Books by Maggie Shayne (254 page)

But not soundly. Not so soundly he didn’t know when she spoke again a long while later, after he’d drifted in and out of sleep, perhaps for hours. Her words fell in a songlike cadence, or a chant, perhaps. He opened his eyes and saw her standing above his bed. How long she’d been there, he didn’t know. But moonlight spilled through the porthole now. A full moon, or nearly so. And she stood, bathed in that ethereal glow, and he could see her. He could see her with perfect clarity. Her eyes were closed, head tipped back, and she stood with her feet wide apart. Her left arm stretched upward toward the moon, her palm turned up as if to catch the pale moonlight that spilled into it. Her right arm was extended downward, toward him. She turned her palm down and pressed it gently to his forehead. And as she chanted, he felt energy flooding him. Filling him. Warm, potent, zinging energy.

Moon Goddess, Diana, send your healing hands, Move through me, renew me, and heal this good man.

She repeated the chant three times as he lay there. And then she went rigid, eyes flying wide. And Duncan felt a surge of something white hot and tingling jolt right through his entire body. ’Twas sudden, and brief, and then ”twas gone.

He blinked his vision into focus and scanned the room, trying to understand what had just happened. Then he spotted her. She leaned on the back of the chair, head hanging down between her arms, her face curtained by her glorious hair. Breathlessly, she murmured, “Sweet lady, never has it been like that…”

Duncan was breathless himself. But as he took stock, he realized… his head was clear. His pain gone. His throat, no longer sore. His head, no longer spinning. And he turned again to look at her, to see her and drink in the sight by the light of the moon—only to see her eyes widen in alarm.

“You’re dreaming,” she told him. “This has all been no more than a sweet dream.”

“No, lass, ”tis no dream. An“ what you just did—”

She held her palm toward him. “Sleep now, Duncan. Sleep.”

A wave of drowsiness suddenly swept over him, and his eyelids felt so heavy he could barely hold them open. “Dinna go,” he whispered. “I beg of you, dinna go. I dinna care what that was… what
you
are. I only need you to stay… please, angel… stay with me.”

“Sleep,” she whispered. “Sleep and regain your strength. You’re exhausted. Rest, Duncan. Sleep.”

His eyes fell closed, though he fought to keep them open. And he felt her lips, warm and soft upon his… all too briefly.

“If I could stay with you, Duncan, I would. Believe me I would. “Tis better this way. I wish ‘twere not true, but ”tis, Duncan.“

He heard her leaving, heard the door creak open. Battling to stay awake, he forced words through his lips before losing himself to the veil of sleep that he could not resist. “I’ll find you again. I swear I will. I’ll find you…”

I’d never felt the power surge through me as it did that night. No, nor had I ever before felt the other forces that came to life in my blood then. The ones that burned in me when Duncan pulled me into his arms, when his mouth mated with mine, when he whispered that he hadn’t stopped thinking about me.

I’d never felt such things for a man. Not for any man. But I did now. For Duncan. From the moment our eyes had met I’d sensed there was something between us. Something new and powerful. I’d had no idea how powerful.

And yet, I could not trust him, could not tell him the truth. Secrecy was vital, especially from any man associated with the Church and her Witchhunters. He’d told me he’d given it up. But wouldn’t he tell me that even if he hadn’t? Wouldn’t that be the perfect way to fool me? To entrap me? Lure me into his trust, into his arms, into his bed, gain my confession and then haul me away? And what if I foolishly told him the only way I could be killed, what then?

No. I was weak where Duncan Wallace was concerned. My mother had trusted my own aunt Matilda, and now she was dead because of it. She’d written the words, emphasized them:
Trust no one. No one.

I’d become hard that day they killed my precious mother. Harder than I had ever been before. But my hardness melted when Duncan’s lips touched mine. My wisdom faded away like mist in the morning sunlight. He’d tried to protect me once, yes. But hadn’t he just now accused me of bewitching him? Of making him want me by using some spell?

I’d heard it myself. Though he’d taken back the words, the sentiment that spawned them likely still lived in his heart. So ’twas best I not see him again. Not ever.

