Imagine throwing a pebble into a pond and watching the ripples fan out in ever-widening circles. There was Rhode Island. There was New Amsterdam. But the world was vast, and Mary knew that she needed distance from Boston if she wanted to begin again. She craved separation from this city that so nearly had led her into the embrace of the Devil and the deaths of two people, only one of whom she knew for certain was a monster. But she also wanted to start again far from that bench full of small-minded and petty magistrates, and from the ogre to whom she was married.