"Because it is my name!" roared John, stepping backward, "Because I cannot have another in my life!"
"Man, please..." Reverend Hale began.
"You've all seen me sign it." John told the clergymen as they circled, "It is enough!"
Though in reality, they watched the quill work through 'John Pr' before they looked only at each other and nodded in thanks to God at his confession.
It seemed proof enough, until John snatched it up and refused to show it or hand it over to any of them.
Tituba and Sarah Good stood atop teetering haystacks, doing their best to glance at the gallows through the jail window.
The sun was dreary and blurred their thirsty vision as a lonely man was escorted to the scaffold.
"Thass 'im, Sarah!"
"That's the Old Boy, eh?"
"Goo'ness no. He taught me make charm!"
"I thought you was lying, Tituba. You can't make a charm. You confess to save yourself just from whipping, you say."
"They wasn't s'posed to find him." Tituba rambled, prancing on her toes, "He oughta confess himself..."
"But no one here's been witched! You told that to me."
"We's all witches! Ol' boy's hard at work the whole world 'round."
Here, Tituba removed a flask from the depths of her ragged cloak. She opened it and passed it to Sarah, who took a casual sip.
"Well I know I'm not witched, Tituba. You talk crazy, you wa..." her words halted at her lips, now cold and white.
Sarah Good thudded to the dirt floor in an impenetrable sleep. She dropped the flask, which let a smoky, eerie green liquid seep forth.
Tituba stared wildly at her cell-mate, shrieking until an invisible force arrived to slice Sarah down the middle. She then breathed upon the jail bars, which dissolved to powder.
"Not a chance, poor girl." Said Tituba, looking for the last time at Sarah Good.
Hastily, she stomped over the dirt, now becoming a pool of blood-induced mud...
To avoid another meeting with her master, Tituba chose a position close behind the scaffold to watch the afternoon executions.
Two women and a rugged man were slipped gracefully into their respective nooses.
A drum rattled in the distance. The sky became thick and heavy, nearly dropping black clouds wholly onto the province. John Proctor's eyes were filmy and glowed red like the velvet drapes of the church, whenever they were allowed to bask in the candlelight of an evening sermon.
"I kill one." Tituba chanted to the back of the platform, "She's... Mudblood."
John tried to turn his head.
"It is too late for me." Proctor relayed, "I cannot."
"We kill 'em all now. I give sign to the others. I make the lights! You be free, John. You be free, and Tituba work for you still."
"I've showed you all you need. Continue it."
The executioner made his way to the lever which held the platform's floor. His hands ran longingly over it while he stared maliciously at the sky. The crowd before him gasped and allowed him to collect their sickening smiles.
Several townspeople, however, were sulking, yet looking intensely focused on the ground beneath the scaffold.
"When?"
"Now?"
"I cannot see..."
"The lights. Where are the lights?"
"Tituba said we would save him!"
And other such things were their general mutterings.
There was a loud series of snaps.
Three nooses were taut in front of a gaping Tituba. She retreated, swearing to board the first ship to England. John told her there would be others like her living there. Members of his own family, even.
Elizabeth Proctor, unrecognizable beneath her tears, swept forward to her husband.
From his limp hands fluttered a crumpled parchment.
His confession, which he very effectively kept from the court and the church.
As soon as she picked it up, her eyes dried, as if enchanted. She unfolded it and read the same two words over and over... his signature, left in a glimmering, splotchy ink:
"John Prince".