Chapter Fifteen: Summary, Analysis, and Study Notes
⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.
Summary
The chapter opens on a Thursday morning when Mercy confronts the narrator about her work for the Silas family. Mercy reveals that the Silas men are a slaving family—the captain's grandfather and uncle ran slave ships, and two nephews currently operate a sugar plantation in Jamaica. She insists that slaves built Salem's wharves and that their blood and toil remain in the very dirt, even if the town's residents pretend otherwise. Mercy then shares her own family's history: her grandmother was brought from Africa in leg irons by a man named Kyle Fellowship, who kept her as a comfort woman in Bristol; her mother was born in that room and later sold to a neighbor who used her the same way. When a new law made it impossible to buy or sell slaves in the Commonwealth, that man gave Mercy's mother fifty dollars and sent her away. She came to Salem and bought land from Widow Higgins's husband, where she raised chickens despite the townsfolk's disapproval.
The narrator offers Mercy a piece of beeswax she found at Blackwell's, intending to use it for an ointment when she harvests pennyroyal. Mercy accepts it and returns with a new glove form that Zeke carved for the narrator before leaving to visit his wife in Lynn. Mercy refuses to take back her own form, suggesting the narrator use both to work faster and pay Zeke for his craftsmanship.
On Sunday, the narrator attends the East Meeting House, sitting in the last row beside a family of farmers. She cannot focus on the sermon; instead, her mind wanders to Salem's witch-trial history. She observes the Easty family, whose ancestress was hanged, and watches Captain and Mrs. Silas, wondering whether the town's history books record their slave ships. She recalls Nat's stories of Susannah Martin, Martha and Giles Corey, and John Hathorne's refusal to admit wrongdoing even after the accusers begged forgiveness. She reflects that history is not what is written or told but what is hidden in dark corners and shadows.
After church, she walks along the sea path to the rock where she and Nat sat the previous week. Though she hopes to find him, the boulder is empty. But tucked between two smaller rocks, she discovers a thorny branch of pink hawthorn flowers twined with a single rose—flowers that could only have been placed there by a human hand, and she believes it is Nat's. Filled with joy, she stitches a simple red letter A onto a scrap of cloth and leaves it in the spot where she found the flowers.
For three days and nights, she labors over six pairs of gloves for Felicity, keeping the hawthorn and rose blossoms in a cup of water on her table. The flowers lead her into an enchantment she cannot resist, and she pours out designs of petals, stems, leaves, and fruits. Her hands ache and her eyes water, but she does not stop. When she finishes, she sees the words LOVE and COURAGE rise and fall away in the white spaces between the designs—words she did not plan.
When she delivers the gloves, Felicity notices something strange in the patterns, calling it almost an enchantment. She pays the narrator, adding an extra twenty cents, but it is still far less than the gloves are worth. Felicity tells her not to ask what she has done with the gloves and that it is best she not tell. The narrator wonders whether she is a witch and what she should do with a power she does not understand.
That day, she buys new beads for her banquet shawl and strolls through town. At the Charter Ale House, she reads a handwritten notice warning that a slave catcher named MacGreggor has been seen on Salem's streets, hunting for a mother and child who fled a Baltimore plantation. An elderly woman explains that slaves escape north for freedom, but the law still allows plantation owners to take them back in chains, where they face beatings, mutilation, or sale farther south. The narrator realizes she has been living in Salem for two months while people—children—have been running for their lives, and she wonders what other dark secrets the city is hiding.
The chapter closes in 1692. John Hathorne and Cotton Mather enter the Goods' cottage at sunset. William Good brings his four-year-old daughter Dorcas before them. The girl's hands are dirty and her braided red hair is stuck with straw. Dorcas had confessed to the court the day before, but Hathorne will not convict a child without affirmation from the Lord. He questions her gently, asking whether she is a witch. Dorcas scratches at marks on her arm, and when Hathorne asks what made them, she whispers that a snake did it. Hathorne and Mather take this as proof of a spirit familiar and proceed with the mother's sentence. They take Dorcas away, and William Good releases his daughter without a word. Sarah Good is pushed onto the gallows, remembering the child she birthed on the jailhouse floor who took one breath and died. She whispers that she is not a witch and her daughter is not a witch, then shouts that she is no more a witch than they are warlocks, and that if they kill her, God will give them blood to drink. The floor opens beneath her and the sky swallows her.
Key Events
- Mercy confronts the narrator about the Silas family's slave-trading history and shares her own family's enslavement.
- The narrator gives Mercy beeswax and receives a new glove form carved by Zeke.
- At the East Meeting House, the narrator reflects on Salem's witch-trial legacy and the accused and accusers living side by side.
- The narrator finds hawthorn and rose blossoms at the seaside rock and leaves a stitched red A in return.
