Hester

Tituba sits in a Boston jail with other accused witches. After none of the other enslaved people of Salem spoke in her defense, not even her husband, John Indian, Tituba confessed to witchcraft after striking a deal for her freedom with Reverend Parris. Widow Osborne has been killed, Goodwife Martin resents Tituba for her confession, and Sarah Good repeatedly asserts her innocence.

Mercy objects to Isobel working for the Silases, who profit from the slave trade and run sugar plantations in Jamaica that use enslaved people’s labor. She argues slavery was only recently outlawed in Massachusetts and that the legacy of such violence remains in Salem. She recounts how her grandmother was enslaved in Africa and brought to Jamaica, then brought north by a white man who kept her as a “comfort woman,” impregnating her with Mercy’s mother. Mercy’s mother was then sold to another white man, who impregnated her with Mercy. The man sent Mercy’s pregnant mother away when the law surrounding slavery changed to protect himself. Isobel asks if the Silases specifically harmed Mercy’s family, causing her to grow distant and assert “a slave man is a slave man” (185). Isobel gives her beeswax for ointment and pays for the new glove frame Zeke made for her.

Isobel attends church and thinks about different families’ connections to the witch trials. After the sermon, she visits the boulder where she and Nat spoke a week ago and finds a rose intertwined with hawthorn flowers, left by Nat. Delighted, she stitches a scarlet “A” on a scrap of cloth and hides it in the crevasse where she found the flowers, imagining Nat touching her hand. Over the next few days, Isobel furiously works on gloves for Mrs. Adams, inadvertently stitching the words “LOVE” and “COURAGE” in her designs. When Mrs. Adams sees the gloves, she calls them enchanted, leaving Isobel to wonder again if she is a witch.

Isobel walks through Salem, alert for signs of Nat, when she overhears two Black men, including Mr. Redmond, discuss a slave catcher who has been searching Salem for an escaped mother and child. A woman explains that the law permits plantation owners to pursue enslaved people who escaped north, leading Isobel to wonder what other injustices occur in Salem that she has not noticed.

John Hathorne and Reverend Cotton Mather interrogate four-year-old Dorcas Good, who confessed to witchcraft. She blames the marks on her arms, which she made by sucking on them for comfort, on a snake, as her father told her sucking her arms is “nasty and unnatural” (193). The men take Dorcas’s report of a snake as confirmation of her mother Sarah Good’s guilt. They arrest the child, whose father complies. Even as Sarah Good is taken to the gallows, she asserts both her and Dorcas’s innocence: “I am not a witch, and if you kill me, God will give you blood to drink” (194-95).

Isobel returns to the Silases’ to finish Charlotte’s veil. She is offended by Mrs. Silas’s comment that Zeke and Mercy should, as Black people, show her more deference. Even so, she accepts a lucrative job to sew petticoats for Charlotte’s trousseau. Isobel shops for different goods, and the shapes of cut white fabrics remind her of friendly ghosts.

Later, Mercy brings Isobel a jar of maple syrup. Isobel uses her cape to hide Charlotte’s white fabrics, but feels exposed when Mercy examines her stitched memories. Mercy asks about Isobel Gowdie, and Isobel relays the story, which Mercy finds amusing. She praises Gowdie’s claim of being the Devil’s lover as a smart use of power. She says taking advantage of power is important to Black women and women like Isobel, as white Americans view Scottish people with prejudice. Isobel hurries to claim Scottish people are British, but Mercy rejects this as important to white Americans. She encourages Isobel to use her understanding of prejudice to manipulate those with systemic power, but remember that this prejudice is untrue.

When the court of Oyer and Terminer, which arbitrated the witch trials, is overturned, 93 accused are released from jail. As magistrates and accusers repent, John Hathorne insists the accused are witches. Sarah Carrier, who testified against her own mother out of fear, anticipates his death.

Isobel encounters the Philadelphia women who purchased her gloves at Mrs. Adams’s shop. She doesn’t speak to them, but notes their names and preference for “free cotton”—cotton made without enslaved labor, which they insist is the only kind a “true Christian woman” would use (207). They order a dozen pairs of gloves, insisting the work be done by the same artisan, whom Mrs. Adams claims is an anonymous recluse. Isobel insists on being paid half her fee for the gloves upfront, negotiating for a higher price overall. Mrs. Adams reports news of trouble on Darling’s ship due to one of the men; Isobel is certain this man is Edward. Two days later, she receives news from Darling that Edward did not board the return ship in Bermuda, which frightens her, then fills her with hope.

