“He’s only a pup,” Maria assured Anne. When she told the dog to hush, he did as he was told, curling up beside the little girl’s bed. Maria had been expecting a visitor, for the broom had fallen only an hour earlier, which always meant company was coming. She had already brewed a pot of Courage Tea.

They know what they want, Hannah had told her. Ask the right questions and you’ll get the right answers. Even those who have been afraid to speak aloud will tell the truth when they must.

“I shouldn’t be here,” Anne said apologetically. She looked back at the door, and for a moment it seemed she might flee. “It’s late.”

“Perhaps it’s not too late, but of course you’re welcome to come or go as you like.”

Anne steadied herself. Once he knew she’d gone, there would be hell to pay. This was likely her only chance to escape. “I’ll stay.”

Maria gestured to the table so they might sit together. She was not yet twenty-two, but that was two years older than the unhappy young woman before her, and by now Maria knew a thing or two about love. She understood the situation as soon as Anne removed her jacket and unclasped the hooks on the front of her dress. Anne raised her chin defiantly as she showed herself, but even before she did, Maria knew what would be revealed: bruises in the shape of blooming flowers, the same color as the ones marking Rebecca on the day she came to see Hannah Owens. In Boston Maria had been called upon for cures and love magic. This was something entirely different.

“He does it to punish me when I’m slow or stupid,” Anne said. “If I charge the wrong price or burn supper or when I speak too loudly.” She had thought of murdering him in his sleep, but she hadn’t the heart for such things, only the imagination.

Maria gave the shopkeeper’s wife a salve of calamine and balm of Gilead for her bruises, and an amulet made of blue glass beads and blue thread for protection.

Anne Hatch shook her head, displeased. “This isn’t a strong enough cure for my problem.”

The women stared at each other. To come this far alone, a woman must be willing to take a risk. What she wants she must want desperately. Maria wished to have nothing to do with the pains of love; still her heart went out to Anne. In point of fact, this wasn’t love, but love gone wrong, a different story entirely.

“What did you have in mind?” Maria asked.

“I need poison,” Anne said softly, her chin up, her eyes meeting Maria’s.

There were many toxic potions that could be made from the local plants: hogweed, lily of the valley, castor bean, tansy, bittersweet nightshade, mountain laurel, yew leaf, white baneberry, henberry, horse nettle, pokeberry, pure cyanide in the pits of wild cherries. But what was done could not be undone, and vengeance always returned to its maker.