Tags:
United States,
Fiction,
General,
Historical,
Juvenile Nonfiction,
People & Places,
Juvenile Fiction,
Fantasy & Magic,
Occult fiction,
Girls & Women,
Witchcraft,
Poetry,
Novels in Verse,
Trials (Witchcraft),
Salem (Mass.),
Salem (Mass.) - History - Colonial period; ca. 1600-1775
them each
night, for the Devil surely torments
them,â Goody Easty says.
The court falls quiet
as the forest after a rainstorm
until we girls
scream out in pain.
I shiver with a cold
I have not known before,
I know not why,
and then I see it in their eyes:
this crowd
carries the hangmanâs noose.
Ann ceases her crying.
I see her half-smile.
âPerhaps âtwas not Charlotte Easty
who tormented me.â
Why is she doing this?
I try to signal Ann not now,
not today, but I am too late.
Abigail follows her,
âYes, Charlotte Easty be not the one.â
The courtroom stomps
and roars like a mob
of angry cattle.
âDo not play, Ann,â I whisper.
âI feel pinched!â I scream out,
but the courtroom chant drowns
my moaning.
They scream, âRelease Goody Easty!â
as we girls are shuttled from
a room of unfriendly eyes.
I AM THE RINGLEADER?
Mercy Lewis, 17
âHow could they release the witch
Goody Easty, Rebecca Nurseâs
second sister, from prison?â
Ann whines in front of Abigail and Susannah.
I nearly wish to push her into the stream
as we travel back from Ingersollâs tavern.
You know why this happened,
I want to scream in Annâs face.
I hate that I must actually say,
âSome are already against us.
We must be steadfast.
We must never admit
the path we take
may be the wrong one.â
I quicken my pace.
Annâs eyes sparkle with tears
She starts, âBut Iââ
I fairly well run in the opposite
direction Ann travels home.
I do not even want to hear
her footsteps.
I collapse at Constable Putnamâs
door. They tuck me into my new bed.
My fits must then begin,
and never a cessation.
I convulse so long I cannot stop
twitchingâdazed, speechless,
choked violet, on deathâs ashen pillow.
A crowd gathers to witness my torture, my demise.
Ann says, ââTis Goody Easty
who chokes Mercy.
Goody Eastyâs specter dances
on the beam above Mercyâs head,
twists a chain around her neck.â
Abigail cries, âGoody Easty threatens
to kill Mercy because
Mercy accused her in the courtroom!â
The girls all fall in line behind
my horse. They follow the path.
Except Susannah,
who never does say
she has seen Charlotte Easty.
We shackle the witch
into the jailâs dungeon,
and my ailments
slowly improve.
I clearly will have to be the driver now.
I must hold the whip,
bear the cold and steer the carriage.
For if I do not,
then men like John Alden,
who aided in killing my family,
and Reverend Burroughs
with his wicked hands
and nasty belt upon wives and little girls,
might also go free.
I step up.
I wind around my wrists
Annâs slacking reins.
WE ALL SEE IT THE SAME
Mercy Lewis, 17
Charlotte Eastyâs led
into the Court of Oyer and Terminer,
her face not deathly pale,
but the sadness in her eyes
greater than that of the sow
next to be slaughtered.
âI am innocent,â
she says without spite.
She looks like the sky
around a star, almost radiant.
âCharlotte Easty came at us
with a spindle,â Ann cries.
âYea, she be stabbing at us,â
Margaret says.
Annâs mother pulls herself to standing
and stomps her heelâ
âOur spindle is gone missing.â
Magistrate Corwin cannot hush
the whirs of the crowd.
It is now Susannahâs turn
to act, but she forgets.
She sits like a dumb ox.
She forces me to rise from my bench
and lunge into the middle
of the courtroom.
I tumble to the floor
wrestling an unseen force.
Abigail picks up quickly and says,
âMercy fights Goody Eastyâs specter
for the spindle. There! There!â
And she points at me
rolling like a ball of yarn
around the floor.
I arrest, still as a tomb,
and the crowd silences.
All hearts seem to leap from their chestsâ
And folk worry do I breathe?
Constable Putnam picks me up.
I clasp the spindle
to my breast. My
Herman Martin
Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Scott Nicholson, Garry Kilworth, Eric Brown, John Grant, Anna Tambour, Kaitlin Queen, Iain Rowan, Linda Nagata, Keith Brooke
Michael Kuhar
Tara Fox Hall
Michael Bray, Albert Kivak
Mari Carr
Gwynne Forster
Louis L'amour
Chloe Kendrick
Armando D. Muñoz