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Agatha Harkness arrives in the bustling town of Boston in 1695.
Cloth bag slung over her shoulder, Agatha walks the wide dirt road past the first signs of wooden houses, and through Boston Neck toward the town. She tucks a hair worked loose back into her bun and wipes at the sweat upon her face. It may not yet be summer, but hours of walking will cause anyone to perspire. Looking down at her gray skirts, she sees only the usual dust any respectable traveler on the road may except. And that is what Agatha is now – what she must appear to be – a good, respectable traveler.
Agatha reaches into the upper right gap of her skirts to the pocket tied beneath at her hip. From within she pulls a folded piece of paper. She has read the notice several times over but wants the details fresh in her mind as she walks further into town. The faded paper begins with the bold words ‘WANTED’ and only becomes more complimentary from there.
WANTED: REBEKAH BUTLER
FOR BLASPHEMOUS CRIMES OF SPELLWORK AND WITCHERY
SEEN PRACTICING ARTS, POTIONS, BEWITCHMENT, DANCING
The word ‘dancing’ still makes Agatha snort with amusement at Puritan perspectives of what makes a sinful crime.
“I bet most of them could use a jig,” Agatha mutters.
HEIGHT FIVE AND ONE HALF FEET
HAIR BLONDE
HANDS SCARRED WITH DEVIL MARKS
REWARD GIVEN TO FAVORABLE REPORTS PROVIDED TO JUDGE OF ROXBURY
“Scarred with devil marks,” Agatha repeats.
The Puritan method of searching out witches often includes marks on one’s body to indicate some kind of pact with the devil, even a mole counts if they need it to. So, when a notice says ‘devil marks,’ Agatha takes that to mean something of a wide span in terms of identifying marks. However, the notice does say ‘scarred,’ which is a more specific and dramatic word.
Agatha folds the paper up again, stowing it back in her pocket. “Let us hope the writer preferred accuracy over drama.”
Rebekah Butler makes only the second witch Agatha has pursed with the intention of using her absorption powers. It took her a year after the betrayal of her coven at Salem to figure out how the powers truly worked. When one of her former coven’s daughters tried to kill Agatha, as her mother had, it went about the same for that girl as the women before her. But it helped Agatha realize how to activate the power. Agatha never had a problem with provoking people; It was gaining their trust in the first place that proved more of a stumbling block. When she tried to lure another witch into a trap everything went sloppily and only succeeded because Agatha resorted to calling the witch a poxied whore. This time she will be more careful, more practiced.
A wagon passes by up ahead as Agatha nears the first cross street off the neck. Her fingers graze absently over the locket pinned at her breast. She breathes in deeply then reaches into her bag to pull out her bonnet and hat, fitting both over her hair. Time to begin the hunt.
Further into town, Agatha passes more people and a bustle of activity. The day has gone past eight now, tradesmen setting up carts with fresh bread, women hauling clothes for washing, workers pulling carts with crates and nets toward the docks. With the Charles River to the left and the harbor to the right, the town smells of fish and the sea. She hears the shout of men from the docks, words indiscernible. She wonders how long it may take her to find one person in a town of this size.
“Good sir,” Agatha asks a young man passing carrying a stack of cloth. “Where might a weary traveler find rest and refreshment here in Boston?”
He points down the road to his right. “The Sun Tavern, yonder.”
Agatha bows her head. “I thank ye.”
Inside the Sun Tavern, more than half a dozen round tables fill the space, only two with current patrons, all men, as most attend to their workdays. A man hauls a new barrel behind the bar, catching Agatha’s eye as she slides up to the opposite side.
“An ale for a parched traveler?”
“With the coin to pay for it?”
Agatha opens her bag, and the man pours her an ale. Taking the cup, Agatha scans the room for a lonely soul with a chatty mouth to share her drink with.
“Is there someone you seek, good lady?”
Agatha turns to a woman standing beside her. She stands a fraction taller than Agatha, be it her boots or by nature, wearing matching green skirts and bodice over her white petticoat. A vine pattern adorns the petticoat, curling and dipping into the center seam and out again as if they grow from within. Her black hair mostly hides beneath her cap and hat, pinned neat as if a servant did so for her. Her hat includes one additional adornment, a silver crescent moon cradling an hourglass.
Agatha tears her eyes away from the curious jewelry to the woman’s face, her upturned lips. “And why should you think so?”
“Women less often frequent taverns except for town meetings or specific business.” She gestures with one hand to the near empty tavern. “I see no meeting.”
