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safarigirlsp · 1 year

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Salem Jacques Le Gris x Witch Reader

Word Count: 23.5k

Warnings: NSFW. Smut. Horror Themes. Dark Themes. Graphic Violence. Gruesome Horror. Gore. Guns. Hanging. Burning at the Stake. Old Timey Sexism. Black Magic. Good Times with Witchcraft. Revenge Through Witchcraft. Violence Against Women and Men, but They Deserve It. Light Violence Against Reader. Canon-Consistent Rape, Not by Jacques and Not of Reader. Half-Assed Puritan Values. Virgin Reader. ☠️ Margeurite ☠️

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For Thanksgiving, have a Halloween fic instead! Please enjoy this horror story for I Put A Spell On You Saturday. Notes of The Witch, Dracula, The Scarlet Letter, and Sleepy Hollow. Edits by the wickedly talented @kyloremus 🍂🍁🍂

Salem, Massachusetts Bay Colony, 1692

The Season of the Witch swept over the New England countryside like a wildfire, catching every leaf ablaze in hues of reds, oranges, and yellows. Autumn was the season when those wise in the ways of the old world knew that the veil was thinnest between the spirit and the corporeal worlds, and October was the pinnacle of devilry and witchcraft. Every good and pure God-fearing man, woman, and child in Salem knew this. They knew that sin and wickedness lurked in every shadow, lying in wait to prey upon the innocent. They knew as autumn bled toward the cold death of winter and the supernatural veil grew diaphanously thin, they must be more pious, more vigilant in the war against evil and those sinful enough to corrupt their very souls.

A darkness as deadly bleak as any ancient curse from Scot’s infamous work The Discoverie of Witchcraft held the people of Salem in its nefarious grip as the leaves began to change colors in the fall of 1692. Just as every Puritan knew his first psalms, he knew that the Devil Himself walked among them. Sometimes as a black animal -- a cat, a horse, a goat, a dog. Sometimes as a dangerously handsome man or a seductively beautiful woman. The Devil hunted for souls to steal and condemn to the fires of Hell from those weak or impure enough to succumb to his charms. The Devil would use every tool at his disposal in his pursuit of souls, from bargaining to stealing to seduction. It was He who was responsible for every impure thought and impulse that crossed the mind or entered the heart of a person. He was the bete noire who weighed down the shoulders of pious men. Their souls were forfeit as soon as they succumb to their desires, the darker the deadlier.

Everyone knew the most tantalizing souls were those of young women. They were also the most easily corrupted. The weaker sex in body and mind, women were often too frail and meek to fend off dastardly advances, making for succulent and easy prey. The Devil’s influence was easily spotted in tainted women. Women who read and thought for themselves, those who disobeyed men, those who had an affinity for animals, those possessed of superior beauty, and most salacious of all, those who rebelled. These proclivities were all evidence that the woman had turned away from the light in favor of walking the path of darkness. The lefthand path of witchcraft.

Witches were in league with the Devil, gaining their macabre powers from Satan Himself. They were his agents, walking among the good people like wolves amidst a flock of sheep. Their insidious malediction could infect other women and their immoral vices could seduce and corrupt men. Witches and their wicked craft had to be rooted out, a pestilence that must be razed from the community to ensure the safety of those good people who would otherwise become witches’ prey. Sometimes, a pious man could even save the witch herself from an eternity spent in the fires of Hell. Although too late to save her cursed flesh, a witch could save her soul by recanting before she walked to the gallows or the pyre.

It was a curse of its own to be the most beautiful woman in Salem. Instead of being prized and admired, you were shunned and distrusted. Speculation sparked in your wake without you doing a thing to merit it. Men lusted for you in secret and darkness, but in the transparency of daylight, they looked at you with disapproval to appease their women. Women envied you and hated you. They all knew beauty such as yours was unnatural. They all knew your great beauty was granted through dealings with the Devil. They knew you used your spells to put wicked impure thoughts into the minds of men and envious bitter thoughts into the minds of women.

They knew it, even if they could never prove it.

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The full Harvest Moon hung high in the midnight sky, painting the forest below in silvery light. The icy air that blew through your nightdress and the frosty ground under your bare feet should have made you shiver as you walked through the woods, but you felt toasty warm. Some impulse, dark and fascinating, drew you deeper and deeper into the trees. Feminine laughter, light and lilting, filled the forest paired with the deeper notes of masculine conversation. You were summoned toward the voices that harmonized in your ears like a spellbinding incantation.

A clearing materialized through the trees ahead of you. Moonlight dappled golden leaves that littered the ground like coins in a dragon’s lair, and the flames of a large bonfire licked high into the starry sky. The heady scent of arousal and embers filled your nose, spiced with something exotic you couldn’t place. You stopped dead at the edge of the trees when you were finally afforded a view of the bonfire. Your vision was blurred at first, only pale shapes formed before you with two black figures. A smoky wolf with a coat as black as pitch circled the bonfire like a kill and an equally black hazy goat pranced on its hind legs and shook its curved horns.

Smoke stung your eyes and you rubbed them. When you lowered your hands, the scene before you stood in stark clarity. The shadowy animals had disappeared, but what you saw now was much more disturbing. You stood, hypnotized by the theater of sin playing out before your very eyes.

Completely and brazenly nude, several women danced around the fire. If their lascivious movements could be described as dancing. They writhed and contorted, twisted and shuddered, as they moved counterclockwise around the bonfire. They chanted as they danced, running their hands over their bodies, through their hair and shaking it wantonly. But the women were not who commanded your attention and held it firm. Inside the circle of women were two stark naked men. Both men were tall, broad, and strongly built. One man was adorned with blonde hair and the larger, more powerful man sported a long mane of glossy black and a beard to match. That man was unlike any man you had ever seen or even imagined, dangerously handsome, with firelight gleaming in his lupine eyes. They caressed the women who danced by them, content for now to wait for the women to make the first advance. Their voices were deep and clear as they talked conversationally to each other and offered a woman an occasional laugh or compliment, seemingly unbothered by their full demanding erections that bobbed freely.

Naturally, you had never seen a naked man before except once by accident and then it had been under the stress of extreme embarrassment by both parties. That experience had left you with the notion that the male body was frailer and weaker than it looked when clothed beneath thick layers, and that their appendage that was the subject of so much speculation among girls and duress among women was little more than a pathetic shriveled thing that hid between their legs. You had never imagined a man could grow so intimidatingly long and girthy, like the erection the black-haired man boasted. Muscles you didn’t know existed tightened deep inside you like a cord being wound tight, while other regions within you melted like butter too near a stove.

Two women, a voluptuous redhead and a pale blonde, buttressed the black-haired man. They ran their hands over his body, following the ridges of muscle that were glossed molten gold by the fire. The redhead kissed along his collarbone and across his incredible chest as the man groaned low with pleasure and the blonde dropped to her knees on the ground before him. Even before the blonde’s tongue flicked out to the lick the man’s erection like a hungry dog, you knew that everything you were watching was a felony sin that would send everyone here straight to Hell. Perhaps even you, just for watching. You watched anyway. The heat inside you was now boiling. The man fisted one hand roughly in the blonde’s hair and thrust his hips forward, shoving his cock straight down her throat. He didn’t release her when she choked and her eyes watered and only thrust into her again, but she was soon enjoying herself and bobbing her head to save him the effort. While the blonde occupied herself on her knees, he licked and kissed the redhead’s impressive breasts and then devoured her mouth while his free hand dipped between her thighs to pump his thick fingers into her.

The other man, the blonde, was likewise engaged with a pair of women, another petite blonde and a statuesque brunette. He had the brunette bent over and drove himself into her while he slavered over the tits of the blonde who stood before him. Even in the most compromising of positions and with his features contorted in such a way as to look almost pained, you recognized him. He was one of the most esteemed men in Salem, Magistrate D’Alencon. The thought broke into your mind so intrusively it was like a gunshot on a quiet night.

Your epiphany was so loud it seemed the black-haired man heard it too. His head snapped up to attention, instantly alert, despite the undaunted ministrations of the two women. He spotted you at once where you stood in the trees at the edge of the clearing, and his eyes locked onto yours. His eyes were as ferocious as they were alluring, the force of his gaze so disarming you felt your knees weaken and a swirl of something deep and dark rouse within you. A rush unlike anything you had ever felt consumed you as though you were drowning in sensation. You couldn’t tell if it was from the dashing man or from within yourself. Somehow his scent reached you, masculine and musky with notes of spicy embers and pine. When it filled your lungs, your mind swam with visions of you in the place of those other women, with the man’s attention on you and you alone, giving you pleasure so forbidden that it must certainly be the most terrible of all sins.

The vision of giving yourself to this man was the most exquisite fantasy your mind had ever conjured. But the thought of it repelled you, incensed you until it was anger that burned within you in place of desire. You would never share your man, nor allow yourself to be shared in turn. You wanted this man above all others, but you would have him for yourself alone. Just as that jealous anger flushed through you, so did hatred for those women, those whores, who now received the pleasure you wanted all to yourself. Before you could force the impulse away, you wished each of them dead with a vehemence you had rarely set free.

Did the man hear your thoughts? Surely, he must have because he grinned at you, knowing and wicked, and his eyes brightened with an unnatural amber gleam until they glowed like the fires of Hell as they burned into yours.

Do not see me. Do not see me yet. He willed you with his thoughts, and although his lips didn’t move, you heard the rich command of his voice echo in your mind clear as day. Even as he spoke, the sight of him began to fade, but you pushed back against his will. You clamped down defiantly on the sight before you with your mind, holding it fast and engraving it upon your memory.

You did see him, by God, and he was a sight you would remember until your dying day.

That’s when you awoke with a start, sitting bolt upright in your bed. You were alone in the dark of your bedroom with only your black cat for company, who looked up at you with irritation from where she lay curled on your mattress beside you. The light of the full moon shone in through your window, mixing with the dwindling embers of the fire that had burned down in your hearth. Your thin nightdress clung to your body with sweat and your inner thighs were sticky wet. The spiced pine scent of the mysterious man lingered as a faint perfume on the air inside your bedroom, a room in which no man had ever so much as entered during your tenure.

A dream? you wondered, although you had never had such a dream before. A premonition? Had you seen a glimpse into the past or perhaps a window to the future? The thought was both enticing and frightening. A vision? you hoped not because visions were the hallmark of witches and enough in and of themselves to secure you a short drop and a sudden stop. Whatever it was, you recalled every detail in the vivid clarity reserved for life-altering events.

Desire. Arousal. Pleasure. Anger. Jealousy. Vengeance. If this was your first brush with witchcraft and the Devil’s sin, you wanted more. The realization excited you even more than it terrified you.

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The week passed with uneventful dullness as you went on about your routine, but the scent of pine was never far away. Whenever your mind wandered, it returned to the sinful moonlit clearing and the devilishly handsome man from your dream.

For the good people of Salem, the church service on Sunday was the most important event of the week. Anyone who made it a habit of missing church was noticed by the community, their name inscribed in the town’s collective black book. Your name had a permanent spot on that list, so it was prudent for you to attend church religiously even if it was a pro forma affair.

This particular Sunday, the church house was even more crowded with black-clad patrons than usual. You noticed groups of huddled conversation outside the church as you hurried down the dusty road toward its entrance, hugging your plain wool coat tight around your body to fight against the morning chill. You always drew attention, not just for your beauty but because you walked alone without the company of a man of your own or an appropriate escort. Today, the tone of the looks cast your direction held even more judgement and an added seasoning of malice. On every lip was the whisper of witchcraft and rumors frothed like a bubbling cauldron as accusatory eyes followed you.

From the fragments of conversation you heard as you passed, you surmised that a young woman had been killed in a violent accident just outside of town. A newcomer traveling from New York to meet her betrothed and take her place as the new school mistress. A redhead, allegedly beautiful and pure. A bridge had given way as her carriage had crossed over it, sending the carriage and the woman trapped inside to plunge down into the icy river below. The carriage had trapped her inside as she drowned to become her frozen sepulcher under the current.

It was tragic, you supposed, but accidents happened. Your mind drifted back to the redhead from your dream, the whore who had dared to lay her filthy hands on the man you had decided was yours alone. But you thought little of it other than hearing of one redhead naturally triggered your memory of another.

Salem’s wealthiest and most upstanding citizen, Magistrate Pierre D’Alencon, stood on the church steps, smiling at patrons just as affably as his wife nodded to them sternly. There was more cause for excitement. Pierre announced to several prominent men within your earshot that he had finally filled the coveted position of Minister that had been officially vacant for months. The role of minister had been temporarily covered by a surly stand-in who could barely read Latin, an unpleasant man named Latour. Pierre gave no details about the new minister other than to assure the man had his explicit blessing as both a friend and a pious man after his own heart. You smiled politely at Pierre as you passed him and the smile he returned was warm and brotherly. Try as you might, you couldn’t picture the honorable magistrate engaged in the most wanton of pursuits in the forest with a flock of women, and another man, no less.

Trying to draw as little attention as possible, you weaved through the crowd in search of a seat in the back row of pews. No such luck. The seats you considered best were often snagged early by recalcitrant teenage boys hoping to nap unnoticed through the sermon. The church was nearly full by the time you squeezed down the aisle and took one of the few remaining seats in the front row next to a woman you considered a friend, Marguerite, and her insufferable boor of a husband. His unfortunate haircut could be spotted from a hundred yards away and his intrusive body odor scented from only slightly closer. Perhaps she had been cursed by a witch and destined to live in misery and disgrace with her troll of a husband. She was all too happy to turn away from him to you when you seated yourself beside her. The two of you fell into easy gossip and whispered speculation about the new minister.

