Crossroads

by Wendy Saunders

  ‘Like I said, forgive me if I speak out of turn,’ he inclined his head and when he spoke his voice was soft and humble but as his head rose and his black eyes locked with Logan’s they seemed to sparkle with suppressed mirth. His gaze dipped to Mary’s mark, lingering for a moment before flickering back to Logan. A ghost of a smile whispered at his lips before it disappeared, almost as if he knew what Logan had done. ‘It seems to me that the girl is indeed in league with demons, this kind of madness could be catching. I would suggest you deal with her quickly before others succumb to the same affliction.’

  ‘Witchcraft here?’ Cotton Mather stroked his chin thoughtfully, ‘you’re right of course Nathaniel we must guard against such evil. Very well Beckett, deal with her quickly. We will accompany you and make sure that it is done.’

  Logan nodded and pulled Mary roughly past George Alcott.

  ‘Father,’ she reached out to him as she passed, ‘father please help me…’

  George swallowed hard and turned his face away from his only child.

  ‘FATHER!’ she screamed as she was pulled out into the cold night air. She tripped and fell forwards into the wet mud as the rain beat down on her, stinging her raw skin.

  ‘Bring her,’ Logan commanded as she was roughly pulled from the ground and tossed carelessly into the back of a wagon.

  Stephen climbed into the back and held her down roughly so she couldn’t escape as Logan climbed up onto the bench and took the reins. Cotton and Nathaniel stepped out into the downpour as the sky cracked with lightning. Adjusting his tall dark hat Cotton climbed up onto the seat next to Logan while Nathaniel moved to the rear and climbed up into the wagon bed beside the still screaming girl.

  Logan shook the reins and headed away from the jail. The journey did not take long though Mary felt every bump and notch in the uneven surface that the wagons wheels travelled over. Her face was pinned to the damp pungent smelling wood, which splintered and pricked her rapidly numbing flesh. By the time they had reached the huge tree on the hill her screams had quieted and her body was wracked with violent tremors. She barely murmured as she was lifted from the wagon but stared lifelessly up into the sky watching the icy splinters of rain spearing down towards her face.

  A small wooden stool was produced from the wagon and placed beneath the lowest thickest branch. A rope noose was placed around her neck and tightened before the rope was slung over the branch and secured. Stephen lifted her up and stood her on the stool and the rope was tightened once again, not enough to cut off her air supply yet but enough to pull her to her toes.

  Cotton Mather and Stephen stood before her as witnesses while Logan opened his bible and began to read. Nathaniel moved to stand beside him watching his every move, his flat eyes flaring every now and then with a spark of interest. The night roared again with an ominous growl of thunder and lightning blazed across the sky angrily.

  Logan looked up as he heard hoof beats above the howl of the wind and rain. His eyes narrowed as he tried to identify the rider approaching in the darkness.

  Theo breathed heavily as he reined in Kane, he’d arrived at the jail only after they’d left and made haste to the hanging tree, praying he wasn’t too late. He slid down from the saddle, his legs collapsing weakly beneath him. He drew in a breath and pushed himself painfully to his feet.

  ‘STOP!’ he roared angrily.

  Logan’s eyes narrowed and he continued to speak from memory, his gaze fixed on the sight of his brother struggling through the mud and rain as he tried to reach the tree and his sentenced wife.

  ‘Let her go!’ Theo stumbled forward. He hadn’t even worn his coat and his thin shirt was now plastered to his skin causing his fever wracked body to shake violently.

  Cotton stepped into his path.

  ‘It is done,’ he told him firmly, ‘her soul is damned. She must pay for her crimes.’

  ‘Logan please,’ Theo struggled weakly against Cotton as Stephen stood by, smirking at his feeble attempts to break free.

  Logan ignored the heart wrenching pleas of his brother and continued to read, his voice almost lost in the violent turmoil of the storm.

  ‘May God have mercy on your soul,’ he whispered as Nathaniel kicked the stool out from under Mary’s feet.

  ‘NO!’ Theo screamed, ‘NO!’

