The Witchfinder's Serpent by Rande Goodwin

Author:Rande Goodwin [Goodwin, Rande]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group Press

Allie came awake with a gasp. She had had the dream again, forcing her to recall the horror she had felt the day she had experienced it. It took her a moment to remember where she was. She looked around the empty room, once again seeing the iron chains that sprouted from the floor around its perimeter. She was in the Hartford Gaol, where her mother had been kept—and where Malleus Hodge had taken her after ripping her away from her mother’s dying body.

He had tossed her to the ground before slamming the door closed behind her—and there she had remained, her face pressed against the cold floor as she cried herself to sleep, the emotional and physical exhaustion too much to bear.

Allie rose to her feet, wondering how long she had been there. Where was her father, and why had he let Hodge take her? What was Hodge planning? She hoped not to be here to find out. She ran to the door and pulled as hard as she could, but it was locked and wouldn’t budge. She stood on her tiptoes to peer through the barred window in the door’s center. On the other side was a small room with a table and two chairs—no doubt the guard’s room. It was empty. Her mother had been the jail’s only prisoner and now she was gone.

There were no other doors. Several small windows, the room’s only source of light, were positioned high upon the walls. They too were barred and far too high to reach. There would be no escape. It was a jail cell after all—it had been built to keep people inside.

“Help!” she cried. “Somebody help me!” She doubted anyone would hear—there had been no one near the jail when she had arrived. Everyone had been gathered around the meetinghouse, and even they would have most likely dispersed by now. As she had expected, no one responded to her cries. She would have to wait for Hodge to return.

Allie sat down, her back against the wall. She needed her mother. She regretted ever leaving her bed that morning. She wished she had never come to Hartford, and most of all, she wished she hadn’t seen her mother swinging from the end of that rope. But if she had stayed in her bed, she wouldn’t have learned what had happened to her mother—at least now she knew.

Allie thought again about the day she had come close to drowning. She had nearly died that day—and she would have, if not for her mother and her special talents. She and her mother had left the meetinghouse that morning after church service, heading south from the village green. They had followed the well-worn path to the rivulet that flowed through the woods on that side of the settlement. Her father had chosen not to join them, preferring to stay and socialize with the townsfolk on the green.

The rivulet was only a few minutes away, and as they approached, a couple of old friends came running from between the trees.

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