Distraction Read online

  Mari groaned. “But it is a longer distance and my feet are tired.”

  “I’ll do all the wash then.”

  “All right,” she agreed quickly.

  We walked arm in arm through the copse of birch and hemlock trees that bordered the south side of the village. I could not bear to see Angus again or anyone else for that matter. Angus had arrived in Salem two years earlier. He’d been sent by The Council to assure that no real witches were executed by the overzealous people of Salem. It was The Council who had bestowed great powers on Angus centuries before. Nonni had known him since he was a wild, mischievous boy and she’d always loathed him. She was certain a powerful, depraved warlock like Angus would tire quickly of our dull, chaste town, but much to her dismay, he’d remained. Unfortunately, I seemed to be the reason behind his extended stay.

  “I wonder how poor Alexander is faring,” Mari said. “I do feel badly for him, Poppy. He is quite in love with you, you know.”

  “He’s kind and handsome, he’ll find someone to return his love someday.”

  “If you think him kind and handsome then why do you not consider him for yourself?”

  I squeezed her arm. “It is a bit more complicated than that, Mari. First of all, you saw what happened to him when he attempted only to retie my bonnet. I can only imagine what Angus would do to him if he courted me.”

  “But Poppy, you can not live in fear of Angus or you will never find anyone.”

  We turned down the trail where the trees thickened and the sunlight lessened. I pulled my shawl tightly around my neck to ward off the chill of the shaded woods. “Alexander is not what I want. He’s flour and water— harmless, pasty, and dull. I want a man with the strength of unbreakable stone, the passion of inextinguishable fire, and just enough honey to sweeten the sharp edges.”

  Mari chuckled. “That sounds more like one of Nonni’s spells than a man. You are such a silly dreamer, Poppy.” She sighed sadly. “With the choice of boys who live in this town, we’ll be lucky if we ever meet anyone who can stir our hearts— let alone our passion.”

  A momentary lapse in the tree canopy gave passage to brilliant rays of sunshine, and I lifted my face to the warmth. “Call me a dreamer, but he is out there.”

  Voices and laughter drifted through the leafy foliage lining the path. I pulled Mari to a stop. “Did you hear that?”

  “It sounds like that horrid boy, David. His father is the magistrate in Salem Town. Let’s hurry past. He is pure evil.”

  We ventured off the dirt path and attempted to pick up our pace. But the littered, uneven ground made it difficult. We were nearly clear of a tangle of shrubs when I heard a faint cry for help.

  I grabbed hold of Mari’s hand. “Wait. I think someone is in trouble.”

  “More reason to hurry out of these blasted trees.” Mari tried to pull me along.

  “Someone is in trouble, Mari.”

  She dropped my hand. “Let’s go then. Otherwise I won’t hear the end of it.” She sidled past me and dragged me in the direction the voices had come from.

  The pleas for help were muffled but they grew louder as we neared a small clearing. Mari stopped suddenly and looked at me. “No witchcraft, Poppy. You know how Nonni always warns you that your empathy for others will someday be your ruin.”

  “Yes, yes,” I waved her on. “No witchcraft.”

  We hid behind a massive tree trunk and watched in utter shock as David, a stoutly built, puffy faced boy, and his two thinner and even more dimwitted friends finished piling armfuls of kindling around the narrow trunk of a birch tree. Tied to the tree was a terrified, young boy who I’d seen more than once running bare foot through the village in tattered breeches. He and his mother lived in a run-down hovel at the end of town. A dirty rag was tied around his mouth.

  David pushed his round, freckled face close to the boy. “Robert Graves, you have been found guilty of being too small, too weak, and too poor to live. Therefore you will burn at the stake.”

  “They aren’t really going to burn him, Poppy, are they?”

  “I know David is a wretched bully, but surely, even he is not that horrid,” I assured Mari half-heartedly. “We’ll just wait for them to leave and then we’ll untie the boy.”

  David walked behind the tree trunk for a moment and then reappeared holding a pewter candlestick. A flame wavered on the top of the candle. Mari gasped and David’s attention was drawn to where we stood.

