Bewitching Familiar

by Caroline Burnes

  Appleton stared at Samuel. “You speak as if you were infected with wickedness.” He pointed a finger. “Be warned, Samuel Truesdale. Ye may be an appointee of the governor, but that will not protect ye against the godly people of Salem Village.”

  “Godly?” Samuel shouted. “This is godly behavior? To starve people into living skeletons? You are a fat, pompous ass.”

  Appleton walked to the door. “Enough, Truesdale. You no longer have my trust. Nor that of Prosecutor Hawthorne. He has long been suspicious of you. I am writing the governor today to ask that you be replaced as soon as possible.”

  “Why not request that His Honor, the governor, come to Salem Village to see the trials first-hand?” Samuel’s tone held a direct challenge. “I believe when he sees how you mete out justice, you will be the one to be replaced, not me.”

  “The governor is too busy to take time out for the problems of such a small village.” Appleton looked slightly worried.

  “Perhaps I shall hand deliver your letter—and my request.” Samuel watched the dagger of that threat sink home. Appleton definitely didn’t want the governor in Salem Village.

  “You are obligated to attend the trials until you are replaced. It is your duty.” Appleton had recovered his nerve. He smiled as he turned to give Samuel a full look. “I believe it might be worth the governor’s time to come to our small village once Mistress West is captured. Her trial will make history for our village, and for me.”

  Before Samuel could respond, Appleton had walked out the door and away.

  “Damn you to hell,” Samuel whispered after him. The news of Abigail’s near capture had almost undone him. He checked the hallway to be sure no one had been left to watch him, then he sneaked out of the building and made for Abigail’s house as fast as he could without using the road.

  He knew she was gone. He wanted her to be gone. But perhaps she’d left a clue for him where she might be heading. Boston would be the logical choice. And he could follow her. He knew to ask for Hester Prynne. And Abigail had not given up on her plan to get the governor to come to the village.

  He thought of all the positive things and did not dwell on the long journey through treacherous forests that Abigail would have to make. With only a cat to guide her. Of course, Sanshu might have come to her assistance. The Indian owed them both a debt, and Sanshu was the kind of man who always repaid his debts. Usually tenfold. “Please, God, let Sanshu have found her,” he whispered as he ran.

  From the big oak tree in the front yard he could tell that the house was abandoned and partially vandalized. The front door had been beaten down, and the glass windows, a luxury for that age, were broken. Samuel gritted his teeth as he watched Silas Grayson come over the field leading Sally the cow. Several young boys were herding Abigail’s sheep toward his pastures.

  “So, Silas turns yet another profit off someone else’s tragedy,” Samuel whispered to himself. It was disgusting.

  As soon as Silas had gone down the road, Samuel went into the house. The furniture had been overturned, the household goods either broken or stolen. Items that would be irreplaceable were gone. And nowhere was there a clue of Abigail’s whereabouts.

  Samuel knew she’d set out for Boston. There was no place else she could go. Still, his heart was heavy as he took in the needless destruction. He took a last look at the bed where only that morning he’d awakened with her, the light of dawn in her hair.

  “Abigail,” he whispered as he touched the bed that had been tossed and ransacked. “Abigail.”

  He turned and walked out of the house, his shoulders set rigidly as he walked back to Salem Village and the afternoon portion of the witch trials. He would stay and do his duty. Perhaps Appleton’s attempt at dismissing him would finally draw Governor Phips to Salem Village. And Samuel had plenty to tell the governor.

  ABIGAIL gave Familiar the last crumb of cheese as she finished the bread and wiped her mouth on the back of her sleeve. Had they only been in the woods two days? That wasn’t possible. It had surely been at least a decade. Even Familiar had gotten a leaner, meaner look. And they were going to need it to stay alive.

  Abigail pulled the black cat into her arms and held him. He was as tense as a coiled spring and his attention was focused on the same area where she thought she’d seen someone in the shadow of a byre. They were being followed. And it wasn’t by the witch-hunters.

