A BRIEF HISTORICAL NOTE

It will be evident quite quickly that this story, which takes place in an alternate universe, is based on the Salem witchcraft crisis of 1692. (If you are not familiar with this episode of early American history, I recommend Stacy Schiff’s The Witches as a lively and readable account.) Although I have fictionalized everything, the witch-hunt in Marcombe-village starts in much the same way as the witch-hunt in Salem Village and proceeds along similar lines until we reach the crux where the story begins. The great difference between Salem Village and my invented village of Marcombe is that in Marcombe there really is a witch.

I cannot emphasize strongly enough that this is not true of historical Salem, or of any other historical witch hunt (the term “witch hunt” itself has come to mean persecution of the innocent), and I am not making the argument that the historical witch-hunters were the good guys. In the same way, I am not arguing that any of the historical “witches” had actually made a pact with the Devil or committed maleficium against their neighbors or any of the other things they were accused of.

I also wish to note that witchcraft in this story and witchcraft as it is practiced by people today are not the same thing. Modern witchcraft has nothing to do with what Hathorne and Corwin thought they were prosecuting in Salem. It’s like comparing apples and Hondas. Nothing said about witchcraft in this story is in any way, shape, or form a commentary on modern witches.

This is an AU: what if demons were real, and people could make bargains with them?

PROLOGUE: THE WITCHFINDER

1.

The witchfinder was a short man, stocky going to stout, with sharp brown eyes and a mouth that looked well-accustomed to cruelty. The blindfolded demoniack obediently beside him was two inches taller, fair-haired, and—surprisingly—a man. 

Everyone in the ordinary became as abruptly silent as falling down a well, except for one piercing, unfortunate whisper, “But there are no witchfinders in the colonies.”

“I am the first,” the witchfinder said, not in the slightest discomposed. “Their Majesties are greatly concerned at the persistence of witchcraft in their colonies, and I am sent to assess the matter.” His mouth crimped up in a smile. “And, it seems, to find a witch.”

The silence became deathly.

“Now,” said the witchfinder, “who keeps this ordinary? I am told ‘tis the only place in Marcombe-village that I may find a room.”

Goodman Pruitt was a brave man. He stepped forward and said, “How may I serve your honor?”

“I need a room,” said the witchfinder. “I know not for how long.”

“Aye, your honor. Just one room?”

“He stays with me,” the witchfinder said flatly.

Pruitt said hastily, “Aye, your honor. I have a room on the first floor which I believe will suit your honor well.”

“Mmmph,” the witchfinder said, as if he doubted anything about Marcombe-village would suit him, well or otherwise. “My baggage is outside with the horses.”

“Aye, your honor,” Pruitt said again. “Sam!”

Samuel Fitch came out of the back room, the inquiry on his face turning to shock.

“Help Ephraim with the horses,” said Pruitt, “and bring the baggage up to the front room. Witchfinder…”

“Oh of course,” the witchfinder said. “I have yet to introduce myself. My name is Augustus Carr, and I am a Witchfinder Second Class.”

 

2.

The room proved adequate, to Goodman Pruitt’s great relief, and Witchfinder Carr, his demoniack still beside him, returned to the ordinary and cornered Sam Fitch. “I understand that already there have been trials and executions of witches. Is that correct?”

“Aye, your honor,” Sam said

“Has the witch activity ceased?”

“No, your honor.”

The witchfinder nodded briskly. “I need to learn the whole story of Marcombe-village’s witchcraft…outbreak. Who might best tell me that?”

Sam thought hard and fast and said, “Mr. Hollingsworth. It started with his daughters.”

“Ah,” said the witchfinder. “And where might I find Mr. Hollingsworth?”

“He is about to give the Thursday lecture,” said Sam. “He will be in the meeting house. ‘Tis kitty-corner across from us.” He pointed.

“Thank you,” said the witchfinder. “And will I see you in the meeting house?”

Sam, who had fully intended to duck out on the Thursday lecture, gulped and said, “Aye, your honor. I’ll be there.”

“That is very good,” the witchfinder said, and his mouth crimped in another unconvincing smile. “Come, Isaiah,” he said sharply to the demoniack and left the ordinary.

Sam Fitch heaved a breath.

 

3.

Word had spread quickly of an actual witchfinder in the village, but not quickly enough that there was not a sudden discomfited silence when he entered the meeting house. Deacons John Alcorn and Joseph Doggett looked helplessly at the Reverend Mr. Peter Hollingsworth. Mr. Hollingsworth, badly thrown himself, nevertheless pointed the deacons firmly toward the visitors’ bench, which was already crammed to overflowing with visitors, as it had been for weeks. No one, however, was stupid enough to stand their ground in front of a witchfinder, and room appeared on the bench for witchfinder and demoniack even as still more people poured in through the meeting house doors.

Hollingsworth had chosen his text from the eighth chapter of Acts with excruciating care, but it proved, as it had mostly proved since the witchcraft outbreak had begun, of little import. He had scarcely done more than read the text when Mary Bradley shouted, “Oh, Goody Thorndike is pinching me!” and the whole monstrous bedlam started again. He continued doggedly, aware of the witchfinder’s sharp brown eyes, painfully aware that the witchfinder would be looking for signs of unorthodoxy—prayers skipped, blasphemies spoken…sermons truncated. And the Hollingsworth household could not afford to look unorthodox, not when Betty (age thirteen) and Sarah (age ten) were in the middle of the chaos, limbs contorting, eyes rolling. The line was very thin between “afflicted” and “possessed,” and the last thing he wanted was for one of his daughters to end up like that demoniack, blind and bound to a witchfinder like a bloodhound trained to hunt only one thing (and lucky at that not to have been hanged forthwith). He was a little surprised the demoniack didn’t join the afflicted in howling and contorting, but the boy—and he couldn’t be more than twenty—sat, head down, hands folded together in his lap, as if nothing unusual were going on at all.

It was more like a battle than a sermon, and when the whole mass of afflicted and spectators and congregation had shoved out the doors, the witchfinder was still sitting on the visitors’ bench, watching Hollingsworth with a considering stare.

It was a question who outranked whom. Hollingsworth was only a colonial minister, true, but he was an ordained minister, of which there were not so many. The witchfinder was a witchfinder, also true, but a second class witchfinder might or might not outrank an ordained minister, depending on how one felt about the colonial part.

“Mr. Hollingsworth,” said the witchfinder. “I would speak with you.”

“Of course,” said Hollingsworth. “May I suggest we return to the parsonage? It will be easier to keep our conversation private in my study than in the meeting house.”

The witchfinder nodded, finding the suggestion acceptable, and stood, bringing the demoniack up with a hand at his elbow. They walked together from meeting house to parsonage without speaking. The witchfinder did not seem to feel the need for conversation, and Hollingsworth, skin crawling at the nearness of the demoniack, could think of nothing to say.

In the front door of the parsonage, and there was his wife Elizabeth. Her eyes widened when she saw the witchfinder, and she visibly changed what she had been going to say from what had probably been a complaint to, “Good day, your honor.”

The witchfinder executed a small bow. “Good day, Mistress Hollingsworth.”

“We will be in my study,” Hollingsworth said quickly, and he and the witchfinder and the demoniack climbed the dark, narrow stairs.

The study was not a large room—there were no large rooms in the parsonage—but it had space enough for Hollingsworth’s desk and a couple of chairs. Hollingsworth took one, the witchfinder took the other, and the demoniack, obedient to a command Hollingsworth missed, sank down on his knees beside the witchfinder’s chair, one hand resting lightly on the witchfinder’s leg.

“So,” Hollingsworth said nervously.

“So,” said the witchfinder. “I have been told by many persons that there is a witchcraft outbreak in Marcombe-village. Witches have been arrested, arraigned, tried, and executed—all without a witchfinder. I wish to understand, Mr. Hollingsworth, and I am told that the matter began here, in Marcombe Parsonage.”

“Aye,” said Hollingsworth. “I fear that it did.”

 

4.

It began (said Peter Hollingsworth) with Betty. At first it was episodes of crying nor Betty nor her parents could understand. Then it was a sensation of being pricked with needles. Then she began to contort in strange ways, neck twisting, arms jerking, legs stiffening suddenly so that she fell.

There were three doctors in or near Marcombe-village. The Hollingsworths consulted each of them in turn, and each of them was baffled. Betty in her torment—and there was no denying that she was suffering miserably—began shouting gibberish, having convulsions, crawling under furniture and barking like a dog.

It was at this point that Sarah began to weep uncontrollably and complain of being pricked with needles. Whatever it was, it was contagious.

“And there is no chance of falsehood,” said the witchfinder, somewhere between a question and an accusation.

“Even if they would—and both Betty and Sarah have been taught to hate all the ways of falsehood—no, they could not fake their afflictions.”

“What caused you to decide t’was witchcraft?”

“The third doctor said that he thought they were under an evil hand. And we have no better explanation.”

“I have a particular interest,” the witchfinder said, “in how they came to make accusations.”

“They began to complain that someone was pinching them. I remember not who asked them who it was.”

That was a lie. It had been Elizabeth, but he wanted to spare her a questioning by the witchfinder if he could.

“So someone asked,” the witchfinder said, as if he could tell that Hollingsworth was lying, “and they answered…?”

“Goodwife Rush and Goodwife Godwin and Jane.”

“Jane?”

“Jane Cathar. Our slave. At first we could not believe the accusation, for she is devoted to the children. But the witchcraft spread, like fire or plague. Lydia Byfield began to have fits. Mary Bradley and Mercy Hayward began to be pinched and tormented. And all three of them said that it was Goodwife Rush and Goodwife Godwin and Jane who hurt them.”

It was Mr. Byfield who had sworn out the complaint, with Goodman Bradley and Goodman Pitts and Goodman Askew backing him. Goodwife Rush and Jane were arrested. Goodwife Godwin could not be found, which everyone agreed was highly suspicious. And before the magistrates, where Goodwife Rush denied she was a witch, even with the evidence of her witchcraft writhing on the floor in front of her, Jane confessed. To everything.

She described the demon and the pact she signed with it in her own blood and the powers it gave her in return for the sacrifice of a rabbit and the mischief she wrought. She said Goodwife Rush was a witch, and Goodwife Godwin, too, and described meeting them to dance naked in the moonlight. She said there were more witches, whose names she didn’t know.

She told them where to find Goodwife Godwin. (Hiding in her widowed sister-in-law’s house.) And she was right.

She was right about there being more witches, too, for even with Goodwife Rush and Goodwife Godwin and Jane herself in chains, Betty and Sarah and Lydia and Mary and Mercy (and now Abigail and Hannah, too) still convulsed and wept and screamed out that they were being pinched and bitten and choked.

And when asked who hurt them, they gave names.

Witches were arrested and brought up before the magistrates, and all of them denied being witches, so they were held for trial. So far, only two trials had been held—Goodwife Susannah Rush and Goodwife Rachel Cooper—but both women had been found guilty. They had been hanged, still protesting their innocence, in May.

The next trials, five of them this time, were scheduled for the beginning of July.

And the girls were still afflicted.

“Yes,” said the witchfinder. “And who are your magistrates?”

“Mr. Harcourt and Mr. Curtis,” said Hollingsworth. “They have been most zealous toward their work.”

“Yes,” said the witchfinder. “Where might I find them?”

“Mr. Harcourt lives in Marcombe-town, but Mr. Curtis you will probably find in Pruitt’s ordinary.”

“That is very helpful.” He paused, seemingly struck by a thought. “Do you have questions you would ask of me, Mr. Hollingsworth?”

“Do you think ‘tis not witchcraft?”

“Oh no,” said the witchfinder. “’Tis definitely witchcraft.”

“What great sin have I committed, that my congregation should have so many witches in it?”

“Most probably it does not,” said the witchfinder. “Demons can delude the eye, you know.”

And with that, leaving Hollingsworth feeling as if he’d just been run through by a two-edged sword, the witchfinder stood, bringing his demoniack up with him, bowed, and departed.

 

5.

Everyone in Pruitt’s ordinary flinched when the witchfinder and demoniack came through the door. Witchfinder Carr headed straight for Sam Fitch, who wished hopelessly for the earth to open up and swallow him.

“Sam,” said the witchfinder, in a voice quite loud enough for the whole room to hear, “I seek Mr. Curtis.”

“I’m James Curtis,” said a man sitting in the corner. “How may I help you, Witchfinder?”

“Mr. Curtis,” the witchfinder said with a sleek little bow. “I need to talk to you about the witchcraft in Marcombe-village.”

“I know not what I can tell you,” Mr. Curtis said uneasily.

“No?” said the witchfinder, crossing to his table, demoniack faithfully beside him. “And yet you have examined twenty persons in this village alone and found them to be witches. Surely you can tell me my duty.” His smile was full of teeth.

“How were we to know a witchfinder was coming?” Mr. Curtis protested. “One has never come before.”

“True. But did you think to ask for one?”

“The matter was urgent!”

“And is still unresolved. So clearly your proceedings contain some flaw.”

“Satan’s army is large in Marcombe-village.”

“Twenty witches? In a village this size? How do you know that all these poor people are witches?”

“The girls see them!”

The witchfinder very slowly raised his eyebrows. “And you think that what the demon makes them see is the truth?”

“I don’t…I don’t think I should talk to you further until I’ve talked to Judge Whitney and Judge Spencer,” said Mr. Curtis. He got up and fled as if the witchfinder was the Hound of Hell.

