Hour of the Witch

by Chris Bohjalian

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

Oh, but books had always been one of her pleasures.

She regretted snapping back at him because one could never win an argument with a person so fundamentally unreasonable.

“A falcon knows its kin at a very great distance.” “And its prey.”

How was it that so much of the testimony that afternoon had been about her and not about him? How had it centered so much on her behavior and so little on his?

she feared it was something more: it was a sign. Because, if one looked around carefully, wasn’t everything?

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

“We really don’t know whether the Devil wears breeches or a skirt, now do we?”

“Yes, this may be the hour of the witch. But the Devil? He most definitely wears breeches. The Devil can only be a man.”