Brianna breathed a sigh of relief and went back to the task of single-handedly coping with things. She wasn’t sleeping well, for she heard the labored sound of Robert’s breathing all through the night. And when she dozed, she was horrified to discover that she had dreamed of Sloan, and she was almost gladder to live with exhaustion than to endure such dreams.
The witchcraft tumult had died down; Sloan would sail away, and all would be well.
Toward the end of March, Robert began to show improvement. When Sunday morning dawned on the twentieth of March, he smiled at her, then gravely suggested that she take Michael and attend church services.
“I don’t feel right about leaving you alone,” she told him, so glad that he was smiling. But he had lost even more weight, and his cheeks were terribly hollow. His eyes seemed enormous.
“I want you to go. You haven’t been out at all—and for the both of us, I want you to be there.”
She promised that she would go to the afternoon meeting.
Brianna arrived a little late and rushed into a full meetinghouse to find her place upon the bench. Deodat Lawson, from Boston, was at the pulpit. Brianna noticed that the people seemed uneasy, and she wondered what might have occurred during the morning to cause such a thing. But she didn’t think about it long, for she was glad to be at the meeting; never had she felt the need for prayer so deeply in her life.
She needed to pray that she stop dreaming of Sloan, imagining herself in his arms again.
Suddenly a shout rang out—high over the drone of the minister’s preaching.
“Look! There sits Goody Cory on the beam—suckling a yellow bird betwixt her fingers!”
Brianna’s eyes, like those of all others in the congregation, turned to Goodwife Martha Cory. She was a sound churchgoer and upright pillar of the community, and Brianna was astounded at the words cried out by Abigail Williams. Someone would discount them, surely! Martha Cory was a stout and hale elderly matron, a solid farm woman to the bone. She sat stiff and straight on her bench, looking neither right nor left at the accusation.
Then Ann Putnam, Sr., was on her feet, shouting that she, too, could see the specter of Martha Cory on the beam.
No one else spoke. Ann sat again, and the service went on.
Brianna was trembling when she gripped Michael’s hand, and hurried out when it was over. Eleanor was behind her, calling out her name and asking if they might ride home together.
As they headed for home, Eleanor began to tell Brianna what she and Robert had missed in their seclusion.
“It was a week or so ago when the girls first cried out against her,” Eleanor said of Martha Cory, very distraught. “No one wanted to believe it at first—she is so staunch, you know! But Edward Putnam and Ezekial Cheever rode out to warn her about the accusations and first they asked Ann what Martha would be wearing—and Ann said that Martha knew they would ask her, and had blinded her spectral visions. Oh, Brianna! Do you know what happened then? Martha was at her spinning wheel when they arrived and she welcomed them as if she knew they were coming. She actually asked them if they had spoken to Ann about her clothing! She said that there was no such thing as witches and she was sick of the scandal going on!”
“Good for her!” Brianna proclaimed heatedly, pulling Michael closer to her on the saddle.
“No, no—don’t you see, Brianna? To deny witches is to deny the devil, and that is to deny God! It is atheism!”
“I do not believe in witches!”
“But you must never, never say it! Brianna, since Tituba’s confession, the magistrates and ministers are convinced that they’ve barely scratched the surface of some heinous conspiracy. They believe that there is a ‘black man’ in Boston with a whole host of servants. They will be hunting and probing, seeking out crime!”
“What is being done is the crime,” Brianna said stubbornly.
“Please, Brianna, keep quiet. When Martha comes to trial, she must prove her innocence.”
Brianna didn’t agree, but neither did she argue the point. She had to worry about Robert before anything else—including the fact that Sloan might well still be near.
They reached home, and Eleanor came in for a minute. They did not mention Martha Cory to Robert, and he seemed very glad of the company, so Brianna was happy.
As happy as she could be at that time of her life.
But by the beginning of April she was feeling the birth of a new panic. Eleanor came to see her with another friend, Sarah Ingersoll, the spinster daughter of the people who owned the ordinary.
Robert was still in bed; Eleanor put her fingers to her lips and urged Brianna to close the door.
“Oh, Brianna, Sarah has come to warn you—she hears everything in the taproom, you know.”
Sarah bit her lip and nodded unhappily. “Brianna, Rebecca Nurse was arrested and brought to investigation.”
Brianna’s eyes darted to Eleanor’s and were riveted there. Rebecca Nurse was a grandmother, the matriarch of a wonderful Christian clan who worked the land and loved their God with all goodness of spirit and complete charity. If Rebecca was practicing witchcraft, then God might as well be too. But she didn’t echo those sentiments out loud.
