The Salem Inheritance: The Salem Inheritance Series, #1

Prologue

It was the first cool day after a very long, hot summer, and I was enjoying the light breeze on my face. I was also enjoying the time spent with my mother, gathering the last of some shy summer herbs before they were gone for the year.

Mama, what is this pretty yellow one? I called to my mother who was kneeling a bit away from me, cutting herbs with her athame, or ritual knife.

Which yellow one, Abigail? She asked, wiping dirt off her hands and coming to stand beside me with her hand on my shoulder.

Oh that flower is a dandelion my dear. It starts as that little yellow flower and when its seeds are ready to spread, they turn into the puffy white flowers that you like to blow on.

How does it change? I asked, looking up at her. From where I stood at only five, my mother seemed to be so tall and mature, though in truth she was a petite woman in her early twenties.

Because that is the flowers nature. Just as one day you shall grow up from my sweet little girl into a strong and beautiful woman. She smiled down at me and I felt like everything was right with my world.

Do we need any dandelions for the spell? I asked, looking back down at the pretty flower.

Not for this sweetheart. The spell I will be casting is to protect the village from attack. There has been much unrest from the Indian tribes nearby, and the wards I placed on the village last year have weakened and need to be renewed. She explained. Looking down at me consideringly, she added, now remember, we must not mention spells or magic where others can hear. It would be better if we not discuss it at all, except with each other when we are sure we are alone. If anyone were to discover we’re witches, we could be hanged.

Why do people hang witches Mama? I asked. The Widow Parrish had been hanged the previous month and everyone in the village had been forced to attend. I still had nightmares about her swinging from the noose.

Because witches aren’t understood by men, and what men can’t understand, they fear. A time may come when we are no longer feared and can be what we are openly again, but until that time we must keep our magic a secret.

Leaving the little dandelions alone we took the herbs my mother had gathered and returned to our village. Father was waiting for us, with the big smile on his face that he always reserved just for mother and me.

Father of course knew all about mother and her powers, which she had passed to me through a long line of women, dating back further than anyone remembered. Along with the magic had come family traditions, and family tools. She had the athame as well as a wand made of willow, and our family Book of Shadows, the book which contained all of our family’s spells and rituals going back to the druids in Ireland. I loved sitting by the fire and listening to stories of our family.

We had other heirlooms as well, jewelry mostly, which was less important but still not something Mother was willing to part with unless it was the only way to buy food. Of course, to do so she would have to travel to another village where she wasn’t known, because here in our own village we were known as a prosperous but not wealthy family, and the jewels would be hard to explain.

Constance, my father said, grabbing my mother’s arm, I wish you wouldn’t do this tonight. It is a cool night, and many people will be out late to enjoy it. His deep, usually soothing voice was nervous, and he spoke quickly.

Any good Christian will be inside once night falls, and shouldn’t see me. My mother on the other hand was confident and her voice was full of amusement. Besides, I can make sure they do not see me.

You’ve said yourself that you haven’t mastered that spell, and you don’t read well enough to learn it from your family’s Book. And if the spell should falter and someone were to see you out, they will wonder why you’re not inside like ‘any good Christian.’ Father mimicked back to her.

"I know it well enough to be invisible at night. John, love, I must do this tonight. I don’t know why, but I know that something important is going to happen and I must be out there." She no longer sounded amused, she sounded desperate.

And scared.

Whatever was supposed to happen, I could tell even at such a young age that my mother was worried, and that scared me.

Mama, can I help you? Both my parents jumped, obviously having forgotten I was still there.

No my love, not tonight. You are not old enough. Another time, when you have grown and I have had a chance to teach you this magic. She said, gently stroking the side of my face with her soft, cool hand. She smiled down at me, that special smile that was all mine, and I felt safe again.

My mother made dinner that night, a hearty beef stew with bread made that morning, after which I was told to go to bed. Instead I pretended to sleep and waited for Mama to leave, then silently went out after her. Going quietly down the stairs, I wrapped myself in shadows so papa wouldn’t see me. He stood at the window, watching mama walk away into the night. The door was open to take advantage of the cool night, so I hurried out.

Dressed in a simple homespun black gown I faded easily into the night. I had not worn my bonnet and let my dark brown hair flow down my back because the white bonnet would draw attention.

Once outside in the cool night air, I stopped for a moment to look for Mama, but couldn’t see her. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath to still myself like Mama had been teaching me. It wasn’t easy because I kept getting distracted by little noises. An owl in the woods beyond the village; crickets, and the frogs that wanted to eat them.

Finally, I was able to reach that still point that Mama had told me was where magic came from. I opened my eyes and looked from that stillness, looking for anything to tell me where my Mama had gone.

