The Good Curse

Chapter 1

Salem, Massachusetts, April 1692

Mothers are not supposed to be happy when their babies die. And I am not happy. But I am grateful. William will be, too, no doubt. Damn him to hell. Damn them all to hell.

I rock her anyway, the baby. And hold her to my bosom. Just a suckling child. Nobody knows she has gone yet. She’s still warm, so I can pretend a while. My little Mercy. ‘Whither thou goest, I will go: and where thou dwellest, I will dwell.’ I am not far behind, they say. And then what of Dorothy? These tiny, little God-forsaken creatures.

She sleeps now, Dorothy, against the cold wall just across from me, shivering ever so slightly. It is damp here in this stone cell, and cold. Dark no matter the hour. But it is night now, I know; the glow from the marshal’s fire burns low, the embers nearly dead, no one tending them. I unravel the baby’s blankets from around her tiny form, loosen her hands from the folds. The fingertips have grown cold. That is where it starts. By morning all the warmth and color will be drained away.

And then they’ll take her.

I stand and cross the cell to Dorothy. Sleeping there, smudges of dirt hiding the natural ruddiness of her round cheeks, she looks like a cherub who went down to earth to play and returned too tired to wash up. How anyone can believe her a witch I will never, ever understand. I tuck the edges of the ragged, threadbare blankets around her tiny, trembling shoulders. Mercy needs blankets no longer. I curl up beside my living child, Mercy between us. The floor is hard packed beneath my hip and shoulder.

It is still night when I wake, so I can’t have slept long. My arms are empty. I scramble to a sitting position. Where are my babies?

Then I see them. Dorothy sits up against the wall, a small bundle in her arms. She looks up at me piteously. “She was cold,” she says. “Mercy was cold.” She looks back down at her sister’s puckered face; puckered against the cold, puckered against my milk, puckered against the injustices this world has thrown at her–at all three of us.

I crawl the few feet that separate me from my daughters and lean against the wall beside Dorothy. “So are you,” I say, pulling her close to me. A tremor runs through her. She has swaddled Mercy in the blankets again. One might almost mistake the infant for living, except for the sickly pale hue of her skin.

I gently take Mercy from Dorothy’s arms. Her body is rigid. I am unwrapping the baby, when I hear the heavy prison door open. A burst of cold air finds its way into our cell, and I am grateful for the brief respite of fresh air from the outside, no matter the chill. “Cover up, Dorothy.” I pause, handing Dorothy the blankets. “Mercy is dead.”

A man’s figure is silhouetted against the glow of the fire, which someone must have stoked. Morning nears. “What’s that there?” he says, nodding at my lap.

I say nothing, just look down at that there. That’s all she’ll ever be to them. That there. Better than witch, I suppose. A fury kindles in my soul, burns hotter than any fire they’ll ever warm themselves beside or than ever will torment them when finally they land in hell. Oh, the things I would do to this stranger if I were a witch, if truly such powers I possessed. The pain and suffering and wrath I would wreak. The violence. Wouldn’t I love to watch his eyes bulge from their sockets, blood pouring down his cheeks like tears. Wouldn’t I love to see him impaled on the horns of a black goat, entrails streaming from his gut. Wouldn’t I love to make him watch while I ate his babies whole. I would burn the entire colony if I could. I would sign the devil’s black book and burn it all to hell. All but Dorothy. And Mercy.

The man takes one step into the cell and, meeting with our stench, recoils. He repeats his question as a statement. “I said: What’s that there.”

“My daughter,” I say.

The man holds a black silk–that extravagance alone should land him in hell–handkerchief to his nose and comes into the cell again, this time further. He leans over the pile of rags and almost retches before straightening back up and appraising Dorothy, Mercy, and me.

“It has died then,” he says.

“She,” I say. “She has died. Her name is Mercy.” Let her not die nameless. Let her name be remembered.

He lets out a cruel cackle, and instantly I regret sharing her name with the likes of him. “Mercy y’say? Mercy! You are a saucebox, aren’t’y? A witch with a daughter named Mercy.” He shakes his head, chortling.

Dorothy is solemn, staring down at her lap. Her gaze lifts to meet the marshal’s. “Mercy has died,” she says. Her voice is small, but she does not flinch.

“And no wonder,” says the man. He bends close to Dorothy’s face, removes the handkerchief from his nose just long enough to say, “Your mother’s milk poisoned her, y’know? Your mother’s milk would poison any little innocent born to her. More proof of your own guilt, Dorcas Good.”

“Dorothy,” she corrects him. “My name is Dorothy.” My heart swells with pride. She has not lost herself yet. She knows who she is. She knows her name.

“Like I said–Dorcas. You thrived on that poisoned milk. Somehow, it didn’t kill you. Must be you’re evil,” he says, replacing the handkerchief over his nose and mouth. “Both of y’.”