You were still whispering with Marguerite, a sentiment partially formed on your lips, when you felt a silent demand for your attention. Mid-sentence, you looked to the elevated lectern at the front of the church. There was no mistaking the tall, broad-shouldered man with long ebony hair who stood behind it. The literal man of your dreams. He was darkly handsome in a way that was both dashing and dastardly. And he looked directly at you, his aurous eyes glinting golden in the morning light when they pierced yours. His mustache twitched with the barest of smirks when he noted the way your eyes widened with surprise. He seemed to recognize you too, offering you the slightest nod of a bow. His gesture went unnoticed by every other patron, including Marguerite, who nudged you with her elbow to finish the sentence you had broken off.

The breath to answer Marguerite had not yet returned to your lungs when the man’s voice boomed throughout the church, captivating every guest and ceasing all chatter. His words were eloquent and his timbre rich and masculine, but you didn’t register the content until he introduced himself and his name became etched upon your mind forevermore. Jacques Le Gris. He told the tale of his journey to New England from France at the behest of his oldest and dearest friend, Magistrate D'Alencon. He regaled how he was looking forward to experiencing the religious freedom the colonies were said to offer, and how he condemned the religious persecution back in Europe.

“Here, nothing prevents a man from exploring the full depths of piety to reach new heights untold.” The echo of his voice off the church walls was mesmerizing. His eyes met yours when he added, “Or a woman from being filled with the glorious reverence she can only experience from the truly devoted.”

A green prong of jealousy pierced your heart when you realized that you were not the only woman who had such a primal reaction to the new minister. Unbeknownst to the husbands, fathers, and brothers who chaperoned the women in attendance, their thighs clenched, they shifted in their seats, their bodices grew tight as their chests heaved, and their skin blushed with embarrassed excitement. And you hated them all for it, for the audacity to desire the man you had claimed for your own in your dreams. Beside you, Marguerite too was affected, biting her bottom lip and rubbing her thighs together. To covet is a great sin, and to even think is to covet. Lust and envy coursed through your veins in every drop of your blood from the mere sight of the man. Jacques Le Gris had done nothing untoward himself, simply give the audience his charming attention. The hairs on the back of your neck prickled when you let your mind wander to thoughts of the other sinful emotions he could so easily arouse in you.

Do not be jealous, belle fleur. You heard his chocolatey voice inside your head as though he whispered directly in your ear. It had to be nothing more than the lascivious voice of your own imagination because even though his eyes held yours, the minister still addressed the congregation. There are far more decadent sins to indulge.

The knowledge that witches heard voices and could be hung for no more than such an admission, intruded into your mind. You weren’t a witch, you decided. You couldn’t be a witch. You tried to force all the sinful thoughts and images from your consciousness. Easier said than done. Steeling your eyes on the minster’s, you mentally slammed the door in his face. He had not been speaking to you through your minds, certainly not, but the mental image made you feel much better about the matter. And the way he jerked his head almost imperceptibly and blinked in surprise, although surely incidental to your inner rebuff, gave you a wicked sense of delight.

After the sermon, Minister Le Gris was swarmed by men who wanted to thank him and ingratiate themselves with him and by women who wanted a closer look at the newcomer. Many of the women had never seen a male specimen as impressive and they didn’t know a man could be so well-built and handsome. While his new acolytes surrounded him, you slipped away through the crowd, unable to get away quickly enough from the cloying populace. With the same intrusiveness you had felt before, you knew that there was only one person Jacques wanted to introduce himself to properly. You. The smell of pine and musk encircled you as you hurried out of the church doors into the fresh morning air.

Outside, Marguerite grabbed your arm. She too had rushed outside like a drowning woman aiming for the surface, while Carroughes had bullied his way into an audience with Jacques and Pierre. The pair of you scurried away from the church to a place you could speak in private against the wall of a blacksmith’s shed. She was your best and most trusted friend, and you had always valued her input on trying matters. When the storm of witchcraft had first cast its shadow over Salem, you and she had each aired your skepticism to one another and your belief that this was all a way for the men of the world to keep unruly women, such as yourselves, subdued. That had been before her terrible misfortune of being married off to Carroughes by an indebted father.

The thoughts that swirled in your mind so excited and flustered you that you didn’t act with the caution a woman in Salem ought to employ as second nature. Before you even knew your course, you were purging your secret fears to Marguerite. Her eyes widened but she didn’t comment when you told her that you thought you may have had a vision, that you had seen the new minister’s face, and naked body, in the woods in your dream. You didn’t mention the unknown redheaded woman you had seen in your dream who died violently only days later or that the other harlot bore a striking resemblance to a mutual acquaintance named Marie. By the end of your story, Marguerite was as frightened as you. But she was your friend, and you knew she would never betray you or your friendship.

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It so happened that Marguerite had no intentions of betraying you, but her intentions hardly mattered. Innocently but cavalierly, Marguerite gossiped her concerns about you to her friend. Marie was a homely girl with pale lifeless blonde hair, a squat physique, and dull bovine eyes. She had little excitement in life other than to churn the problems of others like butter while making light of her own litany of shortcomings.

Eager to elevate herself above her sinful peers, Marie transformed Marguerite’s concerns into an accusation when Marie relayed them to her old, doddering husband, Latour. Latour, the good and pious man that he was, saw the recounting of your dream for what it clearly was -- evidence that you were a witch in league with the devil. Satan’s whore, casting her spell over the good men and innocent women of Salem.

Armed with this convincing spectral evidence against you, Latour took his concerns to the Crown Prosecutor, who was none other than Marguerite’s abhorrent husband. The circle of treachery against you was complete when the allegation fell into Carroughes’s sausage fingers.

As fast as Carroughes’s horse could carry him, he generated the warrant he had his conniving mother draft on account of his own illiteracy and rushed it onto the desk of Magistrate D’Alencon. Like a black cloud, Carroughes hovered waiting until Pierre begrudgingly signed the warrant out of fear of dereliction of duty should he decline it. One woman, innocent or guilty, was of no consequence to him. Women were frivolous, but an accusation of witchcraft was to be taken most seriously.

Gushing with tears and fraught with guilt, Marguerite ensured a warning reached you before the warrant was formally issued with the Magistrate’s wax seal.

You could think of only one person who could help you, although he could just as easily arrest you on the spot himself. The new minister had absolutely no reason to help you and every reason to see you hang as a witch, both to protect the good people of Salem and to inculcate himself fully into their ranks.

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Pink had just begun to glow in the East as you rode to the church, hoping to find the minister before the rigors of his day began. It was a stroke of good fortune that you found him playing host to Pierre. Instead of being refreshed to begin the day from a good night’s sleep, the unlikely pair of men looked as though they had kept the nocturnal hours of wolves. Their clothes were hastily buttoned, their faces bore the haggard edge that came with little sleep, Pierre’s blonde bob was matted and Jacques’s long hair was in wild disarray. You also noticed the fresh wet mud that still caked his boots, as if he had just returned from a walk, or some other nighttime pursuit, deep in the forest.

“I apologize for the intrusion,” you said immediately upon seeing the state of the men standing in Jacques’s new office. A large trunk half-filled with books sat with its lid open near a commanding desk. Some of the books had already been shelved, the rest still awaiting their new homes.

“Intrude?” Jacques asked with a warm smile, the tiredness leaving his eyes at the sight of you. “You couldn’t possibly.” He glanced sideways at Pierre, flashing a smirk. “We only just returned from a tour of the church grounds and an introduction to some industrious women who graciously offered us breakfast.” You noted that he didn’t volunteer the names of these hospitable women.

“Yes, yes, all the ladies are eager to make your introduction.” Pierre nodded at you as he spoke to Jacques with a note of jealousy in his voice, not unlike a covetous wife.

“I have wanted to make your acquaintance, more than any other,” Jacques said to you, ignoring Pierre as he walked to stand before you. His chest almost brushed yours and his presence was looming and towering as he was. “I fear I was unable to make the impression I desired upon our first encounter.”

He did not elaborate as to whether the first meeting with you to which he referred was his introduction in church, or the prurience you had witnessed in your midnight dream. Nevertheless, he was nothing but a gallant gentleman when he bowed with a magnificent flourish upon learning your name.

“Please call me Jacques. I am a man first before I am a minister.” He took your hand in his strong warm grip. Inclining his head, he regarded you with an unnervingly steady and unblinking gaze. His unspoken demeanor conveyed that he longed to dispose of your every last trouble and hardship, vanquishing them all like a knight slaying dragons for his queen.

Before you could answer, Pierre stated matter-of-factly, “A warrant for the young lady’s arrest for witchcraft came to my chambers only yesterday, brought to me personally by the Crown Prosecutor.” He again shared a private grin with Jacques. “This was the matter that brought me to you last night, before we became embroiled in other, far more pleasant matters.”

You froze. Seeing the terror on your face, they both immediately put you at ease. Keeping your hand in his, Jacques explained, "The good Magistrate here knows that there is no such thing as witches.” His eyes lingered on yours and his lips twitched as they had in church with a barely restrained grin. “Furthermore, I will not allow any friend of mine to entertain the idea that the prettiest woman in New England is a witch.”

“Fortunately for you, my dear,” Pierre addressed you directly. “Before the warrant came to me for a signature, Jacques had already inquired of me who you were.” He laughed and added, “I wouldn’t be much of a friend if I signed a warrant for witchcraft for the woman who has caught his eye.” He forced a serious expression onto his features and told you, “But you should know that first I tried to discourage him from you, I did my very best to poison him against you. Even an accusation is serious. I hope you appreciate that I could not dissuade him in his pursuit of you. Think better of him for it!”

“Nothing so inconsequential as witchcraft could deter me,” Jacques teased and puffed his chest, trying to make light.

“Do not even jest in such a way in Salem, my friend,” Pierre scolded him seriously. “I denied the warrant for this lovely woman solely because she caught your eye, but her warrant was but one of many that crossed my desk only yesterday. One reason I could show a crumb of leniency for one woman is because I signed warrants for three others.” He waved his hand with irritation. “Each was no doubt equally frivolous, but if I deny more than I grant, it will be my neck in the noose next!”

“Frightened men and bitter women wield this hysteria to greater effect than a sword,” Jacques scowled but stroked his thumb soothingly over your knuckles. It was with resolve when he added to Pierre, “It seems I arrived here just in time.” Jacques took your free hand, now holding both your hands in both of his. His eyes seemed to look into the most hidden depths of you, as though he had loved you in another lifetime, when he spoke to you. “But it was you, ma belle, who summoned me here, not the Magistrate. I have spent all my life in search of a woman to elevate herself above all others, but until you, I searched in vain.” He raised your hands to kiss each one, letting his lips linger on your skin. “You did not dream of me in isolation, cherie. We dreamt of each other.”

“Yes, well, all this romantic nonsense aside.” Pierre waved his hand again as if talk of love was a bad smell he wanted to clear from the room. “Jacques is the only man here who may be able to offer you some protection from the persecution you face, for it is far from over.”

“But a warrant was not issued against me and you as a Magistrate denied it.” You looked incredulously from Pierre back to Jacques. “Does that not end the matter?”

“No, I’m afraid not,” Jacques answered, shaking his head. “Carroughes, the Crown Prosecutor, is a man I’ve dealt with before. He’s stupid, belligerent, and wholly insufferable, but when it comes to pursuing his prey, he is as dogged as they come. Like a hunter who misses his first shot, he will fire another.” He squeezed your hands more firmly. “And remember, cherie, the evidence needed to hang you can be as tenuous as the strand of a spider’s web. You cannot afford to make a single misstep.”

“Misstep?” Pierre scoffed. “You needn’t even make a mistake at all! So called witnesses against you merely have to say they think you a witch; that they feel ill at ease in your presence; that they’ve dreamed of your wicked ways.” He looked pointedly at Jacques. “The dye has been cast and she is already in Carroughes’s sights. I think you are too late to put up an effective defense.”

“I’m happy to bring the fight to Carroughes.” Jacques grinned like the Devil Himself.

“If you do, your pretty little witch here will get caught in the crossfire,” Pierre replied, raising his hand to ward off an argument. Lowering his hand, he rapped his knuckles on the worn bible on Jacques’s desk. “As the holiest man in Salem,” Pierre’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “Your honor is almost beyond contestation. Let your piety be her shield.”

“The role of a minister has never truly suited me until now.” Jacques smiled wide, all but beaming at you. “How could anyone think you a witch when you’re in the company of an upstanding minister such as myself?”

“If I am in your company, it will create gossip about me, will it not?” you asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Let them gossip,” Jacques laughed at the notion. “Let them focus on seeing romance budding instead of witchcraft brewing.”

“Jacques, you old fox,” Pierre affirmed, even though he had been the mastermind. “Chaperoning the most beautiful woman in New England and using your priest’s collar as a cover.”

“Even if you can keep me safe from the hangman’s noose, what of my reputation as a maiden?” you asked, fighting the urge to employ the same level of sarcasm Pierre had adopted. “What will people say of my virtue once they see me gallivanting in your company.”

“Are you worried about it hindering your ability to find a husband?” Jacques asked, calling your bluff. “Rest assured, cherie, that all men desire the woman possessed by another.” He met your eyes and lowered his voice to a rumble. “Should you still find yourself in want of a husband after the storm of witchcraft has passed, that is.”

“Rest assured, mon ami,” you spoke to Jacques in the same lilt he used to tease you and looked pointedly at the mud on his boots. “I will never be in want of a husband who enjoys such rambunctious nighttime outings in the forest.”

“Ah, but I think you would enjoy such outings, provided they were kept between us alone.” He stepped closer to you until you could feel the heat off his body. “Perhaps, I’ll show you how much pleasure one can find out under the full moon in good company.”

