by Aaron Galvin
The crowd cheers at my yell.
“Sarah!” I raise my axe high over my head and scream a war cry.
The crowd roars back at me. One of the men snatches the Judge’s lantern and dashes into the tunnel.
The others surge over the brick remains after him.
George follows them in and Susannah after him, shrugging off Betty’s woeful attempts to stop her.
I, too, rush forward. Brandishing my axe, I leap inside the tunnel maw and allow its darkness consume me.
-Chapter 19-
The tunnel cold breathes over my skin, cooling not a little of my anger as we continue our course.
Footsteps not mine own echo behind me.
“Wait,” Betty cries. “Susannah, wait!”
I hesitate, though her daughter does not.
Betty reaches me, a dagger in her hand. “I warned her our part is played in this,” she says, reaching me.
We two continue up the tunnel, chasing the lantern light ahead.
The tunnel narrows, forcing all move closer together. We catch them soon enough.
“You should have remained behind, daughter,” says Betty to Susannah. “As you promised me you would.”
“And you knew I would not,” says Susannah. “This is my fight as much as any here tonight.”
“Your fight?” I ask.
“Aye,” Susannah says. “I were once given over to Devil’s powder. Despite my mother’s preaching, Mercy and Elisabeth convinced me to see spirits. I should be a slave still were it not for Mother.”
I glance on Betty, her face set in sternness, dagger pumping at her side in keeping pace with us.
“Never in my life have I witnessed such a change in one person as the night Mother came for me.” Susannah grins. “As she stands with me tonight.”
“Neither of us should be here,” says Betty, her eyes searching out the shadows dancing across the tunnel walls. “I want no further part in this.”
“You are a brave and goodly woman,” says George.
“Aye,” says Susannah. “There be none greater.”
Betty sidles closer to Susannah. “Bravery has naught to do with any of this.”
I keep my silence and careful watch of the lantern light. We pass more than several tunnels. None give any clue as to how deep or long each of them run.
“Cotton and his followers have long used these tunnels to move about the city, undetected,” says Susannah. “Mercy led me down several one night. More fall into rubble and ruin every year with no one deeming them worthy of repair. Judge Sewall bricked his over for fear Cotton may send spies into his home. He opened it only this morning to allow us entry.”
“And he should wall it back up now.” George glances over his shoulder. “Had I anything to my name, I would wager we are not alone in these tunnels.”
His words quiet us for a time, our footfalls falling over stone the lone noise to give us away.
Our tunnel widens into a round and arched ceiling. The lantern leader of our group pauses near the middle. Like spokes on a wheel, several tunnels spindle off the room.
“Where now?” someone asks.
“Aye, which way?”
I put my back to George.
“I like this not at all, sister,” George voices my shared thoughts.
I raise my blades to chest level, their ends twitching in wait.
Susannah starts forward toward a tunnel mouth. “I have been here before.”
“Wait.” George follows her. “Susannah!”
A cackled echo rises from one of the tunnels, its sound herding our group close.
“Aunt Mercy showed me.” Susannah traces her fingers over a stone pillar. “Secret runes of the Invisible World.”
A second cackled laugh sounds—this time from a separate tunnel.
“George,” I say.
“Aye, I hear it.” He rushes to Susannah. “Come, we are—”
Shrieks surround us, drowning out his words.
“Trap!”
Black-cloaked and hooded figures swarm us from all sides. Snarling and scarred faces cloud my vision, their bodies twitching.
I swipe and duck, parrying and striking, all to the din of clashing blades, cackled laughter, and war cries. Blood flies around me, painting my face and others crimson-black in the pale lantern light. I step over the dead and dying, forgetting friend and foe alike, ever moving toward where I last saw George.
“Rebecca!” His roar gives me hope.
I glimpse him felling one witch and fending off another. Susannah stands with him, dispatching those that fall at George’s feet.
“Mother!” she cries. “Where is Mother?”
A brute steps between us, his arm in full swing to bash my skull with his mace.
I step aside and thrust my dagger, sheathing it in his ribs.
His arm clamps over it and he sends me reeling with a backhand across the mouth.
I stumble to the ground, rolling away as he again attempts to end me with his weapon.
I scramble for my feet.
His boot catches me in the chest.
My dagger lost, I hold my axe aloft by blade and handle to ward off his blows.
His mace rains against the axe handle and he kicks at me to relent. Each of his strikes grows stronger, filled with the lust of battle and blood or else swayed by Devil’s powder.
My arms warn I cannot sustain his attack much longer.
I wait for his next assault then kick his knee.
It twists under him, its pop near louder than his scream. He falls back, clutching it to his chest.
I ease his pain with my axe.
“George!” Susannah calls above the din. “Mother!”
Her voice calls me home. She stands alone, separated from George by a haggard witch.
“Susannah,” I cry. “Watch—”
Wind whistles over my head. A rope draws tight across my neck, stealing my breath.
I gasp for air beneath its choke.
“Rat,” the waif hisses in my ear.
I stumble amid the chaos, pulling at the rope to loosen her grip.
“The rats come up from the tunnels again.” The waif forces me against the wall.
