Dangerous Magic (4 page)

Picking up her ritual knife, she moved then to deconstruct her protective circle, but stopped when she heard a twig snap in the nearby woods. For long moments she stood. Was someone - or something - out there? Magical workings attracted all sorts of beings - not all of them kind. A cold breeze blew through the glade, and for the first time she felt a bit chilled and more than aware that the nipples on her upturned breasts were hardening to almost painful points. But still she stood for a few moments longer, listening, until she satisfied herself that what she'd heard was probably just the footfall of a deer in the nearby thicket. Lark dropped down to ground any remaining energy that had not gone into the talisman. Then, moving around the circle, she dismissed each spirit one by one, blowing out its corresponding candle as she did. Finally, she traced the circle again, this time in the opposite direction, effectively pulling the energy she'd lain down pulled back up into her knife. The circle was now gone. Quickly, she donned the cloak that lay on the ground beside her, draping it over her naked form before gathering up her ritual items and talisman. Her work, for this night, was done.

* * *

Colin MacGregor knelt silently in the thicket, barely breathing. He'd not intended to spy; his intentions in coming had been to try again to talk some sense into Lark about his concerns for her safety. When he'd found her cottage empty and her back door standing open, he'd worried that something had happened to her. Then he'd heard the soft chanting and felt pulled, as if by invisible string, to the glen.

He'd known it was wrong to stay and watch, but he could not look away when he saw Lark's exquisite form bathed in moonlight. So he'd ducked into the thicket and watched her as she performed her ritual. It was, he had to admit, a beautiful as she was. He could still remember his own mother and grandmother dancing naked, or sky-clad as they called it, in the moonlight or around a bonfire set among the standing stone formations that dotted the Scottish coast. They had sung loudly, these witches, without fear of discovery, holding hands as their voices carried over the sounds of waves crashing into the cliffs below. The singing and dancing, his grandmother had told him, helped raise power for their work. Sex did, too, or so his aunt had told him.

"You're too young to know of such things," she'd said, ruffling his sandy blonde hair. "You'll learn the way when you're older."

But he had not. A hard winter had seen his family book passage to the Americas, where a new religion had driven out the old. Now, having watched Lark make her magical appeal, he felt his sense of wonder tinged by a sense of loss. His family's conformity to the ways of their new village had robbed him of his religious heritage. In a perfect world, he and Lark would be able to practice any religion they pleased, but the truth was that a growing threat existed that could make Lark's brand of spirituality a matter of mortal peril.

Colin itched to tell her this, but to go knocking on her door now would be to give himself away. She'd know in an instance he'd been spying on her. He'd seen her looking towards the thicket where he'd been hiding. In his mind, he could still see how he looked, the breath forming a misty cloud from her parted lips, her red hair cascading down to her rounded hips. He'd marveled at her perfect breasts, her flat stomach, the small patch of red hair between her legs. When she'd turned, he'd caught the shape of her buttocks, round and smooth. In his breeches, he could feel his cock stirring anew at the memory. No, he certainly couldn't face her now.

Lark was likely still angry with him anyway. He'd threatened her with a spanking, after all, and had forced her to remember the one time he'd been brave enough to follow through on his threat. Lark was a wild spirit, but one that needed taming.

He thought back on the spanking he'd given her so long ago. He'd be lying to himself to say he'd not been aroused by punishing Lark's fair bottom. It was a perfect set of haunches the girl possessed. But it wasn't just sexual arousal that had been awakened in Colin MacGregor the day he'd turned the fiery redhead over his knee. It had been a deep protectiveness that had also been aroused within him. And something else. Love.

He thought about Lark all the time. What was she doing? Was she safe? Over and over she'd assured her that her magic protected her. It frustrated and disappointed Lark that he doubted the power of the magic to keep her safe. It frustrated him, too. There was a time when he did not doubt the forces of nature, the protection of the gods and goddesses. He'd been a child then. How had growing up here changed his faith while leaving hers intact. What was it about Lark that kept her unfettered to the grinding convention of life in the colonies?

