The Promise (The Coven Series) (25 page)

We
were herded out of the jail cell and marched into the night.
 
A line of long poles stood upon Gallows Hill,
kindling at their bases.
 
They were going
to burn us.
 
All the others had been
hanged, but not us.
 
Our Coven had seen
to that.
 

The
entire village had turned out to witness the burning.
 
Gleeful jeers could be heard among the mob
gathered as we walked towards the men waiting for us on the hill.
 
Faces full of revulsion and hatred stared at
us.
 
They started to throw things as we
passed.
 

Something
struck Laura’s head.
 
I could feel the
wet, runny juice slide down her face, my face.
 
A stone thudded into my back, nearly knocking me to my knees.
 
Laura’s father kept us upright.
 
The stench of peat from the torches burned my
nose.
 

I
felt every stone, every slimy trail of rotten food slide down her face.
 
Merciful Fates, I wasn’t simply observing
through her eyes.
 
What happened to her,
happened to me!

I
was going to burn.
 

Wake
up, wake up, wake up, I begged silently.
 
Please wake up.

Vicious
fingers tore Laura from her father.
 
She
clawed at the hands holding her and kicked out.
 
I tried to move, to help her fight, but I was frozen, a prisoner in her
mind.
 
She twisted and bit, but it was of
no use.
 
The man who had pulled her away
from her father laughed and struck her across the face.
 
We both cried out at the pain as lights
exploded behind our eyes.

Laura
was forced to one of the poles that had been shaped out of the trunk of a tree
they’d cut down.
 
Ropes bound her hands
and the man started on her feet.
 
Dizzy,
she frantically fought as the man worked to secure the ropes.
 
She managed to pull a foot out of his grasp
and kicked him in the face.
 
Blood poured
from his nose and he rose up, enraged.
 
He pulled his hand back to strike her, but was stopped by Sheriff George
Corwin.

“Cease,
Henry.
 
Let us get this business done
with.”
 
He looked grim and not at all
pleased.
 
We were not making this easy for
him.
 
All along the line, many struggled
to free themselves, but more men came to subdue them.
 
Fighting was a pointless gesture.
 
These men, women, and children had been
damned by the good people of Salem.
 
A
mantra of ‘burn the witches’ echoed through the summer night from the crowd
gathered.
 
Laura shook with fear.
 
It blinded every other emotion.
 

He
began to read out the death sentence.
 
I
couldn’t focus on his words.
 
I tried
desperately to wake up.
 
I started making
spells up, but nothing worked.
 
I begged
and pleaded with the Elements.
 
There was
no escape from this nightmare I’d trapped myself in.

Laura
screamed in blind terror.
 
That jerked me
back to attention.
 
A torch had been
thrown into the hay used as kindling among the wood below her.
 
It caught fire quickly.
 
The heat and smoke hit her in the face.
 
I screamed with her.
 
Screams echoed up and down the line of
burning poles.

“Papa!”
she cried, the skirt of her dress catching fire.
 
Real terror set in for both of us.
 
The heat of the flames intensified, gaining
strength as they licked their way up the cloth.
 
Agony bloomed as the fire ate through the cloth to the skin
underneath.
 
It caressed us as it spread,
climbing its way up our body.
 
The smell
of burning skin assaulted our nose.
 
We couldn’t
breathe.
 
Our skin swelled and blackened
as the fire charred it.

We
were dying.

A
scuffle broke out.
 
We could barely hear
the shouting over the screams of the others as they burned.
 
Our throat was raw from the smoke and our own
screams.
 
There were no tears left, the
heat drying them.
 
Someone tried to break
through the crowd, but fell before he reached us.
 
We heard Sara cry out and we managed to turn
our head to see her staring in a rage born of grief and helplessness.
 
It was her betrothed who had fallen.
 
To our left we heard someone chanting.
 
No.
 
No, not that.
 
It was forbidden.

Sara
began her own chant, but the pain overwhelmed us.
 
Laura and I could no longer bear it.
 
The fire consumed us…

Chapter Twenty One

“
PleasepleaseEmswakeup
!”
 
I shook her frantically.
 
Her mouth hung open in a silent scream while
her body, covered in sweat, convulsed and twisted.
   
I tried to shake her awake again, but her
arms flailed, knocking me down.
 

What
was wrong with her?
 
When I woke up she
was lying on the floor.
 
I thought maybe
she was sleeping, but I wasn’t sure.
 
I
didn’t know what to do.
 
She wouldn’t
wake up.
 
Emily always told me what to
do.
 
She was older than me.
 
I was only five and she was eight.
 
She knew everything.
 

What
should I do?
 
Daddy.
 
I’d get Daddy.
 
Standing up, I started to run to the door,
but stopped when Emily groaned and rolled over.
 
I flew back to her.
 
“Ems!
 
Are you still
sweep
?”

She
pushed out blindly, knocking me away from her.
 
I fell and hit my head on the dresser.
 
“OWW!”

The
door opened and Daddy came in.
 
“What is
going on in here, girls?
 
You’re supposed
to be asleep.”

“Ems
is having bad dreams,” I told him, rubbing the sore spot on my head.
 

“Bad
dreams?” he frowned and came over.
 
“Emily?”

“I
had a bad dream too,” I told him, careful to stay out of Emily’s reach.
 
