By: Sue
Increase pays John a visit. There was a time he wished him to be his own son. John tells him that he knows that he’s not a witch, but Increase doesn’t know him anymore. Increase and Mary walk together. She does not believe him to be a witch, but it is not up to Increase’s thoughts on John’s guilt. It is for the Selectmen to decide, and Mary’s own maid is the one who accused John. Increase wonders if it is Mary’s feelings that cloud her judgment, but she plays coy, saying that she gave up those feelings when she gave her heart to George. Increase is happy to hear this. Mary tells him that it is not her feelings she is concerned about, but Salem’s own. He is loved by the people. Mary suggests that he allow the Selectmen to cast a vote and decide if they should even hold a trial that way he is blameless. She gives her assurances which way they will vote. He is pleased with her plan, planning to call them together immediately. She asks if he has had any luck finding Mercy Lewis, that she too must face her day of reckoning. So far he has not, but he is a patient man and a witch cannot hide forever.
Night falls. Mercy is in the woods. She lies cuddled up next to a corpse where she hunkers down for sleep among the dead.
Anne asks her father what the mask is, and why he felt the need to destroy it. He reminds her that she just told him that it was a magical teleporting device. She angers over his mocking. She’s given him time to explain, which he has done many times. He told her that it was an artifact of his travels, but this answer is not enough for her. She wants the truth, the truth of him. If he will not give her the answers she seeks then she will turn to Increase with her questions.
Cotton comes to visit his father. Increase asks him if he knows why he came back to Salem. His son does not see the path that he has set him on, with the whore gone, he hopes his son will rise from his ashes and into power. He wishes his to address the people at John’s trial, because he is a powerful speaker, but Cotton does not think that he is guilty. Cotton does not have many friends, John may be his only one, and he is not guilty of the crime that he is being charged with. Increase tells him the story of a man he once knew. He had the chance to let a man he thought was innocent go, or have him perish, and catch a witch. He let the man go free. Years later the man sacrificed virgins. No good deed goes unpunished. Cotton still refuses to be a part of his friend’s trial.
Mary and Hale walk together. He has spoken with the other Selectmen to see how they will vote in John’s case. It’s going to be a close vote. Hale vows to vote how Mary asks him to, which will tie the vote up, leaving hers to break it. They head inside.
Increase address the crowd, bring forth information and charges. The vote is made, and it falls exactly as Hale said that it would, but when Mary goes to lay her vote, Increase informs her that it isn’t needed. Her husband has recovered enough to cast his own vote. Mary isn’t sure how that is so. George is still little more than an invalid, but he can hear, and respond, not with words, but spit. With his spit he ruins Mary’s plans, and John is forced to stand trial.
Mary pays John a visit in his cell. She told him long ago that if he stayed that he would die. He asks if she came to tell him I told you so, but she hasn’t. She apologizes for putting him on this course. She isn’t the only one to blame for their past. If he goes to trial he will be hung she fears. She wants to spirit him away, to save him from all of this, but he won’t go. He finally understands why Cory let them press him to death rather than to fight the charges. There is no use fighting the madness. He will stay no matter the outcome, even if it is his death. He may just get his wish.
Anne pays Increase a visit. She asks him a question of witches. He asks if she is curious, or if she has encountered one. Her father interrupts, and he offers to answer her questions so as not to disturb the reverend. Increase leaves Anne to her father, and he vows to give no further lies.
Mercy’s girls are strung up, and Increase flings boiling water upon them. They remain adamant that Mercy will not allow them to be burned that she will come for them. Increase tells them that he will find Mercy with or without their help.
Mary meets Mercy in the woods. She’s being extra cautious with Increase still hunting for her. Mary thinks perhaps that she was mistaken when it comes to Increase, that perhaps they are the ones that should deal with him. Mercy likes that idea. Mercy wants clarification. She asks why now. Mary is concerned with his growing influence, he threatens that which she loves. Mercy knows that she is speaking of John, but Mary tells her that it is not John she is trying to protect but Mercy herself. She wishes to protect her as she protects herself. Tituba should not have __________
Hale tells his daughter that he had to watch his own parents burn, and in watching that death something changed in him. Steps were taken to spare him of that fate, and he was taken to the New World. He was taken in by those loyal to the cause, taught to harness the power, and hide it. He did that, and found one day that he had a family of his own to love and protect. He confesses that he is a witch, but also that it does not make him any less a loving father. Anne quickly leaves after his confession.
Mary summons Isaac, and he notices the deep scratches on her back. Mary has tea with Isaac, and tells him her tale of woe. She tells him that Mercy attacked her, even after all that she has done. Isaac starts to feel drugged, which is perfect. Mary needs Isaac to tell Increase something, to lure him, but although she feels that he doesn’t deserve this sort of treatment, she must send him. He will only remember what she tells him to,a nd she makes him repeat the story she tells him to tell. He went to the woods to find Mercy Lewis, past the lake beside the weeping tree is where he found her.
