Her Wicked Sin (10 page)

Lydia
.

Stunned, she froze. Had her name been spoken? She saw nothing and heard only the shuffle of the land at night. Was she mad? With another furtive glance around the horse shed, she clenched her arms tightly over her chest and stepped into the night.

Lydia
.

Again! From where had the word come? She twisted and turned, finding nothing. The horses slumbered, unconcerned with the whisper on the wind. Was it there at all? Experience taught her a horse’s instincts were infallible, but she had also long known the value of trusting her own inner voice. There
was
someone about, and with haste she determined her quest for his identity had been poorly thought.

Clutching her coats, she took one last look around and hurried for the house.

“Lydia!”

She stilled, certain this time her name had been spoken. And the tones, though hoarse, were familiar.

Lydia turned, and when her eyes found the shadow’s dark features not even the choking limit of her fear could contain the screams that burst from within.

Chapter Ten

Henry sat bolt upright at the shrill tones of a horrendous caterwaul. In the moment it took for him to orientate himself in the empty bed, he had found his feet and begun to thread the legs of his breeches. He half hopped, half hobbled to the door, flinging it open just as Lydia ran into him. The contact set off a fresh lot of noise, so he gripped her shoulders. “Worry not,” he said. “It is only me.”

She gulped the air and stilled but for the trembling shaking her entire frame. Her eyes frantically scavenged his face, finally settling as her breath steadied.

“It is only me,” he said again, as much to reassure himself as her. He had not the time to react to the terror in his own heart, but now it settled thickly over him and nearly shook from it. “Whatever is wrong?”

“I thought I saw someone,” she said.

Without further hesitation, Henry moved her into the house and exited to the yard. Though he was shirtless with his breeches unfastened and feet bare, he scarcely felt the cold as he circled the property near the home and stable. The horses, if affected by Lydia’s shrieks, had settled and nothing seemed amiss.

Perplexed, Henry slowed his pace and began a more thorough study of the area, finding nothing. Finally he turned to see Lydia standing in the open doorway, lit from behind by firelight. With her hair long and loose and her skirts shifting in the breeze, she looked strikingly unfamiliar. Why had she gone outside? And what could she have seen? Henry was well familiar with the trickery of night with its shadows, but Lydia had been frightened beyond the play of light and dark. Yet, Henry found nothing.

Trying to contain his frown, he met her at the door. “All is well,” he said. “Why were you out at this hour? Was something wrong?”

She looked from his face. Worrying her lip between her teeth, she said, “I thought I saw someone.”

He reached to clutch her shoulders, eliciting from her a gasp. Realizing his mistake, he relaxed his grip. “Apologies. I did not mean to return you to memories best forgotten. I am worried for you.”

“Worry not,” she said in well-shaken tones. “It was my mistake.”

“You must not walk into danger, Lydia.”

Indignation flashed in her eyes. “You seem to have lapsed, Henry. I have been alone for a long time, and never once have I chosen to cower. If I walk into danger, it is because I refuse to take a weak position.”

“You need not be weak to use practical thought,” he said, trying to gauge his words against her misplaced fear. “A woman is vulnerable among men.”

She stared, her face set well enough that he knew his approach held fault.

“Please, Lydia.” He softened his voice as much as he could muster considering the pace his heart maintained. “Know I care for you. It is not an insult to be loved. Together we can accomplish so much more than either of us can alone.”

Her shoulders eased, and her countenance soon followed. “I cannot come to rely on you,” she said softly. “Please understand.”

He wanted greatly to tell her it was she who needed to understand, but would not risk contention between them. Instead, he kissed her sweetly on the corner of her mouth. “As you wish,” he said, his voice melancholy to his own ears. Then he released her and went to secure the door. The sky offered no hint of morning, and he sensed the deepest chill of night had yet to set in. After checking the fire, he climbed into bed where Lydia had already burrowed under the covers.

He settled next to her and wound his fingers with hers. “My father,” he said after a long, quiet moment, “is so steeped with his wealth it is doubtful he remembers a life better.”

“A life better?” she asked, sleepy eyes widening in wonderment. “Do the rich not find their greatest betterment in further wealth?”

He smiled at her assessment. “I cannot speak for them all, but yes, the quest for wealth seems unending for most.”

