Books by Maggie Shayne (250 page)

“Perhaps this is my destiny,” she said softly. “But ”tis not yours.“

“How can you know that?”

“I know,” she whispered. “I’ve known from the day you were born, child. By the birthmark you bear upon your right hip. The crescent.” Tears burned my eyes. But my mother went on. “You’re a far more powerful Witch than I have ever been, Raven.”

“No. ”Tis not true. I can barely cast a decent circle.“

She laughed then, softly, and the sound of it touched my heart. That she could laugh at a time like this only made me love and respect her more than I already did, though I’d never have thought it possible.

“I speak not of the form of ritual, but the force, Raven. The power is strong in you. And you will need that strength. When this is over, child, you must leave here. Go to the New World. My sister, Eleanor, is there, in a township called Sanctuary, in the colony of Massachusetts. She is not a Witch, and knows nothing of our ways. She was born of my father’s faithlessness and raised by her own mother and not in our household. But she is kind. She will not turn you away.”

“Perhaps not,” I said. “But
I
will not leave you behind.”

“I fear ”tis I who will leave you behind, my darling. “Tis the night of the dark moon, when our powers ebb low. But even were our lady of the moon shining her full light down upon us, I doubt I could save myself. Do not cry for me, Raven. Dying is part of living, a birth into a new life. You know this.”

“Oh, Mother, stop saying such things!” I cried loudly, sobbing and choking on my tears.

When Mother spoke again, I could hear tears in her voice as well. “Raven, listen to me. You must listen.”

I tried to quiet myself, to do as she wished, but I vowed she would not die tomorrow. Somehow I would save her.

“When ”tis over,“ she told me, ”you must return to our cottage in the village. But do so by night, and be very careful. You mustn’t be seen. Do not wait too long, child, lest they burn the house in their vengeance or award it to Matilda’s family in return for her testimony against us. You must go back in secret. Gather only what you will need for your journey. Then go to the hearth. There is a loose stone there. Take what you find hidden beyond that stone.“

“But, Mother—”

“And take the horse, if she is still there. You may sell her in some other village. But take care. Should you meet anyone, do not tell them your true name. And as soon as you can, book passage on a ship to the New World. Now promise me you will do these things.”

“I’ll not let them kill you, Mother.”

“There is nothing you can do to prevent it, child. I’ll have your promise, though, and I will die in peace because of it. Promise me, Raven.”

Sniffling, I muttered, “I promise.”

“Good.” She sighed, so deeply it seemed as if some great burden had been lifted from her shoulders. “Good,” she whispered once more, and then she rested. Slept, perhaps. I could not be sure. I cried in silence from then on, not wishing to trouble my Mother with my tears. But I think she knew.

When dawn came, it brought with it the magistrate, and beside him a woman, looking distraught with red-rimmed eyes. Behind them walked a man who wore the robes of a priest. He had an aged face, thin and harsh, with a hooked nose that made me think of a hawk, or some other hungering bird of prey. He was pale, as if he were ill, or weak. And then they came closer, and I could see only their feet, for I could not tip my head back enough to see more.

“Lily St. James,” the Magistrate said, “you and your daughter are charged with the crime of Witchcraft. Will you confess to your crimes?”

My mother’s voice was weaker now, and I could hear the pain in it. “I will confess only if you release my daughter. She is guilty of nothing.”

“No,” the woman said in a shrill voice. “You must execute them now, Hiram. Both of them!”

“But the law—” he began.

“The law! What care do you have for the law when our own child has become ill overnight? What more proof do you need?”

At her words my heart fell. She blamed us for her child’s illness, just as my aunt had done. No one could save us now.

I heard footsteps then, and sensed the magistrate had gone closer to my mother. Leaning over her, he said, “Lift this curse, woman. Lift it now, I beg of you.”

“I have brought no curse upon you, nor your family, sir,” my mother told him. “Were it in my power to help your child, I would gladly do so. As I would have for my own husband and for my nephew. But I cannot.”

