"Would not your life be made easier if you lived within Salem proper, Matthew?" Roger Dufrain asked mildly. "You could spare yourself such a long journey each day." At 30, Roger was the junior of the three judges, and his unlined face with its ruddy complexion emphasized his relative youth. Some among the people thought that, in his robes of office, Roger resembled a choir boy -- an opinion that was widely shared but never spoken aloud.
"The Lord did not intend for our lives to be easy, Brother Roger," Hopkin replied while hastily donning his own regalia. "Else He would not have sent The Great Fire to test us. Besides," he added with a slight smile, "the daily ride to and fro is my only chance for the quiet contemplation that seems to elude me elsewhere." Dufrain returned the smile -- he knew that Hopkin had six children at home.
"Well, the matter pending should not detain us long," Bolton declared. "The girl is clearly guilty."
Hopkin stopped buttoning his robe and turned slowly to stare at Bolton. The Chief Magistrate's blue eyes were icy, although his voice was deceptively mild, at first. "Well God save us, Brother Hugh, I wish you had included that information in the summons that brought me all this way in such haste. We hardly need put ourselves through the trouble of swearing witnesses and examining evidence, since the Reverend Hugh Bolton, with the wisdom we normally accord only to the Lord God Almighty, has already determined the outcome of the case!"
Bolton flinched in the face of such vehemence. "I -- I only meant that the facts seem clear. After all, there was enough evidence to order the warrant for a search. You did sign it yourself."
"Aye, I did, and with good reason. However, a warrant is one thing, my Brother, and proof of guilt quite another. Otherwise, all that we three do in presiding over this court is but a sham, a mockery of God's justice." Hopkin took a step forward, then another. He stood barely an arm's length from Bolton, now, and his voice was dangerously quiet as he said, "And I will have no part in such a mockery -- not today, not tomorrow, not ever. Is that abundantly clear to you, Brother?"
"Yes, yes, of course it is, I meant no . . . that is, I never mean --"
"Perhaps we might prepare to take the bench, my Brothers," Dufrain said calmly. "The people await us, as they have done for some little time, now."
Hopkin took in a deep breath, expelled it, and let the anger fade from his face and voice. Still staring into Bolton's porcine face, he said, "As usual, our younger Brother speaks sensibly." He stepped back from Bolton, glad to be away from the rancid odor of the man's breath. Settling his Chief Magistrate's robe more comfortably on his shoulders, Hopkin said, "Come then, my Brothers. Let us do our duty, as God is our judge. For, surely, He will be."
###
". . . and it was shortly after ten of the clock that my sister's fever broke, God be praised. I stayed a while longer, but then she bid me return home to care for my own family. So it was just shy of midnight that I walked past that girl's window and heard the Devil's voice."
"Your pardon for a moment, Goodwife," Hopkin said. Then, turning his head, he called out, "Bailiff, the daylight grows faint. Be so good as to have the lamps lit."
A few moments later, as the oil lamps bestowed upon the courtroom their flickering light and distinctive odor, Hopkin asked the witness, "What gave you to think it was the voice of the Devil, and not simply an ordinary man speaking within the house?"
Goodwife Trixie Abbandando frowned in thought. "The tone of it, Your Lordship. It were not like the voice of a living man," she said finally. "It sounded . . . tinny, and far away, like. I knew right off something was not right about it."
"And what did you do then?" This was from Dufrain.
"What any Christian would do. I crept to the window, stood on the very tips of my toes, and peeked inside."
"What did you see?" Dufrain asked.
"I saw that girl, that Susan Bright --" She pointed an accusing finger toward the dock "-- sitting at a small desk, at which a candle burned. Before her, she had an infernal device, a wicked tool of Satan. It was from there that the voice came forth."
"And what did it say, this Devilish voice?" Bolton asked. "What evil thing did you overhear?"
The witness hesitated. "Well, I could not make out any word, Your Lordship. I were too far away." Her voice hardened. "But I saw the wicked thing clearly, and I know this much: the apple tree produces naught but apples, and never will. The mouth of Satan does not bring forth the Gospel."
