Even the Smallest

BRIDGET AWOKE WITH A START, the voices from her dream dispersing into the morning melody of chirping birds. The comforting sound reassured her of some normalcy in the otherwise large world. A narrow beam of light, indicating the sun had risen, pierced the crack above the boulder blocking the entrance to the one-roomed chamber.
  Unfurling the grey animal pelt she used as a blanket, she stood and then neatly refolded it. She had skinned the creature herself, finding the carcass shortly after her arrival. It took several days without a proper blade, but it ultimately provided her with warmth and nourishment.
  She’d been confined before, but why her captors would deposit her alone in the large forest defied explanation. The isolation wore on her psyche, with night bringing mysterious voices. Were they apparitions trying to summon her, figments of her imagination, or had others met a similar fate?
  Stretching her limbs, she glanced at the soiled linen shift she wore. What she wouldn’t give for a stay, petticoat, or even a pair of stockings. The solstice had passed a few weeks prior, thus she was grateful the days were still long and the nights not so cold. Her daily chores included constructing a proper chimney for heating her current abode if her sentence kept her there during the impending autumn and winter.
  Kneading a crick out of her neck, she etched the thirty-ninth tally mark in the rough wooden wall. Assuming when she had arrived, she muttered the presumed date. “July nineteenth.”
  Bridget rolled the large stone aside and stepped out into the sunlight. Despite her sixty years, she felt in better physical condition than before her inexplicable circumstances. Even if she were near town, her new perspective confounded her bearings. Fortunately, she had located a nearby river—perhaps a creek—to fetch water and places to forage for berries. Her husband had tended to such chores before.
  She took a deep cleansing breath, tilting her head back to bask in the sunlight. Above her, the sky was as blue as ever, and trees reached higher than nature allowed them. When she turned to the rotted stump in which she resided, she remembered it wasn’t the forest that had grown large; it was she who had been made small.
  Small and beneath them, as the townsfolk had treated her after her second husband had passed. Small and narrow, as their views leading to her conviction on such flimsy testimony. Small and insignificant, as how she felt when imprisoned and punished by them.
  They were now part of her past, and though her present existence was solitary, Bridget had found unexpected peace of mind. The future didn’t worry her, as long as she could provide for herself. Picking up the hollowed acorn she used as a water bucket, she started her daily trek to the river.
  About halfway there, a gust of wind knocked her down. As it whistled through the branches of the mighty oaks, the hairs on the back of her neck stood upright. Something was coming. Not a fox, and raccoons wouldn’t be out in the daytime, this was something else.
  Something large. Something ominous.
  The earth below her feet rumbled, as if something were being dragged—rolled?—toward her. Dead branches, more like thick logs to her, snapped in the distance, with a cadence of clops slowly growing louder. Closer. Something was definitely approaching, and she needed to get out of its path.
  Dropping her acorn-bucket, she dashed behind the trunk of a nearby tree before the horse-drawn wagon appeared. Wild animals typically paid her no mind, regarding her as neither predator nor prey, but the people coming her way had mistreated her before she came to the forest. Reduced to the size of a poppet, what kind of witchcraft would they accuse her of if they spotted her?
  As the horse plodded forward, Bridget sensed contempt in its steps. She heard sobs from aboard the wagon, and though she couldn’t tell who was there, she probably knew them. Others sentenced like her, tried by those walking beside and behind the wagon with their heads held high in perceived piousness.
  Tears trickled from her eyes as she recalled her own journey up the hill. She wanted to yell, to scream, to condemn the townsfolk’s actions, but what could she do? Those who protested were silenced, some later accused and sentenced themselves. Whatever spectral force had blinded her neighbors may have also rendered her the smallest person alive, if she were still alive. For all she knew, this was the Hell they had condemned her to.
  Once the procession receded into the distance, Bridget trudged to the center of the path and prayed for the salvation of those on the wagon. In a brief moment of clarity, she wondered if whatever had made her small would do the same to them. They’d need help adjusting to such a strange new existence. Having people to talk to, to share the workload, to start a community anew without ignorance and prejudice filled her with hope. She started chasing after the wagon as quickly as her little legs could carry her.
  The sun continued rising in the sky, its heat bearing down on her. Bridget had no idea how long or how far she ran, and she winced with each step as the oversized pebbles dug into her bare feet. Drenched in sweat, she fell to her knees. Nothing looked familiar, and she was nowhere near either her destination or her makeshift home.
  She was out in the open and too late to save them from the gallows.
  Dejected, she stood and staggered toward the edge of the path, where she collapsed behind a downed tree limb. Her legs ached, and she tried to massage the pain away. She needed water, rest, and help returning to the safety of her stump.
  Do not be afraid. The sound whistled with the wind, and Bridget scanned the area for its source. No one was there.