I remained in my cabin for the rest of that journey. The captain brought me my meals, spoke with me for a few minutes each day, and seemed concerned for my well being. He told me how Duncan had been quite crazed since his recovery, insisting a woman had come to him and made him well that night, demanding to know my name and where my cabin was. Most of the crewmen and passengers thought his bout of fever had warped his mind. Even his friends, the couple with whom he was traveling, seemed to fear for his sanity.

It disturbed me to let him go on unsure just what had happened that night in his cabin. To let him go on wondering how much of it had been real and how much a dream. But I had no choice. ’Twould do me no good to be with Duncan Wallace. Nor him, either. For what could come of it, after all? What could come of my falling in love with him? And I would—I knew I would. I’d have to watch him grow old, I’d suffer through losing him. He’d be forced to see me remain young and healthy, while he aged and withered. No. There was no point in following my feelings for him, none at all, for they would only lead to heartache for us both.

But often as I sat alone in my cabin… and more often when I sneaked up onto the decks in the wee hours before daylight, I wished it could be different. And when I thought of Duncan, of his kiss, a great heaviness seemed to settle atop my heart. It added its weight to the sadness already there, that which I’d carried with me from the night I’d lost my mother, and so I became quite melancholy. Silent and pale. I was told my eyes seemed haunted more often than not.

I’d mourned my mother for the whole of my journey, gone over the events that cost her life again and again, each time wondering if I could have done something to save her. But I knew this terrible grief, this near despair, was not what she would have wanted for me. She’d have wanted me to find my own life, to go on, somehow. She would hate knowing that I cried each time I thought of her. Her memory, she would say, should bring me warmth and joy, not sorrow. So eventually I vowed to try to make it so. I could not spend my life grieving. Not for her, and not for what might have been between Duncan and me, had our situations been different.

Often, in those long days of my solitary journey, I found myself thinking of the way Duncan had tried so valiantly to help us that day at the gallows. If he had succeeded, and died in the attempt, what would have been the result? I wondered if he would have returned to his next lifetime immortal, as I was. Such a thing seemed beyond belief to me. Surely not a priest, nor a man studying to become one! And yet the undeniable proof was in me. I had become immortal in just such a way.

I was changing daily—almost hourly—and these changes also occupied my thoughts. How far would they go? I wondered. Each day I grew stronger. My senses continued to sharpen themselves by gradual degrees. And I found that if I focused on my new nature, ’twas easier to escape my crippling grief. So many new and strange things were happening to my body.

I could hear conversations from a goodly distance, and hear them more clearly than before. I could see as sharply in the darkness now as I could by daylight, and had been able to do so since that night in Duncan’s cabin, even after I’d extinguished the candle.

By the time we sailed into the harbor at Boston Town, I could hear the fish swimming beneath the waves. I could detect—even distinguish between—the scents of each person aboard. Duncan’s above all others, and why that was, I did not know. I saw the purple line of the New World fully an hour before the lookout shouted “Land ho!”

Sanctuary was but forty miles from where the ship docked at Boston Harbor, and I was told ’twas a town on its own tiny peninsula that curved like a crooked finger into the sea. I was eager to see it. I waited, of course, until everyone had left the ship. Long, long after that I crept out of my cabin, half afraid Duncan would be waiting for me, even then. I even looked for him, searching the few faces I saw as I walked softly down the gangplank and along the dock and into the town. But he wasn’t there. I saw him not at all.

And perhaps a very small part of me… was disappointed. I told myself how foolish that was, but the truth was a lot of the feelings I’d been having lately were foolish. It didn’t stop me from having them, all the same. It didn’t stop me from craving a man I could never have.

At Boston Town I purchased a horse with most of the coins still remaining in my purse. A fine black mare with fire in her eyes and spirit in her step. The livery man pleaded with me to take a more gentle animal instead, but I was insistent. From the moment my eyes met the animal’s, and she gave a sassy shake of her dark, flowing mane, I knew she was the one for me. I called her Ebony, for that was her color.