  He clawed weakly at Cotton his vision graying at the edges and narrowing as he saw Mary kicking and twitching at the end of a rope. When her body was finally still, swaying slightly and buffeted by the wind and rain Theo sank to the ground exhausted and numb.

  ‘Theo,’ Logan frowned as he pulled his brother into his arms, ‘Theo hold on.’

  ‘He has been bewitched,’ Cotton touched Theo’s forehead. ‘He burns with fever, we can only hope that now the witch is dead, he can fight whatever enchantment she inflicted him with.’

  Cotton looked up into Logan’s eyes.

  ‘It is in the hands of God now,’ he stared at Logan speculatively. ‘You have proved yourself today Logan Beckett, you are a truly faithful servant of God. You placed what was right and just above the needs of your own brother, that takes a strong heart and sense of loyalty to God. I will not forget that.’

  Logan held Cotton’s gaze unaware of the amused smile on Nathaniel’s lips and as he watched an idea began to form in his mind.

  Theo was drowning, unable to separate memory from dream. His body was wracked with a fever long since healed as his mind tried to break the surface. It felt like someone was trying to call him, why did that voice seem so familiar? Why did he yearn towards it with everything inside him? He blinked as the cool rain bathed his face and suddenly realized he was alone. He sat up in confusion, his body didn’t feel as weak as it had a moment before. He looked around, Cotton, Logan, Stephen and Nathaniel were all gone. Even his horse and the wagon were gone. He pulled himself to his feet noticing that he was able to move quite easily. His body felt normal, strong even. The rain slowed to a drizzle and the skies quieted. He looked up at the tree where Mary’s lifeless body twisted and swung in the breeze.

  His heart thumped painfully in his chest and his eyes filled with tears as he neared her. Her head hung forwards but as she twisted in the wind to face him her eyes opened slowly.

  ‘Theo,’ she whispered.

  His heart jolted as his dead wife fixed her broken eyes on him.

  ‘Theo,’ she whispered again, ‘this was not your doing. You tried to save me but it was not meant to be. I was supposed to die like this, nothing you could have done would have changed that.’

  ‘I wanted so badly to save you,’ his voice was a choked whisper.

  ‘I know but you can save me now, you have to let me go Theo.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I’ll forgive you, if that’s what you need but you need to forgive yourself.’

  Theo sank to his knees in the damp sod, the pain in his chest was suffocating, the guilt and remorse eating him alive as he leaned forward and wept bitterly.

  ‘There’s nothing more I can do,’ Mary shook her head as she turned to look at Olivia.

  ‘There must be something,’ Olivia replied as she watched Theo in concern, although he’d stopped painting he sat, catatonic, staring at the canvas.

  Mary shook her head. ‘I was wrong.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Olivia frowned.

  ‘He doesn’t need forgiveness; I think deep down he knows it wasn’t his fault.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ she shook her head.

  ‘What he needs is hope.’

  Mary stepped back. ‘He needs something to fight for,’ she told Olivia softly, ‘he needs you.’

  ‘But he can’t hear me.’

  ‘Oh I think he can, you just need to show him the way back. Don’t give up on him Olivia, this is what you came here for, not to find him…to save him.’

  Mary turned and moved back towards the window giving Olivia some space. She looked down at Theo staring vacantly at the p
aint splattered canvas. Her eyes caught on the half-finished painting and she looked, really looked and what she saw made her gasp in sudden realization.

  He’d painted the hanging tree beneath a storm laden sky, but if she took a step back and looked beneath the surface there was a painting within the painting. The jagged slashes of lightning looked like long wild windswept hair, the voids in the clouds looked like eyes and the swirls of cloud themselves looked like the dips and planes of a face. It was her face; he’d painted her into his nightmare. Mary was right he was reaching out to her, if she could just make him hear her.

  ‘Theo,’ she kneeled down next to him taking his paint stained hand.

  She pulled in a deep breath trying to organize her thoughts. It was time to be honest with him and hoped that he heard her.

