9781618851307WitchsBrewShayNC (3 page)

Elsbeth whipped around. Spying her daughter peeping over
the loft rails at her, she screamed, “Go, Nyra. Wake Saylym and Kirrah. Gather
thy sisters. Quickly! The coven draws near.”

“Nay,” John cried, his dark eyes round with fright. “It
can’t be. I won’t allow them to interfere.”

Elsbeth turned her attention to her husband, her steps
faltering at the sight of the heavy flintlock pistol shaking in his hands.
Revulsion filled his eyes as he aimed it at her. He cocked the gun. She drew a
sharp breath at the sound of the lock mechanism snapping into place.

“John,” she said faintly. “The children. Please. Do not do
this terrible thing, I beg you.”

His fingers tightened on the trigger.

Not a whisper of remorse glimmered in his eyes.

Elsbeth threw up her arms in defense.

The blast of the gunshot exploded through the cottage…

Chapter One

Physicians were mystified and
unable to determine any physical cause for the symptoms and dreadful behavior
of the girls. They concluded that the girls were under the influence of Satan.

 
~Salem Witch Trials

 
Mid-February, 1692

Page Entry…

Ru-Noc
–
Land of witches and wakens.

There was a time when witches
and wakens dwelled in the illumrof realm, the world of non-magical, ordinary mortals.
Times were joyous, one of festivals, prosperity and plenty.

In the year of Samhain, 1692,
the Great Feast came as it always had, but the Pagan rituals were not
celebrated. The fields lay fallow. There were no cuttings of sweet corn to bury
as an offering to the earth.

Bron Trogain came, bringing
with it the change in the length of day but there was no Last Feast of the
season. A great pall lay upon the land–‘twas a year of unforgivable sorrow.
Terror filled the hearts of those accused of witchcraft, both mortal and
immortal. They were black days for the witches of Salem Village.

Death
arrived–

And
his visit would be a long one.

 
~Pages of history from the Winslow Witches.

In
the Year of Samhain, 1692

Sanctuary

Time of Beltane

315 years later

The hairbrush in Saylym Winslow’s hand moved suddenly,
wiggling worse than a worm on a hook. Screaming, she flung it across the
bathroom and pressed a hand against her run-away heart.

Unfortunately,
the brush landed in the commode with a distinctive
plop
. Water slapped
over the sides of the porcelain rim, splattering onto the worn tiled floor. Saylym
bit her lip and tip-toed to the toilet bowl. Drawing a deep breath to steady
her nerves, she peered over the edge, then jumped back. Her breathing rattled
to a dead stop in her chest.

“Oh-my-god,”
she cried. “I don’t believe it!”

The brush inched its way up the side of the white
porcelain as if it had suddenly sprouted hands and feet. It reached the rim,
tottered for a second, then toppled onto the floor and flopped like a fish out
of water.

“No
more,” she moaned. “Please. I can’t stand one more inanimate thing coming to life.”
Fleeing from the bathroom to the safety of her bedroom, Saylym paused to draw a
deep breath. Her oxygen depleted lungs expanded and fresh air rushed in, making
her slightly dizzy. She grabbed the doorknob, steadied her breathing, then
slammed the bathroom door behind her.

Bloody
hell! She was losing her freakin’ mind.

Although she had to admit there’d certainly been a number
of odd things happen since she’d slipped that darn ring on her finger a month
ago, but a hairbrush springing to life and crawling out of a toilet rated
pretty high on her list of weird events.

“A brush does not walk, talk or breathe. Books don’t float
in the air and brooms don’t fly. Hah!”

Her world went off-kilter the moment she arrived in
Sanctuary. Saylym frowned. No, that wasn’t exactly right. It started when she
bought the old map from an antiques store in London.

As soon as she got home, she unfolded it, closed her eyes
and pointed to a place, any place on the map to call her new home. When she
opened her eyes and looked, her fingertip rested on a black speck squeezed in
beside Salem Village on the old map of the Early Colonies of the Americas and
the East coast shoreline. Sanctuary. Her destiny.

