“Sometimes, those who feign godliness are truly in league with the devil.”
I shivered when my father said that and pictured Goodwife Corey with the devil. I knew it was the devil because he appeared the way Reverend Parris always said the devil would look, when he spoke of him in church, a dark man with horns. Goodwife Corey was with him, touching his hand, helping him, and he was counseling her on what to say, telling her to say Betty had lied, and as I was watching him, hearing him, I began to shiver and shake in my bed. Then my body was racked with pain, pain in my stomach, in my arms, as if I was being stuck with needles and knives or bitten by a million teeth, demons’ teeth from hell. I wanted to run to my mother, to cry out, but my limbs were stiff, I could not move. My body and my hair were drenched in sweat.
Finally, I fell asleep. When I awakened in the morning, my father was already gone, my mother occupied with the children. They did not care about my ailments. That was why I went to town.
That was how the trouble had happened, how I had met the wolf, been seen by the servant girl.
“That girl has seen me speaking to a wolf,” I told the wolf now. “She will think I am a witch.”
“Perhaps you are,” the wolf said.
“No. I am not!” I stamped my foot. I was not, was I? No. For one thing, the devil had never visited my bedside. But for another, witches had power, and I had none. If I were a witch, the first thing I would do would be to enchant Mercy Lewis to leave our house so I could have Mary all to myself. Next, I would make the babies behave. Or, perhaps, make there be fewer of them.
No, first I would make the pains in my stomach go away. It wasn’t fair that I was always so kind yet suffered so. Perhaps Martha Corey was the one tormenting me. I could almost feel her nails digging into my skin. Was she bringing the devil to bite me?
“What should I do?” I asked the wolf.
The wolf stared ahead, his cool eyes reflecting the snow. “I do not know. But you must act soon, lest you pay the consequences for something that is not your fault.”
“What do you mean?” Again, I felt a sudden chill.
“The girl,” the wolf said. “Her name is Kendra Hilferty. She is the servant for the Harwood family, I believe.”
“Aye.” ’Twas true. She was merely a servant.
“But if she accuses you of witchcraft, it is possible someone might believe her.”
I felt another stab of pain as the wolf said this.
“Perhaps you should run along home,” the wolf said.
I did run along home, and I helped with the meal, stirred the stew, and set the table, but I could not stop thinking of the wolf’s words. If Kendra accused me of witchcraft, if she said she had seen me speaking to the wolf, someone might believe her. They might believe the wolf was my “familiar.” I could be taken to jail with Sarah Good and Tituba. I would be shamed, a laughingstock, perhaps hanged. Everyone would believe I was in league with the devil. It pounded on my mind, on my head.
But why had the wolf chosen me?
Finally, the table was set and all were gathered around it, and Father began the prayer.
I alone of my siblings loved to hear my father at prayer. My father had a voice better than any preacher or reverend. When he spoke at table, I felt at one with God.
“Oh lover of thy people,” he began.
But today, I could not stop thinking about the wolf. Kendra Hilferty and the wolf.
“Thou has placed my whole being in the hands of Jesus, my commander, my redeemer . . . .”
I began to feel hot, as though coals pressed upon my shoulders. Was I too near the fire? But one look at Deliverance at my side told me that it was not hot. It was March.
“Keep me holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners.”
Separate from sinners. Was this happening to me because I had consorted with Tituba, because I had believed in her powers? Now I felt an icy claw, clutching at my throat. The devil’s hand! I began to shiver.
“May I not know the voice of strangers but go to Him where He is, follow where He leads.”
I trembled. The bench below me shook from my quivering, shivering body. I tried to stop it, to concentrate on the prayer, on following where He led.
“Stop it, Ann,” Tom said.
“Shh.” Mother gave us a stern look.
Father kept praying. “Thou has bathed me once for all in the sin-removing fountain. . . .”
The hand on my throat strangled me now. I could not breathe. I was choking, struggling to swallow.
“Cleanse me now from the day’s defilement, from its faults. . . .”
No breath. No air. No air.
“That I may exhibit a perfect character in Jesus,” Father prayed.
I fell to the floor, gasping for breath, my heart feeling the twist of a knife.
Mother sprang from her seat. I heard the straight wooden chair fall over beside me.
“What is it? Ann! What is happening?”
Father kept praying. “O, master, who did wash thy disciples’ feet . . .”