Bewitching Familiar

by Caroline Burnes

  When she was completely naked, her clothes pooled at her feet, he cupped her face in his hands and then slowly lowered them down her body, caressing each curve. “You could be from the past, from the future, or from the gods,” he whispered.

  Abigail’s heart sang as she caught his hands and molded them to her breasts. “More likely the folks of Salem would believe that I’m from somewhere worse,” she said. She lifted one of his hands to her left breast where a small beauty mark was the only blemish on her skin. “Some would say that this is a mark of the devil.”

  “They would.” Samuel bent and gently kissed her breast. “And some would say that I will burn in hell for the thoughts I’m having of you now.” His mouth became more insistent. His hands pulled Abigail to him as they supported her back. Her body arched, and she gasped with pleasure at what his lips accomplished. He lifted his head to meet her eyes. “But I am burning now.” He shifted so that the bed was behind her. Very slowly, he lowered her.

  Abigail reached up to pull him down beside her, but he caught her hand and held it while he gazed down on her. As she watched, he slowly removed his clothes.

  Standing by the side of the bed, the moonlight playing across the muscles of his chest and abdomen, he was one of the most handsome men she’d ever seen. Classic, she thought. A figure that Michelangelo might have used as a model. Whoever would have thought that his Puritan garb could hide such a body? At the thought, she smiled.

  “What amuses you?” He lightly moved his thumbnail from her breastbone slowly down between her breasts, inching down her torso to the flat of her stomach.

  With each increment of progress, she felt her pulse intensify. She wanted to capture his hand, to halt its progress. And she wanted him to continue at a faster pace. “You amuse me,” she answered. “You amuse me, and you frighten me.”

  His hand stopped instantly. “Frighten you?”

  She moved beneath him, encouraging him to continue his exploration. “Not like that. You frighten me because I feel so much. And because the future is so uncertain.”

  “We have the here and now.” His gray eyes held hers until he bent to follow with his mouth the trail his hands had already made. Before his lips touched her hot skin, he whispered, “And the here and now is all that anyone ever has, Abigail. No matter where they are.”

  NEITHER ABIGAIL nor Samuel had slept at all, but they were fully alert as Abigail slipped through the door of Elizabeth’s unused cabin. They had come for the herbs, which Abigail thought she might be able to recognize.

  She lit the candle that she had brought, afraid to risk the brighter light of a lantern. Using the stub of the candle, she went to Elizabeth’s kitchen and began to go through the tins and boxes of dried leaves and roots and barks.

  There was a vague familiarity to the names of some of the roots, but others Abigail had no knowledge of. She was acting completely on intuition, touching each tin and packet as she read the labels by the flickering light.

  Her fingers brushed dried bark that was labeled Squaw Brush and she stopped. “This is it,” she said.

  “Are you certain?” Samuel had watched the whole procedure with a slightly eerie feeling. Abigail was acting as if she were calling upon some inner source that he did not understand.

  “Yes. In some wine or…” She realized that alcohol was forbidden. “Or tea, I suppose. Wine would be better.”

  “Wine may be forbidden, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t used,” Samuel said, as if reading her mind. “A goblet of wine left with some tempting morsel of food wouldn’t be turned aside by the dungeon guard.”

  Abigail picked up the bark. “And you know exactly where to find some wine, don’t you?”

  “I do. Let’s go,” he said as he led the way to the village.

  While Abigail waited in the dark, foreboding magistrate’s hall, she heated the bark over a single candle that she was careful to hide from an outside view. By the time Samuel returned with the wine, she had a potent mixture ready. With great care she poured it into the wine and set out the pork and bread and cheese she’d brought along for the guard’s treat.

  “Stay here. I’ll put it beside his chair.” Samuel was nervous, but he finally convinced Abigail that even if he was caught, he could claim to have business in the dungeon. She, on the other hand, would not have a single excuse to be in that place.

  Samuel was back in ten minutes, breathless but safe. As he’d expected, the guard had been asleep. He’d left the wine and food beside him, a gift from an unnamed benefactor. Then Samuel had gone to the outside of the building and battered the door to make certain the guard would wake up.

