Page 13 of A Time of Witches

“And they mean to do more?” Edith asked, her ruddy face going pale. The woodlark flew down from the branches and hopped anxiously at her feet.

Kat nodded. “They say he’s coming here next.”

“Do you think he’s the cause?” Sybil asked, unable to feel her lips as they moved. “Do you think the threat is…” She hesitated, hating to even voice the man’s name, as if doing so gave him power. The very man who committed those poor women in Manningtree to their deaths by accusing them of witchcraft. A man whose bloody hands were not wet enough.

The man who called himself the Witchfinder General.

Sybil swallowed and tried again. “Do you think the threat is Matthew Hopkins?”

All at once, a cloud of magpies erupted from the weeping birch trees, an ominous cast of iridescent wings whipping feverishly against stark white bodies.

Thirteen.

Eleven magpies for health,

Twelve for wealth,

Thirteen beware, it’s the Devil himself.

Sybil sat transfixed as the odd-numbered cluster of birds soared overhead, then landed in a perfect circle around the women and their animals. Brixton flicked his tail at the one nearest him and stamped a hoof into the soft earth. The birds did not move.

“We must prepare, my sisters,” Edith said. “We must protect ourselves.”

For they were indeed sisters, chosen by the earth to share the power from the deepest roots in the ground to the crest of a watching moon.

Kat lay a blanket on the ground before her and transferred her sleeping daughter to the soft surface. The red squirrel hopped from Kat’s shoulder and sat before the sleeping infant, tail twitching with alert vigilance.

Each woman then turned to the baskets at their side, all filled with innocuous items for their tasks. Items that could draw the power of nature for any spell required.

From Sybil’s basket of herbal remedies, she withdrew several sprigs of rosemary. Edith produced a small sack of salt while Kat studied a sprinkling of several polished jet chips that could be easily sewn into a garment. “We could curse him,” she suggested.

“That is not our way,” Edith reminded her gently. “Work with love, not hate.”

Kat gazed down where her sleeping daughter lay nestled beside the little red squirrel. “Oh, I’ve got love aplenty.” But when she looked up, her eyes hardened. “But I’ve hate aplenty too, especially for men the likes of Matthew Hopkins and the magistrate.”

Kat was always willing to push a little too far, to go beyond what the earth wanted to give.

But Sybil did not want either of those men in her mind as they worked the charm. “Let us clear our hearts and minds.”

She filled her lungs with fresh air and exhaled away all thoughts of witch trials and wicked men.

“We seek protection.” Edith sifted a pinch of salt into the grass in the form of a circle.

The wind stirred, bowing the grass and ruffling the feathers of the tiding of magpies surrounding them.

“Protection for ourselves.” Kat laid the black stone chips among the dots of salt in the grass.

The honeysuckle perfume in the air intensified.

“And protection for our loved ones.” Sybil scattered the needlelike rosemary leaves across the sacred circle.

The hum of the earth vibrated as power gathered around them.

Each woman grasped the hand of the woman next to her—palm to palm, fingers entwined. A current of energy ran through them, cold and hot and charged with a unified strength.

All at once, the magpies burst skyward in a wild disarray, as if the ground burned them.

“We seek protection, for ourselves and for our loved ones.” They spoke in unison, bound together through age and love and the magic of the earth.