Into the Woods (32 page)

"If Matilda dies, I will come back here and kill you with my bare hands," he promised.

She didn't try to declare herself innocent, not this time. "You wouldn't dare," she said haughtily, and then she glanced at the mantel clock and smiled. "Besides, I fear you're already too late to save the witch, Mr. Harper."

Declan ran from the house. The children were right behind him, and he ordered them to go straight home.

With his head down, Declan and Smoky flew toward Matilda's house. "I'm not too late," he whispered aloud. "I can't be."

And in the far distance, thunder rolled.

Chapter 22

Matilda lifted her face as Henry set a match to the kindling at her feet. She didn't want to see the fire flicker, she did not want these men to see her cry. "Declan," she whispered.

Henry, Reggie, and Wendell stared at the kindling and the logs—wood Declan and Robert had split for her—surrounding the stake they'd lashed Matilda to, their faces excited, expectant, demon-like. She didn't have to look down to see that the fire had started. She heard the crackle, felt the heat.

The rainmaker backed away, inching toward the horses. Matilda set her eyes on him and stared hard. He might've stopped this, had he wanted to. He knew she was no witch, just as she knew he was no rainmaker.

Henry saw her staring and snapped his head around to discover what had claimed her attention. "Get back here, Cox," he ordered, waving his pistol in that direction. Cox sighed and complied.

Reggie had a sudden, and much too late, flash of conscience. "Maybe we should cut her down. I mean, what if we burn her and it still don't rain? What if she casts some spell before she dies, and it'll never rain again?"

"Shut up," Henry snapped. "Don't turn coward on me now."

"I'm not a coward," Reggie protested. "I just think we should be sure."

Now he wanted to be sure? Matilda laid her eyes on the farmer, and he shivered and took a step back.

She felt the growing heat of the spreading fire now, and made herself look down. The flames grew rapidly, inching inward from the outer edge of the circle of kindling and logs they'd surrounded her with.

This was no way to die, lashed to a stake and burned alive, a sacrifice to the stupid fears of brainless, ignorant men. She'd lived a good life, she'd never done anyone harm. A few days ago, she'd had everything a woman could ask for: love, new friends, a safe home. Now it was all gone, and as the flames grew, so did Matilda's anger.

"Declan!" she screamed at the top of her lungs.

Matilda reached deep inside herself and found something heretofore unknown. A strength, a force, a power. That potent power had been hidden behind a stone wall of her own making, a shield that had protected her from the truth for years. A few of those stones crumbled.

She lifted her head to the skies, looking far beyond her cabin. "Declan!" In the distance lightning streaked across the sky as she screamed. Faint thunder rumbled. The men around her did not hear, not yet. They were too excited by their own actions, too proud of themselves.

With another flash of anger, the dam inside her shivered and crumbled some more. Something new and tangible grew inside, a force as real and strong and unstoppable as the underground spring that fed her pond.

"Declan!" She wanted him to hear her, to save her, but she knew he would not. He was with Vanessa, working a magic she had conjured for him. A magic that would bring him his long-awaited vengeance. He wasn't coming, not now, not ever. She was as alone as she had ever been, more lonely, since she now knew what it was like to be a part of something more.

A stiff breeze came out of nowhere, and Matilda lifted her face to welcome the force of the wind that pressed her clothes to her body and pushed her hair back and away from her face. The wind was an ally, she knew, perhaps even a part of her. It gave her strength.

Her heart swelled, her mind cleared. She would not die wishing for what she had lost; she was stronger than that, even now. She took a deep breath, taking in the strong gust that was, somehow, linked to the power hidden inside her.

There was rain in the wind; she could smell it.

The flames flickered higher, and Matilda looked down at Henry and smiled. His eyes widened in fear, and he took a step back, as if she had all the power here, as if he wanted to run from her.

"You want rain?" she shouted to be heard above the wind. "I'll give you rain!"

She lifted her face and bid the storm to come. The shield inside her crumbled away, and she called on her gift, the power of her ancestors, the force that made her, truly and irrevocably, a witch.

A few drops fell, sizzling on the fire that grew hotter and hotter, startling the men who had bound her to the stake. "I'll make it rain," she shouted, "and it will never stop, do you hear me. Never!" She thought of Declan and Vanessa, and her rage grew as she screamed his name again. Lightning cracked over her cottage, thunder made the men before her jump.

"What will become of your farms, do you think, when the rains come endlessly? They'll become bogs of useless mud, then ponds, then rivers," she promised. "You'll never see the sun again."

Matilda wanted, more than anything, to scare these men before she died. She wanted them to carry this moment to their graves. Tied to this stake, she was trapped. But she was not powerless. They would survive this night, but she wanted to make sure they never slept well again. She had to give them something they would never forget. Snow in the middle of summer, Granny had said.

Cold, she thought, concentrating. Ice. Snow.

Snowflakes fell. A few, at first, and then more. Tanglewood had only seen snow once in the ten years she'd been here, a January dusting years back that had delighted everyone. This was not a friendly dusting of soft flakes, but a blast of icy precipitation that pelted the men who had come to her home to burn her.

The horses hitched near the cottage reared back and snorted, fighting their reins. Reggie dropped to his knees and prayed.

Too late.

"You will never be warm again!" she screamed. "Winter will follow you wherever you go. You will die with ice in your veins, longing for the warmth of the sun. You will carry winter in your heart forever. Forever," she reiterated in a hoarse whisper. The snow fell softer, now, gentle flakes drifting around them all.

The flames grew, but they did not touch her. Reggie stumbled to his feet. He and a trembling Wendell, who did not look so threatening at the moment, headed for the horses. The rainmaker stared at her, slack-jawed and trembling.

"Get back here!" Henry shouted to his friends. "We have to make sure she's dead."

