Bound In Blood (The Adams' Witch Series Book 1) (17 page)

In the bathroom, I searched my reflection in the mirror one last time.

Branded.

Branded for what? By whom? I didn’t know. Somebody thought they could mess with me though. I felt like a cow with one of those plastic earrings that said who they belonged to. My sooty forehead marked me as someone’s. Now I needed to find out who thought they owned me.

I splashed water on my face and the mark easily came off, black smears cascading down the sink and into the drain. I kept scrubbing. I still felt like it was there, like the symbol held onto me. When I finally finished, the ash left dark smudges in the sink and I gave myself a pink, blotchy forehead to match my pink, blotchy eyes.

I stopped halfway through the bathroom threshold, the friendly cop’s voice drifted over to me. “Don’t you think we oughtta ask——?”

“Who? Courtney James?” Another officer stood partially hidden by shelves.

The nice cop turned my way. I drew back into the shadows.

“Yeah.”

“Why?” the other asked, acting as if the nice policeman was stupid.

“It looks like a Wiccan symbol to me.”

“Please. She’s from out of town, right? Someone played a joke on her. We don’t have time for this crap with the festival going on. File it away."

My heart kickstarted. They weren’t going to do anything. Again.

It was all up to me then. My first step? Find Courtney James, High Priestess of the local coven.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Isabella

1639

Again, Isabella sought the warmth.

The cold encased her, leaving her shrouded as if she sank deep into the frozen earth. The fire licked out again, calling her and her pace quickened through the forest floor.

As she was about to step through the clearing, a voice drifted to her. In melody, the woman sang, “
Do you think it wise, child of your heart? They can see you with their eyes, you will soon part. And not together they will take you. They despise like the plague and you will wonder, but he scorns you, no matter his conscience to beg.”

Mother Shipton turned. Isabella knew it was her before she saw the long nose and the dark slats for eyes. The woman walked forward and did not hesitate at the fire. She walked through it, the flames bowing out around her, not catching at her clothes, and came through on the other side just how she looked before, a smile playing on her lips. “I do not burn, but you will."

Isabella’s whole body shook, her shoulders heaved forward and backward until soon the movement roused her.

Thomas stood over her in bed. The breeze from the open window blasted her face, her sweat cooled as it dried on her head, arms, and neck. “Wake, Isabella. We must go.”

“Mrs. Shipton?”

“No. Isabella, we have to go. Now.” He flipped her sheets down.

“Go? Go where?”

“My father has forsaken me. He will not grant us our marriage.”

“He said—”

“It does not matter what he said. It only matters what he says now. Come! Grab as few belongings as possible. I have got my best horse and we will leave this place.”

“Leave my family? My home?”

“‘Tis the only way we can be together.”

Isabella clutched her bed sheets. “My father will talk to him. I am sure he can be appealed to.”

“My father will have none of it. He thinks I have made a bad choice in you.”

Isabella stared through tear-glistened eyes. “Have I done something to offend him?”

“‘Tis only your lack of wealth that offends him. Now grab as little as possible.”

“But how will we live?”
And you will wonder, but he scorns you.

“Does it matter?” Thomas took up her hand and forced it around his body. He bent over and kissed her with all the excitement and hurry moving from his lips to hers. He pulled at her waist and she gathered the folds of his shirt at his back in her hands. He pulled away a little, their foreheads touching. “We will have one another. Now make haste!”

He spurred her to move. She threw the blankets all the way off and moved about the room. She went first to the desk for her journal and then to the floorboards for Thomas’ letters and placed them inside the leather book. Thomas opened his sack and Isabella tossed them inside. She grabbed a smock and petticoat and put it on over her nightgown and then placed another set in Thomas' bag. Finished, she looked at Thomas, her eyes wide. “Where are we to go?”

“To my uncle’s first, before my father realizes I have gone. Then we will leave, find a place to live as husband and wife.” He kissed her again and went to the window. Thomas threw the sack out first and then followed it before reaching back for Isabella.

The door to her room thudded open on its hinges. Her mother stood there, mouth hung open at the sight before her. Fear riddled her eyes.

“Mother—?”

“They have come,” she shouted. She looked down to Thomas who still held out his hands for Isabella. “To the barn.”

“Mother?”

Mrs. Lynne came forward and grasped her daughter’s hands. “Now.”

“I have a horse,” Thomas said. “It will be faster.”

Mrs. Lynne nodded.

Isabella turned and Thomas pulled her through the window. “We love you, Child,” her mother said before her scream interrupted the hushed bedroom.

Isabella looked back to see her mother falling to the floor, tackled by Mr. Austen. She writhed, her legs kicking out, but he clasped her steady.

Thomas lifted Isabella from the window before they were spied and toward his horse. After a few steps, he halted. Isabella ran into him from behind, her gaze still lost in her mother’s fight.

Isabella whirled around and once again, her fearful eyes lay upon Mr. Ludington.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Sarah

The horn beeped when I locked the SUV after cornering into a tiny parking space by the statue of the first settler. I glanced up at the tall, gray stone. I’d seen many in the small towns where I stopped to rest on my way to Virginia. Most of them were military statues marked with old soldiers in uniforms holding rifles. This monument was a guy in trousers and a work shirt, a regular person settling this piece of new land.

His eyes were creepy, haunted. Unlike the other statues, which stared off at nothing, too high to be staring at any one person, this one’s eyes followed you. I walked to the end of the grassy area, still keeping my eyes on him, and he watched me too. The entire way.

