The Guardians Complete Series 1 Box Set: Contains Mercy, The Ferryman, Crossroads, Witchfinder, Infernum

by Wendy Saunders

  Tears gathered in her eyes. It was one of the sweetest birthday presents she had received in years and for the first time in days she felt as if she had truly come home. She slipped it onto her wrist and snuggled under the covers, closing her eyes, but sleep would not come. She tossed and turned, unable to keep the image of Adam’s mangled body out of her mind, nor the Chief’s cool accusations. When her cell phone buzzed on her night stand she almost sighed in relief.

  She glanced at the screen and smiled.

  ‘Hey Mags.’

  ‘Olivia,’ a smooth polished voice came from the other end. ‘You’re not still in bed, are you?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ she murmured, sighing and sitting up.

  Mags had been a friend for years. She was much older than Olivia and filled that place somewhere between a mother and grandmother. Thanks to her job as a literary agent, they had met when she appeared as a guest speaker at Olivia’s college and after that they became good friends, sharing a love of history and witchcraft. She’d filled that maternal need in Olivia’s life, in fact Mags had been the one to encourage her to write and found her a publisher for her books. Now she had several well respected Historical reference books to her credit and a nice income, which allowed her to work from home. After all, Olivia was quite a solitary person and preferred to work by herself.

  ‘Is everything okay?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Olivia replied quietly,

  She didn’t really want to go back over everything that had happened in the past several hours.

  ‘Well Happy Birthday baby girl,’ she congratulated in a sing song voice.

  ‘Thanks Mags,’ Olivia’s smile was genuine.

  ‘I’ve over-nighted a parcel to you, so it should arrive sometime today I hope you like it, I think you’re going to need it. Also I’ll be out to visit you in a few weeks, once I’ve tied up a couple of things I’m working on. Have you settled in okay?’

  ‘Yeah, sort of,’ Olivia hedged carefully.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Mags asked suspiciously.

  ‘Nothing,’ Olivia replied quickly. ‘It’s just there’s a lot of my aunt’s stuff to sort through, more than I thought.’

  ‘Oh, well,’ Mags replied. ‘I can always give you a hand when I come to visit.’

  ‘You don’t have to do that, I’m sure I’ll get around to it eventually.’

  ‘Okay, if you’re sure, just let me know if you change your mind. I have an extra pair of hands if you need them,’ she replied softly. ‘So how’s the new book going?’

  ‘I’ve hit a bit of a wall actually, I need to do some more research,’ Olivia frowned thoughtfully.

  ‘No problem, just make sure you don’t miss your deadline. I know you’ve got a lot going on right now.’

  ‘I won’t,’ Olivia assured her.

  After promising to call the following week, Olivia finally hung up and climbed out of bed. If she wasn’t able to sleep, she reasoned with herself, she should probably get some work done. Padding down the stairs in her thick socks she was startled by a knock at the door.

  It’d better not be any more cops, she thought to herself grimly as she opened the door. But it was a UPS guy, smiling and holding out a large, flat, rectangular shaped box.

  ‘Olivia West?’

  She nodded curiously.

  ‘Sign here please.’

  She scribbled her name quickly and took the parcel, shutting the door with a soft click. She wandered into the library, stepping over the dirty plates and glasses from the night before. The still cold fireplace seemed to note her entrance and burst cheerfully into flames, enveloping the room in a warm comforting heat.

  Tearing open the box, she laughed out loud when she pulled out a thick warm winter coat. Mags always seemed to have a knack for knowing, not only what she needed, but also exactly when. She picked up the note which had fallen from the folds of the coat.

  ‘Happy Birthday, enjoy the Massachusetts weather!’ Love Mags

  Olivia shook her head in amusement and draped her present over the back of the couch, while she cleared up the packaging and dirty plates. Once the room was set to rights again, she pulled out the box she’d brought with her from Providence and settled down on the cushions in front of the roaring fire. Opening her laptop she quickly found her notes and scanned through to remind herself were she’d got up to, digging around in the box to pull out random journals and files.

