Today
  
The Crucible again. The Doctor shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He remembered Susan’s reaction to the play.
  There were tears on Rebecca Nurse’s cheeks, but she did not turn away. She watched the actors intently. Perhaps she prayed for a happy ending, for her fellows to turn away from their insane path. When the final curtain dropped, she didn’t join in the applause. He wondered if he had made another mistake. She didn’t understand yet. She would.
  They strolled back to the TARDIS side by side. She kept her distance from him. An invisible cocoon had sprung up around her: a shell of loneliness, misery and regret. She didn’t belong here in this time, couldn’t fit in with these people. She shouldn’t have seen her own life, portrayed by an actor. Shouldn’t have seen her own death.
  ‘How do you feel?’ he asked at the doors.
  She shook her head mutely. He waited.
  ‘It grieves me to witness so much destruction,’ she said at last. ‘I had hoped for my fate to bring an end to it. I am an old woman; I have not many years to lose. But I pray for the other victims.’
  ‘There was an end,’ said the Doctor. "The witch hunters realised what they had done. It just took a little more time.’
  ‘How much time? How many people died?’
  There was no way to avoid the question. He hoped she could deal with the answer.
  ‘Nineteen were hanged. One was pressed to death for refusing to give testimony. Several died in prison.’ It was a small toll, almost insignificant from this point in time. It wasn’t the deaths for which Salem was remembered. But to Rebecca’s ears it must have sounded like a massacre. A culling of her friends. A shadow passed across her eyes. She drew a deep, shuddering breath.
  ‘Why was there no mention of your family’s contribution?’ she asked, composing herself remarkably. ‘Of your granddaughter’s, at least.’
  ‘History can be blind. When it needs to be. But that isn’t why I brought you here. It isn’t what I wished you to learn.’
  ‘I do not see what I am expected to gain from being shown these horrors. You say you cannot spare my church from them?’
  ‘I’m afraid not.’
  ‘Then I would like to return.’
  ‘Not yet. Please. Trust me.’

He took her to the small town of Danvers, Massachusetts. It bore scant resemblance to the Salem Village of three hundred years past. Progress had brought tarmac, fast cars and litter to its streets. The Doctor knew that, compared with most developed places on Earth, it was quiet and beautiful, but to Rebecca it must have seemed an abomination.
  The town still offered some havens from the modem world. It was to one of these that the Doctor headed. A tranquil, sloping field, bordered by trees. In the centre of it stood Rebecca Nurse’s home. It had weathered the lonely centuries with pride. Later occupants had added to it, but Rebecca cried when she saw that her two rooms and lean-to extension had been lovingly preserved. He could imagine how poignant it must have seemed to her. Amid a barrage of the unfamiliar, it was her first real touchstone to all she had lost; a testament to the passage of time, in which her life had been swept along and buried. It could do her no good to dwell on its presence. He ushered her onward, down towards the family graveyard.
  One monument towered above the rest. The Doctor’s pace slowed as they approached it. It was wrong to show this to anybody. Cruel and possibly harmful. But Rebecca knew what awaited her already. She had seen the story of her life spelled out from beginning to end. How could it hurt her to see what happened next?
  And then it was too late for second thoughts, though there was time enough to fret as the Doctor awaited the consequences of a desperate act. Rebecca’s face froze as she read the name carved into the white obelisk above a touching eulogy. Her name. She had not guessed, although he had thought his secret writ plain in his features. For an unbearably long time, she gave no other reaction. The Doctor half expected her to scream, to cry, to lose her mind, to bring time crashing down about his ears.
  Instead, her eyes shone with awe, but her brow creased with puzzlement. Her voice was hesitant, choked. ‘How can it have come to pass that I should have a memorial at all, much less one so grand?’
  ‘I can think of few more deserving.’
  ‘Yet is it not the fate of the executed to lie in unmarked graves?’
  ‘My dear Rebecca, your family and friends thought more of you than that. A good deal more. They risked all to move your body; to give it a proper and dignified burial in secret.’
  ‘But this stone?’
  ‘The tribute of a future generation. They knew what wrong had been done to you. They did all in their power to put things right.’
  ‘My... excommunication?’ He could see how difficult it was for her to ask. How painful it was to hope.
  ‘Rescinded,’ he confirmed, and smiled at the beatific expression that washed over her.
  "Then I may hope for a seat in Heaven after all?’
  ‘I am sure it was never in doubt.’

