“Oh please, sir, not tonight.”

James Abernathy had raised the girl’s skirts and petticoats to her waist and was about to push her onto the bed she had just folded down at the House of the Seven Gables.

“Why not?” he said.

“It’s the hanging, sir, up on Gallows Hill. It’s got me upset.”

Until that day Abernathy hadn’t given much thought to the accusations being hurled about by the Reverend Samuel Parris and other of the residents of Salem Village. He dismissed it as a kind of mass hysteria produced by the ignorance of the mainly poor Puritan farmers of the Village. But that morning, when the sheriff pulled the noose taut around the neck of Bridget Bishop, the reality of the situation had slapped everyone in Salem Town like a wet glove across the cheek. It was monstrous, yes, but it was no concern of his. As one of the Town’s wealthiest merchants, no one would be so bold as to accuse him or anyone in his family of practicing the dark arts.

However, this girl, Mary Wicks, was clearly troubled by the day’s events. If he were to have his way with her, he would need to use some tact.

He turned her round to face him and took her in his arms. “I’m sorry, Mary. Sometimes I’m an insensitive lout. Did you know this woman that they hanged?”

“No, sir. It’s just… well, I can’t understand why the townspeople are doing this. It seems as if everyone has gone mad.”

“You need to be careful who you voice opinions like that to, Mary. I agree with you, but prudence dictates that some thoughts we must keep to ourselves."

The girl looked deep into his eyes. Her own eyes were like dark tunnels to an abyss of sin, so different from most of the blue-eyed inhabitants here.

“I know, sir. I’m sorry,” she said.

“There’s no need to be sorry, Mary. I just don’t want anything to happen to you. You see… well, I guess I must confess, I’ve fallen in love with you.”

The look of infatuation that melted over the girl’s face he had seen many times before, not just with this girl but with numerous others over the years. All it usually took was a profession of affection. He didn’t understand why mistresses couldn’t just accept their station and enjoy the carnality of the tryst, the pleasures of the flesh, but they always wanted more. Even this girl, barely seventeen and a lowly chambermaid at the inn, was already inclined towards the romantic, fantasizing the perfect fairy tale of living out her years with a prosperous gentleman late of King William’s court.

“I... I love you, too, sir,” she said.

He kissed her, tenderly at first, then delving his tongue between her lips and swirling it against hers. He laid her back on the bed, raised her skirts and petticoats again, and traced a finger up her bare cleft.

“Oh, sir,” she moaned.

He opened the front of his breeches and placed her hand on his manhood. She squeezed it the way he had shown her. When he started to mount her, she said, “Please, sir, the other way.”

He smiled at that. Their first night together, he had taken the girl in the missionary position. However, the second time that evening, very shyly, she had asked if he might make love to her the way her beloved horses did. After years of boring intercourse with his wife, his cock had lurched at the prospect of taking this young nymph from behind. He was so excited that he lasted only minutes before flooding her womb with his seed.

He studied the girl’s face in the flickering light of the room’s oil lamp, at her youth, her exuberance. She seemed to get younger each time they met. “Turn over, Mary,” he whispered.

She rolled onto her hands and knees, her head resting on a pillow. He knelt behind her and reached around to unbutton her white peasant shirt. Their first time together he’d been frustrated by the long chemise she wore under her shirt. After that he’d instructed her to cut them short so they only tucked into the top of her skirts.

He pulled the chemise out, pushed it up, and molded her bare breasts in his hands. So firm yet so soft, he marveled. Young girls, he’d found, were so malleable and allowed much fondling, which he thoroughly enjoyed, and they reciprocated in the use of the medieval sex terms that heightened his pleasure. Fuck. Cock. Cunt. And girls this young were also a bit gullible and usually agreed to whatever perversion he wanted to inflict upon them. Although with Mary, even though he was the seducer, the teacher, he always had a sense that she knew more than she let on. And when he orgasmed with her, it felt like she was sucking out a piece of his soul through his cockhead. In their short time together it seemed as if he had aged ten years,

He trailed his hands down her bare sides and gripped her hips. Prodding his cock against her cleft, he was pleased to find her so wet that it slid all the way inside.

“Oh yes, sir!” she moaned, pressing back at him.

“Do you like my cock in your cunt, Mary?”