  An hour later her head dropped back against the couch and she sighed in frustration. She still couldn’t concentrate. Her gaze absently scanned the room until it stopped on a very small, very old trunk, perched atop one of the bookcases. With curiosity getting the better of her, she hauled herself to her feet and dragged a chair across the room.

  She climbed up onto the seat and then the arm, balancing precariously as she stretched out, barely grazing it with her fingertips. Slowly and painstakingly she edged it towards her. She definitely should have got a taller chair or maybe a small ladder, she thought to herself. Finally it toppled and fell into her hands, sending a cloud of dust scattering across her hair and face. With a loud sneeze, she hopped down from the chair and once again settled herself down on the cushions in front of the fireplace.

  The trunk was small and rectangular and made from some sort of dark wood, bound in leather and reinforced with metal edges. The flat top was an inch deep in dust. Wiping it clean with her hand, revealed the name ‘Hester’ branded into the leather in an ornate curly script.

  Olivia sucked in a breath; this trunk had once belonged to Hester West, her many times great grandmother. She was the first generation of Wests to settle in Mercy and it was a widely held belief that Hester and her twin sister Bridget had founded the town, after they escaped the persecution of Salem.

  Bursting with curiosity Olivia carefully lifted the lid, her historian’s soul hoping desperately that the contents also belonged to Hester. She knew nothing was ever discarded or thrown away in her family, but was passed from generation to generation. This house, along with all its contents, contained hundreds of years of secrets.

  The hinge gave easily as she cracked the trunk open. Inside lay what looked to be several leather bound journals, and laid across the top of them was a small cloth figure. She lifted it out carefully and turned it over in her hand.

  It was a poppet, she smiled to herself. These dolls could be made from carved tree roots, corn, even potatoes and clay but most often they were made from cloth and stuffed with herbs as this one had been. It was where the myth of voodoo dolls had arisen. But these dolls were also used for sympathetic magic and could be used not to harm, but to heal the person it was intended for. She’d seen illustrations and a few in museums, but never touched one this old. Even though the material it was made from was coarse, threadbare with age, and smelled musty, she could feel the low hum of energy through her skin. Even after all this time it still contained traces of power, though the witch who created it was long since dead. Whoever had constructed it must have been a very powerfully gifted witch.

  ‘Were you used to harm or to heal?’ she murmured softly to herself.

  Laying it aside she turned to the books. Three or four of them were similar in size and when she flipped through a few pages they all seemed to be written in the same curly script. Obviously by the same author, she thought, as she turned to the front page. But when her eyes fell on the same script on the first page her heart stuttered. They were all written by Hester West; these were her private journals.

  Doing a mental happy dance, she smiled as she picked up the last one, carefully turning it over in her hands. It was thinner than the rest and larger, like a sketchbook. Almost as if the book itself had read her mind, a page slipped loose and fell into her lap.

  It was brittle with age. Very carefully she held it up to the light. It was a drawing from the look of it and seemed to be a 17th century house, possibly a farmhouse, nestled against a stormy sky. A horse grazed absently nearby
as the long grass bent in an invisible breeze. Olivia breathed in and could have sworn she caught the hazy scent of a summer storm.

  Shaking her head to clear her thoughts, she laid the drawing aside and opened the book. She couldn’t say why, but suddenly her fingers trembled, as if she were looking at a person’s most intimate thoughts. On the front page in a similar type of script, but obviously different handwriting, was the name ‘Theodore Beckett’. She traced the name lightly with her fingertips as she cast her mind back to her family tree. She couldn’t recall a Theodore Beckett at all, so why would his journal be in the trunk with Hester’s journals. Who was this Theodore?