  He tucked the candle behind his back. “Who’s there?”

  We held our breath and stood as still as the thick tree trunk shielding us from view.

  Apparently satisfied that he’d only imagined the sound, David turned his attention back to his victim. The two friends giggled nervously as David waved the lit candle in front of Robert’s eyes. Tears streamed down the young boy’s face, leaving two thin trails of clean pink skin in the layer of grime on his cheeks.

  David threw his head back with a blood chilling laugh and lowered the candle to the kindling. A thin stream of smoke rose from the dried twigs, and I flew out from our hiding spot. David’s eyes opened wide and he stumbled back as the candlestick lifted from his hands and floated over his head and down into the back of his breeches. His hands flew to his backside which was now completely ablaze. He screamed and writhed on the ground until the flames were extinguished. His friends stared at me as if they’d seen an apparition. They turned and ran. The ropes restraining young Robert dropped into the smoking kindling, and he stumbled away as quickly as David’s friends.

  “Oh, are you going to catch trouble for this,” Mari said as she grabbed my hand and pulled me down the path toward home.

  Rendered mute by the cloud of worry that surrounded us, Mari and I walked home in silence. It had been a long while since I’d used my magic. Deep down, I hoped that the entire incident would be fluffed off as three boys’ vivid imaginations. Who, in their right mind, had ever seen a candle move through the air on its own? Hopefully David would receive a harsh lashing, although not on his behind, and his parents would scold him for playing with fire and telling wild tales. David would certainly think twice before setting someone on fire again.

  It was hard to suppress a smile when I thought about what I’d done. Moving objects was about the extent of my talents, but I felt I’d done an impressive job of it. Mari and I were of mixed blood and our powers were nearly negligible compared to Nonni’s. Years ago, Nonni, a full-blooded witch, had married Jack Seabrooke, a soldier and full-blooded mortal. Together they had a daughter, my mother, Lily. Nonni loved Jack deeply but even her charms and spells could not keep him safe in the horrors of battle. Nonni had told us the story of how she’d woken with a terrible stabbing pain in her heart, and she knew that she had lost her beloved Jack. Nonni packed up Lily and they moved to Salem Town, the port city near our village. But when Lilly reached her twentieth year, she could no longer bear the dullness of the small town, so she boarded a ship for England. While on board, The Frostfall, she fell madly in love with the ship’s captain, Captain Vanguard. She was pregnant with me before they reached British shores. He was tall and dashing. From the few memories I had of him, I remember laughing with him as he spun me around on his broad shoulders. Mother and I lived in a small house in the country that had belonged to the captain. He would visit us several times a year, and my mother would light up like a star when he came around. But she never used her powers around my father. She’d told me he wouldn’t understand. Unfortunately, Captain Vanguard also had a resentful wife who just happened to be the daughter of an English barrister. One year after Mari was born, my mother was arrested and charged with adultery. She was hanged. My mortal father boarded his ship one week later and was never seen again. Mari and I were taken to an orphanage, a dreadful place where the rooms were so cold our feet and lips remained a constant shade of blue. Back in Salem, Nonni woke up one morning with a mysterious rope burn around her neck. She set off for England at once and found us at the orphanage. Nonni claimed I w
as so thin she could see my bones through my skin.

  Mari groaned with relief when the cottage came into view. “I thought we’d never get home.”

  The sky behind our quaint cottage still retained the troubling shade of pink, and the heavy feeling in my chest told me I’d just started some trouble that was not going to end as smoothly as I’d hoped. “I confess, I’m equally glad to see our shabbily thatched roof. I hope Nonni will be along soon.”

  Mari laughed suddenly. “I thought that boy’s eyes would pop out of his head when you set his bottom on fire.”

  I laughed too. “It was quite a sight, wasn’t it? I think it’ll be a long while before that bully sits down again.” I took hold of her arm and we hurried down the road to home.

  There was a mound of wash to do, but I was happy to have something to keep my mind from the morning’s unfortunate events. The line of petticoats, blouses, and skirts danced in the warm breeze as I sat on the front stoop to rest. Nonni’s tiny figure appeared at the top of the road. She looked so petite and frail it seemed one strong gust of wind could carry her into the nearest tree, but truthfully, her powers made her anything but vulnerable. I always felt safer when Nonni was near.

