She managed to keep her fear and panic under control somewhat, that was until she tried to sit herself up but as she moved her arm it felt strange and uncomfortable. Looking down she noticed something long and thin sticking out of the flesh of her arm. Her mouth fell open but before she could let loose a horrified scream a larger hand clamped over her mouth. Causing her to struggle, her wide terrified eyes turned to the intruder, realizing that she knew him she stopped struggling.
‘Ssush Temperance it’s alright, I know you are very frightened right now and that all this seems very strange but I have things that I must tell you and I don’t have much time before we are discovered. Now I am going to remove my hand and I need you to promise you won’t scream okay?’
Silently the small girl nodded causing him to slowly pull his hand back from her mouth.
‘Sam?’ she croaked, frowning suddenly. Her voice sounded very strange to her own ears, almost as if it didn’t belong to her.
‘It’s alright,’ he replied, ‘don’t try to talk, rest your voice. You’ve been very sick and they had to keep you asleep for a while and put a tube into your throat to help you breathe.’
‘How long?’ she mouthed.
‘You’ve been here nearly two weeks now.’
‘Where am I?’ she whispered hoarsely, ‘where’s my brother and Olivia?’
‘They are still in Salem,’ He frowned shaking his head, ‘you need to listen to me very carefully now Temperance. Everything you have ever known is about to change. You are no longer in Salem and the year is not 1685. You are in a town called Mercy and I have brought you over three hundred years’ forwards into the future. It’s going to take a while for you to adapt to your new home so the less you say the better. You can’t tell anyone where you are from.’
‘I want to go home,’ she whispered as her dark eyes filled with tears.
‘I know,’ he took her tiny hand gently, ‘but trust me there is nothing left there for you. Olivia and Theo are going to join you, they don’t belong in the past any more than you do, but they have something they have to do before they can come back, something very important.’
‘When will I see them?’
‘Not for a long while,’ he shook his head sadly, ‘I’m so sorry Temperance. I tried to get you as close to their time as possible but this is the first time I’ve jumped time and I’m still weakened from my illness. I was aiming for the 21st century but we’ve ended up in 1983, well ‘84 now, judging by the New Year’s hangovers out there at the nurses’ station.’
Temperance looked at him blankly.
‘Look, you won’t understand everything that is going on right now, but these are good people and they will take care of you while you wait for Theo and Olivia. I don’t have the strength to jump you through time so you’re going to have to stay here for the moment.’
‘You,’ she mouthed as her voice began to fail again.
‘I can’t stay,’ he breathed heavily, ‘I’m very sick Temperance, I have to go home.’
Her eyes narrowed as she studied him thoughtfully, he was right he did look sick. His skin was a pale clammy grey, his eyes betrayed pain and fatigue he was desperately trying to mask and his hands even as he gripped hers trying to offer her some measure of comfort were damp and trembling.
‘Will you come back for me?’
‘One day I hope,’ he replied tightly, ‘listen there are only a couple of things you need to know. Keep your mouth shut, watch and learn. Soon you will learn how to blend in. Secondly, don’t tell anyone your real name, we need to keep you safe, keep you hidden, do you understand?’
She nodded slowly.
‘I have to go now,’ he whispered urgently when they both heard hushed voices outside her room.
He dropped a kiss on her forehead as the door opened and a man in a white coat walked in, holding some sort of rectangular object. Temperance looked back but Sam had already disappeared.
‘Ah good you’re awake,’ Doctor Hughes glanced down at the chart in his hands, pushing his spectacles back up his nose he perused her notes, ‘well everything is looking good here.’
He took a seat perching on the edge of her bed as he placed a cool professional hand on her forehead.
‘You gave us quite a scare there young lady,’ he smiled down at her kindly, ‘you’ve been suffering from acute Pneumonia with a secondary bronchial infection, a nasty one at that. It was touch and go there for a while. How are you feeling?’
She opened her mouth to try and speak but as she swallowed past the sharp pain she closed it again and simply nodded instead.
‘Throat hurting a bit I should imagine?’
She nodded again.
‘Don’t worry sweetheart that will pass,’ he reached over to the small locker next to the bed and poured a glass of water from a small plastic pitcher, ‘here take a small sip, not too much yet.’
Temperance lifted her head as he brought the cup to her lips. Taking a small sip as he suggested the cool liquid soothing her ragged throat slightly.
‘Now young lady,’ he picked up his clipboard once again, his expression slightly more serious, ‘we have been unable to locate the young man who brought you in, nor have we been able to ascertain your identity and contact your family. Can you tell me your name?’
‘Tempy,’ she tried to reply but her voice croaked and failed her again, leaving her to partially mouth the word.
‘Tammy?’ he repeated scribbling it down on her chart.
She opened her mouth to correct him but shut it again abruptly as Sam’s warning came flooding back to her. She couldn’t tell him who she was even if he did seem like a kind man.
