Where Bluebirds Fly (16 page)

He eased her onto the bed.

Verity’s skin was milk-white, and her lips parted as if in a dreamlike kiss. Desire spread through his mind and body as he stared at her.

He bit his lip.
 

He turned away, murmuring, “Focus, you’re pathetic. She’s bloody unconscious.”
 

Her dress was polka-dotted with mud. He stared at her dirt-caked boots and set to unlacing them.

Glimpses of her brother popped into his head as guilt ripped his conscience to shreds.

He swallowed, remembering his bravery. And selflessness.

His lanky body shook all over—but he stood firm, against a mob of witch-crazed zealots.

Proclaiming his and Verity’s innocence. Truman swallowed the lump in his throat.

The lad couldn’t be more than fifteen.

How long would he have? How long did a trial take in those days?

The steps creaked. Someone was coming.

Sunny appeared at the door, her dark eyes taut with worry.
 

“Oh, Sun. I need your help. She’s filthy. If I get her into the tub, could you…?”

 
Sunny’s eyes flicked from Verity to his face, back and forth like a cornered animal. “Is she Amish?”

“No….”

Her expression darkened.

“Sure, True. Anything for you. But you have some serious explaining to do. I’m not going to be charged with some sort of felony or anything, right? Please, tell me she’s eighteen.”

“I didn’t kidnap her.” He busted out laughing, but stopped abruptly when she continued to stare.

“It is a long, difficult-to-believe story, but I’ll tell you everything. If you’re sure you want me to. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.”

Sunny’s eyebrow rose. “Lose my right to plead the fifth, huh? I dunno. I’ll tell you after I hear it.” She eased Verity into her arms and walked toward the bathroom without another word.

Strange, new feelings bombarded him. Fear, married to a protective surge so strong, he pressed his fists against his forehead.

A fierce love—raw and savage—gutted his heart.
 

Verity was so innocent and so uniquely beautiful, inside and out, like no other woman he’d ever met.

“I’ll protect you, Verity,” he murmured.

Sunny poked her head out the bathroom door. “What did you say?”

“Nothing.”

* * *

John held his breath as Constable Corwin led him into the dank room. His boots clomped, echoing off the walls as they entered the witch dungeon. Flickering candlelight danced across the pools of water on the dark stones, shifting like a million blinking eyes. A shrill sound jabbed into his eardrum like a knife. He covered his ears. That pitch could only be one creature.

Rats. Loads of them.

His exceptionally acute hearing registered the clicks of thousands of tiny nails scraping across the stone floor.

“Here is where ye shall await trial, John.”

John swallowed and tried not to weep but felt the familiar burn in his nose and the resulting water fill his eyes. Tears of fear leaked out. Panic bloated his mind, screaming at him to strike the man—
to flee
.

He began to rock.
 

The cell before him was impossibly small; there was no chance of lying down. It was the exact size of an upright coffin. If he attempted to sit, his long legs would jut out the bars.

Corwin touched his back, sliding him in. The jail door clanged and closed with a loud, final click.

A
glut
of emotion squeezed his chest. A numbing fear rose, making his limbs feel disconnected, uncontrollable. They flailed uselessly.
 

He whimpered. Sliding down the wall, he wrapped himself into a protective ball and permitted the tears to come.

A younger boy stood beside Corwin. He did not know his name.

“Excuse my frankness, sir. But, John has always been different.” The boy’s eyes flicked to John on the floor of the coffin-cell. “I don’t think he is capable of malice, let alone maleficia.”

“That will be for the court to decide, son. Sometimes, the company we keep condemns us. His sister is surely a witch.”

The boy’s face was skeptical.

“Examine the evidence—those mismatched eyes, her flaming hair. Now this news
he
somehow sees shapes within music—undeniably this be the devil’s handiwork—”

The constable’s words cut through John’s protective bubble, reviving his immobile limbs.

His stomach clenched, his ears rang with his hatred.
 

Rage,
which he so carefully controlled
, always avoiding it like a leper,
took control of him
.
 
He leapt to stand, shoving his face against the bars, snarling through them like a wild dog.

“Verity-be-not-a-witch! She’s the most loving, caring young woman in the world. All of
you
shall be guilty before God for hanging innocents! Look around you! These be people you’ve known for years!” Spittle flew from his mouth, splattering Corwin’s chin.

A renewed chorus of weeping filled the witch dungeon.

Tituba’s dark eyes bore into him from across the room; her small body in an identical tiny coffin cell.

The poor got the smallest cells. And while the rich were afforded larger accommodations—but
all
were made to
pay
for the food and lodging time in jail. Leaving servants and orphans as permanent inmates—without the assistance of fortune on the outside.*
 

Money, the root of all things injurious.

Many were dying, rotting on the cell floors.

Constable Corwin held up a hand as if to ward off his thoughts. “Let’s go, Tom, and leave the ravings of this lunatic for his fellow witches.”

Tom grimaced but followed.

John felt his rage reorganize and twist into something desperate.
“Look at the faces of these people!”

All were staring. It was, no doubt, the most words they’d ever heard him put together. He guessed many thought him mute.

“Martha Corey? She has been in this cursed place five months! Accused because that malicious pack of girls say a yellow bird suckled betwixt her fingers? Because they
claim
, her specter haunted them, asking them to sign the devil’s book? I could create such fiction right now—against you!”

His chest felt heavy with the unfamiliar emotion.

