Salem's Fury (Vengeance Trilogy Book 2) (16 page)

My brother’s face sours at seeing my watch of Andrew. “Let him be alone with his demons, Rebecca,” he says. “I told him well what his actions cost us. Much as I would like to tell him more of my pain, I think he visits it upon himself twice over. Leave him to it.”

With a heavy heart, I follow George to his cabin. As I cross into his home, the scent of food warns I had been hungrier than first I realized. Hannah paces the floor while Mary sits at the table, ladling soup from her near empty bowl with crumbled remains of browned bread.

Hannah’s bowl sits mostly full, and I think my sister-in-law has aged since last I saw her. Tears stream her cheeks when she looks up and sees me in the door. She leaves the table of a sudden to embrace me in her own kitchen.

“Thank God you are safe, Rebecca,” she says.

“Aye,” I say. “And you.”

“Mary has told me all that befell you in the wilderness,” says Hannah. “How you both came to such an end, I…”

“All will be well again in time, sister,” I say. “We yet live.”

Hannah places her hand gently to my cheek. “Aye. That we do.”

“Come, wife,” says George, placing his arm round her waist. “Let us eat.”

“Aye, husband.” Hannah wipes her tears away, then hurries toward the kettle to ladle George and me steaming bowls of stew.

I sit beside Mary at the table and reach for a hunk of brown bread, tearing an end off for myself. We eat in meager silence and speak naught of the looming threat. The stew burns my tongue, but warms my throat and insides as I swallow.

Several times, George and Hannah cast furtive looks upon one another. My brother finishes his first bowl and leans over to kiss her brow before filling his bowl again.

“Why must it come to this?” Hannah asks, her voice breaking. “Why does God punish us so?”

“Because you welcomed me into your home,” says Mary quietly.

I look up from munching a bit of bread, and find Mary stares into her bowl.

“Trouble has followed me ever since my days in Salem,” she says. “Me fleeing from one place to the next. If I had stayed…stayed but one time and allowed Mercy and the others have their vengeance, then perhaps none of this should have occurred.”

“These witches do not come for you alone, Mary Warren,” I say. “The Mathers have searched for us many years on account of our blood father.”

“Aye,” says Mary, her gaze happening upon my brother. “I-I thought to tell you all when first I saw your face, George.”

“Why?” He asks.

“You look so much like your father,” she says. “In truth, I near thought you a ghost risen from my past to torment me. I warned my husband we should leave, but he would not hear it. Not with the last year’s winter approaching. Forgive me, for it were fear of my husband’s hand that kept me silent then.”

Mary shakes her head, sniffle back her tears.

“And when I spent time among you, learned of your great kindness here in this very kitchen, I…”

Hannah reaches out to take Mary’s hand in hers. “It is all right, Mary.”

“No.” Mary recoils. “No, it isn’t. I am a coward, Hannah. I should have warned you all, and yet I did nothing. I found myself torn the day my husband led us from here and still I did not tell you. You each should have cast me out like Mercy and my Salem sisters for the wrongs I have done you all.”

“You will make them right tonight, Mary,” I say. “By standing with us.”

“A-aye,” she says. “That I will.”

I smear the last bits of stew upon the remaining bread and swallow it whole, wiping my lips with the back of my hand as I stand.

“You wished to know why the Mathers have hunted you all these years,” says Mary.

I pause and look from her to George, all of us in surprise at her words. “Aye.”

“Their legacy,” she says. “In all my years of serving men, even those of humble origins are concerned with the name they leave behind. All wish the acts they have done will live on. I saw my master John Proctor hang for his when he would not give the lie we asked of him. He cared more for his legacy than his own life. If such a man as he cared for his own name, what do you think men as powerful as the Mathers would do to keep theirs in good standing?”

“I do not understand,” I say.

“Any who defy them are put down,” says Mary. “Aye, even their allies. Look you to Salem and you will see it true. Most who played a part in bringing Salem to its knees paid with their lives. The Putnams are long dead, even their daughter Ann who were one of my Salem sisters. Did you know she asked forgiveness for her part in Salem?”

“No,” I say.

“Aye,” says Mary. “Told all who would listen she believed those we accused were innocent. She died not many years after that confession. I heard others claim her death of strange circumstance, but I know it were at the Mather's bidding. She called the trials into question with her plea and were silenced for it.”

Mary looks up from her bowl. “Oh, she were not alone in being quieted. The same could be said of my other Salem sisters also. They killed Susannah Sheldon not long after the trials ended, aye, and Martha Sprague too, though she changed her name and went into hiding as I did. I knew then they would never stop hunting for me. I, the one who betrayed their cause most.”

