"Previously on "Salem"..." "It is as if the Angel of Death himself has descended upon the town." "The witches' Grand Rite." "Please return to Salem." "Find out who Mary Sibley is backing for magistrate and I find the next witch in line." "You may be God's gift to Salem, Dr. Wainwright." "That the Grand Rite was led by one Mary Sibley." "The comet will soon blaze overhead, terrifying all for only three nights." "The crags will be filled with hell-blood." "Mercy Lewis killed our witches." "True witches." "The Elders." "_" "Kill them!" "Kill them all!" "You wanted war." "Now taste war." "Father..." "Your baby's home." "We're going to need more water." "You must use your fork." "You act as though raised by wolves." "I suppose in some ways you were." "You hold the fork like this, and you use the knife to push the food onto the prongs." "First, the cloth." "You place it in your lap like so." "What do you hide there?" "Come, now, show me what it is." "It reminded me of you, Mother." "So beautiful." "Its neck." "Did you find it so?" "It found me." "Take the bird and bury him in the garden." "As hard as it may be to part with something so... beautiful, that is what we must do with things that are dead to us." "My wife is locked up with a woman who has the pox." "You have to let her out." "My wife's no witch." "And she don't deserve to be damned to death with the pox!" "What would you have us do, sir?" "Let known thieves and suspected witches run loose amongst the good citizens of Salem?" "Without a magistrate to hear their cases, they'll be locked in with that plagued woman for weeks." "A certain death sentence." "And with no trial." "What do you suggest, my dear Mrs. Sibley?" "Or do you need to confer with your ever-silent husband?" "I will confer with my husband, who I assure you is far from silent." "And in due time, when the evidence is heard..." "Your due time has left the magistrate's seat vacant, the witchcraft trials all but ceased, and the plague to run rampant." "I assure you, good people, there will be a magistrate by sunrise." "As town treasurer and next-highest officer among the selectmen, it is natural that I should step in as magistrate." "Might I remind the generous Mr. Hathorne that Salem will not be ruled by one man?" "And certainly not by one woman." "Fine." "We shall gather the selectmen and hold an election." "A vote it will be, then." "Today." "I know that my husband, Mr. Sibley, would like to be there, and I need time to make arrangements." "Uh, tonight then." "We shall decide the position of magistrate over supper at the Sibley house." "Good day, sirs." "George is the only way to get Hathorne to back down." "And evoking his name is not enough anymore." "Then what is?" "Worry not." "I have it under control." "This town is but the living form of my orrery, and both run like clockwork." "No man can stop the hours ringing in the changes." "Clocks are often stopped, Mistress." "It takes but a well-placed finger." "I fear the boy has been a distraction to you." "The boy is my son, and the only thing that distracts me is the nagging thought of what horrors may have been inflicted upon him in the years before I knew of his existence." "What did you do to him?" " If he is forever damaged..." " Patience, Mary." "I have none for you anymore, you who lied and hid him for all those years." "You weren't ready." "Perhaps you're still not." "I can take him back to the woods at any time." "Never again, or I will stop everything we've begun." "I will let the comet pass, the crags run dry, and the Grand Rite will have been for nothing." "Do not test me." "Reverend Lewis." " I'm so sorry for your loss." " Hmm." "I miss her so." "Mercy was my last true friend." "We'll see how true a friend you really are." "Come with me." "Hathorne sought to humiliate me in front of a nescient congregation, and you did not utter a word on my behalf." "I was concerned to draw attention." "Well, in not drawing attention, Mr. Corwin, you have drawn a line." "I must know which side you stand." "Yours, my lady." "You know I've been your silent servant all these years." "Well, you shall be silent no more." "The role of magistrate cannot fall to an un-sympathetic foe." "It must be a witch." "That is why you are to challenge Hathorne as candidate." "But he is most popular with the other selectmen." "With Mr. Sibley's endorsement, no selectman will dare vote against you." "We are vulnerable." "You have brought our kind to the center of the stage when we are hated most." "I have completed the Grand Rite." "The consecration is well underway." "Soon we will taste freedom like you have never known before." "But for now, we must continue the charade of puritan rule." "And we must control it." "I fear I will disappoint you." "Well...'Tis not me you ought to worry about disappointing." "Who goes there?" "Please." "Won't you come out?" "You frighten me." "You can no longer recognize your old friend beneath these hideous scars." "Mercy?" "Is that really you?" "Where were you when we all burned?" "Do you not remember?" "It was you who sent me in town for provisions." "It was you who saved me." "Then I must have saved you for a good reason." "How did I not notice what a lovely creature you are?" "You can walk among the living." "You'll