"Previously on "Salem"..." "I won't go." "But a trial will result with you in the gallows." "John Alden is my friend, perhaps my only one." "And you would allow friendship to stand in the way of your own elevation?" "He is innocent." "You do want John Alden to live." "That the power of that mask can only be accessed by those of one kind." "Are you saying that I am..." "A witch." "You swore that they would be safe, but they're dead!" "Gather the young, the poor, the suffering." "They will be our army." "You know what to do with it?" "There is still a place for us in this world." "Only in dreams." "Dream with me." "You're one of them?" "Now you know." "Know what?" "That you... you're a witch?" "Yes." "A witch." "You should just keep going now." "We don't have much time." "I still need to know." "Why?" "Survival." "All I want is for you to save yourself, so go." "Believe that I still love you enough to simply be satisfied knowing you survive, even if that means I'm never gonna see you again." "It came back to me." "As you came back to me." "All things return, like every salty tear returns to the sea." "This is something one learns." "As a witch?" "As a woman." "You know, my father said this was the land of second chances." "So this is ours." "We could start again." "All we have to do is walk away." "You don't understand." "They'd never let me." "I..." "Then stay." "You have a choice." "What you have to do, whatever it is, will it really make you happy?" "I don't know." "I think you do." "I think you know as well as I do that there'll be no peace in your heart like there is today." "My heart has never known peace." "Then maybe, just maybe, we'll find it together." "All right." "I'll come." "But there's something I must do first." "If I don't go back and fix it, terrible things will happen." "This is my vow." "I will meet you here before the moon rises above those trees..." "I swear it." "Okay." "But when the moon goes, I go..." "With or without you." "I shall be back." "All right." "A tribute." "For you." "For you, my queen." "Mercy." "Of all the lost souls in Salem," "I pity yours most of all." "My dear, what have I done to you?" "What have you done to me?" "You have betrayed me." "It was never my intention to betray you, Mercy." "I saw myself in your eyes, knew what it was like to have nothing, be nothing, and I wanted so much more for you." "So I gave you what you wished for, but I warned you." "No, I didn't wish for my friends to be killed." "I promised them that they would be safe..." "Because you... you promised me." "But you lied." "You lied." "And now they are all dead." "Everything that comes from your lips is a lie." "It's a lie." "Lies!" "Lies!" "Lies!" "Lies!" "Mercy?" "Don't look for me now, not here." "You won't find me." "But I will find you when you least want to be found." "Isaac." "Have you come to help dismantle my mind?" "Is that what they're doing?" "Yes... in effect." "On my father's order..." "His condition for accepting me back into the flock." "All my collection, all the tools of useless reason..." "All but one." "My father says I must return to the beginning of all knowledge." "As a reward for my loss and my humiliation," "I am to be allowed to return with him to Boston." "Oh, Isaac." "What do you want with me in this, the hour of my abasement?" "I don't know what that means, sir." "But I came to say something about Captain Alden." "He is to be hung today." "But you two were friends." "You might never have said so, but I know so." "And I believe, in this life, we have no power to alter where or when we go, but we can say things to each other." "Sometimes, words are all we have left." "Have you said goodbye to Captain Alden?" "I'm not sure I can bear to..." "Especially given how much..." "How much blame may lie on my shoulders." "But, as usual, you speak with more wisdom than all of the Mathers in history combined." "Good day, sir." " Father." " Where have you been?" "Shopping." "I believe I have everything we shall need to survive for a week or more." "Survive?" "Survive what?" "This way." "Here." "Give me a hand with this, dear." "What's the matter?" "Haven't you ever held a live bird before?" "No, I-I haven't." "Well, a little..." "Little tighter." "Here." "Can you feel its heart beating?" "Yes, I can." "Don't worry." "There's nothing to be frightened of." "Come." "No!" "No more will die." "This began with me, and I shall be the one to end it." "Silence!" "Or I shall deal with you as I dealt with Rose." "No longer will you stand in my way... not now, not ever." "I'm leaving Salem, and I am never coming