“What is wrong with her?” Judge Hathorne asked everyone, the court at large, me.
I shook my head. “I am doing nothing.” I knew someone else, someone not me, held her under an enchantment. I looked to James. By his shocked face, he let me know he had no hand in it. I believed him. My gaze darted around the courtroom, searching for another witch. They fell upon the Putnams in the front row of seats.
Goodwife Putnam bounced in her chair, as if she might run up to save her daughter at any moment. Thomas Putnam was silent, deep in concentration. His wife commenced to screaming, “She is ill! Your honor, she is ill! This woman, this witch, has made her so!”
Before the court, Ann was still struggling, tearing at her mouth.
“We must stop the trial!” Goodwife Putnam shrieked. “She cannot breathe! I beg you!”
Thomas Putnam said nothing. He shook his head.
At that moment, Ann passed out. Was it from loss of breath? Or a spell?
Thomas Putnam ran toward her only then. He shook his fist at me. “Why have you done this to her, Kendra Hilferty?”
His eyes met mine, and I found my voice. “I have done nothing to her. Why would I, when she was on the verge of admitting her deceit, that her affliction was merely a pretense? She is a scared child who should go home and work on her sewing. She should not be here at court.”
“Order!” Judge Hathorne yelled. “Order!” He looked down at Ann, who lay as if dead on the floor. Goodwife Putnam knelt over her.
“Let me take her home,” Goodwife Putnam pleaded.
Judge Hathorne nodded. “The witness cannot testify. We will reconvene on Wednesday.” He nodded at the jailer. “Take the accused back to jail!”
What had I done?
8
Ann Putnam
Later That Day
My father brought his wagon from the farm to carry me home, for I could not walk from the shock of it. My brother, Tom, drove, while Father sat beside me and Mother cradled me in her arms. “Will this never end?” I moaned.
“It will end when they are hanged,” my mother assured me, stroking my brow.
My head ached. All these weeks, I had thought Kendra was torturing me, thought Kendra controlled me. But today, today was something different. Today, something had made the words spring from my lips. That something was magic. Real magic.
“I cannot go back there,” I said. “I cannot see her. I will surely die if I do.”
Suddenly the wolf was there, I knew not how, sitting beside me in broad daylight. I glanced around, to see if the others saw him. But they did not seem to. My mother still fawned over me. Tom looked straight ahead, and my father, I could not see him at all. It was as if he was not there.
“You must go back,” the wolf said. “Everyone will believe you a fraud if you do not.”
“Perhaps I am a fraud.” My head lolled on my mother’s lap. “I only wanted to be a good girl, to have everyone know that I am a good girl. Is that vanity?”
“No.” The wolf’s white fur and silver eyes looked so strange against the summer trees. “It is nothing but the truth. You are a good girl.”
“But I lied. I lied about Kendra. I did not want people to know of my sinful ways, that I spoke to you. And now I am caught. I said in front of everyone that I lied.”
Could my family not hear me? Could they not see the wolf?
“That was her witchcraft that made you say that,” the wolf said. “You would be able to testify . . . about the others? Martha and Rebecca?”
I thought about it, though my head ached from when I hit it in my fall. I was now certain Kendra was a witch, that she had been the one controlling my actions, making me confess to what I’d done. Yet it was her I did not want to confront, did not want to testify against. To see Martha or any of the others in court did not frighten me. They were silly old women. Kendra was the one who terrified me, for she, like the wolf, saw me for what I truly was. A liar.
“Yes,” I said. “Yes.”
“Then I will take care of Kendra,” the wolf said.
I nodded, half closing my eyes. When I next opened them, the wolf was gone, and my father again sat in his place.
Our carriage trundled home. The woods were ahead, cold, dark, though it was June, the overhanging tree branches creating shadows that reached out to me, scratched at my arms, and tried to grab me. I cringed against my mother’s skirts.
9
Kendra
That Night
“What did she say then?” Rebecca asked yet again in the darkness of our cell.
“She said that I tortured her, gave her pains in her stomach. And then she pretended that I controlled her actions, that she could only repeat what I said.” I left out the fact of my actually controlling her actions. I had no idea what the impact of that stupidity on my part would be.
“The poor child,” Rebecca said. “The poor child is ill.”
Martha let out her breath in an annoyed scoff. “The poor child is evil. You know that she, of all of them, has reason to lie. The Parris girl is young and stupid, but she—”
“Martha . . .” Rebecca glanced at me.