WITCHES OF NEW-ALBION: CHARLES ASHER

The first witch hanged in New-Albion was a sixteen year old boy named Charles Asher. He bargained with rabbit blood, and he sent the demon to afflict a series of other boys in Varnham, all of whom, he would claim at his trial, had tormented him “cruelly and most terribly.” The jury was not sympathetic.

PART I: THE DEMONIACK

1.

John Cooper woke before sunrise, and his first blurry thought, before he remembered, was, Where is Rachel? Then memory flooded over him. Rachel was buried on Gallows Hill. Rachel had been hanged as a witch. Rachel was gone.

Rachel had sacrificed herself for him, and there had been nothing he could do to stop her.

As had become routine in the weeks since Rachel’s execution, he lay in bed for some minutes, wondering if this was going to be the day that he just failed to get out of bed. Mine eye, my soul, and my belly are consumed with grief. But the cows needed to be fed and milked, and even in the blackest melancholy, he could not leave them to suffer.

As was also routine, he thought about selling the cows, renting the house and land, moving into Marcombe-town, and living on his rents like a gentleman. But something inside him cried out in pain at the thought of leaving the house where he and Rachel had lived for twenty years, as if in doing so, he would also be leaving her.

He got out of bed just before his widowed sister Tamsin (who had left her farm in the charge of her eldest son Simon and moved in with John “for a while,” she said, meaning until John remarried) called, “John? Art thou awake?”

“Aye,” he called back, and there was the day, ready to be faced.

Late in the afternoon, when he was doing the evening milking, there was a shout from the yard, “Goodman Cooper? Goodman Cooper, are you home?”

“Go away!” he shouted back, without bothering to identify the voice. No one in Marcombe-village had helped him when Rachel was accused. Whatever it was they wanted, why should he help them now?

“Goodman Cooper”—and that voice was the Reverend Hollingsworth—“we only want a brief word.”

He got the last pull of milk from Flora; then, carefully putting the bucket where nor Flora nor Nell could kick it over, he went to the barn door and said, “I don’t. Begone with you.”

There were two of them, Mr. Hollingsworth and Mr. Keene, and they both looked nervous and uncomfortable, and as if they would prefer to be anywhere else but Goodman Cooper’s dooryard. But they stood their ground.

“We need to talk to you,” said Mr. Keene. “It is a matter of charity.”

“Charity? What charity showed you to my wife? Whatever it be, I want nothing to do with it.”

“A witchfinder came to Marcombe-village,” Mr. Hollingsworth said in a rush, and despite himself, John’s attention was caught.

“A witchfinder? But there are no witchfinders in the colonies.”

“He said he was the first,” said Mr. Keene.

Now there was a story, and he could never leave a story half-heard. “So why are you here?”

“The witchfinder was murdered this morning,” said Mr. Keene.

“Murdered? Who would murder a witchfinder?”

“Well, that is what we know not,” said Mr. Keene. “But Witchfinder Second Class Augustus Carr was found this morning on the common with his brains bashed in. Anyone could have done it.”

“How terrible,” John said. “But why are you here?”

“He had a demoniack,” said Mr. Keene.

It took a moment for the words to make sense. “No,” John said.

“Goodman Cooper—”

“No. I’ll have nothing to do with it.”

“You’re the only one who might—”

“There are no witchfinders in the colonies,” John said with a harsh bark of laughter. “I’m no exception to the rule.”

“We’re not asking you to be a witchfinder,” Mr. Keene said, and it was wrong to be pleased by the note of frustration in his voice. “But we don’t know what…what else are we to do with him?”

“Him?” John said, startled.

“Isaiah is his name,” said Mr. Keene. “But that is all we know about him. He has locked the door and blocked the keyhole, and he won’t respond to anyone.”

“He is afraid,” John said, stating the obvious because apparently it was necessary. Demoniacks without a witchfinder did not fare well. In New-Albion, where there were no witchfinders, demoniacks were hanged as a matter of course, and the fact that this one had had a witchfinder might not be enough to save him, if the village got sufficiently worked up.

“You’re the only person in Marcombe-village, or Marcombe-town, or the whole of the colonies he might listen to. Until, that is, we can get word to the Witchfinder Authority, and they can send another witchfinder.”

“That will take months,” John said.

“Exactly,” said Mr. Keene. “We can’t leave him there for months.”

“Could bash his brains in,” John said dryly.

“Goodman Cooper!” protested Mr. Hollingsworth.

“You need not a witchfinder. You need someone to persuade him to unlock the door.”

“And then to keep him,” Mr. Keene said. “Goodman Pruitt cannot do it.”

“You speak as he were a wild beast,” John said. “He is only a blind man.” He thought a moment and amended, “A blind man who can see demons.”

“A blind witch who can see demons,” said Mr. Hollingsworth.

“You do not make me wish to help you,” John pointed out. “And surely ‘tis more rightly the minister’s duty.”

“I can’t have a demoniack in the house with my afflicted children!” Mr. Hollingsworth said in horror.

“Why not? He won’t harm them.”

Hollingsworth floundered for a second, then rallied. “Mistress Hollingsworth is already worn to the bone with the care of Betty and Sarah. And she has not Jane’s help.” The discontented Mistress Hollingsworth was the subject of many village jokes, but John could see that in this case she would be genuinely overworked.

“Why are you so keen to help him?” John said, uncaring of the pun. “Why not just hang him and be done with it?”

“He belongs to the Witchfinder Authority,” Mr. Hollingsworth said, sounding slightly shocked. “We can’t hang their property.”

“Oh, of course,” John said with heavy irony. “Forgive me for forgetting that.”

Mr. Keene said, “As an abolitionist, you should want to help him.”

“I would help him be free, not continue his life enslaved,” John said.

“He can’t be free if he’s dead,” said Mr. Keene.

“No,” John said. “I said ‘no’ and I meant it.”

Behind him, the door to the house opened and Tamsin said, “John, what in the world—oh! Good even, Mr. Hollingsworth. Mr. Keene.”

“Widow Ratcliff,” Mr. Keene said, nodding politely.

“Widow Ratcliff!” said Mr. Hollingsworth. “Perhaps you can persuade Goodman Cooper.”

“Unlikely,” said Tamsin. “He is ever stubborn as a mule.”

Mr. Keene explained the situation, Tamsin looking steadily more incredulous as he went. “And you want John to take this demoniack off your hands? Why should he do such a thing?”

Mr. Keene looked at Mr. Hollingsworth and Mr. Hollingsworth looked at Mr. Keene. John felt suddenly cold although it was a lovely June evening.

Mr. Keene coughed and said, “I would hate to have to bring up the matter of the late Simon Ratcliff’s debts.”

“You wouldn’t,” Tamsin said, in outrage and fear. “You know that we are paying them as quickly as we can.”

“Aye,” said Mr. Keene, “But ‘tis not very quick. I have been patient, but there is nothing that says I cannot have the younger Simon Ratcliff arrested for debt tomorrow.”

“Unless I do this for you,” John said.

“If you do this, I will continue to be patient.”

The silence stretched out as John wrestled with the truth.

“Whatsoever good thing any man doeth,” said Mr. Hollingsworth.

“I was never licensed,” John said finally, warningly.

“We ask not that you find the witch,” Mr. Keene said.

“All right,” John said. “All right! I will come and see what I can do.”

 

2.

Pruitt’s ordinary, when they reached it at twilight, was unusually quiet. No one playing shovel-board, no one arguing loudly about the causes of the drought. Just people sitting and drinking. Most of them were probably only there because being at home would be worse.

Goodman Pruitt looked ready to faint with relief when he saw John come in behind Mr. Hollingsworth, but he had the sense to hold his tongue. Mr. Keene sat down with Mr. Curtis in the corner. John followed Mr. Hollingsworth up the stairs.

Pruitt had given the witchfinder the best room, which was a sensible thing to have done. John tried the door, just for thoroughness’s sake, and it was locked.

From inside the room, an Albioner voice shouted, “Go away!”

“Isaiah?” said John.

A tiny, shocked silence. “How do you know my name?”

“Someone heard Witchfinder Carr use it. Isaiah, Reverend Hollingsworth and I have come to talk to you.”

“Who are you?”

“My name is John.”

“Even if true, that hardly tells me much. Why should I talk to you? I am waiting for my witchfinder to return.”

And he was tired of waiting, John surmised, or they would not be having even this much conversation.

He took a deep breath. “Witchfinder Carr has been murdered.”

“Murdered?”

“Someone bashed his brains in.”

A peal of wild laughter. “Good! Glorious! I would buy that person a pint of ale!”

John heard Mr. Hollingsworth’s sharp, horrified intake of breath. He felt a little that way himself, although he could readily imagine why a demoniack might not mourn their witchfinder.

“But why would someone murder Witchfinder Carr?” said the demoniack, and John felt a pang of kinship: here was someone else who could not leave a story half-told.

“I know not,” John said. “The Marcombe-village selectmen are hoping you know.”

“No, when I woke up this morning—was it this morning?—he was gone. I suppose he must already have been dead.”

“And he said nothing about going out or meeting someone?”

“Witchfinder Carr told me not his plans.”

“That is unfortunate,” John said.

“But go on,” said Isaiah. He had moved closer to the door. “You must be here to persuade me out of this room. What is your persuasion?”

This was not how John had expected this conversation to go; he felt like he had to scramble now to keep up.

“You cannot stay in that room forever,” he said, “You must eat.”

“Common sense. But why open the door to you in particular?”

“I am trained as a witchfinder,” John said reluctantly, “although I left the Witchfinder Authority before I was licensed.”

Another shocked silence. “You mean you’re John Cooper?”

“You’ve heard of me?” John said, equally shocked.

“Everyone has heard of you. The witchfinders talk about you, about ‘not going like John Cooper.’ But they never say how you went.”

There was something darkly amusing about the open curiosity in Isaiah’s voice. John said, “I became an abolitionist.”

“Oh,” said Isaiah. “No wonder they talk about you.”

John couldn’t help the crack of laughter, but he said, “So you see, I’m as close as we have to a qualified person.”

“To tame the beast, you mean?”

Mr. Hollingsworth, scowling in disapproval, started to say something, but John cut him off. “To get you out of that room and keep you until the Witchfinder Authority gets our letter and sends another witchfinder to fetch you.”

“That could be months.”

“I know,” John said.

“And yet you’re here anyway,” Isaiah said. He sounded thoughtful, which John prayed was a good sign. “You must know I’m of no use except for catching witches.”

It was clearly a warning. John said, “I know. ‘Tis no matter.”

A long silence. “How do I know I can trust you?”

“You can’t know. But you have no choice. No, ‘tis not quite true. Or come with me or wait until they break the door down. And they will be in no very forgiving mood when they do. Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”

“You are very persuasive,” Isaiah said and, after a lengthy pause, unlocked the door.

He was John’s height, fair complected, with long, untidy blond hair. The black blindfold was properly in place, hiding his scarred and empty eye-sockets. The brand that marked him as the property of the Witchfinder Authority was conspicuous on his left cheek, so that no angry crowd could hang him and say they didn’t know. Clothes were shabby black, but in good repair.

There was an angry voice in John’s head insisting that no person should be property. But he also looked at the brand and the blindfold and knew that Isaiah could never disguise himself as anything but what he was. And unlike Black and Cathar slaves, there was nowhere he could go where he would be safe. Without a witchfinder to protect him, Isaiah would be hanged as soon as caught.

“Have you baggage?” John said. He glanced at Mr. Hollingsworth. “What will be done with Witchfinder Carr’s things?”

“We’ll have to hold them for the next witchfinder, I suppose,” said Mr. Hollingsworth. “Certainly, I don’t want to try to evaluate what is important and what is not, and I misdoubt anyone else will want that task.”

“Unless you know, Isaiah?” John said.

“No,” said Isaiah. “’Tis best to keep everything for the next witchfinder. But what about the horses? He bought them in Varnham.”

“We’ll need one for Isaiah to ride,” John said to Mr. Hollingsworth, “but I cannot take the other.”

“Pruitt can keep one,” said Mr. Hollingsworth, “as payment for the use of the room.”

“This is all I have,” Isaiah said. He held a pair of saddle bags. They were not crammed to bursting. “Unless…Witchfinder Carr has a draught that helps me to sleep. We should take that.”

“You have trouble sleeping?” said Mr. Hollingsworth.

“Nightmares,” said Isaiah with a shrug. “I would rather not sleep at all, but no one will agree to that.”

“No,” said John. He looked around the room and spotted the draught easily enough: a glass vial filled with a dark green liquid. Carr had put it carefully on the mantelpiece along with his witchfinder’s seal. John wrapped the vial in his handkerchief and put it in his pocket.

“All right,” he said. “Then come. Let’s give Goodman Pruitt back the use of his best bedroom.”

WITCHES OF NEW-ALBION: ANN HIGGINSON

Ann Higginson was suspected of witchcraft for twenty years before she was caught. 

PART II: THE ACCUSATION

1.

It was three days later that disaster struck.

They were not comfortable days. Tamsin was both angry and guilty, which expressed itself in picking fights with John. Isaiah, while quiet and unfailingly polite, was an unnerving guest.

Most men did not survive to become demoniacks. Women were more likely to, although women were also more likely to be witches than to try to be conjurers. Witches made bargains with demons (as someone in Marcombe-village had made a bargain); they did not generally invite one to battle for mastery. Thus, demoniacks were rare. It said something about the Witchfinder Authority’s concern with the increasing reports of witchcraft in the colonies that Augustus Carr had been allowed to bring Isaiah across the ocean.

And that worked out very well for him indeed, John thought dourly.