Agatha points to the cup in the other woman’s hand. “You drink here too. What is your business?”
The woman in green gestures to an open table. The two women pull out chairs and sit down facing each other. Across the room, the male patrons cast them disapproving glances, one leering with a clear assumption on their professions despite the daylight hours.
“My business,” the woman in green says once they have both drank from their cups, “is all people.”
Agatha huffs a laugh. “A fine way to tell me nothing.”
“I did ask you first if there was someone you sought.”
Agatha turns her cup around on the table and purses her lips. “What might be your name, good lady?”
“Rio Vidal.” Agatha frowns at the odd name, not one heard in her experience of New England at all. “And you?”
“Agatha Harkness.” Agatha clears her throat quickly to cover her surprise. She did not intend to give her true name, and yet it came out as it did. She takes another sip of ale to regain her composure. “You say your business is all people, this sounds much like the ministry to me and yet women are not permitted at the pulpit.”
Rio shakes her head. “I preach no gospel. I merely bring that which awaits all people.”
“Heaven?” Agatha says deadpan.
Rio barks a laugh, seemly surprised at herself, then points her cup at Agatha. “Do all people reach heaven?”
Agatha shakes her head. “I would say far less than all.”
Rio shrugs. “And not my concern.”
“Keep to your own soul, you’d say?”
Clasping her cup between two hands, Rio tilts her head as she considers. “I would say… walk the road as you will. They all lead to the same place.”
Agatha narrows her eyes – wanting to ask more, wanting to see the way this woman’s mouth moves in a smile, the way her eyes change with the light, find out what her hand might feel like in Agatha’s. Agatha shakes her head hard, taking one more sip of her ale. “And I would say I cannot spend all day at one tavern table speaking to a beautiful woman who talks only riddles.”
Rio smiles slowly and Agatha tingles. “Beautiful?”
“Good day,” Agatha forces out, grabbing up her bag, and standing swiftly.
She needs to focus. She has a purpose she came here for, not idle chatter. Agatha heads back toward the bar, where she should have attempted to gain information in the first place.
“Good sir.” The bartender turns to Agatha, a frown on his lips, as she places her hands on the wood in front of him. “Do you know of a place in town this good traveler might find aid for the healing of an affliction?”
He takes a step back and crosses his arms. “My ale does not suit you?”
She smiles. “I meant of the medical variety, my good sir.”
He purses his lips. “Boston has apothecaries for such needs, good lady.”
“And where might I find it?”
“Boston boasts fourteen apothecaries, mistress. You would need to decide which you should wish.”
“Fourteen?” Agatha repeats. She clears her throat, forcing out a chuckle. “Now that you say this, I fear an apothecary might prove too costly for a woman such as myself traveling alone. Be there other options?” She cocks her head. “A woman, perhaps, who sells herbs?” Agatha clicks her teeth. “Or potions?”
He man huffs. “This is Boston, good lady, we are a colony which can provide better options for the populus.” Agatha opens her mouth to press but the man beats her to it. “But I know there is widow Johnson at Haugh’s point, makes herbal teas for nerves. Old lady Matthews on Tremont Street who makes plasters and such from her garden since her husband passed five years past.”
Agatha eyes the door, trying to think of another angle to find Rebekah, and what a witch might do besides sell potions in a large town.
“Ah, though I did hear of a young woman who came to town but a week past.” Agatha’s head snaps back around. The man taps a finger against his lips. “I think she sells draughts out of the back of Mister Blackford’s apothecary for those that can’t pay his prices.” The man shakes his head. “A wonder he allows her to pull from his business, but might be she pays him in other ways.” He shakes his head in scorn.
Agatha smiles as benignly as possible. “And where might that shop be?”
The man pulls out a scrap of paper to write down an address. Agatha glances over her shoulder as the man writes, the table behind her empty and no other woman in the tavern now.
Following the directions and address the bar tender gave her, Agatha finds an Apothecary with a red painted sign out front, hanging above the door. Several people wait inside as the proprietor pours powders from jars. Agatha purses her lips, thinking on a next move. She paces to one side toward the alley to the right of the shop. A paper adorns the wooden wall plastered near the mouth of the alley. Stepping closer she reads ‘Potions and Balms – Herbs and Roots’ with a large arrow pointing down the alley.
“Out the back, he said,” Agatha murmurs.
Walking down the alley to the back of the building, Agatha sees a small garden area with a white fence around it. A small addition to the building juts out into the garden, with an open door and brick patio only large enough for the fire pit it encloses. Sitting on the steps of the addition, a young blond woman tends a pot above the fire. The steam coming from the pot smells like willow bark. Where she stirs the concoction with a wooden spoon, Agatha sees sparks of magic.
