But she had found what she wanted and ignored his complaints.
“‘Chapter thirty-three,’” she read aloud. “‘Margaret Nottingham, nee Myles, was young, just nineteen, lovely and well-liked within the community. Shy and sweet, she was married just a year and had an infant daughter the year the winter of discontent came upon Salem. Despite her humility and kindness, she answered truthfully when spoken to. She felt strongly that they were overpaying Reverend Parris and that they would be a more closely knit community if they were to maintain only one house of worship. She was equally vocal against the first arrests and was heard to say the girls themselves were witches to accuse one as goodly and pious as Rebecca Nurse. A day before she was to be arrested and taken to her own examination, Margaret disappeared. It is to be hoped that Margaret escaped the area entirely and perhaps made her way to New York, but letters and diaries of the time suggest that she met with a different end, possibly murdered by a member of her own family lest others should be accused due to their association with her.’”
“You believe she’s the woman at our window,” Auntie Mina said.
“When I was a little girl, you told me that dreams can be memories. Maybe, in my dreams, I remembered that I’d read about Margaret,” Devin said, smiling. “The woman who comes here is obviously a ghost—and I believe she’s a ghost from the time of the trials, not a reenactor. Yes. I believe that we’ve found the identity of our mystery woman. I think that Margaret Nottingham comes to our window in hopes that we’ll discover her truth.”
“And what does that have to do with the recent murders?” her aunt asked. “While a killer might have been in the neighborhood now and thirteen years ago, he couldn’t possibly have been here in 1692. So what is the connection?”
Devin smiled grimly. “That, Auntie Mina, is what we must find out.”
10
When Rocky arrived in the morning, Devin had the parlor strewn with books and papers and maps. Auntie Mina was nowhere to be seen. Devin explained that she didn’t yet have the necessary strength to remain visible at all times.
“What is all this?” he asked, gesturing at the mess.
“Research. Did you know that the last witch to be executed was a woman named Temperance Lloyd, killed in England in 1682? Lord Chief Justice Sir Francis North was disgusted by the proceedings, saying that the poor woman was condemned on ‘fancy and imagination.’ She confessed, but of course you can get anyone to say anything if you torture them.”
“I’m sure the confessions here in Salem were coerced, as well,” Rocky said.
“Well, naturally. Tituba must have been scared out of her wits with everything going on—ready to say anything to make the men ‘examining’ her happy. But they were only falling back on a long history of torture and interrogation in Europe, where tens of thousands of supposed witches were burned on the Continent and in Scotland, and hanged in England.”
“You’ve certainly been busy,” Rocky said, looking around at the amount of material surrounding her. “What brought this on?”
“Another dream,” she admitted, then hesitated, looking at him. “The ghost of our Puritan woman has been around awhile. And we know that,” she added quickly, “because I found reports that people have claimed for years that they’ve seen her at this house. Think about it. Less than thirty years ago people—including your friends―thought my aunt was scary just because she was Wiccan. Even though a lot of things started changing in the sixties and seventies, when Laurie Cabot arrived and was declared the Official Witch of Salem by the governor, and tourists started coming in droves, some people are still afraid, and people who are afraid strike out at others.”
“You’ve lost me,” Rocky said. At the same time, he realized that if he had a cause, a passion in life, he would certainly want her on his side. Feeling off balance, he moved away to say hello to the bird.
He wanted to touch her.
He couldn’t let himself.
“Okay, I think this murderer is killing because of whatever happened to a Puritan woman named Margaret Nottingham all those years ago.”
“Why?” Rocky asked her.
“I don’t know, exactly. But somehow, I feel like it has to do with old practices and the past.”
“You think that somehow this woman was a practicing witch in the middle of a Puritan colony in 1692?”
“No, I think she was murdered because her family were afraid she was going to accuse them to save her own life. I think Margaret Nottingham was murdered by someone close to her.”
“Why didn’t you just ask her about it when you talked to her?”
“I never talked to her.”