"Please, Goodwife Abbandando, restrict yourself to the facts, as you witnessed them," Hopkin said gently. "Leave the interpretation to others. Now, tell the court what you did after you saw what the accused was doing."
"Why, I continued on home, fast as my two legs could carry me. Told my husband what I'd seen, soon as I was inside the door. He said I must tell the Court of it, straight away. So, first thing the next morn, I did."
Hopkin glanced at each of his fellow judges in turn. Seeing that neither had more questions, he told the witness, "Be so good as to rise and approach the evidence table."
As Trixie Abbandando stood at the long table that ranged in front of the judges' bench, Hopkin asked her, "Do you see before you the device you first spied in Susan Bright's bedroom?"
A number of objects were arranged upon the table, but the woman pointed to one without hesitation, although she did not allow her finger to actually come in contact with it. "This is it here, Your Lordship. This is the Devil's tool I saw!"
She had indicated a rectangle of wood, about ten inches by seven. Upon it were affixed several small metal objects of different sizes connected to each other by bits of thin, insulated wire. The three judges looked at the object with interest. So did many of the spectators, who remained in their seats but craned their necks to see.
The witness was dismissed. Over the next two hours, the court heard from several others.
The Sheriff who executed the search warrant described the results of the raid on the Brights' home, pointing to the evidence table several times in explaining what he and his deputies had seized.
Neighbors of the Brights testified as to how they might have heard unusual sounds coming from the accused's household, but weren't certain. The witnesses' answers were carefully calculated for their own protection -- to deny any knowledge at all might leave them open to criticism if the girl were convicted; to admit suspicion of her activities could bring punishment for not reporting it voluntarily.
The girl's parents were called, each in turn. They both denied any knowledge of Susan's possession of the infernal device. But they also refused to condemn their daughter, saying that she was a God-fearing child who, if she had sinned, had done so from the foolishness of youth, not evil intent.
Hopkin found that he rather liked them for that.
Then it was time to question the accused herself.
Susan Bright, all of sixteen years old, was sworn and duly seated. Her reddish-brown hair was swept back from a face that might be beautiful one day. Her gray eyes were blinking rapidly, and she gripped the arms of the witness chair tightly, as if to keep her hands from trembling. She was clearly terrified.
As well she might be, Hopkin thought. This business could cost her the highest price there is. In this world, at least.
Hopkin led off the questioning, as was customary.
"Susan," he said gently, "You have heard Sheriff O'Bannion testify how he did discover that --" he gestured toward the device "--in your room. Do you deny that it was there?"
"No, Your Lordship." Her voice trembled a little.
"And you have also heard Goodwife Abbandando swear that she saw you use it to coax forth voices. Do you deny this?"
"No, Your Lordship, I do not."
This caused murmuring among the spectators, which Hopkin silenced with a glare. Turning back to the witness, he asked sternly, "Do you therefore admit to being in league with the Devil?"
The girl began to shake her head to and fro, saying, "No, Your Lordship, no, never! I have naught to do with the Evil One, or with any of his works!"
Hopkin leaned back in his chair, signaling to Bolton that he might take up the interrogation.
Peering at the witness with his piggy eyes, Bolton said slyly, "This instrument you were seen using, when did the Devil give it to you?"
"The Devil never give it to me, Your Lordship! Never!"
"How then did you come by it?"
"It were my brother's. I found it one day, among his things."
"Your brother! What is his name? Is he in this courtroom?"
"His name is -- was -- Jonathan, Your Lordship. He died last year, of the cholera."
"Dead is he? How very convenient!" Bolton's sarcasm was as ponderous as his wit. "How do you propose we question this brother of yours, then -- through necromancy? Has the Devil taught you that forbidden art, as well?"
"I know nothing of necromancy! I know not even what it is! I have no truck with the Devil!" The girl began to weep softly.
Bolton drew breath to speak. but Hopkin touched his arm lightly. The fat man subsided, looking like a spoiled child being denied a third piece of cake.
Hopkin waited for the girl to compose herself, then nodded to Dufrain.
