Defending the Dead (Relatively Dead Mysteries Book 3) Read online

  There had been accusations of witchcraft in neighboring towns, but Abby decided to set those aside for now. Salem Village had been the epicenter, the focal point, the catalyst—where it had all started. Of all the victims hanged at Salem, nine of them had come from the village.

  Abby sat back in her chair and considered what she had just learned. Apparently she had been sadly ignorant before now. While most people would nod knowingly when someone said “Salem” and “witch” in the same sentence, their understanding of the events didn’t go much further than that. What had really happened? And more important, why had it happened—why there, why at that particular time? Abby dug back into her research.

  By late afternoon she had compiled a list of proposed causes for the frenzy. It made entertaining reading, but there was no consensus. Candidates included: hysteria (whatever the heck that meant), Lyme disease, Jimsonweed overdoses (Abby found a very amusing story about such a problem at Jamestown, but nothing for Massachusetts), encephalitis, fungus poisoning—including ergot—post-traumatic stress (based on what trauma?), religious awakening, and fear of Indian raids. Those were just the most popular theories.

  “Huh,” she said to herself. Okay, she assumed all the surviving legal and personal documents had been examined closely for evidence of something or other. Unless somebody found a handwritten diary under the floor of some 1700 house, there was probably little to be mined there. What about the possible physical causes? She had to admit that “hysteria” seemed to fit well, but many of the lists of causes seemed, well, kind of out of date. “Sexual repression?” “Perverted habits of thought?” “Idleness.” “Faulty emotional training?” It almost sounded as though some of the so-called experts had labeled the symptoms based on what was described at Salem rather than the other way around.

  Ergotism: hallucinations, stomach upset, dry gangrene (ick!), and a burning sensation of the limbs. Jimsonweed: disorientation, dizziness, nausea, vomiting, seizures, headache. Okay, maybe some of those fit. Lyme disease was a newer candidate, starting with basic flu-like symptoms and progressing to such things as cognitive impairment, light or sound sensitivity, mood swings, and more of those tingling/burning/shooting pains. Viral encephalitis: early flu-like symptoms, followed by confusion, hallucinations, seizures, loss of sensation or even paralysis, problems with speech or hearing, and smelling nasty things that weren’t there.

  Abby was beginning to feel overwhelmed. She could understand why people had seized on one or another of these as possible causes, but from her quick reading it appeared that all the more dire symptoms were the exception, not the rule. From what she knew, initially there had been a cluster of young girls who had shown symptoms. Abby was willing to accept that they could have been exposed to the same contaminant or bacteria or virus, but there was one sticking point: most of the girls had continued to show these symptoms for weeks or months. Most diseases, then and now, ran their course much more quickly than that. One or two girls might have been more seriously affected than the others—but all of them? From different families and different parts of the village? That was really hard to swallow. If the source had been food-based, wouldn’t everyone in the village have suffered to some degree? And what about the people of Salem town who ate what Salem Village produced?

  And none of those diseases included as a symptom a malicious urge to accuse other people—old, young, male and female—of awful things like consorting with the Devil and doing harm to others. Knowing full well that such an accusation could lead to their deaths.

  All right: assume that at the very beginning there might have been a physical cause. But to sustain this handful of inexplicable symptoms over time, and to have it spread to others, surely there must have been a psychological component. Among a group of teenagers? Really? In a repressed society? And all females, at a time when women were seldom given much power or even respect?

  Enough. Abby’s head was spinning (an early sign of hysteria? she wondered, then grinned to herself). She needed to digest what she’d read, and tomorrow would be time enough to delve into the psychology of Salem at the end of the seventeenth century. And to do that she needed to know more about the people and the culture and the history of the time. Her work was cut out for her.

