Defending the Dead (Relatively Dead Mysteries Book 3) (16 page)

“More or less. How do you want to do this? I can drive around, or we can park somewhere and walk.”

“Walk, I think. Something feels wrong about looking for seventeenth-century ghosts in a twenty-first-century vehicle.”

“We could find a horse,” Ned suggested.

Abby looked at him to make sure he was joking. “I can’t say that everyone had a horse in those days. Or that women rode them at all. Besides, I don’t think it would help. For a start, I can’t ride.”

“I can’t either,” Ned replied. “Scratch the horse. Where do you want to start?”

Abby thought for a moment. “I think we should go straight to Danvers, since that was the epicenter. There’s not all that much to see there, and I don’t want to check out the historical society, or at least not yet. Then we can head for Salem itself. That way we’ll know how far apart they are. That made a big difference to the people who lived in Salem Village. For the ones farthest out, closer to Andover, it was over ten miles, and that would be quite a trek for people who wanted to go to church on Sunday. That’s why they argued for their own church in the village. Have you been to Danvers before?”

“No, I can’t recall that I have. Salem, yes, but not lately. What do I need to know?”

“I’ll spare you the history for now, but as far as layout, Danvers is not a typical New England town. You know, town green in the center, meetinghouse and/or church, the houses of the wealthier folk around the green.”

“And there’s a reason, I assume?”

“Because the village just kind of happened,” Abby said promptly. “Most towns back then were created deliberately and laid out. Salem Village was never officially founded, so they missed out on all that. The settlers came first, and the village after. And from what I’ve read, the villagers started fighting with Salem and with each other pretty quickly. Maybe that’s what kept them warm in the winter. Although I have to say, based on what I’ve read, the people who lived in the village didn’t do much else than fight. Maybe that’s just what people thought was worth recording, and the rest of the time they had picnics and hayrides. Or at least tilled the fields and so on.”

“Official documents can be incomplete,” Ned agreed amiably. “People record what they think is important at the time, and now we wish they’d saved all the minutiae. And things get lost over time, which means there are gaps.”

“There are good reasons why I didn’t major in history!” Abby said. “Too many footnotes! You try to make one statement, and you have to qualify it in case somebody attacks you or contradicts you. Academia, or at least the publishing side, can be a real pain that way.”

“Whereas we set forth with a bunch of cockamamie theories about ghosts, and there’s not a footnote in sight.”

“I prefer to call it keeping an open mind. I’m not trying to convince anyone else—except maybe you.”

“Okay, we are now arriving in Danvers. Where to, madame?”

“Uh, the middle?” Abby said, suddenly unsure. “From what I’ve seen, it all began at the parsonage where the minister lived from 1689 on, along with his wife, his daughter, another girl named Abigail Williams, who was a year or two older than the daughter, and the Indian slave Tituba and her husband. The two girls and Tituba started throwing accusations around early in 1692, and it spread from there. But the people accused were scattered all over the village. Even the ones who were related—the three Towne daughters—lived from beyond the northern boundary to close to the southern one. John Proctor and his wife lived south of that boundary, and the Coreys west of them. So it’s not like there was one focus, unless you count the parsonage and the church. So we start there.”

“Uh, I don’t think my GPS can find 1692 addresses,” Ned said.

“Very funny,” Abby retorted. “Besides which, the parsonage doesn’t have an address. It’s nothing but a foundation, now an archeological site, behind some modern houses. You have to park and walk back to it. So find Centre Street and we’ll fake it from there.”

“All right. You’re not related to Parris, by any chance?”

“Not that I know of, but there’s lots I don’t know about my family, especially back that far.”

After a few wrong turns, Ned managed to locate Centre Street, which proved to be a short street lined with ordinary houses from the early twentieth century. The promised path to the parsonage was marked by a small and rather shabby blue sign that identified it as an archeological site, not the nexus of one of the most troubling incidents in the early history of the country. He found a parking space and turned off the engine, then turned to Abby. “Are we going in?”

“We’re here. We might as well. It looks so insignificant, doesn’t it?”