Perhaps it was because she was still a child of nature, while the cloud of mysticism no longer shrouded his vision. New forces were afoot, forces blown in on the winds of religious change. This was a religion run not by the gentle give and take of nature, but by the whims of man. Danger abounded.

Lark would have to be warned - and soon. Even if Lark ignored the danger, Colin Magregor could not. And he knew that if it threatened Lark Willoughby he'd lay down his life to protect her if that's what it took.

* * *

Millicent Salter pulled up the dirty hem of her skirt and carefully checked her shoes for mud. She didn't want to track any filth into the village shop and further incur the disdain of Gertrude Hatch, who'd already be irritated to see her show up with only a few coins in her pocket.

Millicent knew she didn't have enough to buy anything choice, and silently prayed to Jesus that it would be Lester and not his mother manning the store that day. As she stepped over the threshold, she gave a silent prayer of thanks. The butcher, his thick arms covered in blood, was chopping meat on a table. Outside the back door, she could see a rendering pot boiling away. The smell drifted in with the breeze and would have bothered most people, but not Millicent. She and her mother took in laundry from the families, and had dealt with their share of stained birthing and deathbed sheets handed to them from people who could afford washing linens but not replacing them.

Lester looked up at Millicent as she entered and smiled. "Good day, Miss Salter," he said. "Come to buy some meat for your table?"

Millicent looked around, expecting Gertrude to fly through the door as she usually did and announce there was nothing available that a washerwoman could afford.

"If it can be had for a good price," said Millicent. "Mama's been sick and work has been scant lately." As she spoke, she reached into the pocket of her apron to finger the three coins she'd brought before bending down and pretending to check her buckle. She lingered a bit, allowing Lester a good view of breasts threatening to burst free of the bodice she wore.

When she stood, Lester was watching her with a slack-jawed, transfixed look she pretended not to notice.

"Uh, yes Miss Salter. I was just thinking of you this morning. I have something put aside, in fact, just hoping you would come in. It's a rather fatty, bit of venison but you'll be able to get a meal or two out of it."

Millicent smiled and bowed her head. "Thank you, sir. How much is it?" She pulled the coins out and held them out to him with her work-chapped hand. "This is all I have."

"No need," he said. "Consider it a gift. Just take it. It's already wrapped and on the counter."

Millicent walked over and picked up the two package of meat, counting her blessings as she did. "Thank you so much, sir," she said and pulled the top of her bodice down a bit. For his kindness, the butcher deserved a reward. But when she turned back to him, his back was to her. She frowned, disappointed.

"Well, good day then," she said, and started towards the door. But before she stepped out, Gertrude Hatch walked in and stood before her, a look of shocked incredulity on her bird-like face.

"Miss Salter, just what do you think you're doing?"

Millicent looked at the older woman, baffled. "I was just leaving, ma'am."

"So I see. And with two cuts of meat I know you cannot afford to buy!"

Millicent shook her head. "No, ma'am. Your son, you see. He was kind enough to give these to me."

"Lester!" Gertrude's high-pitched voice reverberated off the walls of the shop. Her son lumbered over.

"Yes, mother?"

"This girl tells me you gave her this meat? Is that so?"

Lester looked down and shook his head. "I told her she could have this one. He pointed to the package in her left hand. It's just a bit of fatty venison still on the bone." He pointed to the package in her right hand. "But not this one. This is this a choice cut for the preacher."

The two Hatches - mother and son - stood there, looking at Millicent with stark disapproval. The girl shook her head, more insistently now. "No - I..."

"So this is how you repay our charity, you filthy little urchin?" hissed Gertrude. "By stealing?"

Millicent shook her head, her face blanching with fear. Lester had told her to pick up the meat wrapped in paper, and she had. She'd not known there was one she wasn't supposed to take. She opened her mouth to tell them this, but Gertrude advanced on her, her pinched features wearing a look of incredulity.

"Do you know what the penalty is for stealing? It'll be the stocks for you, girl, and worse than that once it get out that you sought to steal not just from us but from the preacher!"