He took her to the second memorial then: the larger one that stood across the road from the unrecognisable site where once the meetinghouse had been. She knelt before it, straining her weakened eyes to read. The Doctor leaned on his cane and watched in silence.
  In memory of those innocents who died during the Salem Village witchcraft hysteria of 1692.
  She remained there for the longest time, conflicting emotions vying for control of her face. He thought it best not to disturb her, though he began to wonder if she could ever understand.
  At last, she stood awkwardly and walked around the fine stone monument. She stroked its rough surface with reverence. She circled it twice and read the immortalised quotations of the witchcraft victims, including one of her own. She returned to the frontispiece and gazed at the simple inscription there a second time. A third. And she whispered, ‘Innocents.’
  ‘As I told you, the truth was eventually recognised.’
  ‘They remember us,’ said Rebecca. ‘Though three centuries have passed, they know what was done to us. They remember... me.’

He had shown her where it had started. Finally, he took her to where it had all ended. For too many people. At first, Rebecca didn’t think much of the developments in Salem Town. She complained of the noise, the crowds, the tainted smell of the air. She flinched from the silhouettes of stereotypical witches with hats and broomsticks, which advertised shops and restaurants and were emblazoned across T-shirts. Witchcraft had become a tourist industry; visitors were attracted by tales of the trials and by the occult connotations that still clung to Salem’s name.
  ‘I had hoped for a better future,’ said Rebecca in disgust. This time still has its vultures and its voyeurs. They will flock to any spectacle, taking cruel delight in the misfortunes of others.’
  ‘It must seem that way to you,’ said the Doctor carefully.
  ‘How else do you explain the play?’
  ‘To these people, it was a long time ago.’
  ‘Does that make it a source of pleasure?’
  ‘Perhaps simply of historical interest.’

They found peace atop Gallows Hill. They sat on the damp grass there, and the sounds of traffic receded, although white clapboard houses and red-brick apartment blocks had stolen the ocean view. The Doctor felt the sweet breeze in his hair, and again he remembered sitting here with Susan. A lifetime ago.
  For a few minutes, Rebecca was unsettled. She kept glancing at the trees, as if trying to work out from which of them a rope had once hung. Her personal future, to which she still had to return. But, as the Doctor had hoped, the perspective offered to her by this future helped to overcome such apprehension.
  ‘How does it end?’ she asked at last. The play had not furnished her with that information.
  He thought about it, wondering how much to say. ‘A growing discontent. The villagers became displeased with the court - remorseful, even, for what they had allowed it to do. John Proctor helped: he wrote letters, made speeches and argued against the witch hunt. A lot of people thought he was making sense. And then there was George Burroughs, who recited the Lord’s Prayer as they sent him to his death – a supposed impossibility for a witch; Giles Corey, who was killed without trial when he wouldn’t speak in the court. And Rebecca Nurse, who comported herself with such grace and dignity that few doubted her innocence at the end.’
  ‘I am to become a martyr, then.’ Her voice was steeped in disbelief. ‘I am to play a part in the future, so long as people still think of me and remember.’
   ‘They will always remember what happened in Salem Village.’
  ‘And ’tis good that they will recognise it as a madness of sorts.’
  ‘Do you understand now?’
  She nodded. ‘I hope I do. When first we met, Doctor, I warned you against those who would fear us for our differences, whether real or not. It was such people who, gripped by a delusion, committed great sins against the Lord. And yet the trials of Salem have not been in vain if they can live on in memory and be a caution to those who are still to come. Mankind will learn tolerance and understanding from our sad example, so hope can flourish anew.’ She smiled, for the first time since he had taken her from the dungeon. ‘I am blessed to have become a part of history.’
  ‘This world is blessed to have known you.’
  ‘I am ready to go now, Doctor.’
  He laid a reassuring hand on her shoulder and helped her to stand. His risk had paid off. He had done the right thing, laid a few personal ghosts to rest. Ian and Barbara had never understood. They had left him at the first opportunity, taking their own transport back to their own time. His granddaughter had left too. And all the people since. He had never really tried to explain to them. He had wanted to explain to somebody, at last. He had wanted to achieve some closure, perhaps to expunge his guilt.
  But a small part of the guilt remained. Nagging doubts. He had not shown Rebecca everything. What if she could learn all about this strange new world? What if she came to understand too much? What price his absolution, if he had had to deceive her to achieve it?

Nobody noticed as they left. Nobody heard Rebecca’s blissful sigh of contentment, drifting on the wind even when she could no longer be seen by mortal eyes. The sun set in that part of the world, on that balmy evening. Elsewhere, the latest witch hunts continued. People still died because others thought themselves different or better. Or perhaps because they were afraid.
  Rebecca Nurse went to her final rest with calm acceptance.
  Life, for the rest of us, goes on.