“Execute them!” his wife shouted. “Michael was fine until you arrested these two! They brought this curse on him, made him ill out of pure vengeance, I tell you, and if they live long enough to kill him, they will! Execute them, husband. ”Tis the only way to save our son!“

The priest stepped forward then, his black robes hanging heavily about his feet and dragging through the wet snow. His steps were slow, as if they cost him a great effort. He went first to my mother, saying nothing, and I could not see what he did. But he came seconds later to me and closed his hand briefly around mine.

A surge of something, a crackling, shocking sensation jolted my hand and sizzled into my forearm, startling me so that I cried out.

“Do not harm my daughter!” my mother shouted.

The priest took his hand away, and the odd sensation vanished with his touch, leaving me shaken and confused. What had it been?

“I fear you are right,” the priest said to the magistrate and his wife. “They must die, or your son surely will. And I fear there is no time for a trial. But God will forgive you that.”

Pacing away, his back to us, the magistrate muttered, “Then I have little choice.” And the three of them left us alone again. But only for a few brief moments.

“Mother,” I whispered. “I’m so afraid.”

“You’ve nothing to fear from them, Raven.”

But I
did
fear. I’d
never felt
such fear grip me as I felt then, for within moments the priest had returned, and he brought several others with him. Large, strong men. People filled the streets as my mother and I were taken from the stocks. The people shouted and called us murderers and more. They threw things at us. Refuse and rotten food, even as the men bound our hands behind our backs and tossed us onto a rickety wagon, pulled by a single horse. I crawled close to my mother, where she sat straight and proud in that wagon, and I leaned against her, my head on her shoulder, my arms straining at their bonds, but unable to embrace her.

“Be strong,” she told me. “Be brave, Raven. Don’t let them see you tremble in fear before them.”

“I’m trying,” I whispered.

The wagon drew to a stop, and the ride had been all too short. I looked up to see a gallows, one used so often it looked to be a permanent fixture here. I was dragged from the wagon, and my mother behind me. But she didn’t fight as I did. She got to her feet and held her head high, and no one needed to force her up the wood steps to the platform, while I kicked and bit and thrashed against the hands of my captors.

She paused on those steps and looked back at me, caught my eyes, and sent a silent message.
Dignity.
She mouthed the word. And I stopped fighting. I tried to emulate her courage, her dignity, as I was marched up the steps to stand beside her, beneath a dangling noose. Someone lowered the rough rope around my neck and pulled it tight, and I struggled to be brave and strong, as she’d so often told me I was. But I knew I was trembling visibly, despite the warmth of the morning sun on my back, and I could not stop my tears.

That priest whose touch had so jolted me stood on the platform as well, old and stern-faced, his eyes all but gleaming beneath their film of ill health as he stared at me… as if in anticipation. Beside him stood another man who also wore the robes of clergy. This one was very young, my age, or perhaps a few years my elder. In his eyes there was no eagerness, no joy. Only horror, pure and undisguised. They were brown, his eyes, and they met mine and held them. I stared back at him, and he didn’t look away, but held my gaze, searching my eyes while his own registered surprise, confusion. I felt something indescribable pass between us. Something that had no place here, amid this violence and hatred. It was as if we touched, but did so without touching. A feeling of warmth flowed between him and me, one so real it was almost palpable. And I knew he felt it, too, by the slight widening of his eyes.

Then his gaze broke away as he turned to the older man and said, “Nathanial, surely ”tis no way to serve the Lord.“

The kiss of Scotland whispered through his voice.

“You are young, Brother Duncan,” the older man said. “And this no doubt seems harsh to you.”

“What it seems like to me, Father Dearborne, is murder.”

“Thou shalt not suffer a Witch to live,“ the priest quoted.

“Thou shalt not kill,“ the young Scot—Duncan—replied. And he looked at me again. “They’ve nay been tried.”

“They were tried in the square by the magistrate himself.”

“It canna be legal.”

“His Honor’s own child is ill with the plague. Would you have us wait for the wee one to die?”

The young man’s gaze roamed my face, though he spoke to the old one. I felt the touch of those eyes as surely as if he caressed me with his gentle hands, instead of just his gaze.