“Perhaps, you should decide if you intend to be my salvation or my corruption.” You flashed him a devious smile that would have gotten you hanged on the spot in the wrong company.

“I look forward to showing you how much you’ll savor it when I do both.” He winked at you, and you felt your body begin to respond the same it had on the night of your dream.

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After spending so much time in solitude, it was a strange feeling to have such a conspicuous escort when Jacques walked you home after your business had been concluded. He chatted with you pleasantly and kept a respectful distance from you, showing you what a fine gentleman he could be. Your cottage was out of town, outside of the protections of the community that many men insisted were mandatory for a single woman such as yourself. Jacques made no such insistences, but only remarked upon the beauty of the wilderness in which your home was nestled and the crisp October breeze that rustled ember-colored leaves along your path.

At the front door to your cottage, he rested his hand on the door frame and leaned toward you. You both knew that to invite him inside without a proper chaperone would be suicide to what remained of your reputation, even if you did nothing more than enjoy a cup of tea together and remarked upon the weather. Inside, your black cat perched on a windowsill, looking out to judge you both with her narrowed emerald eyes.

However, the propriety Jacques had to observe extended only so far. Looming over you as he rested against your doorframe, he hooked you around the waist with his free arm and pulled you to him. It was the first time you had ever been held by a man flush against his body, but you suspected that most men would not feel as powerful against you nor as hard under your hands where you rested them on his chest. Jacques’s hair fell down around his face and yours in a black veil when he leaned in to kiss you. You expected to relish the taste of him, but you didn’t expect your stomach to whirl with excitement or the surprise of his tongue slipping past your lips, hot and eager. His hand splayed wide on your back, pulling you closer, and your arms flew around his neck as he devoured you.

“Do not speak to anyone of these happenings and rumors of witchcraft,” Jacques told you when he finally pulled back. “Do not go anywhere alone without me until this storm passes.”

“That will inconvenience you greatly.” You leaned back in the circle of his arms and looked up at him.

“I’ll happily let a woman as beautiful as you inconvenience me however you please.” He kissed you again as he swayed with you in his arms.

“To the market? To church? Out for a ride on a nice day?” With each of your questions he nodded and smiled, so you added, “What if I feel like taking a midnight walk in the woods?”

“My company is the best you could possibly find for such an outing,” he growled his answer in a voice that all but rumbled through you.

“You don’t deny the scene I witnessed in my dream?” You raised your eyebrows and placed a hand on his chest to keep him from again closing the distance between you. “You don’t deny the wanton carnality I saw you partake in? The sin that would be enough to hang you right alongside me?”

“Why would I deny it?” Jacques rested his huge hand over yours, pinning it to his chest over his heart like a vow. “I want you for my own, so I will never lie to you. My past is lurid, to be sure, and I won’t lie about it to you. But it is only my future I think of when I look at you, and you will be the only woman in it.”

“I saw the women you were entertaining that night.” You pushed yourself back to gauge the truth or lies as they played across his face, and to punish him for his transgression by separating your bodies. “Was the redhead the woman who died while traveling here? And I recognized the blonde as Marie. Tell me I’m mistaken, that you were not having your way with a married woman.”

“No, you are not mistaken on either score.” Jacques held your gaze, not shifting his eyes from yours nor displaying any guilt or lies. “Unhappily married women make for grateful consorts. Also, for silent ones, as they could be hung as adulteresses. Women like Marie are low hanging fruit, easily plucked and discarded.” He pulled you back into his embrace, ignoring the silent protest of the stiffness in your body. “But know that if I am yours, I shall never be another’s ever again.”

“I could report your lascivious ways,” you teased dangerously.

“Ah, but you are a witch, ma belle sorciere,” he replied with a grin. “Who would believe you?”

“Am I?” You still didn’t know the answer to that question yourself.

“I would know you are a witch even without your visions and your black cat.” He grinned wider, giving no hint as to whether he was still teasing or if he was serious, but he was genuine and his eyes glinted gold when he told you, “You have certainly bewitched me.”

*******************************************************************************************

Another dream came to you that night. Or perhaps it was a vision. The veil separating the two seemed as amorphous as a lingering morning mist.

Clear as a scene that played before your very waking eyes, you saw Marie and felt a hot rush of malice. Far more intense than mere anger, you wanted this vile woman to suffer with all the merciless rage you could contain in your steel heart. She had not only sampled the man you wanted for your own, she had outright betrayed you. Both were trespasses you would never forget, let alone forgive. As you saw her in your dream, going about her dawn chores, you wanted the pound of flesh you were entitled for each of the wrongs she had dealt you. An eye for an eye would not satisfy you, you wanted her head on a platter.

Such are the delicious indulgences one is allowed in dreams.

Marie was in her barn, trying to coax a horse out from its stable to pasture. She shouted at the animal and berated it as she swatted its neck with a coiled rope, each slap landing with stinging force against the horse’s body. You watched, as obscure as a fly on the wall but as omniscient as God, as the horse’s eyes rolled back into its head until they showed only white. Acting like a demon had just jumped inside its skin, the possessed horse reared with an angry whinny and struck out with its front hooves. The horse struck Marie in the face, shattering her nose in an eruption of blood like stomping down on a strawberry. The blow knocked her to the ground, both her hands flying to her nose in a vain attempt to staunch the bleeding.

Ordinarily, a horse would either bolt after striking its owner or calm after eliminating the threat against it. Whether from sustained abuse or witchcraft, Marie’s horse was still consumed by white-eyed madness. The horse reared again as Marie tried to push up to her feet, stomping his front hooves down upon her face and chest. Her homely features were crushed beneath the horse’s hooves and her ribs caved inward like a crate splintered with a sledgehammer. Again and again, the horse reared and stomped his front hooves down upon Marie’s squealing twitching body.

Shouting and swinging his musket, Latour, still in his nightclothes, ran into the barn. He tried to shoot the horse, but his shot was made errant by his shaking hands. The horse shook its head as if sobering and bolted away, leaving Marie convulsing in the dirt. Her face was crumpled and distorted, giving her the look of a partially cooked milky pancake with raspberry puree topping, and her breathing was sputtering and labored through the spears of her broken ribs.

There was no saving her, only prolonging her suffering or ending it quickly. Latour knew this. He reloaded his musket and aimed it at the bloody pit of her face, but his hands shook and he couldn’t bring himself to pull the trigger and give her a merciful death.

Marie doesn’t deserve such leniency, you knew even in your dream. Lying bitch and betrayer that she is. Was.

Latour’s shaking hands dropped his musket as Marie let out a strangled gurgle for help. He ran from the barn in a vain search for help. But with the all-knowing privilege of the dreamer, you knew that death would come slowly and languorously for Marie before her husband could return.

A satisfied euphoria welcomed you when you awoke the next morning. Dawn was bleeding red outside your window and wind whipped through the black trees that surrounded your cottage. Your cat purred beside you on your bed, her green eyes half-lidded and knowingly content. There was nothing like a good dream to start your day, even if it was only a dream and nothing more. You smiled and stretched and went about your day happier than you had been in longer than you cared to remember.

Being gifted with a devilishly handsome and upstanding suitor, and having sinfully fulfilling dreams will do that to a girl, you reasoned.

It was afternoon when your neighbor, a helpful but unappealing man named Louvel, rode to your home at a gallop. Fraught with worry, he asked if you had heard about Marie.

*******************************************************************************************

As he had promised, Jacques arrived with the crowing of the roosters the following morning to escort you about your business. At your door, he greeted you with a dashing smile as he whipped off his plumed hat to give you a gallant bow. He was all smiles and charm, his levity ill-suited to the tragedies befalling the women of Salem. You assumed he must not yet have heard the news of Marie’s violent passing, and decided you did not want to be the bearer of such grim tidings.

“The morning sun is jealous of your radiance,” Jacques crooned as he took your hand and placed a hot kiss to your skin. “But I cannot help but let my mind wander to how the moonlight would become you.”

“I wonder how many other women you’ve practiced that compliment on,” you teased and gave him a judgmentally raised eyebrow.

“Ah, but you mistake my process,” he joked in turn. He took your hand and placed it in the crook of his arm to lead you away from your cottage. “Women pursue me and, on occasion, I let them catch me. But I have not been in the role of the hunter myself for some time. Not until I saw you.”

“And when was it that you first saw me?” you asked, looking at him squarely. “Was it that morning in church? Or one night in a dream?”

“Of course, you are the woman of my dreams, ma belle sorciere!” he complimented you while cunningly sidestepping your question. He led you to your horse that he had caught and saddled for you before knocking on your door. Your golden palomino mare stood next to his enormous black stud, who impatiently stomped the ground. Jacques fondly patted his horse’s neck and introduced you, “This is Black Philip.” The black horse sniffed your proffered hand. “He likes you.”

Your golden mare was more skeptical, giving Jacques an appraising side eye and snorting at him. “Pandora has more discretion,” you said proudly and stroked her blazed face. “At least there’s one female around who is immune to your charms.”

“Give me time,” Jacques laughed heartily. He plucked your hand off your horse’s nose and pulled you into his arms. He encircled your waist in his embrace but went no further, only looked into your eyes while his own gleamed devilishly. “Marie was no competition to you. You didn’t need to eliminate her.” He smiled at the way your eyes widened and added, “Although, I understand the impulse. I would love to tear apart any man who has ever touched you.” His huge hands slid to your waist as he spoke.

“No man ever has.” You looked down at his hands. “Only you. And you do so even though you think me a witch?” He didn’t address your question, but his smile broadened. “Still, I am not a woman who shares. It might lead to chaos should I allow myself to fall for you.”

“If you fall, I’ll catch you.” He wanted to kiss you, but restrained himself. “Think, ma belle, I believe you caused Marie’s death and that of my redheaded consort, and yet I am not running away from you in fear.” He gripped you tighter, reassuringly. “There is no greater proof that my intentions toward you are pure and that my loyalty to you would be absolute.”

“Another fine remark from a silver-tongued devil.” You put a restraining hand on his chest. “But I didn’t kill Marie. I was home all night and in bed when it happened.”

“I believe you were home all night, even sleeping soundly in bed.” He winked at you. “Dreaming sweetly.” Then his features grew somber. “But you must understand that for a witch, her true power lies not in potions and incantations. Her mind is her power, her thoughts spin webs of ether to ensnare her wishes. Some study witchcraft, learn rituals and dogma just as penitents study the Good Word. Others, creatures rarer than diamonds, are natural witches whose gift lives inside them, dormant until it has cause to awaken. There is no potion or incantation to take the place of the natural gift of witchcraft.”

“Are you saying I’m truly a witch?” Looking into his eyes that shimmered with adoration for you in the morning light, you felt for the first time your heart soar at the possibility rather than race with fear.

“I would never say such a thing!” He raised his hand to his chest as if in a pledge, conveniently trapping your hand against his chest. “Not aloud, anyway.” He leaned down close until his breath rasped against your cheek. “Perhaps I would whisper it in your ear in the witching hour.”

Jacques lifted you onto your horse and the two of you rode side by side into town. Gossiping citizens watched you both closely, some admiring the handsome new couple, others wondering how you had bewitched the new minister, and others still speculating as to how the newest man in town had captured the most beautiful woman in Salem so quickly. However inflammatory their assumptions, one fact that was beyond contestation was that you had been vetted by the town minister, one of the most powerful men in Salem. And none but the boldest or the stupidest would dare make an outward accusation against you while in Jacques’s company.

Although the day was beautiful, the perfect weather for a stroll with a paramour, the setting was less so. Half of Salem was gathered in the town square. Families filled the muddy square, men looking on with bloodlust, women with judgement, and children with morbid curiosity. They all watched three lifeless bodies swing on the light autumn breeze where they hung from the gallows. Three women convicted of witchcraft, three corpses swaying in their nooses. The three women Magistrate D’Alencon had signed warrants against on the same day that he denied yours. Neither you nor Jacques could look upon them in any way other than with approval, lest you both be seen as sympathizers at best and witches at worst. Jacques held your hand, squeezing tightly as you walked. The macabre sight reinforced the need to ensure you were not labeled a witch.

To further secure you an innocent verdict in the court of public opinion, Jacques took you to the grandest house in town for a meeting with its most prominent citizen, Magistrate D’Alencon. Pierre’s doors were always open for his closest friend and his table was always set. Every amenity Pierre could offer was always at Jacques’s disposal -- a hospitality, you realized, you would have to regulate should you become entangled with him.

Seated next to Jacques at Pierre’s long dining table, you watched a suspicious number of servant girls bustle throughout the Magistrate’s home. His wife was nowhere to be seen. If rumors were to be believed, she only tolerated her husband to save face publicly. The lack of a hostess was forgiven at the first taste of the fresh venison, cheese, and bread Pierre served. The conversation, however, was not as pleasant as the meal.

“Be on your guard now, my friend,” Pierre said to Jacques, waving his fork for emphasis. “This, ah, tragedy will only serve to inflame Latour. And as one of Carroughes’s desperately few friends, it will make him incendiary.”

“Marie was Marguerite’s friend as well.” Jacques caught your eye and smirked. “She must be quite upset. I’m certain she won’t be in the spirit to indulge her rutting boar of a husband for some time.”

“All the more time and anger he’ll have at his disposal to pursue your fetching sorceress,” Pierre said, for once immune to Jacques’s charm. “Latour could be a witness against her based on nothing more than what Marie told him before her untimely death. To say nothing of what he and Carroughes could conspire together! Perhaps he saw a witch on his property the day before, or he could even have seen her making evil eyes, or any number of other fabrications.”

