Saving Marina

by Lauri Robinson

  When it all ended abruptly—the colors, the enchantment, the kiss—her head was spinning.

  Reaching for something to hold on to, her hands found Richard’s. The moment his fingers grasped hers, the spinning stopped, but the light inside her didn’t fade.

  “Marina?”

  She shook her head, trying to remember where she was, who she was. As that all became clear, she asked, “Why did you do that? Why did you kiss me?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, dropping her hands. “I shouldn’t have. Forgive me.”

  Marina closed her eyes briefly, still trying to make sense of what had happened—not the kiss or his apology, but the change inside her. Everything about her was warm and bright.

  “It’s you,” he said roughly. “You’ve put some sort of spell on me.”

  Her reaction was to grin and say, “I can’t put spells on people. I don’t know how.”

  He frowned and shook his head as if she was telling a tall tale.

  “Honestly,” she said. “If I could cast spells, I’d have put a hole in that boat last night.”

  Not only did he grin, but he also stepped forward and cupped her cheeks again. However, his eyes then turned serious. “You are not a witch.”

  “Yes, I am,” she insisted. “You just said so yourself.” She’d accepted being a witch, but until this very moment, she might not have completely believed it. The kiss had done it. No God-fearing woman would have let that happen, but a witch would have. And would still be rejoicing in it.

  “I didn’t mean it.”

  “Yes, you did. You just don’t want to believe it. I didn’t at first, either.” She stepped back, out of his hold, and moved closer to Nellie in order to clear her thinking. A deep and sudden urge wanted her to tell him everything, to make him believe, but another part of her still knew he’d try to stop her. “I just don’t have any powers. Or maybe I haven’t learned how to use them yet.” She hadn’t meant to say that. Her tongue was flapping on its own. Like a fish out of water. “I haven’t been a witch that long.”

  He picked up the milk bucket and carried it out of the stall. “You don’t have any powers because there are no such things as witches.”

  Marina leaned against an empty stall. It was all so strange, how disconnected her words were from her brain and...and how disconnected she was from her past. The memories were still there, but the pain wasn’t. It didn’t hurt to admit she was a witch. As if dipping a toe in to test the water before entering it, she said, “When the Indians attacked our village, they killed me, too.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “Not for a witch.”

  “Marina—”

  “I died that night,” she said with more calmness than she’d ever known. “Along with all the other members of my family. But later, when the survivors—there weren’t too many of them—were burying the dead, I woke up. Right there on Mrs. Hanson’s kitchen table, where she was washing my body.”

  “What?”

  “Shocking, isn’t it? Imagine how it was for Arlyce Hanson.” Marina had never made light of the situation, but the warmth encompassing her gave her permission.

  “You hadn’t died,” he said. “Just been knocked out.”

  She shook her head. “No, I’d died.” Meeting his gaze, she added, “A person knows when they die.”

  “How?”

  There was disbelief in his eyes but also a hint of anger. Marina waited for her fears to appear. The deep-down ones that up until he’d kissed her had never gone away. There was no tightening of her stomach, no quickening of her heart, no heavy dread. She glanced around the barn, catching the sunlight streaming in the door full of dust motes dancing like dreamland fairies. Turning back to Richard, she said, “Because I remember it. We’d all gone to bed, and it was storming. Thundering and lightning, which was unusual so late in the year. I thought the wind had blown the door open, but it was Indians, running in all directions.”

  She drew a deep breath as the visions entered her head. It was strange, but this time it was as if she wasn’t connected to the story, simply a bystander repeating what she’d seen. It had finally happened. She’d been completely transformed into a witch.

  “They killed my parents in their bed, and my brothers and their wives. My nephew, Gunther, and I were in the loft, and I tried to keep him quiet so the Indians wouldn’t find us, but he started to cry.”

  Tears fell from her eyes, but here too she felt separated from them. “That’s when I died. One second I was fighting them off. The next second I was floating away.” She closed her eyes. “My parents were, too, and my brothers, their wives, and when Gunther joined us, we all started moving together. As one. Floating, not walking. We were all happy and peaceful. It was warm and sunny.” She’d come to the part that tore at her heart in the past and opened her eyes in order to press on. “We came to a bridge, and they all walked across it, but I couldn’t. I shouted for them to wait for me, but they all shook their heads. My father said that bridge wasn’t for me. That I had to go back. I didn’t want to go back and told him that, but they kept moving farther away. My father said I couldn’t go with them, not right then. He said there were others and that I had to show them the way. The next thing I remember is feeling a hand on my forehead and waking up on Arlyce Hanson’s kitchen table.”

  Richard had stepped forward, and when he wrapped his arms around her shoulders, she laid her head upon his chest without thought.

  “It was all just a bad dream,” he whispered.

  “No, it wasn’t,” she answered. “I remembered everything, even things I couldn’t have known. I knew which families had been attacked, who’d already been buried, who’d survived.”

  “You could have heard people talking about all that,” he said. “While you were unconscious.”

  Marina lifted her head and leaned back to look at him. Deep inside his eyes she saw his confidence was slipping as he tried not to believe her. With a pang of remorse, she stepped out of his arms. “I thought about that, but I knew things, know things, that no one had mentioned.”

