The Witch

In the present day, 27-year-old Julia Barlow arrives at Pemberton, her grandmother Letitia “Letty” Barlow’s 17th-century estate in Woodhaven, Massachusetts. After losing her job as a tutor teaching math to disadvantaged children, Julia can’t afford her apartment and is moving in. However, she’s terrified of the house due to a traumatic childhood experience. 

While approaching the house, Julia sees a flash of peacock blue in an attic window. As she reaches for the terrifying bear-shaped door knocker, the frail housekeeper, Mick Wheeler, opens the door. Inside, the house is musty and neglected. Her grandmother Letty appears confused and mistakes Julia for her sister, Ethel Eldridge, who also lives there. As she regains lucidity, Letty asks about Julia’s boyfriend, hoping that she’ll soon be a great-grandmother. Julia admits that she’s no longer seeing him.

When Julia goes to her new bedroom, she’s unnerved by the strange “witches’ stairs” leading to the attic. Letty becomes agitated when Julia nearly touches a set of decorative coral-blue combs, warning her, “She doesn’t like it when you move the combs” (11). The front door slams downstairs, signaling Ethel’s return from the market. Julia then realizes that with Ethel out of the house, the person she saw in the attic window is unaccounted for.

The narrative shifts to 1692. Caroline is married to Archibald “Archie” Eldridge, a wealthy merchant who owns Pemberton. Archie is kind and 15 years her senior. For her birthday, he bought her a beautiful set of combs. Caroline feels immense guilt for being unable to conceive a child after three years of marriage. At breakfast, when Archie shares a dream about them having a son, she impulsively lies and tells him that she’s pregnant, filling him with joy. As he leaves, Archie expresses concern for his wife’s safety because a serial killer known as the “Night Reaper” has murdered three young women in the area. However, Caroline feels safe, seeing the bear-shaped door knocker as a “guardian.”

Caroline lets in the stray cat she calls Gideon. The household servant, Molly Howe, appears and scolds her for bringing the animal inside, saying that cats are “creatures of the devil” (19). In the kitchen, Molly confronts Caroline, revealing that she saw blood on Caroline’s linens and knows she isn’t pregnant. She coldly accuses Caroline of being “barren.” Desperate to hide the truth from her husband, Caroline begs Molly to keep her secret. Molly agrees not to say anything, but her triumphant expression makes Caroline doubt that she will keep her word.

Back in the present, Julia finds the house filthy, and Letty’s cognitive decline is evident when she calls her granddaughter “Celia.” Julia meets her great-aunt Ethel, a brusque woman who immediately berates the frail Mick for failing to do his job properly. Ethel says that she knows Julia was sent to spy on them and tells her to call her father for the real story. 

In the living room, Ethel points to an oil painting of their ancestors Archibald and Molly Eldridge. She explains that Molly was Archie’s third wife; his second wife was Caroline, who was executed for witchcraft. Ethel adds that Caroline was buried in an unmarked grave in the backyard and warns Julia not to disturb her.

Julia wanders Pemberton’s overgrown backyard, searching for cell service while contemplating the unmarked grave of Caroline. She feels a sudden chill and hears what sounds like a voice whispering “See.” When she finally gets reception, she calls her father, who admits that he sent her there because the Woodhaven Museum has made a generous offer to purchase Pemberton. He wants to move Letty, the estate’s sole owner, into an assisted-living facility. He arranges for Julia to meet the museum curator the next morning. After the call ends, Julia loses her phone signal and again feels a cold presence, making her wonder if she’s standing on Caroline’s grave.

In 1692, Caroline rides to the market in Town Square to see Hitty Atkins, a widowed herbalist whom the townspeople consider strange but who has become a mother figure to Caroline. Hitty compliments Caroline on her blue dress and gives her a sage-and-black cohosh mixture, an herbal remedy meant to help her conceive. Hitty then warns Caroline to be careful of the Night Reaper. She reveals that the murdered girls were all sexually assaulted before they were killed.

At the market, Caroline buys venison from a hunter named Elias Fenn. He warns her to stay away from Hitty, whom he accuses of being “a witch” who cursed his meat. He gestures toward the town gallows as a grim reminder of the fate of witches. Rattled, Caroline hurries to leave, but on the path home, she’s confronted by an intimidating stranger with untamed hair and an intense stare. Her horse is visibly spooked by the man, who claims that he’s just passing through. The encounter leaves Caroline deeply unsettled.

In the present, Julia prepares for bed. Ethel gives her extra blankets and cryptically warns her to lock her bedroom door for her own safety. Julia makes space for the blankets on the vanity by moving the coral-blue combs. She recalls the terrifying experience she had at Pemberton as a nine-year-old. While she lay in bed, a disembodied woman’s voice whispered “See…” in her ear. The event left her with a permanent patch of white hair and a deep fear of the house. As a teenager, she would find friends to stay with while her parents visited, and after turning 18, she never went back. Though she tries to rationalize it as a dream, she still believes it was real.