“Good lady,” Agatha says in her sweetest voice.
The woman jerks in surprise, the sparks disappearing, and drops the spoon into the pot. She clears her throat, smiling up at Agatha. “Good morrow, how might I help you?”
Agatha bows her head, still smiling. “I see you sell potions?”
“And salves, healing herbs for drinking. What ails you?”
The woman wipes her hands on her apron, hands bearing old burns.
“Oh, a great many things.” Agatha lays a hand on her chest. “I am Agatha Smith, new to this town.” She raises her eyebrows in expectation.
“Welcome.” The woman gestures to herself. “Rebekah.” She does not offer her surname, but Agatha does not need it. Then Rebekah speaks again as if rehearsed, “If your ailment be strong, I must advise, by the proprietor of the apothecary, to seek his services first.”
Agatha chuckles, shifting the bag over her shoulder. “Most men think their services always better.” Rebekah smiles along with Agatha. “I should prefer the aid of a sister.” Rebekah’s smile lessens. “One with knowledge passed down from those before her.”
Rebekah nods. “And what ails you?”
“I wonder if we could talk more on my ailment in a place more private?”
Rebekah’s eyes shift around the empty garden. “I suspect not to be interrupted.”
Agatha sees a great many potential interruptions with buildings on either side, a busy apothecary and street behind her, all within a large town where a body may be found far too quickly. “True, but I should prefer the seclusion of nature, of what the earth my provide us both, sister.”
“Sister, you say…”
“I should think one with such special skill in potions, as I believe you possess, to understand the need for privacy in the forest over eyes within a town?”
Rebekah frowns and abruptly stands up. “I believe you to be mistaken. My services cannot assist you.”
“My sister –”
Before Agatha realizes the other woman moves, Rebekah shoves Agatha hard into the fence. Agatha knocks into the sharp points of the fence then falls, unable to catch herself, onto the brick. Her knee hits hard, so she hisses with pain. Turning her head, Agatha sees Rebekah more than halfway down the alley already. Agatha shoves herself up off the ground, just holding onto her bag, and takes off down the alley. Rebekah hits the street, causing several people to jump back around her, exclaiming in surprise. Fifteen seconds later Agatha reaches the mouth of the alley. Agatha looks left and right down the busy main street but sees no sign of Rebekah.
Agatha smacks a hand against the wall beside her. “Blast.”
She overplayed her hand, but Rebekah’s wariness surprised Agatha. ‘One can always rely on the kindness of witches’ is the saying, after all. Perhaps Rebekah experienced enough unkindness in Roxbury to keep her suspicious even of her own.
“Perhaps too like myself,” Agatha mutters, then sighs.
She steps out of the alley onto the road, hoists her bag over her head so crosses over her chest, then chooses a direction at random. With a town this size Rebekah could easily hide from Agatha for some time. Agatha could try to find where Rebekah keeps rooms, if not at the apothecary. She would have nowhere to start on this, however. She could report Rebekah’s name to the local judge to scare the other witch out of town and into Agatha’s hands. Yet that might bring up questions of why Agatha felt to involve herself. She needs a different plan.
“Good lady Harkness.”
Agatha stops short. “Good lady Vidal.”
Rio stands before Agatha much the same as when they met earlier, only now Rio carries a shallow basket of white lilies.
“Are you out about your business?” Rio asks with a curious smile.
Agatha laughs breathlessly, eyes catching on that smile. “As much as situations may allow.”
Rio pouts her lips. “Not well, you mean?”
“Not as well as I should have hoped.”
“A pity then.”
Then shift into step with each other down the street. They keep to the right, allowing carts to pass, before stepping out of the dirt road onto the cobblestone closer to the shops and houses.
“Do you live here in Boston?” Agatha asks after they walk a minute or two in silence.
“No.”
“Here only on your ‘all people’ business then?”
“I arrived just this day.”
Agatha nods. “As did I.”
“And Boston treats you well?”
“I shall gain what I wish. This town may have more secrets than most at such a size, but all such things can be revealed for those quick-witted as I.”
She turns to Rio with a grin but finds the other woman not looking at her. Instead, Rio gazes to her left away from Agatha, her eyes seemingly fixed far away.
“I am still uneasy with the sea.”
Agatha parts her lips and furrows her brow. “The sea?”