I struggle against its wet surface.
“Yes, I told her, sir, but she won’t listen.” The rope tightens. “Never listens, that one.”
My eyes bulge wide, my life waning. I dig at my throat, drawing my own blood in hope of loosening the rope.
“Now, now, dearie, don’t let them up,” the waif cackles. “They’re rats!”
My foot brushes a small ledge. I kick at it, sending us both stumbling back, me landing atop her.
The tautness round my neck loosens.
I gasp a breath and shove my elbow back into her ribs.
The waif cackles louder, oblivious to pain. “Rats!” she says. “Rats!”
I roll off her and crawl toward my axe, each breath stabbing my lungs.
The waif pulls me back, her nails digging into my skin.
My weak kick glances off her forehead.
“Rats.” She comes on, her face and shoulders twitching.
My fingers graze the axe hilt, fetching it close at the last.
The waif grabs my ankles and flips me with inhuman strength. “Rats!”
Using the force she turns me with, I lunge at her and bury my axe edge through her neck.
The waif falls off me, gurgling on blood as she cackles.
“Rats…” Her eyes roll back. “Raaaatssss…”
I lay on my back, sucking air, my head pounding. I close my eyes, savoring each breath, despite the battle around me.
“Rebecca!” Susannah calls. “Over here!”
I climb to my feet and hurry for the tunnel where she stands.
“My mother,” she asks. “Have you seen her?”
“No.” My head acts a swivel in search. “Where is George?”
“There!”
A scrawny, but quick, roguish man knocks George’s axe
from his grip.
Barehanded, my brother catches the rogue by the wrist with one hand and then by the throat with his other. He lifts the man off the ground and batters him against the tunnel wall before tossing him aside, easy as a toddler with a straw doll.
A witch appears behind him, dagger raised.
“George!” I cry.
The witch screams out, felled to her knees, slumping dead.
Betty looks on me, her face coated in blood. “Susannah, take her!”
A hand takes hold of my shoulder.
“Rebecca, come.” Susannah fetches up a fallen lantern and races down the tunnel. “Come!”
I hesitate. “But George—”
“The others need him more,” she says.
“I need him,” I say.
“They are the shield,” says Susannah. “And you the dagger. Now come!”
I follow her up the tunnel, fleeing the battle.
“How do you know the way?” I ask.
“Runes.” Susannah winds us around the tunnels. She stops at the mouth of several, feeling around the stonework before dashing down the next.
My heart pounds in wait for another ambush. I near knock Susannah over when she halts outside a dilapidated entry with steps leading into shadow.
“Here,” she says, feeling around the edges. “This one! This is his home.”
I glance back.
“Go,” says Susannah. “End this for all our sakes. I will bring the others.”
She shoves me on.
I swoop into the entry. The dark leaves me feeling my way forward, hand over hand. Each step taken bids me wonder if it will be my last. I push aside thoughts a witch stalks me for sport, the sight of me plain to creatures given to shadow.
The clammy stone walls turn to rough wood and then to metal.
My fingers grasp hold of an iron ring. I push my shoulder against the door to no avail. Breathing deep, I pull instead.
The door groans open.
I slip around it, following the scent of sweeter air and find myself in a cellar near the size of Judge Sewall’s. Yet where his lay barren, this cellar holds tables with open glassware, charts, and sketches strewn across them. I rifle through the papers—portraits of men and women in various stages of decay with notations and dates in neat, legible script.
Closed jars of varied size and animal remains line shelving in the corner. I near retch at the sight of human remains mixed among the animals. Even glassed in lidded jars, a putrid stench hangs near them.
I force myself away and on toward the stairs. Leaning hard against the wall, I take each step slow, testing the boards for any hint of weakness.
They hold strong under me, not a one giving any sound to warn of my presence.
I nudge open the door.
A low-burning hearth fire greets me as I slip out of the cellar. All expectations of opulence vanish the moment I set foot inside the kitchen. Were it not for Susannah’s insistence and the waif’s presence, I should almost think myself in the wrong home.
I venture further in, finding each room near vacant as the next, all given over to ruin and disrepair. I tread over worn rugs and pass broken furniture. Those that yet stand of their own accord give me little confidence they could have sustained even the waif.
A set of tall, doublewide doors bids me pause.
I approach them slow, noting the open sliver between them and the orange glow from inside. Peeking through the slit, my gaze falls on row after row of books against the far wall. I prod open the door, awaiting any surprise.
Nothing comes.
My axe raised, I whip around to check behind both doors and find naught but shadows.
The fire burns bright, recently tended, or so I gather from the poker that yet lies in the hearth, its tip red with heat.
I keep close to the wall of books, my nose filling with the scent of crisp, old paper and bound leather. I break from it to make for the large, oak desk at the room’s center.
My blood turns cold at the sight of who lay hidden behind it.
“Ciquenackqua…”
-Chapter 20-
Unconscious or dead, his head rests against the wall, tethered by a collar with tiny blades pinching his neck. A silver platter with a mound of Devil’s powder upon its surface lay within his reach, untouched.
