Witches (23 page)

There were gardens before almost every house. Small orchards behind. The gardens were full to bursting. Harvest time must be near. Amanda spotted apple and persimmon trees.

Her eyes traveled farther. She counted at least three inns or taverns or did they call them grogshops? She did remember that drinking and drunkenness had been very common in these times. Too common. Drinking and public punishments had been the main social events.

She scrutinized the sleepy village before her thoughtfully.

The end of the seventeenth century. They actively persecuted witches, so she should feel right at home. She frowned as that realization made her even more uneasy. She couldn’t recall whether Calvinists or Puritans had settled early Canaan. No matter, one was as bad as the other.

She wondered what kind of money they used, English? Shillings and stuff like that. Gold? She didn’t know. She did suspect that barter was a more widespread way of buying things in this time. Real money would be hard to come by.

What did the people of these times eat? No supermarkets here. They’d have their own livestock. Pigs. Cattle. Crops? Corn, she remembered, was real big. Beans.

The Indians would still be savage and untamed. She’d read of terrible massacres as late as eighteen hundred in this part of the country. A chill stirred up her spine at the memory of the Indian with the brooding eyes who’d given her the necklace in the woods. Why hadn’t he killed her? What had his strange gesture meant?

Just another mystery.
She sighed softly.

Unless he and some of his friends were tracking her right now.

The notion unsettled her and made her walk faster.
What’s the matter with you?
Then she reminded herself,
I’m in town. Safe.

Anyway, if he’d wanted to hurt you, Amanda, he would have. He’d had weapons on him. Calm down.

“Yep,” she murmured to herself, as she watched a couple of women in long homemade gowns and bonnets leave one wooden building, heads bent together, chatting, baskets hanging from their arms, and briskly stroll on down the street, leaving little puffs of dust in their wake, “this is definitely not modern times
.
”

No electric lights at the corners to illuminate the highways—no highways. No cars. No telephone lines strung up everywhere, because there were no telephones. No televisions, no microwaves, no VCRs, no vacuum cleaners, cell phones or computers. It was mind-boggling.

A fever or an infection could kill you. Women died every day in childbirth. There would still be epidemics of influenza, smallpox, and typhoid. Thank goodness she’d had all her shots. Oh, wait a minute…Amanda’s body had had her shots, not this new one she found herself in. Great.

A town truly out of the distant past, might as well be Mars, she mused glumly, as weird as it seemed to her.

Her eyes stared down at her clothes. Tattered and filthy. Showing way too much flesh. She tried covering herself better but it was useless. Too many tears. She’d stick out in these rags like a loose woman in a church congregation.

Which meant she couldn’t chance anyone seeing her until she’d done something about her clothes—but what? How? She didn’t have any way to buy a new gown, and even if she had the right money for the times, she couldn’t waltz into a general store and purchase something. Too risky. Looking the way she
looked. Talking the way she talked. They’d think she
was touched in the head. She knew what they did to insane women here. Locked them away.

She’d tarried too long in the middle of the street, daydreaming, and the wagon was almost upon her before she realized it. Amadeus, smaller and quicker, made it into the bushes alongside the road, but Amanda was left to face the indignant-eyed people crowded in the wagon as it slowed down to roll past her.

A family, it looked like. Mother in demure homespun gray dress and snow-white cloth bonnet. Father, reins in work-chapped hands, in a loose fitting shirt, dark trousers, and floppy hat. Three children of different ages, two boys and one girl. The boys dressed exactly like their father. The girl, like her mother, even down to the bonnet. Poor people. You could tell at a glance by their worn and simple clothes. Yet well fed and clean. A cow, tethered behind the wagon, followed along docilely.

Whispers. “That Coxe woman. They say she be a witch.”

“What is she doing out here?”

The wagon drew closer and the voices, Amanda had no doubt, were meant to be overheard by her.

“Why I never. Look at the way she be dressed, Matthew. Shameful. Her gown ripped and dirty. Her hair unkempt and badly fixed.” More whispers. “Not fit to associate with good people...mad woman...witch, that is what she is. The vicar is right. We should turn her in to the local magistrate.”

“She has gone too far this time.”

Their stern faces peering down at her mirrored their disapproval, and their fear. Some things never changed. The wagon jostled past her and left her in a cloud of dust—but the insinuations floated back to taunt her.

That Coxe woman.

They thought she was Rachel because she
looked
like Rachel. The last piece of the mystery fell into place. It was true and her worst fears were now a reality. Somehow, she was back in the seventeen hundreds and had taken Rachel Coxe’s place. Rachel Coxe, the local and much maligned witch.

Taken her place for what? To die the way she’d died?
No.
Amanda felt the sobs rising up in her throat and couldn’t stop them from escaping.

The pounding of hooves, a horse snorting, returned her to reality and she scurried into the shadows beneath the trees.

Here she was, running away and hiding like a thief. She was a stranger in a hostile land with no home, family, friends, or powers. Lost in time. Worst of all, no one in her own time had the slightest idea where she was—so rescue, outside of a miracle, wasn’t an option.

She was stuck here. Possibly, heaven help her, forever, unless she regained her powers.

Sliding down against the side of a tree, her eyes blurred and a lump formed in her throat; the tears came, even though she fought them.

When a horse whickered, very near, she opened her eyes.

“Mistress, be there something wrong? Can I be of help?” a man’s deep voice asked.

Startled, and painfully aware of how scandalous she must look in her ragged clothes, her face grimy, and her hair a mess, Amanda lifted her teary eyes to the man’s face.

“I was behind that wagon and couldn’t help but overhear how they spoke ill of thee.” He was sitting astride an enormous black horse, but dismounted immediately and strode toward her.