“Despite so much time… the beauty of it seen from land but the danger it possesses when one sails upon it.” She breathes in slowly, as if she drinks in the salt within the air. “The waves follow the moon, the fish give sustenance, the surface sparkles with the sun, a beautiful blue world.” She finally turns back to Agatha. “And yet all those on land would drown beneath its surface without aid.”
Agatha stares at Rio, unable to think what to say.
“There are so many ways to die at sea,” Rio continues. “A storm, a leaky ship, a monster beneath the waves, all waiting to bear a woman down into drowning.”
Rio’s eyes transfix Agatha, pinning her focus even though they still walk forward. Agatha manages to say, “There are even more ways to die on land.”
Rio smiles at this, sending a rush through Agatha. “True. But the earth is at least firm beneath your feet.”
“And trees tall and green around you,” Agatha replies, though she could not say why.
Rio watches her for a moment, her eyes dipping lower over Agatha’s face, her expression strange – dark, hungry, dangerous. Then her eyes snap up to Agatha’s again, and her smile warms. “And a far better place, land is, to find new friends.”
Agatha laughs awkwardly, and louder than she intends. She tears her eyes away, looking ahead of them once more. It is a wonder she had not tripped over the stone with how much this woman stole her attention.
Taking several deep breaths, Agatha clears her throat. “Pray then, you so sage a mind, might I ask you this, where would you look for one you wish to find in a town such as this?”
Rio stops walking, forcing Agatha to stop with her. “Where all people gather,” she says. Agatha frowns in confusion. Rio leans forward, into Agatha’s personal space. “There is a town meeting tonight.” She quirks her lips up. “Many might find interest there.”
Agatha tries to keep her breathing even with Rio’s face – her cheeks, her lips – so close. “And where might this –”
“Such a quick-witted woman,” Rio interrupts and leans back once more, a wide smile on her face. “You should be sure to divine it.”
Her breath hitches at Rio’s use of the word ‘divine.’
Then Rio turns her head toward the road behind them. “Unfortunately, I must away now on my own business.”
Agatha follows the woman’s line of sight to a wagon which two men speak in front of, one carrying the bag of a doctor’s trade. Agatha looks back at Rio, wondering if she be a midwife or another kind of healer, one like Rebekah selling potions.
“Good day to you then,” Agatha says, eyeing the other woman closely. “May we meet again.”
Rio smiles as she turns away. “We will.”
Agatha spends several hours asking bartenders in taverns about newcomers to the town, cozying up to dock laborers for information about any seedy locations in the town, and asks a well-dressed woman about the afternoon town meeting. Agatha learns where the meeting will be at five and that she can be mistaken for a prostitute if she smiles the right way. She even gained a few coins to buy herself a hot lunch of porridge and bread.
Eating her porridge in a rush so as not to remain in the tavern for too long, Agatha takes what remains of her bread back to the docks. Munching on the bread, she watches the laborers load and unload cargo while she thinks on her next move.
With the information from chatty men, Agatha has a few places to potentially visit to find where Rebekah might hide when spooked. The town includes half a dozen families which provide rooms to new folk or those passing through, but Agatha thinks such inquires too direct and attention grabbing to pursue. The docks themselves maintain spots for illicit behavior, though less than Agatha guesses the southern colonies do, and not in daylight.
Reaching into her bag, she pulls out the one book she carries, a book of her mother’s. She turns a few pages, spells she has yet to master, a few that could help to sway the weak minded. Agatha snapes the book closed.
“She’s probably right,” Agatha mutters to herself. The town meeting would be the most likely opportunity to find Rebekah again. Agatha makes a face. “And easiest.”
If Rebekah plans to write Agatha off as nothing and remain in town, she would want to stay informed. If Rebekah needs help of some kind, either escape or in rooting out Agatha, the meeting would be a good place to do so. Even if Rebekah fails to show for the meeting, most of the town will and Agatha may make pleasant conversation about all sorts of things.
She puts the book back into her bag. “Then meeting it shall be.”
Rio may also attend the meeting. Agatha huffs and turns abruptly away from the workings of the port. She shoves the last of the bread into her mouth, chewing and swallowing with gusto, not thinking about Rio’s mouth at all.
The Boston town meeting begins with a list of the important men in attendance, the announcement of a wedding to be held come September, and notices of several business changes as well as new ships expected in port that month. Agatha switched out her kerchief and stockings into a matching purple set she saves for more formal gatherings. She stowed her bag near a building on the edge of town to look less a traveler. She even managed to pilfer a violet ribbon from one shop to pin around her waist, locket at the center, to add more flair to her deep gray gown and petticoats. The better she should look, the better to fit in with the average Boston citizen.
