Steam

by Stacey Rourke

  His obvious torment drained the confrontational edge from the room, deflating Wells’ previous gusto along with it.

  “What do you mean?” Wells asked, lines of confusion creasing his pinched brow.

  Malachi forced himself to meet Wells’ stare, his distaste glaring. “All the time jumping you’ve done, the lives you’ve formed for yourself only to abandon them when they no longer suited you. Did you ever stop to think of those you left behind or the destruction that may have unfolded in your wake? I’m from one such cautionary tale. I came here to find you, to prevent even one more innocent life from being harmed by your selfish goals. I happened to intercept Sister Peyton just before she was to meet you. Since then I’ve been watching, and hoping, that you would be honest with these people. But no. You continue to manipulate them.”

  Five pairs of eyes fixed on Wells, accusation crackling through the air.

  Wells’ hands swung limp to his sides. Wetting his lips, he jerked his head in a curt, resolute nod. “You are absolutely right. For what is to come, we must all be armed with knowledge. That is the exact reason I was setting up this device.” His thumb jabbed in the direction of his project. “It is time for you all to learn the truths that have been hidden in fiction for far too long.”

  Chapter 13

  Preen

  The cabin that had always been her haven was now Preen’s prison. Her coven and her own body acted as her captors. It hadn’t taken long for Margot’s pregnancy claims to reveal themselves as true in the form of extreme exhaustion and crippling nausea that bound her to her bed. Even if she miraculously reclaimed her full strength, her earth sisters were under Tituba’s strict orders not to let her out of the cabin. She had exposed her Wiccan abilities and put them all in jeopardy. Since then, the coven had rallied together in a state of nonstop deliberation in search of some means of escape from the death trap they feared she inadvertently set.

  Lying in her bed, nestled under her mother’s handmade quilt that still smelled of her, Preen faced the wall. Knees curled tight to her chest, she only half-listened as the coven’s latest discussion dragged on.

  “My lone point,” Alexandrian stated—plucking a berry from the bowl in the center of the table, she popped it in her mouth and sucked the juice from it as she spoke, “is that Salem is a haven for violence and mayhem as of late. We are safer here at the cabin, for now. Why risk that?”

  “Because it isn’t far enough from that tainted town.” Jaw clenched tight at the tense topic, Freeya reached over the table to brush a rogue hair from Alexandrian’s cheek and tuck it behind her ear. “The afflicted girls named five more innocents as witches. Two were hanged, and one pressed to death. The farther we can get from that, the safer we will be.”

  Preen didn’t have to look to know that Margot was facing her. She could feel the accusation from her sightless sockets boring into her all hours of the day and night. “We cannot hide forever. Sooner or later, Salem will come for her.”

  Feet shuffled uneasily at such a prospect.

  Tituba’s hand, grinding herbs in a wooden bowl, paused. “Some of us have lives back in Salem. Caring for a sick friend is a reason enough for us to be here now; however, in time our absences will be questioned. We need to move on before that happens. The very moment Preen is well enough to travel we should venture to New York or Boston. I have overheard travelers from both claiming the areas are ripe with opportunities.”

  Cups dragged over saucers, lifted to lips as the women sipped their tea and mulled over such a change.

  Burying her face in her pillow, Preen blinked back tears. What she felt for John Hathorne was wrong in every way conceivable. She knew that. What had transpired between them was neither expected nor planned. Still, they had created something beautiful between them that would be made ugly and immoral if found out. The idea of leaving without so much as a good-bye crushed her heart in an anguishing vise grip.

  “Preen? Please, may I speak to you for a moment?” John’s voice traveled from reverie to reality, as if formed by Preen’s deepest desires. His soft knock rattling the rickety door whipped her head around fast enough to make her sensitive stomach roll in protest. “I just … I need to know you are okay.”

  Tituba shushed them all with a finger to her full lips, her eyes wide saucers of trepidation. Eleanor steadied her trembling cup with a hand over its rim as she eased it back to its saucer. Preen peered from one of them to the next, her eyebrows raised in hopeful expectation. He was here. He had cared enough to come. Surely, they didn’t expect her to ignore that? Pushing herself up on her elbows, Preen struggled to sit up despite the wave of sickness that spun the room around her.

