Hour of the Witch(98)
“I was speaking with John Eliot this morning,” he said.
“Oh?”
“He thinks highly of thee, Mary. He is grateful to have a woman willing to work with the Hawke children. Next? The squaws and their young ones.”
“I would like that, too.”
“?’Tis not easy what he does. As I was passing by thine home, I thought it worth sharing his enthusiasm. We cannot hope to understand fully the workings of God. But I believe thou hast found a calling.”
She bowed her head. “Wouldst thou like a cup of tea?” she asked.
“No. I can’t stay. I just wanted to offer my gratitude. Thou hast clearly transcended whatever disappointment thou felt with the proceedings at the Town House.”
“I accept the wisdom of those men,” she lied, her eyes wide and a smile upon her lips.
“Thou art wise,” the pastor said, and then he was gone.
After he had left, Mary turned and saw Catherine staring at the base of the front door, where the Devil’s mark had been carved into the wood. Quickly the girl averted her eyes.
* * *
She and Thomas and Catherine had dinner that Sabbath with her parents, and though Priscilla remained anxious about the time that Mary was spending in the woods with the Hawkes, it was clear that her daughter’s good works—and the conversation about them in her circle—pleased her. Pride was a sin, but Mary could see that her mother was proud of her. Even the gossips were well pleased with her.
And when everyone returned to church that afternoon for the second half of the service, Mary wondered at how easy it had been to so thoroughly rehabilitate her reputation. When this was over, she would have to wander once more to the Neck to thank Constance Winston.
* * *
The next day when Mary was alone, she poured the poison into a blue glass apothecary bottle the length of her middle finger. Then she took the empty bottle that Edmund had given to Constance, and Constance, in turn, had given her, and recorked it. She planned to hide it inside the coverlet of Catherine’s bed with the forks she had taken from her parents’ highboy.
But she stopped.
This was the first of the critical steps in her plan, and now, about to begin, she was having doubts.
She disliked Catherine and knew the girl viewed her with an animus as cold and sharp as an icicle. If only she had found proof in the girl’s bag that she was involved in a coven or conspiracy. But there had been none. And by the light of day, it was impossible not to see why she had run when she had caught her mistress in the night with the forks, or the subsequent logic of her testimony at the Town House.
Mary gazed out the window at the dreary skies of winter, the bleak season just dawning. The bruise on the back of her hand was yellowing now. Her hand would never again be quite the same. It was always going to ache, and she felt twinges of pain when she stretched the middle and index fingers. She was most comfortable when she kept them curled. She gazed at them, unsure whether the look was reminiscent of predator or prey, of a hawk or its wounded game.
In the end, she did place the empty bottle in Catherine’s bed. Maybe, Mary decided, she herself was possessed. But, at this point, it was easier to go forward than back.
* * *
That night it was four of them for supper, as Mary had meticulously planned: Thomas, Catherine, and Mary, of course, but Mary had also invited their neighbor, Squire Willard. The old widower did not like her—his remarks to the magistrates during her divorce petition had been hurtful and mean—but he was lonely and old, and she knew that he would say yes. He probably viewed it as an entitlement, an invitation that should have been extended long ago. And on that count, perhaps he was not wrong. But he would never know her true motive. He was the perfect witness to watch what was about to unfold: the murder of Thomas Deerfield. The attempted murder of Mary Deerfield. When the trial began, he would testify (and he would testify brilliantly) to the way that someone had tried to poison both Thomas and his wife, and that individual was most certainly Catherine. After all, the empty bottle was in her bedding. So were the forks. So was the pestle Mary had found months ago buried in the dooryard.
Mary helped Catherine serve the root vegetables, of which they still had plenty, and the pigeons which Thomas had shot that day. This time of year, Thomas was likely to spend more time in the woods and meadows just outside the city than at the mill. Catherine poured their beer, four pewter steins, and when the girl had gone to the roasting jack and Isaac Willard was regaling Thomas with his own tales of his day in the woods with a musket, she surreptitiously emptied the apothecary bottle of poison into Thomas’s pewter tankard and set the mug before his place at the table.
* * *
“I am pleased that so much of the snow has melted,” Mary said, focusing on the small flames at the tip of the tapers in the center of the table and hoping that the quaver she heard in her voice was not really evident. “But we know this is but the beginning of winter.”
“It is,” said Squire Willard. “But I’ve never minded the cold. I rather like the snow. It gives me more time to read the Bible and to hunt. I like hunting in the snow: better tracks.”
“Winter here is too long,” Thomas disagreed, grumbling. “Eden? I think not.” He took a first sip, and so Mary did, too. She felt her heart in her chest. He didn’t seem to taste the monkshood.