Hour of the Witch

by Chris Bohjalian

(his ledger, in essence, in which he would catalog the day’s events and his state of mind in an effort to gauge whether he was among the elect),

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

She contemplated a mystery: How is it I am humiliated when I am alone? Does not humiliation demand an audience?

“There are moments when thy mind vexes me. It is not that thou art slow, but rather that thou dost not understand thy need to heel.” “My knees exist but to bend?”

“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.”