‘Your last name?’ he prompted.
She stared at him silently.
‘How about your family, can you tell me who they are?’ he continued gently, ‘your mother? Father?’
Temperance shook her head mutely.
‘It’s okay,’ he patted her hand sympathetically.
‘Knock knock,’ a cheerful voice called from the other side of the door accompanied by an actual knock.
The door swung open cautiously and a friendly face surrounded by a mop of permed hair appeared.
‘Is it alright to come in?’
‘Yes yes by all means,’ Doctor Hughes smiled.
The door opened wider and the smiling lady walked in followed by a taller man with salt and pepper hair and a bushy greying mustache.
‘Tammy,’ Doctor Hughes turned towards Temperance with a reassuring smile on his face, ‘This is Susan and Ed Burnett, they are foster parents. If it’s alright with you, once we’re satisfied you are fit enough they’re going to take you home with them until we can trace your family or make other arrangements.
‘Hello Tammy,’ Susan took a small hesitant step towards the bed, ‘Ed and I are very much looking forwards to getting to know you, we’re very happy to take you home with us. Is that okay with you?’
Tempy shrugged sliding further down into bed and turning on her side away from them. It didn’t really matter what she wanted. She was stuck in this strange place with all these strange people and she couldn’t even tell them her real name. She squeezed her eyes shut as she felt Doctor Hughes weight lift off the bed and begin to speak in a hushed tone with the Burnett’s. The tears burned behind her closed eyelids as she swallowed past the hot ball of misery and grief in her throat. Was it alright? they’d asked her. Well the answer was no…nothing would ever be alright again.
Part 2
1695
Chapter 13.
Isabel West’s gaze narrowed shrewdly as she focused on the thin curl of smoke snaking up from the chimney of the small wooden cabin nestled among the trees. The light was dying, the sky already bleeding into a vibrant pink bruised with violent purple slashes. There was a slight bite to the air which was filled with the promise of autumn, and a light scent of musky damp moss that carried on the breeze. A mad rush of orange, russet and gold leav
es tumbled across the floor of the forest, rustling in the wind and washing over Isabel’s heeled boots.
The cabin itself was small and squat, probably only one room. It was solidly constructed of rough-hewn logs and the pitched roof punctuated with a small ramshackle chimney, which leaned alarmingly in the wind and looked as if either magic or blind luck were holding it together. A wide overhang was pitched over the front of the cabin and could be loosely described as a porch, a rather poorly constructed one at that.
Isabel turned her attention back to her companion who was glowering at her back so fiercely she could feel the waves of hatred. Turning around more fully she faced him. Her eyes were no longer the deep aged whiskey color of all the West women, but now burned a bright unusual lavender hue thanks to the deal she’d made at the Crossroads. She ran them over his misshapen form as Nathaniel glared up at her with venom burning through his expression. His decaying fleshy body was stitched up so tightly with magic to stop him from escaping that he could now no longer stand up straight and instead had the shortened crooked posture of a hunchback. A heavy black cloak covered the worst of his damaged body but could not in any way disguise his awful face.
When Isabel had originally raised him from the devils’ trap back in Mercy, she’d forced him into a body of human flesh which she’d pieced together with body parts from several young men she’d murdered with the express purpose of creating his custom built prison of flesh. What she hadn’t accounted for was the body degrading so quickly and she’d been forced to stitch him back together with some pretty strong magic to keep him under control and to prevent him from escaping. Unfortunately she could do nothing about the decomposing flesh, nor the God awful stench of death and decay which followed in his wake.
She looked down at him in distaste. His face had always resembled Frankenstein’s monster with his mish-mash of features awkwardly stitched together. Now however his eyes had turned a gruesome milky white and his mouth was sewn shut with large black clumsy stitches, the kind a child would produce when first learning to sew.
‘Something you wanted to say to me Nathaniel?’ she taunted, raising one slender sculpted brow.
His hand curled into enraged claws. She was sure he would have peeled back his lips in an animal like snarl if she hadn’t sewn them together to prevent him from speaking. However a deep gurgling growl did bubble in his throat and he launched towards her, hands outstretched as if he was not sure whether he wanted to scratch her eyes out or wrap his fingers around her pale slender throat and choke the life from her.
She laughed when he collided with an invisible barrier and was pushed back a good few paces.
‘You still can’t harm me Nathaniel’ she smiled coolly, ‘no matter how many times you try.’
His eyes burned with malice.
‘You are beginning to try my patience’ she warned him dangerously. ‘I’ll only keep you with me for as long as you are useful and it suits my purpose. If you continue to be counterproductive I won’t just leave your foul mouth shut, I will sew up your eyes and your ears and drop you back into that pit of a devil’s trap. There you will remain for eternity, deaf, blind, mute and sealed into a coffin of rotting human flesh.’