In himself, Isaiah was not troublesome, if one did not count guiding him to the privy, which in fairness John could not. He did not speak unless spoken to; he did not complain. John gave him the green draught at night—one drop dissolved in a cup of water—and he drank it. He slept heavily, limp as a rag; it was a little frightening how effective that draught was.

So it was not peaceable, but it was manageable.

At least, that was, until Sunday.

Knowing that Mr. Hollingsworth was watching, John felt he had no choice but to take Isaiah (and himself) to meeting. It was the first thing he’d done all week that pleased Tamsin.

Coopers and Ratcliffs were not seated together in the meeting house. Tamsin’s seven sons and five daughters-in-law swooped down on her gladly, leaving John to bring Isaiah to his bench, where there was a good deal of grumbling, but people did squash over so that Isaiah could sit beside John, though not so far over that the situation was in any way comfortable. Taking notes on the sermon, as he usually did, was a physical impossibility.

Hollingsworth had chosen a text from the first book of Samuel, and although he did not mention the trials or the executions specifically, he was clearly mounting a defense of himself, Harcourt and Curtis, and the trial judges. John wanted to stand up and shout back—a false witness shall not be unpunished: and he that speaketh lies, shall perish—but it would make Rachel’s sacrifice in vain (Rachel, who could have denounced him as a witch and saved her life, but stayed silent), for nothing would more certainly draw the attention of the afflicted, and his only hope of surviving until the next witchfinder made it to Marcombe-village was for Betty Hollingsworth and Mary Bradley to forget that he even existed. So he sat in smoldering anger, but consciously letting Isaiah’s weight along his right side hold him down, and it was excruciating but everything was going to be fine when that cat Mary Bradley opened her mouth and yowled, “Goody Ratcliff is attacking Betty!” and John’s heart stopped even as Betty Hollingsworth dropped to the floor and started to thrash.

There were six Goodwives Ratcliff in the meetinghouse, but there could be no mistaking which one Mary meant.

This kind of disturbance was not unusual, and Mr. Hollingsworth usually soldiered grimly on, but this time he stopped, as if Mary and Betty had made him lose the thread of his argument, and Mary yelled, “Oh, Goody Ratcliff, what are you doing? Why—” And then she shrieked as if the specter had opened a jar of hornets in her face, and all six of the afflicted were on the floor, convulsing and begging “Goody Ratcliff” not to hurt them.

From the women’s side of the meetinghouse, Tamsin said angrily, “I am doing nothing of the sort.”

“Then who is tormenting these poor afflicted children?” said Mr. Hollingsworth.

And Tamsin, who was cursed with the Cooper temper, said, “I know not. But you’re the one who can see them.”

Accusing the minister of having the evil eye was quite probably the worst thing Tamsin could have done, but before that confrontation could grow sharper, Goodwife Kimball, who was not all that much older than Mary Bradley, cried out, “Oh, she is stabbing me with pins!” and the meetinghouse devolved into chaos.

John’s first instinct was to get to Tamsin, but that was impossible. His second instinct was to get Isaiah clear of the surging congregation before a brawl started—which, given the size and number of Tamsin’s sons, seemed inevitable. He and Isaiah were near enough to the aisle that he thought they could get clear of the bench, and from there it was at least a straight shot to the door.

Simon Ratcliff bellowed, his voice cutting through the din, “My mother she is not a witch!” and there went the brawl.

John took Isaiah by the wrist and said in his ear, “We leave now.”

Isaiah turned his hand to return John’s grip.

Good enough. John stood and with a mental apology to Goodman Jackson, who had done nothing to deserve what was about to happen, started fighting his way to the end of the bench, keeping hard hold of Isaiah’s hand all the way.

He felt as if he’d had nightmares like this: the terrible clamor, the close confinement, the seemingly endless succession of obstacles—which he couldn’t simply strike down, since they were Goodman Jackson and Goodman Pitts—and then out in the aisle, there were strangers, people who’d come from Marcombe-town and Bexley and Newhaven and maybe as far as Hedder to see the afflicted girls for themselves.

The girls were certainly giving them what they came for, John thought and set about working his way to the door. He had to reel Isaiah in so that they could move together. He put his arm around Isaiah’s shoulders; Isaiah, understanding immediately, put his arm around John’s waist and stuck like a limpet as John dodged and shouldered and pushed through the meetinghouse bedlam—he thought Mr. Hollingsworth was shouting something, but he couldn’t make out the words—to where the door was already mercifully open, and they were out into a beautiful June Sabbath morning where people were standing in dazed clumps, as if they didn’t know how they’d gotten here.

John dragged Isaiah around the side of the building, where they could have a sliver of privacy, and only then let go. He sat down on the grass, becoming aware of a throbbing headache.

Isaiah sat down with him, one hand finding the hem of John’s coat, and they were silent for a long time. John got his breath back and was just starting to face the horrible question, what now?, when Isaiah said, “Why did you help me?”

“What mean you?”

“You could have left me there,” Isaiah said doggedly. “I would probably have been killed.”

“You think that of me? That I would do that?”

“I think that you have no reason to love me,” Isaiah said. “And that your life would be far simpler were I to…vanish.”

“Even if that is true, it makes me not a murderer.”

“It has been years since I met a person like you, if ever,” Isaiah said. From his tone, it was not a compliment.

“I cannot help that,” John said tiredly and did not add, That light shineth in the wilderness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not.

They were silent for another long moment, before Isaiah said, “What will happen to Goodwife Ratcliff?”

“You know not?”

“I was never arrested as a witch. And I have never had a witchfinder take me with him to court.”

“Well,” John said, “unless her boys got her out of here and can now hide her, she’ll be arrested and put in jail. Magistrate Harcourt and Magistrate Curtis will ask her questions to prove she is a witch while the afflicted scream, and she’ll be held for trial. An her trial goes as Rachel’s did”—Rachel’s name sat strangely in his mouth, as if its meaning were starting to shift out from under him—“she’ll be convicted of witchcraft and then she’ll be hanged.”

“But Goodwife Ratcliff is not a witch.”

“No, of course not.”

“No, I mean, Goodwife Ratcliff is not a witch. There was no witchcraft in there at all.”

John felt like he’d been slapped, hard—not that Isaiah had seen no witchcraft, but that there had been no witchcraft to be seen. He also, reflexively, looked around to be sure there was no one who could overhear them. “Say that again.”

“No one has done any witchcraft this morning. Nor Goodwife Ratcliff nor anyone else.”

“Betty Hollingsworth is faking?” John said, testing the words as he would test a strange bridge before crossing it.

“Maybe not on purpose,” said Isaiah. “But there were no specters tormenting her. I would have seen them. ‘Tis what I’m for.”

“All right,” John said. “I believe you. Can you always see witchcraft like that?”

“Yes, of course. Were you not taught that?”

“What I was taught is more than twenty years gone.”

“All right, yes. I can always see specters and maleficia, and I know a witch when I touch one. Demons are harder, but once one takes a person’s body, it’s like…like a bright light in this kingdom of darkness.”

John shivered, knowing Isaiah made the pun between his blindness and Satan’s kingdom of darkness quite intentionally.

“When you see specters…have they always the shape of the witch?” That was what had hanged Rachel, the insistence of Judge Whitney that a specter could not assume the form of an innocent person.

That and the possibly lying testimony of the afflicted girls.

“No, of course not,” Isaiah said impatiently. “But ‘tis the demon behind them that I see.”

“And you can’t be fooled.”

“No. But it won’t work.”

“Why not?” John said, again disconcerted by Isaiah’s habit of skipping steps in conversations, but determined to stay with it.

“I’m a demoniack with no witchfinder. They’ll hang me before they believe me.”

“What if we found the real witch? Can you do that?”

“It’s what I’m for,” Isaiah said again.

“You don’t need a real witchfinder?”

“‘Tis no virtue in the witchfinder.”

“You don’t need…” John struggled for a word, “guidance?”

Isaiah made a stifled noise that was probably a laugh. “No, nothing like that. I just need to touch them.”

“And you said nothing because…?”

“I thought you were opposed to the Witchfinder Authority and all its works, including the finding of witches.”

“I am.”

“Unless it’s your sister.”

“Or my wife, whom I could not save.”

“Ah,” said Isaiah. He was silent a moment. “But let’s consider another side of the question. Why should I help?”

“What?”

“Why should I help? I’m a demoniack, a murderer. Also a whoreson liar and a knave. Also, Goodwife Ratcliff does not like me.”

Tamsin had made that all too plain.

John said, “You are a demoniack without a witchfinder, and I am all that stands between you and hanging. And as you have pointed out, I have no reason to love you. You must surely need my good will.”

“That…is true,” Isaiah said. “But is your good will truly so fragile?”

“My wife was hanged as a witch these three weeks gone,” John said harshly. “I will not see my sister served the same way. My good will is very fragile.”

“Ah,” said Isaiah. “And what will you do? Beat me? It worked for Witchfinder Carr.”

“’Tis what you want?”

Now Isaiah seemed taken aback. It was a long moment before he said, “No, ‘tis not. I will co-operate.”

“Thank you,” said John.

They were both silent for a long moment; then Isaiah said, “Would you beat me?”

“No,” John said and sighed. “Probably not.”

“Thank you,” said Isaiah and sounded like he meant it.

 

2.

When order was restored, it was discovered that Tamsin and all seven sons and five daughters-in-law had used the opportunity of the brawl to leave before anyone could think of taking her into custody. But John was not surprised that Daniel Bradley and George Byfield were already swearing out the complaint.

“‘Tis not here that we start,” he said low-voiced to Isaiah. “The truth comes not from crowds. And the person I most wish to talk to is not here.”

“Where are they?”

“Marcombe-town jail.”

WITCHES OF NEW-ALBION: PETER JEFFRIES

The demoniack Peter Jeffries killed five men, two women, and six children, including his own infant son, before the demon left him. The villagers did not wait for a trial to hang him.

PART III: JANE CATHAR

Marcombe jail, horribly familiar from his hopeless visits with Rachel, reeked of sweat and waste and rot and blood. The witch prisoners, each shackled with cold iron, were in the worst cells, tiny underground caves like the dens of animals—and each with a door that locked only from the outside. They that dwell in darkness, and in the shadow of death, being bound in misery and iron. (And at that, Marcombe’s jail was said to be better than Varnham’s.)

During the day, the prisoners were allowed out into the main room, if they could drag their chains that far. The main room at least had sunlight. The prisoners looked far more wretched than the afflicted girls, who were remarkable for their sturdy health.

Jane was not among those in the main room. John was careful to have money in his hand when he approached James Endicott the jailer to ask where she was.

“Back there,” Goodman Endicott said, with a jerk of his head toward the narrow, dark corridor where the cells were. He pocketed the silver John gave him and added, “You’ll want to take the lantern.”

“Thank you,” said John.

He shone the light into each tiny cell as he and Isaiah passed. The woman who cursed him was Goodwife Godwin, scarcely recognizable after ten weeks in jail, and he almost missed Jane as just more rags in the pile of rags in the back of the cell. But she moved, and the shadows in the corner resolved into her face.

Jane was Cathar, from one of the tribes of Barbary. She was not the only slave in Marcombe-village, but the others were all Black. Her face looked like a muddy-colored mask, and John thought This woman is not far from death.

The cell was roughly triangular, with the base at the door, where there was just enough room for two people, and the point at the back, where Jane was lying.

John knew her, as he knew all the slaves in Marcombe-village, although mostly they were forbidden to talk to him. “Good day, Jane,” he said.

She said in a weak voice, “Good day, Goodman Cooper.”

“This is Isaiah. Were there demoniacks in Barbary?”

“There was a witchfinder one time,” Jane said. “The governor wanted to prove the slaves were witches, but he never could.”

“Were there no witches among the slaves?”

“Albioners bring demons. Not the Cathar.”

“Yet you call yourself a witch.”

Jane stared at him defiantly. “I learned in New-Albion. Goodwife Rush taught me.”

Who, being dead, couldn’t deny it.

John knew Jane was lying—poor Susannah Rush had no more been a witch than she had been a toad—but he didn’t need to prove she was a liar. He needed to prove she wasn’t a witch.

“Take Isaiah’s hand,” he said. Isaiah obediently extended his hand toward Jane, and while Jane might lie to an Albioner—and probably did so habitually to protect herself—she knew better than to disobey one. She crawled forward, dragging shackles and chains with her, and touched Isaiah’s fingers.

The tableau held awkwardly for a moment; then Isaiah pulled back and said, “She is not a witch.”

That was all John needed, but the questions begged to be asked: “Why did you confess? Why did you tell that crazy story about being a witch? Why condemn Goodwife Godwin and Goodwife Rush?”

“I did not condemn them. Magistrate Harcourt was already sure.”

“How did you know where Goodwife Godwin was?”

“I guessed.” She added dryly, “It was not hard.”

“But why did you lie?”

Jane gave him a level look. “Mr. Hollingsworth beat me. He said he would beat me more if I did not confess. He said he would beat me to death. And how…How could I be sure? How could I know I am not a witch?”

“I know,” said Isaiah. “You are not a witch.”

Jane shook her head. “They will not believe you.”

“You condemned yourself,” John said.

“I hoped,” Jane said tiredly, “that if they were happy, they would leave me alone.”

“And they have. They got what they wanted from you.” John was wondering even as he said it who “they” were. Magistrate Harcourt, Magistrate Curtis, Judge Whitney, Mr. Hollingsworth—who’d threatened to beat Jane to death for not confessing. 

“Is there really a witch at all?” he said.

“Betty and Sarah do not fake their torments.”