I’d taken to carrying my dagger strapped round my thigh, held there by the red garter my mother had made for me long ago. All the Witches of her family had worn one, she’d said. ’Twas laughable that I still wore the garter, when my stockings were long since too tattered to wear.

Beyond the dagger, I had only the drawstring sack my mother had given me, all my worldly possessions tucked away inside. Armed with a crudely drawn map, and pitifully few coins, I set out at dawn on the day after the
Sea Witch
had docked, bound for Sanctuary. My new home.

I rode on narrow paths, amid forests of such grandeur I’d never seen their like. The trees towered to the heavens, their trunks incredibly large. I marveled at the natural beauty around me, the forces of nature I could feel thriving in this place. There was great power here. I sensed it the way an animal can sense the approach of a storm.

After riding for an entire day, I estimated my journey to be nearly half complete, and stroked Ebony’s neck, praising her in soft words.

The dampness that coated my palm and her gentle nicker told me ’twas time to stop for the night. ”All right, girl. Time you had some rest. And me, as well. Though one would not think I should be the one to feel so tired when you’ve been doing all the work.“

The mare snorted as if in agreement, and I glanced at the area around me. Truly, there was little here. Woods that might be the homes of giants towered on either side of me. Ahead, there was only the dim outline of a well-worn dirt track, and even that vanished a short distance away as the sky turned dusky with twilight.

Sliding from the mare’s back, I gathered the reins in my hands and went very still, closing my eyes, listening to my instincts to tell me which way to go. ’Twould be far from wise to camp beside the road, lest some ne’er-do-well come upon us in the night. Besides that, Ebony needed water. She’d last drunk at midday.

Softly I scented the breeze, waiting. And my senses did not let me down. I’d suspected as much. I could hear, very faintly, the trickle and splash of a stream off to the left. Moreover, I could smell the water.

I glanced at Ebony and realized I needn’t have bothered. She smelled it, too, and looked eagerly off toward the woods in that direction. “Come on, then,” I told her, and led her off the trail and into the darkness of the forest.

It took a long while to find that stream. It seemed we walked a mile, though it could not have been that far. But surrounded by the lowering darkness and towering trees, I felt the full extent of my solitude here more than I had since leaving the ship at Boston Harbor. I was alone, in a strange, new land.

And yet, not
quite
as alone as I might have been. Somewhere in this New World was Duncan Wallace. And I wondered if he might be staring in awe at the virgin forests, or gazing up at the same purple sky. I wondered if he thought of me.

Ebony tugged at her reins, and I glanced ahead to see the stream, wide and bubbling like an excited child. I released her, and she trotted to its banks and bent to drink from its crystalline waters.

Hands on my hips, I inspected the lush grasses here. “ Tis a good spot,” I told the mare. “Tonight, we’ll sleep right here.” Using the length of worn and fraying rope the liveryman had given me, I picketed Ebony in a spot where she could reach both the sweet grasses and the water. Then I tossed my bag on the ground to use as a pillow. My cloak would be my blanket, the grassy ground, my bed. ’Twould do quite nicely.

A twig snapped in the woods to my back, and I stiffened, turning to look around. I saw nothing, but for the first time I wondered what sorts of beasties might roam these woods. Large ones, if the size of the trees was anything to go by. I’d not expect an animal to harm me unless I provoked it. A Witch is in tune with nature, and its creatures, and I’d come to believe that even wild animals could sense that and know instinctively that I meant them no harm. But these might be new creatures, animals with which I’d had no experience.

A rustling sound came then, and I forced my brain to calm, my senses to open. Slowly I moved toward the center of the place I’d chosen as my camp for the night and stood there, still and silent for a long moment, letting my eyes fall closed and my breathing slow, and lengthen. Opening my mind, I sensed the intense energy of the earth thrumming beneath my feet, and instinctively I crouched down to place my palms flat to the ground, the better to feel it, to absorb it, and fall into harmony with the forces moving here. Then, after a moment, I rose again, gradually unfolding my body until I stood upright. Tipping my head skyward, opening my arms to the heavens, I let the energies of the sky above me flow into me.