She sits on a bench with other women, nodding as they do to each speaker, but her eyes track the room. It takes half an hour of announcements until Agatha spies Rebekah near the far wall to her left, half hidden in the shadows. Rebekah appears much the same as Agatha, not listening to the town business but instead searching the crowd for someone else. When her eyes appear to stop on someone, Agatha confirms the other witch does not seek Agatha.
“Who then…” Agatha whispers.
She cannot see where exactly Rebekah’s gaze leads, not at this distance. Agatha will have to wait until after the meeting ends to approach and learn more. Fortunately, the meeting only lasts another hour with some additional discussions among the land-owning men and a pronouncement from the King. With the meeting concluded, food appears, and the townspeople begin to mingle with each other, talking and laughing. A pair of violins begin playing in the corner and the moods shifts from formal to relaxed and merry.
Agatha stands up and moves toward one of the long tables with hearty food and drink, keeping one eye on Rebekah now talking to a man. She shifts slowly in Rebekah’s direction as the violin music changes to a bouncy jig.
“Good lady Harkness.” Rio suddenly stands before Agatha, tall and backlit, wearing a deep green gown over her lighter green petticoat.
“Good lady Vidal,” Agatha gasps, her eyes catching on the metallic necklace Rio now wears of an ankh. “I did not think to see you…”
Rio smiles slowly, beguilingly, then holds out a hand. “Fancy a dance to a fiddle?”
Agatha’s lip quirks up. “A dance?”
Rio nods. “A dance.”
“I did not think the Puritans thought well of dancing.”
Rio chuckles into a smile. “You will find Boston more forgiving of late to the less sinful of Puritan doctrines.” Then she chuckles and wiggles her fingers. “Or simply less able to prosecute them.”
“Like dancing?”
“Like dancing.”
“And should not some gentleman catch your eye more?” Agatha retorts.
“My eye is caught as it is.” She raises her eyebrows. “Unless you’d prefer to free it?”
She should be watching Rebekah. She should be following her plan to get Rebekah alone. She should…
Agatha takes Rio’s hand. “A dance it is.”
Rio leads the pair of them through the groups of conversations to an open area nearer the musicians. Several other couples line up across from each other as the music begins a new country jig. Three of the other couples are mixed gender with another two women like Rio and Agatha. With so many of the men enthralled with their talk of business and the sound of their own voices, it is no wonder some women felt the need to pair up together for dancing, not for any other desirous reason, of course.
As the dance begins, the couples all clap four times then clasp right hands, turning once in a full circle clapping again. They clasp left hands this time then turn in the opposite direction.
“I have not had a dance in a long time,” Rio says as they reach their opposite side, hands clapping.
“Nor I,” Agatha admits.
They clasp both hands this time, turning once more in a circle over the dance line.
“And even longer since I danced with so fair a partner.”
Agatha smiles and tries to keep the blush, which she surely would never do, from rising in her cheeks. “Hardly a surprise with the stern women of New England.”
Rio chuckles as they release their hands and step their right feet together into the middle and then their left, matching their fellow dancers on either side.
“Do you hail from this colony, Mistress Vidal?” Agatha asks.
“Call me Rio.”
Agatha hesitates, arguments of intimacy and they knowing each so little on her tongue, then she says, “Rio. And I must be Agatha.”
Rio smiles. “Agatha.” She turns left than right on her side of the line in time with Agatha, keeping their eyes met. “I travel far and wide,” Rio then answers without really answering.
“And now you choose Boston?”
They raise their arms bent and circle once more, palm to palm.
“I go where I am called.”
“And who calls you to Boston?”
Rio looks into Agatha’s eyes as she speaks. “You.”
Agatha laughs once awkwardly. “A woman like me? Or…”
Rio does not elaborate into the gap Agatha leaves. They step back into their original positions, Agatha watching Rio for any sign or tell of what game the woman plays now. She speaks in riddles but appears to offer no threat. Is she a witch like Agatha, looking for a fellow sister?
“You say you travel far,” Agatha says as the dancers all clap twice more. “Have you visited Salem?”
Rio nods. “And more places like it.”
They hold out their hands for another round like the start, one turn followed by another in the opposite direction.
“And when in Salem –”
“I would rather talk less of my travels and more of now,” Rio interrupts, her thumb stroking back and forth over the back of Agatha’s hand as they turn once more. “Of a pretty woman and her charms.”
