On other days she climbed the rock hill on which the gallows of the witches had been set, and saw the crevices where tradition believed their bodies had been buried, some with their hands exposed above ground for vile and simple headstones. She saw their gnarled old houses, far away in Danvers or Beverly. She saw the pins with which the afflicted girls had been tormented. But much of her time was spent in the new court-house where she deciphered and copied old records of court procedure.
At night, on returning to Miss Myra's, supposedly to sleep on the great sleigh bed, she would find that the words of the witches, the questioning of the judges, the outcries of the 'afflicted,' followed her from the lifeless leaves.
'Have you made no contracts with the Devil?'
'No.'
(Then the afflicted did cry out.)
'Why do you torment these children?'
'I do not. I scorn it.'
(She muttered and the children were struck speechless.)
'What do you mutter to yourself?'
'If I must tell, I will tell.'
'Tell us then.'
'It is the Commandments. I may say my Commandments, I hope.'
Lanice would turn and try to forget these long-dead tragic folk. But again their words, forcing themselves through the quiet of the night, came to disturb
