Sorceress Read online

  The first step was obvious. She flexed her numb fingers into painful tingling life, then she pressed Send.

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  3

  [email protected]

  Alison Ellman was working late at the Institute. An icon popped up in the corner of the screen, informing her, You have mail. She ignored it, concentrating her attention on the task in hand. She had information and files on pretty much everybody now. All the people mentioned in Mary’s diary: Martha, who had befriended her; Jonah Morse and his son Tobias; the Rivers family and their daughter, Mary’s friend, Rebekah; Elias Cornwell and Reverend Johnson; the people of Beulah; the girls who’d accused Mary; even Jack Gill, the boy she’d met on the boat. Everyone was there. Everyone except Mary. That was the worry.

  She put it out of her mind to refocus on what she was doing, working on a transcript of Elias Cornwell’s journals. These were not a complete record, some parts were missing, but they had proved a good source for what happened in Beulah after Mary fled the settlement. Alison had read through them and everything else that he’d ever produced in her quest to find any reference to his time at Beulah, and to Mary.

  Cornwell seemed to have had a soft spot for Mary and hadn’t been the first to accuse her of witchcraft, but when push came to shove he’d joined in readily enough. He never lost his interest in the subject, and New England’s subsequent history had offered plenty of scope for his expertise. His theories were pretty much run-of-the-mill – Cotton Mather did it better – but there were one or two references that were maybe based on Cornwell’s actual experiences. They showed up in sermons he’d given on visits to outlying settlements, ones very like Beulah. He seemed to think that they were most in danger. Alison added a Post-it to the ones already frilling her computer, to remind herself to follow that up.

  At last she’d found what she had searched for so diligently. She read through what she had so far. There was only a little bit more to transcribe and she didn’t mean to leave her desk until security made their final rounds and the alarms were set.

  Alison leaned back in her chair, her transcription from Cornwell’s diary finished.(1) She was glad she didn’t have to spend any more time with him. He had not improved much as he got older. He’d just become more pompous, his observations increasingly long-winded and tedious, as he progressed through his various ministries. He’d married Sarah Garner, one of the girls who bore witness against Mary, and he’d sure kept his young wife busy in the child-bearing department. She’d gone from confinement to confinement and had died on the job, so to speak. Childbirth claimed her before she made thirty. Barely ten years after she left Beulah her young life was over, her strength gone, her body worn out.

  (1) Refer to the historical notes at the end of the book.

  The other girls hadn’t fared too well either. Mary’s main accusers had been Deborah Vane and her sister Hannah. According to Cornwell, Hannah had never recovered from her ‘possession’. The temporary madness became permanent in her case. Within a year she was dead of some kind of wasting sickness. As for Deborah, their leader, she’d got her way and married Reverend Johnson but ‘Be careful for what you wish’, isn’t that what witches said? This marriage had not brought happiness. After Johnson, Deborah had gone on to Ned Cardwell, but this had not worked out well, either. The record showed a history of domestic violence and disorder. Eventually she left Cardwell and ended up in Virginia. Alison had a feeling that even there she did not prosper, probably finishing up in the stews of Jamestown or some other port. All evidence so far collected indicated Deborah’s life choices had led her straight to the gutter.(2)

  (2) Refer to the historical notes at the end of the book.

  Maybe there was something inevitable about that, just like her sister Hannah going mad, but Alison had that feeling again, feathering the hairs on her arms and the back of her neck, that something else was going on here. Maybe Mary had put a curse on them.

  Just like in that other, more famous place. The legend of Salem did not end with the witch trials. The judges and the sheriff did not walk away unscathed from courtroom and execution place; they went bearing curses. Many of those involved met untimely ends, so the stories went, and the curses did not finish with them, but passed down from generation to generation.

