On Holiday
Vicki Merridale and Emma Trowbridge got off the underground train at Heathrow and navigated their way through the crowds at the busy airport to the Virgin Atlantic counter in terminal three. After checking in their baggage and going through airport security, the two young women stopped at the Caffè Nero for coffee before heading toward the departure lounge to await their flight.
"I should pop in to the WHSmith and get a few magazines," said Emma, the quieter, more studious of the two.
"How could you even think about reading?" the vivacious, extroverted Vicki exclaimed.
"It's an eight-hour flight. I don't intend to look at the clouds the whole time."
"There's plenty of in-flight entertainment to choose from should you get bored: music, movies, television programs, even video games."
"You know me. When it comes to the printed word, I'm like a junkie. I just can't get enough."
"That's admirable. But we just finished university. Can't you take a short break from reading? After all, we're on holiday."
For both young women, it was to be their first transatlantic flight. Although they travelled to France the previous summer, it had amounted to only a two-hour ride on the Eurostar followed by four days in Paris. This holiday, to celebrate their recent graduation, would consist of two weeks in America, the time divided between the New York and Boston metropolitan areas.
Vicki and Emma, though close friends since childhood, had different tastes. For instance, Emma was looking forward to seeing the sights known for their historic or cultural significance. Her list of "must sees" for the trip included the Statue of Liberty, the 9/11 Memorial, the Empire State Building, Plymouth Rock and Boston's Old State House. Vicki, on the other hand, a more physically active person, wanted to spend time enjoying the great outdoors: biking, kayaking, hiking and canoeing.
Although Emma was not keen on outdoor sports, she was a firm believer in compromise. For every day they spent sightseeing on a hop-on/hop-off bus, they would spend another visiting a state park or designated recreational area. Thus, after visiting the Museum of Natural History, Ellis Island and Springwood (Franklin D. Roosevelt's home in Hyde Park), the two friends travelled to the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area at the Pennsylvania/New Jersey border.
After a week touring the Mid-Atlantic States, the young women boarded a plane at John F. Kennedy International Airport and flew to Logan for the second leg of their trip. Emma, who had majored in history at university, found Boston a far more interesting city than New York. Once the girls had checked in to their hotel and unpacked their belongings, the first thing she did was head for the city's famed Freedom Trail. Beginning at Boston Common, they followed the red brick trail past the Massachusetts State House, the Granary Burying Ground, King's Chapel and eventually to the Old State House, the site of the Boston Massacre.
Before entering the historic landmark, Emma referred to the description of the building in her guidebook.
"Built in 1713, the Old State House is the oldest surviving public building in Boston," she read to her friend.
"They call that old?" Vicki said with a laugh. "The Tower of London is older by more than six hundred years."
"Have you forgotten that this is the New World?" Emma teased.
After a day sightseeing in Boston, the two friends headed for Cape Cod where they visited the National Seashore in the morning, had lunch in Provincetown, took a boat ride past the former Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port in the afternoon and finally had dinner in Falmouth that evening.
"That was a fun day," Vicki said on the bus ride back to Boston.
"Yes it was," Emma agreed and yawned as she fought the urge to close her eyes and take a nap. "And a tiring one. I don't know about you, but when I get back to England, I'm going to sleep for a week. Between the trip today and all that walking we did in Salem, I'm exhausted."
"You have to pace yourself. We still have three days left of our holiday."
"I know. Tomorrow we go to Plymouth, the day after we're going to do your hiking trip in the Berkshires and then the next day we'll spend the morning souvenir shopping in Boston before heading out to the airport."
Vicki frowned. She and Emma had been planning their holiday for months, and soon it would all be over. Nothing would remain but the photographs, memories and the unpaid balance on their credit cards.
* * *
Undaunted by having to drive on the right-hand side of the road, Vicki rented a car and headed west along the Massachusetts Turnpike toward the Berkshire Mountains and the famed Appalachian Trail: a 2,190-mile-long footpath (the largest in the world) that traverses fourteen states, from Maine to Georgia. Emma, who had done more walking since arriving in the States than she had done her entire time in university, did not look forward to hiking a mountain trail. Thankfully, her travel companion was in a similar frame of mind.
"I've got an idea," Vicki announced. "Why don't we hike a few miles of the trail in the morning and then rent a couple of bikes and spend the afternoon leisurely riding on a flat surface—if we can find one."
