‘Regard not them that have familiar spirits,’ Jacob Crane intones, turning with frightening swiftness to point a finger at Viola. She chokes on her surprise and retreats until her back presses against the raised stage. He moves steadily towards her, mouth wet with spittle. ‘Neither seek after wizards, to be defiled by them: I am the Lord your God!’ This is not the man who stands up in chapel and reads; this is a monster who believes himself divine.

He turns from Viola, as swiftly as he had attacked, impaling the gallery with his gaze, a finger trained on the girls.

‘A brother is dead at the hands of these sisters, these women who have reawakened the island’s shameful history of superstition and necromancy, women who have danced naked and fornicated with the Devil …’

‘No, no, no!’ Ingrid’s cries burst free again.

‘Mama!’ calls Anna, sending all three girls into shuddering sobs. Viola reaches up across the raised platform of the stage, as if she might be able to grab hold of an ankle, touch them.

‘The bible is very clear.’ Jacob Crane’s voice rises in intensity – the coming of a terrible storm. ‘And we on the Council always defer to His word, which is this…’ He takes a pause, he pronounces their sentence. ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.’

The mothers howl, the gallery gasps, the Eldest Girls scramble from their seats and bundle together as one at the back of the stage. Viola uses the last of her physical strength to haul herself up onto the platform, pushing up through her arms, dragging her belly across the wood. She throws herself at the girls’ trembling bodies, murmuring a desperate, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…’ as Mary Ahearn breaks loose from the throng, teeth clenched, and launches herself at Jacob Crane.

‘No!’ yells Rhoda, fearful of recompense, but Jed Springer has hold of Mary before she can reach the headmaster’s throat.

‘I gave you due warning, Mary Ahearn,’ Jacob Crane roars above the hubbub. ‘And I made your duty clear – any person allowing a child to slip from the path of righteousness may as well have a millstone hanged about their neck and be drowned in the depth of the sea. You failed in your task of raising your daughter and now she faces the consequences of your actions!’

‘So drown me then!’ cries Mary Ahearn. ‘Drown me like you drowned my husband!’

As the words leave her mouth, the blood leaves her body, the muscles go too, the bones – she becomes limp. The room is submerged in silence. Viola lifts her head from the embrace of the other girls and feels the vibrations of this seismic shift – the power of something said aloud that has been long buried or dismissed.

What next? asks Viola’s mind, but no longer as a scream. What comes next?