"So we spent our winter night in Abigail and Elizabeth's room listening to Tituba's stories. Like I said, it was fascinating in the beginning. Never had we heard of such stories of magic. And as the nights went by, more and more kids started joining us. The stories began growing darker. And then, something really bad happened one night. After Tituba left along with the other kids, Abigail woke us up in the middle of the night."

Everything went dark around me. "Pssst. Pssst. Eliza? Bibi?" a girl whispered in the dark. "Wake up! I just had an idea! Bibi? Eliza?" I heard rustling of bedsheets.

"Oh go back to bed Abigail! It's way past our bed time," Elizabeth 'Bibi' had said.

"I've got something important to tell you guys!"

"Alright, I'll humor you," Eliza replied in her husky voice. It was obvious that she was fast asleep and was just being polite about it. "What's your idea?"

"Okay." I heard a smile on this eleven-year old girl. "I found a way to get us some action this winter."

Bibi suddenly sat up in disbelief. "What? You woke me for that? Come on, Abigail. Go back to sleep."

"Bibi, wasn't it just the other day that you told me that we live an absolutely sad existence? And Eliza, didn't you once tell me that we were such sad little people? Well, I know that. I believe that. And I'm sick of it! I'm a kid who does her chores, speaks when spoken to, and curtsies in front of every man and woman I meet. We're always supposed to be prim and proper." She paused. "Except you, Eliza. You're not actually obliged by your class to be 'prim and proper'… no offense."

I looked to Eliza for clarification. "I'm a pauper," she said to me.

"None taken," little Eliza replied. "But Abigail, Rev. Parris says…"

"See? See? It's always that way around here. Tell her Bibi."

Bibi was hesitant, but only for a while. "Well, yes. It's always been Rev. Parris says this and that; and Abigail do this, fetch that; Bibi did you do this, have you done that. He's my father and I don't feel any affection from him, not any warmth."

"But we must do what is pleasing to the eyes of the Lord. Doing our chores is one them," Eliza reasoned. "You guys mustn't feel less loved because of our more weighty obligation to our faith."

"Eliza, I haven't even gotten to my brilliant idea."

"Fine. Shoot."

"Okay. This is just for fun, all right. Let's make everyone believe that the characters from Tituba's stories are real."

And there was silence apart from the gasps. "How?" Bibi asked.

"What do you mean 'how'?" Eliza exclaimed. "The answer is 'no'! We can't do that. It's wrong."

"All we need to do is appear to be possessed with some evil spirit or something. And that's it, Eliza. I promise. We're just going to see how uncle reacts, and then that'll be it. I just want to see an expression on his face, a real expression." She paused.

"He's going to freak out, Abigail. You know it. And Rev. Parris freaking out is a bad idea."

"Eliza, I'd rather he'd freak out," she replied. "At least I would know that he actually cares enough about me - about us," she corrected. "To freak out of fear for us."

"I'm in!" Bibi, who was rather silent before spoke clearly and seriously for the first time.

"I'm not going to be party to this, girls. Good night." And Eliza went back to sleep ignoring her best friends as they pieced their plan.

A series of loud bangs could be heard from a distance. Little Eliza, who was drying the plates in the kitchen left her chore to follow the sound. She speedily went up the wooden stairs and saw Rev. Parris knocking on her best friends' room. Bizarre sounds were coming from the room.

"Abigail, Bibi, open the door!" he shouted. "What's going on in there?"

"Dad!" "Uncle!" was all I could discern.

"Oh my god." I gasped. I remembered my American history… no …I remembered my history. "The fits. It's started, hasn't it?"

Eliza merely nodded.

"It was supposed to be a one-time thing. Abigail promised, but something went wrong."

"Tell me, Eliza." I noticed that the scene was fast-forwarding around me, and the sounds were muted. As Eliza spoke, the events happened simultaneously.

"Rev. Parris was eventually able to open the door, only to see both girls acting strangely. They were throwing things and screaming of a pain that had no cause. So Reverend called in the doctor, but there was nothing they could do. They were diagnosed as being… bewitched or something. Just like in Tituba's stories.

