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Tom Weston

First Night

An Alex and Jackie Adventure

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FIRST NIGHT PREVIEW. Copyright © 2008 by Tom Weston. All Rights Reserved. Except for brief extracts enclosed in critical review,

no part of this book may be reproduced in any form whatsoever without written permission. For information visit: www.tom-

weston.com.

This book is a work of fiction. The character and dialogue of historical figures are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons,

living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

“Bonner’s Map of Boston for 1722” reprinted from Boston Illustrated, published by James R. Osgood & Co., 1872.

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CONTENTS

1 A Death in Boston

2 Last Morning

3 Waking the Witch

4 Enchantments Encountered

5 The Day of Doom

6 The Advocate

7 The Grand Procession

8 The Union Oyster House

9 The Land of Melting Ice

10 The Wonders of the Invisible World

11 The Examination

12 Cotton Mather

13 Another Death in Boston

14 First Morning

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Everything is connected . . .

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Figure out the connection later.

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Chapter 1 – A Death in Boston December 31st, 1688

“As to Boston particularly, it lies in latitude 42° 20' on a very fine bay. The city is quite large, constituting about twelve

companies. It has three churches, or meeting houses, as they call them. All the houses are made of thin, small cedar shingles,

nailed against frames, and then filled in with brick and other stuff; and so are their churches. For this reason these towns are so liable to fires, as have already happened several times; and the wonder to me is, that the whole city has not been burnt

down.”

Jasper Danckaerts, July 23rd, 1680.

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he cold and detached wind blew in over the Cape and Bay from the Atlantic Ocean, like an unwelcome guest with a gift basket of rain and sleet and misery. In the harbor, littered with hump-backed islands, the sleeping

ships lay snoring at anchor as the sea strove in vain to turn them on their sides. Beyond the ships stood the three hills: the tri-mount as they were called. A windmill stood atop the most northerly hill. A tall pole stood erect on the highest, middle hill; and on top of the pole, a bucket filled with tar served as a beacon in the case of an emergency. Like guardian angels, the hills watched over the back of Boston Town, but simultaneously appeared to push this trespasser (another unwelcome guest) down the slopes and into the water. By land, one could only reach Boston via the Neck, a thin strip of dirt path which connected the town to the mainland. To keep the undesirables out at night, the citizens locked and manned the gate which straddled the Neck. High Tide saw the Neck under water and Boston became an island, marooned from the mainland. A fort guarded the entrance to the harbor. Six hundred soldiers and customs men resided at the fort. When they spied a ship, the Customs Men

T

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would hail, “Where from and what cargo?” - Boston always welcomed paying guests. Although only 7,000 inhabitants called Boston home, it ranked as the largest city in the Colonies. The year 1688 brought prosperity and excellent news to Boston. For the Catholic king James II of England lost his crown in the Glorious Revolution and as a consequence, the bishops also fell. Now the Protestants, in the personage of William and Mary, ruled instead. Of course, the revision to the monarchy precipitated numerous changes to the street names, but this inconvenience little bothered the Puritans, who fought to keep control over the heretics, sailors, merchants and pirates who infested Boston. In high spirits, the Puritans anticipated that the new regime would restore their charter, taken from them four years earlier by that other scoundrel, Charles II. Not that the Puritans held allegiance to any man (that belonged only to God), but if they must have a king then they found a solid Protestant king preferable to a Catholic under the yoke to that antichrist, the Pope. Nor did the Puritans worry about the accumulation of material possessions, but they understood the value of trade as a necessity to the survival of the colony. Which meant that at any hour of the day, upward of fifty ships lay at anchor in a harbor lined with merchant stores, inns and characters of ill repute. The sailors and Puritans both had a nickname for the town - Lost Town: the sailors, because the countless small islands in the outer harbor made the town difficult to find; the Puritans, because of the countless immoral ways of the sailors. The Puritans didn’t condone the behavior of the sailors and merchant class, but they tolerated it as a necessary evil and regulated it as best they could; and walked a fine line between enforcement of the laws of God and not scaring the trade away entirely. Amongst the ships in the harbor lay the sixteen guns, merchant Rebekka, which had just returned home from the sea; its master,