Isobel shares Edward’s absence and her past with Nell. Nell advises she stay in Mrs. Silas’s good graces to find future work. At home, Isobel reads a letter from her father, which reports that he is ailing. She stitches for Charlotte to process her emotions, then uses a piece of fine cloth she saved from Scotland and the last of Darling’s silk threads to stitch a leopard containing messages of strength and courage, including a drop of her blood from her pricked finger. She sends the leopard to her father with a letter promising to name any son she has after him. Isobel feels alone and worries for her future.

Nat visits Mrs. Adams’s shop, holding the scarlet A Isobel left for him, which he returns to her. Isobel wants to tell him of her woes, but instead chats about trivial topics. He negotiates with Mrs. Adams over the price of Isobel’s embroidery, and requests a waistcoat with a leopard stitched on it. Mrs. Adams seems to dislike him, and Isobel remembers how Nat’s ancestor accused witches, while her and Felicity’s ancestors were some of the accused. Despite this, she trusts Nat.

Isobel dreams of her mother, asking if she wants Edward to come home. Her mother tells her to “think of the faeries beneath the [hawthorn] trees” (217). Isobel is roused from the dream by Nat, drunkenly knocking her door. His face is injured, and his clothes torn. Isobel hides her work for Charlotte and admits Nat, knowing this decision will mean the start of a romantic relationship. He stumbles through a story of gambling, then being mugged for his winnings, which he intends to use to buy Isobel’s gloves. She stitches a knife wound in his side, coating it with pennyroyal ointment to prevent fever, and lays him in her bed. She notes cross scratches on Nat’s back, but he won’t explain them. He says Isobel’s name in three syllables, “is a bell,” as he falls asleep (220).

Isobel stays awake as long as she can, watching Nat, but eventually falls asleep on the floor beside the bed. She wakes him early, so he can leave before Mercy’s children come to use her well. He asks her to make him a new coat in three days, as he doesn’t have money to replace his damaged one, and Isobel promises to try to repair it. She sees the cross scratches on Nat’s back again and thinks of religious penance, wondering if his guilt arises from lust for her. He asks to return, and they agree upon a candle in the window as a signal that he may visit. As he leaves before dawn, Isobel spots Mercy running with a man in the forest.

Years after the witch trials, Tituba is finally free of nightmares. She lives alone, as John Parris, her former enslaver, never returned for her after her incarceration during the trials. She plans to go west, but first seeks Dorcas, who is dying. Tituba relays love from Dorcas’s deceased mother, then escapes the threat of future enslavement by heading west.

The next day, tired from her long night with Nat, Isobel asks Abigail about the history of slavery in Salem. Abigail says that while Salem residents like to disavow this history, many residents enriched themselves via the slave trade. Isobel asks if the Silases, a slaving family, are cruel, to which Abigail responds that any person involved in enslaving another is cruel.

Using coins Nat gave her, Isobel purchases superfine wool and silk to repair his coat. When he returns, she takes his measurements, thrilled at the excuse to touch him. He admires her work on Charlotte’s petticoats, though Isobel keeps the customer’s identity secret. She inquires about the history of her cottage, and he says Widow Higgins, then a married woman, was a midwife who lived in the cottage with her Native American husband; she attended the birth of Nat’s sister, with whom Nat’s mother was pregnant before her marriage. When Widow Higgins’s husband died, her sister began to speak of people sneaking in the woods to commune with the Devil. Widow Higgins’s sister later reported being sexually assaulted by “a man with a long white beard” (231), which earned her scorn from the town, who considered the claim a sign of her own sin; she died shortly thereafter. White residents no longer accepted Widow Higgins’s midwifery, so she moved to live closer to Black residents. Isobel reflects on the widow’s success at hiding her secrets. The discussion reminds her of her father’s approaching death, and she weeps. Nat embraces her before departing. Isobel makes a “pessary” (an herb-and-beeswax plug) designed to prevent pregnancy and inserts it before Nat comes to retrieve his coat several days later. When he arrives, they kiss.