Speaks the Nightbird

'I look forward, then, to being tarred.' He knew he appeared rather peaked, as the shaving mirror had told him. He was miserable in these borrowed clothes, which might have been a plowman's pride but were ill-suited for his elegant tastes. Also, he felt near naked without his wig, and terribly conscious of his age-spots. Never in his life had he felt so old, and such a prisoner of fate. Without the wig, it seemed to him that his entire face drooped near off the skull bones, his teeth appeared chipped and crooked, and he feared he looked more of a country bumpkin than an urban sophisticate. His sore throat and swollen air passages further tortured him; on any other morning, he might have returned to bed with a cup of hot rum and a medicinal poultice but on this morning he had major work ahead. He realized Matthew was still staring at him, the young man's sense of order disturbed. 'I'll be fine directly,' Woodward told him.

Matthew said nothing, unwilling to embarrass the magistrate by appearing overly concerned. He poured some tea for himself, thinking that Woodward's bare-headed exposure to the raw swamp humours was certainly not beneficial to his health. Not very far from the forefront of his mind, however, was the encounter he'd had with Mrs. Nettles. Her passion on the subject had been undeniable, but was her purpose to cloud his mind instead of clear it? Indeed, if she were bewitched she would be in the employ of Rachel Howarth's master as well. Was that master trying to use him, to taint the magistrate's judgment? He couldn't help but ponder the vastly different opinions on the subject of witchcraft by the authors of the tomes he'd read. He'd spoken the truth to Mrs. Nettles; he honestly didn't know what he believed.

But Matthew didn't have time for much reflection, because suddenly Mrs. Nettles appeared in the dining room's doorway. 'Sir?' she said, addressing Bidwell. 'The carriage is ready.' Her visage was stern again, and she gave not even a glance in Matthew's direction.

'Excellent!' Bidwell stood up. 'Gentlemen, shall we go?'

Outside, the carriage's team was reined by the elderly black servant, Goode, who had played the violin at the first dinner and caught the turtle for the second. Bidwell, Woodward, and then Matthew climbed into the carriage and under tumultuous clouds were taken away from the mansion and past the spring along Peace Street. A few citizens were out, but not many; the quality of light-—or lack of such—made for a gloomy morning, and Matthew saw clearly that life was fast ebbing from this forsaken village.

At the useless sundial, Goode turned the carriage's team eastward onto Truth Street. A fit of nerves seemed to affect Bidwell as they neared the gaol, and he eased his mounting tension with a doubleshot of snuff up the nostrils. Goode steered them around the pigs that wallowed in Truth's mud, and in a moment he reined the horses to a halt before the grim and windowless wooden walls of the gaol. Two men were awaiting their arrival; one was Nicholas Paine, the other a stocky, barrel-chested giant who must have stood six feet tall. The giant wore a tricorn, but the hair that could be seen was flaming red, as was his long and rather unkempt beard.

Upon departing from the carriage, Bidwell made introductions between the magistrate, Matthew, and the red-bearded giant. 'This is Mr. Hannibal Green, our gaol-keeper,' he said. When Woodward shook the man's red- furred hand, he had the feeling that his fingers might be snapped like dry sticks. Green's eyes, an indeterminate dark hue, were deeply sunken into his head and held no expression other than—in Matthew's opinion—a promise to do bodily harm to anyone who displeased him.

Bidwell drew a long breath and released it. 'Shall we enter?'

Green, a man of no words, produced two keys on a leather cord from a pocket of his buckskin waistcoat and inserted a key into the padlock that secured the gaol's entry. With one sharp twist, the lock opened and Green removed a chain that the lock had held fastened across the door. He pulled the door open to reveal a dark interior. 'Wait,' he rumbled, and then he walked inside, his boots pounding the rough planked floor.

Staring into the gaol's darkened recesses, both the magistrate and his clerk felt the gnaw of anxiety. The bittersweet smells of damp hay, sweat, and bodily functions came drifting out into their faces, along with the sense of what it must be like to be caged in that stifling and humid environment. Green soon returned, carrying a lantern that shed only paltry light through its filmed glass. 'Come in,' he told them. Bidwell took another quick snort of snuff and led the way.