There on the ground was a faint footprint, glowing in Mama’s signature magic color of sunshine yellow, leading East out of the village.

Still cloaked in shadows, I followed Mama, invisible to all eyes. I was better at this trick even then Mama, she had said so herself. Although she hadn’t said it as a good thing at the time because she had caught me eavesdropping on our neighbors while they tried to make a baby.

Apparently I wasn’t as good at being quiet as Mama though, because not long after I caught sight of her, a shimmering black shadow that faded in and out of sight, she turned and looked directly at me.

Abigail Williams! You are supposed to be in bed! We were in a pasture just outside the village limits where no one was likely to see us, so Mama dropped the spell and came fully into sight. Since she could see me anyway and I didn’t want to get into any more trouble, I did the same.

I’m sorry Mama, I just wanted to see the spell. I said in a small, quiet voice, my lower lip trembling as I fought off tears.

My mother looked down at me for a moment in indecision. With her hair, the same dark wavy hair she had given to me, hanging around her shoulders and the moonlight shining down on her face, lighting up the blue eyes we also shared and giving a milky smoothness to her pale skin she looked like some ancient goddess or faery Queen from the stories she told me of our ancestors. I was in awe of her. Her stare continued for a few moments, then with a heavy sigh, made up her mind.

Fine, you may come with me. I knew you would, but I wanted to keep you at home. I sense danger in the air tonight my love and wished to protect you. But since the Gods had other ideas, you must do exactly as I say. Understood?

Yes Mama, I will, I promise. She knew she could trust me then. I never made a promise I didn’t keep, because my friends the faeries had told me that it was wrong to break a promise, especially a promise made to a loved one.

Mama crouched down in front of me, so our eyes were level, and I could see the fear in hers, behind the determination.

Thank you for promising, I know that you will do your very best to keep your word. Here is what you must do. First, pull the shadows back around you. I will take no chances that someone may see you. I also want you to hide in that copse of trees over there, she pointed to three small beach trees that grew very close to each other, with a low bush I couldn’t remember the name of growing at the base. It made a hiding place I knew well, having used it just two days prior when I played hide and seek with the other village children.

If I hide in there I won’t hear what you say. I pouted, then instantly regretted it when I saw her eyes blaze with temper. My mother was renowned in the village for her temper, but she was also the best midwife and healer we had, and she was always ready to help at a moment’s notice, so her flashfire temper was tolerated.

And if I send you back home to bed you’ll see nothing! You promised to do as I said, so obey me. I thought for a moment she may turn me around and smack my backside. She had before when I disobeyed, especially if it was something dangerous. If I could I tried to get my father to administer the punishment as he could never bring himself to be too hard on me. My mother had no such issues.

But I worried too soon, because almost instantly the fiery anger cooled, replaced again by that mix of determination and fear that troubled me more than thought of physical punishment.

I’m sorry my love, I know you are only curious and it is natural, but you must trust me in this. I was not given the Sight as one of my gifts from the Gods, for which I thank them every day, but when I feel something this strongly I have learned to listen to it. You will one day as well. Until then, please listen to those who have your best interests at heart.

There was such love and entreaty in her voice that I couldn’t help but obey, even had I not promised.

Doing as she bid, I wrapped the shadows back around myself and scampered to the copse, crawling under the bush and hiding among its lower branches so I could still see what Mama was doing, even if I couldn’t hear anything.

Watching Mama, I knew she positioned herself so I could at least see what she was doing as she prepared her spell. First she found a spot devoid of grass. There was no magical reason behind the decision, only practicality. It had been a dry summer, and the grass was still dead and brown in most places. It would be a poor witch who set her village on fire while casting a protective ward.

From the small leather pouch at her waist Mama pulled out some twigs and the herbs she had picked that afternoon. I thought that the twigs were most likely oak because Mama said oak was a powerful protection plant, but I couldn’t see them from my vantage point, and I wouldn’t have known them well enough to discern the kind of tree had I been up close. The herbs I couldn’t see at all, and I hadn’t really paid much attention when Mama was harvesting them, preferring to chase a butterfly and pretend it was one of the faeries I rarely saw.

As Mama worked her, sunshine yellow aura expanded and became easier for me to see. It infused all of her supplies and saturated the ground she stood on. When I saw how strongly it shone from the earth at her feet, I realized that this was the same place she had been working this spell for a while, probably since before I was born, when she and Papa had first moved to this tiny village. This must have been a spell my grandmother had been able to teach her well, because I knew Mama struggled with many spells. Her mother had died before completing her training, and because she couldn’t read well she was unable to learn much from her Book of Shadows. That was why she insisted my Papa teach me to read from a young age, so I wouldn’t have the same disadvantages as her.

