1. Salem, 1692


    Date: 9/18/2015, Categories: Historical, Author: WritersFriend, Rating: 9, Source: LushStories

    mouth.” Thoughts roiled through Abernathy’s head. “I… I don’t know how it happened. The last thing I remember was the girl turning down the bedsheets. She… she must have bewitched me.” Mary’s eyes widened and a look of fear swept over her face. “Is this true, girl?” Mrs. Abernathy said. “No, ma’am.” “It is true!” Abernathy said. “See there, it’s her familiar.” He pointed at the cat crouched on the foot of the bed. It turned its attention on him and began hissing. “Is that your cat, girl?” Mrs. Abernathy said. “Yes, ma’am.” Abernathy thought he saw a look of doubt waver in his wife’s face. “Will you testify to that in court?” she asked him. “Certainly.” *** Edward Locke tossed and turned in his bed in the room attached to the stables. Sleep would not come. Everything had gone so wrong. That morning, July 19th, five more women had been hanged on Gallows Hill. Counting Bridget Bishop on June the 10th, that now made six. Mary had been in jail for more than a month and was soon to be tried. Edward had no doubt she would be found guilty. The evidence against all the women who thus far had been executed had been paltry. In Mary’s case it would be Abernathy’s word against hers, and who would the jury believe? He couldn’t have imagined this outcome when he slid the note under the front door of the Abernathy house on the 10th of June. Earlier that day, when Abernathy had pulled his horse and buggy into the stables of the House of the Seven Gables, Edward had known what the man’s evil ...
    intent was. Abernathy always took the same room at the inn, and from previous times when he’d spied on them, Edward had figured that 10pm would be opportune. He had ridden hard to the Abernathy house and back again, hoping Mrs. Abernathy would see the note in time and act on it. She had, but with dire results. This was all his fault. He had to make it right. The black cat jumped onto the bed beside him. He took it in his arms and stroked its back. It was the only thing of Mary’s that he had, the only bond between them. He was embarrassed for a moment when he felt his instrument begin to harden at the close contact. But it wasn’t the animal causing this, he knew; it was thoughts of holding Mary this way, of fondling her smooth flesh. He leaned his head down and kissed the cat. It licked its raspy tongue over his lips. “That bastard Abernathy,” he said. “I hope he catches some disease. I hope he dies.” *** Two days later, Edward showed up at the small Salem Town jailhouse at two in the afternoon. He was only allowed one visit per week and the intervals between them felt like months. Mary had no one else to come see her. She was an orphan, the same as he, and had come from the New York Colony after her parents were murdered by the French and their Indian allies in King William’s War. The jailer led him to the open cell and walked away. Mary sat on her cot, her hands in her lap. Her features looked pinched and fearful, with lines creasing her brow and crow’s feet beginning at the ...
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