Repentance
Prologue
"I'm sorry" I scream…but it is a silent scream, and you cannot hear me over the echo of the accusations I have shrieked at the judge, the damnation I have sentenced you to, or over the din of your own breaking heart. I see it on your face that your heart is breaking, and I feel it in my stomach that I have betrayed you for some empty cause.
My fear. I let it overwhelm me. I did what was good, but I saw no good coming to me. I am sorry, I fear them too much. I can not face them. If I condemn them they will come and seek revenge, she has that kind of power…you will simply wither and fade and I will never have to face you again. I only face you now, my face half against the shoulder of the one I turn to in fear, as I call to you silently all my regrets and all my apologies. I tried. I really tried. But her power was too great, I can not fight it, I can only turn to it. I'd rather be in her wrathful protection then trying to face her down…not even you could have protected me, as much as you tried to make me believe all would be well. All is not well. All will never be well. This is the only way I can hope to keep myself safe. You could have saved yourself so many times, and even your wife, and I would never have had to do this. You pushed too far…you pushed everyone too far. She struck out, I crumbled and the Judge was there all the while, waiting for you to cry out the death of God.
"I'm sorry" I mouth again desperately as chains are slapped on your wrists and you paint your face into an expression I can not read. You are sad, but your mouth curves slightly. You smile at my folly as I run to the arms of the ones who cry damnation upon the world. It is not just me. It is all of the world, running into her arms. We are lost, and only you have found yourself…and now because of my own fear you are going to break for that revelation. Why were you such a fool? Why can you not kill your pride to save your life?
I'm sorry.
The story
The sharp crack of skin on skin and the thump of a young girl's body hitting the floor. Mary Warren covered her head and cowered away from Abigail's seething anger.
"You foul little mouse!" Abigail hissed, grabbing Mary's hair so she was forced to look at her. "You almost got me killed!"
"I…I'm sorry Abby. It won't happen again…" Mary whimpered, tears streaking down her cheeks, the left of which was still stinging from Abby's slap. This wasn't the person who deserved her apology, but here she was, whimpered and crawling on her knees to this demonic girl.
The other girls sneered and snickered, as Abby pulled the sniveling Mary to her feet and slapped her again.
"How dare you? And all for that lying farmer!"
"I'm sorry Abby…I'm sorry…"
"You better be. If you ever turn on me again, Mary, I will scream a horror on your name so great, God himself will cringe to hear it. And you will wish you had gone to hell today while you had the chance."
Abby let Marry go with a harsh shake and the girl crumpled to her knees again, sobbing into her hands as Abby left the courtroom, the other girls filing out behind her. The door slammed closed and Mary continued to sit there, rocking back and forth slightly, her sobs echoing in the now empty room, mixing with the echoes of all the accusations and condemnations that had been cried in the room only minutes before. She could feel herself breaking, the pieces of her heart cracking off and falling around her, another piece sliding off with every tear that splashed on the floor.
Such a long time later, she didn't really keep track, Mary finally ran out of tears, although she was far from out of sorrow. She got to her shaking legs and walked out of the courtroom, slowly, weakly, not knowing where to go, and it was late. She didn't think. She just walked home.
The house was dark. It was just as she'd left it. Remains of the Proctors were everywhere. John's hunting rifle, Elizabeth's cooking pans and knives, the table at which they had eaten so many nights. The whip which had threatened Mary into coming to court that day…Mary fell to the ground in a corner by the stove, staring at the house that looked so empty now…
Her eyes registered some degree of greater awareness as the door handle turned and a figure walked in. He carried a lantern and by its vague, yellowish light she recognized the man known as Reverend Hale. He placed the lantern on the table and sat heavily, rubbing his young face tiredly. Mary sat quietly in her corner, watching him like a scared animal…like the rabbit that had wandered in the evening Elizabeth was taken. Hale sighed and stood up, and started looking about the house, and then stopped when he saw Mary.
"Mary Warren…what are you about here?" He asked, tone stern.
She just kept staring at him. She had forgotten how to speak during all the tears. Forgotten how to feel during all the pain…
Hale's face softened and he walked to her. She shrunk back from him as he kneeled down beside her, and his brow knitted in pity as he reached out and pushed the loose hair behind her ear and under the askew bonnet. His eyes widened at the large yellow bruise that had formed there.
"Mary…who has struck you child?" He asked softly.
She said nothing, and her eyes were trained on him uncertainly, not knowing what to expect from anyone anymore. Hale shook his head sadly and started to put his arms around her as if to lift her but she whimpered and shrunk back, and Hale respectfully moved back. He stood and walked to the other room momentarily, coming back with a blanket draped over his arms. He held it out to Mary, but she just stared at him with large, fearful eyes, knees to her chest, arms around her legs, and shoulders hunched around her neck. Shaking his head in pity he draped the blanket over her and then started to leave again, intending to sleep in a different room, to stay near the girl but not invade her space any longer. However, when he started to step away he met resistance and found that Mary was holding onto the bottom of his coat. Her expression had not changed, the only thing different now was that her arms was extended to hold him. He slowly sat down again, studying the girl's face curiously.
"Mary…Mary are you all right?" He asked softly.
