Mary Wood, a teacher at Chapin High School, at her home on Thursday, Nov. 16, 2023. (Joshua Boucher/The State/TNS) "I'm not really fearful anymore," Mary Wood told me. Wood, 49, doesn't dodge uncomfortable topics. But I'm unsure how much to credit this claim. Over dinner in late November at a chain restaurant near her home outside Columbia, South Carolina, she recalled the "constant state of fear" that enveloped her in February 2023 when she was first accused of wayward thought.