“Charms,” Agatha repeats as they move through the dance, Agatha following the steps now by rote.
“You charm me, Agatha, as little have before you.”
Agatha smiles hesitantly. “I charm you… as if a spell?”
Rio laughs, quiet, yet seemingly the only sound Agatha hears. “A spell I would gladly take from a witch so sweet.”
Agatha should feel fear at Rio calling her a witch – at knowing her a witch – but it only makes her smile instead. Their palms touch, held up before their faces, as they circle tighter and closer than before.
“I am not sweet,” Agatha whispers.
Rio smiles again, this time with teeth. “Exactly.”
“Then?”
“What is sweet,” Rio says slowly as their hands part and they step back in line. “Can be deadly.”
“And those who speak of spells…” Agatha whispers, “can also cast them.”
Rio only smiles back at her, clapping with the other dancers at the end of the set. Agatha breathes in deeply as the rest of the room claps for the dancers and the musicians. She feels as though a veil lifts from her senses and the rest of the room reappears around her. As Rio holds out her hand again, Agatha takes it, wondering if the spell Agatha spoke of should be real, if Rio enchants her now, if Agatha should like it.
Then over Rio’s shoulder Agatha sees what appears to be money changing hands between Rebekah and the man she speaks to. The man pockets the money then begins to write on a pad. Her purpose here floods back to Agatha like a shot.
“Agatha?”
Agatha’s eyes snap back to Rio as the dancers move around into a different position, the song changing to an even livelier tune.
“My apologies,” Agatha says, reluctantly pulling her hand away from Rio’s. “I must beg off the next dance.”
Rio smiles as she turns away. “Until later then.”
Agatha spares a few seconds to watch as Rio walks away, her petticoat swishing rhythmically like the pendulum of a clock. Then Agatha clenches her jaw and makes her way across the room. At the far wall, Rebekah nods to the man she speaks to one last time then turns away straight into Agatha.
“You again,” she whispers like a hiss.
“Me.”
“Leave me in peace.”
“I but seek counsel with a like minded woman,” Agatha says, the picture of innocence. “Your skills with potions, enough to draw those away from the apothecary to your wares instead; you must know much to –”
“I do not teach,” she interrupts.
Agatha shifts tactics. “I thought another woman new to such a large town…”
“I shall be leaving soon, seek your friendship elsewhere.”
She tries to walk around Agatha, but Agatha grips her arms and whispers quickly. “I know you to be a witch.” The woman’s mouth pinches tight. “I am one as well.” Now Rebekah’s eyes widen. “We could help one another.”
“Help?”
“A coven…”
“I have no coven.”
“Neither do I, but together…”
Rebekah shoves Agatha’s hand off of her arm. “It is not safe!” A nearby cluster of men turn in their direction. Rebekah walks away toward the wall, Agatha in her wake. She turns hotly again on Agatha once far enough away. “Salem is but two years past and witches dead in that chaos. Do you think it forgotten enough not to begin again?”
“In Boston?”
“Anywhere.”
“I was in Salem,” Agatha says darkly. “It was a special kind of madness.”
Rebekah draws back, eyeing Agatha warily. “And yet you live?”
“I do, would you know how?”
Rebekah’s lips pinch. “No. I would stay far from you.” Her eyes circle around the room. “And far from this Puritan colony.” Her hand strays toward her hip. “No, I shall take a ship south to Philadelphia and leave any potential for burning behind me.”
“You cannot!” Agatha snaps, grabbing both of the woman’s arms. “You would abandon your sister?”
“Unhand me,” Rebekah hisses.
Agatha tries to pin her against the wall. “You would leave a sister who survived Salem alone here?”
“As you choose.” She looks around, struggling in Agatha’s grasp and trying to keep her voice down. “You are not my responsibility. Now unhand me!”
Agatha cries out, drawing eyes toward them. “Uncaring! Unfeeling!”
“Leave me be!” Rebekah snaps and wrestles out of Agatha’s grasp, her skirts knocking into Agatha’s hands as she nearly trips around the other woman.
People turn in surprise, many jumping back as Rebekah runs from the room and out the tavern door.
Agatha sighs dramatically for the few still looking toward her. “So unwise for a woman to drink sprits!”
Several people nod or exclaim agreement. Once ignored again, Agatha looks down at the stolen paper in her hand from Rebekah’s pockets; one writ of passage on a trade ship leaving the following morning.
Agatha smirks to herself. “Philadelphia you say? Not without this.”
Looking up again, Agatha scans the room, perhaps looking for a woman in a green dress. She sees only shades of black and brown, no oval face looking her way.