Without a moment’s thought or taking the time to plan
ahead, she packed a suitcase and caught the first available flight from London,
and the rest was history.

Except, in her case, it wasn’t.

The city of Salem had been nothing but a blur as the
reckless cabbie raced through the late afternoon rush hour traffic. The elderly
driver swished in and out of lanes like Gumby on crack, tooting the horn,
yelling obscenities and making gestures his arthritic fingers shouldn’t have
been able to perform. When he finally pulled to the curb in front of a run-down
building, she felt like kissing the ground. She hopped out immediately, but
then her heart plummeted as she looked around. This couldn’t be the right
place. What was the cabbie thinking?

“That’ll be fifty dollars plus tip.” The old man stood
there holding out his hand, waiting for his money.

“But this is an antiques shop. I wanna go to the
town
of Sanctuary, not a shop named Sanctuary,” she said, reading the faded letters
on the display window of the building where he’d parked.

“Sanctuary isn’t a town anywhere near Salem, missy. If you
really wanna go there, then you’ll have to discover the magical path inside the
shop,” he said, pointing and cackling.

 
She should have
realized the cab driver with the grizzled white whiskers and brilliant blue
eyes was a tad bit ‘out there.’ While the car idled, she grabbed the single
piece of luggage she’d brought with her. Muttering beneath her breath about
idiot drivers and inflated taxi rates, she handed him the fare.

Instead of giving her back change for the hundred dollar
bill she handed him, he placed a ring in her hand and slipped the money in his
pocket. “When you enter the shop, put on the ring, and rub it three times.”

“Why? Will a genie pop out?” Crazy old coot! She felt like
screaming,
give me back my money,
b
ut
losing at least forty dollars was worth it just to get away from this nut.

His eyes twinkled mysteriously as he got behind the wheel
of the taxi. “Rub the ring,” he said, and punched down on the gas, shooting
away in a cloud of smoky exhaust fumes.

Nibbling on her bottom lip, Saylym stared after the
driver, then turned to the antiques shop. Frustration quivered through her
setting her teeth on edge. How could there be a town on the map and there be no
town?

What should she do now that the driver had raced away and
deserted her?
“Rub the ring,”
she mimicked.

Why hadn’t she had the forethought to make hotel
reservations? She simply hadn’t taken the time to plan ahead. Now look at the
mess she was in. With nowhere else to go, she might as well go inside the
store. Just to prove the old man was nuts, she slipped the square-cut emerald
onto her finger and pushed open the door of the shop.

She should never have rubbed the ring.

As soon as she did, swirling circles of radiant light
closed around her, and swear to God, gravity lost its grip. She floated into
the air. Her luggage crashed to the floor somewhere below her feet.

The shop spun round and round, slowly at first, then
faster and faster. Saylym clenched her eyes shut, gasped, and tried desperately
to draw a breath. Pressure built around her as if she was spinning inside a
centrifuge. Spinning. Spinning. Faster. Faster. Until she was hurled out of the
shop, out of reality as she knew it.

When she opened her eyes, instead of crash landing as she
expected, she found herself pushing through a spectrum of glittering rainbow
colors soft as cotton candy. The dazzling hues stole her breath away. She
stared at them in wide-eyed wonder. Saylym felt as if she’d stepped out of one
world and through a prism into another. The brilliant shades slowly faded,
leaving her slightly intoxicated and unsteady on her feet.

Feeling a little off course and a lot like she’d lost her
grip on reality, she looked around. Behind her, an ancient looking forest thick
with giant-sized pine trees, majestic as snow-capped mountains, spiraled toward
the peculiar looking sky. How odd. The colors the clouds possessed were not
only stunning, but were lime-green, lemon-yellow and sunset-orange.

Abundant with over-sized mushrooms on the leafy covered
ground, small animals raced to and fro to their burrows in the magical forest.
Birds of all colors and sizes darted through strange colored sky, chirping and
diving for treats on the ground.