“Oh yes, sir!”

“What do you want, Mary?” It was a little game they played.

She hesitated a moment. “Fuck me, sir!”

He smiled. His libido crescendoed and he began pummeling the girl with hard, heavy thrusts.

“Oh yes, sir. It feels so good.”

Her cunt felt like it was strangling his cock, trying to choke the seed out of it. Soon, Mary, soon, he thought as he pounded her yet harder.

“Oh please, sir, don’t come inside me this time.”

“I won’t,” he lied. He had no intention of pulling out, unless it was to ram his cock into the girl’s mouth. But they hadn’t progressed that far in their lessons yet, although every time now after intercourse the girl cleaned his cock with her mouth, to get her scent off of him, he told her, so his wife wouldn’t suspect.

With each lunge the girl shifted forward on the bed, and he had to grip her hips harder just to hold her in place. Staring down at her buttocks, he noticed the little star of her anus puckering with each jolt. He had found no woman yet in the New World who would let him have her in the Greek fashion. Perhaps this one…

He wet his thumb in his mouth and slid it inside her.

“Oh please, no, sir, not there,” the girl pleaded.

He wouldn’t bugger her, not this time. He was almost there.

“Oh, Mary,” he moaned. He felt his testicles contract and the semen gush up from them like Hell’s fire. Suddenly a black cat leapt onto the girl’s back and glared at him with yellow eyes.

“Oh God! Christ!” he exclaimed as his seed exploded deep inside the girl. The cat spat and hissed and clawed the air. It jumped onto his face, and he staggered backward and fell to the floor. He tore the animal off of him and flung it against the wall. It let out an unholy screech, picked itself up, and leapt onto the bed near Mary’s head. She took it in her arms and smoothed its fur.

“Shhh, shhh,” she soothed.

Abernathy sat on the floor, shocked. He felt like he had just lost another two years. “Is that your cat, Mary?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I didn’t know it was in here. It frightened me.”

“Sorry, sir.”

“Perhaps in future we can keep it out of the room while we make love.”

“Yes, sir.”

He stood up. “All right. Now come over here and clean me.”

***

Edward Locke pressed his ear to the door of the room. It was quiet now after that ungodly noise. At first he had thought it was Mary shrieking, and had been about to fling open the door when he caught himself. As much as he wanted to protect her, the only way to stop this abomination was to carry through with his plan. Abernathy was a villain, preying on poor Mary this way. He knew what they were doing in there. The same thing they had done for a month now—copulating. It was against God and the Church and all things proper. The man was more than twice Mary’s age, and married with two children.

Edward couldn’t understand why Mary would have anything to do with such a beast. She was so sweet and seemed so innocent when he talked to her. He longed to be near her all the time, but his position as stable boy at the House of the Seven Gables wouldn’t allow this. Mary was a chambermaid, and also a serving wench in the private room in which the landlord, Robert Gates entertained his wealthier clientele. Doubtless, this was where Abernathy had seduced her.

Edward heard the church bells chime the hour. It should be soon now.

***

“That’s good, Mary. Very nice.” Abernathy lay back on the bed with the girl licking up and down his shaft. “Now take it all in your mouth the way I showed you.”

As he watched the girl’s lips slide down his instrument, the door to the room flew open. Abernathy’s eyes snapped up to it.

“You filthy pervert,” his wife snarled.

The girl jumped off the bed, pulling her chemise down over her breasts.

“Elizabeth!” Abernathy said. She looked stern standing there in her long black dress and white cap. “This isn’t what it seems.”

“Don’t lie to me, you bastard. Why are you even here? You’re supposed to be in Boston.”

“Gates and I had some business to discuss. The hour got late and I decided to stay the night and start early in the morning.”

“That doesn’t explain how your foul thing ended up in that girl’s 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 corners of her eyes. She seemed to have aged ten years in the past six weeks. The stress must be terrible. Edward’s heart fluttered when she put on her brave smile.

“Hello, Edward. I’m so happy you came.”

He sat down beside her and took her hand. “I told you I would. I would never let you down, Mary.”

“I know.”

Oh, how he wanted to kiss her, but that would be too dangerous. It was dangerous enough just visiting. He had heard tongues wagging at the inn, rumors and conjecture as to the nature of their relationship. If he were jailed as a wizard, that would be the end.

