A WITCH IN TIME

BY HERB WILLIAMS

If historians have ever pondered that eerie and magical transformation of Abigaile Goodyeare, that "faire young maide" who aged so before the disbelieving eyes of gallows witnesses, mayhaps herein lies the answer....

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, February 1955. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

I saw this faire young maide, Abigaile Goodyeare, standing yonder on ye gallows and shee saith againe and againe that she was no witch, although the jury had founde her guilty of ... familiarity with Satan, the grand enemie of God & man; and that by his instigation and help ... afflicted and done harm to the bodyes and estates of sundry of his Majesties subjects....

—WITCHCRAFT IN EARLY AMERICA VOLUME II, CHAPTER 4

Nat Lyon looked nervously at the girl huddled in the corner of the time machine. There were white streaks down her face where recent tears had washed off the grime of several days spent in a primitive jail.

Her almost jet black hair was a tangled mess, hanging in strings to her shoulders. He wrinkled his nose in distaste at the odor filling the small compartment. There was romance in history, he thought, when viewed in the abstract, but not when one faced history in the person of a female who had languished several days in an unsanitary prison.

"Pray, Sir," she asked slowly, and so softly he scarcely heard her, "Art thou the Lord? Or one of His Angels?"

Nat started to laugh, but she looked so pitiful he checked himself. "No, I'm a human being, just like yourself—except that I've never been accused of witchcraft!"

A look of fear crossed her face. "Verily, I testify unto thee that I am no witch, but have the fear of God before mine eyes." She was almost frantic in her statement. She cringed farther into the corner. Nat noticed the raw wounds on her wrists where the irons had chafed her.

"Sure, sure, I believe you," Nat said sharply. "They won't hang you now!" Then he added glumly, "But they'll probably do worse to me if they find out what I've done!"

She looked up at him, wonder in her deep blue eyes, her long lashes blinking slowly. Even her 

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