Chris turned toward the stairs, and Alice followed him. The moment they entered the bedroom, he pulled out a satchel and began throwing clothes into it.
“What are you doing?” Alice demanded.
“Get your things packed. We’re leaving Boston. Now!”
“No, Chris. We can’t go. Why would you even suggest such a thing? You know we agreed not to desert Mary while Will’s away.”
“We’ll take her with us.” Chris stopped his packing and turned to her. Reaching out, he drew Alice close and hugged her in desperation. “Darling, it’s you I’m worried about. I have to get you away from this hellish place before you get yourself into real trouble. I thought you were being careful. This stunt today proves that I was wrong.”
Alice jerked away from him. “It was no stunt. I helped that child into this world and now that her mother’s gone, I feel responsible. And what about Mignette? She took the blame to spare me. What kind of ogre do you take me for, thinking that I’d leave that poor girl after what she’s done for me?”
“I’m sure Mignette would agree with me. Her sacrifice will be for nothing unless I get you away from here.”
“And where do you plan to take me?” Alice demanded.
“Anywhere away from here.”
Alice guessed he meant to head back to Maine, back to the woods. In her present condition such a trip would be long and miserable. But Chris was right. If they didn’t get away, she ran the risk of losing their child before it could be born. She’d seen her mother hanged, and she refused to impose the same fate on her unborn child.
“I’ll go wherever you wish, darling,” she whispered. “Nothing else matters as long as we’re together.”
He caught her in his arms and kissed her deeply. “I wish we had time to—”
Alice shook her head. “No, my darling. I’m afraid our time is running out.”
Less than an hour later Chris had their wagon loaded and ready to go. Alice was still inside trying to catch her cat, who obviously did not wish to make the trip. Gunn headed toward Mary’s house to tell her it was time to leave. He was just knocking at the door when another wagon drew up before his house. Three men hurried across the yard.
Alice heard the pounding below and called out, “I’m coming, darling.”
She tucked the squirming cat under her arm as she opened the door. Two clergymen and John Hawthorne, the magistrate who had taken Mary away, stood before her.
“Goodwife Gunn?” said Hawthorne.
She nodded. “You have news of my servant? She’s being released?” she asked hopefully.
Hawthorne exchanged glances with the two clergymen accompanying him. “That’s not why we’re here.”
“What’s going on?” Chris demanded, shoving his way between the men to get to his wife. “What are you doing at my house this time of night?”
Again, the men looked at each other, suspicious gleams in their eyes. “One might ask, Mr. Gunn, where are you going this time of night?” Hawthorne countered.
“I don’t see that that’s any of your affair,” Chris snapped.
“It is when your wife is suspect, sir.”
“Suspected of what?” Alice asked, a cold dread creeping through her.
“You have been accused of witchcraft by two parties,” Hawthorne explained. “The bitch witch died a short time ago. Afterward, your serving woman, with certain persuasion, finally admitted that you, not she, took the child. According to the guard whose care she was under, the infant was in perfect health until you stole her away. He claims you cast a death spell over her. Her death, your involvement in it, and the guard’s testimony will go hard against you, I’m afraid.”
“The guard is lying,” Alice protested. “The child was sick—sick and starving.”
One of the ministers, a tall man with lank hair, stepped forward. “There is more. My brother and I have come to plead with you to confess your devilish tricks that have so afflicted Goodwife Hargrave in the past weeks. The poor woman is still abed, raving of fiends and spirits tormenting her after the spell you put upon her. She told us she realizes now that Lady Phips was only your tool. She related how you admitted to allowing your serving woman to practice magic from the islands.”
Chris moved closer to Alice as if his nearness might protect her from their charges. “That was only a joke,” he insisted. “How could Prudence Hargrave, who’s made one false accusation already, make such a charge and expect it to be taken seriously?”
The second minister shook his head sadly. “The poor woman’s affliction is no joke. She might well follow the bitch witch to the grave shortly.”
Ollav, Alice’s black Coon cat, hissed and swiped a paw at the preacher, leaving bloody streaks across his hand. The man shrieked as he drew back.
“Her familiar!” he cried, dabbing at the blood with a bandanna. “The evidence continues to grow.”
