Free The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe

coolness. As the young woman held his gaze he felt the bustling room recede around him, and an unfamiliar tingling sensation, like a beam of sunlight entering his forehead. Appleton felt his putrefying toe submerge as though into a cold, babbling stream, and the numbness of it carried away the dull, burning ache. Unaware that he was doing so, Appleton let out a soft sigh of relief. All at once the moment passed, and the judge shook himself, blinking, the sound of the meetinghouse pressing in around him once more. He flexed his foot inside his shoe, and the toe did not protest. He looked sharply at her. The Dane woman wore a small, knowing smile.
    She reached into the pocket that was tied to her belt to withdraw a folded sheet of paper. She spread the paper out in her hands and began to read aloud in a softly modulated tone.
    “I testify and saith that on the eve of the new year the said Petford bademe come see to his child that was sick and that he had a good mind it was afflicted by some mischief. I hastened to the said Petford’s house whereupon I found Martha, Petford’s daughter, aged about five years, suffering a pain in her head and near dead with fever. I brewed a tincture of physick for the said Martha who drank it down and grew quieter and slept. As she slept the said Petford did rail and moan that surely some evil sorcery had been worked upon the child, for she had thrived yet one week previous.
    “I made to sleep upon the floor nearby the child’s bed. Some hours hence I awoke to Martha’s awful cries as she clutched herself and saith, O, I am pinched, and now, O, I am burnt, and she tore at her clothes. I took her into my arms and held her as she pitched to and fro in her fits, and then loosed one final breath and died.
    “The said Petford, being much aggrieved for the death of his only child, cried what witch hath murdered Martha, and looked upon me strangely. I saith that none ha’ killed his child but it was God’s will, and then I hastened back to Salem.
    “Some weeks hence Susanna Cory saith to Nathaniel, my husband, that she had heard the said Petford tell Goody Oliver that I must surely have written my name in the Devil’s book. He ha’ spake sundry unfair cruelties by me though I only crafted physick for his daughter, thereby murdering my good name, and since then I ha’ felt angry carriages in the town.”
    As she read her account the townsfolk gathered in the meetinghouse listened rapt, gasping aloud at the drama of her recitation. When she finished, the room vibrated with controversy as the onlookers weighed her statement, dying down to a subdued hush when the clerk stood up from his desk.
    Goodwife Dane passed her deposition to the clerk, lowered her gaze to the floor, and resumed her seat on the bench. Whispers eddied around her, but she gave no sign of hearing them.
    “If Goodwife Cory be here she shall render her deposition,” demanded Appleton, reasserting his control over the room. How he hated these old gossips with their wagging fingers.
    A frank-looking woman of about fifty years stood from her place next to Goody Dane. She held her head stiffly, her hands planted on her hips, unashamed of the darning and patches that spotted her dress. She pulled a paper from her own pocket, held it up close to her good eye, and read aloud in a rasping monotone.
    “I testify and saith that as I passed the said Petfahd’s house one faw-noon I huhd the said Petfahd tell Goody Olivah that that Deliverance Dane of Salem is a common rogue and witch that she ha’ murdered his darter as part of her pledge to do the Devil’s work. I tarried and saith to that Petfahd that she seemed none a witch to me but only a wise woman. I saith also that I ha’ known the said Deliverance’s mother and that she were cunning also. The Olivah then countehed that Deliverance once bought several bottles of her and that when she asked Goody Dane whehfoah she wanted bottles she said to read the watah with. Goody Olivah