The Messenger: Mortal Beloved Time Travel Romance, #1 (16 page)

T
he next day
, Elizabeth, who looked ready to pop at any second, and I huddled together with the rest of the garrison’s residents in the commons waiting for Angeni’s punishment. It was another packed crowd. I was surprised they weren’t selling popcorn or refreshments. I prayed for a miracle.

Elizabeth wrapped her arm around my waist. “You should not be here.”

“Angeni didn’t hurt a soul. How can I not be here, knowing she’s dying for something I caused? It’s not right. Not fair. I have to say something.”

Elizabeth pinched my arm. “No,” she hissed. “They will arrest you and imprison you. They will state that your crimes are many: accessory to murder, lying, conspiring with the enemy, sedition, and treason. They will pay witnesses who will testify the only reason you were spared that day at the Endicott settlement was because you are a spy for King Philip.”

“But that’s not true,” I said. “I woke up and found everyone dead, and the settlement torched.”

Elizabeth shook her head. “They need a villain to pin all their regrets and remorse upon. They need a sacrificial lamb to make them feel better, and take away their pain. Right now, that person is Angeni. If you say anything—that lamb will be you.”

The crowd parted respectfully, as Jebediah, Reverend Wilkins, and Malachi walked from the church through their midst, and took their places next to the hanging platform. Jebediah looked resolved. The good Reverend looked almost gleeful. And Malachi? Grief and darkness emanated off his body, off his soul. I felt it from almost twenty feet away.

Two colonial soldiers dragged Angeni from her holding cell, through the commons. She staggered after them, her arms tied behind her back. People yelled and hollered.

“Justice for Tobias!” A middle-aged colonial woman spat on Angeni as she stumbled.

“Kill the heathen witch!” another enlightened soul said.

The soldiers led Angeni to the hanging platform, and hoisted her onto it. Poked her until she climbed onto a stool. Her silver hair flowed freely down her back. She didn’t cower or shake. She wasn’t a victim’s victim.

The hangman, who happened to be the same guard who wouldn’t let me out of the gates to see Samuel that day he rode Nathan, secured the noose on the thick rope around Angeni’s neck.

My heart was breaking. I couldn’t watch her die for a crime that Samuel and I committed. Samuel wanted me to pretend to be Abigail, to hide from Malachi. He also wanted me to go home, and find some boy to fall in love with in my life back in the future. Unfortunately, neither was going to happen.

Reverend Wilkins admonished the crowd so he could speak. “Angeni has been found guilty of the crime of plotting, planning, and murdering a young man, Tobias, son of Malachi, advisor to myself, General Jebediah Ballard, and friend to every colonist who fights the evil King Philip. She has been sentenced to death by hanging.”

Loud cries of encouragement spiked through the crowd. My knees felt like Jello, and I must admit, I clutched poor Elizabeth’s shoulder to continue standing.

The wind picked up and Angeni’s hair swirled around her. She looked peaceful and loving; like an angel with a rope around her neck.

“Kill her, kill her, kill her!” The chant rose amongst the colonists: men, women, and children as they thrust their fists in the air. They were a mob now. An angry, hateful group that only wanted blood. It didn’t matter that it was the blood of an innocent.

Elizabeth whispered. “She is prepared to die. She knows this mob would not only kill you in a heartbeat, but hunt down Samuel as well. They would cheer as they hang him, his feet twitching in the air. Is that what you want? Is that what you want for the boy you love?”

“I
will not
desert her!” I broke away from Elizabeth’s side. I shoved, and pushed my way to the front of the hanging crowd.

“I would speak for Angeni.”
I put my fists on my waist to steady myself, stood up straight, and glared at Jebediah, the Reverend Wilkins, and Malachi.

Jebediah looked at his nails, like he was contemplating getting a manicure. The Reverend sneered. But Malachi nodded.

“Angeni is the most loving and giving person in this entire garrison. She has helped everyone here. Never hurt a soul.”