They talked for a while, and then he whispered, “I will be bringing the late tea tonight, Mary.”

She looked into his eyes and nodded.

At least Mr. Gates, the owner of the House of the Seven Gables, had intervened on Mary’s behalf to keep her out of the Salem Dungeon and Jail. Edward had heard that the small cells there were rat-infested and filthy, with no bedding or food provided, the inmates often bound or shackled. This small jail near the Seven Gables allowed Mr. Gates to provide her with meals and an early-evening tea.

“Time to go,” the jailer said.

Edward gave her hand a squeeze, stood up, and left.

***

Being a stable boy, Edward didn’t usually take Mary her meals or tea, but Lucas, the kitchen boy who did so, knew that Edward was sweet on Mary, and the bribe that Edward paid him convinced him.

Edward entered the jailhouse with the basket and walked up to the jailer. He was reading a book at his desk under the light of an oil lamp. Mr. Legwand, it was tonight, looked up at him and said, “Where’s the regular boy?”

“He took ill, sir.”

“Ah.”

Edward took the pot of tea, wrapped in a cozy, out of the basket along with two cups. “Would you like me to pour it, sir?”

“All right.”

Edward served the tea and stood there.

“All right,” Mr. Legwand said, “off with you.”

“Yes, sir.” Edward gave a short bow and left.

Outside, he crouched in a dark spot off the street, amid a cluster of trees. He waited about an hour, until the church bells chimed nine o’clock, and then went inside the jailhouse again. Mr. Legwand’s head lay on his arms on the desk. He was fast asleep. Edward rushed to the open cell and said, “Come on, Mary.” Her tea, he noticed, had not been touched.

He led her out the back door. Nearby he had tethered two horses—Mary’s favorite, a black mare, and the horse called Galahad, the fastest in the stables. He handed Mary a pair of his winter long johns to keep her from chafing, watched her put them on, then helped her onto her mare.

“My cat?” she said.

“He’s in the basket behind you.” He’d fastened a closed-lid basket to the back of the saddle. Mary opened the lid and, smiling, dipped her hand inside.

Edward mounted his stallion. “We have to be going.”

They rode hard to the east for a while on the main road, trying to put distance between them and Salem Town. Then Mary left the road and headed towards a bush thick with oak and hickory trees. At the tallest tree she dismounted and said, “Did you bring a spade?”

Edward pulled the hand tool out of his saddle bag and gave it to her.

She got on her knees and began digging.

“Do you need help, Mary?”

“No, I’ve got it. She pulled out of the shallow hole a small taupe oilcloth wrapped in a bundle. When she opened it, Edward was surprised to see a large number of silver coins.

“Where did you get those?” he asked.

“I earned them.”

There was no way that amount of silver represented her wages from the inn. Edward didn’t want to think about what that meant.

It was too dangerous to continue on the main road. They would have to navigate eastward through the heavy forests. Mary wanted to go to Billerika, on the Concord River, about thirty miles as the crow flew. She knew some people there whom she had met on her journey from the New York Colony.

They traveled through the night, sometimes riding, sometimes leading their horses so they wouldn’t stumble in a hole under the black blanket of the foliage overhead. Edward tried to keep their direction true by referencing the North Star.

They continued for an hour or so past daybreak and then stopped near a brook.

“We’ll water the horses here,” Edward said, “and make camp in that thicket of trees over there.” It was too perilous to travel during the daylight hours.

“Did you bring me a change of clothes?” Mary asked.

“They’re in your saddle bag. There’s a towel and some soap there as well.”

Although the jailers had allowed her a basin and water, she had not had a bath in six weeks. Mr. Gates at the inn had laundered her clothing during her incarceration, and Edward had taken her a change each week on his visit.

“I’ll go and set things up while you bathe,” he said.

He walked the horses over to the site he’d chosen and tethered them loosely so they could graze. He laid out two blankets on the grass in the shade. Searching in his saddle bag for his own towel, he noticed the small tin of baking powder and the toothbrushes. He’d forgotten to give Mary hers. Few people cleaned their teeth, but Mary had introduced him to it, and he loved the freshness it left in his mouth.

