“There’s only an old cow path to the bluff,” I objected.
“That could be a problem,” he conceded, “however, Tyler Bishop has promised to construct a road to the proposed water tower.”
I jerked to attention. “That hasn’t been voted on yet?”
“No, but Tyler says it’s a cinch. Anyway, if the weather is favorable next week—”
“You don’t intend to go up there at this time of year!”
“Why not? The weather bureau predicts a thaw. There’s that marvelous old oak for a hanging tree and then there’s lumber from the old cabin that blew down. We could make a platform out of that,” he continued, thinking out loud. “Of course, if it warms up too much it might be muddy—it might not be practical.”
“I hope we stay in the nice warm city hall.” So Greg was back—and Iris, too. It was too much a coincidence. Well, if that was the way things were, I could do nothing about it. I sat there passively as his hand stroked my arm.
He pressed his lips to my forehead. “Don’t worry, we’ll work it out.” The gesture triggered a response in me. I needed affection so badly. I lay with my head on his shoulder, unresisting as his mouth covered mine. Then his tongue forced my lips open, his hand slipped inside my robe and found my breast beneath my nightgown. I caught his hand. “I’m sorry, Lucian, I didn’t mean it that way. I shouldn’t have let you…I said no!” He was upon me, bending me back against the sofa, tearing aside my robe.
“Are you out of your mind?” I struggled away from him, but he wrestled me down and ripped open my gown. As he fumbled with his zipper I managed to slip out from under him.
“Get out of here!” I demanded, winding my robe about me. “You—a man of God!”
“You need someone, Mitti, and so do I. The trouble with you, my dear Submit, is that you’re still a Puritan at heart. You surprise me, daughter of a clergyman and widow of an actor. You must realize that we are all in the same profession. We give the people what they want, even if it’s only illusion. I was made in God’s image, as was Jesus Christ, and you’re not so old-fashioned you think he was sexless, do you? With all the female devotees he had? Mary Magdalene, Mary of Bethany—and who’s to say he didn’t sleep with the woman of Samaria?”
I made no attempt to conceal my disgust. “You sound like third-rate porn. Now get out!”
Instead he came at me again. His moist, cold hand caressed my neck, then tightened. I went rigid as the blood began to pound in my neck and temples. A wrong move on my part might make that hand close all the way. “You don’t really want me,” I half-whispered. “You only want to master me.”
“And I will,” he murmured, backing me toward the sofa again.
With a vicious jab I drove my knee into his groin; he doubled over.
“People should know what you are.”
He gave an ugly laugh. “But you won’t tell them, will you? Because they’d never believe you.”
He was right, of course. “Just don’t ever come near me again,” I spat at him. “You—you’re demonic, Lucian.”
“Demonic?” he asked, confused, running his hand over his forehead as if to brush the cobwebs away. “What are you talking about, Mitti?”
The change in him was so abrupt I was caught off guard.
“Rape, Lucian—attempted, that is,” I managed to stammer.
“What?” He stared in disbelief, then smiled pityingly. “Oh, my poor Mitti, I fear you’ve been working too hard. You must get some rest. I might have expected something like that out of Gladys, but you! I trust your hallucinations will soon pass. In the meantime, I promise not to tell anyone.”
He’d done it again!
Chapter Twenty-Five
“…Get in there wi’ ye, woman, and mind ye, dinna waste ’is Honor’s time!”
Sheriff George Corwin ushered me roughly into the court chamber. Since I had sent word that I had a petition to present, I had expected the full panel of judges to be there and had even been so rash as to hope that His Excellency, Governor Sir William Phips, would be present, but only one member of the panel was there—the chief justice of the court of oyer and terminer, Lieutenant Governor William Stoughton. He was clad in a robe of deep maroon velvet, with a collar of fine lace and a narrow linen scarf knotted loosely at his throat. A black velvet skull cap crowned his flowing silver-white hair. How vast the difference between our stations! How had I once aspired to be the wife of such an aristocrat?
