“Needless to say, they were caught. Their whereabouts would be noted, their stores of dried herbs confiscated, and the sentence no one survived decreed. They were a traitor to their faith, but they would be given a choice—prove their innocence by drowning, or admit to their sins by burning at the stake and returning to the devil they worshiped.”
Nila’s pasty cheeks shimmered with cascading tears. Her nose went red from cold and she wrapped her arms around herself, partly to ward off the chill but mostly to keep herself from running.
No ropes bound her. She could leave. She could run.
But she also knew we’d catch her and I’d have to add another punishment for her disobedience.
All that I knew. All of it I understood with one look into her glassy eyes.
I even knew she wasn’t aware she was crying—completely enthralled and mortified with where my tale would go.
Taking a deep breath, I continued, “All of what I said is true. However, it came with rules—like most things.”
Cut nodded as if he’d personally been there and watched the pyres burning.
“Destitute people were caught while those wealthy enough weren’t. It didn’t mean that women who dined on cakes and tea and employed servants to wash away their crimes didn’t dally in potions—far from it. They were the most proficient. They sold their concoctions to other well-to-do housewives and bribed any official who dared to ask questions about their faith.”
I made the mistake of looking at Nila again. Her lips parted and a silent word escaped.
Please.
Tearing my gaze away, I forced myself to continue, “Your ancestor was no different, Ms. Weaver. She blatantly did what she wanted. She brewed so-called elixirs and cast so-called curses. And she did it all from the drawing room of the Weaver household—the same household the Hawks cleaned and maintained for her.
“A few years passed where she went undetected, but of course, she made a mistake. She suffered the misfortune of creating a potion for an aristocratic friend’s offspring. It didn’t work. Her remedy didn’t heal the friend’s child—it poisoned him.”
Nila buried her face in her hands.
“Word got out, and the mayor came knocking. He’d turned a blind eye up until now, but he could no longer ignore her wrongdoings and buckled under the pressure of whispering folk.
“When he arrived to arrest her, Mrs. Weaver announced she’d been doing it under duress. She was a kind, simple woman with no more power in her blood than the next.
“Needless to say, the mayor did not believe her—he’d seen with his own eyes what happened to the boy who’d died from one of her vials. But he was on the Weaver’s payroll. If he sent the richest man in town’s wife to the stake, he would kiss his extra salary goodbye. But if he didn’t bow to the wishes of his parish, he could face the noose in return.”
I swallowed, hating the next part. When Bonnie had told me what’d happened, I’d been almost sick with rage. To think that the Weavers got away with such things.
My lips twisted at the ironic truth. Now it was us who got away with murder—right beneath the noses of the law.
“Mrs. Weaver came up with a solution. She promised it would benefit everyone. Everyone but the Hawks, that is.”
Nila bowed her head, hunching into herself.
Bonnie snapped, “Listen, girl. Listen to the disgusting actions from the bloodline who birthed you.”
Nila’s head came up; her shoulders straightened. Her jaw set and she latched her gaze on mine, just waiting for me to continue.
Shoving my fists into my jeans pockets, I said, “She told the mayor a secret…a lie. She said it wasn’t her practicing, but the hired help’s fourteen-year-old daughter. She said she’d caught her red-handed selling potions from the kitchens. She fabricated untruths of how my ancestor’s daughter had been swindling and tarnishing the Weavers name for years.
“The mayor was happy with such a tale. He would have someone to answer to the angry mob and at the same time keep his salary. The Weavers gave him a bonus for his loyalty and the poor Hawk daughter was carted away to be thrown into jail to await trial.”
Daniel laughed. “Get it, Nila. Do you see where this is going?”
I glowered at him.
Cut snarled, “Shut up, Dan. This is Jet’s production. Let him finish.”
Daniel sulked, tossing his empty beer bottle into the reeds by his feet.
I sighed; it was almost over.
No, it’s not.
I still had to extract the debt.
I hardened my heart, blocking out everything but the next ten minutes. If I sliced up my day and focused on bite-sized pieces, I could get through this.
I would get through this.
“For a week, she rotted in the cells with barely food or water. By the time the trial came to pass, she was delirious with hunger and disease. The Hawk daughter pleaded her innocence. She stood before a court of twelve and begged them to see reason. She tore apart every conviction against her and argued her case that any right-minded human would’ve seen was all Mrs. Weaver’s doing. But the truth does not set you free.”
Nila twitched as I said it, her eyes flaring with knowledge from our past discussion on the matter.
Looking away, I said, “She was sentenced to burn at the stake at sunrise.”
Nila moaned, shaking her head in horror.
Bonnie Hawk muttered, “Now do you see why we hate you so?”
Rushing ahead, I finished, “One saving grace was she was granted a choice. The daughter was told she could prove her innocence or admit her guilt.” Moving toward Nila, I wound my fingers in her hair, cursing my heart for tripping as the black strands rippled around my knuckles. “What do you think she chose, Ms. Weaver?” I brushed my nose against her throat, doing my utmost to tame my cock from reacting to her delectable smell. “Fire or water…what would you choose?”