  “Like what?”

  She shook her head. That was not something she wanted to think about, to remember, not now or ever. “At first people were nice, caring, but then word spread and everyone grew afraid of me. They feared I’d bring more evil upon them. By the time Captain Farleigh arrived, I hadn’t slept in days and knew it was only a matter of time...” Walking toward the sunlight streaming into the barn, she said, “I came to live with Uncle William, hoping I could leave it all behind me, but that wasn’t to be.”

  “What happened?”

  “Nothing at first,” she admitted. “But then I started having dreams about people growing ill. Whole families dying. I tried to warn them. Told them to be cautious of what they ate and drank and to stay home.”

  Stopping in the barn doorway, Marina scanned the roadway. There was no traffic, but there soon would be. “After the epidemic, Reverend Hickman came to the house and wanted to know how I knew about the illnesses before they’d started. I didn’t say anything and neither did Uncle William. We didn’t need to. He’d learned what had happened in Maine.” What returned couldn’t be called pain—it was darker than that, more menacing. “The only reason I wasn’t accused is because he knows I’m a real witch.”

  * * *

  Richard couldn’t remember a time when he didn’t know what to think. As preposterous as her story was, she believed it, and that was the part that twisted his good senses. “Why didn’t you and William leave? He has the finances.”

  She turned to look up the road in the direction of Salem Towne and the gruesome sight he’d witnessed again last night. “I can’t. I brought the evilness with me, to the people here, and I have to stop it.”

  His jaw tightened at exactly who had filled her head with such nonsense. “No, you didn’t. Hickman did, and he was evil long before he met you.”

  “I know that, just as I know what I have to do.”

  A
shiver tickled his spine. “What?”

  “What my father told me to do. Show the others the way.”

  The shiver raced all the way to his toes. “What others?”

  “Those falsely imprisoned.”

  The thunder of hooves interrupted Richard’s response. Two horses, with riders whipping the reins over their flanks, galloped past the house.

  “Oh, dear heavens,” she whispered as they disappeared. “That was Oscar Pullman in that boat last night. You went with him to steal Elizabeth’s body, didn’t you?” Her eyes fell to his boots, where dried mud still crusted the toes. “And buried her on his property.”

  The shiver that shot up and down Richard’s spine had both his head and toes quivering. Then anger settled. She had to have followed him. “I told you to stay home.”

  She merely stared at him.

  Enough was enough. He grabbed her arms. “You are not a witch. You’ve simply been sneaking around at night and reading propaganda.” He’d glanced through the stack of papers on the desk full of tales of witches that had been distributed by the church. “Those leaflets are all lies.”

  “Some of it, yes. But only a real witch would know what parts.”

  A growl rumbled in his throat. “You—”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Because of a bad dream?” he barked. “Because of—”

  “It’s far more than dreams,” she insisted. “It’s written in the scriptures—”

  “Scriptures?” Holding his temper took all he had. “People have been misquoting the Bible since it was written. That’s what Hickman’s doing. You said so. You didn’t die, and—”

  “I’d been examined and pronounced dead.”

  He bit his lip in order to form an intelligent response.

  “Arlyce Hanson heard me gasp right before I opened my eyes and swore I hadn’t been breathing before then.”

  “That’s not proof.”

  “You want proof?” she whispered. “I watched the Indians kill my nephew and then chop his hands off at the wrists to take back as evidence of their accomplishments.”

  Richard froze and his anger dissolved. He’d never seen pain as raw as what was reflected in her eyes.

  “He was smaller than Grace, and there wasn’t a thing I could do. They’d already shoved me off the loft. I saw my body, crumpled and lifeless on the floor.” She took a single step closer, her eyes locked on his. “Gunther was buried before I returned to life, along with the other children. Every child that had been murdered had their hands chopped off. Those who saw it never mentioned it, and others didn’t know, until I told them.”

  The hair on his arms was standing on end. “And that’s when they proclaimed you were a witch.”

  “Yes.” She spun around and marched toward the house.

  Richard couldn’t will his body to do anything but watch. If she’d been crying, he’d have stopped her, comforted her, but the woman who’d just walked away hadn’t wanted that.

  Chapter Eleven

  When Richard entered the house later, Marina, busy cooking, acted as if nothing had transpired between them, which left him both relieved and wary. He’d heard tales of savages doing just what she’d described, but the conviction, the belief with which she’d spoken, was what alarmed him. Furthermore, both John and William insisted she hadn’t left the house a second time last night. There was no way she could know what he’d done with Oscar, yet she did.

  He couldn’t find an answer of how. Not one that made sense. They were in the midst of eating a breakfast of boiled eggs and porridge when the clatter of horses and wagons had Richard rising from his chair. “Wait here.” His gaze included everyone at the table.

  He arrived on the front stoop before the visitors had dismounted. “Don’t bother getting down,” Richard shouted. “You aren’t welcome here.”

  “This is official business,” Hickman said, rolling out of the driver’s seat of his carriage. “Where’s the Griggs lad?”

  The person who opened and closed the door behind him wasn’t John. Richard reached back and took Marina’s elbow, bringing her forward to stand at his side.

