Dangerous Magic (3 page)

And he'd been right. Initially she'd refused to speak to him, but Colin was the one person who understood her and soon a glance on the path became a word which became a conversation. Soon things were back to normal. But now, as he stood there warning her to assimilate into the village, she felt her anger grow anew.

"Just what are you suggesting, Col? That I profess faith to their one God and abandon the many who have been so good to me?"

Colin threw up his hands in exasperation. "No, not profess faith. Just pretend to. And if you must follow the old path, do it in secret." He paused and looked down. "And if not then at least accept my protection. I could stay near your house, just in case. And if this madness comes to the village I could take you away."

Lark made an exasperated noise and moved past him, resuming her march down the path. "I am not one of these frail goodwives, Col. I've told you a dozen times that I need no protection."

Colin frowned and walked after her, catching up and taking her arm to spin her around towards him again. "That is where you are wrong, Lark," he said firmly. "You do need protection."

"Says who?" she asked angrily.

"Say I," he shot back.

"I thought after that one time...," she reddened at the memory of the spanking. "It's not been repeated. I thought it meant that you realized you were wrong."

"And that's where I made a mistake, not being firm with you from the start." he said. "All those times we tussled as children." He shook his head. "I should have thrashed your bottom then, just to show you the order of things. If I had, perhaps you'd respect me enough now to accept my offer."

Lark's face flushed red with anger, and for a moment she forgot the ugly incident with the Hatches and even Colin's warning about the rumored assault upon her religion.

"How dare you!" she hissed, and pointed a finger at him, her green eyes flashing. "For such a threat I should hex you."

Colin threw back his head and laughed. "You're forgetting who you're talking to," he laughed, looking down at her. "We both know I mean well, and if you hex me I can counter it. Perhaps my magic is weak, but an unjust hex is easy enough to answer."

Lark dropped her finger, but her green eyes were still burning with indignation. Her face had colored up, too, from a combination of the wind and her high temper. It occurred to Colin to tell his friend he'd never seen her look more beautiful, but he thought the better of it.

"Very well," she said, picking up the hem of her cloak. "I shall spare you. This time. But threaten to skelp me again, Colin Magregor, and I shall gladly risk retribution to avenge my affronted spirit."

She turned and stalked off, leaving Colin looking after her, amused. Lark Willoughby was a fine woman, and the only one in the village who stirred his loins. He'd long been in love with her, and it seemed curious to him that such an astute soul as she had not seemed to detect this fact. As she walked, she hugged the cloak to herself, briefly revealing the outline of her hourglass shape. Yes, he would certainly risk a hex to thrash her pretty bottom again. She needed it. But then he felt a seriousness descend over him. Frivolity aside, the rumors he had heard disturbed him and he suddenly felt a deep frustration at having his warning go unheeded by the woman he cared about. If they were true - and he had no reason to believe they were not - it meant Lark had a great deal to worry about.

* * *

"The rudeness of that chit of a girl is unspeakable." Gertrude Hatch paced the floor of the house she shared with her son, her arms crossed in front of her so that her elbows stuck out from her sides like a pair of skinny wings. With her beaklike nose and long neck, her son thought she looked a bit like one of the chickens he'd killed earlier in the day.

But he did not say this. His mother was mad enough, although she may have felt better if she'd known that the incident in the shop had done what she'd failed to do: pique Lester's interest in Lark Willoughby. Up until that afternoon, he'd thought her pretty but a bit too high spirited and different for him. He also wasn't sure he believed his mother's assertion that Lark was in possession of the rumored gold. But now everything had changed. He'd been rebuffed and within thirty minutes - thanks to Constance Bell - the whole town knew about it. And while Lester may not have been particularly handsome or bright, he was a man of considerable ego. No little red-haired wench was going to make him the laughing stock.

"She won't be so rude after I bring her to heel," he said, looking at his mother. "And make no mistake. I will do just that. In the end I'll find a way to make her marry me, and on our wedding night the first thing I'll do before I take my pleasure is stripe her backside with a nice thick willow switch so she starts married life learning who's in control."

