There she was. Ivory—though she thought of herself as Sarah. This wasn’t Colorado. This wasn’t the world I’d grown up in. Ivory was searching for dry wood and kindling—anything that might catch fire and warm her small home.
A few feet into the woods, a woman sat leaning against a tree. Long, blonde tendrils of hair hid her face, her white bonnet crumpled and dirty.
This was Ivory’s life before she was turned, not just her memories of me. This wasn’t what I’d called for with my spell, but backing out might mean losing my only chance for answers.
I waited another moment, willing the memories to fast forward, willing the ignisvisum to skip past these moments and arrive at her memories of me—the memories I needed to see.
Despite my efforts, the images continued to scroll. The woman leaning against the tree turned, the moon shining off the tears that soaked her cheeks. She and I could have passed for sisters. I nearly pulled back, determined not to steal memories that had nothing to do with me, but I couldn’t tear my gaze away from this woman. In my heart, I knew who she was before Ivory even spoke her name.
“Elizabeth?” Ivory asked.
I should have looked away, but this was possibly my only chance at discovering what happened to Elizabeth’s body . . . my only chance of gaining complete control over my clairaudience, of finding a way to protect myself and those I loved from the darkness in the elemental world.
It’s often said experiences make a person who they are. But as I stared into the ignisvisum bowl and sent my clairaudience out to Ivory, I soon realized it was the memories of another that would forever reshape who I was to become.
{twenty-one}
IVORY’S MEMORIES
Salem, Massachusetts Colony, 1692
THE SKY DARKENED from indigo and ochre into a deep shade of amethyst. The remaining flecks of sun lent a golden warmth to the sepia-washed clearing. Ivory stumbled to a halt, then stepped closer, but Elizabeth remained seated in front of the tree.
She dropped her face into her hands. “Please go along.”
Ivory placed the maple wood she’d gathered on the forest floor and hurried to Elizabeth. “What troubles you?”
“Go.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Something evil has come.”
The sadness in Elizabeth’s eyes—a beautiful sadness that touched Ivory’s heart—created a flutter in her stomach. Ivory held the betraying emotion at bay.
“Don’t let the town’s talk frighten you,” she said. “They’re just stories.”
Elizabeth rocked slightly. “I can hear things. They will see, and they will kill me.”
Ivory glanced back toward the village. “We won’t let that happen, now will we? Tell me—”
An energy coursed through her veins. She shot to her feet and looked in every direction for a source, the sky and forest whirring around her. A whispering voice echoed between the trees, as though spoken from many discordant voices: “The heart of the spirit.”
Ivory dropped to her knees in front of Elizabeth and placed a hand on either shoulder. “Did you—”
Elizabeth closed her eyes. “I heard.”
Ivory gripped Elizabeth’s shoulders until her short nails dug against the long sleeves of Elizabeth’s dress. “We’ll leave—travel somewhere safe and make sense of all this.”
“I can’t.” Elizabeth’s voice cracked. “My baby, I can’t leave him.”
“Nonsense. You must.”
Elizabeth stood, shaking dirt loose from her skirts. “I won’t.”
“I’m sorry,” Ivory said, gentling her voice. Unlike Elizabeth, she didn’t have a husband or child. She still lived with her mother, father, and sister. How easy it would be to forget the ties that bound most women to the village. “Then we shall carry on until he has grown.”
The pair soon learned the Universe had chosen them to restore balance to the earth, an idea their minds would have rejected if their hearts were not so touched by the purity of the Universe’s voice.
And so, on some evenings to follow, they stole away into the forest, performing rituals guided by the Universe to conjure peace. Their gifts strengthened over time, and the Universe promised their true purpose would soon be revealed. Elizabeth and Ivory had no common ground otherwise: Elizabeth was married to a tailor, and Ivory was unwed, nearly too old to attract a suitor.
One afternoon, however, Elizabeth told Ivory of a deeper confliction, of the curse of many unknown voices, and not only the voice of the Universe.
They were sitting side-by-side near a dried riverbed, and the fabric of Ivory’s dress rustled against the fabric of Elizabeth’s. Ivory swallowed to steady her own quick, shallow breathing.
