Hour of the Witch(91)

But she appreciated his gesture, and inside she felt better about Boston than she had on the way to the harbor. And she also took pleasure in the fact that the cobbler was sure to tell others that Mary Deerfield was friends with the Reverend John Eliot and raining charity down upon the poor.



* * *





It was starting to snow when she arrived home. She stared at the patch of dooryard where she had unearthed the two forks and the pestle. The whole ground was locked in hard and deep now. For all she knew, whoever was in league with the Devil and wished ill upon her had made sure that the spell had been once more cast before the ground was solid as iron and nothing more could be buried there—and so something resided in that earth now.

Rebeckah Cooper presumed the witch who was after her was Catherine, but Mary was not convinced. Mary was no longer sure she trusted even her friend. Besides, was Catherine smart enough to portray an innocent victim with such absolute and righteous sincerity? Maybe. But it was a most convincing performance, so Mary was dubious. Moreover, Catherine’s brother was dying when the forks were planted, and Mary supposed the girl was too preoccupied with tending to him and to her grief to be dabbling with the Devil. Besides, she showed no outward signs of possession. If Catherine was responsible, she had help. A teacher. She was not working alone.

And while Mary understood there were people who disapproved of her, what could she possibly have done to lead someone to choose Lucifer over the Lord? Nothing in the behavior of anyone she knew suggested they were now in league with Satan.

It was a puzzle.

But Mary’s inability to make sense of it only deepened her resolve. She hugged the girls’ boots close to her cloak and thought of the magic of wolfsbane and the potential of her intrigue, and felt an unexpected but deep eddy of contentment. Her future, at least while she breathed, yet held promise.





I have no desire to meet [the Devil]. Not ever. I have seen too much of His likeness here in Boston, even among the saints.

    —The Testimony of Constance Winston, from the Records and Files of the Court of Assistants, Boston, Massachusetts, 1663, Volume I





Twenty-Nine



Two nights later, she and Thomas had supper at her parents’ home, and while the girls were clearing the plates—no trenchers here, not with her parents having her and her husband over—she asked her father which ships were expected in the next few weeks.

“For what art thou hoping?” he asked good-naturedly. “What goods wouldst thou like to see unloaded by the boys?”

Before she could respond, Thomas placed his left hand on her right and said, an attempt at charm, “Thy daughter enjoyed her weeks with thee this fall. Thy home is very comfortable. It seems I will have to spend more time greeting the next vessel from England and assessing its contents.”

“Or Jamaica,” said Priscilla. “With winter arriving, we see more ships from the south than the east. The passage from Europe is neither pleasant nor easy this time of year.”

Thomas smiled. “Jamaica then. The bounty that Eleanor Hill brought us in that one basket? Marvelous. Absolutely marvelous.”

“I was merely curious,” Mary said. “There is nothing in particular I desire.”

“When dost thou visit the Hawkes next?” her mother asked.

“Monday. After the Sabbath. John said he could bring me with him then.”

“Mary has bought boots for the beasts,” Thomas said, still grinning. He rather enjoyed his alliteration.

“And thou callest the reverend John?” her father asked. “The Reverend Eliot is a notable man. Thy familiarity with him is impressive, Mary.”

“We shared five hours atop a horse. We will share five hours more. It is a long, hard day and two cannot help but become…familiar.”

    Mary knew when she spoke that she was poking a stick at the animal to whom she was married, but she knew also he would say or do nothing in front of her parents. He might when they got home: there might be deeply unpleasant and even painful ramifications there. But the chance to jab him here before her parents was irresistible, and she savored the glee that it gave her.



* * *





And, indeed, he took her that night with anger in his eyes and in his hips, at one point grasping her neck in his hand and choking her for so long that she thought, This is it, this is the end, I am about to meet either the Devil or Jesus Christ. When he was done, he whispered into her ear, “That is familiarity, Mary Deerfield. Become familiar with another man, whether it is that pathetic pup Henry Simmons or that fat pigeon John Eliot, and I will finish thee. Or, better still, I will be sure that the men of the Town House, those bloody magistrates, do it, by slipping a rope around thy neck. Did my fingers there hurt thee? ’Tis nothing compared to the agony of a noose.”

When he went to the chamber pot in the corner, she rolled away from him. There was a floorboard in the bedroom on her side of the bedstead that gave ever so slightly when she stepped upon it. It creaked. It had begun to warp. When she had had a moment alone earlier that night, she had examined it. One of the iron nails protruded perhaps a quarter of an inch and she was able to pull it free with her forefinger and thumb. Then she lifted the board and saw there was room there to hide a tincture bottle. Now, by the light of the candle on the table, she stared at the tip of that iron nail. Someday soon, when she had her wolfsbane, she would conceal it there. She took comfort in that nail, and wondered if this was what Catholics or Anglicans felt when they hung a cross on a wall in their homes.