Tituba lay on the filthy straw mattress in her cell for what would be her three hundredth and seventy-second day in the Salem jail. Sadly, she had become accustomed to the cold hard stone floor, the smell of feces and rotted food. She had even become used to the fleas that bit at her unwashed skin. Sometimes she would lie awake for hours listening to the other inmates in the cells around her, usually the town drunk or someone accused of offenses against their God. They would cry or pray loudly while sobbing and begging forgiveness.
Tituba couldn't understand the white man's religions. One God to oversee every living thing seemed absolutely ridiculous to her because of her Voodoo upbringing. She had always known several deities. Some of them brought protection and prosperity while others punished the guilty. Some were loved while others were feared and honored, but both sides were worshipped with equal respect. Tituba had been taught that though the light was the prize, the earth couldn't function without the dark. Without evil there would be no room in the world for good. Her's was a religion that thrived on balance.
However, the Puritans God seemed an evil God to the world weary slave. Puritan mothers and Fathers were not free to love even their children more than their God! Though she had not seen her children in almost ten years, they had been sold to another family, she loved them fiercely. She would give over her should for the children she conceived, carried and then brought into this world. Being parted from them had broken her heart and made her die a thousand deaths. She knew she would never see them again making her love deepen.
She hid her jealousy and rage at the women in the village who are free to raise their children any way they would like and showed little appreciation for what she would have died for. How could someone follow a God that it so cruel and vengeful at the smallest infraction then demanding you love and obey his word?
Tituba had silently endured the Puritanical way of life outwardly. She went to church and bowed her head during any prayer, but inwardly she prayed to her own Gods. She found solace in her silent worship and even practiced some small rituals, but only if she was certain she would not be caught.
When Samuel Parris had bought her in Boston, she was only thirteen years old. She had not been his only slave to be purchased. In all he returned to Salem with three slaves including Tituba, a teenaged boy and strangely, a middle aged woman who had two different colored eyes, one which was a caramel brown and the other had an amber hue to it. Her birth name was far too difficult for Master Parris to pronounce, which annoyed him greatly, so he named her Amy.
The teenage boy was a stranger to Tituba; however she had known Amy before they were taken and sold as slaves. They never spoke when in Barbados, but once in a while they crossed paths be it washing clothes in the river or passing one another from time to time. Amy was also a practioner of Voodoo.
When Amy was bought and sold it was actually for her ability at healing and excellent record as a mid-wife, as the auctioneer had claimed. Samuel's wife would be expecting their next child in January. Winters were harsh in Salem and Parris feared that his wife would go into labor and he would be unable to get through the snow and cold to summon the village Doctor. Amy was older than the slaves he normally bought. He liked to buy young slaves. They were easier to control and could work twice as long as other slaves twice their age.
Tituba later learned that he was not a cruel master, not by normal standards. All of his slaves were well fed and clothed and he hardly ever beat them.
Amy was a skilled midwife. She brought three Parris children into the world with very little help and many skills honed over time. All three children lived to adulthood though one would die in a hunt when he was twenty four and raising his own family. She birthed over twenty slave babies in the fifteen years she and Tituba were together, three of which were Tituba's own. Some babies died for one reason or another and deep down Amy was sometimes happy for it because it was rare that her Master would not sell the babes after a few years. Amy thought it was easier on the mothers. Never would they have to wonder in helpless torture what happened to their children. The infant deaths were most likely caused by poor nutrition of the mother who would be made to work all throughout her pregnancy or biological reason that are unknown to anyone.
Amy was also a Voodoo Priestess in Barbados. Like Tituba she practiced her faith in secret. The Puritans would hang a white woman or man who was suspected of witchcraft faced the hangmans noose and that was after a trial! A black slave practicing a religion that involves animals parts, unintelligible chants in a foreign tongue, rituals measured by the phases of the moon and many more things that the religious white people didn't understand therefore they feared and condemned would be eager to string up a noose before an explanation could be given.
When Tituba was twenty-eight years old, Amy was sold to another family three towns away. Her sight was going and her new buyers had paid a good price. Tituba was sad to see her go however, she was no longer a lonely child with no people or connections to this new world. She had married the same boy who had been bought with her in Boston. His name was John Indian and he had fathered all three of her children. They had been a happy match under the circumstances and loved each other.
A year after she was sold, word came to Tituba that Amy had been tried and hanged as a witch. Tituba had been in town with Mrs. Parris when she happened upon another slave girl who knew Amy and had heard her fate. Amy's master had found her chanting over a red candle and chicken feet outlaid in the ash of the fire. She had drawn symbols in the ashes so she wipe them away if discovered. He had her arrested and the following day. Only three hours after her arrest, her former Master grabbed his chest while speaking to the sherrif. He was dead before his body hit the ground. That was all the town needed. She was hanged a day later. She was charged with witchcraft and murder for it was believed that she summoned the devil then killed her owner in revenge.
Tituba was sad and terrified though she could not reveal this lest her owners might become suspicious. That night she skipped her nightly prayers out of fear and lay there in a stupor contemplating her friend's death. She had an odd sensation that something was wrong, but she could not pin point the cause. She went about her work the next day, having had no sleep she expected she would be in bed as soon as her day was through. Yet that uneasy feeling never ceased.
She tried to talk to her husband about it, but he waved her off with a warning.