  A snap of Tituba’s fingers and Eleanora and Margot dashed to Preen’s side. The sweat-soaked mother-to-be leaned into their touch, anticipating them helping her up. Instead, with their hands firmly against her shoulders, they forced her back down against the mattress.

  “Be still, girl,” Margot hissed against her ear, the coarse stitches holding her lids shut raking against Preen’s temple, “for all our sakes!”

  The walls and situation closed in on Preen, her breath coming in short, shallow pants. Black spots danced before her eyes, joining and bonding into a constricting tunnel that throbbed in time with her hammering pulse. Beneath her the bed frame shimmied … then lurched. Eleanora looked to Margot for answers, only to see the old woman’s face blanch. No words could be formed in question before Preen’s volatile essence lashed out further. The windows rattled in their frames. The modest table and chairs, constructed by her grandfather’s careful hand, shuddered and shook, wood clapping against wood in a building tempo.

  “Motherhood has sharpened her channel to the elements,” Tituba hissed in an urgent whisper. “I’ve heard of this, but never witnessed it until now. You two …” Glancing to Freeya and Alexandrian, she pointed to the back door and then twirled her finger in a circular motion toward the front of the cabin.

  The two set off without hesitation. Again, John rapped on the door.

  Steadying herself against the quaking table, Tituba stalked in Preen’s direction with purposeful intent.

  “As for you,” she glowered, “Mother Earth, protect our kind. Your woeful child’s powers we beseech you to bind.”

  Quick as extinguishing a lantern, all the furniture stilled with a final thump. Preen’s slight frame erupted in a rash of convulsing shivers. Her eyes rolled skyward, spittle foaming at the corners of her mouth.

  “She’s fighting against it!” Grasping the edge of the quilt, Margot forced it between Preen’s clenched teeth. Pulling down with a gentle, yet unrelenting pressure, she trapped her tongue against her bottom jaw to prevent her from choking on it. “She won’t be held at bay for long!”

  Outside, Alexandrian’s steadfast tone spun John from the door. “Mr. Hathorne, what brings you out this far from Salem’s boundaries?”

  Gradually, Preen’s senses returned, drawn back from the brink by John’s husky rasp. “I … ahem … was merely concerned about Miss Hester’s well-being. She has been such an asset to my family as of late, I drew concerned when I had not heard from her in a few weeks’ time. I thought I—”

  “Her health is fine,” Freeya snipped, cutting him off with the slice of each sharply spat word. “While she has fallen slightly ill, she has us to care for her and that is all she needs.”

  “I see,” John stated, audibly dejected. “My view, however, is that one can never be cared for by too many people.”

  Grass rustled, twigs snapping under heavy footfalls. The next time John spoke, distance had muffled his voice to little more than a whisper. “Please let her know she is in my thoughts and I will call upon her again ... soon.”

  Without another word he was gone.

  Every fiber of Preen’s being wanted to lash out, to make them all hurt as she did. But to what avail? Slapping the hands of her earth sister’s away, she rolled back on to her side. Flinging an arm over her face, she hid from a life she no l
onger recognized as her own.

  To Preen’s great pleasure, John was true to his word. Two or three times a week he would show up at the cabin unannounced. Never did he pry or try to push his way to the other side of the door. Instead, he would bring his tool box and tend to any outside repairs the cabin may need. Seeing a board on the side of the house that had been cracked by a wind storm, he made short work of fixing it. Happening upon Alexandrian and Freeya tilling the garden, he grabbed a rake and lent a hand. On one occasion he even walked with Tituba through the woods in search of fresh honeysuckle for a tonic to relieve joint pain for one of Preen’s regular purchasers. Never once did he complain or leave before his task was complete.

  While Preen was still unable to rise from the bed to speak to him during these visits, she found breathing easier when he was near. The cadence of his voice drifting through the cracked window eased her troubled soul, convincing her that for that moment, at least, everything was okay.