be the means of my vengeance." "I would do anything for you." "Good." "Mary Sibley will not see us coming." "At last." "I'm dead." "And you... a heavenly creature to welcome me." "It's just me..." "Dollie." "What else but an Angel would risk all in a horrible place like this to sit vigil with a wretch like myself?" "Believe me, Isaac, I am not going anywhere." "I will stay by your side." "These past few days, Cotton, it's been such a comfort being with you." "I must admit, when I first opened my door in Boston, the sight of your face brought me greater joy than I would have expected." "It is you, Anne, who has been a great comfort to me." "I believe my father died thinking his only child was consumed with hatred for him." "Never." "He admired your spirit." "He was proud of you." "Something my father never felt toward me." "Faced with his infinite disapproval," "I cursed him in the worst way, behind his back, like a coward." "You are no coward, Cotton." "I despised him." "Now I feel lost without him." "Before he was gripped by madness, he would have known what to do." "He would have delivered us from the pox, and he would have rid Salem of every last witch." "And do you agree with him, that there is no way to save a witch but kill them?" "I hate to think that all their souls are forever damned." "My father said that..." "That there are ones who are born into it, who have no choice." " Perhaps they could be saved." " Hmm." "My father would have said no..." "That we are all predestined to good or evil." "And what do you say?" "I believe there is always a choice." "I believe our... choices dictate our destiny." "Then there is salvation." "And where there is salvation, there is hope." "My dear Isaac." "I am at death's door." "I know where it leads once it be opened." "Satan himself waits to torture me for eternity." "Now, what has convinced your mind of such a thing?" "Isaac the Fornicator." "Many years have passed, but a sin is a sin, and I am doomed to pay for it." "No, you have paid plenty in this life." "You have a good soul, and the Lord I believe in does not care what you do on this earth." "What lord would create bodies capable of such pleasures, then punish us for knowing it?" "What Lord indeed?" "Very advanced words for a stern puritan mistress like yourself." "See, I would have thought you'd consider the body a constant source of pain and temptation to hell, like your husband." "My husband is entirely correct." "Life with him has been both a pain and a constant temptation to hell." "But I'm not convinced God intended it so." "Your friend Isaac improves, and with him, the chance to save many." "Now, the blood I drew from him could be used to guard the unaffected." "You would spread his infectious blood." "Curious." "But if it helps others, that is indeed good news." "Why, you must seek more than good news to risk so much coming here, where no one willingly enters and few leave alive." "No, it is you who are the risk to me." "You operate here under my approval, yet they call you "necromancer" and "speak of corpse bothering"." "Well, I doubt very much anything bothers a corpse." "Do not jest, Doctor." "We hang men for such things in Salem." "Well, it seems there's little in Salem you don't hang men for... or women." "Do you fear nothing?" "Nothing from you, Mary Sibley." "Well, that is a great deal of trust in a woman you hardly know." "Well, there are some things and people one knows in a single glance." "Come with me." "You have a fine hand." "You make a body look as beautiful without the skin as with it." "I only wish my hand was as adept at uncovering the mysteries beneath the skin." "This plague is... it's like no other." "It's not transmitted by vermin nor by the simple cough, but some other means." "Hathorne wonders if you really came to town to cure the plague or to humor some dark obsession with the dead." "Both." "So, tell me, in all this science, this impiety against God, what is it you're looking for?" "I seek the materiality of the soul..." "Its embodiment, and, likewise, the soul that lives in all things." "If we can understand the physical seat of the soul, and we understand the spiritual nature of all things, then we might learn to do so much." "You sound like a witch." "Well, perhaps so." "Perhaps, in their own misbegotten way, witches are scientists." "Well, then Hathorne would be right, and scientists are also witches." "But I do not seek to hurt anyone." "I am searching for the very organ that proves God's existence within us." "And where is it?" "A chamber, deeply protected within the chest, if you believe Aristotle." "Descartes saw it residing in the brain." "But I believe it's right about here..." "The crossroads between body and mind." "They're calling the small organ hidden just there the thyroid, from the Greek "thyreoiedes", "shield shaped."" "I think it is the seat of the soul." "But how do you know?" "That's the theory, but I believe I can prove it." "But it might hurt." "Prove it." "I'll try and be gentle." "Don't bother." "Did you feel it?" "What?" "Your soul on the verge of leaving your body." "Did your vision begin to darken?" "Your pulse quickened, and rapid thoughts, like..." "Like pictures flitting past your mind's eye." "Yes." "What on earth