The Messenger: Mortal Beloved Time Travel Romance, #1

by Pamela DuMond

  “I missed you so much, Elizabeth. I thought of you every hour. Every day,” Jebediah said. “How is our child?”

  “Alive. Healthy.” Elizabeth wiped her tears away. “We almost lost this child. But Angeni and Abigail helped save the both of us.”

  Jebediah backed away from Elizabeth and registered me. “You look different, Abigail.” He eyeballed me.

  “I have a scar.”

  “War wound,” he said. “You are a relative. Call me Jebediah. Like you used to, before your unfortunate accident. I need you to sit, Elizabeth. I have disturbing news.”

  Elizabeth’s face blanched. He held her hand as she awkwardly sat on the chair she used when the school kids were here.

  “Who amongst our soldiers did not make it back?” she asked.

  “Earnest Young and Raymond Forde were killed in battle. They died honorably.”

  “Oh,” she said and collapsed her forehead into her hand, while her other hand clutched her heart.

  “I know Raymond Forde was your suitor before we met,” Jebediah said. “His loss will bring you pain.”

  “Yes, it will. But Raymond was never more than a true friend, Jebediah. Nothing more…”

  Enough. I didn’t know how much more drama Elizabeth could take right now. She was so close to having her baby. The last thing she needed was to go into early labor.

  “Excuse me, Jebediah. I think—”

  He waved me off, like I was a gnat. “That is not the worst,” he said. “On our way home we passed the Big Rock Pond. The one by the caves.”

  “Yes, I know of it.” She looked up at him, her face turning gray.

  “We came upon a fresh body washed up on the shores.”

  My hands trembled.

  “Another wartime casualty?” Elizabeth asked. “Someone we know?”

  A lump grew in my throat and my breath turned raspy.

  “The body was Tobias. As far as we can tell—it was not a battle. Someone murdered Malachi’s son.”

  In my dream I watched Mama step out of our car, and drop toward the earth. A man named Malachi made her do that. I hyperventilated.

  “Oh no! Malachi and Tobias were as close as a father and son could be,” Elizabeth said. “He will be devastated.” She wiped tears away. “Do you have any idea what happened? Who would do this?”

  Jebediah nodded. “We found this tangled in Tobias’s clothing.” He pulled Angeni’s necklace from his pocket, and stuck it in front of Elizabeth’s nose. “I know you care for Angeni. But she tracked and killed Tobias in a blatant act of revenge.”

  “No!” I cried.

  “Do not push me, Abigail!” Jebediah spat. “I have heard all about your unholy relations with Samuel. You have strained everyone here to his or her breaking points. If inclined, I could have you arrested as well.”

  They arrested Angeni.

  “No, Jebediah, no.” Elizabeth took his hand. “Abigail saved our baby. It’s a son. I know it. She saved our firstborn son.”

  “Really?” Jebediah smiled. “A son, you believe?”

  I broke into a sweat, watched the walls close in on me, and stopped breathing. I launched into a full-blown panic attack.

  * * *

  Apparently, I lay on the floor for several hours, which felt like days, while Elizabeth applied cold cloths to my head. “It must be a touch of her head wounds,” I heard her say multiple times.

  When I recovered from my attack, and could sit up, Elizabeth told me that Jebediah had left the house. Apparently he, Reverend Wilkins, and Malachi were seeing to Tobias’s burial. Angeni was already under arrest. They imprisoned her in a tiny cell, almost like an underground shed, attached to the church.

  “How can they believe Angeni killed Tobias?” I asked. “She’s nearly blind. There’s no way she’d be able to track him to wherever that pond is.”

  “Everyone knows Angeni is magical. She is different. Jealous people have called her a witch. It is the necklace. That is really the only proof,” Elizabeth said. “Are you feeling better?”

  I didn’t know what I was feeling anymore. Guilt. Enormous guilt. This was all my fault. I felt terror. Panic. Excruciating sadness. “What will they do to her?” I asked.

  “They will try her. If found guilty, they will hang her,” Elizabeth said.

  “Will anyone testify for her?” I asked. “Will anyone come to her defense?”

  She sighed. “No.”