“I could dispose of Latour,” Jacques mused, leaning back in his chair. “Incite him into a fight and send a fist that was by all appearances aimed for his nose straight into his throat.” He held up his right hand and clenched it into a monstrous fist. “After all, I’m a minister. I’m not a seasoned fighter.”

“And best every man in Salem keeps believing that!” Pierre rapped his knuckles on the wood of his table. “Your position will not be nearly as secure if you become known as the Murdering Minister.”

“I rather like that! It has a nice ring to it,” Jacques laughed. “Still, Latour won’t be making any accusations from six-feet under.”

“No, Pierre’s right,” you said, taking Jacques’s hand much to his pleasure. “We can think of another way to deal with Latour than by getting your gigantic hands dirty. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”

“Perhaps, you’re right.” Jacques leaned toward you and rested your joined hands on your thigh. “For some of us, ma belle sorciere, a will is a way.”

*******************************************************************************************

Jacques returned you to your cottage that evening with plenty of sunlight remaining to ensure prying eyes could see him walking back alone after merely walking you to your door like a gentlemanly suitor. He bid you good evening on the promise of taking you on a ride and a picnic the following day, something to lift your spirits.

Alone that night, save for the company of your cat, you pondered Jacques’s words. Your own inner stirrings at the thought of visions and spells and witchcraft also danced through your mind. No harm could come from indulging your imagination, letting your mind run wild with wicked thoughts you had been trained to fear and force down. After all, they were only thoughts, and they were yours alone, beyond the scrutiny of those who would seek to judge you. As if in congruence with you, your cat began purring contentedly from her place on your bed.

Mirrors were objects of vanity and not something that a good pious woman should have in her possession. You had never accepted such nonsense. An oval mirror hung above your dresser and the porcelain wash basin that set upon it. After washing your face and hands, cleansing the day from your skin, you looked at your reflection in the mirror. Your hair was loose, your eyes lit as though from within by the glimmering golden candlelight that kissed your skin. You took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, settling your mind and focusing your thoughts. The purring of your cat gave you a steady cadence, helping you concentrate.

Unbidden, Latour’s nauseating image came to your mind, so clearly it was almost as though you could see his own face in your mirror. At the thought of him, your mind set on its course of hatred and malice; hatred at the man for his sheer repugnance, malice for his role in bringing harm to you and potentially to Jacques. Malevolence welled in your heart, flowing from your very soul into the mirror. With the force of your thoughts, the mirror seemed to dance and ripple like the surface of a crystalline pond.

Convicted witches burned. They were burned at the stake or hung by their necks until dead. Never was mercy shown. Not in Salem.

The thought sizzled in your mind, setting your thoughts aflame until the ripples on the mirror were no longer water but dancing flames. The flames encircled Latour in your mind, in your mirror, closing in upon him until all you could see inside the mirror’s oval frame was fire.

As quickly as your mind had wandered to Latour, it cleared again and the visions vanished from your mirror. You blinked your eyes a few times and looked back at your own reflection, perfectly ordinary, staring back at you from the mirror. A warm satisfaction filled you, nearly an erotic afterglow, and you joined your purring cat on your bed and let sleep carry you away.

You dreamt of Latour.

Unable to sleep, Latour paced through his halls, haunted by the ghost of his late Marie. He struck his walls and knocked over chairs, confusing his grief for anger. Standing in the feeble light of a dying fire, he pressed his knuckles into his eyes, shaking his head. In his same petulant mood, he kicked a fresh log into his fireplace to rekindle the dying flames. Sparks flew when the fresh log slammed into the embers, sending a puff of ash and burning coals into the living room.

A spark caught the hem of Latour’s night shirt, making him jump and swat at the offending ember. In the hearth, the fire roared to life and kept sparking and popping as if he had thrown a handful of corn into its flames. Sparks shot into the room like fireworks, each seeming to aim for Latour, landing on his nightshirt and bare legs. Latour hopped and flapped and jumped in a painful dance, trying to shake the burning sparks free. A spark erupted from the fireplace, arching high, and landed in Latour’s scarce hair. Frantically, he swatted it out with a sizzle just as another fell down his collar. Sparks flew at him like a hundred bees, each more tenacious than the last, each catching flame on Latour’s clothes and skin. The more he shook and patted down his flaming limbs, the more the fire grew, licking up his arms and down his legs until his skin sizzled and boiled like bacon in a pan.

Latour could do nothing but scream.

The painful shrieking scream melted into a wet gurgling whimper as his skin began to melt and peel away from his body, sloughing off in fatty rinds that pooled on the wooden floor in steaming greasy clumps. Death came slowly for Latour, not settling upon him until the sky was beginning to grow pink with the oncoming dawn and what remained of his body lay in a crumpled heap of mangled tissue, steaming and twitching.

Through it all, this dream that entertained your thoughts, you slept peacefully with a beautiful smile curling your lips.

*******************************************************************************************

The following afternoon found you seated next to Jacques on a blanket spread beneath a fiery maple tree in full October bloom far away from prying eyes. Armed with wine and cheese for your picnic, Jacques had seduced you with good food and good humor into forgetting your strife for the day. You felt warm and giddy from the wine, but it was nothing compared to the touch of Jacques’s hand when he held yours or when his fingers caressed your cheek.

“Am I safe now that Latour is dead?” you asked as Jacques slipped a piece of cheese between your lips. “Without him or Marie, there are no witnesses against me. Unless Marguerite comes forward and tells the authorities what I told her, but then she will have been keeping company with a witch.”

“Carroughes will be after you even more rabidly now,” he told you as he smeared cheese and jam on a piece of bread. “He does not have the depth to appreciate when a vile man like Latour gets his just comeuppance.”

“A just comeuppance that I caused, didn’t I?” You smiled and sipped your wine.

“Who’s to say?” Jacques grinned and stroked his thick fingers across your cheek and down your jawline. “Accidents happen.”

“What can you say, then?” you teased, leaning into his touch.

“I can say that you are a goddess incarnate.” He leaned closer to you as he purred honeyed words. “That your eyes are sparkling jewels and your smile dazzles like diamonds. That you needn’t be a witch to bewitch me.”

Taking your chin between his thumb and forefinger, he tilted your head into a favorable angle for kissing. He didn’t give you the chance to object before he captured your lips. At the feeling of his plush lips on yours, the tickle of his mustache on your skin, your lips parted in a sigh and he seized the opening to deepen his kiss. He tasted of wine and the same heady musk you had scented in your dream. Now, it was enough to flood your senses into intoxication. Your hands sought purchase on his chest, around his neck, tangled in his long hair, as you lost yourself in the feel of him and let him devour you. Pleasure so exquisite had to be a sin.

“Witch or not,” you panted breathlessly when you used his broad chest to push away and break your kiss. “If I am seen in such a compromising situation with you, I will be labeled a harlot.”

“Still worried about what your future husband may think, are you?” Jacques teased.

“One day, I will meet a tall, dark, handsome devil of a man who will sweep me off my feet,” you said sultrily, feigning desire for another kiss before adding, “When I meet him, I want my reputation to be pure.”

“Amour, you are a vision of purity and wickedness inextricably entwined,” he crooned in a voice as decadently smooth as chocolate. He took your hand, swallowing it in his enormous grip. “Come, be my love.” He deepened his voice with his implore. “And we will all the pleasures prove. That valleys, groves, hills, and fields, woods or steepy mountain yields. And I will make thee beds of roses and a thousand fragrant posies.”

“You are too sinful. Quoting that devil Marlow,” you mocked. “Such works are for heathens not pure maidens.”

“Says the pure maiden who knows his words as well as I,” Jacques laughed pleasantly.

“You know I cannot be your love frivolously, nor would I want to be,” you replied seriously. “You’ll be mine entirely, or I’ll never be yours at all.”

“Your terms are those I would dictate as well.” He brought your hand to his lips, kissed your skin. “Be my love, ma belle sorciere. Be my wife. Marry me, amour.”

For a moment you considering declining his offer for his own sake, torturing him with a silent smile as your mind raced. Becoming legally tethered to you would give Carroughes and others the opening to label Jacques a witch alongside you.

“Do not fear for me or for yourself,” he calmly stated as if hearing your thoughts. “I assure you, we will live happily ever after. Better still, we shall live deliciously together.”

“Yes, then. Oh, yes, Jacques!” you exclaimed as elation flooded you.

Smiling like the Devil Himself, Jacques shot excitedly to his feet, pulling you up with him. Taking you in his arms, he spun you around and around, laughing with you and smiling wide, until you were dizzy. When he returned you to the ground, he kissed you again until your head was spinning from his lips and you were far dizzier.

*******************************************************************************************

Darkness approached when you and Jacques returned to Salem. Candles shone in windows and stars winked to life in the sky as it bled from navy to purple to black. It was not too dark to shield you from the town’s judgement, and eyes peeping out from windows followed you through town. It was not too dark to see the pair of you openly holding hands and smiling broadly as you talked. Such unveiled affection triggered a widely accepted clock. If you did not soon marry Jacques, not only would your reputation be tarnished beyond salvation, but more accusations would fly at you like arrows.

One pair of notably beady eyes that watched you pass belonged to the Crown Prosecutor. His mood was especially foul, given the neglect he suffered from Marguerite since she had been grieving for her late friend. His acumen was meager at best, but even when he could not articulate the foundation for it, he still suspected.

He suspected Jacques had already made you his whore. He suspected you had already put Jacques under your spell. He suspected he could see one or both of you hang before the new moon.

Brimming with petty suspicions, Carroughes watched you through his window. He was backlit by candles inside, giving him an ominous hellish glow. You didn’t need to be a witch to divine his intent, you could feel it seething off him. Jacques felt it too. Although he gave Carroughes a friendly wave, his eyes were dark and his jaw set. Jacques wrapped his arm around your shoulders protectively and pulled you closer to his side.

“Time is not our ally.” Jacques spoke for your ears alone as you walked. “We should leave Salem at once. We can marry in Boston within a fortnight. Then, if we must, we can return here as man and wife. As my wife, even the Crown Prosecutor will be hard pressed to accuse you of witchcraft.”

“I have to get some things in order.” You shook your head firmly. “I’m not running away in the middle of the night and leaving my house to burn and my cat to be butchered as a familiar.”

“Very well,” Jacques agreed, although his brow was creased with worry. “We’ll announce our intention publicly to buy time and leave for Boston as quickly as we can. Get your things together with all possible haste.”

*******************************************************************************************

The following morning, you had obligations to fulfill. To break your routine would not only be suspicious, it would call unwanted attention to you. You had packed your most important possessions during the night, everything was prepared for a hasty departure. The only things that could not be packed were living, your cat and horse.

Part of your schedule was that you helped Marguerite teach a weekly women’s bible study. This was only normal in Salem, and whether you found validity in it or not, it was expected of you and to decline would make you even more of a pariah. You tried to keep your profile low and your head down as you made your way to the town bakery, which was run by a rotund old widow who hosted the women’s meeting.

Gathered inside the bakery was the usual group of women you expected to see. The air was thick with the smell of freshly baked pumpkin pies, but missing was the normal jovial atmosphere of friendship. Marguerite met your eyes and then immediately looked away, guilty at the events she had set in motion with her simple betrayal of your confidence. You soon realized the source of the tension. There was a spy in your midst.

Like a ghastly raven, Carroughes’s mother, Nicole, hovered at the edge of the room. Her unsightly frown and grim countenance corrupted what should have been a warm and pleasant setting. Beady soulless eyes and a permanent scowl must be a Carroughes family trait that afflicted both mother and son. However, her black eyes saw more than those of her offspring, and her mind was far more calculating.

In a silent but venomous exchange you regarded her, and you knew at once that she was hunting you just as avidly as her loathsome issue. Marguerite was terrified of her as was almost every other woman in Salem. You were not. You waved to the withered hag, a friendly gesture to any onlooker, but she felt the malice you intended behind your false smile.

“My son’s wife,” Nicole spat the word out like bile on her tongue, glaring at you. “Marguerite has made him go soft on you. Jean tells me he knows you are Satan’s whore, but he does not have enough proof. Yet. No witness lives long enough to be sworn in.” She put a hand on her chest in a gesture of purity. “But I have seen worse than you in my day. Witches don’t scare me any more than scandalous and tainted women who flaunt their shame throughout town on the streets at night.”

“If you label it scandalous to walk hand in hand with your husband to be, it is no wonder your own late husband was rumored to be one of the unhappiest men in town,” you quipped back to her, crossing your arms over your chest. “And if you taught your son that to show affection is to taint oneself, it is no wonder he is such a disappointment to his wife.”

Her thin lips spread in a smile that stretched her frail parchment-like skin over her bones, giving her the appearance of a mummified corpse. Raising her crow-like voice for all the women in the bakery to hear, she cawed, “I overheard the witch today as she walked alone to our meeting. She was mumbling gibberish, speaking in the Devil’s Tongue. She was casting a spell, speaking to the Devil like a lover. It is unspeakable what she said, and a good woman like myself could never repeat it. I stand as a witness, and I will swear the same tomorrow before a Judge.”

Trapped in the bakery, you couldn’t run. Save for Marguerite, who was stricken with guilt, the women looked on you with frightened reproach. No one dared speak on your behalf. Seeing no support among the group of women who you had considered friends until that moment, you straightened proudly and left with your dignity.

Walking alone through the cold streets of Salem, you knew what this development meant. With Nicole’s sworn statement, the warrant for your arrest would be signed. All it would take would be a biased trial deemed fair by the masses and you would hang. The men under Carroughes’s command would guard you now, ensuring Jacques would be unable to steal you away to safety and happiness.