On his way back towards the brook he heard her singing. It wasn’t a sweet, dulcet tune, the kind he imagined might come from her lips, but rather it sounded melancholy, the words monotonal, like a mantra. Creeping closer he saw her standing in water to her waist, lathering herself with the soap. He stared, agog, as she massaged her small breasts with the suds and then reached between her legs to wash herself there.

His instrument lengthened and thickened in his breeches to the point of discomfort. He tried to adjust it with his hand and when that didn’t work he shifted his feet to change his stance. The snap of a twig underfoot caused Mary to look his way.

She smiled. “It’s all right, Edward, you don’t have to hide.”

He stepped out from behind the bush. “I, uh, I wasn’t hiding, I just came to give you your toothbrush.” He held up the brush and tin of baking powder.

“Thank you,” she said. She started toward the bank of the brook and he walked towards her. She took the items from him, wet the toothbrush, and sprinkled some powder on it. The water at the bank was shallower than where she’d been standing, and Edward could now see a tuft of fine dark hair between her legs. At the sight of this, his instrument lurched and billowed out the front of his breeches.

“Oh no,” he groaned under his breath.

Mary was rinsing her mouth. She looked at him and smiled again. “Why don’t you come in the water and get cleaned up too, Edward?”

His Adam’s apple felt too large for his throat, and he was barely able to say, “All right.”

With his back to her, he took off his boots, his long white socks, his shirt, and finally his breeches. He slowly turned around, afraid she would be shocked at his nudity. Instead she stared at his instrument, a grin on her face. She held out a hand towards him and he waded into the brook.

“Would you like to clean your teeth?” she asked, offering the powder tin and her brush. He had forgotten his own up with his clothes. He took hers, and as he brushed, she splashed water onto his torso and began soaping his back, and then his chest and arms. Being taller than her, the water didn’t cover his waist, and his instrument was exposed and jerked with every gentle touch.

Embarrassed, he said, “I’m sorry, Mary. I’ve never been naked before with a… ” His voice trailed off.

“It’s all right, Edward. Are you a virgin?”

He shifted his eyes away and nodded.

Suddenly her soapy hand was around his shaft, stroking it up and down.

“Oh God,” he moaned, closing his eyes.

“You have a beautiful cock, Edward.”

The crude word sent a shiver rippling up his spine. “Oh please, Mary… be careful…I think I’m going to—”

She dipped his instrument into the water and when it sprang back up, she swallowed it to the root.

“Oh, sweet Mary!” he exclaimed. A sensation unlike any he’d ever felt shook him to the core. It seemed as if his entire life essence was shooting out of the head of his instrument, directly into Mary’s mouth. She stroked his shaft, swallowing and glugging, until finally his legs gave out and he stumbled backward into the water.

“Oh, Mary, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“Shhhh.” She put her fingers to his lips. She sat in the water beside him and kissed him, her tongue making lazy circles in his mouth.

When she pulled back he was astonished to see that the lines seemed to have disappeared from her brow and eyes. She looked as young again as the day he’d first met her.

“Does this mean I’m no longer a virgin?” he asked.

She smiled. “No. To be rid of that you must fuck a woman.”

He grimaced at the word and hoped God would not strike them down. But he also took some comfort knowing he had not committed that grave sin.

***

They slept until dusk before starting on their trek again. They had drifted a bit south during the night and needed to ride northward once they reached the Concord River. Despite his long sleep, Edward felt tired.

After a few hours they saw a cluster of buildings, a small town.

“Let’s go around it,” Mary said. “The place we want is farther north.”

They skirted the town and soon saw a log house along the shore of the river.

“That’s it,” Mary said.

They tethered the horses to a hitching post out front, and Mary knocked on the door. An older woman opened it—in her late forties, Edward thought, her hair streaked with gray and age lines creasing her face. When she saw Mary she called out her name and wrapped her in a hug.

“Hello, Mother,” Mary said. She turned to Edward to introduce him, and seeing the surprise on his face, said, “Oh, Lena isn’t my real mother. All the girls call her that. Lena, this is Edward. He saved my life.”

The woman stepped out of the doorway and hugged Edward, too. “Thank you for that, Edward. I can’t believe how they treated my dear sweet Mary.”

Mary got her cat out of the basket, and Edward took their belongings from the saddle bags into the house. There were three girls inside, ranging in age from fifteen or sixteen to mid twenties. Mary knew them all by name and gave each a hug in turn.

