“Not according to the Book of Leviticus,” agreed Abigail. “How awkward that the Bible doesn’t give similar instructions for identifying them.”
“By their deeds shall ye know them,” replied Dog-Mouth darkly. “All these days, that the hag’s been lyin’ in the Devil’s sleep, we’ve known. We seen our Reverend growin’ sicker an’ sicker; seen the fires that have broke out, here and there about the town in dead of night; and the very beasts in their stalls struck by plague, since she’s been here.”
Abigail wondered whether the Hand of the Lord had used an accomplice to set the fires and mix nightshade with the fodder, but knew better than to do so aloud.
“Reverend, he wouldn’t hear word against the witch,” said another man, as they ringed Abigail and made their way toward the broken-down shanty. “Not at first, so great is his heart with love.” Torchlight flared in the cracks of the walls, the broken-out holes of what had been windows. “Yet those vexations began, the first night of her bein’ in the blockhouse, and him cryin’ out in his sleep for terror. We knew. All the village could see him weakenin’ day by day—when he’d writhe in pain, or clutch at his heart when he stood up before the Congregation at evenin’ services. When he’d cry out at the shape of the devil, flyin’ like a glowing bird, he said, about his head. We knew who that glowin’ bird was!”
Abigail raised her eyebrows. The Hand of the Lord was a more astute mountebank than she’d thought. “And is this the first time your Reverend has been set upon by demons?” she inquired. “Or have others he’s disagreed with all turned out to be witches, too?”
The young man brought his hand back to strike her. Abigail—whose younger brother had the same hot temper and ready hand in his cups—stepped back fast, turned face and body so that the blow flashed past her. “Is that all you know how to do?” she snapped, as he started to raise his hand again. “What good servants of the Lord your Reverend has taught you to be, to be sure.” She wheeled swiftly, and led the way toward the glowing doorway before he could gather himself for a response. Anything, she thought, to get them away from where Rebecca lay.
Unshaven, untidy, but giving no other evidence of spectral vexation, the Reverend Bargest stood in the restless red glare of the torches, his arms folded and his eyes like pits of shadow beneath silver brows. One of the half-dozen village men grouped behind him had a lantern, and from it the torches had been kindled, that were now thrust into cracks of the broken walls all around the little room. Farther back still in the shadows, the eyes of the horses glowed gold, and the beasts stamped and shifted at the scent of Muldoon’s blood.
Abigail ran forward to where the sergeant lay by the wall, and Dog-Mouth and Brother Mortify caught her arms, pulled her back. She could see Muldoon still breathing, though his eyes were closed and there was blood in his red hair. “Behold another of them,” proclaimed Bargest, and Abigail whirled to face him, righteous anger drowning her consternation and fear.
“Don’t be an ass,” she snapped. “Is everyone who goes against you a witch?”
“It takes but one witch to corrupt a multitude, as leaven works through a loaf, so that they do her bidding, and through her, her Master’s. Where is she?”
“Halfway to Wenham by this time, I should imagine,” retorted Abigail.
“Hear it lie,” he said, as if she were not really there. “The hag could scarce walk.”
“What?” said Abigail. “A woman who can fly? A woman who can reduce you, Reverend—Chosen though you may be—to writhing in agony on your bed? Until it’s time to do something that you really want to do, like rise up and convince people that she’s the cause of all their problems.”
“Satan is the cause of all of their problems,” replied Bargest quietly. “And Satan wears many guises. And the most deadly of his guises is that of the Anti-Christ, the False Shepherd who leads men astray with arguments that sound like reason. So don’t chop logic with me, Mrs. Adams. These my children are the tried and true remnant of the People, Gideon’s faithful Three Hundred, who remain true to the Lord’s testing when all the rest have fallen away. They know the Voice of the Lord, and they will not fall away, though you show them all the Kingdoms of the Earth.”
He turned to the men. “Satan her master has forsaken the witch,” he told them. “Yet as long as her body remains, Satan can return to her, and she will not cease to vex us, until I am dead, or she is destroyed. And when I am dead—when I am no longer able to stand between her and you with the shield of pure faith—then she will come for the rest of you. Believe this.” His deep, quiet voice filled the room with its power, and such was the force of his personality that Abigail thought, Now I can understand, how Prophets stood up to Kings . . .
“Believe it?” retorted Abigail. “The way that poor mad murderer Orion Hazlitt believed it, when you told him an innocent woman was Jezebel, only because she owned land that you want? It is you who played King Ahab, sir, not the other way about.”
“The whore was not innocent,” said Bargest quietly. “None is innocent, who raises her hand against the children of the Lord. Even as the witch Malvern”—here he raised his voice—“has lifted the Devil’s red and dripping hand to smite me down!”
“Rebecca Malvern has been barely conscious for weeks! Since when—?”
“The Devil dwells in the flesh of a witch!” thundered Bargest, and flung up his hands as if calling down the power of God from the heavens. “He never sleeps! Nor will he ever, until the Righteous lie dead in their blood! Find the woman and kill her.” His blazing eyes, the sweep of his arm, took in all his followers, and ended with one long, bony finger pointing at Abigail. “This one as well. She is the Daughter of Eve, apt to the hand of the Devil . . .”
Those were the final words of the Chosen One. A gunshot crashed from one of the holes in the crazy roof. Bargest flung up his arms as he staggered back, a red hole appearing in the white of his open shirt-front, eyes bulging with shock and an expression of astonishment that was nearly comical.
Brother Mortify grabbed Abigail’s arm as the men in the little cabin convulsed into panic movement. Abigail, furious, turned in his grip, shoved her face close to his, flung up her free arm, and screamed as loud as she could.
Taken completely by surprise, Mortify dropped her arm in shock. At the same instant Muldoon sat up, blood oozing from a wound in his shoulder, pistol in hand, barrel leveled on Dog-Mouth, who was one of the few who had a weapon ready. Abigail dived for the sergeant’s side as men began to stampede for the door. Her eyes went to the biggest of the holes in the ceiling in time to see another pistol thrust through it, nearly invisible in the shadows. The second shot cleared the room.
Bargest rolled over, gagging on blood. His hands fumbled about, trying to rise, to crawl after them. Then he fell, sobbing and groaning like a child. Abigail dragged Muldoon clear of the horses, which were rearing and stamping in fright. She thought she would have gone next to the Reverend, but there was a slither and thump outside the wall, and the next moment, Orion Hazlitt appeared in the broken doorway of the house.
At the sight of him Abigail’s nostrils seemed filled with the smell of blood. All she could see was the dishonored horror of the young woman’s body on Rebecca’s kitchen floor. Muldoon drew her close to him, pistol ready in his hand, unaware, Abigail realized, who this unshaven, exhausted stranger was.
No more than do I. No more than anyone in Boston ever has.