Page 2 of The Sea Witch (Salt & Sorcery #1)
She slipped free from Cecily’s hold and climbed down the tree. Quickly, she mounted up before leading her horse back onto
the road, careful to stay within the shadows and mists she’d fashioned so the sentry outside the reverend’s house wouldn’t
notice her. When she was in the clear, she pressed on toward the east end of the village. Here, amongst the austere stone
cottages with faces as dour as the people of Norham, more of the witches lived. Women whose power was nurtured and strengthened
by the sea.
She could smell it here, the brine of the water, heavy in her lungs yet lifting her up.
Though she put no faith in Sunday sermons, Alys prayed to any listening deity that the women she’d taught had the courage
to see this through to the end. It was only going to get harder from here.
Twelve women waited in the shadows by the harbor. Not all of them possessed magic, but they each held power of one form or
another. The women looked to Alys, fear in their faces, their postures tense but ready.
Closer to the sea, more magical power flowed into Alys. It lapped against the pilings with welcome murmurs, filling her with
energy, like the rush of catching a gust of wind in the sails, and it pushed back against the terror that wanted to consume
her.
Cecily and Polly were there. With them was Susannah, who was technically a freedwoman but treated as an unpaid servant by
Josiah and Mary Lawford. Also amongst their band of escapees was Jane, the wife of the town bully, as well as eight more,
women who had sought something for themselves alone.
Alys had trained them to sail, helped some to nurture their magic, but the next step was into the unknown.
In their hands, they held carpet bags, battered and worn satchels, or blankets hastily tied into bundles, holding the contents of their lives.
Alys had left behind the cedar chest she had packed when she’d moved from her childhood home into Samuel’s house, too heavy and clumsy to take with her in the heat of flight.
Instead, she’d grabbed a quilt her mother had sewn and given to her when she’d first bled, and used it to hold only the most basic of needs.
Shifts, stockings, a seashell that Ellen had given her, and a compass that had once been Samuel’s, but she’d given to herself after his death.
Nothing else in his house held meaning or value for her. Everything else was tainted by shame and drudgery.
“There must be a plan.” Without fail, Polly thought ahead, and Alys was grateful for her clear-eyed perspective.
“There’s only one way out of here to safety,” Alys answered. To muffle their voices, she summoned a mist, cool and damp.
She looked behind her, to the dock, where the tied fishing boats bobbed on the swells of the water, including her own boat.
It was a small vessel, barely able to hold a crew more than four in number. A stab of pain lanced through her to think of
leaving the boat behind. Humble though it was, the boat had given her the gift of the sea, and awakened the power that had
simmered in her veins. It was more her parent than her mother or her father had ever been.
“Take a fishing boat?” Jane asked. “We can sail it down to Delaware or Maryland. Somewhere far away.”
“I’ve a bigger prize in mind.”
Alys pointed to a two-masted brigantine, its foremast square-sailed and its mainsail gaff-rigged, anchored at the end of the dock.
Norham seldom saw ships of that size, since merchantmen usually sailed into Portsmouth or Boston, but as fortune had it, this brigantine had docked earlier in the day to unload its cargo of British pewter and furniture to be sold around the Cape.
Some fanciful boatwright had carved and gilded leaves around the bow and at the railing of the quarterdeck.
The figurehead was a buxom woman in flowing robes, her hair streaming across her shoulders.
“The biggest vessel we’ve sailed is a trawler,” Cecily said.
“We’ll learn the way of it,” Alys answered. “Slow and cautious earns us nooses around our necks.”
Anxious murmurs rose up from the women.
“They’ll soon discover all of us gone,” Alys continued. “We have to get aboard and set sail now.”
Susannah exclaimed, “They won’t simply let us take the ship. Not without at least raising the alarm and bringing the whole town down on us.”
Everyone turned to regard the brigantine, where a lantern drifted back and forth across the upper deck, and another figure
stood at the head of the lowered gangplank.
“Two men,” Jane said acidly. “A trusting lot, to keep so few on watch.”
“This isn’t Boston or Charleston.” Alys studied the ship. “Not much fear of piracy here in Norham. Yet we’ll need surprise
and silence—and I’ve got a plan to give us both. Gather close and listen.”
There were gasps and more uneasy murmurs as she explained her scheme, yet Polly and Cecily nodded as Alys detailed what would
be required. Slowly, the other women added their own nods.