  Indians.

  Abigail tried not to panic at the thought. She’d suspected it for the past four hours. Now she knew it was true. The woods around them were completely quiet. No birdsong. No squirrels barking and fussing at them for invading their domain. Not even the sound of a limb breaking under the foot of a small hedgehog. All was perfectly still. The animals had gone into hiding against the primary predator. Man.

  “Familiar,” she spoke softly to the cat. “There’s nothing you can do. If you try to stop them, they’ll kill you.” She brushed the cat’s forehead with her lips. Moving as swiftly as possible, she removed the pendant from around her neck and looped it several times around the cat. “Be careful, and don’t strangle yourself, but take this to Samuel. Get him to find Sanshu.” She knew that the Indians watching her were not part of Sanshu’s small tribe. If they were friends, they would have shown themselves by now.

  Familiar jumped from her lap to the ground, the pendant dangling dangerously from his neck.

  “The pendant is important. I don’t know how or why, but I know it is. I don’t want the Indians to take it from me.” She almost lost her nerve at the thought. “Just get it to Samuel and make him understand that only Sanshu can help me now. Go!” She shooed the cat away.

  Familiar stared into her eyes. He put one paw on her knee and looked at her, then he turned and ran into the woods.

  “Find Samuel,” she whispered after him, knowing that he was already gone and could not hear. But saying Samuel’s name was her talisman, her good-luck charm. How had she gone from escaping from witch-hunters to falling into the hands of Indians who were angry at the way the white settlers had treated them?

  She stood and started to walk to the southwest. She and Familiar had charted a direct route to Boston, and by her calculations, she was better than halfway there. But for the past few hours, they had not been alone in their trek. She tried to remember back to when she’d had the first feeling of someone watching her. She couldn’t be exact, but the feeling had grown until she knew she had to send Familiar for help. She wasn’t certain what the 1692 Indian attitude toward black cats might be, but she wasn’t going the risk the possibility that they both would be captured. Familiar had to get to Samuel.

  Behind her she felt the movement of bodies among the trees. There were more than she’d first thought. She wanted to run for it, but she knew she’d never make it beyond a few yards, and the fact that she’d run would prove to the Indians she was terrified of them. It was better to hold her ground. She remembered Hetty, James Fenimore Cooper’s heroine. The Indians respected a person who showed no fear.

  Right. She stiffened her spine and continued walking as if she wasn’t aware they were moving in closer to her.

  When she felt the hand on her shoulder, she stopped instantly. She closed her eyes for a brief second, praying for strength, then turned around to confront the brave who had touched her.

  With his face streaked with blue and yellow, he stared at her with open curiosity. He didn’t ask permission but lifted the cap off her head and stepped back at the tumble of curls that fell to her waist.

  He gave a shout of surprise and happiness and then signaled the other braves out of the forest. They made loud exclamations and walked around Abigail, staring and touching her hair.

  “I am your friend,” she said slowly. She was so afraid, she could feel her knees knocking together. She clamped them tight and continued. “I am going to Boston.”

  She couldn’t understand what they were saying, but she had the feeling that they were discussing what to do with her. The man who had origin
ally touched her had taken a proprietary attitude toward her and was warning the others away. She smiled up at him, wanting him to know that she thanked him for his protection.

  He smiled back and gave her arm a playful pinch.

  Without any warning he grabbed her arm and thrust her in front of him as he set a brisk pace through the forest.

  Every time Abigail tried to stop or talk, he pushed her ahead of him. He was not abusive, but he was determined to keep her moving.

  Abigail tried in vain to keep up with the territory. The sun was setting over her left shoulder, so she knew they were headed north. And north was in the opposite direction of Boston. Or nearly opposite.

  “I have to go south,” she said, pointing over her shoulder. “Boston.”

  He shook his head and pushed her forward on the trail while the other Indians laughed.

  “Where are we going?” she asked.

