Hour of the Witch

The next day, Mary asks Catherine whether she’s happy to be back with the Deerfields in their home, especially since she claimed Mary was a witch. Catherine replies that she does not have a choice and tells Mary that she’s afraid to be back in the home, especially since they still don’t know who buried the tines. After this conversation, under the guise of buying bread, Mary goes to the town square to witness Henry being whipped, wanting to be present for him since he took all the blame for their kiss. She watches under a hood, feeling both guilty and responsible for this outcome until Henry pleads with her to flee so she isn’t seen at his whipping.

On her way back from the baker, Mary meets Rebeckah Cooper. Rebeckah asks whether she enjoyed the boiled apples and raisins that she and Peregrine prepared, and Mary determines Rebeckah couldn’t have poisoned them. This conclusion only leaves more mystery for Mary, however. Determined to find an answer for both the poison and the Devil’s tines buried in her yard, she resolves to visit Constance Winston in the Neck—for if anyone can help her determine the answer, it’s Constance.

When Mary calls on Constance at her home, Constance is just about to leave and so, despite the suspicion it might raise, Mary walks with her into town. Constance tells Mary to read the Bible for language that includes both venom and serpents; the shape of the tines and the shape carved in the pestle both resemble a forked tongue. When Mary returns home, Thomas tells her that Jonathan has spent his dowry gambling and came asking for money that day.

Mary attends church on Sunday and, to her surprise, hears the passage from the Bible that Constance mentioned she should look for. Taking this as a sign from God, Mary continues to listen to the sermon. Eventually, she considers that if Peregrine can poison the boiled apples and raisins, she too could poison Thomas.

Her resolve is further solidified when she and Thomas encounter Henry on their way out of church. Henry apologizes to Thomas, but Thomas refuses to forgive, instead hitting Henry on his freshly-wounded back. Later that evening, Thomas threatens Mary to stay away from Henry lest he kills them both, and bites her on her ear so hard she bleeds.

Henry writes to Mary, sending her a letter in disguise to say that while he still admires and longs for her, he will keep his distance while she is married to Thomas. Mary, however, plans to poison Thomas. She visits Constance once more, this time in search of a method for murder. Constance tells her she’ll need monkshood, which she can get from Esther and Edmund Hawke, an excommunicated family living in the woods near an Indigenous American village away from the colony.