After arriving at the Appalachian Trail, the girls hiked for two miles, took dozens of photographs of the flora and fauna and then turned round and hiked back to the car park. They drove to Exit 8 on the Turnpike and then headed north toward Quabbin Reservoir. When they reached the waterfront, they drove for half an hour, unsuccessfully looking for a place where they could rent bicycles.
"Maybe we should rent a kayak or a canoe instead," Emma suggested when she saw a sign for boat rentals.
"Perhaps we'll have time to do that, too," Vicki said, her heart set on riding a bike.
The road veered away from the reservoir and into a heavily wooded area.
"I think you ought to turn around and go back in the other direction," Emma advised. "This seems to be taking us away from the waterfront."
"It might bring us back to it further up. I'll drive another few miles, and if we don't find something, then I'll turn back."
Fifteen minutes later Vicki concluded that the rural road on which they were driving was heading in the opposite direction of the reservoir. As much as she hated having to turn the car around on such a narrow thoroughfare, she believed to continue on her current path would be pointless. Intending to make a three-point turn, she pulled the vehicle to the right, slowed and began turning the wheel all the way to the left. Suddenly, the engine sputtered and died.
"What's wrong?" Emma asked.
"I don't know," Vicki replied, attempting to restart the car.
After five attempts, she realized it was hopeless.
"Damn! I wish I had purchased the international calling plan for my mobile phone!" Emma cried.
"Even if you had, you probably would not have gotten any signal out here in the middle of nowhere. This is God's country."
Vicki unbuckled her seatbelt and opened her car door.
"What are you doing?" her friend asked.
"We haven't seen a house or even another car for miles. I'm going to walk back the way we came. Maybe I can call for road service from one of those boat rental places we passed."
"Wait. I'll come with you."
"I thought you were tired after our hike this morning."
"I am, but at least this is a flat surface."
After they had been walking for more than an hour, Emma turned to her friend and asked, "What's that over there?"
Vicki turned in the direction to which her friend was pointing, looked through the trees and replied, "It looks like a building of some kind, a shed perhaps, in a field of corn. It must be a farm."
"Look. Here's a path through the woods. Do you think we should take it?"
"It might be quicker than going all the way back the way we came."
Thankful they had worn shoes and clothing with hiking in mind, the two girls left the road and set off along the path to the unknown farm in the middle of the woods.
* * *
Vicki, who had been leading the way, was the first to see him.
"Look at the way that man over there is dressed," she said.
"He looks like one of the Pilgrims from the Mayflower," Emma replied. "That building, too, the one you thought was a shed. It appears to be a house built to resemble one from the seventeenth century."
"Thank heaven!" Vicki exclaimed with relief. "This must be another historical tourist attraction like Plimoth Plantation that we visited yesterday. If it is, not only will someone surely have a phone we can use, but we can probably get something to eat and drink here as well."
"This can't be the main entrance," Emma said as they stepped out of the woods into a clearing. "You don't think we'll be accused of trying to sneak in, do you?"
"If someone objects, we'll simply explain our situation. I'm sure they'll understand. And if they don't, what's the worst that could happen? They'll charge us the usual admission fee."
At that moment, a woman, also dressed in period costume, came out the doorway of the small, two-room house. Her reaction to seeing the visitors from England startled them as much as their sudden appearance startled her. Alarmed, she dropped the bundle of laundry she was carrying and screamed. Her shriek caught the attention of the man in the field, who then ran to protect her.
"Sorry to scare you," Emma called as the two girls approached them.
"Who art thou?" the man asked.
Apparently, also like the employees of Plimoth Plantation, these people remained in character, speaking and behaving as though they were early American colonists.
"I'm Emma Trowbridge, and this is my friend, Vicki Merridale. We're both from England. We're here on holiday. We were trying to find a place to rent bicycles by the Quabbin Reservoir when our car died. Do you have a telephone we can use to call for road assistance?"
The woman, desperately clinging to her husband's arm, continued to stare at the girls as though they were poisonous snakes about to strike.
"Ye doth claim to be from England, yet thy dress and thy words are strange."
"Yes, well, five hundred years will do that to you," Vicki laughed.
The man and woman were obviously not in a joking mood.
"Look," Vicki said. "I don't mean to be rude, but we have to get to get back to Boston tonight, so we need to call the car rental service and have them send a tow truck. I know it's your job, but could you skip the whole colonial folks act and point us to the nearest telephone?"