  ‘Theo,’ she whispered again her voice a little stronger, ‘I’m sorry for the things I said to you back in Mercy. I didn’t mean it. I was angry and hurt and scared. I was scared that if I gave in, if I loved you and let you in, that you would hurt me. That if I gave you that much power over me you would break me. I’m still scared, only for a different reason now.’

  She sucked in another breath as her eyes burned with threatened tears that she ruthlessly choked back.

  ‘I’m scared of losing you Theo, what I’ve come to realize is that there is no me without you. None of this means anything to me if we’re not together. So if you’re trapped here for the rest of days, then I’m not moving either. I’m not leaving you Theo.’

  Theo looked up at the sky, the rain had stopped completely and grey clouds swirled across the starlit sky, for a moment it almost looked like a woman’s face. Shaking his head in confusion he looked back to the tree. Mary was gone, as was the rope and the stool. He was completely alone, except he didn’t feel alone. He raised his hand to his face, studying it in the pale moonlight, flexing his fingers. They tingled as if someone was grasping his hand. A soft voice fluttered against the edge of his mind, a voice that seemed so familiar that his heart clenched in his chest. The voice came again. It was a woman and she was telling him she was sorry, that she was afraid. He cast his gaze around looking for her as some strange emotion grasped him by the throat, a sense of urgency and desperate kind of need. He had to find her, she was afraid and he would have given anything to take away her fear, to keep her safe.

  ‘I’m not leaving you Theo…’

  He had to find her, he had to tell her…

  Something, what was it he had to tell her? He couldn’t quite remember. He glanced down at his hand once again, he could almost feel her smaller hand in his, gripping tightly. He turned his hand over noticing the strange blue, black and silver markings which ran up from his hand all the way up his forearm to disappear under his shirt. Suddenly he was assaulted with a reel of images flashing through his mind with such force the intensity of it drove him to his knees. When he finally looked up, gasping for breath, only one word fell from his lips.

  ‘Olivia…’

  ‘A war is coming Theo,’ Olivia sighed, ‘everything we know is about to change, people we love are going to get hurt. Everyone is looking to me to be some kind of hero but I can’t do it, I can’t do it without you.’

  She looked down at their joined hands as the first tears began to fall, smearing the paint as it hit the skin of his hand.

  ‘I crossed worlds for you Theo, I defied a God for you and all because I love you.’ Her heart burned hopelessly with grief and love, the sight of their joined hands blurred as her eyes filled with tears. ‘I love you Theo and I will continue to love you until the end of days and probably beyond that.’

  A choked sob escaped.

  ‘Please,’ she whispered brokenly, ‘stay with me…’

  ‘Always,’ she felt a hand slide along her jaw and softly cup her cheek. She drew in a sharp breath and looked up into Theo’s warm brown eyes.

  ‘Livy,’ he whispered.

  His mouth crashed down on hers, swallowing her gasp of shock and relief. He stood abruptly, dragging her to her feet as the plastic chair he had been sitting on scraped loudly backwards across the floor. Wrapping his arms around her he pulled her in tightly to his body, drinking her in. The feel of her against him, the scent of her skin, the feel of her long dark silky hair in his hands, her mouth, her taste. He drank her in as if they’d been apart for years.

  They broke apart breathing heavily, his forehead pressed to hers.

  ‘I thought I’d lost you,’ she breathed painfully.

  ‘Never,’ he brushed away her tears with the pad of his thumb leaving a small streak of paint across her cheek. ‘We’ll always find each other Livy no matter what.’

  ‘Theo,’ another voice spoke softly.

  He turned his head and his eyes widened.

  ‘Mary?’

  For a moment time seemed to stand still. The air was silent and filled with an strange kind of recognition and understanding between them.

  ‘It’s time to let her go Theo,’ Olivia told him quietly.

  She took his hand and raised it between them. Catching hold of the thin silver chain she showed it to him. His gaze followed it as it dropped down to the ground and trailed across the floor, where it wrapped firmly around Mary’s ankle.

  ‘You’ve been dragging her through time with you,’ Olivia told him gently, ‘your guilt has kept her bound to you.’

  Theo squeezed his eyes shut momentarily and shook his head.

  ‘I didn’t know,’ he turned to look at her, ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s time to let her go Theo.’

