Where Bluebirds Fly (24 page)

The owner most likely knows every loose board in the place, but it gives me peace of mind, just the same.
 

He walked back down to the common room, where men and women congregated, eating and drinking.

He was about to step outside and head for the Putnam farm, when a snippet of conversation caught his ear.

“When is John Montague to hang, then?”

“Tomorrow at noon. His sister, Verity, has returned. I’ve heard it won’t be long for her, either. As soon as Anne, Jr. saw her, she said Verity’s spectral self was tormenting her—pinching her and sitting on the high beams inside the Putnam household. And those little bluebirds were feeding betwixt her fingers.”

The woman looked bemused. “Really? I never took Verity for a witch. I mean, her looks are odd, what with that dark red hair and those strange eyes. But she seemed a sweet girl.”

“The devil
prefers sweet
. The innocent be susceptible to corruption. Remember, the black man transforms himself into an angel of light! His darkness may not appear frightful; he might have promised her riches. I mean, what chance does a girl like her have? She will serve all of her days, which will be short in number, no doubt.”

A cold chill stole up Truman’s neck.
 

I must hurry
.

He departed the tavern, back out into the swirling snow.

Walking down the road, he was glad he had enough forethought to bring the handgun. And that Ram had forced him to learn to use one.

 
He was alone, and felt completely vulnerable walking down the side of the road. An easy target.
 

Moonlight bounced off the snow, throwing flecks of light into the darkness. It was beautiful. The vast acres glittered like an endless field of crushed diamonds. Farmlands stretched as far as the eye could see, all dowsed in a blanket of white.

It looks like a Currier and Ives painting.

He checked his map after a quarter hour, confirming the house before him was the Putnam’s.

He strode to the door and knocked loudly, aware this was a breach of etiquette with the hour, but unable to contain himself.
 

Fear for Verity was breathing down his back like a rabid animal.

A man opened the door. “May I help you?”
 

Truman noted the shotgun in his hand.
 

“Yes. Are you Good Sir Putnam?”

“Aye.”

“I have some business I would like to discuss with you. About your servant, Verity Montague.”

Putnam’s eyebrow rose in question. He stepped aside to permit him entry to the kitchen, where a fire roared.
 

Putnam folded his arms. “What about Verity?”

“I’m sure you were aware of her absence of late. I found her, wandering and confused. My household servants nursed her back to health, and I found her quite useful. I’m wanting to purchase her from you.”

“That is unfortunate. But Verity is to be tried for witchcraft. They’ve already taken her into custody. ’Tis a shame, the number of youth corrupted by The Man in Black.” He shook his head.

A blast of pain erupted in his chest, leaving behind something more terrifying—a charred space, devoid of feeling. He face fell—he tried to harden it, but his mouth kept twitching. The man’s expression gave no indication he was lying. His coloring was a dark yellow, with the characteristic Salem-red line beneath it.

“She is at the jail, then?” He’d managed to keep the tremble out of his voice.

“Yes, The Witch Dungeon, awaiting her trial.”

He stepped out of the house, back into the snow and trotted until he was sure he was out of sight of the house.

He broke out into a flat out sprint.

* * *

Think man. Don’t feel.

His head felt thick and stupid, stuffed with the white clouds floating overhead. He’d considered a million scenarios during his totally sleepless night. Terror kept choking his wits, suffocating rational thoughts.

It was almost noon, he’d been walking since sun-up, trying to devise a plan. He’d arrived back at Ingersol’s, and decided it was as good a place as any to begin.

The tables were filling up, so he sat at the bar.

He focused on the people in the room, listening intently, watching their expressions.

His senses gunned into overdrive. He absently felt his fingers worrying Verity’s locket, hidden in his pocket. His eyes darted from table to table.

A man’s mouth trembled, with a tic, “I’ll pay ya’ next week Charles, for certain.”
Lie.

A woman’s eyes fluttered in flirtation at the large man beside her. “No, I’m not married, good sir.” Her brow crinkled into tight, lined, rows of flesh.
Liar.

Stop it. Block them out. Verity, oh God help me, Verity.

He eavesdropped on snippets of conversations, searching for the names he needed—Constable Corwin being his prime interest.
 

He racked his brain to remember days and dates of the witch trials. He knew most of the hangings occurred in summertime. He wished fervently for his BlackBerry and a World Wide Web connection to fact-check.
 

He fingers stroked the locket in his hand, like a worry stone. So it was back to this? Only
dreaming
of her—not
having
her. White-hot anger colored his face and he ground his teeth.

No, I will die trying. I can’t live with only the memory of her.

He motioned for the bar keep to come near. “Is that Constable Corwin, then?”

She raised a suspicious eyebrow. “Yes. ’ho’s askin’?”

An idea struck him. “Johnstone. I’m from Andover, sent by the court to record the names of the accused, along with their symptoms, and report back. We’re having a spot of trouble ourselves, and are comparing the afflicted in affected towns.”

Her face blossomed into a smile, removing ten years from it. “All right, then. Constable Corwin?”

His name tasted like lemons, tangy but bitter in his mouth.

The man across the room looked wary, but rose and walked toward them.

For the first time in his life, Truman fully focused on his ‘difference’. Most of his life was spent blocking it, just living with it, but he was desperate for any small advantage that would lead him to Verity.

The man’s color was an odd combination. A carrot pious orange on the outside, with an under-layer he felt to be a forest colored confusion. Only traces of the Salem-red appeared.
 