back." "You may do as you like when I'm gone, but you will not follow me or hinder me in the years ahead." "_" "Then unchoose me." "Put magistrate Hale in charge." "His line is ancient, and yet still Springs green a new heir." "_" "No, I'm not the one." "I was just a black Rose you grafted to your vine, and I've had enough..." "Enough blood and death..." "And I will be free." "_" "Ah, my son..." "With his customary expression of befuddlement and utter incomprehension." "What's happened, father?" "Have you taken him off and killed him already, without the benefit of final words or prayers or... or witnesses?" "Of course not." "Would I do such a thing to an innocent man?" "You see, I never doubted John Alden's innocence." "Just as I know that he is a man of excessive personal honor," "I never doubted the fact that he had ample and good reason for killing whoever he did kill." "You mock me, sir." "No, I do not." "Do you think that I don't know that Alden has no more malefic or sulfuric power than you or I?" "Alden is a traitor, he is a murderer, he is a free-thinking heretic, he is a drinker, a man of loose morals, and he is guilty of the sin of pride, but a witch... not at all." "However, he is in love with a witch, and more importantly, a witch is in love with him." "You mean Mary Sibley?" "A witch?" "Believe it or not, as you choose." "Nevertheless, it is true." "The most important woman in Salem... a witch?" "Have you any proof, any evidence?" "At present, I have none." "However, when she is apprehended with her lover, a man she has freed from a locked jail cell with magic," "I'll have her dead to rights." "You." "Have you done as I told you?" "Yes, sir." "Tore it into two." "Snuck half into his pocket" " as I led him to his cell." " Mm." "The other half... here." "Blood the hounds." "Run him down." "Heed me carefully..." "Someone will be with him, and they're both very dangerous, so do not attempt to capture them or bring them back, but execute them then and there, on the spot... both of them." " You have my authority to do this." " Sir." "Now, off with you." "Go on." "Sir, I plead with you to bring them back for a fair trial." "There's no need for a trial." "This is our one and only opportunity to avert the great death that they intend for us." "I have no choice in this." "The witch will die tonight." "How long has this been here?" "Since I built the house." "You do not survive all that I have survived without knowing how to keep a true hiding place." "This room, whose door only blood can open, is our sanctuary." "You'll be safe here." "How long must we stay inside?" "I think at least a week before the winds cleanse the air." "And this is how we will know it has begun." "What disaster unfolds outside that we must cower from in here?" "Tonight, there will be a plague released near Salem, a pox upon the puritan house." "Only those who carry the witch blood in their veins or are touched by it will be safe from this pox." "Then I will die of it, too." "Cotton Mather examined me." "I'm no witch." "Really?" "Then he is an even more incompetent witchfinder than I thought." "Look around." "Don't you recognize anything here?" "When you were very little, I brought you here often, that you might not begin your life as a damned puritan, without the sounds, the music in your ears, or all the colors of art in your eyes." "Here." "You drew that when you were 3." "This." "Well, that was your favorite." "I carved it for you." "But why..." "Why can't I remember?" "Because I had to take away your memories until you were ready for them, but now you are." "I do." "I do remember." "But..." "I remember it dancing." "It did dance for you." "You made it dance." "I?" "Look at it." "And in your mind's eye, see it dancing." "Oh, George, I shall Miss the dazzle and wit of your conversation." "Do you know what tonight is, George?" "It's the luckiest night of your life." "You'll never know how close you all came to utter destruction." "You once took away from me everything that meant anything." "But tonight, I shall finally have it all back." "Truer than you know..." "Mistress." "What do you want here, traitor?" "I?" "Traitor?" "I, who have endured the worst that sick man could inflict upon my flesh to protect you?" "I think not." "'Tis you who have betrayed those who nurtured you, you who have turned your back on everything we have planned these long years." "No." "No, I'm leaving not to betray, but to be true..." "Perhaps for the first time..." "To myself." "You are going nowhere." "Seven years ago, two girls walked into the woods." "There, one