22
"Prudence," Vince called as he, Dave and Dwight appeared out of the woods.
"What is this? Senior Citizen Day?" William groaned. "Prue, wouldja mind doing something about them?"
"Vincent," Prudence answered, ignoring William. "What brings you here?"
"We found the evidence, Prudence," Vince told her. "We've run the document, front page in the newspaper. You're going to proven innocent after all."
"Your father-in-law conspired with the others to have you brought up on charges-his name was Ephraim Stillwater, right?" Dave questioned.
"Correct," Prue replied. "Why would Father Ephraim do such a monstrous thing?"
"Maybe he found out about you and Lover Boy," William grinned, and Prue glared at him over her shoulder.
"Or mayhaps someone told him of it," she remarked, and William put his hands up, feigning innocence.
"Wasn't me," he said. "Maybe you should ask my little partner-in-crime over there about it."
"Even if Mara did, I don't remember it," Audrey protested. "I'm not her anymore," she went on, facing William directly, and was surprised to see a mix of anger and anguish in his face, because he knew she was telling the truth. "Charlotte didn't plan on me winning out over her when she recombined us, but I did."
"Prudence might be able to fix that," William said.
Out of the corner of her eye, Audrey could see Nathan straining to scream at the top of his lungs for Prue not to do that, but no sound emerged.
"Prudence, I have the document with me," Vince told her, moving closer to her. "Believe us, it's the truth. You will be exonerated."
"Could just be a forgery," William commented.
"I shall judge for myself what is real and what is not," Prudence informed him coldly. "We shall see it for ourselves."
"How can we?" Audrey heard herself asking.
"Um, what about the thing here," William protested.
Prudence gestured with her arms, and the forest fell silent.
Audrey glanced up, gasping. There were birds, frozen in mid-flight over her head, and leaves that were falling from the trees seemed suspended in the air motionless.
The group stared around themselves for a few moments, and then back to Prudence.
"Time has ceased for a brief instant," Prudence said. "Another curse I once relieved a poor soul of."
She reached into the little pouch tied to her belt, and withdrew a handful of powder, that she tossed into the air. As it fell, it seemed to coalesce into a large oval shape, resembling a mirror.
Prue spoke a few more words, and the oval went pitch black for an instant, and then the images of another time and place appeared in it.
An older man was speaking to a younger man that Audrey thought kind of looked like Stan, and they were arguing.
"Thee must be rid of her," the older man was telling the younger. "She is an adulteress, and a witch besides. She most likely cast a spell on you to marry her in the first place! You must denounce her as a harlot of Satan!"
"That is ridiculous, Father," the younger man said. "Prudence is steadfast and true. She helps those who are in need of her assistance. She will not even take money for her services!"
"And is Isiah Mason one of those she helps?" the older man questioned, his tone almost patronizing.
"What of Mason?" A note of doubt in the son's voice.
"Thou knowst her heart still belongs with him. Thee hast seen her face when he is near her. That is not the face of a wife thinking of the love she has for her husband."
"Lies spread by gossiping fishwives."
"I have seen her with him with mine own eyes, rutting together there in the forest like wild beasts. Would thee call thy own father a fishwife?"
"So he did see us that day," Prudence got out.
The son gasped in horror, and the father seized upon it.
"I have already spoken with Master Halleck and the good Reverend," he went on, smug in the fact that he'd won the argument. He'd be rid of this unsuitable creature and her foul family soon enough. "They have all agreed to speak out against her," he assured his son. "Thoust can be free of her and still retain thy honor," he finished, patting his son on the shoulder.
The image faded, and Prudence looked sad as the mirror-thing slowly turned back into the dust, and once again Audrey could hear the sounds of birds, and the wind in the trees.
"What happened that day, Prudence?" Vince asked gently.
"Isiah and I were-together in the woods, as he said," Prudence began softly. "I thought I had seen a glimpse of someone in the woods, and I had thought it to be Father Ephraim. He denied having been there when I questioned him about it." Her shoulders sagged. "But I see that he told a lie." Her face grew grim. "That is the day that Isiah died. A short time later, we encountered you," she whirled on William.
"I'm sorry you lost your boyfriend, but I did ask you to tell me how to open this, and I'd have left you two alone," William told her matter-of-fact. "However, if it's any consolation, he wasn't supposed to actually die from that Trouble, but sometimes, these things happen."
"These things happen," Audrey repeated. "It's wrong, William. What we did to these people was wrong!"
"No, whatever the hell Charlotte's done to you is wrong," William argued, grabbing hold of Audrey's arm. "But maybe we can get old Prue to fix you right up," he went on. "How 'bout it, Prudence? Think you can tune Mara back in instead of the all-Audrey, all-the-time channel?"
"Perhaps," Prudence answered. She glanced at the sky, seeing the sun like an orange ball lowering itself into the treeline. They could see the silhouette of the moon beginning to appear. It would be the first night of the full moon this evening, and Audrey wondered if that was why William had chosen today to return.
"Prudence," Dwight cut in, drawing closer to her. "I don't know what William's promised. But he's a liar. He's not going to go away from here without a fight."
"Prudence," William said solemnly. "You do this, and we are out of here. On my solemn word."
"We? I'm not going with you," Audrey told him. "Not now, not ever."
"I think that all depends on Prudence here," William replied. "I think she can get you to change your mind."
Dwight began to charge at William, and soon found himself along with Vince and Dave enmeshed in the roots.
"Why are you doing this?" Dave yelled. "We came to help you, Prudence!"
"I know you have come to help me, and it is appreciated most sincerely," she answered sadly. "But this is something that must be done. I am truly sorry."
