Witches (27 page)

Like Jake.

Lizzy had fallen asleep in her arms. She took her to her bed and settled her down on it. Sleep now was the best thing for her. Help the medicine work.

She laid a kiss on the child’s brow before she stood up.

When she returned to the table, she remembered her manners. “Tea?” she offered the man.

“Aye, and the stronger the better,” he answered. His eyes, enigmatic and sardonic, glinted at her from under dark brows.

She got the boiling teakettle and another cup for her guest and poured both of them some black tea. She missed the sugar she sometimes put in, but there was no sugar or honey or whatever they used back in these times, so she supposed she should get used to it. Joshua drank the tea without asking for sugar.

He was staring at her again.

“Why dost thou look at me that way?” she asked, unable to restrain herself any longer.

Gentle amusement filled his voice. “Surely, thou jests with me? Surely thou knows the answer?”

Then Amanda understood. Rachel’s evil reputation, of course.

“Because they say I am a witch, true?” Her voice quivered. “And thou hast never seen a witch close up?”

Joshua’s face showed no emotion, but his eyes watched her closely.

“Thou cannot truly believe that I don’t love my children, that I eat baby parts for breakfast or drink human blood in my teacup—that I am a devil.” Anger had crept into her voice and she couldn’t help that, either.

He leaned forward and there was a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. “Mistress Rachel, thou must be aware of the rumors spread about town concerning thee...that thou practices black witchcraft. Lays spells on helpless chickens, sheep, and cattle so that they waste away to skin and bones if their owners hast given you offense. That thou sells, for coin or souls, love charms, potions, and incantations. Poisons. For evil purposes. That thou hath powers over the elements and can bring hail and terrible thunderstorms to wreak destruction on thine enemies. That thou can heal any sickness of mind or body—or cause it.” He paused, dramatically. “And that thou sacrifices human babies in the name of Satan to gain these accursed powers...a strumpet who bewitches and then steals other women’s husbands...”

Amanda, now livid, came slowly to her feet, her eyes flashing. She had to keep reminding herself that he wasn’t Jake. He wasn’t anything to her. It was hard. She wanted to strike out at him. Sadly, she realized it wasn’t just him that she wanted to lash out at. It was her predicament. It was Rachel.

Then Joshua began to laugh. He raised his hands up in front of himself as if to ward away her ire. “I never believe what others say, usually. Only what I see with my own eyes. Find out myself. Thou art no black-hearted sorceress.”

Amanda’s fury scuttled away like rats hit by a spotlight; catching the joke, she plunked back down on her seat of wood and began to laugh, too.

He’d been baiting, teasing her. He was trying to tell her that he now believed not a word of any of it.

His face grew serious, his eyes tender as his hand reached out to touch her hand. “And thou art no evil siren, no bride of
Satan, I would warrant. All falsehoods, as well. Aye?” Oh, he wanted so to believe that, she could tell.

“Aye.” She repeated his word, and sighed. “I am not evil.” From her lips—Amanda’s—it was no lie. “I try not to hurt anyone intentionally.” The image of the rogue coven she’d destroyed in the twentieth-first century pricked her conscience, a monstrous thorn in her side, and she still felt gut-wrenching guilt over the human members she’d had to dispose of. Yet they’d been evil. Corrupt. She was sorry for it, but she could never undo it.

Joshua smiled and nodded. He seemed to be satisfied with what he’d heard. Her sincerity. “I believe thee.”

They were touching, their faces near each other’s. Again, Amanda experienced the electric shock of recognition as their eyes met. By the bewildered look in his gaze, the way he jerked backward abruptly away from her, and dropped her hand, she wondered if he’d felt it, too.

Amanda felt reckless. “What else do they say of me?” She’d need to know if she was to right things.

His eyes shifted toward Lizzy asleep in the corner and then to Amanda’s face.

“Since I have been back from King William’s service and his bloody war in France this last year I have been hearing the rumors, but they have increased tenfold of late since Master Darcy’s wife has discovered her husband’s infatuation with thee.”

