Defending the Bear (Blue Ridge Bears Book 2)

by Jasmine B. Waters

  Ligeia nodded. She stood up and wiped her palms on her petticoats.

  “Is there anything else, Mother?”

  Constance gave a brief shake of her head, and Ligeia left the room.

  Chapter Two

  Even as a child, I had my doubts about the extent of my parents’ knowledge. Ever since we abandoned England for the New World, my father seemed to grow more pious and devout by the day. I was sure that in time, the same ideations would come to me. I had doubts about God and religion, but it seemed to be something that strengthened with age – something that would come naturally with enough time and wisdom.

  Little did I know, I had a lot to learn.

  Despite the warnings of William and Constance, Ligeia felt more intrigued by Henrik with each passing day. She took to sitting outside in the sun with her morning sewing and mending, and watching Henrik as he turned the empty field of a lot into a small, but cozy home.

  The few times Henrik called out to her, Ligeia ignored him. The first time it happened, she leapt from the ground and scampered inside, forgetting her mending. When Constance yelled at her for dirtying her work, Ligeia neglected any mention of Henrik.

  But it wasn’t just the arrival of the strange man that had upended Ligeia’s world. Everything was changing – she was changing, transforming from a girl into a young woman.

  William eyed Ligeia one morning as she served the family gruel and bread. “Daughter, how old are you now?”

  Ligeia kept her head down as she moved around the table, ladling a spoonful of gruel into each bowl.

  “I am two and ten, Father.”

  William chuckled. “Soon, you will have a family of your own,” he said. “Prithee, child, tell me, does that please you?”

  Ligeia kept her expression neutral as she met her father’s gaze. “What will please God and my family will please me.”

  “Good girl,” William replied. “Ligeia, go and fetch milk from the goats in the shed. They are braying with full bellies.”

  Ligeia took the wooden bucket and made her way outside to the shed. The morning was bitterly cold – it was hard to believe that spring was well underway – and she shivered under her thin gown. The two goats were circling in their pen, nuzzling and chewing at each other affectionately.

  Ligeia eyed them with disdain. She hadn’t had any feelings about farm animals until her family had come to the New World, but now there was something about the blank eyes of goats, chickens, and cows that frightened her.

  “Settle, thee,” Ligeia muttered as she reached forward and took ahold of the goat’s udders. The goat pawed the ground, eyeing Ligeia with beady eyes as warm milk splashed into the bucket. Despite the chilly morning, the work was hard, and soon, Ligeia was panting and sweating.

  “Ah, good morrow!”

  A cold stab of fear pierced Ligeia’s heart, but she didn’t look up as she heard Henrik’s voice booming through the air. She stuck the tip of her tongue out between her lips, concentrating hard on filling the bucket with fresh, warm milk.

  “Child, can you not hear?”

  Ligeia didn’t reply. She finally looked up and over her shoulder to where Henrik was standing at the edge of his property.

  “Child, come here,” Henrik said. There was a kindly look in his eyes. “And bring some milk, would ye?”

  Ligeia gave a terse shake of her head. When she looked back down in the bucket, she screamed in fright. The pale, yellowish milk had turned to dark red blood. Ligeia moaned softly as the sickening scent of iron reached her nostrils. In a panic, she leapt away from the bucket, kicking it with her foot.

  “Child, I did not mean to scare ye!” Henrik bellowed.

  Frightened, Ligeia grabbed the bucket and ran toward the Arrowsmith cottage. Henrik stood behind her, booming with laughter as she ran.

  Inside, William admonished his daughter. “Ligeia! Prithee, tell me, why are you disobeying my orders?”

  Ligeia kept her head down. The vision of the blood was still fresh in her mind, and she shuddered, unable to rid her senses of the rich, meaty scent.

  “I was frightened, Father,” Ligeia said shakily. She twined her fingers together; they were cold and sweaty.

  William frowned. “And thou has wasted milk!”

  “I did not mean to,” Ligeia said quickly. She stepped backward, then turned on her heel and ran up the stairs to the large room where she and her younger brothers and sisters slept. In the middle of the day, the room was empty. Ligeia dove onto the straw mattress and pulled the rough blanket over her head. When she heard footsteps, she began to shake at the knowledge her father would likely beat her for spilling the milk. But these footsteps were too quiet, too soft to be that of William Arrowsmith.

