Lucinda shivered. It was all coming back, suddenly. The taste and smell of Richard’s flask, the swirl of light and sound that sent her flying from the carriage, and the horse running out of control down the darkened path. “That was—”
“That was a spell of your mother’s.” Elizabeth smiled; it was a most unpleasant smile, and Lucinda shivered again. “It weakened her.” She shook her head impatiently. “I didn’t murder her, you know! Though I could have done it, I had no need. What she did to my brother took so much of the life force out of her, she could not regain it.”
“Particularly,” Lucinda said evenly, “with your potion to keep her from knowing how to rebuild.”
The smile slipped. “No. There was not enough of her left to do that!” She drew a deep breath and brought her chin up to glare at her stepdaughter. “Think rather that you yourself caused her death, by running to my brother when a decent girl would have hidden in her room!” She glanced quickly at Judah. “You may wish that bracelet back, Mr. Levy.”
Lucinda didn’t dare look at him. His voice warmed the chill that was threatening all of her. “Oh—I doubt that, very much so.”
“As stubborn as she, aren’t you? You’ll suit each other very well—or you would have, given the chance,” Elizabeth finished ominously. She stepped back into the scullery, beckoned. “I truly see no need to remain in this airless, grubby little hole while we talk, do you?”
“No need,” Lucinda whispered, and let her shoulders sag.
She turned aside to set the glass tube in its wrought-metal base, and with her free hand picked up Willow’s globe. It stretched her fingers, but was still small enough to slide down into a fold of her skirts. Elizabeth must not have seen; or perhaps she was so confident, she felt no fear of anything Lucinda might do.
Maybe she had cause. Lucinda had no idea, herself, what she would do. Something stirred deep in her mind: she will not harm another person I love!
The main chamber was awash with afternoon sun, drowsy with the sound of flies exploring the fireplace and the stoop before the open front door. Lucinda let Judah seat her on the edge of the bed; her feet dangled. He leaned against one of the headposts; Elizabeth drew up a small cushioned stool and fastidiously brushed dust from it.
She’d changed; or perhaps she no longer felt the need to hide behind the guise of respectability. Her hair fell in golden curls across bare shoulders, and the pale violet gown swung loose from the low, lace-edged throat to wide skirts. To Lucinda, she looked infinitely beautiful, desirable. As Richard had. But Judah showed no sign of desiring her. He crossed his legs at the ankle and folded his arms across his chest as Elizabeth spoke. “My brother was at least as interested in what kind of combination could be worked with your sorcery and ours. Did he tell you that? Your cross-ocean magic is nearly as hard for one of us to see as our witchcraft seems to be for you. Arabella certainly never realized what I was, and it took her a very long time to see through Richard, and to realize how he had tricked her.” She paused; Lucinda motioned her to go on. “I was sorry when she became so very ill and I saw she must die if I did not reverse the dampening spell. But if I had, it might have cost me my life: they hang witches in England also, you know. And my Master would not have liked it. Besides”—she shrugged—”certain things must be. To let a brother die and not avenge him—”
“You might remember that, Bess dear,” Lucinda said gently. I should hate her, she thought wearily. I can only feel sorry for one so misguided.
Elizabeth laughed, showing neat, white teeth. “You found the seeds in the comforter I stitched for you, didn’t you? Well, they kept you inactive nearly long enough. And you’re no match for me, Lucinda Greene. I joined Richard’s coven when I was thirteen, you know. I was given enough knowledge then to bury you and John—and your Levite betrothed as well. Now: Well, I’ve not wasted the years between, Lucy my sweet.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Lucinda said. “But I was born with my skills. Nor am I an ocean away from my roots as Mother was. Bess, be warned, I have no desire to hurt you, but I won’t tamely wait for you to do harm to me and mine.” She paused, studied the other woman’s face intently for some moments. “But I don’t believe you really want to.” She snatched the little globe from under her skirts and flipped the lid away with her thumbnail, throwing the contents across the room.
