Please enjoy this segment from the 3rd segment of my Witches of the Forest series. The Forest Has Ears and One More Forever are available now.
“I think I may
have found what I need to finish off a good nights drink. Which one of you
ladies wishes to be my bed mate for the night? I promise you will walk away,
let’s say, better educated.”
They both looked
at the man standing in front of them. He leaned on their table for support,
waiting for one of them to answer. Rachel shook her head and spoke.
“I prefer my men
to be able to stand up on their own. If you can’t make your legs stand straight
without support, I doubt then, sir that anything else on you will stand up on
its own either.”
The men sitting at
his table laughed loudly at her comment. His face turned red and suddenly there
was anger in his eyes. He moved around the table to where Rachel was seated.
The slap came quick and hard, knocking Rachel from her chair. She placed her
hand on the stinging cheek he had struck.
“Speak to me as if
I am a commoner, will you, wench? I’ll have you tonight and you will enjoy it!
Pick yourself up and come with me! That slap was just a sample of what I will
do to you should you say no!”
Sarah was already
standing when Rachel picked herself up from the floor. As Sarah reached to help
her, Rachel pushed her hand away.
“I need no help to educate this man in how to treat a
lady.” Rachel walked over to the man and smiled her face still red and stinging
from his hand. “Sir, I would be glad to go with you tonight. Let us leave this
place and find somewhere more, shall we say, private.”
“Rachel, what are
you doing?!? You cannot go with this man anywhere!”
“Go back to the
cabin and I will meet you there later. This gentleman and I have somewhere we
need to go. Trust me dear Sarah, I am a big girl and can take care of myself.”
Sarah shook her
head and moved near to Rachel. Leaning forward she whispered. “Whatever your
plan is, please be careful. This is not our era and we certainly do not want to
draw attention to us.”
“We have already
done that, dear, but I will use caution tonight.”
With that said,
Rachel took the man’s arm and walked out the door. Sarah, staying back out of
sight, followed them. They walked towards the forest.
“Where is it you
take me to, wench?”
“I like the feel
of the night air on me when I am taken by a stallion. You won’t deprive a woman
her pleasures, will you, good sir?”
Without an answer
from him, they entered the forest. Sarah stayed as close as she dared without
being seen. She watched as Rachel stopped in a small clearing. She kissed the
man deep, disgusting Sarah as she watched. The man stood, frozen by her kiss.
Rachel began to undress him, one button at a time, kissing his chest as she
did. Suddenly, the man’s eyes opened wide. There was a look of pleasure and
pain in his stare. He tried to push Rachel away from him without success. Fear
replaced the pleasure in his eyes.
“Witch, I should
have known you were one of them by your enchantment. You lured me to your table
just to kill me!”
“Ahhhh, you are
very wrong there, sir. You in fact, are the one that came to my table and
pushed yourself on me. That was the biggest mistake of your pathetic life. I am
merely protecting myself from what we call in my time, a predator.”
“Your time, you
say? You speak as if you are not from here. What means of witchcraft is this
that I stand beside?”
“The kind you are
going to wish you had never approached, you bastard.”
His voice rose as
he again tried to pry himself apart from Rachel’s hold. “I have the authority
to hang you, witch; you and your friend. I shall enjoy seeing you swing from
the end of a rope. Perhaps we will burn you alive, just so that I can enjoy
your death more!”
Rachel laughed and
moved her hand over his chest. “You sir, have no authority at all. You hang
people that are not even witches because you fear us. Now you can see what a
real witch can do.”
The man screamed
out in pain. It echoed through the forest. Sarah feared the scream would be
heard in the village. She lunged forward to stop Rachel for hurting the man but
was suddenly aware of the branches that had wrapped around her feet. She could
not move her legs no matter how hard she pulled. Moving her hand over the
branches, she tried to pull them apart using her magic. The branches did not
give.
“What the hell is
going on here? Release me at once tree or I shall have to use deeper magic. I
do not wish to hurt you but I must silence that man.”