A contingent of men followed you home under the guise of guarding you, in reality they were your wardens. They surrounded your house, imprisoning you inside so you could not run away in the night or escape to silence any more witnesses with your witchcraft. They also prevented Jacques from seeing you and entering your house when he rode at a gallop to you after he heard of your de facto arrest. His presence alone offered some support, and his distraught concern gave you some small comfort in the knowledge that his feelings were genuine. The men who marshaled you quickly forced him away at the ends of their musket barrels.

Even though it was only a brief exchange through a window, Jacques met your eyes and gave you a conspiratorial nod. You knew what you had to do.

*******************************************************************************************

Night fell and darkness settled, giving you a modicum of privacy. You snuffed all the candles in your home leaving only the pale light of the full moon to filter in through the windows. It was easy to see why the full moon was thought to enhance the power of witches and other creatures of the night, with its soft light imbuing everything it fell upon with an ethereal glow.

While your guards thought you were sleeping, you sat wide awake in your bed. Your cat curled next to you and by stroking her fur, you were able to calm your mind and focus on your task at hand. Tonight, you were not playing or dabbling. You wanted to flex your wickedest muscles and see how much devilry you could wreak. With the moonlight dappling your skin and glimmering in your eyes, you breathed deep and pictured Nicole Carroughes in your mind’s eye. It should have been difficult to concentrate, seething with anger as you were, but it came easily, naturally. As your concentration deepened, her image grew more solid and detailed, until you could see her as clearly as if she stood before you. Even Nicole’s movements and behavior was natural, not so much as a construct of your mind but as though you were looking through a window into her house.

Your eyes fell closed, but you were not met with darkness. So clear and vibrant that you could have been living it, you stood in Nicole’s kitchen. You had never been inside her home, but you knew and saw every detail, from labeled spice jars to the old dog curled on the floor to the smell of hearty stew where it boiled in a cauldron in her fireplace. Nicole was unable to sleep herself, not from guilt but excitement. She was elated at the prospect of destroying you. The old crone even whistled a cheery tune while she busied herself with cooking and baking.

The mere sight of her, contended in her betrayal, enraged you. Your blood boiled and your jaw clenched. You wanted her dead. Dead and silenced forever for fabricating lies against you. You wanted her to die painfully, choking on her false words against you.

Nicole pulled a loaf of freshly baked bread from her oven and set it on her table. It smelled delicious even to you through the ether and Nicole smiled and clapped her hands at her culinary triumph. She broke off a piece of the still steaming loaf and tossed it to her dog, who thumped his bushy tail with approval. She took the next piece for herself. Smiling with half-lidded eyes, she savored the taste of the bread as she chewed. A moment passed and her eyes shot open, bulbous and terrified, and she started coughing violently. Her bony hands flew to her throat, clawing at her own flesh as if she could free the spongy bread lodged in her windpipe from the outside. The dog barked frantically, first at his owner and then, he somehow looked directly at you, where your mental apparition stood in her kitchen, and snarled viciously.

Staggering like a drunkard, she coughed harder and harder, wheezing and sputtering. With eyes wide but unseeing, she stumbled, panicked. She collided with her table, knocking it over and sending bread and plates and utensils flying. The dog paced, his tail clenched between his legs, as he whimpered and whined. Nicole grasped for the mantle over her fireplace to steady herself, but tripped over her own feet. She fell face first into her fireplace, her flailing arms finding no purchase until they landed on the scalding black sides of her cauldron.

A scream never came through her constricted windpipe as she fell to her knees, only a violent wheeze, when the cauldron tipped toward her, pulled by her own scorched hands that had melted fast to the iron. The viscously thick stew that had been bubbling and boiling splashed onto her face and chest, sticking to her skin like tar on feathers. Her face was eggplant purple now, what skin could be seen where the stew hadn’t burned her, and her flesh boiled red and white where it had been melted. Her dog shrieked with all the pain she couldn’t voice.

Falling to her back on the floor, Nicole writhed like a hooked fish and her open mouth gaped for air as her eyes rolled back white in her head. Her body began convulsing, splashing in the stew on the floor, until she breathed no more. Her dog licked at the floor and at her face, while she twitched reflexively in her death throes. You knew she wished for death now, you could feel her thoughts, so you willed that the Reaper took his time in coming for her, and smiled as her life dwindled away with unnatural lethargy.

The malice you felt for her did not abate as she thrashed and shuddered, not until she lay still and her corpse grew cold. Then, you felt true happiness, euphoria even. Better still than that glowing jubilation was something else. For the first time, you felt something well within you. Power. Dark, gloaming, delicious power. Like any beast, the more you fed your own power, the stronger it grew.

When you opened your eyes, you were back in your room, in your bed, with the soft moonlight and your purring back cat keeping you company. Outside your window, you heard Carroughes’s men talking amongst themselves, no doubt discussing the witch they had captured. Foolish men. They thought they were safe now, that their town was safe from the witch of the woods who had descended upon their peaceful pious village.

You knew better. You knew the Wicked Witch that lived amongst them was growing stronger by the night. You knew that soon you would have all of Salem held inside your dark grasp. The people of Salem wanted you to be their witch. You would happily oblige them.

*******************************************************************************************

You rose with the sunrise and, unable to leave your house, you waited for the inevitable. The warrant against you would surely be signed soon, and men would come to arrest you. But as the day drew on, no one came for you. Not even Jacques.

The men who guarded you grew restless as noon came and went, and you could hear their grumbling outside. They, too, wondered when you would be formally arrested so they would be relieved of their post. Hours later, it was Carroughes himself who rode to your cottage and stomped belligerently through your door without knocking. His fists were balled and his trollish face red and enraged.

“My mother!” he screamed in your face, sending filthy beads of spit flying onto your cheeks. “My mother is dead, and I know somehow somehow you are the cause!” He grabbed your arms, shaking you roughly, his breath rancid as he continued to shout inches away from your face. “I have also underestimated Jacques and his devilry. His soul is as black as yours! And you have been whoring with him just like you whore with the Devil Himself. He has an alibi for his whereabouts last night, but the snake Pierre hardly counts!” He shook you again and slammed you against your wall so brutally it nearly knocked the wind from your lungs. “It was my mistake to post a guard here, so they think you were inside your house all night. But I will prove it! I will prove you are a witch, and I will see you hanged on the spot!”

“If you think me a witch who can do such nefarious things,” you sneered at him, showing your teeth like a predator. “It is rather stupid of you to anger me, is it not?” You laughed at him, right in his repugnant face, just to see his anger grow. “Perhaps you’re the witch and you killed your own bitch mother to curry favor with the Devil!”

“Whore!” Carroughes spat and drew his hand back to reprimand you just as your door burst open.

The crash of the door slamming into the wall from the force with which it was thrown open stopped Carroughes mid-swing of his fist. His hand stopped so close to your face that you could see the crags in his dry lizard skin and smell the filth that had turned putrid under his ragged, unkempt fingernails.

“Unhand my fiancée, Carroughes, or the gallows will yet be blooded today,” Jacques growled menacingly from your doorway.

“Swine!” you spat in his face for good measure, hoping he would strike you openly for Jacques to witness. To your disappointment, Carroughes showed restraint.

“Papers,” Jacques announced, waving a rolled parchment in his gloved hand as Carroughes released his hold on you. “Magistrate D’Alencon has dismissed your accusations against this woman. For the second time. He has also provided a sworn statement that he was with me at all relevant times yesterday and through this morning.” Jacques strode to Carroughes until his massive chest threatened to shove the squat man over backwards. “Shall I read them to you? Being as how you’re an illiterate and cannot read them yourself?”

“You’ll pay for this, Le Gris,” Carroughes hissed at Jacques then turned to you. “Once I see you hanged, he’ll be fucking another whore before the sun rises.”

“See to your own house, Carroughes.” Jacques grinned but his lupine eyes glinted ominously. “Your wife might be fucking another man even before you meet with the Reaper’s scythe.”

Possessed of the meager awareness to know that he would fight himself into a prison cell if he bandied more words with Jacques, Carroughes stormed out of your house and off your property as quickly and belligerently as he had come. As he slammed your door behind him, Jacques rushed to you and scooped you up into his arms. Inside his warm powerful embrace, you felt as though nothing harmful could ever reach you. You laid your head on his chest and let his large hands smooth over your back, rubbing away your trepidation.

Taking your hands, Jacques led you to a chair at your dining table then seated himself beside you. His rich voice had a mesmerizing quality as he relayed how it had taken the day to draft your exonerating paperwork with Pierre. Even his scent, that masculine bouquet of pine and musk, calmed you when you breathed it deep. As he talked, your cat jumped into his lap, noting her approval of your intended.

Once your nerves had settled and you were smiling and laughing with Jacques, your hands no longer chilled but warm in his, he retrieved a parcel from his pocket. He placed a bundle the size of a gourd wrapped in cloth on the table and pushed it to you.

“You didn’t need to bring me a gift.” You smiled up at him.

“When you are my wife, I’ll spoil you with gifts,” Jacques promised you, then grinned slyly. “But this is not a gift. It’s a tool.”

Carefully, you unwrapped the parcel to reveal a simple cloth doll. It was a figure only, devoid of clothing or features, save for two thick X’s stitched in black for eyes that gave it a grim expression. It was smaller than a girl’s toy doll, barely larger than your hand. Several pins that were packed with it rolled out on the table.

“A doll?” you asked, surprised. “I hate to tell you this, but I outgrew playing with dolls long ago.”

“Well, I never stopped,” he teased and stroked your cat. “No, this is not a doll or a toy. It is a tool. A poppet. A witch’s tool.”

“I think I’m doing quite well without any witch’s tools.” You smirked mischievously.

“Indeed, ma belle sorciere,” Jacques picked up the poppet. “But should you ever desire a method with more precision, or should you ever want to make your victim’s suffering more poignant and draw out your enjoyment, you might wish to resume playing with dolls.” Seeing the excitement glimmer in your eyes, he pressed his thick finger into the doll’s chest and continued, “Focus your intent on what harm you want to cause, take a pin, and stick it into the poppet with all your wickedest will behind it.”

“Let’s do it together,” you said as you picked up one of the pins. “I want Carroughes to suffer. Poignantly.”

“Then let us take it slowly,” Jacques dropped his voice and grabbed a pin of his own. “Let us savor it.”

Pressing the tip of the pin at the poppet’s heart, you slowly trailed it down the fabric body, down its right leg, as you curled your mind around your intent. When you reached the center of the leg, you stabbed the pin into the plush doll. Jacques put his hand over yours and pressed your hand down more firmly, driving the pin all the way through the poppet’s leg.

*******************************************************************************************

An early winter storm rolled in during the night, clouds of churning black and charcoal spitting out a blizzard of snow. Dawn was late to come, the sun hidden behind a veil of gray. When the sky finally lightened, the ground was covered beneath nearly a foot of fresh snow. Wind blew frigid, swirling the still-falling snow and chilling to the bone anyone who ventured out into it.

A roaring blizzard was the perfect cover for Jacques to ride with you to safety, to carry you away from the more harrowing storm of witch hunting. He arrived before sunrise in the gray gloom, riding his horse and leading a pack horse to carry all of your life away, all of your things for a lengthy, if not permanent, absence. He saddled your horse and loaded all your pre-packed things onto the pack horse before you had finished your first cup of morning tea.

Jacques wore a long black cloak lined with fur and a tall black hat with a magnificent pheasant plume. Greeting you at your door, he swept off his hat with a flourish, shaking free his luxurious hair and brushing the snow off his shoulders when he bowed. His cape twirled behind him when he came through your door amid a gust of snow that blew in with him.

“Boston will love you, amour,” he said as he kissed you good morning. “Pray our luck holds and this terrible storm blusters throughout the day.”

You were dressed in your warmest clothes and Jacques wrapped your cape around your shoulders, tied the laces at your breast and secured it with a kiss to your throat above the bow he fashioned. Everything that mattered most to you in the world was secured on the pack horse or in your saddle bags. Even your cat was bundled tight and held secure beneath your cloak like an infant. The cat and all three horses must have sensed the danger you were all in and the exigency, because the horses were silent and still and the cat was calm and subdued.

Holding your hand tight, Jacques led you outside through the swirling snow to your horse, rubbing his free hand over yours for comfort and for heat. He lifted you onto your palomino and gave your thigh an affectionate squeeze. The air was chilled with ice and fogged when Black Philip snorted as Jacques climbed into the saddle, but you stayed toasty warm. Nerves, perhaps, numbed you against the cold, but you knew better.

Mist drifted through the forest mingling with the snow to shroud your journey. Only green spruce trees and fiery colored maples watched you ride through their forest. Still, Jacques led you along a path that bypassed Salem. Most rational people would stay inside their homes during such a storm and sit warm by their fires, so even the few houses you passed were blind to you.

Thinking you safe after having left Salem miles behind, Jacques rejoined the snowy Boston-bound road. Even though the wind howled and the snow swirled, his voice still boomed easily above it all as he distracted you with talk of your future together. Unbeknownst to you both, Carroughes had himself ridden to Boston the day prior to obtain a warrant for your arrest from a less reasonable judge. As you and Jacques rode away from Salem, Carroughes returned down the same road, the only road, leading a company of men to enforce the new warrant.

The world had been reduced to a whirling white storm. Through the coin-sized snowflakes that roiled around you in the whipping wind, you could only see a few yards in front of your horse’s ears. Black Philip stopped abruptly, hearing and sensing what a human could not. Looking ahead into the wall of snow, the horse snorted suspiciously and stomped his hoof just as a sorrel horse materialized from the storm.