  Seconds later, Abigail poked her head inside the room. “Sister, what is wrong? What caused you to flee?” Abigail frowned, walking over to the mattress and sitting down. “You are never afraid of anything in this world!”

  Ligeia was still shaking. She pulled the blanket around her shoulders and shivered.

  “I…” She trailed off, biting her chapped lower lip. “Things have been happening,” she said softly. “Things like what Father predicted would come at the end of the world.”

  Abigail’s eyes went wide. “Ligeia!”

  “It is true, Abigail,” Ligeia said miserably. She shuddered again. “I do not wish to continue seeing such horrors.”

  Abigail touched her sister’s shoulder. “Sister, tell me. What have you seen?”

  “The milk turned to blood in the pail,” Ligeia whispered, almost inaudibly. “I could smell it, Abigail. It was real; I know it was.”

  “I think you are ill,” Abigail said. “You have been acting strangely for weeks now.”

  Ligeia closed her eyes and sighed. “That is not all,” she said softly. “I cannot close my eyes; I cannot sleep. For when I dream…”

  “What, sister?”

  “For when I dream, I see the ungodly ones,” Ligeia said. The words felt too large for her throat, and for a moment she was afraid of choking. Then, suddenly, the feeling passed.

  “Sister!” Abigail covered her mouth and leapt from the mattress in horror. “The devil is at work!”

  Ligeia shook her head quickly until her black hair tumbled free from its grips and loosed around her shoulders. “No,” she said quickly. “Do not tell Father. Do not tell Mother, sister.”

  “I must!” Abigail’s face was white with fear. “I must tell Mother and Father that the devil is here!”

  Ligeia grabbed her younger sister’s wrist and pulled her close. “No! I swear it, Abigail. I will spend the whole day praying and repenting. I pray that God will pull me close once again, that I will be pure and righteous.”

  Abigail stared at Ligeia for a long time before scampering down the stairs. Ligeia groaned as she heard her younger sister’s voice bubbling through the cabin, informing her parents of everything she had just witnessed.

  ---

  Ligeia stayed upstairs all day, afraid each time she heard the thud of footsteps on the wooden floor. She prayed and prayed, growing more desperate with each passing hour. Despite her fervent calls to God, she felt only distant and removed from everything holy. Try as she might, she found it impossible to banish the ghastly image of the bucket filled with blood from her brain.

  In fact, the more Ligeia’s mind wandered, the more afraid she felt. Whenever she closed her eyes, she was subjected to numerous and horrifically intrusive thoughts. Once, she saw a group of men and women, all hooded and cloaked in black. They were swaying back and forth and chanting in Latin; she recognized the ancient tongue from church rituals back in England. But this wasn’t anything like a church ritual. If anything, it was dark and evil, the work of the devil himself.

  “Ligeia.” William’s voice was a stern command. “Prithee, look upon your father.”

  Ligeia’s knees were aching from hours of kneeling on the wooden floor, and her throat was raw
from praying under her breath and lack of water.

  “Yes, Father,” Ligeia said. “What news have you brought me?”

  “You are a troublesome child,” William said sternly. “The day you become a woman is the day I cast you from this family forever. You are to be married to a man from the village.”

  “No!” Ligeia shrieked. “Father, do not force me!”

  William’s eyes narrowed with anger. “Go from me,” he hissed. “Go from me before I am forced to act in the devil’s stead.”

  Ligeia leapt from the floor and bolted down the stairs as quickly as her feet would carry her. She stumbled but didn’t fall, running out of the house and across the yard. The woods loomed ahead, dark and black with the magic of night. Ligeia’s lungs ached as she gasped for air, and she was so thirsty that she felt nauseous. Still, she ran on.

  The woods felt cool and shady. Ligeia shivered but didn’t stop running, her feet churning over dead leaves and branches.

  “Ho, child!”