Elizabeth shrieked and leaped back, sending the stool flying. Fine white powder filled the air; her heel caught on her wide-flung skirts and she fell, sneezing repeatedly. Judah was ready to throw himself on the fallen witch, but Lucinda caught his arm. “No—wait!” Elizabeth drew a wheezing breath and then another, rubbed her streaming eyes with her fingers, and let out a sharp cry as she gazed up. Directly above her, hovering midair in the cloud of white powder was a pale blue light—almost human in shape, extremely tiny. Pale, intense eyes caught and held the witch’s.
“Madam . . .” The voice of the will-o’-the-wisp was not deep but somehow it vibrated Lucinda’s bones, and Elizabeth’s teeth were suddenly chattering. “It has come to my attention that you did harm to my mistress when I could not be with her.” Silence. “Madam?”
Unwillingly, Elizabeth nodded.
“And now you plan more harm. Is that your intent, madam?”
“Beware,” Elizabeth replied in a faint, panting voice.
“Whatever you are! My Master will—”
“Your Master cannot see you while the contents of this box are floating on the air, and I can keep them there a goodly while, madam. Even if he did see you, he would not come to your aid. That is not his way. He did nothing to save your brother’s life, did he?” Elizabeth moaned and covered her face with shaking hands. There was another, deep silence. “Daughter of Arabella, do you wish her dead?” Elizabeth moaned again; Lucinda shook her head.
“No, Willow. I have no more taste for vengeance than did Mother. You know that better than any,” she added meaningfully.
A deep, rumbling noise shook the pot hooks in the fireplace and rattled the glass panes; Arabella’s invisible companion was sighing. “My Arabella was too soft-hearted,” she said accusingly. “So are you.”
“You had better get used to that,” Lucinda said tartly. “If you intend to serve me.”
Willow sighed again. “But I suppose it has become a habit, serving your family. Woman,” she addressed Elizabeth again. “You have a choice to make, here and now: your life or your calling.”
Elizabeth looked up, and her eyes and the set of her mouth were bitter. “You’d have me abjure? You know that isn’t possible.”
“Who said that? The Prince of Lies, or your brother, who wanted you under his thumb? It is possible. A woman cannot serve two husbands. Choose between them.”
Elizabeth shook her head. “I can’t—!”
“You can,” Lucinda overrode the other woman’s rising hysteria. “But I think you already have.” She crossed the room and knelt to take the other woman’s hands in hers. “Oh, Bess! If you truly wanted to kill John, or me, you’d have done it before now. You’ve been dabbling, haven’t you? You’re fond of Father, I can see it whenever you’re with him. I know you’re fond of me, Bess.” Reluctantly, Elizabeth nodded. “As I am of you. Bess, I should hate you for Mother’s death, but I can’t. I know how persuasive Richard was, and I only knew him a few short months—and I wasn’t part of his—his Advocates. I can’t believe you would have actively harmed anyone, if you’d been let alone. Give it over now, Bess, now you’ve seen a different way. You’ve a good life and a happy one here; you don’t need to stay committed to such evil.”
Silence. Elizabeth looked up at her uncertainly. “I can’t. Richard said—when a maid chooses at thirteen, as I did—”
“He lied, to tie you to him and to his way of life. To keep you from happiness of your own, Bess! But you didn’t choose—he chose for you, didn’t he?”
“I—oh, Lucy, I can’t!�
�� But there were tears in her blue eyes, and her lip trembled.
Lucinda glanced up at the waiting will-o’-the-wisp. “A bargain, Willow. She will do no further mischief against us; you will watch her but do no mischief against her so long as she is idle. Bess, think, 1 beg of you! Don’t simply accept what you were told without wondering why the words were said. Think of Father, and how much he cares for you!” She drew a deep breath. “Think about the bargain I’ve offered you. And—in case you think to carry out this fool’s plan of vengeance and greed before good sense saves you, know that Willow is watching, and will know what your decision is as soon as it is made.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Elizabeth whispered. She glared up at the hovering form and sneezed again. Then pulled herself together with a visible effort and drew her feet in under her skirts, smoothing them down in an attempt at dignity. “I see no point in remaining here any longer. Lucy, your father expects you and Mr. Levy to dinner tonight. We shall see you then.” And she vanished as suddenly and silently as she had arrived. Arabella’s—now Lucinda’s—companion went whirling after her.