"So, you believe the device belonged to your late brother?" Dufrain's voice was clear and calm, with no hint of Bolton's theatrics.
"Yes, Your Lordship."
"Know you how he may have come by it?"
Susan Bright hesitated. "I -- I think mayhap he did build it, Your Lordship."
There was more murmuring, which Hopkin again stifled with a stern look.
Dufrain paid the spectators no heed. "How could a mere boy fashion a device such as that?"
"He told me he had found a book, your Lordship. In the ruins of an old house, out in the countryside."
"The Devil's book!" cried a woman from the third row of seats.
Hopkin banged his gavel once, loudly. "This court will be in good order," he said sternly, "or this court will be cleared!"
Once calm had been restored, Dufrain asked the girl, "Can you identify the book your brother used? Is it among these here?" He gestured toward the evidence table, on which rested several volumes seized from the Bright home.
She approached the table as if it had teeth and claws. Glancing up at Hopkin, she received a nod of encouragement, and stepped closer. After only a moment's perusal of the stack of books, she picked one out. "This is the one, your Lordship. Jonathan said he found the knowledge in here to build the device. He said it was something called a . . . a rah-DEE-o."
The word was repeated in a dozen or more muttered remarks before Hopkin gaveled the courtroom quiet. He bid Susan Bright return to the witness chair, and signaled to Dufrain that he wanted to take up the questioning again himself.
"Even if you did not make or procure this device yourself, Susan, why did you employ it to listen to the Devil's voice?"
"I had never touched it afore that night, your Lordship. I knew not how to operate it, but I must have touched something in error, for suddenly there was this voice that came from it. I was so surprised, I just sat there before it, listening."
"Do you not know the danger of giving attention to the words of Satan, child?" Hopkin's voice was not unkind.
"But they could not have been Satan's words, your Lordship," she protested. "It were a man's voice, true. But it were praying -- praying to the Lord Jesus. . . ."
###
"The poor twit of a girl meant no harm. She used bad judgment in keeping her brother's little toy rather than turning it over to proper authority, but methinks she is no more a worshipper of Satan than I am."
The courtroom was empty, except for the three magistrates. It had been so for nearly two hours as they deliberated.
"I tried my best to break her, as you saw, but she never abandoned her account," the Reverend Hugh Bolton went on. "Some small chastisement may be in order. Mayhap the father should be instructed to take a strap to her, redden her buttocks so that she must take her meals standing for a week. But even such as that may be unnecessary -- the trial itself has taught her a valuable lesson already, I'll wager."
"Before court, you had declared her already tried and convicted, Hugh," Hopkin said quietly.
The big man shrugged uncomfortably. "As you rightly pointed out, Matthew, my judgment was too hasty. I had failed, although briefly, to pay heed to the oath we all have sworn. But the evidence seems clear, now." He shook his head solemnly. "There be no witchcraft here -- just a silly girl who chanced upon a dangerous plaything."
"The evidence supports no such notion," Roger Dufrain snapped. His boyish face was set sternly. "The girl knew the dangers, yet she willingly ignored them. She deliberately invoked the demon Technology."
Dufrain walked to the evidence table and picked up the book that Susan Bright had identified in court. "See you here," he said, pointing to the cover illustration. It showed an adolescent boy holding a thin glass tube with a rounded bottom. The boy was staring raptly at the tube, which was partly full of some liquid that bubbled fiercely and emitted a stream of smoke. Above the image were printed the words, "101 Science Projects."
"The covering itself shows the book's intent," Dufrain proclaimed. "What does this painting manifest, if not the conjuring of a demon? How could the girl gaze upon such an image and not know the black work such 'projects' must involve?"
Dufrain returned the book to the table and sat down again, facing the other two. "You know the law, and the reasons therefor." His voice was quiet again, but charged with passionate conviction.
"We are all well versed in the law, brother," Hopkin said. "That is why we have been entrusted by God with administering it."
"Then leave us not forget why the law exists. The Great Burning, as our forefathers have recorded, destroyed all the world but this tiny corner. Fire and disease and deadly gasses ravaged the land, everywhere but here. God spared Salem for a reason, my brothers."
