Hour of the Witch(105)

On the other hand, here were the realities, and they were as absolute as the tides. She had not planted the forks or the pestle in her dooryard that autumn. She had not carved the Devil’s mark into the doorframe of her house. Someone else had done those things.

Likewise, she had put no spell on William Stileman or the baby that had died inside Peregrine Cooke. She had no idea whether those souls had been taken from the earth because of deviltry or disease, but she knew, too, that she had had nothing to do with either’s passing.

“It would be good if we could ferret out who had planted the Devil’s tines,” Hull said. “It mattered not in thy first trial. It will matter much in thy second.”

“Catherine is the one who has the most conceivable motive and expresses toward me the greatest antipathy.”

“Greater than Goody Howland?”

“Perhaps not,” she admitted.

“And thou hast some suspicion that Goody Cooper may not be the friend that she claims to be.”

“?’Tis true.”

“And Isaac Willard, of course.”

    “Yes.”

“So, there are others who may have a grudge with thee.”

She gazed down at the mouse droppings on the floor. There was so much. There were just so many creatures with whom she shared this small, dark box. She thought about what the scrivener had said. How had she become such a reprehensible creature that she could have so many enemies? But then she heard once more in her head Benjamin Hull’s last four words and repeated them back to him.

“A grudge with thee,” she murmured. “A grudge with me.”

“What art thou thinking?”

“All this time we have supposed that I was the target of the spell: that someone was attempting to sicken or kill me.”

“Go on.”

“That suggests a self-importance that may be unfounded, Benjamin. What if the prey were, in fact, Thomas?”

“Well, that is an interesting possibility. But, alas, thou wouldst be the suspect most likely to wish ill upon him. I am not sure—”

“Or Catherine,” she went on, cutting him off.

“Why would someone want to hex a servant girl?”

“Why would someone want to hex me?” she snapped.

“I see thy point.”

“But Thomas? There is a creature worthy of whatever misfortune befalls him.”

“Nevertheless, Mary, who other than thee would endeavor to foul Thomas’s future and risk his own by conspiring with the Dark One?”

She didn’t answer because she hadn’t an answer. But she looked at the walls and the small window and knew she would give the matter all her attention that afternoon. It had triggered inside her another thought, another connection, but she was unprepared to speak it aloud.



* * *





The next day, her parents joined her scrivener and her as they continued to plot her defense. Hull laid out her options, none of which seemed likely to result in her vindication. She could defend herself by claiming that she had been under the Devil’s spell, but now the Lord had cast Him out and she was no longer possessed. She could, in essence, throw herself on the mercy of the magistrates. But one of those men, upon hearing of her arrest, had called her a nasty and sharp-tongued woman. Neither Mary nor Hull thought that group would have mercy on a goodwife who already had petitioned the court for a divorce and who, during that first trial, had spoken with such blunt honesty and candor.

    Or she could deny the charges of witchcraft, insisting that someone else had chosen Satan over their Savior. It might be Catherine, but it might be someone else. She didn’t know whom—only that she was innocent. And her excuse for not coming forward right away with her knowledge? That was the problem, her scrivener said. She lacked a rationale that he thought presented her in a positive light.

And then there was the adultery. The magistrates were clearly going to hear of her jaunts to the wharf and Valentine Hill’s warehouse, and piece together her note with her affection for Henry Simmons—and his for her. He, too, was going to have to appear before the Court of Assistants, but by then her corpse would likely be hanging from the platform by the Town House. She took comfort in the fact that they had not jailed Henry. According to Hull, he wanted to confess his involvement in the conspiracy to desert Thomas Deerfield and stand by her side but had been dissuaded because the scrivener had decided they would deny the charge of adultery. There was no proof. Yes, there were magistrates who viewed the letter for what it was—a ruse to cover her disappearance with Henry Simmons—but she could claim that she had written it while despondent, and the Lord had come to her and brought her back to her senses.

“Perhaps,” Hull had murmured, thinking aloud, “thou couldst no longer bear Thomas’s cruelty and mistreatment. The logic would be that thou wrote that note while terrified of him and were choosing death—and hopefully Heaven—over a continued life on earth with him.”

“Yes,” she agreed, “maybe something like that might work.” Her teeth were chattering a bit against the cold in her cell, and her mother pulled the blanket around her shoulders.

    “Unfortunately,” her father chimed in, “the risk is that self-murder always suggests an egregious sickness of the mind and a direct challenge to our Lord’s wisdom. It has been argued that such derangement is itself a sign of possession.”