“Elizabeth Proctor!” His finger jutted out between the bars, pointing across the dungeon. “She is pregnant. Have you no mercy? You incarcerate in the name of God.
God
would show mercy!”

Tom’s face was fearful. “John, calm thyself.” His eyes glanced warily at Constable Corwin’s face, which flushed a deeper red with each of John’s accusations.

“Dorcas Good—she’s been here seven months.
 
She-is-a-child!
”
 

The tiny girl, chained to the wall, began to cry and fretfully look about at the sound of her name.

She was clearly mad now.
 

“These should have considered the consequences, before signing away their lives to the dark one!” Corwin said, with a sweeping gesture of his hand. “Pray, answer me this, John. How does thou explain the palsies, and the dropping fits? The vomiting and odd contortions of so many afflicted in this village, if not for the devil’s design.”

“I saw one of the dogs that was hanged.
It took ill
, sir. It’s afflictions reminded of d-distemper.” His voice broke on the last word, and with it, his will.

Corwin looked thoughtful for a moment, then harrumphed, stomping toward the exit. Tom followed in his wake, eyes downcast. He murmured, “Only God and time will tell.”

The dungeon door clanged shut, and a fresh chorus of wails sang through the fetid air. John slumped back into a ball, rocking, closing his eyes, covering his ears to the pain.

* * *

Chapter 14

 
My eyes refuse to open. My fingertips find the pulsing spot they used to inhabit, and rub furiously. I open the lids a slit, and immediately wish I hadn’t. The light is pure pain—a needle spearing my eyeball, trying to pop it from its socket. This pain is familiar.

I don’t welcome it like an old friend; I wrinkle my nose and know I must ride out this unwanted visitor inside my skull. The pain has one good trait. It vanquishes the hornets. The cowards vacate at the first sign of it.

I hear the bed creak, and it depresses beside me as someone sits down. The throb in my head is muted because of this bed. I’ve never felt a place so comforting. I picture myself lying amid wispy clouds as I roll toward the unseen form.
 

They must be very wealthy. Perhaps I could be their servant.

My mind searches. My thoughts befuddled—trying to recall my most recent memory. Then it rushes back, vomiting up images.
 

The men. John. The bridge.
I whimper.
 

“Are you all right?” a low voice whispers. I’d recognize it anywhere now. My heart immediately hammers in my chest.

Pain like a hatchet if I open my eyes…

I decide a glimpse be worth it. Familiar, almond-shaped, bright-blue eyes consider me.
Kind eyes
. He has a calming presence, as I haven’t felt in many years. His hands are anxious, folded in front of his face as he stares overtop them.

No man has ever regarded me such. It seems
he cannot look away
. His expression reminds me of men gazing at a master’s paintings; awe and desire and longing.
For me?
 

“My head—it pains me beyond speech.”

“What does it feel like? Can you describe it?”
 

“A pain behind my eye and the light-how is there so much light?” I sit up quickly, glancing outside at the black night. I am surrounded by strange machines which drive back the darkness. “Where be the candles? What devilry be this?”
 

My head screams in protest from the quick move to sitting. I cry out, and silence it by sinking my teeth into my bottom lip.

“It sounds like a migraine. Please, Verity, lay down.”

My mind flashes a picture of my brother. The panic resumes as the familiar tingling fingers of fear desert my face and wrap around my neck. I gasp with the feeling.

“John, oh my John. I must return to him.”

I slide my feet off the bed, trying to stand. I feel my knee hit the floor before I realize I am falling. My hands slap against the floor, narrowly rescuing my head. The pain behind my eyes behind my eyes roars to an exquisite, pulsing intensity.

It culminates behind my eye. My stomach seizes, my head imploding. “Oh, no.” Vomit erupts from my mouth, surrounding me.

“Oh, Truman, I am so terribly sorry.” I freeze, irrationally awaiting the whip’s sting across my back. My mind spews out memories of public floggings.

I keep my eyes shut, coward that I am—but the silence is so loud…I open them.

I am alone.
 

I shake myself.
He
wouldn’t hurt me. He isn’t like the others
. My mind trips on the words.
From my time.

In a moment, he returns. To my utter disbelief, he drops beside me, a rag in his hand. I shake my head, my lips working through silent, amazed words as he sops up the horrid mess I’ve made.

His eyes are anxious as they flick up. “You
must
lie down. I understand about your brother. I know you’re frantic, but you’re not fit to walk…let alone walk through time.” The last words are strained, his face disbelieving.

“Oh John, John.” My lips tremble. Panic squeezes my brain, arriving in the center of a dense, mental fog. I picture a long hallway. I feel, and know, behind each door be the gaping maw of death.

I have only to choose which way to die. John, as a wee boy, walks down the hall. My mind flashes again.

John’s tiny two-year-old hands, reaching up to me, to lift him off a dirt floor.

His gapped-tooth-smile as he presents his first precocious drawing.

“Verity? Verity?” I hear his voice. It sounds far away.

He snaps his fingers in front of my eyes.

Suddenly, I am rising off the floor and I feel my head against his chest. He places me on the bed with such care it fractures my heart. Surely I do not deserve such treatment.

I grasp his hand and squeeze. “
Please
, I must return. They will kill him-he will
hang
. I told you, everyone in Salem is either afflicted or accused.”

The drive to move, to act, to leave this infernal, comfortable bed shakes my insides.

His hands stroke his concerned face, and he stands, pacing beside the bed. “I will go down to the corn and see if the door is open.”

“You would?”

“Of course, as soon as I’m sure you’re well.”