Defending the Dead (Relatively Dead Mysteries Book 3) (25 page)

“Which by now would be permanently fused together with rust. If I’m going to be diplomatic, I’d say I’ve been waiting for you to come along so we could go through them together.”

“Good save, pal, so I’ll give you a break for now. But next week, we get serious about this place!”

25

On Sunday morning, as she waited for Sarah Newhall to arrive, Abby found she was surprisingly nervous. She had never liked public speaking—she kept tripping over words, even though she had written them and knew them well, and in between she went blank, even though she had talking points neatly laid out on paper in front of her. She had never had the same problem talking to children, even in groups, although in the short time she had worked with them, they’d gotten more blasé and harder to impress. Nobody wanted to stay young anymore.

Why should she be nervous talking to Sarah? She liked Sarah, and she was pretty sure Sarah liked her, and not just as Ned’s girlfriend. Sarah had gone along on the Salem trip and had been supportive and curious—more so than Ned, in a way. But Abby really wanted to have her interpretation of what had happened at Salem make sense to other people, even if that view never made it out of this house.
Why, Abby?
She had to believe that it was part of understanding who she was, and what this ability to see the dead meant, and how it connected to the other people in her life. And that didn’t even address a different question: Were there more people like her? How many? How could she find them—and did she want to?

Sarah arrived just after nine and brought a coffee cake still warm from the oven. “We need our strength for this, right?” she joked as she handed it to Abby. “I’m assuming you’ve got coffee.”

“Gallons. Come on in.”

Sarah followed Abby to the back of the house. “Are there any changes to the house I’m supposed to gush over?”

“Nope. I’ve been so busy with this Salem stuff that I haven’t done anything new, at least since you were last here. But I’ve promised myself—not to mention Ned—that next week I’ll dig in and get back to working on the house. We can’t afford to waste this lovely weather and the long days. Did you do a lot to your place, you and your husband, or did you hire people?” Abby busied herself making another pot of coffee.

“A bit of each. When we bought the place, we sank most of our capital into the purchase, so any improvements we wanted we had to do ourselves. And a colonial is so different from this place! Of course, at our house I felt guilty every time we cut into a wall—some of those boards are the width of a tree, and you could still see the saw marks from seventeen-whatever. But we thought we really needed electricity in the house, so we had to go ahead and cut—respectfully, of course.”

“Did you have an audience?”

“You mean, like Johnny or another family? No. I don’t think they liked the fuss and noise, and we didn’t know they were there. I’m sure Ned told you that Johnny had stayed around because he died young in an accident? It’s not like they all just drop in to say hello—there has to be that precipitating event, right?”

“That’s what I’ve found, but my theory is a work in progress.”

“I know the feeling. Anybody at home here?”

“No, not in the house, just in the cemetery, as far as I know. That’s okay with me. There were enough real people here who left their own physical evidence that we don’t need specters to help.”

“How did your day with Ellie go? I didn’t get the details,” Sarah said, settling herself on the kitchen stool and accepting a mug of coffee from Abby.

“Good, I think, although I haven’t had a report card from Leslie. We stayed away from touchy subjects, but they weren’t off-limits. It’s going to take a while all around, I think. But that’s fine.”

“I’d like to get to know Ellie, someday,” Sarah said wistfully.

“Oh, of course,” Abby said, contrite. “She is your granddaughter. But I don’t think I can bring that up with Leslie just yet.”

Sarah waved a hand at her. “That’s all right—I understand. But it’s hard to be patient. So what’s your agenda for today?”

Ned came down the back stairs in time to hear Sarah’s question. “Hi, Mom—I thought I heard your voice. And I’d like the answer to that too.”

“Abby hasn’t shared it with you?” Sarah asked her son.

“Only the general idea. This is her show.”

“Well, guys, fill your mugs and we’ll get down to it,” Abby said. “I move we adjourn to the dining room.”

They took seats around the dining room table. “What, no slides? No whiteboards? No video?” Sarah said mockingly.