When I felt the familiar sense of being in perfect harmony with all around me, I lowered my arms to my sides and opened my eyes, feeling confident again that nothing in nature would harm me here.

And then I saw him, peering at me from within the trees, so much a part of the forest he nearly blended into it. But once I’d spotted him, my eyes focused, and he became clearer and clearer to me. A red man, dressed in animal hide all adorned with beads. His long hair hung in streaks of dark and light, and his eyes were very dark.

I’d heard talk of these natives of the New World. Indians, they were called. Or savages. ’Twas said they murdered and raped at their pleasure, and took the scalps of their white victims. And a chill of unwelcome fear slithered up my spine as I held his gaze with mine.

He did not move. Nor did he look particularly savage nor bent on my murder. In fact, he seemed natural there, in the woods… as if he belonged there. As if he were even more in tune with his environment than I could ever hope to be.

And then I realized… this was his home. It had to be his home. The sense of that came to me too strongly to be a mistake. I’d simply walked in without knocking and decided to spend the night without an invitation.

Licking my lips, rather nervously, I said, “I’m sorry if I have intruded. I’d like to sleep here tonight. If ”tis all right.“

He remained as he’d been before. Perfectly still, unblinking. Just watching me. And it occurred to me that he might not speak my language. So I spoke to him with my hands, as best I could manage. I pointed to myself, then folded my hands beneath my head, closing my eyes to indicate sleeping, and then pointed to the ground. Looking back at him, I waited.

He nodded, just once, and so slightly I might have mistaken it. I should thank him, I realized. But how did one make a sign for “thank you”?

Perhaps a gift. Kneeling, I opened my pack, searching my mind for something to give the man to show my gratitude and friendship, and finally found the small piece of glittering amethyst that I’d salvaged from my plundered home. But when I glanced up again, the man was gone.

I went to the spot where he’d been, but saw nothing, and the woods were so utterly undisturbed, I might have imagined him.

But I hadn’t, had I?

I didn’t think so.

Kneeling, I placed the stone on the ground, then returned to the grassy bank where my pack awaited.

I had a single biscuit in my pack, saved from my last dinner aboard the
Sea Witch.
I ate half of it, washed it down with water from the stream, and then lay down upon my pack, beneath my cloak, and slept. And dreamed that another man watched me from the shelter of the woods. A beautiful man whose face, it seemed, would haunt me until I died.

My nose woke before the rest of me. It twitched and sniffed and smelled something that made my stomach rumble. Then warm sunlight brushed my eyelids open, and the first thing I saw was food. Something golden colored and fragrant, resting on a slab of bark very close to my face.

Blinking and wondering vaguely if this were a dream, I sat up, grabbed the bark, and looked more closely. It was fish! Coated in something and cooked… still warm, in fact.

“Who in the…” I turned my head, scanning the woods around me, but saw no one. But it had to have been the red man I’d seen the night before.

I ate the fish eagerly, closing my eyes at the heavenly taste. And when I finished, and licked every crumb from my fingers, I leaned back, sighed in contentment, and muttered, “Savages, indeed. That man is kinder than many a white man I’ve known. Don’t you agree, Ebony?”

The mare only looked at me. Getting to my feet, I gathered up all my belongings once more, making ready for the second leg of my journey. But before I left that place, I crept into the trees where I’d seen the man the night before and looked for the stone I’d left him.

The amethyst was gone.

Nodding in approval, I mounted the mare, and we meandered out of the woods, to the trail, and began our long trek again.

And again, we traveled all the day through. I hadn’t expected it to take so long and, in fact, hoped to arrive at Sanctuary well before dark. I ate my remaining half biscuit, stale and crumbling now, at midday, and thought fondly of my delicious breakfast. But the trail seemed endless. Nightfall came, and still hours went by.

I was quite weary, and terribly hungry, when I finally rode into a small settlement with muddy paths running between a handful of small log structures more roughly built than any I’d ever seen before.

“Hello, mistress,” a deep voice called.

