SOMEWHERE IN MASSACHUSETTS, 1600s

Charlotte, here. Just another entry before I'm called to splice timber. I'm not sure what year I'm in - it's been so rough in the colonies for months that I've forgotten to count my days. Alas, I need to ask the locals about my dilemma but any and every innocent whisper has the opportunity to be misconstrued. See, there's this scandal going on in Salem. A few slaves that I know of - Mary Black, Candy, and Tituba - might have been involved in some witchcraft. Now, I don't believe it. You know why? I've know Mary to be a delicate thing - so much that little Abigail might have been a bit jealous. Her daddy was always preaching to afford his slaves. Of course, why would she be jealous of someone"beneath" her? Massachusetts is a strange place, no doubt about it. Nothing makes sense here - not even black cats. Poor things. For sure, if this diary's existence were to be unearthed, I'd be right along at the stake. I don't practice withcraft, none of it. But my "reading skills" and "literacy" are, to the masters, strange oddities that must be the forces of satanism.

Enough about me, about my potential worries. Tituba, an acquiantance. Her and my master's family have always been close - going to auctions together, having playdates while people like me curate coffee for silly tea time dates for the young. Tituba is not a negro like me, but that is beyond the point - she is a negro to the masters. Apparently, she's the creator of the scandal going on throughout the colonies. Reverand Parris's daughter, Betty, and his niece, Abigail apparently felt needles pricking their skin. The old girls set off to the doctor, and they were diagnosed as withcraft victims and survivors. The scapegoat was no other than Tituba, the slave to the Parris family. Her origins of Barbados surely must have caused it they said, as the religions of the Islands were "barbaric at best". Voodoo and other forms of withcraft must have been bought with her while in the ship, they said. Christianity, they said, was the only right religious way. They do not know whether Tituba's voodoo practices or her fortune telling skills set her in and caused girls around the village to be ill - it did not matter anyway: any of her practices were the same, they said. Titibua confessed to her crimes. Frightening white teenage girls, predicting their futures - all with her evil magic. It's sickening isn't it? To be so cruel, to treat them this way. Maybe they are right? Maybe sweet Tituba isn't sweet at all. I've overheard, while tending to the house, stories of girls screaming, losing their vocals, developing unexplainable bites, and mutilated limbs. In court, she confessed. Guilty. She blamed the Devil for her actions. The Devil took over her - told her to banish white children but she resisted. She slipped a few times, but oh yes, she resisted against the great fight. Tituba wasn't arrested, and her apparent resistance might have been the reason why she didn't hang. I should get going now. It's suspicious that I'm still up at this time of night. It's wee dark - I think I should be getting up when the little animals start making their sounds and howls and whistles. Writing, I can do, but telling time, I cannot.