  A similar dark stain spread through Beulah’s history. With the exception of Cornwell, all the accusers and would-be persecutors had come to a bad end in some way or another. Her two main tormentors were dead by the next year’s end. Obadiah Wilson, the Witch Finder, choked to death on his own blood. Johnson drowned in shallow water. Indeed, the stain had spread until there was nothing left. Beulah had been obliterated. It didn’t appear on any modern map, or any map at all that Alison had managed to find. It had ceased to exist altogether.(3)

  (3) Refer to the historical notes at the end of the book.

  Could this have been Mary’s work? Could there really have been a curse? Alison rubbed her arms as the gooseflesh spread.

  ‘ ’Bout to lock up, Dr Ellman.’

  The security guy’s words startled her back to reality.

  ‘ ’Kay, Lloyd.’

  It was nonsense, of course. Alison hauled her jacket off the back of her chair. It had got chilly in here, that was all. Most likely the heating had clicked off for the night. She had been studying these Puritans for so long, she was beginning to think like one.

  There were logical reasons for every single event. The explanations were evident. Each of these individuals was responsible for their own fate, and everyone had to die some time, of something.

  It was not all dark and gloomy. Others in the story had prospered, sometimes in conditions little short of miraculous. Take Jonah and Martha. They had befriended Mary, cared for her, and nothing bad had happened to them, as far as Alison could tell. Jonah had opened an apothecary shop right here in Boston, in what is now the North End. There they had stayed, living out quiet lives in peace and prosperity until both were buried up on Copp’s Hill.(4)

  (4) Refer to the historical notes at the end of the book.

  The Rivers family, along with Tobias and Rebekah, had experienced far more turbulence in their history. John Rivers had led them clear across the state to the Connecticut River valley, right to the edge of the world then so far explored. Here they had endured all kinds of dangers and difficulties. Rebekah and Tobias had even come under Indian attack in the conflict known as King Philip’s War. Their town had been deserted for a time, but they went back. They survived; not only that, they prospered, going on to found quite a dynasty.

  Alison had pieced their story together with the help of one of their descendants(5) and running like a thread all the way through this story was the quilt. It had passed from Martha to Rebekah and then, according to family lore, it had been handed down through the female line, from daughter to daughter or daughter-in-law. A quirk of family history had led to the quilt’s survival and ten girls in all had received this inheritance. Ten girls growing from child to woman, each in turn fading from maiden to matron, handing on the quilt, then ageing to crone before death and the grave claimed them and turned them to dust.

  (5) Refer to the historical notes at the end of the book.

  The quilt had its very own file alongside all the major players. Alison had information on every one of them now. Everything was catalogued and accounted for, ready for inclusion in the sequel.

  If there was ever going to be a sequel.

  Working on Cornwell’s diary had kept her buoyed up, made her think that she was getting somewhere. Now gloom descended. She was not a quitter, but sometimes she felt like giving up entirely. What was the point in going on with this? The material she’d discovered about the Rivers family, about Martha and Jonah, about Jack Gill, it was interesting, fascinating even, but by itself it was not enough. It could never be enough without Mary. Without her, there could be no second story. Without her there was a void at the centre of the whole project.

  ‘Locking up now, Dr Ellman.
’

  ‘Be right there, Lloyd.’

  Alison moved the pointer to shut down her computer. The You have mail icon was still flashing in the corner. She was eager now to finish for the day but she did not like to put things off and leave them until tomorrow.

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  From: Agnes Herne

  To: Alison Ellman

  Subject: Mary Newbury

  Dear Ms Ellman,

  A friend lent your book to me. She really liked it and thought I might, too. She was right about that, I read it all the way through without stopping, but there was something that she couldn’t possibly know. One of the reasons that I couldn’t put it down has to do with Mary, the girl at the centre of the story ...

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  Alison sat for a moment, unable to believe what she saw with her eyes. She even looked away and back again, expecting the words to erase themselves or tumble down to the bottom of the screen.

