The Year of the Witching(25)

Immanuelle flipped to the middle of the book until she found the poem she had read that day. He was right, it was the same, though the binding on the outside was different, and most every page was marked with the seal of the Church. He must have searched the Prophet’s own private library for it, she realized with a start. It would have been a kind gesture, if not for the fact that it was a bribe.

“I don’t need a book to keep quiet.” She snapped the book closed and held it out to him. “Your business is yours. I won’t tell anyone. You needn’t worry.”

“I’m not worried. I . . . just feel guilty for asking you to keep my secrets.”

“Then don’t ask,” said Immanuelle, still holding the book out to him. “It’s no trouble.”

“But it is a sin.” Ezra was right about that much. It was a sin, and a grave one at that. The same crime that put her father, Daniel, on the pyre. But in light of what she’d seen in the woods the night before, it seemed almost trite.

“Sins can be forgiven,” she said, echoing Leah’s words from a few Sabbaths prior.

“Aye,” said Ezra. “But guilt’s a hard thing to ease.”

“And that’s why you want me to have the book? To ease your guilt?”

“If it’s not too much to ask.” Ezra shrugged. “Besides, I’d rather like to have someone to chat with.”

“About poetry?”

He nodded. “There’s more of it in the library. I can check the shelves, bring you more books.”

“No,” said Immanuelle. “This will do, thank you. Even if you are trying to buy my silence.”

She cringed, anxious that yet again she’d gone too far and said too much, but Ezra only smiled.

For the first time, she noticed he had a light dusting of freckles across his nose, which was slightly crooked, as if he’d taken a bad punch in a schoolyard fight. And perhaps he had. Rumors about Ezra spread about as quickly as the rumors about her. He was known to be wickedly smart, always reading or studying, the kind of person who knew how to ask the right questions. He was also strong, with his father’s stubborn will, and like him, Ezra had the respect of most men in Bethel, and if not that, then fear—fear of the Prophet’s power that burned in him like holy fire, though he hadn’t even witnessed his First Vision yet.

“What happened to your lip?” Ezra’s question pulled her from her thoughts, and she realized he was watching her. She raised a hand to touch the spot where Judas had struck her. Though her split lip had long since scabbed over, the edge of her mouth was still bruised and swollen. “I lost a fight with an angry ram.”

“The one you had at the market?”

“Yes.” She thought of Judas’ bleeding head, left on the stump like a present, then blurted out, “He’s dead.”

“A sacrifice?” His gaze shifted back to the pasture.

She started to shake her head but stopped herself. “Maybe.”

Ezra pressed to his feet and stretched, rolling his shoulders. “Tell me how you like that book. There’s more where that came from. There’s a library in the Haven; I can get you what you want.”

Immanuelle opened her mouth to reply, to tell him that a girl like her had no business with the Prophet’s books no matter how much she wanted to read them, when a scream broke across the pastures. She recognized the voice: Glory.

There was a moment’s pause; then a second scream rang out.

Immanuelle was on her feet in an instant. Ezra angled himself in front of her as she moved, as if he meant to shield her from whatever harm was coming their way. But Immanuelle had no time to humor his chivalry. She pushed past him, sprinting toward the echo of Glory’s cries. And as she ran, all she could think of were the women of the woods—the dead-eyed witches.

She found Glory by the well at the end of the pastures, a few yards from the forest’s edge, a bucket capsized at her feet.

“Are you hurt?” Immanuelle asked, slowing to a stop.

Glory shook her head, mouth open, blond curls sticking to her lips. Her gaze flickered to Ezra, as if she was as shocked to see him as she was by whatever had startled her. But the moment passed, and she snapped to her senses. Words seemed to catch in her throat as she pointed to the bucket with a shaking finger.

Ezra stooped to pick it up. It was then Immanuelle caught the scent of rot on the air, wet and fetid. Something black seeped into the soil, slicking the walls of the bucket.

Immanuelle swallowed dry, her stomach roiling, as Ezra put the bucket on its hook and lowered it into the depths of the well again. He twisted the crank, and the bucket descended, disappearing into the deep. When the sound of the bucket’s rim breaking water echoed up the shaft, he began to crank the lever again, working fast, his shoulders straining with the effort.

Slowly, the bucket climbed above the stones of the well’s wall. Ezra took it off its hook and Glory staggered back, as though he’d reeled a viper from the water.

He lowered the bucket to the ground, and to Immanuelle’s horror, she saw it was filled to the brim with a thick, dark liquid that sloshed over the rim and blackened the soil below. Immanuelle dropped to her knees beside it and dipped her fingers into the bucket. When she removed her hand her fingertips were slick red.

“Blood,” she whispered, and with those words, a kind of dreadful déjà vu settled over her, so powerful it seemed to tear her soul from her body. It took her a moment to come back to herself. “Where is Martha?”