Jacques and Carroughes locked eyes, each wide with surprise, as their horses blew at each other indignantly from only a few paces apart. Men and beasts were frozen stiff until understanding thawed their senses. Jacques reacted first, yanking the reins on the pack horse to bring it forward and smacking his reins down on its rump to launch it bucking and charging into the cluster of Carroughes and his men as it ran away down the road toward Boston. Carroughes’s sorel horse reared, nearly unseating his dumpy rider, as the pack horse rushed by him.

While the enemy horses were spooked and unruly, Jacques spun his own horse around as he shouted to you, “Ride like hell!”

Kicking your horse into a headlong gallop, you charged back down the road away from Carroughes and his men with Jacques close at your heels. Now more than ever, the blizzard was your ally, swallowing you inside its billows almost immediately. You could safely gallop at breakneck speed even being blinded by snow so long as you stuck to the clear path of the road, but even a blind man could follow you on that course. You knew these woods like your own acreage, having grown up in Salem and riding through them as a child. At a bend in the road, you looked back over your shoulder to see that Jacques still followed you and reined your horse off the road into the woods.

There was a steep bank down into a ravine where you left the road, and yours and Jacques’s horses slid down precipitously in the slick muddy ground. The animals leaned back so far that their tails were pinned beneath their rumps from their docks to their heels on the canted slope. Branches tore your clothing and clawed at your face as you careened down to the ravine below. Your horses couldn’t have slowed their descent even if you reined them with choking force, and they hit the creek in the bottom of the ravine hard, splashing the icy water high.

In case the snow didn’t fall heavily enough to cover your tracks, you would leave none at all in the water. Slowing your horse to a trot she could maintain for miles, you followed the creek back toward Salem, intending to use the denser woods on the city’s northern border to shroud your escape. Jacques rode beside you, keeping pace with you in the creek bed. Carroughes hadn’t seen you leave the road and he rode on ahead, chasing nothing but ghosts in the snowstorm.

“If they catch us,” Jacques whispered urgently to you. “I will fight them off long enough to give you an opening. An opening you must take, amour. Stop for nothing and ride to Boston, or further, until you are safe.”

“You must be a fool if you think I’ll leave you,” you told him with a mixture of anger and fear.

“You’ll be hanged for witchcraft if they catch you! As long as my heart beats, I’ll stand between you and the gallows.” He looked at you and for the first time, you saw fear in his eyes. “Pierre can offer me some measure of protection, but you are now beyond his reach.”

“Wherever we go, we go together,” you returned adamantly, setting your jaw.

“Wherever you go, I will follow,” he argued just as stubbornly. “Run, amour, and I will chase you. I will find you even if I must chase you to the ends of the earth. But first, you must escape.”

The forest thinned as you approached the town, but the snow still swirled around you. You had to rejoin the road briefly to reach the thicker forest beyond that would then keep you hidden for miles and miles. The creek wound in the wrong direction, forcing you to return to the forest that surrounded it. Still at an easy trot, your horses bobbed and weaved between the trees and through the brush. The frigid wind stung your cheeks and your ears had gone numb miles ago. The only warmth in you came from the steaming body of your horse beneath you and her fogged breath that trailed back to you.

From out of the blustering snow, three mounted men, Carroughes’s men, charged you from the side. Carroughes must have suspected Jacques would try to escape with you under the cover of snowfall and sent his men to hunt you down from the opposite side of the forest. As agile as a deer, your mare dodged away, evading the men and cutting through the trees. Jacques ran beside you and a pace behind, his horse’s neck level with the haunches of your mare. The only path open to you was through the forest back toward Salem. The men chased after you, but their mounts were less adroit than yours and less powerful than Jacques’s, and they quickly fell behind.

A shot flew by your ear, so close you could feel the heat from the musket ball kiss your cheek. The boom of the rifle spurred your horse faster into a breakneck gallop through the trees. You reined your horse into a thicket of brush. Jacques grunted as he broke through limbs and boughs in an explosion of snow to follow you. Behind you, the enemy riders fanned out. One chased at your tails, the other two ran wide on either side of the thicket and of you.

“They’re funneling us back toward Salem!” Jacques shouted what you already knew. “They plan to ambush us!”

Even as his words reached your ears, you burst through the thicket into an open field. The blizzard blew around you, but as you galloped across the clearing, the dark shapes of a line of horsemen quickly materialized close ahead. Jacques spurred his horse faster and lunged in front of you, charging straight into the line of men, using his horse like a battering ram. Black Philip bowled through the smaller horses, knocking two of them fully to the ground in a flurry of snow, mud, and flailing hooves. The toppled horses rolled over their riders, crushing the men beneath their heavy thrashing bodies.

Kicking your mare frantically, you ran through the opening Jacques had plowed for you. Your horse jumped over the two fallen animals even as they began to push back to their feet, and you were clear of the line of men. The rider nearest Jacques swung his musket toward your fleeing back. Jacques whipped out his hand, catching the musket barrel in his fist and ripped the gun away from the shooter, pulling the man right out from his saddle with his sheer brute strength. Reversing the musket in his hands, Jacques struck the man a vicious blow to the cheek with the butt of the musket, sending bloody teeth flying into the snow with a sound like pounding a mallet into a ham.

With Jacques’s command for you to escape to safety echoing in your ears, you kicked your horse onward, galloping across the field. Snow kicked up from your horse’s hooves in a flurry as great as the storm that blew around you, swallowing you in powdery white fog. Shouts and the sounds of heavy blows landing in flesh sounded behind you, muffled and dull in the storm. You turned to look back over your shoulder, hoping to glimpse Jacques running after you but you saw nothing through the storm beyond your horse’s tail streaming out behind her.

Suddenly, your horse pulled up short to a stop with a frightened squeal, sliding on her haunches on the slick ground. Ahead of your horse, right between her pricked forward ears, you saw a musket barrel leveled directly at your face from no more than ten paces away. Carroughes’s squinty pig eyes met yours down the sights of his musket. Hatred festered in his bloodshot irises, and you knew that he would relish little more in his squalid life than pulling the trigger and blowing your face away in an explosion of gore right in front of the man who loved you.

“The blizzard you sent to foil me will not avail you, witch!” Carroughes shouted in his belligerent way, blowing fogged snot into the icy air like a hog at a trough. He raised his voice to a strident yell when Jacques rode to your side, pulling his own horse to a hard stop. “Please, witch, give me a reason to shoot you now and your man whore of Babylon alongside you.”

“You have one shot in that musket, Carroughes,” Jacques growled through clenched teeth and pounded his hand against his chest. “Best aim it where it will do the most damage.”

“I am aiming precisely where it will do the most damage, Le Gris,” Carroughes sneered, holding his musket pointed squarely between your eyes. Keeping his barrel in place on you, his squinted eyes drifted to Jacques. “As a man of the law and of the cloth, you knew not to leave Salem with your little whore while a warrant was pending. I expected as much from a witch, especially one with a guilty conscience. But Minister, you ran? Say true, admit you are both in league with the devil and seek forgiveness. It is not too late to save your souls, even though your earthly bodies are now forfeit.”

“Good sir, even you must admit you are impressively stupid!” Jacques declared boldly, imbuing his voice with deep authority. “We are not running. We were on our way to marry in Boston. Forgive me. I assumed that as a man, you would understand the haste a man feels to marry his bride and take her to bed, make her his own. Especially with a bride as beautiful as mine.” His smile dripped of condescension. “I did not think I would have to explain this to you as a man would to a child, or to an impotent.”

A greasy scowl creased Carroughes’s porcine jowls. Safe now with his armed contingent of men surrounding you and Jacques, he stepped down off his horse and stomped to Jacques with all possible belligerence. Although he tried to mask it, he walked with an unmistakable limp in his right leg. He grabbed Jacques’s reins and yanked them roughly, just to wrench the bit in the horse’s mouth and make the animal grunt painfully. “Under my authority as Crown Prosecutor, you and your whore are confined to Salem. You are lucky that the jail cells are already filled to the brim with the guilty. Until the question of your crimes is answered, you are not to leave! Guards will be posted accordingly.”

“And what of our marriage?” Jacques challenged. “Does the Crown Prosecutor have the authority to intercede in such matters? I think not.”

“Since Salem’s minister is now under arrest, another minister must be summoned from Boston soon,” he lied. He looked up at the sky that was darkening to black amid the blinding snowstorm and added wryly, “As the weather permits.”

The ground was slippery and soupy. Hidden beneath the inches of fresh snow, the ground had frozen, leaving a layer of muddy snow sitting on top of ice that was far slicker than ice alone. Turning on his heel to add to his aggressive mien, Carroughes’s right boot shot out from under him. With a crack like splitting timber, his knee twisted and gave way beneath his weight, bending at an unnatural angle as he collapsed upon it to the ground. Thrashing on the ground, he howled with pain and outrage like a swine caught in a beartrap, his right leg twisted uselessly beneath his squat body.

As several men dismounted to help their master, Jacques met your eyes and flashed you a dastardly knowing smile.

*******************************************************************************************

The people of Salem looked upon you and Jacques as if you were devils incarnate and upon Carroughes as though he were St. George who had arrested two fearsome dragons. You would find no more friends among the townsfolk. Save for one.

To offer what protection he could, Pierre hosted you and Jacques in his own home. He could not quash the warrant that had been issued by a Boston judge, but he could ensure you were both safe and comfortable while awaiting the next phase in the judicial process, and he could vet you both to the best of his abilities while doing so. Also, in Pierre’s home, there were no rules and no decorum by which to abide. What happened within the walls of Pierre’s home, remained locked safe inside. To date, none of his dark secrets or illicit escapades had escaped.

Deaf to any argument, Pierre posted you and Jacques in the same room. “To God, it’s all just a matter of paperwork now until you are man and wife,” Pierre announced with a lewd grin as he closed the door behind him, leaving you and Jacques alone in a large bedchamber with a single large and inviting bed. Candles burned warmly, paired with a fire in the hearth, both filling the room with their golden light. Moonlight streamed in through the windows, falling silvery upon the bed and the fur blanket draped upon it.

Setting down a bottle of Pierre’s wine on a bedside table, Jacques pulled you to him. He spun you playfully, twirling you into his arms in a silent dance, and pulled you to his chest. Lowering his head, he kissed your cheek softly. As he affectionately nuzzled you with his large nose before he brought his lips to yours. Although he kissed you with sweet affection, you felt the sear of his desire for you beneath his restrained veneer. Your desire matched his own. You kissed him back brutally, your lips violent where his had been soft.

The stressors of the day and of the month weighed heavily upon you both, and your futures were uncertain. You wanted to feel anything but worry and terrifying uncertainty. You wanted to feel all the warmth and happiness and pleasure you knew you would have as Jacques’s wife, although you knew that now you may not ever reach the altar.

Jacques’s plush lips moved to your collarbone, making you shiver when he placed his first open mouthed kiss there. You felt him grin against your skin when he felt your reaction, his beard tickling you. He nipped gently at you before kissing you again, making you sigh. A low rumble resonated deep in his chest when he reached the base of your neck, letting his tongue caress you, lavishing your flesh.

When he pulled back for breath, he gazed down at you hungrily, watching you to observe your reaction to him when he spoke to you.

“Let me show you what pleasure truly is,” Jacques said huskily, imploring you. “Let me show you what it is to live deliciously.”

“My honor --” you began quietly.

“Shall remain intact,” he finished for you, halting your concerns, although his meaning eluded you. You knew that you could stop him if you wished, but you couldn’t imagine doing so. Instead, you backed toward the bed, captivated by his own devilry.

Lowering himself over you when you reclined on the bed, Jacques propped himself above you, kissing down your neck, over the bodice of your dress. He kissed his way down your body, without removing your clothing.

Backlit by the fireplace, he knelt before you at the foot of the bed. He ran his hands up the length of your legs, from your calves, up your thighs to your hips, pushing the skirts of your dress up, heating your skin with his touch. Grinning at the sight of you from between your thighs, he hooked his arms under your legs and rested his elbows on either side of your hips. Any shyness you felt should have surely been greater, but the way he looked at you with open desirous hunger, alleviated any thoughts of modesty.

“Jacques, you can’t,” you protested weakly, hoping internally that it wouldn’t deter him in the slightest.

“Can I not?” he teased, bringing his face closer to your body.

“It’s a sin,” your argument came out as a moan when he kissed the inside of your thigh and scratched his beard higher.

“The greatest of all sins. The original sin,” he agreed, kissing higher up your inner thigh. “The forbidden fruit was never an apple.”

Meeting your eyes, Jacques brought his mouth to you, to your very center where no man had ever so much as touched you. Crying out with surprise and intense pleasure, your fists twisted into the fur blanket on which you lay and your back arched off the bed. Grabbing onto your hips, he pulled you even closer into him and his approving growl rumbled right into you. Your thighs quivered on either side of his head as your body ignited under his ministrations, sensation flooding you as he kissed as ardently as he would your lips and traced unspoken adorations into you with his tongue.

Never had you imagined pleasure so consuming, and it took all of your remaining awareness not to scream out as he carried you deeper and deeper into the forbidden realms of ecstasy. Unable to prevent small moans and mews from escaping your lips, you hoped your noises did not pass through the walls of the bedroom. Although, you suspected that Jacques would delight in hearing you shout his name to the heavens.

Your hands twisted into his hair, and you shuddered and bucked when he plunged you into a well of pleasure as hot and soft as a pool of candle wax. You had never known true pleasure before, and you now understood why it was considered sinful, because it was a high you would chase with Jacques to the very gates of Hell.