  She read the whole e-mail several times and then got up from her desk and walked about. She went to consult the big wall map of north-eastern America, her mind processing information in double time. Mohawk Reservation, upper New York State. Her finger went up near the Canadian border. Canada. Mohawk. Iroquois. That put a brand-new spin on everything. She’d thought Native American before, thinking maybe Mary joined up with Jaybird and his band, but she had come up with a total blank – a big nothing. But what if they’d gone to Canada? She’d thought of that too, but without proof of some kind it would be searching for a needle that might not be there to find. But a link to the Iroquois, to Mohawks? That meant Mary might have passed through Montreal. And that opened up a sudden new wealth of research possibilities. It was not within Alison’s province, but that hardly mattered. The knack was knowing where to look, whom to contact. She had friends and colleagues up there. One in particular. She wondered if he’d be on-line now.

  She went back to her desk, the beginning of a plan forming itself in her head. But first she had to contact this girl.

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  To: Agnes Herne

  Cc:

  Bcc:

  Subject: RE: Mary Newbury

  Hi Agnes,

  Thanks so much for getting in touch! You are the first person to contact me who has promised anything about Mary. We have information on other people involved in her story but nothing on Mary, so anything you have would be an advance on that. Would it be possible for you to come here to the Institute and meet with me? Would tomorrow be too soon? Say around 11 a.m.? If this does not suit you, maybe you can suggest a better time.

  I am VERY anxious to talk with you – I can’t tell you how excited I am about what you have told me.

  Looking forward to meeting you.

  Best,

  Alison Ellman

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  ‘Got to set the alarms now, Dr Ellman. Have to hurry you.’

  Alison did not look up from her screen. She was already prioritising web sites, collecting threads, composing more messages.

  ‘I could be here all night. So you might as well lock me in. You got coffee?’

  ‘Sure.’ The guard grinned. ‘Black without, right?’

  ‘You got it.’

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  4

  The Institute museum

  Agnes took a cross-town bus to the Institute where Alison worked. It was a big colonnaded building set back from a wide tree-lined avenue. Agnes crunched up the gravelled drive and mounted the wide steps, not sure whether to go in yet. She’d missed her stop and had to walk back, but she was still early by nearly an hour. She never liked to arrive late for anything, but the journey had taken a shorter time than she had anticipated and this was on the cautious side of punctuality, even for her. The weather was fine. She could wait out here, sitting on the steps in the spring sunshine, or take a walk round the grounds that led down to the river. Or she could go in and look at some of the exhibits. The Institute was famous for its Native American collection.

  Agnes offered the price of admission to the girl selling tickets and thought to mention her appointment with Alison Ellman, but the girl looked like a grad student or something, and hardly glanced up from the book she was reading. So Agnes just paid her five dollars and went to wander through the rooms marked North American Indian collection.

  A gallery ran around the top of the large wood-panelled room. They had stuff from everywhere, from Mexico to the Arctic, but the exhibits had not been thrown together or mixed up in any arbitrary way, as they might have been at one time, but had been arranged carefully in order. The visitor was invited to enter a twisting labyrinth which showed the history of the Native Peoples from the earliest times to the present. Text panels on the wall explained each era.

  Agnes found she’d stopped to read the boards describing the impact of different waves of European arrivals as they flowed across the country. She could hear her aunt talking in her head again.

  ‘Never mind they pretty near wiped us all out. Never mind that. Just as long as they tell us just how it came about, guess that makes it all right.’

  Aunt M would have some kind of angry comment ready, whatever the curators tried to say.

  Agnes went through, following the exhibition in the direction indicated. This took her past north-east woodlands tribes and artefacts once owned and handled by her own people: clubs and tomahawks, strings of wampum, split ash baskets, birch-bark boxes, cradle boards and canoe paddles. She went on through goods belonging to other nations, past baskets from the Cherokee, shields and painted tipis from the people of the Plains, then to Navaho textiles, Zuni ceramics, until she found herself under giant totem poles from the north-western states.