The farmer and his wife briefly whispered to each other. Then the woman went back inside the house and closed the door.
"I will take thee to Reverend Oakes, the village minister," the man said, leading them away from his home.
"Thank you."
They passed several other small houses before arriving at the village meetinghouse. Most of the people from those homes were hard at work, but no one was too busy to stop and gawk at the sight of two strange women wearing jeans, tee shirts and hiking boots and their long hair blowing in the wind.
"I haven't seen a single tourist here," Vicki whispered to her friend.
"Me either. There are also no cars and no power lines. I'm beginning to think this might be some kind of religious commune, maybe like the Amish in Pennsylvania."
When the door to the meetinghouse opened, out stepped a man dressed in black with a stiff white collar at his throat. Apparently unafraid, he examined them both: from their twenty-first-century hairstyles to their modern footwear.
"What strange sight is this thou shows me, Abram?" Reverend Oakes demanded to know.
"These two women doth appear in my field."
"Didst thou or thy wife summon them?"
In response to the minister's question, a look of fear swept over the farmer's face.
"Nay, we have naught to do with conjuring, Reverend Oakes."
Meanwhile, several men from the village, their curiosity getting the better of their fear, drew near.
"We didn't mean to ...," Emma began.
"Silence!" the minister thundered.
"There's no need to be so rude," Vicki said. "We only ...."
"Hold thy tongue, woman!"
Although taught to respect her elders, Vicki was greatly offended by the old man's attitude.
"Let's go, Emma," she told her friend. "I've had enough of these people. Let's walk back to the boat rental place."
"Enoch, Micah," Reverend Oakes ordered. "Takest these women to the goal."
"What!" Emma exclaimed.
"You can't do this!" Vicki shouted. "We haven't done anything wrong."
The minister paid no attention to their protests. Instead, he instructed Abram to summon the magistrate.
"Tell him thou hast found two witches in thy field."
* * *
The two former British university students sat in the dank, fetid cell, each chained to a post driven deep into the ground.
"I can't believe this is happening," Emma sobbed. "These people aren't just religious fanatics; they're downright lunatics. They're going to keep us here all night. We're sure to miss our flight tomorrow."
"We were wrong about this place being a tourist attraction, and maybe we're also wrong about it being some sort of religious commune," Vicki hypothesized. "I'm wondering if the explanation isn't even more bizarre."
"What are you suggesting?"
"The way these people talk, the way they dress, the lack of any modern conveniences: I think it's possible we've somehow gone back in time."
"Oh, Christ! Please don't go all X-Files on me, not unless you can find a targus to get us out of here."
Despite the precarious position they were in, Vicki was amused by Emma's lack of knowledge when it came to science fiction programs.
"The word is TARDIS, not targus. It's an acronym for 'time and relative dimension in space,' and it's from Doctor Who, not The X-Files."
"Thank you. It's so important that I know that, especially given the situation we're in."
"Look, Emma, whether these people are simply twenty-first-century religious nuts or seventeenth-century Puritans, we'll need to keep our wits about us. We can't descend to the level of hysterical damsels in distress."
Despite Vicki's brave words to her friend, the young woman was terrified when Enoch and Micah returned the following morning and dragged them, still in chains, before a tribunal of magistrates. Before being taken into the meeting house that also served as the courtroom, however, the women were stripped of their twenty-first-century clothing and made to wear the drab-colored, unadorned garb of the Puritan women. Once properly attired, they stood before the three judges.
"Ye have been charged with the crime of witchcraft," Judge Croydon, the chief magistrate announced. "How doth thou plead, innocent or guilty?"
"We are both innocent," Emma replied. "We are tourists visiting America from England. We were driving along the Quabbin Reservoir when our rental car broke down."
"See how they doth speak strange words," the magistrate on Croydon's right noted.
Whether she and her friend were in the past or present, Vicki believed a logical, honest explanation would be useless. Their captors seemed incapable of understanding. Thus, on impulse, she tried a different tactic.
"Do you see that?" she cried, feigning a look of bewilderment and pointing to the air above Emma's head. "Do you see the spirit that torments the poor girl?"
The reaction in the court was one of intense fear barely held in control. The Puritans were more than capable of dealing with two strangers in their midst—even if they be witches—but they were helpless in the face of an unseen tormentor.
"We are not witches," Vicki continued. "We are victims bewitched by one of them."
Emma wondered if the madness that permeated the small New England village had somehow affected her friend.
