Serpent's Kiss: A Witches of East End Novel (33 page)

“Okay,” said Freddie, wriggling in his seat, although the shade now was much better.

Liman picked up a long, slim, sharp-looking dagger, a letter opener, Freddie supposed, its chrome shining brilliantly. “I do have something to propose that you might find amenable.”

“What’s that?” asked Freddie.

He was studying the dagger, which he ran along his palm. “If the mission is successful, namely, if you can single-handedly retrieve the treasure, then I will give consent for my daughter’s hand.”

“Awesome!” Freddie had risen to his feet, beside himself, nearly trembling with joy. He hadn’t expected this at all. Of course, he would retrieve the treasure, even if it were a thousand trunks of doubloons.

“It’s rather light. I mean, not too big,” said Mr. Liman as if reading Freddie’s mind. “But a dangerous expedition nevertheless. If you are willing to embark on it, then you may marry my girl, but first you have to sign the contract.”

Freddie was ecstatic and wanted to jump up and down, but he contained himself, instead letting out a deep breath. “I’m ready. Where do I sign?”

Liman gave him the once-over, then smiled to himself. He pushed at a sheet of paper before him, glancing at it, then looked up at Freddie. “We’ll need a witness.” He pressed a button on the desk. “Bleaker, is my partner here?”

“Yes, Mr. Liman,” came the mousy fellow’s voice from the desk.

“Please send the captain in,” returned Liman.

This was the third time Freddie was meeting the captain, and when he strolled in, he was not in his whites and captain’s hat as he had been last time Freddie had seen him. Instead, he wore a three-piece suit and emerald tie with a gold pin.

Freddie rose to greet him. “Captain Atkins,” he said, extending a hand. Freddie realized he had seen him before—and not just at the alley. He had seen the good captain leaving his mother’s house that Thanksgiving Day, carrying a large bouquet and looking a bit upset. He hadn’t mentioned it to his family in the tumult of his return, but it crossed his mind now that he probably should. How did Harold Atkins know his family?

They shook hands, and the captain gave him an amiable, warm smile.

Mr. Liman cleared his throat and addressed him. “Harold, we need you to witness the signing of the contract in blood.”

“Why, of course,” said Harold, smiling at Freddie. “I’m delighted to have Freddie on board!”

“Blood?” asked Freddie.

“Standard.” Liman picked up the dagger he had been playing with. “That’s why I have this.” He held the dagger up, handed Freddie an ostrich feather pen, and then came around the desk with the sheet of paper. Then Liman and Captain Atkins loomed over Freddie, who held out his palm, looking away.

The guards were dragging Anne Barklay out of her cell on the outskirts of Fairstone, a low-slung set of barracks on the edge of the woods, more like wooden cages judging how small they were. The village proper was no more than a dozen or so sinister brown houses, one with a steeple and cross, chickens pecking about, pigs snorting in pens, people bustling, working, building more wooden houses, performing daily chores, getting water from the well, splashing it along in the dust, men in black broad-brimmed hats, women in white caps.

Freya stood hiding inside a thicket, watching, as they pulled Anne through the field toward the village. It was definitely her, as Joanna had described: the proud high forehead, round face, dark eyes, and large sensual mouth, dotted by a black beauty mark above her lips. Even her clothes were as Mother had mentioned, the gray bodice over the white blouse, a black apron, and maroon skirt, all of her clothes stained and frayed, the blouse ripped at the seam, so that her slim pale shoulder poked through. As Anne pulled from the guards, her white cap fell in the grass, and Freya saw that her head had been shaved.

This was what they did, a gruesome and rather prurient practice passed down since the publication of the
Malleus Maleficarum
(
Hammer of the Witches
), which dated back to 1487 and had gone through several new editions from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century. It was a guidebook, so to speak, on how to identify, interrogate, try, and convict witches. One of the ways to peg an alleged witch entailed shaving her entire body, head, armpits, and genital area, in order to search for the “devil’s mark.” This so-called mark was supposedly a third teat from which the witch suckled her familiar. It could be anywhere on the body, and if it were found—like a birthmark—it was tested, probed, and pierced with a pin. If this caused pain and blood flowed, then the woman in question was not a witch; if there was no pain and no blood, then she was. Other forms of torture could also be used in order to draw out a confession.

Anne’s bare feet dragged as the guards led her to the village. She was having trouble walking, most likely after having been kept in the small, cramped cell. She finally got to her feet, straining to keep up pace, holding her head high. They were far away enough now for Freya to run and gather her cap in the field. She would bring it to Anne as a show of her friendship. As she leaned over to pick it up in the grass, she felt a presence behind her, and a large hand, stained black around the fingers, grabbed at her wrist.

She turned toward the stranger crouched beside her in the grass: a man in a floppy black hat with an arresting face, large catlike eyes, an almost indescribable color—perhaps the pale yellow-brown referred to as tiger-eye—a broad mouth, a five o’clock shadow along the chiseled jaw, and golden-brown hair nearly reaching his shoulders. He wore a loose shirt of jute, open at the chest. His skin was taught and tanned like a laborer’s.

Freya almost let out a friendly “Hello!” but she saw nothing but ire in his eye, which stopped her short.

“What are you planning to do with me wife’s cap?” he asked her.

She let out a sigh of relief. “Mr. Barklay, I am here to help. I want to see Anne free.” She handed him Anne’s cap, which he took and brought to his lips, inhaling it, and for a moment she thought he was going to burst into tears; his chest shook, then he got a hold of himself and rose to his feet.

