Page 5 of The Sea Witch
The two men peered into the wicker container.
“We can’t eat ladies’ shoes and underwear,” one of the men complained.
Alys moved. She pressed herself tight to the sentry’s back as she held her knife to his throat. Beside her, Jane did the same to the other watchman. Both men stiffened.
“Not a sound,” Alys hissed. “Or I’ll give you a new way to sing.”
My God—was she truly saying such a thing? Threatening a man’slife? He didn’t know that spilling his blood was the very last thing she’d ever do, but the more he believed it, the better her and the others’ chances were of making it out of Norham alive.
“How many else on this ship?” Alys demanded.
“Just me an’ Bleeker,” the sentry stammered. “The rest went ashore.”
“Then there’s none to notice if you doze.” She pulled the dark blue energy of a tranquil summer night, and swirled it around the men. It spun and eddied like ink in water. The sentries’ eyes rolled back before they slumped to the deck—asleep.
“Stifle and bind them,” Alys ordered. “Douse their lanterns.”
Immediately, the other women took the ropes she and Jane had brought and trussed up the two unconscious men. The months of learning how to tie knots served them well now as they bound the sentries. While they were being tied, gags were stuffed into the men’s mouths, and their lanterns were extinguished to plunge the deck of the ship into darkness.
As soon as the men were bound, the rest of the women in their group hefted the sleeping sentries and carried them down the gangplank and onto the dock, stowing them behind a stack of empty lobster traps.
The watchmen wouldn’t be discovered until Alys and everyone else were long gone—hopefully.
She hissed, “Away aloft,” and gave the other women instructions as they readied the ship to sail. It was hasty, fumbling work. With so few in their number compared to what likely had to be a crew of forty, there was much to do. Yet no one complained and no one questioned their orders.
Pausing in the middle of climbing the rigging, Alys looked toward the dock, and beyond it, the village, gray, stiff-shouldered, and somber. A throb resounded in her chest, but it was too light and winging to be sorrow.
She’d married Samuel Tanner after a short courtship, which hadn’t been her choice.
Samuel hadn’t liked her spending time with Ellen.
“It’s my love for you,” Samuel had often said. “It makes me clamor for all your time. I want every piece of your attention, my wife.”
“Surely, I can see Ellen,” Alys would protest.
“My love’s so consuming,” he’d answer, always gripping her tightly like he’d squeeze the very breath from her body. “It’s an agony to share you with anyone. Besides, it’s your safety I fear for. That... thatmagicyou and your sister use, it’ll get you both killed. Especially if anyone sees you.”
So, the moments between visits with her sister had been too few. And Alys had barely learned the limits and potential of her magical power. All for love.
Ellen was gone now, ripped away from this life by brutal hands, and Alys would leave no one behind in Norham.
She turned her face toward the harbor, and the open sea that stretched into forever. It smelled of salt and wind and freedom andmagic, all the things she’d been refused, first as Alys Cabot, later as Mrs. Tanner.
If Alys hadn’t gone to sea on her own, fishing the steel-hued waters beyond Cape Ann in the boat Samuel had left her, she would’ve had nothing for herself. There was a handful of cousins, but beyond that, Alys had no family of her own. Not anymore.
Everyone had expected her to sell the boat, move into Samuel’s parents’ cramped house, and become a drudge to those sour-faced and bitter-tempered pair of haddocks who’d always hated her and spoke loudly about the evil of witches.
She’d rather drown in brimstone than let the Tanners force her to hide her gift, as their son had done. There was only so long a person could permit themselves to be throttled before they had to pry the fingers from their throat.
The sea carried the scent of all the things denied to the women of Norham. Men were so afraid of the females and their power, they were willing to kill them.
“Alys.” Susannah pointed toward the village. Light from torches appeared, weaving through the buildings as they headed toward the docks. The arresting party had discovered that the witches were gone and watching the roads would yield no captures.
Fire burned in her gut and seethed through her limbs as she slid down from the rigging to stand on the deck.
“Everything been made ready?” she asked, as the women gathered around her.
“Aye,” they answered.