Julia wakes up at three o’clock in the morning to an unnaturally cold bedroom. After getting another blanket, she’s startled by a low-pitched, inhuman moan followed by the sound of creaking stairs. The creaking seems to come from the attic. She considers calling for help but hesitates, wondering if it’s a trick. Julia calls out “Hello?” twice, but no one replies. The moaning and creaking abruptly cease, leaving her in an unsettling silence. She finds it difficult to fall back asleep.

Julia wakes up exhausted, trying to convince herself that the moaning she heard was just a dream. She goes downstairs and finds her grandmother alone and surprisingly lucid. Letty calls Julia by her correct name and offers to make her breakfast. When Julia mentions her eerie experiences, framing them as a “dream,” Letty asks if Julia moved the coral-blue combs in her bedroom. When Julia admits she did, her grandmother says that Caroline, who once owned the combs, is causing the ghostly phenomena.

In 1692, Caroline drinks the herbal tea meant to help her conceive. Her neighbor Hiram Hatch arrives in a panic, explaining that his wife, Judith, is gravely ill with a fever and delirium. He begs Caroline to fetch Dr. John Shaylor. Caroline is hesitant, as she blames Dr. Shaylor’s bloodletting treatments for her own father’s death. Instead of summoning the doctor, she decides to seek help from Hitty, who once cured her husband. Horrified, Molly calls Hitty a “mad old crone” (52). Ignoring Molly’s disapproval, Caroline instructs her to take broth to Judith. She then hurries to the market to find Hitty.

At the Town Square market, Caroline can’t find Hitty, and Elias tells her that the healer has gone. Convinced that Dr. Shaylor’s practices are dangerous, Caroline decides against fetching him and resolves to care for Judith herself using Hitty’s previous advice. When she arrives at the Hatch cottage, Caroline discovers that Molly has disobeyed her and brought Dr. Shaylor. Despite Hiram’s relief, Caroline is overcome with dread.

In the present, Julia’s concern for her grandmother intensifies when Letty almost sets the kitchen on fire and then serves Julia burnt toast that has fallen on the floor. Realizing that her grandmother is a danger to herself, Julia resolves to speak with Ethel. As she prepares to leave for her museum appointment, she notices that the living room’s grandfather clock has stopped. The groundskeeper, Mick, appears and explains that the clock mysteriously stops every night at 3:41 am, despite a repairman finding nothing wrong with it. He reveals that his own watch began doing the same thing a few months prior. Julia is deeply unsettled, as this is the exact time she was woken up the previous night. Anxious to get away, she asks Mick to watch her grandmother while she’s gone, and he agrees.

Julia arrives at the Woodhaven Museum and meets the curator, Henry Ziegler. To her surprise, he’s a handsome young man with an old-fashioned demeanor. Henry reveals that he’s spearheading the museum’s effort to purchase Pemberton. He enthusiastically describes his plan to transform the house into an immersive colonial-era exhibit by moving the museum’s 17th-century artifacts into it. He specifically notes his desire to acquire the grandfather clock and the oil painting of Archibald and Molly Eldridge currently in the house.

Julia listens, intrigued by the idea of preserving her family’s history, but she maintains that her grandmother alone will decide whether to sell. Not swayed, Henry invites Julia to dinner the next evening to continue his pitch. Julia accepts the invitation, motivated by a desire to get out of the house, her attraction to Henry, and the opportunity to learn more about Pemberton’s past. She suspects that Henry may be withholding information.

In the 1692 timeline, Dr. Shaylor demands an exorbitant fee of £10 to treat Judith. Unable to pay, a desperate Hiram offers his horse, their most valuable possession. Remembering how the doctor took her own family’s home as payment, Caroline intervenes and agrees to pay the fee. However, she’s horrified by the unclean instruments the doctor uses in the bloodletting procedure. After making an initial incision on Judith’s arm that produces little blood, Dr. Shaylor decides that he must cut her neck instead. Caroline argues that this will be fatal and threatens to withhold payment, but the doctor counters that he will simply take Hiram’s horse. Powerless to stop him, Caroline watches as Dr. Shaylor approaches the ailing Judith with his lancet, prepared to cut her throat.

As Dr. Shaylor prepares to bleed Judith, she’s wracked by a violent seizure. The doctor, frightened, declares that Judith is possessed and needs “a man of God” (72), not a physician. He gives Caroline a disquieting look before abruptly leaving. Ignoring Molly’s insistence on fetching the reverend, Caroline recalls that a high fever can cause convulsions. She persuades Hiram to help her try to lower Judith’s temperature. They spend hours applying cool, wet rags to Judith’s body. The treatment works; Judith’s fever breaks, and she wakes, coherently asking for water. Hiram gratefully tells Caroline that she saved his wife, and Caroline plans to prepare a healing broth for Judith using her own sage.