Wicked Girls Page 2

  what serve on town council

  and vote as church members.

  After Mother died, Father sold his cargo ship,

  built the biggest house in the Village

  and wed the sister of Thomas Putnam

  to sit on that bench where he does.

  Behind my father, the men

  of mended trousers

  straighten their necks.

  I try never to stare

  directly at the upright heads

  of those what sit behind—

  the good sons, all them

  not off or lost to war.

  My eyes shift ’pon Isaac.

  Did he just glance this way?

  Nothing best smudge my face.

  My hands heat under my gloves.

  A drop of water dins my head

  and I swallow hard a cough

  screaming at the roof of my throat.

  I switch fast my gaze

  to the row below Isaac,

  where sit the Gospel women,

  which my father

  wishes me to be.

  Following the wives

  of upstanding men

  fall the lesser women,

  and I sit behind them, us girls

  and servants. The slaves and heathens

  are not allowed

  in church at all.

  MERCY LEWIS

  Ann Putnam Jr., 12

  Her name is a blessing,

  not simple and plain like Ann.

  Ann with sticky spiderweb hair,

  not the gold that willows

  down Mercy’s back, smooth

  and perfect as God’s breath.

  All the men stop

  whatever they are about

  whenever she goes past.

  HELPFUL

  Ann Putnam Jr., 12

  “Mercy, let me help you

  carry the other bucket,”

  I say, and sidle next to her on the path.

  We walk along in silence.

  I want to ask her how she slept,

  what it was like when she lived in Maine,

  did she have a horse,

  did she see any Indians,

  does she like me?

  But instead I ask,

  “Is Mother well this morning?”

  Mercy doesn’t even turn to look at me.

  “Yea, she seems quite herself.”

  Mercy sets down her bucket,

  rubs her hands together.

  “I can carry both buckets if you like,” I say.

  She shrugs and smooths her bonnet.

  I walk a step behind her

  all the way home,

  just so I can watch

  the way she swings her arms.

  A KIN TO WHOM?

  Mercy Lewis, 17

  Two weeks in this new place,

  and night comes restless

  with wind that claws

  over the roof

  like trapped cat paws.

  When I close my eyes to sleep

  I see my mother.

  She holds my father’s scalp.

  Mouths of my sisters and brothers

  gash open in scream.

  Yet I hear no cry, no yell, nothing.

  Under the bed, I pressed

  my hands against my ears.

  Bare Indian feet pounded

  the floor, blood splattered

  like a bucket of paint

  hurled against the wall.

  Blood raindrops fell

  thick as mud, slow as dew.

  As before, I cannot budge.

  My legs dead wood.

  I cannot lift my finger,

  cannot blink an eye.

  I do not think I breathe.

  Like twisted wind

  I hear the heavy breath

  of the man who slays my mother.

  I clasp my hands and pray

  that this is just night sleep

  and come morrow

  I will be with my family.

  But I wake in servant’s quarters

  under a thin quilt warmed by low fire,

  rise to another day of fetching

  for Missus Putnam and her babies.

  Still I welcome the dawn.

  NEVER LEFT ALONE

  Mercy Lewis, 17

  Little Ann circles, buzzes

  in my ear like a barnyard fly.

  I should almost like to shoo her

  off my shoulder, but she fixes on me

  with those chestnut eyes

  like I were her queen.

  “Let me put the baby to nap.”

  Ann relieves my arms.

  Master Putnam shakes open the door,

  a gust of wind shoots snow

  behind his head like a fountain.

  He staggers to his chair.

  I untie his boots, yank free

  his gloves and rub his red hands

  to salve his numb and cold.

  His eyes, like a flaming torch,

  search over my body,

  and I want to be anywhere

  but bent at his feet.

  Will this new man I serve

  be the same as the last?

  Wilson barks and shakes madly

  his fur so that I am blanketed in white.

  Master Putnam withdraws his hands,

  “Go and fetch thee some dry clothes.”

  My heart ceases panic

  as I turn the corner to my room.

  “Why are you covered in snow?”

  Ann startles me, then gallops to my side.

  I point at the dog.

  “Well, you had better change

  to dry skirts,” Ann says.

  “Thank you, Ann.

  I had not thought of that.”