  “It shouldn’t take longer than twenty minutes for the sedative to take effect.” She looked at her wrist, aware that somewhere along the way of her time travels, she’d lost her watch.

  “We’ll still have time to get Elizabeth back to the woods under cover of darkness.” Samuel began to pace. The night was slipping away from them. Daylight was their enemy in this attempt to free Elizabeth.

  They waited until they could stand it no longer, then scurried behind the magistrate’s private chambers where the entrance to the dungeon could be found. Abigail held Samuel’s coattails as they descended the steep, narrow steps. She almost cried out as she and Samuel both stumbled over the prone body of the guard. He was sound asleep and breathing harshly as they stepped over him and made their way to the cells.

  “Elizabeth. Elizabeth Adams,” Samuel called into the darkness.

  “Here.” Her voice was terrified.

  Abigail held the ring of keys and she went to the voice. “Where are you? Talk to us.”

  “Here. Who are you? What do you want of me?”

  “Be quiet,” Abigail warned her harshly.

  “Who is it?” Other voices began to ask. Some had hope. Some, the fear of more torment. “What is going on out there?”

  There was no time to explain. Abigail found the key and opened the cell where Elizabeth was contained alone. She was bent and stooped from the small confines, but she stepped out willingly and straightened. “Where are you—”

  “Hush,” Abigail warned her. “Just follow me.”

  “Wait!” One of the women sensed she was being left behind. “Take us. We’re innocent. Please don’t leave us here to die.”

  Abigail forced herself to be strong. “I won’t abandon you,” she promised. “Don’t give up hope.” She took Elizabeth’s arm and pushed her forward toward freedom.

  Halfway down the hallway Samuel held the lantern he’d taken from beside the guard, who was out cold.

  “Samuel! Abigail!” Elizabeth turned to first one and then the other once they’d gained the top of the steps. “How can I thank you?”

  “It’s a little premature. You aren’t safe yet, but we’re going to take you to Sanshu. This time, Elizabeth, don’t come back.”

  “I got a message that one of the Salem children was dying. They begged me to come back and save her.” Elizabeth shuddered at the memory of her betrayal. “When I went to the place where the note said the child would be, Silas Grayson was waiting there for me. It was a trap.”

  “I never dreamed Silas could be so devious,” Samuel said. He motioned them out into the night. “If I know Sanshu, he’s been following Abigail and me this entire night. Let’s start toward the west and hope he intercepts us.”

  “Jog,” Abigail commanded even though she felt as if her legs would crumble from nerves and weariness.

  “Jog?” Elizabeth’s voice conveyed her amazement. “What is ‘jog’?”

  “A slow run,” Samuel said, taking her elbow and assisting her into the questioned gait.

  They were panting and huffing by the time they got to the top of the hill that overlooked the village, but they also felt somewhat safer. Samuel had noticed a slight movement in the woods to the west, and he was certain it was Sanshu. He wasn’t startled when the Indian stepped from the trees.

  With a cry, Elizabeth ran into his arms and pres
sed herself against him. Her tears were filled with joy and relief.

  “Thank you again, Samuel,” Sanshu said as he gathered Elizabeth against him. “We will not fall victim to another trick.”

  “Don’t come back here, either of you,” Samuel said. Dawn was just beginning to turn the eastern sky a dark gray. He found Abigail’s hand and held it tightly.

  “What will become of you?” Sanshu was in no hurry to abandon his friends.

  “We’ll be safe.” Abigail spoke, though she wasn’t certain she spoke the truth.

  “Come with us. We will protect you.” Sanshu stroked Elizabeth’s hair.

  She lifted a tear-stained face to Abigail. “Please don’t stay in Salem. Down in the dungeon your name came up again and again. The last ten people who have been arrested have all been questioned about you, Abigail. The magistrate is determined to prosecute you.”

  “The magistrate?” Abigail wanted to be certain that Jonathan Appleton was behind the entire thing. He had been a suspect, but she’d never settled on any one person.

  “The magistrate, or the prosecutor, or that horrid Silas Grayson!” Elizabeth’s voice rose. “Who cares which man points the finger. The result is that you will hang.”