Though surely I hadn’t been in such low estate then as now, with my homespun gown grimed and torn, and my wrists and ankles fettered. Still, I had done my best to tidy my hair and Bered had brought me a fresh cap.
The justice dismissed the sheriff with a curt nod, then contemplated me with solemn, deep-set eyes.
“You are surprised to see me here alone?” he asked.
“I had thought Justice Sewall and the others would be here—and the other prisoners, Your Honor.”
“They will be anon, but I wanted to talk to you alone, Mary.”
My heart fluttered. So he remembered me! All during the trial he had accorded me the same treatment as the others, giving no sign of recognition. After all, he had known Mary Towne, not Mary Esty, and I mun be sore changed. Was’t in his heart to render me mercy? Alas, there was no relenting in the stern countenance.
“Thank you, Your Honor,” I replied, my hands clutching the document over which I had labored so diligently—not in the hope of saving my life, but the lives of those yet to come to trial. Now, in the light of this unexpected turn of events, I dared allow myself a slight glimmer of hope. Mayhap he’d see the truth in what I had written and thus the truth in me. “I have drawn up a petition—”
“Later,” he waved it aside. “I want you to know I’m not insensible to the memory of—to the memory we share. ’Tis with deep sorrow that I see the plight to which your sins have brought you. My prayers for your soul have not been answered.”
“By all that’s holy, I am a Christian and innocent of this crime!” I burst out.
“Mary, Mary,” he groaned; and for the first time I was aware of the struggle going on within him, “do not lie to me. I have the mark of your infamy upon me!” He drew back the sleeve of his robe to display a faint white scar.
“Have ye not been free of smallpox all your life?”
“I hope I was spared through the grace of God, not through the work of the Devil,” he remarked with asperity.
“Nay, Wi… Your Honor, ’tis not the mark o’ Satan. ’Tis a thing o’ nature and comes from God, though I know not how it works.”
His mouth drooped. “The apple which Eve gave to Adam was a thing of nature, but it was evil. But let us to the point. I plead with you to confess your sins and be received back into the fold. I like not to sign your death warrant, Mary.”
“I cannot confess to a lie! Better you condemn me to hang than God condemn my immortal soul,” I cried.
He dropped his head in his hands, then looked up at me again, his face drawn taut. “Thou art beautiful yet, Mary.” He’d fallen into the old form of address. “I had not thought to find thee so after all these years. And thine eyes are innocent as a newborn lamb’s. Oh, God,” he groaned, ramming his fist down on the table, “how artfully the Fiend disguises his own.” He rang a small silver bell. “I have done what I could. Bring in the prisoners, sheriff,” he said as Corwin stuck his head through the door.
As the accused filed in, Justice Samuel Sewall and the rest of the court entered by another door and took their places on either side of Stoughton. Dorcas stood just a bit in front of the other prisoners, her head high and defiance in her eyes.
“You have a statement you wish to make to the court, Goody Hoar?” the chief justice asked.
“Aye, Your Honour,” curtseying. “I wish to turn from my sinful ways. I
’ave ne’er signed the Devil’s book, but I confess I ’ave oft danced with the coven in the minister’s meadow, as she,” pointing at me, “can well testify, for she were there, too, dancin’ wi’ the Black Man and a-suckin’ his pizzle.”
“She lies!” I gasped. I was seeing a white hand wrestling my arm to the ground.
Stoughton brought down his gavel. “Be silent, woman!”
The irons cut into my wrists as Corwin jerked me back.
“Can you pay for the food the state has furnished you in prison?” Sewall asked her.
“Aye, that I can. I pray for a little time to lead a life o’ good deeds and penance,” she replied with cloying humility.
Stoughton brought down his gavel again. “Then let this woman be released when she has paid the proper indemnities.” I was shaking with outrage. How could he believe her lies and turn his back on my innocence? Had our love been for nought?
“And now, Goody Esty,” he addressed me coldly, “you have a petition you wish read to the court?”