Nila shook harder, her eyes like black orbs of dread. She tried to speak, but a croak came out instead. Licking her lips, she tried again. “Innocence. I would take innocence.”
“So, you would prefer to drown by water than be purged by fire?”
Another tear trickled down her cheek. “Yes.”
“Yes, what?”
Bracing herself, Nila said loudly, “I would choose water.”
I nodded. “Exactly.
“And that’s what my ancestor chose as well.”
I WAS ABOUT to be drowned.
I was to repent for heinous lies, to prove my innocence from witchcraft that I didn’t practice, and perish the way so many innocent girls had done in the past.
In the 1400’s, the law system was run by the Church. And the Church had ultimate control. It didn’t matter that they sentenced a young girl to death. It didn’t matter that she was innocent. Even if she chose trial by water, she would still end up dead.
The proverb from those days came back to haunt me.
Ye innocent will float upon their demise while ye guilty will sink just like their dirty souls.
Both scenarios ended in death.
There was no justice—only a deranged mob looking for entertainment by heckling and ripping a young girl’s life apart.
Shaking my head, I tried to rid the images inside my brain.
Jethro vibrated before me, his back to his family, his eyes only for me.
Beneath the golden ice lurked a need for me to understand. To forgive him for what he was about to do.
How could he ask me that when I didn’t know if I would survive?
If you do go to your grave today, don’t condemn him any more than what he is.
Somehow, I’d gone from martyrdom to just being a martyr—still unable to hurt him—even while he hurt me.
I nodded—or I tried to nod—I was so stiff my body barely moved.
Jethro’s nostrils flared. He saw my acknowledgement, my permission to proceed.
You’re insane.
Maybe you are a witch.
You s
eem to believe you’re immortal and can’t be killed.
That might be true. In that moment, I wished it were true.
With his back straight and legs spread, Jethro asked the question I’d been waiting for. “Do you repent, Ms. Weaver? Do you take ownership of your family’s sins and agree to pay the debt?”
I almost collapsed I shook so hard. It was the exact same question Jethro made me answer before extracting the First Debt.
Before I replied, I had a question of my own. Looking directly at Bonnie Hawk, I asked, “When I first arrived, I was told I would be used callously and with no thought. I was told the firstborn son dictated my life and that there would be no rules on what he did with me.” My voice wobbled, but I forced myself to go on. “Yet, everything you do follows strict repetition. Re-creating the past over and over again. You’re bound by what happened as much as us. Surely you’re powerful enough to tear up such guidelines and find it in your hearts to let go.”
My hands balled as anger shot fierce and hot. “Let this madness end!”
Bonnie’s mouth parted half in amazement, half in joy.
Her hazel eyes twinkled as she leaned forward, pointing a knobbly finger in my direction. “Let’s get something straight, young lady. My grandson is bound, as you say, by records kept for hundreds of years. He has to follow each one perfectly. But the rest—anything outside of paying the debts—that is purely at his discretion.”
She cocked her chin, looking at Jethro.
He stood frozen.
“He is the one who decides if you’re to be kept apart or shared. He is the one who decides if you deserve leniency for obedience or punishment for insubordination.”
Her dry lips pulled back over cavity-riddled teeth. “There is something you don’t know, Nila Weaver. And normally I wouldn’t tell a guttersnipe like you what conversations go on within my family, but it should make you grateful to know. Do you want to know, child?”
The wind stole my hair, snapping it around me like black lightning. Standing in the pentacle seemed to summon powers I didn’t have—transferring ancient magic that should remain dead and buried. The back of my scalp prickled; I inched closer to the edge of the salt, needing to leave. “Yes. I want to know.”
Shooting a look at Jethro, I tried to imagine the conversations he had with the people he held most dear. Was there anyone he let himself be free with? Just his sister. I knew that from the way Jasmine spoke of him. He lived with a large family yet remained so alone.
Bonnie Weaver took a shallow breath. “Jethro came to me a few days after your arrival with a request to keep you to himself.”
“Grandmamma—” Jethro began.
Bonnie glared at him. “No. I can tell her. Perhaps she’ll obey you better and we can move on before the moon rises.”
Jethro’s nostrils flared as he nodded, looking over his grandmother’s shoulder, removing himself from the conversation.
Bonnie waggled her finger at me once more. “Your arrival was meant to be celebrated. You were a gift for my son and grandsons. You were meant to be shared.” Her lips spread broadly. “Do you understand what I’m saying to you, child?”
Sickness rolled in my gut.
Yes, I knew what she referred to. Jethro had said as much when he made me crawl like a dog to the kennels. He’d said I was to be passed around. But it never happened.
My eyes flew to him.
Even then…even when he was so awful, he was protecting me from worse.
The sickness disappeared, replaced with an intolerable ache inside my heart.
“Yes, I understand what you’re saying.”
Bonnie Hawk sat back, dropping her bony hand. “Good. You’d be wise to remember that. Remember that we have rules but freedom, guidelines but exceptions, but most of all, immunity against whatever we please to do.”
Cut cleared his throat, moving forward and stealing the limelight. “Enough.” Snapping his fingers at his son, he ordered, “Jethro. Ask the girl the question again.”