He moves to snatch the babe from my arms, but I turn away, press her body against the stones of our cell. I will not relinquish her to this man. This arse and the foolish old devils, all of them forgetting how to pray, how to forgive, how to show mercy. “No!” I wail, and I hardly recognize the sound of my own voice. It’s as if all the losses of my life have spilled out in that one word, all the misery, all the unfairness, all the burden of my existence. “No!” I feel Dorothy wrap her tiny arms around me, a protective gesture that doesn’t stand a chance against this man, against this situation. He rips her off me, tosses her like a poppet across the cell, and turns me roughly about to face him. He has dropped his handkerchief and sneers into my face. “Witch.” He’s almost smiling. “What right does a witch–”

“I am no witch! God knows I am no witch! The devil knows I am no witch!” But if I were, I would rip your heart out with my eyes. I would strangle you from where I sit and bite off your swollen tongue when it bulged from between your purple lips. I would watch the shadow of horror pass over your eyes right before you died. And the last thing you would ever hear would be my laughter ringing inside your skull.

“What right does a witch,” he savors the words, as if he relishes the taste, “have to that there?” Again, gesturing with his head. I hold on as tightly as I can, but between the starvation and the cold, even my hatred isn’t strong enough to keep Mercy in my arms. He tears her from my embrace, and I almost think I hear her wailing.

“Now that this part here is done,” he says, turning away from me, “not much to keep you from the noose.” The door slams behind him and I know I will not see Mercy again.

“Mercy! Mercy! Whither thou goest, I will go! Whither thou goest, I will go!” I can’t hear anything over my own screams, my own rage. Screaming, sobbing, I crawl to the door, pound on the solid wood with my fists, ignore the pain and blood when my flesh meets with the point of a rusted nail protruding from the door. “I want my daughter! Bring me my daughter!” I scream until I collapse to the floor, exhausted from the exertion, the heartbreak. I consider the discovery of the nail. A way out, perhaps. An opportunity. An expedited execution of sorts. Spare the village some rope. Would it be so hard to thrust my bosom against the door, as many times as it might take? Or my wrists? All the parts of my wretched body that can bleed and bleed and bleed.

But then I feel Dorothy climb tentatively into my lap.

She reaches one tiny hand up to my cheek and wipes away the tears. “Here I am, Mother,” she says. “Here is your daughter. I am your daughter.” She gently places her cool hand behind my ear, stroking the detestable mole there, the way she has since she was an infant.

I grasp her tiny hand in mine, take it from behind my ear, press it to my lips. A few final sobs heave my chest. I swallow them. “Where are the blankets?” I ask, suddenly remembering the cold.

Dorothy doesn’t say anything, just stands to retrieve the blankets.

“Aye, you are my daughter, Dorothy,” I say, regaining my wits. “You are Dorothy Good. Your sister is Mercy Good–no matter what the arses tell you. Your mother is Sarah Good. We are not evil, little one, no matter what the arses tell you. We are good. It’s in our name. It is our name.”

Dorothy looks at me with wide, innocent eyes. Nods silently, the blankets hanging from her hands. Those eyes fed us for a time. Those pools of blue, saucer-sized on her little face, could melt even the most callous hearts once. Those who gave naught to me, who cared not whether I starved or froze or whored or died. Well, they couldn’t harden their hearts against Dorothy. Not then. Even William is cold to us now. Refuses to pay for rations, even for Dorothy. I would expect him to behave in such a way toward me. But not toward Dorothy. He never was a provider, though. I suppose it’s folly to expect he’d become one now Dorothy and I are in jail. If he’d ever had any gumption, any manliness about him at all, my child and I might not be here, rotting in this cell. It’s fortunate Abigail sees we’re fed.

Dorothy sits beside me, our backs against the door, and dutifully wraps the blankets around her shoulders. She isn’t even careful of the blood. Perhaps she doesn’t notice it. Perhaps she has grown accustomed to the gore of this place–this cell, this world, this whole ungodly life. After all, what else has she ever really known? Even before this cell, her existence was meager, all of us labeled a burden to the village, a hardship, a charity case. I’m the one who knows better. The only one in this whole cursed little family who’s ever known any better. And that is perhaps why I, it seems, suffer the most.

No one else knows any differently.

But I–I know how it should have been.

I lean down, nuzzle my nose into her dirty little cap. “Do you want to hear a story?” I ask.