“When I woke up, she was on the floor.”

He
picked her up and put her on my bed.
 
“What did you dream about, Pumpkin?”

“Fire,
Daddy.”
 
I shivered, remembering.
 
“I was scared.
 
The fire…”

“You
dreamed about being in a fire?”

“Uh-uh,”
I shook my head and crawled into his lap.
 
“A mean man tied me up and set me on fire.”

He
looked down at me in horror.
 
“You were
tied up?”

“Yes…no…I
don’t know.
 
I can’t member.”
 
I started to cry.
 
I could still feel the heat of the fire on me
and smell the smoke.

“Shh, Pumpkin.”
 
He
stroked my hair.
 
“It’s okay now.
 
Daddy’s here.”

Emily
came awake with a gasp.
 
Daddy covered
her mouth with his hand to keep her screams silent.
 
“It’s okay, honey,
Daddy’s
here.
 
You’re okay now.”

“Burning,”
she croaked when he pulled his hand away.
 
“Set…on...fire…”

“You
dreamed of being set on fire, too?” he asked.
 

She
nodded and took several deep breaths.
 
“Heard CJ crying.
 
I
came in to see what was wrong.
 
She was
shouting something.”

“What
was she shouting?”

“I
don’t know,” she said.
 
“I touched her
and then I was there.
 
I couldn’t talk or
move.
 
I was being burned, Daddy, just
like they told us in kindergarten.”

“Have
you ever had this dream before?” he asked her.

“No.”

“I
do,” I piped in.
 
“All
the time.”

“All the time?”

“Even
fore they told us about it.”

His
eyes nearly popped out of his head.
 
“CJ,
did you ever tell anyone about your dreams?
 
Maybe Mama?”

I
shook my head. “No, Daddy.”

He
let out a sigh of relief.
 
“That’s good,
baby.
 
Daddy’s going to make them go away
forever.
 
Don’t be afraid.
 
I have to see the dream first for it to work.
 
When I wake up, you’ll never have that awful
dream again, baby.
 
Either
of you.
 
Now, both of you take
Daddy’s hand.”

Never
have that bad dream again?
 
I latched
onto Daddy’s hand.
 
He smiled.

“Spirit,
I ask thee to free her from this burden,

In
this time, in this place, I call it into me.

Show
me now what she sees and forever let it be.”

Daddy
fell backwards onto the bed.
 
Emily and I
waited for him to wake up.
 
As the
minutes passed, we forgot the dream.
 

I
forgot the dream.

Until now.

Chapter Twenty Two

The
screams woke me up.
 
I wished whoever it
was would just shut the hell up.
 
My head
felt like it was going to explode.
 

“CJ,
please wake up.”
 
Kay’s voice penetrated
the screams, but she sounded far away.

Where
was I?
 
I was so hot.
 
My skin felt like it was on fire.
 
Wait.
 
Fire.
 
I was on fire!

I
tried to sit up, but couldn’t.
 
Something
held me down.
 
I fought to get away,
kicking and tearing at the bonds holding me.
 
I could feel the heat of the flames singe my hair, feel it burn my
skin.
 
I was burning.
 

“CJ!”
 
Someone shook
me hard.
 
“Stop it!”

My
eyes snapped open and I realized the screams were coming from me.
 
My own screams were what woke me.
 
So real.
 
It was all so real.
 
But I wasn’t burning.
 
It was only a dream, I reminded myself
forcefully as I had Kay so many times before.
 
Only a dream.

“Please,
CJ,” Kay whispered, kneeling beside of me.
 
“Just be okay.”

I
tried to tell her I was fine, but my throat hurt.
 
No words came out, only a garbled, hoarse
croak.

“Billy,
get her a glass of water,” Jeff demanded.
 
He gazed at me with worry, his fingers still digging into my arms.
 

“
Here.
”
 
Billy shoved
a glass of water at Kay and Jeff pulled me up so she could help me drink.
 
I took several gulps and then curled into
Jeff, wrapping my arms around him.
 
His
familiar smell helped to calm the panic.
 
He was real.
 
The dream wasn’t.

“Shh,”
he soothed.
 
“You’re okay now, hon.
 
You’re fine.”

I
had been fine until I remembered everything, until I remembered what Daddy
did.
 
He took the nightmares from
me.
 
I’d just invited it back in.
 
He’d known then what it was.
 
It was more than just a dream.
 
It was a memory.
 
Emily had seen it when she touched me.
 
She was gifted with visions, so when she
touched me, of course she’d seen it.
 
Dad
had erased the memory from both our minds.
 
I’d seen what happened that night even before they’d told us about it in
school.
 
Eighteen.
 
Sara Bishop had been eighteen when she
died.
 
My ancestor, my
eighteenth birthday.
 
It all tied
together somehow.
 
I just needed to
figure out how.

“What
happened to her?” Kay asked.

I
shuddered at the memory her words brought back.
 
The heat of the fire had kissed my skin, the smoke choked me.
 
Screams had echoed around me and
chants…chants?
 
Yes, I’d heard it, the
curse, but the dream was just too muddled right now.
 
Laura’s fear had overridden every other
thought.
 
It was still too raw to sort
out, but later, maybe I could get it to come back to me.
 
Maybe I didn’t need anyone to give me the
answers.
 
Maybe I already had them buried
inside.