Bewitching Familiar

by Caroline Burnes

  “So, this is the lad Goodman Truesdale took on?” The guard eyed her critically. “You’re hardly bigger than a mouse. My nephew has more heft and substance to him.” He was clearly upset that his son had not been given the job. “Well, get busy and clean the cells of those who have the money to pay ye.”

  Abigail shuffled away from him, her pails clanging. He had seemed unperturbed by the death of his fellow guard. Surely he was the man who had found the body. The more Abigail thought about it, the eerier it became. And there had not been a word of gossip. Perhaps it was all a false story that someone had made up to give Silas Grayson a bad, bad evening. Or perhaps it was Silas, tweaking her nose, because of Elizabeth’s escape.

  It was a desperate hope, but it lifted her spirits nonetheless. As soon as she was clear of the guard’s prying eyes, she began handing out the food she’d brought. Whenever anyone tried to thank her, she hushed them up. “Eat. Don’t talk,” she cautioned them. “I’ll bring more tomorrow.”

  A woman’s refined voice came out of the darkness of a larger cell to Abigail’s left. “Don’t eat it.”

  The voice was so strong, so clear, and so completely unexpected, that Abigail dropped a pail.

  “What wicked things have ye done, my boy?” the guard called down the corridor.

  “I dropped my bucket,” Abigail called back, making her voice as low and hoarse as she possible could.

  “Stay away from the prisoners who can’t pay,” the guard reminded her. “They steal the time of the court and ours, as well. Poor buggers, they have no one to pay for their food or upkeep. No one to care when they hang.” He laughed. “Old Charlie used to say we should club them like rats, right in their cozy little cells. I say it was Satan who killed old Charlie. Smote him dead just as he sat upon his favorite chair, eating someone else’s cold supper, no doubt.”

  Abigail grew suddenly very still, as did the prisoners. They all wanted to hear what had happened to Charlie Blackwell.

  “Did ye hear that he was all black under the eyes, like he ate something a normal fellow wouldn’t eat?” The guard laughed. “Probably cooked up one of the prisoners and ate him!”

  The fear from the prisoners was palpable. They were completely at the mercy of the guards. “The guards eat our food,” one of the prisoners murmured. “They eat and eat and when they are done they throw away the remains, knowing that we would eat even that.”

  Abigail gave the woman who spoke bread and cheese. As she’d suspected, she’d not brought nearly enough food. Everyone was starving.

  “What happened to the guard?” Abigail whispered. The strain to make her voice deeper was beginning to wear at her throat. She’d be unable to speak at all if she had to keep it up.

  From a cell to Abigail’s right another female prisoner spoke up. “Stole someone’s food and toppled over dead. Some say he was poisoned. If the truth is in that statement, then God has not abandoned us here. He was a cruel and evil man.”

  Before Abigail could respond, the educated voice came again. “Don’t eat this food. I beg you.”

  It came from the cell to Abigail’s left. At the imperial tone, Abigail felt a chill of fear, but she forced herself to go forward.

  “The food is good. I ask nothing in return.”

  There was the flare of a lighter box and a short, stubby candle was lit. In the harsh glare, Abigail saw the features of a woman who had once been beautiful.

  “You come with a good heart,” the woman said, “but the consequences of your actions will be more suffering, worse than that of slow starvation.” She held out one hand to show the ruined and mashed fingers where thumbscrews had been applied.

  “The food will harm no one.” Abigail tried to keep her language as formal as possible. She was risking her life. If any of the prisoners were tortured and could identify her, they might.

  “The food is not the culprit. The lack of starvation will be the fact that calls attention to itself.” The woman reached through the thick bars. “When these people stop starving, Magistrate Appleton will take it into his head that Satan is feeding us. What do you suppose will be the end result of that?”

  The words were absolutely chilling. Abigail had not anticipated that her deed of kindness could result in more punishment for the people around her.

  “But if they don’t eat, they will die!” In her frustration she forgot to disguise her voice.