- She embroiders six pairs of gloves for Felicity, who notices an enchantment in the patterns and pays less than they are worth.
- In town, she reads a notice about a slave catcher hunting a mother and child who fled a Baltimore plantation.
- The chapter flashes back to 1692: Dorcas Good is questioned and taken, and her mother Sarah Good is hanged.
Character Development
The narrator undergoes significant growth in this chapter. She begins with a naive belief that slavery exists only in the South, and Mercy's revelations force her to confront the hidden history of her new home. Her reflection at the meeting house shows her deepening understanding that history is not what is written but what is hidden. Her discovery of the flowers and her decision to leave a stitched red A reveal her growing courage in expressing her feelings for Nat. Her embroidery of the gloves—with the unplanned words LOVE and COURAGE rising in the patterns—shows her grappling with a power she does not understand and her fear of what it might reveal or betray.
Mercy is revealed as a keeper of painful family history. Her confrontation with the narrator is not merely angry but purposeful; she wants the narrator to understand the cruelty that is present in Salem itself. Her story of her grandmother and mother grounds the novel's themes of hidden history and community secrets in lived experience.
Felicity shows a knowing wariness. She recognizes the enchantment in the gloves but refuses to ask about it, suggesting she understands more than she lets on—perhaps because she, too, descends from a woman accused of witchcraft.
Themes, Symbols, or Motifs
Hidden history: The chapter develops the theme that history is not what is written or told but what is hidden in dark corners and shadows. Mercy's family story, the slave catcher's notice, and the witch-trial flashback all illustrate how Salem's past and present cruelties are concealed beneath the town's respectable surface.
Slavery in Salem: Mercy's revelation that slaves built the wharves and that the Silas family profited from the slave trade directly challenges the narrator's—and the reader's—assumptions about where slavery existed. The slave catcher's notice brings this history into the present.
Enchantment in embroidery: The narrator's gloves become vehicles for a power she cannot control or explain. The words LOVE and COURAGE rise unbidden in the patterns, and Felicity senses the enchantment. This motif connects the narrator to the accused women of 1692 and raises the question of whether she is a witch.
Hawthorn and rose: The flowers left at the rock symbolize Nat's affection and the narrator's hope. They also carry associations with love and with the natural world's beauty, standing in contrast to the cruelty of slavery and the witch trials.
Ghosts of the past: Mercy speaks of slaves' ghosts still walking in Salem, and the narrator reflects on the accused and accusers living side by side after the trials. The 1692 flashback shows the past is never truly gone.
Accused and accusers: The narrator notes that both she and Felicity descend from women accused of witchcraft, and she reflects on John Hathorne's refusal to admit he was wrong. The chapter draws a parallel between the false accusations of 1692 and the hidden cruelties of slavery.
Why This Chapter Matters
This chapter is pivotal because it forces the narrator—and the reader—to confront the reality that Salem's history is far darker than its respectable surface suggests. Mercy's revelation about the Silas family's slave-trading past complicates the narrator's relationship with the family she works for and deepens the novel's exploration of hidden history. The chapter also develops the narrator's connection to Nat through the exchange of flowers and the stitched red A, and it introduces the possibility that her embroidery carries genuine power. The slave catcher's notice brings the threat of slavery into the present moment, while the 1692 flashback to Dorcas and Sarah Good connects the novel's themes of accusation, persecution, and courage across centuries. The chapter ends with Sarah Good's defiant words, echoing the narrator's own questions about power, freedom, and what it means to be accused.
Study Questions and Answers
1. How does Mercy's revelation about the Silas family change the narrator's understanding of Salem?
Mercy's revelation shatters the narrator's naive belief that slavery exists only in the South. She learns that slaves built Salem's wharves, that the Silas men ran slave ships, and that the town's prosperity is built on enslaved labor. This forces her to see that Salem's history is not what is written or told but what is hidden in dark corners and shadows, and it makes her question what other secrets the city is keeping.
2. What does the narrator's embroidery of the gloves reveal about her state of mind?
The narrator's three days of intense labor over Felicity's gloves reveal her emotional turmoil and her growing sense of power. The hawthorn and rose blossoms lead her into an enchantment she cannot resist, and the unplanned words LOVE and COURAGE rise in the patterns. Her fear that she might be a witch—and her uncertainty about what to do with a power she does not understand—shows her grappling with forces she cannot control.
3. How does the 1692 flashback to Dorcas and Sarah Good connect to the chapter's earlier events?
The flashback connects to the chapter's themes of hidden history, accusation, and persecution. Just as the narrator reflects on the accused and accusers living side by side after the trials, the flashback shows the moment of accusation itself—a child questioned and taken, a mother hanged for a crime she did not commit. Sarah Good's defiant final words echo the narrator's own questions about power and freedom, and the chapter suggests that the cruelties of 1692 and the cruelties of slavery are part of the same hidden history.