I became very aware of the locket. The small, heart-shaped weight above my breasts increased suddenly, as if it grew in size. The chain dug into my neck. The locket was warm. No, it was more than warm, I realised. It was hot. And it vibrated.
“Stop!” I cried, but he heard nothing.
I jerked my face away from the captain’s mouth, gasping for breath, but he sank his lips into my neck and travelled hungrily toward my breasts. Terror pulsed through my chest, and I felt myself being sucked back into that forest, back into the meaty grasps of the slavers, back against the sappy bark. I grasped within my mind for something to anchor me. My mind exploded in a storm of colours, whirling and shrieking, dragging me toward its eye. My visions barged in, and the locket pulsed against my flesh as if someone had jabbed me with a hot poker.
And I saw.
I saw a box on an earthen floor. Within its rough wooden sides lay small, incongruous trinkets: ribbons, a bit of lace, a small shoe, a button or two.
I saw the tightly woven grass bracelet I had tied around my sister’s wrist so long ago.
I saw the blue hair ribbon that had once tethered my hair back.
And beneath that, I saw a much-loved rag doll wrapped in material from Ruth’s baby gown. Its big, black eyes stared up at me, empty and lost.
I saw six girls sitting behind the box, leaning against the wall. Their long hair was matted and their faces were grimy, tear-streaked, and bruised.
The shock hit me like a fist. “Let go of me!” I screamed. “Let me go!”
The captain heard nothing but his own momentum. I felt the hard muscle, swollen beneath his immaculate white breeches, and I shoved against him with all my strength. His fingers gripped and bruised my thigh. My mind shifted back to that day, that moment when I had been forced to spread my legs for the first time, while a complete stranger shoved himself through my defenses. I was powerless again, unable to defend myself.
“No, no, no, no,” I said, trying desperately to wriggle away.
The man wrapped around me was a stranger. A stranger who was somehow responsible for the deaths of my mother and my baby sister. I dug my fingers into his arms until my nails drew blood. I tried to kick, to raise my knees against his progress, but his hips held me pinned to the wall. Tears ran down my face, and sweat wound under my tunic. I heard myself crying out, telling him to stop, but my voice seemed very small, and very far away.
“His eyes, lass. His eyes!”
I had no time to question Andrew’s presence. I did as he said. I put my hands on the captain’s cheeks and jammed my thumbs into his eyes.
The captain howled and fell back, clutching his face with both hands. I grabbed for the knife I always carried in my belt. He lowered his hands and lunged at me, and my blade disappeared within his neat waistcoat. I yanked it out and he went down hard. His head hit the stone floor before the rest of him did, and he lay still. I stared at his body in horror, in confusion at the man who had called himself my friend.
“I’ll head in to make the ’rrangements with the cap’n,” Blue Shirt had said. His voice was so clear he might have been standing beside me, not lying dead by a stream.
My lips felt numb. The words tumbled out in a hoarse whisper. “Where are they? Where are the girls? What have you done?”
He didn’t move, but anger shoved ahead of my shock and I dropped to my knees beside him. I didn’t know what to touch, didn’t want to touch any part of him, but I had to know. I slipped my knife back into my belt and pounded his back with my fists, needing a reaction of some kind.
“What—have—you—done?” I cried.
He gasped. A quick intake of breath, then a moment before he oriented himself. He turned his head to the side and rested his cheek on the floor. He was still handsome. Still Quinn. But blood was smeared across his face and his eye was unfocused.
“I beg your pardon,” he said hoarsely. “I believe it is I who should ask that question.”
“No, Captain,” I said. “You tell me where those girls are.”
“Have you killed me, Miss Johnson? Why would you kill me? I only loved you—”
“Stop it!” I yelled. I didn’t bother fighting the tears. He was dying. I could see it in the fading light of his eyes. But he wasn’t allowed to die yet. Not until I was finished. I lowered my face to his and spoke through clenched teeth. “You are the captain. You are the one in charge. You sent those men to steal my sisters and me from my mother. They killed my mother, did you know? Then they raped the three of us until we couldn’t walk. And my baby sister? Who was ten years old. Ten! They raped her to death, Captain. And you paid them to do it.”