“Not the most,” I say. “Our blood father did that.”

“Aye,” says George. “And now I think him all the wiser for it.”

“I do not,” I say. “Sarah often mentioned your god believes men reap what they sow. I say our blood father earned his death.”

“How can you say that?” George asks, his voice cold and hard.

“Because I face truth.”

George rises from the table. “He was our father, Rebecca, whether you like it or no.”

“No,” I say. “A true father keeps his children safe and does naught to bring them harm.”

“Husband,” says Hannah softly, reaching for him.

George pulls his hand away from her. “Then let you speak more truth, sister. These witches hunt Priest for his name also.”

My cheeks redden at his tone.

“The same man you name father brought these witches after him”—George steps closer—“and on Sarah and your village.”

I slap him without thinking then feel his hands upon my shoulders as he lifts me from the ground.

“Stop it, George!” Hannah screams. “Stop it!”

George flings me aside as his wife beats upon his back. He ignores her, glaring at me on the floor. “I will not have you speak ill of our dead father,” he says. “I have tolerated your hate for him all these years, but I will not suffer it any longer.”

Tears sting my eyes at my brother’s words, seeing him in such a state as I have never before seen.

“Like it or no, he gave us life, sister,” says George. “And it were a good one until these witches stole it from us. Let them and that malicious Putnam convince you otherwise, but I
knew
our father’s heart.” His voice quivers. “Whatever they say of him, he were a good man to us and would dote on you still if not for their scorn.”

I pick myself off the floor.

Mary sits quiet at the table, not daring to look any of us in the eye.

I glance back at George. “Brother, I—”

“
Father loved you, Rebecca
.” George sputters the words as tears fall naked down his cheeks. “You most of all, though I should have done all I could to please him. I never hated you for it, as Sarah did, but let you speak no more ill of our father, sister, or God save me I will thrash you for it.”

George’s words sting more than any blade I have ever been cut with. Hannah embraces him, and his shoulders tremble at her touch.

Not knowing what to say, I run from their cabin and out to the barn, falling upon the loose straw to weep what tears my body kept back. My mind unlocked and memories flooded of the man I once knew and called Father.

I think of the life before and the old words. The familiar prayers we offered up in times of need. Two words haunt me more than any other, and yet they are the only two I can think to utter now.

“F-forgive me,” I cry to his soul. “Forgive me, Father.”

I know not how long I lay in the straw, but night surrounds me when I rise. I leave out of the barn and find smoke yet rises from the chimneys of all the cabins. The fire burning in the middle of the yard intrigues me most.

Mercy remains bound to a post near the fire, she seeming asleep.

Ciquenackqua sits near her. His gaze rests on the flames, though he looks back at me as I approach him.

“What are you doing out here?” I ask.

“Bishop needed rest, and I needed peace.”

“As do we all,” I say. “But we must make ready now. None can know the hour when Mercy’s witches or Two Ravens and his men will attack.”

Ciquenackqua nods, though elsewise I gather he has not heard me at all. “You dance well,” he says finally. “Before we left for war, I asked the grandfathers how is it a squaw may dance better than the son of Whistling Hare. Do you bring me their answer now, daughter of Black Pilgrim? That I might know it before I die.”

He looks me full in the face, all his proudness gone.

“I bring no answer,” I say to him.

“I know you saw me in the woods that morning,” he says. “I thought at first you came to mock me.”

“I thought to,” I say in earnest. “But recognized you banished yourself to the woods for such a matter rather than risk mockery.”

“Aye,” he says. “And from my father. Do you come to mock me now?”

“You will hear naught of that sort from me, son of Whistling Hare,” I say, sitting beside him. “Do you think yourself the first to practice the dance, alone? I myself have done so many times.”

He thinks me tricksome, to judge the look on his face.

“Why should you need practice?” he asks. “You dance better than any I have ever seen. Even than your father.”

My words catch on my tongue. I think back on Ciquenackqua’s movements. It strikes me he did not imitate Father, more that he danced in a way to mirror my own.

“It is a woman’s grace she should move better than men,” I say.

“Why?” he asks. “What need does a girl or woman have to make the war dance?”

“The same reason as you,” I say. “I would make my father proud.”

Ciquenackqua’s chin dips. “At least you saw it from him that night. I shall never see it from my own now.”

I glance up to the stars above. “You do not think he looks down on you? Led you to find me in the wilderness that we might come here together?”

“I think he would be ashamed I ran from the battle.”

“I know this may be small comfort,” I say. “But at least he thought you worthy to accompany him.”

Ciquenackqua grins at me, then frowns when he sees the necklace I still wear.