“I’m sure sense will come of it in time,” Ivory offered.
Elizabeth turned to her. “Such are these times, Sarah, that I think you are the only soul in the world who understands.”
Ivory searched Elizabeth’s eyes. Her heart leapt forward, and, before she could control her impulse, she pressed her lips against Elizabeth’s. Ivory quickly sat back, heat burning her cheeks and ears, but when she dared steal a glance, she noticed a blush creeping from the neckline of Elizabeth’s dress and the small contented smile that touched Elizabeth’s lips.
In nearby settlements, women were burned alive for such things. But Ivory wasn’t willing to sacrifice the hope she found in Elizabeth’s company.
Early one evening, while most of the townsfolk were still at work, Ivory opened her window and helped Elizabeth climb into her room. They huddled close under blankets, dressed only in their undergarments, facing each other on a small cot.
Ivory tucked one of Elizabeth’s curls behind her ear. “We will leave this place,” she whispered, “I promise you. When your child is grown, the time will be kind for our departure.”
The floorboards creaked, and Elizabeth’s body went rigid in Ivory’s arms. Ivory clutched the blanket over their bodies. Her mother walked in and gasped, then spun away and shielded her eyes as Elizabeth quickly dressed and fled the house in tears.
“You are no child of mine!” Ivory’s mother said in a voice drenched with disgust. Her hooded grey eyes narrowed, her fists balled on her hips. “They will be talking your death to know what you’ve done. Wipe her from your mind. Hear me, child, for you will find the end of a noose if you continue this path. May God send his mercy upon you and cleanse the blackness in your soul.”
Ivory’s sister, Anne, appeared in the doorway, but just as quickly turned and darted from the house, her fiery hair trailing behind and bleeding against the red, setting sun. Ivory refastened the bodice of her dress and chased after. If Anne said anything about what she’d seen . . .
Ivory couldn’t let that happen. She rushed out to the courtyard and stood to block Elizabeth from Anne’s glare.
A woman across the court dropped her water pail, and a man pulled the reins of a horse to bring his cart to a halt. Even the hammering of a nearby blacksmith stopped, leaving only the scent of fire and hot metal in the sudden silence.
More onlookers gathered by the second, as though drawn by the sudden commotion. Ivory’s gaze swept across the villagers, some standing with mouths agape while others whispered amongst themselves. She looked at her own disheveled appearance, and then over to Elizabeth, who had dressed in such haste that her bonnet was crooked and her apron loose.
Ivory and Elizabeth stood without movement, a stunned tableau in the center of town. Anne tilted up her nose, smirking. Dirt scraped beneath her square-toed shoe as she turned toward the gathering of townsfolk.
“Witch!” She pointed at Elizabeth. “She has stricken my sister! She bids the devil’s work!”
Ivory searched the faces of the crowd, looking for even one kind expression—there must be at least one who doubts this accusation?
But as her gaze landed on one unforgiving face after the other, her hope withered.
AT DAWN the next morning, Ivory fell upon the courthouse, carried by a sea of excited townsfol
k. She paused outside the low brick wall surrounding the establishment, but her mother pushed her through, whispering in her ear that seeing this would be a good life lesson.
Once inside and seated, Ivory glared at Elizabeth’s husband, who sat on the worn pew at the front of the courtroom. Beside him, Elizabeth’s fourteen-month-old sat with his arms hugged around his stomach.
Magistrate John Thornhart entered the room, his long gray hair stiff and thinning, his narrow, aquiline nose pointing toward his dimpled chin. The crowd quieted, nothing remaining but the creak of the wooden pews and the rustle of papers.
“Bring forth the accused!” His powerful voice sent shivers down Ivory’s spine.
Two men brought Elizabeth into the courtroom and pushed her into a chair. Ivory’s gaze followed the length of her lover’s body from untamed hair to bare, dirtied feet, anger bubbling in her chest at the way she’d been mistreated.
Thornhart crossed the room, his shiny black buckled shoes clicking evenly on the wood floors. He faced Elizabeth, his hands clasped behind his back.
