Hour of the Witch

by Chris Bohjalian

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

Mary, though only twenty-four, was a grandmother. The idea on occasion left her doleful and reeling.

It wasn’t that he hit her or, recently, had thrown her into the hearth. It was deeper. She really didn’t like Thomas Deerfield. She didn’t like anything about him. Some days, in fact, she loathed him.

“I grew up in Yarmouth. Fisherfolk: ina, mina, tethera, methera, pin.” He raised his eyebrows and grinned mischievously.

I don’t understand what this means.

“A pool of water will bend a straight stick. Thou knowest that.

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. It was a character flaw far less dire than the sort of mean streak that led a man to stab a fork into his wife’s hand.

The sun was moving amidst drifting puffs of white fleece, the clouds’ shadows spotting the cobblestones like puddles.

She wasn’t sure what to make of the idea that the magistrate’s initial inquiries had been about her father’s decision to import three-tined forks into Boston.

“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.”

need to know my daughter has not been seduced by the Devil or His minions.”

Had she in fact replaced those forks in the ground because she hoped their presence might breathe life into her barren womb? Were they an offering to the Devil, a quid pro quo? I offer my allegiance as a handmaiden and in return am granted a child? She had endured so much last night, slept so little, her body wracked by pain, and been asked so many questions today that she just didn’t know anymore, which caused her to fret further still about the state of her soul and her future in Heaven.

She had assets, not simply because she owned such clothing, but because she would be fined for trying to dress above her station if she did not.

Was this reminiscent of a simple prayer or was she flirting with Satan?

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

“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,”

She would never know until her life was done and her soul gone to Heaven or Hell.

There were nights when I chose not to refill his mug. —The Testimony of Ward Hollingsworth, from the Records and Files of the Court of Assistants, Boston, Massachusetts, 1662, Volume III

I never saw my father strike my mother. —The Testimony of Peregrine Deerfield Cooke, from the Records and Files of the Court of Assistants, Boston, Massachusetts, 1662, Volume III

“This petition has been requested on one cause and one cause only: severe cruelty. But, alas, we have no witnesses to that cruelty and we have no proof of that cruelty. We have competing stories, that is all. And so we are denying Mary Deerfield’s petition for divorce. She is being ordered by this court to return today—this afternoon—to her husband, Thomas Deerfield. That is all.”

one thought was lodging itself as firmly in her mind as yew roots in the ground. Yes, she thought, revenge belongs to God. But justice? That will be mine.

And in the night she dreamt, and the dream was so real that when she awoke she stared at the wall from the bedstead and pondered in her heart whether it was a sign—and if it was a sign, what it meant.

“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.”

“This pestle is more of a metaphor than an ingredient. The Devil’s tines, too.

Aqua tofana is made of arsenic and lead and belladonna.

is it true that it is odorless and without taste? That even a physician cannot recognize its presence?” “All true. It is undetectable. Rest well in that knowledge. A person just grows weak and sick and then dies.”

I do not countenance murder—only furthering the speed with which those already deserving of Hell make their way there.”

“Well, I am not interested in witchcraft. I am interested in what might be more appropriately viewed as apothecary.” Constance leaned into her and said, her tone almost whimsical: “No. Thou art interested in murder. That, my young friend, is what has its hooks in thee.”

But her Lord God was a mystery and had placed monsters before her. And so it was just as possible that she was merely a pilgrim doing her best to navigate the evils in a path that would eventually lead to paradise.

“Bible stories. A catechism. Absolutely beautiful woodcuts of John Rogers and his family being burned at the stake.”

Yikes!

Dost thou own splatterdashes?”

????

here is one point on which I am confident we agree,” Mary said. “The Devil is real, and He is here in Massachusetts.”

that older woman’s patience was a short candle that burned fast.

Adams nodded as if this observation was sage and insightful commentary, rather than character aspersion founded on nothing.

Thou believest the worst of me, but seem not to consider other possibilities. —The Testimony of Mary Deerfield, from the Records and Files of the Court of Assistants, Boston, Massachusetts, 1663, Volume I

We separated and came here to this wilderness, and so far we have shown only that we are as flawed and mortal here as we were across the ocean. There is no act of horror or violence of which man is not capable.