“Then of what better life do you speak?”

“My father no longer knows the feel of grass soft under his feet. He does not pause to admire a breeze thick with the scent of flowers or the richness of spring’s first turn of soil. He knows not the chill of night or the true companionship of either man or beast, for all are servants to him. His time is not to be wasted on the small.”

“And you?” she whispered.

“I rather enjoy the feel of grass underfoot.” He absently rubbed her hand with his thumb and stared at the dance of light over the ceiling. “To be truthful, I find the expectations of his wealth a bit tedious. His rules are quit rigid, and should anyone refuse to bend to his ways he reacts most harshly.”

“What of your refusal to marry? Has he not reacted?”

“There are only so many well-heeled daughters in the Province of Massachusetts Bay,” Henry admitted. “Father grows weary of my refusals.”

“One day you will have to say yes,” she said quietly.

Henry let the words linger but for a moment before drawing her hand to his lips. Kissing it, he murmured, “Fear not, my wife, for I already have.”

…

Lydia took a deep, cleansing breath of morning air. The crisp beginning of day filled her with hope anew, softening the hard edges of days past, and was no better enjoyed than by horseback as she rode into Salem Village. She and Henry had begun the journey together, parting when he continued on to Salem Town to begin in earnest his search for his brother. While Lydia wished Henry well, her heart remained heavy.

Henry’s midnight utterance, though indubitably meant to offer Lydia comfort, did little of the sort. Rather than experiencing the surety of his vow for her, she was left with the empty expectation that no matter his intentions of the moment, their marriage was not to last. In time he would be called to the duties of his family, and his father’s unbending rule would never accept her as daughter-in-law. She hailed from a modest upbringing and had not married well. Her husband—who held no property of his own—had taken possession of her family’s land, saying the responsibility was too much for a woman. When she fled his abuse, she’d left behind any claim to the burned-out shell of her childhood. Now, while she owned property in Salem that she had paid for by her work as a physician’s assistant, it was modest to a degree sure to be under-appreciated by a man of great wealth. But that mattered not. Far more important was that it was free of the memories that haunted and terrified her.

But was she really free?

The thought existed as a bitter double-edged sword, bringing back the whisper of a dark wind and causing her heart to shift and sputter. Her imagination in the night had again conjured her husband, and verily no greater evil could be found in the woods of Salem. Would her sins not cease to haunt her?

She reached to pat Benedict’s neck. The mount had remained true, not showing a reaction to her tension. Rather, he stepped evenly along, his footfalls a cadence in which she found comfort. Peace of mind was a sensation she deeply craved, for within the confines of her sleepless night she determined she would not take another day in worry of the rumors regarding the Abbot children. Whatever their cause, Lydia would hear it directly from the source.

Reaching the Abbot home required Lydia to ride the breadth of town, past the Salem Village Meeting House from which rumblings of witchcraft made increasing noise. Though Lydia sat faithfully every Wednesday and Sunday, the familiar structure took cold overtones in the face of the accusations, none of which she fathomed to be of merit. Lydia knew not the full story, but even if she imagined greater knowledge, she could not see how the very basis of the claims made sense. Betty Corey, accused for the sin of being a beggar, made a fine example of the callousness. Her sin—if one called it such—of poverty was no greater than that of her neighbors who did not reach out to treat her as their own.

Though Lydia had found a contented home among the Puritans, the mounting threads of accusations set her on edge. If they could find will to suspect their own, what of her? Only a year among their population, she would quickly become an outsider should trials be laid upon her stoop.

Unlike her early morning visit by wagon, travel through town at this wakeful hour was slow, as most who passed knew Lydia as the local physician and many came to greet her or enquire about Benedict. Some among them queried their aches and ailments, and to each she took time to make a response. Others cast over her with apprehension—an entirely new experience thusly leading her to believe the rumors of which Anne Scudder had spoken were already widely received, though no one mentioned them forthright. And, an undercurrent existed whereupon some of her once-friendly neighbors would not meet Lydia’s eye, and it disturbed her greatly. By the time her destination came into view she traveled in a dark cloud of apprehension and unease, but was no less determined to seek her cause.