  I must have been slightly delusional to convince myself of the farfetched notion that Nonni would not know something significant had happened, particularly because magic had been involved. The grave expression she wore as she opened the small gate to our yard assured me she knew everything.

  She stopped in front of me but looked back at the line of laundry. “Is that all of it?”

  “I washed both baskets. My hands are chapped.”

  She nodded but continued to stare calmly out at the road. “I have some salve for your hands,” she said quietly.

  My stomach tightened. Scolding and yelling were not in my grandmother’s character, but I might have preferred it to cold silence. She finally turned her gray eyes down to me. “What were you thinking, Poppy?”

  Tears flowed down my cheeks. “He was about to set fire to a boy, Nonni. He’d lit the kindling and everything.”

  “But we never use magic to harm unless necessary. The boy will suffer from those burns for weeks . . . even if the plump, little brute deserved it.”

  “I’m sorry, Nonni,” I sobbed. “I just couldn’t stand by and let them torture that little boy.”

  She placed her hand on my head. “Of course not, my dearest. Hopefully nothing more will come of this. I smell bread. Let’s go inside before your sister burns it.”

  Chapter 3

  Poppy

  The afternoon and supper passed peacefully. Wavering candlelight added to the warmth of the fire. After the dishes were cleared, Nonni walked into the small windowless room at the back of the cottage where she mixed tonics and elixirs. She stayed there for the remainder of the evening. Unfamiliar fragrances seeped beneath the doorway. She had not told us what she was working on and we dared not ask.

  Mari sat at the table working on a sampler, and I’d relaxed enough to pull out some parchment and stick of graphite. Sketching was my favorite hobby, and I had to admit that I was quite skilled at it.

  I’d been working on a particular drawing for weeks. The thread I’d wound around the stick of graphite pressed into the tender tips of my fingers. The laundry had taken a toll on my hands, but I was determined to finish the sketch this evening. As I shaded the lines of my drawing, Mari left her sampler to come sit with me by the fire. We nibbled on leftover gingerbread as I put the finishing strokes on my picture.

  Up until now, I’d not let Mari see the sketch. I held it up and admired it in the yellow light of the hearth flames. I’d purposely left the face shield of the knight open so his pale eyes could gaze back at me from the parchment. He was nearly as handsome as I’d imagined and in my mind’s eye, I could picture a crooked smile beneath the chin of his armor.

  “Well, you look as pleased as a child who has just successfully stolen a pie from the windowsill,” Mari quipped. “Can I please see it now?”

  “Yes, I think it is time to unveil him.” I turned the parchment. “May I present to you, Sir Blade, the dragon-slayer.”

  Mari’s eyes widened and she grabbed the parchment from my fingers. She stared at the sketch and her blue eyes sparkled. “Why can’t there be boys like this here in Salem. He’s wonderful, Poppy. And the dragon beneath his sword looks so real it frightens me to hold the parchment so closely.” Belying her previous statement, she brought the sketch closer to her face. “Who is this?” She lowered the picture and smiled at me over the top of it. “You’ve drawn yourself in the picture. You are the maiden in danger.”

  I shrugged. “Naturally.” I plucked the picture from her grasp. “He’s my hero, after all.” I dropped the picture onto my lap and leaned back on my hands with a sigh. “Somewhere out there is my hero, and I have every intention of finding him. He’ll have pale green eyes and a mischievous smile that steals my breath. He’ll ride a tall horse and never leave home without a sword at his side. And he’ll be even more in love with me than I am with him, although that will be difficult because I will love him to distraction.”

  “Seems rather farfetched,” Mari said. “Perhaps you should have Nonni conjure a hero up for you.”

  “You have no imagination, Mari.”

  “And you, dear sister, have too much.”

  The door to the back room opened and a dense, bitter smelling steam followed Nonni as she walked out. My stomach tightened. I was not an expert in magic but I knew that the clammy moisture swirling around our small house was not the residue of white magic.