  Skipping lightly through the next few pages, she saw page after page of stunning black and white sketches. More of the house and several of faces she didn’t recognize. There was a picture of a young dark haired boy, smiling as he chased across the field past the horses, with an even younger boy trailing behind him. They both ran towards a woman in the distance. It was too far to make out her features, but she held out her arms towards them, as if to catch them. In the following pages the boy appeared several times, each time a little older and gradually his face changed. It lost that youthful exuberance and slowly became sadder, more cynical, before the final picture of him. He looked to be in his thirties, his hair was pulled back from his face, his mouth set in a hard and unforgiving line, but it was his eyes that caught Olivia. They were so angry, even drawn on a page she could feel the palpable hate and fury.

  Rolling her neck to shake the unease which had settled between her shoulder blades, she turned to the next picture and saw a beautiful child with dark hair and dark eyes. The picture held so much love, not just in the girl’s expression but in each stroke and line on the page. The artist created her image with so much love; she could feel it in the paper itself. Glancing down to the bottom corner of the page she could make out the letters TB scrawled messily by way of a signature.

  TB, Theodore Beckett, she surmised. If it was him, he was an incredibly talented artist. She flipped through the next few drawings. There was another picture of a house which she was about to bypass, when she stopped suddenly. Her nose wrinkled as she studied the picture more closely. It was slightly damaged, with the faint linger of smoke about it and the picture itself was smudged with what looked like ash.

  It was a picture of a house, backed by a wood on the edge of a lake and it kind of looked a lot like her house. She looked down into the corner and there were the telltale letters, TB. It couldn’t have been her house he was drawing; she shook her head as if denying her own silent accusation. Her house hadn’t even been built until over two centuries later. It was just some weird coincidence and she dismissed it.

  Scanning past all the other pictures, she finally came to journal entries, which she scanned through lightly. She would take the time later to go back and read them all in detail, but for now she was just trying to figure out who he was and how the hell he was connected to her family.

  She stopped on the final passage in the journal and read it slowly.

  August 1695; Logan asked me again this day and again I lied to him. I cannot tell my brother the truth, he would not understand. It weighs so heavily on me. He believes it is God’s will but in my heart I cannot bring myself to believe God would condemn these women as we have done. I see their faces when I close my eyes, sleep will no longer come to me without the dark dreams. Their blood is on my hands and sometimes I fear it will never wash clean. I know what drives my brother; it is vengeance for Temperance. But I must confess to myself here within these pages, I cannot deny the doubt in my heart. I want to have faith, to believe as the others do, but I know that if Temperance were still alive she could not condone what we have done in the name of God and under the guise of righteousness and morality. I find myself questioning where the madness will end? The children accused today were scarcely more than nine years old. Surely God would not wish for us to murder children in his name? I am lost, a wretched creature of dust and ash. My soul will burn for what I have done, I am certain of it. I am not strong enough to stand against the tide and I fear there will be more death before sanity returns, but by then it will be too late. We have all damned ourselves with the stain of blood on our souls. I do not believe there can be any redemption now, for any of us.

  Olivia frowned as she re-read the entry, it sounded as if he were a Witchfinder. The dates seemed to match the tail end of the witch trials, although she’d never heard of a Logan or Theodore Beckett. She grabbed some spare paper and began to scribble down notes and names; he mentioned Logan as his brother. She also noted the name Temperance. Although he did not mention his relationship to her, she seemed to be someone he was close to, someone who had died. If she were to believe the journal entry it seemed his brother believed her demise was a direct result of witchcraft.

  Picking up one of Hester’s journals, she began to scan quickly through the text, looking specifically for any mention of a Theodore Beckett. It wasn’t long before she hit a useful entry.

  January 1701. Bridget does not wish me to speak of him; she says no good can come of it. What is done is done and should remain in the past. But I cannot forget him, and my sister does not realize how important Theodore Beckett is to our bloodline. He saved us, I could feel the oppressive weight of darkness pressed down upon his soul and yet he was still capable of an act of mercy. Had he not saved us we would have suffered the same fate as the other women at the gallows. I owe him not just my life, but the lives of all who come after me, it is a debt I will never be able to repay. I worry for my sister; she is much changed these past few years. The gifts we were born with and which are such a joy and a responsibility to me, are such a burden to her. Her magick takes her to a dark place and I fear what is yet to come.