“We’re in agreement, then?” Alys looked at each of them in turn, making certain she took everyone’s opinion into consideration.
“No going back after this. Either we succeed, or this is the end of our freedom—and our lives.”
A moment’s silence fell, followed by a whispered chorus of “Aye.”
“We trust you, Alys,” Cecily said, pinning up her hair.
Alys breathed in sharply. “That might not be wise. You trusted me when you asked me to teach you to sail, and behold, we’re about to become fugitives.”
“Better fugitives than anyone’s forced peon.” Polly’s mouth twisted. “They tell us it’s for our own good, but they say it
with their boots on our necks.”
“Or their fists in our faces.” Jane touched her jaw.
Red glittering sparks curled out from Polly’s and Jane’s chests. Sparking magic rose up in the other women, sharp and fiery-hued
from their anger, casting long dancing shadows against the walls of the dock’s warehouses.
“Time for our fury later,” Alys said tersely. “Right now, we’ve got to dim our light. Keep unwanted eyes off us.”
The magic faded, leaving them in the darkness of the wharf.
“We won’t be dim for much longer,” Alys assured them. “Those swimming with me, our skirts have to come off.”
A moment later, the group broke apart. Without long skirts hampering their movements, Alys and five others slunk to the dock’s
edge before slipping into the water. The cold stole her breath, but the welcome embrace of the sea gave it back. It was a
homecoming after the fear and sharp edges of fleeing the village.
She gave one quick wave to those remaining in the shadows ashore.
Alys and her allies softly paddled around the ship’s hull. Her movements were hindered by the coil of rope she’d draped around
her arm and concentrating on not dropping the knife held between her teeth. Yet, she’d started swimming when she was a small
girl splashing in quiet marshy inlets, pretending to be a mermaid. Even then, being near the water had gathered currents of
gleaming energy around her legs—until her mother had slapped her face, saying that no one could ever, ever see Alys in the water, if that kind of magic happened when she swam.
But the warning wasn’t enough. Tonight, Alys was condemned as a witch. Anger kept her from being paralyzed by fear as she
swam as quietly as possible.
Moving through the water, more and more power surged into her body, brought forward by seawater and all the living beings
that dwelled in its depths. Just as they had when she’d been a girl, glimmers formed around her body as she swam, currents
of stars within the water. She swam faster, and kept to the far side of the ship away from the night watch.
The brigantine creaked and groaned as it slept at anchor. It was a beauty of a vessel, well-maintained and, from the looks
of things, recently careened so that all the barnacles and seaweed had been cleaned from the ship’s bottom. She would be a
lovely thing to command and take far across the sea, to places Alys had only dreamt of.
If Alys lived. Now, she set her mind and muscles to climbing up the ship’s starboard side, which was hidden in darkness. Like
spiders, she and the others scaled upward, finding handholds where they could to haul themselves higher and higher, until
they all reached the gunwale at the top of the hull.
Holding tightly as her heart pounded in her ears, careful to keep from being spotted by the watch, she peered over the rail.
She pulled more magic from the night to swath her and the other women in darkness, hiding them.
A man in the loose clothing of a merchant seaman slowly paced the length of the upper deck, holding aloft a horn lantern,
while a second watch stood at the top of the gangplank. Though their faces were indifferent, ignoring the sentries’ threat
would be a fatal mistake.
“Avast,” the one stationed by the gangplank said as steps sounded on the wooden board. “Who goes there?”
“Only a concerned villager,” Cecily answered, coming up the ramp.
Light from the horn lantern gleamed on her freckled pretty face as she climbed the gangplank.
She smiled winningly as she nodded toward the covered basket on her arm.
“A long and hungry night you have of it, lads, so I’ve brought you bread and cheese from my own larder. ”
As she spoke, the other sentry neared her, his expression both cautious and curious.
“Cap’n wouldn’t like us having grub when we should be keeping watch,” the first man said.
Cecily laughed with the same laugh Alys had heard her use when accompanying her father on visits around the parish. “As if
there’s harm in taking a small bite. I’d wager you’ll be sharper with a morsel of food in your bellies. Come, I’ve good cheddar
and bread made with the whitest and finest of flours.”
While Cecily chattered, Alys and the other women noiselessly pulled themselves over the gunwale and onto the upper deck. They
slunk toward the watchmen, whose backs were turned and were far too absorbed in a winsome local girl to notice half a dozen