Hour of the Witch(119)

“I did not see thee there.”

“I was. I was hoping they would ask me to speak.”

“I was doomed from the start.”

“Before that group? Yes, Mary, I feared that was true. But I hoped and prayed,” said the goodwife, and then she took Mary’s hands in hers and rubbed them ferociously to warm them.

“Thou wouldst have made a fine constable,” said Peregrine, when she had finished reading. She took the letter and put one corner into the flame of the candle, holding the paper so the fire could climb it, reducing it quickly to ash. She dropped the last corner on the floor, watched it burn itself out, and ground the cinders into the stone with the toe of her boot.

“My suspicions were correct?” Mary asked. “Thou planted the forks and the pestle in the ground?”

“Yes. My father was my quarry—not thee.”

“And the boiled apples? Him, too?”

“That’s right. I confused my pots. My father got the harmless one cooked up for thee, and thou ate the poisoned one I meant for my father. He should have died. Hannah should not have been sickened. Thank goodness she ate but a fifth.”

“But the mark in the doorframe. That was not thee.”

“No. That was surely thy servant girl. It was she who carved the mark and claimed to have found the Devil’s tines in thy apron.”

“Because—”

“Because she is afraid of thee, Mary. She wants thee gone from this world. Because, for reasons neither of us shall understand, she does indeed fancy my father. Having thee hanged as a witch accomplishes all of that.”

“We should go,” said Rebeckah, and Mary thought the goodwife meant that it was time for her friends to leave. But Peregrine was taking her hand and leading her from the cell.

    “What art thou doing?” she asked.

“What the magistrates didn’t,” the woman said. “Giving thee justice.”

“But Spencer—”

“My uncle is a very good man, Mary,” said Rebeckah. “In the morning, he will tell the constable that he was conked soundly on his way from the jail and when he awoke, someone had taken his keys. Worry not about Spencer.”

And with that they started down the corridor and toward freedom.



* * *





The night air was bracing, colder than even the jail, but it was clean and fresh, and a part of Mary wanted only to follow Peregrine blindly; how extraordinary it was to her how badly she had misjudged the woman—and then, when it seemed too late to matter, come to understand her. But another part of Mary, bigger by far, wanted to know the details of the plan.

“Tell me, prithee, where art thou taking me?” she asked.

Peregrine whispered something into Rebeckah’s ear, and the other woman walked briskly down the street ahead of them, and then turned toward the fine homes near the Town House. Her friend would pass the hanging platform. After she had started off, Peregrine answered, “To the Bedmunster, a ship that sails tomorrow for Jamaica,” she said.

“Where has Rebeckah gone?”

“To fetch Henry Simmons.”

“He knows what thou art doing?”

“Only that thy emancipation was being engineered. Nothing more.”

She reached for Peregrine’s arm. “But what will happen to thee? Dost thou plan to come with us and desert thy family?”

“Why would anyone suspect me? I will remain here. It was clear from thy letter that thou only began to see the truth of who I am and what I have been compelled to do because thou knowest my father.”

    “And Catherine?”

Peregrine’s eyes were two round jewels in the night. “What wouldst thou like, Mary?”

“She wanted to see me hanged. She has, it seems, made her pact with the Devil.”

“Then it seems to me sufficient punishment for her to spend the rest of her days in this world with my father, before joining her true master in the next,” said Peregrine.

Mary smiled in a way that she hadn’t in days. “Dost thou believe thy father will have her?”

“Yes,” she replied. “And they deserve whatever misery they inflict upon each other. Now, we should hurry.”

“I will not see my parents, will I?”

“No. Not tonight. I want thee on the ship well before sunrise, and I want to be home well before sunrise.”

“Jonathan—”

“Jonathan does not dare question me. Not after all he has done. He has his own sins to answer for.” They were walking quickly now, but still Peregrine had the breath to continue: “Prithee, fear not. I have faith that thou wilt see thy mother and father again. Someday.”

“Someday,” she repeated, and the word rocked her as if she were on the boat on the seas that so long ago had brought her here. Her smile left her, but she saw no alternative as they raced toward the waterfront. “I wish I knew how to thank thee,” she added.

“I wish only that thou wilt forgive me. I should have taken thy hand and helped thee up from thy pit years ago,” she said, and then she stopped, and so Mary stopped, too. She heard it now: horses. A pair.

Peregrine pulled her behind a large, round oak, as cold this time of the year as a marble column, that stood at the edge of a dooryard. There were no candles in the house’s windows, but that didn’t mean that someone wasn’t inside watching them as they stood perfectly still behind the tree, hoping to be shielded from the road by its broad trunk.