A remarkable transformation came over his face. He turned his profile so he could see me better, and both eyes came sharply into focus. A dark red flush raced up his neck and mixed with the blood on his face.
“What are you talking about?”
“You know,” I said. “Where are those poor little girls? What kind of man are you?”
He stared at me, his expression unreadable. I didn’t need to read it, though. I saw his thoughts as if they were my own. Disbelief. Fury. How could she know?
His lips pulled back as if he were growling. “You know nothing,” he hissed. “My personal business is entirely that. Mine.”
I undid the locket from around my neck and dangled it in front of his nose. “Whose was this? How old was she? Did she fetch a good price?”
The little gold heart danced on the end of the chain, and he blinked. When he spoke, his voice sounded strange. Like the soft purr of an awestruck child.
“From the beginning I knew you were special, Miss Johnson.” He dropped his cheek back to the floor. “So beautiful. So different from any other woman.” His hand fluttered beside him, then stretched out, reaching for mine. But he would never hold it again. His voice changed again. “But you’re not as smart as you think,” he said. “You could have been smart. You could have stayed with me, where you belonged. But you’d rather spread your legs for those savages, wouldn’t you?”
I had no words, only stared at him in horrified amazement. The man wore a complacent smile one might use on an obstinate child. He admitted nothing, and yet I knew it all to be true. Now he expected all to be forgotten, and worse, forgiven.
“Where are they?” I screamed.
The door slammed shut, and I realised a man had come into the building, apparently looking for the tavern owner.
“Have you seen…” he started, walking toward me. “Hey—what’s goin’ on here? What…”
He took one look at John’s crushed nose, then stared with malevolence at the deerskin tunic I always wore. “Don’t you go nowhere,” he said. He turned and ran outside again.
They would be coming for me. I was going to be punished. They would call this murder, and in my heart I knew it was. I longed to smash the captain’s head on the floor again, end it all, but I had to know the answer to my question. Or else Quinn would take the answer to hell with him.
“Where are the girls?” I demanded. “Where are they?”
“Forgive me,” he said, his voice almost song-like. “Forgive me.”
I stared into his eyes. “Tell me where the girls are, Captain Quinn. Tell me, and I will forgive you.”
His expression transformed before my eyes. His gaze, liquid and pious, hardened. His face split into a smile that oozed blood over his teeth.
“I don’t need your forgiveness.”
For the first time it struck me how hard the lines of his mouth were. I glimpsed something deeper. Something feral. Something… canine was all I could think. In my mind his eyes began to slant and his teeth to sharpen. The white scar on his cheek seemed more obvious, as if it were exposed against a dark brown background. Like the colour of his hair. I heard Waw-Li’s ancient voice wind like smoke through my mind.
“You know him, Ma-kee. The Coyote. The Trickster.”
She had taught me so well. I had learned the totems, the lessons, the tools I needed to us
e my gift. She had shown me how the raven led me and how the wolf shadowed Andrew’s soul. In front of me stood the one animal I should have seen immediately for his vicious potential. The one animal who had haunted my nightmares.
I slammed my palms down on his back so he grunted, then I closed my eyes. I reached for the faces I had seen through the locket. I reached for faces of children with deadened eyes. I saw Ruth. She tried to hand me the little rag doll she had carried the morning before she was killed, but her hands were empty.
“Find my doll, Maggie,” she said, and Quinn died under my hands.
I was arrested for the murder of Captain John Quinn. When Sergeant MacMillan came for me, I let him tie my wrists together, then I asked if I could tell him my side of the story. He had kind eyes. I hoped I was reading them right. I’d started to doubt my intuition after the experience with Quinn.
“Of course,” MacMillan said. “What is it you’d like to tell me?”
“It’s a long story, sir,” I said, “but it is all related to this horrible afternoon.”