were you thinking?" "Well, I wasn't." "Thinking, that is." "But tell me..." "How did it feel to be completely in another's control over your very life, your very soul?" "I know such a feeling, and this was not it." "There." "Hmm." "Please." "No more." "End this." "H-h-h-h-have mercy." "I-I beg you." "You have finally lost your appetite for defiance." "Enough." "I cannot endure any longer." "Just kill me." "Now, you know too well the hell I can make of your existence." "But imagine..." "The heaven I might grant you in relief." "I might ask you what a good meal would mean to you, the touch of young flesh, life surging through your feeble appendages once more." "I have a proposal for you." "An old rival of yours has reared his head..." "Wendell Hathorne." "He knows... what you are?" "George, if those tepid men saw me for what I truly am, they would soil themselves in fear, as you so often have." "But that needn't be so." "For perhaps the first time ever, your interests and mine share common ground." "Hathorne not only made advances to your wife in public, but he tried to strip you of your lands." "Outside these walls," "George Sibley is a giant amongst men, the last of the founders, but Hathorne seeks to destroy that." "I hardly think it's a sin to protect what you've worked so hard to achieve, George." "Your life as you know it may be over." "Do you want your legacy and your legend to die, as well?" "You look affright." "I'll prepare a tonic of Cayenne to sharpen the tongue." "To say what?" "What do you want from me?" "To endorse Corwin as magistrate and maintain the illusion that you and you alone control Salem, and your wife, with an iron grip and silence your bitter enemy, Hathorne." "You can't look at me, Father?" "You don't want to see your daughter?" "Please, I..." "You never shied away before." "You wanted to see all the delicacies of your beautiful daughter." "Mercy, please." "Perhaps I should take my leave." "No." "You will bear witness to all that is to come." "Mercy, if you have any humanity left in you, return to me what is... most vital." "You'll be reunited with the shriveled remnants of your manhood when you've fulfilled every errand I demand." "And now I need you to strike the first blow against dear Mary Sibley." "A wise choice to keep the council's gathering intimate." "Uh, I was rather hoping to receive the appointment of magistrate from your husband personally." "But it seems, as usual, his ventriloquist will have to do." "Mr. Hathorne, your vigor for the peace and prosperity of Salem is an inspiration." "But a magistrate is merely an arbiter of the common law." "And many know the common law." "But only a man as gifted as yourself, however, may make sense of all the complex calculations required of a treasurer." "No, you're far too valuable a man to be wasted as magistrate." "Instead, George supports a most fair, if less numerate man..." "Alexander Corwin." "George." "Ah, it is a true honor to have you back in our presence." "Yes." "My wife has carried out my demands." "And they are many." "Yet she meets... with challenges." "I-I assure you any exchanges have been in the spirit of civic debate." "Good." "We still need your governance... of treasury." "Nathaniel, fetch us a bottle of claret from the cellar while we wait on Mr. Corwin." "Mmm." "The hour wanes, George." "Mr. Corwin has surely been detained by something critical." "It appears that all who find the election of magistrate important are present." "Corwin has clearly had a change of heart." "Since, as you say, we all know the common law, we're all aware that no one may be appointed to a post in absentia." "I submit myself again in his stead and call for a vote now." "Mr. Sibley always insists we finish dessert before business." "Corwin will show." "Not only am I disturbed by the authority you allow your wife, George, your mouthpiece in Salem, one might even say your regent, but I am also grown weary by this dinner's charade." "If you are truly the head of this household, Sibley," " I insist that you call for a vo..." " We wait." "Well, I am comforted to know there's at least one true gentleman left in this town." "Gentlemen, if you'll excuse me a moment." "Of course." "Please." "Corwin is nowhere to be found." "George will have no choice but to put Hathorne forward if Corwin is absent." "So we must drag his cowardly feet from the hole they are hiding in." "Cotton Mather was right." "Bind a witch with the right knot to iron and dead wood, he's as neutered as a freshly cut steer." "You are gravely mistaken." "I am no witch." "Bullshit, Corwin." "I stabbed thin air, and then I caught you." "What would you call that if not witchcraft?" "You have to believe me." "This is no ordinary knife." "But if it were, it would still serve to separate the skin from your body in one thick sheet." "I've seen the Indians do it." "I've learned the trick myself." "But seeing as this is no ordinary knife but one which holds a special hurt for witches," "I can't imagine what it would do to you." "But I sure am curious." "What would you have of me?" "Names of every witch in Salem." "Stop!" "Stop!" " Whoa!" " Halt!" "The long arm of Mary Sibley, no doubt." "She ordered a blockade." "All roads in and out of Salem." "Good evening, sirs." "No