Increase preaches to the people, that no one can be trusted. They thought Mercy was a victim, to find that she was a witch. Now he believes no one can be trusted. In the middle of his sermon, Cotton make s a disgraceful entry. Increase tells them to pay him no mind. Cotton brings up a very valid point, that he is telling the people to question their neighbors when they should question who he is. What beter guise than that of a holy man. Increase has had enough of his son, telling him that he is drunk, and throws him from the church.
Mrs. Hale cannot believe that Anne would point her finger at her father, but Hale tells his wife that he caught her just the night before getting ready to talk to Increase about witches. Mrs. Hale thinks that its time for him to tell Anne the whole story, but Hale thinks it may be too late for that now.
Isaac tells Increase his tale. After hearing mary’s tale, he went after Mercy he tells Increase, not out of loyalty to Mary, but to please Increase. Increase shows Isaac the binding strap that he wears to atone for his own sins. Increase asks if he is sinning now, but Isaac does not believe that he is. Increase believes him, and asks if he can lead him to the last place that he saw Mercy. Isaac can, and Increase prepares for a witch hunt.
Mercy digs through the corpses in the forest, tasty morsels of rotting flesh looking for the perfect bone to steal and turn into a shank.
Cotton continues getting sauced up. Anne pays him a visit, and he’s drinking on a hobbit’s feeding schedule. Anne has come to apologize to Cotton for judging him harshly. They are both the children of complicated men. Cotton thinks his father is the simplest of men, but Anne knows differently. She knows him to be the most knowledgeable about witches, and she wishes to know more. She confesses to having a long interest in them, and Cotton is willing to tell her all she wishes to know.
Isaac takes Increase into the woods to look for Mercy. Increase is skeptical that Isaac would travel so deeply into the woods to look for Mercy. Increase pulls a blade and holds it against his throat trying to find his true motives. Isaac maintains that it is no ones bidding, but just the need to please Increase. Mercy shows herself, and the pair give chase.
Cotton lays down his knowledge, and Anne cannot believe her ears. The witches have been hiding among them. She wants to know what witches want, and there are two trains of thoughts. One that witches only want peace, and the other, his father’s thought, that witches want the destruction of everything. She asks if his father is ever wrong, but Cotton only knows that he isn’t wrong about him. His father thinks him a failure and he is. He is a failure at piety and sobriety, so the evidence supports his case. Anne tells him that he is wrong. Cotton goes in to kiss her, and she steps away. He thinks its another failure to add to his list, but Anne thinks that not becoming his father is no failure at all.
Mary begins her cast as Increase and Isaac continue to look for Mercy. Increase thinks that he has the upperhand. Mary’s cast begins to work, and Increase finds his binding belt cutting deeply into his flesh. Mercy goes after her prey with it wounded. Mercy throws her sharpened bone, but it misses. Increase’s knife does not miss its mark though, and Mercy falls to the ground. Mary sends vines after Increase to bind him. Mercy rises and she and Increase begin a knife fight. Increase gets the best of her, and she takes off running into the woods. Increase yells for Isaac to give chase, but he cannot. Mercy’s shank sits in Isaac’s belly. Increase tells him to breathe shallowly as he removes it.
Mary is summoned to Reverend Mather’s quarters. She hopes it is Cotton’s, but she is told that she has been asked to Increase’s. She heads there, and she is saddened to see that Isaac sits wounded on the bed. She tells his sleeping form that she will protect him at all costs. Increase doesn’t give Mary much time with Isaac. Mary wants to know why Isaac would go after Mercy. Increase finds it odd that Isaac would go after Mercy alone when he hates him, but Mary knows that Isaac does not hate him, he hates no one. Increase does find Isaac sort of child like, but he knows that who ever planted the idea in his head hates him, and wants him dead. Before she leaves, Mary makes a case for John’s innocence, but Increase wants a witch burned, and if John is not the witch then who is. Unless the guilty party comes forth, John will die, and Mary thinks that Salem may surprise him.
Cotton pays his father a visit. He will become a part of John’s trial. He will not join his father in the prosecution, but rather in John’s defense. Increase is not pleased in the fact that his son continues to chose the wrong things.
Hale goes to his daughter to make a confession. She isn’t sure that she wants to hear anything that he has to say, feigning tiredness, but he’s adamant. He tells her that the mask that she used can only be used by one type of person, his kind. She looks at him in disbelief, but he spells it out for her. The mask can only be used by a witch, and she is one.
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