"We know the Gospel of Richard as well as you do, Brother Roger," Bolton said, frowning. "You need not preach it to us."
Dufrain held up a hand, palm outward. "I mean not to offend, I would not do so for all the world." He dropped his hand and leaned forward. "But I fear for our people, left alone amid this destroyed world. If the Devil gains a foothold among us, where can we flee? Twenty-five leagues beyond Salem, the water becomes poisonous, the air unbreathable. And deadly creatures await the unwary -- the demon Radiation, the witch Sarin, the serpent Anthrax, and all the others."
Dufrain stood, walked across the courtroom to a nearby cabinet, and removed a large parchment from one of its drawers. Returning to the others, he unfurled it to display a map labeled "Normerica."
"Behold Salem, our home," he said. "And beyond, what did the wise mapmakers write here --" he pointed with a jabbing finger "-- and here, and here, also. Of what do they warn us?"
"'Here be dragons,'" Hopkin read, his voice sounding weary. "You impart nothing we did not learn in childhood, Brother."
Dufrain tossed the map aside and resumed his seat. "But can we then ignore the implications of what we have learned?"
Hopkin looked at his former protégé with narrowed eyes, "And these implications would be...."
"That we must be vigilant, always, against the Devil's infestations. For if he once gains disciples in this community, if the Lord should see that his mercy in sparing us was for naught...." Dufrain shook his head, as if in contemplating unimaginable catastrophe. "No, the girl is guilty, my brothers, and she must burn, for the sake of her soul. And for the sake of all of us."
There was silence in the great room. Finally, Bolton said, "Much though I respect my younger Brother's fervor, I cannot but think him overzealous and misguided in this particular matter. My vote remains unchanged."
The two of them looked at Hopkin for a long moment, before Bolton continued, "That puts it up to you, Brother Matthew."
###
The hour was late, but Matthew Hopkin remained in the courtroom, alone. He had sent Bolton and Dufrain home some time ago, desiring solitude for his contemplation. "Return here in the morning, at seven of the clock," he'd told them. "You shall have my decision then."
The case was troubling to him. He found himself inclined toward leniency, but he wondered whether this might spring from his reluctance to send a young, pretty girl to the stake.
Although he personally found executions repugnant and never attended them, Hopkin had signed death warrants before. Were he unwilling to do so on principle, he would never have accepted appointment to the bench. But Hopkin's eldest daughter bore a passing resemblance to Susan Bright, and he worried that this might be influencing him.
It was almost four in the morning before the truth suddenly came to him, like lightning from Heaven. He pondered it for several minutes, then pared his discovery down to its barest essentials: "If the opinions of my Brother Magistrates had been reversed, would it have made a difference to me? If Bolton, a fatuous ass, had called for the girl's death, would I have disagreed, on principle? If Roger Dufrain, who is young but possessed of both intelligence and integrity, had urged acquittal, would I not even now be asleep in my bed?"
Hopkin smacked his knees with his open palms and stood. "Answer: Yes. Yes. And, again, Yes." He never realized that he had been speaking aloud.
Hopkin yawned, then stretched some of the kinks out of his shoulders. His spirit was calm now. The girl would be set free, with a stern warning to avoid anything that bore even a whiff of forbidden Technology. Hopkin thought that even Bolton's suggested whipping would be unnecessary.
It was too late to return home for even a few hours' sleep, and too early to obtain breakfast anywhere. He would simply have to pass the time until the rest of the village began stirring.
Another yawn creaked Hopkin's jawbone. He wandered over to the evidence table, which still bore the items that had been introduced in the trial. He glanced at a few of the innocuous books, making a mental note to have them returned to the Brights tomorrow. A small pile of handwritten affidavits sat nearby, and he flipped through them idly.
The only other item was the radio.
Foolish looking thing, really, Hopkin thought. He wondered where the boy Jonathan had found the bits and parts that had gone into the making of it. Manufacture of such things had been forbidden since The Great Fire, and no one alive these days would possess either the materials or the knowledge, God be praised.