  Theo grasped the delicate chain at his wrist and tugged causing the links to break. He held it out to Mary who watched as it began to disintegrate in a shower of tiny sparks until there was nothing remaining. Her face broke into a smile and she sighed deeply in relief. She began to glow brightly, her form blurring until they could no longer see her and the room was flooded with a pure brilliant white light. As it reached flash point they were forced to cover their eyes from the sheer blinding intensity. When it finally subsided and they looked up Mary was gone and they were alone.

  ‘Do you think she’s at peace now?’ Theo asked.

  ‘I hope so,’ Olivia smiled, ‘what about you? Are you at peace now?’

  Theo looked down at the woman in his arms and his embrace tightened.

  ‘I am now,’ he kissed her gently murmuring against her lips, ‘because without you there’s no me either.’

  Chapter 10.

  Theo stared out across the lake as the sun dipped low on the horizon, his arms tightening around Olivia, almost as if he were afraid she’d disappear if he let go. They stood on a beach, backed by a small precipice overlooking the lake. From where they stood they could see Olivia’s house on the opposite bank, nestled amidst the tree line. They could almost see the ruins of the cliff which led up to the Boatman, the old abandoned Art Deco Hotel where they had rescued the Ferryman.

  ‘So where are we exactly?

  ‘On the North-West side of the lake, I used to come up here on my bike when I wanted to be alone…well mostly when I wanted to sulk.’

  He looked behind them to the blankets spread out on the sand and the small bonfire they’d laid out.

  ‘So this is the Otherworld?’

  ‘Yeah, bit of a letdown isn’t it,’ she chuckled.

  ‘I don’t know what I expected,’ he pressed a kiss against her hair.

  She turned in his arms so she was facing him, tracing his jaw lightly with her fingertips as a sigh escaped her lips.

  ‘What is it?’ he frowned.

  ‘A lot has happened since…’she shook her head, ‘since that night, we really should talk.’

  ‘I don’t really remember much,’ he stroked her back gently, as if he couldn’t help but maintain the contact between them. ‘I remember everything up to the moment we were on the ice and that’s where it gets a bit distorted.’

  ‘Well Charon opened th
e gateway and it created a kind of vortex. All the spirits and creatures caught in Mercy were sucked back through but you got caught at the tail edge of it and were pulled through with Mary.’

  ‘What happened to you? Did you come through after me?’

  Olivia shook her head. ‘The ice started to break up and I couldn’t hold my grip, I fell through.’ She shuddered at the memory of the black icy cold water engulfing her and dragging her down into the crushing darkness below.

  ‘God Livy,’ Theo’s grip on her involuntarily tightened, ‘you could have drowned.’

  ‘I very nearly did, I cracked my head on the ice as I went in. I was practically unconscious before I even hit the water.’

  Theo’s heart pounded heavily in his chest at the thought of her nearly dying, alone in the icy water, because he wasn’t there to protect her.

  ‘Don’t do that,’ she smoothed the wrinkles between his brow, ‘you couldn’t have done anything even if you had been there.’

  ‘How did you survive?’

  ‘Charlotte,’ she whispered, ‘she saved me, she dragged me to the shore. So there I was half dazed, probably suffering from hypothermia, you were gone and I didn’t know if you were dead, or…’ her voice cracked slightly and she cleared her throat and tried again. ‘I didn’t know if I’d ever see you again. I was in pretty bad shape, I have to admit I gave some serious thought to just lying down and dying.’

  ‘Jesus Liv,’ he swore angrily.

  ‘I didn’t though,’ she stroked his face soothingly. ‘I was lying there on the sand when Hades appeared.’

  ‘Hades?’ Theo repeated in confusion, ‘What THE Hades?’

  ‘Why does everyone keep saying that,’ she murmured, ‘but yes THE Hades, as in the God of the Underworld and Charon’s boss.’

  ‘What did he want?’

  ‘Front row seats to the Olivia and Theo show apparently.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Hades knew that I was able to conjure Hell fire and he was curious about me. He offered to send me to the Otherworld to find you.’