Hour of the Witch(107)

    She was first on the docket, but already the room was crowded. After all, this was the trial of a witch, and it was a snowless winter day. No one wanted to be idle, but neither did people want to miss the drama. Still, Thomas was absent. Mary’s scrivener had told her that he might be asked to speak, but most likely not: he had nothing to add to the court’s charges, no details that could corroborate what Catherine was going to tell the magistrates.

“And what if I were to accuse him?” she asked Hull as they waited. “Suppose I were to say, ‘I saw Thomas carving the Devil’s mark into the doorframe the night before I was arrested, and he threatened to kill me if I said a word.’ Would the men who claim to want justice demand that he appear? Or would even that not be sufficient to convince the magistrates that perhaps they should open their eyes to the evil that flourished in what once was my home?”

“Dost thou plan on making such an accusation?” the scrivener asked, and Mary couldn’t decide whether the prospect alarmed or excited him. She had caught him off guard. They had discussed this possibility while plotting her defense, but not seriously.

“No,” she said. “No one would believe it. No one would even bother to summon him: that was my point.”

Her father looked at her. “But dost thou believe it is possible that thy husband has been bewitched?” he asked. “I know thou didst not actually see him make the mark. But might he be possessed?”

“I don’t believe that. I believe only that he is a monster and utterly deserving of whatever flames our Lord has awaiting him.”

Across the room, she spied Catherine. The indentured servant was standing against the opposite wall, careful to look everywhere but in the direction where her former mistress was waiting. The girl seemed uncomfortable, and maybe she was. But maybe it was only an act. She was a deceptively formidable foe, Mary knew.

    The magistrates shambled in, and, once more, the constable pounded his pike onto a floorboard. But this trial was different: this time she was not a citizen with a petition asking to be heard; rather, she was a woman accused of a heinous crime. She tried to make eye contact with Richard Wilder, her father’s friend on the bench, but he averted his gaze. This was worrisome, but his lack of responsiveness made her more angry than frightened. The fact was, she was furious, and five days in the jail had not broken her spirit; it only had kindled it.

And so she stood with her coif well tied and listened as Governor John Endicott read the charge against her: “Mary Deerfield, thou hast been accused of witchcraft. There is much evidence to corroborate such a charge. Tell us plainly so we know where we stand: dost thou wish to confess to falling prey to the Devil’s enticements and signing a covenant with the Dark One?”

In other words, she thought, will I ask for the mercy of this court, a mercy that is unlikely to be granted? Of course, she wouldn’t.

“No,” she replied, her voice firm, “I do not wish to say that because it would be a lie. I am not in league with the Devil. Rather, it would seem, I have been the victim of a witch most conniving and possessed.”

“Very well. Expect no leniency from this court if thou art convicted.”

She nodded and stepped back.

Endicott looked to Caleb Adams. Apparently, Adams was going to be in charge of the proceedings. The man had gotten his wish, after all: the prosecution of a witch.

“Catherine Stileman, thou wilt speak first,” he said, raising his voice into what Mary supposed he thought was appropriate magisterial grandeur. The servant walked to the center of the room and was sworn in. “Tell us, prithee, what thou knowest of thy mistress as it relates to the charges.”

“It goes back to the autumn, sir. Before her divorce petition. Thou wilt recall, prithee, that Mary Deerfield claimed to have found the Devil’s tines buried in the dooryard and accused me of witchcraft. But then I saw her burying them in the dooryard myself with my own eyes.”

    “Yes, we recall that,” said Adams.

“Then, last Friday morning, when I was about to start preparing dinner, I fetched my apron. My master was at his mill. By mistake, I reached for my mistress’s. I felt something in the pocket, and when I put my fingers there, I discovered the Devil’s tines. Two of them. I dropped the apron right there on the floor. That’s when I realized I had my mistress’s apron, not my own.”

“And where was Mary?” asked Adams.

“I do not know.”

“So, thou had been left alone to prepare dinner?”

“And to do all of the morning chores,” she added with a trace of indignation.

“Go on.”

“When I picked up the apron, I felt another item in the pocket. I reached for it—”

“Even though thou had now determined it was not thine apron?” Wilder asked, interrupting her, a question that gave Mary a glimmer of hope that he had not turned on her, at least not completely, after all.

“Forgive me,” Catherine corrected herself. “I did not put my hand into the pocket. Something fell out when I went to hang it back on a peg. I reached for it as it was falling. It was about the size of a coin. A shilling. But it was not a shilling. It was made of wood, and it had carved into it a five-pointed star in a circle: the sign of the Dark One.”

There was a murmur in the court. The gossips and the idle were thrilled with this development, and Mary felt her heart beating faster. Yes, she was angry, but she was also scared. The proceedings had just begun, and already they were expecting that soon their winter tedium would be broken by a most satisfying diversion: watching her life being choked from her by a rope.