  11

  Over dinner Abby outlined to Ned her observations based on what she’d found so far. Ned was a scientist: he should be able to find a rational pattern in the data. Assuming, of course, that there was one. Could there be real biological evidence lurking among the remains of the accusers of Salem Village? In other cases, hadn’t people found samples of the virus that had caused the flu epidemic of 1918, in frozen corpses? And living bacteria in the guts of frozen mammoths? There might still be something from Salem. If it could be found. Abby kind of ran out of steam at the end of her summary and fell silent. For longer than she had thought, apparently, because Ned prodded her gently. “Abby? You’re woolgathering.”

  “I guess I am. Where did that phrase come from, anyway? Was collecting bits of wool so absorbing that you couldn’t pay attention to anything else? Or was it so mindless that you zoned out completely?”

  “I can’t tell you, although I could look it up on my phone.”

  “You have any comments about what I said? Observations?”

  Ned thought for a moment before answering. “I agree with your conclusion about the physical illnesses. Any number of them could fit, but only if there were a few isolated incidents, and for only a short while. What happened in Salem went on too long, and was too consistent, to make a single illness or infection credible. Especially in a small and specific subset of people in the village.”

  “Good. So why have all these dedicated researchers been trying hard for years to come up with a single answer? They’re grasping at straws. Oops, another odd metaphor. Why would anybody grasp at straws?”

  “Abby, I’m not a walking dictionary!” Ned protested, smiling. “The real question is, why do so many people want to find a rational physical explanation for what happened?”

  “Exactly!” Abby said triumphantly. “It was an awful thing that happened. Cruel. People died. Families were torn apart. It’s a wonder somebody didn’t set a torch to Salem Village and burn it to the ground so they could start over. The place is evil.”

  “And you say this without ever having seen it?” Ned asked.

  “Just read the accounts! What people did . . . Look, before I go sailing off on another tangent, are there any biological reasons that haven’t been looked at? Something in the water? In the air? Ergot has already been suggested, and it would have been found in the grain they grew and ate, but what else did they grow? What if they grew potatoes and there was something like that blight that caused the Irish potato famine?”

  “That killed potatoes, not people,” Ned pointed out.

  “Yes, but it could be the same but different, couldn’t it?”

  “Maybe. Or maybe there’s some localized chemical or mineral that would affect behavior. Or some weed that nobody paid any attention to, and then the cattle ate it all and it went away before people noticed it.”

  “Did cattle die at that same time?”

  “I don’t know, Abby, but you can probably find out. And there are plants that can harm humans without affecting other animals, and vice versa.”

  Abby slumped in her chair. “Why did I start this?”

  “Because it was a very intense period, and you wanted to see if it left a residue. One that you could sense.”

  “I guess,” Abby replied. “What’s so interesting is that people are still talking about it now, in the modern world. Whatever the cause, I guess we still all feel some sort of a collective guilt, that supposedly decent people allowed it to happen. It’s a blot on our history. It makes us think less of ourselves, and maybe wonder if it could happen again.”

  “That about covers it. If we’re done eating, we could go sit somewhere else.”

  “Sure,” Abby said. She stood up and carried her dishes over to
the sink, and Ned did the same.

  He took her hand and led her to the back parlor, where there was a shabby couch. He sat her down, then sat beside her, pulling her toward him so that she leaned against him, with his arms around her. “Let’s try something,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Try to picture what life was like back then. It’s not as easy as you think. Shut your eyes if that helps.”

  “Okay.” Abby obediently shut her eyes. “I’ve never seen Danvers, you know. I’ve seen a little of Salem.”

  Ned leaned back to look at her face. “Really? When?”

  “Last week. I was bored with the wallpaper and had a couple of hours free and needed to get out of the house . . .”

  “Why do you think you have to justify that to me?”

  “Because I didn’t tell you that day and I’m not sure why,” Abby ended with a rush.

  “Was there something to hide, Abby? Or is that the wrong question?”

  “No, I wasn’t hiding anything, exactly. But I didn’t want to wait for the weekend, when you’d be free to come with me, and I felt guilty going alone, since this affects both of us, but I really wanted to get a sense of the place before I did any more research.”

