We both stretched our arms at the same time.

‘Well, Abigail, what are you going to do with your jam jar of magic?’

I was silent for a while.

Betty studied my face.

‘I took the jar into the garden and threw it over a plant. The plant died.’

Betty looked quizzical.

‘He’s left Salem Town; shifted to Boston. He said he’d write to me but will he?’

‘Maybe he’ll find a new girlfriend in Boston.’

‘And maybe he won’t.’ I could see the relief in Betty’s face that he had gone.

The ten of us, Betty and I, the two Elizabeths, two Marys, Mercy, Sarah, Susannah and Ann, sat on those hard chairs in the meeting house so that both Captains Walcott and Dodge could ply us with their questions as to our strange antics. Only weeks before, we had all sat on the ground at dusk round a fire and a cauldron of roots, which we hoped, would help us secure love. That now seemed a long time ago. Since then, Mr Putman and Mr Cheever had visited all of us girls exhorting us to tell the truth and reveal the bewitchers. They had created an ogre and now believed it. They wanted us girls to give proof of it.

‘Who is it that bewitches you? Do you know, Abigail?’

I was silent.

Then the captains asked the same question of Betty, who shrank away.

I watched as people, interested in what was going on, began to file into the meeting house. Men took off their caps; they were still in work clothes. Women had interrupted their cooking to attend. The sugar was ripening but no one tended it. It rotted in the sun.

Every day the captains asked each girl for information. They sat with those who had brought their lunches but he could get nothing from us. We girls did not talk to each other, seeming to be under a spell. We viewed each other with eye movement. We were keeping a secret, a secret we were afraid to reveal.

We stayed silent for day after day till another week passed. When we girls were together, we became worse, taking the Lord’s name in vain, and complaining about being stabbed and screaming in agony. But not all of us girls did. Mary Walcott had brought in her knitting and had progressed well with it. Some of the older girls, Elizabeth, Sarah and Mary, maid servants, reproved us for screaming.

Still we revealed nothing. No one had bewitched us. Our moans and visions had just happened. None of us wanted the adults to know of our trysts in the woods. But how long could we stay silent?

I looked over at my uncle. I knew he and the captains were trying to get the girls to disclose who were bewitching them. The captains and the deacons were becoming tired of waiting for hours with no information coming forth. I saw their pale faces, wrinkles on their foreheads and sighs escaping from them. These morning meetings were held four days a week over weeks and still they faced stubborn silence. I caught Captain Walcott and my uncle exchanging glances and rolling their eyes. Their patience was tried.