“I would have us show mercy,” he said softly. “We’ve no proof these women have brought the plague.”

“And no proof they haven’t. Why take the risk? They are only Witches.”

The beautiful man looked at the older one sharply. “They are human creatures just as we are, Nathanial.” And he shook his head sadly. “What are their names?”

“Their names are unfit for a man of the cloth to utter. If you so pity them, Duncan, ease your conscience by praying for their souls. For what good it might do.“

“Tis wrong,“ Duncan declared urgently. ”I’m sorry, Father, but I canna be party to this.“

“Then leave, Duncan Wallace!” The priest thrust out a gnarled finger, pointing to the steps.

Duncan hurried toward them, but he paused as he passed close to me. Then turned to face me, as if drawn by some unseen force. His hand rose, hesitated, then touched my hair, smoothing it away from my forehead. His thumb rubbed softly o’er my cheek, absorbing the moisture there. “Could I help you, mistress, believe me I would.”

“Should you try they would only kill you, as well.” My voice trembled as I spoke. “I beg you… Duncan…” His eyes shot to mine when I spoke his name, and I think he caught his breath. “Don’t surrender your life in vain.”

He looked at me so intently it was as if he searched my very soul, and I thought I glimpsed a shimmer of tears in his eyes.

“I willna forget you…” he whispered, then shook his head, blinked, and continued, “… in my prayers.”

“If there be memory in death, Duncan Wallace,” I said, speaking plainly, even boldly, for what had I to lose now? “I shall remember you always.”

He drew his fingertips across my cheek, and suddenly leaned close and pressed his lips to my forehead. Then he moved on, his black robes rustling as he hurried down the steps.

“Do you wish to confess your sins and beg the Lord’s forgiveness?” the old priest asked my mother.

I saw her lift her chin. “ ‘Tis you who ought to be begging your God’s forgiveness, sir. Not I.”

The priest glared at her, then turned to me. “And you?”

“I have done nothing wrong,” I said loudly. “My soul is far less stained than the soul of one who would hang an innocent and claim to do it in the name of God.” Then I looked down at the crowd below us. “And far less stained than the souls of those who would turn out to watch murder being done!”

The crowd of spectators went silent, and I saw Duncan stop in his tracks there on the ground below us. He turned slowly, looking up and straight into my eyes. “Nay,” he said, his voice firm. “Tis wrong, an‘ I willna allow it!“ Then suddenly he lunged forward, toward the steps again. But the guard at the bottom caught him in burly arms and flung him to the ground. A crowd closed around him as he tried to get up, and he was blocked from my view. I prayed they would not harm him.

“Be damned, then,” the old priest said, and he turned away.

The hangman came to place a hood over my mother’s head, but she flinched away from it. “Look upon my face as you kill me, if you have the courage.”

Snarling, the man tossed the hood to the floor and never offered one to me. He took his spot by the lever that would end our lives. And I looked below again to see Duncan there, struggling while three large men held him fast. I had no idea what he thought he could do to prevent our deaths, but ’twas obvious he’d tried. Was still trying.

“Tis wrong! Dinna do this thing, Nathanial!“ he shouted over and over, but his words fell on deaf ears.

“Take heart,” my mother whispered. “You will see him again. And know this, my darling. I love you.”

I turned to meet her loving eyes. And then the floor fell away from beneath my feet, and I plunged through it. I heard Duncan’s anguished cry. Then the rope reached its end, and there was a sudden painful snap in my neck that made my head explode and my vision turn red. And then no more. Only darkness.

Duncan didn’t even know her name.

He didn’t even
know her name
.

And yet he felt as if he’d lost a treasured friend… more than that, even. ’Twas as if a part of his own soul had just been brutally murdered in the town square.

Her surname, St. James, he’d heard that much muttered in the streets. More than that he didn’t know. Might never know.

“I tried,” he whispered. “God knows I tried.”

He’d been moved, beyond all reason, all logic, when he’d heard her strong, deep voice and the courage it held as it rang out over the spectators, shaming them as they should well be shamed. And he’d known then that he had to try. Though he had no idea now what he could have done, even had they let him pass. Even had he reached her again. Perhaps he’d been a bit mad.

