Witch Hunt by Devin O'Branagan Read Free Book Online Page B

answer. “I read books.”
    “What books? You mean the Devil’s books?”
    “I mean books. I read.”
    Sheldon leaned across his table toward Margaret. “Have you signed the Devil’s book?”
    Before Margaret could reply, the girls on the accuser’s bench once again began their hysterics. Two fell onto the floor to writhe, while Elizabeth shouted accusations.
    “She appeared to me one night while I slept and forced me to drink a potion. I burned with fever for days afterward.”
    Sheldon looked behind the row of accusers at a matronly woman who sat behind Elizabeth. She nodded her head as if to confirm Elizabeth’s dread illness.
    Sheldon turned to face Margaret. “Did you poison this innocent child?”
    “No, I did not.”
    Elizabeth then shocked the entire room to silence. She pointed at William and said, “And he was with her. He held me while she poured the potion down my throat.”
    William had never known true terror until that moment.
    Sheldon looked at William and Margaret with a contemptuous expression. “Well, so we have a witch and a wizard, too. I should have known.” He waved the constables forward. “Arrest this man on a charge of witchcraft. Take the rampant hag to Boston, along with the little witch. These hearings are adjourned.”
     

     
    Margaret did not know anything about devils, but demons were familiar to her. The Boston jailhouse seethed with demons. Those it housed generated the horror that permeated the building. Very few true criminals had passed through its bars; for the most part, it had hosted victims.
    As the jailer shoved Margaret and Priscilla into their new cell, Margaret gagged from the stench — the two slop pots in the huge cell were overflowing. Eight pairs of desolate eyes watched the Hawthornes while they were locked into leg chains. Margaret watched Priscilla’s tiny ankles taken captive, and wondered if they had forged the miniature restraints just for the occasion, or if they were accustomed to arresting children in Boston.
    “The examiners will be in soon,” the gruff jailer said.
    “Examiners?” Margaret asked.
    The man turned away without responding and hurried out of the cage.
    Margaret looked around at where she and her daughter would be housed for the months ahead — she had heard that the trials would not even begin until summer. There was a bucket of water and a bucket of corn gruel, apparently the day’s meal. Mounds of old straw were scattered throughout the cell and most had women perched upon them. Margaret led Priscilla to one of the piles, and when they sat down, bugs scattered.
    Priscilla, exhausted from the difficult trip to Boston, curled up in a ball, her head in Margaret’s lap.
    “I hate them,” Priscilla said.
    Margaret stroked her hair. “Who?”
    “The Christians.”
    “Don’t hate, Prissy. You only hurt yourself with hate.”
    “They treat us like animals.”
    “Does Samara hate people?” Margaret whispered.
    Priscilla thought about it. “No. But she’s afraid sometimes.”
    “Fear can be a tool of survival. Hate is another matter altogether.”
    “I wish I could be free, like Samara.”
    “Why don’t you visit with her, then?”
    “All right.” Priscilla closed her eyes, her mind escaping to run free in the fields.
    Margaret heard the feeble cry of a baby and looked around, startled. Two straw piles away, she saw the telltale bundle, listless in its mother’s arms. Gently, she extricated herself from Priscilla’s sleeping form and went to investigate.
    The pale mother watched her approach with a wary expression.
    Margaret smiled. “How is it that you have a baby here with you? Was it charged as a witch, too?”
    “I birthed it three days ago.”
    Margaret looked at the bloodied straw on which the woman sat. These were not fit conditions for delivering babies. “I’m a midwife. May I see?”
    The woman clutched the baby to her bosom. “The midwife-witch that murders babies?”
    Margaret sighed and sat down on