Page 3 of The Sea Witch (Salt & Sorcery #1)

wet, anxious, but angry women creeping toward them, leaving gleaming wet footprints upon the planks.

“Here,” Cecily said brightly. She opened the basket. “Have a look for yourself.”

The two men peered into the wicker container.

“We can’t eat ladies’ shoes and underwear,” one of the men complained.

Alys moved. She pressed herself tight to the sentry’s back as she held her knife to his throat. Beside her, Jane did the same

to the other watchman. Both men stiffened.

“Not a sound,” Alys hissed. “Or I’ll give you a new way to sing.”

My God—was she truly saying such a thing? Threatening a man’s life ? He didn’t know that spilling his blood was the very last thing she’d ever do, but the more he believed it, the better her

and the others’ chances were of making it out of Norham alive.

“How many else on this ship?” Alys demanded.

“Just me an’ Bleeker,” the sentry stammered. “The rest went ashore.”

“Then there’s none to notice if you doze.” She pulled the dark blue energy of a tranquil summer night, and swirled it around

the men. It spun and eddied like ink in water. The sentries’ eyes rolled back before they slumped to the deck—asleep.

“Stifle and bind them,” Alys ordered. “Douse their lanterns.”

Immediately, the other women took the ropes she and Jane had brought and trussed up the two unconscious men. The months of

learning how to tie knots served them well now as they bound the sentries. While they were being tied, gags were stuffed into

the men’s mouths, and their lanterns were extinguished to plunge the deck of the ship into darkness.

As soon as the men were bound, the rest of the women in their group hefted the sleeping sentries and carried them down the

gangplank and onto the dock, stowing them behind a stack of empty lobster traps.

The watchmen wouldn’t be discovered until Alys and everyone else were long gone—hopefully.

She hissed, “Away aloft,” and gave the other women instructions as they readied the ship to sail. It was hasty, fumbling work.

With so few in their number compared to what likely had to be a crew of forty, there was much to do. Yet no one complained

and no one questioned their orders.

Pausing in the middle of climbing the rigging, Alys looked toward the dock, and beyond it, the village, gray, stiff-shouldered,

and somber. A throb resounded in her chest, but it was too light and winging to be sorrow.

She’d married Samuel Tanner after a short courtship, which hadn’t been her choice.

Samuel hadn’t liked her spending time with Ellen.

“ It’s my love for you ,” Samuel had often said. “ It makes me clamor for all your time. I want every piece of your attention, my wife .”

“ Surely, I can see Ellen ,” Alys would protest.

“ My love’s so consuming ,” he’d answer, always gripping her tightly like he’d squeeze the very breath from her body.

“ It’s an agony to share you with anyone.

Besides, it’s your safety I fear for. That.

.. that magic you and your sister use, it’ll get you both killed. Especially if anyone sees you. ”

So, the moments between visits with her sister had been too few. And Alys had barely learned the limits and potential of her

magical power. All for love.

Ellen was gone now, ripped away from this life by brutal hands, and Alys would leave no one behind in Norham.

She turned her face toward the harbor, and the open sea that stretched into forever. It smelled of salt and wind and freedom

and magic , all the things she’d been refused, first as Alys Cabot, later as Mrs. Tanner.

If Alys hadn’t gone to sea on her own, fishing the steel-hued waters beyond Cape Ann in the boat Samuel had left her, she

would’ve had nothing for herself. There was a handful of cousins, but beyond that, Alys had no family of her own. Not anymore.

Everyone had expected her to sell the boat, move into Samuel’s parents’ cramped house, and become a drudge to those sour-faced

and bitter-tempered pair of haddocks who’d always hated her and spoke loudly about the evil of witches.

She’d rather drown in brimstone than let the Tanners force her to hide her gift, as their son had done. There was only so

long a person could permit themselves to be throttled before they had to pry the fingers from their throat.

The sea carried the scent of all the things denied to the women of Norham. Men were so afraid of the females and their power,

they were willing to kill them.

“Alys.” Susannah pointed toward the village. Light from torches appeared, weaving through the buildings as they headed toward

the docks. The arresting party had discovered that the witches were gone and watching the roads would yield no captures.

Fire burned in her gut and seethed through her limbs as she slid down from the rigging to stand on the deck.

“Everything been made ready?” she asked, as the women gathered around her.

“Aye,” they answered.

Alys gazed at the twelve of them, her sailors. “There are thirteen of us. A true coven.” After the women nodded grimly, she said, “Susannah, loosen the rope from the bollard, and

get back aboard quick as you can, before we pull out too far from the dock.”