  Chapter 31

  Angeni’s trial was held the next day in the church. Seems the garrison’s entire population had shown up, and there was a waiting line to get in. I caught my first glimpse of Malachi when the crowd parted for him to enter the building.

  He was an older Native man. He was dark-skinned with a tuft of black hair adorned with three feathers sprouting from the top of his shaved head. He was lean, ripped, and had an athlete’s body. His eyes were weathered, but knowing. His lips were thin and hard. He wore a thick, chunky, silver ring on his left hand, and was dressed in animal skins, not unlike those I wore the night I tracked Tobias.

  After the jurors entered, the crowds pushed and shoved to get in to see the show. Despite Elizabeth’s requests for me to stay away—I had to be there. I had to support Angeni. But, as I elbowed my way into the church, Daniel and one of his friends grabbed me, and yanked me back from the church steps.

  “Hey!” I said.

  Daniel replied. “If you are here, you will only make things worse for everyone.” They escorted, (aka, dragged) me back to Elizabeth’s house where we waited. I didn’t put up a fight, or try to escape. I knew that this time—they were right.

  Daniel came and went throughout the trial, giving us updates. The news was passed from a person close to the church door to the people gathered outside because Angeni’s trial was standing room only.

  Three witnesses for the prosecution were called. One testified she had seen Angeni practicing black magic: summoning the demons and shape shifting into a wolf who ate colonial babies after they were born. That’s why so many of the garrison’s children died in infancy.

  Another witness swore under oath, that Angeni was a spy for King Philip. She’d sneak into the woods at night and give Philip’s liaison a full accounting of where the colonial troops would be, and how he could best attack them. Apparently, she was also a mind reader, and knew what the colonial generals were planning.

  The last witness testified she once overheard Angeni talked about the future. Shiny fast-moving ways to travel. Tall buildings that rose almost one hundred stories into the air. But yet families still loved each other. Could you imagine that? Families still loved each other. Another heinous crime.

  The Reverend Wilkins called for witnesses to speak on Angeni’s behalf: no one came forward. Not one person whose fever she lowered, whose broken arm she set, whose child she saved from a dreaded infection.

  The verdict was handed down within minutes following the testimony. Angeni was found guilty. The Reverend Wilkins sentenced her. She would be hanged the next day on the commons.

  I lost it. I screamed and cried. Elizabeth tried to make me drink the medicinals, but I refused. To say I was in shock was an understatement. I had to find Samuel. I think Daniel and his friends had kept him out of sight as well. They did not want to fan the flames of this crowd’s insane anger worse than it already was.

  “Where is he?” I asked Daniel. He just shook his head. “Where is Samuel?” I asked Elizabeth.

  “Where is he always?” she replied. “Go to him. Just hurry back, I beg you.”

  * * *

  I found Samuel at the barn. He hunched over Nathan’s stall. No longer was he filled with confidence. He looked worse than beaten. “I am so sorry.” I hugged him as hard as I could. But it was like hugging a stone. He didn’t lift even one finger to touch my face or my hand.

  I pulled away from him. “I have a plan. I will go to Jebediah and the Reverend. I will tell them I borrowed Angeni’s necklace. That it was me who tracked Tobias that night.”
>
  “They will not believe you, a colonial girl, tracked Tobias, a Hunter, outside the garrison’s walls.” Samuel stroked Nathan’s mane.

  “I will make them believe me. I will show them my bruises, my wounds where Tobias attacked and tried to kill me. They will punish me, they will put me in the stocks, beat me, but they won’t hang me. They won’t kill me.”

  Why wouldn’t he look at me? Oh, no. Samuel blamed me. And he had every right.

  “You cannot do that,” he said.

  “Why not? It will save Angeni. You and she can leave and be done with this place.” Please forgive me and take me with you.

  “I went to Reverend Wilkins and General Jebediah. I told them Tobias and I were hunting. That we argued, fought, I killed him, buried him, and took full responsibility,” he said. “They did not believe me. This is entirely my fault.”

  “It’s not your fault, Samuel. You can’t say—”

  “It is! I fell in love with someone I was not allowed be friendly with, let alone love. I courted you; I encouraged Angeni to help me. I shared my feelings about you with Tobias. Everything that happened is a direct result of actions I had no right taking.”