Angeni shook her head.

A guy shouted, “Hang the Native witch!”

“I say we string up Abigail, too!” A woman yelled.

I swiveled and faced the crowd. “You colonists left your homeland to have religious freedom. You want to kill an innocent woman, and yet you have the audacity to call yourself God-fearing? You are only vessels for anger. You should have stayed in the lands where people punished you for your beliefs. Because in this new land, you become the same people who persecuted you.”

“
Kill her, kill her, kill her
,” the chant rose amongst the colonists, men, women, and children as they thrust their fists in the air.

“No! I killed Tobias!” I screamed at the crowd and ripped the neckline of my dress open to show them my wounds. I knew the punctures were red, spotted with blood, and that my neck was more black and blue than flesh-colored. “He tried to murder me. Do not hurt Angeni. Punish me!”

“Your wounds are divine punishment for wearing a heathen necklace,” the Reverend Wilkins said, and nodded at the hangman.

“No! It’s my fault! Punish me!”

Jebediah and Malachi leaned into each other and whispered.

Angeni said, “Madeline!”

I turned to face her but not before Malachi tilted his head and gazed at me. His eyes turned black, and the muscles in the front of his neck tightened like cords that had been pulled too tight.

He knew I was telling the truth. I could feel it. He knew I helped kill Tobias. He knew, and he would try to hurt me. But I didn’t care.

I faced Angeni. Her blue eyes were clear, and she smiled. “Madeline, life goes fast. Right now, we need to be just like life.
We need to go very, very fast.”

My entire body tingled. I saw past the silver hair, the weathered face. “Mama?” I asked. “Mama, is it you for real?”

The hangman kicked the stool out from under Angeni’s feet. Her body dropped. I screamed, “No!”

But my cry was drowned out by a guttural, massive roar made by a hundred of King Philip’s warriors who surged over the garrison’s walls.

F
laming arrows arced
over the walls, landing on buildings, roofs, and haystacks starting fires. There was a cacophony of shouts and yells, cries and screams, as Philip’s warriors scaled the top of the garrison’s spiked, wooden fence like it was made of matchsticks. Most of the Native men dropped to the ground below, and started swinging their knives and hatches. Those perched on the top of the fence released another volley of arrows.

The colonists screamed and scrambled for cover or their weapons. Mrs. Powter fled toward the church. Daniel and a few of his friends were already armed and fired back at Philip’s warriors. They downed a few, but it seemed fruitless. Not only had the warriors breached the fence, but they’d also opened the gates from the inside, allowing more men to run yelling, and screaming inside.

I swiveled my gaze toward the hanging platform on the tiniest chance there was a miracle and Angeni was still alive.
But there was no sign of Angeni.
Her body wasn’t even there. The noose lay on the platform floor. A small white bird fluttered next to it and then, with great effort, flew into the air, dodging the arrows and the gunshots.

A burning arrow skimmed the skull of Angeni’s hangman, and the guy’s hair started on fire. Seemed King Philip had chosen just the right moment to take everyone off guard and launched his attack.

They weren’t here for a Thanksgiving celebration, or a tea party. Left and right, I watched the colonists drop like flies, their bodies jerking, falling, collapsing. Gunshots blasted and colonists, as well as Natives, staggered and fell clutching bloody holes in their bodies. Then, there were the knives and hatchets. A jugular cut; a knife through the heart, a neck severed.

I should have been freaking out, but this almost felt familiar, like déjà vu. Like, I’d been through this before. The hangman screamed as a warrior leapt on him. They landed hard on the ground, fist fighting, and grunting. Jebediah grabbed a rifle from one of the guards who lay dead, pulled up and fired at the warriors.

Elizabeth. Where was Elizabeth?
I looked over to where we were standing, and spotted her kneeling on the ground, her hands clamped over her head. I crouched, and ran to her side. “We have to hide, Elizabeth. Or run!”