Lucinda picked up the little box and closed it carefully, then turned back to find Judah Levy watching her, wide-eyed. “Will you always surprise me like this?” he asked.
“I surprised myself,” Lucinda admitted. “But—do you mean Willow, or that I didn’t simply loose the will-o’-the-wisp on her? I meant what I told her, you know. Poor Bess. Imagine making such a dreadful pact at such a tender age! She cannot have known anything else, certainly very little pleasant, until she met Mother. No wonder she was so fond of parties and balls when she had her London season. It must have been the first real pleasure in all her life.”
Judah closed the front door and led the way back through the scullery . “You think she will abjure, then?”
“Say, rather, I hope it,” Lucinda said. “She is intelligent, and like me—like you, Judah—she is practical. But enough of Bess for now.” She stood in the doorway and looked around the sunlit room. “Tell me, since I foresee we will both spend much time in this house, should the working room not be larger, and should we not add a window, perhaps a door? Certainly another, larger bench, since two people will use it so often together.” She turned back to take his hands. They were large, warm hands, and unlike certain other hands, she expected strength of these. Judah brought her fingers to his lips. “I think Bess will realize, with no effort at all, that there is a good deal to be said for happiness.”
Anno Domini 1773
THE OLD MAN sat on a stump beside the frozen river, watching black water race past a hole in the ice. It was twilight, the last day of the year 1773, and the bone-chilling cold of the coming night was descending; but the old man only wrapped his cloak more closely around himself and waited—watching, willing—as the last weak rays of sunlight finally retreated from the ice-rimmed hole and left the surface a black mirror.
“Now show thyself to me,” he whispered, sketching the sign of the Dragon in the air before him, centered over his blackened mirror. “Show thyself, who shall come at the appointed hour to accept thy destiny. Show thyself. . . .”
Sitting back then, he waited, eyes fixed on his mirror, summoning the image of the one who would come. Absently his hand sought the silver chain around his neck, his thumb caressing the coin-sized medallion with its image of a knight confronting a dragon. Slowly the image came—of a tall, commanding figure in a full-cut black cloak with shoulder capelets, striding along a snow-covered street.
A smart tricorn hat crowned reddish-brown hair pulled back in a queue. Well-polished boots with spurs showed below fawn-colored breeches as he set one toe in a polished stirrup and swung up on a tall, raw-boned grey. The gloved hands that gathered up the reins were big, almost a little awkward, the thighs gripping the gray’s sides thick and powerful.
The old man nodded as the image wavered and then faded, touching the silver medallion to his lips and bowing his head in thanks for the Vision. Very shortly, he was roused from his meditation by the crunching footfall of someone approaching from behind him in the snow.
“Yes, daughter, I know what time it is,” he said, even as he turned to greet her. “I was just ready to come in. Is all in readiness?”
The girl was just eighteen, small like her mother had been, with hair of a rich bronzy-gold pulled up in a loose knot at the crown. Her cloak was a deep forest-green, the gown beneath it the saffron hue of marigolds or sunflower petals. The eyes that gazed at him adoringly were a clear, startling blue. He had named her Amanda, for the mother she had never known. Today’s Amanda bore a wreath of fresh laurel leaves in her slender hands, looking very much as her mother had looked at a similar age, so many years before. The radiance of her smile made it seem that the sun had turned backward in its path, bringing the dawn once more.
“Well, this is done, at any rate. I hope it’s what you wanted,” she said, displaying the wreath hopefully. “I only took slips from young laurel trees, as you suggested. That helped to keep everything supple, and made the weaving easier.”
“Did you remember to take from thirteen different trees?” he asked, arching an eyebrow.
“Of course!” she replied, drawing the wreath away momentarily in mock indignation. “And also asked permission before I cut them. Whose daughter do you think I am, to forget something that important? Seriously, though”—she flashed him a smile and offered the wreath again— “will it be all right?”
He took the wreath from her and held it up for inspection, breathing deeply of the pungent, familiar scent. He was white haired and bearded, with a nobility about his bearing that recalled gentle origins in the Old World—and indeed, he had been born noble, though castles and lands and titles had been left behind with his wife’s grave, across a broad ocean that he knew he would never cross again.