An hour before sunset, Agatha leaves the tavern. She exclaims loudly about the hospitality of Bostonians, about how Boston Neck must make for a leisurely stroll in the evening, how the woods at night are not so perilous any more for a woman alone, surely! Then she walks slowly down the road out of town. She hums cheerily to herself as she walks, a beacon in the night for anyone who might choose to follow.
Some five minutes after Agatha leaves the battery and into the woods of Boston Neck, a figure steps into the road in front of her.
“Give it back.”
Agatha feigns a high gasp. “Who bars my path? Robbers? Brigands?” She puts a hand to her head. “Who will save me?”
“Enough of your games!” Rebekah snaps, stepping out of the shade of the trees into the fading light. “Give it back.”
“And what might you think I have?” Agatha asks, fluttering her eyelashes.
“You know what you stole!”
“Stole? A poor young woman like me?”
“You play with me now, but I am not leaving without it!”
Agatha laughs. “You let it be stolen from you so easily. Why should you have it back?”
Rebekah steps closer. “I was near to trusting you, a fellow witch.”
“And the fool for you to do so,” Agatha taunts. “If you want your Philadelphia journey, you will have to take it.”
“I would not fight you, give it me.”
Agatha shrugs. “And why? You seem to have little power to me.” She scoffs loudly. “Why should I fear you? Why should I not take this boat to Philadelphia myself from such a poor, talentless witch?”
“Give it back!” Rebekah shouts.
Agatha holds up her hands, fingers curled as if about to summon her power. “Make me!”
Suddenly Rebekah dashes forward toward Agatha, not with power raging from her hands but equipped with a knife instead. Agatha’s pulls her arms down just in time to block the slash of Rebekah’s blade with one forearm. She cries out in pain and jumps back.
“Hand it over!”
She lunges at Agatha again, allowing Agatha only seconds to evade. Rebekah pivots and slashes out, this timing hitting Agatha’s other arm with a deeper gash.
Agatha screams. “Ahh, you cunt!”
“Give it!” Rebekah snaps and she grabs hold of Agatha’s gown.
Agatha twists in her grasp, clawing her nails down Rebekah’s cheek. The other woman screams but does not let go. Agatha tries to grab her wrist and get the knife away. Then Rebekah cracks Agatha in the chin with her elbow. It distracts her enough to allow Rebekah to stab at Agatha’s stomach. Agatha tries to twist away but she feels the knife pierce flesh. Agatah screams in pain and fury, her hand still around Rebekah’s knife arm. When Rebekah pulls the knife back, aiming for a second blow, Agatha twists Rebekah’s wrist until she hears something break. Rebekah drops the knife and staggers backward.
“Enough!” Agatha cries, holding up her hands so her purple power crackles between them. “Fight me like a witch!”
She pulls back slowly, holding her hands up high. Rebekah finally takes the bait and shoots out white energy from her uninjured hand right at Agatha. With a sigh of relief and joy, Agatha relaxes her hands. She feels the power flow into her, wave after wave, licking inside her around her chest, down her legs and up her arms, crackling and invigorating and all hers now. Wave after wave floods into her and Agatha drinks it in with joy.
Rebekah staggers, falling to her knees as her power surges forth into Agatha. As she begins to scream, Agatha crosses her arms and cuts off the stream. Rebekah falls dead in the dirt, her face a sunken husk.
Agatha turns around, back toward Boston, and perhaps a true bed for the night. As the tingle of power fades, the wound in Agatha’s side suddenly radiates pain through her body where the power once coursed. Agatha groans, looking down in surprise and presses a hand against her stomach. Blood flows from the knife wound there. In the flurry of the fight, she thought Rebekah’s attack had only been surface, but the wound feels far deep now.
“Blast,” Agatha groans, a dizziness creeping in.
Agatha’s knees begin to feel weak, and her stomach churns with nausea. She holds up her other hand, purple power flickering between her fingers. She tries to think of how she could use the power to save herself, but nothing comes. Her power does not heal. All that time, all that work to get Rebekah here and finally gain more power, for nothing? She breathes in deeply, wincing at the pain, trying to think of a plan, anything to do. She cannot fail now.
Then Agatha sees her standing across the clearing, the figure of a woman, watching, waiting.
Rio wears a dark green cloak, hood over her hair, unbound and long over her shoulders. The forest seems to ripple and recede, to lean toward her and shrink away at once. The last rays of the sun light her up with a glow, as if the sun focuses upon her as it sets. Nothing about her seems normal or mortal now.
