The Necromancer (Chapters 1 & 2)

CHAPTER 1—THE AFFLICTED

Roger Harrington’s Journal—

27 December 1691—These are most grievous times. The cold has been cruel and relentless, racking our livestock and our bodies with sickness and dying; and the piracy that has been so ubiquitous of late amongst our ships has sorely impaired our commerce. I am more greatly distraught by this now that my poor youngest Phoebe has been stricken with the small-pox and is in need of medicine, and I fear my beloved Martha is falling into a similarly weakened state. She and Susanna tend to Phoebe during all the wretched hours of light and dark while I must maintain my strength for the daily hardships I endure for the good of the family. I pray to the dear Lord, our God, nightly, that we may overcome these tribulations anon, so that we may continue to spend our lives toiling in the service of Him, our most benevolent and just Creator. Amen.

Tituba fled back through the forest as fast as her fleshy body would allow, amongst the naked trees and small bushes, down the narrow path from which she had come. The forest seemed to awaken like a predatory beast whose long hibernation had been disturbed by some intruder violating its lair. Creatures of the night hooted and whistled and squawked.
            The turn at every bend revealed a new yet fleeting horror. Tituba rushed through the woods, her mind washed blank of everything but the image of those eyes. She couldn’t seem to remember anything else—not the slightest description of any feature or garment, and not the crime which she had just witnessed. But the image of those eyes was seared into her mind and would surely haunt her until she was dead.
            It was near dusk, and the black mass of clouds looming over the village, obscuring the sun, gave portent of a storm.
            The wind howled.
            A gust of icy air blew a few dead leaves up toward her face, which remained largely hidden under the hood of her cloak. She held her satchel close and her garments tight as they threatened to burst open. The wind lashed at the skin of her face and hands, stinging them, making them feel as if the flesh were being raked from the bones.
            She looked up into the wind, squinting into the face of the oncoming storm as she plowed her way through thin and godless winter air, back toward the Parris home.
            She arrived at the house breathless and threw open the door. The wind caught it, and it crashed into the wall. She maneuvered herself behind it, using the whole of her body, and shouldered it hard against the wind until it slammed shut.
            She shuddered.
            Tituba shook the chill from her bones as she removed her cloak. The reverend and his family were dining, having already said grace. She stole a glance over at the dinner table and was confronted with several puzzled and accusatory expressions.
            “Tituba,” Parris said.
            She didn't answer.
            Her countenance was still stricken with fright, her eyes still wide with terror. Tituba unconsciously ignored the reverend.
            “Tituba! Where have you been keeping your person?” he demanded.
            She let out a woeful sigh, threw her cloak back on, and ran out of the house to her cabin.
            Parris followed her and barged into her chambers, closing the door behind him.
            “Answer me!”
            She turned around.
            “I beg your forgiveness, Master Parris. Please do not punish me,” she said almost desperately, her large brown eyes looking up at him soulfully.
            Her plea seemed sincere, and finding her in such a disheveled state, he decided not to press on. She was a good servant, and he’d never had any problems with her before; but he decided to give her a brief warning anyway, and leave it at that.
            “Do not forget your duties to this household, Tituba, lest you should receive more severe reprimands.”
            He glared at her for a long moment and left the room.
            Afterward, he thought he might have been too harsh with her. After all, she was human too, although he was sure that some of his associates felt quite differently about that. This whole matter with slaves was very new to him. He had never owned a slave before, and he wasn’t sure he liked the idea of owning anyone, no matter what the color of their skin. They were people too, complete with their own thoughts and feelings. It seemed cruel to enslave them. It seemed cruel, but that didn’t stop him from acquiring two of his own. Of course, he hated the hypocrisy of his situation, but he was a very busy man, and Naomi couldn’t do everything. Whether he liked it or not, he was a politician of sorts, and as such had to consider how others would perceive his actions.
            He didn’t like it, but he treated Tituba and her husband John Indian well, never taking the lash to them, and that was all he could do. A minor incident such as tonight’s angered Parris because they did need Tituba, but she must have had her reasons for being so late. And even though he was angry with her at the time, he felt no need to question her of her whereabouts. She needed her own privacy too.