Audrey glanced back at the cage where Nathan, Duke and Charlotte were being held. Nathan looked near tears, and Duke looked deeply grieved. Charlotte was unreadable, her eyes steadily on Audrey's before they turned back to Prudence, who stepped to the outer ring of the stones that had been set back into place.
She reached into her robes, taking out the totem doll. She made a few gestures around it, her hands caressing it as she spoke so softly she could not be heard. She then lifted it over her head, facing the stone, her voice growing louder.
The wind began to pick up as she chanted, the words unintelligible to Audrey's ears.
"It's Mik'Maq," she heard Vince shouting to Dwight and Dave. "She's calling on the elemental spirits to open the doorway!"
"Prudence, don't do it!" Audrey cried.
"Go for it, Prue," William called, still holding on to a struggling Audrey.
Audrey noticed the leaves on the ground around the stone began to slowly swirl around it, their speed increasing as Prudence's tone of chanting did, spinning crazily around in the whirlwind, the words seeming to reverberate through the trees, the air, even the earth itself.
A light began to appear from under the stone, slowly spreading in a circular pattern around it, the light encompassing Prudence within it. She seemed to be struggling, and she looked to William.
"I cannot-I am not strong enough!" Prudence cried. "I need thy help, William!"
William dragged Audrey forward with them, the three of them now within the light.
"Audrey," Nathan finally got out, his voice strangled.
"Give me thine hand," Prudence told William. "She cannot leave from within this light."
William released his hold on Audrey, and placed his hand in Prudence's, who smiled.
Audrey turned, trying to run, unable to break through the light, just as Prudence had said.
"Prue, don't!" Duke cried out.
The light coming from under the stone grew brighter, and began to creep up the rock, making it disappear as the doorway began to first slowly appear and then widen.
"Hold on, honey," William grinned at Audrey. "We're goin' home."
"Yes. But you are going alone," Prudence replied, and suddenly Audrey found herself shoved back hard, landing on her backside outside of the circle of light that surrounded Prudence and William.
She scrambled backward, her eyes on what was happening in the light circle.
"What'd you do that for?" William shouted at Prudence. He seemed to be trying to let go of her hand, but her grip was as firm as iron on it.
Prue looked at him. Audrey could see her eyes had become so silver they were nearly white, her pupils two little black dots floating in infinity.
William gazed back at Prudence, his jaw defiant.
"I'll come back," he said. "I always find a way. I will get her back."
"I think not," Prudence said, and put her hand against William's neck, and he staggered back. He still could not break the circle, and he doubled over in pain, screaming out in pain and frustration.
"How dost it feel?" Prudence asked him. "The agonies you inflicted upon others for sport and amusement?"
"How-could-you-do that?" William gasped. "You Troubled me! How could you do that?"
Prudence gazed back towards the cage, the roots loosening, setting Nathan, Duke and Charlotte free.
"I could not," she answered. "But he could."
William looked enraged as though he meant to strike Prudence, and she faced him once more, pulling the hood of her robe over her head, obscuring her face from the others.
William gasped, shaking and trembling. He seemed to be stiffening, and Audrey realized that Prudence had pulled up Marjorie Dane's Medusa Trouble.
That's why she took Duke's Trouble! she thought. So that she could turn them on William!
Charlotte, Duke and Nathan raced forward to Audrey, the both of them hugging her close.
"Audrey-Audrey," Nathan said, holding her tightly. She could feel the damp of tears on her neck. "I thought I was going to lose you there for a minute, Parker."
They looked toward the stone, where William was now a solid gray color, as though he'd been carved out of marble.
The wind was increasing, the doorway's width ever-increasing, and Charlotte went forward to the light-circle, taking Audrey's hand in hers.
"We have to help her close it," she shouted over the wind. "If we don't, we'll all go into it!"
"I don't know how!" Audrey cried.
"Focus on closing the door," Charlotte told her. "That's all it is-it's just like aether. Intent."
Audrey loosened herself from Nathan's grasp, and she walked toward Prudence, who pried her hand from William's stony grasp, her strength spent. She pushed at him, and statue-William tumbled into the open doorway, end over end, disappearing for what they all hoped was forever.
Charlotte got on one side of Prudence, and Audrey on the other, each taking a hand.
"Just focus," Charlotte said, and the three of them stared at the doorway, each woman willing it to close again.
Slowly, the light-circle began to recede, the wind dying down until it had returned to normal and the last of the light disappeared back beneath the rock.
Prudence swayed slightly, and Duke raced forward to catch her before she fell.
Duke and Dwight gently lowered her to the ground, and Charlotte knelt down beside her.
"You did it, Prudence," she smiled gently.
Prudence smiled faintly, and then sobered.
"You may wish to withhold your gratitude," she said, her voice weak. "In order to subdue him, I had to release some of the Troubles I cured. I think yours may have been amongst them, Dwight."
Dwight looked crestfallen a moment, but quickly recovered.
"It's okay, Prudence," he answered. "You saved everybody today-it's a small price to pay."
"We're going to figure out how to stop the Troubles for good one of these days," Duke told her firmly. "Maybe next time we'll be successful. Especially with you here to help us out."
Prudence nodded, and closed her eyes, exhausted.
"Thank you for your help-Audrey," she murmured, and for the first time, Audrey felt like Prudence finally believed that they were on the same side.
"Here, let's get you home," Duke told her, and gathered her in his arms, the little gathering making their way towards Haven.
Nathan put his arm around Audrey's shoulders, looking out at the town as they emerged from the forest.
"Well, looks like Haven's still standing," he sighed.
"At least for today, anyway," Audrey grinned, and Nathan held her close, kissing her temple as they made their way home once more.