Sentence:  A teenage girl , Abigail Williams , is being sharply questioned by her minister uncle , the Reverend Samuel Parris , about a wild night affair in the woods in which she and some other girls had seemed to have had contact with these evil <WSD>beings</WSD> . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  a living thing that has (or can develop) the ability to act or function independently