  Nonni looked weary. Without a word she walked over and blew on the embers beneath the kettle on the hearth. They went out immediately. She touched one candle and the rest extinguished. The only light that remained was the starlight through the window and the flames in the fireplace.

  My grandmother’s tiny figure cast a long shadow on the wall of the cottage as she stood over us. We’d had a pleasant supper and the evening had been perfectly uneventful, but Nonni’s lips were still pulled tightly. “Off to bed with the both of you,” she said with a waver in her voice. The sound of it blackened my mood again.

  I climbed beneath the quilt and curled up next to my sister for warmth. Nonni’s powers allowed her to sense impending doom, but in this case, I truly hoped she’d lost her talent for predicting the future.

  Several hard knocks on the door rattled the walls of the cottage. Mari and I sat up from a restless sleep. It could not have been long past midnight. I could hear my heartbeat in my ears as I stepped into my slippers and yanked my wool shawl around my shoulders. Nonni was already at the door with a candle when I stepped into the front room. I walked up behind her and peered over her shoulder.

  “Widow Seabrooke?” a deep voice asked from the lightless stoop.

  Nonni’s fingers trembled as she lifted the candle higher to see who had addressed her. The man’s face was barely visible beneath the black hat. The collar of his black overcoat was pulled up high around his chin, yet I could still sense that it was not a face we’d seen before.

  “Yes, I’m Widow Seabrooke,” Nonni answered after a cautious pause. “What is it you want at this hour?”

  The man’s gaze was not unkind, but there was a distinct look of purpose in his expression. He looked at me for a moment and then lifted a piece of parchment. “I am Captain Smitherton from Salem Town. I have here a mittimus for Miss Poppy Seabrooke. I am to transport her to Salem Town prison where she will await trial for setting a boy on fire.”

  Mari cried out and Nonni flashed her an admonishing glance. My head spun and I grabbed Nonni’s arm to keep from falling over.

  “I see,” Nonni said calmly. “You will wait here until she gets dressed.”

  He stepped inside and Nonni’s arm went rigid beneath my grasp.

  “If you don’t mind, I will wait inside. It is cold and—”

  “Fine,” Nonni cut him off rudely.

  Half-dazed, I followed
Nonni and Mari into my bedroom. “Dress in your warmest skirt and blouse, my dear, it is cold in those prison cells.” She spoke as if she was telling me how to fry an egg.

  I broke into sobs, and she firmly grabbed hold of my shoulders. “Look at me, Poppy.”

  I lifted my eyes but could barely see through the onslaught of tears. Her gray eyes were clear and confident. “Do nothing. Behave and cooperate. I will see you soon.” She winked and released me. “Now get dressed, and I will see that our visitor does not nose around the cottage.”

  Getting dressed was an arduous task with trembling hands. Mari had collapsed onto the bed in sobs and was no help. My knees wobbled and I was certain my legs would collapse beneath me as I shuffled back into the front room. Nonni held up the candle to inspect my attire.

  Captain Smitherton stared open-mouthed at me for a moment. He gained his composure and fished in his pocket for a pair of shackles.

  “There is no need for restraints, Captain. My granddaughter will cooperate fully. Those are far too big for her anyhow.” She peered up at him coldly. “Unless of course you’re afraid of your obviously dangerous prisoner.”

  The man looked properly embarrassed. He returned the shackles to his pocket. Nonni hugged me tightly and whispered into my ear. “Soon, my dearest.”

  Chapter 4

  Poppy

  The black carriage careened wildly over the uneven roadway, and I clutched the cold bars on the window to keep from being thrown from the wooden bench. I pulled my hood up over my head and braced against the cold. The tears had stopped and now all I could do was wait and see where fate would take me. I had no idea what my grandmother was up to, but I had every confidence that she would free me from this horrid situation.

  It was hard to tell how long we’d traveled for, but I recognized the salty sea air of Salem Port and knew we were close to our destination. The horses’ hooves pounded a cobblestone road. I scooted forward and glanced through the bars. The shops and houses were dark, and a peaceful stillness blanketed the usually crowded and boisterous town of Salem.