  “But we can save Angeni. You of all people cannot watch her die. She is a mother to you.”

  “We cannot save her. And I will not watch Angeni die.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I am leaving.” He walked away from the stall.

  Strike another blow to my heart. I couldn’t stop myself. I slapped him as hard as I could across his face. He just took it, his head whipped to the side. He wiped a speck of blood from his lower lip.

  Oh, no. I was the most awful person in the entire world.

  “I’m sorry. I am so sorry! But you can’t leave,” I cried.

  “I have no choice.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “I do not. Malachi’s a Hunter. If you and I leave together, he will figure it out immediately, and will hunt you. You must pretend to be Abigail. Play the game. Give it time.”

  “I’ve given it enough time.” I bit my lip.

  “Give it more. Perhaps, you will find your way back to your life in the future. You will meet a man from that time who loves you and can make a normal life with you. I cannot give you a normal life. Right now, I cannot give you any life.”

  Please don’t go. Don’t go!

  He walked toward the door.

  “You leave now—and you’re no better than any guy I ever met in my real life,” I said. “Who cares if you are a Wampanoag man, a ‘Child of the Morning Light’? Does that count for anything, if you can’t stick out a little darkness? If you leave now—you’re just another self-centered, arrogant guy, who comes and goes as he pleases.” I balled my hands into fists and tried to cover the shaking.

  Please be real. Please be the guy who loves me forever.

  He looked at me. “No matter what our destinies, I will love you forever, Madeline.” And just like that he left through the small door. He was gone.

  By the time I dragged myself back to Elizabeth’s house, my eyes were nearly swollen shut from the tears I cried.

  Chapter 32

  The next day, Elizabeth, who looked ready to pop at any second, and I huddled together with the rest of the garrison’s residents in the commons waiting for Angeni’s punishment. It was another packed crowd. I was surprised they weren’t selling popcorn or refreshments. I prayed for a miracle.

  Elizabeth wrapped her arm around my waist. “You should not be here.”

  “Angeni didn’t hurt a soul. How can I not be here, knowing she’s dying for something I caused? It’s not right. Not fair. I have to say something.”

  Elizabeth pinched my arm. “No,” she hissed. “They will arrest you and imprison you. They will state that your crimes are many: accessory to murder, lying, conspiring with the enemy, sedition, and treason. They will pay witnesses who will testify the only reason you were spared that day at the Endicott settlement was because you are a spy for King Philip.”

  “But that’s not true,” I said. “I woke up and found everyone dead, and the settlement torched.”

  Elizabeth shook her head. “They need a villain to pin all their regrets and remorse upon. They need a sacrificial lamb to make them feel better, and take away their pain. Right now, that person is Angeni. If you say anything—that lamb will be you.”

  The crowd parted respectfully, as Jebediah, Reverend Wilkins, and Malachi walked from the church through their midst, and took their places next to the hanging platform. Jebediah looked resolved. The good Reverend looked almost gleeful. And Malachi? Grief and darkness emanated off his body, off his soul. I felt it from almost twenty feet away.

  Two colonial soldiers dragged Angeni from her holding cell, through the commons. She staggered after them, her arms tied behind her back. People yelled and hollered.

  “Justice for Tobias!” A middle-aged colonial woman spat on Angeni as she stumbled.

  “Kill the heathen witch!” another enlightened soul said.

  The soldiers led Angeni to the hanging platform, and hoisted her onto it. Poked her until she climbed onto a stool. Her silver hair flowed freely down her back. She didn’t cower or shake. She wasn’t a victim’s victim.

  The hangman, who happened to be the same guard who wouldn’t let me out of the gates to see Samuel that day he rode Nathan, secured the noose on the thick rope around Angeni’s neck.

  My heart was breaking. I couldn’t watch her die for a crime that Samuel and I committed. Samuel wanted me to pretend to be Abigail, to hide from Malachi. He also wanted me to go home, and find some boy to fall in love with in my life back in the future. Unfortunately, neither was going to happen.

