Dating : The Innocent and Wronged

Everyone is looking at me with their noses and foreheads wrinkled. I do not understand why, and I do not like it, so I smile at them. Now, their faces wrinkle more.

Their faces make me sad. I find Mother and Father to feel better, but their eyebrows are pulled down and their eyes are big. My bottom lip pokes out.

“Bethany Young,” Goodman Harthorn says to me, “have you made no contract with the Devil?”

“No,” I say, because I do not think I did.

Goodman Harthorn looks at little Lydia Jones. “Look upon Bethany Young and see if this is the person who hurt you.”

Lydia looks at me, and I smile at her, because she is my neighbor and I like her. She starts to cough, loud.

Now everyone starts to talk, and it gets too loud. I put my hands over my ears and press. “Stop that,” I say, but I think my voice is too quiet.

Lydia keeps coughing, and now she starts hitting her hands against her ears. Everyone gets even louder. I squeeze my hands over my ears harder. Everyone just gets louder. They are standing up and pointing at me and I know by their squinted eyes and wide open mouths that they are yelling, but I cannot hear anymore. I stop being able to hear when things get this loud.

I look at Mother and Father to ask them to come and get me, but Mother is covering her face with her hands, and Father is yelling at the man next to him, so they do not see me.

I do not like how Mother and Father are so far away from me in this scary place. All I want is to go home.

***

Goodman Harthorn did not let me go home. Instead, I am in a stone room that is very cold. But this is not so bad, because Goody Corey is here, too.

“Good morrow,” I say to Goody Corey.

Goody Corey opens her eyes wide. “Oh, lambkin, for what do they have you in here?”

“I think because Lydia Jones hit her head when I hit mine. I do not really understand.”

Goody Corey pinches her lips together. “What an evil, for you to be accused. Fourteen years old and never stepped on a flower, and to say you are doing the Devil’s work! I did not believe such nonsense of contracts, but I now believe those lying about being afflicted are the Devil’s true servants.”

I think Goody Corey is right, and that I do not belong in this place. I want to go home again. I am sure Mother and Father will be here for me soon, so I sit against the wall to wait and start to sing “Now Thank We All Our God” to myself.

I sing it again and again. A little girl comes up to me as I sing and says, “I like when you sing.”

“Do you want to sing with me?”

The little girl sits next to me. “I do not know the words.”

I smile. “I can teach you. What is your name?”

“Dorothy.”

“My name is Bethany. Okay, listen to the words and learn them.”

I teach Dorothy all the words. She learns fast, and she has a pretty voice. We sing together, and it sounds nice.

I do not mind staying here now.

***

We are all leaving the room now, which I learned is a prison. We gather on an ox cart, and the air feels so good on my face that I hum “Now Thank We All Our God” to myself.

“Bethany,” Dorothy says from behind me. “Can you sing it louder?”

Dorothy is crying. That makes me sad, so I sing “Now Thank We All Our God” so we can both be happy again.

Goodman Herrick makes me climb on top of a ladder, in front of lots of people. Then he puts a rope around my neck, and makes it tight.

Oh, no. I do not like this. “Stop that,” I say. “It feels bad.”

“Quiet, witch,” he says. Now all the other people say it with him.

Everyone around screams “witches” at us. It sounds like they are screaming “breeches.” Even though my neck still hurts, it makes me laugh.