Hour of the Witch

by Chris Bohjalian

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

She knew he had other demons that pricked him with tines as sharp as needles.

what did it say about her soul that a few bits of fashionable silk or cotton cloth and some interesting books could make her content?

“A bloody scalawag!

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A small thing, yes, but the world was rich with small things that in truth were signs of great importance.

And while envy was a mortal sin, it grew rampant in everyone’s soul; it was but a dandelion, a weed that was unstoppable here and one learned to live with.

“Mary, I do not know and I do not need to know whether thou pulled me from thy life like a bad tooth because my simples failed thee or because there are those who view my interests as peculiar—because, to be blunt, thou feared an association with someone of my sensibilities.”

“I don’t care. All I want thee to know is this: thou art a woman facing men who would be comfortable to see thee dangling there,”

she felt she had earned a little purposelessness.

“I have heard now twice what thou hast said about a natural order. But a woman is not a serpent to be crushed under her husband’s foot,”