New matters came. A horror grew up around the house. The girl was seen flitting across the fields at dawn, a monstrous shadow following. Her voice was heard from the room where she locked herself alone, raised in unknown speech. Strange lights moved in her windows in the deep night. The old woman who had served in the house for years was stricken with a palsy and was taken away mumbling unintelligible things that iced the blood of superstitious hearers.
There was a young man of the neighborhood whose love for Mistress Michell had been long and constant. One morning he was found dead on her doorstep, his face fixed in drawn terror. Under his hand four words were scrawled in the snow: "Sara daughter of Ruel——"
There were those who could finish that quotation. Next Sabbath the new minister took as his text: "Ye shall not suffer a witch to live." And he spoke of Sara the daughter of Ruel, who was wed to ten bridegrooms, each of whom was dead on the wedding eve; for she was beloved by an evil spirit that suffered none to come to her. Authority moved at last against Desire Michell. But when the officers came to arrest her, she was found dead in her favorite seat before the hearth.
"Fair and upright in her place, scented with a perfume she herself distilled of her learning in such matters; which was said to contain a rare herb of Jerusalem called Lady's Rose, resembling spikenard, with vervain and cedar and secret simples; in which she steeped her hair so that wherever she abode were sweet odours. So did she escape Justice, but shall not escape Hell's Damnation and Heaven's casting out."
I closed the book and laid it down.
Reading those dim, closely printed pages had taken time. I was astonished to find the window spaces gray with dawn, when I glanced that way. The night was past. Neither from Desire nor from the Thing without a name which had sent me to this book could I find out what I was expected to glean from the narration.
My enemy had made no conditions on directing me to the book. It had asked no price, uttered no menace. Why, then, had I so solemn a certainty that a crisis in our affair had been reached. I had come to an end; a corner had been turned. I had opened a door that could not be closed. How did I know this? Why?
Why was the fog against the windows this morning so like the fog that shrouded the unearthly sea opposite the Barrier?
By and by Cristina came downstairs and busied herself in the kitchen. Bagheera, who had slept beside my chair all night, rose and padded out to the region of breakfast and saucers of milk. Next, the voices of Phillida and Vere drifted from above.
To have Phillida find me there in her sewing-room, finishing an all-night vigil, involved too many explanations. I did an unwise thing. From the lowest shelf of the bookcase I gathered such books as were readable by my knowledge, and carried the armful up to my room. After a hot bath and breakfast I would look over these companions of the New England witch book.