  The sound of Henrik’s voice made Ligeia shriek with fear. She stumbled on a fallen branch and landed on her hands and knees, roughly scraping her palms against shards of rock. Henrik stood there, looking larger than life.

  “Child, do not be afraid of me,” Henrik said. His accent seemed even thicker than it had before. “Come here.”

  Trembling with fear, Ligeia climbed to her feet. She stayed rooted firmly to the spot, as if Henrik would think she had vanished.

  Henrik clicked his tongue against his teeth. “Come here, child,” he said. “I swear – I shan’t hurt you.”

  Ligeia shook her head. “I cannot,” she said softly.

  Henrik roared with laughter. “And why is that? Because of your pa, eh?”

  Ligeia glared. She turned on her heel to leave just as Henrik spoke again.

  “I have seen the future for you, child,” Henrik said. He shook his head slowly.

  Ligeia knew she should run. She knew she should bolt away from Henrik as fast as possible, run back to the safety of the Arrowsmith cottage, and never speak to this strange man again. But something about the way he spoke made the hair on the back of her neck stand up.

  “What have you seen?” Ligeia asked in a quiet, trembling voice.

  Henrik smiled mysteriously. “Aye, so now you want to know?”

  Ligeia stared at him.

  “Your future, child, is tied to your destiny.” Henrik spread his hands through the air and goose flesh sprang up all over Ligeia’s body. “I have seen you wedded to a man from Ipswich.”

  “Is it…is the marriage a happy one?”

  Henrik grew solemn. “No,” he said. “‘Tis not. ‘Tis cruel and demanding, your future husband.” He leaned in close, and his words chilled Ligeia to the very bone. “You bear many a child, but few live beyond the first hour.”

  Ligeia shivered with fear. She hated the idea of marriage, especially when it came time to think about her ‘wifely duty’ and bearing children. After seeing her mother have three miscarriages in such a short time span, Ligeia was terrified of suffering the same fate. And although she had taken joy in having younger brothers and sisters, watching her mother give birth had always been a particularly horrifying experience.

  “You can change your fate,” Henrik said heavily. His eyes flashed and glittered. “But you must take matters into your own hands, child. You are strong. You need not let yourself be beaten down by those around you, don’t you see?” He threw his head back and cackled.

  “You…you art full of dark magic!” Ligeia cried. Fear raced through her body, and finally, she turned on her heels and fled.

  Chapter Three

  The small village of Ipswich buzzed about Henrik Larsson, the foreigner, for quite some time. Spring turned to summer, and still the villagers talked and gossiped whenever Minister Boggust wasn’t around to chastise them. Mother and Father were no exception. Despite Father’s piety, he wasn’t above making snide remarks about the quality of our new neighbor’s dwelling. Henrik wasn’t a tradesman. In fact, most people had no idea how he truly lived. He spent most days alone, in his cabin. At night, he walked through the woods. It terrified me, and I never went under the shadow of the trees ever again…at least, not until much later.

  Constance’s screams and cries of agony filled the air. Her facial features were screwed up and shiny with sweat as she grunted and writhed on the straw mattress.

  Ligeia sighed as she reached down with a cool rag and wiped the sweat from her mother’s brow.

  “There, Mother,” she said softly. “It will all be over soon. It will all be over.”

  Constance shrieked again – an animal-like cry that filled Ligeia with horror and dread. Her mother had been in an agonizingly rough labor since the wee hours of the morning, and Ligeia and Abigail hadn’t left her side.

  William, along with some of the other men in the village, were meeting with Minister Boggust and making arrangements to build a new church. The current church was a small, windowless shack. William and the other men were convinced that if they raised a large, airy structure, church would become a more popular option among the people of Ipswich. William had spent the previous week talking about how the church was losing its grip on the godly. Since the churches of the New World were plain and spartan, he reasoned, people felt less incentivized to come.

  It was something that clearly enraged William. Ligeia had shuddered to see her father so angry, ranting about sin and vanity.

  “God’s flock is straying, all due to lack of stained glass panes and lace,” William had sneered, driving his hand into the table again and again. “We deserve to burn, children! All of us – even the godly!”

  It terrified Ligeia and her younger brothers and sisters. But today, she had more pressing matters at hand: the mortality of her mother, and hopefully that of the baby as well.

