Chapter 4

(A/N: Just to make it clear, I'm combining episodes "In Vain, Survivors, Lies" all crammed into one chapter. Hopefully it doesn't get too confusing.)

The feeling of having a loaded gun so close felt nauseating and my head swam with possibilities it could bring, good or bad. She had one in the car this whole time and didn't tell me. Typical. My gut flipped every time Tina looked at Mike. He couldn't be responsible for any of this. It was bad enough that we were stuck here and it was even worse when we didn't trust each other -

A knock came at the door making us all turn our heads. I was the first to stand up, frozen in my place. Tina hopped up, her hand close to her hidden weapon. She and I were the only two people in this entire house that had their heads clear instead of munching on chips and spicy guacamole on the floor. My heart raced. Maybe it was Nicki, or Jake, or the police!

"Tina! Evey!" a voice called, which I recognized. It took me a moment to gain my breath.

"Mom?" I gasp, running to the door. "Mom, hold on the door's locked." Thank god!

My fingers fiddle as I hold my breath. With a big swing I open the door expecting to see her with dad or a running working car. But no one was there. There's only a few pumpkins sitting on the porch and leaves falling in the wind. I look to my right; no one. I look to my left; no one. I turn around to look at Tina.

"You heard that right?"

"I heard it."

"It was mom. I know it was," I look in every direction to see her, walking down the steps wrapping my red cloak around myself. My black laced boots crunched on the leaves walking further out into the parking lot and onto the grass mildew. "Mom!"

"It wasn't her. It couldn't have been, get back in the house!"

"Mom!" I shouted louder this time, then I suddenly see a shadow move in the woods. I narrow my eyes to get a better look at this shadowy figure. "Mom?"

"E! E! Get back in the fucking house."

It was a tall shadowy figure standing against the trees almost as if this thing was wearing a large black coat over its head. My heart raced watching this thing suddenly move as if it were made of clay, shaping and morphing into a face. It was mom standing against the trees.

"E! E! E! Where are you going!?" Tina stepped onto the parking lot, following me. "Where are you going!?"

I couldn't take my eyes away from this…thing. Mom, or whatever it was, began to slowly walk into the woods as slowly and as dimly as a shadow. This would be so ironic if I was going to meet my big bad wolf. Soon her arms and shoulders were visible to the point where her whole body figure stood against the trees, walking backward, never taking her eyes off of me. Her eyes weren't her eyes, they were black, black as midnight. I took another step forward realizing I was halfway across the street. My stomach twisted in tiny knots thinking of the worst. Tina jumped off the porch holding a hand against the wind erupting in a violent storm coming from the clouds circling above the house pushing the leaves in a swirling vortex. She raised her voice waving her arms but I couldn't hear her. The only thing I could see was mom and the only thing I could hear were…whispers. Whispers in all different voices but coming from only one person; her. I followed her into the woods until the darkness was so complete I was sure that I was lost until I saw her walk between an oak and a fence, steadily into the woods.

"Mom?" I called out, clutching the collar of my cloak tighter, protecting my face from the wind. "Mom!"

There was no answer, only more wind and raging storm coming closer and closer until thunder and lightning broke the roar. Leaves whipped against my face while the lightning struck across the sky in bolts so big it shook the earth, and I shook.

"Mom!" I called out, kneeling to the ground, smashing my hands against the cold dirt. "Mom!"

The bolts of lightning momentarily lit my path of trees, leaves, and a figure standing among all of it. Somewhere Tina was calling my name and I was calling hers too, trying to find each other in these woods. Crescendos rang in my head until finally all together—it stopped. A silence so sudden I thought I had gone deaf. As soon as I opened my eyes, the world outside the circle was raging as violently as anything I'd ever seen. Was I in some sort of bubble? It was as serene and tranquil as a yoga class inside this invisible bubble. I stood up and saw Mom, smiling, black eyes, standing next to the tree in a black dress and I wanted to say something to her, call out to her for help, ask her what the hell she was doing, to come back with me to the house—until she stepped into the tree, slipping beneath the boughs, and disappeared. It's almost as if the tree opened its mouth to eat her.

"Mom!" I brought my hand to the tree, trying to find her.

