Free Bewitching My Love by Diane Story Page B

able to control anything she wanted. Elizabeth cackled as she closed the front door behind her; she would be just the one to train the child.
    Fern and Rowen sat against the back wall of the small courtroom. Not surprising to Rowen, several people were in attendance. In the front seats there were women holding their bibles to their chests as they prayed; Fern almost laughed at the absurdity of it. The men of the court, including the judge and magistrates, were wearing white powdered wigs. All heads turned when the old woman entered the room. She walked with a cane, and as it slid across the wooden floor it made Fern’s spine tingle. Before the old lady turned to sit, she stared back at them, making eye contact with Fern. Chills raced up her back and Fern felt as if she’d entered her mind.
    The scene didn’t escape Rowen; turning in his seat he situated himself in between them to block the contact. “Don’t look at her, Fern, she is very powerful. I believe it was Elizabeth to cause what happened last night. If that is the case, we must avoid her.”
    Fern blinked and gently shook her head. “I don’t have a doubt it was her, Rowen, she spoke it in her eyes, and her mind just now.” Taking a shaky breath, she leaned a little closer to Rowen. Protection! That was what she needed right now. The old lady scared her, deeply.
    All eyes turned then as Mary was brought in. Jonathan walked in front of her as he led her to her seat next to where the judge would be sitting before taking his seat next to Sarah. Fern noticed that they didn’t look at each other. “If there is supposed to be an undying love between them, Rowen, how is it he can do this to her?”
    “ It is my understanding that he had no choice. Sarah is pregnant with his child, if he shows his affection to Mary, he will be accused of adultery and hang on the gallows with her. Shhh! The judge is coming in now.”
    A pin dropping would have made more noise than there was in the room. Fern sat witnessing the next sequence of events in stunned silence as Judge Hauthorn spoke. Words of ignorance, and words of barbaric beliefs, that had long ago been left behind. But this was the 1600’s, wasn’t it; to these people this was normal.
    “ Mary Wilds, what do you say? You here stand charged with sundry acts of witchcraft by you done or committed upon the body of Sarah Nichols.”
    “ I am innocent, I know nothing of it. I have done no witchcraft.” Mary stared over the heads of the people sitting in the front rows. Making eye contact with the fair-skinned girl sitting in the back, whose face was covered, except for her eyes, she wondered, whose eyes were they, she knew them, somehow.
    “ Sarah Nichols, look upon this woman Mary Wilds and see if this be the woman that you have seen hurting you.”
    Sarah stood and walked to stand in front of Mary. Pointing in her face, she turned and looked out at the audience. “This woman has threatened me with her witchcraft.”
     “ What do you say now, Mary Wilds? You have been accused to your face.” Judge Hauthorn waited for her reply.
    “ I never did hurt Sarah Nichols in my life. I am as innocent as the child unborn.” Mary continued to stare at the woman with the cloth on her face. In the midst of all that was taking place she felt herself crying out from her soul. “I know you, are you here to save me?”
    “ Mary Wilds! What contract have you made with the devil?
    “ I have made no contract with the devil. I never saw him in my life.” Still, her eyes could not break contact with the girl in the back of the room.
    Their eyes embraced. Fern could hear every word, and every cry for help that Mary had somehow sent her way. She sat glued to her seat as she listened to the judge, unable to act or cry out for the insanity to stop.
     “ What say you to all this that you are charged with? Can you not find in your heart to tell the truth, Mary Wilds?”
     “ I do tell the truth, I never hurt Sarah Nichols in my