It was the witching hour in Massachusetts. The rest of the colony slept through it, but I laid awake, with my eyes on the rafters and the moonbeams and the tiny dust motes that made patterns in the frosty air.

I had not heard the town crier for some time and assumed all was not well.

Ann Birchard turned from the sideboard and faced me.

It was a horrific moment, one that I would seek to forget over the coming days and weeks. Slowly, my father’s new wife put the cups down on the table and slowly, ever so slowly, she smiled at me.

“Constance, good morrow.”
 
 
 
 

“He thinks that Constance is bewitched,” Samuel muttered tersely, though I could see his left eye twitch slightly. “He would have me look to the spiritual rather than the physical. But…but there is no sign of it, no sign of attacking spirits in my household.”
 
 
 

I sat bolt upright. “He come at me by night!”

My father’s back was to me and he jumped, pressing his fist to his mouth. “Constance, dear child!”

“Who comes?” Doctor Norris rushed to my bedside. The scent of tobacco became overwhelming.

My eyes were blurry and I blinked. Once. Twice. They would believe me…they would believe anything I said.
 
 
 
 

“I see them!” Hannah screamed. “I see them now!”

She threw herself upon the floor. Her body was caught in a violent fit.

“The Devil has set upon her!” a woman cried with rising hysteria.
 

I meant to leave her with nothing. I meant to depart and flee into the night with no trace of my leave-taking. And yet there was Ann, so very frightened for me.

I turned, started down the stairs and then paused. “I am a witch,” I told her.