Perhaps she truly was a Witch and had cast some spell, some enchantment, o’er his heart there on the gallows. He didn’t know. He only knew that something had possessed him—some sudden, violent,
desperate
need to save her.

And that he’d failed.

She swung slowly from the end of a rope beside her mother, her life snuffed out far too soon. And he realized, by the cold dampness seeping through his robes and chilling his legs, that he knelt now, before the gallows. He seemed to have fallen right where he’d been standing when the trapdoor had jerked away from beneath the beautiful girl. And he remained there still, kneeling in the snow.

He got to his feet, but his legs felt weak and his chest hollow. Staggering forward, he snatched a blade from a local man’s belt as he passed the fellow. Ignoring the man’s outcry, he moved beneath the gallows, to gather the young woman’s body into his arms. He held her tight to him as he sawed at the rope until it gave way. Her weight fell upon him, head resting on his shoulder like a lover’s. Satin soft hair, snow damp and fragrant, brushed against his cheek. He closed his arms round her body and turned his face full into that hair to inhale it and to feel it and to commit it to memory—as well as to hide the inexplicable tears that welled up in his eyes. So warm, her face on his skin. So much as if she were only sleeping.

“What might you have been to me?” he asked her, his voice a strangled whisper. “What might we have been to each other?”

But he spoke to death, and death did not answer.

“Though it makes no sense, lass, my heart is broken. I didna know you at all, an’ yet it feels so very much as if I did. As if I always have.“ He rocked her in his arms, and a sob choked him. ”Can you hear me? Are you out there, somewhere, listenin‘, lass? I’ll give you a proper burial, I vow it. An“ your dear mother, too.”

He held her close, enveloped in a sadness he could not explain and a new certainty about the path he’d walk in this life. And he owed her thanks for that, if nothing else, he realized.

A heavy hand fell upon his shoulder. “What sort of spectacle do you wish to make of yourself, boy?“

Duncan turned to see the murderer himself, Nathanial Dearborne, his own trusted mentor. “Do you ken what you’ve done this day?” he asked the man.

Nathanial’s eyes narrowed, and he signaled to someone with a flick of his wrist. Immediately three men rushed forward to tear the beauty from Duncan’s arms, even as he cried out in protest. They bore her away, dumping her body on the back of a rickety wagon where her mother already lay. The man in the driver’s seat snapped the reins, and the wagon trundled away.

“Where are they takin’ her?“ Duncan demanded, addressing Dearborne but keeping his gaze riveted to that wagon—to
her
—until it rounded a curve and disappeared from sight.

“To the pit beyond the town. Best to get their kind as far from decent folk as possible, lad. You’ll understand one day. This was… for the best.”

’Twas murder,“ Duncan spat out, ”an‘ sin of the most vile sort!“ He glared at the man now that the wagon was gone from his sight. ”I canna continue under the tutelage of a man who would condone it. My studies end here, today, Nathanial. I want no part of your priesthood, for you’ve shown it to be one of purest evil.“

Nathanial’s cloudy blue eyes narrowed, but not in anger, and he didn’t shout “Blasphemy!” as Duncan had expected.

He simply said, “I’d hold my tongue, were I in your place, Duncan. You have no idea what sorts of forces you are dealing with.”

“I willna hold my tongue. I
canna
.”

Nathanial shook his head slowly. “You know the teachings of the Church. The elimination of Witches is our duty as Christians, Duncan. ”Tis imperative we wipe them from existence, rid the world of the scourge of Witchery.“

Duncan searched the old man’s face. He’d been close to him once, thought of him almost as fondly as he did his own father. No more. “An’ what will you do next, Nathanial, when you’ve murdered them all? What will your next mission be? To rid the world of anyone else whose beliefs differ from your own?“

Nathanial smiled. “The Crusades attempted that and failed. I simply seek to do my duty, Duncan. And ”twill be a service to all Christians if I succeed.“

“Nay,” Duncan said. “Not all.” And he turned from the man, feeling nothing now but loathing for him. A man he’d once thought to be closer to God than anyone he’d known. But Duncan realized now that Nathanial was nothing. Less than nothing. A killer who seemed to enjoy his work.

