Wickedness could easily be found in this part of the world; hands must be kept busy to prevent evil deeds and to keep God’s favor, which many thought had been lost when there were several years of failed crops and famine. It was in God’s name that the Puritans made their attack against the native people and the French, a vicious endeavor called King Philip’s War, named after the Wampanoag chief who had taken the name Philip and led a bloody uprising that had lasted fourteen months. The English took what they wanted and felt was divinely given to them, land they claimed for God, but kept for their own use. One must be careful to keep oneself in God’s light and not in the devil’s darkness. Women must keep their eyes lowered, their voices soft. They must not ask for what they did not deserve, or think themselves above others, or pursue any vile needs or desires.

Mrs. Henry had told Maria to keep her head covered so that her glossy black hair wouldn’t be seen. Puritans rejected beauty in a woman, Mrs. Henry warned, just as they feared independence in the sex they deemed responsible for Adam’s downfall and the trials of all men who had followed. Maria carried the baby on her hip and Cadin in his case made of reeds. From the start, the crow made it clear that he was unhappy with their destination, clattering nasty clicks, as if scolding his mistress. Cadin put up such a racket that at last Maria paused on the street to open his cage. He peered at her with his glittering eye, sulking as he had on the day when Rebecca Lockland had knocked at the door, as annoyed as he’d always been when John Hathorne had come to call in Curaçao.

“Go on,” she urged when he glared at her with fierce disapproval. Cadin would always be her dearest friend, but perhaps he was jealous of John; certainly he had never taken to him. “You asked to be free. Go have a look at this town.”

The crow disappeared above the rooftops, a black streak in the sky. If he didn’t wish to help her find John, so be it. They’d make amends; they always did, for they had similar temperaments, cool and mistrustful, but ultimately, forgiving. She had decided she would no longer have doubts. A black heart could belong to anyone, and she would ignore the image she had seen. This was the day when she was to step into the future. She wore a serge dress, hand-stitched by Mrs. Henry for the occasion, dyed with blue composition, an inexpensive dye made of indigo and sold as a liquid in small glass bottles, a common enough color in Boston, but one which stood out here in Salem, where the women most often wore gray. She had on her red boots, still as good as new, and in her hair were the blackened silver hair clips that she considered to be good luck, even though a witch makes her own luck, and silver meant less to her than remembrance. Her lovely face shone in the sunlight, perhaps even more than it might have elsewhere, for sunlight was a rare occurrence in this city.