of them made a vow." "To seal that vow, she offered up a most precious thing..." "The life she carried within." "No need to remind me of that dark night." "I shall never be free of its memory." "No." "You cannot forget what you have never really known." "Have you never asked yourself, never wondered what really happened that night, where the life that swelled your belly went?" "Nothing is created." "Nothing is destroyed." "All is only ever transformed." "Open it." "My child..." "lives?" "For now, depending on your choice." "This... this is some foul trick in order to control me." "No, you did not kill the child that night." "You gave him to the Dark Lord we serve, and this child has been treasured like no other in a thousand years." "He has lacked for nothing..." "Except his mother." "What do you want from me?" "Only what you have vowed to do." "Complete the grand rite, and all shall be well." "And if I do not?" "A sacrifice deferred is yet more powerful..." "Especially a blood sacrifice." "Hear me well, foul creature." "You have manipulated me for the last time." "I will complete your grand rite." "But when it is done, I swear to you, you will pay." "We must all live without choices, Mary." "You know that best of all." "Yes, it was." "He's gone." "Captain Alden's missing." "Was it you?" "I told you I would not let him hang." "Thank you, Mary." "Thank you." "It's beautiful." "Yes." "It is." "What is it?" "Death." "Oh." "It's a bad thing, and it needs to go to a bad place." "Then I'm your man." "Here." "That's a fortune." "Several fortunes, actually..." "Far less than you deserve, sweet Isaac, for doing such a job." "You can start a new life with it, one as good as your good heart deserves." "Thank you." "Isaac, listen carefully." "The most important thing is that, when you leave it, you keep going..." "Far away and quickly." "Boston, New York, Virginia..." "Just keep going." "And one more thing..." "On your way out of town, deliver this letter to Cotton Mather." "I shall never see you again, will I?" "No." "No, I expect not." "That makes me very sad." "Mm." "Y-you and the Captain are the closest things to friends" "I ever had..." "Except for a horse I once knew, but she died." "You shall buy a new horse, a whole team of them." "And you shall make new friends." "This is the land of second chances." "Like you and John Alden?" "W-will you get your second chance?" "Yes." "Yes, I expect we will." "Who is here?" "Is it the whore of Babylon?" "Oh, dear Increase..." "So terribly right and so terribly wrong." "I can see before my eyes how right I was." "Your darkling glow burns brighter than ever... witch." "Sir." "For you." "What is it?" "No idea." "Mrs. Sibley asked me to give it you." "Now I must go, for the road is long, and... my legs are not." "Tell me, exactly." "How was I wrong?" "You thought love would be my undoing, that I would be in the woods with my lover, and you would kill me there without a trial, thus ending my grand rite." "I will share with you the secret that you and your kind have sought in vain for centuries..." "Innocent blood." "13 innocent sacrifices, and when the last is spilled, our malum opens, unleashing the red death it contains within it." "And yet, not once in the last 500 years have we succeeded..." "Until I came along and realized we needn't spill a single drop of innocent blood ourselves..." "Not when we had fearful and fanatical puritans all too ready to do it for us." "So you gave us Giles Corey," "Bridget bishop..." "The barkers, and others, and of course, those poor, deceived girls..." "Innocent blood by the buckets." "And now here we are, night of full hunter's moon." "12 innocents dead, and only one more required before moonfall." "Not if I kill you first." "Oh, yes, kill the witch who began this grand rite, and you might yet avert the great death to come." "Aah!" "Good luck with that." "Oh, Increase." "You're gonna have to do so much better than that." "But I will make you a promise." "It will end here, in this room, right now." "You there!" "Stop!" "You've done the right thing, Isaac..." "Taking such a load off her hand." "Mary said to put it here in the old tree." "This ain't right." "Oh, this ain't right." "Any fool can feel that, even this fool." "She said you were death." "I'm gonna put you where the dead belong." "You are no better than those you hunt." "No, you're far worse." "A witch, like a wolf, doesn't torture her sacrifice." "Only priests and inquisitors do that." "Perhaps you can convince yourself that there is scant difference between good and evil, but I know better." "Did it