Tituba of Salem Village by Ann Petry

Author:Ann Petry [Petry, Ann]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Juvenile Fiction, Historical, United States, Colonial & Revolutionary Periods, People & Places, African American, Social Themes, Prejudice & Racism, Social Issues
ISBN: 9781504019873
Google: cTk1CgAAQBAJ
Amazon: B0125U5N0E
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2015-09-07T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

Mercy Lewis was running pell-mell through the woods. She kept looking over her shoulder. She was alone and frightened. She had finally managed to slip out of the house without Anne Putnam. She was going to the minister’s house to get the fortune-telling cards. She had to give them back to Pim.

The last time she went to Deacon Ingersoll’s, sent on an errand by Mistress Putnam, Pim had cornered her in the outer hall, whispered fiercely, “Give me back my cards!”

She had made her voice low and soft, “I haven’t got them,” she said, smiling at him, thinking to beguile him, trying to move away from him. He kept following her until he had her backed against the wall, and he put his hands on the wall on each side of her so that she was caged there.

“Where are they?”

His breath was in her face, and he smelt of onions, and she turned her head away. “At the minister’s.”

He grabbed one of her hands and held it and bent it back. His hands felt like iron hoops. He kept bending her hand and her wrist, back and back. She didn’t scream for fear someone would come out of the taproom, and he’d say, “My cards are at the minister’s house. Mercy Lewis, the Putnams’ bound girl, took them there.” Not even playing cards, but real fortune-telling cards.

“Ah, don’t,” she gasped. “Don’t—”

“Stop lying then. Where are my cards?”

His face had crimsoned, and with the bright carrot-colored hair above the red face, he looked like a demon. She thought her wrist was going to snap in two, and he looked so furious and so dangerous that she closed her eyes. He’d probably sold his soul to the devil long ago, and it wasn’t even safe to look at him.

The hall door opened, and Goody Ingersoll said, “Pim!”

He dropped Mercy’s wrists and turned away from her faster than she’d ever seen anyone move.

Goody Ingersoll said, “You look all fussed up. What’s the matter with you?”

Pim said, “I’ve been hurrying,” and went into the taproom and grabbed a birch broom and started sweeping the hearth, raising clouds of dust.

“Don’t loiter there in the hall, girl. Come in or else go out. All you lazy thriftless girls hang around the bound boys. Come, come. Maybe a box on the ear will speed you.”

Mercy delivered the message to Goody Ingersoll and hurried back home. Her wrist still ached. She hadn’t dared go near Ingersoll’s since then.

She was just beginning to be friendly with Pim when he had loaned her those cards. He said he didn’t know how to tell fortunes and he ached to know what was in the cards for him. She’d said, I’ll find someone who can teach me, and then I’ll be able to tell your fortune, and mine, too.

They were beautiful cards, brightly colored, and the edges were shiny as though they were gilded. Abigail had taken them away from her. Abigail was like a cat—sly and quick and thievish. Well, she thought, you might as well say she was thievish.

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