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Captain John Ayres. A large, impressive man with wild hair and even wilder, penetrating eyes, Captain Ayres had spent the day supervising the dispatch of his cargo and the dozens of rowing boats scurrying back and forth over the water to the sea locked ship. At its conclusion, the Captain turned towards the town. He and his men had worked long and hard in near darkness, thanks to the lack of light from the winter sun. And he welcomed the opportunity to get indoors for an evening meal and a warm seat by the fire. Yet he still had a great deal to do before he could rest. “It would be so much easier if we had a long wharf; so the larger ships can unload direct,” mused the Captain. “Maybe I’ll build one some day.” No one would have doubted he could do it too. He had a reputation for determination. The men who sailed with him spread the legend that to save his ship during a storm he once fought a duel with Poseidon, the god of the sea. He didn’t discourage the story. It made for better business, for negotiations, if his opponent considered him as a man who never backed down. When the last of his men had retired for the day, the Captain strode up the dock to Town Cove, where the body of a dead sailor swung in a gibbet: officially a warning to the pirates of the Gold Coast not to prey on Boston ships; unofficially a warning not to cheat the Customs Men of their share of the plunder. He held a privateer’s license from the Governor, which allowed him, as an agent of the crown, to raid any Spanish ship that he encountered at sea. And yet at the same time, and in secret, the Captain also engaged in the lucrative business of smuggling, mostly for profit, sometimes for conscience, such as the time he smuggled two regicides into Boston, refugees from Cromwell’s parliament, charged with the execution of Charles I. The line between a privateer and a pirate seemed fine indeed. Hand in pocket, the Captain fingered a little trinket, a bracelet, which he had received in trade from an Inuk native in Greenland.

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The bracelet featured several miniature carvings made from walrus ivory, of women and children, sometimes of babes in arms, both solid and fragile at the same time. Usually, the Inuit carved such a design from stone, given the scarcity of ivory, and they did not waste it on the trivial. “Whoever carved it was sending a message,” mused the Captain. The Inuit believed in reincarnation and that a person lived again when a new born child received the dead person’s name: the name soul they called it. The Inuk had perished with the Consumption. “Typical,” spat the Captain, who had seen too much of the world and had become jaded by the experience. His cynicism now marked him as a man without faith. Captain John Ayres believed only in Mother Nature. And she struck him as cold, cruel and indifferent. And that dead was dead. Born and raised in the Catholic faith, he fathomed it unwise to share his religious beliefs with the residents of this town. Just a month earlier, and three years before the trials at Salem would take centre stage, they awarded Ann Glover the dubious honor of becoming the last person in Boston to hang as a witch. The Captain understood her real crime lay in her lot as an Irish woman, sold into slavery by Cromwell for refusing to renounce her faith. Responding to the gnawing in his stomach and the stinging sleet on his face, the Captain turned away from Town Cove. He had to call on friends on Milk Street, but he proceeded there via an indirect route which took him to the Tavern on Orange Lane and the Greene Dragon out by Mill Pond: for a little unofficial business with the proprietors; and for some drafts of punch made from rum and molasses, and which was made from the proceeds of some earlier unofficial business. In spite of their reputation, the Puritans had turned the manufacture of rum into a most profitable industry. Official or otherwise, Boston reigned as the rum capital of the world. Rum

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served as the fuel of commerce. It was traded as currency and imbibed in equal measure. Once more fortified against the elements, the Captain pulled his cloak around him and set out into the dark streets of Boston. On a night such as this one he did not want to spend any more time outdoors than required, but he had promised he would visit, and after all, New England in winter was always capable of producing worse. On reaching the south end of the recently pebbled High Street, he spoke briefly with two members of the watch, the precursor of the police force, property owning, Puritan, free men who took it in turns to patrol the streets, as much to protect the citizens from the zeal of the King’s men, under the command of the Governor, as from thieves and muggers. The Captain then turned east, down Milk Street. He finally stopped before the front door of the Pemberton house, which although it occupied an area smaller than thirty square feet, resided on the fashionable southern side of the street. Even so, a tattered, red flag dangled from the front door of the dwelling, with the emblazoned words, 'God have mercy on this house’: a warning to visitors of the contagious illness which lay within. The Captain didn’t have to knock. The door opened, pulled from within by the hand of the Pemberton’s young son, Benjamin. Captain Ayres removed his hat and stepped inside. Thomas Pemberton greeted him.

