Hour of the Witch(18)

Her feet were bare, but she wouldn’t be outside long. She went to the spot where she had replanted the silver forks, and ran the tips of two fingers over the dirt there. She felt the very tops of the handles, and beside them something more. Something round and smooth. At first, she thought it was a stone, but when she pawed away the dirt beside it, she could tell it was wood. She pulled it from the ground and saw that it was a pestle, planted upright into the earth like the forks. It was not her pestle, however, she knew that right away, because this one had been made from a darker wood (and she was quite sure it was not merely the dirt that had given the pestle its bay cast), and she felt something carved into the handle. When she brought the candle flame to it, she saw that someone had sliced into the wood a trident: a three-pronged spear. She removed one of the two forks as if it were a carrot and compared it to the design on the pestle. It was a match.

Behind her she heard the door open, and there stood Catherine in her sleep shift.

“It was thee,” Catherine said, her voice tremulous. “Thou accused me of placing the forks into the ground, but it was thee! Thou art the witch!”

“No! I—”

The servant girl took a step back. “What were thou planting by the light of the moon? What is thy spell?”

    “It’s a pestle,” Mary answered, and she started toward Catherine, but Catherine retreated.

“Stay away!” she said. “Prithee! I mean thee no harm. I will keep thy secrets.”

A bat swooped near them and chirped, and the two of them ducked. Tallow dripped onto the stones.

“I did not plant the forks, I was planting nothing tonight,” Mary insisted.

“But thou were, I saw thee!” She started back into the house, banging the door loudly against its frame. Mary followed her, the fork and the pestle in one hand and the candle in the other, and found the girl cowering beside the hearth.

“I beg thee, leave me be,” she whimpered.

“Catherine, stand up,” Mary told her. “Thou art behaving like a child.”

As Catherine stood, her eyes grew wide. Mary could see that a revelation had come to her: “Thou killed my brother. Thou weren’t assisting the physician with thy simples; thou were killing him.”

“No!”

“Yes,” she hissed. “Yes. That is the truth! Thou art a student of Constance Winston—”

“I haven’t seen Constance Winston in months! Maybe a year!”

“But thou learned from her. Thou were her student. And now thou art a disciple of the Dark One!”

“I am no such thing! Thou knowest well that I—”

But the girl was no longer listening. She pushed past Mary and raced outside into the night.

“Catherine!” she called, but the servant was already in the yard. Mary couldn’t imagine where the hysterical girl would go, but she was confident that she would return soon enough. What other choice had she?

Mary turned when she heard her husband lumbering down the stairs.

“What have we here?” he asked, his tone that of an irritated patriarch or a father frustrated by his recalcitrant children. “Where is Catherine?”

Mary considered the girl’s preposterous accusation. Then, her voice calm, she replied, “Catherine seems to believe that I’m a witch.”

    He nodded, seemingly relieved by the utter absurdity of the claim. “And why is that? I have seen no sign of possession.”

“Because someone planted two forks and a pestle in our yard.”

“The forks mated and birthed a pestle?” he wondered sarcastically.

“Someone is dabbling in something wicked.”

He rubbed the back of his neck. He was annoyed he had been woken. He was irritated by the absence of his servant girl. “She needn’t fret. Mary Deerfield is too simple to be a witch. My wife has too barren a womb to be a witch.” Even though he was unhappy at having been disturbed in the night, this was not the response that Mary had expected. Instantly she grew wary.

“Thomas,” she began carefully, “I know thou dost not actually believe I am simple. Why dost thou insist on such…such cruelty?”

He stood a little taller and gazed down at her. “Cruelty? I do not believe there is a man or woman in this city who views me as cruel. Most people? They think I’m docile as a fawn.”

“They think no such—”

“Hold thy tongue and do not question what people think of me. I have known the people of Boston as long as thou hast been alive.”

“I’m sorry. I meant—”

“I know what thou meant.” He sighed. “Mary, thou hast a soul that is much imperiled by pride. Thou believest too much in thine intellect as a woman. Thou…”

She almost asked him to go on, but she feared that he would view it as impertinence. And so she waited as the pause grew long. Finally, he continued, “Thou dost not appreciate or abide by the places the Lord God has allotted to us. To a man and his wife.”

“I do,” she said, hoping her tone conveyed a contriteness that she did not in fact feel.

“No. Not true,” he said. He approached her and looked at the fork and the pestle in her hand. He took them from her and put them on the table. Then he took her candle from her and placed it in the candlestick.