“Where are you going?” Nathanial demanded. “Don’t turn your back on me, boy! Answer my question!”

With a glance over his shoulder and an awareness of the people looking on, listening in, Duncan replied. “I’m goin’ to gather my things, Nathanial. An‘ then I’m goin“ to see those two women get a proper burial. After that, I only know I’ll be goin’ as far away from you an’ your kind as I can. You are no man of God, but a hypocrite an‘ a killer, an“ I canna abide bein’ in the same village with you.”

Then he continued on his way without another word, hearing the gasps and whispers of the townspeople as he passed.

It surprised him when a hand fell upon his shoulder. Stopping in his tracks, he didn’t turn around. For he knew that gnarled old hand well.

“Duncan, wait,” Nathanial said. “Perhaps I was too harsh. ”Tis obvious this morning’s work has distressed you. But there is truly no need to take such drastic measures. Surely you don’t mean to leave here—“

“Aye, Nathanial, that I do.”

“You cannot!”

Frowning, Duncan turned. Nathanial composed himself, tempered his voice. “Duncan, you’ve been like a son to me. Believe me, boy, were this action not necessary, I’d never have—”‘

“But you did. ”Tis done, Nathanial, an“ there’s no undoin‘ it now.”

Lowering his head, Nathanial drew a breath. “I am ill, Duncan. Surely you know that.”

“Aye, I know it. I’ve seen you growin‘ weaker by degrees, an‘ wished to God I could do somethin‘ about it, Nathanial. But I canna help you. An’ being ill, even facin‘ death itself doesna give you the right to go about hanging innocents.“

“I… I had no choice.”

“An’ I have no choice now,“ Duncan said. He turned away, having nothing more to say to the old man he’d once loved. But as he walked on, he heard Nathanial continue.

“Tis because of the girl, isn’t it? This is
her
doing.“

Duncan kept walking.

“Damn her,” Nathanial cried. “Damn her, she’ll pay. I’ll
make sure
she pays!”

“She’s beyond your reach now, Nathanial.”

“Oh, don’t be so sure of that, my boy,” Nathanial muttered.

Duncan turned then, only to see the old man walking away. He didn’t know what Nathanial could have possibly meant by his words. But it didn’t matter. The lass was gone now. Dead, and Nathanial was as responsible as if he’d pulled the lever himself. Duncan would never forgive the man.

He went to his stark room in the back of the church, to gather his meager possessions into a sack. He would never return here again; he’d meant what he’d said. This place had been his home for two years as he studied for the priesthood at Nathanial’s feet. But that was over now. What he had seen today—and what he’d
felt
—had changed him forever. He sensed it deep inside, though he had no idea how this change would manifest. He only knew he had to leave.

He only knew the strange beauty had touched him, touched his heart, and his soul, and his life, and that he would feel that touch for a long, long time to come.

Slinging his sack over his shoulder, he walked out again into the streets. People whispered and pointed as he passed. He didn’t care. He would have liked a horse. It was a long walk to the place where they’d taken the girl and her mother. But he sensed it would be only the beginning of an even more distant journey. That the steps he took now were the first steps on the way to his destiny.

The darkness that descended on me when I reached the end of that rope was a temporary one.

I remember so clearly the sudden, desperate gasp I drew, the blinding flash of white light that stiffened my body and made me fling my head backward as I dragged in as much air as my lungs could contain. The rapidly fading pain in my neck and my head. And the shock I felt as I realized… I was still alive.

I was… alive
!

I blinked my eyes open and looked around me, and then my stomach lurched. ’Twas daylight, morning. Still early, I guessed. I lay upon the ground with the bodies of the dead strewn around me. The bodies of hanged criminals, and those taken by the disease plaguing the area. This was the pit they’d dug for this purpose. Every so often men would come here with shovels to cover over the dead, and ready the place for another layer of victims of the plague and the gallows. But I was not dead.

I was not dead
.