"What are you saying?" she cried. "There is no such thing as ...."
"You poor, tormented girl," Vicki said, speaking to her friend directly, choosing her words with care since the people in the court were listening intently. "You must be brave and heed my advice if you want to survive this curse. Just as the afflicted girls in Salem were later set free of the forces that held them prisoner."
"Salem?" Judge Croydon echoed. "Ye come from Salem?"
"Yes."
"That doth explain the matter," the judge concluded. "These women are bewitched. The evil our ancestors didst leave behind them there hath managed to find us after all this time."
Judge Croydon's words explained the dire predicament the young women were in.
We didn't travel back in time like Doctor Who, Vicki concluded. These people are descendents of residents from Salem who sought to escape the witch hysteria of 1692. For more than three hundred years, they have been living in seclusion in this bucolic hamlet, unaffected by the passage of time, much like the people of Lerner and Loewe's Brigadoon.
"Didst these afflicted women bring the witch with them from Salem?" Enoch asked.
"It doth appear so," Judge Croydon replied.
"Then we must seek out this witch and destroy it," Reverend Oakes declared.
"No," Vicki said, seeing an opportunity to free herself and Emma. "There is an easier way. My friend and I will leave your village and return to Salem. The witch who torments us will surely follow."
As Judge Croydon took the time to consider the young woman's words, an airplane flew overhead. The villagers cringed with fear, looking with worried faces to the sky.
"'Twas the devil's bird again," Reverend Oakes announced once the Eastern Airlines Boeing 767 jet airliner was out of view. "Perchance it doth afflict these poor women."
Emma, who had paid careful attention to all the information gleaned from the various witchcraft exhibits they had visited in Salem, now followed Vicki's lead.
"Yes," she cried. "Yes. Just as the afflicted girls in Salem claimed the witches sent out their spirits in the form of a little yellow bird to torment them, that large silver bird was sent to torture us. We thought we could run away from it, just as your ancestors did, but we now know we cannot. It still follows us."
"We must not endanger these good people any further," Vicki added. "We must leave their village at once and return to the place from which this devil's bird took off, for only then will we be able to resume a normal life."
"Enoch, unlock their chains," Judge Croydon ordered. "Let them return to Salem. The good people there doth have much experience dealing with witches."
Vicki and Emma grabbed their clothes and handbags and ran off into the woods, only stopping to change once they returned to the rental car.
Although exhausted by their ordeal, the young women walked more than five miles to the nearest telephone where they called the car rental agency, which sent a tow truck for the disabled vehicle and a car to pick them up and drive them back to Boston in time to make their flight.
* * *
Emma Trowbridge collapsed into her window seat, breathing heavily from the mad dash through the airport.
"I can't believe we actually made our plane in time!" she exclaimed as the flight crew prepared for takeoff.
Vicki Merridale laughed with relief.
"I can't believe we made it out of Massachusetts alive!"
The two women buckled their seatbelts and watched the required airline safety video as the plane taxied down the runway. Once they were in the air, Emma sat back and looked out the window while Vicki perused the selection of in-flight movies available.
"I still think we should have told someone," Emma said, not taking her eyes off the ocean below. "The next person that stumbles upon that village might be hurt or event killed. For all we know, they might have hanged people already, their victims viewed as runaways or missing persons."
"Did you really want to go to the Massachusetts State Police and tell them that a group of Puritans, anxious to escape the threat of witchcraft, fled Salem in 1692 and settled in the Berkshire Mountains and that their descendants are still holed up there threatening to hang anyone who wanders into their village?"
"We could prove it. All the authorities have to do is take the road along the reservoir and find the path in the woods that led to Abram's farm."
"In all honesty, I'm not sure I could even find it again," Vicki confessed. "Besides, it's not our problem. We're on holiday, after all."
"I hope my friends and family will forgive me," Emma said, changing the subject. "I spent two weeks in the States and didn't buy a single souvenir for anyone."
"Don't worry about it. If we can't find anything at Heathrow, we can always stop at Selfridges on the way home."
As Emma wrestled with her conscience over their not notifying the authorities of the potential danger Reverend Oakes's congregation posed, Vicki filled out her menu card, put on her earphones and sat back to watch a movie as the silver devil's bird soared above the Atlantic Ocean, safely carrying them home to England.
Whenever Salem and his friends fly, they always travel first class. Of course, during his nine lives, he's racked up quite a few frequent flyer miles.
