Distraction (2 page)

“It is not his genius but rather their ignorance that
has allowed the success of his scheme.”

“Whose scheme?” Alexander’s voice spoke from
behind.

Apparently people were walking without touching the
ground today. I spun around. The motion undid the ties of my
bonnet. “I thought you were buying a horse,” I said quickly to
change the subject.

“I walked all the way out to Farmer’s Martin’s
farmstead only to discover that he and his wife had come to the
village to watch the potential lynching of Goodwife Sellers.”

Without warning, Alexander boldly reached up with
large calloused fingers and tied the bonnet beneath my chin. He
made certain to brush the skin of my neck with his knuckle. Before
he’d released the ends of it, I felt the wave of dark energy roll
over the courtyard and across the road to where we stood.

“Oh dear,” Nonni muttered.

I glanced toward the crowd and my stomach tightened.
Angus’s harsh glare was focused on his victim. Suddenly Alexander’s
chest jerked with a loud hiccough. Another followed. This one
nearly knocked him from his feet. He’d barely caught his breath
when another violent hiccough seized him. Alexander pressed his arm
against his stomach and turned a shade of blue as he held his
breath and attempted to extinguish the relentless onslaught. But it
was to no avail. The poor boy looked a mixture of anguish and
embarrassment as he scurried away.

I scowled back at Angus and reached for Nonni’s hand.
“Do something, Nonni, please.”

She waved her long fingers and mumbled something
under her breath. Alexander straightened and seemed to gain his
composure. Then he picked up a run and raced toward home.

“I hope it will hold,” Nonni said. “Angus’s powers
far exceed mine. It is quite possible the lad will suffer with
hiccoughs for the rest of the evening.”

“Good people of Salem,” Angus’s icy tone penetrated
the warm spring day, “one of our faithful sisters has been
afflicted with the poison of Satan.”

Nonni rolled her eyes. “It’s enough to make one
collapse with laughter. The devil himself preaching about Satan’s
poison. Let’s be on our way, my dears, I’ll be glad to be far from
this place. No doubt the Widow Brooks is anxious for her
tonic.”

“There is only one cure for poor Sister Martha,”
Angus’s voice grew louder as we walked away. “A sturdy noose will
choke the devil’s venom from her.” A cheer rose up from the
crowd.

I stopped. It took Nonni and Mari a few steps to
notice that I no longer walked with them.

Nonni turned back to me. “He is only trying to goad
us into staying. He won’t go through with it.”

“Pardon me, Nonni, but the man tossed Mr. Lockley
into his own well because the pathetic fool had the audacity to
yawn in church. If it had not been for the stench flowing up from
the well, his corpse might still be down there.” I produced my most
pleading expression. “Please, Nonni, only you can stop this.”

She paused a long moment then sighed. “Fine.” She
walked purposefully toward the bloodthirsty onlookers. Angus did
not look pleased.

The crowd fell completely silent as Nonni reached the
churchyard gate. They parted. Nonni walked into the circle and made
a show of examining the prisoner. “Good people of Salem,” her
soothing voice floated around the circle, “I believe this woman
suffers from ingesting rye that has turned bad.”

“We’ve had no bad rye,” Mr. Sellers spoke up. “Why
have I not been afflicted with the same ailment?”

Nonni stepped toward him and, even from the distance
I stood, I could see the man’s face pale. He took a step back.
Nonni said something quietly to him and his face blanched more.
Nonni turned back to the crowd, completely ignoring the black scowl
Angus had showered down on her head. “Let me give her a dose of
stomach tonic.” She lifted her small blue satchel. “I have some
with me. And we will see if she recovers from this episode.”

A murmur went through the crowd and heads nodded in
agreement. My wonderful, magical grandmother had won them over . .
. again.

“Angus looks ready to spit fire,” Mari said
loudly.

“Careful, Mari, he’s liable to hear you and then he
might just follow through with the hanging.”

With her neck in the stocks, Goodwife Sellers managed
to take an awkward sip of Nonni’s tonic. Her hands and head
immediately relaxed as if she’d fallen into a deep, peaceful sleep.
As confidently as Nonni had walked into the circle of spectators,
she walked back out. She reached us and we continued on our journey
to the Brook’s farmstead.

