The Boston Witch Trials

Boston, 1962

Crimson leaves crunched under Margaret's boots as she shuffled across Boston’s great lawn, wondering what she was doing traveling at this hour. Well, she knew what she was doing, but the real question remained: Was it worth it? The eerie atmosphere of Fenway Park stripped of its blinding lights and mix of hoots and hollers made her feel as if she was really stepping into a different reality. A reality she didn't much care for.

Every gust of wind felt like a warning. Every step louder than it should have been. She tucked her hair behind her ears with nervous repetition, as if it would enhance her senses. She had to remain prudent lest she share the fate of the unfortunate spirits who wept near the gallows tree.

Hesitation rose in her gut, telling her to turn back. But instead, she pulled her gray wool scarf tighter around her face, allowing the smell of Jasmine to ease her doubt and hastened forward. He needed her.

She still remembered every turn. Pass the church bell, cross onto Marlborough Street, a left turn by Brattle Bookshop, and then there it was. Hale Residence. It's light spilling old rejection at her feet. The familiar balcony towered over her, either a sign of shelter from the sleet or some sort of ominous warning.

Before she could determine the answer, a servant opened the door. A flicker of recognition passed between the two young women. Another local girl from her hometown of Salem, attempting to make ends meet as the town became more uninhabitable. A sense of acknowledgment sank in her chest as she passed by. Her sister had been one sentenced to burn just around the corner, just off Pemberton Square.

From somewhere inside the house, a voice muttered with sharp disbelief: “They sent a woman?”

"Would you prefer a corpse?" Margaret hissed. The servant nudged her towards the hallway, perhaps saving them all.

Margaret moved as though her body did not belong to herself, until her eyes fell on him-Chadwell. Pale and shriveled. So far from the wild boy she once snuck away with through the North End alleys. She couldn’t bring herself to look him fully in the eyes, for she feared what would be missing from them now.

Caretaker

“He needs boiled broth,” she whispered to the maid.

“And a washcloth. If he wakes, give him only water, boiled twice.”

The maid hesitated. “What are you, then? A doctor?”

“Just someone with a lucky guess,” Margaret shrugged.

A few ragged mutters escaped from the man in the bed. His hand twitched outward, as if reaching for anyone who would take hold.

“M-Meg?” he rasped, reaching out weakly. No one had called her that in years. It was like hearing what she had been waiting for before she ever knew she was waiting at all.

His eyes fluttered open, and time collapsed in on itself. He saw her there, but he also saw the girl from years ago, cheeks flushed with the wild joy of teen years. Her hands bandaging the many cuts and bruises he had obtained trying to impress her. Her handmade dress twirling as she danced through cobblestone alleys. That forbidden closeness between a son of privilege and a poor girl from Salem.

"It's not her fault her roots are in Salem," his mother’s voice echoed from the past. "But we all know it’s a dead-end dream."

She hadn’t been wrong. Margaret never left Salem. And Chadwell... well, he had the Hale name to live up to.

Chadwell squinted through the smoke at the woman before him, wanting to see more through the haze.

"What are you doing?" he asked

"Counting," Margaret answered. She held a bundle of leaves tucked in her satchel.

"There’s a pattern. Sevens and threes. The plants that grow in odd numbers cure fevers...I think."

"You speak madness," Chadwell chuckled.

"Well, nothing else has worked, has it?" she snapped.

In that moment, he swore he could feel the heat of her conviction carry through his body stronger than any fever.

Healing

Time, for once, was kind. Chadwell recovered. As he gained strength, he grew accustomed to Margaret's satchel of oddities. Herbs, folded notes, dried petals, fragments of bark. He watched her cry as she shared news about the smallpox epidemic, McCarthyism, and the Boston Witch Trials.

He celebrated with her the night he was named Republican Attorney General.

“To your good fortune!” they chanted, clinking glasses together.

But then, his voice dropped.

“How did you do it?” he asked. “Your talents must be from God himself.” He bumped his shoulder against hers.

Margaret hesitated, teetering from the wine that she was not accustomed to.

“Not God,” she said, barely audible. “Science.”

Chadwell chuckled and threw his arm around her shoulders, where they remained until curfew. Margaret floated home, a new sense of purpose blooming in her chest. The extra work had paid off. Perhaps as a general, Chadwell could help Salem and reunite the two parties once and for all.

However, that same night, protests continued to rage in Salem. A window shattered. Another protest, another brick. She boarded up the cellar window with tired hands and returned to bed, unsure if Boston would ever accept someone like her.

The Discovery

The brick was no coincidence. Once Margaret was safely back upstairs, Chadwell quietly investigated his old friend's place of safety.

He told himself he was just checking in. Out of duty. But something else gnawed at him. Curiosity? Doubt? Guilt?

He slithered behind a stack of firewood where he found a weather-worn trunk covered with cloth. The air constricted around him. His hands trembled slightly as he lifted the lid.

The contents:

— A leather-bound book, written in Latin and Dutch.