She grabbed my hand, and I hoisted her up. When Reverend Wilkins pushed in front of us, knocking us to the side. I grunted, and barely managed to keep Elizabeth from falling. A warrior buried a hatchet in the Reverend’s back, and his blood spattered across Elizabeth’s face, dress, and my hair, as the good pastor collapsed, twitching, on her shoe.

Elizabeth froze, and her face morphed into a mask of terror. I yanked on her arm, and dragged her with me. “You are not allowed to freak out on me! I know where we can hide.”

I looked around for the squat tree trunk that covered the tunnel that led to the outside of the garrison. I spotted it: thankfully, it wasn’t that far away. “Hurry!” I pulled and pushed her massively pregnant self through the arrows, skirting the fires, the bloodshed and mayhem. Miraculously, we were not hit.

“Where is Jebediah?” She panted for breath.

Good question.
“He is being a soldier, right now. That’s his job. If you stay alive, he will find you.”

The screaming and yelling continued around us, as we crouched low and inched our way to the tunnel. “Stay close to the ground,” I said. “Do not move until I tell you to move.”

I pushed the tree trunk aside. Good, the tunnel was still there. Even better—it was wide enough for a pregnant woman. “Get in.”

“But…” She hesitated.

“Move!”

She lowered herself into the hole, while I gave her instructions, and impatiently waited for my turn to follow her. “We stay here ’till the battle is over. If they find us, we crawl forward. On the opposite end of this tunnel there is another opening to outside the garrison’s walls. Do not call for Jebediah, or anyone, until enough time has gone by that you know for certain Philip’s warriors are gone.”

Elizabeth was nearly down into the passageway and I had one foot in when I spotted young Mary Smythe, crying. She patted the bloody, motionless body of a woman who lay on the ground, several yards away.

“Mama,” Mary said. “Wake up, Mama. Please.”

Just broke my heart again. “Stay down, Elizabeth,” I hissed.

I ran for Mary and scooped her up. She sobbed and pummeled me with her chubby, little fists. “Where’s my big brave General girl?” I whispered. Mary snorted back tears but stopped flailing and collapsed her head on my shoulder, her arms wrapped around my neck.

I lowered her down in the tunnel with Elizabeth. But now, there was no room left for me. And, I could tell by the look on Elizabeth’s face that she knew that.

“Abigail?” She held Mary, patted her back, and tried to soothe her.

“I’ll be fine.” I pushed the trunk back over the opening. “Remember, even if you’re very scared, don’t cry or call for anyone, until this is all over.” I paused before I covered it completely. “I love you, Lizzie. Thank you.”

I ran as fast and far away from the tunnel as I could get. I didn’t know where to go. And then I did. I headed toward the barn and ducked inside. I heard Nathan whinny. But Nathan wasn’t in the barn.

“Messenger!” One of Philip’s warriors shouted in a thick Wampanoag accent. “I seek the Messenger.”

No way he would be looking for me. I was a sixteen-year-old girl, who had just been exposed to
the basics
of being a Messenger.

“Messenger!” the man hollered.

I peeked out the door, and saw an older, muscular, tattooed, half-naked warrior holding Daniel with a knife at his throat with one arm, while he held Nathan on a short rope lead with his other hand. I didn’t know who looked more scared: Daniel, the horse, or me.

“What?” I asked.

“Show yourself, or I will kill your friend, Messenger.”

My heart pounded, but I lowered my head, ducked out the door my arms in plain view at my sides. I wanted it to be obvious that I had no weapons. “I am the Messenger.”

The warrior regarded me, his knife poised at Daniel’s throat. He released his grip and shoved him. But Daniel just stood there and didn’t flee.

“Go, Daniel! Please.”

He turned and ran.

“I was told you would have proof,” the warrior said.

What proof? I couldn’t think of any powerful messages I might convey at the moment.

The warrior grabbed my arm and shook it. “Proof!”

