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Wicked, wicked girls

November 24th, 2008 Molly - Central

Long before Mean Girls and Heathers were popular slumber party fare and the concepts of Queen Bees and Wannabes peppered modern psychology and the study of interpersonal relations, cliques were wrecking havoc on ye olde Salem.  You know the girls I’m referring to.  Led by the scorned Abigail Williams from The Crucible, this group would not stop at teasing, idle gossip and tarnishing reputations. These lovely girls kept up their theatrics until their victims got sent to the gallows. 

Interwoven with the history of the Salem witch trials and the chaos that surrounded life at this time in Massachusetts comes the fictional account of Sarah Carrier in The Heretic’s Daughter by Kathleen Kent. Sarah writes to her granddaughter upon the occasion of her wedding and tells the story of her youth, shuttling between Billerica, Andover and Salem.  She then confesses her involvement in the hanging death of her mother, Martha Carrier, one of the first to be accused and tried of witchcraft in Salem in 1692.

The book starts out with the family trying to outrun smallpox.   Life is difficult, with the family struggling to work the fields and maintain their stay at Sarah’s grandmother’s home.  When Sarah’s brother Andrew is discovered to have small pox, Sarah and her baby sister are sent to stay with her Aunt and Uncle Toothaker.  The Toothakers and the Carriers have been feuding over land and there is much ill will, but Sarah is comforted by her relatives and so enrapt with spending time with her cousin Margaret that she is only resentful when they are eventually separated and she must go home to her own family. 

Her father is a giant of a Welshman and does not adhere to the Puritan ethics or attend church.   Rumor has it that he may have been involved in the death of King Charles the First and everyone steers clear of him.  He makes an imposing partner with Sarah’s mother, a strong, hard woman with a sharp tongue.  Even though Sarah is only ten years old, the reader understands that she and her mother are exactly the same.  Sarah and Martha both have red hair, keen senses and a way with herbs and healing.  They are also at odds constantly.  Sarah is rebellious and hurtful to her mother, but soon realizes the depth of her mother’s love.

A combination of events involving a scandalous servant girl named Mercy Lewis, the vengeful Uncle, a neighbor’s runaway cow, liquor and jealousy collide.  Soon, Sarah’s mother is on her way to Salem in shackles, accused of witchery.  She has sworn Sarah to agree to whatever the magistrates ask of her in order to save herself and her siblings. 

The witch trials would be laughable if we didn’t already know that they, in fact, happened and innocent men, women and children died because of outrageous false accusations.  What’s most stunning about the actions of the girls responsible for the initial witch-hunt, beyond the fact that no one had the sense or wherewithal to reign them in, was that they had the energy for this sort of mayhem to begin with.  This richly detailed fictional account reinforces that life was not easy in the early colonies.  Everyday living was rife with hard labor and disease and the struggle to stay fed, warm, clothed and out of the way of the warring Wabanaki.  It seems impossible that there would be much time for making mischief, but as they say, there’s no rest for the wicked.

Entry Filed under: Historical Fiction