“Uh, no?” Abby said, smiling. “It’s just us, talking. But I will admit, as I was going through the information I’ve collected yesterday, I kept thinking about it in legal terms. Like on
Law and Order,
you know? You look at a suspect, and you search for evidence. If you find a reason to reject that suspect, you find a second suspect, and so on. Then when you get to court, you have to present the evidence in a way that makes it clear to the jury that the particular suspect you decided on really did do the deed. So you guys are the jury, I guess, except that you get to ask questions along the way.”

“Why don’t we just get started?” Ned prodded gently.

“Right.” Abby cleared her throat. “First, let’s go over the basic time line, to set the stage. In the later sixteen-hundreds, Salem was a major port, rivaling Boston. It had a population of about twenty-five hundred people, and a fairly well-to-do merchant class. Salem Village, now known as Danvers, was the poor relation to the west. It was part of Salem but too far away by standards of the day to really be part of the town. It was also mainly agricultural, so you might say there was a class difference. Anyway, the village decided it wanted its own church, since for some people to get to the Salem church was a ten-mile walk. But nothing happened quickly or easily, and even when they got their church, it wasn’t clear that it was officially recognized. Anyway, the bottom line was that Salem Village wanted to be its own place, with its own church. But even then, the five hundred or so residents of the village couldn’t seem to agree on much else, and spent a lot of time fighting each other and Salem and the church. I told Ned I think that’s what kept them warm in winter.”

“The fighting?” Sarah said, laughing.

Abby nodded. “So that’s the background. Now comes the part most people know, or think they know. In 1689 the village hired Samuel Parris to be its minister. By the way, he wasn’t the first. I’ll tell you more about him later, but he was kind of demanding, considering what a tiny church it was. Anyway, he was hired in June, and he moved his family in, as well as a South American Indian couple named Tituba and John, and another girl named Abigail Williams, who will play an important role, as you’ll see. Things roll along well enough until January of 1692, when Abigail and Samuel Parris’s daughter Elizabeth start acting strange. Nobody could find a cause, and in February the local doctor declared that the girls were bewitched. And the two girls start flinging accusations around. Then, as you probably know, it spreads like wildfire, and by the time things died down, nineteen people had been hanged, one was pressed to death, and some others died in prison. The frenzy, if you want to call it that, went on through all of 1692, and then kind of fizzled out by May of 1693. Anybody who hadn’t been executed by then was pardoned by the governor. End of story. But the big question is,
why
did this happen at all?”

Sarah applauded. “Great summary, Abby. You sure you don’t want to go to law school?”

“Nope, not me. Anyway, now we come to part two: the causes. Ned and I have talked a little about this, and I thought we could get the physical or chemical causes out of the way first.”

“You don’t believe any of them?” Sarah asked.

“Not really, or not as a sole cause. Look, the majority of the accusers were young women, say between the ages of ten and twenty. Most physical causes wouldn’t affect that group so selectively, or not naturally. Let me say before I start that a lot of people have been digging into this subject for centuries, so I’m just the last of a long line. Various people, from serious scholars to cranks, have proposed all sorts of theories, although I haven’t seen anyone mention aliens. People have cited convincing evidence, but I think trying to pinpoint a single physical cause is not useful. Anyway, here’s the list I’ve made of proposed sources.” Abby outlined what she’d read, which she’d already discussed with Ned. “And I’d like to add to that possible lead poisoning, from the glazes used on most plates and bowls of the time, which fits some of the symptoms but which again wouldn’t be so specific to that group of sufferers; and carbon monoxide poisoning.”

“That’s a new one,” Ned commented.

“Yes, it is. But it makes some sense. I’ve read that the winter of 1692 was particularly cold, and I’ve also read that Salem Village was kind of cheap about giving firewood to the parsonage, even though it was included in Parris’s contract. So I can easily imagine that whoever was living in the parsonage in 1692 huddled together in one room with a fireplace. Ned, you’ve seen the foundations—it wasn’t a very big house. Anyway, they probably plugged all the cracks they could find, to conserve heat, so there wasn’t good ventilation. Burning wood released some carbon monoxide, which could cause some of the symptoms. The timing makes sense, and it explains why it was the two girls living in the parsonage who were affected first.”

“Not the others?” Sarah asked.