"I remember coming to their room and telling them to stop it because the deed was done. Reverend freaked out, and he even called the doctor and some officials. These had already shown that he does have affections for them. But they didn't listen to me. They kept acting like they were really sick."

I was seeing this as if it were in a movie house, except only the people had clear features. Their surroundings were hazy, like the way things are when you look through fire.

"Abigail, stop this! People are getting alarmed! You promised." Eliza was starting to cry.

"Demon!" Abigail was pointing at an empty fireplace. "My Lord! Please forgive me! Please forgive me! Ah!" she shouted as if she were pricked at her right arm. "Stay away! AH!"

"Abigail! I'm serious! Stop it. You're scaring me!" But she didn't stop, and Eliza was crying already. "Bibi?"

Bibi looked at her, and then at Abigail. "Ah!" she exclaimed after a moment. "It hurts! My body hurts! Ah! Dad!"

"Stop joking around, you guys! I'm serious!" she was speaking through her muddled tears. I could already hear several feet running to the room. Eliza heard it too and looked to the door. "Stop it or I'll tell on you! I'll tell on you!" And she ran for the door. But before she could, Abigail, older and bigger than Eliza, had pinned her to the floor.

"You will do no such thing, little Eliza," she said to her, menacingly. "I'm - We're finally getting what we want: love."

"You mean attention."

"You're not going to get in our way, otherwise, you'll get it."

"You're a liar! You both are. Deceiving people? This is wrong!"

"Shut up, Eliza!" Bibi called from behind. "Are you really going to betray us? What a friend."

"I'm not betraying you! I'm protecting you. This is not right. Have you no fear of the Lord, of your father? Or your uncle?"

"Shut up!" And with that Abigail withdrew from Eliza and sat on the floor. She folded her legs to her chest, hugging them. And then, the reverend barged through the door.

"What is it my loves?"

"Demon!" Abigail exclaimed as she did when Eliza found her. "AH… Uncle it hurts! Something is pricking me!"

"Dad!" Bibi called out. "Make it stop! Make the pain stop!"

Before I knew it, I was in another scene. Eliza was standing outside Abigail and Bibi's room. It was in the middle of the night, and Eliza was drenched in darkness. The only light that could be found was the candlelight seeping through the door of the girls.

"We can stop now, Abigail," Eliza heard Bibi say. "We've convinced them that we had been bewitched. Maybe, maybe Eliza was right."

"Don't you see, Bibi? If we tell the truth, we're going to be dead. This thing we caused has gotten big, really big. We're, like, famous all over Salem… all over Massachusetts. If they found out that we're lying, nobody is going to want us. We'll be thrown. It's too late, even if we wanted to."

"But who are we going to blame, Abigail? Father keeps asking us who did this to us. And who are going to be blame? No one." Bibi's voice was obviously strained.

"Shh …someone might hear us." The candlelight was suddenly gone.

"Why the long face, freckles?" The sun was high in the sky. Eddie chuckled his care-free laugh, as usual, and sat beside Eliza who was obviously crying. When Eddie was near enough to see her watery eyes, he frowned. "Did someone hurt you?"

Eliza sniffed. "No."

"Why are you crying then? You're already ugly. Crying will just make you look worse." He laughed again trying to lift her mood, I bet. "Who am I kidding? You can't look any worse!"

He looked surprised that he wasn't even able to bring out a grin. "Look, what's wrong, Eliza? There's no fun teasing you if you going to be this way."

Eliza started crying. "Abigail and Bibi..,"

"Uhh…" Eddie hesitantly put his arm around her shoulders, and Eliza suddenly leaned in. "I… uh" his cheeks were blushing. "heard about that. People have been talking, though. Dad says there's going to be a witch hunt, like there were in England."

"I feel so alone," Eliza whispered. She wrapped her arms around Eddie's waist.

"Shh… I'm here, okay? I'll… I'm here, Eliza."

As I was looking at the two kids, their innocent embrace, my guide Eliza tugged on my shirt. I looked at her as she pointed at a window in a house. And there I saw it. Abigail was watching, and she didn't look pleased.

I was suddenly in standing beside Abigail in her room.

"So the witches who influenced you were Tituba, the Caribbean slave,"

"Yes, Mr. Hawthorne," Bibi replied.

