Winds of Salem (36 page)

Odin smirked. “I try to be fair.”

“But that’s not the whole story, is it, old friend?” said Norman. “This is about you and me, isn’t it?”

“Why I suppose it is, Nord.”

Freddie looked to Odin, then his father. “What’s going on? You’ve lost me, Dad.”

“An old grudge. It’s all very petty, really,” Norman said. “Odin didn’t lose his eye for Frigg’s hand, nor did he give it up to gain wisdom. Since as you can see he has none. No. This is a personal story…”

A long time ago, at the dawn of the worlds, Nord, god of the sea, fished along the shores of Asgard. There on the beach, he
spied a goddess more beautiful than the sun. She had fallen asleep in the sand in the shade of a large rock: Joanna, or Skadi, the goddess of earth, mother goddess. No sooner had Nord laid eyes on her than he knew she would be his immortal mate, his love for all eternity. And when she looked at him he knew she felt the same.

But another had already claimed her, not just another god but the very ruler of Asgard, Odin himself. When Odin learned he had a rival, he challenged Nord to a duel. As immortals, the object was to deprive the other of something vital. He who did so would win the goddess’s hand.

It was a fair fight, and Odin lost his eye to Nord, who won both the battle and the goddess.

Norman stepped forward, unfurling his fisherman’s black net. “I’m sorry I won her hand, Odin old pal, but really—destroying the bridge? Destroying my family?” Norman said. “It stops here. It stops now.”

“It’s too late,” returned Odin. “Your daughter is dead.” He smiled, studying his sword. “Her sister and my insubordinate sons, Bran and Killian, will join her in the underworld soon enough, along with your silly wife, while you and your own recalcitrant son rot in this abyss.”

“Val!” ordered Norman.

Val lifted a mirror, catching the light, directing it into Odin’s one good but sensitive eye, so that the god had to crouch and lift his hands to protect his sight.

Odin screamed and fell to the ground.

“I believe this is ours,” Norman said, taking Freddie’s trident and wrapping his rival in the fishing net.

chapter fifty-two

Goose Chasing

By the time Ingrid and Troy arrived at the jailhouse in Boston, Freya, Nate, and James were long gone.

“Looking for them, are you?” the gaoler asked. “I might know a thing or two as to their whereabouts,” he said with an expectant look.

Ingrid nudged Troy, who removed a velvet pouch of gold. Troy glared at the shifty-looking man as he placed it in his palm.

The gaoler, his tongue finally loosened, informed them that an examination of three prisoners had been conducted the night before in Boston at a private home of a magistrate, prominent ministers and officials present. The governor himself had been in attendance. Along with two constables, the gaoler had delivered the three accused and remained in the room where the examinations took place to keep an eye on the prisoners, then transport them back to the jailhouse afterward. Thus, the gaoler had overheard all the testimony against the allegedly wicked threesome.

Being of the utmost urgency, these examinations had taken precedence over all others, conducted on that holiest of days, the Sabbath, so that the trio’s trials could be expedited. If enough evidence against them were gathered here, the three would be tried on Monday in the court of oyer and terminer in Salem Village.

The triumvirate, Freya Beauchamp, Nathaniel Brooks, and James Brewster, were believed to be the leaders of the witches in Salem Village, those responsible for spreading bewitchments across New England. Mr. Thomas Putnam had filed the complaints and gone so far as appealing to the governor for speed and vigor in convicting all three. It appeared he had convinced those in the highest positions of authority that the sooner these three were brought to justice, the sooner the blight would reach a swift and conclusive end.

When Ingrid and Troy questioned the man further, he told them that Mr. Thomas Putnam and Reverend Samuel Parris had been present to give depositions. Mrs. Ann Putnam Sr. and the afflicted girls also testified against the lethal three, whom they had witnessed sharing covenant with the Prince of Darkness. Mercy testified that Freya was chiefly responsible for the evil hand besetting the village. Sobbing, the maid confessed she would have denounced her sooner, but she had been silenced with threats of being drowned or decapitated.

With a leer, the gaoler described the rituals the afflicted testified they had been made to endure in the forest outside Salem Village, where they had been given wine for blood to drink and ordered to dance in the moonlight without a stitch of clothing. “Those three are the devil itself,” he said.

When Mercy was brought into the presence of the three accused, she commenced to shake and mumble and toss her head around wildly. The judge requested Mercy to place a hand on Freya Beauchamp, and when she did, the girl’s fits stopped immediately, which meant that the evil had flowed back into the witch. The touch test was solid evidence Freya was guilty as charged.

Once Judge Stoughton had gathered sufficient evidence against the accused, the gaoler brought the trio to the prison in Salem Town. There, they were manacled, chained, and placed in
cells for the night. Today they would be transported to the village to stand trial. This trial would be held at an undisclosed location, kept under wraps so as not to create a stir and keep the village under control.

“Everything Abby said was true, only the examinations had already taken place. She lied to us so we’d leave and not stop the trial,” said Ingrid, deflated. She had believed in Abby’s sympathy, but the little girl was a lying monster.

