Bound In Blood (The Adams' Witch Series Book 1) (19 page)

“Quit grabbing me like that,” I warned, snatching my wrist away.

“Sorry. I didn’t want your aunt to see me in there. She would figure out we were up to something.” Jennie walked straight for the passenger-side door. "Where are we going?”

“Up the road a little ways. We need to get out of here and then we can pull over and talk.”

I jogged around the backside of the Escalade. My phone buzzed in my pocket. I flipped it open and found a text from Drake waiting for me:
Where are you? Courtney says you’re with Jennie. Be careful. She’s not who you think.

But she was the only one willing to help. The only one who’d even listen to me about another possible explanation. I exited out of the text without answering.

“Who was that?” Jennie asked.

“My mother. She hates it that I’m here.”

“I bet.” Jennie’s dribble of fingers across the dashboard marked her impatience. I turned the key and took a right, knowing exactly where we needed to go now. Drake was at the festival, obviously talking with Courtney, which meant his grandfather was at home. Alone.

I needed to talk to him
alone
.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Isabella

1639

Thomas moved Isabella behind him, his chest heaving. “Father, Isabella Lynne and I are leaving.”

She peeked around her lover’s shoulder. Magistrate Ludington smiled wickedly.

“We are leaving tonight. We will be together.”

“My son.” He motioned for Thomas to come closer. The young man stood his ground, chin up and chest out. The elder man smirked. “I believe I have some information that may change your mind.”

“There is nothing you can say—”

“This girl is a witch!” His face transitioned from smirk to sneer in an instant, the anger pulsing out of him. “Why else do you think you fell in love with her? She has been using her magical abilities on you. She tricked you into loving her.”

Isabella and Thomas both gasped and Thomas moved ever so slightly away from her. She heard her mother sobbing from inside their tiny cottage. Hands from behind clasped down on Isabella, breaking her free of Thomas’ loosened grasp, and then dragged her to face the man she loved along with his father.

“What are the evidences against her?”

“This!” Mr. Ludington dug in his pockets and threw items down on the grass before them all. Isabella did not recognize the contents. They looked like leaves and herbs.

She fought back against her imprisoner. His iron grip dug into the flesh at her wrists. “What is this? I do not know what this is,” she sobbed.

“They are ingredients you use for spells. Root from a honeysuckle tree and thyme,” Mr. Ludington explained.

“Isabella could not be what you say. She is a God-fearing young woman.”

“You say this because she tricks you. I found these items in the forest when she placed a spell on you to meet her outside of town.”

Thomas looked from Isabella to the magistrate. “Father, she did not put a spell on me. I just happened upon her there.”

“And still that does not seem odd to you? She was in the woods, at night, when the moon was full in the sky and waiting for you?” The judge looked up into the night and yelled, “Is this not suspicious behavior?”

The door to the house banged open and Mr. Lynne appeared, afraid, but with teeth gritted like a stalking lion. “Give me my daughter.” The farmer’s fist tore into the face of Mr. Austen allowing Isabella to run to her father’s side. The magistrate and Thomas came together in front of them.

Mr. Lynne pleaded, “She is not what you say. You only fear for your reputation. Why cannot these two love if they wish to? Why cannot these two be together if they want to?”

Mr. Ludington laughed aloud. “I do not care that your family is poor, Lynne. I care that she has bewitched my son. This witch has tricked him into loving her.”

“That is nonsensical!”

More men from the hunting party gathered around. Fires from their torches sent flames leaping upwards mixed with black smoke. Mrs. Lynne’s cries mounted in her daughter’s bedroom. Isabella clutched her father’s arm and he patted it in reassurance.

“Drop this now. We are all learned men here. We need not quarrel or make up stories.”

“The only one speaking nonsense is you. Everybody here, in this circle
,
this one has you tricked.” The judge inclined his head toward Isabella. "I can see it in your eyes. You are dazed, willing to believe everything she says. Her powers are great. They are worse than any witch I and yourselves have come across. I am sure she must be the direct descendant of Satan. His hold is on her and she will snare us all in it.”

Mr. Lynne ran at the magistrate. Thomas stepped in front, hands up as if to ward him off. Isabella screamed. The young man wavered, looking between his love and her father.

“You know me. I am just Isabella…just your Isabella.”

“Close your ears!” Mr. Ludington bellowed. All around, men dropped their torches and placed their palms hard over their ears. Everyone but her father and Mr. Ludington. Everyone, even Thomas. “She casts a spell before us now. Quick, Austen, tie the cloth round her mouth.”

Mr. Austen fumbled, not wanting to hear the incantations of an accused witch. He finally removed a white cloth from his pocket and came at Isabella. Thomas watched, his hands covering his ears. He would not hear anything Isabella said, even if she did speak. The tears running down her face said it all.

She stood tall when the man came at her with the bind, but her father threw himself in the middle again until the magistrate tackled him from behind, placing his heavy body over his. “Do not struggle Lynne, or you will be punished.” Isabella swooned, her insides heavy within her. "Look!” Mr. Ludington exclaimed. “She loses her powers because we listen not to her spells.”

Isabella’s lids drooped as her body buckled under her. Thomas was the last face she saw. His hands finally came away from his ears, anger flecking his eyes as her mouth was stuffed with cloth.

***

Isabella woke to complete blackness. If she had not felt her eyes open, she would not be able to tell whether she stared at something or at the back of her lids.

The earthen floor was dank, her cheek rested against the dampness. Her mouth stuck together and when she opened her jaw to wet her lips and insides, her tongue met with the grit of dirt. Her arm throbbed, pain shot through it as she moved to sit, teeth clenching over the hard grains in her mouth. She spit out and felt a wetness hit her leg.