I turned in the saddle to see a heavy man with whiskered jowls and curious eyes.

“Elias Stanton is my name,” he said. “I be the town elder. What business have you in Sanctuary?”

“This
is Sanctuary?” I asked, my heart sinking. I should have been glad, I suppose, that my journey was finally at its end. But this place was hardly what I’d expected.

The man’s eyes narrowed on me, and I realized my tone might have offended him. “I hadn’t realized I had come so far,” I amended. “My name is Raven St. James.” I saw no reason now to use a false name. My aunt would wonder why, if I did. “I am looking for my aunt, Eleanor Belisle. Do you know her?”

His bushy dark brows drew close. “I know her well,” he said, and I sensed a grimness settling about him. “Have you traveled far, then?“‘

“All the way from England. My ship only arrived at Boston two days past, and I rode from there.”

At that his frown changed to one of disapproval. “You traveled alone? Spent a night on the road? Unchaperoned?”

I’m afraid my chin lifted a little, when I likely should have assumed a humble and apologetic posture. “I had little choice, sir.”

“Well now, such impropriety will not be tolerated here, mistress. You might learn it now as well as later. Unmarried young ladies do not go about—”

“I am not unmarried,” I blurted. And my own words surprised me, for I had loathed liars for as long as I could remember. Yet the man’s attitude reminded me so much of the arrogant priest who had murdered my mother that I could not help but wish to take precautions. “My husband died, during our crossing.”

“You’re a widow-woman, then,” he said. His gaze roamed down my body, to my slippers, and up again. And I did not care for the shadow that darkened his eyes. Nor for the way his tongue darted out to moisten his lips. “ ‘Tis still unwise to travel alone, mistress, but at least not quite as scandalous.”

“I am weary, sir. My journey has been very long. Pray, direct me to the home of my aunt before I fall from the saddle.”

“Ah, yes, your aunt. I’m sorry my news is not better,” he said. “But your aunt has been taken ill. A physician came from Boston, as he does once a month when the roads are passable. He examined her and said there was nothing to be done.”

“What ails her?” I asked, my heart in my throat.

“Old age,” the man said. “Her heart has worn itself out. She’s all of fifty years, you know.” He shook his head sadly. “But ”tis good that you came. She needs caring for, being so far from Sanctuary proper. ’Twill be good for her to have you there.”

“I’ll go at once. If you’ll just—”

“Yes, yes. Follow this road, mistress. It runs along the coast, all the way to the very tip of the peninsula. High on the cliffs above the sea is where she and that man of hers, God rest his soul, built their cabin. Though the good Lord only knows why. ”Tis no more than two mile.“

“Thank you, sir.” I snapped the reins lightly, and the mare, though likely as weary as I, lunged forward. Perhaps she sensed this journey’s end was at hand. Or perhaps she simply found the little man as distasteful as I had.

I found the cabin just as the man had said, on the cliffs, with the mighty sea and its waves crashing below. But unlike Elias Stanton, I saw immediately why my aunt had chosen this site. I could envision no place more magnificent. Surely the gods themselves would gladly place their thrones along such majestic cliffs, while far below the rolling power of the sea paid homage.

The log cabin was humble but neat. And there was a crooked shed, which housed a cow and some hens, though the cow looked as if she’d been neglected of late, her ribs showing, her bag swollen. Though ’twas fully dark, no light shone from within the cabin. But of course, I could see quite sharply in darkness by now.

I took Ebony into the shed, relieving her of saddle and bridle, and rubbing her down as best I could with a rag that hung from a peg on the wall. Quickly I gathered hay from the small stack outside, and a pail of water from the well for her, and for the poor cow as well. And then I took up my sack and went to the cabin.

The door creaked as it opened, and I stepped inside to see a frail form hunched in a rocking chair beside a dwindling fire. I moved closer and softly whispered, “Aunt Eleanor?”“

The graying head came up, turning slowly toward me in the dim room. The dying fire was the only light, so I stepped closer that she might see me better, and knelt beside her chair. “Aunt Eleanor, I am Raven, the daughter of your half sister.”