“Let’s get a table then,” he suggested. “I listen better when I’m sitting down.”
There were other soldiers in the tavern now, and they were gathered around Quinn’s body. They wrapped him up in a shroud and carried him out between them, shooting me furious glances as they went. It felt strange seeing them there. As if I were watching from outside myself.
MacMillan gestured toward the tavern owner, who brought him an ale. The officer was about the same age as my father would have been, but his face was gentle under his silver-streaked hair.
“I hope,” he said after taking a sip, “that you have a good story. Because I assure you this is not a good situation. Captain Quinn was a powerful man around New Windsor, as well as in the fort. He had a great many friends. There will be a lot of talk.”
I nodded. “I know. But if I can tell you from the beginning, maybe you could talk to whoever looks after these sorts of things.”
“Of course,” he said. “I will report everything you say to my superior, and he will pass it along to the man who will run your trial, Mr. Justice Schneider. That will ensure, as far as is possible, that you will receive a fair trial.”
I told him everything, though I didn’t mention either the death of Blue Shirt or my gift of Sight. He listened intently, nodding and shaking his head at intervals. When my story was done, when I finished with Quinn falling at the edge of my knife, MacMillan let out a long breath.
“Please tell me you have proof of all this,” he said.
“Not with me, no,” I replied. “But I know there is some. I just have to find it.”
He scratched his head. “Miss Johnson, I will do what I can. You were right to come to me with this. But without some kind of proof, I don’t see…” He shook his head. “I will do what I can.”
He stood and beckoned to two soldiers, and I rose as well. They came over and stood on either side of me.
“You are to go with these gentlemen,” MacMillan said. “I wish you the best of luck and promise to bring your story forward to the appropriate authorities. It has been very interesting speaking with you this afternoon. Please take care of yourself.” He glanced briefly at the soldiers. “Treat her kindly, gentlemen. She has a long, unpleasant experience ahead of her.” He bowed to me, and the soldiers took my arms.
They brought me to the fort and locked me within the black-barred jaws of the prison, the impenetrable black teeth of which I had dreamed.
I sat on a small bed and shivered. Everything was cold: the air, the floor, the walls, my heart. I clutched a scratchy brown blanket over me and curled up into myself.
The next day, two different soldiers came to my cell. They tied my wrists in front of me and marched me between them, as if I would flee. Maybe it was regulation. They must have been able to see I was too weak to try anything like that.
I was led into a large stone building and marched into a room with benches aligned in rows. The benches held probably twenty people, and they were all staring at me. The room went silent as I was ushered in. Adelaide’s was the first face I saw. She looked pale. Beside her, Soquili and Wahyaw sat stone-faced. I smiled at them, but they didn’t smile back. They were surrounded by a large crowd of townspeople. People I had never seen before.
An important-looking, white-haired man slid into the room carrying an armful of papers. He walked to the front and laid the papers on a large desk, then stared at me with venom in his gaze. I stared back and he looked away.
“All rise for Mr. Justice Schneider,” he barked.
After a long pause, a large man who I supposed was Mr. Justice Schneider marched in and sat behind the desk. He didn’t look healthy. His cheeks were bright red and spidered by blue veins, and they hung down in loose jowls. His nose looked abnormally round—too big for his face. He looked impatient and self-important. He glared down at me, lips pursed, then shook his head as if I were a nuisance.
“Read the charge,” he said to the man in the glasses, who stood beside the desk.
“Are you Miss Margaret Johnson?” the clerk demanded.
I swallowed. “Yes, I am, sir.”
“And where is your abode?”
“Um, I’m sorry?”
The clerk blew out his breath. “Where do you live?”
“In the Cherokee village. They took me in…”
“No other abode?”
“No, sir.”
He coughed and made a note, then put both palms flat on his desk.
“Miss Margaret Johnson,” he said. “You are charged with the willful murder of Captain John Quinn in that on the fourteenth day of June, in the year of Our Lord 1746, during the early afternoon, you did deliberately and with malice aforethought stab Captain John Quinn in the chest in the tavern popularly known as Squire Markworth’s Tavern with the result that the said Captain John Quinn died forthwith of the aforesaid injury which he had sustained at your hand. How plead you, guilty or not guilty?”