“Elizabeth, what evil spirits have you familiarity with?”
“None,” she replied.
Thornhart raised one eyebrow and paced away. He looked back over his shoulder to her. “Have you made no contract with the devil?”
“No,” Elizabeth said, her voice harder and more direct.
Thornhart pointed at Ivory, his gaze still leveled at Elizabeth. “Why do you curse this woman?”
Ivory shot to her feet. “I have no grievance! She does not harm me!”
Thornhart jerked his head toward her. “Speak not out of turn, I warn you, Sarah, lest you are attempting to curse us as well.”
As all the eyes in the courtroom shifted to Ivory, her skin prickled with heat. She lowered herself to her seat.
“Elizabeth, what say you?” Thornhart asked.
“I do not curse her.” Elizabeth’s voice remained strong. Still, her eyes pleaded to the court, and Ivory’s heart dropped to her stomach.
“Who, then, do you employ has cursed her?”
“No creature, for I am falsely accused!”
There was an edge of anger in Elizabeth’s voice, and the crowd murmured.
“You bid the work of the devil when you make this woman lay with you as a heathen.”
Was the town so sick with desire for a witch-hunt that they would accuse Elizabeth of witchcraft before considering both women guilty of expressing their love to one another?
“Anne, you identified her as the one who torments your sister.” Thornhart paused briefly from his pacing. “What have you to say in evidence?”
Anne fingered a small pendant on a chain at her neck. “My sister behaves strangely only when in Elizabeth’s presence. The witch is an enemy to all good!”
Ivory kept her arms crossed, hoping her expression was stoic and cold instead of as rigid and fearful as she felt. Already she tasted the tears in the back of her throat.
“See now what you have done, Elizabeth? Redeem yourself and speak the truth, for you have cursed this woman.”
Elizabeth’s hands curled into tight fists. “I do not curse her!”
“Tell us, Elizabeth. How do you curse her?”
Before Elizabeth could declare her innocence once more, her husband stood. His expression was weighted, and he swallowed. When he spoke, his voice was so quiet Ivory had to strain to hear.
“She tells me of voices that speak to her,” he said. “She has been accursed for some time now.” He lifted his apologetic gaze to Elizabeth. “I’m so sorry. Please, let them help you.”
Ivory nearly choked on the air. Elizabeth had told him? The revelation was a sharp knife in Ivory’s heart. How could Elizabeth have been so foolish?
Thornhart’s eyebrows rose. “Tell us of this curse, Elizabeth. Confess of it and the evil things you’ve done as its vessel. It is the only path to redemption.”
Elizabeth shook her head slowly. “There is no evil in me,” she said. “I have harmed none.”
Two girls started screeching and writhing on the ground. One’s body went limp.
Thornhart spoke over the crowd’s loud chattering. “Order!”
“She has afflicted me, too,” one girl cried. “Look at these punctures on my arm. They are the bite marks of her specter!”
Ivory shot the girl a dirty look. The marks on her arm were caused by nothing other than the dig of her own fingernails.
Thornhart whipped his gaze back to Elizabeth. “Why do you torment these children? Why will you not confess, when we can see you clearly for what you are?”
All of the village joined in: “Confess! Confess!”
Though the shrieking of the girls bounced off the room’s wooden walls, Elizabeth would not confess. Thornhart asked the jury of their verdict, and they returned a true bill.
‘I’m sorry,’ Ivory mouthed to her lover, the tears hot on her cheeks. Her nose stuffed up, causing a pressure in her head that throbbed with each fearful thought.
Ivory had been a fool to believe there was any hope. Elizabeth’s guilt had been determined by the very fact she’d been accused.
Thornhart declared Elizabeth’s execution to be carried out immediately. “Let the first witch hanged be an example.”
Anne grabbed Ivory by the arm. “I did this for you, Sarah. It could have been you both meeting an end, had I not accused her.”
Ivory didn’t believe one word. Her sister had always been jealous of Elizabeth, ever since Elizabeth’s family forced her to marry the man Anne loved.
Disgusted, Ivory clenched her fists and pulled away from her sister. “You will burn in hell, Anne, and no prayer will save you.”