He set out through the field toward the village, and Freya moved into step with him, walking in tandem. It was difficult to walk fast with all these skirts, their heavy weight. She would sink straight to the bottom of the ocean if someone chucked her in.

“Woman, she won’t confess!” Mr. Barklay said to her. “There is not a thing you can do for poor Anne. These people have nothing but blackness around their hearts. It is they who are consorting with the devil. They have got it all backward.”

“I can give you money. I have gold.” She was reaching inside the belt of her skirt, ripping the seam Joanna had carefully sewn. “Perhaps we can come at night and get the guards to release her; give them money. I can take you elsewhere. I have the means,” she said, thinking how much happier he and Anne would be in the twenty-first century.

He stopped in his tracks and looked her up and down, then laughed heartily. “You certainly don’t look it. Who are you?”

Joanna had dressed her as a peasant woman so as not to draw too much attention. She pushed a fist at him, held it open, showing him a handful of gold. “I’m a witch,” she said, taking a chance.

He laughed at her. “A witch! There is no such thing; even Anne will tell you so. Keep your money, woman. Anne is proud. Why do you think they are dragging her to the stocks in the town square? If only she would break down and tell them what they want to hear!” His eyes shone and he strode away hurriedly, but not before Freya had done a bit of sleight of hand, placing the coins in the pocket of his loose pants; they could get quite far with that once they got Anne out.

“I appreciate your trying to help. My name is John. Yours, Goody Witch?” he said, not unkindly.

“Freya Beauchamp,” she replied, curtsying as she walked. “At your service, and I wish you would let me help you. I think Anne has an important message for my mother.”

He glanced at her as if she were batty. Everyone had begun to shout in the village, and a chant of “Witch!” rose from the square.

“I have already lost too much time with you!” John took off fast through the field. “Anne must be hungry. I brought her food, and she needs water,” he shouted back as he sprinted. Freya ran after him as fast as she could.

It seemed everyone had come out of the houses to gather in the square, where they had chained Anne to a large oak instead of placing her in the stocks. It was clear they wanted to make a spectacle of her body, displaying it in as lascivious a manner as they could, her arms pulled back so that her breasts jutted forward, the chain wrapping around her curves to reveal more of her form. Luckily she was shaded beneath the oak. It was about noon now, and the sun beat down. No one would notice Freya as a stranger with everyone outdoors—and the crowd was frenzied, too focused on Anne.

“She signed the devil’s book with her blood!” someone shouted.

“She has the mark! See—above her lip!”

“No, that’s not it. They shaved her! It must be somewhere else. Show us the witch’s mark!”

“Show us the mark!” people began to chant.

John had pushed past the crowd and was asking one of the guards flanking the tree for permission to be with his wife.

“She dances with the devil at night, John. Why do you still want her? You are a fool!” a young woman cried. It must have been Sally Smitherstone.

The guard solemnly shook his head at John. Freya saw her opportunity to show him she was on his side, and she struggled through the rioting townsfolk. When she got to the guard, she slipped him a coin, and after he looked down at it with a smile, he pushed John forward toward his wife.

John placed Anne’s cap back on her shaved head, whispering in her ear. She gave him a pained smile and moved her cheek toward his. He poured water inside her parched lips.

“That woman! That woman is a witch!” cried a man from the crowd. For some reason, Freya turned to the voice, which had immediately made her skin crawl. It was so familiar. He was pointing at Freya, singling her out, not Anne.

“What do you say, Mr. Lion Gardiner?” someone shouted back at the accuser.

The man, with a black mustache and goatee, in a brown hat, his white collar pouring over a majestic black cape, stepped forth. It was obvious he was wealthier than those around him and held sway over these villagers. They had suddenly quieted at hearing his name.

“I saw that woman falling from the sky as I came in on the boat today from the Isle of Wight. I couldn’t find her when I got here, but I recognize the clothes, plain as day. We must take her to the magistrates to see if she has the mark.” He said this calmly, matter-of-factly.

“Witch! Witch! Witch!” the people chanted, now pointing at Freya.

No. Not again. Why had she volunteered for this? She felt faint, so light-headed. She had had nothing to eat or drink since she had arrived. She didn’t know how much time had gone by since she had passed through the portal. There was no telling. A few seconds? Hours? Days?

She tried to get away, but her skirts were too heavy, and there were too many hands holding her down.

Ingrid stood in the back of the library in the cordoned-off area, hovering over the mythology section of the reserved book collection, none of which anyone was allowed to check out. You had to ask for permission to enter this area, either from Ingrid, Hudson, Tabitha, or Jeannine, the new intern. Usually one of them supervised, trying not to appear too much like a vulture circling overhead.

She put her cell phone down. She didn’t want to be out of touch with Joanna and Norman for one second in case they needed her. Freya had still not returned, and Ingrid had been growing increasingly worried about her sister traveling to that particular blight in time.

She perused the
A
section for books on Álfheim (one of the nine worlds, Norman had told her) and
álfar
(elf or elfin) and perhaps she would also find something on the
áss
(“I think it’s their word for Aesir,” Joanna had said, which did narrow down the type of god they were looking for). Ingrid found it amusing that most of these books were written by gods themselves, witches and warlocks turned scholars, like one Norman Beauchamp, PhD. She grabbed a few of her father’s on the nine worlds, hither and thither. Mostly she needed to look at maps.

She ran an index along the books’ spines, continuing to scan the titles. Her parents had filled her in on gaps, but she liked poring over the written words and images; she retained things better that way. She was a visual person and mental snapshots always helped.