Hour of the Witch(43)

“Yes.”

“For how long?”

“It was when he stabbed me with the fork that I grew much afraid.”

“And that was this autumn?”

“Yes. The bones are still mending.”

“Tell me something, Mary,” said Caleb Adams, his voice calm.

“Ask me anything,” she replied.

“I have been told these were three-tined forks. The Devil’s tines. Thy petition merely says fork. Was the instrument that thou claimest thy husband stabbed thee with a two-tined carving fork or something more questionable?”

    “It was a three-tined fork.”

“And he stabbed thee with it?”

“Yes, which is why I know a fork can be a weapon most terrible.”

“In that case, I have two questions,” Adams continued. “The first is this. Thou sayest he stabbed thee in thy hand. No mortal wound can be struck there. Why didst thou fear for thy life?”

“It was getting worse. The cruelties. He would hit me and then he would hurl me and then he stabbed me.”

“In the hand. He stabbed thee in the hand.”

“How does that diminish the cruelty?” she asked in return, raising her voice, and she heard a whoosh of air behind her, an almost collective choral gasp from the people in the Town House in response to her tone. They hadn’t expected her to challenge the magistrate. Usually inquiries—rather than mere requests for clarification—came only from the bench. When someone disputed a magistrate, it tended to be a lawyer, whose unpopular profession was known for its tendency to bark and bray.

“I simply observed that if Thomas Deerfield had meant to murder thee, he would not have targeted thy hand,” said Adams. Then he shrugged. “My second question is this: why were there the Devil’s tines in thy house in the first place?”

“My father had imported some. They are growing common in Europe.”

The governor looked at Adams, and for a moment she was relieved that there would be no more nonsense about a piece of cutlery. But she knew she had misread that glance when John Endicott said, “There is much that is common in Europe, Mary. It is why we have come here.” At this the men on the bench nodded as one, even Richard Wilder.

“There is also talk,” continued Adams, “that thou were using the Devil’s tines as more than a mere utensil.”

She wanted to cry out in exasperation, May we just call it a fork? But she knew from her earlier question that she shouldn’t. And so she held her tongue and waited, and started in her mind to carefully form her response. She knew the stakes. But she also knew two truths: someone or some thing had buried the forks in her dooryard—and then she had reburied them after initially removing them from the dirt. There was so much to say, so very much to explain. Just as she was about to respond, Adams continued, “We have written testimony that thou mayest have been using them in some evil manner—”

    “More evil than plunging one into a person’s hand and breaking the bone?” she snapped, interrupting Adams as she lost completely her line of thinking. But this was too much. Just too much. Still, she knew instantly that it had been a mistake. But she was appalled that the questioning seemed to be moving away from her reasonable request for a divorce and into this ridiculous and possibly disastrous discussion of a new kind of cutlery.

“Perhaps, yes,” Adams said simply. “There is a witness who saw thee burying the Devil’s tines in the ground as an offering.”

She took a breath to compose herself. “A fork is not a seed,” she replied. “What could possibly grow from a piece of silver planted into the earth?”

“I said it was an offering. Not a seed.”

“An offering for what? A knife? A spoon?” Behind her a few people laughed, but she took no pride in their amusement. Before Adams or any of the magistrates could take offense, she continued, “Forgive me. I mean no impertinence. I just see not what can be the benefit of planting a fork into the earth.”

The governor whispered something into Richard Wilder’s ear, and Wilder nodded. “Mary,” said Wilder, “prithee, stand aside for a moment. We see that Catherine Stileman has arrived, and we would like her testimony at this point. The moment seems relevant.”

And there she was. The servant girl looked terrified and small, her coif pulled tightly around her face so she seemed but a pair of eyes and a petite, slightly upturned nose. She came up behind Mary and was standing no more than six or seven feet to her right, staring up at the magistrates. Mary knew the girl wouldn’t dare look at her, at least not right away. Perhaps she would in a few minutes, when she had been emboldened by the likes of Caleb Adams.

    But for now? It was only Thomas’s lawyer, Philip Bristol, who nodded at her as Catherine was sworn in—and then, much to Mary’s astonishment, smiled.



* * *





“Goodman Bristol,” began the governor, his annoyance evident at the attorney’s presence beside the servant, “art thou planning to speak on behalf of Catherine Stileman?”

“I am here if she needs me,” he said. “I can elaborate if necessary.”

Endicott nodded wearily. “Catherine, prithee, tell the court what thou witnessed thy mistress doing in the night two weeks ago.”