Gertrude smiled admiringly at her son. "A fine idea, son, if you ask me. And since I'll be living with the both of you she won't be able to say 'boo' to a goose without my informing on her. A good beating never hurt a woman, but a lack of it has made many a man miserable."

Lester thought of his own father, nagged to death he believed, but again said nothing. Instead he mindlessly whittled another chunk of wood from the stick he was holding, watching as it jettisoned into the fire and burst into flames.

"Yes, and when she's sufficiently tame she'll give us babies to play with and I'll finally have some help around this house." Gertrude looked around at the sooty walls and scuffed floor. Even if was one of the nicer homes, it could use a good cleaning. She smiled to herself, imagining her bouncing a smiling grandchild on her knee as a plumper and more subdued Lark scrubbed the floor at her feet.

"But how are we going to make her marry me?" Lester said a bit miserably. "You heard her this afternoon. She's not interested."

He whittled off another piece of wood. This one missed the fire, instead ricocheting off the mantle and to land back at his feet. "She'd rather stay up there in the woods dealing with sick peasants. Most women I could at least see at church, but she doesn't even come to services."

Gertrude, who'd been kneeling down to stir the dying coals of their fireplace suddenly stopped and looked over her shoulder, the thoughtful expression on her face slowly replaced by a mean, calculating smile. She put the poker aside, stood and started to pace the room. She tapped the side of her beaklike nose with her finger as she walked. Lester knew what that meant; his mother was scheming.

"Reverend Pratt's wife came in today, along with that gossipmonger Constance," she said. "Before they left we had a conversation that I didn't think much of. But now, in light of Lark Willoughby's arrogant actions..." Her voice trailed off.

"Well, what did she say, woman?" Lester found his mother's attempts to be mysterious irritating.

Gertrude glared at her son. "Don't take that tone with me, boy. I didn't brook it from your father and I won't brook it from you!"

Lester drew back, intimidated. "Beg pardon," he mumbled, looking down at his feet.

Gertrude smirked at her son's ready compliance and continued. "I asked her what Reverend Pratt's sermon topic would be for this Sunday morn and she said he would be discussing 'the devil in our midst.' There is, she said, a growing fear that some unsavory religious practices have followed some families from across the sea to take root here."

She turned to Lester. "There are those among us who are practicing the Dark Arts in cooperation with Old Nick himself."

Lester looked at his mother, his expression indicating he was clueless to what this had to do with his current dilemma. "How's knowing the topic of a sermon going to help me get Lark Willoughy to marry me?"

Gertrude gave him another moment to make the connection before snorting in derision and cuffing him on the side of the head.

"Sometimes I think you're as slow and stupid as your father, God rest his soul," she said. "Isn't it clear? Lark Willloughby is different. She always has been, with her strange herbs and unnatural beauty. She doesn't attend church services and cures where the doctors can't. Clearly this is the work of the devil."

Lester wondered how healing sick people was the work of the devil, but knew better than to ask.

"Go on," he said.

"So we go to Reverend Pratt with our suspicions," she said. "And then when she is formally under suspicion we - as good Christian folk - offer her the chance to clear her name by entering a respectable marriage to a good Christian man."

"And that would be me, right?" Lester asked.

His mother cuffed him on the other side of the head. "Of course," she said. "Oaf!"

She began to pace again. "And after you are married and her property is yours we shall dig up every inch of the place to find the gold."

"They say if there is gold it may be under fairy enchantment," said Lester, returning to his whittling. "Touching it will turn us into rocks or something."

"Don't say such a thing!" his mother screeched, wringing her bony hands. "We must not even pretend we believe in fairies and sprites and the like. They are of the devil!"

Lester cowered, fearful that his mother would strike him again. When she did not, he ventured a timid look at her. "But just how are we supposed to raise suspicions and then offer her protection? Won't it look suspicious? Knowing Lark, she'd rather spend her life in a stone cell than marry the man that informed on her."

Gertrude smiled. "Oh, I think not. From what I hear, the penalty for consorting with the devil through the old religion is punishable by death. Specifically, burning."