It was not a large place. Past the entrance room there were four iron-barred cells, two on each side of a central corridor. The floor was covered with hay. Matthew presumed it had been a small stable before its conversion. 'Thank Christ you're here!' called a man's voice, off to the right. 'I was startin' to believe you'd forsaked me!'

Green paid him no mind. The gaol-keeper reached up to the utter height of his outstretched hand and caught hold of a chain that dangled from the ceiling. He gave it a good firm pull and with the sound of ratchets turning a hatch opened up there, allowing in more fresh air and much-needed illumination.

The light—gray and murky yet still much better than the dirty lamp—afforded a view of the man who stood in the nearest cage on the right, his hands gripping the bars, his beard-grizzled face pressed against them as if he might somehow squeeze himself to freedom. He was young, only five or six years elder than Matthew, but already thick around the middle. He had husky forearms and a stout bull's neck, his unruly black hair falling over his forehead, and a pair of gray eyes glittering on either side of a bulbous nose that was—as were his cheeks—covered with pock-marks. 'I'm ready to go home!' he announced.

'She's in the cell back here,' Bidwell said to the magistrate, ignoring the young man.

'Hey! Bidwell!' the man hollered. 'Damn you, I said I'm ready to go—'

Wham! went Green's fist into one of the man's hands gripping the bars. The prisoner howled with pain and staggered back holding his injured fingers against his chest.

'You speak with respect,' Green said, 'or you don't speak at all. Hear me?'

'Ahhhh, my hand's near broke!'

'Noles, you have one more day and night on your sentence,' Bidwell told the prisoner. 'You'll be released tomorrow morning, and not one minute sooner.'

'Listen! Please!' Noles, now apologetic, came to the bars again. 'I can't bear another night in here, sir! I swear before God, 1 can't! The rats are terrible! They et up most all my food, and I near had to fight 'em off my throat! Ain't I paid my penance yet, sir?'

'Your sentence was three days and three nights. Therefore: no, you have not yet paid your penance.'

'Wait, wait!' Noles said, before Bidwell and the others could move along. 'It ain't just the rats I'm feared of! It's her.' He'd whispered the last sentence, and motioned with a tilt of his head toward the last cage on the left of the corridor. His eyes were wide and wild. 'I'm feared she's gonna kill me, sir!'

'Has she threatened you?'

'No sir, but. . . well. . . I've heard things.'

'Such as?' Bidwell's interest had been fully secured now, and he gave Noles a long ear.

'Last night... in the dark . . . she was talkin' to somethin',' Noles whispered, his face once more pressed against the bars. 'I couldn't hear much of it . . . but I heard her speak the word 'master.' Yessir, I did. 'Master', she said, three or four times. Then she started a'laughin', and by Christ I hope to never hear such a laugh as that again, because it was nothin' but wickedness.'

'And what happened after that?'

'Well. . . she talked some more, to whatever it was. Just jab-berin', like to scare the moon.' He ran his tongue across his lips; his eyes flickered across Woodward and Matthew and then returned to Bidwell. 'Then ... I saw a light back there. Like fire, but it was cold blue. Yessir. Cold blue, and it was burnin' in her cage. Well, I drew myself back and laid down, 'cause I didn't want to see what it was.'

'Go on,' Bidwell urged, when Noles paused again.

'Well sir . . . there came a hummin' and a buzzin'. And I seen what I took to be a fly, leavin' the witch's cage. Only it was burnin' blue, makin' the air spark. Then it flew into here and started flittin' 'round my head, and I swatted at it but to tell the truth I didn't really care to touch it. It flew 'round and 'round, and I crawled over there in that corner and threw some hay at it to keep it away from me. After a while it flew on out of here and went away.'

'Went away? To where?'

'I don't know, sir. It just vanished.'

Bidwell looked gravely at the magistrate. 'You see what we're up against? The witch's master can transform himself—itself—into shapes that have no equal on this earth.'

'Yessir, that's right!' Noles said. 'I'm feared for my life, bein' in here with her! I seen what I seen, and she's like to kill me for it!'