His horse followed and Amanda, ill at ease at him catching her at such a vulnerable moment, lowered her eyes
and reached out to touch the lovely animal. She’d never had much dealings with horses but, as all animals, she loved them and they loved her. The horse nudged her and whinnied, wanting more attention, as she petted him.

“He likes thee,” the man declared, astounded. “Gabriel rarely lets anyone near him but me.”

Amanda took her hand away from the horse’s warm muzzle. She stole a quick glance at the man.

He was very tall with wavy, chestnut-brown hair to his shoulders; dressed in a leather vest and pants, and white gathered shirt, high boots, and a three cornered hat with a plumed feather cocked rakishly to one side. A mustache hung low over a sensuous smile full of amused intelligence—and he was smiling at her as she caressed the horse’s arched neck. Yet his eyes revealed unease and bewilderment. Why?

In one hand, he carried a musket and he moved like a big cat, easy and sure-footed, exuding an impressive sense of grace and power. A military man, perhaps.

“Mistress, did they hurt thee?” His fingers were gentle as he wiped the tears from her face and tipped her chin upward so their gaze met. His eyes, a shining deep brown, bore into hers and touched off a spark of unexplainable recognition. Unexpected pleasure. Uncanny how much he reminded her of someone she knew. She just couldn’t put a finger on who.

“No. Not really.” Just words. Hurtful, but she’d endured worse.

“I would not have bothered thee, but I heard thee crying.” He seemed embarrassed, at a loss of what else to say, as if a woman crying was such a rare sight. Maybe Rachel crying was a rare sight. She studied his face from behind lowered lashes, knowing she should be cautious. She didn’t know him from Adam.

Yet something about the way he was looking at her dissolved her fears. There was gentleness in his brown eyes, even if his jaw was taut.

She imagined this was a man whose ways were usually sterner, a man of strength and few weaknesses. A man of the times. She could tell sympathy was new to him. He seemed to be struggling with the feelings she was creating that were obviously making him uncomfortable.

His kindness, at this time of all times, after what she’d been through the last few days, was too much for her to handle. The straw that broke the camel’s back. The tears fell harder even as she swiped angrily at them and ordered herself to stop acting like a stupid, helpless woman and pull herself together. She couldn’t. Finally, she gave up, hid her head in her hands, and let the tears seep from the corners of her eyes.

“I’m all right.” Her hands muffled her voice. She was about to say something else, but realized who she was talking to. “Just...weary.” There was no way she could tell him why she was really crying. That she was from another time that hadn’t wanted her, either, and that she was hungry, exhausted, and frightened. Alone. Didn’t know where she’d find shelter, or what she would do next.

When the silence went on too long, she peeked through her fingers. He was staring at her clothes.

“Mistress Coxe, dost thou know thou gown is not much better than rags?” he asked softly, his face a study in control.

“You
know
me?” she blurted out before she could stop herself.

“Aye,” he replied, his expression puzzled. “Thou art Rachel Coxe.”

She truly had taken Rachel’s place. Where was Rachel? In her time, taking her place? Was she without her powers, too? If she wasn’t...it was a horrendous thought. Amanda felt sick.

“The whole town knows thee.” His
voice
had turned cynical. “Thou hast been the
topic of gossip for years.”

Amanda’s brow furrowed. Right, so he didn’t actually know her, just by sight and word of mouth.

The evil witch who lived among them.

“So why did you stop?” she asked, unrolling her right sleeve and wiping her wet face on the back of it.

“I thought thou needed aid,” he said lamely. Clearly, he didn’t know why he’d stopped. Probably regretting it now.

She sighed, and biting her lip, she turned her head away.

“I can take thee home,” the stranger offered kindly. “It is on my way.”

Rachel had a home. Of course, she would have and if Rachel was not here, then Amanda could use it. A sanctuary where she could stay until she figured this whole mess out and found a way back to her own time. It would be better than sleeping out in the woods, wouldn’t it? As much as she disliked the thought of living where Rachel had lived, sleeping in her bed, Rachel’s house was better than no house. Of course, she didn’t know where Rachel lived. How could she? The townspeople would, and her helpful stranger seemed to.

“That would be kind of you.”

He remounted his horse and came up beside her. From one of his saddlebags he brought a bundle of material and handed it down to her. “To cover thyself,” he said with a twinkle in his eyes. “‘Twill halt the further wagging of tongues.” Now he was dead serious.

For a moment, Amanda was almost tempted to laugh. She must seem as out of place to these people as they did to her—and sound strange, too. It suddenly occurred to her that her speech was very different from theirs. Not merely her accent, which was far more Americanized, but her choice of words, as well. The man must think she was touched in the mind, as they would have said back then. Back...now.

Amanda slipped the black cloak around her shoulders and fastened it. She smiled for the first time at him then, and he smiled softly back.

“I go by Joshua Graham,” he told her as his strong hand clasped hers and pulled her into the saddle before him. His arms encircled her as they tugged at the reins and his boots lightly tapped the horse’s flanks, and got them moving. Sitting so close to him, feeling the warmth from his muscular body, sent shivers down her spine. It’d been a long time since she’d had a man’s arms about her. It felt good. Too good.

“I will get thee home soon. Surely, thy children must be missing thee.”

Children? That’s right. Rachel did have children. Mabel had said she didn’t know if they’d been girls or boys, or how many. Just children.

Who Rachel had supposedly murdered. Sometime in the future.

She couldn’t believe what was happening. It seemed impossible that she was in another time. In another’s place. In the shoes of a black witch, a possible murderess. It was a nightmare.

Then she remembered Amadeus.

“My cat,” she said aloud. “I can’t leave my cat.”

“Cat?”