  The hand pulled her forward to the bars. “So, you are a woman, not a boy. I thought as much. No boy would risk his life for a bunch of old crones and a few desperate men.”

  “Who are you?” Abigail was caught in the unflinching gaze of the woman.

  “Brianna March.”

  “March?” The name was familiar.

  “Georgianna March’s twin sister.”

  Abigail remembered the tall woman who had confronted Silas Grayson on the road when he was dragging Elizabeth Adams to her fate. “Why are you here?”

  “Like everyone else, I am a consort of the devil.” She laughed, true amusement mixed with bitter anger. “I was one of the first accused, yet I have not seen the earth above ground in more than six weeks.”

  “What charges?” Abigail knew she needed to move along, to distribute the goods she’d brought and to get busy with her job before the guard came to check on her.

  “Would that I knew. They change with each fancy of the prosecutor. Riding a broomstick with the Dark One, pinching and biting that curdle-brained dunce, Mary Wadsworth, and even dancing by the light of fires with familiars. But it wasn’t me dancing in the night.”

  Abigail’s heart dropped to her stomach. “You’ve seen someone dancing around a bondfire?”

  “Aye. Someone or something. I stumbled upon them just the night before I was arrested.” Her eyes were smart. “I believe I was charged because I saw something I wasn’t supposed to see.”

  Abigail gripped the bars that separated them. “Figures in dark cloaks. They wore animal masks.”

  Brianna’s eyes narrowed. “Either you’ve seen them prancing about the night—or you’re one of them!”

  “Not the latter.” Abigail cast a glance down the hall. The guard was coming, and she’d done none of her work. “Did you recognize any of the people?”

  “You believe they were witches?” Brianna was incredulous.

  “Not really witches. Just part of a cult. There’s a big difference. A very big difference, at least where I come from. But that doesn’t matter. Did you see any of them?”

  “I didn’t get close enough to get a good look. Truth be told, I didn’t want to get close. I was afraid of them and their hellish masks.”

  “I don’t blame you.” Abigail gathered her brooms and buckets. “I have to go. I’ll be back tomorrow.” She handed out the rest of her food, speaking soft words of comfort to those who wanted to listen. It was impossible to do any real cleaning in the dank, dark pit of a dungeon, so when she was through distributing food, she returned to the guard.

  “Are ye done?” he asked.

  “Aye.”

  “Then find Goodman Truesdale. His coin will warm your pockets.” He laughed again. “No one else cares whether the dungeon is neat and tidy.”

  “Thanks, butthead,” Abigail whispered under her breath as she hurried up the steep stairs to the fresh light of day. One thing her morning underground had reinforced—she didn’t want to be confined there with the likes of the guard in charge of her fate.

  Samuel was in the room where the trials were held, so Abigail found a corner in the back and huddled there to watch the remainder of the morning’s activities. A man was being tried for making his neighbor’s sheep sick.

  Samuel argued in Brenton Holland’s defense that a weed growing in the neighbor’s pasture, which his sheep had eaten, had made them sicken and die. But Magistrate Appleton was having no logical excuses. Without a turn of a hair, he sentenced Brenton Holland to hang as a witch.

  The attitude in the courtroom was one of vindicated pleasure, espec
ially in the small pocket around Silas Grayson.

  Abigail, her face dirty and her form disguised by the boy’s clothes, couldn’t help but shrink away from Grayson’s eagle glare as he surveyed the courtroom looking for any whose expressions betrayed their horror at the verdict.

  “Old toad,” she murmured at him. “If I were a witch I’d turn you into a roach. Then I’d find the industrial-strength bug spray!”

  She stopped mumbling to herself when she saw that one of the other young boys was giving her strange looks. She clamped her lips together and gave him a fierce stare. Then she turned away and walked back down the corridor that led to Samuel’s office. Once the verdict had been rendered and the convicted man led away, Samuel had thrown his papers on the table in disgust and left the room.

