Wicked Girls
them each
    night, for the Devil surely torments
    them,” 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 hangman’s noose.
    Ann ceases her crying.
    I see her half-smile.
    â€œPerhaps ’twas not Charlotte Easty
    who tormented me.”
    Why is she doing this?
    I try to signal Ann not now,
    not today, but I am too late.
    Abigail follows her,
    â€œYes, Charlotte Easty be not the one.”
    The courtroom stomps
    and roars like a mob
    of angry cattle.
    â€œDo not play, Ann,” I whisper.
    â€œI feel pinched!” I scream out,
    but the courtroom chant drowns
    my moaning.
    They scream, “Release Goody Easty!”
    as we girls are shuttled from
    a room of unfriendly eyes.

I AM THE RINGLEADER?
    Mercy Lewis, 17
    â€œHow could they release the witch
    Goody Easty, Rebecca Nurse’s
    second sister, from prison?”
    Ann whines in front of Abigail and Susannah.
    I nearly wish to push her into the stream
    as we travel back from Ingersoll’s tavern.
    You know why this happened,
    I want to scream in Ann’s face.
    I hate that I must actually say,
    â€œSome are already against us.
    We must be steadfast.
    We must never admit
    the path we take
    may be the wrong one.”
    I quicken my pace.
    Ann’s eyes sparkle with tears
    She starts, “But I—”
    I fairly well run in the opposite
    direction Ann travels home.
    I do not even want to hear
    her footsteps.
    I collapse at Constable Putnam’s
    door. They tuck me into my new bed.
    My fits must then begin,
    and never a cessation.
    I convulse so long I cannot stop
    twitching—dazed, speechless,
    choked violet, on death’s ashen pillow.
    A crowd gathers to witness my torture, my demise.
    Ann says, “’Tis Goody Easty
    who chokes Mercy.
    Goody Easty’s specter dances
    on the beam above Mercy’s head,
    twists a chain around her neck.”
    Abigail cries, “Goody Easty threatens
    to kill Mercy because
    Mercy accused her in the courtroom!”
    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 jail’s 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
    Ann’s slacking reins.

WE ALL SEE IT THE SAME
    Mercy Lewis, 17
    Charlotte Easty’s 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.
    â€œI am innocent,”
    she says without spite.
    She looks like the sky
    around a star, almost radiant.
    â€œCharlotte Easty came at us
    with a spindle,” Ann cries.
    â€œYea, she be stabbing at us,”
    Margaret says.
    Ann’s mother pulls herself to standing
    and stomps her heel—
    â€œOur spindle is gone missing.”
    Magistrate Corwin cannot hush
    the whirs of the crowd.
    It is now Susannah’s 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,
    â€œMercy fights Goody Easty’s specter
    for the spindle. There! There!”
    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 chests—
    And folk worry do I breathe?
    Constable Putnam picks me up.
    I clasp the spindle
    to my breast. My

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