Read Chapter 14: A Gamble with the Magistrate

Nathaniel clutched the ledger to his chest as Magistrate Hathorne’s servant led him into the stuffy parlor. The house smelled of cinnamon and old parchment, a scent of authority that made Nathaniel feel twelve years old again, caught stealing apples from the minister’s tree.

Hathorne sat behind a desk cluttered with writs and depositions, his face a map of weathered lines and suspicion. He did not rise when Nathaniel entered.

“Clerk.” The word hung in the air, neither greeting nor accusation. “You are far from your ledgers. The court does not convene until Thursday.”

“I have come about the trials, Your Honor.” Nathaniel stepped forward, willing his voice to steady. “Mercy Hart’s trial, specifically. And I have brought evidence that will change the shape of it.”

Hathorne’s eyebrows rose a fraction. He set down his quill with deliberate care. “The girl who consorts with the Devil? Her trial is in six days. Whatever you have to say can wait until then.”

“It cannot, Your Honor. Please.” Nathaniel laid the ledger on the desk, open to a page he had marked with a strip of ribbon. “I have found proof that Dr. Samuel Willard has been dosing the accusers with hallucinogenic herbs. Feverfew, belladonna, henbane.” He traced a line of cramped handwriting. “This is a record of every draught he prepared for Abigail Proctor, from March until August. The dates match her fits. The dosages increase before each new accusation.”

Hathorne did not look at the page. He looked at Nathaniel, and his eyes were flat and cold.

“Dr. Willard is the most respected physician in Salem Town,” Hathorne said slowly. “He has served this community for twenty years. He delivered my own grandchildren. And you—young man whose family has seen better days—you bring me scribbles from an office that is not yours to search?”

“It was obtained through—” Nathaniel hesitated. “Through a concerned party. Goody Willard herself fears what her husband has done.”

At this, Hathorne laughed, a short, bitter sound. “Goody Willard is a woman. Women are impressionable, easily turned by clever words. Perhaps you have turned her against her own husband, as your family once turned the town against—” He stopped himself, but the implication hung thick as smoke.

Nathaniel’s jaw tightened. His grandfather’s feud with the Hart family had ended thirty years ago, yet here it was again, a ghost at every door.

“Your Honor, please, examine the ledger. It is not idle scribbling. I have also a letter from Ruth Putnam, who was dosed personally and seen Willard do the same to Abigail Proctor. She has written a full testimony.”

“Ruth Putnam.” Hathorne’s voice dropped. “The girl who vanished three days ago. The girl whose mother has been frantic, searching every road and barn for her child. And you know where she is.”

Careful, Nathaniel told himself. “She is safe, Your Honor. I cannot say where, but she is safe. She fled because she feared Willard would silence her as he silenced—as he silenced others.”

“Silence her.” Hathorne rose from his chair. He was not a tall man, but behind the desk he seemed to fill the room. “You speak of silence while you have hidden a witness from her own mother. You speak of truth while you present documents stolen from a godly man’s home. For all I know, Clerk Hastings, you are the one who wishes to undermine these trials. Perhaps you sympathize with witches.”

“I sympathize with no one, Your Honor. I seek only the truth.”

Hathorne leaned across the desk, his voice falling to a near whisper. “The truth is that this town is sick with fear. The truth is that if I go to Dr. Willard and accuse him of poisoning accusers, he will deny it. He will bring other physicians to testify to his character. He will produce witnesses who swear he has never harmed a soul. And I—Magistrate Hathorne, whose own daughter has fits in the night—will be left looking like a fool who listens to clerks with old grudges.”

Nathaniel’s mouth opened, then closed. He had prepared arguments, had memorized the dates in the ledger, had rehearsed this moment in his mind a hundred times. But Hathorne had not argued with the evidence. He had argued with power.

“If I may speak plainly, Your Honor,” Nathaniel said quietly. “You fear him.”

Hathorne’s eyes flashed. “I fear the mob,” he said. “I fear what happens when a town of scared farmers is told that their doctor—the man who has eased their fevers, delivered their children, and prayed at their deathbeds—is a poisoner. They will not believe it. And they will turn on anyone who suggests it, including you, and including me.”

He pushed the ledger back across the desk. “Take your papers, Clerk. Go back to your ledgers. If you have evidence for the trial, present it then, before Judge Sewall. But do not come to me again expecting me to act on the word of a family that has never known how to keep its place.”

The dismissal was final. Nathaniel gathered the ledger, the letter, his dignity. He bowed stiffly and left through the servant’s door, his heart hammering in his throat.

The streets of Salem were quiet under the pewter sky. Nathaniel moved quickly, keeping his head down, the ledger tucked beneath his coat. He had failed with Hathorne. That was the plain truth of it. But perhaps Sewall would be different. Sewall was from Boston, not bound by Salem’s feuds. Sewall could read the ledger and see what Hathorne refused to see.

He was two streets from the jail when a voice stopped him.

“Nathaniel.”

He turned. Sarah Goodale stood in the middle of the road, her hands clasped in front of her, her face pale and pinched. She had been Mercy’s friend once—they had gathered herbs together, had sat side by side at meeting. Sarah had been the one to bring Mercy bread during her first days in the jail.

Now she looked at Nathaniel as though he were a stranger.

“Sarah,” he said carefully. “You should not be out. The weather is turning.”

“I saw you leave the magistrate’s house,” she said. “You went to plead for Mercy, did you not?”

“I went to speak on matters of the court.”

“You went for Mercy.” Her voice cracked. “You believe her innocent, so you try to save her. But I have seen her, Nathaniel. I have seen what she is.”

A cold thread wound through Nathaniel’s gut. “What have you seen?”

Sarah lifted her hand, and Nathaniel saw the marks on her palm—three long scratches, red and raw, as though made by claws. “Last night, I was praying in my room. The candle guttered out. There was no wind. And then I felt something behind me, breathing against my neck, and these—” she held out her hand, “—these appeared.”

“That could be anything,” Nathaniel said. “A cat, a bramble, your own nails while sleeping.”

“It was Mercy’s shape,” Sarah said, and her eyes grew wet. “I saw her in the darkness, though she is in the jail. She smiled at me, Nathaniel. She smiled, and she said, ‘You gave me bread. Now I give you a reminder that no kindness is free.’ And then these marks appeared.”

Nathaniel’s chest tightened. “Sarah, listen to me. Mercy cannot do such things. She has been locked in a cell for a week. Someone has told you to say this. Someone has—has given you something to drink, maybe. Or has put this in your head.”

Sarah shook her head. “No one has told me anything. I know what I saw. And I know what I must do.” She straightened, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “I am going to the magistrate. I am going to add my testimony against Mercy Hart. She cursed me, Nathaniel. And I will not let her curse anyone else.”

She turned and walked toward the courthouse before Nathaniel could stop her. He stood frozen in the road, the ledger burning against his ribs.

Mercy had told him the pattern: Willard dosed his patients with hallucinogens, then pointed them at his enemies like loaded muskets. But Sarah had not been Willard’s patient. She had been Mercy’s friend. Unless—

Nathaniel’s mind raced. Unless Willard had found new instruments. Or unless Sarah had been turned by someone else, someone who wanted Mercy dead as much as the doctor did.

He looked up at the jail, where Mercy sat waiting for him, and knew that every step he took toward her trial, the walls around them only grew taller.