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Witch Hunt
Syd Moore
A chilling, haunting ghost story that delves into the dark past of the 16th century Essex witch trials. So scary you’ll sleep with the lights on…Sadie Asquith has been fascinated by the dark past of Essex’s witch hunts for as long as she can remember. And for good reason: between 1560 and 1680, over 500 women were tried for witchcraft in the county of Essex. But as she researches a book on the subject, Sadie experiences strange, ghostly visions. She hears noises at night, a sobbing sound that follows her, and black moths appear from nowhere. It’s as if, by digging up the truth about the witch hunts, she has opened an unearthly connection to the women treated so cruelly and killed centuries before.And something else in the modern world is after her too: Sadie is sure she’s being followed, her flat is burgled and she finds clues that reveal her own past isn’t all that she believed. Can she find peace for the witches of Essex’s history and can she find a safe path for herself?For fans of Christopher Ransom and Susan Hill.
SYD MOORE
Witch Hunt
Copyright
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Published by AVON
A Division of HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street,
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
Copyright © Syd Moore 2012
Syd Moore asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Version 1
FIRST EDITION
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Source ISBN: 9781847562692
Ebook Edition © October 2012 ISBN: 9780007478484
Version: 2018-06-29
For those who were prevented from telling their story. And for Granddad York.
‘Besides, when any Errour is committed
Whereby wee may Incurre or losse or shame,
That wee ourselves thereof may be acquitted
Wee are too ready to transferre the blame
Upon some Witch: That made us does the same.
It is the vulgar Plea that weake ones use
I was bewitch’d: I could nor will: nor chuse.
But my affection was not caus’d by Art:
The witch that wrought on mee was in my brest.’
Sir Francis Hubert Quoted in Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart England by Alan MacFarlane
‘The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, ideas, prejudices, to be found only in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can kill and suspicion can destroy. A thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all its own for the children yet unborn.’
Rod Serling, creator of The Twilight Zone and civil rights activist
Table of Contents
Title Page (#u6ed9c0c7-84fa-5e3c-ac4d-bd4dcea47e23)
Copyright (#u575d0218-0007-5352-9b5b-bb3418a9994b)
Dedication (#u55332909-6e29-5aaa-9845-162db030475e)
Epigraph (#ue718fd15-f5e9-5fba-80bd-833993afc373)
Prologue (#u39645f2f-6306-590b-8963-b30d88effc61)
Chapter One (#u5ae78b76-45a1-54c5-8526-c63dc09869f0)
Chapter Two (#u760779d2-9e35-50cf-9fdd-2f6db59d5fc0)
Chapter Three (#ue8589a06-1152-5968-8fe4-514444fc7533)
Chapter Four (#u01eee11c-caa6-5597-b0e1-795cdd7dea93)
Chapter Five (#u30c54eae-59c7-52ac-a5d2-ab736e26d468)
Chapter Six (#ubcc9017e-6cfd-5dac-8f62-e0acc301791b)
Chapter Seven (#ue5ba8443-8dbf-55d1-9d55-48bc3ce1dac0)
Chapter Eight (#u1a6b0181-1dbd-5981-ac03-666661a416a8)
Chapter Nine (#ubee1b798-0a3f-5522-bc85-28f517338c0e)
Chapter Ten (#ueb672157-feaf-5af5-a4d8-cdac66005312)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirty-Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirty-Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirty-Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirty-Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirty-Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Forty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Forty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Forty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Forty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Forty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Forty-Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Forty-Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Forty-Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Forty-Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Note to the Reader (#litres_trial_promo)
Q & A with Syd Moore (#litres_trial_promo)
For discussion (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
By the same author (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Prologue
They told me not to come.
He said ‘Twill do no good. Nay more.’ And he tried to touch my shoulder and bring me back into the court but I was too quick and ran pushing through the crowd. Some saw me and stepped aside, unwilling to be touched, as if they might catch my sin. Others shrieked.
I made off through the side lane.
And then I came here.
I have put on my cap and wrapped a shawl over too. So none may see me.