  Hickman eyed the action with a lecherous interest that rubbed salt in an open wound.

  Richard leveled a glare on the other man that he usually held for dock ruffians up to no good. Hickman was far more wicked than any ragtag thug. It had been impossible to abide the man years ago, and at this moment he wanted to squash him beneath his boot like a bug that had crept upon his ship. Just like insects, Hickman damaged everything he encountered. “What do you want with John?”

  “We are here to arrest him,” Hickman said. “For theft. His mother’s body was stolen last night.”

  Richard refrained from pulling his lips into a tight smile. He’d relish telling the man the truth, but considering what Hickman and others believed about Marina, the opposite would serve his purpose better. “John never left this house last night. Marina can attest to that.”

  Curling his nose, Hickman sneered, “Her word means nothing.”

  Hickman’s men were on the road and made no effort to move closer, not even when Richard took a step toward their leader. “It should,” he said. “It means a lot to me.”

  Hickman puffed out his chest. “Which also means nothing.” Narrowing his beady eyes, he snapped, “Where is that boy? He’s under arrest.”

  “Do you have his mother’s body?” Richard asked. “Proof that John took it?”

  “Of course not. It was stolen. No one else would have taken it.”

  Holding Marina’s elbow as she stepped off the stoop beside him, Richard allowed a smile to prevail. “Perhaps it wasn’t stolen. Perhaps she awoke, cut herself down and, at this very moment, is hiding in the woods, waiting for the opportunity to repay you for your actions against her.”

  The man’s jowls jiggled as Hickman opened and closed his mouth.

  He’d clearly hit a nerve, and blood surged through Richard’s veins. He relished taking a stance against opposing forces and planted his heels more heavily into the ground, as he would on the ship to counter the rolling deck against heavy sea swells. The strength of his smile increased, too. “Do you really believe a mere hanging can kill a witch? A real witch?”

  Cold and bitter rage filled Richard as Hickman’s eyes darted toward Marina. Prepared to defend her as he would his ship upon a pirate attack, Richard let loose her elbow in order to drape an arm around her shoulders.

  The glow of satisfaction on the other man’s face momentarily confused Richard, until a scuffle sounded. His heart stopped as two men dragged John across the ground. A third carried a kicking and squirming Grace.

  The roar in Richard’s ears, louder than cannon fire, left him deaf. As the rage inside him broke loose, he pulled the blade from the scabbard inside his boot and advanced on Hickman, fully prepared to let fate decree the outcome.

  “You bloody bastard,” he seethed between clenched teeth. He had a handful of Hickman’s hair in one hand; the other he used to hold his blade against the man’s throat. “Order their release or you’ll die right here, right now.”

  Hickman gurgled and coughed.

  “Now! For God is my witness, I will end your bloody life.”

  “Let them go,” Hickman squawked.

  “But Your Highness—” one of the men said.

  “You release them,” Richard yelled, “or right after I slit his throat, I’ll slit yours.” He spun, taking Hickman with him, to address the others still near the roadway. “You’ll all find yourselves in the hereafter.”

  “Release them,” Hickman said again. “The fool will do as he says.”

  Richard waited until Marina had Gracie in her arms and was kneeling beside John, who’d been unceremoniously dropped to the ground, before Richard gave Hickman’s head a hard wrench backward. Pressing his blade deep enough against Hickman’s throat to indent the skin, he growled, “I’m no fool. You, of all men, know that.”

  “They released them,” the coward sque
aled.

  The desire to end it all filled him, but, aware that Marina and Gracie watched, Richard withdrew his blade and, out of spite, gave the man a hard shove.

  Hickman stumbled and fell to his knees. “The governor will hear of this,” he shouted, crawling toward the road.

  “Bloody right, the governor will hear about this,” Richard responded. “So will King William.”

  Once on his feet, aided by two of his cronies, Hickman waved a fist in the air. “You have no authority here, Tarr. I’ll see you imprisoned along with that she-devil!”

  Despite all that had transpired, the air around him, inside him, was dead calm, much like the aftermath of a storm. He’d defied the odds of vicious storms many times and had no doubt of his abilities to do so again. “I’ll see you dead first,” Richard promised coldly.

  The horses that galloped past must have been from the three men who’d sneaked in the back of the house and captured John and Grace. As soon as the rest of the troop, including Hickman, followed in their wake, Richard returned his blade to his boot and quickly crossed the yard.

  Bloody, his face already swelling, John groaned. “William,” he whispered. “They knocked him over the head.”

  Marina’s gasp had Richard looking up. “Go,” he told her. “I’ll bring John inside.”

  He ended up carrying John, through the front door and down the hall into the kitchen, where William sat at the table with Marina pressing a cloth to the back of his head.

  “Bastards,” the old man growled. “Hit me atop the head afore I could get out my chair.”

  Grace sat in another chair, her little head hanging down and her entire body quivering. Rage once again filled Richard. This was no place for a child. No place for anyone. He set John in one of the other chairs and stepped aside as Marina, who’d left her uncle holding the rag on the back of his head, knelt down to start washing the blood from John’s face.