Rob Zombie: Lords of Salem

“Therefore,” Judge Mather continued, “the accused are deemed self-afflicted to the crimes of witchcraft and accepting the Devil.”

This was Hawthorne’s cue. He took up a basin of water beside him and stepped forward. It was pure spring water, gathered fresh each day and prayed over by the Worthy to be an instrument of God’s will. Not exactly the holy water that the Catholics used, for that would be idolatry, but consecrated nonetheless and purified of the mixture of sin and filth that threatened all things. With his hand, he splashed the first witch in the face, watched her recoil in horror. He was of two minds about it: Was it simply the cold of the water that made her recoil? Or was it the purity of it, the fact that it was about as far distant from the Devil as mortal substance could be.

“In the Name of Jesus Christ, Our Lord,” he prayed, “we drive you from us, whoever or whatever you may be. We command you to depart, unclean spirits, all satanic minions and powers, all infernal invaders, all wicked legions!”

He moved on to the next witch, splashed her as well, careful not to get water on the tinder, careful to do nothing that would prevent her from catching fire later. He continued forward, splashing each witch and uttering his prayer, until he came to the end of the line and to Mary Goodwin. She was so young, barely thirteen, still a child. Hawthorne could not believe that she hadn’t been led into temptation by one of the other women. Perhaps there was a spark here of goodness, something that he could blow on and fan into a flame that would lead to her salvation after this life.

When she saw him looking at her, her angry eyes went soft and pled with him. She tried to say something, but whatever she said was lost within her gag.

“Young Mary,” said Hawthorne. “You have cared for my very children in their hour of sickness. Is there anything you would like to say before God, angels, and these witnesses, my child? Now is the time to make your peace with Heaven and Earth.”

Mary nodded, her eyes still pleading. At last , thought Hawthorne, one who desires salvation . Carefully, he set the basin of water down on the ground. Behind him, he heard Mather call his name in warning, but he ignored it. He reached over the metal trough and around Mary’s neck, then loosened the gag and pulled it from her mouth.

When he stepped away, she smiled at him sweetly, and then in an instant her face was contorted and shouting and she was screaming.

“Satan, save us!” she screamed. “Save us from this world of misery! Bring us home to the glory of your everlasting love! I will die for you, O great master of darkness!”

Hawthorne was flooded with disappointment, which was quickly transformed into righteous anger. “Silence!” he shouted. “Silence!” He slapped the girl once, hard, and then crammed the gag into her mouth until she was almost choking and then tied it tightly behind her head.

He was just finishing, just beginning to calm down, when the iron-bound door swung open with a boom. He turned to see the Magnus brothers, cleaned up a little now. As was customary, Virgil still wore his mask, though like Mather and Hawthorne, he had pushed it up to reveal his face. Dean’s face was bare, his scorched and flindered mask hanging in tatters from his belt. They entered pushing a wheeled metal cage crudely in the shape of a human. Inside was Margaret Morgan. Here was the ringleader, here the high witch who had led all these other women astray, who had removed so many souls from God’s presence and introduced them to their own perdition.

“Bring the witch to me,” Judge Mather said.

They pushed her forward, the crude wooden wheels squeaking beneath the weight of the cage. Her face was bruised and bloody. She’d been beaten. Once again the Magnus brothers had exceeded their authority.

And worse still, Hawthorne realized, she was no longer wearing a gag. Even caged as she was, unable to move her arms to practice her incantations and spells, Morgan was a dangerous woman. He turned to Mather to recommend she be gagged before they proceeded, but Mather, caught up in his just role, was already moving forward.

“Margaret Morgan,” Mather stated solemnly, “I find you guilty of witchcraft, sorcery, and conjuring the very Devil himself for the purpose of eternal fornication with the darkness. Bow your head and admit your crimes, and acknowledge Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.”

From within the cage, Morgan barked, her bruised and broken face twisting into a grimace. It took Hawthorne a moment to realize that she was smiling, that her barking was laughter.

“I reject your false God!” she said. “I worship the only true savior: Lucifer—the God of this world, the Father of Lies, the glorious Prince of Darkness.”

Expecting no less, Judge Mather nodded curtly. “You shall be held by the Chair of God until such time as the demonic presence has been driven from your body,” he said.

What was to follow Hawthorne did not relish. The screams of the damned woman as the spikes would penetrate her flesh and as she would beg for mercy until the moment when she was either left to die in slow agony or renounced Satan and his works and was given mercy by being killed quickly.

Mather had begun to turn away when Morgan hissed something. When he turned back to hear her, she spat in his face. But it was not ordinary spit, Hawthorne saw, but a black liquid, the vile substance of the pit. Mather stumbled back, clawing at his face, trying to wipe it off, clearly very frightened, perhaps even in pain.

“Enough!” said Hawthorne, feeling righteous indignation rising again within him, along with a certain amount of dread. Every moment that Margaret Morgan was allowed to live was an indignity to God, and put their lives at risk. “Commend her to the chair!” he shouted.

The Magnus brothers smiled. Virgil unlocked the cage and pulled it open. Dean reached in and grabbed Morgan and hauled her out. The cage clanged shut and together the brothers dragged the struggling Morgan toward the chair. She scratched and bit and nearly broke free. Then Dean, like a bear, cuffed her on the side of the head. For a moment she was dazed. He smiled.

“The Chair of God will break the fight of Satan in this one,” said Dean to Hawthorne, noticing his stare. Yes, thought Hawthorne, if past experience held true, it probably would.

Morgan still resisted, but now focused her energies less on breaking free and more on trying to meet the eyes of the other members of the coven.

“Sisters,” she said, “let the love of our blessed father set you free.” She struggled, and when she spoke again, it was not to the coven but staring at the meetinghouse floor. “Satan,” she cried, “release me! I am yours to bleed! Take me!”

The brothers held her now before the chair, one to either side of her. She was ready for the chair, but Hawthorne suddenly realized that something had changed. Morgan was no longer Morgan. Or rather, she was Morgan but also something else at the same time. Her face was transformed, her defiance coupled now with a dark contempt and confidence. There was no hint or trace of fear in her. She had made her body a vessel for the unholy one, and he was there within her now, insinuating himself into her flesh, testing her, feeling the limits and confines of her body. The brothers had not noticed. They stood holding her immobile, laughing at her suffering and enjoying themselves. Even Mather, normally so perceptive of the presence of evil, had not noticed, caught up as he was in his role as a judge. But Hawthorne could feel it. He knew.

There, trapped between the two brothers, on the verge of the torture that was the chair, she stood and laughed. But the laughter that came out of her throat was not hers—was not even a woman’s laughter. It was dark, deep, and hollow and seemed to Hawthorne to issue from the very depths of Hell. He could feel within it the screams of a thousand consumed souls, the suffering of the damned. He could feel a demon clasping a young priest’s head with one hand, sinking his bloody nails through his skin and deep into his skull and then hurling him into the abyss. He could feel a grim group of three men as they held a newborn child over a fire and slit its throat, the gap in the neck like a malevolent smile that grew broken and spread in a bloody sheet down its chest. He could feel a devil’s careful flaying away of the skin of a Pharisee, the awful weight of Judas’s betrayal, and many more tortures besides. But worst of all, he could feel in it the sound of all his own sins, small and large, the way the laughter called them from where he had pushed them down and hidden them within his brain, pretending they did not belong to him.