  Olivia frowned, it was still a very vague reference. She needed more to work with and gazing down at the journals she knew it would take her days to get through all of them. There was one other place she could try and that was the local museum; when she was a child she was drawn to it like a moth to a flame. She would spend hours staring at all the displays of the history of witchcraft and her town. There was even a whole display dedicated to Hester West, which had been her favorite.

  If she recalled correctly, the curator had been a small, softly spoken German woman by the name of Ms Gersten. Wondering if she was still there, Olivia began to put the journals carefully back into the trunk. She then tucked it into a quiet corner of the room, so she could come back to them later. Scooping up her new coat from the back of the couch, she turned to the fire which was burning enthusiastically in the fireplace.

  ‘Out,’ she commanded softly and it winked out as obediently as if someone had just cut the gas.

  Satisfied, she slipped the coat on, pleased at how soft and cozy it was. She picked up her notes, tucking them safely under one arm as she headed out into the hall to pull her boots on. She scooped up her keys in one hand and with her purse in the other she slipped out of the door, locking it firmly behind her.

  She could still hear the commotion in the woods where the police continued to work the crime scene and remove poor Adam’s remains. Not wanting to stick around any longer than necessary, she trotted down the front steps and headed for her car. The rain managed to hold off and glancing up at the sky as she drove into town she figured the cops might have caught a break. At least it didn’t look as if the skies were going to open. It was clear and the air was crisp.

  She arrived in town and parked as close to the museum as she could, but the town was buzzing. Decorations hung from every window and door frame, creepy spiders and plastic black cats with glowing green eyes. Enthusiastically carved pumpkins were everywhere, flickering with candlelight which bobbed and danced in the wind, while rubber bats dangled from streetlights and shop signs.

  Smiling to herself, she passed the bakery. A fragrant scent wafted from the open doorway, teasing her empty stomach which growled in protest. Glancing down at her watch she
realized it was nearly lunchtime anyway. She stepped in and two minutes later was happily meandering down the sidewalk, with a hot sweet coffee in one hand and a pastry in the other.

  Smiling at the kids already in their Halloween costumes who were rushing past her, she took a leisurely walk down to the front steps of the museum. Depositing the wrapping from her pastry in the trash outside, she climbed the steps and opened the door.

  Once again she felt as if she’d stepped back in time. Nothing much had changed, it still felt and looked the same. It even smelled the same and there was something decidedly comforting about that. Taking her time she spent the next few hours going through the exhibits, specifically looking for any mention of Theodore. She didn’t really expect to find anything, as the museum mostly dealt with the history of witchcraft and more specifically the town of Mercy itself, although because of its ties to Salem and the trials, there was some overlap. But even in that section, Olivia still couldn’t find any mention of the Becketts.

  Finally she returned to her favorite exhibit, the one of Hester. Behind the glass display cabinet stood a portrait of her, painted by her daughter Miriam. Although Hester was in her thirties in the picture and older than Olivia, she could still see the strong family resemblance. Glancing at the small plaque mounted on the wall next to the painting she read, ‘on loan from the West family.’

  ‘That one always was your favorite,’ a soft, accented voice spoke behind her.

  Turning around she spotted a small woman in a tidy blouse and skirt, with sensible shoes. Her white hair was swept back into a tidy but soft chignon and her eyes wrinkled as she smiled. Although she now stooped slightly, and walked with a cane, she was still the same woman Olivia remembered.

  ‘Ms Gersten,’ Olivia smiled in return, ‘I can’t believe you’re still here. I did wonder what had happened to you.’

  ‘I’m still here child,’ she replied as she moved closer. ‘I wondered when you would return home. I was sorry to hear about your Aunt Evelyn.’