Sometime later, Elizabeth, the reverend’s nine-year-old daughter, entered Tituba’s chambers and found her doing peculiar things, saying peculiar words. Burning candles cluttered the room. Tituba sat on the floor in the center of the room, pouring a circle of salt around a shriveled-up cock’s head bound with a lock of hair as she chanted incantations and made strange gesticulations in the air above it.
            “What are you doing there, Tituba?”
            Tituba, having been discovered and feeling no harm in answering the child’s question, responded casually:
            “Weaving a spell to banish the forces of evil which have been cast upon me.”
            “What do you mean ‘spell?’”
            “Ceremonies like those of church, but magic. The people of my land do such ceremonies to protect one’s self, or destroy one’s enemies, or make men insane with love.”
            “Oh, tell me more. Do tell me more.”
            And Tituba did.
            That night, and every night since, until Elizabeth’s breakdown, Elizabeth and several of her friends sat by Tituba’s fireplace and listened eagerly to her tales of Voodoo and West Indian folklore.
            The girls learned of zombies and fortune telling; stories of babies carried off in the night for sacrifices to Damballah. Tituba taught them palm reading; divination with the dead; magic spells to steal another’s boyfriend; how to throw hexes on one’s adversaries.
            “During the ceremony the houngan looks on and leads the dance with the force of his will,” Tituba once told them. “...and we are mounted by the loa, spirits who control us during the ceremony and make us behave as they will.”
            Then Elizabeth fell ill.
            It happened one night late in January as she sat down to an early supper. All seemed well, but abnormally quiet. Tituba had prepared a meal of pheasant, corn, and rye cakes—a feast in those times of privation and hunger. (Reverend Parris was, up till the present time at least, still well-respected in the community, and thus given privileges not bestowed upon the less than elect.)
            Parris was out getting more firewood (since he had sent John Indian to town on an errand), and they needed the wood badly. But both men were late in arriving home, and, not wanting the food to get cold, Naomi decided to have Tituba serve the meal.
            “May I say grace tonight?” asked Abigail, Elizabeth’s cousin and playmate.
            “You may,” Naomi replied.
            “I wanted to say grace,” Elizabeth complained.
            “Now, Beth. Abby asked first.”
            Elizabeth frowned, sulking.
            “You may say grace tomorrow,” Naomi said.
            Elizabeth straightened up in her chair and folded her hands as Abigail began.
            “Thank You, O Lord, for this food we are about to eat, that we may be strong and free of malady. And bless this home, that we may be protected from savages and cold. Amen.”
            “Amen,” the rest said solemnly, crossing themselves, then commenced eating.
            Elizabeth took a bite of food. Her face grew contorted as she chewed the morsel. Her body twitched. She squirmed in her seat in spasms. Her head thrashed about, whipping her hair around while she shrieked, sobbed, and laughed madly, screaming strange words.
            She sank down in her seat and collapsed to the floor, hitting it with a thud as she went into convulsions. She crawled under her chair and cowered, shaking, her teeth chattering, her lips trembling.
            “Elizabeth!” her mother yelled, enraged. “Return to your seat and behave, child, lest I summon your father to issue a scolding!”
            But her behavior only worsened.
            Naomi became frantic. There seemed to be something seriously wrong with Elizabeth, more serious than a mere case of misconduct. She crouched down, knelt beside Elizabeth, and raised the girl in her arms, cradling her against her bosom.
            “Elizabeth, dear child, what ails you?”
            Her only retort was an incomprehensible conglomeration of curses and gibberish.
            Suddenly, Abigail cried out and collapsed. She writhed and twitched on the floor, saliva foaming from her cursing and laughing mouth.
            “Tituba!” Naomi yelled, then turned around to find her servant standing directly behind her, gawking.
            “Yes, Mistress.”
            “Fetch the reverend! And tarry not!”
            “Yes, Mistress,” Tituba replied, then donned her cloak and left the house.
            “Oh, Lord! Let them be well,” Naomi prayed, still in shock herself.
