A/N: This fic was inspired by "The Witch and Her Familiar", written by Valenka and has been written with her gracious blessing. Thank you, Valenka!
Village of Endor
The Province of Massachusetts Bay
November 3, 1698
The group of mourners clustered around the open grave, their dark clothes and heavy wool cloaks of black, brown or gray making them look like lingering spirits in the fading daylight. All were male except for two women. The white linen coifs of the women that hid most of their hair stood out against the drab early winter setting, even after being topped by plain broad-brimmed hats of dark brown felt.
Mistress Cassandra Cillian bit her lower lip hard, hoping this pain would distract her from the searing pain of her breaking heart just enough to avoid bursting into tears in public. Outward displays of emotion were greatly frowned upon in her society, even at a burial. Death came for everyone in the end, after all. She had learned that lesson the hard way years ago when she'd been dragged to the open grave of her mother, Mercy Cillian, and forced to stare down at the plain poplar coffin that contained her mortal remains. Above her the Reverend Oglesby, a short, fat man with a perpetually florid, sweating face, howled like an angry demon as he delivered a spontaneous graveside sermon about the inevitability of death, the inherent unworthiness of all men and women who presented themselves before the great Judgement Throne of Almighty God and the likelihood of damnation for the soul of the deceased woman now at their feet.
His furious words had confused young Cassandra, for Mercy Cillian had been a gentle creature in life, kind-hearted and generous to any who crossed her path, regardless of wealth or position. She even spent time with the local Wampanoag women, making friends among them and learning from them about local herbal medicines and assisting them as a midwife if they needed her—something that many in the village looked askance at. Everyone knew that the Indians were sub-human savages who likely didn't even have proper souls, yet Mercy helped them anyway and was glad to do so. At the thought of her mother being cast into Hell and tormented forever by the Devil and his demons, Cassandra had begun to cry and wail as though she herself was one of the damned.
When he realized what was happening, Doctor Samuel Cillian had rushed to his daughter's aid. He violently shoved the fat reverend away with a decidedly profane oath and pulled the weeping child of eight years into his arms. He had tried to console his frightened, traumatized daughter with soothing reassurances of her mother's saintliness and entry into heaven, but the damage had been done. Despite his best efforts, Cassandra had nightmares for months afterward, terrifying visions of her mother desperately clawing her way out of her grave and coming to Cassandra in the middle of the night. She would point a dirty, skeletal claw of a finger toward her daughter and rasp through rotted vocal cords that Death would come for her one day soon, too, and then mother and daughter would be reunited in the torments of Hell for all eternity. Each time Cassandra would wake up screaming, and each time her father was always there to comfort her and reassure her.
Now, as a twenty-five year-old woman, Cassandra found herself standing before another grave, this time that of her beloved father. Doctor Cillian had died last night, just past midnight, of an illness that seemed to come out of nowhere. In the morning, when he had gone out to visit some of his patients outside of the village proper, he'd been as fit and healthy as the proverbial horse. But by his return home at nightfall he was so weak he could barely stand on his own. Not knowing who else to go to, Cassandra ran to the house of the Reverend Flynn Carsen, the minister who had taken over the position as the village's pastor several after Reverend Oglesby's death several years earlier. But there was nothing Reverend Carsen could do for them now, except to sit with the dying man and his daughter and offer what little consolation and support he could. When Doctor Cillian finally died early in the morning of the next day, Reverend Carsen undertook making the arrangements for the burial while his wife, Eve Carsen, sat with the shocked and distraught Cassandra. Now, less than twenty-four hours after his passing, Samuel Cillian was being laid to rest next to his wife, Mercy, taken almost fifteen years ago by a sudden fever herself.
Cassandra absently pulled her heavy cloak of dark brown wool tighter around her thin, petite body against the cold November evening. It was near to sunset, the traditional time for Puritan burials. There had been no wake, no church service, no outward shows of mourning at all. There wasn't even a prayer spoken over the grave. Those things were considered too popish and therefore anathema. Doctor Cillian had been washed and dressed in his best suit of clothes, then placed into a simple pinewood coffin. He was placed in the main room of his house, where Cassandra sat with the coffin and received the endless condolences of visitors, silent and still, too numbed by the sudden turn of events to even cry, until the grave was ready.