  “I’m sorry,” Abigail whispered when she found him at his desk, his head held in his hands. “It wasn’t your defense that was lacking. The judge had no intention of releasing him, no matter what evidence you produced.” Samuel was a complex man with many moods. He had been the most passionate of lovers the night before, but now his passion was directed at the suffering of another. That was one of the reasons she loved him so.

  “Not a single person accused has been found innocent.” He looked up, his eyes tired and red, his hope almost doused by the verdict. “Brenton is an old farmer. He’s ignorant, poor, superstitious. But he’s no witch. And he isn’t the kind of man who would injure another’s animals.”

  Abigail went to him and put her hands on his cheeks. She stood behind him and started a slow massage of the muscles of his cheeks and temples, moving into his scalp.

  With a sigh he relaxed against her. “What can I do? They’ll hang him tomorrow.” Her fingers were magic. How was it possible for her to be soothing and arousing at the same time? He responded to her on so many different levels.

  Abigail continued her massage, not answering for a long while. “What happened to the guard, Samuel?” She swallowed even as she asked.

  He read her pain and was instantly concerned for her. “I think it was a heart attack, but Caleb Hawthorne is determined to make it murder. He claims the guard was poisoned by Elizabeth Adams, or someone who broke her from prison.”

  “How far wrong are they?” Abigail’s hands had stilled. “Did I poison that man by accident?”

  Samuel reached up and captured her hands, pulling her around to face him. He could see the tears in her eyes. “My guess is a heart attack. Maybe he finally realized what a horrible thing he was doing and died of guilt.”

  “The guard today said the tissue beneath his eyes had turned black. That doesn’t sound like a heart attack. It sounds like arsenic.”

  Samuel had seen the corpse. He looked down at his desk. “Abigail, innocent people are dying. That isn’t supposed to make you feel better or worse, but I can honestly say, Elizabeth Adams’s life was worth it. If, and that’s a big if, there was something in the potion, it was an accident.”

  “A man is dead.”

  “And an innocent woman would have hanged today had we not intervened.”

  Abigail slapped her fist into her hand. “I was positive squaw brush was a mild sedative. Positive.” She paced the floor. “I can’t believe it was deadly.”

  Samuel watched her pace, unable to remove the burden of her guilt, or his own. He saw the glint of tears in her eyes and felt her pain. “Abigail, I believe the man had a heart attack. These people have never heard of such a thing. They want to believe he was poisoned. They like to see the devil’s hand in all of this. It strengthens their rationalization of what they’ve done in the past, and what they intend to keep on doing in the future.”

  “And I gave them a tool!” She whipped around and paced in the other direction. “We saved Elizabeth, and strengthened their hand to kill the hundred poor souls confined in that dungeon.”

  At last Samuel could watch her pace no longer. He went to her, holding her against him even as she struggled. He knew she wasn’t fighting him, she was fighting the situation, her own guilt, and her lack of ability to effect a change in what was happening.

  “You did give food to some of the prisoners,” he said soothingly as he stroked her back. He could feel her warm, soft skin through the thinness of the boy’s shirt, and his desire for her, always so near the surface, fanned into life again.

  “And they’ll probably pay for that.” Looking up at him she saw his love for her. It didn’t lessen her guilt, but it gave her strength. “I met the most interesting woman, Brianna March.”

  “Brianna.” Samuel shook his head. “A wonderful woman. She was the schoolteacher, along with her sister, Georgianna. They were quite a pair of beauties in their day, I’ve been told.”

  “Neither married?” Abigail found that interesting in a time when marriage was a woman’s only safety—and could be her prison, as well.

  “They had money. Enough to be sent away for an education. I don’t recall where they went, but they came back determined to manage the family farm together. Some of the finest land in the village, and also a large shop in Salem Town. If I’m not mistaken, they still have an interest in several of the ships that make regular runs to the West Indies.”

  “No wonder Brianna can afford candles.”

  “Yes, she’s faring better than most, but Hawthorne won’t establish the formal charges against her. He keeps changing his mind, and I’ve never been certain if he’s accepting money from her family not to bring her to trial, or if he’s hoping to force them to come up with a big ransom.”

