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Back The Darkest Shore
Chapters (76)
  1. Cover
  2. About the Author
  3. Also by Karen Brooks
  4. Title Page
  5. Dedication
  6. EXPLANATORY NOTE
  7. PART ONE
  8. One
  9. Two
  10. Three
  11. Four
  12. Five
  13. Six
  14. Seven
  15. Eight
  16. Nine
  17. Ten
  18. Eleven
  19. Twelve
  20. Thirteen
  21. Fourteen
  22. Fifteen
  23. Sixteen
  24. Seventeen
  25. Eighteen
  26. Nineteen
  27. Twenty
  28. Twenty-One
  29. Twenty-Two
  30. Twenty-Three
  31. Twenty-Four
  32. Twenty-Five
  33. Twenty-Six
  34. Twenty-Seven
  35. Twenty-Eight
  36. PART TWO
  37. Twenty-Nine
  38. Thirty
  39. Thirty-One
  40. Thirty-Two
  41. Thirty-Three
  42. Thirty-Four
  43. Thirty-Five
  44. PART THREE
  45. Thirty-Six
  46. Thirty-Seven
  47. Thirty-Eight
  48. Thirty-Nine
  49. Forty
  50. Forty-One
  51. Forty-Two
  52. Forty-Three
  53. Forty-Four
  54. Forty-Five
  55. Forty-Six
  56. Forty-Seven
  57. Forty-Eight
  58. Forty-Nine
  59. Fifty
  60. Fifty-One
  61. Fifty-Two
  62. PART FOUR
  63. Fifty-Three
  64. Fifty-Four
  65. Fifty-Five
  66. Fifty-Six
  67. Fifty-Seven
  68. Fifty-Eight
  69. Fifty-Nine
  70. Sixty
  71. Sixty-One
  72. Epilogue: Autumn 1706
  73. AUTHOR’S NOTE
  74. GLOSSARY
  75. LIST OF CHARACTERS
  76. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Bellows of agreement rang out. The reverend’s supporters had shifted into spaces left by those who’d taken the prisoners away.

The reverend raised his arms again. ‘Listen to me,’ he shouted above the rain. ‘The women might be at liberty, but they’re not free. You must all treat them with caution — including those of you who refuse to see what they are. Watch your backs lest what happened to Peter Morton also happens to you.’

The Mortons and the Crawfords raised a cheer. It was all but drowned by the heckling of the women’s supporters and the increasing rain.

Cowper dropped his arms. A path opened for him and he strode through the crowd, his followers falling in behind him.

There was more muttering, a few yells of defiance, but not as many as before. Most simply watched him depart.

‘Come,’ said Captain Ross, sending a signal to his sergeant. ‘I’ve heard enough. This helps no one.’

Lacking the energy to resist, Sorcha allowed the captain to lead her away. There wasn’t far to go, but it felt like the longest of journeys. Her mind fizzed and burned. She was shocked by what their incarceration had done to the village; it was something she hadn’t foreseen. Pittenweem had always had its rifts — families falling out with one another, neighbours arguing, deaths, marriages. But this was different. The town was rent. She wondered if it could ever be whole again.

What the reverend and council had succeeded in doing when they arrested eight innocent souls was to cause a schism so wide only a miracle could heal it.

That, or something catastrophic.

PART TWO

August to November 1704

Your eyes bewitched my wit, your wit bewitched my will,
Thus with your eyes and wit you do bewitch me still
And yet you are no witch, whose spirit is not evil,
And yet you are a witch, and yet you are no devil.
Oh witching eyes, and wit, where wit and eyes may read,
A witch and not a witch, and yet a witch indeed.

— Nicholas Breton, ‘My Witch’, circa 1545–1626

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Our Presbyterian ministers are showing great zeal in discovering witches and they think they have fallen luckily on a cluster of them in Pittenweem.

— A True and Full Relation of the Witches at Pittenweem, to which is added by way of prefix, an essay for proving the existence of good and evil spirits, relating to the witches of Pittenweem, now in custody, with argument against the sadducism of the present age, 1704.

Twenty-Nine

TWENTY-NINE

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She be a brazen besom.

(She’s a shameless woman.)

Captain Ross stood aside as he opened the door of the cottage, allowing Sorcha to enter first. As soon as she was inside, she leaned against the wall, her legs aching, her head reeling. She was home.