Today in Salem: The powerful Thomas Putnam is shaking the cramp out of his hand, trying to write quickly with a scratching quill that’s leaving ink blots in its wake. The specter of Rev George Burroughs had tormented Ann last night, and bragged that he was more than a witch or wizard, that he could do the Devil’s work for him. The bitter, former minister of Salem Village has a vendetta against the Village, especially the Putnam family, and now he has the power to inflict great harm. This witchcraft threat is bigger and more complicated than anyone had realized, and the magistrates need to know.
“After most humble and hearty thanks,” Putnam writes, “for the great care and pains you have already taken for us … we thought it our duty to inform your Honors of what we conceive you have not heard, which are high and dreadful: of a wheel within a wheel, at which our ears do tingle …”
In another part of Salem, the cruel magistrate John Hathorne writes an arrest warrant in a slow and deliberate hand, then signs it with a flourish before giving it to the Marshall and “any or all constables in Salem or Topsfield or any other Towne.” They are to arrest nine people and bring them to Ingersoll’s Ordinary tomorrow morning for examinations. The Marshall doesn’t speak; he just looks at the paper and then at the judges. There are already 14 people in jail, and some have been moved to Boston due to overcrowding. Where will they put nine more?
In the Salem jail, Mary Warren has now spent two nights sleeping on the jail cell floor, and she’s bleary-eyed when the judges come to question her again. She’s been evasive for weeks. First she was afflicted, then she was suddenly cured when her masters beat her, then she said the other girls were lying, then the girls accused her of being a witch herself, then she almost confessed, and now she’s re-joined them and is afflicted again. What’s the truth?
The judges show her a large Bible. ”Is this like the book you signed?” they ask. ”Was it a Bible that your master handed you?” Mary says that it was the Devil’s book she’d seen, but she didn’t know it until she held it. And she didn’t sign it, not really. She just made a mark, accidentally.
The judges pounce. Wrong! It’s impossible to afflict others unless you sign the Devil’s book on purpose. But Mary is steadfast. Her masters, the Proctors, tortured her, she said, threatened to drown her, or burn her with hot tongs. They forced her to leave her mark. The judges step back. Once again they are unsure, and once again they leave her in jail.
LEARN MORE: What is a wheel within a wheel?
Thomas Putnam’s letter is referring to the Bible’s book of Ezekiel.
Ezekiel was a prophet who had a vision of a wheel within a wheel, and with rims that were high and dreadful. People have been trying to understand this vision for 2600 years, but it’s generally thought to mean that God was angry with Jerusalem, and as punishment would allow it to be destroyed (with the promise of rebuilding).
The phrase “wheels within wheels” is also used to describe a situation that’s complicated and affected by secret influences.
Tomorrow in Salem: SENT TO JAIL: the flamboyant Sarah Wilds and the pious Mary Esty