  They didn’t bother to answer, if they understood at all. They simply kept up a constant jog that soon required all of Abigail’s concentration to keep up.

  The sun began to slip down behind the trees, and Abigail felt as if she were going to fall down in her tracks. The Indians kept moving, their moccasined feet creating hardly a sound on the woodland trail they followed.

  Abigail knew that attempting to stop and rest would do no good. The Indians hadn’t offered to harm her. They simply ignored anything she said or did and pushed her on.

  Her awkward shoes were rubbing a blister on her heel, and finally she sat down abruptly in the middle of the path and removed her shoe. “I can’t go on any farther,” she said, talking to the man who’d apparently decided to assume responsibility for her.

  He motioned her to stand.

  She shook her head and pointed to her heel. “No. It hurts.”

  The Indians gathered together for a small conference. They spoke among themselves in low tones, casting looks back at her.

  Abigail realized for the first time that if she were really a hindrance to them, there was nothing to stop them from cutting her throat and leaving her behind. Or almost as bad, just going off and leaving her. She’d been too exhausted to pay attention to where they were going or how much ground they’d covered. She was thoroughly and completely lost.

  Her benefactor came back to her with something in his hand. In a moment he knelt down, took her foot in his hand and slipped a moccasin on it. He did the same with the other, then motioned for her to stand. When she did, he tied the shoe tighter, giving a snug fit. With a grunt he motioned for her to continue on the trail.

  Torn between fear of being left and fear of being killed, Abigail began to walk. At the pressure of his hand on her back, she started to jog. Then she gave up trying to think or rationalize anything—she just kept moving.

  When they finally stopped, Abigail was too tired to eat any of the jerky they offered her, too tired to consider the painful blisters on her feet. She curled up with her back to a rock, the Indian who’d taken her as his own at her side, and allowed the tears to fall silently to the ground. Samuel was the last thing she thought of, the last word she whispered to herself as she slept.

  REFRACTED LIGHT caught Samuel’s eye as he started toward the magistrate’s building with his feet dragging and his tired eyes bloodshot. The trials had taken a turn for the worse. Appleton and Hawthorne were railroading the accused in court proceedings that didn’t even pretend to dispense justice. So far, in three days, another dozen people had been convicted, and three of them were dead. For the others he’d been able to buy a few days’ reprieve from their sentencing with the hopes that Abigail had made it to Boston and would return with the governor. Silas was running around the village insisting that Abigail had set him on fire without benefit of a candle or flame. He was telling everyone that she’d snapped her fingers and a tongue of flame had shot from her hand to his arm. It was ridiculous, but people believed him. Abigail was developing quite a reputation for herself.

  He went to the dock each day at noon to see which ships were due in and if they were from Boston. He knew Abigail would sail back into the harbor with the governor at her side, willing or not. Or else his dismissal would arrive.

  He rubbed his eyes as he caught what appeared to be a prism of some sort on top of the hill that led to Abigail’s house. The rainbow of shattered light brought to mind the strange pendant Abigail wore around her neck. But then everything reminded him of Abigail. And every hour increased his worry for her.

  She’d escaped the witch-hunters. He knew that for certain. And for the past three days he’d gone into the woods to hunt for Sanshu to see if he’d had news of Abigail. But Sanshu, Elizabeth, and the small tribe of Hurons were gone. The shelters of animal hides they’d used had been taken down. Only the charred embers of their fires told that they had ever been in the forest near Salem Village.

  Samuel had had to content himself with the hope that Sanshu and the Indians had begun to migrate south as the winter approached, and in doing so had taken Abigail with them to Boston. It wasn’t that far. He guessed maybe thirty miles, maximum. That would be a good two-day journey. And if she were sailing back, then it might take a total of four days. She could be back by morning.

  The light caught his eye again and he looked up.

  The sun was behind him, sending direct rays to the top of the hill. He wasn’t imagining the small black dot that could be nothing other than Familiar.

  Familiar and Abigail’s necklace!