I placed an arm around Nonni’s tiny shoulders. “Well
done, Nonni. I’m curious, what did you tell Mr. Sellers to silence
him?”

“I told him that it was possible he’d been spending
so much time in his
hayloft
he had missed eating the bad
grain.”

The three of us laughed as we skipped along beneath
the rosy pink sky.

It was more than obvious that lonely Widow Brooks had
required company more than a cure for the pain in her head, so
Nonni released us to go home and wash laundry and bake the bread
for supper while she stayed for tea.

“Let’s not go through the village again, Mari. We’ll
take the path through the trees instead.”

Mari groaned. “But it is a longer distance and my
feet are tired.”

“I’ll do all the wash then.”

“All right,” she agreed quickly.

We walked arm in arm through the copse of birch and
hemlock trees that bordered the south side of the village. I could
not bear to see Angus again or anyone else for that matter. Angus
had arrived in Salem two years earlier. He’d been sent by The
Council to assure that no real witches were executed by the
overzealous people of Salem. It was The Council who had bestowed
great powers on Angus centuries before. Nonni had known him since
he was a wild, mischievous boy and she’d always loathed him. She
was certain a powerful, depraved warlock like Angus would tire
quickly of our dull, chaste town, but much to her dismay, he’d
remained. Unfortunately, I seemed to be the reason behind his
extended stay.

“I wonder how poor Alexander is faring,” Mari said.
“I do feel badly for him, Poppy. He is quite in love with you, you
know.”

“He’s kind and handsome, he’ll find someone to return
his love someday.”

“If you think him kind and handsome then why do you
not consider him for yourself?”

I squeezed her arm. “It is a bit more complicated
than that, Mari. First of all, you saw what happened to him when he
attempted only to retie my bonnet. I can only imagine what Angus
would do to him if he courted me.”

“But Poppy, you can not live in fear of Angus or you
will never find anyone.”

We turned down the trail where the trees thickened
and the sunlight lessened. I pulled my shawl tightly around my neck
to ward off the chill of the shaded woods. “Alexander is not what I
want. He’s flour and water— harmless, pasty, and dull. I want a man
with the strength of unbreakable stone, the passion of
inextinguishable fire, and just enough honey to sweeten the sharp
edges.”

Mari chuckled. “That sounds more like one of Nonni’s
spells than a man. You are such a silly dreamer, Poppy.” She sighed
sadly. “With the choice of boys who live in this town, we’ll be
lucky if we ever meet anyone who can stir our hearts— let alone our
passion.”

A momentary lapse in the tree canopy gave passage to
brilliant rays of sunshine, and I lifted my face to the warmth.
“Call me a dreamer, but he is out there.”

Voices and laughter drifted through the leafy foliage
lining the path. I pulled Mari to a stop. “Did you hear that?”

“It sounds like that horrid boy, David. His father is
the magistrate in Salem Town. Let’s hurry past. He is pure
evil.”

We ventured off the dirt path and attempted to pick
up our pace. But the littered, uneven ground made it difficult. We
were nearly clear of a tangle of shrubs when I heard a faint cry
for help.

I grabbed hold of Mari’s hand. “Wait. I think someone
is in trouble.”

“More reason to hurry out of these blasted trees.”
Mari tried to pull me along.

“Someone is in trouble, Mari.”

She dropped my hand. “Let’s go then. Otherwise I
won’t hear the end of it.” She sidled past me and dragged me in the
direction the voices had come from.

The pleas for help were muffled but they grew louder
as we neared a small clearing. Mari stopped suddenly and looked at
me. “No witchcraft, Poppy. You know how Nonni always warns you that
your empathy for others will someday be your ruin.”

“Yes, yes,” I waved her on. “No witchcraft.”

We hid behind a massive tree trunk and watched in
utter shock as David, a stoutly built, puffy faced boy, and his two
thinner and even more dimwitted friends finished piling armfuls of
kindling around the narrow trunk of a birch tree. Tied to the tree
was a terrified, young boy who I’d seen more than once running bare
foot through the village in tattered breeches. He and his mother
lived in a run-down hovel at the end of town. A dirty rag was tied
around his mouth.
David pushed his round, freckled face close to the boy. “Robert
Graves, you have been found guilty of being too small, too weak,
and too poor to live. Therefore you will burn at the stake.”