Mayhap the boy found the pieces in the same place he discovered the book. We should ask the girl Susan if her brother revealed the location to her. That house should be found, if possible, and burned to the ground, the rubble covered with earth.
He picked up the piece of wood on which the "radio" was mounted. Such things ought to be --
" -- make contact with communities of survivors throughout the Eastern United States, or what was once the United States, and, we hope, will be again."
Hopkin gaped. He had barely touched the thing, and yet this thin male voice was suddenly coming from it. He stood as if paralyzed, listening to the faint but understandable words that issued from the strange device.
"We have now established radio contact with communities in Portland, Maine, Durham, New Hampshire, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, New Haven, Connecticut, and Scranton, Pennsylvania. We hope to increase the power of our transmissions soon, and, with God's help, get in touch with other isolated cities, and towns, and even groups of people who have managed to get their hands on an old radio and find a way to power it with solar batteries or wind turbines or something similar. This is radio station WPAX, Kingston, Rhode Island."
The speaker paused, and took an audible breath before continuing. "And we have more good news to report tonight -- a party of eight men from New Haven arrived here yesterday, after traveling through areas formerly thought to be impassible due to radiation and other lingering CBW poisons of the war. It would appear, the Lord be praised, that the terrible effects of that time are finally lifting, which should allow us to eventually link up with other communities and end the terrible isolation which has --"
The voice began to fade, then disappeared completely. The room was again silent, so quiet that Hopkins could hear his pulse pounding in is ears.
His mind could barely contain all that he had heard. He face formed a beatific smile, the like of which had not been seen there since the day of his ordination into the ministry.
Think of it! The Lord had spared others besides the people of Salem and its environs. And they were using Technology -- not to worship Satan but to communicate in a Godly way, one with another. And the land beyond Salem was becoming livable again, which meant . . . .
Hopkin's smile melted like a snowflake on a hot stove.
Strangers would come to Salem, after all this time. People with new ideas, foreign ways, unfamiliar modes of speech and . . . different religions?
The good people of Salem would be tempted by these things. Some might find them more attractive than the gray conformity that the Church imposed to keep God's people from straying into sin, the kind of sin that had caused the world's destruction in the first place.
Except it seemed that the world had not been completely destroyed, after all. One of the central tenets of the Faith, that God had preserved Salem, and Salem alone, would be proven to be a lie.
And what then?
What would happen to the Church, its teachings, its traditions, its power, its Ministers?
Ministers like Hopkin.
He looked with new understanding at the device he held. He had been fooled -- yes, even a righteous man like himself could be fooled into thinking that this was an innocent toy. But now the scales had fallen from Hopkin's eyes. He knew that he was holding the Devil's handiwork.
He raised the radio above his head and smashed it down onto the table's edge, breaking it in two and picking up the pieces and one by one smashing them also and when they were too small to break further, jumping upon them where they lay on the floor then grinding the bits with the heel of his boot until there was nothing recognizable left, nothing dangerous, nothing at all.
Hopkin stood bent over, his hands braced on the evidence table, his breath coming in gasps like a man who has just been chased for miles by a savage beast.
After a few minutes he straightened, wiped his brow, then brushed a few errant splinters from his sleeve. He picked up his cloak, put it on, then went around the courtroom extinguishing the oil lamps. He left the one nearest the door until last.
If the girl were acquitted, it would be only a matter of time before someone else began to tinker with the Devil's tools, with disastrous results for the people of Salem -- and for those who ruled them.
When he met with Dufrain and Bolton, he would vote "guilty," and that would be that. The invasion by the wicked world outside would be held at bay, perhaps indefinitely.
The girl would burn today, and, as penance for his own sin of pride, Hopkin would make himself watch. In the meantime, he desperately needed fresh air.
He opened the courthouse door and went out, into the dark.
"Better to reign in Hell than to serve in Heaven."
--John Milton, Paradise Lost
---- END ----
Justin Gustainis is a college professor living in upstate New York. He writes
fiction as a way to avoid grading undergraduate term papers. His (so far)
unpublished novel is called The Hades Project.
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