“But they accused you,” John said.

“They are children,” said Jane. “They are scared.”

“Yes, but scared of what?” said John.

“The witch,” Jane said flatly.

“Know you who it is?”

Jane shook her head.

WITCHES OF NEW-ALBION: RUTH WILSON

The demoniack Ruth Wilson killed her entire family before the demon left her. She was still protesting on the gallows that it was not what she had meant to happen.

PART IV: THE AFFLICTED GIRLS

1.

They rode back to Marcombe-village in silence.

There was no Tamsin waiting to welcome them with another round of quarreling.

John did his evening chores. Over supper, he said to Isaiah, “We must move quickly, if we can. Those who murder once and repent not, will murder twice.”

“You think we’re in danger?”

“I think they murdered Witchfinder Carr because he was going to find the real witch. And now we are doing the same. We’d be fools not to think on it.”

“Lovely,” said Isaiah. “I do not understand, though, how have they persuaded the afflicted girls to name false witches? And why?”

“I know not,” John said. “We must talk to Betty Hollingsworth. But that ‘tis for tomorrow. ‘Tis too late to go wandering around in the dark, and Mistress Hollingsworth wouldn’t let us in.”

“I can’t think why not,” Isaiah said and surprised John into laughing.

John cleaned the kitchen, and they went upstairs together, where the bed felt uncomfortably big without Tamsin in the middle of it.

After a time, Isaiah said, “Do you think the constables will find Goodwife Ratcliff?”

“I know not,” John said. “They probably haven’t found her yet, but unless her sons can get her out of New-Albion—or to Usmer or to Daunt or even to New Marianne—they will find her eventually.”

“Witchfinder Carr said that most of New-Albion was trackless forest.”

“Meaning she could hide in the forest? They’d just pay the Cathar to find her, and that would be even faster than searching through all the Ratcliff homesteads for her.”

A pause. “I thought the Cathar were our deadly enemies?”

“Aye,” said John. “But we trade with them. We trade with the Marianners, when we are not massacring each other.”

“How…” Isaiah trailed off.

“‘Pragmatic’ is the word people use,” John said.

“And I have a great admiration for pragmatism. But, forgive me, trading with your deadly enemies just seems stupid.”

“Aye,” said John. “People trade guns and bullets to the Cathar for furs and then are shocked when the Cathar use guns against them.”

Silence, so long that John thought Isaiah had fallen asleep. Then Isaiah said, “Is it true that the Cathar worship demons?”

John’s turn to be silent. Finally, he said, “Mr. Hollingsworth would say ‘tis true, but Mr. Hollingsworth thinks that Black people have no souls. I think otherwise. An they had no souls, it would matter not that we enslave them, but I say they are people, as we are people, and it does matter. So thus I am forced to wonder about the Cathar.”

“Has anyone asked them?”

“The Cathar who are converted, they say ‘tis true. But most of the Cathar say ‘tis not. Mr. Hollingsworth says the Cathar are liars always.”

“‘Tis a very convenient thing to call somebody when you like not what they say,” Isaiah said.

“Aye,” John said thoughtfully. “So ‘tis.”

 

2.

The six afflicted girls were sitting on the long bench outside of Pruitt’s ordinary, Betty, Sarah, and Lydia at one end and Mary, Abigail, and Hannah at the other. John considered them for a moment before approaching. Betty, age thirteen, and Sarah, age ten, were the minister’s daughters and had been notable, before their afflictions started, for being good, obedient, and quiet—role models for the rest of the village children. The Byfields were one of the two richest families in the village. Lydia’s father George, when not swearing out witchcraft complaints, farmed nearly three hundred acres. Lydia, age twelve and the eldest of six, had always been a copy in miniature of her mother, dutiful and trustworthy. John would have said that, if trouble were to start somewhere in the village, it would be anywhere other than with Betty and Sarah and Lydia.

Matters were different at the other end of the bench. Mary Bradley, age eighteen, was an orphan, living as a servant with her aunt and uncle. Abigail Reed, age seventeen, and Hannah Glover, age twenty, were bond servants. Abigail worked for Goodman Drysdale and Hannah worked for George Byfield’s brother Samuel. None of them had ever had a reputation as a troublemaker, but John knew well enough the way discontent could fester in an outwardly obedient person’s soul.

All six of them were now staring at him and Isaiah, wide-eyed with innocent curiosity—or a very good facsimile. “Come, Isaiah,” John said and approached Betty Hollingsworth.

He had lain awake half the night trying to determine how to proceed with Betty. On the one hand, he had Isaiah’s testimony that there had been no one afflicting her on Sunday. On the other hand, he had Jane’s insistence that Betty and Sarah were not faking.

And then there was the fact, a fact that he kept circling without being able to find a way to address, that Rachel had died on the testimony of these girls. Or they were murderers or they were dupes, and he wanted to rage at them.

But it wouldn’t help, and the next time one of them had a fit, it might be his specter that tormented her. So he kept himself calm and said, “Good morning,” as pleasantly as he could.

“Good morning, Goodman Cooper,” they chorused back.

He knew better than to tell them he was trying to find the witch; that would only alert them to his suspicion that their afflictions were at least partly fraudulent, that they knew as well as he did that the people they were accusing of witchcraft were innocent.

Whoever the witch was, they would never be found by these afflicted girls.

“Betty,” he said, “might I speak to you over here? Just for a moment?”

As any well-behaved minister’s daughter would, she blushed like a fire at being spoken to by a man not her father, but she said, “Aye, Goodman Cooper,” and came with him and Isaiah a little way away from the bench. They were still in plain sight, but if they kept their voices down, they should be proof against eavesdropping.

Betty looked at him inquiringly. She was a pretty child, with wide blue eyes. Your words killed my wife, John thought and said, as mildly as he could, “I am wondering if you can answer a question for me.”

“I’ll try,” Betty said.

“When this whole thing started,” John said with a little twirl of his hand to indicate the afflictions and the accusations and the executions, “did you see specters right away?”

“No,” Betty said. “At first the specters were hidden.”

“When did that change?”

“With Mistress Huxley’s witch-cake.”

“You mean the witch-cake did something?” Mistress Huxley’s idea of how witchcraft worked involved baking the afflicted girls’ urine into a rye cake and then feeding the cake to the dog. It hadn’t been at all clear to John, when this came to light, what Mistress Huxley thought the cake would do. It was nonsense-magic; about the only thing it seemed good for was poisoning the dog, and even the dog was fine.

“Oh aye,” Betty said brightly. “It let us see the specters.”

“And you recognized them?”

“Not right away,” Betty admitted. “They’re not easy to see and sometimes they have no faces at all.”

“But sometimes they do.”

“We both saw Goodwife Rush and Goodwife Godwin very clearly.”

“What about Jane?”

“She made the witch-cake. Father said that meant she had to be a witch.”

More nonsense-magic. “Did you ever see Jane afflicting you?”

“It might have been Jane,” Betty said, perhaps a shade uneasily. “I never saw its face clearly.”

There were now a number of questions John wanted to ask, but he chose the one that served his purpose rather than his curiosity or his outrage. “But when Goodwife Rush and Goodwife Godwin and Jane were chained in cold iron, your afflictions did not stop. Had there been other specters before, or did a new crop sprout?”

“I know not,” Betty said. “I told you, sometimes the specters have no faces. ‘Tis Mary is best at seeing them.”

John was unsurprised. And he knew, from the examinations he had attended, how good Magistrate Harcourt was at asking leading questions. Not who is the witch? but could the witch be Goodwife Hill? Or Goodwife Johnson?…Or Goodwife Cooper? The afflicted girls were easy to steer. Although he was not fool enough to say so, they were as much a danger as the witch.

He was framing his next question when Betty gasped. “They do not want me to talk to you, Goodman Cooper,” she said, then began to choke. The girls still sitting on the bench cried out in alarm. Hannah Glover fell off the bench and began to convulse, followed in short order by Mary, Sarah, and Abigail. Lydia Byfield stood, her eyes locked on something only she could see, and said loudly and defiantly, “Thou dost not govern me,” only to be seemingly picked up and thrown to the ground by a giant invisible hand. Betty, still choking, reeled backwards and went to her knees just next to Mary Bradley’s clenched hand.

John was standing, watching the afflicted girls flop and buck like landed fish, unsure what, if anything, he should do, when a voice said beside him, “I do beg your pardon, goodman, but is that demoniack yours?”

WITCHES OF NEW-ALBION: HELEN MACARTHUR

The Reverend Mr. Ezekiel Stafford prayed with the victims of Helen MacArthur for six weeks, staunchly refusing to tell anyone the names of the specters they saw, before her minister realized she had to be the witch. Not one victim had seen Helen’s face.

PART V: A SECOND WITCHFINDER

1.

John startled violently; beside him, Isaiah jerked his hand off John’s arm and straightened like a servant who hears his master’s voice approaching.

Some distance away there were two horses, dun and bay, hitched to a post and a blindfolded woman—a demoniack—standing with her hand on the shoulder of the dun horse. The man who had come up beside them unnoticed was a little younger than John, medium-height, fair-haired, with heavy-lidded gray eyes. He wore the black and gray colors of the Witchfinder Authority and the insignia of a witchfinder first class. He showed no interest in the afflicted girls, which John could only assume meant they weren’t afflicted at all.

“Mine? No.”

“Of course not,” the witchfinder agreed. “That would be illegal. But it does lead me to ask, where is his witchfinder?”

“Murdered,” John said.

John should not have been gratified at the way the witchfinder’s eyebrows rose. “Murdered, did you say?”

“Murdered,” John repeated. “Someone stove his skull in. I agreed to keep the demoniack until someone could be sent from the Witchfinder Authority…but that can’t be you, you’ve come much too quickly.”

“No,” said the witchfinder. “I am here on the trail of a thief.”

“A thief?”

“Augustus Carr,” said the witchfinder. “That demoniack was stolen.”

Down by his side, Isaiah’s cold fingers locked around John’s wrist.

 

2.

At that moment, Goodman Pruitt emerged to find out what was the racket and who were the strangers in front of his ordinary. Under normal circumstances, John would have been quite easily lost in the ensuing shuffle. But the witchfinder was keeping a close eye on him; moreover, foolishly, he could not bring himself to leave without Isaiah, and he had taken heed of the warning that to leave with Isaiah would be construed as theft. He did not dare to get Isaiah alone, even if only long enough to ask, Did you know?

In due course, he and Isaiah ended up at a table with the witchfinder and his companion. “Introductions, I think,” said the witchfinder. “I am Witchfinder First Class Francis Aubrey, and this is my demoniack, Rebecca.” Rebecca was a smallish woman, middle-aged, skinny, and sharp-featured behind the blindfold. Aubrey raised his eyebrows politely at John.

“I am Goodman John Cooper,” John said. “I expect you know Isaiah.”

“I do,” said Aubrey. “I recollect that you said you were ‘keeping’ him. Why should that task have fallen to you?”

John sighed. “I studied at the Witchfinder Authority for three years.”

“You’re that John Cooper? The exceedingly promising witchfinder first class who suddenly disappeared with nothing more than a letter denouncing witchfinders as slavers?”

John winced. “Aye, I suppose so.”

“And yet you agreed to ‘keep’ this demoniack. Does that not go against your principles?”

He sounded sincerely curious. John said, “If I help not the demoniack, ‘tis only the demoniack I hurt, not the Witchfinder Authority. An I had not agreed, he would probably be dead.”

“They would probably have torn me limb from limb,” Isaiah said brightly.

“Isaiah,” said Aubrey. “Recollect that the froward tongue shall be cut out. Thou needst not thy tongue to find witches.”

“Sorry,” Isaiah said meekly. John deduced that the threat was nor new nor empty.

“Has he given you any trouble?” Aubrey asked John.

“No,” John said.

Aubrey gave John a politely disbelieving look. “Good, for I am afraid I must ask you to ‘keep’ him a while longer.”

“What?”

“Originally, I was accompanied by a witchfinder second class, Nehemiah Martin, who was to take charge of Isaiah when we caught up with Augustus Carr. But Witchfinder Martin became sick on the journey over and died two days after we reached Varnham. And while I can manage two demoniacks, I cannot do so if one of them is Isaiah and I need to work, and it is clear to me that in Marcombe-village there is a great deal of work to be done.” His eyes cut sideways to the table where Mary Bradley was describing to a rapt audience her recent fight with Goodwife Ratcliff’s specter.

“Ah,” said John. “Aye. You mean to find the witch.”

“It is my first duty,” said Aubrey.

“Be careful. Witchfinder Carr’s murderer has not been found.”

“You think the two are connected?”

“How can they not be?”

“Mmmm,” said Aubrey. “Yes, we will be careful. But something must be done, and quickly, for Rebecca tells me that these young women are not afflicted by witchcraft at all.”

John felt suddenly cold. “Mean you that they are feigning affliction or that they are possessed?” Both were crimes, but one would result in a fine and a whipping, while the other meant the guilty party would be made a demoniack. Or, more accurately, would have made of herself a demoniack.

“No, there is no demon among them,” said Aubrey, “and I think it likely that the younger ones do not know that they feign, for it is not difficult for a clever person”—and here his gaze drifted to Mary Bradley again—“to turn a genuine affliction to their advantage. But I will know better once I have spoken to them.”

The door opened, and Magistrate Harcourt came in like a thundercloud. “What’s all this about a witchfinder?”

“Yes?” said Aubrey, standing up, and Magistrate Harcourt jerked to a halt as if he’d physically hit a brick wall.