“Who are you?” Agatha asks, trying to catch her breath.
“Do you not know me?”
Agatha winces as she stands up straight as she can. “Should I?”
Rio dips her head, a shadow from her hood over her eyes. “You have been in my presence before today.”
Agatha clenches her jaw. “When?”
“When you gave me a coven of witches, in a dark forest, with a power newly possessed.”
Then the fading light shifts over Rio’s face. Agatha cannot tell if Rio moves or the light bends around her, afraid of what it touches. Darkness hallows beneath her eyes, shadows accent the bridge of her nose, her cheeks appear sallow and her teeth… her teeth bare without lips. A skull stares back at Agatha.
Rio speaks again, her face still and her voice slipping through Agatha’s mind. “Do you know me now?”
Her hood slips back, hair ripples around Rio’s sharp cheeks, a wind called from eons past the birth of covens and the Darkhold and the earth Agatha stands upon. Twigs tangle up in Rio’s hair, shiny and black, five jagged points forming a crown, a crown of thorns. The green of her dress appears darker, a match to the grass and trees and vines around them, as if growing up over her from the dirt under her boots. The setting sun glints on the bone of her face, polished as pearl. Her eyes gaze into Agatha’s, black yet bright like fire, as bright as burning wood and ropes and flesh, screaming for mercy.
Agatha thinks Rio looks more radiant than anything she has ever seen before.
“You see me as I am,” Rio’s voice says.
“I do,” Agatha replies.
“Are you afraid?”
“No.”
The bare of teeth seems to recede, showing a pink of Rio’s lips once more. “Why not?”
“You met me before.” The corner of Agatha’s lip quirks up. “And spared me.”
“It was not your time then.”
Agatha pulls her hand away from her wound and looks down at them. “Did you give me this… power?”
“Death does not give, it takes.”
Death, the original Green Witch, beautiful death.
Agatha raises her eyebrows, casting a glance at the body behind her. “Like me.” Her fingers curl, claws holding empty air, blood wet on her palm. “And now you’ve come to take me?”
All semblance of peach skin disappears from the bleached bone of Rio’s face, her hair tangling about her crown and hands raised, with palms upward in a mockery of supplication. “Yes.”
Agatha breathes in deeply – sees her mother’s face, her harsh words, years of the same expression of disapproval, the glow of power washing into Agatha, of the feeling of freedom from fear, nothing which could save her now. Nothing, except her wiles and her wits.
“Unless…” Agatha says, shifting her weight back and mirroring Rio’s upturned palms.
The bone recedes into shadow, into warm brown eyes, into a hint of pinked lips. “Unless?”
“Unless I have a better idea.” She looks back at the body behind her. She turns back to Rio, purple power crackling between the fingers of her right hand. She cocks her head. “If you’re game?”
The sun sets in that moment, the light fully gone and Agatha’s eyes adjusted to the dark. Rio looks as when Agatha met her, a smile on her lips and hood pulled up over her dark hair once more. Suddenly the pain in Agatha’s stomach seems to fade, more like an ache than a wound. She presses one hand against the spot where the other witch drove her knife and feels the tear in her dress, the wet of her blood, but no wound, no ragged flesh. Rio purses her lips, steps forward and turns her right hand around to slip it into Agatha’s bloody hand. Agatha curls her fingers around Rio’s and Rio squeezes.
“I’m game.”
Rio pulls Agatha flush against her by their joined hands. She slides her palm up Agatha’s cheek and into Agatha’s hair. Her fingers flick over pins, each one dropping from the mess Agatha’s hair had become in her fight, to simply falling loose around her face. Rio’s eyes appear hungry, desireful, dangerous and Agatha thinks, memento mori.
Rio’s lips press against Agatha’s, gentle at first, then harder and more fevered. Agatha kisses her back, unable to do more than hold tightly to Rio’s waist with her one arm. Rio tastes like honey and Jasmine, smells like roses and myrrh. Her fingernails scratch at the back of Agatha’s neck with urgency. Her hand tight in Agatha’s presses between their bosoms, a promise of something more, much more. Through the hard press of lips and swirling of her head, Agatha thinks she has never tasted or touched anything as divine before. If this be the sweet release of death spoken of, Agatha would give herself over now.
“Mors vincit omnia,” Rio whispers over Agatha’s lips, as if she heard Agatha’s thoughts before.
Agatha breathes out slowly, heart beating fast, then grins wide. “What fun we shall have.”
Rio smiles back. “Such fun, my pretty sweeting.”