  Reverend Wilkins admonished the crowd so he could speak. “Angeni has been found guilty of the crime of plotting, planning, and murdering a young man, Tobias, son of Malachi, advisor to myself, General Jebediah Ballard, and friend to every colonist who fights the evil King Philip. She has been sentenced to death by hanging.”

  Loud cries of encouragement spiked through the crowd. My knees felt like Jello, and I must admit, I clutched poor Elizabeth’s shoulder to continue standing.

  The wind picked up and Angeni’s hair swirled around her. She looked peaceful and loving; like an angel with a rope around her neck.

  “Kill her, kill her, kill her!” The chant rose amongst the colonists: men, women, and children as they thrust their fists in the air. They were a mob now. An angry, hateful group that only wanted blood. It didn’t matter that it was the blood of an innocent.

  Elizabeth whispered. “She is prepared to die. She knows this mob would not only kill you in a heartbeat, but hunt down Samuel as well. They would cheer as they hang him, his feet twitching in the air. Is that what you want? Is that what you want for the boy you love?”

  “I will not desert her!” I broke away from Elizabeth’s side. I shoved, and pushed my way to the front of the hanging crowd.

  “I would speak for Angeni.” I put my fists on my waist to steady myself, stood up straight, and glared at Jebediah, the Reverend Wilkins, and Malachi.

  Jebediah looked at his nails, like he was contemplating getting a manicure. The Reverend sneered. But Malachi nodded.

  “Angeni is the most loving and giving person in this entire garrison. She has helped everyone here. Never hurt a soul.”

  Angeni shook her head.

  A guy shouted, “Hang the Native witch!”

  “I say we string up Abigail, too!” A woman yelled.

  I swiveled and faced the crowd. “You colonists left your homeland to have religious freedom. You want to kill an innocent woman, and yet you have the audacity to call yourself God-fearing? You are only vessels for anger. You should have stayed in the lands where people punished you for your beliefs. Because in this new land, you become the same people who persecuted you.”

  “Kill her, kill her, kill her,” the chant rose amongst the colonists, men, women, and children as they thrust their fi
sts in the air.

  “No! I killed Tobias!” I screamed at the crowd and ripped the neckline of my dress open to show them my wounds. I knew the punctures were red, spotted with blood, and that my neck was more black and blue than flesh-colored. “He tried to murder me. Do not hurt Angeni. Punish me!”

  “Your wounds are divine punishment for wearing a heathen necklace,” the Reverend Wilkins said, and nodded at the hangman.

  “No! It’s my fault! Punish me!”

  Jebediah and Malachi leaned into each other and whispered.

  Angeni said, “Madeline!”

  I turned to face her but not before Malachi tilted his head and gazed at me. His eyes turned black, and the muscles in the front of his neck tightened like cords that had been pulled too tight.

  He knew I was telling the truth. I could feel it. He knew I helped kill Tobias. He knew, and he would try to hurt me. But I didn’t care.

  I faced Angeni. Her blue eyes were clear, and she smiled. “Madeline, life goes fast. Right now, we need to be just like life. We need to go very, very fast.”

  My entire body tingled. I saw past the silver hair, the weathered face. “Mama?” I asked. “Mama, is it you for real?”

  The hangman kicked the stool out from under Angeni’s feet. Her body dropped. I screamed, “No!”

  But my cry was drowned out by a guttural, massive roar made by a hundred of King Philip’s warriors who surged over the garrison’s walls.

  Chapter 33

  Flaming arrows arced over the walls, landing on buildings, roofs, and haystacks starting fires. There was a cacophony of shouts and yells, cries and screams, as Philip’s warriors scaled the top of the garrison’s spiked, wooden fence like it was made of matchsticks. Most of the Native men dropped to the ground below, and started swinging their knives and hatches. Those perched on the top of the fence released another volley of arrows.

  The colonists screamed and scrambled for cover or their weapons. Mrs. Powter fled toward the church. Daniel and a few of his friends were already armed and fired back at Philip’s warriors. They downed a few, but it seemed fruitless. Not only had the warriors breached the fence, but they’d also opened the gates from the inside, allowing more men to run yelling, and screaming inside.