Amanda almost protested.
Not with me.
She caught herself just in time. Instead, she remained silent and listened.

“I can see why he might be.” A hoarse whisper, his eyes glistening with open appreciation. “I can see why the women of Canaan be jealous of thee. I believe, though, after having met thee and seen thee like this, that it be only spiteful jealousy that spurs these women’s hatred.”

“Then thou would be right,” she confessed bluntly.

“Do not fool thyself, Mistress Rachel,” he said ominously. “Whether the gossip concerning thee be true or not, there be many hereabouts who hate thee most certainly and swear that thou art a witch, and would have thee punished for it. I know. So I would warn thee...” He again extended his fingers and slid them in a soft caress down the side of her face, then pulled away just as quickly. Confusion warred in his eyes. “They have sent for the infamous witch hunter, Sebastien Goodman. He will arrive before another fortnight passes.”

Amanda’s face drained and her breath rattled through tightened teeth. She crossed her arms and her fingers dug into flesh. So here it was. The dreaded, hated words:
witch hunter.

This was why Rachel had brought her here.

“Who is this Sebastien Goodman?” Amanda’s voice was cold. Her fingers were plucking nervously against the arm seams of her dress.

“A swaggering nobody who swears God hast called him to the task of rooting out the evil of witchcraft and all those who follow Satan. What blasphemous drivel.” Joshua spat in disgust. “He hast left broken bodies and corpses throughout Connecticut and Massachusetts—all in the name of God. God would never condone the cruelty he uses to extract his confessions.”

There was a darkness in Joshua’s face as he talked, and he was no longer looking at her, but at something invisible beyond her. She noted how his fists kept clenching and unclenching as they lay on the table. He was thinking of someone he wished he could break in two.

“Thou hates him. Why?” Amanda tilted her face and waited for him to explain.

“My brother, Jacob, was in Cambridge last fall to find buyers for our tobacco crop and saw firsthand the malicious mischief Sebastien conjured up. He himself was waylaid, arrested, and falsely accused of witchcraft. Probably for the gold coins he carried,” Joshua said, his lips curling away from his teeth. “But by God’s grace he escaped and made it home again, yet hast not been the same since. Stays alone in his room and will speak to no one but me and our mother.” He would tell her later that his mother, a widow, had been an Irish bonded servant who’d stolen his father’s heart thirty years before and married him. Joshua’s voice was always full of love as he spoke of the feisty woman who also cherished the land as much as he.

“My brother be so tormented now. He saw such horrors in the dungeon he was captive in that his mind cannot bear to think upon them, or what happened to him before he broke free. He swears that the witch hunter be a devil himself. My brother says Sebastien loves too much the stench of branded flesh and the sight of fresh blood.”

Joshua shook his head and returned haunted eyes to Amanda.

“Now the beast will be here in Canaan soon. Protect thyself, Mistress Rachel, if thou can. He hast powerful friends. To be truthful, thy children and thyself might be wise to leave this place for a while. Visit relatives out of town if thou hast any. It will not be safe here for thee.”

Amanda shuddered as if someone had walked across her grave. She’d heard almost the same words out of Ernie’s mouth just days ago. Centuries from now. Her new life was uncannily paralleling her old one. She was about to answer him when a noise made her glance toward the doorway.

Maggie was standing there, her clothes rain splattered; in her arms a basket of fresh eggs. She was glaring hatefully at Joshua.

She turned to Amanda. “I suppose thee wants me to take Lizzy now and go out to wait in the woods while thee entertains the gentleman here?”

“In the rain? Of course not,” Amanda declared, and smiled innocently at her. “All of us,” she looked at Joshua, who was observing Maggie with dry humor, “will be having breakfast. Together.”

Maggie, flabbergasted, gaped at Amanda as if she’d lost her mind.

“This be Joshua Graham, Maggie. Thou remembers him? The one who helped me home yesterday after my...accident. I have invited him to breakfast. Look, he hast brought us fresh pork. We will have it with the eggs.”