  On a particularly sunny afternoon, enhanced by a delicate breeze that danced through the reeds, John hammered away on a fallen fence board on the milking goat’s pen. His visits had become regular enough that her earth sister’s went about their chores as if he wasn’t there—trusting Preen’s nausea to keep her far from him. Her window of opportunity came when, for the first time in weeks, her stomach settled enough for her to venture from the stale, stagnate mattress.

  Rising on weak, unsteady legs, she shuffled as quietly as she could across the creaking floor. Leaning her elbows on the windowsill for support, she cradled her chin in her palms and treated herself to a long awaited glimpse of John that was more than worth the effort. Sweat soaked through his navy shirt and dripped from his brow with each swing of the hammer. His sleeves, rolled mid-way up his arms, revealed taut and flexing muscles slashed by rope-thick veins that bulged from his rigorous strain.

  Standing to stretch his back, he wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of one gloved hand. His other hand fell to the side to casually scratch the muzzle of the inquisitive goat nibbling at his pant leg. He was turning back to his task, a fleeting glance cast at the cabin, when their eyes met. Preen’s heart lurched in a rapid stutter-beat, her mouth falling open in a breathy gasp. Any other man may have considered that was all the invitation needed to storm the cabin and demand she speak to him. John Hathorne, however, was not any other man.

  Offering her a bright smile that could chase away the most persistent storm clouds, he tipped his head her way in acknowledgement and set back to work. The slow smile blooming across Preen’s sallow features was abruptly severed by the window shutters slamming shut hard enough to rattle the panes. Wincing, she spun around only to find herself nose to nose with Tituba.

  “If you are well enough to ogle a married man, you are well enough to travel,” Tituba drawled, her Jamaican accent thicker in her agitation. “We leave for New York tomorrow night, under Mother Moon’s cloak of darkness.”

  Tituba hitched one brow, daring Preen to argue.

  Oh, how she wanted to. Blood boiled in her veins, its steaming vapors clouding her vision with a blood red rage. Frightened by the explosive intensity of her own reaction, Preen swallowed hard to suppress it.

  “Yes, High Priestess,” she mumbled, forcing herself to bow her head respectfully.

  She remained in that prone posture until Tituba marched out of the cabin to inform the others. Only then did Preen allow her legs to buckle beneath her. Back pressed to the wall, she slid to the floor, landing in a crumpled heap.

  Her hands fumbled protectively over her belly, feeling the truth there as clear as the slight swell that thickened her waist. A darkness was growing within her, seething and rising more each day. And the purity of her unborn child was all that prevented it from swallowing her whole.

  Staring down at her mother’s knitting basket, Preen gnawed on her lip and deliberated on whether there was room in her bag for some of the needles and yarn. Falling asleep to the sound of those needles clicking away long into the night was such a huge part of her memory of her mother that she hated to leave them behind. Unfortunately, Tituba had been insistent that only the essentials were to be packed. Deciding which mementos to take from her childhood home felt like severing the last tie to the life she had once known … and loved.

  “So this is where you have all been hiding!” The coven, buzzing about to pack their belongings and food for their travels, snapped to attention as Goody Cromwell breezed into the cabin. The normal tight bun she wore her hair in had been shook out to allow thick black waves to fall around her shoulders. Her cheeks bloomed against her ivory complexion like a winter rose iced by freshly fallen snowflakes. “All the hullabaloo happening in Salem and you’re hunkered away here.”

  Tituba set the canteen she’d been filling down on the table and nodded to Freeya to speak on her behalf.

  Wetting her lips, Freeya obliged by taking a bold step forward. “No one here is hiding from anything, I assure you.”

  Pacing a leisurely circle through the cabin, Goody’s raven-hued brows rose with amusement. “Mhmm, but you are preparing to leave.”

  The earth sisters exchanged matching looks of alarm, each hoping one of the others would have a plausible explanation.