            She sat on the floor, swaying back and forth with Elizabeth in her arms, growling and struggling to get free.
            A short time later, Tituba returned with the reverend. Upon seeing him, the girls screamed.
            “Oh dear God!” Parris exclaimed as he entered the room, hastily removing his coat.
            “Samuel…” Naomi said dumbly, not knowing what else to say. She glanced at the afflicted girls, then back up at him, searching for reassurance.
            There was none.
            Parris knelt down next to Abigail and raised her head onto his lap. He brushed her hair away from her face and back over her brow, a paragon of caring and concern. He raised his eyes to his wife sadly.
            Elizabeth uttered questionable sounds, sounds like foreign words in the stale, sour mouth of a dying man. Parris judged them words of a language he may have once heard but had long since forgotten, words of a language Elizabeth should not know.
            “I think it best I summon Dr. Griggs,” he shouted above the girls’ screaming as he stood up.
            Naomi merely nodded in consent.
            Just then, both girls groaned morbidly and dove like wild animals at Parris’s feet. They bit his ankles and tore into the flesh of his legs.
            “Lord!”
            The reverend, still incredulous of this savage attack, struck Abigail in the face with the back of his hand, dazing her, and flung his daughter off with his leg.
            “Help me put her to bed,” he said, reaching for Elizabeth.
            “What torments them, Sam?”
            “I know not. It is such as I have never witnessed before.”
            “Oh, Lord,” Naomi said, raising her eyes heavenward. “What sins have offended You so that warrant such wrath?”
            But there was no answer to her question.
            The child struggled and lashed out at her mother and father, not failing a few times to claw them both with her nails as they carried her to her room and tied her down to her bed.
            “Dear God, help them,” Parris pleaded.
            When both girls were restrained to their beds, Parris slipped into his coat.
            “I must fetch Dr. Griggs,” he said, then left to seek the physician.

The hour it took Parris to locate the doctor and return with him was a long one. The girls only seemed to become more agitated as time passed by, and nothing Naomi and Tituba did seemed to help. Whatever was wrong with them had a firm grip, and it didn’t look like they would be getting better anytime soon.
            This was confirmed when Parris and Dr. Griggs appeared. The girls’ conditions continued to worsen, and even as Griggs examined them, their screaming and thrashing increased in frequency and intensity.
            “Child,” he said, leaning down toward Abigail. “Tell us what ails you so, that I may deliver you from your pains.”
            “To the Devil with you!” Abigail roared in response, then laughed sickly.
            “Abigail!” her aunt cried out, cupping her hands over her mouth.
            Griggs didn’t seem as shocked, however, and after some time he decided a different approach to the problem may be wiser. The doctor had made his best attempts to treat the afflicted girls, but finding his treatments ineffective, commenced an interrogation of them to uncover any clues as to the origins of their mania.
            The inquiry lasted several hours until sometime after midnight, no answers to the questions Griggs put to the girls forthcoming.
            “They are most plainly bewitched,” the doctor declared after concluding there was nothing in his power he could do for them.
            Reverend Parris, distraught for the girls, opened the Bible and read from the Book of Psalms as Naomi looked on, sobbing.
            “Save me, O God, by Thy name, and judge me by Thy strength. Hear my prayer, O God; give ear to the words—”
            Before he could finish reciting the verse, Elizabeth broke one of her bindings and lunged at her father, seizing the book and hurling it across the room with spite.
            “Elizabeth!” the reverend hollered. His face flushed with blood. Outraged, he smacked her across the cheek, making the loud cracking sound of flesh against flesh. She glared up at him wildly, like an insane and injured animal. Parris held his hand up to his mouth and grieved inwardly, regretting the fact that he had just struck his daughter, but he knew she was without her wits and probably felt nothing. Still, he found it difficult to treat her in such a manner, and his chest pained him greatly as he re-tied her arm to the bedpost.
            The doctor and the Parrises stayed up with the girls throughout the night. The girls’ conditions were serious. Parris feared that perhaps they were even in jeopardy of forfeiting their souls to the Devil.
