Looking into the parlour, I saw my father looking vacantly into space.

‘Father, what ails you?’

‘My child, we live in hard and terrifying times. But I must tell you for you will hear anyway.’

He put his arms around my shoulders and squeezed them.

‘Five women are to be hanged in two days’ time. Rebecca Nurse, who never did anyone any harm in all her long life, Sarah Good, Elizabeth Howe and Susannah Martin.’ He paused, looking thoroughly miserable. ‘And Sarah Wild.’

‘Father, I am afraid. If Rebecca Nurse is hanged, what hope do the rest of us have? How can they acquit a person and then try them again and reverse the verdict?’

‘Ann Putman accused her of being a witch. Her mother accused her of murder. Abigail also joined in and said she saw Rebecca Nurse holding the Devil’s book and offering it to her.’

‘Can you really believe that, Father?’ Could you not have done more to testify to her true character?’

His eyes were downcast.

‘She was the most pious woman in the meeting house with her quaint accent from Yarmouth in England. No wonder her kinswoman Sarah Cloyse ran out of the meeting house and banged the door when Rebecca Nurse was put in prison.’

‘Betty, you forget yourself when you condone such behaviour.’

‘But Father, what about Tituba?’

‘I promise I will get her out of jail before anything untoward happens to her.’

I put my arms around my father’s neck and wept.