The trees are fucking eating people! I bang my fists against the trunk and rake my nails across the hard wood, trying to understand what happened. If I can get an axe then maybe she has a chance. I turned to run back to the house, but I see Tina and Mike, together, among the dirt and leaves, wrestling together. He was on top of her locking her legs beneath his as she was trying to knee him in the groin. I was about to tell her (yell, scream) when Mike clutched onto her arms gripping for leverage. He yanked and smashed her arms against the ground as hard as he could over and over until the gun flew from her fingers. She yelled in pain as the gun clanked against the ground and twirled, landing in front of me.

"Tina!" I screamed, reaching for the gun.

Mike shot me a look of hate before jumping off of Tina and running towards me at full speed, charging to tackle at the gun before I did something with it. Tina raised her head from the dirt desperately yelling something, probably telling me to run—and I was about to- before Mike hit an invisible wall and flew backwards. A voice reminds me to breath, I inhale and a powerful feeling enters my lungs reaching higher and higher up into my head. It was a high feeling that I've never felt before. A newfound strength rises and moves inside me, like a fire and its getting stronger. With outstretched arms I feel the suction, being pulled into the dark mouth of the tree and soon filled with warmth and reverence. The last thing I see is Tina's face before my world is shut like two doors. In a matter of minutes the windy raging night sky transformed into the bright of day. The ground screams as it comes in contact with my face, I see a flash of white and red, I taste blood in my lip and the pain swells. I breathe, coughing and rolling on my back looking at the sky. I flutter my eyes open and it takes a few seconds to adjust. Birds are in the trees while a cloud blissfully moves across the sky and the sun is warm against my skin. What the hell just happened?

"Evey!" a voice, someone's voice… Mom's voice whispers in my head. "Evey, he needs you…"

"Mom?"

My face still hurts when I stand up and walks towards her voice, wobbling into the woods, reaching out for support. I have to get Tina, find Tina and get the hell out of here and this nightmare will be over. Suddenly the whiplash sets in and all the contents in my stomach burst from my mouth in a fountain into the bushes leaving the sting of stomach acid lingering in the back of my throat and nose. My world suddenly becomes 2, then 3, then 4 images swirling across my eyesight in a kaleidoscope turning in circles. My knees turn into marshmallows as I fall back into the dirt and my world goes back.

2 Days Later:

I wake up in a sweat and kick off my covers, panting as if I ran a marathon. The furs and pelts fall into a heap on the floor. Sunlight pours in the windows and a rooster crows outside somewhere leaving me paralyzed in my place.

"Mom…" I mumble, holding a hand to my head. "Mom. Mom?"

"Be still," a voice came from the dark, it was a man's voice. His fingers come in contact with my head. "You've been asleep for nearly 2 days."

His face looks blurry, like blots of black paint in my vision moving across the room. My head is still swimming and my legs can't stop shaking.

"Dad?" I murmur, holding my fingers to my lips. "Dad, I had a bad dream."

There was a pause," What's your name?"

My tongue feels like an alien body in my mouth, dry and making disgusting noises as I try to speak," Evey…"

Through my lashes he peers closer. My legs stop shaking and I finally see his face.

"Evey," I repeat.

His whole demeanor tells me he wants something else, something important, besides knowing me name. I could feel it. The man nods his head pouring water in a cup before placing a hand against my head. He kneels up to leave the room for a moment to return holding a plate of food with a young girl walking beside him. She pulls back a hand before momentarily touching my head informing the man there was no sign of fever. They both look at each other for a moment before stepping out of the room to have a private discussion. He even closes the door. I wipe the crap out of eyes and take a better look at the room. It's…not home, that's for sure. I sit up from bed to look at the beef and bread sitting upon the bed table. My appetite is the least of my worries. I can hear the man and the woman argue outside my room before momentarily entering and it looks like the woman had the last word. He moves a chair in front of me.

"Evey," he begins gently, pausing for a moment, looking back at the woman as if he was getting impatient of acting polite. "What business did you have in the woods?"

I rub my head against my hands, fuck I need some pain killers right now.

He's waiting eagerly in his chair, tugging on a hair from his chin," What business did you have in the woods?"