            The next few days, more girls, all of whom had attended Tituba’s strange story-telling sessions, succumbed to similar afflictions. The villagers and townspeople began to talk, and the matter, which Parris had till this time attempted to keep private, came to the attention of Judge Hathorne, who set forth a formal inquest to discover who—if anyone—was responsible for the maladies that assailed the girls.

After a week of investigations, they seemed no closer to the truth. But of one fact they were certain: Evil had come to Salem. There was quite simply no other explanation. If the Devil did find a niche in Salem Village from which to wreak his mischief, what more appropriate place to start than a reverend’s home? And what more appropriate victim than a reverend’s daughter? Wasn’t it also a well-known fact that the most numerous cases of demonic possession occurred to nuns in convents, on God’s very own hallowed soil? Yes. Evil was here. It had to be. There was simply no other explanation.
            Discouraged, but not allowing themselves to be defeated, Reverend Parris and Dr. Griggs did not relent in their inquisition of the afflicted girls. For good or ill, they were determined to press on until the girls were healed.
            “Elizabeth?” Parris asked.
            Blood and thick gobs of saliva flowed from her mouth. Her teeth had chewed up her tongue and part of her lower lip during her fits, and her tongue now flopped around loosely in her mouth as she chewed on it and mumbled.
            “Elizabeth,” Parris continued. “Are you and your friends bewitched?”
            A stench rose from Elizabeth’s bed. Her bowels had failed her, and watery brown excrement seeped through her dress and pooled out onto the sheets beneath her, saturating them.
            She barked back at him incoherently, then spat in his face.
            Parris fell back slightly and wiped her rancid and bloody saliva from his cheek as he choked back his tears.
            The girls shrieked in chorus, as if on cue.
            “Who torments you?” Dr. Griggs asked them, but received a reply of more shrieks and mumbling.
            “I implore you! By the name of God! Answer me! Who torments you!”
            At once, as if the invocation of God’s name racked them with pains compelling their answers, the girls shrieked and cried in garbled wails: “Osborne, Good, and Tituba!”

CHAPTER 2—THE SERMON

The room was dark and cold, despite the fire that Roger had just stoked in the fireplace over an hour ago. The curtains were drawn. Martha thought it best that they remain so since the skies were laden heavily with gloom—as they had been all winter—and the dead trees in view of the windows seemed too dead. The contrast between the pure white snow and the frozen brown bark and gnarled branches was a depiction of austerity Martha found unnervingly depressing, and she didn’t wish to subject her ailing daughter to it. Phoebe’s condition wasn’t very promising, and if she were exposed to such scenes of barrenness the sense of hopelessness thus excited would most likely have a negative effect upon her.
            It was Sunday, the twenty-first of February, a couple hours past dawn. Soon, Reverend Parris would start tolling the church bell and the villagers—those who were able—would trickle out of their homes to attend the service. At the moment, however, Martha and Susanna were busy tending to Phoebe, sitting at her bedside, nursing her as best they could with cold compresses, hot soups, and warm caring as Roger looked on.
            “Oh,” Phoebe moaned. “It pains me. It pains me so much.” Her face was flushed and freckled with pustules, tears rolling down her cheeks.
            “Daddy?” she called.
            Roger moved closer, placing his hand on Martha’s shoulder. He leaned in toward Phoebe.
            “Yes, sweetest.”
            “Why does it pain me so? Why must I hurt?”
            At this, Martha broke down and wept. She stood up trembling and bolted from the room with her hands covering her face. Roger’s eyes glazed over, brimming with tears; Susanna’s cheeks were shiny with them. If there were any way Roger could convince the Lord that it would be better if he were wasting away in that bed and not his daughter... But it was futile to reason in that manner. Whatever fate awaited Phoebe was the Lord’s will. Roger knew that no amount of prayer would alter that painful fact. Soon, he thought. Soon Phoebe will be with Him. Soon she will hear the ethereal chorus of seraphim and cherubim singing their praise of Him. Why?
            Roger was angry. It seemed as if the Lord must take pleasure in seeing him and his family suffer, and now it looked as if He was going to claim her. But she was young...so young. So damned young. She was all of ten years old.