Two men escorted Elizabeth to the gallows. The sun beat against the planks of the platform where the crowd huddled near. Some of the townspeople cupped hands by their mouths to holler and condemn her. Others held baskets of rotten vegetables, the scent overpowered only by the pine of the newly constructed gallows and the draft of horse manure from the wagon awaiting her corpse.
The rope binding Elizabeth’s frail wrists pinched and reddened her flesh. One of the men shoved her toward the platform’s steps, but the only sign of fear was the tension along her temples and the slight tremble of her lip.
Elizabeth’s gaze found Ivory’s, eyes soft and forgiving. A man looped the noose around Elizabeth’s neck, and Thornhart’s shoes thudded across the planks, somehow louder than the excited murmurs of the crowd.
Children climbed on barrels and the shoulders of their parents for a better view. Townsfolk spat at Elizabeth and tossed their rotten produce. A man to Ivory’s side lifted a stone from the ground, but as he cocked his arm back, Ivory jabbed her elbow hard into his ribs and ducked away as he keeled over.
“Confess,” Thornhard said, “should you save yourself from the rope.”
Elizabeth defiantly stuck out her chin, but her gaze was already dimming. “I have nothing to confess. I meet my fate with a pure heart.”
The crowd grew eerily silent. Tears lined Ivory’s eyes, but she rigidly held them back. She watched until just moments before they dropped the floor, then turned quickly to leave. She heard the snap of Elizabeth’s neck, the tug and creak of taut rope, the shuffle of fabric. An eruption of cheers followed.
Ivory wove through the crowd, trying to hold it together. Guilt dug like sharp nails into her heart. She should have done something more to save Elizabeth. But what? What could she have done, other than get herself killed, too?
Perhaps that is what a real lover would have done. Died alongside a loved one. Never again did Ivory want to hear her name spoken aloud. Sarah was the woman who would have saved Elizabeth from this town, and she had failed.
Ivory turned back, stealing one last glance at Elizabeth’s empty gaze. Thornhart signaled to the hangman, who sawed through the rope with a large hunting knife. The body thumped into the wagon below.
Ivory broke out of the crowd and stormed off to a quiet spot they’d kept in the w
oods.
“Speak to me now!” she cried out to the Universe. “Tell me what you want!”
Garnering no response, she fell to her knees and cried. Her fierce sobbing emptied her stomach of what little she’d managed to eat that morning. When her tears subsided, it was dark, but she knew what must be done. The town would kill Ivory if they caught her, but she refused to send Elizabeth from the world this way.
Elizabeth’s body still remained in the open wagon near the platform, crumpled over the loose hay of the wagon’s bed, her hazel eyes as empty as buttons that had lost their luster. Thornhart had left her there, a reminder to the townsfolk of what would become of anyone who dared perform witchcraft.
Ivory shook her head, vomit rising from her stomach in disgust at the people of her town. One day, Ivory hoped to see them suffer.
All the houses in the village were dark and the roads bare. Arms looped under Elizabeth’s shoulders, Ivory dragged her lover’s body into the woods behind a nearby store. She sagged beneath the weight in the same way the weathered roofs of the town drooped from the weight of snow in the winter. Elizabeth’s body was stiff and cold to the touch—not how Ivory wanted to remember her.
Ivory’s resolve, paired with the overwhelming feeling of loss, pushed her, lending her strength as she pulled her lover farther down the path to a barren clearing that offered little more than a rotted apple core festering in maggots.
She piled dead leaves, branches, and debris near a decaying tree stump and laid Elizabeth’s body over the compost. Ivory breathed deeply and spoke to the Universe once more.
“You have made her this way—brought her to this end! Now I return her to you. Take her ashes, so that her spirit may live on.”
She burned the body. The skin melted against bones, and blood bubbled until little remained. Smoking charcoal and sulfur accosted her nostrils.
When the fire exhausted and the remains cooled, Ivory wiped the tears from her cheeks and whispered, “Live on, my love.”
When Darkness Falls - Six Paranormal Novels in One Boxed Set Page 74