Troy shook his head as he walked to Courage and gave him a pat on the neck, as even the horse seemed pained by all this.

“We must hurry, perhaps there is time yet.” She mounted the carriage and took a seat, fixing her skirts.

Troy climbed in beside her. They decided the next best course of action would be to head straight to Salem Town, where they would attempt to buy Freya’s freedom. They planned to tell Mr. Putnam he could keep Mr. Brooks’s money, and more besides. The sun had already begun to dip, flooding the cobblestone street with a golden light. By now, the secret trial in the village was long over. All three would have been found guilty. They would most likely be back at the Salem Town prison to be held there until the next hanging at Gallows Hill.

Troy shook the reins, and Courage took off at a trot. “So, if I gather correctly,” he said, “as we were driving into Salem Village from Salem Town this morning, the three accused were being shuttled along that same road. But were they ahead of us or behind us? Do you think they could have already been in the village when we arrived?”

In her mind’s eye, Ingrid combed through the events of their arrival in the village. The atmosphere had certainly been bizarre. She remembered how Mercy and Abby had suddenly crept on them. In hindsight, it was clear the girls had been antsy and looking for a way to get them to leave. They had glanced out
at the entrance of the village several times. They had been so close! They had fallen for Abby’s lies and had gone away.

Ingrid remembered the men coming out of the parsonage: somber, fretting, shifting on their feet, letting the girls talk to her and Troy for a bit. The men had seemed nervous and impatient. She recalled how they had inspected her and Troy but also looked in the direction of the road that led into the village. They must have been waiting for the cart that would be transporting the prisoners back to the village.

By the time she and Troy had returned from checking the woods, the village was a ghost town. By then surely Freya, Nate, and James had already been brought to the secret location for their trial—maybe Mr. Putnam’s house. His farm seemed likely, being on the outskirts, two miles from the center.

They headed toward the Putnam farm. Ingrid worried the pendant at her neck as they drove onward, winding out of Boston. Her thoughts turned to Abby. Why had the girl lied to facilitate this Putnam coup? Somehow Freya had managed to entangle herself with two very angry girls and now was the recipient of their wrath, which coincided perfectly with Thomas Putnam’s agenda.

Troy reached over and squeezed Ingrid’s knee. He smiled—or perhaps it was more a flinch. “We’ll find her, I promise,” he said.

When entering Salem Town, it is impossible not to see Gallows Hill. It rises ominously on the horizon as one swerves into the port along the peninsula that eventually forks into two fingers reaching into Salem Sound. As the carriage approached, beneath a strawberry moon, the dusky sky was tinged pink.

At the hill’s summit, a small crowd had gathered, its dark,
amorphous silhouette shifting slowly. People were tilting their heads upward to watch as a body dangled from the branches of the sprawling oak: a girl whose skirts billowed in the breeze.

Freya Beauchamp was hanged on Monday, June 13, 1692. In the twenty-first century, her name appeared permanently on the pages of history books.

Ingrid screamed as Troy pulled at the reins and Courage neighed, rearing on his hind legs.

chapter fifty-three

The Death of Spring

Freya was dead. She had been hanged in Salem. When she arrived in the underworld she still had a shimmer to her skin, an apricot flush and pinkness in her lips, a bounce in her curls. She ascended to the top floor of the gray skyscraper dressed in the garb she had been hanged in save for her cap, which she had ripped from her head before the noose was slipped over it. She had refused to wear the cotton mask for the hangman. She wanted everyone watching to see her face as she died; she wanted them to be aware of the monstrosity of their crime.

As the elevator rose, she unfastened the bow of her apron, removed her bodice, and stepped out of the heavy skirt and petticoats, kicking all of it into a corner. Smiling, she stood in her plain shift, which she had embroidered herself with colorful flowers. She waited to reach the top floor.

The receptionist pointed to Helda’s office, hardly lifting her gaze. As Freya approached the door, she heard music. She recognized the abrupt changes in the movement’s dynamics, the silvery notes of the violin and cellos, the thrilling crescendo: Vivaldi’s
Four Seasons.
This was “Spring,” her very own concerto, airy but unequivocally sexy and dramatic. She opened the door when no one answered her knock.

The music, louder inside, washed over her.

“Aunt Helda? Hello?” Freya called.

The Vivaldi concerto ended, and the room went silent. Then Freya heard muttering, and someone stepped out of the broom closet.

Freya started. “
Mom?
” she said, stunned. “What are you doing here?” Immediately she understood. Her mother was in the underworld.

A soul for a soul. A life for a life. Death for death. That was the rule of Helda’s book.

“No!” insisted Freya. “You can’t! This is
my
fate!”

Joanna released her sweet girl. She pushed Freya’s curls out of her face, kissed her girl on the cheek, the brow. “It has already been done, darling.” She took Freya by the hand, guiding her to Helda’s desk. She began searching among the stacks of messy papers until she came upon a thick black ledger, whose pithy title read BOOK OF THE DEAD in fading gold leaf. She opened it, ran a finger down the column of latest entries, and pointed to her name engraved on the current line.