“Wuh,” he said, then pulled himself together. “Witchfinder! How do you do? I am Magistrate Jonathan Harcourt.”

“Yes, I heard much of you in Marcombe-town,” said Aubrey, with no clue in face or voice as to whether what he had heard had been good or bad. “I am Witchfinder First Class Francis Aubrey, and I am here to take over your witch hunt.”

Magistrate Harcourt’s face said he wasn’t sure he liked that, while Magistrate Harcourt’s mouth said appropriately, “Of course. Anything Magistrate Curtis and I can do to help, you need only say it.”

“Excellent,” said Aubrey. “Then you can help me organize some conversations.”

“Conversations?”

“With the afflicted girls, to start,” said Aubrey.

“They sit right there,” said Harcourt with a hand-flourish.

“Not all of them at once,” Aubrey said patiently. “I need to speak with each of them privately.”

“Their afflictions are plain for all to see,” Harcourt said.

“Yes, I saw some of them,” Aubrey said. “That is why I need to speak with the young women separately.”

“Oh,” said Harcourt. “Well, all right. Goodman Pruitt has private rooms. I will bespeak you one.”

“That would be very helpful, thank you,” said Aubrey. “And then if you’ll watch them—we need to be certain that no one leaves before I have had a chance at some conversation with her.”

“Of course,” said Harcourt unenthusiastically.

“Goodman Cooper, would you like to join me?”

“Me?” John said. “But I am not…”

“You’re as close to a witchfinder as this village has,” said Aubrey, “and you know these people as I do not. Your opinion would be appreciated.”

“Of course,” John said, as unenthusiastically as Harcourt, and Aubrey gave him a sly, sidelong flicker of a smile.

“Local knowledge is of vital importance,” the witchfinder said, “and two demoniacks are better than one.”

“Is that not just a saying?”

“No, it’s quite true,” said Aubrey. “They strengthen each other’s second sight, and so each is less fatigued by her—or his—duties. You need not take an active role in the questioning.”

“You don’t want me to,” John said, “seeing as how my wife was hanged as a witch these three weeks past.”

“I am very sorry,” Aubrey said. “But I would welcome your help all the same.”

Beneath the table, Isaiah’s foot pressed against John’s in what could only be a plea. “All right,” John said, more to Isaiah than to Aubrey.

“Thank you,” said Aubrey as if he could tell.

 

3.

“The first thing,” said Aubrey when the four of them were settled in the private room, “is that I have a number of questions about the death of Witchfinder Carr.”

“The first thing,” John said, “is what did you mean, Witchfinder Carr stole Isaiah?”

Aubrey’s eyebrows rose a little, but he did not object to John’s temerity. “Isaiah was given into Augustus Carr’s care, but they were to ride circuit in Devon, not New-Albion.”

“Why in the world would he do such a thing?”

“I know not,” Aubrey said. “An he were not so inconveniently dead, I would ask him. As it is, I can only ask about the circumstances of his death and work backwards.”

“I will tell you anything I can,” said John, “but I know very little. I never met him.”

“Oh, I know everything I need to know about Augustus Carr,” Aubrey said darkly. “I just don’t know how he died.”

“He was found on the village common with his head bashed in.”

“How…barbaric,” said Aubrey. “Is there any chance that it was a Cathar attack?”

“The Cathar wouldn’t have stopped at just one.”

“I thought as much. And it wouldn’t explain what he was doing out there in any event. Isaiah? Dost thou know?”

“Witchfinder Carr advised me not of his plans,” Isaiah said.

“‘Tis not quite what I asked,” Aubrey said.

Isaiah shook his head. “I know not. He was there when I went to sleep, but he was already dead when I woke up.”

“Therefore something happened after thou didst go to sleep,” said Aubrey. “That is probably a question for Goodman Pruitt.”

“The murderer can’t have just walked in and asked to speak to Witchfinder Carr,” John said.

“No,” said Aubrey, “but it might be helpful to know what he did instead. He got Augustus out there somehow.”

“Might it have been the witch?” John said.

“Well, of course it might have been,” Aubrey said, “although I doubt it. This witch has covered their tracks well and knows it. They wouldn’t have been worried about a witchfinder second class.”

“Might they be worried about a witchfinder first class?”

“Well, they should be,” Aubrey said matter-of-factly. “But they’ve probably started listening to the demon by now—you remember the stages of entrapment.”

“Aye,” John said, although he hadn’t thought of that in years. “Temptation, bargaining, pact, seduction, and then the springing of the trap.”

“This witch is clearly somewhere in the middle of seduction. They won’t be thinking about mastering the demon yet, but the demon will certainly be working on them, and it will tell them they cannot be caught. Probably it has started giving them a taste of what possession can feel like, when it is voluntary.”

Voluntary possession let the witch feel the power of the demon as if it were their own. Once felt, it was desperately craved, and it led the witch down a path of the demon’s choosing. Isaiah and Rebecca could both have spoken to the addictive quality of possession, John knew, had he been cruel enough to ask.

“The question,” said Aubrey, “is whether I can catch the witch before the demon does. And to that end, will you tell me about the witchcraft outbreak?”

John complied as best he could, although he warned Aubrey that he knew only part of the story and was strongly biased to boot. Aubrey nodded understanding, but said, “‘Tis better than nothing,” and he listened intently as John described the fits, the witch-cake, the accusations, the examinations before Mr. Harcourt and Mr. Curtis, the trials before a full panoply of judges, the hangings. And the continued accusations.

“Has anyone confessed?” Aubrey asked.

“Only Jane,” said John, remembering her miserable cell and her thin defiant voice. “And she would recant if anyone would listen.”

“Yes,” said Aubrey. “Listening seems to be something of vanishing rareness in these proceedings. Very well. I suppose I can put it off no longer. I must speak to these afflicted girls.”

WITCHES OF NEW-ALBION: SAMUEL TOOKEY

The demon in Samuel Tookey tore the Reverend Mr. John Prescott apart with Samuel Tookey’s bare hands.

PART VI:

BETTY AND SARAH AND LYDIA AND ABIGAIL AND HANNAH AND MARY

1.

Aubrey spoke to Betty first. He quizzed her carefully about life in the parsonage before the affliction started, which (John remembered from his long-ago training) served two purposes: it relaxed the subject and it provided valuable information about the people around her, one of whom could very well be the witch. Witches didn’t afflict people they didn’t know. It was possible that someone bitterly envied Betty and Sarah Hollingsworth from afar—that was certainly the story Harcourt and Curtis, and later the judges, had insisted on telling about Rachel—but it was not likely. John had tried to tell them that, but could find no judge who would listen to him.

So Betty talked shyly about her parents and her siblings (there were three younger children who had not been afflicted at all) and about Jane, and then about her friends, of whom Lydia was the most important and most often mentioned.

“And how did you know Mary Bradley?” asked Aubrey.

“Goodwife Bradley had been ill the whole winter and Mother sent me to help nurse her. And if someone else was sitting with Goodwife Bradley, Mary let me help in the kitchen.”

“How kind,” Aubrey said dryly.

Betty didn’t notice. “And she told stories—wonderful stories, almost as good as Jane’s.”

“What were her stories about?”

“Ghost stories,” Betty said. “Stories about murder and revenge.”

“Stories about witches?”

“Sometimes,” Betty said, more cautiously.

“Witches make for good stories,” Aubrey said mildly.

“I used to think so, but now that I have been afflicted, I don’t want to hear stories about witches any more.”

“Being in the story is much less entertaining.”

“Aye,” Betty said with a great deal of feeling, and Aubrey wisely used the moment to shift the subject to the afflictions and the specters. Betty answered his questions willingly, even as they became more and more precise—more and more like something an examining witchfinder would ask a student in an oral exam. Aye, the specters could talk; no, they never identified themselves. Mostly they threatened.

“Threatened what?”

“To throw me in the fire or to tear me to pieces. Horrible things.”

“What do they want you to do?”

“How do you know they want me to do anything?” she said in surprise.

“I have seen a great many afflictions,” Aubrey said. “Some specters threaten not. The ones that do always want something.”

“They want me to become a witch. To make a pact with the demon. I’d rather be thrown in the fire, and I told them so, but they just keep pushing.”

“Indeed,” said Aubrey. “Do they promise you things?”

“They promise me all sorts of things,” Betty said with a very adult tiredness. “But nothing I want.”

“All the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them,” Aubrey said thoughtfully. “You are lucky. Or remarkable. Take Rebecca’s hand.”

Betty obediently did so, and Rebecca immediately shook her head. “She is not a witch.”

 

2.

Sarah Hollingsworth was in tears when she came into the room.

“Here now,” said Aubrey, “‘tis no need for that. You aren’t in trouble.”

“Father says we must be very wicked, that God punishes us so,” Sarah said.

John said, “Your father thinks the whole village is wicked. Not just you.” And then remembered his intention to let Aubrey work without interruption.

“Well, we must be, mustn’t we?”

“The only wicked person in your village is the witch,” Aubrey said. “Tell me about your afflictions, Sarah.”

“I am pinched and pricked with needles and my limbs are twisted. Sometimes the specters choke me. Sometimes I feel that I must run, so much that it hurts. And I have fits.”

“What is a fit like?”

“‘Tis like someone tearing your bowels out,” Sarah said. “You can’t help but yell and all the strength goes out of your knees, and you can’t breathe and you can’t keep from moving even though it doesn’t help. ‘Tis horrid.”

“And you see specters who hurt you.”

“Aye, but I can’t tell who they are. Not until Betty says.”

“Do they talk to you?”

“No,” Sarah said. “Betty says they want her to become a witch, but they never say anything to me.”

“Ah,” Aubrey said thoughtfully. “Will you take Rebecca’s hand?”

Sarah took Rebecca’s hand without hesitation. Rebecca said, “She is not a witch.”

 

3.

After Sarah left the room, Aubrey turned to John and said, “What should I make of the Hollingsworth girls?”

“They are the minister’s daughters,” John said. “They’ve always been obedient and respectful.”

“From what they said, their father sounds exceedingly strict, both with his children and with his congregation.”

“The Reverend Mr. Hollingsworth is a man who knows his own righteousness,” John said, a little more dryly than he’d meant to.

“Is he?” said Aubrey. “That makes a good deal of sense. And probably explains why the witch picked his daughters to torment.”

“You think the witch is an enemy of Mr. Hollingsworth?”

“That is my current construal of the situation. Does anyone spring to mind?”

“Too many,” John said. “He is not quarrelsome, exactly, but he is a man who striveth with the whole earth. He has been at odds with Goodman Briggs for years, and Briggs’s family is large and widespread. But Briggs is far too canny to make a pact with a demon.”

“So we have increased our knowledge but not advanced our cause,” said Aubrey. “I do think, though, that making Betty Hollingsworth a witch is something this person feels is a suitable revenge on Mr. Hollingsworth, so let us keep that in mind. All right. Let’s talk to the next girl.”

 

4.

Next was Lydia Byfield, plain-faced and earnest. Never was anyone so patently going to end up being just like her mother as Lydia Byfield—which was no bad thing. Mistress Joanna Byfield was a loyal wife and loving mother, a faithful member of the church. John found her a trifle dull, but even that could be seen as a virtue. If the girls’ afflictions came not from demons but from their own minds, dullness might even be a blessing.

Certainly Lydia was the last person John would have expected to imagine anything of this sort. But it was no secret that she followed where Betty Hollingsworth led—apparently even as far as becoming afflicted by the Marcombe witch. John thought about that while Aubrey talked to Lydia, and about what Aubrey had said about looking for the witch among Mr. Hollingsworth’s enemies. Such persons were profusely strewn among the hills and vales of Marcombe-village, but perhaps a finer net might catch a fish: an enemy both of Mr. Hollingsworth and of Mr. Byfield. Goodman Briggs came to mind again, but John stood by his first assessment. Goodman Briggs was no fool—nor was he the sort of person who would attack a man through his children. But could the same be said of all of his family? There, John was not so sure.

Aubrey was eliciting a list from Lydia of all the specters that had afflicted her thus far and what they had said to her. Since both Rachel and Tamsin were on that list, it seemed a poor moment for John to remind Lydia of his existence. Instead, he listened and thought, for the first time, Someone chose these women. Goodwife Susannah Rush and Goodwife Maria Godwin—and maybe Jane Cathar, although that had sounded more like Mr. Hollingsworth’s choice than the witch’s. Someone picked them out to be the first specters Betty and Sarah and Lydia saw after the foolishness of the witch-cake. And while some of that might have been expediency—Jane was convenient in a number of ways—the fact remained that when this person had cast about them for women to scapegoat, they chose Goodwife Rush and Goodwife Godwin and Jane Cathar. And that might be meaningful, too.

Goodwife Rush, with her weaver husband and five children, was one of the poorer inhabitants of Marcombe-village. She had had a reputation for ill-wishing people, but never anything strong enough to suggest a demon might be involved.

Goodwife Godwin was even poorer than Goodwife Rush, although she had started out as Maria Fisher, the daughter of one of Marcombe-town’s more prosperous merchants. John did not know the full story, but he knew enough of it. When Mr. Fisher died, the estate went to Maria’s stepmother, who promptly remarried. Nor Maria nor any of her full siblings, despite challenging the will and suing her stepmother and everything else they could think of, saw more than five pounds each of Mr. Fisher’s money. And Maria Fisher had not married well, partly because she had no dower. Her first husband had been an honest man, but an unlucky one (as, for example, he married a wealthy merchant’s daughter but did not profit by it). When he died and she married Stephen Godwin, her fortunes had taken another skidding step downward, for Stephen Godwin, while handsome and engaging (and no doubt willing to promise a woman anything she wanted), was a ne’er do well, who worked a day here and a day there, but not enough to support a wife—certainly not enough to support the children that followed. The Godwins existed mostly on charity, and Maria Godwin was known throughout Marcombe-village for how ungraciously she took kindness. She was a shrew and a scold, a contentious woman, and she muttered under her breath at people whether they were kind to her or not.