I hesitated. I wasn’t exactly sure of everything he’d said, but it sounded to me like he thought I’d killed Captain Quinn on purpose. That I’d planned to do it. Had I?
“How do you plead?” repeated the clerk, lifting one eyebrow. “Guilty or not guilty?”
I frowned. “I, um…”
Mr. Justice Schneider leaned forward, flaring his bulbous nose. “Speak up, Miss Johnson, and tell the court whether you plead guilty or not guilty. I take it that you understand the question.”
“I did stab Captain Quinn,” I admitted.
“Yes, yes. But do you plead guilty or not guilty to murder? We cannot proceed with this committal hearing unless you plead guilty or not guilty.”
“I didn’t mean to kill him,” I blurted. “He attacked me.”
Mr. Justice Schneider eased his bulk back in his chair and sighed. He seemed both bored and sorely tested by my apparent stupidity. “Guilty or not guilty?” he said in a singsong voice.
I bit my lip and steeled myself to make a decision. I had not planned to kill Quinn. I hadn’t planned anything that day. It was Quinn’s fault. He’d started everything with that locket. I’d finished it with my knife.
“Not guilty,” I announced.
“So be it,” declared Mr. Justice Schneider, making a note. “Is there anything else you would like to tell this court before I arraign you on a charge of the murder of Captain John Quinn?”
“Arraign me, sir?”
“Before I set a date for your trial on a charge of the murder of Captain John Quinn?”
I shook my head.
“In that case, I set your hearing for tomorrow morning. Are there any witnesses you would like to call in your defense?”
I looked over at Soquili and Wahyaw. Wahyaw looked pained and pretended to be watching something on one of the side walls. Soquili watched me closely, looking desperately unhappy. No, I had no witnesses. No one had been there. I had stupidly ignored all of Wahyaw’s warnings and gone alone with Quinn.
“The man who walked in, looking for the tavern keeper, sir.”
“Ah, yes.” Schneider smiled unpleasantly. “He certainly saw what happened, much good may it do you. Anybody else?”
I stared at my feet. “No, sir.”
“Louder, please, Miss Johnson.”
“No, sir.”
He motioned to my guards. “Take her away. Until tomorrow, Miss Johnson.”
“Maggie!” Adelaide whimpered as they led me past her. I tried to give her a reassuring look, but I know I failed. I reeled against the soldiers’ restraining hands and they shoved me ahead.
In the morning they led me back into the courtroom. Nothing seemed to have changed. The crowd seemed exactly the same, only louder, clustering together with anticipation. Adelaide, Soquili, and Wahyaw were there again, wearing the same expressions as they had the day before. I didn’t bother to smile this time.
They brought me to the same seat as before, directly in front of where the judge would sit, flanked by two soldiers.
The man with the glasses threw open the door and walked briskly through the room. He shot me another piercing glare, then sat. A moment later he was back on his feet, bidding everyone to rise for Mr. Justice Schneider. Everyone rose as the judge came back to his desk and settled himself into his chair.
“Miss Johnson,” asked Mr. Justice Schneider, “I take it that you continue to realise you are on trial for your life for the murder of Captain John Quinn?”
“Yes, sir,” I replied.
“And do you wish to change your plea from not guilty to guilty?”
“No, sir.”
A sly smile crossed his face. “I thought not. In which case, let us hear from Mr. Bryant, the lone witness of the crime.”
As the witness made his way to the front of the room, the crowd started talking again, not bothering to whisper. I didn’t need to listen. Their thoughts were loud in my mind already. I couldn’t keep them out.
I hadn’t known Mr. Bryant’s name, but I recognised his face from the tavern. The man who had come in and seen me hunched over Quinn’s body. My stomach twisted and I imagined I could feel the rough noose tightening around my throat.
Under the Same Sky Page 21