            Roger chastised himself for doubting and questioning the will of the Lord and took Phoebe’s frail hand in his. Although her head had radiated with fever, it was cold now. He gazed into her face. It looked blurry and faded through the tears. Already, she was leaving him. He didn’t want to think it, but he knew it was the truth.
            He remembered the one time he had taken her fishing down at Mill Pond. She was eight then. She had caught a large spotted bass, and Roger helped her lift it out of the water. It fell off the hook before they could maneuver it into the pail and was thrashing about in the grass. She ran over to it and watched it flopping around, its gills respirating laboriously.
            “Daddy,” she said.
            “Yes, sweetest.”
            “Daddy, would you be angry with me if I tossed him back in the water?”
            “Why would you want to?”
            “It hurts. If he is not in the water he will die, will he not, Daddy?”
            “Yes, Phoebe. He will.”
            “Daddy?”
            “Yes.”
            “May I toss him back?”
            “We need the fish to eat, dearest.”
            “I know. But may I toss him back.”
            “If you feel so inclined,” he sighed.
            “Thank you, Daddy?”
            She picked up the fish, carried it to the edge of the pond, and tossed it back in. When she returned, she looked up at him a bit sadly.
            “Daddy?” she said.
            “Yes?”
            “I don't think I like fishing.”
            “Very well,” Roger said, then took her by the hand and proceeded homeward.
            “Daddy?”
            “Yes, Phoebe.”
            “Why must there be pain?”
            Roger didn’t know then, and he didn’t know now, and his reply to her remained the same:
            “I don’t know, Phoebe. I don’t know. I know only that it is the Lord’s will." Those were the most bitter words that had ever tripped off his tongue, and clearing the tears from his eyes with his free hand and seeing her gentle face more clearly now, he wished he hadn’t said them.
            The Lord. What does The Lord know about suffering? What does The Lord know about grief? The Lord knows nothing of those things, only that He knows how to bestow them freely upon His most faithful servants. The Lord is a barbarian. Only a barbarian would allow His own Son to suffer and die on a tree when He had the power to save Him.
            But I love you, My son. Let not Satan get behind you. Follow Me. Follow the way of the Lord and you shall be rewarded a thousand-fold in the Hereafter. You shall reap the fruits of Eternal Life in My Kingdom, but you must have faith in Me and believe.
            “Amen,” he heard himself say, and once again berated himself for wavering in his faith in God. He told himself that whatever hardships he and his family were forced to tolerate, they were a test and a purging. The Lord demands a heavy toll for entrance into His Kingdom.
            “Amen,” Susanna responded, holding Phoebe’s other hand on the other side of the bed. “I love you, Phoebe. Bear yourself up strong. Be brave for the Lord. It is His way.”
            “I am most truly blessed to have you as my sister,” Phoebe said.
            Outside, Reverend Parris began to toll the church bell.
            Roger looked up at Susanna.
            “You best prepare yourself for Meeting, Susanna. Get you and your mother to church and pray for your sister that she be well again. I shall stay and look after her. Give the reverend my regrets at not attending. It cannot be helped.”
            Susanna kissed Phoebe’s hand and rose to her feet. As she left the room, Roger added:
            “And after the service go to town, to the apothecary, and ask Mr. Hanford if any medicine for Phoebe has yet arrived.”

The church—alternately known as the Meeting House—wasn’t filled to full capacity, as had once always been the case. Several people were sick and dying of the smallpox epidemic that plowed its way through the heart of New England, and many others were bedridden from the general ailments that often afflict people during the winter months.
            The mood of the congregation was a somber one. The church was cold and uncomfortable, and many of the people present weren’t all that well themselves. There was very little talk other than a few hushed whispers and solemn mumblings. People coughed and sneezed and sniffled as they awaited the reverend to approach the altar and deliver his sermon. Word had been circulating for some time now among the villagers of some strange happenings around the Parris household—possibly even diabolism—and the people were curious and wanted to know what the clergy intended to do.