“You poor dears must be famished,” Lena said. She and the girls sat them at the table and served them soup and hard-crusted bread.

After they had eaten, it became obvious to Edward that Mary and the women had a lot of catching up to do. He still felt very tired, and the heat from the fire burning in the hearth wasn’t helping. He drifted off a few times while listening to the conversation, until Lena said, “Have you heard about Abernathy?”

“No,” Mary said. “What about him?”

“He’s contracted the pox. His wife and children have moved out and he’s in isolation.”

Edward felt like he’d been punched in the gut. “It was me,” he blurted. “I caused it.”

Everyone looked at him.

“How?” Lena said.

“I wished him to die of a disease. I cast a spell upon him.”

Lena gave him a motherly look, though the small smirk on his face spoiled it somewhat. “I’m sure it’s just a coincidence, Edward. After all, you’re not a wizard, are you?”

“No!”

He found the girls stares unnerving.

“I’m very tired,” he said.

“Of course,” Lena said. “I’m a terrible hostess. Let me show you to your room.”

Edward followed her. The room was small and the bed narrow. Lena turned down the blanket and said, “I’ll leave you to it.”

The room had no door, but it was out of sight of the main area. Out of modesty, Edward considered sleeping in his breeches, but they were dirty from the road. He took them off and crawled under the blanket.

He fell into a deep sleep, but every so often the drone of voices from the other room broke through. He heard isolated words that sounded like “virgin,” “cock,” and occasionally a monotonal chant that reminded him of Mary’s song earlier.

Sometime during the night he woke with a start. The room was black. In the doorway he thought he could see a silhouette.

“Mary?” he said.

The figure approached and pulled back his blanket. Suddenly a tongue was swirling in his mouth, a hand gripping his instrument.

“Oh, Mary,” he moaned. He felt her hair tickling down his chest, his belly, and then that same wet, warm bliss he had experienced earlier that day engulfed his instrument. This time he couldn’t hold back, and clutched her head as his hips flexed up to meet her mouth.

Just when he thought he might explode, she crawled onto him and inserted his instrument in her cleft.

“Oh yes, Mary,” he whispered. “I’ve waited so long.”

She swiveled up and down and side to side while he held her hips and jerked his pelvis up. Her hips didn’t feel as slim as what he had seen in the brook, and when he moved his hands to her breasts, they seemed larger than he remembered.

She leaned down and kissed him again, raking her nails on his shoulders. When she bit his lip the combination of pleasure and pain was too much. With a loud groan he let loose, his seed searing up through his instrument like molten lava.

“Oh yes!” Mary moaned, though it didn’t sound like her. She pressed her buttocks down on him hard, her body trembling. She teased her tongue over his lips, whispered “Thank you,” and was gone.

Edward pondered for a few minutes about what had happened. He was certainly no longer a virgin now. A sense of pride blossomed in his chest at the thought of this, though he also felt some discontent. It would have been better in the light of day, he thought, when he could have basked in the beauty of his beloved and gazed into her mysterious dark eyes. Still, it had been good.

A bone-weary lethargy overtook him and he fell into a deep slumber again.

***

He awoke to the clang of pots on the pot-bellied stove and the smell of frying bacon. He got dressed and walked into the main room. All the girls were there, including Mary, her smile radiant.

“Good morning, Edward,” she said. “Did you sleep well?”

“Yes,” he said, smiling back. “Yes, I did.”

Lena emerged from one of the bedrooms, and Edward was shocked. The gray streaks had disappeared from her hair. It was now raven-black. And the lines on her face seemed to have smoothed out completely. She looked ten years younger.

The girls had ladled porridge into bowls and placed a platter of bacon on the table.

“Let’s eat,” Lena said.

They all sat down, and Lena and the girls stretched their hands out to each other. Edward took Mary’s and the youngest girl’s to the left of him. She looked older today somehow, he thought.

Lena shut her eyes and said, “Master, we thank you for this food and pray we can do your bidding today. We thank you also for delivering to us Edward and our Mary. May you strike down our enemies and grant us comfort in eternal youth. The seed is life.”

“The seed is life,” the girls intoned. They opened their eyes and looked at him, smirking.

Then Edward knew.