Hour of the Witch

by Chris Bohjalian

Never did they ask the question Why me? In truth, they never even asked the more reasonable question Why anyone?

How is it I am humiliated when I am alone? Does not humiliation demand an audience?

She really didn’t like Thomas Deerfield. She didn’t like anything about him. Some days, in fact, she loathed him.

Cruelty may be defined as violence without provocation and discipline that is excessive.

“And always better a scrivener than an attorney. I know more and more people are resorting to those appalling advocates who twist and trick, but many of the magistrates still view them with justifiable disdain.”

“I have heard it argued that prayer does not change God’s mind; rather, it changes us.”

Yes, she thought, revenge belongs to God. But justice? That will be mine.

“She was sent to the scaffold because she had a sharper tongue and a shrewder mind than her accusers. It is always the case when men hang women. Look at Magistrate Caleb Adams: there is nothing that frightens that man more than a woman who does not live happily under a man’s thumb.”

“Men call bright women dim whenever they are threatened. So, take no relief in the names that any man calls thee. There is no safe harbor there.”

There were people in the world who were good and people who were evil, but most of them were some mixture of both and did what they did simply because they were mortal. And her Lord? Peregrine’s Lord? He knew it all and had known it all and always would know it all. But the deliberations of His creations? Meaningless. Absolutely meaningless. Still, there was one thing of which she was certain. “Oh, I think we do know,” Mary said finally. “Yes, this may be the hour of the witch. But the Devil? He most definitely wears breeches. The Devil can only be a man.”