She watched now as the workmen shoveled spadesfuls of black, half-frozen earth into the grave, the icy clods clattering loudly against the wood of the coffin's lid in the quiet cemetery. As she stoically watched the men work, Reverend Carsen and his wife stood with her along one side of the grave. On the other side was Head Magistrate Laurence DuLaque, a tall elderly man, rangy and lean, with a vulturine face and sharp blue predatory eyes. He had been a witch-finder of some repute when he was a younger man in England and had made quite a fortune in the process before he retired and went to the New World. He was a man used to having the power of life and death over those around him. It was no surprise, then, that he quickly became the most powerful man in the village, becoming not only the leading magistrate on the Village Council, but also the richest man in the area. He and a handful of other men from the Village Council were also high-ranking, influential members of the church. If Samuel Cillian hadn't been the village's only physician—and therefore a ranking fellow member of the Council himself—Cassandra likely would've found herself standing alone at the burial.
No, that wasn't quite true, she corrected herself; Reverend and Goodwife Carsen would still have been there with her. Her father and Reverend Carsen had been very good friends, almost as close as brothers, and Reverend Carsen, through his own obvious grief, had managed to speak a few warm words of tribute over his friend as they lowered the coffin into the grave, much to the lesser councilmen's discomfort as they cast furtive glances at their stony-faced leader. Samuel Cillian and Laurence DuLaque had never been friends in life and the latter was present only as a formality.
Present, too, was Sheriff Jacob Stone; he had also come to the burial to pay his respects. Samuel had saved Jacob Stone's life after he'd been bitten by a copperhead snake three summers ago. It had been a truly miraculous rescue, too, considering that he'd been bitten in the middle of the forest while hunting and had collapsed long before he could reach even the road leading into the village. Yet Samuel Cillian had somehow come across him while on his way to visit a sick farmer and thus saved his life. Ever since, though they had little else in common, Sheriff Stone had been an unfailing supporter of Samuel Cillian at meetings of the Village Council.
When the last spadeful of dirt had been returned to the grave the two workmen began smoothing out the low mound. Later, when the earth had settled, a slab of plain granite would be placed over the grave. Magistrate DuLaque walked slowly around to her side of the grave and approached Cassandra, the other men of the council trailing deferentially behind the gaunt man. He removed his black, broad-brimmed hat and nodded to her.
"You have my condolences, Mistress Cillian," he said, his voice sounding like the tearing of rotted silk fabric. "And please know that—thanks to my own words on your behalf—the Village Council has decided to allow you to stay in the Physician's House, at least until the village is able to acquire a new doctor." Cassandra lowered her eyes and bobbed in a weak curtsey.
"Thank you, Magistrate," she replied in a faint voice, then looked up again. Unseen by the other men, DuLaque's cold blue eyes quickly swept over the pale young woman's figure. Even through her shock and grief, the salaciousness in the much older man's measuring gaze sent a shiver of revulsion down her spine.
"Perhaps you will permit me to escort you home?" the man offered. Without waiting for an answer he reached out and took a firm grasp of Cassandra's arm just above her elbow in order to steer her along. Eve Carsen, blonde-haired and almost as tall as the magistrate, stepped forward at once and wedged herself between the two, forcing DuLaque to release his would-be prey. Eve protectively slipped her strong arm around Cassandra's shoulders.
"It has already been decided that she will come to our house tonight, Magistrate," the tall woman announced, staring DuLaque boldly in the eyes. "In fact, she will be spending the next few days with us. My husband and I do not think it would be good for her to be alone right now." Eve saw the flash of hatred in the look the older man shot her before he was able to hide it again, but she held his gaze and refused to be intimidated by him. It was a dance with which they were both very familiar.
"Quite," DuLaque answered flatly. He turned his serpent-like eyes back to Cassandra, but his words, smooth and sneering, were addressed to Flynn Carsen.
"Do you think it wise to coddle her so, Reverend? Does not Scripture teach us that excessive mourning is an affront to Almighty God? It seems to me that allowing her to wallow in her grief so is to entertain doubt in the Divine Providence of God."
"Samuel's passing was unexpected; unexpected losses are always more difficult to accept without support," Carsen answered stiffly. DuLaque shrugged as he replaced his hat and then pulled a pair of fine black kid gloves from the pocket of his fine cloak.
"Doctor Cillian's death happened when and as it should have done; to mourn his passing in such an extravagant way is to question the wisdom of God Himself in permitting it to happen." He smiled slightly in satisfaction as a soft sob finally escaped the white-faced Cassandra.
"Yet even Our Lord Jesus Christ wept when his friend, Lazarus, died," Eve Carsen snapped, her cold blue eyes boring into those of DuLaque.
"Eve!" Flynn murmured in warning, but the dour-faced magistrate only laughed.
