Author's Note: Sorry for the delay. Got a little case of writer's block.

Chapter 52: Exorcised

"How do we know it worked?" the magistrate asked fearfully the next morning.

"Well, you could always try to provoke another attack by the ghost," Davy suggested. They were all gathered in the church waiting for word from the preacher and the men who bravely volunteered to go with him. Mike and the others gathered in a corner of the church. Everyone had basically taken control of their own little space in the church and even though no one really slept, no one really spoke much either. Mike felt terrible for scaring these people like this. Especially the children who truly were innocent in all this.

"What happens if it didn't work and it attacks me?" the magistrate asked shakily.

"Take me with you and I'll protect you," Davy said who was still chained at the wrists. "I sort of have a sixth sense about these things."

"You can't trust him," someone said. "What if this is a set-up? A way to round us all up in one place to massacre us?"

"Why don't we ask his friend," someone else said turning to Mike. It was the same man who had carried Davy out of the tavern and who's friend pointed a gun at him.

"Well, for starters, weren't you all in the same place at the courthouse?" Mike pointed out defensively. "What's the difference between having you all in the courthouse and having you all in the church?"

"I...well..." the man grunted at a loss for words.

"Look," Mike said. "Davy's just trying to help you out here. Davy saved Anne when you sat there and did nothing. Davy saved the magistrate from a ghost in the courthouse and he told you what you have to do to save the whole town from a dead Hessian! What more does he have to do to prove to you that he's a good guy!?"

"We don't know that he saved anyone yet," the magistrate muttered shakily. Mike couldn't help but roll his eyes.

"We know he saved Anne in her tavern and you in the courtroom," Mike said. "And if you would grow a pair and go outside, you'd find out that you're safe from the ghost, too. I promise you, he knows what he's talking about. You're safe now."

"And if you're lying?" someone said. "What if you set this whole thing up to trick us?"

"How?" Mike asked. "We don't know anything about this town; we're travellers. We don't know who any of you people are. We were travelling north when we got robbed by a large group of thieves and Piper was hurt. That's the only reason we're staying here. We needed a place for her to recover before we continue on. We've been helping Anne in her tavern in exchange for a room. How could we have possibly had the time to set this up?"

"If you're witches, you don't need time," the man retorted.

"We aren't witches," Mike answered coldly.

"Then you're consorting with the Devil," someone else muttered. Next to him Micky stifled a chuckle and Piper smacked him to keep him quiet.

"I can honestly tell you we are not consorting with the Devil," Peter said.

"Enough of this," the magistrate said and started walking toward the front door of the church. Davy had a look of fear on his face as the men were suddenly questioning Mike and the others, but when the magistrate dismissed it, he relaxed. The room fell deathly silent as the magistrate walked out of the church and waited. They heard no screams or shouts, as Mike expected, and slowly people bravely walked outside to join him. Mike soon joined the few brave townspeople outside and saw the magistrate standing in the middle of the road. He looked like he was scared, but trying to muster up enough courage to move forward. As soon as he took a step forward, the preacher rode up on horseback with the rest of the men he'd taken with him.

"Did it work?" the preacher asked dismounting.

"That's what we're testing now," the magistrate asked.

"Well, how long are we supposed to stand out here to know if it worked?" someone in the crowd asked.

"I've been here several minutes and experienced nothing," the magistrate answered firmly. "I say we go about our daily lives and if nothing has happened by tonight..."

"You'll let our friend go?" Peter asked hesitantly as the magistrate paused.

"No one has proven his innocence!" exclaimed the man who'd arrested Davy.

"If he has saved us from the ghost, doesn't that mean he's not a traitor?" a woman boldly asked from the crowd. "Anne and her family have lived in this town for generations. If she says he is innocent I believe her."

"Anne is not the only woman in this town to be hassled by drunks," said another woman. "No one has tried to do anything to stop them until this man. That alone speaks to his character."

"And we all saw with our very eyes he saved the magistrate in the courthouse," said a young man. Mike felt a glimmer of hope rise in him; it was working.

"If he has also saved the town from a ghostly Hessian attack, then by all means we should declare the boy innocent!" said another man. Everyone turned to the magistrate, however, as he had the final say in the matter.

"I tend to agree," the magistrate answered eyeing Davy who had followed them all out but was still shackled. "If the night passes with no further incident, you are free to go."

"Yes!" Peter exclaimed. Mike stifled a laugh and shot him a look that told him to mellow out in case they drew even more unwanted attention. Peter blushed a little as everyone stared at him and moved to stand behind Mike shyly. The townspeople set about their day as they normally would with Mike and Peter helping Anne fix a leaky spot in the roof of her tavern. Micky stayed with Piper in their room trying to keep her foot elevated and brought her food and anything else she needed as the day progressed. When Mike and Peter laid down to rest, Mike fell asleep pretty quickly. Micky had to wake him to let him know that Anne was bringing them dinner. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the magistrate decided that nothing further was going to happen to him or the town, and he let Davy go as promised.

They spent the next day enjoying Davy's release and celebrating their victory. They had to keep things a little quiet because a few members of the town still did not trust Davy and were angry that he'd even been released. The night after Davy's release, Anne, Piper and the boys were sitting around the bar after it had closed laughing and regaling each other with stories. The boys made sure to tailor stories of their adventures to make it fit with their current times so as not to arouse suspicion from Anne. She trusted them now, but they didn't want to do anything to mess that up by alerting her that they were indeed at least partially magical and had traveled there by paranormal means. She had just finished telling them about how her husband had proposed to her when Mike heard a loud crashing noise followed by a slight whoosh. He turned along with his friend and realized someone had thrown a molotov cocktail in through the window and the fire was spreading quickly.

