The third reason, and probably the most important, was also the least satisfying. Alvin accepted everything about Margaret as a given, as part of the natural world around him. Though he didn’t learn of it till later, she had watched over him through his entire childhood and saved his life many times. She had taught him, disguised as an older spinster schoolmarm. As the sun had shone on him every day, so had her care for him. He took her for granted. Having her inside his mind was as natural as breathing.

I am not even the weather in his life. I am more like the climate. No, more like the calendar. There are holidays, but the rest of the time he loses track, knowing the days will pass one by one whatever he names them.

Mustn’t think that way. Write.

Dearest Alvin, I miss you now more than ever. Calvin is such an unpleasant boy, the opposite of you, and yet when I hear his voice it reminds me of yours.

Only the letters were not really written out so nicely. As soon as she saw that he understood, she would cease writing a word and skip ahead. The letter really began more like this: DA, I miss now mor. C is such an unpl boy, the opp of y&yet wh I hear hi voi it rem me of yo.

It was hard to imagine anyone else making sense of these scraps of words, scrawled in a child’s printed hand instead of Margaret’s elegant script, since printing was easier for Alvin to detect from a distance.

She kept writing: I think you’re a fool to stay in that jail a single night. Walk out of it, gather up your companions, and come home. I don’t much care for Mistress Purity. She has some good futures but they’re not likely, and there’s great harm possible, too, if you stay and win her away from New England.

His question: So it can be done?

Yes but...

Does she hang if we don’t take her?

Margaret knew that a truthful answer would leave Alvin no choice but to stay.

Death isn’t the worst thing in the world, she wrote. We’re all going to do it, and if she’s hanged as a witch it has a very good chance of leading to the repeal of the death penalty for witchery, and a much higher standard for conviction. So her death does much good.

In Alvin’s mind she saw the immediate answer but she had known it already, known it without looking, for it was in his character: Let’s try to achieve that same end without letting them dangle her.

By telling him the truth she had guaranteed that he would linger in that jail.

She wrote: Wasn’t last year’s imprisonment and trial enough of that for one lifetime?

He ignored her, and framed a question in his mind: Calvin? What does he want?

To be you, she wrote. Or, failing that, to destroy everything you ever accomplish. He seduced a fine lady by giving her irresistible lust. Can you do that?