The Truth of All Things by Kieran Shields

she found her gaze returning to the lobby, where the latecomer seemed transfixed by the bookcase dedicated to treatises on Salem and the general history of witchcraft. There was something disturbing in his demeanor.
    “It was during an early examination of Martha Corey that one of the afflicted girls added a new element of terror to the proceedings. She cried out that she could see a ‘black man’ whispering to the accused. This dark figure was understood by all to be the devil, or his servant. The term ‘black’ was commonly meant to refer to the dark complexion of the natives. This marked the first open connection between the two deadly threats facing the English: the spiritual war waged on them by the devil and the devastating attacks recently launched by the Indians along the northeastern frontier.
    “The scope of the witchcraft investigations shifted dramatically again on April nineteenth, when teenager Abigail Hobbs, who already had a reputation for odd behavior, confessed to being a witch. She stated she had first seen the devil and had signed his book four years earlier while living here to the eastward at Casco Bay. Satan had taken the shape of a black man in a hat. This confession of the devil’s initial appearance at what is now Portland, a place of great conflict in both the Indian wars, proved to the people of Salem that there was a common source for the assaults launched by both the witches and the Abenakis.
    “The next day Ann Putnam Jr. reported seeing an apparition of a minister who tormented her and tore her to pieces. She said his name was George Burroughs and that he had killed his first two wives as well as Reverend Lawson’s wife and child. Further, he had bewitched agreat number of soldiers to their deaths on Sir Edmund Andros’s eastern Maine expedition years earlier.
    “It is very likely that information on Burroughs had been provided by another of the afflicted teenage girls, Mercy Lewis. One of the more active accusers, she was a small child in Portland when our town was overrun by Indians in 1676. Several of her uncles, cousins, and grandparents were killed. Her own parents escaped with her to an island in Casco Bay with a party led by Burroughs, before moving to safety in Massachusetts. The Lewis family returned seven years later, and she actually lived in Burroughs’s house in Maine at some point. She would have been very well acquainted with the rumors and gossip that surrounded the man.”
    The sound of a book slapping against the floor of the lobby finally gave Helen enough reason to excuse herself from the lecture. Once in the lobby, she saw that the man had not yet retrieved the fallen book. She took a deep breath, trying to restrain her ire. After all, perhaps the man wore those tinted glasses due to some malady of the eyes that prevented him from picking it up. The more likely explanation was that he was drunk, or otherwise just too much of a discourteous lout to bother.
    As she approached, she felt a twinge of remorse upon noting the wide scar that was visible around his eye despite the dark glasses. “Is there something I can help you with?”
    The man looked at her and offered a thin, humorless smile. He was middle-aged, with short blond hair and a hard face. She couldn’t see his eyes, but the rest of his expression betrayed no real trace of interest in her. “No.”
    It was a plain dismissal, and Helen was speechless for a moment. Her irritation at the man’s callousness returned even more forcefully for having been held in check.
    “The library does actually close at eight o’clock on Mondays. Of course, you’re more than welcome to stay for the lecture.”
    “Thank you, no.” He took a thin brown volume from the shelf. “Tell me, is this your full collection on the subject of occult matters?”
    “No. Were you looking for something in particular?”
    “Yes. An older book. Quite a bit older than these, I think.”
    “What’s the title?” Helen