Missus jumps right on that idea. “There was that man at the auction, too. Remember, Matthew? The one she bewitched till he bid more than he could pay. She’s been hexing people all this time.”

I got trouble enough breathing, so there ain’t no way I can speak. I shake my head, and shake it, and shake it.

Master takes the dried plants from Maple. He rubs his fingers over them, like he’s got to feel them to believe they’s real. They crush in his hands and he throws them at me. The dried weed pieces are too light to travel far, and fall in front of my feet, like I got some spell to keep them off me.

I get down on the floor on my knees and pick up the ragwort, a cluster of golden flowers and heart-shaped leaves. “This is good for a woman’s monthly pains and for childbirth pains, and for broken bone pains too, sometimes.” I raise it up to him to see it’s just a simple plant.

Maple sucks her teeth.

I hold up the bushy clutch of tiny pink flowers from the Joe-pye weed. “You boil this for tea to ease a fever.” I scrabble around on the floor for another healing herb to explain.

“I seen her use her weeds and potions on Master Thomas, too,” Maple says.

I shake my head. I have, but God help me if they believe I have.

“Our son,” gasps Missus. “Matthew, our son.”

“No, Master. I never hurt him,” I say from where I kneel on the ground.

“If that ain’t the forked tongue of the Devil, just like you preached us about,” Maple says.

“Get Thomas,” he says to Maple. “Wake him up and bring him down here.”

Maple sets her tray down against the wall and hurries out of the room.

“I never hurt no one,” I say. “I use these things to heal people.”

“Such devilry in my own house,” Missus says, wringing her hands. “We weren’t even supposed to have her. Remember, Matthew? She should have gone to that other man, but the Devil brought her here.”

Master crosses to his wife and reaches down to where she sits and takes her hand. “Don’t be afraid, my dear. The Lord protects his own.”

Maple comes in with Master Thomas and says, “Go on and tell your momma and your daddy what you told me.”

When she says that, I know it’s over. They gonna hang me. Or burn me.

“When I got sick,” he says, “Sarah put yams and pine needles on my chest and then I got better.”

Maple nods at him like he’s supposed to say something more, and then he remembers and says it.

“Like magic.”

She smiles. “And the drink?”

“The tea?” he asks. “It tasted awful, but it made me better.”

I lower my head, shaking. I’m surely dying tonight. There’s never been much living to my life, but I don’t want it over.

“Are you sick, Sarah? I can pick some plants for you, like you showed me.”