A Salem Awakening

Chapter 6

It was a warm Wednesday. Willa was done with the chores for the day and the children had finished lunch at the schoolhouse. They were just beginning a mathematics test. Mr. Putnam always timed these, and he was walking around the classroom with his pocket watch in hand, keeping a close eye on the time. "Eight minutes," he stated loud enough for all the children to hear, but not loud enough to disrupt their thinking.

James Boylan was nervously looking at the other children. He was a nice boy, "but he won't be going to Harvard College," Mr. Putnam thought to himself. James was always the last to finish the tests, and education was clearly not a priority for him. No matter how much he tried, William could not motivate James as he could the others. "If only James was more passionate about learning," he thought, "then I could work with him. But he doesn't have enough intellectual curiosity or self-discipline."

Abigail raised her hand to ask a question. "That figures," thought James. Then they all heard it. Time seemed to pause, as if the minute hand on Mr. Putnam's pocket watch stopped. Abigail's head turned in slow motion toward the window as her arm lowered back to her desk on its own accord, in equally slow motion. Everyone in the classroom felt a rush of coldness throughout their bodies and the hairs on their necks stood erect at a full and terrified attention.

Witch!...

Witch!...

Witch!...

The horrible chant was coming from outside and getting louder with each utterance. The entire class ran to the window to see where the mob was headed. There was an audible gasp from each child, followed by a deafening hush across the entire class, as they realized the mob was coming straight for the schoolhouse. Any of them might be the target.

There were about twenty or thirty villagers, some carrying pitchforks bobbing up and down in the air. Others held lit torches, even though it was the middle of the day in broad daylight. Still others carried axes or other tools they grabbed as they ran to join the mob.

Leading the group was the head of the town council and the lead judge in the trials, Tobias Warnock. He was a short, stout man whose stockings always seemed too high for his stature. He was an old-fashioned man of the Old World, coming to Salem about fifteen years prior because he felt the Massachusetts Territory needed him more than did England. The truth was, nobody in the Old World ever heard of him and the adults in Salem assumed he was a lonely man who needed to find his place somewhere. They pitied and tolerated him, but he seemed pious enough and was willing to devote his time and energy to the village, so everyone allowed him to work his way up until he became the de facto leader.

Ever since Tobias read Cotton Mather's works, he became convinced witches were real and living amongst them, and that Salem was a central node for the regional covens. He took it upon himself to rid Salem, and all of Massachusetts, of the scourge of witches, even traveling to Boston to meet and strategize with Mather himself.

This infuriated William, who frequently tried to show Tobias the reason and logic for why witches could not be real. "The physical laws of nature do not allow for it. How could a person fly? How could the incantation of certain words in a specific order inflict one's will over someone else? That's just not how nature works!"

But Tobias would shrug off each point like cattle dismissing insignificant flies with the unconscious twitch of an ear. For every reasoned argument William made, Tobias responded with a quote from Mather's book as evidence he was correct.

William responded with utter frustration, "But the writing of one man, no matter how influential or intellectual he may be, does not explain how any of this is real." No matter how irritated William became, Tobias would remain calm and collected, which only infuriated William even further.

The veins in William's neck protruded. "Mather is a man of science. He is intelligent and curious. But this 'book' of his offers no evidence, only stories of a family in Boston. Mather knows none of his allegations have any merit. He might be sincere in his intent, but he, more than anyone else, knows nothing in his book serves to prove anything!"

Tobias slowly turned his face to William and calmly replied, "Ah, but that is where you miss the point, young man. Ungodly men look for proof and evidence. Godly men need only to believe in order for something to be true. Belief itself is the blessing which makes something real. When others believe it to be real, it is real."

The statement froze William for what seemed like many minutes, but in reality was only mere seconds. He considered Tobias' words carefully and felt like he was understanding Tobias at a deeper level, as though something mystical connected them together. It was as if they could see into the soul of the other at that precise moment. "You are playing a dangerous game, old man," William finally muttered. "People will die because of Mather and you. Innocent people."

Tobias stood, with one hand planted firmly on the table as he leaned forward to look William directly in the eyes and he replied in a deep, threatening tone, "They are not innocent if I find them to be guilty." And with that, Tobias turned and left William to himself, his mouth wide with disbelief and his knees buckling with fear over what he just heard.