Chapter 2

  Tituba

  The following evening, the stranger went to see Tituba, the Reverend Parris's servant from New Spain. He had been watching the houses of The Accused for several nights now, and he knew he would find her at dusk, in the back garden, gathering herbs for supper. The garden itself was sheltered by a low wall and a row of tall trees which hide it from the road. At that hour, it was shrouded in darkness. The only light Tituba had was a wavering candle and the glow from the second story window where the Reverend Parris read his Bible. But she had no trouble maneuvering; she knew the garden well; she had only to pick a few sprigs and go back inside.

  Being night, her senses were heightened. Several times she suddenly looked up thinking she had heard something – a twig nap, a random footstep – only to realize soon after she had only imagined it, the chorus of insects resuming their symphonic arrangement.

  Venturing deeper into the garden, she hummed a tune, one her people had brought with them, an upbeat spiritual of some kind or other. It helped her to focus and kept her mind from wandering and it also reminded her of the life she once had before the Reverend Parris, which gave her hope of returning there, one day. Of her mother, her earliest memory was that of her washing her long black hair using rain barrel water, the sunshine making every strand glow like polished ebony. Tituba smile, wondering why this peculiar moment, seemingly ordinary, was so frequently the first one she thought of when she reminisced.

  Suddenly, another voice entered her head. A low growling voice she did not recognize.

  “Childhood,” the voice said, “is so deeply ingrained. Yes, even the master remembers when he was a child, so long ago.”

  Tituba jumped back. “Who's there?” she cried. “What do you want? What business do you have here, spirit?”

  From out of the shadows, a figure emerged. One bent, “like a Divi-Divi Tree,” Tituba said.

  “Do you have Sight?” she asked, stepping back in fear. “Are you clairvoyant, spirit?”

  “Your thoughts were loud...so loud,” the stranger replied. “So loud, I could not help but hear them.”

  She still could not see his face, but his frame was so crooked, she wondered whether he was not kneeling or traveling, as animals do, on all fours. He did not speak for a while after that. He stood in the shadows, his breath labored, his utterances reduced to grunts, groans, and snarls. But coming into the meager light of her candle, a terrible face suddenly revealed itself, with crimson eyes like that of a ravenous wolf.

  “Evil,” Tituba thought to herself. “Pure Evil.” Then aloud she asked, “Are you a jumbie?”

  “I know not of such creatures,” the stranger hissed.

  Cautiously, Tituba backed up onto a small hillock nearer to the house, adjacent to the lean-to above which, the Reverend Parris read his Bible.

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  “I too am a servant. Aren't we all?” the stranger remarked. “My master requires a cure,” he added, clutching his claw-like hands close to his heart.

  “What little I know, I learned from my mother,” Tituba offered as appeasement.

  “Yes...Hudoo...Ancient magic...Old world spells...Maybe you've even seen a page or two of the Devil's Book!”

  The stranger continued mumbling. Though there was no one else in the garden, Tituba had the distinct impression he spoken to an unseen other, who listened from afar or from a different plane of existence, for some of his words seemed not for her benefit alone, but seemed more apt for an eavesdropper.

  “Tell me about African Hudoo magic,” he said, drawing uncomfortably closer.

  Now she could smell his breath, which immediately repelled her.

  “Old blood,” the stranger hissed. “What you smell is old blood.”

  He stared at her menacingly. He suddenly leaned in, close to her neck. Tituba pushed him back and retreated towards the back door.

  “Blood is knowledge,” the stranger said. “But first, tell me of African Hudoo and the other names in the Devil's Book.”

  She wanted to scream. Rumors had already reached her she had been accused of witchcraft. How would it look now, if she suddenly screamed and the Reverend Parris came storming down and saw her alone in the garden, hysterical? And what if he saw the stranger? How could she possibly explain his presence? Surely the Reverend would not believe her story. Who would? Either way, the case against her would only be strengthened. The whole affair would look like a clandestine attempt by her to make a pact with the Devil.

  A fire illuminated the stranger's eyes, a beastly appetite which scared Tituba to death. Her only recourse was to somehow reach the back door unscathed.

  “In the old country,” she stammered to allay him, “my mother sacrificed chickens and used their bones in pagan rituals. But on one does such heathen acts now. Not in Salem. Here we are all God-Fearing Souls.”

  The stranger guffawed.

  “Fools master!...Nothing but fools,” he said. “If you won't tell me, I'll just have to exsanguinate the knowledge from you...from the very tasty blood that now courses through your veins. I can hear the roar of its currents...I can feel the wake of the hot liquid already dripping from my mouth.”

  Tituba's back was against the house. As the stranger advanced, she slid along the exterior, feeling her way toward the handle of the back door. The stranger now had the huge yellow fangs of a dire-wolf. Tituba wanted to scream, but was frozen with fear. The stranger grabbed hold of her and started to force back her head.

  “I only know how to heal with herbs,” she cried, hoping the Reverend Parris would hear her.

  “But witches can do more...They can fly on brooms and make dolls that inflict pain. Your false words don't fool me.”

  Tituba threatened to scream.

  “Your feeble Reverend cannot save you. His God is nothing but a myth. My master is real. As soon as you stop fighting and let me drink, you too shall have eternal life!”

  What saved Tituba, was nothing short of a miracle. In her left hand, she still clutched a large garlic bulb she had rent from the garden, and as they struggled, she somehow managed to foist it into the stranger's foul smelling mouth as he lunged forward to bite her on the neck.

  The creature reared back, his mouth spewing blood; he snarled in agony and for a moment, seemed completely incapacitated. Tituba then struck him with a brick from the garden edging and stumbled toward the back door.

  “Is someone there?” the Reverend Parris shouted, rapping on the second floor window. “Is that you Tituba? What on Earth are you doing out there? You know I don't like you skulking about in the yard at night.”

  He could not see exactly what was going on. All he could discern were two shadows close to the house. Then he disappeared from the window. The room went dark. The Reverend made his way down the back stairway, toward the door leading to the garden.

  By now the stranger had spit out the garlic clove which, upon the ground, resembled a bloody ball of cotton. He wiped the blood from his mouth. “Perhaps you'd rather have money,” he grumbled. “We can pay,” he said, opening a purse full of glittering gold coins.

  “The Reverend's coming,” shouted Tituba in a panic. “You'd better leave now!”

  “Fool!” the stranger hissed. “I'll find others.”