“Very ordinary, but things change a lot in three hundred years. Let’s go.” He came around to the other side of the car, and Abby was waiting for him. “Are you nervous?”

“I . . . don’t know. I don’t know why I should be. I’m pretty sure I’m not related to Samuel Parris, but I want to see where it all began. Is that weird?”

“Abby, there wouldn’t be a sign if people didn’t want to see this. Let’s go.”

The lane was too narrow for a car, and paved with stone blocks. They followed it to a small park, dotted with information signs, but there was no longer a building there, just a couple of stone foundations and cellar holes. Abby walked over and stood at the edge, peering down. “It looks so . . . ordinary. Not very big, is it? I mean, the house might have been a bit bigger than the cellar, but not a lot—there’s no other foundation. I’ve seen a reconstructed floor plan—it was basically two rooms, side by side, and each one had a large fireplace. The stairs to the second story were right in front of the door. And that was all there was. And they had, what, at least four people living here, not including Tituba and her husband—wonder where they stuck them? Maybe she was mad because she had to sleep outside in New England winter, which she wouldn’t have been used to. Wouldn’t that be ironic?” Abby fell silent, looking at what amounted to a hole in the ground lined with rocks.

After a while she commented, “You know, I read that when they were doing the excavations they found a lot of redware, made locally.”

“Doesn’t the glaze have a lot of lead in it? Did you look at lead poisoning?”

“It does and I did. Again, it didn’t quite fit, although I suppose it’s still a possibility. The symptoms included abdominal and joint pains, muscle pains, numbness or tingling in the arms and legs, headache, and mood disorders, but none of the sources mentioned hallucinations. But most people in the village would have been using the same kind of redware, which was cheap and plentiful. One of the earliest potters mentioned by name in New England was John Pride, and he worked in Salem as early as 1640.”

“So why did you reject the idea of lead poisoning as a cause?”

“As I said,
everybody
would have suffered from it, not just a handful. And the result seems kind of passive, not active—it doesn’t lead you to do crazy things. I know—it would be a nice, simple theory. But nothing about this whole thing seems either nice or simple.” Abby walked away a few steps and shut her eyes, feeling a bit stupid. She was standing in the midst of a middle-class neighborhood—did she expect the Parris family to be hanging around now?

Ned let her alone for a few minutes, for which she was grateful, and eventually she opened her eyes and rejoined him. “Nothing,” she said, before he could ask. “There’s no one here, or at least no one I can see.”

“It’s early days yet. You want to go look for the other buildings in Danvers?”

“I suppose, although as I said, they’re scattered all over the place. You don’t mind weaving your way through neighborhoods?”

“Not a problem.”

Maybe Ned thought it was easy, but Abby found herself having trouble trying to keep an image of the 1692 map in her head while navigating much more modern streets. Did everybody who ever spent time in a place leave some of their energy behind them? Maybe an infinitesimal amount each, but add it to all the other contributions over a few centuries and it could become overwhelming. Since it wasn’t, that suggested that she wasn’t picking up something from everyone, just a select few, starting with her relatives. And people in great distress as well? The jury was still out on that one.

As they drove, Abby said, “You know, I’m not sure I’m doing this right. Either I should get really serious and dig into all the available information, or I should just drift around wearing a lot of scarves looking for ‘feelings.’”

“That I’d like to see.”

“Well, I could track down each and every person who made an accusation or was accused—people have covered that ground and made maps. It would take time, but I have time, if I choose to use it that way.”

“But?” Ned said, watching for the next turn.

“I don’t know. Maybe I’m just frustrated. I mean, I know that some ancestor of mine is not suddenly going to pop up in front of me and introduce himself—that’s silly. But honestly, the idea of trudging around from site to site—where there is no sign of what was there in 1692, in most cases—just sounds boring. I know, I said this was just an exploratory trip. I don’t have to decide this minute.”

“Have you defined what you’re looking for? What your goal is?”

“To see if I have any witch blood? No, seriously—to see if I can pick up even an inkling of anything from that time, and if that tells me anything about what happened. I don’t have to prove anything, or tell anyone except you, but I want to know.”