"You make sure!" Reggie shouted. "I'm headin' for California, and I'm not stoppin' till this horse gives out."

"I'm goin' with him," Wendell yelled. "Goddamn, I never figured on this."

"Do you think it's easy to kill a witch?" Matilda shouted, and she smiled at the men one last time, knowing they would carry the memory of this moment to their dying day. "Did you think you wouldn't have to pay?"

The flames grew taller, closer, hotter. They danced toward her skirt and scorched her feet. Declan. She whispered the name this time instead of screaming into the night. She was angry and wounded, her soul was enraged. But she didn't want to die, not tonight, not like this.

Rain, she thought, closing her eyes and picturing a deluge. She could see it in her mind, clear and so real she could almost feel the drops. Water falling in sheets from the sky, soaking the ground, dousing the fire.

The snowflakes stopped falling, and the rain began again. Drops sizzled in the flames at her feet. Lightning flashed above her head; thunder deafened her. But the fire had grown too large, too hot, too powerful. She couldn't make it rain hard enough. Dammit, she was going to burn.

"Declan!" she screamed, and suddenly he was there.

* * *

The sight stopped his heart. Matilda lashed to a stake, wind pushing her hair away from her face, flames licking at her feet as she screamed his name.

Declan jumped from his horse and ran toward Matilda. Henry Langford stood as close to the fire as was safe, staring up at her. A gun hung from his right hand. The rainmaker, Raleigh Cox, stood just behind Henry, motionless and staring, as if he'd been entranced.

"Cut her down!" Declan shouted as he reached them. "Jesus Christ, cut her down!" There were sharp knives in the kitchen, but he was afraid it would take too long to run inside and find what he needed. He couldn't leave Matilda here alone.

Raleigh Cox reached into the top of his boot and pulled out a pearl-handled knife with a long, thin blade. He said nothing as he offered it to Declan.

Declan took the knife and ran into the fire, kicking the flaming logs closest to Matilda aside. The rain had dampened the fire's force, but it continued to flicker and occasionally flame up, coming dangerously close to Matilda's skirt.

She set her eyes on him. "You came," she said. Her eyes were glassy, her face ghostly white. "I didn't think you would."

He began to cut the ropes that bound her while flames licked at their feet.

"Stop that!" Henry ordered, raising the weapon he held. "Dammit, you stop that right now!"

Declan ignored the hysterical order. "Are you all right?" he asked, cutting through one rope after another.

"I made it rain," she whispered, no inflection in her voice.

She was delirious. "Of course you did," he said in his most soothing voice. Dammit, how many ropes did these simpletons think it took to contain one small woman?

"Really, I did. I made it snow, too." When her arms were free, she held her hands before her and studied the chafed skin. "Granny was right. I really am a witch."

"Don't talk nonsense...."

Henry fired a warning shot over their heads as Declan cut the last of the ropes away, then the man took aim at them; at Matilda, actually. Declan didn't think, he just placed his body in front of hers as Henry pulled the trigger again.

He felt the impact into his shoulder, a spreading pain, a sticky dampness that seeped down his back.

"Declan?" Matilda whispered behind him.

He went light-headed, weak in the knees, but he made sure he stayed on his feet and between her and Henry. Shielding her. He tried to wrap his body around hers to protect her from every angle. Nothing else mattered. Nothing.

"Declan?" she whispered his name again. He tried to hold her tighter, but his strength was failing him already.

Matilda lifted her head and screamed, and all of a sudden the rain fell harder. It fell in sheets, in buckets, drenching them all and obscuring their vision. The fire sputtered and went out. Lightning lit the night and thunder cracked so hard, he was momentarily deafened.

And he knew then that Matilda was telling the truth. She'd brought the rain with a vengeance.

Behind him horses neighed, Henry shouted and cried aloud. Raleigh Cox cursed. Moments later the muffled sound of hooves on the road rose and fell.

"They're gone," Matilda said. "Let's get inside and let me take a look at you."

"Son of a bitch shot me," he murmured, his voice too soft to be heard above the falling rain.

"I know," Matilda said. He could barely hear her.

He did not think the wound was fatal, but then bullet wounds were strange things. You never knew what might happen. Infection. Blood loss. Hell, his heart might just stop.

"I love you," he shouted to be heard above the storm. He wanted to say more, but his strength was rapidly failing. He wanted to tell her that he couldn't imagine his life without her in it, that he hadn't allowed Vanessa to take the potion, that... the potion.

* * *

Outside, thunder crashed and lightning lit the night sky. The violent weather matched Vanessa's black mood as she paced in the parlor.

Her plans never went awry. Never! The servants had all been dismissed for the evening, laying way for Declan Harper to be thoroughly enraptured and captivated by her charms. He might've even taken the first steps toward taking Johnny's place.

But Declan was gone, those Hazelrig brats had ruined everything, and to top it off, her gown was stained with wine, and she had no one to help her undress.

When she heard the knock on the front door, she was certain it was Declan. He'd come back to her!

But when she threw the door open a less-than-attractive sight awaited her. Raleigh Cox, soaked to the skin, stood beneath the overhang. A streak of lightning illuminated the sky behind him.

"It all went wrong," he said, stepping into the foyer without waiting for an invitation; not that she would've issued one.

Vanessa slammed the door behind him. He turned to face her, and in candlelight Cox was even uglier than usual. Wet clothing clung to bony flesh. Soaked, thin hair stuck to his scalp and neck. In this light his pale eyebrows and eyelashes disappeared completely.

"What went wrong?" she snapped.

"Everything." He ran a bony hand through his hair, causing the damp strands to stand straight up in one place. "Wendell got... carried away. He attempted to molest the Candy woman. And Langford was determined to actually burn her."