            Martha and Susanna were just seating themselves when the reverend entered the church armed with his Bible. Heads turned and people murmured through cupped hands as he made his way sullenly down the aisle. Susanna had her eyes trained on him as he passed her. Then her gaze was drawn beyond the reverend, a few pews down from her on the other side of the aisle, to where she locked eyes with Bernard Martin.
            He looked quite handsome this morning, she thought. His long dark hair was brushed neatly back over his ears, allowing a better-than-usual view of his chiseled features and sky-blue eyes. She had liked him for the longest time, but ever since puberty she was shy and uncomfortable with her body and the way she looked, and she couldn’t talk to him for more than a minute without feeling as if she was going to burst out of her skin. All she could do was have fantasies about what married life would be like with him. Fantasies were safe. In fantasies, anything you wanted could happen; all your wishes could come true; and no one got hurt. But fantasies weren’t real, and somehow when they ended she felt even emptier than before.
            But this was real.
            This was happening now.
            To her.
            It was magic.
            And she knew by the way he was looking at her that her feelings—her desires—were reciprocated.
            This was the longest time she had ever stared at any boy, and it was Bernard. He wasn’t simply any boy. He was The Boy. He was the one she had wanted her whole life, and he was looking at her.
            Her belly felt loose, like it was hollowed out and filled with cold water. Her face tickled and burned as she felt his eyes slide subtly over her cheeks, her mouth, her neck.
            She felt as if she was going to scream. She couldn’t stand it any longer, and she turned her head away and looked down.
            She panted lightly, almost imperceptibly, flustered. When she looked up again she caught fourteen-year-old Johnny Bromidge leering at her with a most peculiar expression decorating his pimply face. His eyes were glazed over with indecent heat. His upper lip glistened with clear snot that oozed from his nose onto the fine brown hairs of his nascent moustache. The boy’s mouth hung open slackly in a manner that bespoke of dementia or depravity, Susanna did not know which; and his tongue lolled slightly out of his mouth, dripping pearly strings of saliva onto his chin as he continued to scowl at her.
            Sickened, Susanna broke her stare and turned away feeling utterly terrified. A ball of nauseating heat rose up the back of her head and into her face, making the hairs on the back of her neck stand hotly on end and turning her face bright red. Her ears buzzed. She felt faint and didn’t think she would be able to remain standing until the reverend asked everyone to be seated, but somehow she managed.
            Martha noticed her daughter’s sudden weakness and placed one arm around Susanna’s waist to support her as the other grasped her above the elbow.
            “Susanna,” she whispered closely. “Are you well?”
            Susanna, still swooning a bit, took a deep breath and began to feel some degree of relief.
            “Mother, I felt somewhat faint but have since recovered. I am much better now.”
            She thought for a moment of telling her mother the cause of the fainting spell but was too embarrassed.
            Somehow, she was able to raise enough courage to glance back in Johnny Bromidge’s direction, but now he was compliantly facing the altar, appearing completely innocent, almost angelic. Seeing him this way made her doubt herself. She looked at Bernard and saw him standing beside his mother. He, too, was looking at the altar now.
            Am I becoming touched? she wondered.
            “Shall I fetch Dr. Griggs for you, my dear child?” Martha asked.
            Susanna looked back at Johnny. He still faced the altar…and still looked angelic.
            “I am much better now, Mother. Truly. Please. Let us stay and say a prayer for Phoebe, that she be well again.”
            Reverend Parris stood before the altar now. He genuflected, crossing himself, and rose to the lectern.
            “You may all be seated,” he said.
            The congregation sat.
            “Yes,” Martha whispered in Susanna’s ear as they sat down. “And a prayer for you, that you remain fit and resistant to the smallpox which your poor sister has been so unfortunate to be stricken by.”
            A hush spread over the congregation as the reverend cleared his throat and prepared to address the people.
            “I shall commence our Sunday Mass anon,” he said gravely, “but first I feel it necessary to speak of that which many of you have heard of already. Less than two fortnights ago my beloved daughter Elizabeth and her cousin Abigail took ill with fits. Not long thereafter, other young ladies were also similarly afflicted. Dr. Griggs has performed the most extensive examinations of these tormented souls and found no natural cause for said affliction, thereby concluding the likelihood of demonic intervention.”