A very bass voice
came from the tree Sarah stood beside. “We know what you wish to do, little
witch, but have trust in the forest. We are young and still learning our place,
but our strength is still present. We can keep his screams from leaving the
forest.”
Sarah watched as
the trees, half the size that the forest was in her time, folded together,
closing out the entire outside world. Rachel and the man she held tightly to
also saw the trees bending to form a canopy. As the trees sealed the three
inside, Rachel could not help but notice bare trees spread throughout the
forest. The branches, stripped of all of their leaves, stood above the trees
reaching towards one another. She loosened her grip on the man, just enough for
him to cease his yelling for a moment.
“Rachel, the trees
are speaking to me. Can you hear their words?”
“I thought you
might follow me here, Sarah. I do hear them speak but I don’t understand why
there are so many bare trees standing.”
The bass voice
rang out again. “Each of those trees was our brothers, our sisters and our
seedlings. We are just beginning to learn to bond together as one forest but in
days long ago, each tree held the soul of a witch within itself. When a witch
is killed, the tree that kept watch over the soul dies with her. Our strengths,
though growing as time passes and we learn of our abilities, have not been
enough to keep our brothers alive after the passing of a witch. What you see
before you is the number of witches that have been killed here.”
“My holy saints,
there are so many trees that have died.”
“Yes Sarah, more
than we wish had died. One day, we will be a strong forest; a fortress that
will protect witches and their families. We will not die as individuals but
will rather, aide in each other’s ability and need to survive. This is what we believe
to be true.”
“It is true,
exactly as you speak it, Guardian. This forest, in our time, you and your
companions, save my coven from an extremely powerful witch and her followers.
You will expand and surround where our cabin is in our own timeline. We owe our
very lives to you and your forest.”
“Then it is good
that we meet now and learn all we can from your time here. Finish what you have
come here to do so that we may stand tall again. There will be no sounds
outside of our branches.”
Rachel began
scratching the man’s chest again. She moved her nails up and down, causing
blood to erupt from his skin. The man’s faced turned ashen grey and Rachel
could feel his body trembling. Sarah moved closer now, the branches unwrapping
themselves from her legs.
“Rachel, we are
not killers. Please don’t do this or it may come back on us. There is no fight
in him and I think he understands what he must do. Resign from his post and
leave Salem forever. Do you hear me, witch killer? I am trying to save your
life.”
Rachel raked harder, her hand trailing downward. She
reached his inner thigh and began to squeeze his skin. The man’s heart could be
heard pounding in his chest.
“Do as she says,
and you might even live to breed with some poor, desperate wench again. Tell me
no… and you will be a worthless gelding the rest of your miserable days. Do not
take too long to answer me.”
The man looked at
Rachel and Sarah, the fear slowly replaced with anger again. He spit into Rachel’s
face as he tried to pull away from her. “You, witch, will be hung above a fire
so that I can slowly watch you both hang and burn to death. Then this forest
will burn until it is all consumed! You have made a costly mistake, wench! As
for your little friend, who apparently can do nothing, I shall enjoy her first
and then hang her beside your burning corpse!”
Sarah smiled as
the man began to push the tree boughs aside. He had not gone far when a huge
branch reached down and knocked him to the ground. The branch pressed its weight
fully against the man’s chest.
“What would you
have me do to him, my queen?”
Rachel looked at
the man and then at Sarah. “He is yours to do with as you wish, Sarah. I am
finished with this pig.”
Sarah walked over
to the man and reached out to touch him. “The only thing that would extinguish the
fires you speak of would be water. I think I will give to you that water.”
Sarah reached inside her dress and pulled her wand out. Making circles around
the man, a wall of water began to encircle him. It filled inside with the
overflow and began to cover his body. “You will not hang another witch, ever
again. Hold him there until he is finished drinking. Then dispose of him in any
way you wish, good tree. I too am finished with him.”
As the trees
opened for the ladies to leave, the man’s screams were barely audible. “Curse
you dirty whores! I will see you in Hell!”
The trees closed
and his voice was silenced forever. The two women walked to their cabin in
silence. They ate a small amount of food and then slept until morning.