So Goodwife Rush and Goodwife Godwin were the women most likely to come up in conversations about witches, the women of whom it was almost plausible to say that they were afflicting the minister’s daughters. And Jane, aside from being on the spot, aside from being the person who had baked Mistress Huxley’s foolish witch-cake, was a slave and a Cathar. She was an easy target, just as Goodwife Rush and Goodwife Godwin were.

The next round of witch-suspects, which included Rachel, had come after Mary Bradley had started to have fits, and John was not sure that the witch’s hand could still be seen in those choices: Goodwife Thompson and her husband, Goodwife Sutter, Goodwife Holly, and Rachel—poor barren Rachel who loved children. That, so far as John knew, was the only thing that made her a plausible suspect, but she hadn’t hidden her envy well enough, and any woman in the village with a child who sickened mysteriously thought immediately of Goodwife Cooper.

About the others, he wasn’t sure if there was even that much straw to make bricks out of. But the Thompsons were the Bradleys’ neighbors, and there might be all kinds of grudges there that no one knew about except the parties involved. Goodwife Sutter (like Tamsin) had successfully raised a number of children, and with her husband managed a thriving farm, and he supposed an orphaned girl working as a servant in her relatives’ house could envy that just as much as anyone else could. And Goodwife Holly…no, he knew nothing about Goodwife Holly that might inspire someone to make it seem as if she were a witch. But perhaps she had seemed like a safe target. She wasn’t a Briggs, with family in every crevice and corner of Luth County. She wasn’t a Byfield, with the money to defend anyone accused. She was just an ordinary farmer’s wife.

“…and then Goodwife Ratcliff yesterday morning and again today,” Lydia finished.

“That is a very impressive list,” said Aubrey. “How do you know who the specters are? Can you see their faces clearly?”

“Not always,” said Lydia, “but I describe what I can see, and Betty or Mary knows who it is. Mary knows everyone.”

“Ah,” said Aubrey. “Thank you, Lydia, you have been very helpful. Will you take Rebecca’s hand?”

Lydia hesitated, but did as she was asked.

“Not a witch,” said Rebecca.

 

5.

Abigail Reed came in with her chin at a defiant angle and said, before Aubrey had said anything, “We do see specters.”

“Of course you do,” Aubrey said, genuinely surprised or faking it well. “I wouldn’t dream of claiming otherwise.”

“Then why talk to us separately?”

“So that I may hear each of you answer, rather than merely hearing Mary Bradley.”

“Mary doesn’t…” Abigail started, but native honesty stopped her.

“It is quite clear,” Aubrey said, “that Mary Bradley is the ruler of your little coven.”

“We are not a coven!”

“Only in that you are not witches. You have banded together to do evil, and that is very much the definition of the word.”

“We aren’t doing evil!” Abigail said, but she sounded less certain.

“Then you truly believe that everyone you have accused of witchcraft is a witch? And that there are such a grievous number of witches in Marcombe-village?”

Abigail said nothing.

“Has it not occurred to any of you that the witch is creating false specters?”

“Judge Whitney says they can’t.”

Aubrey made an exasperated noise. “And how would he know? Is he a witchfinder, in sooth?”

“He is a very learned man,” Abigail said, almost timidly.

“That does not make him a witchfinder, and I regret for all of Marcombe-village that apparently he thinks it does. I will have to speak to him and the rest of the judges soon, but first I would very much like to find this witch. Take Rebecca’s hand.”

Abigail did, although she looked as if she thought Rebecca’s flesh might burn her.

“No,” said Rebecca. “She is not a witch.”

Abigail Reed fled.

 

6.

Hannah Glover, like Sarah Hollingsworth, was weeping before she even got in the door. Aubrey was much sterner with her than he had been with Sarah, and he got more out of her than she probably realized she was telling him, because every time she opened her mouth, the words “Mary says” or “Mary thinks” came out of it.

She was a fool, John decided. But the touch-test proved she wasn’t a witch.

 

7.

When the door closed behind Hannah Glover, Aubrey let out a prodigious sigh. “I don’t know why I’m always so surprised that affliction is contagious.”

“In truth?” said John. “Not just in stories?”

“No,” Aubrey said. “A witch need only afflict one person in order to create a linked chain—in this case, Betty to Sarah, Lydia, and Mary, and Mary to Hannah and Abigail. An we do not find the witch soon, there will be more. The more often the afflicted girls have their fits in public, the more likely it is that someone new will join them.”

“Like Goody Kimball,” John said, remembering. “So the witch need only afflict Betty and the rest afflict themselves?”

“Correct,” said Aubrey, “although it’s probable that her specters attacked Lydia more than once. Specters who talk are usually real. But certainly she—or he—had no need to attack Sarah or Hannah or any of the others. The poison of affliction spread easily from girl to girl until it found Mary Bradley.”

“What happened then?” John said uneasily.

“Let us see if we can get her to tell us,” said Aubrey and went to the door to tell Magistrate Harcourt to bring Mary Bradley in.

 

8.

Mary Bradley was not about to forget that John was in the room. He saw the way her gaze caught on him when she came in, saw the way that, even though she was placed with her back mostly to him, she turned her head so that she could see him out of the corner of her eye.

John found his mouth had gone dry, and he was glad he didn’t have to try to talk to her. Because what did you say to the girl who had murdered your wife?

She shall have her part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death. Although what comfort was that, when Mary Bradley was alive and Rachel was not?

Aubrey said, “Good day, Mary Bradley.”

“Good day, witchfinder,” she said.

“I have some questions.”

“Then I must answer them, mustn’t I?”

Aubrey’s head tilted a little. “Yes, actually, you must, or you’ll be thrown in jail with all the people you have accused.”

“Is that a threat, witchfinder?”

“You should probably understand it as one. But, no, ‘tis not a threat. Just the truth. And I would appreciate it if you would tell me the truth in return.”

“What makes you think I wouldn’t?” said Mary Bradley, with a toss of her head like a brittle parody of flirtation.

“You’ve been telling lies for quite some time now,” Aubrey said, and there was nothing accusatory in his voice, just simple, quiet facts. “Thou givest thy mouth to evil, and thy tongue frameth deceit. You’re responsible for the deaths of two women, and I wonder if you may not have made a pact with a demon yourself.”

“I have done nothing of the sort!” She sounded offended, but there was also the faintest hint of fear in her voice.

“No?” said Aubrey. “How else do you explain your effect on Mr. Harcourt and Mr. Curtis, not to mention Mr. Whitney and the other judges?”

“I know not what you mean.”

“But you do, you know. What makes your testimony so compelling, Mary, if ‘tis not the influence of a demon?”

“You can’t tell such lies about me!” she said. John could see just enough of her face to recognize the burgeoning, incredulous fear in her expression and to be savagely pleased by it.

“But I’m not telling anything,” Aubrey said. “I’m asking questions. And I will not be the last one to do so.”

“You can’t prove I’m a witch!”

“There would be justice in it an I did. But no. Take Rebecca’s hand.”

Mary Bradley did so as reluctantly as a woman asked to kiss a toad. “She is not a witch,” Rebecca said.

“There, you see?” said Aubrey. “You are not a witch. It remains to be determined what it is you are, though. Did you plan this, Mary? Did you set out to be a murderer? Or are you a swimmer out past your depth who can see nothing to do but keep swimming?”

Mary Bradley shook her head; John could see the tears running down her face. “I can’t tell you,” she said. “The witch won’t let me.”

“Oh nonsense,” said Aubrey. “This has nothing to do with the witch.”

“But I do see specters,” she objected. “Perhaps you are right and Judge Whitney is wrong, and they are not the specters of the people they seem, but I still see them.”

“And they, what? Tell you not to talk to me or they’ll tear you to pieces?”

“They—” She half rose from her chair, then, howling in pain, she dropped to the floor and began to thrash.

“I wondered when this would happen,” Aubrey said. “Whoever it may be who doesn’t want Mary to talk to me, whether a specter, a witch, or Mary herself, this is a splendid way to buy time. Rebecca? Isaiah? Is there a specter?”

“No,” said Rebecca.

“No,” said Isaiah, half a breath behind.

“‘Tis Mercy Hayward, is it not, Mary?” John said, leaning forward. “You saw what happened to Mercy.”

“Which was?” said Aubrey.

“Mercy was one of the afflicted,” John said. “She and Mary began seeing specters at about the same time. But after Rachel…after my wife and Goodwife Rush were hanged, Mercy tried to recant. She stopped having fits and started saying that the afflicted were merely suffering from delusions. She was immediately accused of witchcraft and thrown in jail, where she still is, waiting for even a preliminary examination. And where she will stay until Judge Whitney decides to do something with her.”

“Assuming that Marcombe jail is no better than any of the jails I’ve seen—”

“‘Tis not.”

“Then that is cruel punishment for trying to do an honorable thing, and a great deal of power for one man to hold over the narrative of what is happening here in Marcombe-village.”

Mary Bradley had stopped thrashing and yelling, and was now lying crumpled on the floor, sobbing as if her heart would break.

John’s heart was already broken; he had little in him to spare for pity for Mary Bradley. “Did he tell you he would throw you in jail? Or did he not need to?”

And she answered, her voice a dry croak, “He said…he said that what happened to Mercy could happen to any of us.”

“I suppose that would be enough,” Aubrey said to John.

“Aye,” said John. “Because there is nothing to promise that what happened to Rachel will not happen to Mercy.”

“No,” Aubrey agreed. “I perceive that my next step must be to speak to Mr. Whitney. Does he live in Marcombe-town or Varnham?”

“Marcombe-town,” said John. “He is one of its most distinguished citizens.”

“I would imagine so,” Aubrey said, and John couldn’t tell whether he was being sarcastic or not.

WITCHES OF NEW-ALBION: MARY AND JANE WINTHROP

The Reverend Mr. Ezekiel Stafford wrote a book about the witch sisters Mary and Jane Winthrop entitled Strange and Memorable Circumstances Relating to the Recent Witchcraft Outbreak in Dolliver. He prayed with the Winthrops at the gallows, and they went to their deaths sincerely repenting their witchcraft and praising the name of Jesus Christ.

PART VII: NIGHT

John had to return home to milk Flora and Nell. To his surprise, Aubrey seemed to take this as a reason not to go to Marcombe-town, even though there was enough daylight left to make it there, and unlike Marcombe-village, where there was only Pruitt’s ordinary, Marcombe-town had a number of inns. But Aubrey said, “No, I don’t want to encounter Judge Whitney without your assistance.” He and Rebecca took Pruitt’s best room, and John and Isaiah took Apple and Peach and rode home.

Neither John nor Isaiah spoke beyond the bare minimum of words until much later that night, lying side by side in the bed John had shared with Rachel, John as blind in the darkness as Isaiah was.

Isaiah said, “Witchfinder Aubrey is going to take me back to Albion.”

“Aye,” John said.

“You’re an abolitionist.”

“A very bad one. I should have refused to speak to Witchfinder Aubrey.”

“And leave Goodwife Ratcliff to hang?” Isaiah said. He sounded interested, rather than horrified.

“I fear ‘tis what she herself would tell me to do. Tamsin is not one for compromise.”

“She would rather innocent people continue to be hanged than that you assist a witchfinder?”

“‘Twould be a heated conversation,” John said.

A silence, then Isaiah said, “What do abolitionists believe should be done with demoniacks? I never cared to find out before I became one myself. Now, of course, I cannot learn unless someone agrees to teach me, and no witchfinder is going to do such a thing.”

“There is much argument. Some people say demoniacks should be hanged as witches are. Others say they should go free, just as they want Black and Cathar slaves to go free.”

“Would they want us blinded first? The evil eye is quite real, and if its use did not cause violent headaches, no demoniack would ever be caught.”

John sighed, thinking of the hours and hours of debate on this exact question through which he had sat. “I know not. They know not. There are too many factions to count, and, although I had ardent ideas as a young man, I no longer know which I believe. But most of them want to reform you.”

Isaiah laughed, a harsh sound in the dark. “Do they not know how the witchfinders pray over us? When they are not beating us, of course. We are bludgeoned with prayer, and many demoniacks succumb.”

“Like Rebecca?” John said. It was a guess, but no one would choose to go after a rogue witchfinder with an undependable demoniack.

“Rebecca?” Isaiah said bitterly. “Oh, Rebecca’s a good little witch-hound. Meek and grateful. All the witchfinders hope they end up with Rebecca and pray they do not end up with me.” 

John said nothing.

“It matters not,” said Isaiah. “I was asking what the abolitionists would do with us, when we were free. They would have to blind us, you know. I wouldn’t trust even Rebecca with the evil eye.”

“Even with the headaches?”

“Even with the headaches,” said Isaiah. “Demoniacks are demoniacks because we crave power. It is in fact a very apt punishment to make us slaves. Far more apt than enslaving people because of the color of their skin.”

“You would be an abolitionist yourself?”

“Being myself a slave? Yes. It is a wretched condition even with a kind master. And very few people are kind to their belongings.” He stopped, then said nervously, “But I’m talking too much.”

“‘Tis not as you’re saying things I knew not,” John said. “‘Tis why I left the Witchfinder Authority, after all. And I’m hardly going to betray you to Aubrey.”