  Ann blushes. She tags behind me

  with a strange eagerness to help me

  be rid of my soggy clothes.

  I prevent her entering my room.

  “Do you not have your gathering

  and visit the Minister’s girls today?

  Should you not like to find

  your cloak and gloves,

  and then I will say you are at the stables?”

  Ann sprouts up on her toes.

  “Oh, yes! I shall find them.”

  I close my door, but a whine

  and a scratch, and the door is wide again.

  “Well then, dear Wilson, my prince,

  in with thee.”

  LITTLE-GIRL GAMES

  Margaret Walcott, 17

  “I refuse playing at Scotch-hoppers.”

  I roll my eyes at little Betty.

  “I did not sneak away

  to play them baby games.”

  Abigail punches her younger cousin

  in the side. “That be a game

  for warm weather.”

  Ann paces the floor.

  Her eyes fire.

  “We could play Queen

  and her subjects!”

  “Fine. I be the Queen,” I say.

  “I command ye all

  to sit under the table

  and speak not at all.”

  The three little girls scurry

  beneath the table like rabbits

  scared into a hole.

  I kick up my feet

  and fluff my long black hair

  in the hand glass. If only

  my nose were not so red.

  “What now?” Betty asks

  after several minutes of quiet.

  “You lose!” Abigail laughs.

  “Silence!” I hold up my hand.

  “You both lose. Stand in the corner.”

  The girls’ eyes edge with tears.

  Ann crawls from under the table.

  “This is dull. Let’s play at something new.”

  “This game be fine.” I smile at her.

  “We can tell fortunes.” Ann dangles

  my favorite before me.

  Betty shakes her head.

  �
��But that be a sin.”

  Ann whispers, “Not if none

  does catch us.”

  I frown as they gather

  a glass of water and four eggs.

  “Do we form a circle?” Abigail asks

  as though she’s never done this.

  I sneeze and my nose does drip.

  I lift an arm to swipe it dry

  and Isaac Farrar

  with his wide shoulders and buttery smile

  jumps into my thoughts.

  My stomach squirms—

  what a fool I acted,

  rubbing my nose on my sleeve

  in front of him!

  I shake my head.

  “What then do we do?” Abigail asks.

  “Oh, you are a fool,” I say,

  and grab the bowl of eggs.

  THE SHELL GAME

  Ann Putnam Jr., 12

  We huddle near the fire.

  I clutch Betty Parris’s little hand,

  and she clasps Abigail.

  Whether it was Margaret or me

  or the Minister’s niece

  who first learned to read

  egg whites in a glass, I know not.

  Margaret cups an egg over the water,

  then sets it down and says,

  “Go on, Ann, let ye take the first egg.”

  I crack the shell, scoop out its yolk,

  and ask what husband I will make.

  We stare at the floating mass

  as if it were a cloud,

  and wager at the shape.

  “It looks like a ship.

  See the mast,” Margaret says.

  Betty nods.

  “A sailor for Ann?” Abigail says,

  pawing for her own egg.

  I snatch the lot away.

  “Or a royal or merchantman,” I say,

  and hand the next fortune to Betty.

  NOT MINE TO TAKE

  Mercy Lewis, 17

  I sneak from my work

  of spinning and darning

  and unlatch the wooden box

  wherein hides the necklace

  too lavish to be worn upon the neck.

  My fingers brush each red stone

  of Missus Putnam’s necklace,

  a necklace that belonged

  to her grandmother before her.

  It will one day belong to little Ann.

  The weight of the gems

  clasps heavy round my neck.

  In the looking glass

  I turn side and side.

  The stones change hue

  in differing light.

  I used to bounce sun

  around the room

  with my mother’s hand mirror,

  back when my greatest duties

  were learning Mother’s recipes

  and writing out my passages.

  How I despised that endless

  copy work and now

  what I would not give

  to be a lady of correspondence

  courted by suitors.

  A flicker in the doorway.

  I stuff the rubies and gold

  deep into the box.

  I fall to my knees

  as though absorbed in housework.

  The baby screams

  and the kettle sirens,

  and today I miss my mother

  and her gentle smile

  so far down inside me

  I can barely drag myself

  up off the floor.

  CAUGHT

  Margaret Walcott, 17

  Past the crooked evergreen

  and the brook what lost its water,

  on my way home from playing

  games on who’ll make me husband,

  I cross Ipswich Road.