— Drawings of human anatomy sketched beside unfamiliar roots.

— Glass jars labeled Symphytum. Belladonna. Artemisia.

— A bundle of small vine figures twisted with cloth.

He stared for a long time.

It wasn't luck. It wasn't a prayer.

She had planned everything — she knew how to save him.

And it disgusted him.

Judgement

Before the morning dew could dissipate the next day, Margaret was surrounded by stiff collars that carried prayer books like weapons.

“She has a hidden room!” cried the reverend. “Books in foreign tongues—not of God!”

“She used symbols of enchantment!” another shouted.

Chadwell stood silent and still.

“I saw them,” he said flatly. “She kept roots and wax figures. Knowledge no woman should possess. She pushed me to doubt my religion.”

Margaret said nothing. There was no point. And somehow, she was right where she knew she would end up from the moment she chose to save a man too afraid to save her in return.

The Scaffold

They brought her to the scaffold as the fog was hardly clearing that same morning. The square was half-filled. Just another witch paying the price. Some were afraid it could be contagious.

Margaret Brier stood tall, hands bound, chin lifted. Her dainty wrists were raw where the rope bit through. Her eyes scanned the sky, not for mercy, but for meaning.

Chadwell watched from the back of the crowd, needing to know it was real, yet too ashamed to be on the front line.

The rope snapped. As her body fell, so did every excuse he had ever told himself.

“STOP!” he wanted to scream. But it was too late.

He wondered if she had seen his sorrow with the few seconds that consciousness flickers in the human mind after death.

Revelation

Just a few days after her death, Chadwell tore through the house like a man possessed. Her scent lingered in the corners, haunting him. Her presence still clung to the curtains, the bed sheets, his skin.

He pulled apart the drawers, sending old sewing needles skittering across the floor. A ribbon tangled out as he pulled back a few knitted blankets, revealing a small purple box tucked beneath the bundles of wool.

Not his Margaret’s satchel. His sister’s handwriting was on the lid.

"For Sarah. Boil thyme and nettle if fever returns. Add honey if the boy coughs."

Inside: dried herbs. Folded instructions. Mixtures. Remedies.

The same mixtures Margaret had used.

The same ones he had brought his sister, Sarah, to buy himself. The remedies Sarah had been using for years.

Chadwell collapsed to the floor.

Margaret's soft voice replayed in his mind. The day she had walked back into his life was more present than ever before.

"The plants that grow in odd numbers cure fevers...I think."

"... I think"

"She didn't even know what she was doing," Chadwell sobbed.

He saw her again—eyes tired from reading by candlelight, hands trembling from exhaustion. She wasn't practicing. She was learning... for him.

He had hanged the only woman he had ever loved and for nothing.

Uprising

Outside, the noise had begun to take over as the streets clattered with footsteps, barks of protest, and the clamor of wooden spoons striking empty pots.

“She healed my baby!”

“They hanged a healer, not a witch!”

“We’re not safe here!” the voices boomed.

His jaw clenched. Their cries scratched along his spine.

Behind him, the front door banged open. Boots on wood. A servant breathlessly announced, “Governor Danforth awaits you in the foyer!”

Blame

“Boston is aflame,” Danforth roared, slamming his fist on the table. “Not with fire, but with fury. Rambling on about the innocent's rights.”

“They’re not wrong,” Chadwell murmured.

“They’re a liability,” Danforth interrupted. “Merchants are losing money. Trade is slowing. Even the Quakers whisper about blood-stained law.”

He leaned in close. “This has to end. No more trials. No more gallows. Boston can’t take the heat.”

Chadwell said nothing, but he felt the corner of the purple box dig into his side through the lining of his coat.

“You gave the order,” Danforth spat. “You testified. Redirect the fire...away from us.”

Chadwell looked out the window, past the people in the streets. The churches. The sky.

He saw the reflection of Margaret’s hands, clasped together in prayers to save Salem.

“You want someone to blame?” he said, his voice hollow.

“Yes. And now.”

Chadwell stared Danforth in the eyes.

“Then blame Salem.”

Danforth blinked. “What?”

“That’s what they’ll remember,” Chadwell said, eyes locked on a ghost only he could see.

“Not Boston. Not me. Let the history books hang it on Salem. Tell them Salem burned them. They'll agree. They're already doomed. This will give them a history. A culture. At least a reason to bring people in. Salem will live on as the place of the Salem Witch Trials, a fate better than just dying off."

"Very good," Danforth nodded. He turned once more before walking out of the Hale residence. "This better work, Chadwell."

Chadwell nodded absent-mindedly.

Across the harbor, Margaret's ghost rested in peace at her rebranded home of Salem, where Sarah Hale led the new gathering of witches in celebration of their lasting safety.

-The End-

-This story is completely false and I love both Boston and Salem MA. This was solely written for a "History Would've Burned This Page" challenge in which the prompt included to write about a historically inspired moment /event that was erased and/or rewritten.