Teresa Medeiros (4 page)

As he reached for her, Arian turned her face away, her skin crawling at the prospect of his touch.

“I need you, Arian,” he whispered hoarsely. “I’ve searched the world over for you.”

She gasped with shock as he plunged his hand into her bodice. It reappeared clutching the emerald amulet. He snapped the chain with a single vicious twist, then cradled the emerald in his palm, his eyes inscrutable.

Arian snatched for it. “Give that back, you wretch! You’ve no right!”

He dangled it just out of her reach, his eyes sparkling with dark mischief. “You shan’t fly away from me, little witch.” Dropping the amulet into his pocket, he pulled open the door. “Don’t fret, Miss Whitewood. You’ll only hang if the mob doesn’t take you first.”

The door slammed in her face. Arian gazed at it, despair dampening her fury. By stealing the amulet, she feared he had robbed her of any hope of escape.

“What be yer tumble crime, lassie?” came a voice from the corner.

Arian started, having forgotten she was not alone. She slid down the wall, propped her elbows on her knees, and buried her chin in her trembling hands. “I went flying during a full moon.”

Arian stood on the parapets of a majestic tower, wearing shimmering white robes and waving to her adoring minions. They lifted their voices in praise to her beauty and prowess as an enchantress. As she tossed them a gracious kiss, their chorus of adulation swelled to a mighty roar
.

“Kill the witch!”

Arian’s eyes snapped open as the dream vanished. The thunder of approaching footsteps shook the tiny shed. She sprang to her feet, ignoring the protests of muscles cramped from being curled into a protective ball since Linnet had slammed the door on her hopes several hours before.

The door flew open. Two men appeared, their burly shoulders silhouetted against the moonlight. Arian choked back a scream of pure terror. As they grabbed her arms and shoved her through the door, she caught a glimpse of a tiny figure slipping away into the night.

The men dragged her through the narrow streets to the roared encouragement of the mob. A spiteful jerk of her hair brought tears stinging to her eyes. She blinked them away only to catch a glimpse of Goody Hubbins’s twisted face. Her feet skidded in futile rebellion as they abandoned the village for the countryside, exchanging the briny scent of the sea for the oppressive threat of an approaching storm. Without warning, Arian was flung to her stomach in the dew-soaked grass.

“Fly away now, stubborn witch!” hissed a voice above her.

Arian slowly lifted her throbbing head. A pair of buckled shoes sprawled arrogantly in the grass, only inches from her nose. Shaking off the arms that bound her, she scrambled to her feet to face Linnet. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up as if he were prepared to do nothing less than the work of God. Dread crept through Arian as she recognized the black chasm slicing through the night behind him.

“Bring a torch,” he commanded. “Let us put this witch to the test.”

Arian’s fury infused her with daring. She grasped Linnet’s starched collar and jerked him down to her eye level. “What have you done with my stepfather? He would never have allowed this.”

Linnet caught her wrists, squeezing them until
pain forced her to loosen her grip. “He’s on his way to Boston to fetch a magistrate for your trial.”

“Why, you treacherous bas—”

“Bind her,” he instructed.

A boy twisted a length of rope around her hands while another man knelt to tie her feet.

Linnet leapt to a rock, torch in hand. An uneasy hush fell over the mob. “You are all familiar with the validity of the water ordeal. We throw the girl into the pond. If she floats, Satan has saved her. If she sinks, she is innocent.”

“And drowned before you imbeciles are quick enough to pronounce it,” Arian cried, struggling against her bonds.

“Silence her. She will have her say,” Linnet commanded. The boy clamped a sweaty palm over her mouth. Arian tried not to gag. “The girl’s own stepfather came to me with tears in his eyes and confessed she had tried to murder him by dropping a candlestick on his head while he prayed for her immortal soul.”

The crowd gasped with horror.

Linnet’s voice rose. “But the candlestick that almost deprived the devout Goodman of his life was not wielded by human hands. Indeed, it danced in the air of its own volition while this harlot of Satan laughed with pleasure.”