In a style consistent with the age, The Pemberton house featured a simple two-up, two down wooden structure with a central chimney, of the type known as a saltbox. The first room on the ground level served as the parlor, kitchen and bedroom for Thomas and his wife, Hannah. The bed was separated from the rest of the room by a

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curtain. The second room served as a bedroom for the eight Pemberton children: the oldest aged thirteen and the youngest just two months of age. The two rooms upstairs functioned as storage rooms for baskets of grain, sides of bacon and the other supplies which would see the family through the long winter months and therefore far too important to use as bedrooms. A lean-to at the back of the house operated as a workshop and wash room. “Thank you for visiting, John. Hannah is so distraught,” said Thomas, his tired voice failing to hide his sorrow. Anyone who had ever heard Thomas talk of Hannah, recognized that she provided the light in his life. And if the light failed, he would not long survive the darkness. Captain Ayres smiled uncomfortably and handed his hat and cloak to Benjamin. “Do you fear the worst, Thomas?” he asked. The Captain preferred solitude and that, coupled with his imposing build, made him few friends, especially amongst the Puritans who, he felt, overplayed their role as the custodians of God’s law. But he had met Thomas and Hannah on his first trip to Boston and taken an instant liking to them. He found in them the quintessential happy couple. Their marriage was filled with laughter, their children bound to them by love not duty, their Puritanism a foundation of humble celebration, not the intolerance he found in so many of their faith. The Captain once lodged at the Pemberton’s house between voyages, before he wed and settled into his own house. And what had started as a business arrangement turned into a friendship which had grown over the years. Later, the Pembertons introduced him to his future wife, Mary, and encouraged her to look beyond the Captain’s gruff external shell. “Sarah will not long endure,” said Thomas. He spoke of his daughter. A surgeon and barber by trade, people found Thomas Pemberton sociable and energetic by nature. He had turned

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prematurely grey haired and a little rotund (thanks to Hannah’s irresistible cooking). He could mend the bones of sailors, broken in drunken brawls, and he could stitch up a knife wound, inflicted in a skirmish with an Indian, but he could not find the sickness hidden within his daughter. And he could not save her. In age, Sarah Pemberton ranked as the second child of Thomas and Hannah, but as their only daughter she ranked, perhaps unfairly, as first in their hearts. Even at the tender age of eleven, she demonstrated the qualities which the town elders endeavored to instill into every child at an early an age as possible. Her character tended towards the devout, serious, diligent and pious - in public at least. Amongst friends and family, she also displayed exuberance and curiosity, and she constantly troubled her parents about matters of eternity and the state of the soul. Her parents loved her inquisitiveness, but they often wished she would find a better balance between dialogue and silence. Now Thomas would have traded a lifetime of silence to engage his daughter in mindless chatter. Sarah had contracted smallpox. Given the incubation period of the virus, she had probably contracted it at Thanksgiving. This year, the sickness had taken victims other than Sarah, but compared to the epidemic which would hit Boston four years later, this outbreak remained relatively small. In truth, Sarah lay at death’s door and she knew it. Having learned her lessons well, death held no dread for her, but neither had she accepted it. She still had questions to ask, and she had not yet found God in a way which her parents and pastors would have wished. In point of fact, the smallpox would not kill her: that task fell to the pneumonia which resulted from her weakened state. The virus did not always prove fatal. Many, like Thomas, Hannah and the Captain, developed immunity to the virus, surviving earlier encounters with it. The children of the household, having nowhere else to go, would have to trust to luck. Unfortunately, Sarah did not

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share their luck. In 1721, Cotton Mather, of all people, would advocate the use of inoculation: a radical and almost heretical advance in the treatment of disease. But that advance would come thirty years too late for Sarah. “Let me offer a prayer,” said the Captain, who, although not a believer himself, appreciated what the sentiment meant to Thomas. “Lead on, old friend.” Thomas led the way around the fireplace to the bedroom of Sarah and her seven brothers. An eighth brother, James, had departed from them three years earlier and had been subsequently replaced, almost immediately, by another brother James. In less than a year hence, the children would once again find themselves turned out of their beds and the space made up for use as the birthing room for the week long sitting in, as Hannah’s female friends would gather to help her for the bringing to bed of her tenth child, George. At that time, to resolve the overcrowding, Sarah would have been permitted one of the storage rooms for her own bedroom, albeit still stocked with the supplies. Now it did not matter. The Captain saw Hannah Pemberton at Sarah’s bedside, gently combing her daughter’s short brown hair. The other children sat around in glum silence or whispered prayer. “Hello, Hannah,” said the Captain. “God be with you, John,” said Hannah without looking up. Hannah Pemberton, who always worked too hard and never complained, who ran the household with a regimental efficiency, who welcomed the strays (such as the Captain) which Thomas brought home and treated them as family. Hannah, who would take charge and get things done while others debated and hesitated. Hannah, who for the sake of her husband and children, would remain outwardly strong and confident, even as she was being overwhelmed. “God has abandoned ship,” thought the Captain. Hannah passed a hand over her brow to brush back a nonexistent hair which she felt on her face. She too understood that