Millicent gasped, the shock of Gertrude's words prompting her to find her voice. "I did not know!" she said.

Gertrude ignored the young washerwoman's attempt to explain. "And just who do you think will hire a thief to take in their things? I can assure you once word gets out not a single person in town will come calling for your -" She looked down her nose in distaste at the girl - "services."

Millicent was in tears now and held out shaking hands imploringly to Gertrude and Lester, who had come over to stand beside his mother. The threat terrified her. Even now it was all she and her ailing mother could do to on some days to scrape together enough buy the essentials that they needed. If she were branded a thief, they would starve. The image of a widowed mother who'd already known so many hardships swam before Millicent's eyes. She sank to her knee, abandoning a defense she knew would not be believed and instead began begging for mercy.

Gertrude motioned for her son to shut the front door. As he did so, Gertrude shot a triumphant smile at his back and then leaned down to the kneeling girl and transformed her smug expression into one of fake compassion.

"My dear, my dear," she said. "I know facing the consequences of your sin must be difficult. But face them you must, and reap the harvest of what you've sown. Unless...."

Millicent looked up, hope in her puffy eyes. "Unless what?" she asked, her voice desperate.

"No," Gretrude said, standing and turning her back on the girl. "It is too much to ask. You probably would rather be in stocks."

Millicent was on her feet now, rushing to the older woman's side. "No. please, tell me. I'll do anything. Please! My mother is sickly these days. Without work I won't be able to care for her."

Gertrude turned back to Millicent and appraised the girl's frantic expression. Oh yes, this would be easy.

"You know of Lark Willoughby, do you not?"

Millicent nodded. "Yes ma'am. Everyone knows of Lark. She's good with herbs and for using ointments and salves and such for making folks well. I've been to her place myself to get treatment for a scalded hand. Whatever she did worked wonders. Not even a blister remained the next morning."

Getrude smiled warmly - as warmly as she could - then her face grew serious. "Well, it has come to my attention and the attention of a few other devoted Christians in the village that Miss Willoughby may not be what she seems and that she is using more than herbs to heal." She paused for effect.

"Witchcraft," she hissed conspiratorially. "The girl's using black magic, in league with the devil."

Millicent suddenly looked puzzled. "But...if it be helping the good folk of the village, how can it be of the devil?"

"It just is!" screamed Gertrude, and Millicent jumped and quailed before the older woman, whose face was now red with fury. "If it is not of God, then it is of the devil!" She stopped then, and composed herself. "Now," she said, forcing her voice to a softer tone. "Millicent, I'm willing to forget your thievery if you can possibly remember one or two things you have seen at Lark Willoughby's cottage that could stand as evidence of our suspicions."

"You want me to inform against her?" Millicent looked stricken. "Why? To what end?"

Gertrude reached out and took the younger hands gently in her own.

"To save her soul, of course," she said, her high reedy voice shaking with false emotion. "Tis likely that poor Lark doesn't recognize the devil's hand in her work, or how his assistance stands to taint those who come to her for aid. We - the church ladies, I mean - merely intend to help her understand this. But we can't help her without the word of someone who can remember - in detail - something to prove our suspicions."

"And you promise not to hurt her?" Millicent's lip was trembling and a tear slipped down her cheek as she asked the question.

"I promise I won't hurt her," said Gertrude, thinking that the girl before her was incredibly stupid. No, she'd never lay a hand on the high-minded little forest waif. That would be a task for someone else.

Millicent took a deep breath. "Well, she can talk to birds."

"Really? What kind of birds?"

"Owls. There was one outside her cottage the last time I went there. It screeched at her and she threw it a bit of meat. It seemed unnaturally tame. And she has a cat that follows her everywhere. A black one."

Gertrude nodded. "Go on," she said hastily.

"And the day I scalded my hand she gave me ointment but also asked if she could do a bit more to help me. Of course I said yes and she said she would need a lock of hair. I gave it to her and the next day." She looked at her hand. "I never expected it would heal so fast."

Gertrude raised her eyebrows. "Anything else?"