“This is pure speculation, but I’d guess that Parris spent a lot of time outside the house. His wife Elizabeth was sickly anyway, so maybe any new symptoms weren’t noticed. And I have no clue where the Indian slaves slept or spent their time, but I find it hard to imagine them cuddling up with the rest of the family. So the girls were the most likely victims. Of course, half the town might have been suffering from the same problem.”

“But you said you’ve rejected all the physiological causes?” Sarah asked.

“They might have been contributing factors, but I don’t think they were the main problem.”

“What about psychological causes?” Sarah asked. “The so-called hysteria?”

“I hate that term—it’s so demeaning to women,” Abby responded. “Even though most of the accusers were young women. And I stress that ‘young’ part, because we’ve probably all seen the effects of puberty on young women, even today, although it might well have been later in onset in those days. But the decade between ten and twenty should cover it.”

“Hang on,” Sarah interrupted. “You’ve got a bunch of physical symptoms, and a lot of medical causes for at least some of them, if not all, or not all at once. And you’ve got natural hormonal spikes, hence mood swings. And then you’ve got a sort of mob effect. As you say, Abigail and Elizabeth started it, but then it spread to their peers in different places throughout the village. Worse, it lasted for months. The first official accusations started in February, right?” When Abby nodded, Sarah pressed on. “And accusations continued through, what, May?”

“That’s about right. Once the accusations had been made, one or another court had to follow through, so the trials went on for a while after that. You might be interested to hear that once someone was accused, they were tried very quickly. And executed fairly quickly too, at least by today’s standards. The first hanging in Salem took place in mid-June, barely a week after the trial and conviction.”

“So what’s your verdict on hysteria, Abby?” Ned asked. “Is it real? And does it fit here?”

“Maybe.” Before he could protest, Abby held up a hand. “I know, that sounds wishy-washy. But in my opinion, I think there were multiple and sequential causes, so there’s no simple answer.”

“And you’re going to tell us about them?” Sarah said.

“If you two will stop interrupting!” Abby said. “You okay for coffee? Because this is where the story starts to get interesting.”

“I could use some more,” Ned said, standing up. “And this seems like a good point to pause, since you’ve left us with a cliffhanger of sorts.” He smiled at Abby.

“My intentions exactly, sir. I’m spinning you a story.”

They all drifted to the kitchen and refilled their coffee mugs. Ned snagged a piece of coffee cake and was munching on it when they heard the front doorbell ring. “Are we expecting anyone?” Abby asked.

“Not that I know of,” Ned replied. He headed for the front of the house, while Abby and Sarah followed more slowly and stopped in the dining room, listening. Ned returned thirty seconds later with the caller: Leslie.

Leslie stopped dead at the sight of Sarah. “Ned, you didn’t tell me you had company. I can come back some other time. Hello, Sarah.” Leslie looked distinctly uncomfortable.

“Nonsense,” Abby said firmly. “You must have come here for a good reason, and you’re not interrupting anything. We’re just rehashing the history of the witch trials.”

Leslie studied Abby’s face to see if she was joking. “Seriously?”

“Yes. I have a new theory.”
And some new ancestors you might be interested in,
Abby thought but restrained herself from mentioning.

“Well,” Leslie hesitated. “Ned, does your mother know about . . . you know?”

“About Ellie?” Ned said. “Yes. And also about Ellie’s ability to see the dead. But they haven’t met. And I haven’t seen Ellie since we talked.”

“Leslie, don’t worry,” Sarah said quickly. “I don’t expect anything. But since I have the same ability, I’ll help if I can. If you want me to.”

Leslie was shaking her head, but more likely in disbelief than in rejection. “I guess that’s why I’m here—we need to talk about all this. I can see that now. And Sarah? It looks like you’re a part of this discussion.”

“Did Ellie say anything?” Abby asked anxiously.

“No, or not about this family mess.” Leslie waved her hand vaguely at the people around the room. “But I can see that something’s got to give, and sooner rather than later. Can we sit?”

“Sure. You want coffee? Or coffee cake? Sarah made it.”

Leslie smiled briefly. “You always did make great coffee cake, Sarah.”

“Why don’t I go get . . . everything?” Sarah volunteered, and turned and hurried toward the kitchen before anyone could object.