The Firefly Witch (Bold Women of the 17th Century Series, Book 1)(3)

Each morning, Azubah rose to the sound of the wheel turning. She went to sleep each night listening to the waterfall. The constant roar was thunderous, but she didn’t notice. To her, it was the sound of home. Grandfather Craft was oblivious to it as well and partially deaf as a result. For this reason, he always spoke with a commanding voice.

Azubah was captivated by the multicolored stones of the mill from the time she was a small girl. Each was shaped differently, but it was the river that truly charmed her. When she found time to sneak away, she would hide under a tree and watch the water, white with foam, rush and tumble down the rock face and she listened. All things of the earth called to her. She could feel life emanating from them. The ground vibrated beneath her feet, and she could feel a force pulsating within as she placed her hand on trees.

All this she kept to herself, knowing it was blasphemous and profane. Her Puritan countrymen saw the natural world as an abomination. The vast interior a threat teemed with savages and unspeakable dangers. But Azubah believed differently.

One afternoon when she was lost in thought, sitting at the spinning wheel, a man leaned in the window, startling her. He removed his floppy hat, his thin gray hair hanging in wisps about his face and asked, “If you please, young miss, is Goodman Craft in?”

Azubah stopped treadling and said, “Good day, Goodman Barrow. You seek the elder?”

“The younger.”

“He is at the mill, sir.”

“Nay, he was not there.”

Perplexed, she put her yarn aside and crossed to the door. The Craft cottage was one of the bigger homes in Plum River. It was equipped with low, timbered ceilings, a thatched roof and a large hearth for cooking. It had wood rather than earthen floors which was a luxury in the community.

Azubah had been so engrossed in her work. She had not noticed her mother left the house with the children. She stepped outside and saw them in the field. Her mother was standing with her stepfather near the stalks of Indian corn holding the baby on her hip. A few strands of brown hair had escaped her cap and she was talking rapidly. Josiah was looking down at her, scowling. He was a large man with light hair and a low forehead and imperceptible eyebrows.

“He is there,” Azubah said to Goodman Barrow.

“My thanks,” he replied.

They were all back at the door of the house moments later. Josiah leaned in and called to Azubah. “There is something I require of you.”

When she stepped outside, she saw that he was holding a y-shaped branch in his hand.

She knew what he wanted instantly.

“Please, my husband,” Abigail said.

“Be still,” he hissed.

“Come now,” and Josiah gestured to Azubah.

She stepped outside, and they climbed onto an ox cart. The two men sat in front and Azubah was in the rear with her legs dangling.

With a sigh, Abigail gathered the children and went into the house.

It was a midsummer morning and already the sun was warming the earth. The cart bounced and bumped along the path staying in the cool shade of the trees following the river. They passed through the village, a cluster of clapboard dwellings, storehouses and a meetinghouse. The men were out in the fields. The women and children were tending the gardens and preparing the midday meal. Occasionally one of them would look up and wave.

They continued to follow the river, passing hayfields and farms. Azubah raised her face to the sun feeling its warmth upon her cheeks and catching the heady scent of the grasses bordering the path. She spied a hare sitting upon its hind legs, staring at her. She smiled. Lately, whenever she saw a rabbit or hare, she thought of her stepfather. With his large front teeth, lack of eyebrows and white, wispy hair, she found the resemblance uncanny. She rebuked herself for being disrespectful.

At last, they turned into Goodman Barrow’s homestead. An elderly woman with rounded shoulders and a shriveled face waved to them as they circled around to the back of the house. It was Goodwife Barrow.

“I pray this works,” Goodman Barrow said. “The river is just too far for us now that we grow old.”

“Shall we start here?” Josiah asked, stepping down from the cart. “Tis not far from the house or the garden.”

“Aye, it a good spot.”

“Azubah?” Josiah said. “Come.”

She slid off the cart, and he handed her the willow branch. Goodman Barrow eyed her suspiciously as she took one end in each hand, and pointed the base of the branch straight ahead.

Swallowing hard, Azubah started to walk. The men followed behind her as she moved around the clearing. She stopped after making several rotations.

“Nothing?” Josiah asked.

Azubah shook her head.

“Then, if you must, go to the woods,” he instructed.

Trudging through the brush, her skirts snagging on weeds. Azubah wandered through the thicket. She wound around oaks and elms, stepping over logs and debris when, suddenly, the branch she was holding tipped downward. She gripped it tightly and slowed her pace. The protruding end of the willow arched to the ground more rigidly with each continuous step.

Goodman Barrow’s eye’s widened.

Struggling to hang on, Azubah took one more step, and the branch arched in half, pointing down directly at the earth.

“Tis enchantment!” Barrow cried. “I never would have believed it if I had not seen it with my own eyes. It moves of its own will.”