I rush to his side and place my hands against his cheeks, finding him feverish. “Ciquenackqua,” I say. “Say something.”
He groans and his eyes flutter before sagging shut again.
I study the collar, wondering how best to remove it without cutting him.
Behind me, a pistol clicks ready for fire.
“I told you he fascinated me…”
I wheel around.
Cotton stands not twenty feet from me, his aim trained at my chest.
I have no time for Cotton though, my heart breaking at the guardian shadow patiently waiting by his side, cloaked in black, his stare vacant as a corpse.
“Father,” I say.
My voice does naught to stir him from his post.
“Father!”
Cotton grins. “The son of Alden is sworn to the Invisible World now, girl.” He reaches into his cloak and draws a vial of the crimson liquid. “His mind given to those who have unlocked its secrets.”
“What have you done to him?” I ask.
“I offered him a choice,” says Cotton. “You stood upon the banks and witnessed him trade his service for yours. He drank my creation of his own free will. Now that will belongs to me.”
“You lie,” I say.
“Alden,” says Cotton to Father. “This whelp has no humility. Pray, let you teach her some.”
Father reaches for a coiled leather whip, dangling at his side. He takes the whip off his person and frees the coil, the long tail of it falling limp at his side. Its tail dances at his side then sings, slicing my cheek.
My hand flies to the fresh wound, my fingers wet with blood. Rage pulses through me, tempered by a deep churning in my gut that fears this lash be the first of many he means to sing me.
Cotton grins. “Now bring her to me, Alden.”
“No,” I say as Father raises his wrist again. “Let you—”
The whip cracks loud, the tip whizzing past my ear. It sounds again a second later, wrapping round my ankle. Father yanks up and fells me to my back.
I scarcely think to raise my axe before his shadow falls upon me. The ferocity in his attack fears me to my soul. “Father!”
He relents only to grab hold of my axe. Ripping it from my grip, he tosses it away.
I punch his face. “Father, stop—”
Snarling, he grabs my shirt and knocks his head against mine. The room spins as he draws me up off the ground. He knees me in the stomach, stealing my wind, and then throws me across Cotton’s desk.
My body tips the chair and I crash to the ground, coughing.
Loose papers flutter around me and ink pools upon the floor.
I crawl toward Ciquenackqua.
Father drops his knee to my back, forcing me cry out. He unwinds the whip from my ankle then flips me to my back.
“Father,” I choke. “Please…stop this.”
He does his work mutely, binding my ankles and wrists as one out in front of me.
Ciquenackqua’s eyes flutter open.
“Wake, brother,” I call to him in our native tongue as Father steps behind me.
Then I scream at feeling my scalp near torn off.
Father drags me across the wooden floor, me mauling at his wrist. He stops and yanks back on my hair to force me gaze on Cotton.
“The mind is a powerful tool, no?” Cotton asks. “Simon knew that better than any. His Devil’s powder were a wondrous gift to our cause. Did you know he learned of its secrets from the natives? They too use its properties to see spirits. Such knowledge bid me wonder what other secrets lay hidden in savage lands throughout this world.”
Cotton changes his focus to the vial and its crimson contents.
/>
“If only Simon could have witnessed the day I learned of the borrachero tree and its beautiful flowers, the Angel’s Trumpets.” He shakes the vial. “Devil’s breath, I call it. A marked improvement to the work he first revealed me.”
Cotton removes its stopper and hands it to Father.
“Drink this, Alden,” he says.
Father obeys without question.
“You see?” Cotton asks me. “Simon’s powder made others our servants, for a time, but we could do naught to eliminate their will. Your friend, Mary Warren, taught me that in Salem when she broke from the fold. Aye, and your savage friend proved again the flaw in your father’s work. Look you to the powder he refused for the truth of it.”
Pride stirs in me at the proof Ciquenackqua would not relent.
“But my work”—Cotton takes the empty vial from Father and flings it toward the fire—“my Devil’s breath, removes all trace of will. I shudder to think what further legacy Simon and I might have left were it made known to us in our younger years. Alas, it will not grow here. That vial were the last of my stores.” He pats Father’s back. “Ah, but what a specimen it created.”
Father yanks back on my hair when my chin dips but a little.
Cotton walks to one of the shelves, his fingers running over the back of the book spines. “Girl, have you ever heard of the Greek hero, Achilles?”
My silence is my answer.
“You would have liked him, I think.” Cotton pulls a worn book from the shelf. “Full of rage, that one. A lust for battle and glory.”
He opens to a page marked by a red ribbon. “Prophecy warned the son of Thetis would live either a long life, surrounded by loved ones, or else find his life cut short though his name live on for all time.”
Cotton closes the book and shelves it anew. He motions to the others. “These tomes are filled with such desire for legacy.” Cotton fingers the book spines. “Caesars and kings, gladiators and learned men, all hoping their names echo through the ages. Achilles was but one of the few who succeeded in the task.”
I glare back as he looks on me.
“God deems pride a sin, though He instills it in us.” Cotton stares on his books. “I, too, longed for my own name and deeds to fill such works, yet now my deeds are done, the whole of my life writ, and I stand tormented.”