“One moment!” The Reverend Samuel Parris had risen in the courtroom. “Do we grant a hearing to a convicted witch?”
The chief justice threw him a saturnine glance. “Why yes, Mr. Parris, we must not deny any one of these miserable creatures a last chance for repentance.”
“Thank you, Your Honour,” I whispered, barely able to control my voice. I lifted the paper with difficulty, weighted down as my arms were by the shackles, and began to read: “The humbl petition of Mary Eastick unto his Excellencyes, Sr Wm Phipps and to the honourd Judge and Bench now Stting in Ju—Judicature,” my tongue stumbled over the word, “in Salem and the Reverend ministers humbly sheweth:
“That whereas your poor and humble Petitioner being condemned to die Doe humbly begg of you to take it in your Judicious and pious considerations that your Poor and humble petitioner, knowing my own Innocencye, Blised be the Lord for it, and,” looking at Dorcas, “seeing plainly the wiles and subtility of my accusers, by myselfe cannot but Judg charitably of others that are going ye same way of myselfe if the Lord stepps not mightily in. I was confined a whole month upon the same account that I am condemned now for and then cleared by the afflicted persons as some of Your Honours know and in two dayes time I was cryed out upon by them and have been confined and now am condemned to die. The Lord above knows my Innocencye then and likewise does now, as att the great day will be known to men and Angells—I Petition to Your Honours not for my own life, for I know I must die and my appointed time is sett,” gazing straight at Stoughton, “but the Lord he knowes it is that if it be possible no more Innocent blood may be shed which undoubtidly cannot be Avoyded in the way and course you go in. I question not but Your Honours doe to the uttmost of your Power in the discovery and Selecting of witchcraft and witches and would not be gulty of Innocent blood for the world but by my oun Innocencye I know you are in the wrong way. The Lord in his infinite mercye direct you in this great work if it be his blessed will that no more Innocent blood be shed. I would humbly begg of you that Your Honours would be pleased to examine theis Aflicted Persons strictly and keep them apart some time and likewise to try some of these confessing wiches,” with a glance toward Dorcas, “I being confident there is severall of them has belyed themselves and others, as will appeare, if not in this world, I am sure in the world to come, whither I am now agoing and I Question not but youle see an alteration of theis things. They say myselfe and others having made a League with the Divel, we cannot confesse. I know, and the Lord knows, as will shortly appeare, they belye me and so I Question not but they Doe others. The Lord above, who is the Searcher of all hearts, knowes that as I shall answer it at the Tribunall seat that I know not the least thinge of witchcraft, therefore I cannot, I dare not belye my own soule.
I beg you Honours not to deny this my humble petition from a poor dying innocent person and I Question not but the Lord will give a blessing to yor endevers.”
Before I finished, the afflicted girls had come in and now…
Rowan ran to me and threw white powder in my eyes. Gregory Towne rose from the judge’s bench. “Petition denied!” he roared. He held out his arm to Dorcas—no, Iris—and they waltzed out of the room as he shouted “Petition denied… Petition denied…
* * * *
It was past noon when I awoke, the weight of the irons still on my wrists. Dana had taken Cariad to her house so I could catch up on the sleep I’d lost after Lucian’s visit the night before. I dressed and went over to pick her up. When the ancient brass knocker failed to bring an answer, I shoved the door open and walked in.
The wooden floors reverberated under my feet as I went from room to room. Unwashed luncheon dishes in the sink loomed ominously—Dana was meticulous about such things. I opened the door to the cellar, but it was completely dark. After finding the bedrooms on the second floor empty, I remembered the secret room that could be reached only by a hidden stair leading out of the back parlor. I retraced my steps and opened the cupboard door in the chimney, which was supposed to be a storage place for wood, but, as in Hawthorne’s house, had a false back, beyond which were rickety, hand-hewn steps leading to the upper room. Something caught at my hair.