Her eyes finally turned to look at him, and she found tears again and they swelled over her lashes and re-wetted her face.
"Don't leave me alone…" She whimpered pathetically.
"Mary, I can not sleep in this room with you." He chided softly. "You know better."
She shook her head and her eyes were somehow desperate. "Please…I can't stand to be alone right now…"
He sighed again. "Then how would it be if I stay by you until you are asleep?"
She nodded slowly and pulled the blanket around her neck.
"Do you want to move to your bed?"
She shook her head and he shrugged and leaned against the wall beside her, and she closed her eyes, thinking that sleep really was the best she could do for herself at that point. Hale watched her gently as she slowly drifted out of the hell that Salem had become and into sleep. After awhile, when he thought she was soundly sleeping, he stood up and started to the bedroom, for while he did not wish to spend the night in the house of a man so recently condemned, he dared not leave Mary there. Then he heard her whimpering and looked down at her, and found her crying again. Kneeling yet again, and gently patting her shoulder, he found that she was still deeply asleep, although tears were rolling down her cheek steadily. Now closer, he could make out the words of her whimpering;
"I'm sorry…" She sniveled. "I'm sorry…"
"Oh, Mary." He said softly. "You poor child."
Gently he lifted her in his arms and carried her to the bedroom, hating to see the young girl sleeping in such a rough place, so sadly. He laid her in the bed and pulled the blankets over her. She had calmed slightly, but he worried about her, and so sat in a chair close by throughout the night, dosing only lightly in order to keep track of the pathetic little girl.
The next morning Mary woke with a start, panting heavily and staring at the room surrounding her. It was horribly quiet for an afternoon…no sounds of cooking or the boys in the field…but that's when reality hit her, a like solid, ice-cold stone dropping into her gut. The Proctor's would never be here again.
She started crying again. Lying on the bed John himself had once slept in, tears falling down her face and her shoulders shaking violently as she muffled her sobbing against the pillows.
She forced them to lessen as she heard the door creak open and lifted herself slightly, looking back to see Hale standing in the doorway watching her sympathetically.
"W-What are you doing here?" She hiccupped.
"Francis Nurse asked me to stop by and make sure the boys hadn't left anything of value here." He replied. "What are you doing here?"
Mary dropped her gaze. "I don't know…I didn't know where to go after…what happened. I guess it was just habit to come back here."
"Do you have anywhere else to stay?"
Mary shook her head. "My mother's dead…my father moved to Boston a long time ago…"
"I see. Then I suppose you should send him a letter?"
Mary shook her head again. "He'd never respond."
He sighed. "Then you'll have to stay with me."
Mary looked up. "Would…would that really be all right?"
Hale rubbed his forehead. "You have nowhere else to live, you say. I can take you on as a housemaid."
"But...I know other families. You needn't—"
"Mary, I think it's safest for you that you stay with me."
She nodded mutely, and slid off the bed, blushing in modesty at her wrinkled skirt and missing bonnet. Hale left the room again, and let Mary tidy herself as best she could. Her eyes were still red for crying and her hair was mussed and dirty. She splashed her face with water from the wash basin, and straightened her clothes, finding her bonnet on the ground. She gathered all her old belongings, what few there were, and then went with Hale out of the house and away from the place that would haunt many a man's dreams for years to come.
Mary went to Hale's home, and went about living with him as she had with the proctors, but with considerably less danger to her health. Mrs. Hale was a kind, lovely woman, who treated Mary with great affection, and Hale did his best to make sure she was happy and keeping her health up even as his consistently deteriorated. Nightmares sunk into Mary's poor, confused mind every night, and hovered about her shoulders even in the waking hours.
An evening sometime later, Hale was up late, unable to sleep, and he heard Mary whimpering in her sleep, and slid into her room. He found her lying on her bed, pale and clammy, thrashing back and forth, muttering again and again "I'm sorry". He shook his head, and placed his hand on her cold forehead.
"You poor child…" He said softly. "No one so young should carry so much guilt…"
She suddenly awoke, looking through eyes about to seep tears at a breath. She instinctively clutched Hale's shirt, trying to support her shaking body. After a few moments she calmed, and released his clothing, muttering her apology softly.
"You apologize too much." Hale chided gently. "Mary, you have been hurt and confused for too long, you must learn to trust the world again."
"How can I trust the world when I can not even trust God any longer…"
Hale's face became sterner. "My child, you must never loose your trust in the heavenly father. He will always deliver you."
"As he delivered John Procter?" Mary asked her tone not as skeptical as utterly broken.
"He delivers each man in his own way."
"I don't want to be saved in that way…"
Hale looked at Mary, who was beginning to tremble again, pity softening his heart. Her faith could not return with words alone. Few humans could see what she had seen and still keep an unbending faith.
"My child…I will tell you something, that you shall hear few men of faith say, but for the time, I think it is true."
Mary looked up, large eyes desperate for some form of hope.
"God shall indeed have you play what part he wishes, and save your immortal soul if you prove your faith, but here and now, my child, I think it's a time for you to save yourself."
"I failed to save John and Elizabeth Proctor…how can I save myself?"