“Aye, captain,” Susannah said.

Alys started. “I’m no captain. Any one of us could answer to that title.”

“There’s no leader in all this but you,” Polly pointed out. “Teaching us to sail. Proving our magic was nothing to hide or fear. Those in favor of Alys as captain, show of hands.”

Twelve hands went into the air.

Alys took a deep breath. All she could do was her best—but would it be enough?

“Now,” she said, humility and duty pulsing through her, “we shove off.”

A whispered chorus of “Aye” followed. The rope tying them to the quay was undone.

With the foresails now billowing with the wind, ripe with promise, the ship moved away from the dock. Away from the village,

and the only life Alys had ever known. A confining life, one that clipped her and the other women’s wings. She choked, remembering

every sneer, every critical glare, every suspicious glance.

And Ellen, beautiful, dreamy Ellen, who refused to hide the fact that she could speak with birds and whispered incantations

to the forest. Taken from Alys, stolen from the world.

The horizon paled with the approach of dawn. Faintly, the sound of men’s angry voices rose up and grew louder. At the far end of the quay, a line of torches appeared. Faces twisted with fury glowed in the firelight. These were the true faces of the men of Norham, incensed and righteous and fearful.

Men clambered into their boats in pursuit. They carried muskets and sharp loading hooks.

“It’s death if they reach us,” Alys said tightly.

Jane looked toward one of the guns mounted at the gunwale.

“No time to learn its ways,” Alys answered. “We use the very thing they want to destroy.”

Swallowing down her uncertainty, Alys raised her hands. She’d no idea where to begin, but recalled the punishing hurricanes

that slammed into the village late in the summer. Sea magic swirled around her fingers, alive and surging with strength.

Wordlessly, the women with magic collected at the gunwale, their own power gathering. Summoning the energy of the seething

sea.

“Now or never, witches,” Alys commanded. “The sea serves as our warrior.”

The women pushed their hands toward the water. Alys held her breath and then—

Waves exploded with force. They rose upward into a wall that towered twenty feet high before rushing toward the pier.

The water slammed through the largest boat, smashing into the quay itself. Sounds of splintering wood and men’s screams filled

the early morning as waves crashed against the harbor.

Alys’s crew stood in mute shock as they saw what they’d done. The dock was badly damaged, listing and staggering like a drunkard,

while the vessels had become heaps of driftwood bobbing on the churning waves. Those men that had tried to sail after them

were being dragged back onto dry land by other villagers.

Norham’s wharf was left in ruins.

The only boat undamaged was Samuel’s vessel.

Instinct had Alys reach for the line fastening it to the remainder of the pier.

A streak of lightning shot from her hand, severing the rope.

The line burned and frayed, and the boat bobbed away from the dock, until it sailed on its own, without a crew, off to seek an unknown horizon.

She stared down at her hand. Never before had she been able to harness lightning. She curled her fingers into her palm, cradling

this new power.

The pier grew smaller with the tide in their favor, and the brigantine sailed out to sea, putting the harbor and all it held

behind them. Alys’s legs shook beneath her, and it appeared that her friends with magical ability were just as drained after

they’d summoned the water.

There were limits, it seemed, to their powers.

A few of the women gave unsteady smiles, while the witches sagged against the gunwale, drained.

“I ask one more thing of you, my lasses, and that’s to rally,” Alys said, as much for herself as her crew. “We’ve much open

sea ahead of us.”

Even as she spoke, the women were already in action, well-taught by their previous instruction.

“Where to, Cap’n?” Polly asked.

“What’s next?” Susannah added.

Only after Samuel’s death did she learn what it was like to make a choice for herself. And now, these women asked her to make

the most monumental choice of all their lives.

She’d led them this far, and they’d survived. Now they were sailing to freedom, because she had led them.

The world was a big place, far bigger than she could ever fully know. But there was one place she’d heard sailors speak of

in eager and excited voices.

“It’s said that witches aren’t hunted in the Caribbean,” Alys suggested. “They say it’s a place of limitless freedom, where

anyone can make themselves into someone entirely new. What say you, ladies?”

“The Caribbean,” came the response from her crew.

Alys took the wheel and pointed them south.

Samuel’s boat continued to move out to open water, heading on its own adventures. They were parting company, her and the boat.

Old lives exchanged for new ones.

Finally, she lost sight of the small vessel.

Alys turned toward the horizon. It was as wide as dreams, and terrifying.