“What about where the trials were held? Lots of people, both accused and accusers, all crammed together in one place.”

“Okay, that makes sense. Where?”

“Is there a Salem courthouse?”

“Not anymore. There’s a plaque, I think.”

“Is that enough?”

“Let’s find out.”

16

Abby pulled out her cell phone and called up Google. “I’ve read that the courthouse at the time was at the intersection of Essex and Washington streets, in the middle of town. Some of the early examinations were held at the First Church, at the same location. Both are gone now, although there were several later First Churches on the site, and then it became a jewelry store. Now there’s a restaurant in the building, but at least the latest church building is still there.”

“Lo how the mighty are fallen!” Ned said. “How do you want to handle it?”

“Well, I could use some lunch, so let’s find a restaurant—not the one in the former church—and then walk around a bit, and then home in on where the examinations happened. Does that work?”

“This is your excursion, so your call, but that makes sense to me.”

Ned found a parking garage from which they could see the water of the harbor, and then they went into an unassuming place that served sandwiches. Once they were settled with their food, Ned said, between bites, “This place goes crazy in October, as you can probably imagine.”

“Well, given that we’ve seen a couple of magic shops between the garage and here, I’m not surprised. Why is that, do you think?”

“People like to dress up? And also hide their identity so they can let loose. Masks play a part.”

“Okay, I can see that. But why here in Salem?”

“Because of its history, I’m guessing,” Ned replied, before munching on a handful of potato chips. “It’s convenient. It’s a place for like-minded people to gather, and everybody knows where to find it.”

Abby sighed. “I suppose what we’re doing here isn’t that much different, although I prefer to do it alone instead of with a crowd of crazies.”

“I understand. You ready to go?”

“I guess.”

They tossed their trash and left the restaurant, then meandered north and east, toward what was now the town center, although Abby knew from her last trip that the town in 1700 had not extended much beyond the modern Essex Street. Along the way, Abby said, “You know, I read
The House of Seven Gables,
but it was a while ago. I didn’t really make the connection to the witch trials then. I certainly didn’t know that one of Hawthorne’s ancestors was a judge at the trials—the only one who never apologized, which is why Nathaniel added the
w
to his surname. Funny how much of New England history kind of ties together, over time.”

“Keeps things interesting, doesn’t it? Kind of like
Six Degrees of Separation,
only played out over time.”

“I’m not related to either of them, as far as I know. I wonder, if this ability is genetic, is it binary?” When Ned looked confused, Abby tried to explain. “I mean, if this is linked to a gene, can I sense a fifth cousin four times removed? Would the signal strength, if you will, be weaker than if I was sensing a fifth great-grandmother?”

Ned laughed. “Abby, I have no idea, and right now, I can’t think of a way to test it, unless you could line up a slew of the people all at once and test them one at a time. Since the ones you meet seem to be tied to places, that could be difficult. You just keep reporting back whatever you see, and someday maybe we’ll put it all together.”

“Big help you are,” Abby grumbled. “I want answers now.”

“Ah, but you are young and impetuous,” Ned said with mock formality.

Abby blew a raspberry at him. “Well, impetuous me wants to go find where the action was in 1692. From what I’ve read, the courthouse and the First Church lie pretty much due west of here. The prison was off that way.” She waved vaguely off to the right. “Nothing’s left of any of them, except historical plaques. I suppose nobody thought they deserved to be preserved, so they fell down from neglect or were replaced.”

“Happens in any city or town, so don’t read too much into it,” Ned said. “Let’s go.”

Holding hands, they wandered along Essex Street toward the historic district, passing a large museum, for which Abby made a mental bookmark. Not today, but later, maybe. Not because it had anything to do with her family or ghosts, but because it was an interesting place: she really did need to hang on to a few outside interests that didn’t involve her dead ancestors, or now witches. A block or so beyond the museum, they came to the intersection that Abby had identified as the site of the First Church. She stopped and studied the corner: it was definitely modern, and busy, with cars passing and pedestrian malls and shoppers. How was she supposed to plug into anything from the past here, in the midst of all this?