"What?" I whisper.

It's his last nerve and he stands from his chair," The woods! What did you—"

"Why were you alone out there?" the girl asks, holding his shoulder. She pushed him back behind her, separating us. "Especially all alone. You could have ended up in the belly of a bear."

"Bears? There's no bears in Salem," I look at her through my lashes. "I was just… looking for my mom."

"Your mother?" the man narrows his eyes," That deep in the woods? No bears in Salem?"

The girl rolls her eyes," Excuse Mr. Alden, I think the girl is quite parched, don't you think? Fetch her water please?"

Everyone in the room knew it was a tactic for him to leave the room which I would enjoy instead of receiving his suspicious glares. He kneeled from his chair and shut the door behind him. I wasn't getting that water, was I? The girl put on a kind smile on her face and for a moment we both stared at each other, not knowing what else to say. So I was going to break the ice.

"Who are you?"

She straightened her back, "Anne Hale, it is nice to meet you Evey…?"

"Blackwood, Evey Blackwood," I nodded my head, rising from the bed and looking out the window. "Where… W-Where am I?"

A rooster screams somewhere in the distance as I see a group of pigs point their snouts in the mud while men and women wearing—whatever the hell it is they're wearing—walking. Women holding baskets of fruit and bread and walking with their children while the men talk to each other in groups. The rooster's scream jostles me back to reality and Anne comes up behind me.

"Evey, what is it? Are you ill?" she stepped closer.

I pull my hair into a messy ball on top of my head and grab my shoes at the foot of the bed wiping tears coming down my cheek. Anne is already grabbing the tray of food and closing the shutter window, rushing after me. This house is smaller than I expected, turning around a corner wall into the main living room. On instinct, I touched the wall for a switch but there were none. There was no sign of modern technology, flat screen TV, electric outlets, or any sign of indoor plumbing. Warning signs ring in my head as I take a deep breath and open the door to the outside world, but it's nothing what I expect. I can't take another step forward and my hand tightens around the door knob. This is a dream, wake up.

"Wake up," I repeat out loud, closing my eyes hard, and opening. "Wake up…"

I let go of the doorknob and step out into this different world. I don't recognize anything! Or anyone! Anne is behind me trying to decide whether to let me wander like a poisoned sheep or help me back inside the house before I lose my mind.

"Wake up…" I repeat, louder this time.

Anne steps in to hold my shoulder and try to lead me back to the house trying to ignore the people stopping in their tracks to whisper among themselves. She tries to tell me to return to the house, but as soon as I see the body of…- a body? My blood freezes, instantly, shackling me to the ground in invisible chains as I see the body of a woman hang from a noose on a platform in the middle of the town. My bottom lip trembles, my stomach sucking up against my spine, while my memory is reeling in every detail of the corpse in high definition. She wore a black dress with a black bonnet over her drooping head with a red apron covered in something stinky, hanging limp as a doll.

Anne came up behind me, swallowing a sob, "I know how you feel. It's an abominable thing; she didn't deserve a fate such as this. I am as disgusted as you are," Anne looked upon the hanging body with grief before scowling at the ground. "It's madness. Complete and utter madness."

"Anne!" a voice came from behind us, but I was too frozen to move or look who was talking. The smell of death was right in front of me and the sight of it was there too. "Anne! What is she doing out here? If any of the selectmen or your father spy her prowling out here dressed like that then it'll be a swift walk to the gallows! For all of us!"

Instantly, I feel my body being moved from the streets and back into the house. As soon as the door closes behind us, I suddenly feel relief, the world had gotten much smaller and composed of a single room with Anne and his man here with me. I could finally breathe. He shoves a glass of muck water in my hands and has a private word with Anne in the other room, while I decompress from shock. They're speaking to each other, arguing even, like two parents would over their trouble child. I've never seen something like that before. In fact, no one should. But this is Salem, only centuries before anyone I knew was born. Fucking time travel. I sniffle, wiping the tears away from my eyes. The word witch comes to mind and I'm hoping against all the odds that I'm not the century I think I am. That woman's face, her blue dead face wasn't leaving my mind, the image was still flashing in my head. What's wrong with these people!? A rooster screams from outside the window reminding me what's out there and I can't help but feel alone, like I've never been alone before.