  Agnes could hear Aunt M sounding off even louder now.

  ‘Most of this stuff has been got by cheating or stealing, or else it’s been looted right out of the ground. They got the remains too, you know, thousands of ’em, all belonging to our ancestors, stored away in boxes for study, just like a bunch of dinosaur bones.’

  There were arguments on both sides. The museums saw themselves as holding and guarding a cultural heritage, raising and widening public awareness, facilitating academic and scientific research. None of this cut any ice with Aunt M. She had taken an active part in various campaigns, putting pressure on museums to return their holdings, and with some success. Human remains were no longer on show. There was a growing trend for them to be taken down from the shelves, to be removed from the indignity of lying around in dusty cardboard boxes, of being stored in compartmentalised trays. The bones of the ancestors were being returned to their homelands for burial, to be put into the earth with proper ceremony.

  Artefacts were also being given back to their rightful owners, particularly those with spiritual significance. Maybe not as fast as Aunt M would like, but the process was happening. Agnes noticed that some sacred objects had been removed from display. There was a little notice explaining the absence of masks and turtle rattles used in the sacred rituals of her own people. A lot of other things were still there, though.

  For instance, there was a whole case of kachina dolls. These came from the south-west and many people said that they were just that, dolls, carved and fashioned to teach Zuni and Hopi children about the special beings they represented. But these were old and powerful. They held spirit. Even looking at them seemed disrespectful. These were fetishes and could form part of a medicine bundle, or they could be used in hunt societies and for ceremonies. They didn’t just represent a god, they embodied one. Agnes backed away, as though the case was surrounded by a force field. She glanced around at the other people wandering through. Didn’t they feel it, too?

  She went on past more textiles and pottery, coming back on herself towards the beginning of the exhibition. She stood lost in thought before a glass case of cradle boards and miniature model canoes. A clock chimed in some distant gallery and she looked at her watch. It was nearly time for her appointment.

  As she made her way out towards the exhibition entrance, an invisible beam or eye set off the low
sweet sound of a water drum. The accompanying chants were Haudenosaunee, Iroquois Six Nations. She was hearing the voice of her own people, the People of the Long House. What was the song telling her? To go on? Or to go back?

  Agnes glanced over at the desk. The girl was busy talking to someone. She could sneak out easily. After all, what did she know about Mary? A couple of stories which could be about anyone. It was the objects that went with them that made the match possible. Without those, nothing could be proved, and this museum visit had only confirmed what she knew already: her aunt would never allow her to have them, let alone bring them here.

  Agnes would have to explain that to Alison Ellman, and how humiliating was that going to be? She turned up her jacket collar and tucked her chin down into her chest. She was part-way across the polished wooden floor, making for the heavy glass doors, when a voice from behind her said,

  ‘Excuse me. Are you Agnes?’

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  5

  The Institute offices

  ‘I’m Alison Ellman.’

  The woman coming towards Agnes was maybe in her late twenties and wore casual clothes, blue shirt and khakis. She was slim and small, shorter than Agnes, and kind of pretty with short-cut wheat-blonde hair.

  ‘How did you know it was me?’ Agnes asked.

  Alison looked at the young woman in front of her. She was dressed like any student: tennis shoes, denim jeans, white T-shirt, denim jacket. She wore an earring in one ear: turquoise beads finished with a feather. Lots of kids wore ethnic jewellery these days, but the beads had a dull finish, suggesting that they were old. She was slender, slight even, still more girl than woman, but she had presence. She stood upright and when she moved it was with graceful ease. She had high cheekbones and clear features; strong brows and a straight nose above a wide, full mouth and a delicately rounded chin. Her skin was the colour of clear wild honey. She was tall, taller than Alison thought at first glance, taller than Alison herself. As she inclined her head in greeting, her long hair fell forward, soft and silky, as shiny as a raven’s wing. The eyes, though – the eyes were a surprise. They were as grey as the sky on a snowy winter’s day.