“I’m sorry Ollav scratched you,” Alice apologized. “My pet—and that’s all he is—gets nervous around strangers.”
“Seize the beast!” cried the injured clergyman.
A wild scramble ensued, but Ollav got away. In spite of the fix she was in, Alice could admire the cat’s wily escape. She knew exactly where he’d be hiding, but the three men would never guess and her lips were sealed.
As the men chased after the cat, Chris whispered to Alice, “I think we ought to make a break for it. It’s our only chance.”
“I think not, Mr. Gunn.” Hawthorne had overheard their plan.
Alice’s heart sank. The men gave up their search and returned their attention to her, battering her with endless questions. Alice, of course, denied every accusation, but her fate seemed sealed. This was what she had feared most since that bitter cold dawn of 1685.
“You will come with us now,” Hawthorne ordered when their questioning proved useless.
“She will not!” Gunn roared, throwing a punch at the man that missed by only the barest margin.
“Chris, please, no,” Alice begged. “Don’t make things worse than they are.”
“Listen to your wife, Gunn,” Hawthorne ordered.
“Damned if I’ll let you take her!”
As strong as Gunn was, he proved no match for the three men when they all set upon him. Hawthorne soon had Chris’s hands tied securely.
Mary Phips watched from her doorway, horrified and helpless, as the three men forced Alice and Chris into their wagon and drove away down the dark street.
“Heaven help them,” she sobbed.
An hour later Alice stood in a back storeroom of the jail, facing three old women dressed all in black. Where they had taken Chris, she had no idea. The last she’d seen of him was in the wagon outside the jail as two guards hustled her inside. She only hoped he was faring better than she was.
Alice tried to back away from the women, to avoid their leering eyes and groping hands, but it was no use. The room was small and windowless, and the trio of crones stood between her and the door. Mary had mentioned an “unpleasant search” to her, but she hadn’t elaborated. Now Alice understood why.
“Well, girl, what are you waiting for?” the tallest of the women demanded. “Strip all your things off, or we’ll have to do it for you.”
This was the moment Alice had dreaded most of all. The interrogation by the ministers had been emotionally painful and embarrassing. They had accused her of all manner of unspeakable evil. Her arrest had come almost as a relief from their torture by tongue. Her arrival at the jail had chilled her blood. It was one thing to come offering charity to the inmates; it was quite another being one of the prisoners in this awful place. And being parted from Chris was almost more than she could bear.
To her momentary relief she had not been cast into one of the filth-strewn cells, but had been brought instead to this private chamber. Her reprieve had been short-lived, however. Soon the three women had entered, ordering her to remove her clothing to be searched.
A clawlike hand shot out suddenly, tearing at the high neck of Alice’s gown.
“No!” she cried. “Don’t touch me. I’ll do it myself.”
“Then get on with it.”
The three women never averted their eyes for a moment as Alice removed her things. Finally she stood before them wearing only her thin shift.
“That, too,” the woman ordered.
Slowly, dreading what she knew the women would see, Alice pulled the shift over her head. The evidence they sought would be there, she was sure of it. There was nothing more she could do to hide it from them. What had been done to her through love would now be construed as a mark of evil, sealing her doom.
For an instant her only sensation after removing the shift was cold. The night wind whistled at the bars of the door, seeming to wrap her naked body in icy sheets. She closed her eyes, willing herself to endure both the cold and the indignity of the women’s probing stares.
An icy fingertip touched her breast. Alice’s eyes shot open.
“Look just there,” the tall woman said to the other two. They all nodded, muttering dire predictions as they took turns prodding the purplish mark on Alice’s right breast.
Alice closed her eyes again and steeled herself for the explanation. “My husband made the mark,” she explained, “while we were making love.”
The trio gasped as one and drew away. The tall woman returned, peering at the bruise from Chris’s teeth and pinching it until Alice cried out in pain.
“You heard her very words,” the woman said. “She calls the devil ‘her husband.’ What more proof could we need? She admits to having lain with Satan.”
“No!” Alice screamed at them. “I mean my husband, Christopher Gunn.”
“The devil’s mark,” the three intoned, “the witch’s teat.”