I turned around and stood right in front of him. He looked at me still in that disturbing way. He probably came here to start a new life whereas I came here to find mine.

An engraving on the statue bolded his last name—C. C something. The rest was gutted out, like someone had picked away at it. I searched around the base for a big fallen chunk. There wasn’t one. On the opposite side, face down in the grass, I found a white paper that read, "Excuse our mess! We’re renovating!”

What the heck did they need to renovate? His last name was his last name. It wasn’t like names changed, like history somehow alters itself from time to time.

I shook my head and walked away.
Crazies.

The festival was crowded and just as alive as ever. It was a wonder these people didn’t have jobs they had to go to or other things to do besides spending all their time at the festival.

The stage area was now turned into a viewing space for the Joan of Arc movie. Dogs and kids all ran around the park while their parents sat on blankets or fold-out campy chairs and watched the actors on screen complete with popcorn, soda, and cotton candy.

I spotted Drake over by the food stands. He looked at me too, but I turned and walked the other way, not even waiting to see if he’d try to talk to me. Or what he’d do.

I was right. He was wrong. End of story.

I moved toward the booths and spotted Courtney. A guy stood and talked to her. I recognized him as one of the freaks with the robe whose eyes turned white at the Wiccan meeting. He saw me coming before Courtney did and his face turned hard.

I should’ve been the one that was pissed off. Normal people didn’t roll their eyes in the back of their heads and laser beam weird symbols at others.

I put on a polite smile anyway. “Hey guys.”

“Hi,” Courtney said, the chipper voice of hers mounting. “What are you up to?”

“I came to ask you a question actually. If you don’t mind.”

Courtney nodded at the boy and he walked away. It must be nice to have people do whatever you wanted them to with just a nod. If that worked, I would nod my mother a new freaking attitude. Or nod me a reason to not be scared of all this symbol crap anymore.

“What can I help you with? Did you enjoy the meeting so much you’re dying to come to another one?”

Her face screamed nice at me, making me want to vomit. I snickered. “Are you really that hard up for more witches?”

Courtney shrugged. “A few of us are graduating this year and moving on to college. It’s hard to have a coven if there are only a few.”

I didn’t join in her lament. If she would’ve asked me, I would tell her this town could deal with a few less witches. The only thing I wanted from her was the meaning behind the damn symbol. “Listen, Courtney, I was hoping you could help me out with something.”

The young witch lifted her eyebrows. “What is it?”

“I’m not sure if I told you the other day. I’ve been kind of looking into my dad’s death while I’m here.”

“Your dad? Why?”

“Well, just because my mom’s pretty much an epic failure at everything and I never knew any details. I’m just curious, you know?"

“David Perkins, right?”

My heart slammed once in my chest. “Yeah. So you’ve heard the story?”

Courtney’s short choppy hair ruffled in the wind. The undersides of her hair stood, the white of her scalp gleaming in the sunlight, making her dark hair seem black. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to start poking around, Sarah.”

“Huh?”

She stood up straight, chin lifting. “I just mean, wouldn’t you rather remember him as he was, not how he died?”

So sick of people acting as if it was stupid to want to learn more about my dad, I squelched my original instinct to slap her. “I don’t remember anything about him.”

Like a seesaw, Courtney’s whole body lifted from her tense, rigid frame. “Okay… So what do you want from me then?”

My throat constricted. I cleared it even though I knew it would still sound tight when it came out. I also knew I wasn’t going to get anywhere by being nasty. “There’s this symbol I keep seeing around. It’s really weird, makes me feel funny…scared even.”

She turned her back and rearranged the sale items at her family’s booth. “You already asked me about this symbol, didn’t you?"

“Yes. But I think you lied to me before…when I asked you about it.”

She twisted back around and drew the shape in the air with her finger. “The sharp lines with the circle around it, right?”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t lie to you before. It’s just that the relic is none of your business.”

I stepped back, opening my mouth to speak. No words flowed.

“I’m not trying to be mean,” Courtney insisted. “That symbol is sacred to the Wiccan religion. It’s often used for us by people who do not understand us.” She fanned through a deck of tarot cards arranged on the table and turned back to me.

This was interesting. Every time I asked her about the symbol, she got twitchy. “Why do you get nervous when I ask you—?”

“I don’t know, Sarah. Why do you?” Courtney shook her head and stepped away, maneuvering the crystals and Bohemian jewelry around the little table. "Are you a Jesus freak or something? Do you keep bringing up this symbol because you’re trying to tell me that being a Wiccan is bad? That I’m going to hell? Because you have no idea what you're talking about.”

I laughed. “Whoa. Calm down, Courtney. I have no idea what you’re talking about. No, I am far from being a Jesus freak. The closest I’ve ever been to one is when they stand on the corner by my coffee shop and yell at me that I’m a sinner and I’m going to hell once judgment day comes.”

Courtney stared until I stopped laughing. I couldn’t help it. The image of me taunting somebody over religion was hysterical.

“So you really don’t know what the symbol means?”

“No. I just keep seeing it everywhere.”

Courtney slid her eyes from me. “Just because we’re Pagans, doesn’t mean we worship the devil.”

After a few seconds, I said, “Okay…you want to elaborate on that a little for me?”

“Historically, the symbol you keep mentioning was a symbol for the devil, but as Paganism evolved, now, it means changes. The changes we see in everything all around us.”

“Changes?”

“Uh huh.” Courtney nodded. “Changes. That’s it."