“They aren’t really going to burn him, Poppy, are
they?”

“I know David is a wretched bully, but surely, even
he is not that horrid,” I assured Mari half-heartedly. “We’ll just
wait for them to leave and then we’ll untie the boy.”

David walked behind the tree trunk for a moment and
then reappeared holding a pewter candlestick. A flame wavered on
the top of the candle. Mari gasped and David’s attention was drawn
to where we stood.

He tucked the candle behind his back. “Who’s
there?”

We held our breath and stood as still as the thick
tree trunk shielding us from view.

Apparently satisfied that he’d only imagined the
sound, David turned his attention back to his victim. The two
friends giggled nervously as David waved the lit candle in front of
Robert’s eyes. Tears streamed down the young boy’s face, leaving
two thin trails of clean pink skin in the layer of grime on his
cheeks.

David threw his head back with a blood chilling laugh
and lowered the candle to the kindling. A thin stream of smoke rose
from the dried twigs, and I flew out from our hiding spot. David’s
eyes opened wide and he stumbled back as the candlestick lifted
from his hands and floated over his head and down into the back of
his breeches. His hands flew to his backside which was now
completely ablaze. He screamed and writhed on the ground until the
flames were extinguished. His friends stared at me as if they’d
seen an apparition. They turned and ran. The ropes restraining
young Robert dropped into the smoking kindling, and he stumbled
away as quickly as David’s friends.

“Oh, are you going to catch trouble for this,” Mari
said as she grabbed my hand and pulled me down the path toward
home.

Rendered mute by the cloud of worry that surrounded
us, Mari and I walked home in silence. It had been a long while
since I’d used my magic. Deep down, I hoped that the entire
incident would be fluffed off as three boys’ vivid imaginations.
Who, in their right mind, had ever seen a candle move through the
air on its own? Hopefully David would receive a harsh lashing,
although not on his behind, and his parents would scold him for
playing with fire and telling wild tales. David would certainly
think twice before setting someone on fire again.

It was hard to suppress a smile when I thought about
what I’d done. Moving objects was about the extent of my talents,
but I felt I’d done an impressive job of it. Mari and I were of
mixed blood and our powers were nearly negligible compared to
Nonni’s. Years ago, Nonni, a full-blooded witch, had married Jack
Seabrooke, a soldier and full-blooded mortal. Together they had a
daughter, my mother, Lily. Nonni loved Jack deeply but even her
charms and spells could not keep him safe in the horrors of battle.
Nonni had told us the story of how she’d woken with a terrible
stabbing pain in her heart, and she knew that she had lost her
beloved Jack. Nonni packed up Lily and they moved to Salem Town,
the port city near our village. But when Lilly reached her
twentieth year, she could no longer bear the dullness of the small
town, so she boarded a ship for England. While on board,
The
Frostfall
, she fell madly in love with the ship’s captain,
Captain Vanguard. She was pregnant with me before they reached
British shores. He was tall and dashing. From the few memories I
had of him, I remember laughing with him as he spun me around on
his broad shoulders. Mother and I lived in a small house in the
country that had belonged to the captain. He would visit us several
times a year, and my mother would light up like a star when he came
around. But she never used her powers around my father. She’d told
me he wouldn’t understand. Unfortunately, Captain Vanguard also had
a resentful wife who just happened to be the daughter of an English
barrister. One year after Mari was born, my mother was arrested and
charged with adultery. She was hanged. My mortal father boarded his
ship one week later and was never seen again. Mari and I were taken
to an orphanage, a dreadful place where the rooms were so cold our
feet and lips remained a constant shade of blue. Back in Salem,
Nonni woke up one morning with a mysterious rope burn around her
neck. She set off for England at once and found us at the
orphanage. Nonni claimed I was so thin she could see my bones
through my skin.

Mari groaned with relief when the cottage came into
view. “I thought we’d never get home.”

The sky behind our quaint cottage still retained the
troubling shade of pink, and the heavy feeling in my chest told me
I’d just started some trouble that was not going to end as smoothly
as I’d hoped. “I confess, I’m equally glad to see our shabbily
thatched roof. I hope Nonni will be along soon.”