“We have our proof,” the leader told the pair. “I shall report it to the authorities myself.”
Alice wanted to sob and scream and tell them all that she was innocent, but her mother’s words echoed in her mind. She lowered her head and prayed softly, “Chris, help me. I need you. I love you.”
Her words echoed hopelessly in the cold cell. She imagined she could already feel the noose tightening around her neck.
Two days passed before Alice saw another soul. For reasons not explained to her, she was left in the bare room. Once a day a plate of food was shoved under the door to her. Each time this happened, she shouted at her unseen visitor—begging, pleading, demanding news of her husband’s fate. Her questions went unanswered.
On the third day they came for her, and a short time later Alice found herself once more at the Salem Meeting House, but this time she was not there to worship God. The room was crowded with people from Boston, Salem Village, Beverly, Ipswich, Topsfield, and even Salem Town, all there to see the witch, Alice Gunn, tried, convicted, and hanged.
Still, she had no idea what had happened to Chris or why her trial took place with such speed when others in the jail had waited months. Many were still waiting. No one had told her anything.
She stood alone before the scowling judges as witness after witness came forward to speak against her. The guard from the jail explained how Alice had killed the child. He also claimed that she had bewitched him into letting her take the infant away.
After the guard’s testimony, Prudence Hargrave, with her husband silent and looking grim beside her, was brought in on a litter to give her damning evidence.
Having told of magical spells,
maleficium
, and dreams of demons, Goodwife Hargrave ended by saying, “My poor husband, too, has been afflicted by this witch. Once she almost caused his death by calling down a curse on his head. At a later time she tried to force him to commit uncleannesses with her. When he refused, she cast a spell that later caused him to fornicate shamelessly with a bar wench before my very eyes.”
“You’re lying!” Alice cried.
“Keep silent!” one of the judges yelled. “The accused is not allowed to speak unless asked to answer charges.”
Alice cast a pleading look toward Jonathan Hargrave. He paled and turned away.
Next her three female examiners were called to testify about the devil’s mark. They told all in excruciating detail, even quoting Alice’s remarks about making love to her husband.
“Does the court wish to examine the mark for themselves?” the tall woman asked of the judges.
Alice’s face flamed with humiliation as the six men held a brief, whispered conference.
“The prisoner will step to the bench,” one of the men ordered.
“No, she will not!” William Phips burst into the courtroom. “By authority of the king, I forbid it.”
Alice turned, smiling broadly at Will, her heart beating so rapidly she thought she might faint with relief.
Will called a momentary halt to the trial so that he might speak with her. Alice’s hopes rose only to be dashed as he told her his news.
“I heard about the trial the moment I got off the ship, Alice. I rushed right here.”
“Thank God you’ve come, Will. Do you know what they’ve done with Chris?”
Will glanced about the court. “No. You mean he isn’t here?”
She shook her head. “They arrested us both, but I haven’t seen him since that dreadful night. Will, you must find out what’s happened to him.”
“Don’t worry, Alice. I’ll look into it immediately. How are you holding up?”
“How do you expect?” she whispered. “They were going to hang me. But I’m safe now that you’re here.”
Will’s broad brow creased and he sighed. “I’m afraid they still may unless I can think of something. You see, the king’s edict will prevent future trials, but it won’t stop one already in progress. Don’t despair, Alice. I’ll figure a way to get you out of this, and I’ll find Chris, too.”
The trial resumed. Even poor Mignette was forced, through threats of more torture, to bear witness against her mistress. She admitted to practicing voodoo with Alice’s knowledge and consent. Jonathan Hargrave, who might have helped her by testifying honestly, was never called as a witness.
Crowds of strangers, people Alice had never seen in her life, testified instead. One man claimed she had bought fruit at his market stand, whereupon all his other goods had shriveled and turned black with rot. A woman said Alice had passed her house a week before, and she’d not had a wink of sleep since. Horrible demons and fierce black cats kept her awake all day and night. On and on it went—sick children, spoiled milk, dying animals, straying husbands—before it was over, Alice was accused of every ill in the Colony of Massachussetts, but had no opportunity to say anything in her own defense.