My back tensed. The breeze died, untangling itself from my hair and letting it drape like a death shroud over my shoulders.
Oh, God.
My feet tingled to be free from the pentagram, but at the same time, I didn’t want to move. Perhaps I was safe inside this five-pointed salt etching. Perhaps whatever pathway was conjured could steal me away and protect me from the Second Debt.
She was only fourteen.
The Hawk girl had died to protect my ancestor. She would’ve been petrified and so betrayed. Why was I any better than her? Why did I deserve to be freed when she was killed for a lie?
I swallowed as Jethro faced me completely. His hands were fisted by his sides, his face blank and cold. “Do you repent, Ms. Weaver? Do you take ownership of your family’s sins and agree to pay the debt?”
His voice echoed in my ears. I wished he were asking me anything but that. I fantasised about a different question. So many different questions.
Do you want to run away with me?
Can you forgive my family for what they’ve done?
Have you fallen for me, like I’ve fallen for you?
Infinitely better questions. But ones I would never hear.
I’d delayed as much as possible.
I had nothing left to do but get it over with.
Bracing myself, I locked eyes first with Jethro then with each member of his deluded family. He didn’t need to ask me twice—regardless of my stalling. I knew my role—my part in these theatrics.
If there was any power at all in the pentacle, I summoned it now. I summoned age-old wizardry and asked for one thing:
Let me endure, so I may pay the sins of my past. But let me survive, so I may put an end to those who hurt me.
The wind howled, fluttering the hem of my shift…almost in answer.
Balling my hands, I said, “Yes.” My voice carried loud and clear with a touch of defiance. “Yes, I accept the debt.”
Cut’s forehead furrowed as if he were pissed with my strength and ownership of something so terrible. He looked robbed. He looked furious.
Jethro, on the other hand, looked stricken. His face went white and he nodded. “In that case, let’s begin.”
I closed my eyes, taking one last moment to fortify my soul.
You can get through this, Nila.
You can.
They won’t kill you. Not yet.
Another bout of shivers overtook me. It could be entirely possible that after this, I would wish they would. I might want them to kill me and put me out of my misery.
Jethro gritted his jaw and moved toward the ominous looking contraption that remained hidden beneath a black cloth. Every time the breeze caught the edge, I tried to see what it was. The brief glimpses of wood and leather gave me no hint.
Wrapping his fist in the fabric, Jethro tore it off with a flourish.
My heart instantly suffocated.
I stepped back, scuffing the salt line and breaking the pentacle boundary. Thunder boomed on the horizon; heavy clouds inched closer.
I’d seen one of those things—a long time ago—in a book called Fifty Ingenious Ways of Torture. Vaughn had checked it out from the local library. I’d hated the book so much. He’d chased me around the house with it, flicking pages of blood and gore and absolute pain.
I didn’t need water to drown me. My fear did that spectacularly well on its own.
It was a seesaw.
A terrified giggle bubbled in my chest. I liked seesaws. V had double-bounced me more than once as we played on them as children.
But this wasn’t just any seesaw.
This one destroyed all happy memories of ever being on one. I would never ever go on another.
Not after today.
Not after this.
Jethro didn’t look at me, stroking the end closest to him—what looked like a simple tree-trunk. It’d been carved into a smooth post with leather handholds hammered into the wood.
There were four straps in t
otal.
My eyes followed the length of the seesaw, taking in the fulcrum before gritting my teeth and forcing myself to stare at the other end.
That was where I would go.
That end wasn’t smooth or basic. It’d been modified. It was…it’s a chair.
A simple wooden chair with cuffs for wrists and ankles. There were no cushions, no luxury—a prison cell suspended over the deep lake. It faced toward the pond, barring me from seeing what would happen on shore.
It was worse than any whipping post or dungeon.
Jethro leaned on the wooden joist, tilting the pendulum to sway the chair from the glistening water. It moved as if it was possessed, floating effortlessly, swinging toward me as if it knew I was the one destined to sit.
I moved back, tripping over my feet in my rush.
I bumped into something solid and warm. Jumping, I swallowed my squeal as Kes’s strong fingers came around my shoulders, rubbing me with his thumbs. “Trust us. We won’t let you drown. We know you’re innocent of witchcraft and don’t need to prove that by taking your life.” His voice lowered, barely registering in my ears. “Hold your breath and let your mind wander. Don’t fight. Don’t struggle.”
His circling thumbs made me want to vomit. His kind-heartedness only made this worse. Jerking out of his hold, I stood shivering in my shift. “Don’t touch me.”
His eyes tightened with hurt, and for some inexplicable reason, I felt as if I owed him an explanation.
I’m so cold.
Fear had stolen everything.
I’d never quivered so badly—never been so terrified. My teeth chattered harder and I bit my tongue. Pain flared, a trickle of blood tainting my mouth.
Jethro came up beside me. He held out his hand. “Ready, Ms. Weaver?”
No.
I’ll never be ready for this.
I paused, swallowing blood and every urge to beg.
If we were alone, I would’ve toppled to my knees and wrapped my arms around his waist. I would’ve had no decorum or self-control. I would’ve promised anything, given him everything, if only he put a stop to this.