Wicked Girls Read Online Free

them from fitting.”
    Ann bends to pet Wilson,
    but he pulls back his head
    like a riled tortoise.
    â€œNot so with Betty and Abigail.
    Father stays at the parsonage late
    into the night watching them.
    Many church members do.
    They have chained Tituba up in jail.”
    I scratch my head.
    â€œMen listening to the words of girls?
    Are you certain, Ann?”
    â€œYes, ’tis true.”
    â€œIf only ye could visit the parsonage
    and see the girls.”
    â€œOh, but I have seen Abigail
    this very day. I saw exactly
    how she does twitch and shake.
    I know what the witches do to torture her.”
    Ann twists her torso tight as a rope,
    then juts her bones inside out.
    Much as I might like to cover my eyes
    as Ann cripples her body into a sailor’s knot,
    my arms hang at my sides.
    My mouth droops open.
    â€œThey call it Affliction,” Ann says.
    â€œAll are in awe of it.”
    A flash of mischief crosses Ann’s eyes
    as she watches me watching her,
    like the torch that smokes
    heaven’s white edge.

I AM AFFLICTED
    Ann Putnam Jr., 12
    Someone makes my legs
    whip about like sheets in the wind.
    Someone curls and bends
    my arms behind my neck.
    All turns black and cold.
    â€œWho goes there?” I cry.
    I scream until the room comes lit,
    and then I see witches
    the same as the Minister’s girls—
    Tituba, the Parrises’ slave, and Goody Good.
    I swear to Father ’tis the witches
    who twist my limbs and cause me ache.
    I blink my eyes and the witches disappear,
    but I saw them stand before me,
    felt them pinch my arm,
    I know that I did.

INTO THE WOODS
    Margaret Walcott, 17
    Trees don’t talk
    so we walk far enough
    into the thicket
    me shivering under Isaac’s cloak
    so he can kiss me full
    on lips, forehead, eyelids,
    earlobes, neck, chest
    and lower,
    and his hands are branches
    and he shakes me loose
    until it seems I will be
    bare as the winter trees.
    But the wind kicks up
    and I wake and I smell
    pine needles. I am an evergreen
    I think. I tell him
    I don’t shed my leaves,
    well, not today,
    and he takes my hands
    and I become the branch
    shaking him loose
    amidst the flurries of snow.

WHAT BOYS SAY
    Margaret Walcott, 17
    Girls play
    at who will make us husband,
    but not boys.
    But Ann overheard her mother say
    that when they asked Isaac
    who he might take in hand
    after he returns from the battles,
    he did say if he must, well then,
    perhaps, Margaret Walcott.
    My pulse be fast as a hound after a hare.
    â€œDo tell it again, but more slow
    and with all the senses of it,”
    I say to Ann.
    Ann rolls her eyes
    such that I want to pluck
    them from her rag doll head.
    â€œâ€™Tis nothing to have a boy
    like you; Mercy makes all men turn stare.
    Do you not want to hear
    of how the witches
    did pinch me
    and Father told the magistrates?”
    Ann asks.
    If once and again I hear tell
    of Ann and her witch prick,
    I might pinch her my own self.
    â€œI feel not well,
    and best go home,” I say.
    I swaddle up for the cold.
    But as soon as I leave
    I turn up Ipswich Road
    toward the dwelling
    of my new friend,
    Elizabeth.

ON THE WAY TO ELIZABETH
    Margaret Walcott, 17
    The snow must haze my eyes.
    I stand as ice, feet to bonnet,
    froze still. Isaac,
    all chest thrust forward,
    struts across Ipswich Road.
    His arms be stacked with firewood.
    I look heavenward
    to thank the Lord for this good day.
    I pull down my sleeves
    and hitch up my skirts to meet him.
    Then I see her, with her scurvy smile,
    the ugliest sinner in Satan’s den!
    She right traps my Isaac.
    She lifts her crinolines over a puddle
    and he follows her,
    carries that firewood for her
    like he were her servant.
    My Isaac trails after a serving girl,
    his eyes upon her
    like he might lick the snow
    from her boots.
    I rub mine eyes,
    but still that horrible Mercy.
    I pick up skirt and run.

TURN YOUR BACK
    Ann Putnam Jr., 12
    A wind blows outside the parsonage
    and slaps my hair to