Of course not. He controls the outcome for so many lives, here. Who will live, who will die.
 

The barmaid introduced him, and stated his purpose to the man.

The constable didn’t look wholly convinced. Truman was certain the man would ferry a representative to Andover to check his story, the second he was out of sight.

“So, you are recording the ailments then?”

“Yes, sir. And if you do not mind, Constable, I would like to begin as soon as possible.”

Emotional waves exuded from his every pore, and Truman sensed the partial distrust—but not outright. His every move was being evaluated.

He honed his ability, the focus narrowing to a tunnel, ending in Corwin’s face. The single lift of the man’s eyebrow ricocheted off the inside of his brain, emitting a flowing trail of geometric patterns, and colored emotions.

He reeled with the impact, and gritted his teeth.

Sequences appeared, in the man’s dialogue, and his mind shifted, analyzing Corwin’s movements and automatically categorizing them, like a mental spreadsheet, against every other person and similar emotion he’d ever seen or felt.
 

He swallowed hard, he felt like a bloody computer. He pictured a stream of analog numbers spiraling on a desktop screen. Only his were minute mannerisms.

“Good sir?”

Truman popped out of his absorption. “Yes, let’s begin immediately.”

* * *

Chapter 25

As Corwin led Truman down the dank stairwell, Truman’s heart beat wildly in his chest.
The witch dungeon
. It did exist, after all. Historians debated its very existence.
 

The stench burned his nose as they descended the rickety staircase. Large, wet stones echoed their footfalls as a rat swept past in his peripheral vision. His boots tramped through an inch of water. He shivered, imagining all the diseases swimming in the fetid pools, ready and waiting to germinate in their unwilling human hosts.

The prison cells were abundant and diverse. Some were larger, housing several people. Others were upright, as small as telephone booths; requiring the person to choose between standing in perpetuity or a cramped, crouched squat.

Those are the coffin cells I read about. For the poor.

He shivered, imagining the depression of imprisonment there—day in, day out. The injustice, awaiting your death for a crime you didn’t commit. And here were the faces of the damned, staring back at him with huge, hollow eyes.

The colors. He swallowed hard. They were a tide of hopelessness. Like the place was a vacuum, sucked completely devoid of positive energy.
 

No wonder so few survived—the diseases, the complete inability to sleep.

He swallowed, hoping he wouldn’t find out first-hand.

Honing in on his ability-the room thrummed with colored emotions and patterns, making him instantly ill with vertigo. He battled it, trying to filter and channel it, reading one person at a time.

“Are you well, sir?” Corwin was eyeing him again.

“Yes, fine. The smell.”

“Oh, yes.”

“I will leave you to your work. There is a jailer outside the door at all times.”

“Thank you.” He dipped his head in a little bow of thanks, hoping the gesture wasn’t over the top. He hadn’t had much time to study the manners of the period.

Without the distraction of Corwin, his discrimination instantly zeroed in on Verity. Her cheek pressed against the stones, either asleep or unconscious. Her colored blinked like a strobe light between her normal gentle lavender and a blinding red fear.

All eyes in the room watched him warily. Their colors spoke one communal feeling—
enemy.

Despite Verity’s small stature, her legs pathetically jutted out of the coffin cell. He felt the lump rise in his throat.
 
He swallowed it, determination setting his jaw.

Gently shaking her boot, he tried to rouse her.

“Miss? Miss?”
 

A young man in the next cell turned a slow, sunken gaze toward him. His ashen complexion and black circles underlining his eyes, gave him a look of the walking dead.

“Do not you touch her.” His hand launched out of the cell, grasping Truman’s collar, shaking him.

“John, stop. It’s all right.” Verity’s eyes opened, looking both terrified and hopeful.

John dropped his hand and nodded, never taking his fervent gaze from Truman’s hand, still clasping her boot. Truman ordered his hand to release her. He pictured grabbing her through the bars and kissing her. He swallowed instead.

“I’m here from the constable’s office in Andover. I need to talk to you about when your illness began, and whether or not the dark man has presented himself to you, in spectral form, to sign his book?”

Truman conducted approximately five interviews, taking the histories of the accused. Verity’s eyes burned his back as he moved from cell to cell.

Finally after an hour, the door to the outside opened.

“Time is up, sir.” One of the guards stood with hands folded at the entrance. “We need to feed the prisoners.”

“Yes, all right then.”

Truman dropped a note to the ground, immediately stepping on it with his boot. As he turned to go, he slid it toward Verity’s cell with his pivot.
 

It read,
Tonight.

* * *

Chapter 26

Truman choked down his dinner in the Ordinary, while several women batted their eyelashes, overtly flirting with him.

The dark room felt too close and stale. Too many smells overwhelmed his sensitive perceptions.

His stomach lurched as one woman leaned in provocatively, reeking of alcohol. “You sure you won’t join us, sir? We love to show hospitality to new folks in town.” She smiled invitingly.

“That is very gracious, but I’m quite tired. Perhaps another time?”

He struggled to keep the food down, his stomach roiling as his eyes continually swept the room.

Not
to sup, however, would arouse suspicion. The Innkeeper monitored his every move. No doubt, her watchful eye was under the orders of Constable Corwin, who awaited his fact checker’s return from Andover, to see if Truman was whom he claimed to be.

His time was running out. When the courier returned, the sands of his hour glass were empty.