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Sue had gotten about two thirds of the way into her research before she realized the whole point of her essay meant she was fucked. She'd gone in knowing there had to be at least some theories about what caused the Salem Witch Trials. Her aunt had dragged her along to a production of The Crucible a while back and it was actually kind of interesting. So, when choosing a topic from Colonial American history to research, she figured, why not try this? "What caused the trials" didn't sound like it would be a ridiculously hard question to answer.
Except that nobody she could find seemed to agree, and all of the reasons sort of made sense but contradicted each other—she was in way over her head. She should've abandoned ship and picked something else quick, but instead she'd pressed farther, stupidly hoping something would come to her, because she got… interested. The thing she remembered from the play that had grabbed her attention was the way that everything got kicked off by a couple of teenage girls spreading nasty rumors about somebody, and well, she'd been thinking more about that lately. Because of what was going on with Carrie White, and the way things were heating up with Tommy and Chris and everything, getting nastier, she'd been thinking about it.
Not that Sue liked doing that, really, because they were her friends, and Carrie was Carrie—but also, she was just Carrie. She was harmless, basically, even if she was weird and annoying sometimes. On some level 'taking her down a peg' felt stupid when she was already barely clinigng to the bottom one. It was like kicking a puppy just because it was homely and staring at you with big wet eyes in a weird way: still, at the end of the day, kicking a puppy.
The thoughts about it kept up as Sue kept researching, because those girls had started the whole thing by accusing people they already didn't like of cursing them sick: a foreign servant; a poor lady who was known for swearing and nasty language; a woman who kept skipping out on church. The books were arguing about if they'd lied about the sickness, if they'd known they were wrong about being cursed or if they'd really thought the woman was hurting them, if some adults had told them to lie to cover for an economic spat between two towns.
The point was that it in the end, none of it really mattered: it didn't matter whether the girls were sick or vindictive. It didn't matter what those women had done to step out of line. It didn't matter what the trade relations between Salem and Salem Town were like. It didn't even matter if the whole town had all gone crazy off eating moldy bread, as one theory went. What mattered was that so many people were willing to turn against each other, and it ate away at their town until there was nothing anyone could do to protect themselves. The people of Salem may have pointed the finger at their outcasts first, but they were accusing themselves the whole time. All of it was just cannibalism.
Sue sat back in her chair like it had been knocked backwards, and wondered if she was one of the people eating Carrie White alive. Then, more importantly, she wondered what the fuck she was going to write in her essay.
She didn't get a chance to think it through, because she became suddenly aware of a presence hovering behind her, and turned around fast in her chair to see Carrie White looking over her shoulder at the book. When Sue whipped her head around, Carrie jumped back like she was the spooked one, and said reflexively, "Sorry!" even as Sue thought, Speak of the devil.
"What are you doing?" Sue snapped. Carrie looked like she'd slapped her, and Sue bit the inside of her cheek. Stupid. She hadn't been thinking, but she was startled.
"Looking," Carrie answered, like that wasn't obvious, and then cringed. When Sue looked at her quizically, she added, "I heard what you were writing about." Sue sighed.
"Don't tell me you picked the same thing?"
"No, it's not that."
"Okay…?" She tried not to sound impatient, she really did. It took a minute for Carrie to get herself together.
"Be careful, Sue," she said, so quiet it was nearly a whisper, and for once she looked up and met Sue's eyes. "What you're doing—it could be dangerous."
Sue raised an eyebrow. "Huh? You mean reading this?" she pointed at the book. "How do you figure?"
"Your eyes and ears are the gateways to your soul," Carrie answered, in the sort of robotic voice that made Sue think she'd memorized the phrase. "If you don't shield them, you might let the Devil in." Oh. Of course it was gonna be some weird religious thing.
"Carrie," Sue said, without any humor this time—just for the sake of getting her point across— "It's not a spell book. The most it's got in it is some stuff about what people used to think about witches, but that's all bunk. The book itself is just facts. And the fact is, there wasn't a single witch in Salem to even read about." She shut it fast. "Case closed."
"O-oh," Carrie said. "I'd always thought…"
Sue blinked at her. "Wait, do you think witches are real?"
There was a pause in which Carrie looked like she'd been caught stealing something, and her face blanched even paler than usual, making her freckles stick out. She fumbled for words, but when she got a handle on them, it came out all at once. "It's in the Bible… the Lord God commanded in Exodus 'thou shalt not suffer a witch to live'. And… and Saul called on the Witch of Endor to summon the spirit of Samuel!"
Huh. Sue didn't remember ever hearing about any ghosts in church, but she'd been distracted during more than one sermon, and it was more than clear that whatever kind of church Carrie went to—if Margaret White ever even took her out of the house to do it—was not the same kind as Sue's.
"I dunno," Sue shrugged. "Maybe they used to be around, two thousand and whatever years ago, but they sure weren't in Massachusetts. The evidence at the trial was from people's dreams. That sounds pretty made up to me…"
She'd really been hoping Carrie would leave it. But there was no relief on her face, just confusion. Her fingers tugged at the edge of her big, loose sweater, twisting and at worrying it as she looked at her shoes.
"You don't think that the people on trial did anything bad?"
Sue nodded, though she felt a little trepidatious. "No. Even the first few ones to get accused were just people nobody liked all that much. You know," She gestured vaguely. "outsiders. It's nobody's fault for being different."
There was a long pause, and Carrie shifted from foot to foot, stealing glances at Sue before holding herself back and dropping her gaze. After a while, Sue couldn't stop herself asking, "What is it?"
"Does your book say anything about witches making things move without touching them?" As Sue scooted back her chair, frowning, Carrie chewed her lip.
"Huh? No, they were supposed to have been making people sick… why—" A quiet thud interrupted her just then, and she whipped her head around to see that the book on the table was open again, fallen back to the same page she'd been reading from. It took a few seconds for everything to fall into place in Sue's head. Then, slowly, she looked back over her shoulder. Carrie was staring at her with big, haunted eyes. Behind her, Sue could hear the whisper of pages turning, untouched by anyone there.
Holy fucking shit, Sue thought. She met Carrie's eyes; they were pleading with her for something. Scared. Was Sue scared, too? She didn't think she knew anymore.
"Sue," Carrie said, "Can I tell you something?"
Sue's throat clicked as she swallowed heavily. "Yeah," she said. "Um. Do you want to go somewhere else? Then we… we can talk."
Carrie looked at her with such relief Sue thought she might actually cry. "Thank you," she said in that small voice. As she slung her half-open backpack over her shoulder, Sue motioned towards the library door and let Carrie lead her out to wherever it was she felt safe.
No such thing as witches, she thought to herself. And yeah, that was right.
So what the hell was Carrie White?