“I shall live deliciously indeed with you as my wife,” Jacques quipped in a gravelly tone, grinning devilishly. He was in no hurry to remove his mouth from you and he kissed you lazily as you trembled from the rush he had given you. He already knew that he loved you truly, the first woman for whom he had ever felt such adoration. But now, he knew that he loved you in the way he had always believed to be the florid embellishment of poets, in the way that had always seemed like nothing more than a fairytale or a flight of fancy.

Pushing up from his knees, Jacques retrieved the bottle of wine and two glasses, his own prominent arousal painfully apparent beneath his clothing as he walked about the room. He held the wine jug aloft, grinning at you playfully as you readjusted yourself on the bed and your cat begrudgingly joined you.

Once you were comfortable, leaning back against the headboard, Jacques tipped back onto the mattress beside you, laughing playfully. Handing you a glass, he filled both and clinked the rim of his to yours. Wrapping his arm around your shoulders, he hugged you close to his side as you both sipped at your wine. With his free hand, he retrieved the poppet of Carroughes and held it in front of you both.

“How shall we punish him for delaying our marriage and causing us strife, ma belle sorciere?” he asked you with an arched eyebrow.

“Hmmm, where can we hit a man where it would hurt him most?” you asked playfully. Pulling a pin, you hoovered it above the poppet’s groin.

“Vicious, amour,” Jacques replied proudly. “In fact, your thirst for blood gives me an even wickeder idea. Let us hit him in both places that will most injure a man. His cock to be sure, and his heart also. If he has one.” In response to your quizzical expression, he took your hand and explained, “You know of my dalliances with Marie, but she was not the only unhappily married woman who sought my learned company.”

“Not Marguerite, too?” You were aghast.

“Forgive me for my transgressions before meeting my one true love.” He only grinned with unabashed delight at his exploits.

“You had best be warned that from this night forward, I’ll kill any woman you so much as lay a finger upon,” you huffed with an anger you weren’t sure was justified. Meeting his eyes, you narrowed yours and rammed the pin into the poppet’s crotch like you were stabbing your mortal enemy. “And I’ll do even worse to you, should you ever betray me.”

“I believe you, and yet I am not running for the door.” He forced himself to give you a brief solemn nod before smirking again. “There is no finer proof of my devotion to you. But you miss my point, amour. As angered as you are by this revelation, how do you think Carroughes would bear it? To know his innocent, pious wife seduced me?”

“He will suspect her of witchcraft,” you said, concerned for your friend.

“Even better! Carroughes will have to prosecute his own wife! That won’t make things pleasant for them between the sheets!” Jacques laughed richly, bursting with excitement at his idea. “He will be forced to hang her, his own wife, if he wishes to pursue this witch hunt lunacy.”

“He will hang her, if he believes her to be a witch.” You shook your head at the thought. “You know he will.”

“Yes, if he indeed believes her to be a witch, he will surely hang her.” Jacques was still smiling. “But even that would help you. Marguerite could deflect attention from you. It is quite plausible that a jealous witch, such as she, would seek to eliminate you. After casting her spell of seduction over me, she would not want you interceding between us, would she? And if Carroughes hangs his own wife, perhaps he will be seen for the fanatic he is and removed from his post.”

“But I cannot kill her for vengeance against Carroughes!” you protested. “Nor to use her as a scapegoat to clear my name. She is my friend.”

“Is she?” Jacques became genuinely serious. “How good of a friend do you think her? Do you trust her never to betray you? Need I remind you that she is the reason you are in this plight?”

“That was an accident. She made a mistake,” you told Jacques confidently.

“And if she were not your true friend?” He pressed. “If she would indeed betray you if the opportunity arose? If her heart was traitorous?” He held your eyes intently. “If she would still gallivant with me even though I am now yours?”

“She would never,” you stated with a conviction that your intuition told you was misplaced.

“Let us learn the truth about her, and then you tell me how you wish to handle Mrs. Carroughes,” Jacques offered, sure of himself. “I’ll wager that you shall deem her worthy of hanging, even if she is not the infamous Witch of Salem.”

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A warrant for Jacques had not yet been issued, so he maintained his ministerial duties. His church sermon Sunday gave him access to Marguerite and the opportunity he needed. This Sunday was particularly opportune as Carroughes was too busy overseeing the details of your prosecution to accompany his wife. Although you were to be sequestered pending your trial, Pierre assisted in sneaking you into Jacques’s quarters inside the church. You waited there, alone and hidden with only his many shelved books for company, while Jacques conducted the Sunday service. Even through walls of thick wood, you could hear his deep voice boom as he gave his sermon.

Shortly after the service concluded, Pierre rushed inside Jacques’s office, your hiding place. Without explanation, he took your arm and pulled you behind a dressing partition in the corner of the room. He smiled like a boy in the midst of a prank and held a finger to his lips, gesturing for silence. You didn’t have to wait long to learn why.

Jacques was laughing heartily at some unheard prompt when he opened the door to his office. He quickly surveyed the room, ensuring you and Pierre were hidden from view before holding the door open for the giggling woman who trailed behind him. Your hand flew to your mouth to stifle your surprise when you saw Marguerite through the space in the hinge of the partition. The way she smiled at Jacques through her eyelashes and blushed rosily was like nothing you had ever seen her offer her repugnant husband.

“With my dearest friend soon to enter marital bliss with you,” Pierre whispered to you, his voice low and dripping with sarcasm. “This may be the last opportunity we have to watch the infamous Jacques Le Gris in action. I assure you, his performances are never to be missed.”

“There had better not be much of a performance,” you hissed back. “Or I will be a murderer and not just a voyeur.”

“Ah, but voyeurism can be such delightful fun when you have good company.” Pierre smirked and patted your shoulder as he squeezed close to you, looking over your head and peering through the same narrow gap in the hinges of the partition. “Regardless, I would not be overly jealous of whatever attention your fiancé gives Marguerite. It is fated to be short lived.”

From your hiding place, you gritted your teeth as you watched Marguerite sashay over to the large bookcase that housed a collection of leatherbound volumes. She ran her fingertips along the books’ spines, her eye catching on a title on the top shelf. Jacques glided behind her, his cloak sweeping behind him like nefarious wings. Standing very close behind her, his body almost touching hers, Jacques reached above her to pluck the high book. Jacques backed away as he cracked open the book and read from its pages in his mellifluous baritone. As though Jacques’s words or the tone of his voice cast a spell of his own, Marguerite leaned back against the bookshelf, lewdly arching her back and rubbing back against it like a bitch in heat.

“Have you forgotten that I’m to be married?” Jacques asked in a voice honeyed with seduction, his eyes glimmering. His words, or perhaps moreover the way he spoke them, enticed her further and she ran a hand over her heaving chest, squeezing her breast over her dress. Jacques kept his eyes on the page and his lip curled in amusement when he added, “I’m to be married to your closest friend, no less. Behave yourself.”

Although his words were innocuous and entirely appropriate, you felt the way the thrum of his voice sent the hairs on the back of your neck standing on edge and heat flush across your décolletage. Jacques stood still, save for his fingers caressing the page, yet his presence filled every corner of the room. He was casting a spell of his own, as potent as any potion; a sorcerer of seduction working his magic right before your eyes. You felt the pull of his magnetism even through the partition with Pierre intrusively and quite literally breathing down the back of your neck.

“She needn’t know,” Marguerite entreated as she rushed to Jacques, cloying at his collar. She rubbed her body against him and lowered her voice to a devious whisper. “Besides, if my husband has his way, you will need someone to comfort you after she is hanged as a witch.”

Tall as he was, Jacques easily kept his lips from her reach, holding his head high like a horse refusing the bit. “This is hardly the time or the place.”

“Meet me tonight, then,” Marguerite whined insouciantly as she trailed her hand from Jacques’s collar down his body to rub the front of his trousers.

“What say you, my dear?” Pierre whispered in your ear while Marguerite brushed her lips against Jacques’s throat. “How do you judge Mrs. Carroughes?”

“If I were her judge, I would sentence that traitorous whore to death on the spot,” you fumed, your face and chest hot with rage and your clenched fists trembling.

Jacques could not have heard your words, your voice was impossibly faint. But his eyes snapped to your hiding place as though he could look right through the partition to meet your gaze and he smirked in that diabolical way of which you had grown so fond. He snapped the book closed, the sound very loud in the silent room. Seemingly on command like a hound responding to the snap of its master’s fingers, the door to the office burst open and Carroughes stomped inside.

With a gasp of guilty fright, Marguerite jumped back from Jacques, but Carroughes had seen all he needed. So had the company of several men who accompanied him.

“I’ll gut you for this, Le Gris!” Carroughes sputtered, appalled, shaking and spitting.

“Me?” Jacques asked innocently, his hand flying to his chest. “Whatever do you mean, Carroughes? I was in here only trying to review the notes on my sermon when your wife, poor neglected creature that she is, came into my chambers to seduce me.”

“You try to take advantage of my wife, and now you slander her?!” Carroughes shouted belligerently, rushing toward Jacques, ready to fight. He moved stiffly, with a very pronounced limp.

“To be clear, I slander you, Carroughes.” Jacques smirked from behind the guard of his raised fists, provoking Carroughes further. “Although, it is not slander to speak the truth. You neglect your wife, you are incapable of satisfying her, and you are surprised that she pursues a real man?”

Before Carroughes could escalate the confrontation to the exchanging of blows, Pierre darted out from behind the partition, leaving you alone behind it. With his customary flamboyance, Pierre exclaimed, “I saw it all! Do you dare try to impugn my word, Carroughes? The word of a Magistrate?” Pierre popped his lapels and smiled smugly. “I witnessed Mrs. Carroughes, myself. She pursued Minister Le Gris, ignoring his protestations, and tried to seduce him.” He ignored the tears that now flowed down Marguerite’s cheeks and the look of terror wrought upon her features. “I daresay, she tried to bewitch him with some incantation she uttered in the Devil’s Tongue.”

“Indeed, I felt as though some dark force had taken command of me,” Jacques added, allowing a look of fright to twist his expression for dramatic effect.

“Arrest her!” Pierre commanded the men with Carroughes, the deputies sent from Boston to hunt witches. “Arrest the Witch of Salem!”

Carroughes huffed and cussed and postured, but he could do nothing. And even his weak mind latched onto the fact that if he, as the Crown Prosecutor, protested Marguerite’s arrest too vehemently, he would be arrested right alongside her and charged with witchcraft himself. Watching from behind the partition, a momentary pang of guilt pierced your heart, but you shook it away. She had indeed tried to seduce your husband-to-be and she was wholly unbothered by betraying you. She deserved to die. You hoped she suffered terribly. As the thought, the wish, passed through your mind, so did a frigid gust through the room. Surely, it was nothing but an eldritch coincidence.

The guards clasped Marguerite’s arms behind her. She cried and struggled against her captors, but she was powerless to prevent them clapping her wrists in irons and hauling her away. Carroughes composed himself, by his paltry standards, and followed after her. He not only walked with a pronounced limp in his right leg, but he was vaguely doubled over as though he tried to conceal another pain in his bowels, or perhaps in even lower regions.

When the door to Jacques’s office was again closed, you ran out from behind the partition and into Jacques’s welcoming arms. He lifted you off the floor, spinning with you in his arms and kissed you triumphantly.

“Well!” Pierre clapped his hands and excitedly rubbed them together. “I’d say a celebration is in order! Come! Enough of this dreariness that can only be found inside of churches, it’s time for wine and women!” He looked at Jacques who was still holding you and added, “Stick to one woman if you must, but I certainly shall not on this joyous occasion!”

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Just as you were, Marguerite was placed on house arrest pending her trial with armed men stationed outside her and Carroughes’s house to ensure she did not attempt to abscond nor cast any spells. Carroughes stayed with her, giving the outward appearance of a concerned husband. Inside their house, the tone was rather different.

“Have you fucked Le Gris?” Carroughes bellowed into Marguerite’s face, his rancid breath fuming her cheeks from a hair’s breadth away where he had her pinned against the wall with his hand at her throat. “Are you the Witch of Salem?”

“I – I have never betrayed you,” she sputtered, unable to draw breath beneath Carroughes’s fist on her throat.

“Lies!” Carroughes raised his fist to strike her lying mouth. “Tell me the truth! Are you Le Gris’s whore? Or the Devil’s? Or both?”

“No!” she cried, trying to prevent a crushing blow to her cheek. “I am not the Witch of Salem, I promise!” She sobbed the truth, choking for breath, before lapsing into lies. “And Jacques, he – he forced himself upon me. He raped me!”

“Why should I believe any of your lies?” Carroughes spat, but his hold on her throat weakened.

“It’s the truth!” she sobbed wretchedly. “Jacques raped me, and his fiancée is the Witch of Salem! And now they have turned you against me.”

“You will have a fair trial,” Carroughes assured her, dropping his hand from her throat. “I will see to that.”

“A fair trial means nothing in Salem!” She was crying uncontrollably, rattled from Carroughes’s attack and her pending doom. “And what if I am convicted?”

“Then I will have to follow my duty.” Carroughes’s voice turned cold, and his perennially dull eyes glowed unnaturally as if another force had overtaken the helm inside his feeble mind. “I had best get some use out of you now. It may be the last night I have female company until I remarry.”

Marguerite cried an embarrassingly weak protest and sank to the floor, covering her teary eyes with her hands. Carroughes still seemed unseeing when he rucked his trousers down his thighs covered in curling simian hair. The odor alone of Carroughes’s lower body would have repulsed most women in itself, but as his wife, Marguerite had been forced to grow inured to such things. It wasn’t until she removed her hands from her eyes that true horror engulfed her. From her place cowering on the floor, Carroughes’s penis was level with her face. It was a rather unimpressive appendage, but she had always considered its laughably small size an advantage that made the event easier to ignore when he forced himself upon her. She could not ignore what she faced now.