“You could,” Isaiah said.

“I could,” John said. “But I won’t.” And then the question that was burning a hole straight through him: “Did you know?”

“Did I know what?”

“That Augustus Carr had orders to take you to Devon, not New-Albion.”

“No,” Isaiah said. “I knew not. It never occurred to me that anyone could steal a demoniack. But it was quite easy, after all.”

“What reason could he have had?”

“I know not,” Isaiah said. “He spoke to me but little and never of his plans.” He yawned. “Forgive me, Goodman Cooper. The draught is working.”

“Then sleep,” John said, but it was a long time before he slept himself.

WITCHES OF NEW-ALBION: JOHN CUNNINGHAM

The demoniack John Cunningham killed no one, but was hanged all the same.

PART VIII: JUDGE JOHN WHITNEY

1.

Judge Whitney had one of the most impressive houses in Marcombe-town, three stories and six gables, with a cupola. Aubrey was unimpressed, but knocked briskly on the door.

A maidservant opened it and gaped at the witchfinder standing on the door stone.

“I would speak with Judge Whitney,” said Aubrey. “Is he at home?”

“Aye,” the girl said and after a long hesitation, managed, “Please come in.”

John and Isaiah followed Aubrey and Rebecca into the house.

Judge Whitney was already coming down the stairs, saying, “Hepzibah? Who is it?”

The girl said, “A witchfinder,” and fled to the back of the house.

“A witchfinder? Don’t be ridiculous, there are…”

“No witchfinders in the colonies,” Aubrey finished. “I regret being so disobliging, but I am, in fact, here.”

“How…how have you come so quickly? The first witchfinder was killed less than a week ago. The news will not reach Albion for months.” Judge Whitney looked like he suspected witchcraft had been involved.

“Ah,” said Aubrey. “I didn’t come in response to Witchfinder Carr’s murder. I came to find Witchfinder Carr and discover why he had taken himself and his demoniack to New-Albion without instructions or permission.”

“He wasn’t here on the orders of the Witchfinder Authority?” Judge Whitney said, frowning. “But he must have been. He—that is, why else would he come?”

“‘Tis a question I would love to be able to answer,” said Aubrey, “but sadly cannot. Which leaves me with a two-pronged problem. On the one hand, Witchfinder Carr’s murderer must clearly be brought to justice. On the other, there is a witch in Marcombe-village, and it is my duty to find them.”

“I will, of course, be glad to help in any way I can—”

“Splendid!” said Aubrey. “The first thing I require is a gathering of all the suspects currently in custody.”

“A gathering? Whatever for?”

“I have a demoniack,” Aubrey said. “Well, actually, I have two. And the first thing that must be done is to discover whether any of these people is in fact a witch.”

“They’re all witches,” Judge Whitney said, bristling.

“They can’t be,” Aubrey said. “Not if your afflicted continue to have fits, as I understand that they do.”

“That merely means that there is another witch, not that none of the people in custody is one.”

“You have fifty people in custody,” Aubrey said. “It strains the bounds of credulity that this many people in this small an area have turned to witchcraft all at the same time, and all of them in order to torment Mr. Hollingsworth’s daughters. If you did have this many witches, at least one of them would have found something better to do with their time.”

“Are you suggesting,” Judge Whitney began, his voice gaining volume.

“That you are wrong?” Aubrey cut him off again. “I’m quite sure you are. You’ve been wrong from the beginning.”

“How dare you say that?”

Aubrey was unmoved by Judge Whitney’s courtroom voice, which had reduced most of the people brought before him to tears and incoherency. “I am a witchfinder first class and know better than to trust spectral evidence. Demons can assume any shape they please. The more certain the afflicted are that they have seen the face of their tormenter, the more assured you can be that that person is innocent. I would simply tell you to release all your jailed suspects, but there is a slight possibility that one of them is guilty of some other piece of witchcraft.”

“You can’t just—”

“Oh, but I can, for I do have the orders of the Witchfinder Authority behind me.”

“I want to see your papers,” Judge Whitney growled, but the set of his shoulders said he knew he was already defeated.

“Of course,” Aubrey said and produced a wallet secured with a leather thong. He opened it and handed it to Judge Whitney, who looked like he wanted to throw it down and stomp on it. But he examined Aubrey’s credentials, nodded in visibly reluctant satisfaction, and handed it back.

“They’re not all here,” he said. “Marcombe jail isn’t big enough.”

“Then send constables to fetch them,” said Aubrey, “and I will start with the ones you have.”

 

2.

John wondered, not kindly, how long it had been since Judge Whitney had had to do what someone else told him to. Proud, haughty, and scornful is his name that worketh in his arrogancy wrath. 

 Aubrey’s manner did not invite argument, and Judge Whitney made none, but it somehow took a very long time before they left the judge’s house and went to the Town House; the second-floor courtroom was the best place in Marcombe-town to put large groups of people. John sat with Isaiah and Rebecca while the Marcombe-town constables brought people from the jail and then were sent scurrying to the other jails—Bexley and Newhaven and even the wretched little lock-up in Marcombe-village—to bring more.

Aubrey waited until the last constable was on his way to Bexley, then came to where John and Isaiah and Rebecca were sitting and said, “Come, Rebecca.”

She stood up silently and extended her hand for Aubrey to take. Aubrey went back with her to the middle of the room and said to the anxious people, “I am Francis Aubrey, a witchfinder first class. Today, we are going to discover whether any of you is a witch.”

A murmuring rustle, then Goodwife Thompson called out boldly, “What must we do?”

“I think it will be simplest,” said Aubrey, “if you stay where you are and I bring the demoniack to you.” He and Rebecca began going from person to person. John sat and hated Judge John Whitney, but after a few minutes, he thought of something. He got up, pulling Isaiah with him, and crossed to where Aubrey and Rebecca were proving the innocence of a family—mother, daughter, granddaughter. John said, “I need to talk to Mercy Hayward.”

“All right,” Aubrey said. He turned back toward the center of the room and raised his voice to shout, “Mercy Hayward! Are you here?”

A moment’s frozen silence as a room full of anxious people racked their consciences, then near the back, a girl waved her hand. “I’m Mercy Hayward.”

“Thank you,” John said to Aubrey. Then he and Isaiah picked a path through the collected “witches” to where Mercy Hayward was leaning against a pillar.

She had only been in Marcombe jail for two weeks; she was still recognizable. “Mercy?” he said. “I’m John Cooper.”

“You’re Goodwife Cooper’s husband,” Mercy said

“Aye,” John said. “I would speak with you, an you agree.”

There was a pause, long enough that when she drew in a breath, he feared it was for the purpose of saying no. But then she let that breath out again in a sigh. “What can I do for you, Goodman Cooper?”

“You were one of the afflicted at one time,” John said.

“Aye,” Mercy agreed, frowning. “But I renounced it.”

“I know you did,” John said, “and ‘twas very brave of you. What did Judge Whitney say when he threw you in jail?”

Her eyes flicked toward the front of the room, where Judge Whitney sat scowling behind the table.

“He can’t harm you now,” John said. “And he can’t hear you. Not unless you shout, which I pray you not to do.”

That got the barest hint of a smile. She said, “Well, first he said that I couldn’t recant.”

“Why not?”

“Because if the afflictions weren’t true, all of us were murderers. I said I didn’t care—and I didn’t. Goodwife Rush and Goodwife Cooper are dead, and ‘tis because I said I saw them.”

“Did you not see them?”

“I know not,” Mercy said, misery clear in her voice. “I saw specters shaped like women. Mary said they were Goodwife Rush and Goodwife Cooper and they had made bargains with the demons and it was our duty to denounce them. So I agreed, and I shouldn’t have. And then we had to go to the meetinghouse and I was so scared. Mary said, just do as I do, and, may God help me, I did. And it was worse here—at the trial, I mean. There was so much noise, and I was afflicted, pricked with pins so much I couldn’t think. And afterwards, Mary swore it was Goodwife Rush and Goodwife Cooper she saw afflicting me, and I believed her.” Mercy stopped and swallowed hard. “I am so sorry, Goodman Cooper. I believed her even though I knew Mary Bradley to be a liar. I believed her because I was scared. And I was more scared after the hangings, because Mary said if I thought she was lying, then I must think she was a murderer. And if she was a murderer, so was I. But when I saw the trials were going to go on, I could not abide it on my conscience, and I told Judge Whitney so.”

“And he did not say, for instance, we must stop the executions?”

“No. First he said recanting your testimony makes you a murderer. I said I didn’t care. Then he said if you recant your testimony, it must be because you have made a deal with a demon yourself, and you want your demonic sisters free to go on afflicting people, and he called Mary in and she fell down screaming on the spot. And I was put in Marcombe jail.”

“So it was the two of them,” John said.

“Aye. They both knew the spectral evidence was false.”

“And yet they proceeded,” John said, looking thoughtfully at Judge Whitney. The haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and the hands that shed innocent blood.

“Mary is terrified of Judge Whitney,” Mercy said.

“Aye. But what about Judge John Whitney himself? What reason could he have?”

“What I have heard,” Mercy said carefully, “‘tis that Judge Whitney is a man who has never admitted a mistake. And that to do it now, after two women have hanged, would destroy his career.”

“It might do worse than that. He could end up in jail himself.”

“Goodman Endicott says the judge has always been prideful.”

“Pride is as a chain unto them, and cruelty covereth them as a garment,” John said. “But pride goeth before destruction. Thank you, Mercy. You have been very helpful.” There were many other things he wanted to say to Mercy Hayward, but he bit his tongue. From the look in her eyes, she had already said them all to herself.

 

3.

When Aubrey and Rebecca had cleared everyone in the room of being a witch, including Mercy Hayward and Jane Cathar, John caught Aubrey’s sleeve and said, “You’re a witchfinder. Are you also a magistrate?”

Aubrey looked at him in alarm.

“Otherwise I have to go to Varnham to find someone who will listen when I call Judge Whitney a murderer.”

“His decisions in the Court of Oyer and Terminer aren’t—”

“Not that,” John said, much as he wanted to declare Judge Whitney and Mary Bradley guilty of Rachel’s murder. “He murdered Augustus Carr.”

“That is a very interesting statement,” said Aubrey. “What makes you think that?”

John recounted his conversation with Mercy Hayward.

“All right,” Aubrey said. “You have proved a motive. But you still have to explain how he got Augustus out onto the common—and how did he even know Augustus was here?”

“Magistrate Curtis told him,” Isaiah said.

“And how dost thou know that?” Aubrey said.

“He said he was going to at the end of his conversation with Witchfinder Carr. He was going to go to Marcombe-town and tell Judge Whitney and Judge Spencer.”

Aubrey looked at John. “So why do you not point at Magistrate Curtis?”

“It might be him,” John said. “But I think that he is zealous, rather than aware that what he does is evil. We know that Whitney knows.”

“Still,” said Aubrey. “Are you saying Whitney came to Marcombe-village in the dark? And how did he entice Augustus out of doors without anyone the wiser?”

“I think he came to Marcombe-village as soon as there was enough light to see the road. And I think if we asked Ephraim—Pruitt’s bond servant—we might find that he knows more than he has told. ‘Twould be easy for Judge Whitney to bully Ephraim.”

“But how did he wake Augustus without waking Isaiah?”

John explained about Isaiah’s nightmares and the green draught. “It takes some time to work, but he sleeps soundly and is hard to rouse.”

“This is all very speculative,” Aubrey said. “Do you have any reason other than motive to think it’s Judge Whitney?”

“We could ask his maidservant,” John suggested. “She’d know when he left the house that morning.”

“Meaning you don’t.”

“No, but I think I can find out. And I would rather Whitney be in custody while I search.”

“He’s not in custody,” said Aubrey, “but he’ll be here the rest of the day. Go find your proof. Isaiah can stay with me and support Rebecca.”

“Could I not go with Goodman Cooper?” Isaiah said. “He might need—”

“Isaiah. Hold thy tongue or lose it.”

Isaiah bowed his head in submission; John reminded himself that Isaiah was a demoniack (and Tamsin in his head said, chattel slavery is chattel slavery) and left him with his master.

WITCHES OF NEW-ALBION: AGATHA FORDHAM

The Quaker Agatha Fordham was hanged as a witch, but was not one.

PART VIII: PROOF

1.

Her name was Hepzibah Johnson. She was sixteen years old, and she was scared to death of Judge Whitney, who apparently threatened to throw her in jail any time she displeased him. She didn’t want to talk to John at all, and he wouldn’t have gotten in the house if Mistress Whitney hadn’t heard voices and come out to investigate.

Mistress Whitney was a second (or possibly third) wife, a good thirty years younger than the Judge. She was also heavily pregnant, and she looked like someone who wanted a distraction from her own body. “Please come in,” she said, “and tell me your errand.”

John followed her into the parlor, where the furniture was oppressive with wealth. John sat cautiously on a settle and waited until Mistress Whitney had disposed herself as comfortably as she could in one of the fancy chairs, with Hepzibah standing behind it, before he began his explanation.

Mistress Whitney listened intently and without interrupting, even when John admitted that he was a witch’s widower. When he had finished, she said, “Please don’t go away. I will be back directly.”

John, having watched Tamsin go through pregnancy seven times, understood and waited with the best patience he could muster.

Mistress Whitney returned and Hepzibah helped her settle herself, not entirely comfortably, in her chair. “You are seeking the witch?” said Mistress Whitney.

“Aye,” said John.

“I hope you don’t expect to find her here.”

