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The deed herthem with her devil’s psalms It did not actually occur to her to use her devil’s psalms She was curious She did not yet know if she could die The on down through the slushy March snow to stand trial She only looked at theuts twisted under those hollow eyes, and this was further proof
It took er than anticipated The two Sauve-Majeures had never agreed on ree on the proper execution of a witch’s trial Hanging, said Dryland and Pole Burning, insisted Sazarin and le Clerq One judge or a whole bench, testiees were read? A water test or a needle test? Who would question her and what questions would they ask? Would Dr Pelerin exa in Massachusetts, where they knew about such dark medicine, or theout the devil in their midst, the Church in Rome or their own stalwart Pastor Pole? What name would the town bear on the warrants, Sauve-Majeure (nest of snakes and Papistry) or Help-on-High (den of jackals and schisarden now and when she was gone? Who would have her house?
The deirls to come to her—and they did, first the slower studies who craved her approval, then finally Basile and Weep-Not and Lizzie Wadham and Bess Chedderley and the other nah no one had asked them much about it The demon slipped her chains easily and put her hands to their little heads
“Go and do as I have done,” Sister Agnes said “Go and row, o and dance until you are full up of the moon”
“Are you really a witch?” ventured Basile Sazarin, ould be the most beautiful woman Sauve-Majeure would ever reap, all the way up til now and further still
“No,” said the deirl who knows her y coht in Hell could be as bright”
And Sister Agnes took off her black wool gown before the young maids They saw her four-spoked seals and her wheels of banishment and the seven burnt psalms on her skin They saw that she had no sex They saw her long nahs They knee in that barn, and they danced with their teacher in the starlight sifting through thehay
A certain minister came to visit the deed not to wholly prostrate himself before the famous man, but took him immediately to speak with the condemned woman, whom that illustrious soul had heard of all the way down in Salem: a confirmed demoness, beyond any doubt
Pastor Pole’s oife Mary-in-the-Manger brought a chair to seat the honored minister upon, and what cider and cheese they had to spare (in truth the Poles had used up the dereat man looked upon the black-clad woaze sounded upon his soul and boo
“Art thee a witch, then?” he whispered
“No,” said the demon
“But not a Christian lady, neither,” said he
“No,” said the demon
“How carow such bounty on your land without the help of God?”
The de around her like an animal’s skin