Witches (41 page)

“Most never come
back,” an old woman with hair falling out in patches revealed. “Tortured to death,” she said,
“
in
another part of the prison. They die on the rack or from worse persuasions. Thou canst hear them screaming and begging come sundown.”

None could mention aloud the name of their accuser, Sebastien, without revulsion and fear.

“Aye, the guards come every evening and drag some of us away. For interrogation, they calls it, but,” an empty-eyed girl of about eighteen, her voice filled with horror, informed her, “if thee confesses thy guilt, I have heard, the torture halts and thou art condemned to die. All those be taken to another cell to wait. ’Tis rumored the hangings will begin in a few more days.”

That news silenced Amanda and pushed her into dismal apathy. For the first time, as she’d listened to what the other prisoners had had to say, she’d actually accepted the hopelessness of her position, the irony of it. If she didn’t confess to being a witch, they’d torture her until she did; then, as a professed witch, they’d hang her. That was justice in the seventeenth century.

It seemed all of the prisoners were familiar with the charges Sebastien had leveled against Rachel. She was the scandal of the day.

The old woman who seemed to have taken her under her wing from the first rambled them off for Amanda in a hoarse whisper: “The worst be that thee be accused of murdering thy married lover, Darcy. They found him dead this very morning in his barn. Sectioned up like a hog sent to the butcher. They say Sebastien wants you to hang for the crime. The lesser charges: that thou hast inflicted pestilence upon the crops of the honorable farmer Block and withered them as they stood in the ground, sent diseases to sicken his cattle, fever to the Watersons, and lastly, tainted the wells of certain of thy neighbors, Mistress Jacobs, and Mr. Ackerson.”

“Those are lies.” Amanda moaned, staring into the darkness about her at the shapes sleeping in the straw, yet also keenly aware that some of those things could have been done by Rachel before she’d come. Not Darcy’s murder, though. Unless Rachel was still here somewhere, or she’d had someone else do it. Amanda could only guess.

“They say also,” the wrinkled old woman in the tattered shawl and loose-fitting dress wound up with a cruel mocking in her tone, “that thee hast sold thy soul to thy master, Satan, as all of us have, in exchange for these powers and that thou art, therefore, a witch.”

Amanda cringed at the charges. Hopeless.

“I am innocent,” Amanda cried softly.

The old woman laughed bitterly. “Are we not all? Are we not all scared senseless of Sebastien’s branding irons, knives, and the rack?” The woman spat. “I had had hope, in truth, that thou were the powerful witch that they claimed thee to be...then thou might have freed all of us with one glorious spell.” Again the woman’s words were full of desperate sarcasm.

“I am sorry I do not have that power for I would surely use it to save all of you,” Amanda said. The other woman chuckled sourly.

“Someone must stop this travesty,” Amanda exclaimed angrily. Oh, if only she still had her powers!
If only...cows could fly and the Earth was flat.

Night had arrived and the cell had become an impenetrable blackness. The guards had come a while before and had taken four of the prisoners away, wailing and pleading for mercy, to face Sebastien. Amanda wondered when her turn would come, and a deadly chill crept over her, freezing her limbs as well as her
mind so that her body began to shiver and wouldn’t stop. She was sure that Sebastien had not forgotten her, not with murder as one of the charges. He’d just wanted her to have time to make a full meal of the fear.

Amanda felt her sanity slipping away for the first time in her life at the thought of what she would soon face. Making herself small in a corner of the cell, her ears achingly alert for the screams of the tortured, and her eyes wide open in the gloominess, she feverishly prayed that Joshua would return and save her.

He couldn’t save her. He was on his way to Rivers Grove and had not an inkling of her imprisonment. He wouldn’t be back for days. Yet as the hours crawled by, she obsessed over that impossible rescue more and more until it clouded her mind, violently shoving everything else out.

She thought of Maggie and Lizzy and Amadeus, and missed them all as tears trickled down her grimy face. She’d never felt so alone. Lost.

She missed her old safe life, too. Her sisters. Her friends. Even Canaan.

Jake. She sobbed silently to the walls around her.
Oh, Jake, what I wouldn’t do to be back in your arms in our little cabin in the woods.
But Jake was dead and that cabin was just smoking ashes, and she was centuries and worlds away from both of them.

She knew that no matter what she said or what she did when Sebastien questioned her, she was doomed. Better to admit what he wanted to hear right away and get it over with. The noose would be more merciful than the rack or the branding irons.

It was like being in a horror movie, except everyone else knew the script—their lines—but her. Torture. To be hanged by the neck until she was dead. Her eyes froze in shock, and then glazed into a raging fury.

Then the hideous screams began somewhere else in the building. The nightly questioning. The other prisoners awoke; some wept at the agony of those undergoing the torment, a few prayed for them, some pounded against the walls in anger. Most were quiet, and like Amanda, covered their ears after a while to shut out the bloodcurdling howling.

This couldn’t be happening! Of all the times to be without her powers. All the years she simply took them for granted. She wanted more than anything she’d ever desired in her life to be able to snap her fingers and have Sebastien and his friends all go to hell where they belonged. Release the ones being tortured. One woman screamed so hard her voice was nothing but guttural animal sounds.

Amanda thought, I can’t bear this. I can’t! The screams continued. On and on. She laughed insanely, scooting back like a terrified animal against the slimy wall. How truly alike Sebastien and his henchmen were to the demon high priest and his cult acolytes she’d torched in her own time. Except in the seventeenth century, they were honored and given power over others’ lives and deaths. The people couldn’t see what they really were. Monsters.

Somehow, they’d followed her here and soon would have their revenge for her destroying them then.

What had she ever done to deserve this end? You took lives,
came back the guilty answer.

You crossed the line and broke the witches’ law.