On The Sea:

It began with a dead blue girlchild, no older than any two or three years, lying amongst the festering rats, intertwined among the bodies of her siblings and mother and father whom were either sleeping or lying dead among their own dead family tree. Lifting her eyelids her eyes were white, riddled with red veins, milky, evident of an unnatural death. The ship did not rock, nor did it stir, refusing to voyage any further in these deep waters lucidly sitting among the fog underneath the full moon dangerously vulnerable to the water creatures below. But it was not the water creatures that disturbed the great witch hunter Reverend, nor were its dead passengers, but the evil that resided on this ship, living largely on the dead souls it served itself. With a heavy boot he pushed her body on her back revealing her worm face slick with sea slime, pouring water from her lips, rotting in her bones. The poor girl never had a chance. The Captain, in his state of selfish being urged the Reverend to return back to the deck explaining of a strangeness spreading throughout the ship but Increase, coiled and brazenly angry, snarled and pushed the Captain away from him. Forcefully disregarding his orders to return—only an insidious truth and discovery has been revealed.

"Reverend! These are not your quarters; please return out of this foul place. It has been 7 days be calmed, no wind, with our food and water diminishing."

"Foul, it is indeed."

His gloved hand moved the head of a man back and forth as if checking the head of a cabbage, checking, rechecking, dismissing then moving onto the next poor soul that would never live to see another day on this ship nor on land.

The Captain gazed upon the poor souls with a grimace, "Is all of this meant for a purpose?"

"Does this," he lifted the body of a boy, limp, blue, frozen from his spot. Lifting the body with both arms and shoving it into the Captain's arms with a shove, sending him trembling in his place. Increase pointed to the boy's face, dead, cold and tragic. "Need purpose?"

The Captain huffed, circling in front of him. "We are hopeless. This ship is becalmed between land and between lands, we are stuck."

"This ship is spelled," growled Increase, ruling across the floor back and forth, not looking at the Captain, but looking at the faces of the diseased, snarling, feeling, smelling, knowing a demon lurked somewhere here, now, taunting him. Never go weak or weaponless into the darkness and Increase will do just that. "It's here."

The Captain stepped closer, cautious to give the strict Reverend his space, "What's here?"

Increase spied a woman, looking out to the passengers, looking remarkably well despite the disease running rampant on this ship. He stepped closer to her and demanded she look him in the eye. Quickly dismissing her, releasing her from his hardened gaze and ruling, he fetched his book from his pocket, gripping the leather bind with intense vigor it ought to burst, and he, at last, gazed upon the Captain, "Make no mistake—I will find him."

Later That Night:

"She hasn't spoken a word since this morning. She seems to be in shock. Or… in pain." Anne crosses her arms, nervous and somewhat anxious.

John spies the girl lying in bed, through the crack opening of the door," Where is she from?"

"She failed to mention that," Anne paced in the hallway, weaving her fingers together. "I believe she is just lost. Perhaps maybe her and her mother lost their way from Boston?"

"Or she is a sad lonely little girl unable to cope with the fact she has no home…She's a runaway."

"How?"

"Look at her. Look at her clothes. Look at her shoes. Look at the red paint on her lips. Look at what she is and isn't. And she's anxious—anxious to speak with me at least." He paces into another room. "We cannot keep her here."

"She'll have nowhere to go. She has no possessions or family to look after her. You'll be condemning her to nothing." Anne took a step toward him, then hesitating herself. "We'll be condemning her."

"We?"

"You found her in the woods. You could have left her there to be eaten by wild creatures or kidnapped by savages or hunted and killed by witches, but you didn't. Don't you see? You have a heart Captain Alden," Anne smiled to him, knowing she was affecting him with her words. John shook his head looking up at the ceiling; she gained her courage ready to pound the final nail in her campaign. "You decided to make her your responsibility, Captain Alden, and if we just throw her out then she'll surely starve or worse—"

"Alright! Alright! Alright!" he waved his hands in defeat. "She may stay one night and no more."

Anne stepped forward to embrace him, but only took his gaze of acceptance as a reward. "That is all that is needed."