  You are one with us now. The words, phrases from her dreams, tickled her neck. Yet exhausted as she was, she wasn’t asleep.
  Nature will provide. She blocked her ears and convulsed, like the girls at the trials, hoping she could muffle the voices. They wouldn’t cease, for they were already inside her head.
  And you shall…
  “No!” she raised her voice to drown the others out. “I never saw these persons before, nor was I never in this place before!” She repeated her defense when accused of pinching, choking, biting, and otherwise tormenting people. How could they make that claim when she’d been nowhere near them? Why would they make that claim? Why couldn’t they have left her alone?
  Feeling something suddenly graze her neck, she shrieked.
  “Goody Bishop, is that you?” asked a female voice—a singular, gentle, familiar voice.
  Bridget opened her eyes and looked up at a younger woman crouched before her. She hadn’t seen another person in weeks, but she instantly recognized Goody Good. Sarah Good.
  Four other women were there, all dressed similarly in only their white linen shifts. Bridget knew them from her time in jail.
  Susannah Martin asked, “How can she be here?”
  “Where exactly is here?” Standing off to the side, Elizabeth Howe gaped at the treetops. “And why is everything so large?”
  Sarah Wildes turned to the others and stated, “Goody Bishop was taken to the gallows over a month ago.”
  “As were we this morning,” said the fifth woman, emerging from behind the others and extending a hand to Bridget. “Let us first assist her and then determine how we can all be here.”
  Vague recollections of these women, who had been locked up with her, filled Bridget’s mind. Goody Wildes may have had a reputation of defiance, Goody Good and poor widowed Good Martin may have been impoverished and dependent on others, and the townsfolk disapproved of her own occasional drinking and dark clothing, but none of them were witches. Goody Howe was from nearby Topsfield, so how could she afflict people in Salem? Rebecca Nurse had always been above reproach. What kind of hysteria had consumed the town and turned neighbor against neighbor?
  Taking Rebecca’s hand and rising to her feet, Bridget said, “I am sorry this happened to all of you, but it is good to be among friendly faces.”
  “What is this place?” asked Elizabeth.
  “We passed here on our way to the gallows,” replied Susannah. “Only everything is larger.”
  Sarah Good countered, “Or we are much smaller.”
  Wind, likely a small breeze, blew down the hill, and the women struggled to keep their balance. Then the sounds of the rolling wagon and trotting horse could be heard.
  “We mustn’t be seen,” said Bridget. “The townsfolk have already hanged us. Imagine what they could do while we are no larger than the palms of their hands.”
  “I say let them see us!” shouted Sarah Wildes, hiking her shift above her knees as she marched into the center of the path. “They believe we are capable of conjuring apparitions? Let them see us as spirits prepared to haunt them.”
  Some willingly volunteering and some reluctantly coerced, the six women joined hands across the path. Though they occasionally flinched or closed their eyes as the enormous procession approached, they stood their ground.
  The late-morning sun reflected brightly off the women, clad in white like angels. The horse, wagon, and townsfolk continued forward, passing over, around, and through them. Confused, they unclasped their hands and turned, watching the townsfolk return toward Salem.
  “What has happened?” asked Elizabeth.
  Rushing to Elizabeth’s side, Rebecca said, “We should be grateful we are unharmed.”
  “But why did they not see us?” asked Sarah Wildes.
  Bridget replied, “They did not see us for what we were in life; why would they see us for what we are in death?”
  Do not be afraid. Bridget was no longer frightened by the voice. For the first time since her ordeal began, she understood it. Nature has provided for you. As the words wafted through the air, she followed them to their source.
  A man their size stood before the downed log at the edge of the path. Wearing only leggings made of light deerskin, he beckoned them to join him. Cautiously, Bridget approached him, most certainly a member of the Native tribe from the territory around Salem before she came from England.
  “I am of the Naumkeag people. Many of us perished from disease when your people arrived,” he said. “We were guided from here as I will guide you.”

  “Why can we understand your language?” asked Bridget.
  “We are equal in death. Perhaps in life, we were not as different as most thought.”
  The light around them intensified as he gestured toward a glowing white portal that opened in the log. The hanging of witches was to ensure they burned in Hell, but as the woman gazed into it, the soothing warmth bathing them assured that they were bound for somewhere better.
  One by one, they entered, Bridget choosing to be last. The first to be hanged on the tenth of June, 1692, she accepted that she had endured isolation in the forest so she wouldn’t have to move on alone. Acknowledging their Naumkeag guide as she crossed the threshold, she let his words comfort her.
  “You are with us now, a part of nature for eternity. There have been others before, and there will be more after us. In time, people may understand the errors of their ways, and perhaps we shall be remembered. The meek, the innocent, those who wrongly died, and the powerless—even the smallest of us—shall someday rise.”