Now you must pay in spades. With your life.

Joshua…
She whimpered amidst the suffering around her.
Where are you?

The cries
stopped.

What answered her, looming above her in its translucent cowled robe of black, was Sebastien. His appearance startled her. How had he gotten in? What was he doing here?

Joshua cannot help you, witch. No one can help you. You are mine. Finally.

The face hidden under the cowl was pasty white and had the taint of the grave about it, but when the thing glared down at her, its eyes were incandescent holes.

Later, when we come for you, you shall suffer far longer and more exquisitely than any here will. I have a special treat in store, just for you...Amanda.

The phantasmal figure pointed a bony hand at her, and laughed evilly.

A
torture that will disfigure you slowly but not kill, though you will pray to die. Beg to die.

Amanda cowered back against the wall from it in the dark, folding in on herself like a broken child. No one else could see the thing, she realized, or hear it. Just her.

It was the same high priest demon she incinerated in the future—or one like it. She wasn’t sure it was really Sebastien or something appearing in his form to torment her further. Even Satan
.

“In the name of Jesus Christ,”
Amanda hissed in a barely audible whisper and made the sign of the cross in the air before her, “leave me. Return to hell.”

It scowled at her and stepped back a little.
I
will for now...but we’ll be back for you, my sweet, later. Your cries of pain will give me and my Master such pleasure, and serve another purpose, as well.

Amanda blinked and the apparition was gone.

No one around her had paid any attention to her mutterings. The prison was a terrifying place and people lost their minds all the time, even before the torture.

She rested her head on her drawn up knees and slammed her eyes shut.
I
must hold onto my sanity. I must.

I must find a way to get out of here.

Then the brief silence ended and the tortured began to scream again.

Amanda laid her face in her trembling hands and wept like she hadn’t wept since Jake’s death.

Chapter Fifteen

“This time I’m coming with you,” Ernie insisted as he lifted up Rebecca’s heavy pile of camping equipment. A large tent, cooking stove, and sleeping bag. Supplies of food. Lanterns. “If we need to we can just stay in the van if the storm gets too bad. Sleep in the back. I already have my camping gear in it.”

“Ernie, I’ve told you, it’s too dangerous.” Rebecca snapped for the tenth time as she preceded him through the old-fashioned country store toward Jane’s van outside. He didn’t listen, like the other nine.

“Rebecca, I’ve told you, I’m going. You’ll never find Black Pond in this snowstorm. You’ll need me to help set up the tent and build a fire—if this storm will let us. Keep you from ending up an icicle sitting next to the frozen pond.”

“I can handle the weather and the tent. I’m a witch, remember?” Though she suspected Ernie knew she wasn’t the same caliber of witch as Amanda had been, so that boast fooled no one.

“I’ll keep you company while you wait anyway.”

Rebecca halted at the door, shaking her head. She gave up. Ernie was dead determined to go out there with her, something to do with a promise to Jake to protect Amanda. It would be nice to have a friend along though, she admitted, especially since Tibby had up and vanished on her again this morning. Didn’t know where he’d gone to or when he’d be back, as usual. The English warlock had cautioned her that it could take as long as three days, maybe more, before the spell would do its work and bring Amanda home.

“I just hate to take you away from Jane that long.” Rebecca tried one last time to dissuade him.

“She’ll be at her mother’s with the two boys. Jonny’s still in the hospital, but doing fine. Jane won’t even miss me. She wants me with you.”

As if he could protect her.

Outside the glass windows, it was solid white. Everywhere. Ernie and Jane had both agreed it was the worse snowstorm they’d had in years, and it was still coming down and icing up the trees and roads. Just their luck.

“Driving in this is going to be a picnic,” the mailman said flatly, looking out at the snow. He didn’t tell Rebecca that if it got much worse they’d never get out there, much less raise a tent up in it. It would be the van or nothing. Thank goodness the vehicle had new snow tires and a heavy-duty battery.

They’d guard the exact spot where Rebecca now believed Amanda had disappeared; near the willow tree where she’d found the book. She had this special spell to perform. The one Simon had given her. Then she was to burn Rachel’s book of black spells as a sacrifice, scatter its ashes across the water...and wait. Wait for the door between the worlds to open. It would only open all the way when Amanda approached, was near, and would draw her in. It could take days. Rebecca refused to think of it taking longer. It’d be like the Antarctic out there at the pond in this storm. She’d never been much of a nature girl, not like Amanda. Her idea of happiness was a plush hotel with all-night room service, cable on a big screen
,
an Olympic-sized heated swimming pool, and a sauna
.

Oh, she’d have a hard time burning that book, too. Certainly it was priceless. Not just for its age and. historical significance, but for the spells. Rebecca smiled. Simon had ordered her to burn it, but he hadn’t said she couldn’t have copies made of it first on the town library’s copier. Ten cents a page. She’d done that an hour ago before Ernie had brought her here to the store. The writer in her, as well as the witch, wouldn’t let her destroy the book entirely. Her rubber-banded roll of Xeroxes was safe in her overnight bag for later perusal and study.

“Well, it’s not going to get any better out there and you did say that we had to get to Black Pond as soon as we could,” Ernie remarked.

“I’m ready,” she answered and swung open the door. Winter rushed in, and shivering, they carried their booty to the van and loaded it in as quickly as they could move, the wind shoving them around like cloth puppets.

Inside the van, as they crept down the snowy road toward their destination, Rebecca kept dwelling on Amanda and where she might be at that moment. If she was all right. If she was scared or in danger. When Rebecca listened to the crying of the wind outside the car, she could almost hear her sister weeping. No matter how she tried, Rebecca couldn’t get Amanda’s sobbing out of her mind. God, did it mean she was already too late? That Amanda was about to die?