Spells Trouble by Kristin Cast (mystery books to read .txt) 📕

The huge cat slipped lithely around him, ear tufts bobbing as the feline padded directly to the cell that held Sarah and her daughter. Constable Grant slammed the door and turned, only then seeing that the cat had snuck inside. He spat out the cigar, dropped the Bible, and stared incredulously as the large black-and-tan-striped feline rubbed itself languidly along the bars of the cell and purred riotously.

Sarah squeezed her daughter’s shoulder. It was time.

Immediately Dorothy sat, holding her arms out and saying, “Mommy! Odysseus! ’Tis Odysseus!” Then, just as they’d practiced earlier, the child trotted to the edge of their cell where she sat and reached through the bars with both hands to caress the cat who was so unusually large he dwarfed—and intimidated—many of the village dogs.

“Get the child back! Back, I say Mistress Goode! I shall not abide Satan’s beast!” Constable Grant grabbed an iron fireplace poker and held it menacingly aloft as he threatened the purring cat and grinning child.

Sarah squeaked a sound of motherly distress through the ball of masticated rosemary she held in her mouth and rushed to her child—and as the constable loomed over the massive cat, Odysseus met Sarah’s gaze. She nodded. The feline familiar drew a deep breath and then squeezed between two bars until, like a cork freed from underwater, he popped into their cell to curl up contentedly in Dorothy’s lap.

Constable Grant banged the poker against the bars, red-faced and repeating, “I shall not abide Satan’s beast!”

At the same moment Sarah reached the bars. She looked up at the florid young man who was only a handspan away from her and then spat the mouthful of rosemary—filled with intention and saliva—directly into his face.

He dropped the poker. It clanged against the stone floor as he made odd squeaking noises while wiping frantically at the green goo that bespeckled his face and filled his watering eyes.

Sarah lifted her hands and grounded herself. With all of her being she reached down, down, down through the stone floor to the fertile earth below and drew to her the power that rested there as surely as the moon drew the tide. She felt the heat of the earth warm her skin and raise the small hairs on her arms and then Sarah Goode spoke urgently, her voice filled with the confidence and authority that had so intimidated the men of Salem that they had felt the need to hang her.

Rosemary muddled through the mid of night,

Shall now make thee fumble—make thee lose sight.

Grant gasped as she began the spell. His face blanched to milk while he staggered and wiped frantically at his eyes. Blindly, he stumbled back. His gait was awkward—as if he could not quite make himself awaken from a nightmare. He dropped heavily to his knees while he continued to wipe at his face.

Heavy are thy thoughts

Upon waking you shall remember naught.

“Satan’s whore!” he slurred, and lurched to his feet.

Undaunted, Sarah continued her spell.

Deep shall be thy sleep

But first thrice I say to thee—drop the key, drop the key, drop the key!

“I shall not succumb to you!” Constable Grant reached blindly into his pocket for the iron key ring as he stumbled backward, toward the door. “Witch! You shall never get—” His words broke off as his feet tripped over the Bible he’d dropped. He fell, arms windmilling. Grant’s head hit the corner of his desk and he collapsed unmoving to the floor. The constable’s hand opened and with a musical jingle the keys dropped against the stone.

“Hurry, Odysseus!” Sarah spoke to the feline, who bounded off Dorothy’s lap, drew in another deep breath, and squeezed back through the narrow bars. He padded to the ring of keys and picked them up with his mouth, carrying them to the jail cell.

It took only moments for Sarah to open the door. She and Dorothy rushed out and Sarah locked the door again before returning the keys to the constable’s deep pocket.

Odysseus growled softly.

Sarah nodded. “Yes, yes, I know. But he will awake with no memory of what happened and an empty jail cell. He shall spread the story of how the Goode witch and her spawn magically flew through iron bars and disappeared into the night—likely on the back of Satan’s steed—which would be you, my Odysseus.”

The huge cat purred as he wound around her legs.

“His tall tale will do more to make the townsfolk pause before tracking me than if I tied him and locked him away.”

Odysseus chirped contentedly as Sarah took Dorothy’s little hand and cracked open the door.

The night was dark and still and filled with the scent of rosemary. Sarah waited impatiently for the next ghastly creeeeak—snap! Thunk! of the gallows. Predictably, the men’s laughter and applause followed, covering any sound she, her child, and their faithful familiar might make as they darted from the jail. They hugged the side of the courthouse, then dashed from shadow to shadow, making their way from the center of town.

“Mamma! Mamma!” Dorothy whispered urgently and tugged on her mother’s hand.

Barely pausing, Sarah bent and picked up her daughter. “What is it, little love?”

“You are going the wrong way.”

Sarah jogged across another dark dirt road and past two clapboard houses before she answered. “We are going to a new home—one that is far, far away.”

“Is Father not coming with us?”

Sarah’s jaw set. She caressed her daughter’s matted curls and reined in her anger. “No, love. Your father did not keep us safe. So forevermore that will be my job.”

Beside them Odysseus chirruped up at Sarah. She smiled and corrected, “My job and Odysseus’s.”

Dorothy’s expression was somber and she suddenly appeared much older than her four years. “We shall keep each other safe.”

“Indeed we will, little love. Indeed we will.”

The predawn gloaming had begun to turn the sky the gray of a dove’s breast when the three fugitives finally made their way to the apple grove that divided the west side of Salem from the farmlands and