Reaching up, she brushed dirt from her cheek. It stung to the touch and swelled underneath her. She wiped at it, eager to remove the dirt from her, pulling her fingertips away in shock a few times as pain shot through her.

Isabella looked up, searching for any sign of light. She found nothing. No cracks where the moon or the sun might shine through. No flicker of yellow from a candle. Despite the complete darkness, she knew where she was.

Magistrate Ludington’s gaol.

The cellar of his house hid the miscreants of society before they were tried and punished. Where they housed the witches his parties caught, where they kept them before they burned away their sins.

Burned.

With that thought, she fainted.

***

A groan spurred Isabella awake again. She had no sense of time or hour. Only her begging stomach consumed her waking life.

A sliver of light illuminated part of the cell. Nothing but brown dirt and gray stone met her. The light decreased again as a door to her left shut. A jumping flame cast wood stairs in shadows and light as feet descended them.

Isabella blinked her eyes, the light stinging them. The figure before her was a blur, like a distorted reflection from the stream on her family’s farm.

She could not see who came to her, though she smelled food. Her stomach ate at her, like a leach sucking up blood. “P-p-please…” Isabella reached out to the shadowy figure. A bowl was placed by her lying head, under her nose.

Isabella tried to move, but her limbs failed her. Tears slipped from her eyes. The figure swore, bent down, and picked up the spoon. She opened her mouth and hot liquid fell into it, some running into her mouth and some dripping from her lips to the dirt floor. “Th-thank you.”

“You need to sit and feed yourself.” The voice stoic, brave. It sent a spark through her.

“I do not know—”

A hand gripped her arm and pulled her up. Her head hit the rock wall behind her and a whimper escaped.

“There.”

Isabella breathed in deep, her head swirled around her, and then faded to black.

***

Isabella’s eyes fluttered open. The smell of food consumed her unconscious mind. The growling of her stomach could not be ignored. Her eyes finally landed open for good. A candle and a bowl of stew lay in front of her. She moved her aching muscles and reached out for the bowl. They complained, but she pushed through.

Her fingers shook as she brought the spoon to her mouth. The stew, though cold, soothed her. Her stomach rumbled as it finally slipped down her throat. She spooned mouthful after mouthful into her until she scraped bottom and then emptied the liquid into her mouth, tipping the bowl to her lips.

“Here.”

Isabella jumped. The shadows spoke to her. She strained her eyes and saw nothing. A piece of bread landed by the candle. Isabella tore off a piece and stuffed it in her mouth, chewing it down.

“I suppose you are hungry. It has been three days.”

The food, the company, the recognition of his voice spurred her heart. “Have you come to save me?”

She thought she heard a catch in his voice, or maybe it was a sound of protest. “No.”

Isabella stuffed another piece of bread in her mouth, holding back a sob that crept up. “Why are you sitting where I cannot see you?”

“My father says I am to stay away from you.”

“And why do you not listen?”

Grinding of pebbles on dirt sounded as Thomas came at her. He crawled on all fours, his face coming to rest inches from hers. She scrambled back and hit her head on the rock again.

“I have to know how it happened. How did you take over my Isabella?” His breath caught, barely choking out the last words.

“I am your Isabella. I do not know of what you are speaking. I am just me. Just Isabella.”

Thomas raised his hand and brought it down across her cheek. She dropped the last piece of bread from her hand and a foreign liquid dripped in her mouth. She spit out bread and blood at his feet. He jumped back and then looked at her again. “Do not lie to me.”

She turned to him, her eyes cold, face leaking in rage. “I am not a witch! I am just me.”

Thomas brought his hand up again. Isabella cowered, dropping her face between her legs and brought up her hands as a shield. His hand thudded to the earthen ground.

“Pray believe me, Thomas. I have no magical abilities.” Her words choked back by tears and breaks in her chest.

“They found things in your desk.”

“I told you about the writing I found before. Did I not? ‘Tis Mrs. Shipton. She has turned you away from me. Turned everybody against me.”

“My father trusts her. She says herself that she saw you in the woods.”

“Because she called me there. But that was a dream, Thomas.” She spoke the words, they flew from her mouth with ease for surely Thomas would come round and believe her. They were in love.

His gaze traveled upward, eyes searching the ceiling or perhaps above it, way above it. “When did they take you from me?”

She said the only thing that came to her. “When you followed them and not your heart.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Sarah

“Stay here.” I steered the car into Drake’s driveway. Jennie mumbled under her breath, but she stayed. I didn't want two people to interrogate the old man. Jennie was forceful, a brute even. Drake would never talk to me again. Hell, I’d have a heck of a time convincing him to do so now as it was.

I knocked on the door. After some shuffling and an unmistakable sound of footsteps accompanied by a cane, the door opened. An old man peered around the huge wood door. The first thing I noticed were his eyebrows. Long silver and black strands curled up over his wrinkly forehead, marking him an old man. My heart sank. Could I really pepper this guy for information? He was fragile, cute, with cracks in his old skin——a grandfather.

His voice came out phlegm-filled. “Hello?”

And my voice came out soft, and sweet. Not the way I envisioned interrogating the man who may hold clues to how my dad died. “Hello. Mr. Connors? I’m Sarah. Drake’s friend?"

“Oh yes. Sarah.” The old man nodded and opened the door wider. “Drake’s told me all about you. Come in dear.”

I stepped through the big wooden entryway. “Thank you.”