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her daughter’s death loomed large. She also knew that the piece of her own heart, which she set aside for Sarah, faced its own death. Her Puritan stoicism started to fail her. She sensed the fragility of Sarah’s life and it broke her heart, but she also sensed the preciousness of each moment and she drew strength, knowing the bond between them remained eternally deep and limitless. She now passed a hand over her face to brush away the tears which certainly did exist. Thomas Pemberton could not bear to look upon this scene. He moved to the window and stared out into the night. By now the sleet had turned into a steady snowfall, and it drifted and collected in corners. Captain Ayres joined Thomas at the window. “I am heartily sorry, Thomas,” the Captain consoled. “It goes against the Natural Order, I know, but we do not understand the greater plan.” “It is a hard journey, John. I cannot help Sarah. I am of no comfort to Hannah,” complained Thomas. “God sits beside them,” replied the Captain. “I am guilty of the sin of anger,” continued Thomas, ashamed of his failings. No legitimacy abided in the myth that their faith made the Puritans hardened or indifferent to death, even as often as they had experienced it. The Captain knew first hand of Thomas’s pain. He too had lost a child, Samuel, on a similarly bleak December day, just two years earlier. In fact, many thought it impossible to find a family who had not lost a child or two. “So much for the Natural Order,” the Captain muttered under his breath. Through her weakened state, Sarah could hear the Captain and she couldn’t retain her curiosity, even now. “The Natural Order?” she thought. “What Natural Order? What is he talking about? Is there an order other than God’s? Why haven’t they told me about this?” “What is this Natural Order, Captain?” Sarah asked. The Captain heard Sarah’s call and looked up. “Oh pay me no mind, child,” he replied and went to sit beside her. As he sat down,

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he felt the Inuit bracelet press against him. He took it out and looked at Hannah for permission. Hannah nodded. “Here, Sarah, I have a present for you, made from ivory by the Inuit of the Northland.” He held up the bracelet for Sarah to see and then took her hand and placed the bracelet around her wrist. “They are simple creatures who love nature and honor it with their art. There are those who believe that the possession chooses its owner, not the other way round. This bracelet has chosen you and it has travelled far to be with you: all the way from Greenland. The Inuit are a poor and frugal tribe. They do not have much and so they cherish their possessions all the more. You must do the same.” “Thank you, Captain; I will most certainly cherish it. She held up her hand and the bracelet caught the light. “Look, Mother, a babe in arms! Look how they cling to one another,” smiled Sarah, but visibly weakened by her exertion, her arm soon sank back to the bed. Hannah bit her lip to stop it from trembling, but could not prevent it. “All is well, Mother, so do not weep. Captain Ayres speaks of the Natural Order. I will not be a disobedient child, I promise. I will not break the Natural Order.” Sarah knew that her parents frowned on this kind of talk and that instead she should voice her eagerness to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. But her mother could not hide her grief. Sarah saw it and wanted to comfort her. Hannah clutched Sarah’s hand tightly and leaned over to whisper in Sarah’s ear, so close that their tears touched and merged. “You must sleep now.” “Share your prayer with us, John,” said Thomas. He needed to hear words of comfort and to call on his Maker for deliverance from this evil. He also needed a distraction before his own heart broke. As the Captain had rejected religion, some would think it duplicitous of him now to turn to prayer, but the Captain understood that his friend’s needs outweighed his own hypocrisy. And he also knew, on occasion at sea, a piece of the Bible made a successful defense against mutiny, and consequently, the Book of Common

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Prayer lay amongst the few volumes which took up precious space in his cabin. So he began, “Lord be merciful to us sinners, and save us for thy mercy's sake . . .” The room grew chilly as the cold night air entered through the cracks in the window frame. Even so, Sarah felt comforting warmth enter her. She clutched the Inuit ivory tight, but could no longer feel it in her fingers. While the Captain said his prayer and her family bowed their heads in response, she began to drift off into her own personal cocoon. As she closed her hazel eyes, tinted now with ruby, she remembered some lines from Mr. Cotton’s Catechism.

“O spare me, Lord, forbear thy hand, Don't cut me off who trembling stand,

Begging for mercy at thy door, O let me have but one year more.”

Then she died.