"Come with me to Salem, for I return there in three days, I think you need to face what is left there."
She shook her head. "I can not. Not yet…"
"Now is not the time for sitting by and waiting for time to heal your wounds, Mary. You may be only a young girl, but you have no choice now but to stand firm and face the devil and his horrors if you wish to move on."
"But—"
"Just come to Salem with me."
Mary nodded. "I…I don't think I'll be able to sleep."
Hale smiled gently. "Come drink some tea with me."
Three days later, Mary sat next to Hale on the front bench of a wagon, hands wringing her skirt nervously, knuckles and face stark white. She was trembling, but tears weren't coming yet, she hoped but doubted that her resolve would stay. Hale removed one hand from the reigns and placed it over her trembling fingers, and she calmed slightly.
It was late when they arrived at Salem, and the evidence of a recent storm pooled on the empty roads. Hale apologized for not having a place for her to rest as he rode straight to the prison house, and Mary only nodded quietly. They arrived there and Hale tied up outside, leaving Mary to wait as he hurried within.
She sat waiting, for some long amount of time, fidgeting, not crying, that was all she could do. She waited. Then, from the depths of the prison house she heard the cry of a man;
"Proctor will confess! Proctor will confess!"
She looked up, stunned. Slowly she slid off the wagon bench. She walked around the walls of the prison, feet stumbling over rocks and roots, looking for proof of this incredible news and then she heard soft speaking, and she kneeled down by a small window near the ground, mud and wet grass staining skirt and apron, looking the through the bars she saw Danforth holding a piece of paper out to john Proctor. They were talking, but softly. She knew what that paper was, and she prayed with all her heart he would sign it. Rebecca Nurse entered, looked for one moment relieved and then next shocked and saddened. Danforth, and John talked back and forth a while, Rebecca Nurse and Elizabeth watched in dead silence. They argued the matter of signing and posting John's confession easily enough made out to be the topic. Mary prayed.
He signed it. She breathed again as he held it out to Danforth, but then, even as Parris praised God, John snapped it back. Their arguing heightened and Mary cowered in the dirt, and all of it led up to Proctor, crying out for the sake of his name, and after he ripped the document in half, then quarters, and Elizabeth broke down weeping. John walked to her, and pulled her to her feet, whispered to her ear and kissed her. Herrick took him away, and John went quietly. Elizabeth and Hale were the only ones left in the jail room, and Hale fell to his knees begging her to talk him out of his insanity, Elizabeth ran to the window and Mary pull away, back pressed into the grimy wall, and as Hale gave one last request for Elizabeth to change her husbands mind, Elizabeth cried to the new rising sun;
"He has his goodness now, god forbid I take it from him!"
Just like that, his wife could watch him go. The prison wagon rattled by not far away and Mary got to her feet.
"Wait…" She whispered, tears falling down her face again. "Wait…I'm sorry…"
The wagon kept going, her feet started moving, and they grew soaked from wet grass and mud puddles. She ran down the road after the wagon, chest tense with pain, eyes bleary with tears. The dawn continued breaking. She ran until she could no longer breathe until her legs bent beneath and she felt to her knees. She looked up, and could see not so far away, the hanging platform, where a crowd was gathered, the wagon had arrived not long before. Rebecca, Martha and John were lined up near the edge. A priest walked up with them and began speaking the last words.
"Wait…"
She stumbled to her feet, and dragged herself forward; she reached the back of the crowd and weakly begged and pushed her way through. A few people gave the grimy, pale girl strange looks, some worried, some disgusted.
"Wait…"
She pushed past the last people, and she looked up at John, every apology she owed him pulling at her throat but she had no breath to cry them. For as loud as she had shrieked his demise she now could not even find a gasp to tell him how sorry she was, how wrong she was, how right he was…
She stared up at him, all of it ripping at her throat. Tears streaked lines through the dirt on her face, her mouth gaping as it formed what was supposed to be words. She realized then that he was looking at her. She stopped trying to speak, all she could do was choke back the sobs, barely seeing his once-so-dark eyes looking down at her softly.
Her face spoke every thing she could not say, and the response in his eyes was as clear and soft as any spoken word.
"It's all right. Everything is forgiven."
And Mary understood. She realized somehow, the meaning and emotion behind the words Elizabeth Proctor had spoken of her husband, why John did what he did. For now, the John Proctor that had once been so volatile in nature, that had once been such a lost soul, had found himself. Nay, more than that, he had found the goodness within his dirty exterior that the cleanest men of the world would never know. Mary saw in his eyes why it was worth it to him, to let the man he had so recently found die there that day. And as the platform dropped he died with a grace that few ever lived with.
Mary slowly turned and walked away, as the assembled crowd slowly murmured among themselves. She walked for some time down the path, and then finally stopped and sat on the roots of an old oak tree, tears fading as a gentle calm settled over her.
Hale found her still sitting there as the afternoon wore on.
"Mary, there you are. You should not run off like that…" Hale looked up towards the platform. "Did you see it?"
Mary nodded.
"Why would you come to such a thing?"
"Because I needed to."
Hale look at her curiously, but she said no more. But for the first time since he had come to Salem, he saw her smile.