A Salem Awakening

Chapter 9

It was just before six o'clock, and the entire village seemed to be present to witness the test. Tobias Warnock was standing on the highest outcrop of rocks he could find. It was his pulpit, and he always wriggled his way to this location for these events. Abigail and Mr. Putnam just arrived and when Abigail saw her parents, she rushed over to them. She and her mother held each other in a tight embrace. Samuel stood next to them and rested his hand on Abigail's head in a feeble attempt to console her. Mr. Putnam moved to the back of the assembled group – he wanted to bear witness to the event, but he did not want a close-up view of the gory details about to unfold.

Mrs. Porter was at the front of the group, closest to the shoreline, and near the rock formation where Tobias stood. Her crying was continuous since she left the schoolhouse over four hours earlier. But she looked as though she aged twenty years in the interim. She was still crying, though her tears stopped flowing quite some time ago.

The two vaguely familiar men appeared from the trees. Each held one of Millie's arms. She felt much heavier now than she did earlier. Her head was leaning down, with her hair, now dirty and disheveled, hanging greasily in bunches covering her face. Her legs dragged in the sand a few feet behind the two men. They were both muscular, strong men, but were clearly struggling to hold Millie's dead weight while shuffling their feet to move her forward and up the rocks.

When they arrived at the outcrop, Tobias motioned them to a series of rocks which looked down directly into the water. Tobias knelt on one knee so his face was just above the heads of the two men. He whispered to them, "Tightly tie her hands to the sides of her body, not behind her back, then get three large rocks and tie them to her legs. Be sure her hands cannot reach out and touch each other. This is very important."

The two men took a thick rope Tobias brought with him and started wrapping Millie with it. Her body was limp and seemed lifeless. First, they wrapped the rope three times around her waist and pulled it taught to ensure she could not escape. Then one man forced her right arm to be straight down her right side. He wrapped the rope around her downwardly-stretched arm and between her legs, then around her right thigh three times further. They did the same with her left side. They lay Millie on the ground facing up so they could tie the rope around her legs, near her ankles, another three times. Finally, they tied a triple knot into itself to secure the rope in place. Not even a master sailor could undo this convergence of thick rope and brute strength. Millie could not move, both because of her bondage and because of her lack of will to fight.

From the back of the crowd, William stood on a rock and yelled to everyone assembled, "Good people of Salem, we cannot allow this travesty. Young Millie Porter stands accused, tried, and convicted in an opaque process. She deserves justice and fair treatment. If we don't stand up for her today, who will stand up for you tomorrow when you or your loved one is accused?"

Abigail was proud of Mr. Putnam for trying to stop this sham, but as she looked around, she could see only a few other villagers were on their side. The coldness came back to her, and she hung her head with hopelessness, both for Millie and for Salem.

Most villagers booed or turned their backs to William. There was no convincing them. Some gazed at William with sympathetic eyes, but were too afraid to stand up to Tobias. Doing so might expose them to accusations. William immediately saw his argument would not prevail. He looked at Millie with pity and shame in his eyes, as if to apologize for not being able to do more. Tobias caught William's stare, and knowing the villagers were on his side, didn't bother to respond to William's annoying outburst.

Millie turned her head to the audience and saw her mother. Her grief consumed her, but she reached out, desperately struggling in an impossible effort to grab hold of her daughter. Two members of the original mob had their arms around her waist to hold her back, though they did so with some empathy. Joseph Porter, who just arrived as he was working in the fields and only heard what was happening a mere hour ago, pushed the two men away from his wife and hugged her tightly, with one arm around her waist and his other arm pulling her head into his shoulder. He looked at his disheveled daughter at the top of the outcrop and his eyes quickly became bloodshot and deluged with tears. He realized this would be the last time he would see her alive and he would not even have the opportunity to say goodbye to her and tell her how much he loved her.

When the two men finished tying the three rocks to Millie's legs, further immobilizing her, Tobias stood and raised his arms to silence the murmuring crowd.

"Millicent Dorothy Porter. You stand accused of being a witch. You have declared your innocence and God, through the good people of Salem, will judge you to determine the truth. We have tied the rope around your body three times, we have tied the knot three times into a triple knot and there are three stones which will lead you to your fate. These 'three threes' are symbolic of the Holy Trinity – the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. We offer this as protection for your soul during your trial. Millie, please rise to accept your fate."

Millie did not move, she couldn't even if she wanted to, but the two men lifted her to her feet. They continued to hold her, though she now seemed even heavier than just a few moments before. Millie forced her eyes open, despite desperate exhaustion from having accepted what was to come. She again locked eyes with her parents and weakly mouthed "I love you" through dry, cracked lips.

The spectacle made even the most spiteful people in the crowd silent. Nobody talked, nobody booed or hissed, and nobody declared Millie's guilt. The only sounds were the waves crashing below the rocky outpost, gentle sobbing by some in the crowd, and Mrs. Porter's anguish.

Tobias broke the silence somberly. "Millie, may God have mercy on your soul." He waited a moment for dramatic effect, then nodded to the two men. They each grabbed one of the large rocks tied to her legs and threw them over the ledge into the ocean. Both the third rock and Millie's limp body flew down behind them. It all happened so fast, so suddenly. With a loud splash, Millie was gone. Mrs. Porter let out a sound that was best described as an agonizing howl as Mr. Porter pulled her in closer to his body. Millie's struggle, which only began four hours earlier, would be over in a few more minutes. But the heartache was only beginning for the Porter family.