  I rub my eyes. His two blue ones

  be looking straight on me.

  My pulse starts to gallop

  like a steed. But today I trip not.

  I track on up to him and say,

  “Be you following me?”

  His arms be thick enough

  to lift the axe of three men.

  Isaac’s laughter shakes

  through him so fierce

  it scatters the snow off his boots.

  “Yea, Margaret Walcott,

  betwixt tending the stables,

  staking out the fields

  and bringing wares to town,

  I be scouting all the time after you.”

  He raises one brow.

  “But where hast thou been?”

  The color splashes over me,

  drenching me red. I hold up my buckets.

  “Fetching water,” I say.

  “Thou art far from any stream

  I know of,” Isaac says,

  and shakes his head.

  His eyes catch on me

  like he be holding lightly

  my face with his hand.

  “I must then be lost,” I say,

  and I pick up my bucket

  and my skirts and trot off.

  And do so quite a bit like a lady.

  ANN PUTNAM SR.

  Ann Putnam Jr., 12

  Mother never questions where

  I have been. She notices not my entrance

  into the house. But I note each patter of her foot.

  She treadles the spinning wheel

  as though she weaves a song

  of high tempo. I am mesmerized.

  I set to work at her feet.

  My hands sting just from drafting her wool.

  “There are too many loose fibers.”

  Her voice is a whip.

  I rub harder the flax between my hands

  till the strands be perfect for the wheel.

  Mother thanks me not.

  “Will you teach me your way

  to treadle?” I ask.

  But Mother hears me not.

  She hears only her own tapping

  of the wheel.

  She admires her yarn, refastens her bun

  and motions me away.

  “Go back to your study.”

  GIRLS AT PLAY?

  Ann Putnam Jr., 12

  I check again that we are alone

  and crack open the eggshell.

  Today what floats to the surface

  is shaped like a death box.

  I shudder, and we all drop hands.

  Perhaps we should have sewn tapestry

  or rolled hoops, instead of playing folk magic.

  “Maybe your husband will be an undertaker,”

  Abigail says.

  But a chill colder than winter wind

  trembles my arms. I hold in my breath.

  Margaret’s face turns dust and ice.

  She says, “I fear we let loose

  a thing what leads to the grave.”

  NOT SUPPOSED TO CONGREGATE

  Margaret Walcott, 17

  Reverend hands my father

  the blue shawl I left

  at the parsonage

  like some one-eyed fool.

  “The girls were

  at some sort of mischief

  at the meetinghouse.

  Betty and Abigail been struck

  rightful ill.

  Pity Margaret can’t act a lady

  such as does her cousin Ann,”

  Reverend Parris lectures to Father.

  I can feel the leather lash my back

  before Father closes the door.

  If only they knew Ann

  be not only with us

  but be always first

  with the herbs and chants and telling stones.

  While I be strapped

  it seems rightful unfair

  that Ann be sainted.

  I nearly wish to confess

  what mischief we all been about,

  conjuring that death box.

  I swipe the tears from under my nose.

  Step-Mother creaks afore my door

  on her stubby legs.

  “Maaaargaret!�
��

  She stretches my name

  like it were a hide.

  “Be at your chores!”

  The mound of mending in my basket

  and bruises on my knees

  from scouring like our maid

  cause me ponder whether

  I have enough merriment

  with them little girls.

  Outside the window

  snow falls light and graceful

  and perfect,

  long as none does touch it.

  Isaac must be riding

  through this snow,

  it covering his arms

  and his head all white.

  All them soft little flakes

  landing ’pon his lips.

  I touch my own

  and wish to be out of here.

  UPROOTED

  Mercy Lewis, 17

  I am no gypsy.

  I seek but soil

  and a place to dry my boots.

  The boots I am given

  at the Putnams’ flap

  as I walk.

  My toes cannot fill them.

  I swaddle my feet in muslin,

  pack them to size.

  But the stuffing shifts

  for the boots are borrowed,

  were never intended mine.

  A sole stalk that survived

  the cruelest winter, I search

  for friendly, familiar terrain,

  where I can fashion my boots

  and trade in the temporary,

  a plot of land

  where my feet burrow

  into the ground

  and belong.