I sat up slow, gagging at the stench of rotting flesh, and looked around me, frantically searching for my mother. I’d had no idea her magick was strong enough to save us from the gallows, but it must have been, for I was alive, and she—

She… no. Oh, no.

I found her, and my heart shattered. She lay still, her neck broken, her eyes open but no longer beautiful or shining like onyx. They were already dulled by the filmy glaze of death.

“Mother! No, Mother, no!” I gathered her into my arms, sobbing, near hysteria as I held her close, and rocked her against me. “You can’t be gone! You can’t leave me this way. Why, Mother?” But she did not answer, and so I screamed my question again, to the earth and the sky and the corpses all around me. “Why am I still alive? Why do I live, and not my precious Mother? Why?“ But I knew I would get no reply.

Not from the dead. Not from my mother. Her spirit no longer lived in this body. She was gone. Gone, and I was alone.

Eventually I sat back and looked down at her poor body, an empty shell, yes, but even so ’twould not remain here in this vile place. Not while my heart still beat on.

Gently I lifted her in my arms. I was taller, larger than she. But even then it shouldn’t have been so easy to carry her. I thought perhaps ’twas my grief making me strong.

I made my way out of the pit and took my mother’s body into the forest nearby. And there, I scooped away the snow, and scraped out a grave for her with no more than my two hands and a flat stone for a tool. My nails were split, my fingers bleeding and throbbing with cold when I finished, but I was beyond noticing the pain. I buried my beloved mother there, and then I lay upon her grave and cried.

When at last he reached the gruesome place of the dead, Duncan shuddered at the sight of the bodies strewn there. He pressed a handkerchief to his face, and even then the stench was sickening. And disease, too, hung on the very air here. One could smell it, almost feel it. Yet he searched for the dark beauty among the dead.

“Where are you?” he whispered as his gaze scanned the carrion. That she should be here in this filth even for a short time brought a fury more powerful than any he’d felt before surging through his veins. What was it about her that caused such reactions in him? Why did he care so deeply for a girl he didn’t even know?

“Duncan!” a voice called, and he turned. “Come away from there afore you take ill!”

At the rim of the pit a young man Duncan had called friend since they were lads together in Scotland sat astride his horse. Samuel MacPhearson leaned on the pommel, looking down at him.

“I’ll nay go until I find them,” he said.

“Well, you willna find them, my friend, for they be elsewhere. I searched myself only an hour ago. Arrived here faster by horse, I suppose, than you could by foot.”

“Are you certain?” Duncan asked.

“Aye. I wouldna lie to you about this, Duncan. I can see ”tis important to you. Or she is. Did you know the lass?“

“Nay,” Duncan said, making his way to the edge. “But it felt as if I did.” When he began to climb up, Samuel dismounted and bent to offer a hand. Duncan got his footing at the top and brushed at his soiled clothes. Homespun, and barely fitting. But all he had once he’d discarded the robes he no longer felt able to wear.

“Why were you looking for them, Samuel?” Duncan asked.

“Same reason as you, I’d guess. To bury them proper. I liked what was done no more than you did, Duncan.” He looked out over the dead and grimaced. “I didna find them, though.”

Duncan’s heart twisted. “Where can they be?”

Samuel smiled, but ’twas bitter. ”No doubt your friend Dearborne would claim they used black magick to rise up an‘ walk away. But I suspect there’s a far more simple solution. Some relative came for their bodies in secret. It happens, Duncan.“

Duncan nodded but met Samuel’s eyes. “Nathanial Dearborne is no friend of mine.”

“He was here, you know.”

Duncan frowned. “Nathanial? Here?”

“Aye, lookin’ for those two women himself, I do believe. An‘ if he got here afore me, Duncan, he must have run his horse ragged the whole way. I meant to ask him why that was, but he beat a hasty retreat when he saw my approach.“

The thought of that bastard laying his hands upon the girl set Duncan’s teeth on edge. “He didna find them? You’re certain of that?”

“Certain as I can be,” Samuel said. “He seemed to be still searchin’ when I arrived, and he had no bodies o’er his saddle when he galloped away.“