Standing back from the twigs and herbs, circled by small rocks, Mama pointed at the small, carefully arranged pile. Without saying a word fire sprang up among the herbs, consuming the offered fuel. Mama’s element was fire. Calling it came easily to her. Had it been air it would have been harder and more tiring for her, but because air was my element it would come when I called. I sometimes liked to play with the air, calling small breezes to blow leaves and feathers around. Mama told me to do that only when she was there and could ensure no one saw me, but sometimes I would do it when I was alone with only the faeries. They liked to play, and they always made sure no one saw me.

Mama poured a small bit of water around the fire in a circle, then stood, head thrown back and arms raised high, as if invoking a mighty presence, chanting words I couldn’t hear.

I understood the different components of the spell. The twigs, herbs, and rocks were earth. When the twigs and herbs burned, the fire and earth together created smoke, which was air. Combined with the water encircling the little fire, all of the natural elements had been summoned into the working. Without knowing the different herbs and the words of the spell, I couldn’t duplicate it correctly and I knew that it could be dangerous to try. If I made a mistake, instead of keeping danger at bay I may accidentally make the village vulnerable to attack.

The smoke rose into the air, thicker than the small fire should have generated, and I watched in amazement as it started to move southwards, moving deasil, counter-clockwise, around the outskirts of the village. When I looked with my magic I could see a solid but translucent wall of yellow energy, the same color as Mama’s magic, following the line of the smoke. It looked like it looked like a wall of sunshine along the whole eastern side of the village.

When the yellow wall of energy reached the southernmost part of the village, it stopped expanding, waiting for Mama to go to that quarter and set the ward there.

Mama dropped her arms and turned to my place with a smile, raising a hand to beckon me forward, but before I could come out of my hiding place she jerked her head up looking towards the forest on the far edge of the pasture. Signaling for me to wait, she wrapped the shadows tightly around herself so no mundane eye would have been able to see her. I saw her has a hazy outline, but only because I was looking with my magic and knew what to look for. She turned to go investigate the sound, but there was no need.

Before she moved five steps a band of Indians burst out of the woods, running at top speed but making no noise.

Mama looked urgently at the just begun ward and I knew she worried that her previous wards weren’t strong enough to hold them back, but she didn’t have time to set the rest. The men, there were probably about twenty of them, would be on the village in moments.

With a cry of despair Mama ran and threw herself into my hiding space, using all of her available strength to make a wall of magic around the whole copse to keep the Indians away and holding me tight while I shivered in terror, sobbing silently in her arms.

Within minutes the Indians had all passed us and reached the village. That was the most terrifying hour of my life. I heard the shrieks of men, women and children as they were cut down by the invading men. People I knew, had grown up with, were slaughtered before they had time to raise a defense.

Mama and I clung to each other, hearts pounding in terror, and sobbed out our helplessness and rage. I know that the whole time we shared one thought; please let Papa be okay.

But there was no way he could be. Papa was a brave man, and very strong. If he wasn’t cut down in our own home he would have defended his neighbors to his last breath, or sought me and Mama.

It felt like days before the screaming stopped, though it must have only been an hour, maybe two, before the Indians all left the way they had come.

The last one in line, as he was passing us, slowed down and turned towards where we hid with a look of confusion and suspicion on his young face. He was younger than the rest of his party, probably only just out of boyhood, though adult ages were hard for me to determine at that age. I felt Mama pulling energy from the ground and raise her hand, ready to hurl fire at the boy, but he was called by one of the others who had noticed him fall behind and he left before he gave away our position. Mama slowly lowered her hand, returning the energy to the earth.

We waited, not wanting to take a chance that they would wait around and see us if we left, but finally Mama whispered for me to stay put and slowly crawled out through the bush, staying crouched down to draw as little attention to herself as possible. I knew that after not completing the warding spell and then keeping the impromptu wards up around our sanctuary, she didn’t have the magical strength left to wrap herself in shadows and become invisible. Creeping silently away from the trees, Mama was as wary as a doe, ready to spring away. I knew if the Indians returned Mama would run as fast and far as she could in the other direction, leading them far away from me so I could escape and hopefully make my way to Mama’s younger sister’s house.

After a few moments Mama must have been convinced that the Indians were really gone because she beckoned me out of my hiding place.

Abigail my love, I need to go back to the village and check for survivors, see if there is anyone I can help. I want you to run to the barn and stay there and wait for me. Do you understand? She gripped my shoulders tightly and looked me directly in the eye.

Yes Mama. I’ll wait. I agreed. I had promised to obey.