“I remember when Father gave that to me.” He picks up a pebble, rolling it in his hands. “Said that he crafted a shell every year on the day of my birth. All so he could give it to me when I learned my
manitous.
” He tosses the pebble into the fire. “Even that did not please him.”

“But you saw the great snapper,” I say.

“No,” he says. “A pair of painted turtles only, one small and the other large. Both crawled from the river, but the larger hid in its shell when a white man approached. The smaller bit the white man and scared him off. Father later asked me tell everyone both turtles were snappers. Slow creatures, but with powerful bites.”

I reach for the ends of the necklace and untie it, rubbing my fingers across the shells a final time before handing it over.

“No,” says Ciquenackqua. “I cannot take it. My father commanded me give it to you that I might learn wisdom. That I should think before I speak and act.”

“You have learned that lesson now,” I say, insisting he take it. “Let you wear it as a reminder. Not of the lesson, but the care and time your father took in carving the shells.”

Ciquenackqua takes the necklace from me. He rolls the shells in his hand, listening to them
clack
together. “Father said I could learn much from my
manitous.
See the raised edges on this side of the shell, and the smooth on the other?”

He holds the shells before the fire that I might better know his meaning.

“Father said we men are like this also. Each of us having our sharp and gentle sides.” He grins. “I never understood the sharp in me until I saw him fall at the river. Now my spirit rages in wonder if I should ever feel the gentle side again.”

He dons the necklace and ties it off, his fingers flipping each shell to ensure the smooth sides touch his chest.

“Father told me he often regretted his own nature,” says Ciquenackqua. “That he struggled with acting first and thinking later. He wished me different.”

“And so you are,” I say. “You are the little turtle that bit.”

“No,” he says. “Even when I woke from the dream fast I knew that I were the larger one. The meeker.”

“You are the larger—”

Ciquenackqua and I wheel upon hearing the voice behind us, finding Creek Jumper slipped among us silently. He holds a folded wolf pelt in one hand, a bowl filled with liquid in the other, and a small drum tucked beneath his arm.

“But you are not meek, son of Whistling Hare,” says Creek Jumper. “When I were a boy, the old ones said sons take after their grandfathers. I think the little turtle in your dream fast will keep well alive the fighting spirit of his grandfather, Whistling Hare, and temper it with the patient wisdom of his father…you, Ciquenackqua.”

Creek Jumper lays his pelt and drum upon the ground. Then approaches us with his bowl of liquid that shines black in the firelight.

“But that is the future,” he says. “And we must live in the present now.”

Creek Jumper offers up his voice, singing the old songs as he dips two fingers into the bowl. Paint drips off his fingertips as he pulls them from the bowl then touches them to the corner of Ciquenackqua’s eyes. He lets them stray down the young brave’s cheeks giving the impression Ciquenackqua weeps streams of blood.

Creek Jumper approaches me next.

His hand and voice shakes with fervor as he dips his fingers anew then raises them to my temple. He drags three fingers across my eyes and bridge of my nose, slathering a red-painted mask across them whilst continuing the ancient war song.

I open my eyes when Creek Jumper beats the drum.

Mercy stares at me from her tied position, her eyes rounding at the sight of Ciquenackqua and me. So, too, do I notice George and Hannah surprised at the doorstep of their cabin, and Mary behind them.

The drum calls me to move, to make the war dance.

I close my eyes again, let my head rock back, and allow my body to shift in blissful sway to the tune of Creek Jumper’s voice rising and falling in time with the drum.

Fetching my tomahawk and Father’s dagger free from my belt, I add my voice to Creek Jumper’s and begin the dance. I twist and spin around the fire, warding off evil spirits with my weapons and voice.

Ciquenackqua joins me in the dance, his movements yet stilted, but freer and with no regard for how he appears.

We dance around the fire, my body never tiring. My thoughts dwell on Sarah, Sturdy Oak, and Deep River, and all the others killed by Mercy and her minions. Memories of Father dragged away bid me dance faster. I scream war cries, giving my loss and sorrow a voice for the first time. Power radiates through me, and I open my eyes to stare on Mercy to let her know the face of death that she might fear it.

Instead, I find her grinning back at me, as if I am a child that pretends at the war dance.

I raise my tomahawk and sling it at the pole, watching the blade buried near her ear.

She flinches at the sound, a sight I relish as I dance near her and pluck it free again.

Ciquenackqua halts near our shaman, raising his dagger high.

“I am Ciquenackqua—”

“No,” I cry to him.

His arm drops to his side and he looks on me with concern as I approach.

