The Trials of Coventry
A short story
Rain pounded the roofs across the town of Coventry, Massachusetts. Spring had formally begun, though the only change in the weather thus far was that the snow that blanketed the town all winter had given way to rain. The winter of 1692 was a bitter one. Old Goody Abbott swore the Cape had frozen on New Year’s night, and soon the Atlantic would freeze too and devils would walk across the ocean from the North and South. The Cape hadn’t frozen, but everything else had. Even after the ice thawed, a chill sense of foreboding hung about the town, as if the dark of winter cast shadows in their hearts.
On the weekend before Good Friday, a scream rent the Bolton house. Twelve-year-old Sarah was convulsing in her bed. Ann, the servant girl, rushed to her room intending to calm the girl but stopped short in horror. Sarah was writhing in her nightdress, her neck and back contorted at odd angles and her arms flailing. She jutted her jaw forward, as if something was trying to burst from her throat, and her teeth gnashed as she screamed and gurgled curses in a language all her own. Ann ran for the master of the house, and found the judge George Bolton already awake and working in his study. She bade him to come quickly and behold the struggling girl.
As George watched his daughter’s agony, a single word escaped his lips.