  “You think she won’t be convicted?” Abigail found that odd.

  “If anyone can beat the charges, it’s Brianna. The family is politically influential, also. Or they were, until her father died last year.”

  Abigail digested all of the information. “What about Georgianna?”

  “I expect she’ll be brought up on some trumped-up charges any day.” Samuel had snugged Abigail against him and he felt a warm comfort just holding her. She had gradually relaxed, and they stood, touching as much as possible.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “The March property is some of the finest. If my theory that the motive for all this is economic gain is correct, that property is crucial to whoever is doing this. It has the best water, and it overlooks the harbor. If I were going to grab land, that’s the piece I’d take. As well as yours, Abigail.”

  “Mine?”

  “You and the Marches are neighbors.”

  “Samuel, is there a way to get some type of ownership map?”

  “I don’t think those things exist in Salem Village of 1692.” He smiled down at her. “Wouldn’t you rather have a cheeseburger?”

  His humor struck a chord in her and she smiled. “No, I’d like a soft taco with extra-hot salsa, an enormous, fizzy Coke, some amaretto cheesecake, plain, old, hot coffee, my John Prine tape and my water bed.”

  Samuel squeezed her as he laughed. “And I thought mashed potatoes were supposed to be comfort food.”

  “Only for the bland of stomach. Now, about that map, maybe we could rough out the parcels. If your economic theory is correct, then we need to find out who the adjoining property owners are. Once we get it plotted out, we may be able to come up with the evidence the governor needs to put a halt to all of this.” At the mention of the governor, Abigail had another tremor of uneasiness. Hester and Pearl had been gone nearly a week. There had been no word sent back to her of the success or failure of their venture. If they had arrived at all.

  “Let me see if I can find a map of the area. Then we can subdivide it ourselves.” Samuel rubbed his jaw with his thumb. “Maps are going to be very hard to come by. I mean, there’s no such thing as a copy machine or computer-generated copies.”

  “Who would likely have one?” Abigail asked.

  Samuel’s frown deepened. “I’ve seen one. In Jonathan Appleton’s office, or ‘chambers,’ as he prefers to call them.”

  “Just down the hall?” Abigail pointed in the
general direction.

  At the look on her face, Samuel grabbed her hand. “Just down the hall, but don’t get any idea about ‘borrowing’ it. He’d have you drawn and quartered before you were hanged if he caught you touching his personal possessions.”

  “More than likely.” Abigail’s voice had a sprightly note in it.

  “Abigail, I couldn’t do anything to save you.”

  “Calm yourself, Samuel. I have professional help.”

  “Who?”

  Abigail stood on tiptoe and kissed him on the cheek. “Familiar. The perfect cat burglar.”

  “No!” He grabbed for her but she had already opened the door and stepped into the hallway. He went charging after her only to run into the guard who had been on duty earlier in the dungeon.

  “Shall I catch ’im for you, Goodman Truesdale? Is he making off with your coin?”

  Samuel shook his head at Abigail’s retreating back. “No, let him be. He’s just a boy with no idea of what trouble his actions could cause.”

  “Ole Appleton will be happy to sentence him to a few days in the stocks if that will tame his spirit.”

  “I believe that won’t be necessary.” Samuel returned to his office and shut the door. He couldn’t leave until he was certain Appleton wouldn’t hold another trial. They would be only too delighted to do so in his absence, for he slowed the process greatly with his questions and insistence on procedure.

  Until Hawthorne, Appleton and Grayson left the court, he wasn’t going to budge. As for Abigail… He sighed. He was as lovesick as a schoolboy. He could still remember the scent of her hair on the pillow beside him, like fresh rain. And her skin had been as smooth as a baby’s. She was thirty, a crone by 1692 standards. And he himself was an old man of thirty-five. Well into the later years of his life. That made him smile. Thank goodness modern medicine had given him “a few good years.”