Outlawed

“I was eleven when she was hanged for a witch. I had not yet started going on rounds with Mama; I had never seen a person die. It terrified me, not the violence of it but the swiftness, how one moment Lucy was standing on the platform and the next she was dangling limp below it. I tried to imagine it myself: what it would be like to see and think and feel and then suddenly plunge into blackness—more than blackness, into nothingness. It kept me awake that night and for many nights after, the dread of it. But at the gallows I cheered with everyone else; only Mama did not cheer.” 

Ada is under severe pressure to conceive a child. Barren women become suspects of witchcraft, which leads quite quickly to execution. Ada’s memory foreshadows Ada becoming a scapegoat for her town’s ills. Also important to note here is that her mother is the only one who doesn’t cheer at the death of Lucy, an accused witch. Ada’s mother is intelligent and well educated, so superstitions do not influence the way she thinks about the world. 

“And so I began my criminal career there in the house of God, with a leaky pen instead of a pistol and books instead of silver for my reward.” 

This quote denotes a major transition in Ada’s life: Now that she is safely in a convent with nuns, she begins to actually break the law. The irony here is that Ada and the other nuns are in the convent due to their communities’ religious superstitions, but they are in fact creating an underground world of illegal but scientifically important study. Ada doesn’t have a gun, but with her studies on abortion and infertility are just as dangerous as the men who rob banks and wreak violence.

“One horse in particular took to me, a dappled grey mare named Amity. She was alert, always the first horse to notice when someone new came into the barn, or when a field mouse skittered across the floor. She reminded me of Bee, the way she seemed to be always watching and listening.”

The relationship Ada forges with Amity foreshadows the close bonds she will develop with the Gang. Amity’s name means “friendliness,” a symbol of the community Ada has joined.