Bound In Blood (The Adams' Witch Series Book 1) (9 page)

I smiled. “Whatever do you mean?”

He shook his head and laughed. “Come on.”

He walked toward the group. Marlene was there, she immediately gave me a dirty look and started whispering to her friend.

“Looks like we’re the talk of the town,” Drake whispered.

He seemed back to normal after our conversation from earlier today. It was almost as if it didn’t happen.

The cloaked group stood and one of the figures began to speak. I couldn’t see which one talked, since half had their backs to me and the others’ heads were bent so low their hoods covered their mouths. “We will start the meeting by doing the drawing of the circle.” The voice young, feminine, and powerful. “And then you will all be invited into it.”

My jaw dropped. “What? You said we were going to a meeting, not that we’d have to participate in it.”

“Just…go with it,” Drake said. “It's fun.”

A soaked, dead weight sloshed around in the pit of my stomach like that time I’d ate a whole bag of Swedish fish at Cynthia Cramer’s thirteenth birthday party.

One of the cloaked figures held a candle high in the air and brought it down to light another. “That’s the high priestess,” Drake whispered into my ear.

“I call upon the guardians of the east to keep watch over all who enter this circle. Let all who enter do so in perfect love and perfect trust.” She kept moving, lighting different colored candles at the south, west, and north points. "The circle is cast.”

The robed figures lined up beside her and she said something to each one that I couldn’t hear. I shuffled behind Drake, watching everyone walk around the circle as they entered.

Drake’s turn came and I realized I had no idea what to say. I moved closer to hear, practically crawling up his backside, but their exchange was already finished.

“How do you enter this circle?” the high priestess asked. I could see now the girl was petite, with dark choppy hair that ended at her chin.

“Umm…”

The girl smiled and I thought I heard her giggle. “Do you enter in perfect love and perfect trust?” she asked, peaking her eyebrow with a sly smile.

“Yes.”

She motioned for me to step in and follow behind Drake. I wanted to yell at him for not telling me what to say, but yelling while entering a Wiccan circle probably wasn’t the right time.

The high priestess moved to the center. Everyone stared as she lowered her hood. “We gather together on this, the celebration of our coven and its freedom to practice magic without fear. We gather together to honor the memory of those that we have lost to ignorance.”

Her voice was a melody of rhythm. The wind, candles, everything seemed to move at her pace, her pitch.

“We gather together to unite our friendships and welcome new ones.”

The melodic voice poured into me, sprouting goosebumps and tingling my limbs as my brain lost all sense of worry and inhibition. It felt almost as if I were transported back to the sixties and became some stoner hippie without a care in the world.

I liked it.

“I call upon the goddess Isis in your many forms…”

I lurched forward as if a pressure on my shoulders shoved me. I tried to resist, digging my feet in the ground, attempting to step backward.

All over my body, tingling flesh weighted me forward as if a thousand hands were forcing me to move. Beside and behind me, no one touched me. No one was even that close except for Drake.

I looked around the circle and no one even noticed what was happening. They stared straight ahead at the one who formed the circle.

I tried to kneel, to fall on purpose like the first time I went skiing and couldn’t stop. My muscles wouldn’t obey. They moved forward another step. I shut my eyes and concentrated, forcing myself back, digging deep into my core and willing my body to move.

Finally, it did.

Two steps in reverse and I was back into the circle. Drake was again to my right, staring straight ahead, still watching the girl, never even noticing what just happened.

I urged in a few uneasy breaths. The hooded witches stared at the ground. As I watched them, one by one, they looked into my eyes and lowered their hoods.

Their eyes rolled into the filmy white behind. Two moon spheres on each witch stared straight at me.

A glowing red emanated from deep within them, like a warning beacon through dense fog.

My eyes narrowed even though every sense in my body urged me to flinch, to close my eyes and wake up in Neverland. I stood marbleized like a great goddess statue.

Light wind tracked a hair across my face and burned my eyes, but I still didn’t blink.

The red in their eyes flickered brighter and brighter until it singed the cloudy white.

A lightning bolt encased in a circle.
The same symbol from Dad’s journal.

All force gave way within me and I toppled over, landing outside of the circle and onto the crunchy grass.

Even with my eyes closed, I saw nothing but the symbol etched there. It flamed out, the red reaching for me.

I screamed.

A hand came down on my shoulder, startling me. I tensed for another scream.
Flames. No more flames.

“Shh.” The voice was calming. “Shh, Sarah. It’s okay."

My heartbeat slowed and I blinked a few times. Drake’s face hovered above me as he brushed a few strands of hair off my forehead. Eyes sick with worry, he peered down, crouching on all fours like a kneeling angel.

My eyes burned as tears rushed there. “I saw…I saw…”

“It’s okay, Sarah. I’ll take you to Rose’s, okay? Everything's fine.”

People crowded around. When the ones with the hoods popped into view, I dug my heels into the ground again and pushed back. “No…no.”

Drake forced my shoulders onto the grass.

One of the hooded figures towered over me and threw back the black cloth of the hood. “She broke the circle!”

Her mouth white-lipped, the girl reached out, tore an object from the high priestess’ hands, and came at me. I tried to lunge backward, but Drake still held me down.

I bucked, but nothing happened. I had no strength to fight.

I saw the girl clearly now along with the object glinting in her hands.