  “Ligeia,” Constance grunted. She gripped Ligeia’s hand until the fingers were numb. “It’s coming,” she added in a hideous wail. “It’s coming soon!”

  “Abigail, run and fetch water!” Ligeia barked. She stood over her mother’s bed, watching in horror as her mother’s belly shifted and moved. “Prithee, run as quickly as you can!”

  Abigail darted out of the room, looking nauseous and terrified. Ligeia almost envied her younger sister for being able to leave at the moment. Because she was the eldest child in the family, Ligeia knew her place was at her mother’s side until the babe was born.

  The chill spring had turned into a surprisingly hot and humid summer. Ligeia felt as though she would boil in her own sweat as she fanned her mother, brushing Constance’s sweaty hair away from her forehead. ‘Prithee,’ she thought desperately, ‘live, Mother! I need you to live!’

  Constance groaned and shifted. She gulped for air, then lay back on the straw mattress with her legs akimbo. The straw bed was stained with blood and fluid, and the room smelled sharply of iron.

  “Mother, be strong,” Ligeia whispered.

  “Pray for me, child,” Constance said weakly. “My strength is beginning to fade.”

  Kneeling at the side of the bed, Ligeia dipped her head in prayer. She prayed until her throat was raw and her knees ached from kneeling. She prayed for her mother, for the child, for her family to survive.

  Abigail ran into the room, carrying a bucket full of water. Ligeia took the bucket from her younger sister and set it on the floor. She dipped a cloth into the lukewarm water, then sponged Constance’s forehead.

  “In England,” Ligeia said quickly to her scared sister, “we had a midwife. But no midwife here; Ipswich isn’t like home.”

  Abigail’s eyes were wide with fear. “Ipswich is our home,” she said slowly.

  Constance screamed in pain once again, and there was the sound of something tearing. Ligeia crawled on the mattress between her mother’s thighs, reaching blindly. There was something slick and hot, and she gripped it, pulling gently.

  “Mother, push,” Li
geia cried. “Push!”

  Constance screamed. She arched her back and strained, clutching handfuls of the mattress until her knuckles were white with the effort. At last, a bloody infant slid into Ligeia’s arms, wailing and screeching.

  “Mother!” Ligeia cried. “A babe!” A female infant lay in her hands, kicking and screaming. Ligeia was amazed at the scale of the features – the baby’s nose was smaller than her thumbnail, but perfectly shaped. Her fingers were like little worms, and her head was full of dark hair coated with blood and slime.

  Constance had passed out. Her eyes were closed and her face was still etched with pain as Ligeia took shears from Abigail and cut the umbilical cord. The baby looked helpless as it squalled, crying and screaming. Ligeia wiped the baby’s forehead with the damp cloth before swaddling it as best as she could in some rough homespun.

  “Will Mother go to live with God?” Abigail whispered.

  “She is resting,” Ligeia said. “She will survive.”

  “Ligeia, I’m scared,” Abigail whimpered. “Mother could perish.”

  “She will not,” Ligeia snapped. “Now take the babe!” Ligeia passed the squalling infant to her younger sister before walking out of the room. She was so weary that she felt it in her bones, but she knew there was no time to rest.

  Ligeia started a fire in the hearth and filled the cauldron with water. As she waited for it to boil, she sat down on the stone and leaned against the wall. It felt good to be idle, even just for a moment, and she rocked back and forth, cradling her elbows in her hands.

  Ever since Ligeia had stumbled upon Henrik in the woods, her visions had mercifully stopped. She knew she should be grateful; perhaps this signified that she was again restored to grace in the eyes of God. But instead, Ligeia felt more fearful than ever before. She wondered if the visions had shifted to Abigail, or perhaps to one of her younger brothers. The idea was nothing short of terrifying to Ligeia. What if her whole family was being stalked by the devil, one by one, until they fell from grace?

  Constance slept for over an hour. When she woke, Ligeia passed her the infant and looked away as Constance parted her shift for the infant to nurse. Despite the painful ordeal she’d gone through, Constance looked better than she had in weeks.