Hour of the Witch(78)

“It’s wonderful. Such a thoughtful and unexpected gift. I will thank the Hills. But when thou seest them, prithee, share my deep gratitude.”

“I will. Didst thou have a pleasant afternoon?”

“I did. I saw Goody Cooper.”

    “Rebeckah? I like her rather much.”

“I do, too.”

Her mother paused to appraise her more carefully. Then: “I am happy thou art not stewing on the verdict, Mary. Thy father and I are pleased to see that thou art finding other ways to occupy thyself.”

She nodded. Ways other than what? she wondered. Witchcraft? Inside she felt freighted with her plans, that slow, heavy solidifying of her resolve she had experienced ever since she had first heard that appalling verdict.

“What art thou cooking?” her mother asked Catherine.

The servant girl looked up from her chopping and answered Priscilla, and Mary took the note from the basket and hid it inside her sleeve. Then, with great histrionics, she unpacked the wicker so the other two could see all—almost all—that was in it.



* * *





She knew before opening the note that it would be from Henry Simmons. She read it while Catherine was mucking the horse stable and after Thomas had left for the ordinary. Her husband had claimed that he was going to meet there with a farmer. And maybe he was. Maybe they would discuss a delivery of grain, even one this late in the season. But mostly they would get drink-drunk.

She read the note carefully, the paper on the table by the candle, standing with her back to the door in the event Catherine surprised her.

It was short, but as she read it, she experienced a shuddering in her chest that left her giddy.

    Mary,

Thou art an exquisite thing, a sun that warms my soul. Thy tenderness is so ardent that even while I was being lashed in the cold, when thou appeared from nowhere—Diana draped in a winter frock—I felt ensconced by a fireside inglenook. I was no longer chilled or in pain.

Or, at least, in great pain.

But be circumspect, Mary, a fox that knows the safety of the shadows. Things could be different had the magistrates seen fit to set thee free. I do not fear thy husband any more than I fear the pigeons and gulls that pick at the wharf. But the magistrates ruled as they did, and so there looms only heartache and sorrow if we pursue a dream that is gossamer.

     This city is not built upon the precious stones of Revelation: we are not so pure. The scar on thy wounded hand is but one small testament to the evil of which we are capable.

And so whether I am blessed to see thee tomorrow or tomorrow’s tomorrow, whether it is here or that other, blessed City to which we all aspire, I will not risk thy reputation or thy soul again while thou art wed to Thomas Deerfield. Thou meanest too much to me—far too much.

Sincerely,

Thy Distant Admirer,

Henry Simmons



She wanted to keep the note, to cherish it like a totem, but didn’t dare. She understood the danger it represented. And so she placed it deep into the fire in the hearth, and watched it burn until the scraps blended in with the rest of the ash.



* * *





Later, while Catherine prepared her bedstead and donned her sleep shift, Mary poured herself a cup of tea at the table in the main room of the house. She rarely intruded like this upon Catherine’s privacy, but she wasn’t yet ready for bed. She was too excited by Henry’s note. She appreciated his chivalry, but her reputation was not his to soil. It was still her reputation, and she could do with it as she pleased so long as she did not indict him.

And she would yet be free. She was sure of this. Resolved.

She stared for a moment at the spout of the teakettle. It was bent ever so slightly. She hadn’t noticed. Apparently, Thomas had been a step ahead of her: if the magistrates had shown more inclination to believe her side of the story than his, he or his lawyer probably planned to present the teakettle with its now crooked spout as proof that she had fallen upon it. But rather than incense her, his machinations only inspired her further.

    She was rereading Deuteronomy. Thomas had not yet returned from the tavern, but Catherine had finished raking the fire and even her nearby presence did not disquiet Mary’s soul. Inside she was smiling, aware of the insidiousness that had steeped inside her like the tea in the pot on the table. She was careful to shield from the girl the passages she was reading. Constance Winston’s counsel had been invaluable.

So far, Mary had found many Bible verses with serpents and snakes in Genesis, Exodus, and Numbers, and written them in her ledger. Yes, the Bible was vast, but since returning from her walk with Constance, she had pinpointed the passages that might matter to a witch.

It was the Psalms, however, that mattered to her, because these were the verses that seemed most to mirror the sections that Reverend Norton had chosen for his sermon that Sunday, and the sign her Lord God had given her. The fifty-eighth Psalm and the 140th Psalm in particular seemed relevant.

The first reminded her, “Their poison is like the poison of a serpent: they are like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear.”

The second suggested even more of a connection, because it used the word tongue: “They have sharpened their tongues like a serpent; adders’ poison is under their lips.”

How interesting it was to her now that Thomas had joked that he was the one who might need his own personal cupbearer or Nehemiah to be sure that he wasn’t poisoned. He really was very smart, she had to give him that. But he didn’t know what she was thinking. Not now. No one did. At least no man. She looked up from the Bible and into the hot coals in the fire. They were red like a demon’s eyes. They were beautiful.