The Devil's Poppet

They burned Sarah Smalley on a Tuesday. 

By Friday, something far worse than a witch had come to collect her soul.

Massachusetts Bay, 1637. A drought-stricken Puritan settlement clings to survival—crops dead in the fields, a supply ship rotting at sea, and neighbors sharpening their suspicions like knives. When a mob drags the town healer to the pyre for witchcraft, they expect God’s favor to return.

Instead, a stranger in white appears in the village square, smiling at every prayer and threat alike, and delivers a single ultimatum: return Sarah within three days, or he will bring the town to its knees.

As the hours run out, men die in ways no sermon can explain, children speak in voices not their own, and invisible hands hurl the faithful across their homes. Magistrate George Ayres, a man of reason in a world of terror, must face the truth he helped bury: Sarah was innocent, and the only salvation left may lie in the forbidden knowledge her death was meant to erase.

The Devil’s Poppet is a grim, atmospheric tale of blind justice, brutal consequence, and what happens when the innocent you condemned comes back—and she’s no longer interested in mercy.