Today is the day I have been waiting for. I’ve been stuck in a jail cell, which smells of urine and dying animals, for two months waiting for the one day that will determine whether I live or die. A guard opens my door and pulls me to my feet, then he pushes me out the door and into a wagon. As I look out the window of the wagon I think to myself, the town is more beautiful than I remember it, the cobblestones streets are shining from the rain the day before. The houses stand strong, and everything looks perfect, until you see the insides of every home. After ten minutes, I am soon in a building which is beautifully furnished, with marble walls. I stand in front of the court. They tell me that if I don’t deny that I have practiced witchcraft and I named another “witch” in the town, they would let me live, but if I did otherwise I would be hung. Then they let me think for a few minutes. Without hesitation I exclaimed, “I made my decision.”
When I begin to speak the whole room leans forward, as if I was whispering my answer. I look around at all the faces, some familiar and some not, then I stand up and raise my voice as if I was getting ready to yell. “I will not let another person go through the same hardship I had to go through, it wouldn’t be fair. Why would I want to put other peoples’ lives in danger so I could just save my own? When I was younger, I was taught to care for others, and this is what I shall do,” I said. When I told them my decision, the Judge looked disgusted. He asked me once more if I wanted to change my answer, but my mind was made up. The Judge looked at me, then at the guard, and I was taken from the court. When I was in my cell, I sat quietly, preparing myself for my death, that would come the next day.
A night later they took me to a frame that had two ropes hanging off of it. They took one of the ropes and looped it around my neck. As they put it on my neck I could feel its rough exterior scartching the skin on my neck. Then they tightened the rope and I felt my insides jump. I saw my parents in the background, they looked at me with such disrespect. All I could think was, it wasn’t my fault… I wasnt a witch. The last thing I remeber was them pulling me upwards. Then I felt nothing.
My name is Katherine and I was a victim of the witch trials. Before I died, I had a father and a mother, whose names were John and Amy. I have four siblings: William, James, Lily and Charlotte. I came from England when I was two and arrived in Salem at five years old. I began to work at the age of eight for my master James, his wife Rebecca and their four children Abigail, Thomas, Alice and Andrew. I had lived in their house since I began to work for them, and I only saw my parents a few times a year.
The day I was accused of witchcraft started off like every other day. I woke up at three in the morning, cleaned the dining room and then I went go into the kitchen and cleaned all the dishes from yesterday’s lunch. After, I would pickup all the toys and clothes that were dropped on the floor, from the night before. Then I went into the kitchen and made porridge with berries. After that I set the table with cloth napkins and silver silverware. At about six o’clock the family woke up, and I put the food on the table. After they ate, I bathed the children, while their parents were getting ready to go to the square. When their parents went into town, I sat with the children while they did their studies, and I sewed myself a new bonet.
At twelve, the day took an awful twist; the girls began to twitch. Abigail began to roll on the floor screaming and barking like a dog. Alice began jumping up and down, yelling that her head had been cut off, even though you could obviously see that her head was right on top of her little neck. The doctor came and saw their behavior, and all he said was that they were bewitched. He bent down to the ground where both of the girls were laying down, and asked them who put this curse over them. I heard a name that I recognized, they pointed at me and screamed Katherine did it. I couldn’t believe my ears; I raised these children from when they were newborns, I knew them so well and they call me a witch!
That story repeated in my head until the day I was executed. When the girls called me a witch, their dad came to me and took his wipe and hit me fifty times. Through my tears, I could only see the faces of the girls. Those girls just stood there watching and crying. Why where they crying? They didn’t know what it felt like to be repeatedly whipped. Did they know that when it hit you it felt like you were being burned, and as the number of lashes from the whip disappeared, your skin disappeared with it, leaving your flesh exposed. Then I was taken away and I never saw those two girls again. When I sat in the corner of my cell, I kept on asking myself: do those young girls even understand what the meaning of witchcraft is, and do any of us understand the meaning of this.