Talking and being with these three people was becoming easier all the time. If she hadn’t been found out this far, she was most likely safe enough. They truly believed she was Rachel.

“Please, Maggie, hand me the eggs and I will start breakfast while thou heats up water for tea. Thou must be hungry after wrestling those eggs away from the chickens.”

Amanda took the basket easily from the girl’s hands and transported them and the slab of pork to the hearth. There, she lifted a large black skillet down from one of the shelves, and hung it by the arched metal handle over the fire. She searched for and found a well-used knife lying on the bricks by the fire, wiped it off on the edge of her skirt, and as the skillet began to heat, she deftly sliced portions of the pork into strips and tossed them in.

“The tea?” Amanda mouthed over her shoulder to Maggie as the delicious aroma of sizzling bacon filled the small cottage.

“Aye, Ma.” The girl did as her mother asked. They all sat down to a large breakfast, Maggie regarding Amanda with a strange look on her face. The whole time, Amanda held Lizzy in her lap, fed her and fussed over her.

Joshua, after Maggie pressed for the third time, finally recounted some of the stories of his service to King William of Orange. Amanda had been right. He’d been a soldier, though he avowed he was a farmer by birth. She could see by the way he talked that he loved his land and the growing of things far greater than bloodshed and vain glory in far-off lands, but he’d had no choice but to go to war, or go to prison. That’s the way it was in seventeenth century Connecticut.

He’d been in France, fighting England’s war to gain control of lands in India and North America, and had loathed every minute of it. He’d been many places, including the court of fiery Queen Mary, but had grown disillusioned and weary of the fighting and the rapacious royal court. When he had put his time in, he had come home.

He’d been away from Canaan long enough to be considered an outsider. A stranger with strange ways. Amanda felt an immediate affinity with him.

The morning and the breakfast went by swiftly and before Amanda knew it, Joshua was standing up to take his leave.

“I have crops and field hands to attend to, and my mother will be worried.” His father had died when he’d been off at war and now, with his only brother hiding in his room, his mother needed him to run the farm. To care for and oversee their corn and tobacco crops.

He said nothing about visiting again, but as Amanda watched him climb onto his horse and ride into the forest in the steady rain, he pivoted around in his saddle, waved good-bye, smiled, and she had the strong premonition he’d return. She caught herself smiling radiantly back at him, an almost forgotten sense of well-being and joy making her feel so wonderful she could have danced around like a crazy person. She hadn’t felt that way since before Jake—she stopped herself.

No, don’t get too attached to him, her heart counseled. As soon as you get your powers back, you’ll be gone. Back to the time you belong in. She looked around at the cottage, at the girls. Don’t get too attached to anything. Anyone. You don’t belong here.

The words Joshua had spoken about her leaving for a while crossed her mind again. Yet, what happened if someone in her time was looking for her? Wouldn’t she be wiser to be close by, to be where Rachel was supposed to be—if they came looking for her?

If
who
came looking for her? No one knew what had happened to her. No one knew where she was. She was being foolish. Worse, stupid. No one was coming.

What of the children? She couldn’t leave them. They would be in danger, too, when the witch hunter arrived. They needed her. Even if she took them with her...to where? Where could she go with two small children? One blind. How would she feed and shelter them?

She lowered her head and rubbed her eyes. What a mess she was in.

After Joshua had gone and Amanda had seen Lizzy settled down on the rug with a crude homemade cloth doll that Amanda had thrown together for her to play with, a suspicious-eyed Maggie confronted her.

“Who art thou?” The girl demanded to know, her
face earnest and troubled.

Amanda was about to answer with the lie, I’m your mother, of course.
Before she could utter a syllable, though, the girl narrowed her eyes and said in a measured, steady tone, “Do not lie to me. Thou art
not
my mother. I am sure of that now. Thou look like her, aye. Thy voice be the same. Thou might fool anyone,
but
me and Lizzy, you be so like her. Thou art not her. I have suspected so from the first when thou showed up yesterday in those torn and dirty clothes, speaking strangely. Behaving strangely.