Maria looked into the dark and saw silver eyes watching them. “Stay away,” she told the wolf, who had hidden in the darkness. She could not stand to have Faith see her wolf’s blood shed.

Martha took the message for Keeper to be meant for her. “I’m only a neighbor wishing to help. The child knows me.”

Maria glanced at Faith and saw in the girl’s eyes that it was true. “How so?”

“She was in Mrs. Hatch’s store. It was there we met.” Faith felt that she had done something wrong in keeping their acquaintance from her mother. “She likes buttons.”

“Does she?” Maria took more notice and recognized the woman as the one who had been speaking to Faith. So she had wanted something after all, and Maria thought it was likely she had come to the cabin to ask for a cure.

Martha introduced herself. She whispered that she was only a neighbor who wished mother and daughter well. “It’s said you have powers. Can you not speak words that would free you or enchant these men?” Martha urged. “Surely you can utter a curse and stop them in their boots. Be rid of them.”

Maria gave her a dark look. “Whoever told you that is what I do is wrong.”

“I mean no harm in saying so. But you don’t want a little one to be taken to that filthy jail,” Martha Chase said, now satisfied that Maria would not or could not defend herself by using the Nameless Art. “There are rats there, sister, who like nothing better than a sweet child. It’s damp and cold and many who walk in do not walk out.”

They had reached the field where the crows had been shot. There were sharp stones littered about that pierced Maria’s feet, or perhaps they were the thin bones of birds. She lifted Faith to carry in her arms. The girl was heavy, for she was already falling asleep, her head tucked against her mother’s shoulder.

“There have been children judged to have carried out witchery,” Martha Chase said. “They are beaten with switches, taken from their homes, treated like common criminals.” Martha had bathed in a wash of salt and vinegar that evening, to make certain she washed away her desire. She was now clean, a good and serious woman with a good deed in mind.

Maria had slowed down, for each step she took brought her closer to the jail. Hannah would never discuss the time when she was incarcerated, when she was believed to have a tail people said was cut off with a carving knife. Her jailors kept her naked, so that they could spy her tail the moment it began to grow back.