Still, protection was hard to find. Three hundred suspects were charged; one hundred of these poor souls went to the gallows, having been tested by being tied to a chair and tossed into a river or pond to see if they would drown or if they would float like a witch. It was a test that was impossible to win. Hannah Owens had been fortunate to have escaped a hanging, for the trials were stopped and the madness was broken, much like a fever, suddenly and for no apparent reason, other than the fact that logic finally prevailed. The accused were let out of prison, grateful even though there were no apologies or explanations, and certainly no reparations. Hopkins died in his twenties of the coughing disease, said to have been contracted after he had been swimming. There were many who were overjoyed to hear that he’d been damned with his own version of drowning, his lungs filling with water that had sunk him as surely as if he’d been tied to a stool and forcibly immersed in a pond. On the day he was buried, scores of women in Essex County celebrated with bonfires burning and mugs of ale poured and enjoyed. As for Hannah, she’d had a cup of tea on that day, made of a mixture she had blended to give herself courage during these dreadful times when a woman couldn’t walk down the street without fear of being accused of misdoings, especially if a book was found in her belongings, or if she could read and write her own name.

Although the mania had died down, mothers continued to tie their babies to their cradles to make certain they wouldn’t be stolen in the night, setting bowls of precious salt on their windowsills to protect those inside. Men nailed upside-down horseshoes above barn doors to ensure that their luck wouldn’t run out, for they privately feared that a witch could ruin any strong man’s health by placing a strand of his hair or his fingernail clippings under the eaves of a house. Children were taught never to speak to strangers; should they stray and be bewitched, they must shout out numbers backwards as a way to break the enchantment. Those unfortunate children who did go missing were searched for with pitchers of goat’s milk, said to be a witch’s favorite drink, and many times children who had been spirited away appeared at the door late at night, with burrs in their hair and no practical excuse to give their mothers, other than a thin apology and a claim they’d become lost in the woods and could not for the life of them find their way home.