Here is a short excerpt to whet your appetite:
I gathered
my dark wool cloak around me and pulled the hood up before heading away from
the gruesome scene. I didn’t want to take the chance of being noticed by those
searching for others to execute. The town square was filled with gawkers, young
and old, who had come to see Nettie hang.
I could hear them even now, their cries of ‘death to the witch!’ making
me feel sick. According to the court’s findings, Nettie was doing the devil’s
work.
She still
hung suspended, her swan-like neck broken, long blonde hair in filthy tangles
down her back from the time she spent in the dungeon, her body limp and
swinging. I ran, only pausing before the bridge to catch my breath, wondering
if my stomach would turn on me, but the feeling subsided.
If they wanted
a real witch they should have picked me. If they knew I was able to travel
through time I would have been burned or hung along with her. But I’d taken
care to stay out of sight as much as I could. As it was they had chosen the sweetest most
innocent person I’d ever come across, a young woman who wouldn’t hurt a fly. If
she hadn’t been associating with the likes of me this never would have come
about. I swept away tears with my sleeve and started across the bridge, but
when I was half way across a hand clamped down on my shoulder.
“Emeline
Chase, why are you here?”
Over my
shoulder I stared into the face of Nettie’s original accuser, now my neighbor,
Jonas Hale. He was the one who’d reported her to the authorities and kept up
with his accusations until she was tried and found guilty. Nettie had done
nothing but show me how to turn herbs into oils, the pungent odor of these
bringing Jonas running from his house a mile away. He was sure we were brewing up
some kind of potions, his cry of “witch!” carrying on the wind and bringing
others to our door. When Nettie was dragged away I begged and pleaded with the
ones who took her, but their stares of hatred made my blood run cold.
His skin
was florid as though he’d been running, probably to catch me. He was overweight
and probably forty years of age, his fine waistcoat straining over his
protruding stomach. I shook free and faced him. “You bear all the
responsibility for killing an innocent young woman.”
He let out
a low laugh. “I only took her to the court, nothing more. She had the mark of
the devil on her cheek. We both know who the real culprit is though, do we not?
I had hoped you would come forward to save her, but instead you decided to save
yourself.”
“Why did
you never accuse me, then?”
His piggy eyes
narrowed even further. “I have told them of how you vanish as though taken by
the wind and then return dressed in odd clothing, and yet they never come for
you. Why is this, Emeline?”
I stared at
him, surprised that he’d actually seen me disappear. I’d been sure my comings
and goings from the twenty-first century were done in secret. This was not
good. “I merely came here to see if there was a way to save an innocent woman.
You hang the ones who never did a thing wrong. Look to your own kind if you
want to find evil. I hate you and all
you stand for.”
“Remember,
Emeline, it was Goody Putnam who gave Nettie away, not I. Hate me all you want,
but I will eventually bring you to justice. You and the others.”
“What
others?” When I shook my head my hood feel back, revealing my dark hair filled
with red streaks. But that was not where his focus had gone. The breeze had
come up, blowing the thick bangs off my forehead and revealing the tiny blue
spiral tattoo.
Jonas’s
eyes went wide and he crossed himself. “You bear the mark of the devil,” he
hissed, backing away. “Be assured you will come to justice.”
I laughed
and hurried across the bridge, leaving him to his religious nonsense.
