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her back into the house, stiff as a board, and again laid her on the bed. Joseph took up the knife a second time, determined not to be fooled by the young woman. As he brandished it, Kate again sprang to life, crying out, “You’re going to cut me!” She then lay down again and said, “I’ll tell you how it is with me. I’m possessed by the Devil and he appeared to me in the henhouse in the shape of a black calf. He wants me to be a witch and if I will not he’ll tear me in pieces.” The two men glanced at each other. Did she really expect them to believe this? But then Kate screamed again, pointing toward the window. “I see him! There he is!” As Joseph looked in that direction, he was startled to see a light dart into the house and across the room. Nathaniel had clearly also seen it and was equally astonished.
    “Kate,” asked Joseph, “what else have you seen?”
    “The Devil’s appeared to me in the shape of a white dog,” she replied, “and in the shape of three women.”
    “Are the three women witches?”
    “I cannot tell. They might be honest women for all I know, or they might be witches.”
    Joseph stared at Kate, uncertain what to think. If she was truly bewitched, were these women the witches who were afflicting her? And if so, what could be done to stop them?

TWO: WHO IS IT THAT TORMENTS HER?
    Daniel and Abigail Wescot’s home had become the stage for a grim and perplexing drama. At its center was the luridly physical and yet mystifying spectacle of Katherine Branch’s fits. Around the young woman there crowded a growing cast of characters, all determined to figure out who or what was causing her fits. The residents of Stamford were anything but hasty in concluding that witchcraft must be responsible for Kate’s torments: differing points of view jostled and competed for ascendancy. At first, not even the Wescots assumed that their servant was bewitched. Their first step was to call in the local medical expert, not the town minister: they began by seeking a natural cause for Kate’s afflictions. Even once the Wescots became convinced that witches were in fact causing the young woman’s torments, not all of their neighbors followed suit: some suspected that Kate was faking her symptoms. Those who believed that she was under an evil hand, and those who did not, were equally determined to justify their points of view. Their approach was experimental: they converged upon the Wescots’ home and turned it into a laboratory of the occult with Kate as the specimen under investigation. They watched her; they tested her; and they reached conclusions based on what they observed.
    Daniel and Abigail Wescot knew that they could not take effective action against the witches afflicting Kate without the help of their neighbors. If the malign intruders were to be identified and tried for their crimes, the Wescots would need supportive testimony. Mister and Mistress Wescot encouraged their neighbors to visit them, partly because they needed help looking after Kate but also to let other folks see for themselves the maidservant’s ghastly symptoms and hear her accusations. Any visitor to their home was now a potential witness in court.
    Katherine Branch’s torments were impressive and a growing number of townsfolk had become convinced that she was indeed bewitched. Yet even those who agreed that Kate’s afflictions were the result of witchcraft reacted in different ways. Stamford’s pastor, John Bishop, saw the situation largely in terms of a spiritual struggle: he warned the young woman that Satan wanted to lure her into his service; the Devil’s minions might promise to end her agonies if she succumbed, but she must resist or else face the greater torments of hell. He and neighboring ministers promised to pray that God would give Kate the strength to withstand the Devil’s advances. The Wescots appreciated Mister Bishop’s support, but focused their own energies on the practical challenge of