Today in Salem: Three hard raps on the Putnam’s door announce a visitor: Rebecca Nurse’s son-in-law. When the door opens, he steps in without being asked and immediately confronts Ann Putnam’s mother.
“Who said it first?” he demands. “Who accused Rebecca first?” Yesterday’s slammed church door was a wake-up call to the beloved Rebecca Nurse’s family, and the men are taking action, starting with the Putnams.
Ann’s mother touches her pregnant belly and sits in her chair by the warm hearth. Her cheeks are flushed, but it’s hard to tell whether it’s from warmth of the fire. “If Ann says Rebecca’s specter is tormenting her, then she’s speaking the truth,” her mother says.
Ann Putnam is 12, but she’s never been questioned about her accusations. Now she’s shrinking as the man turns to her. ”Yes,” she admits in a small voice. She had seen the specter of a pale woman, sitting in her grandmother’s rocking chair. But she never said it was Rebecca. Her mother had encouraged her.
“You’re mistaken, child,” her mother says. “You were so upset. It was Mercy who said Rebecca’s name first.” Mercy Lewis is the family servant, but she’s not going to accept the blame, not this time. She, too, has never been questioned, and this angry man frightens her.
“How can you lie?” says Mercy, looking at Ann. And so it goes, from Mercy, to Ann, to her mother in a round robin of finger pointing that will not end.
Tonight the moon is new, and the dark tavern is lit by more candles than usual. In the flickering light, two men lean in to share a rumor they’ve heard: that the quarrelsome Elizabeth Proctor is the next to be arrested. But when a woman at the next table defends Elizabeth, one of the afflicted girls points into the empty air.
“She’s right there,” she says. “There!”
“Old witch,” another girl says. “I’ll have her hang.”
The men look at them coldly. You’re lying, one man says. He doesn’t see any specter, and he doesn’t believe they do either. Later he’ll testify that the girls treated it like a joke. The other man will say that the girls said they did it for fun. They needed to have some fun.