Correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t think I’ve done a Salem Witch Trials story yet. Correction: I don’t think I’ve posted a SWT story yet as I’ve written many. Most of which are utter crap.
Those who know me know of my fascination with Rev. Samuel Parris. I think he’s an interesting, if spineless, chap. I have a habit of wondering what would happen if he ever really became friends with Joseph Putnam (one of the main leaders of the faction that eventually got rid of Parris a few years after the trials). Nothing, probably. Salem was far too divided to settle for a minister like Parris. And Parris himself, I don’t think he was ever really cut out to be a minister. Of course it wasn’t his first or second career choice, his first was a plantation owner (like his father in Barbardos), and second was as a merchant. Neither of those jobs really lends themselves to ministerial skill building I must say.
In any case, this little blurb was written for the same prompt as the previous Mercer/Beckett thing was written for. It’s not my favorite of them, and I may write a new one for the prompt (Coconut Milk), we shall see.

He always reminded him of the Caribbean. Of dark swirls of the ocean he’d never seen, of darker eyes of people he’d never met, or dark whispers and longings of a world he’d never been to. Parris had brown eyes that were brown enough to make Putnam ache. Had brown eyes brown enough to make him long for that world, for that life, that one before this.

“You speak in riddles,” Parris had said as Putnam grabbed his wrist, imploring him to stay for just a moment longer. Imploring him to tell him one more story.

“What was it like, there, in Barbados?” He affected the accent for the island’s name, letting it roll off his tongue as he let Parris’ name roll in his mind when it was too late to sleep but too early to be up.

“Hot, Putnam I must go,” a pleading look at the door and Putnam’s grip tightened. The reverend had never seemed so small.

“It was more than hot, what was it like? What did it smell like? Feel like? Taste like?”

“Death.”

There eyes met and Putnam looked away first, towards the fire, the ashes, the simmering stew.

“Death?” He managed in a whisper.

Silence and Parris’ face was ice, brown eyes flecked with grey and Putnam’s grip loosened. The older man watched him, silent, before standing.

“Nothing,” he finally said to Putnam’s silence. “It was like nothing.”

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