Chapter 2

Salem, Massachusetts, February 1670

“Do you know how we got our name, Sarah dearest?” my father asked. “God gave us that name because we are the artwork of his soul, our family. Soulart. It only makes sense. You heard what the reverend said on Sunday: ‘A good name is as a thread tied about the finger, to make us mindful of the errand we came into the world to do for our master.’” A lock of brown hair fell over his left eye. He brushed it behind his ear and leaned in, speaking low, watching out for Mother. I was 17 years old, fortunate still to be in my father’s home, and not laboring in another family’s. A Bible lay open on Father’s lap where he sat by the fire. The hearth and fireplace were still new then, not yet blackened by years of keeping our family warm. It was a frigid night, but there by the fireside, Father and I were warm. His greatcoat hung by the front door. His hat, too, hung from a peg beside the door, so that his chin-length brown hair was loose, matted down on top from where the hat had been, curling under just slightly at his jaw. Mother must have hung them both for him; he always draped the coat over the banister and left the hat on the long wooden bench beside the door, much to her chagrin. Father planned to open the inn come spring, but for now, he said, we would winter. I liked the idea of wintering, hiding away like the little animals, sleeping away the cold like the trees and plants. Why must men toil when all of nature rests?

But Mother was not a man, and Mother did not approve. Men must toil, she said, because they were cast out of Eden. Called Father slovenly. She was ashamed of his slothfulness. “Winter,” she said, “is not a verb, but a season, requiring no less work than spring or summer or fall. Sinners have no business resting. The tree and the squirrel and the little brown bird need not worry about their immortal souls. But we are neither tree nor squirrel nor little brown bird.” And there was indeed much to do to prepare. There was, for Mother, simply no time for idleness. Father used it all. If her ceaseless sedulousness bothered Father, he showed it not at all. Just sat by the fireside and read. Always the Bible, so Mother couldn’t say much.

But she often did.

“Stop filling her head with nonsense,” she said, kneeling to tend to the fire before standing upright once more and stirring the stew that simmered over it, one hand on the small of her back. “There’s no room for it, and no time. Besides, it’s not hers to keep, the name. She’ll be tradin’ it in soon enough.” She dusted off her hands on her skirt and bustled into the next room, the one that would be the main tavern come spring, where people would gather to eat and drink and warm themselves. That was Mother, ever practical. I wondered then what Father ever saw in her. In her was none of the whimsy or imagination or humor that Father possessed. Nor was she particularly beautiful, tall and sturdy and firm. She had a fierce nose, a little bend in its bridge, thin lips, and a rather severe jawline. She kept her hair precisely covered under her white bonnet, ne’er a strand escaping her meticulous grooming. Her eyes, though–those were beautiful. A smooth, rich hazel color I inherited from her.

If I didn’t see then what he saw in her, I see now: He needed her. They all need us, though precious few of them know how desperately.

“Mother,” Father said, his gaze trailing after her, “why, her soul makes an art of hard work–of diligence and vigilance and tirelessness.” He snapped the Bible shut victoriously, as if he’d read our family history right there in its pages, right there in Judges where he’d left his finger to mark his place, right where it reads, Draw thy sword, and slay me, that men say not of me, A woman slew him.

I was never a cunning child, but I did have a little of Father’s humor about me, and I was always eager to please him. “Perhaps,” I said, “her name ought to have been Martha instead of Elizabeth.” I felt pleased with my joke, comparing Mother to a woman too busy to sit with the Lord, and was sure Father would understand. But his eyes did not crinkle and his slight smile soured.

“Your soul, Sarah?” Here he paused, the corners of his blue eyes crinkling once more in a smile. “Your soul, Sarah dearest, makes an art of charity, and you are far too gracious ever to mock your mother.” My cheeks burned with both shame and flattery. How could he make me feel both at once?

“Aye, Father. I know. ‘Honor thy father and thy mother.’”

“Good girl.”

“And Abigail,” I asked of my younger sister. “Of what does her soul make art?”

Father pondered a moment, then said, “I know not, as of yet. Abigail’s passions have yet to be revealed to us. She’s rather young.”

“What of Elizabeth?” I was most eager for Father’s answer regarding my oldest sister, and secretly hoped it would be cruel and conspiratorial, for Elizabeth had a way of making me feel inferior, and that, I thought, would be her art, were it up to me to assign it.

“Elizabeth’s soul makes art of fastidiousness.”

Leave it to Father to sweeten even Elizabeth’s exacting temperament. Whatever he touched, he improved, seeing only the good in people. What I saw as Elizabeth’s fussiness, Father saw as her carefulness. Where I saw her unrelenting, exhausting drive for perfection, he saw her desire to improve.

I didn’t want to talk about her anymore. “And what about you, Father? Of what does your soul make art?”

“My soul? Why, my soul’s art I’m looking at.” Father winked. I felt my face flush again.

Father pulled his stool closer to mine, set his Bible on his knees between us. “Do you want to know a secret?” he asked.

I nodded eagerly. His blue eyes–blue as the eyes of the granddaughter he would never know–shone. The same wayward lock of hair broke free once more, only to once again find itself tucked behind Father’s ear. I wished I had hair like Father’s–thick and unruly and flowing.