"Is there any other?"

"Sarah Good, sir."

"All right." Another gentleman was writing down the name. "That's the homeless beggar on the street. Is there any other?"

Silence.

"That's it. Order the detainment of these women, Mr. Corwin. Thank you, Reverend, for your time. We've got witches to hunt."

And just as they were about to leave, Abigail, who was looking at the window watching two kids on the field, whispered "Osborne."

"Excuse me, miss?" Mr. Corwin inquired. "What was that?"

Bibi looked surprised, yet she was composed. "Sarah Osborne," Abigail clarified.

"The impoverished woman on Dell's street? Right, then, we'll add her name." And the two gentlemen left.

"Wait," I said. "Isn't that your mom?" I asked Eliza. She merely nodded. I think I know what happened to you, Eliza. My eyes were welling.

All of a sudden I was in a room gorged in fire. The wooden walls were crumbling beside me. As I touched the fire, I didn't get burned. But I felt as if my body were elsewhere because I was filled with thoughts that weren't mine.

"I told you to shut your mouth, Osborne!" I could hear Abigail's voice in my head.

"You inflicted my mother in your web of lies, and look what happened? Your joke killed my mother! And not only mine, but others as well. People you don't even know are being accused as witches or warlocks when they're really not! You've got to stop this Abigail."

"I told you once, I won't tell you again. Shut up or you'll going to die like the others. Bibi and I aren't alone anymore. There are other girls who have joined the lie, and we can't stop it now or we'll be blamed for the deaths."

"You are to be blamed for the deaths."

"We didn't mean for them to be hanged! We just…" For a while there, Abigail's voice broke with uncertainty.

"Abigail," another girl's voice was heard.

"Ann!" she replied.

"'I'm sorry, Eliza' was the last thing she said to me."

I saw a group of girls carrying a sack of rice to the Osborne residence. A sack of rice?

"No," Eliza answered.

"I remember," I whispered to her. "The house was empty. Joseph and James were out looking for me. I had been locked somewhere until the girls had decided what to do with me. Despite my threats to unmask them, I didn't push through with it. I was hung on to my faith in them, in spite of the killings. I… I was scared.

"And it was too late," Eliza continued my soliloquy. "They wrapped me in a sack of rice. I was small enough to fit in there, and light enough to be carried this way. They burned the house to keep their secret."

Fire. Friendly fire.

"Help! Somebody get me out of here! AH! Help!"

"Do you hear something?"

"Joseph! James! Eddie! Somebody, please! Help me!" It was like I could remember too clearly what it was like to be trapped in a sack, like I could feel the fires creep through my toes, burning them.

"Someone's still in there!"

"The fire has already spread too thoroughly, Eddie, we can't get in."

"It could be Eliza in there!"

"Eddie, we can't help her anymore."

"No! Don't stop me! Eliza! ELIZA! NO!"

Fire. Friendly fire.

* * *

I was floating in nothingness. The nothingness smacked between dying and living again. That was where I was. That was where I had been twice before. And now, I'm back again, awaiting my next incarnation, gravitating to it …

Peacefully.

And then, I encountered something I hadn't encountered before. It was as if there was an invisible grid in my path and I couldn't maneuver away from it. I felt it even though I occupied no physical space in this nothingness between worlds. I realized that this grid has always been there. I had always passed that grid, and it was familiar.

But to my shock, as my essence met that grid I was startled by the intensity of pain that welcomed me. Violent. Treacherous. Fierce. Vicious. And I knew I didn't have the voice to scream in, or the mouth to scream from; arms to fight it with or tears to shed, I could do anything to stop it. I couldn't even think logically, I only felt. And what I felt was a pain indescribable, unendurable. Can you imagine several knuckles punching through every inch of a very thick cemented wall?

I could. And I had no choice but to endure it.

I'm the door. The knuckles are pushing me back, as I was being sifted. And I was gravitating, uncontrollably, through it. It felt like I was trapped in an infinite second of excruciating pain. Until I was split.

I split.

#

A really long one to make up for my absence  By the way, to all French people who took time to read this, I have a favor to ask. Please leave a message.