The Truth of All Things by Kieran Shields Page A

asked.
    “I’m afraid I can’t recall.”
    “The author?”
    The man shook his head.
    “Well, I really don’t think I can help you tonight.”
    “But you do have additional books? Older ones?”
    Helen nodded. “In our special-collections room upstairs.”
    The man looked toward the staircase, his body leaning enough to make Helen think he might actually walk off in that direction.
    “The head librarian will be available around ten in the morning to help you.” Helen motioned toward the front door. “Now, I really should be getting back to our speaker.”
    “This book here”—the man motioned toward a shelf—“there’s a slip noting it’s on loan from a private library. But the owner’s name is missing.”
    “Some patrons with extensive collections have loaned volumes to support our lectures on the Salem witch trials.”
    “Personal collections? I’d like to see the names of those people.”
    “Oh, I’m afraid I can’t do that. Several have contributed on the condition of anonymity.” Helen felt the weight of the man’s gaze on her, although more than once his head turned slightly as he glanced away from her. Helen listened, hoping someone was approaching, but in her gut she knew that the opposite was true. The man was looking to make certain there was no one else.
    “I assure you, if I could locate what I’m looking for in a private library, the owner would be very interested in speaking with me. Of course, someone who could provide assistance in contacting those parties would be compensated as well.”
    Helen shifted on her feet and then cleared her throat, wanting to be sure she could address the man in a firm tone. “I’m really very sorry, Mr.… I didn’t catch your name.”
    “It’s not important.”
    The man’s tepid smile sent a chill through Helen. She felt he was looking at her with no more regard than he had shown for the book he’d discarded on the floor earlier.
    “As I said, the library is closed. So I must insist.” Helen again gestured toward the exit.
    The man ignored the motion. “I’m very sorry to have kept you.”
    Helen’s chest was tight with a swelling fear that she couldn’t trace to the man’s words or even his tone of voice. His apology was a blatant lie, and, more important, she knew he meant that to be obvious. Helen nodded and returned to her seat in the reading room.
    Meserve rambled on, oblivious to Helen’s confrontation. “The connection between the witches and the threat of Indian attacks was made even clearer by the testimony offered by the likes of Mary Toothaker. She confessed to the charges, blaming her great fear of the Indians. She reported that the devil had appeared to her as a tawny man and promised to save her from the Indians and that she should have further happy days with her son, who had been wounded in the war. She admitted that her fear led her to sign the devil’s book, stating he had given her a piece of birch bark on which she made a mark.
    “Other testimony from afflicted women also underscored the satanic connection to the northern Indians. A maidservant, Mercy Short, who had previously been taken captive by the Abenakis in 1690 and held for half a year, was at the Boston jail one day and had an argument with the imprisoned witch Sarah Good. Afterward Mercy Short began to have the same fits as the afflicted Salem girls. In later months Mercy would describe the devil as a short and black man, not like a Negro but rather of a tawny Indian complexion. The book he wanted her to sign held covenants and signatures of those who served the devil, all written in red. During her fits she was described by Cotton Mather as being in captivity to the witches’ specters. Mercy reported visions of Frenchmen and Indian chiefs among the specters who tormented her. They would torture her with burnings, as if she were being roasted at the stake.
    “This sort of imagery—visions of witches roasting victims on spits—was common among the