  “We care very much,” Samuel said at the same time that he patted Elizabeth’s shoulder. “We care because we intend to stop it. If you’re certain Appleton is behind it, then we’ll know better where to look.”

  Elizabeth brushed the tears from her face and steadied herself with Sanshu’s arm. “I can’t be certain. It is all gossip and talk in the dungeon. Everyone is terrified. We believe it is Appleton, because he is so cruel in the examinations.” She cast a fearful look at Sanshu.

  Samuel knew enough about the testing of witches to realize that Elizabeth wanted to keep this knowledge from Sanshu. If he knew that she had been stabbed with needles, pinched, poked, examined for witch’s marks and a number of other humiliating actions, Sanshu would more than likely head straight to Jonathan Appleton’s house and take his scalp and a few other relevant appendages.

  “But you aren’t certain?” Samuel asked.

  The eastern sky had developed a silvery edge on the horizon. Time was dwindling. “No, I can’t be certain,” Elizabeth said with a sigh.

  Sanshu put his hand on his knife. “If this man is so evil, I will kill him.”

  “No.” Samuel put a restraining hand on the Indian’s arm. “Killing him won’t solve the problem, even if he is the main culprit. What we have to do is catch him, expose him and make him stand trial for all of his sins. Unless we can prove to the village that he is behind all of this foolishness, the witch trials will continue even if he is dead. These events have gone too far. The villagers are terrified. I hear that some children are accusing their own mothers.”

  “That is true,” Elizabeth said. “There is a woman there, named by her teenage daughter, a friend of Emily Waters and Mary Wadsworth. The woman said she’d refused to allow her daughter to visit Mary’s family.”

  “Oh, my,” Abigail said. “These children don’t fully understand the consequences of their actions. They couldn’t possibly, or they wouldn’t accuse innocent people.”

  Elizabeth looked at Abigail. “Find whoever is behind all of this and see that they are punished.” She took Sanshu’s hand. “We must go. And we must be quick about it. They will be down to test the newly accused in a very short while. My absence will be noticed, and the chase will begin.”

  “If you need me, you have only to leave a message in the black thorn tree beside the Mill Pond,” Sanshu said. “Many thanks to you.”

  Holding Elizabeth’s hand, they ran toward the woods just as the golden rim of the sun lifted on the horizon.

  “We have to get home,” Samuel said. He was exhausted, but satisfied that one innocent life had been saved. “I want to be in bed when Silas arises. And you must not be seen on the roads. Listen for the alarm. Search parties will be out, so make sure you’ve hidden those boy’s clothes and Familiar.” He kissed her forehead, then turned her toward home. “Jog,” he whispered as he took the opposite direction and began to run himself.

  Abigail rushed into the door of her home to find Familiar stretched out on the rough wooden table. He gave her a yawn and a greeting.

  “It’s great for you to be so chipper. You haven’t been organizing a jailbreak.” She sank into a chair and ripped off her ugly, ill-fitting shoes. “I will never complain about Italian shoes again, if I ever get home and get a chance to wear a pair. I will never complain about panty hose again, just let me get home and find a store that sells them.” She collapsed on her folded arms on the table.

  Familiar stretched, walked over and nuzzled up against her hair. “Me-ow?” There was a definite question.

  “I left the keys in the dungeon.” Abigail had forgotten all about the darn keys until the cat asked. She looked up and met his concerned green gaze. “I forgot them.”

  Familiar hopped to the floor and then asked to go outside.

  At first Abigail hesitated. The men would be around shortly in a house-by-house search for Elizabeth. She wanted to keep Familiar inside where he was safe. But the cat had uncommon good sense. She opened the door and let him out with a warning to stay hidden. If they did search the house, he was safer in the open.

  Exhausted, she dragged herself to her bed and collapsed onto it, not even able to summon up enough energy to change clothes. The thought crossed her mind that she could not open the door for a search dressed in boys’ garments, and she got up and changed into the floor-length cotton gown that was apparently the fashion of sleepwear in Salem Village. It was, at least, comfortable.

