A Writer’s Technique for Moving Back and Forth in Time
First I’d like to send you best wishes for a healthy, happy, and peaceful 2016.
As you know I write historical mysteries that are solved by modern technology, so, naturally, readers will find themselves immersed in both the present and in the past in each book.
I’d like to try something new in my next few blogs, if you permit me. In this blog, I am posting the entire prologue of my latest book, Pure Lies. It is short, I promise. In the next blog, I will post Chapter 1. Reading these short segments of the novel can demonstrate how I switch from the past to the present (and later back again) to tell the story and unravel the mystery.
Writers and readers, I welcome your feedback. If you would prefer my usual blogs about writing and the subject matter research of my books, as I’ve done in the past, please let me know. If you find this interesting, I can post blogs similar for each book. Thank you for your support. Now, let’s travel back to 1692 and the witch trials of Salem.
Pure Lies
Prologue
It’s now high time that ev’ry Crime
be brought to punishment:
Wrath long contain’d, and oft restrain’d,
at last must have a vent:
Justice severe cannot forbear
to plague sin any longer,
But must inflict with hand most strict
mischief upon the wronger.
The Day of Doom, Stanza 139
Michael Wigglesworth, 1662
Salem, Massachusetts, July 19, 1692
Felicity Dale came to see the hangings. Her body tensed with apprehension as she observed the townsfolk gather. Those of stature, like the parish Deacons or the Court Magistrates, claimed front row seats on the grassy knoll above the village. Behind them, the crowd was energized — a tightly wound coil of humanity eager to spring loose.
Though the day was young, heat seeped into the earth and radiated upward. A scent of lilacs hovered like heavy perfume around Felicity, and the tall grass stood straight and still in the lifeless air. Beads of sweat made their way down her neck. Tucking wisps of platinum hair neatly under a starched white cap, the sixteen-year-old wound her way through the throng, nodding at familiar faces, which meant nearly everyone in the tiny Massachusetts enclave.
The crowd hushed as a giant of a man wrestled a ladder out of a wagon and brought it to lean on the wide, sprawling branch of a massive oak. The Hanging Tree. He wore black from head to toe with nary a hint of color. Coiled over his shoulder hung a sturdy, braided noose knotted by thirteen twists of the rope for strength and ready for its purpose. The man climbed the ladder, tossed the rope over the thick limb and yanked it tight.
Felicity knew that one by one, five women would hang that day. All five known to her. Elizabeth Howe of Ipswich, Sarah Good and Rebecca Nurse of Salem Village, Susanna Martin of Amesbury and Sarah Wildes of Topsfield. Who would be first?
She gnawed on her lower lip as three sheriff’s constables ushered the women forth. Their hands were bound behind their backs as they faced the spectators who swayed rhythmically to a silent hymn. Two burley deputies prodded the first matron who was to die up the rungs of the ladder. Old Sarah Wildes. Magistrate John Hathorne stood at the base of The Hanging Tree, face somber and drawn. Attired in a formal suit of gray accented by white collar and cuffs, he held a rolled-up parchment in his hands.
In a voice throaty and stentorian, he bellowed, “Do you repent, Goody Wildes? Do you confess to practicing the art of witchery and bringing your wicked spirit upon these girls, the innocent children of Salem?”
Sarah Wildes shook her head, gray wisps of fine hair sprouting beneath her cap as tears streamed down her face. The harder she sobbed, the more the crowd hooted and jeered. Finally, unwilling to relinquish her pride, she thrust her chin out and straightened her back.
Felicity could have sworn Sarah’s eyes bore right into hers. A deep shudder set her lips trembling. Not I, Goody Wildes, she yearned to shout. I had naught to do with this. T’was the others, not I. I have not spied wolves, or one-eyed cats or yellow birds. Nay, spirits do not come to me in dreams. Still, guilt pierced Felicity like a sword at her denials. Indeed, she had much to do with this. She knew the truth but could not act on it.
At that moment she saw them, the girls responsible for this travesty. They taunted the convicted woman, mocking her with insults and curses in language unfit for the tongues of young Puritan maidens. It made Felicity ill to look upon their beaming faces, eyes sparkling, lips moist. Could no one see through their subterfuge, their dissembling? Not even God?
Drums tattooed on both sides of the scaffold as the sheriff tightened the noose around Goody Wildes’ throat. Before Felicity could blink, the giant in black kicked the ladder out from beneath the woman and her body jerked and twisted in the air for what seemed an eternity. Hanging was a slow agony; worse, it visited the most terrible indignity upon a soul, as the victim’s bladder and sphincter let loose and bodily wastes flowed to the ground. The crowd inhaled, and all that could be heard that summer morning was the gurgling sound of a witch strangling to death. Then the body stilled. But the image of Goody Wildes’ face, its wide and sightless eyes, its slack pale mouth, seared into Felicity’s brain, to be recalled in future, recurring nightmares.
A rumble rippled through the mob as the deputies brought the next victim forward. Felicity’s stomach flopped, and her meager breakfast began to rise into her throat. The ritual was repeated as the second woman hanged. Felicity tried to force her eyes onto her shoes but could not keep them from flying upward at the roaring of the crowd. By the time the fifth and final woman had been executed, Felicity felt deadened. Her limbs seemed unable to respond to her brain’s commands, thought processes slowed to a fugue-like state.
Jostled by the crowd, she finally stirred herself to action. Shouldering her way through the crush of heated bodies, she fled upward farther and farther from the hangings to the very pinnacle of Gallows Hill, the highest point in Salem. From this summit, she could see water in three directions. On one side, the hill dropped off to sheer rock, a desultory locust tree and the confluence of the Wooleston, Endicott and North Rivers. But Felicity cared nothing for the view. Her breaths came in harsh gasps, and she collapsed to the ground. The coolness of the earth on her hot cheeks felt heavenly, and as she calmed, she found herself peering down the jagged back slope to where the executed women, having been condemned as witches, would be buried. . . in the cracks and crevices of the hillside’s rocks. There would be no decent, Christian burial for them. No mercy. In her mind, Felicity could see the bodies stuffed into the stony fissures, a hand or foot sticking out like a child’s poppet. She shook off the ghastly images.
Odd sounds coming from behind a nearby cluster of boulders caught her attention. Rising to her knees, she crept around to observe. Eighteen-year-old Elizabeth Booth lay partially nude on the ground. Poised above her, naked from the waist down was Deacon Elijah Burton.
A surge of hatred rose within Felicity like a malevolent tide, deeper and more violent than any she’d ever experienced. This pious man, this pillar of the community, was forcing himself on a woman, much like he’d done on her this winter past, forever changing her world. Anger ate through her like a fire ripping through sun-dried fields.
Felicity took a step forward, fists clenched, ready to defend her friend, then paused. Elizabeth moaned softly and her head arched backward. She moved her hips off the ground as if reaching for him. The Deacon moved lower, to, to –. Surely he would not, could not. Felicity held her breath as this man of the church kissed Elizabeth’s most private parts. . . places God forbade a girl to even herself touch. Her mind could not comprehend this reality. The Deacon did not rape Elizabeth. Nay, she was a willing participant.
A choking sound erupted from Felicity’s throat. Lifting her skirts, she tripped and stumbled her way down the uneven hillside kicking up dust and stones in her path. When she finally reached bottom, she clasped her hands together, lifted her head to the sapphire sky and mouthed a prayer.
Surely the Devil had come to Salem.