ever occur to you that the dark power we gain is precisely that which you think you can expel from yourself?" "You know nothing, creature." "Whatever happens here today only proves that what I believe... is true." "Father!" "Father!" "Cotton." "Thank God Isaac found you." "Help me." "Your father... he's gone mad!" "Father, what have you done?" "!" "I?" "I've done nothing." "This succubus has come to me." "She's playing with your mind." "She has put herself into that chair!" "What?" "!" "How?" "He is a Devil." "Oh, he's a mad Devil, sir!" "Father, you said Mary Sibley was a witch." "She is a witch." "Then why is she not in the woods, father, saving Captain Alden, as you said she would be?" "!" "I have no time for your idiotic question and less for your infernal doubt!" "Your great plan has proven nothing!" "Now you resort to torturing an innocent woman to obtain some kind of false confession from her?" "!" "Are you too blind to see?" "!" "Look... she is not even there!" "She is a mere phantasm!" " Aah!" " Father!" "She is a specter!" "Aah!" "Father, I fear you have lost your reason." "And you, boy..." "You have never had any reason, you pathetic failure." "This bitch dies now!" "No, please, no, no." "Oh, oh, Cotton." "Cotton." "W-what have you done?" "You foolish boy." "You..." "Cotton." "Cotton." "God." "For God's sake..." "Kill the witch." "I have killed him." "I don't..." "I don't understand." "How did it..." "How do you come to be here?" "He dragged me from my rooms." "He was going to torture me..." "To death." "I must call for help." "No." "No, there's no help for it now." "But I must tell someone." "I must tell someone what I've done." "No." "I must tell someone what I've done!" "No, you would ruin your family..." "The very name of Mather." "I will tell no one what he tried to do, nor what you did." "But you must leave, Cotton." "Go to Boston now, tonight, immediately." "What... what about him?" "Better they find him here after you are gone." "They will think those that support Alden got to him..." "Or even witches." "Now go!" "Oh, dear Increase." "I hope you're alive enough to know what an honor you've been granted." "Oh, such an honor..." "To be our 13th victim." "Our grand rite now is done." "Blood-dim dawn now shall come." "Powers of moon and sun ignite." "All flesh trembles at the sight." "13 souls fed to hungry earth opens the way for our Dark Lord's birth." "It's begun." "I honestly didn't think" "Mary would be able to do it in the end." "Mary?" "Mary Sibley?" "She is one of you?" "One of us?" "Oh, far more than that, dear." "For better or worse, she is the first among us." "She is behind all this?" "She, a witch, killed all those innocents, killed..." "Bridget, as a witch?" "Indeed, it was her idea to use the puritans to sacrifice themselves for us..." "An inspired, if dangerous idea." "Why has the sun come out?" "What is going on outside?" "Death." "Death is happening." "Then why aren't you trying to stop it?" "Why are we in here, while outside, our friends and neighbors perish?" "It's too late for that." "Now we can only wait and then tend to the survivors." "Survivors?" "I will have none of this." "Whatever it is, I would rather be with those that suffer it, not those that perpetrate it." "Open the door." "It is sealed." "Only more blood will open it now." "Open!" "I told you... only blood." "Then my blood..." " Anne, stop!" "Stop!" " No!" " Stop!" "Stop it!" " No!" "Let me out!" "I said stop it!" "I am not you." "I am not like you." "I am not a witch!" "Aah!" "Aah!" "Aah!" "I am not you!" "Aah!" "Off to meet thy maker." "Most agree the soul lingers for some time, very close to where the body lies." "It sees and hears and feels keenly what happens." "I'm glad of that..." "Glad you'll suffer through what's still about to happen." "How good of you to train these fine animals to lust for your own blood." "It guarantees you the burial you deserve." "The dogs will eat their fill of you and shit your remains out in the crags." "You did it, and soon, the red death will destroy Salem." "No thanks to you." "I have been much help, I would say." "And now I have even more to give." "Come." "Now..." "Now..." "You see, children, only by killing the Rose will the queen of the night really become the queen of the night." "Little did that mighty queen know that all her plans would be turned upside down." "Yes, that wasn't really the true queen of the night who beheaded the Rose." "That was me." "I beheaded the Rose." "Though Mary Sibley knows it not yet," "I am the queen of the night." "And she will pay for what she's done."