Lester gawked at his mother, suddenly less comfortable with the plan. Gertrude saw the faltering look in her son's eyes and rushed over, taking his hands in hers. She was close. She wasn't about to let him break ranks when the gold, a grandchild and a full-times house servant were all within her grasp.

"We will not be tainted by this, Lester, if that is what you're worried about. I know I said we'd take Reverend Pratt our suspicions, but not directly. We'll get someone to do it for us."

"Who?"

"Millicent Salter." Gertrude smiled triumphantly.

"The washerwoman's daughter?" Lester looked skeptical. Millicent, while buxom and pretty, was a simpleton. Even he was smarter than she was. The girl came in several times a week to see if there were any scraps that could be cheaply had or begged off the butcher. Gertrude generally refused, but Lester sometimes gave her a bit of something behind his mother's back, if only so he could ogle the girl's tits as they strained against her threadbare bodice.

"Of course!" Gertrude said. "She fancies you."

"She does?" This was news to Lester.

"Yes," his mother said. "But then again she fancies any man who could get her out of that stinking hut she shares with her sick mother."

Lester considered this. "She is pretty," he mused.

Another cuff from Gertrude brought him back to his senses. "Yes, but she is not as pretty as Lark Willoughby. And she has no property." She stood. "And she has no gold."

Lester rubbed the side of his head. The whacks had given him a headache, and he was eager for the conversation to end so before he said anything else out of line. "And how are we supposed to get Millicent Salter's word against Lark?"

Gertrude stood, turning back to the fire. "You," she said, "just leave that to me."

Chapter Three

Moonlight bathing the frost covered ground would have given the isolated glen the appearance of being a large milk bowl, were it not for the presence of the nine-foot circle marked in stone. In the center stood a beautiful naked woman, also bathed in moonlight. Her skin was so white it seemed to glow, her hair so red and shiny it looked like flames licking down her back.

As a solitary practitioner, Lark knew the circle need not be nine feet; five would have sufficed. But out of a sense of nostalgia - and perhaps a bit of wishful thinking - she'd established one large enough for a whole coven, just in case like-minded souls should find their way across the sea.

Four candles were spaced evenly around the circle, marking the north, south, east and west points. Lark had lit them after symbolically marking the parameters of the circle with the ritual knife that had once belonged to her grandmother, calling upon the elemental spirits associated with each direction to protect her during the ritual - Earth Gnomes for north, Fire Salamanders for south, Air Sylphs for east, and Water Undines for west. The spirits, which she'd learned about at her grandmother's knee, were friendly allies in a witch's magical workings; they kept bad things out and positive energy in.

On the ground before her was a small altar fashioned from a short tree stump, which held a goblet, a bowl of salt, an exaggerated female torso fashioned from clay and the recently consecrated image of the stag carved by Duncan Beck. Earlier, she'd taken a sip of the wine from the goblet and poured the rest out as a libation to the goddess Brighid, whom she'd call upon the heal Clara Beck via a poppet fashioned to represent the child. Now she held up a freshly made talisman, letting the moonlight bathe it as she called upon Athena for protection.

It was the fall of the year, time more for Gods than for Goddesses. Based on the wheel of the year, the colder months were when the Gods were most powerful, reborn in all their masculine aspects while their female counterparts rested and awaited spring. But Lark had always felt more comfortable with the Goddesses. It wasn't that he did trust the Gods. Cernunnos, particularly, had been kind. But when she felt afraid, calling upon the Goddess felt comforting to Lark, a bit like running to a mother for help.

Now she asked Athena to bless and charge the talisman she held aloft, feeling as she did the energy emanating from the shaft of moonlight down, down, down into her open palms. Somewhere an owl hooted, and Lark smiled. The owl was Athena's sacred bird. She was near.

Kneeling, Lark placed the talisman gently on the altar, keeping her head bowed in thanks for several moment. She fancied for the briefest moment that she felt the soft pressure of a feminine hand on her head and mouthed the words, "thank you," before finally standing.