passage, on account of the pox." "Orders of George Sibley, lest you have a pass." "It is exactly his wife, Mary Sibley, with whom I seek audience." "Now, let us pass." "For a price." "I beg your pardon?" "Pay or turn back around." "You dare extort a man of the cloth and a fine young lady from one of Salem's founding families?" "Man of the cloth?" "Well, I'll be damned." "If it isn't Cotton Mather!" "Cotton!" "Coward!" "Fled his post and left us to rot!" " No!" "No!" " Come here, pretty." "Leave her alone!" "Let me go!" "Don't touch me!" "No!" "Anne!" "Are you okay?" "What happened?" "He... he went away." "We should go." "We should go." "Come on." "Come on." "You have to give Corwin a piece of your mind." "I only have Salem's interest at heart." "A vote is imminent." "We can stall them no longer." "This is going to have to do for a glimpse at the gutless Corwin so we might bring him here." "Blindness... or castration?" "It's really quite simple." "I am not too proud to say that I am afraid, but it is of powers f-far greater than you." "She fears nothing." "Yes." "Mary Sibley." "Who else?" "If you know my mistress, you know such attempts are futile." "Whatever your quest, you're too late." "Names." "Now!" "She sees all." "I know she sees me." "She will have no mercy." "I have felt her pulling at my bound legs, and any moment, she will be peering right at me, even here." "Oh, I'm counting on it." "By this firelight, bestow unto us the gift of sight, so we might find our brother Corwin in the shadows of this night." "For all our crimes, justice is come." "If we do not cease all we do, end our witch pox, and lay down all weapons of malice, we will die..." "Every last one of us." "We must hurry." "Who could do this?" "Someone with enough cunning craft to counter ours and obscure their faces from our vision." "Whoever is out there, they are targeting us." "A gracious host, even in defeat." "I honor the council's decision." "Congratulations, Magistrate Hathorne." "Shall we dispense with the pleasantries?" "It is my full intention to shake Salem from the grip of mayhem brought on by you." "By all means, but take care." "Even a magistrate has his place." "As has a woman." "I suggest you start attending to some duties more suited to your gender." "What is it, Mary, that gives you such brash confidence to reach so far beyond your station?" "You are the Delilah in our midst." "A strong woman is no more to fear than a strong man." "If George will not humble you, I will." "Consider this before you seek to harm our family, my good fledgling magistrate..." "My husband owns every ship docked in this port, land for 1,000 miles, the very bedpan you relieve yourself in, yet we serve those we could rule." "You cannot hide behind your husband anymore, Mary Sibley." "I am not your enemy." "But make me one, and you shall feel my fury." "Where's George?" "Upstairs, pacified again." "We have more urgent matters." "George is my power in this town." "Never underestimate his importance to us." "He is irreplaceable." "The same cannot be said for poor Corwin." " We vowed to protect one another." " Not at the cost of the Hive." "Corwin will have exposed our identities to this new assailant, unless the assailant already knows who we are." "You suspect someone within the Hive?" "What better way to undermine me?" "After all, this is someone who employs counter-magic to shield themselves." "The seer can lift the veil from our eyes, help us find this witch hunter." "I will go now." "No, at dawn." "It is too dangerous to move about the shadows tonight." "I will station two militia men outside the doors." "This was an attempt to lure us out." "We are safest here." "We cannot let their brutality unravel us." "Find peace in sleep." "Nathaniel, pour me a bath." "Reverend Lewis?" "A man of the Lord come to pray for my soul?" "There is but one destination for you, Isaac, and I have seen it with my own eyes." "Huh?" "Lord, have mercy on him." "I buried the dove, as you asked." "Are you still cross with me, Mother?" "Never." "Oh, I only ever want to protect you." "Now, why are you still awake?" "I'm afraid to close my eyes." "Afraid when I open them, you'll be gone." "Look, just because you can't see me doesn't mean I've gone." "But my father went away, didn't he?" "And he never came back." "That's what happens when you die." "You go away and you never come back." "You and I are not going anywhere." "This is our home." "And we shall never be separated, not ever again." "Tell me a story." "I like to hear your voice as I fall asleep." "All right." "Once upon a time, the land was ruled by monsters." "They wore fine black suits." "They hid behind their fine black book with their fine black beards." "And they lived in grand houses." "And they ruled by fear." "They made everyone fear the woods, trees, and the birds and the animals around them so that they would not dare to venture from their village." "And if anyone said anything other than what the monsters wanted them to say, they stole their voices." "Now, in this land, there lived a mother." "Only she didn't know she was a mother, for the monsters had stolen her son." "One day, she found him, and she found her voice." "And she swore she would never lose either ever again." "I love you."