Goodwife Burke shrieked and fainted into her husband’s arms. Arian rolled her eyes in disgust and sank her teeth deep into the boy’s hand. He yelped and pushed her away, but before she could flee, Linnet sprang off the rock and wrapped an arm around her waist.

His breath scorched her ear as he cried, “Speak, witch! Say what you may in your defense! Deny that these devil’s toys belong to you.”

Arian watched helplessly as several women paraded past, displaying her vials, her moth-eaten ledger, the precious herbs she’d spent years foraging for in the
forest. Last of all came Goody Hubbins, triumphantly waving the willow broom.

“I witnessed the woman riding astride this devil’s device with my own eyes,” Linnet shouted. “Sailing across the moon to rendezvous with her master.”

A man shouted something about copulating with the devil that set Arian’s cheeks aflame. Jeers and laughter greeted his words. The torches cast menacing shadows over the familiar faces, distorting them into nightmarish fiends. Buffeted by terror, Arian swayed in Linnet’s arms, her consciousness hanging by a slender thread.

He dug his fingers into her shoulders. “Speak, witch! Proclaim your innocence if you dare.”

Arian’s eyes flew open as righteous fury buoyed her sinking courage. Her throaty voice cast a pall of silence over the clearing. “I am no servant of Satan! I am innocent!”

“What of these devil’s tools?” came a cry. “Do you deny they were found in your lair?”

“And what harm are they? A bit of badly written poetry? A hearth broom? An herb I use to season stew?”

A woman waved a cloudy vial in the air. “I know of few enough stews that call for ‘crumbled adder’s tongue,’ nor do I care to.”

Arian waited for the laughter to die, her chin held high. “I practice
white
magic. I am a good witch, not a servant of Satan.”

Several of the villagers exchanged uncertain glances.

Linnet bestowed an indulgent smile upon them. “The church does not recognize white magic. All magic comes from Satan and proclaims the evil of its doer.” Arian smashed his toes with her heel in impotent rage; Linnet pinched her sharply.

If she ever intended to put her faith in her own talents, now was the time, Arian thought grimly, relaxing against Linnet’s chest in apparent surrender.

“This is your last chance,
ma chérie,”
he whispered. She stiffened with surprise as he slipped into her native French without so much as a stammer. “If you’ll commit yourself into my hands, the two of us can rule this pathetic little world together.” Returning his attention to the crowd and his language to clipped English, he asked, “Have you anything more compelling to say in your defense, Miss Whitewood?”

Arian knew Linnet was giving her one last chance. One last chance to denounce her magic and surrender herself into his hands. One last chance to sell her soul to a devil more cunning than any cloven-hooved monster feared by these villagers.

“Aye, I have something more compelling to say,” she cried boldly. “Time halts but keeps on flowing. The winds cease but keep on blowing.”

A blast of hot wind whipped through the clearing.

“Love hates but keeps on growing,” Arian screamed, fighting the crippling fear that without the amulet, she had no chance of success. Even her fanciful grandmama had never done more than dabble with herbs and indulge in wishful thinking.

Linnet tossed his torch to a nearby man and dragged her through the high grass toward the murky pond. Arian’s voice rose to a shriek.

The wind gathered force, whipping her hair across her face. A clap of thunder sounded. Lightning sizzled across the sky. Goody Hubbins hurled the broom into the pond, then fell to her knees, covering her ears with her hands.

Arian drew in a last frantic breath as Linnet lifted her up the steep embankment and shoved her into the chill water. She sank like a rock. Her hands twitched
against her bonds. She kicked off her heavy shoes, her legs tangling around the broomstick in a desperate search for stability. She fought to remember the rest of the spell before her lungs exploded.