            Several women, upon hearing this, gasped and cried out; a few others fainted. But Parris continued nonetheless.
            “—it grieves me verily that such is our lot to have the very Devil himself in our midst. We have endured much suffering as of late, and this new information seems most discomfiting, but we must bear ourselves up as a community to oppose the evil the Lord has deemed well to pit us against! Our faith must continue to hold fast in the Lord, our God, that He may deliver us with speed and strength from His most fervent adversary—”
            As the volume of Parris’s voice rose, he shook his Bible at the congregation with a sense of purpose he hadn’t had in many months. He had felt the reigns of his authority slipping from him during that time—because of the property disputes and his less-than-honest part in them—but now, seeing the terror on his flock’s faces and the impact each cleverly and enthusiastically inflected word had on them, he felt his grip on those reigns strengthening once again. He felt stronger.
            “—and our inquisitions of those afflicted, which I mentioned, have produced the names of their alleged tormentors. It is the intention of the clergy to arrest said tormentors so that they may be brought before His Majesty’s tribunal and tried for the crimes of practicing witchcraft and those damnable black arts of which the Devil gives license; and also sedition against the Lord and the people of Salem. These heathens must be cast out!”
            He punctuated every rising syllable with a sweeping arm, a shaking fist, a clutching hand, until he could see the fear pouring out of their eyes, feel them clinging to every word he uttered...and to him, their link to God. He knew they were his.
            “—it is my most sincere endeavor to see that the clergy and the people of Salem wrest all of Evil’s agents from our midst like so many worms. For, by means of knowing the cause, we may have the cure. In this, we shall not be passive victims. We shall join together as one people, as one holy fist of God, and be strong. And with the Lord’s aid we shall beat Satan’s legions back into the infernal pit of hellfire that is their rightful domain from whence they spawned! Amen.”
            To this, the reverend received great applause. He had worked himself up with indignation, and despite the cold, had broken a sweat. He trembled slightly from the excitement he experienced as a result of delivering his arm-flailing, Bible-pounding sermon. It was well received, much more so than he had hoped it would be. With the will of the whole village behind him, he suddenly felt invincible. They would appreciate him more now, knowing that without him and the church they would be subject to the same fates that befell his own daughter and the other girls. Now their very souls were at risk of being damned, and they were scared. He could sense that, and that was good. They were scared, and the only place they could turn was to the church—to God.

A few days later, Melissa Bromidge, Johnny’s big sister, left her room and went out back to the outhouse to relieve herself. It was an unusually warm and sunny morning. There were even a few sparrows warbling in the barren treetops. Intimations of spring. It would be good to see the trees full and green again.
            The latch on the inside of the outhouse’s door had been broken a week now and everyone who wanted to use it was supposed to knock first before entering. It was only common courtesy to knock anyway, but Melissa had to go desperately, and she forgot to knock today.
            She threw the door open and caught Johnny sitting down on the commode with his trousers around his ankles and his hand locked hard to his erect penis with a fist full of lard. The same demented expression that Susanna Harrington saw when she looked at him in church was there again. His hand had been sliding furiously up and down the shaft of his member as he chanted Susanna’s name softly when the door opened. Now it stopped.
            Melissa hadn’t heard him chanting Susanna’s name until she opened the door, but when she did hear it she knew immediately to whom he was referring, and that made her feel the horror all the more. Melissa and Susanna had been playmates growing up—best friends. They weren’t that close now, nor did she expect they would be in the future, but they were still friends. They had merely drifted apart over the years. She knew that was unusual for people living in a small village like Salem, but it seemed natural enough to them...until now.
            Now, with all the talk of demons and witches, she wondered if Susanna might have taken a darker path than herself. Melissa shuddered at the thought, and her bladder voided itself down her legs, warming them.
            Johnny froze, looked up guiltily, then glared at his sister.
            She screamed, slammed the door shut, and ran into the house to tell her father.

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