“No. I know the witch is in Marcombe-village.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Well,” John said, somewhat apologetically, “there is also the murderer.”

She was not a stupid woman. He could see her putting the pieces together. “And you have come here,” she said slowly. Then, suddenly brisk: “You must have a question for me, Goodman Cooper. What is it?”

He was grateful that she did not want to pussyfoot around the subject. “Do you know where your husband was on Friday morning?”

“You think he was not at home?”

“I know not. ‘Tis why I ask.”

“Friday.” She thought back, frowning. “He was gone when I woke up.”

“When was that?”

“A little past sunrise.”

“Where might he have gone?”

“I have no idea. Mr. Whitney does not encourage questions about his movements.”

Or anything else, to judge by her tone.

“Where did you think he had gone?”

“I don’t know that I thought about it.” She did not say the rest of it, but John didn’t need her to. She had just been glad that Judge Whitney was somewhere else.

“When did you first see him on Friday?”

“He came home for dinner at noon. He said not where he had been, but he has many friends, and I assumed he had breakfasted with one of them.”

“Thank you, Mistress Whitney. Think you that Hepzibah might know anything more?”

“‘Tis a simple matter to find out. Hepzibah?”

“He left the house while I was kneading the bread. ‘Twas still dark outside.”

“Said he anything?” John asked.

“Aye,” said Hepzibah and met his eyes steadily. “He said he’d throw me in jail if I told anyone he was gone.”

 

2.

Ephraim Dummer was fifteen. He’d been bound out to Goodman Pruitt when his father died, his father not having been provident enough to make a better arrangement. At that, Ephraim had probably fared the best of Ezekiel Dummer’s six children. He liked horses (better than people, Goodwife Pruitt said with a sniff), and he was able to spend almost all his time with them.

Ephraim was shy and spoke as little as possible—people made stupid jokes about the appropriateness of his surname—so John thought carefully as he rode from Marcombe-town to Marcombe-village about how best to get Ephraim talking. Horses were clearly the place to start, so when he reached Pruitt’s ordinary, instead of yelling for Ephraim to come take his horse, John dismounted and led Apple into the stable.

Ephraim appeared out of nowhere and said, “Help you, Goodman Cooper?”

“Aye,” John said. “I’m thinking of selling Witchfinder Carr’s horse, and I wanted your opinion of her.”

“What mean you?” Ephraim said warily, taking Apple’s reins.

“Was she mareish at all?”

“No,” Ephraim said.

“Any bad habits that you saw?”

“No.”

“Well, she wasn’t here very long, was she?”

“Just over the one night. But she was friendly and she didn’t crib. And she wasn’t girthy at all when I tacked her for you next day.”

“What more can you ask for from a mare?” John said.

After a moment, Ephraim realized John was joking and smiled back. “I know not how she goes under saddle,” Ephraim said, “but she seems a nice little mare.”

“Good,” said John. “Thank you. You sleep out in the stable?”

“Aye,” Ephraim said, wary again.

“‘Tis nothing you’ve done,” John said. “I wondered if you saw Judge Spencer’s horse that Friday morning.”

“Not Judge Spencer’s horse. But you can’t mistake Judge Whitney’s big gray. That and the judge has the fanciest tack in Marcombe-town.”

“True enough,” said John. He’d noticed that at Rachel’s trial. “So Judge Whitney was here that morning.”

Ephraim said nothing.

John considered. “Did he pay you not to say he was here?”

Ephraim said nothing.

“‘Tis all right,” John said. “I can guess the rest. He paid you to take a message to Witchfinder Carr and to say nothing about it. There didn’t seem any harm in it, did there? And then, when you found out what had happened, it seemed like it was too late.”

Ephraim said nothing.

“But you’re sure of the horse?”

“Sure as anything,” said Ephraim Dummer.

WITCHES OF NEW-ALBION: HENRY CALDWELL

The witch Henry Caldwell bargained with his own blood to get the demon to help him escape from Marcombe jail. He was never found.

PART X: THE MURDERER

That morning, John had finally done what he should have done days ago and asked his across-the-stream neighbor, Goodman Chandler, to take care of Flora and Nell, meaning that for once he was free of the rhythm of their milking and could take a look at the sky and decide to return to Marcombe-town that evening.

It was late afternoon when John made it back to the Town House, and there was the entire collection of Marcombe-town constables. Aubrey and Rebecca and Isaiah had just finished with the last of the witches, the ones that had been brought from Bexley.

John crossed to where Aubrey was standing at the bar, one arm almost protectively around Rebecca (who looked exhausted), the other tethering Isaiah.

“Goodman Cooper,” said Aubrey. “What word?”

John gave him a brief, low-voiced summary of his discussions with Mistress Whitney and Hepzibah Johnson and Ephraim Dummer. The fifty people who had just been proved not to be witches were making enough noise that Judge Whitney probably couldn’t have heard him anyway.

“That certainly seems like something the judge needs to explain,” said Aubrey.

“I know it is not direct evidence,” John said, “but—”

“I’m a witchfinder, not a judge,” Aubrey said. “I don’t need two witnesses to tell me Judge Whitney murdered Augustus Carr, although I would be very pleased to get a confession.”

“Unlikely,” said John.

“Oh, I know,” said Aubrey. “Here, Rebecca, Isaiah, stay with Goodman Cooper for a moment.”

Taking one demoniack on each arm, John thought that he did not blame Aubrey for wanting to keep them well away from Judge Whitney.

Then Aubrey strode up to the dais and the table and said in a carrying voice, “Mr. John Whitney, I fear I must charge you with the murder of Witchfinder Second Class Augustus Carr.”

“Don’t be absurd,” said Judge Whitney, but John saw the knot of constables over by the door pivot as if one man to stare at Aubrey.

“Oh, I’m not,” said Aubrey. “Or you killed him or you saw it done.”

The judge scowled at him. “Why think you I was even in Marcombe-village that morning?”

“Someone saw your horse,” Aubrey said. “Your unmistakable horse.”

“Who?” demanded the judge.

“A witness,” Aubrey said blandly.

“‘Twas that little weasel, Ephraim Dummer,” the judge said, vengeance plainly on his mind.

“It was, but you have no way of knowing that. Since you say you weren’t there.”

“You said it was a horse,” the judge said weakly. “Only Ephraim would notice a horse.”

“And only Ephraim would know that horse,” John said, loudly enough that Judge Whitney could hear him. “I don’t know that I’d believe him an he said he saw you, but I am certain that he saw your horse.”

“Your horse wasn’t stolen, was it?” Aubrey said. “Since that’s the one way your horse could be in Marcombe-village and you not with it.”

“Of course my horse wasn’t stolen,” Judge Whitney snapped. “Be not facetious.”

“I’m not,” said Aubrey. “I’m quite serious. Unless your horse was stolen, and you say it wasn’t, the fact that Ephraim Dummer saw it hitched in Marcombe-village demonstrates that you were there, too. And if you were there, and yet eager to have me believe you were not, the possible explanations are very few. Unless you think you can get some goodwife to swear herself an adulteress for you.”

“Damn you,” said Judge Whitney, and there was a little, shocked noise, the sound of fifty innocent people, five constables, two demoniacks, and John Cooper all gasping at once. Not only had he said it, but it was very clear that Judge Whitney meant it.

“Oh probably,” said Francis Aubrey. “But not on your behalf. Constable Winthrop, I must ask you to arrest Mr. John Whitney. He is guilty of murder.”

WITCHES OF NEW-ALBION: MERCY TAYLOR

The demoniack Mercy Taylor hanged herself in her prison cell.

PART XI: THE WITCH

1.

“All that and we still don’t know who the witch is,” Aubrey said, once the last of the ruckus had died away, leaving them standing together by the bar.

“And no idea how to go about finding her,” said John.

“I have an idea,” said Isaiah, “but you won’t like it.”

“What is it?” said John, making a gesture to Aubrey not to interfere.

“Well,” Isaiah said nervously, as if he could see the disapproval on Aubrey’s face, “you said something about the witch not being any of the people accused—which is true!—and I thought about whom suspicion is pointed most thoroughly away from, and so I wonder if it might be her.”

“Might be who?”

“Mistress Hollingsworth.”

“Betty and Sarah’s mother?” said Aubrey. “Art thou suggesting that she is such an unnatural mother as to afflict her own children?”

“She made a pact with a demon,” John said. “How much more unnatural could she be? And Isaiah is right. Minister’s wife and victims’ mother—no one would think she might be the witch.”

“Except Isaiah,” Aubrey said thoughtfully. “Well, come! ‘Tis easy enough to prove.”

 

2.

The parsonage door was opened to them by Jerusha Cole, Mistress Hollingsworth’s niece, who—like Mary Bradley—worked as a maid in her aunt and uncle’s house. She stepped hastily back and yelled, “AUNT ELIZABETH!”

Mistress Hollingsworth emerged from the back of the house, saying, “Jerusha, don’t bellow like a cow. What is it?”

Then she saw Aubrey and Rebecca, and John knew instantly that Isaiah was right, because Elizabeth Hollingsworth went white as snow.

“Mistress Hollingsworth?” said Aubrey. He’d seen it, too. John could tell by the tone of his voice. “I wonder if I might disturb you for a moment.”

“Wh-what do you want?”

“To talk,” said Aubrey, “about witchcraft.”

She abandoned all attempts to brazen it out; she took two steps back and then, quite suddenly, she was no longer Elizabeth Hollingsworth. John didn’t know how he knew, except that the hair was standing up on his forearms and he felt as if he were standing too close to a fire.

She had invited the demon in.

Jerusha began to scream.

Aubrey said, “That was a foolish thing to do.”

“Was it?” said the demon in Elizabeth, instead of killing them all starting with Aubrey.

“You won’t stay in her long, and she will only have made her situation that much worse.”

“She thinks I can help her escape,” the demon said. It sounded amused. And still wasn’t killing them all. John looked at Aubrey and saw he had something—an open vial—in his right hand.

Isaiah shoved between John and Aubrey and lunged forward, stumbling, crawling, toward Elizabeth Hollingsworth. He was pleading wildly, “Take me back. I’ll do anything. Please. Please.” John remembered what Isaiah had said, that a demon in someone’s body was like a bright light in endless darkness. Where is the light of God? John wondered. It all too clearly was not here.

The demon in Elizabeth looked down at Isaiah without any sign of emotion. “What use have I for thee?” it said.

Isaiah made a noise like a child being slapped across the face for the first time and then collapsed as if the demon had deboned him. The demon smiled with Elizabeth Hollingsworth’s face, a sight John would see in his nightmares for the rest of his life.

“What will you do?” Aubrey asked the demon.

“Do?” said the demon. “Nothing.”

And it was gone, leaving Elizabeth Hollingsworth as easily as a man taking off an overcoat. She was frozen for a moment, then crumpled to the floor, sobbing violently.

A voice from the stairs said, “Mother?” and John turned to see the horrified face of Betty Hollingsworth, on whom the truth was just beginning to dawn.

WITCHES OF NEW-ALBION: PETER SWINNERTON

The witch Peter Swinnerton confessed, weeping, to the Reverend Mr. Ezekiel Stafford. His remorse did not save him from the gallows.

EPILOGUE: TRUTH

1.

The afflicted girls were put into the care of a Varnham minister, the Reverend Mr. Ezekiel Stafford, who cured them of their fits by praying and fasting with them. There were no more accusations.

Mary Bradley was not charged with any crime.

Tamsin Ratcliff returned safely home.

The fifty innocent people were returned to jail until they could pay their jail fees, but all of them were free by winter. Mr. Hollingsworth refused to pay Jane Cathar’s fees and she languished until a Varnham merchant bought her.

Elizabeth Hollingsworth and John Whitney were hanged.

 

2.

“I must thank you,” said Francis Aubrey, standing on the deck of the Mary and Jonas, “on behalf of the Witchfinder Authority, for taking care of this demoniack.” Beside him, Isaiah and Rebecca shivered in the stiff sea-breeze.

For reasons he could not explain to himself, John had come to see them off on their return journey to Albion. He said, “I wish you wouldn’t.”

“No?” said Aubrey.

“Not like a strayed dog that might bite. He’s a human being.”

“Is he?” Aubrey said coolly. “Has he told you what he did?”

“What he did?”

“Witchfinder Aubrey, no, please,” said Isaiah. “Don’t tell him—”

“The truth?” said Aubrey. “The truth is that Isaiah, who was a scholar at Cambridge, used maleficium to murder his rival for a fellowship. And then, of course, was fool enough to try to master a demon. How many people died, Isaiah? Five? Six?”

Isaiah’s head went down and he hunched in on himself as if Aubrey’s words were physical blows.

“Aye,” John said stubbornly. “But he is still a human being and should not be enslaved.”

“Do you prefer him dead? For those are your choices.”

“Can we not make a third choice?” said John.

“Out of what?” said Aubrey. “You cannot change what he has done.”

“But…” John hesitated, struggling with the idea. “Must what he did be all of him? Cannot a human being feel the grace of God and change?”

“Can the Ethiopian change his skin,” said Aubrey, “or the leopard his spots? Well, Isaiah? Do you think a human being can change?”

Without lifting his head, Isaiah said, “No.”

And John, wrong-footed, said nothing.

“Cast off!” cried the captain of the Mary and Jonas. There was nothing John could do but raise his hand to Aubrey in farewell and start back down the Long Quay alone.

He shall never depart out of darkness.

 

(Editors’ Note: Sarah Monette is interviewed by Caroline M. Yoachim in this issue.)

© 2023 Sarah Monette