The Abbot home boasted an unusual assemblage of rooflines and walls in a style that stood out from the typical saltbox conformation of its neighbors, making it rather easy to locate on her own and quite ominous in character. Lydia did not favor its appearance, though she found the chill appropriate to the misdeeds reported from within. Appropriately, her stomach churned as she dismounted and secured Benedict to a hitch outside the home.

The door to the house flew open upon her approach, revealing the four young Abbot children in their night clothes. Among the four girls not a strand of hair found its place, and young Deliverance had a face smeared with what appeared to be the congealed remains of her morning meal.

“Good morrow,” Lydia said, though the words were surely disguised by the cacophony of screeches the girls began in earnest. Lydia stilled in surprise, watching helplessly as the girls carried on, spinning and twirling and screaming.

“Hush now!” Goody Abbot rushed the front hall, drawing to an abrupt halt when she saw Lydia standing on the front stoop. The goodwife crossed her arms over her bosom and stared acutely. With her dark hair drawn severely from her pale face and a pinched, narrow gaze, the woman was as cold as a deep winter morn. “And it is the witch herself.”

Lydia’s mouth dropped, inciting from the children another round of noise. In the midst of the screaming, Abigail ran herself into the wall repeatedly, howling more profoundly with each contact.

“That will be enough!” Goody Abbot turned to Lydia. “Are you here to see what you have done? Your visit is most foolish, Goodwife.”

“What I have done! You cannot believe this!” Indeed, Lydia could scarcely believe what she saw with her own eyes. “Why are they truant?”

“Is it not obvious? They are far too disruptive to attend to their work. You came into my home and brought evil upon them.” The final words were spoken at great volume with the Goodwife’s attention past Lydia toward the street.

Lydia turned, noticing a small gathering of passersby. Too late, she realized the show Goody Abbot put on for her neighbors created witnesses of many accord, but Lydia stood her ground. For every person who made something of these witchcraft claims, she prayed one would attest to Lydia’s very ordinary stance on the Abbot’s stoop. “Perhaps,” Lydia said, “they have fallen ill. Shall I examine them again?”

Goodwife Abbot nodded curtly. “They have been examined, this time by two
qualified
physicians—one from Salem Town, and the second traveling from Dorchester. Both assured the children’s good health. The only lingering explanation is they have been affected by witchcraft, which matches quite well their claims.”

“Goodwife, please. What claims?”

“You come to them in spectral form, pinching them until they scream and cry. And just last night they came upon you in the woods. You were astride a great black horse—the devil’s very own.”

Lydia stomach clenched. “He is my husband’s horse. He is a fine animal, but of the same flesh as any other.”

“Say what you will, Goodwife, but the proof is before you.” Goody Abbot turned, waving an arm at her four girls, who had stilled, presumably in observation. Now they began screaming again in earnest—so much so that Benedict even at a distance jerked his head and pinned his ears in the away direction.

“I have not been alone these days,” Lydia said, hoping the truth of her explanation could rise above the shrill bedlam. “Perhaps they are mistaken.”

“They have seen your spectral form. Your physical form might well remain in its place while your witch spirit haunts others.”

“Surely you must know this defies all sense!”

“Do not expect me to explain your sins. You have aligned yourself with the devil’s work, and the talk is now thick with your misdeeds. Our town will soon be rid of you and your poisonous like and our families saved from your sin.”

Fear took deep root in Lydia’s belly. “You speak as if from the pulpit,” she said.

“And you quiver as if in fear. What do you have to hide, Goodwife?”

“I hide nothing,” Lydia said. But her voice faltered in acknowledgement of her most heinous crime.

A faint smirk worked Goody Abbot’s lips. “Your transgressions are a matter of record. My children, ruined as they are, will testify to your crimes.”

“My
crimes
?”

Goody Abbot stepped into her home and reached for the door. Just past the stout woman her four children looked on without fit or movement, each one wearing an innocent smile as the door swung shut.

Lydia’s heart and stomach churned at a rampant pace. Surely they could not bring charges upon her. She had done nothing deserving of accusation. But Lydia expected the same for Betty Corey, the poor beggar who had been accused. And the others, fine women of Salem but for the slave woman who admitted her crimes. What was this fever sweeping the quiet village of Salem? She knew not its cause, but feared very much the result.

If she stood accused, she would lose far more than her husband.

She could lose her life.