It was Jennie and she came at me with a knife.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Isabella

1639

The signs will be there for all to read

when man shall do most heinous deed.

Man will ruin kinder lives

by taking them as to their wives.

And murder foul and brutal deed

when man will only think of greed.

Women they shall falsely accuse

so their suffering will bemuse.

After the steps of her mother left the bedroom and before the full morning rays of sun shone through the window, Isabella sat at her desk, waiting.

The picture in Isabella’s head repeated over and over. Mrs. Shipton with her fire eyes blazed before her, darkening as her singsong voice repeated these lines, casting her prophecy like the weaver pieces together his threads, each string working together to complete the vision.

During the night, she convinced herself of it being a dream. A dream it must be. What evil force could make her lose her senses, not sure, if she woke or slept?

Isabella calmed herself by thinking of Thomas. He would surely see no reason to be scared. One word from him would silence her fears.

The ink from her quill stained a circle around the point, which still rested on paper. The dark liquid spread outward, tainting the perfectly lined prose.

Eyes transfixed on the door, Isabella stood from her perch. Her legs pricked, beginning at her thighs and creeping down to her toes. Splotches of stings bloomed just beneath her clammy skin. With each step, the pain flared.

“Mother,” she called out, “I wrote this for you.” She looked down, not knowing why she spoke. It was a letter for Thomas in her hands, not for her mother.

A scream pierced the air. Her scream.

The prophecy Mrs. Shipton sang last night was written on the paper she clasped in her hands. It was written on her parchment, on her desk, and in her own hand.

Women they shall falsely accuse

so their suffering will bemuse.

The door clattered open. Mrs. Lynne rushed through once again.

Isabella dropped the paper and staggered back, her feet hit the stool and it banged backward onto the wood floor.

“Isabella? What is the matter?”

She gaped at her mother. Words did not come. How could she explain about Mrs. Shipton? “I did not write that.”

“Write what, Dear?”

“I did not write the nonsense on that piece of parchment.”

Mrs. Lynne hugged her daughter tight, rubbing circles on her back. “You have had a rough night. You are not needed for chores this morning.” She kissed her head. “Go back to sleep.”

Mr. Lynne’s uneasy step came in. “What is the matter here?”

“Isabella has had nightmares and I think she may not be feeling well today. She says that she did not write.”

“Write what?”

“Father.” Isabella approached him, hands shaking. “There is writing on that parchment. How it got there, I know not. But it was not of my doing."

She pointed to the paper on the floor and Mr. Lynne bent over to retrieve it. He read the poem and looked up from the paper at his trembling child. “What is this?”

“Mrs. Shipton has written it.”

“Mrs. Shipton?” His eyes narrowed to slits. “How did she come to be in your room?”

Tears poured from Isabella’s eyes. “She was not, Sir. The nightmare I had last night. She was in it and she said those words. She sang them around a fire.”

“That is just a dream.”

“She is a witch.”

“Isabella!” Mr. Lynne’s voice bellowed. “Do not throw out accusations. There is too much of that at present.”

“But Father, I—”

Mrs. Lynne stepped forward, reaching out. “What does it say?”

He snatched the paper from her reach. “‘Tis nothing, just nonsense.”

Mr. Lynne took one last look at the two of them and turned on his heels.

Out the door he went and into the main hall. He threw the piece of parchment on the hearth and watched it shrivel up and burn.

CHAPTER NINE

Sarah

Jennie grabbed the hilt of the knife with both hands and slashed down. The knife sunk into the earth right off my left hand.

I hurled myself backward.

“Wait! Don’t move!” Pushing Drake out of the way, Jennie brought the knife up again and swung it down into the earth on my other side.

Drake charged between us, holding a strong, muscled hand in front of Jennie’s chest. “What the hell?”

She stared him down. “She broke the circle. Now we have to repair it.
Take her out of it
.” She waved the knife toward me. “
Now.”

The leader with the choppy hair stepped up and placed a hand on the other girl’s shoulder. “Jennie, these are guests. They don’t know about the sanctity of the circle."

The witch’s stare fixed on me. Beads of sweat formed on her hairline and her fair skin sponged into pink circles. She didn’t appear any different from earlier today. Same bitchy face and snarky attitude. “She needs to leave.”

“Don’t worry.
She
is,” I said, placing both hands underneath me.

With Drake’s help, I moved away from the circle and out onto the fringes. Jennie and the leader hovered over the spot where I stood, the palm reader spying over the leader’s shoulder as they spouted some weird incantations and used a candle to make the circle whole again.

The leader smiled at me several times. I didn’t care. I just wanted to go.

“You okay?” Drake whispered. He held me in a hug still, arms completely engulfing me. I felt like a small doll in his embrace.

“Yeah,” I choked out. “I’m good."

“What happened?”

I shook my head. I wasn’t about to tell him I was going crazy. “I don’t…like supernatural stuff.”

“It’s interesting though, isn’t it?”

“Scary witches and spells?”

“No.” Drake drew me away at arm’s length, his eyes sparkling. “Those stories Courtney told us about the first settlers.”

I racked my brain. I didn’t remember any stories, only cloaked figures with white eyeballs. “I couldn’t really hear her talking."

“You probably drowned her out. Forty-five minutes is pretty long.”

“Forty-five minutes?”
Holy crap. Are you kidding me?
I thought I had only been here for ten.