"I am Mary. I am a witch. Or so some would call me. 'Spawn of the Devil,' 'Witch child,' they hiss in the street, although I know neither father nor mother. I know only my grandmother, Eliza Nuttall; Mother Nuttall to her neighbors. She brought me up from a baby. If she knew who my parents are, she never told me" (Beginning, p. 3).

"I should flee, get away. They will turn on me next unless I go. But where to? What am I to do? Lose myself. Die in the forest. I look around. Eyes, hard with hatred, slide from mine. Mouths twitch between leering and sneering. I will not run away into the forest, because that is what they want me to do" (Beginning, p. 6).

"I owe a great debt to Eliza Nuttall, the woman you call Grandmother. She was my nurse. As a child...