  “I really don’t see what you’re apologizing for. It’s not like a shameful secret, exactly. What did you learn?”

  “That I’m pretty sure I have at least one ancestor there. In Salem, not what was Salem Village. And he—or she—knew who one of the judges was and which house was his, and hated him.”

  “Okay. No names, or anything useful?”

  “Only that I think this person lived on Turner Street, not too far from the House of Seven Gables, which was actually the Turner House.”

  “You took the tour?” Ned asked.

  “Yes. Now I’m feeling guilty again. Is that something you’ve yearned to do for years?”

  Ned chuckled. “Abby, I’ve been there, a couple of times. Don’t worry about it. All right?”

  Abby nodded, feeling petty. “I don’t like keeping secrets. Not that I have many. See—this is what I’d like to help Ellie avoid. She has to know who she can talk to and when not to say anything—but obviously I’m messing up that part.”

  “Relax, Abby. It’s fine. Now, can we get back to my idea about visualizing the time? Now that you’ve seen Hawthorne’s house, it should be easier for you.”

  “Okay. What do we do?”

  “Shut your eyes again. You’re in a reasonably nice home in Salem Village. What do you see?”

  Abby thought. “It’s dark.”

  “Are you seeing it at night?” Ned asked, sounding surprised.

  “Hard to tell—the windows are so small. I guess so. That would be the scary time, right? No streetlights outside. Inside, not much better. A candle or two. Light from the fire. It’s not like you were going to find a cozy corner and read a book. If you could read at all.”

  “All right. Go on.”

  “Outside there were animals. Your own livestock, for one, but wild animals that could go after those. And even one cow was valuable then. You had only the vaguest idea what lay beyond your village, or the one next to it, and there were still hostile Indians around. Maybe Salem was more cosmopolitan, since it was a port, but in Salem Village it would have been different. There was a lot of land to the west—but how far did it go? So outside in the dark was a scary place.”

  “Go on,” Ned said quietly, still holding her. She could feel a quiet connection flowing back and forth between them. Was he seeing what she was?

  “So you huddled inside, together. All you had was your family, maybe a servant or two, and you needed to keep warm. Even by day it would have been dark—windows were expensive, and wood was often unfinished, inside and out. Dark clothes. Dark thoughts . . .” Abby fell silent, her eyes still closed, building the image in her head. In the present, in the real world, she was safe in Ned’s arms. In her head, she was trying to enter another era, one that was frightening and uncertain. Children died at birth or not long after; mothers died giving birth. A simple accident could cripple a man, destroy his ability to work. And there was always the looming specter of an Indian attack—or worse, the wrath of an angry God, watching, watching. Men—and women—were sinful. The Devil was always lurking, looking to capture a soul . . .

  “Abby?” Ned shook her gently.

  She opened her eyes and was back in the present. The sun hadn’t set yet, and the room was filled with soft light. “I guess I got sort of caught up in it.” She turned slightly to lay her head on Ned’s chest and listened to his heartbeat, strong and steady. “Did you feel it? See it?”

  “Let’s say it was clearer to me than it has been in the past. Maybe that’s part of our connections, that we can amplify each other’s visualizations.”

  “What we were seeing wasn’t based on anything real—it was imagination. Can we actually boost that between us?” Had this been another experiment?

  “I don’t know, Abby. This is almost as new to me as it is to you. Tell me—when you were picturing this scene, was it brighter than usual? Did you feel like you were seeing it on a screen, or were you inside it?”

  “Ned, I am not a guinea pig. You asked me to imagine something, and I did. I’ve always had an active imagination, and read a lot. Are you saying this wasn’t different for you?”

  “Abby, no, I’m not just using you. It felt different to me too. Please don’t get me wrong. Was it unpleasant for you?”