  She had just begun to drift into a light sleep when there was a pounding at her door. “My goodness,” she whispered, turning over and deciding to ignore it. Maybe they would go away.

  The pounding grew louder. Then the deep voice of Silas Grayson penetrated her sleep.

  “Open the door, Mistress West, or I shall be obliged to knock it down.”

  “Oh, jump up…” She sat and stopped the curse. If she was going to survive Salem, she was going to have to curb her favorite curses. “Hold your horses!” she cried as she got out of bed and found a robe.

  The pounding came again, this time as if something big and wooden was being driven into her door.

  “A battering ram, no doubt,” she mumbled as she hurried across the floor. “Stop it! I’m opening the door.”

  “Open in the name of the magistrate of Salem Village.”

  She lifted the bar and opened the door. “What is it now, Silas? Have I been accused of sleeping too late?”

  His stiff face hardened. “This is not a matter to make merry about. Elizabeth Adams has vanished from the jail.”

  “So?” She wanted to lean on the door, but she knew it would be construed as wanton and lascivious behavior so she stood erect. “What has that to do with me?”

  “Are you hiding her in your home?”

  “Look for yourself.” She threw the door open, glad that Familiar had opted for an outdoor hideaway.

  Instead of going inside, Silas remained where he was. “We do not anticipate taking her easily. She is very clever.”

  “A trait you don’t share.” Abigail wanted to bite her tongue, but she couldn’t help herself. He was an arrogant, stupid, dangerous man. A bully.

  “We will come back to search at a time of our choosing. Be aware, Mistress West, that in making good her escape, the witch has caused a death.”

  “A death?” Abigail was shocked and didn’t bother to hide it.

  “Yes.” Silas grinned, delighted by her expression. “The guard was killed.”

  “That’s impossible.” Abigail distinctly remembered hearing the man’s labored breathing.

  “Why is it not possible?” Silas lifted his eyebrows. “Do you know something about this matter?”

  “Nothing. But why would she kill the guard?”

  “To prove her powers. Perhaps to warn us
to stay away from her.” Silas shrugged. “Perhaps because it is what her master ordered her to do.”

  “How was the guard killed?”

  Silas leaned forward. “Poisoned.” The word was almost a hiss.

  Abigail quickly stepped back from him. “Poisoned?”

  “Indeed. We found a goblet and food beside his corpse.”

  “And you believe that someone brought him poisoned food?”

  Silas nodded. His smile was cold. “Someone in league with the devil. And when we bring the charge against her, it will be my personal pleasure to administer the severest of tests. Good day, Mistress West.” He made a bow and stepped back from the doorway. He was smiling an evil smile.

  Chapter Twelve

  “I know I didn’t kill him.” Abigail sat at the table talking to herself. Not even Familiar was around to comfort her. But no matter how she thought about it, she couldn’t forget Silas’s words, or expression. The guard was dead. Not sleeping. Dead. And he had been poisoned. Was it possible that she’d taken the wrong herb from Elizabeth’s cache? She’d been so certain she knew what she was doing. She had touched the squaw brush and knew instinctively that it was a sedative. How did she know this? Why hadn’t she questioned her knowledge before she’d administered the drug to a man? She had put her faith in the fact that her knowledge came from her 1995 life.

  She put her head down and moaned. In saving Elizabeth had she killed someone else?

  She felt something brush her arms and sat up to discover Familiar. He leapt from the table to the large picnic basket and gave a cry.

  Abigail stood abruptly. She had forgotten that she was to work in the dungeon. Even though she was greatly troubled by the news of the guard, she prepared the basket with food for the prisoners and found her boy’s garb. With a determined warning to Familiar to stay out of sight, she left her house and began to walk to town.

  Skirting the areas where people were already out and about their business, she made her way to the back door of the dungeon. Only a few short hours before, Walter Edgarton had reluctantly let her down into the dungeon, and the conditions she’d found had been horrid. Now she was doing something to help. She tucked cheese and meat and bread into the assorted pockets of her clothes and wherever she could find a safe place among her utensils. Heart hammering away, she pounded on the door and was allowed to enter. The man who warily eyed her was big, snaggle-toothed and unwashed.