I pulled back the top of my dress, and exposed my bruises and punctures. “These marks were made by a Hunter, who tried to kill me. I traveled here from many years into the future. I think in my lifetime, Angeni might have been called Rebecca. She was my mother. I am the Messenger.”

The warrior grunted. He put his hands on my waist, hoisted me onto Nathan’s back, and led us to a hole punched in the garrison’s wall. It was large enough for a horse, a girl, and a warrior to leave the bloodiest battle I’d ever imagined.

“
W
here are you taking me
?” I asked when we were far enough away from the battle that the screams were muffled. But he didn’t answer. Just pulled himself onto the horse in front of me, and we galloped off.

At first, I was repulsed, and didn’t want to touch him. That lasted about thirty seconds until I realized—I really didn’t want to fall off a horse. I clutched his waist. We rode for miles and miles. I hoped Elizabeth and Mary survived. I prayed Samuel was okay. Wondered if Angeni was really Mama, and why this guy was looking for the Messenger.

My entire short life in 1675 didn’t prepare me for anything like this. Yes, I could now churn butter, sit in church for three hours, stack firewood, stoke fires, and chant Sa-Ta-Na-Ma. But being abducted in King Philip’s War and taken prisoner? I had no training for this.

Hours passed. We stopped only once. It was already night and difficult to see. But the warrior still wrapped a rough rag around my eyes, and blindfolded me.

Soon thereafter, I could make out dim light through my blindfold, and I heard the low voices of people speaking Wampanoag. I assumed we were at one of Philip’s warrior camps. My abductor lifted me off Nathan, and someone led the horse away.

He tied my hands behind my back with some rope, and pushed me backward until I landed in a seated position, my back against a tree. “You, stay.”

My heart felt like it was cracking open from missing Samuel. Where was he during the battle? I hoped he was safe and far away. My mind raced in circles wondering about Elizabeth and Mary in that tunnel. Did they survive?

I shivered, my teeth chattering. I heard hushed conversations around me in Wampanoag. Maybe I could find an opportunity, a way to escape. More likely, I’d be held captive for ransom like that poor pastor’s wife, Patience Donaldson. Then they’d discuss why they’d even bothered kidnapping me, because except for Elizabeth, I didn’t mean anything to anybody back at the garrison. As soon as they figured that out—I was history.

Maybe if I were lucky, they’d let me freeze to death. This wouldn’t be the best way to go, but might be better than having my heart ripped out by some guy who thought that gesture meant he owned my soul. Only three people owned my soul: Mama, Samuel, and for the first time in my life
—me
.

My abductor untied the rope from my wrists, and the blindfold around my eyes. “I am called Nikana,” he said.

I blinked and looked around. My eyesight was a little fuzzy, but I was at a camp of sorts, in a clearing in a forest. There were several small campfires, as well as a large one that a group of men stood around, and about a dozen makeshift thatched huts. Native people were everywhere: primarily men, but also some women.

A few stared at me for moments, curious, but most went about their tasks: cleaning and checking their weapons, giving first aid to wounded warriors and feeding themselves as well as the fires, so they wouldn’t die.

There was also a child: a boy, about eight years old, gazed at me mesmerized. I didn’t see any colonists. I didn’t take this as a positive sign.

“Drink,” Nikana said and handed me a container of water, which I downed immediately. He took back the container and thrust a small bowl at me. “Eat.”

I stuck my fingers into the bowl, pulled out some chunks of meat, put them in my mouth, chewed, and swallowed. “Thank you.”

He took the bowl from me and pointed back at the tree. “Stay.” I did. He left. I was warm inside, but still freezing on the outside. I hugged myself, and rubbed my hands up and down my arms.

The boy sat next to the fire and played with an old-fashioned rifle. He got up, skipped toward me carrying the gun, and just about everybody in that camp dropped what they were doing and ran toward him.

He put a hand up in the air as if to stop them. They backed away and let him continue. Good. Not so good? Now I had about two hundred sets of not-so-friendly eyes staring at me, examining my every move.