  He started to run, gaining speed even as he hit the slope of the hill and fought his way up.

  As he gained the crest of the hill, he saw Familiar dart into the copse of trees where Abigail had once hidden her basket of food for the prisoners.

  Was she there, waiting for him? Hiding out? He felt a rush of anticipation that gave him a surge of energy, and he almost flew the last ten yards and into the copse.

  Instead of Abigail, Familiar sat upon a rock. Wound around his neck was the necklace, the crystal pendant shimmering even in the soft light of the copse.

  “Is she alive?” Samuel forced the question out.

  Familiar gave a low meow in reply.

  “Is she in danger?”

  For answer, Familiar jumped to the ground and went to him, winding around his leg and then heading back to the path.

  Samuel didn’t have to guess what the cat wanted, he knew. He had a thought for the women and men who would face trial that morning in front of Appleton. But he knew he was ineffective at best in their defense. And he would be worthless, consumed as he was with worry about Abigail.

  “Come here,” he called to the cat. Very carefully he took the necklace off his throat. “You could have strangled yourself, Familiar.” He held it up to the light, then put it around his own neck. As the pendant touched his chest he felt the whisper of Abigail’s hand along his cheek.

  “She’s still alive, and she needs us,” he said. With the cat at his side he started to jog in the direction of the woods.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Familiar circled the area where Sanshu’s people had once camped. He prodded the cold fires with his paw, as if he refused to believe the Indians were gone.

  “Abigail wanted me to bring Sanshu.” Samuel had finally figured out why the cat had insisted on going to the northwest. He was also positive that Abigail had braved the woods with only Familiar at her side. And now she was in some kind of trouble. Familiar had conveyed that much, but the cat had been a little sketchy on the specifics.

  Samuel watched the cat as he circled the abandoned camp yet again. He sniffed the dirt, then lifted his nose to the wind. At last he trotted over to Samuel and indicated that he was ready to move along.

  “Where to?” Samuel asked.

  Familiar trotted toward the west with a determination that indicated he knew where he was going. At a loss for a better plan, Samuel followed. What had Abigail gotten into? Indians were the obvious answer. Scenes from various books and movies drifted into his mind, goading his fear into a
n accelerated stage. What did he know of the original Americans? Not much. And much of what he did know was inaccurate and biased. Would they hurt Abigail? Were Indians really the savages they were portrayed to be? He’d always believed that the Native Americans had never had a fair shake in the history books. They had committed acts of violence, as had the white settlers, but much of the violence had been provoked by the actions of the white settlers.

  He clung—desperately—to the hope that Abigail would not be injured.

  Even as he combated those demons, another thought entered his mind. Would one of the braves forcibly take her as his wife? Samuel increased his pace and put his thoughts on hold.

  Familiar was moving at a fast clip, dodging through the woods with a natural-born ability. Samuel, on the other hand, had to fight awkward clothing, bad shoes, and an unfamiliarity with forest travel. But his determination made him keep going, and as the hours passed, he was learning to adapt.

  Although Salem Village was soon left behind, Samuel could not as easily forget those accused of witchcraft. Perhaps it would have been better to stage a general jailbreak. There were so many ifs. As he pushed on, following Familiar, he came to only one conclusion: Abigail was his heart. He had to save her, and he could not allow himself to consider any other result. Together they would go back to Salem Village and open the dungeon.

  The hope of the governor intervening was a vain one. No outside forces were going to halt the witch trials. And as soon as Abigail was safely at his side, he was going to take an action that would put an end to it once and for all, and to hell with the consequences to history.

  I DON’T WANT to add to Pilgrim Man’s worry, but the Indians who nabbed Abigail are headed north—northwest. That’s not exactly the direction I’d choose to go, right into the heartland of Indian territory. I only wish I’d paid more attention to the members of Sanshu’s tribe. Huron. Iroquois. Mahican. What tribe are we talking about here? Are they an offshoot of Sanshu’s tribe? It would be helpful to know these things.