Nor had he any desire to re-cross it. That phase of his life had closed with Amanda’s death. Here, he was simply Jakob, sometimes referred to as the Hermit of the Ridge. There were others of his kind farther along the Wissahikon, some of whom had banded together in a semi-monastic community—and others, still, who had abandoned the pretense of Christian facade and pursued their ancient skills more openly—and more precariously. But though a younger Jakob had considered both options, he had deemed neither course suitable for the father of a young son and infant daughter.
Accordingly, in the nearly two decades since his arrival in these Pennsylvania woods, he had carved out a sheltered and solitary life for himself and his children, diligently setting himself a routine of study, work, and prayer, teaching his children to reverence the same, bequeathing them a richness of spiritual freedom that was not possible in the Old World, with its hypocrisies and religious intolerance. One still must be careful, even here—distant cousins had burned in Salem, less than a century before—but the old man’s pious demeanor and willingness to help anyone in need, and the reassuring little chapel, with its simple cross of iron, had long ago disarmed any local suspicion or resentment.
“The wreath is marvelous, my dear,” the old man murmured, bending to kiss the top of her burnished head. “Exactly as I envisioned. Now, what about your brother? Has he finished at the chapel?”
Her face clouded briefly at that, but she made a brave attempt at a new smile and nodded. “Of course he has, Father. You know that you have only to ask, and either Ephraim or T would do anything for you, but—”
“But?” he repeated, smiling gently and caressing her cheek with one veined hand.
She hooked her arm in his as they started back toward the snug, sod-walled blockhouse that was their home, sighing as she scuffed her little boots along the snow-encrusted path.
“I wish I had your confidence,” she said, searching for the words. “I know what the prophecies say, and I respect our ancient ways. But how can you be so certain he will heed the Call? He is not one of us. The Dragon’s breath does not stir his lungs. The
blood of the Dragon does not run in his veins.”
“No, he is not kin to the Dragon,” the old man agreed, “but nonetheless, he will play a vital role in the New Order. Besides, this is not the Dragon’s land—though it is meet that the Dragon should find refuge here. The one who is to come is kin to the Eagle, I suspect—though perhaps the Dragon may help teach the Eagle to soar. But doubt it not, he will come, my darling. I have seen his visage, and he will come.”
They reached the blockhouse then and went in, and the old man sat beside the well-scrubbed table and contemplated the laurel wreath while the girl built up the fire. She was drawing the curtains at the front windows to shut out the gloomy forest and the falling night when her brother returned with an armload of wood, cheeks red from the cold outside, eyes blazing with his news. He was a tall, handsome youth, as dark as Amanda was fair, with the same guileless blue gaze that all three of them shared. The graceful hands were callused from honest work, but every line of his slender form confirmed his gentle breeding.
“I ran into Caleb Matheson, when I went down to chop the wood,” he announced, depositing his wood in a sturdy basket beside the fire and throwing off his heavy cloak. “Do you know what’s happening up in Boston?”
As he sat himself eagerly on a stool opposite his father, the old man nodded slowly.
“A little over a fortnight ago, in outraged and righteous protest against scandalous new British taxes, a great deal of tea was flung into Boston Harbor,” he said blandly. “So that it would appear that Red Indians were to blame, the perpetrators blacked and painted their faces, and communicated by means of grunts and ‘ugh—ugh,’ and exchanged the phrase ‘me know you,’ as a countersign.
“In truth, however, the plan was hatched in a tavern called the Green Dragon, by Bostonians of several different radical groups and Masonic Lodges, united by the resolve that the tea should not be off-loaded and the tax should not be tolerated. It is believed that some of the participants foregathered at a meeting of the Saint Andrew’s Lodge—which was adjourned early, there being few members present—ending their night’s escapade at a chowder supper hosted by the brothers Bradlee. What came between Lodge and chowder, few will own openly, but the names of such notables as Dr. Joseph Warren and Mr. Paul Revere have been mentioned in connection with the affair, and it is certain that some three hundred forty-two chests of tea ended up in Boston Harbor, to the value of some eighteen thousand pounds sterling. Rumor also has it that old Mother Bradlee kept a kettle of water hot, so that ‘the boys’ could wash off their face-black and war paint, afterwards.”
The Crafters Book One Page 23