Swollen to the size of a distorted squash from the pus and pestilence that welled within, Carroughes’s cock dripped the same jaundiced mixture onto Marguerite’s skirt. Although grotesquely engorged to twice its normal erect size, it was too heavy from festering fluid to stand as it should, so it swung between his legs like a single pendulous udder. The shaft was splotched in diseased hues of yellow and purple, deeper than a violent bruise. The protruding head was as red as a pustule ready to rupture, tinted with the same glossy green shine of rancid meat. The smell was far beyond fetid, having reached the putrid bouquet of a carcass left so long in the sun that the internal organs had burst from heat.

Carroughes in his zombie state didn’t seem to know or care about his gangrenous penis, advancing on his wife with insistent amorous intent. Marguerite screamed, blood-curdling and shrill. She prayed for a death that would not yet come as Carroughes overpowered her and took what he wanted.

Intruding into her mind just as forcibly as her husband intruded into her body was a single thought, repeating over and over like a macabre mantra. It was a sentiment you had spoken of often to her.

The Ninth Circle of Hell is reserved for betrayers.

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Justice came swiftly for Marguerite. Her trial was held only two days after her arrest. Though, for reasons unknown, she seemed eager to escape the confines of her home, even if it was to trudge to the church to be tried as a witch. Magistrate D’Alencon presided over the proceedings with another two judges from Boston. They all listened raptly to Jacques’s testimony as he stoically relayed how Marguerite had attempted to seduce him and had used witchcraft to sway his conscience.

As a scarlet woman suspected of witchcraft yourself, you were not permitted to watch the trial. It was infuriating to be excluded from the most important trial since the witch hunting madness had begun, all because of an allegation against you. Even if you now accepted the truth of that allegation, it did nothing to lessen your anger. So, you busied yourself by taking that very anger out on the poppet of Carroughes.

Only his testimony could possibly discredit Jacques, so you determined to absolve that concern. You recalled when Carroughes had slammed you against the wall in your own home and screamed at you so belligerently that he had sent spit flying into your face. You pictured his vile testimony against Jacques during the trial. Aiming a pin where the poppet’s mouth would be, you imagined his vile tongue and stabbed the pin into the doll. You stabbed it again and again, taking some small measure of your wrath out on the poor poppet before leaving the pin impaled in the fabric.

Later, you would learn from Jacques that even as Carroughes walked to take the witness chair, he coughed and hacked viscous green phlegm from his throat. He managed to choke out his name with the same wet sputtering of sloughing mud through a drain, and then his voice dissolved into little more than gurgles and grunts. His tongue when it protruded from his mouth was purple-black with white sores and swollen to twice its normal size.

“Being illiterate, Carroughes couldn’t even write when his voice failed him!” Jacques laughed as he relayed it to you over lunch with Pierre. “He was just like a hog, grunting and snuffling and spitting. It took all my strength not to laugh outright.”

Jacques laughed along with you now, hearty and rich.

“Even before he became tongue-tied,” Pierre laughed too, leaning back in his chair. “He looked as if he had aged twenty years overnight when he walked into the church this morning.” He glanced at you then at Jacques. “I must be careful never to cross that little witch of yours.”

“Witch?” Jacques teased. “I’m quite sure I have no knowledge of any witches here.” He winked at you. “The Witch of Salem has been sentenced to burn at the stake tonight at sunset.”

“The other magistrates wanted to send a grand message to other curious ladies who might find themselves wondering what it might be like to dance with the devil in the pale moonlight.” Pierre sighed dejectedly and shook his head. “This is going to be just terrible for my nocturnal recreation.”

“Perhaps, my friend,” Jacques laughed and draped his arm across your shoulders. “But not tonight! Tonight, we shall have a grand spectacle.”

“Are the two of you planning on dancing naked around the bonfire that Marguerite is soon to become?” you asked, trying to moderate the jealousy you still felt over Jacques’s former debauchery.

“Only if you join me, amour,” Jacques returned with a smirk.

“No, no.” Pierre wrinkled his nose. “The smell of burning flesh tends to spoil the ambience.”

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Plumes of smoke rose into the frosty autumn air, black tendrils blending into the grey clouds that rolled ominously in the sky. You stood close to the hastily constructed pyre, leaning against Jacques, using the heat from his towering body to fight against the chill. His arm was draped possessively around your shoulders as you both watched your accuser struggle against the ropes that bound her wrists and ankles to a tall wooden stake. The fire at her feet had already been lit, the first torch laid by Minister Le Gris after he administered her last rites. Smoke stung your eyes as it thickened, swirling up from below Marguerite’s feet and choking her as it rose upward.

A line of armed guards formed a semi-circle around the pyre, ensuring that no rescue attempts could be made. As the Crown Prosecutor, it was Carroughes’s duty to oversee the execution of every convicted witch. He didn’t allow the inconvenience of being Marguerite’s husband stop him from performing his duty. In the hours since her trial, several of Carroughes’s teeth had fallen out. No doubt the same mysterious malediction that he had contracted in his nether regions had spread to his tongue and then to his gums. The soft tissues of the body are always vulnerable to tenacious putrefaction.

Hunched like a ninety-year-old man, Carroughes shuffled to the pyre, flaming torch in hand. He looked over at Jacques and back away just as quickly like he had been slapped in the face. He knew he had been beaten, just as he knew that if he again tried to come after you or Jacques, that he would be utterly destroyed. Deaf to Marguerite’s cries and pleas, Carroughes threw the final torch onto the already roaring fire at the base of the pyre.

“The perils of crossing swords with a witch,” Jacques rumbled just loud enough for Carroughes to hear when he retreated from the pyre. The swollen pustules on Carroughes’s tongue prevented any retort beyond a sloppy gurgling expletive. Carroughes now knew the truth beyond any doubt, and he also knew he was utterly powerless to do anything about it. Under the scrutiny of so many witnesses, Carroughes could do nothing more than gimp away.

The fire popped and cracked, licking higher and higher up the pyre and up the body of its victim. The hem of Marguerite’s long dress caught fire when the flames washed over the platform on which she stood. Her dress erupted like dry kindling, encircling her lower body in flames so her torso looked like a topper on a fiery tree. The scream that tore from her throat was enough to turn blood to ice. Jacques squeezed you tighter, but you weren’t affected.

It was already too late to save her, but still Marguerite sought your eyes. Through sobs, smoke, and horror, she begged you for help, for forgiveness, for mercy. You met Marguerite’s tortured eyes, and you flashed her your wickedest smile.

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Decadence and ostentation lavished the decidedly un-Puritan festivities Pierre threw to commemorate the burning of the Witch of Salem. It was eclipsed only by the celebration he hosted in his enormous estate on the night of your marriage to Jacques. It was the grandest event of the year, Pierre ensured as much. He even saw to it that the former Crown Prosecutor was included.

Carroughes could no longer walk since he had tragically broken a hip on the winter ice, and he could no longer see after the strange illness spread further upward from his groin and his gums into his eyes, transforming them into blind bulbous abscesses that wept with milky issue. It was no matter. Pierre had sent two of his sons, Charles and Etienne, or perhaps it was one of the others. Once the number of children eclipsed five, they blurred into one squalling horde to him. However, the gaggle of his offspring and the others scurrying about his halls, pleased him that evening. The whelps made good sport of Carroughes by throwing bits of food at him like they would a blind leprous dog. When the children ran out of ideas on how to entertain themselves at his expense, Pierre eagerly supplied them afresh.

Throughout the night, there was not a moment when Jacques’s hand was not holding yours or resting on your thigh, when his arm was not wrapped around you or embracing you close. He made you laugh until your cheeks hurt, twirled you until your head spun, and danced with you until your feet ached. It was all part of his devilish plan. He then had the perfect excuse to sweep you off the floor and up into his powerful arms, sparing your feet by carrying you back to the bedchamber you would share for your first night as man and wife.

Laughter tumbled from your lips as Jacques kicked the bedroom closed behind him before he captured your lips in a spellbinding kiss. His mouth tasted of the same heady scent that had been engraved upon your senses since you first dreamed of him. The feeling of his tongue as it slipped past your lips spread warmth through your body faster than wine on your palette. Moonlight dappled the room in ethereal silver, softly lighting the large bed in its center.

When Jacques returned you to your feet, your hands lingered possessively on his chest, his body that was now yours alone. Jacques proceeded with far more care when you undressed each other. You tore at the laces of his shirt, nearly ripping the fabric in your haste, while he deftly undid your dress and slid it off your shoulders and down your body. His gaze was ravenous when he admired your figure under the caress of the moonlight.

Reaching his hands to touch your bare skin, Jacques knew yours was a spell from which he would never be free. He knew you were the last woman he would ever touch like this. He had known many women, but in every way that mattered, you were the first for him just as he was the first and only man who would ever possess you. He had never loved a woman before, nor had he ever sought a woman’s pleasure above his own. Tonight he would, and every night thereafter with you and you alone.

Even when he caged you beneath him on the mattress and took command of your body, it was still he who was captured like a wolf in a snare. You entranced his every sense until he was intoxicated on love’s potion. Kissing your neck, your scent swirled into his nose, dizzying him even as he held you tight. Grabbing and smoothing his enormous callused hands over your milk-soft skin, he marveled at the way your curves fit perfectly to his muscular angles. Plunging into you, he felt as though the silken heat of you burned through his entire being, arousing a passionate flame inside his heart that would never be extinguished.

Jacques used all of his remarkable talent and his great strength to lavish you with more pleasure than you had thought your senses capable of absorbing. He gave you robust and fiery when you needed it, lingering and sensual when you desired it, carrying you to new heights of ecstasy just as he had carried you to bed. He wanted for you to not only feel the erotic sensations he alone could give you, but also the depth of the love that he had never felt for another. The feeling of you quivering and squeezing around him and trembling in his arms was the finest commendation he had ever received, one he hoped to earn with regularity. He lost himself in you then, riding the warm tide of pleasure with you.

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Hours later, in the darkest hours of the night when witches and demons ran their nefarious errands, you felt Jacques shift beneath you, rousing you from sleep. Raising your head from his pillowy chest, you sleepily teased, “Are you always awake in the witching hour?”

“Inquires the lovely wakeful witch?” He grinned and kissed you until you were fully alert and happy to be so. He rubbed his warm hand along your back when he broke your kiss. “I wish to show you something, amour. Tonight.”

Jacques gently rolled you off of him before rising from the bed. He only pulled on his trousers before offering you his hand and pulling you up from the warmth of the sheets. You shivered briefly in the cold before Jacques draped his heavy wool coat over your shoulders, the garment swimmingly voluminous around you. Taking your hand in his, he raised it to his lips for a kiss before leading you from the bedroom.

Holding a flickering candle, he led you down stairs and through darkened hallways of Pierre’s home until you reached the room you had learned was Pierre’s study. Although it was no doubt past midnight, the sounds of Pierre’s soiree could still be heard echoing through his walls. Laughing men, giggling women, groaning lovers, all keeping their own nighttime vigil.

Jacques led you to the end of the room behind a large desk. Extending his arm high and raising up on his toes, he pushed at a spot on the wall in the upper corner, too high for most people to reach without a ladder. It was indistinguishable from the rest of the wall. At his touch, the wall sprung open like an ominous gate. Jacques smiled at your widened eyes and walked ahead of you. He immediately descended a steep flight of stairs, holding the candle behind him to light your way as you followed.

The room you entered at the base of the stairs smelled of wet ground, candle wax, and leather. It was warm and humid, despite being locked away from the rest of the house. You stood in darkness as Jacques moved throughout the room, lighting a litany of candles in sconces. As the room illuminated, you realized you were standing in something akin to a plush dungeon.

Dark wood paneling lined the walls, framing ancient looking documents, scrawled on yellowing parchment. Candles were interspersed throughout the room, sitting on shelves built into the walls and upon the one large table that lined the back wall. Littering the table were bottles, knives, things that looked like dehydrated roots and bundles of plants wound together, exotic skulls, and quills and ink. Centered in the table was an immense book lying open, its pages decorated with scrawling lines of beautiful script in addition to sketches and notes.

Jacques stood before you calmly, his hands clasped in front of him, appraising your response closely. Your eyes darted back and forth in a mixture of surprise and confusion between Jacques and the objects in the room, particularly the large open book. Realization was quick to dawn on you and you smiled slyly at Jacques.

“So, I did truly see you and Pierre out in the woods carousing with those women?” you asked. “It was a vision after all?”

“I shall neither admit nor deny such a damning accusation,” he teased you with a wolfish smile. “But I will say that witches have a way of finding each other. I never thought I would find my equal in this world.”

“You are a witch, too?” You almost laughed. “And Pierre?”

“Pierre? He dabbles. He tries. He is one of those hopefuls I told you about who endeavors to learn magic through study.” Jacques took you in his arms, looking down at you proudly. “But you and I are natural witches. Two of a kind. The most powerful of us all.”

“Does this mean you are in league with the Devil?” You smirked as you watched the candlelight dance in his eyes. “It would hardly surprise me.”

“The Devil does not seek my counsel, nor do I seek his,” Jacques teased and kissed you. “I am in league with you alone, ma belle sorciere.”

“Why did you not tell me you are a witch?” You smacked his chest playfully.

“Why did you not ask?” he laughed, trapped your hand to his chest, and his expression turned sincere and warm. “It was the first time I looked into your luminous eyes -- how they burned with the brightest fire, the richest magic -- that I knew I had finally fallen under the spell of another.” He kissed you again. “Never release me from your spell, amour.”

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