“’Tis true. Her father has a quarrel with your family, and he has a quarrel with Giles.”
I had heard this before. Giles Corey was Martha’s husband, and he and Thomas Putnam apparently had a feud of long standing.
“That is why we are here on the accusation of his daughter,” Martha said. “He has given her the idea, as surely as if he controlled her lips.”
Rebecca sighed. “The good Lord will save us.”
“He had better hurry,” Martha said.
“If he does not save us in this life,” Rebecca said, “He will save us in the next.”
I envied her this certainty, this knowledge that she was good and would go to heaven. All the women here in jail seemed to have it, all except me.
They continued talking like this, as they did every night, until they drifted off to sleep.
I remained awake. It was strange that Samuel did not walk by to look in on us or to wake the women up, stranger still that James was not there. I had expected him to come, to talk of what had happened in court, to comfort me in my stupidity or to chastise me for not following his advice.
Then he was there in my cell with me. He held a brick in his hand. Before I could speak, he heaved it at the barred window. The bars smashed to pieces. With a wave of his hand, he was gone.
I looked down. No, not gone. Transformed into a crow. He flew up to the window and stared at me until I, too, became my bird self and flew up to the windowsill, then flew down to the ground.
Once there, we transformed back, and I followed James around the side of the jailhouse building. There was a carriage waiting. “Go!” James whispered.
“What do you mean, go?” I asked.
“You are escaping.”
I peered inside the carriage. Two men were inside, John Alden and Phillip English. I knew they had also been accused. How had they escaped? Were they also true wizards?
“I do not understand,” I said. “Escaping? Just like that?”
“I had a thought you might be found innocent. But now . . . I do not think anyone will be.” James nodded toward the men. “These men have been planning their escape. I found out about it. You must go with them.”
“But I . . .” It was insane that I was protesting. I wanted to escape. But I wanted to escape with James, to flee with him, go back home to Europe, where we could be together and pretend there was no danger. Before, I had had no reason to stay in Salem. Now, with his nightly visits and his comfort, I had no reason to be anywhere else either.
“You must go,” he repeated.
“But . . . will I see you again?” I wanted to know whether we would still meet as planned.
“Shh. We have eternity. Of course you will see me again. Of course you will, when this is over, when it is safe for me to leave, I will find you. But now they will only take you. Go. We will meet in a week and make our plans.” He broke away from me and gestured toward the carriage.
I walked toward it. Mr. Alden beckoned to me to get in, quickly. With one look back at James, I did.
He shut the carriage door behind me. The carriage pulled away.
I stared at him out the window until I could no longer see him. As we reached the edge of town, I noticed an animal following the carriage, watching us. A wolf. A white wolf. Ann’s wolf. I watched it through tear-filled eyes until I could barely see it. Then, perhaps it was the moon or maybe my eyes were playing tricks on me, I saw him transform into a man.
It was Thomas Putnam. He watched us drive away.
We escaped to Duxborough, where John Alden had friends who would shelter us. I waited for James for a week, then two. When he did not come, I booked passage to Europe, to a new life.
I did not see James again for over a hundred years.
10
Ann Putnam
August 26, 1706
Every one of Tituba’s prophecies came true. In 1699, both my parents left me. Or, rather, my mother died. I was never certain what happened to my father. It was said he died. There are those who said he was too mean to die, though, and I believed this to be true. I believed he might still have continued to walk the earth somewhere. I took care of my younger siblings. I never married. I was an old maid, just as Tituba said I would be.
When I looked back on the events of 1692, I felt nothing but shame and regret. My pains subsided some—perhaps they were cramps from my first blood, perhaps a nervous condition, perhaps both, but I never fully got over them, even after so many were hanged. In all, twenty people were executed in Salem, many on my testimony. Rebecca Nurse and Martha Corey, good, churchgoing women whom my father disliked, were among the first. This may have been why no one ever married me. While most said they believed me, in truth, many did not. Or they were not sure. I frightened them.