Witch Child-Leilah Gainey

This is a book I the form of a diary by a young witch girl by the name of Mary Newbury who lived in a small English town in 1659 and moved to Massachusetts.

After her grandmother, the woman she lived with all her life, was tried and executed for witchcraft in front of her, she gets a surprise visit from her mother. Mary is told she must leave England and move to America. Disguised as a Puritan girl, she takes a taxing ship voyage with Martha, an old spinster with a healer’s touch, by her side, along with many others, until their arrival at Salem, Massachusetts. From there, they take a trek through the forest, being led by “heathens”. Once they arrive to Beulah, their new Puritan community, Mary’s life becomes centered around God and acting as if from good Puritan upbringing.

Soon though, when the jealous Deborah Vane and her friends become “ill”, it is said to be caused by witchcraft and Mary is the prime suspect. When the same Witchfinder who arrested her grandmother comes to Beulah and accuses Mary, she has to run. This is where the diary ends.

During the seventeenth century in Massachusetts, there was a time when accusing people of witchcraft was common. There was very little evidence needed to prove a person guilty and witches were hanged. All it took to be accused of witchcraft was to have someone dislike you. “Spectral evidence” is enough for a person to be hanged.

“Jethro Vane complains that his hogs sicken. He says that someone has given them the Evil Eye. Mary was seen to come and go from the place where they roam. And she was seen staring at them and shouting, like to cursing…” (164) is an important quote because it shows how paranoid and spiteful people are when they dislike each other. He’s claiming that just because Mary yelled at his hogs, she cursed them. This is the part in the book when people get suspicious about her.

I really liked this book. I thought it was interesting that the book was written in the form of a diary and that it was in first person. I’d recommend this book to anyone that wanted to see how Puritans lived and the way people were accused of witchcraft.