Free The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe Page A

and Goodman Petfahd then told diverse other tales of felonious sawceries which I could scarce believe. I ventured to the afawsaid Dane’s house to tell them what were being said.”
    After surrendering her testimony to the clerk, Goody Cory cast a glower toward the man whom Appleton assumed to be Petford, a roguish-looking sort sitting on the opposite bench with his head cupped in his hands. She sat and folded her arms, sniffing her disapproval of the proceedings.
    “Very well,” said Appleton. “If Nathaniel Dane be present, he shall deliver his deposition.”
    A tall young man seated on Goody Dane’s other side rose. He was simply and neatly dressed, and looked like he might smell pleasantly of burning leaves. There was an out-of-doors quality to his countenance that made Appleton muse that this Goodman Dane would be a top fowler.
    The man uncrumpled a little slip of paper, glanced down at his wife, and then paused a moment to draw breath. Appleton noted that the young man’s eyes had dark circles under them, and that his face was whitish yellow under his sunburn. The room waited.
    “I testify and saith,” he read, pronouncing each word with deliberation,“that my wife be no kind of witch, but that the said Petah Petfahd ha’ hardened his heaht for sadness at the loss of his child Mahther, and only sought to blame where naught could be helped.”
    He started to recrumple the paper before Elias plucked it out of his hands and then settled himself again next to his wife. Appleton just glimpsed Goodman Dane brush his fingertips over his wife’s knee, and in that tender gesture the true depth of Dane’s fear unfurled before him. To have one’s wife talked about as a sorcerer was a worrisome thing indeed. If she did not prevail in this slander case, the rumors would only grow worse; a reputation for demoniac doings might never be undone. Heaven help them if Petford not be found guilty, he reflected. To think that a weak man’s grief could undo a young family such as this. Appleton, embarrassed by this limpid feeling of pity and sorrow for the couple seated before him, looked for help back at the clerk. Elias prompted him by mouthing the name of the next witness.
    “If Goodwife Mary Oliver be here she shall present her deposition,” Appleton barked.
    A woman of indistinct middle years arose on the other side of the meetinghouse aisle, her puckered face bristling with a tobacco-stained mustache. Just looking at her made Appleton think of tart pickled plums, and he pursed his lips with displeasure. She unfolded her own sheet of paper, raised her nose an inch or so, and spoke.
    “I testify and saith that the said Deliverance Dane was a known healah and like a witch also, sost say so could be no defamement. One John Godfrey did tell me at this instant month that he hud a calf which were wasted and afflicted and asked the said Goody Dane whehfoah the animal was sick. She took watah of the calf into a bottle and boilt it in a kittle upon the fyah, whereupon she told the said Godfrey that his calf would be well though it was bewitched. And thus the calf was wal.”
    At this the assembly gasped aloud, and a fresh swell of murmurs swept through the meetinghouse.
    “Silence!” bellowed Appleton. “You shall continue, woman.”
    Goody Oliver seemed to enjoy the effect of her testimony, surveying her audience with a proud smirk. “Anothah time,” she began again, “I ha’ sought physick from heh for a pained foot. She bade me entah heh house and did apply some liniment to my foot which she made by mashing hairbs and readin’ in some book. I asked her what book war this and she said nowt but placed the book on a high shelf and asked me if my foot weh feeling bettah, which it was.”
    The townsfolk gathered in the meetinghouse burst forth in a fresh torrent of commentary as Goody Oliver pressed her lips together in satisfaction. She surrendered her deposition to Elias with great ceremony, remained standing a moment