“Well,” he told her, his tone ironic, “I’ll be a little longer now.”
“Don’t be too long.”
“You going to make it worth my while?”
“Hmm. You bet,” she told him.
“Aha.”
“I can be full of surprises,” she assured him before hanging up.
Restless, she headed into the kitchen, made herself a cup of tea and then settled down at her computer with the pad of scribbled notes she’d made from research sites and her own library.
Ever since seeing the scrawled quotation on Alex, she’d been looking up Satanism and witchcraft in Massachusetts.
Most of what she could find on witchcraft had to do with the travesty of justice that had occurred during the Salem witchcraft trials of 1692. She’d recently turned in a nonfiction book for a university press that had dealt with the Puritan rule in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, with a special focus on Puritan ministers. While Cotton Mather had “saved” a few witches, by caring for them himself, he’d also been instrumental in the executions that had occurred in Salem. There had been a few other trials and executions of so-called witches in the colony, as well. It seemed so appalling now and, in her mind, so ridiculous she couldn’t believe anyone had abided it—even in the devil-fearing darkness of the early days of the colony.
Of course, Salem—and surrounding areas—also had a nice population of modern-day real witches: wiccans. They were an acknowledged religion and Vickie had friends among them. They didn’t cast evil spells—they lived by a threefold rule, where any evil done to another comes back on one threefold. It was a pretty good framework for not hurting people!
But there were instances of Satanism rather than witchcraft that had taken place in Massachusetts. According to the Puritan fathers, there would be little difference. In the Puritan world, witches danced naked in the moonlight, signed the devil’s book and frolicked with all manner of decadence and enjoyed the pleasures of the flesh—in return for being wicked, of course.
The first accusations of witchcraft had occurred in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1645. Hugh and Mary Parsons had accused one another. Hugh was eventually acquitted; Mary was set to hang for the crime of killing her child—by witchcraft, or so the records implied. Between 1645 and 1663, eighty more people were accused and thirteen women and two men were put to death.
The fear of the devil had begun in Europe in the 1500s—thousands were put to death, burned at the stake or hanged, or through some other even more painful means. In comparison, what went on in the colony was pretty tame.
But even then, there were dissenters, and there were those who were ready and eager to take a faith and twist it around and give it a few new guidelines.
At the same time—circa 1665—Ezekiel Martin was growing stronger in influence among the young people swayed to his sect.
Missy Prior was a stunning young Puritan woman, an orphan who survived through selling produce from her small garden and from doing handcrafts—mending and sewing. Ezekiel Martin wooed the girl.
She turned him down. Sweetly. She talked about her youth—and mourning for her parents.
Ezekiel was hurt—deeply offended.
Since he’d never made it to being ordained—suspected of not being a learned or good man himself—his orations weren’t sanctioned by the church. But according to the diary of an ordained minister of the time, Ezekiel was capable of talking the good talk; he could preach convincingly and sway people, and he had a following that terrified the others before they even began to become aware of just what kind of a danger he could be.
He lured many people away from Boston, taking them west. There, he created the village of Jehovah.
Jehovah was no longer in existence, but it had once been situated between present-day Barre, Massachusetts, and what was now the Quabbin, the massive water reservoir created in the Swift River Valley.
Missy Prior, along with some of her friends, had been ahead of Ezekiel; she’d left Boston in order to escape Ezekiel’s attention, and she’d had a cottage in the woods, right in the area that Ezekiel would soon name Jehovah. It seemed that no matter how far she went, she couldn’t outrun Ezekiel, a man who had become obsessed with her.
There was nowhere else to run, and Missy’s friends were forced from her side as Ezekiel gained power and determination. But she still wanted nothing to do with Ezekiel.
He, in turn, woke one night screaming and shouting words of warning about Missy—and he woke the population of Jehovah and rounded them all up in front of Missy Prior’s cottage.
And he’d showed them all the words that had been written in the earth.
Hell’s afire and Satan rules, the witches, they are real. The time has come, the rites to read, the flesh, ’twas born to heal. Yes, Satan is coming!
According to the diary and journals from others who had lived during the time, Ezekiel then proceeded to convince a number of people that he was their salvation. They could not stop the arrival of the devil; they could only embrace him when he arrived. He would reward them, of course, if they were to come to him through his vessel on earth—Ezekiel Martin.
Missy Prior was terrified; she had turned down a madman one time too many.
She feared for her life.
She didn’t die; not then. She was taken in to be “healed” by Ezekiel.
Missy Prior, however, wasn’t enough for Ezekiel.
Ezekiel did what those who were both charming and evil at heart had a talent for doing—he seduced his followers into his House of Fire and Truth, a cult in which, of course, they followed a Mighty Power, pretending to still be Puritans to those around them, since those who were not Puritans in the colony at the time were killed or banished. What he was really doing, ministers and public officials became certain, was practicing out-and-out witchcraft or Satanism. He, Ezekiel, as Satan’s disciple on earth, was absolute ruler with absolute power, demanding the sweet fruit of the innocent and beautiful among the maidens, bestowing those he had used and deflowered upon those of the men of his congregation, those who had earned his admiration and devotion.
Missy Prior tried to flee. She was caught. By then, of course, Ezekiel had many women. She was to meet the fate reserved for one who betrayed her master. Death.
How that death came about, Vickie could not ascertain with certainty. She tried a number of her resources. Some suggested she was burned, not as a witch, but as a heretic. Some said that she might have actually been drawn and quartered, and others suggested that her throat was slit and that her blood was passed about to imbue the rest of the congregation with strength.
But while the Massachusetts Bay Colony was, at that time, still working under the charter that allowed for Puritan rule, the Crown did have a decided interest in the county. Cromwell had died in 1658 and Charles II had been asked back to rule in England—a good majority of the population had grown weary of Cromwell’s very strict ways. Charles happened to have men in the colony, soldiers under Captain Magnus Grayson. Grayson eventually got wind of Ezekiel’s activities. Heading into the village, he hadn’t the least problem demanding the immediate arrest of Ezekiel and his little pack of cronies. The small would-be self-governing colony was dispersed. Ezekiel found himself deserted when his men were faced with the armor and arms of the king’s men, and he slit his own throat—swearing that Satan would embrace him in his fiery power, and he would live again.
Captain Grayson had found skeletons and an altar stained with blood. It was believed that one of the skeletons found belonged to poor Missy Prior.
It seemed a heartbreaking story to Vickie.
Poor Missy.
She had been relentlessly pursued by Ezekiel Martin in life.
Perhaps her only escape from him had been in death.