Ivory and Elizabeth stood without movement, a stunned tableau in the center of town. Anne tilted up her nose, smirking. Dirt scraped beneath her square-toed shoe as she turned toward the gathering of townsfolk.
“Witch!” She pointed at Elizabeth. “She has stricken my sister! She bids the devil’s work!”
Ivory searched the faces of the crowd, looking for even one kind expression—there must be at least one who doubts this accusation?
But as her gaze landed on one unforgiving face after the other, her hope withered.
***
AT DAWN the next morning, Ivory fell upon the courthouse, carried by a sea of excited townsfolk. She paused outside the low brick wall surrounding the establishment, but her mother pushed her through, whispering in her ear that seeing this would be a good life lesson.
Once inside and seated, Ivory glared at Elizabeth’s husband, who sat on the worn pew at the front of the courtroom. Beside him, Elizabeth’s fourteen-month-old sat with his arms hugged around his stomach.
Magistrate John Thornhart entered the room, his long gray hair stiff and thinning, his narrow, aquiline nose pointing toward his dimpled chin. The crowd quieted, nothing remaining but the creak of the wooden pews and the rustle of papers.
“Bring forth the accused!” His powerful voice sent shivers down Ivory’s spine.
Two men brought Elizabeth into the courtroom and pushed her into a chair. Ivory’s gaze followed the length of her lover’s body from untamed hair to bare, dirtied feet, anger bubbling in her chest at the way she’d been mistreated.
Thornhart crossed the room, his shiny black buckled shoes clicking evenly on the wood floors. He faced Elizabeth, his hands clasped behind his back.
“Elizabeth, what evil spirits have you familiarity with?”
“None,” she replied.
Thornhart raised one eyebrow and paced away. He looked back over his shoulder to her. “Have you made no contract with the devil?”
“No,” Elizabeth said, her voice harder and more direct.
Thornhart pointed at Ivory, his gaze still leveled at Elizabeth. “Why do you curse this woman?”
Ivory shot to her feet. “I have no grievance! She does not harm me!”
Thornhart jerked his head toward her. “Speak not out of turn, I warn you, Sarah, lest you are attempting to curse us as well.”
As all the eyes in the courtroom shifted to Ivory, her skin prickled with heat. She lowered herself to her seat.
“Elizabeth, what say you?” Thornhart asked.
“I do not curse her.” Elizabeth’s voice remained strong. Still, her eyes pleaded to the court, and Ivory’s heart dropped to her stomach.
“Who, then, do you employ has cursed her?”
“No creature, for I am falsely accused!”
There was an edge of anger in Elizabeth’s voice, and the crowd murmured.
“You bid the work of the devil when you make this woman lay with you as a heathen.”
Was the town so sick with desire for a witch-hunt that they would accuse Elizabeth of witchcraft before considering both women guilty of expressing their love to one another?
“Anne, you identified her as the one who torments your sister.” Thornhart paused briefly from his pacing. “What have you to say in evidence?”
Anne fingered a small pendant on a chain at her neck. “My sister behaves strangely only when in Elizabeth’s presence. The witch is an enemy to all good!”
Ivory kept her arms crossed, hoping her expression was stoic and cold instead of as rigid and fearful as she felt. Already she tasted the tears in the back of her throat.
“See now what you have done, Elizabeth? Redeem yourself and speak the truth, for you have cursed this woman.”
Elizabeth’s hands curled into tight fists. “I do not curse her!”
“Tell us, Elizabeth. How do you curse her?”
Before Elizabeth could declare her innocence once more, her husband stood. His expression was weighted, and he swallowed. When he spoke, his voice was so quiet Ivory had to strain to hear.
“She tells me of voices that speak to her,” he said. “She has been accursed for some time now.” He lifted his apologetic gaze to Elizabeth. “I’m so sorry. Please, let them help you.”
Ivory nearly choked on the air. Elizabeth had told him? The revelation was a sharp knife in Ivory’s heart. How could Elizabeth have been so foolish?
Thornhart’s eyebrows rose. “Tell us of this curse, Elizabeth. Confess of it and the evil things you’ve done as its vessel. It is the only path to redemption.”
Elizabeth shook her head slowly. “There is no evil in me,” she said. “I have harmed none.”
Two girls started screeching and writhing on the ground. One’s body went limp.
Thornhart spoke over the crowd’s loud chattering. “Order!”
“She has afflicted me, too,” one girl cried. “Look at these punctures on my arm. They are the bite marks of her specter!”
Ivory shot the girl a dirty look. The marks on her arm were caused by nothing other than the dig of her own fingernails.
Thornhart whipped his gaze back to Elizabeth. “Why do you torment these children? Why will you not confess, when we can see you clearly for what you are?”