Content Warning: This section of the guide describes and analyzes the source text’s depiction of graphic violence, torture, and execution. This section also references death by suicide, which is mentioned in the source text.

The novel begins with an author’s note about her personal history. The tale she’s about to tell covers events that affected her family during the Salem witch trials of the 1690s.

The story begins with a letter from a 70-year-old woman named Sarah Carrier Chapman. She writes to her granddaughter, Lydia, in 1752. Lydia has just married, and Sarah is about to give her a wedding gift. Rather than the usual household items, Sarah offers a personal account of her childhood during the witch trials: “It was a terrible time, when charity and mercy and plain good sense were all thrown into the fire of zealotry, covering everyone left living with the bitter ash of regret and blame” (2).

Sarah begins her tale from the standpoint of a nine-year-old girl in December 1690, as her family leaves the settlement of Billerica for the town of Andover. They’re fleeing a smallpox epidemic to seek refuge at Sarah’s grandmother’s house. Unbeknownst to them, Sarah’s brother Andrew has already contracted the disease.