Nathaniel’s fists clenched furiously and for a second his damaged hate-filled eyes held her cool gaze, before he finally looked away.
‘That’s better.’
She glanced down at her clothes. She was still wearing her fitted black slacks and a soft silky sapphire colored shirt, along with her heeled polished leather boots. That just wouldn’t do, she needed to blend in to gain her ancestors’ trust and right now she stuck out like a sore thumb. Pursing her lips thoughtfully for a moment she raised her hands covering her face. Her palms swept over her face and hair and trailed down her body, her form blurred in their wake and when she was done she was no longer wearing her 21st century clothes.
She now wore a dark grey cloak and a long deep blue dress over her petticoats, woolen stockings and leather shoes. Her dark hair was tucked under a neat close fitting coif. She briefly ran her fingertips over her cheekbone and up to her temple. The vicious looking burn scar she’d had since that long ago night in Mercy, when she’d faked her death and disappeared, was no longer there, another gift from the Crossroad.
‘So much better’ she murmured, glancing down at her body to check everything was in order. Then she looked down at her new attire once again, pressing her finger to her lips thoughtfully. It still didn’t look right. It was a little too new, too respectable. In order to gain the sympathy and trust of Hester, her twin sister Bridget and their mother, she needed to look a little more vulnerable, a little more desperate. Stroking her hands down the roughened fabric of her dress she watched as it aged beneath her touch, appearing more tattered and worn. Smoothing her fingers along the line of her jaw a deep dark and angry bruise appeared.
‘Perfect,’ she thought to herself.
She shrugged into her disguise a couple of times, satisfied the glamour spell was firmly in place. She silently marveled at how effortless it was to conjure and maintain. A glamour spell was one of the easiest charms in a witches’ arsenal. As a teenager she’d struggled with it, she hadn’t even been able to call forth enough power to add blonde highlights to her dark hair. She felt it now though, the low thrum of power burning through her veins and it was heady and intoxicating.
She was so close now, so close to claiming the book that was her birthright. Infernum, the Hell book…the book that should have been hers all along. Just as Hester’s Grimoire should’ve passed to her, would’ve been passed to her if her mother and aunt had not betrayed her, casting her aside in favor of her own daughter Olivia. Isabel’s lip curled in anger, they should not have been so quick to brush her aside. She may not have had the power of the other West women but they should not have turned on her. Once she had the Hell book in her possession she would take the power her ancestors had been too afraid to use. Then she thought self-righteously, no one would ever underestimate her again.
She looked up, shaken loose from her thoughts by the low murmur of voices nearby.
‘Nathaniel’ she called him abruptly, ‘leave now. I can’t have them see you or even sense your presence. I want you to venture into Salem but carefully, you cannot be seen. Once there you are to locate my daughter. I have no doubt she followed us here from the Crossroad and if you find Olivia I can guarantee she’ll have the Beckett boy with her. I’ve come too far for them to interfere now.’
He looked at her and she could’ve sworn she could see a smirk pulling taut the thick blackened stitches at his mouth.
‘You are not to harm either of them’ she told him bluntly. ‘All you need to do is make sure you keep them well away from this cabin and the West girls. I will deal with my daughter when the time comes.’
Nathaniel continued to stare at her.
‘I suggest you don’t test my resolve’ she told him coolly. ‘Harm a single hair on my daughter’s head and you will find yourself back in the devil’s trap while your brother rots in the Underworld.’
His pale eyes flashed and his fists clenched once again.
‘Do I make myself clear?’
He nodded tightly.
‘Go then before you are discovered’ she dismissed him callously.
She watched as he disappeared into the forest in the opposite direction to the low chatter of female voices then she deliberately placed herself in their path and unceremoniously dropped to the ground. Laying still and quiet as a mouse she waited to be discovered.
Nathaniel stalked furiously through the forest. He wanted to throw his head back and howl out his pain and frustration to the uncaring skies but he couldn’t. That bitch Isabel had seen to that. As if the painful clumpy stitches weren’t bad enough they were sealed with strong magic, making it feel as if his jaws were actually welded together. Even if he could find a knife capable of cutting the stitches he was certain he still wouldn’t be able to speak.
Still, it didn’t mean he had wanted to return to that time. He had a somewhat more refined palette now and an agenda of his own. Isabel may have the upper hand for the moment but she was delusional if she thought he was just going to roll over and allow her to scratch his belly and toss him a couple of stringy scraps. He knew she had no intention of using the power of Infernum to break his brother Seth free from his prison in the Underworld. No, he was going to have to re-adjust his plan. Although she didn’t realize it yet, Isabel had actually done him a favor. She’d dropped him down in the exact place and time he could find an ally, one whose loyalty he would never question and that ally was…himself.
The Guardians Complete Series 1 Box Set: Contains Mercy, The Ferryman, Crossroads, Witchfinder, Infernum Page 136