Oh, yes. The ingredients.
With hellebore and eye of newt, belladonna and ginger root, griffin’s claw and ash and soot
. But there were no griffins in Gloucester, Arian thought dolefully. As far as she knew, there were no griffins anywhere except in that ridiculous fairy book. And “soot” didn’t really rhyme with “newt” or “root,” did it?

She was sinking, fighting against the primal urge to open her mouth and seize a breath.

If only … she thought.

If only Linnet had never witnessed her inauspicious flight …

If only Marcus had loved her enough to trust her …

As if in a distant dream, she heard Linnet’s enraged bellow and old Becca’s lilting words, “Ye be a bonny witch and I be a bonny thief. Ye take yer charm, lass. It rightly belongs to ye.”

A splash echoed in her roaring ears with hollow finality. The emerald amulet floated past her eyes and drifted behind her. She caught the chain, clutching at it with rapidly numbing fingers.

If only …

Her mouth opened of its own volition, gasping for air, but finding only water.

Arian prayed every prayer she could remember, both Catholic and Puritan, but unconsciousness eluded her. The pressure swelled. Water strangled the air from her lungs, the blood from her veins, the marrow from her bones. Her knees rammed into her chest with a heart-stopping jolt. She hurtled forward, the dizzying motion spinning her end over end until she feared her neck would surely snap.

The pressure worsened for one endless moment. Then the earsplitting roar of shattering glass surrounded her. The impact severed her bonds, setting her free. Free to breathe. Free to wrap her fingers around the dear, familiar shaft of the broomstick. Free to soar.

Arian opened her eyes to find herself astride the broom, sailing high above a patchy skein of clouds. The amulet’s chain was still wrapped around her tingling fingers. The skirts of her dress flapped behind her, drying rapidly in the brisk wind. The inky blackness of night had faded to the mellow glow of morning. Her relief at discovering she was still alive was so keen that for a
moment she forgot to be afraid. She whooped with triumph, relishing the music of her voice before it could be snatched away by the gusty breeze.

The broom angled downward, parting the clouds to reveal a looming expanse of land and water. Had Arian’s knees not been clamped around the broomstick, they would have knocked together in terror.

The stony Massachusetts countryside had vanished. In its place was a vast bulwark of towers stretching to the water’s edge.

“Oh, dear Lord, I am dead,” Arian muttered, frowning in disappointment.

The monstrous glass-and-steel structures did not at all resemble the pearly gates of heaven she had so optimistically envisioned. Far, far below, a multitude of little yellow wagons went creeping along a web of tangled byways.

Arian slammed her eyes shut and tightened her death grip on the broomstick, rendered both giddy and dizzy by the inconceivable height. If, perchance, she was wrong about her mortal status and took a dive similar to the one she’d taken in the clearing, the broom would be of little use except to sweep up her pulverized bones.

The broom listed hard to the right. Arian’s eyes flew open and she found herself heading straight for the mouth of a fat chimney. Squealing with alarm, she jerked up on the stick only to be enveloped by a cloud of smoke.

She emerged from the sallow fog coughing violently and batting at the air with her free hand. It seemed there was little she could do to correct the broom’s course. It persisted in heading straight for one of the tallest towers, a shimmering structure that insinuated itself like a sleek needle into the fabric of the sky.

Mustering her courage, Arian jerked a crude knot in the chain and slipped the amulet over her head before tossing back her damp hair in a manner she deemed suitable for a flying enchantress. Whether she was to be
greeted at her final destination by Saint Peter or Beelzebub, she refused to arrive a quivering mass of terror.

But that was five seconds before she realized the bristles of her broom were on fire and ten seconds before the dragon swooped out of the clouds and descended upon her with a mighty roar.

Copperfield was forced to shout over the deafening thunder of the helicopters buzzing the walled acre of grass Lennox Tower modestly called a courtyard. “Are you happy now, Tristan? You’ve got yourself a bona fide media circus and you’re the only ringmaster in town.”

From his leather chair behind the conference table on the stage, Tristan drew a dark slash through another name and called out, “Next.”