"Don't go putting your nose where it don't belong. I mean it! Amy is dead and gone, she doesn't need to be careful, but you are still breathing! You won't be if they catch you!" he had said. John had lived across the sea in Africa. He was sold to an American slaver before he was brought to Boston. His own people had enslaved his mother and father, it was all he knew. The key difference between his African Masters and the pale ones? The American's were much crueler to their slaves. Sure his African master had been one to punish him with a whip or rod, but he had been careful to clean and dress any wounds or depending on the severity of the punishment or would give John simpler tasks so as to allow him to heal.
John had affection for his former master to some extent. The man had been like a surrogate father and he even taught the boy how to read and write which John had kept from the Parris family whom he had no affection for.
Once, three years after his arrival to America, he had been accused of stealing scraps from the table by Elizabeth Parris, Samuel's wife and lady of the house. He quickly admitted the crime even though he did not do it. He was one of five slaves including Tituba. The three others were Emmett, who did most of the gardening around the house and was in his mid forties. Emmett walked slightly hunched over due to a back that had been overworked since childhood. John knew he would not have taken the bread and cheese, but if he was believed to be the culprit, Emmett might just die from the thirty lashes or more that would befall his aching body. That left Tituba, a girl he had immense affection for, Amy who was so fragile looking and finally Raba another teenager that was too valuable an asset to have injured. He worked fast and was strong. If Tituba or Amy were tired or couldn't work as quickly, Raba would be there to pick up the slack thereby keeping the girls safe from reprimand.
After admitting his guilt, John followed their master into the barn where he was made to remove his shirt and clutch a wooden post. He lowered his head as much as possible so he wouldn't get the end of the whip across his face. By the twentieth strike of the whip on his bare bleeding back, John expected to lose conscience. As if anticipating his thoughts, Parris grabbed a bucket and pourd it on him before continuing. At the thirtieth strike, John assumed it was over and moved his head at just the same moment the whip hit him and this time he felt the sharp sting spread across his face barely missing his eye.
Parris, feeling some remorse after he cut the boys face, stopped at thirty five. John was left crouched on the ground, his back a mess of blood and firey wounds snaking here and there. The lashes were deep and he felt every single one.
They never found the culprit and Tituba was sure it was a lie, but she never forgot how much pain John had been in nor could she from the many scars on his back.
She knew he warned her out of love. His culture did not practice Voodoo, but a very oldd native religion. As a slave he was exposed to it but never had he really participated. He understood Tituba's reasons for her practices, but he also cautioned her relentlessly about discovery. He already feared being sold and taken away from her or she from him. White masters did not view slave marriages as sacred as they viewed their own.
On her second night with no sleep she still lie awake. Why was she so unsettled by Amy's death? She was positive Amy was innocent, but it was well known what happened to anyone caught practicing their craft. Yet Tituba still felt like something was not right.
She arose from her hay bed where John lay in a deep exhausted sleep. It was a warm night and a full moon lit up the sky. Tituba carefully walked out of the dirt floor hut. She walked to the opposite side of their hut where, on hands and knees with only moonlight to guide her, she began using her hands to dig. About nine inches into the earth her hands found the smooth side of a jar she swiped from the main house. She freed it, draped her shawl over it and scuttled to the barn. She needed silence and distance so as not to be caught.
She opened the heavy wood door and crouched down. Slowly and methodically she began tracing out a symbol into the ground. She did her best in what little light she had. She opened the canning jar. Inside were a set of dried chicken feet, four pieces of linen stained black with the blood of a chicken, lizard, python and a rat, twelve stones with separate symbols on them and a moneys paw that had been given to her for protection.
Tituba retrieved the linens and smelled each one. She identified the pythons blood and placed it in the center of the symbol. She placed one hand on the linen and spoke a prayer. After she picked up the same linen holding it between both hands pressed together, as if she were praying.
She hadn't used this gift often. It frightened her at times. She never used it for her own gain. If she did and say, murdered the entire Parris family? She would not be free and her beliefs were such that she would earn back her folly in thrice the measure.
Now she used it to learn the truth of her fallen friend. She began to rock back and forth, eyes closed while repeating a chant in her native tongue. The wind seemed to pick up around her though she was inside the large barn and no breeze could make the hay and heavy dust fly like that. The four horses in their stalls began to pace and stomp their hoofs in anxious fear. The room seemed to be full of a strange kind of energy that seemed to pull them every which way. The sound in the barn seemed to have disappeared completely.
Tituba continued the chant, keeping focus on Amy and her fate. Suddenly her head snapped back. Not long after she let out a horrendous cry before her body gave out and she fell on her side fighting to breath. The horses had stopped pacing and began to calm themselves and the dust and hay settled around her and the barn seemed to have changed not at all.
Finally she gathered herself and stood up, her legs shaky. With tears streaming down her face she collected the contents of the jar, wiped away her symbol which had survived the wind and then retreated back to her bed with her husband. She would replace the jar the next day. For now she lay there shivering though she had no reason to be chilled. She cried silently as she contemplated over the vision she just saw and what poor Amy endured. She was innocent and she was hung. With this vision, Tituba had no choice but to watch as her friends execution played behind her eyes. She watched helplessly as the poor woman was beaten in a jail cell by the town magisters and the constabul. Her face running with blood and tears as she refused to confess.
Tituba also saw that the Master's death was not by witchcraft, but by poison. The Masters wife was the culprit. She had been plotting the crime for some time and watched as Amy paid the price for it, just another innocent slave.
Tituba promised John she would no longer practice her faith. It was too dangerous and she feared it more now than she had in her entire life.