The boy squatted on the ground next to me, dropped the gun, cocked his head to the side and peered into my face like I was an alien. “My name is Alexander. I am son of Grand Sachem Metacomet. What is your name?” he asked.

“My name is Madeline Abigail Blackford.” What the heck should I say next? “I am the daughter of Raymond Blackford and Rebecca Wilde Blackford.”

“Is your father a great warrior and king, like my father?” he asked.

“My parents are not kings of anyone, or any land.”

Alexander was lean for a youngster, his cheeks a little hollow. His dark hair was long, hung free, and rested on a thick fur pelt draped across his shoulders that was far too big for him. “Kings must go to war to protect their people and lands,” he said. “King’s wife and son must be proud of this, and not feel sad when King gone.” He reached his hand out and touched my cheek with his index finger.

I didn’t flinch.

“Where are your parents?” he asked. “Do they know you are gone? Do you miss them?
Do you think they miss you?
” There was a sudden stillness, as everyone strained to hear our conversation.

“My father’s alive,” I said. “But bad people attacked my mama and me. She fought them, but they won, and she disappeared.”

The boy nodded. “Your mama was brave. Like a Great Sachem who saves his people.”

I cried. I just couldn’t hold back my tears any longer.

He wiped a few of them away with his thin little fingers. “You are cold.”

I nodded. “Yes.”

He yanked off his beaver cape and draped it around my shoulders, smoothing it around my torso, down my back, my arms. He leaned into my face, lifted my hair out from the cape so it splayed down the pelt. “Now, Messenger, you will be warm.”

A pretty Native woman swathed in furs and necklaces swooped in, grabbed the boy’s arm, and dragged him away from me, scolding him. She fussed over him, removed one of her furs and wrapped it around his skinny shoulders. He smiled back at me and waved.

Nikana latched onto my arm. “We go.”

He led me through the camp. I saw guns and hatchets. I saw the wounded warriors lying on blankets, heard their moans and cringed. I didn’t want to be here. Suddenly Nikana deliberately tripped me, and I landed on my knees on the hard ground.

He yelled some words at me in Wampanoag: probably telling everyone I was a clumsy idiot. He bent forward, and whispered in English as he helped lift me back to standing. “Angeni sent word. Be yourself. Be honest.”

What did he mean?

Nikana dragged me to the biggest bonfire in the camp surrounded by a circle of fierce-looking men. Some sat. Some stood.

“Angeni’s traveler,” he said, and bowed to a man sitting in front of the fire, who was surrounded by warriors. “The Messenger.”

I stood in front of this group and followed all the eyes and faces that looked back and forth between me and the man. He sat on the ground next to the fire. He wore furs like everyone else, and a huge wampum necklace hung around his neck. He stared up and down at me: not with contempt, but curiosity.

His eyes were determined, fierce, but haunted. He looked like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. People hovered around him, like flies.

Alexander skipped up, perched his chin on the man’s shoulder, and smiled at me.

“I have been told you are a Messenger,” the man said. “That you fly through time, and visit us from the past or the future. Do you know who I am?”

Alexander nodded at me.

“You are King Philip, the Grand Sachem of the Wampanoag Tribe,” I said, and bowed my head. “You are the son of Massasoit, the Chief who helped the Pilgrims stay alive that first winter when they landed in the Americas, on his homeland.”

King Philip nodded at me. According to the colonists, King Philip was vicious, evil, demented. Now I stood directly in front of this man who was supposed to be a monster. But he didn’t look that evil to me.

He looked like any important guy: a powerful man surrounded by dear family, friends, and people who did his bidding. Like any leader, his entourage most likely included people who plotted against him. Spies and jealous wannabes. Those who wanted to rise to power by taking his away.

Frankly, the murderous and hated King Philip looked normal. I realized if someone were going to kill me in the year 1675—I would prefer it would be someone like King Philip. At least I would leave this lifetime with dignity and decent karma.