Mama pulled me fiercely to her, holding me tight and kissing the top of my head.

That’s my good brave girl. Now go, I’ll come get you when I have checked the village.

Our village had a communal barn, used by all of the families who lived in the village proper. The outlying farmers had their own barns because they had much more livestock, but the village barn was only used to stable horses or a family goat or cow when it rained. Really it acted more as a meeting place than anything else. It sat not too far from where Mama had done her ritual in a spot that wasn’t owned by any family and was well enough removed that sounds from it wouldn’t bother anyone but close enough to be easily reached in a storm or attack. Inside was dark without even a single lantern to provide light, but tonight I was okay with that. Running to the nearest stall, I went inside and knelt down, waiting for Mama for what seemed like hours. In truth it was probably only thirty minutes before she returned, looking sad and...diminished somehow.

It was when she caught my eyes that I knew.

My Papa was gone.

Mama didn’t let me see Papa. She said she wanted me to remember him as he had been. We didn’t bury him. We didn’t bury anyone. Of the whole village, maybe forty adults and twenty children, we two were the only survivors. There were too many for us to bury, so Mama dragged them each into their homes and lit each house on fire, giving them a funeral pyre like our ancient Pagan ancestors. She said that flames, earth or sea, it didn’t matter how the body was returned to nature, what mattered was the reverence we showed to each life cut short.

After all the homes had burned, Mama collected a few meager belongings that she had saved; changes of clothes, some food for traveling, what money she and Papa had saved, and we left to go to the home of her sister, Elizabeth Parris.

Mama left the family tools and heirlooms behind, hidden under our old hearth in a box with a spell on it to keep anyone from finding it as well as protecting it from the ravages of nature. She said one day I would return and claim them, but until then they would remain where they were. She would no longer need them she said.

She seemed to be in a trance the whole journey to my aunt’s home in Boston where my uncle was a reverend. I didn’t like him. He looked at me strangely, with a burning hunger on his face that I didn’t understand. I think my mother saw it too because she never left me alone with him.

Until we found her floating in the river that ran behind the house two months after our arrival. My aunt said she had been unable to handle my father’s death and went to join him. My uncle said that because she committed suicide she wouldn’t be allowed into Heaven, and that if I wanted to get into heaven one day I would have to be a good girl and do exactly as he said.

For four years we lived in Boston, with me as the playmate to my cousin Betty. Her brother Thomas, who was my age, wanted nothing to do with me and I felt the same way towards him. He was a bully and a cheat, but he had learned quickly that I would tolerate none of his actions, and his father didn’t punish me as painfully as he thought he should, so he left me alone. My uncle Samuel knew about the family magic that had skipped my aunt but been passed to myself and Betty, and I was sure even then that he wanted to use our power to his advantage, which was why he tried to treat me like his own daughter.

It didn’t work though. He was unable to mask that disturbing hunger when he looked at me, and I was never able to trust him. I didn’t trust my aunt to protect me either. She was pale and listless and often ill.

The highlight of that time was Betty. Two years younger than me, she followed me everywhere and wanted to be just like me, and I loved her like the sister my parents hadn’t had the time to give me. In those four years we grew very close.

Then Uncle Samuel was sent to be the reverend for Salem Village, and everything changed.

Chapter 1

February, Present day

I was pulled out of the dream by the horrendous blaring of my alarm clock. When I finally pulled myself out of the deep chasm of sleep sufficiently to open my eyes and look at the screaming demon I saw that its hellish red eyes blinked the abysmal time of six o’clock. In the morning.

This is an unholy time to wake. By all the gods on Earth, why did I agree to meet Joslyn and Marianne at seven?

Mrrow. My cat Sophia responded unhelpfully. That’s not to say the cat couldn’t have helped. As a familiar, she was far more intelligent and perceptive than a normal cat. She just thought that my getting up before noon was madness and therefore had no helpful advice.

Thank you for that, Your Majesty. I grumbled, rolling out of bed to prepare for a long day. It was always a long day when I dreamed of my past, even if parts of the dream were pleasant.

After using my favorite lavender scented organic soap and shampoo to cleanse my body, I needed to cleanse my aura for the day to come. Standing under the shower I let the warm water run down my body and imagined any negativity I may have picked up from the day before sloughing off of me like mud to be rinsed down the drain, the negative energy returned to Mother Earth to be cleansed and redirected toward something positive. It took a while because I tended to accumulate a lot of negativity throughout the day, combining the detritus of people I interacted with and my own negative emotions, and it took a while to feel truly clean. Once I did though, I turned the water to be just pleasantly cool and stood with my back to the spray, letting it hit my shoulder blades and imagining it as silver rain. As it hit me and ran down my body, I