“If you decide you want to go after her, I’ll leave with you today.”

Finney insisted they go first to Catherine for advice, and although Maria felt humiliated to ask for another woman’s help in such a personal matter, she agreed. She had a new admiration for those who came to her for cures, for they opened themselves to reveal their most private thoughts and deeds, an act that now mortified her.

“Have you not worried about your daughter?” Catherine asked Maria.

“No more than any mother would,” Maria said.

It was a wonder how those you loved best were often the ones you could not fully see. “She’s gone over to the dark,” Catherine told her. When Maria’s expression was still puzzled, Catherine explained, “You didn’t want to know, so it was easy for her to fool you. She works left-handed.”

“No. That’s impossible.” Maria looked up at Finney, who couldn’t meet her eye. “Isn’t it?”

“She’s a good-hearted girl,” Finney assured Maria. “No one is saying she’s not, but she was locked away for five years. It could turn anyone.”

“You had lost her before she left for Massachusetts.” Catherine had the little dog on her lap, ignoring how muddy he was. “Now let’s see if you can get her back.”

Catherine filled a glass bowl with cool, clear water. She placed two sticks of bramble into the bowl, which helped to invoke the spirit of the person in question, along with a stalk of thistle, for protection. The water turned black, the better to see into. On one side of the bowl was the future as it was now, on the other side the future as it might be. There was fire on one side, waves on the other that leapt from the bowl, splashing onto the table.

Catherine turned to Finney. “When the girl dreamed of hell, how did she cross over?”

“Through water,” Finney said.

The women exchanged a look. They both knew that meant a drowning to prove witchery was at work. Maria rose to her feet, thanking her hosts, ready to leave, telling Finney he need not accompany her; she would find her daughter.

Catherine held her back. “Listen to me,” she said. “I have seen this before. I know black magic. I have seen more than you could imagine. Following the girl isn’t the answer.”

“I know what people are capable of in Essex County. I know what they did to me.”

“But this is her fate, not yours. She has to cross through hell to come out on the other side. Otherwise she will be trapped in her own darkness.”

Maria shook her head. She held back tears that burned her.

“There’s only one way for you to help,” Catherine told her. “The first and second rules combined.”