I darted back, then laughed—shakily—as I lifted a gray kitten down from the mantel. “Phantom, you imp!” I scolded and set him down near the battered ball of yarn that was his plaything.
At the top of the stairs, I knocked at the heavy door, reluctant to simply walk in. Dana had never invited me up here so I had no desire to violate her privacy, but when there was no answer, I turned the knob and entered. The only light in the room came from one small, diamond-paned window, and at first I thought the chamber was empty, but then with a start I saw Dana kneeling at a low altar that was draped in fine, dun-colored buckskin, beaded and fringed. A fur pouch, handsomely trimmed with quillwork, lay on the top, at either end of which was a low-burning candle. Above, on the wall, hung a natural crucifix of a gnarled branch that had grown over another to form a cross with the twisted torso of a crucified man. Next to that was a large turtle shell decorated with designs done in red clay—a Mandan totem, I remembered.
Dana took no notice of my entrance, but continued to move her lips soundlessly over a small clay figure in her hand—Alison staring up at me in miniature! Strands of gray hair sprouting from the top of the head were fashioned into a figure eight at the back of the neck. Draped loosely about the body was a flowing silk caftan of Moorish design in shades of blue, red, and gold on a white background, made from a swatch of the material used in a real caftan Dana had sewn for Alison. I groped for the wall to steady myself, in that moment of shock my mind reverting to the stereotype of witch, which connoted only evil. Was Dana a witch draining Alison’s life away? Was she behind the phone calls? Had she made the wax image of me? It was there, too, on a shelf, wrapped in plastic. And where was Cariad?
Still, Dana seemed not to be praying to the doll, but for it, or for the woman it represented. She raised her eyes to the rough crucifix, pulled back her blouse from her shoulder and uttered a hoarse cry that made me reel to my knees. Red flames leaping from Alison’s image entered Dana’s body with such a jolt that she fell backward. An ugly red mark spread its tentacles across her bare shoulder just above the left breast, growing darker until it was almost black. Just as quickly it was gone. Dana lay still a moment, then sat up slowly, seeing me for the first time.
“I—I didn’t mean to intrude,” I stammered. “I was looking for Cariad and couldn’t find anybody.”
“It is no matter,” she said brusquely, buttoning her blouse. Then, anxiously, “You won’t tell, will you? If people here were to know I could not finish what I have started to do.”
“Just what is that?” I wasn’t sure I wanted her to finish either. “And where is my baby?”
I had to steel myself against the hurt in her eyes as she answered simply,
“Dr. Brun took her and Mother Carrier for a drive. They should be back soon. As for this”—she picked up the miniature Alison—“I cannot talk about it even to you. I only beg you to trust me—not to betray me.”
I was confused and appalled to find her practicing anything so primitive as image magic. She saw my hesitation. “It is not as you think,” she assured me. “The poppet has no power. It only helps me to visualize as I meditate.”
“Why have you kept the one of me?”
“Because whoever made it wanted it destroyed and wanted to destroy you.”
I shook my head. “How can an intelligent woman like you believe that the destruction of a doll could affect me?”
“The doll is nothing,” she answered. “It is only a lump of wax. It is their belief in it—their hate—that I fear. But I have another reason for keeping it—as evidence in case we find out who’s making the calls.” She still read doubt in my face. “As you can see, the workmanship in the two dolls is very different.”
It was a good point. Dana’s workmanship was superior.
“But—about Alison—” I began, still unconvinced.
She gripped my arm. “Already Alison is healing. But no one must know of this. Will you keep my secret?”
I nodded numbly as the front door banged, announcing the return of Dr. Brun and the others.
“Will you stay?” she asked.
I told her I must meet Rowan when she returned from school.
Cari was fast asleep when I took her from Dr. Brun’s arms. As I walked home I wondered if Dr. Brun had ever been up in Dana’s chapel and if so, what he thought of it. But I couldn’t ask him. I had given my word.
The Witch and Warlock MEGAPACK ®: 25 Tales of Magic-Users Page 32