As tradition dictated, Thomas Pemberton sent out the gloves which served as invitations to the funeral. In the meantime, they consigned Sarah’s body to a niche in the wall of the Old (First) Church. By rights, she should have lay in their own South Meeting House, the Third Church, but the some-time Governor and full-time extortionist, Edmund Andros, had requisitioned it for use by the Anglicans. The Puritans took it as an affront to their constitutional rights, but with two thousand, armed men to back him up, Andros cared little for their provincial protocols.

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With Sarah thus ensconced, the business of the church and townsfolk went on as usual around her. Sometimes a passing neighbor would stop and bid her good day and have a bit of a chat, as if she still lived and at home to callers. Sometimes a playmate would bring her something to eat, an apple or a few berries, and the food would get eaten during the night by the church servants, if the mice didn’t devour it first. Three days later, they removed Sarah from the Church and carried her down Cornhill and up past Ezekiel Cheever’s schoolhouse to the Burying Place on Common Street, over by Boston Common. The Minister, Samuel Willard, who had 3,000 pairs of gloves at home, led the way. Then came Thomas and Hannah with arms linked, followed by the children old enough to walk. Mourners took it in turns to carry the casket. At one time the church bells would have sounded a death knell, but so many deaths, and so many bells, left the citizenry exhausted and they had passed an ordinance to silence the bells. The bad weather continued unabated, sometimes sleet, sometimes snow, but now a steady drizzle which fell on them, soaked their clothes and made them shiver, causing Willard to observe, “it rains on the just as well as the unjust.” “At least it is Willard and not that old tyrant Mather,” thought Thomas, before berating himself for the sin of Pride. After a disagreement over the appointment of a new minister, Thomas and the congregation of the Third Church had broken away from the strict orthodox beliefs of Mather and his cohorts. Cotton Mather would have seen no reason to spare the children a sermon, once haranguing them: “Go into the Burying Place, children; you will there see graves as short as your selves. Yea, you may be at play one hour; dead, dead the next.” Puritans such as Mather believed in predestination: the view that God had already decided at the dawn of time who would go to Heaven and who would go to Hell; and that the saved ones still

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waiting for Heaven must strive to show their true nature through acts of piety and goodness. Now Hannah Pemberton struggled to subscribe to this point of view. Instead she wondered how both the sharp pain and dull numbness could occupy the same space and time. That both did so, with such force within her, did not help her crisis of faith. On reaching the Burying Place, Hannah discerned her husband’s step had faltered, so imperceptible that only she could detect it. She squeezed his hand. “Poor Thomas,” she thought. “Which one of us will break first?” Mather would also have allowed no untoward show of emotion or ceremony at the funeral. He criticized the growing fashion for periwigs worn by his fellow ministers. He railed against the delivery of sermons which falsely flattered the character of the deceased. He castigated the adornment of graves with angels and other images of Heaven, thinking that a popish extravagance. If the populace required frippery at all, and he doubted that it did, then let them make adornments of sculls and scythes and hourglasses. At a Mather funeral, they buried a person with no more ceremony than if they buried a dog. Neither did Samuel Willard advocate enlightenment and reform, but he at least showed consideration enough to lead the mourners in a short prayer before leaving the comfort of the church, and while there, he exchanged a glance with Hannah to let her know that sometimes one cannot put doubt aside; a thing neither would ever admit publicly. Although the official service for Sarah remained two days away, Willard stood at the graveside and quoted scripture. He lacked the passion of Cotton Mather, it is true, but he still possessed the Puritan ethic. Willard berated any mourners who showed excessive sorrow and warned against the use of professional mourners, with their weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, and who, he felt, stirred emotions in others which they should not stir. As they lowered the

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coffin, and in keeping with custom and the expectations of his audience, Willard read aloud the poem which someone had pinned to Sarah’s casket.

From far and near who lose thy light, To near and far who catch thy sight,

Be guided by the beacon bright, This is but the first good night.

In conclusion, which admittedly could not come soon enough for most of the assembly, and so that Heaven and earth should hear him clearly and none should doubt his authority, Willard raised his voice, “There is but one faith and one salvation!”

With all ceremony observed and nothing left to say, the mourners exchanged their funeral rings and departed. Hannah Pemberton, the first to break, fell into her husband’s arms and he carried her away. The grave was silent as - well, a grave. The rain stopped falling. The wind did not blow. No leaves stirred. No birds sang in the cold, December air. In the grave, darkness and stillness reigned. And who knows just how long this darkness and stillness lasted, but after what seemed a very long time, centuries even, Sarah Pemberton opened her eyes.

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his preview contains selected material from the Alex and Jackie Adventure, First Night: being a ghost story. Thank you for reading.

Regards,

Tom Weston

www.tom-weston.com

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