as an Indian trader, and there were rumors of his supplying provisions to the French and Indians in return for lucrative beaver pelts, even during periods of hostilities.” Helen set her notes down on the table. “I’m afraid that’s about the sum of my investigation.”

“Don’t be disappointed, Mrs. Prescott,” Grey said. “It’s all very informative. You’ve unearthed connections between Portland and some of the accused men, as well as the past use of the Lord’s Prayer. But the link to the present remains uncertain, which returns us to your other generous offer of research: the status of witchcraft today.”

“Yes,” said Lean, eagerly taking up the scent again, “are there people here in Portland today who are practicing witches?”

“Certainly some who claim to be,” Helen said.

“Did any of them know Maggie Keene?” Grey asked.

“I don’t think so. Once I steered conversations in that direction, they were all very eager to talk about her, but none of it struck me as genuine.”

“Did you hear, during your talks, that there had been acts of violence against any of these occult mediums?” Lean asked.

“Just minor incidents from time to time,” Helen answered.

Lean thought for a moment. “Did any of them mention a supposed witch called something like … Old Stitches? She’s one that
may have had some troubles.”

“I don’t recall hearing her name,” Helen answered.

“She’s the woman mentioned by the Abenakis. Does it mean something to you?” Grey asked Lean. “Did she die here in Portland?”

“No. East Deering, across Tukey’s Bridge, out along Back Cove. So it wasn’t our case. I never heard any details.”

Grey thought for a moment. “Perhaps you should canvass some of these spiritualists, Lean. Our man’s interests lie within their sphere. He may have been making the rounds with them, seeking information about occult matters, witches and such. Maybe one will remember something that will help us identify him.”

“T
his is probably a waste of time,” Lean said over the noise of the carriage wheels as they rumbled across the wooden planks of Tukey’s Bridge, leaving Portland behind. Red, white, and blue streamers, left over from the Independence Day celebrations several days earlier, still hung from the posts along the bridge. “Fake mediums and spirits and dead witches.”