  Leave it to Alexandrian to find words where all others fell short. “Preen has a sick relative in New York. These are such dangerous times that we decided to make the journey to bring her the tonics together.”

  Goody paused her stroll in front of Tituba. Locking eyes with the High Priestess, she asserted her authority by holding the stare until Tituba had no choice but to honor her role as a servant and cast her gaze to the floor.

  “I appreciate your desire to help family members,” Goody stated over her shoulder, her face a mask of demure civility, “my only regret is that it comes at the expense of others you claim to hold dear.”

  A knot of icy dread twisted Preen’s gut. “Who? Whose expense is it at?”

  Fighting off a devilish smirk, Goody spun to face her. “Why John Hathorne’s, of course. Hadn’t you heard?”

  Margot spat on the floor in distain.

  “John Hathorne,” she spoke his name as if the vileness of it soured on her tongue, “is of no concern of—”

  “Silence!” Preen vehemently snapped. Softening her tone, she beseeched the reverend’s wife, “What of John Hathorne? I just saw him yesterday. Surely nothing too untoward could have happened?”

  Crossing her arms over her chest, Goody tilted her head. “That depends. Do you consider him being attacked by a straight blade to fall under such a category?”

  Preen’s hands fluttered to her face, her jaw swinging slack. “Rose?”

  Her black eyes narrowing, Goody closed the distance between them. “That’s right. Without your treatments her ailment flared once more. Somehow she got ahold of John’s shaving blade and took a swipe at him and his house boy. Took a good chunk out of that young lad, from what I hear.”

  The color drained from Preen’s cheeks, guilt seizing her breath in her throat. “That’s what you came here for? To ask me to help her?”

  “Preen!” Alexandrian shouted, slapping one hand against the table top. “That matter is no concern of yours!”

  “Yet she made it her concern,” Goody countered, her tone warm molasses, “the moment she stepped foot into the Hathorne estate.”

  Flipping her hair over her shoulder, Alexandrian steeled her spine. “That does not make any of this her responsibility.”

  “Maybe not by title,” leaning in, Goody dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, “but by choice. You know the truth. You could offer all in their home a little peace with only a few moments of your time.”

  “W-we have plans,” Eleanora stammered, looking to her coven to collaborate her story. “Her family is expecting us.”

  A chorus of murmured agreements and nods seconded her claim.

  Righting her posture, Goody dropped her arms, keeping only her fingers laced. “I can respect t
ravel plans. Even so, if you can show an inkling of mercy to those in peril, I don’t see what harm a side trip to Salem could possibly bring. Unless one of you have an argument to the contrary?”

  She directed her question to the room, scrutinizing each of them one by one in anticipation of a response. A heavy silence acted as their only retort.

  Goody dipped her head in a curt nod, sunlight glimmering off her glossy black strands as she started for the door. “Right. I will leave you to discuss this with your travel companions.” Hesitating in the door jam, she placed one hand against the frame as she turned back to face them. “It seems to me that at this particular moment in time, we should offer help to our neighbors in any way we possibly can.”

  Punctuating her statement with two quick raps against the worn wood frame, she swept out, leaving her parting thoughts hanging in the room like an armed guillotine.

  Tituba’s chin fell to her chest, her lips moving in a silent prayer. When she raised her head a beat later, she spoke to all but focused primarily on Preen. “None of us set foot back in Salem. This is not a matter for discussion. Finish packing.”

  Chapter 14

  Ireland

  “The tales of my time machine are rooted in truth,” Wells stated in his deep, booming timbre. Flipping a switch, he fired up the steam-powered generator.

  Noah’s shoulders rose to his ears, his whole face beaming his giddiness. “I’m so happy. That is exactly how I wanted a story by HG Wells to start. If he says the words ‘flux capacitor’ I’m going to squeal like a little girl.”

  “You already are,” Ireland clarified, patting him sympathetically on the back.

  Once the generator was grinding away at full power, Wells plucked the pocket watch from his breast pocket. “Much of my book consisted of actual retellings of my travels through time. The Eloi and the Morlocks were very real—”