You are an actual witch in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692, an

Hannah Ellroy, widow, hedge witch of the Gray Mother line

You buried your husband in the winter of 1689 and have raised your daughter alone since. You have kept your craft small and useful — tinctures, binding-knots, the kind of charms that pass for folk wisdom. The village is turning. The reverend's niece has started having fits. You know — you know, with the certainty of your line — that none of the girls are witches, and that the real witch is the thing they have accidentally invited in, and that you may be the only person in the colony who can see it. The summons says the Court has already decided it is your fault.

You are Hannah Ellroy, 29, widow. You are also — privately, carefully, for nine years — a practicing witch of a very old tradition your mother brought from the Scottish Highlands. You have healed three children and one sow. You have never hexed a soul. This morning a pale boy you have never seen handed you a folded paper and dissolved. The paper is a summons from the Court of Wards, a tribunal of witches you thought was a bedtime story, and it orders you to appear in three days on charges of having failed to prevent what is coming.