“No,” I say. “We make no claims or boasts this eve. Tonight we avenge those stolen from us and allow any who live to sing our—”

A chunk of wood from Mercy’s post explodes in shards.

I wince at the echo of a rifle blast and wheel toward the shooter.

“That were a warnin’ shot,” Bishop yells. “Take another step and I send yer queen bitch back to Hell, ye powder-snortin’ harpies!”

He drops the already fired rifle and raises his second one. As he marches closer to us, I glance over my shoulder to where he focuses. I find the answer beyond the barn.

A group of hooded women, clutching naked blades—hand scythes, daggers, and tomahawks—head toward us.

“Let ye call out to ‘em, wench,” says Bishop to Mercy. “Call ‘em off.”

The witches approach us slowly, unafraid.

“Over there,” Ciquenackqua shouts. He points to the other end of the yard, toward Bishop’s cabin, where a second band of witches makes their presence known.

Indeed, I almost think there are others hidden in the shadows at every corner of the yard, all of them waiting for us to fire or for a word from their mistress.

I look to Mercy and find her smiling.

“Call ‘em off.” Bishop insists.

“I would hear her swear again,” says Mercy to me.

I approach her at the pole and put my dagger to her throat. “Mine are not the words that need proving, witch. You are a liar born of Salem evil. Let you prove yours to me now. Call them off and send them to slay our common enemy, or die with me here now.”

“No. I am not so ready to leave this world yet.” She looks past me and shouts, “Wait! It is I, Mercy Lewis.”

I keep my blade close to Mercy as a single witch steps forward from the others, her face scabbed and picked at, her teeth black and rotted.

“Mistress,” she calls. “Give us the word. Let us make short work of these here.”

“No,” says Mercy. “Not yet. Let you send scouts to the wilderness. Two Ravens comes to this place soon. Let him know I am here and swear over your allegiance in order to see me freed. When the time is right and they bring battle to this post, fall upon his men and slay them.”

“But what of you, mistress?” the witch asks. “What of your life?”

Mercy looks on me. “I shall be well protected here, and I would not see my master’s prizes tainted or taken from me.” She glances back to the witch. “Now go, before Two Ravens arrives and sniffs out our ruse.”

The witch groups fades back into darkness, slipping out of sight but not from my mind. I wait awhile, my gaze searching the surrounding cabins for any treacherous sign.

“Ciquenackqua,” I say finally. “Get you to the barn with Creek Jumper and hold it. Keep a weather eye on the riverbank.”

He nods in reply. As the pair of them makes off for their post, I find myself praying Ciquenackqua’s bravery will stand and that his father’s spirit will find its way into him when we fall under attack.

“Bishop,” I say. “Do you have your aim on her?”

“Aye, lass. Cut her loose, and let’s be off.”

I free Mercy from the pole and shove her forward.

“Think on how you treat me now,” she says. “I will repay it later down the road.”

I pay her no mind, instead whistling toward George’s cabin.

Mary hesitates in the entryway, and ultimately runs for me with Hannah’s urging.

“You hold the trade cabin with Andrew,” I tell her. “Shoot when you can, or else ensure his rifles remain loaded.”

“A-aye,” she says.

She near stumbles over herself as she leaves me.

No small part of me wonders if my prayers would have been better served on her than Ciquenackqua. Bishop gives me little time to think on it, urging me follow him and Mercy back to his cabin. I bar the door once inside.

The Wyandot brave sits near the hearth, bound and gagged. His eyes follow me warily as I cross the room and grab Mercy by the arm, leading her to the opposite corner.

“It will not be long now,” she says.

I bind her wrists and ankles together, much the same as I saw her people do to Sturdy Oak. She winces as I tighten the bonds, but she does not cry out.

Bishop moves about behind us, and I glance over my shoulder in time to see him sit heavily in his chair by the fire. He wheezes and coughs, doubling over as his body racks him. He spits into the fire at the last, and breathes hard, as if the ordeal winded him after a long sprint.

“He is dying,” says Mercy.

“No, he’s not,” I whisper back.

“He is. Many a night I have heard those in Boston cough with the lung sickness.” She motions her heard toward Bishop. “He has the same.”

“She’s right, lass,” Bishop says, drawing my attention. “Lying wench that she is, she speaks true now.”

I go to him, sitting in the chair he carved special for me. The same chair I sat in as a girl and listened to the tales of his homeland, the place of leprechauns, harpies, and selkies.

“When did you learn of this?” I ask.

“Doesn’t matter when I learned it, does it? Can’t change it.” He fights back another cough. “In truth, I’ll soon be damned glad to have done with it all. A tiresome sickness, this.”