  “You mean, was I sensing fear or anything else? No, no more than I would expect people to feel under those circumstances. But we shouldn’t judge people then based on how we see things now.”

  “Agreed,” Ned said.

  They were silent for a while, their connection to each other muted but still present. Chemical, electrical, psychological—Abby couldn’t begin to explain it, but she knew she felt it. It was wordless—nothing like mind reading. There weren’t even any images: she didn’t “see” Ned’s thoughts. It was just a feeling, one that sometimes let her see the world around her—and occasionally the world in the past—more clearly.

  Finally she said, “I wonder if that’s why I like teaching children. They’re so receptive, and they don’t have as many preconceptions, or ideas about what’s right. Things just are. And they have such active imaginations. They can ‘see’ things in their minds. Why do adults lose that? Is it physiological or do they suppress it, consciously or unconsciously?”

  Ned’s arms tightened. “Well, if what happened at Salem is any indication, imaginations need to be controlled.”

  “Are thoughts contagious? Just because one person believes something, does that mean anyone he or she comes into contact with can catch it? Even if it’s crazy?”

  “Abby, I don’t have answers for any of this. I’m not a psychologist, or even a social historian. I’ll admit I’ve always wondered how Hitler could attract so many people and generate such deep commitment and enthusiasm in them, which in turn led them to do awful things. Or why any such incidents in history rose up and overwhelmed common sense and decency.”

  “But it keeps happening. Why do terrorists chop off people’s heads? Or why are there still countries where men believe that women are no more than breeders to produce children, but at the same time they are sluts not to be trusted and have to be kept locked up? Does that make any sense?”

  “Abby, didn’t I just say that I don’t know? All we can hope to understand and manage is our own little universe. What lies within these walls, and in the little universe of our work and our families. Few people manage to control more than that.”

  “So where do I go next with this?” she asked.

  “What would a crime scene investigator do? We’ve decided the physical evidence is next to nil.”

  Abby turned and sat up to face him. “Yes and no. Some of the buildings are still standing, or have been reconstructed. Like the parsonage, where it all began. The house is gone, but there’s still a foundation. There are pi
ctures of the place before it was torn down. That gives us a pretty good idea of the setting, and where it was in relation to the rest of the village.”

  “Good point. So there is some information to be gleaned there. But no relics, no physical objects?”

  “Like what? A witch’s handkerchief? A piece of furniture?”

  “Maybe. Have you read anywhere that people made an effort to destroy any artifacts? And what if some people left town and took items along with them? They might never have mentioned that the bits and pieces came from Salem, but they could have survived.”

  “And I’m supposed to find them how?” Abby said, but with a smile.

  “I’m just putting the idea out there, Abby. You’ve already said that all the documents are available online. What do they tell you, if you read between the lines?”

  “Wonder if there’s a handwriting specialist who could tell me something? But back up a sec—a lot of people couldn’t read and write then, so many are secondhand reports, which means they may well have been edited, so we can’t assume they’re accurate. And a limited number of people may have done the official recording—and those people may have had an axe to grind. Shoot, another metaphor. They may have had their own agenda, and slanted their text. Or there might be an official version and a behind-the-scenes version of the same information—I think I saw something about Cotton and Increase Mather getting themselves involved. They may have said one thing in public, but they could have been communicating with other players unofficially to try and calm things down. We have only what survived, not everything that was written, so we don’t get the full picture.”

  “Abby, this is beginning to sound like an obsession. You need to set some goals for yourself, and maybe a time limit. Weren’t you going to look for a job sometime?”

  “Well, yes, of course, if I can persuade Leslie to write me a decent recommendation. And I agree about limits. I was thinking I could take the summer to sort all this stuff out—not just Salem, but all the family lines. Salem is only a small part of that, and I should wrap that up in a couple of weeks. I should hear from Leslie soon, and we’ll set up a schedule for getting together with Ellie on a regular basis. And then I can get serious about that job when she goes back to school in the fall.”