Plot summary
In April 1687, 16-year-old Katherine Tyler (known as Kit) leaves her home in Barbados after her grandfather dies and a 50-year-old man tries to marry her. She relocates to Wethersfield, Connecticut to live with her Aunt Rachel, Uncle Matthew, and her two cousins, Judith and Mercy, in their Puritan community.
A brief stop is made in Old Saybrook, Connecticut, to pick up four new passengers. As the small rowboat returns to the ship, a young girl named Prudence accidentally drops her doll in the water and begs her harsh mother, Goodwife Cruff, to get it back for her. Impulsively, Kit jumps into the water and retrieves the doll. She is then met with astonished suspicion, as few white people in Connecticut could swim so well. Cruff is the most skeptical of them all, believing Kit is a witch, commenting, "No respectable woman could stay afloat like that." On the slow trip upriver, Kit befriends John Holbrook, another passenger coming to Wethersfield to study with the Reverend Gershom Bulkeley.
Kit finds Wethersfield very different from Barbados. Unlike at her previous home, where Kit's family owned servants and slaves, she is expected to work here along with the rest of the family. Her cousin Mercy has a lame leg and is on crutches. Kit is required to attend the Sabbath church meetings twice each Sunday, which she finds dull. Kit meets a rich young man, William Ashby. He begins courting her, though she does not care for him. Originally, her cousin Judith had hoped to marry William, but she focuses on John Holbrook, a divinity student studying with Bulkeley.
Kit's life improves when she and Mercy begin teaching some young children of Wethersfield, who are preparing for traditional school. Everything proceeds well until one day, bored with the normal lessons, Kit decides the children will reenact a passage from the Bible: the parable of the Good Samaritan. The head of the school, Eleazer Kimberly, enters the house just as things get out of hand. He is outraged at Kit for having the audacity to act out something from the Bible and shuts down the school. Heartbroken, Kit flees to the meadows where she meets and befriends the kind, elderly Hannah Tupper, who was outlawed from the Massachusetts colony because she is a Quaker and does not attend church meetings, as well as being suspected of being a witch. With Hannah's support, Kit convinces Kimberly to give the school another chance.
As fellow outcasts, Kit and Hannah develop a deep bond, and even after her uncle forbids Kit to continue the friendship, she keeps visiting Hannah. During one of her visits, Kit again meets the handsome Nathaniel (Nat) Eaton, son of the captain of the Dolphin. Without realizing it, she falls in love with him, and though he doesn't say so, Nat reciprocates. Unfortunately, Nat is banished from Wethersfield after setting lit jack-o-lanterns in the windows of William Ashby's unfinished home. Nat is threatened with 30 lashes if he returns to Wethersfield. Kit also begins secretly teaching Prudence to read and write; Goodwife Cruff claims the child is a half-wit and "stupid" and refuses to allow her to attend the dame school.
When a deadly illness sweeps through Wethersfield, a mob gathers to kill Hannah by burning her house. Kit rushes to warn Hannah, and the two women escape to the river just as the Dolphin appears from the early morning mist. Kit flags it down. Nat takes Hannah aboard and invites Kit to come with them. She refuses, explaining that Mercy is gravely ill, though Nat believes Kit fears losing her engagement to William Ashby.
After the Dolphin sails away, Kit returns home to find that Mercy's fever has broken. In the middle of the same night, the townspeople come for Kit; Goodwife Cruff's husband has accused her of being a witch. The next day, after a freezing night in the sheriff's shed, Kit is asked to explain the presence of her hornbook in Hannah's house and a copybook with Prudence's name written throughout, as the townspeople fear that she and Hannah were casting a spell over the girl. Kit refuses to reveal that Prudence wrote her own name, as Kit does not wish to cause the girl trouble with her parents.
Just as Kit seems to be declared guilty, Nat appears with Prudence, who testifies that Kit was only giving her lessons. To demonstrate her literacy, Prudence reads a Bible passage and writes her name, thus convincing her father both that she is intelligent, and that no witchcraft could be involved, as the devil would be foolish to allow a child to be taught to use the Bible against herself. While Nat is initially in trouble for returning and evades capture, Kit's Uncle Matthew intervenes on his behalf and gets the punishment dropped as a reward for Nat returning to see justice done at great risk to himself.
Soon after, Kit breaks off her engagement to William. Two engagements are announced: Mercy to John Holbrook and Judith to William Ashby. Kit decides to return to Barbados. However, she decides to talk to Nat first after finally realizing that she's in love with him. Nat returns to Wethersfield with a surprise: he is the captain of a new boat. The boat is called the Witch, named after Kit. Kit asks to come on board the Witch, but Nat says no, until he gets her Uncle Matthew's permission to marry her.