"No!" Anne exclaimed just as Piper began to throw up her hands to freeze time. Mike quickly pushed her hands down knowing they could handle a little fire on their own and there was no need to risk getting caught using her powers.

"Davy, get Anne and Piper out of here," Mike ordered jumping up and rushing to the fire to try and put it out. Peter and Micky grabbed a bucket full of water from behind the counter and carried it over as Mike began frantically tossing anything flammable out of the way to keep the fire from spreading, including tables and chairs that were all made of wood. The three of them were quickly able to put the fire out and Micky stamped on the cloth that had been shoved in the bottle and drenched with flammable oil until it went out.

"Ow!" Micky exclaimed and hopped around on one foot.

"Micky, are you ok?" Peter asked rushing over to help him sit down on one of the chairs still standing.

"Yeah," Micky answered. "I guess they make shoes better than they used to. Burned right through the shoe and got my foot."

"No one else got hurt?" Mike asked surveying the room. The fire hadn't really damaged much of anything; just a table and a few chairs had gotten scorched, but nothing more than that. The window was shattered and would need to be replaced, but Mike was glad that Micky's foot was their only injury.

"I'm fine," Peter said as he took what was left of Micky's shoe off to inspect his foot.

"Peter, it's just a burn, I'll be fine," Micky insisted.

"You can come back in!" Mike called out the back where Davy had pushed Anne and Piper. A moment later they all came back in, Piper leaning on Davy's shoulders a little since her foot was still hurting.

"Hey look, we match!" Micky laughed trying to joke about it.

"What happened?!" Piper exclaimed not finding anything funny about it.

"Nothing," Micky said realizing he'd just freaked her out. "It's just a little burn. No big deal."

"There's some aloe vera growing out back," Anne said.

"I'll get it," Davy said and darted out back.

"I don't think there's much damage," Mike sighed. "We can fix it. I just don't know where to get a new window. I'm so sorry, Anne. If I'd known they were going to do this..."

"Mike, please," Anne said softly. "This isn't your fault. Things like this happen. Not often, but they happen. I'm just glad no one got seriously hurt."

"It doesn't look that bad," Peter said.

"Still best to put some aloe on it and keep it wrapped," Anne said reaching behind the bar to grab a clean rag so Peter could wrap Micky's foot. Mike started trying to clean up the mess as Davy came back with a piece of the aloe plant. Davy handed the plant to Peter who started tending to Micky's foot while Micky grumbled he was fine and Davy went to help Mike cleanup a little.

"Watch the glass," Mike said and Davy nodded. Anne brought over a broom for them to sweep some of the glass up and a rag to try and clean the scorch marks.

"Should we tell someone about this?" Piper asked sitting next to Micky as Peter finished wrapping Micky's foot.

"It's not going to do anything," Anne said. "We don't know who did this or why."

"What do you mean we don't know why?" Davy asked angrily. "They did this because of me!"

"More than likely," Anne sighed. "But we can't prove that. It could have just been a fluke."

"Yeah right," Davy snorted sarcastically.

"Davy, this isn't your fault," Anne said. "Even if they did this because of you, it's not your fault. You do know that, right?" Davy didn't say anything; he just kept sweeping the glass up into a pile.

"Davy?" Peter pushed.

"Maybe we should head out of town once we fix all this," Davy said.

"That's not necessary," Anne said. "Piper is still hurt and can't travel, and now so is Micky. You won't get very far with these two both unable to walk. This isn't your fault."

"It's not," Mike said knowing trying to convince Davy of that was pretty useless right now but still wanting to push past the subject. "But we are still going to make sure everything gets fixed and cleaned up." Anne looked as though she wanted to say something else to try and convince Davy this wasn't his fault, but he wasn't really listening to anyone anymore. Once they'd gotten the mess as cleaned up as they were going to that night, they all went to bed. Davy and Mike slept a little more fitfully than the others. Mike knew Davy couldn't sleep because he felt too much guilt and Mike couldn't sleep because he was too worried.

The next morning, no one said anything else about what had happened the night before to Davy, but Davy set to work immediately trying to fix the table that had broken, but Mike knew it was useless; they'd need to build a whole new table and the only one of them that good with wood was Micky. So Davy and Mike worked to at least try and get a new window put in while Micky worked to make a new table. They had finally finished everything early the next morning and Anne told them to relax for the rest of the day and that she didn't need their help with anything else.

Later that night, they decided to walk around the town to get some fresh air. Mike thought it would be good for Davy to try and get his mind off Anne and the tavern. Piper was able to limp on her foot a little and Micky was able to at walk a little as well, so they walked a little out of town and enjoyed looking at the stars for a while. It was something they would never be able to see back home in their own time. There was absolutely no light pollution blocking out the stars. They sat mesmerized by how beautiful the night sky was when they suddenly heard a loud crack that thundered across the night. The ground shook and all five sat up straight. Peter looked scared for a moment, but Mike realized it was the same sound as when they had been transported here in the first place. He braced himself for the ground to open and to be swallowed like before. When they finally hit the ground again, Mike stood up and looked around.

"Everyone ok?" Mike asked.

"I'm good," Peter answered. "Do we have to land so roughly when we do that?"

"We aren't going to be doing that again," Davy answered. "We're home!"

"Uh...Davy..." Micky said pointing at something behind them. Mike slowly turned around slowly filling with dread at the look on Micky's face. In the distance, Mike saw a group of men on horseback and a covered wagon. The men wore clothes and hats that reminded Mike of those worn back in Texas in old west tourist towns. Though something told Mike this wasn't a re-enactment of the old west. And these men weren't actors or employees at a tourist attraction.