The Betrayal of Maggie Blair - By Elizabeth Laird Page 0,26
row of witnesses nodding in agreement. "Ebenezer died from her cursing."
I was reliving that terrible morning, remembering how Granny's anger had seared the very air around her, how Mrs. Macbean had cowered on the horse over the baby in her arms, and how the party of guests had stared at Granny with horror in their eyes. Without meaning to, I stepped away from Granny. I had feared her then too. I had thought she meant to harm Ebenezer.
The witnesses were called one by one. Granny had put a spell on a cow and stopped its milk, they said. She had laid an enchantment on a field so that nothing would grow in it. She had brought sickness to a farmer and his wife and made their goat miscarry its kids. None of it was true. Granny had done none of these things, but I could see that our neighbors were sincere. They believed in her guilt. And Granny had brought it on herself. She had wanted to make herself powerful. She had tried to make them fear her. She had succeeded too well.
At last came the call I was dreading.
"Let the servant girl Annie step forward," Mr. Lamont said.
Annie had had time to compose herself. She no longer looked like a scared little rabbit. She put on the innocent, sickly smile that I now knew signaled a string of lies was about to tumble out of her pretty false mouth.
"Maggie's just as much in it too," she said, daring to look at me as if she was sorry for what she had to say. "She called up a whale to lie on the beach at Scalpsie Bay. It was an evil spirit. I saw her talking with it."
I wanted to shout out, She's lying! It's not true! but I was paralyzed with the shock of it.
It was a surprise to the court too. They were looking at me with narrowed, suspicious eyes.
"And I heard her and the old woman talk," Annie went on, not daring to look at me now. She put her head charmingly to one side as if she was trying to remember. "They said they would dig up the body of Ebenezer Macbean and make a pie of his head and feet and hands."
"No!" I shouted, over the horrified buzz of talk. "That's a horrible thing to say! I would never think of such a thing! I love babies!"
"Be quiet, girl," Mr. Lamont rapped out. "What else do you have to say, Annie?"
She hesitated. I could tell by the way she was bunching handfuls of skirt in her fists that the lies she was about to tell frightened even her. She looked back at Mr. Macbean almost pleadingly. He frowned back and nodded sharply.
"Go on, girl."
"There was a—a witches' Sabbath at Ambrisbeg. I saw them all, those two and others, dancing, and there was music, and then—the Devil came."
"Ha, the Devil! What were you doing, miss, running around at Ambrisbeg in the middle of the night?" Granny scoffed.
It was the question everyone had wanted to ask. They leaned forward to look at Annie more closely.
"I had lost something precious," Annie said. "A silver buckle."
I was so startled by her cheek that I stepped forward with my fists clenched in the air. The sheriff's man pulled me back.
"I didn't dare tell my mistress," Annie went on, "in case she was angry with me for being careless. I waited till everyone was asleep, then I went out to look for it. The moon was up, and I thought it would shine on the path. I'd lost it on the way home from Ambrisbeg, where I'd gone to ask for eggs for Ebenezer's christening."
I couldn't stand it any longer.
"She's lying about the buckle! It was my buckle, from my father! She stole it from behind our salt box!" My voice was half strangled with outrage.
Annie ignored me.
"I heard music and a piper, and I went to look." She pointed at Granny. "That woman there, Mistress Wylie, she was dancing and she had no clothes on."
"Ha-ha! That would have been a sight! It would have frightened more than the Devil!" Granny's spontaneous laughter actually produced a smile from one or two of the judges.
"It didn't frighten the Devil," Annie said sweetly. "I saw him there." She was staring at the wall now, like Mr. Macbean had done earlier.
"What was he like, the Devil?" Mr. Lamont said, with the curiosity everyone was feeling. "Come, Annie. Don't be afraid. Speak up."