The forest stretched endlessly to her left and to her
right, nearly surrounding a tiny, quaint village spread before her. The quiet
town reminded her of pictures she’d seen of Colonial settlements. How could
that be? Had she somehow been flung back in time? If so, where was she?

 
It’d soon be dark.
She had to find shelter for the night. No way did she want to be caught out in
these strange woods after dark. She glanced down at her jeans, noted a new rip
on the knee. How had that happened? Feeling at a loss and struggling to fight
the panic closing in on her, she looked around for her one piece of luggage. It
was nowhere to be seen.

Then as if something or someone had read her mind, her
suitcase appeared beside her. Saylym stared at the offending piece of luggage.
She didn’t know which was worse, having it appear from nowhere, or not appear,
when she for certain needed its contents. Giving it a dark scowl, she decided
she was grateful. At least she’d have clean clothes.

Before she could gather her wits, a clap of thunder and a
strange sounding cackle filled the peculiar sky above the trees. From out of
nowhere, an ancient looking white-haired woman appeared before her.

“What a rush,” she hooted, rocking unsteadily on her
heels. The old woman straightened the red pointed hat on her head from where it
had tilted to one side and cackled, revealing shiny, pink gums. She shook out
the blue skirt dusting the ground and straightened her bright yellow bodice.
Sturdy, black shoes covered her feet. If she wasn’t dressed in such loud
colors, Saylym would swear the old woman was the wicked witch of the West,
except her face wasn’t green.

“Welcome to Sanctuary, Saylym Winslow,” she said, clapping
her hands. “The witches of our little village town have waited a long time for
your arrival.”

Saylym moaned and toppled to the ground at the old lady’s
feet in a dead faint.

When she came to, the aged crone had somehow managed to
get her inside a cottage and on a bed. The witchy looking hag declared the small
house now belonged to Saylym.

“And guess what?” she said.

Saylym shook her head, afraid to ask.

“You’re so lucky to have
me
for a next door neighbor. I’ll look after you, my dear. You can
trust me.”

She wasn’t so sure about her luck, but here she was,
living in Sanctuary, next door to Eldora Waters, and what a character the old
lady was. The very next day, Eldora slapped a deed to the house into her hands.
It was a gift. And no, she couldn’t tell her who gave it to her. The benefactor
wished to remain anonymous.
Presto.
One
problem solved. She had a place to live and no house payment to worry about.

Life was good. Life was great. Or was it?

Saylym stared at her reflection in the mirror and sighed.
It had done her little good to question the crone. Nothing the old lady said
made a lick of sense. Worse, when she asked people in the village where the
city of Salem was located or how to get there, horror masked their faces and
they shied away from her. No help there.

Her life had flipped upside down when she rubbed that ring,
and so had her world.

Why did that old cab driver have to be the only cabbie at
the airport that day?

Saylym frowned, her brows drawing together as she walked
over to her dresser and stared at her reflection in the mirror. Faint color
bloomed on her cheekbones, the same shade as the pink cotton shirt she wore.
She looked nice and sane. A rueful twist to her full lips suggested barely
contained laughter. It was illogical to feel excited about all the unusual
things happening to her lately. She rolled her eyes. It
was
illogical,
but she either had to accept the fact she now lived in another world where
common household items developed quirky personalities, or she’d have to declare
herself mentally unstable. She made a face. Neither thought was acceptable. Heck,
she might be going off the deep end, but she might as well enjoy the journey.

Gathering up her hair, she twisted the ends into a loose
knot. Holding a jeweled clip in front of her face, she glared at it. “Please
don’t come alive. Don’t bite me or change into anything really hostile or
ugly,” she begged, then clipped her hair in place.

She crossed her fingers and waited. When there were no
signs of hostility from the clip, she breathed a sigh of relief. Grabbing a
tube of lipstick, she uncapped it and brought it to her puckered lips. Poised
in front of the mirror, she hesitated, eyeing the glossy pink color.

Something
was going to happen. It was too darn quiet. Everything in the house seemed to
be holding its breath, just waiting for her to make the ultimate mistake of
applying it to her lips.