A Month Later
Since the night I made my accusation, my pains have worsened. I am told that Martha Corey and Kendra Hilferty are kept up all night in jail. Father says it is necessary, for all our protection. This means, however, that they are conscious at all times, to trick and torment me. That must be what it is.
Though it is April, there is no spring, only bitter cold. Yet I am up past midnight, sweating in my bed, wondering what new horror will befall me. Does Martha make Satan bring flames upon me? Does Kendra have him blow in a cold wind to chill me just as often? And what will Kendra say to them, when she is questioned? Will they believe her?
Father called me over to see him tonight after the evening meal.
“They will be trying Kendra Hilferty soon,” he said. “And Martha Corey and Rebecca Nurse after that.”
“Oh.” I nodded, unsure what response was expected.
“These women will not confess to the evils they have committed. They are not like Tituba. Mr. Hathorne and Mr. Corwin have spoken to them. They will insist upon their innocence despite what they have done to you.”
Outside, I heard the wind whipping up, flinging the snow up to our window. My father was saying that he knew how tormented I was, that he believed me.
“Martha, especially, will lie. She will say you are a hysterical child—she already has. They will want you to give testimony.”
“Give testimony.”
“Tell them what these women are doing to you.”
“I have to be in court . . . with them?” My mind was whirling, and I felt that they were tormenting me right then and there. My stomach hurt like daggers, and my head was pounding. At first, when I made my accusation, I was looked upon as a heroine, but now I saw the sidelong glances I received in church. Some did not believe me.
But they feared me, which was better.
“Aye. But as long as you say the good Lord’s truth, that the women have tormented you, that they rip at your flesh, that you have seen them at your bedside with the devil himself, you will be believed. The other girls will be there too.”
“Aye, Father.” I did not recall having said anything about seeing the women at my bedside, or seeing the devil, but perhaps I had, when I was in the throes of pain.
“Run along to bed now,” Father said.
Hours later, I was still lying there listening to the untroubled breathing of my sisters against the howling wind, the snow pounding at the window. The winter was trying to get in, to invade our house and freeze us all. Then I heard another kind of howling. A wolf.
Was it my wolf?
I stumbled over my sisters to the window and peered outside.
It took me a moment to make the shape out through the snow-covered window, but finally, I saw him. Against the whiteness of snow was a large, white wolf. My wolf, shadowed in the light of the full moon. He raised his head and howled again, as if calling to me.
Although I was barefoot, I grabbed at the first coat I could find, Elizabeth’s red cape. I stumbled to the door and went outside.
“Why are you here?” I said. “If Father sees—”
“Your father sees little. It has been days since I have encountered you.”
“I am ill. I seldom leave the house.”
’Twas true. In the time since my first convulsion, I had been nearly always in bed, forgiven from my chores, for who would expect one as tormented as I to work? Through it all, Mary and Mercy had stayed at my side, feeding me cookies and laying a compress upon my brow. Mercy was charged with much of my work, also.
“Ill, are you?”
“Aye.” A cold wind blew through me, and I clutched the cloak more tightly around me. “Father says I will have to give testimony against Martha and Kendra. I do not know what I will say.”
“What did your father tell you?” the wolf asked.
“He said to tell the truth.” I remembered what else he had said, about seeing them with the devil, but it was the same thing, I supposed. I shivered again, and then the wolf was at my side, rubbing against me, warming me.
“What is the truth?” the wolf asked.
“I have had . . . aches . . . chills. I feel hot and like I cannot breathe.”
“And these women, they cause that?”
“Of course!” I said. “Kendra Hilferty, she hates me. She torments me all the time now. I cannot sleep for it.”
“And this only just started,” the wolf asked. “Have these women not lived in Salem for many years?”
I thought about that, stroking the wolf’s soft fur. I tried to think of when I first encountered Kendra Hilferty. She was not from a Salem family, but must have come here seeking work. Still, I had seen her for a year or more in church or in the store, as I had on the day I accused her.