"Our Lord was a perfect man, and he was God," he answered dismissively, looking toward Flynn as if the protestation had come from him, and he slapped his gloves against the palm of his soft, long-fingered hand. "He had the luxury of grief since his position in Heaven was assured. We poor mortal men, on the other hand, are not perfect, and therefore not entitled to that luxury." DuLaque began to slip his hand into a glove as he continued speaking.
"If I remember the words of the late Reverend Oglesby correctly, we should be spending our time and energies on the welfare of our sin-ravaged souls, begging God to have mercy upon us while we yet have the breath to do so." He paused and looked directly into Cassandra's watery eyes. "We may, of course, hope that Samuel Cillian is in Heaven, but sadly, from what I observed of him in life, I fear that his soul may be found wanting in the scales of eternal Justice..."
Several of the men who had accompanied DuLaque to the graveside—including Jacob Stone—stirred uneasily and exchanged uncomfortable glances at the old man's harshness, but none of them dared to interfere.
But Cassandra's face twisted in sudden fury. With a rasping cry she darted forward, her small hands balled up into fists in preparation to pummel the hateful man for his cruel, heartless words against her father. Flynn quickly stepped forward and caught her, pulled her back out of reach of the smirking magistrate. The minister turned to his wife who was standing right behind him, seething.
"Eve, please take Mistress Cillian home now. I will be along soon." Eve curtly nodded and turned Cassandra away from the grinning magistrate. Together they began walking back to the village, Eve murmuring words of sympathy and reassurance to the trembling, grieving woman. The moment they were out of earshot, Flynn whirled around to face DuLaque.
"Have you no compassion in you, man!?" he hissed, his anger barely under control, "That girl has just lost her father! She is an orphan now, she has no other family in this world—yet you insult the memory of Samuel Cillian and you dare to condemn her for having a heavy heart as she watches us bury her last relative?"
"Death is ever-present, Reverend, you know that as well as I," DuLaque answered lazily and pulled on his second glove. "As a physician, Doctor Cillian was also well-acquainted with death. It seems to me, though, that he was remiss in his duty to teach that lesson to this willful daughter of his." DuLaque stood straight and coolly regarded the furious clergyman.
"But, perhaps her husband will be able to teach her how to be a proper Christian woman..."
"Her husband?" Flynn questioned, caught off-guard by the sudden segue. A lopsided smile twisted DuLaque's thin lips.
"Of course!" he answered cheerfully, "She is well over twenty years old now; do you not think it is high time for her to marry? And, as you have fortuitously pointed out, Reverend, she has no other family—no male relatives—to protect her and look after her interests. She will certainly need to marry now, and soon, I should think!" DuLaque sighed, almost wistfully, before he snorted and clapped his gloved hands together once with a muffled thump.
"Oh, if only I were a younger man, I should marry her myself!" A sly expression came to the old man's face as he crossed his arms, one hand raised to allow one finger to thoughtfully tap his thin, pursed lips. "But then again…perhaps I am making a mistake in disqualifying myself so hastily…?" DuLaque grinned at the look of shock on the young reverend's weathered face. He reached out and lightly clapped Carsen's shoulder.
"If there is anything that I or the village council can do for you or for Mistress Cillian, please do tell us, will you not?" DuLaque finished pleasantly. He touched the brim of his hat in farewell, then cast a glance at the unsettled men still clustered behind him.
"Come, gentlemen; this has been a somber and trying day for all of us. I for one stand in need of a hot rum, I think. You will all join me, of course."
Without waiting for their answer, the magistrate began to lope lazily down the small hill of the burying ground and onto the hard dirt road that led back into the village. Sheriff Jacob Stone lagged behind, stopped in front of the troubled minister.
"Please convey to Mistress Cillian my condolences," Jacob said sincerely as he removed his well-worn hat, his voice a rough growling drawl. "Samuel shall be missed. Tell her that she shall be in my prayers." He replaced his hat and adjusted it against the cold evening air. "If there is anything that I can do for her, please tell her that I am her servant," he added. Stone's genuine kindness eased Flynn's anxiety for the moment, and he smiled as he reached out to gratefully shake the man's rough, calloused hand.
"I shall tell her, indeed, Sheriff Stone," Flynn assured him heartily, "I am sure she will be comforted to hear of your concern for her." Stone released Carsen and ran his hand over his stubbled face, still clearly agitated by DuLaque's earlier harsh words.
"Aye, well, she and her father—they are good people, they have done a great deal for this village," he replied, staring at the distant cluster of buildings as darkness enveloped them. Wood smoke and the faint smells of cooking food could just be detected. "Mistress Cillian is a skilled midwife, make no mistake. And had it not been for the Cillians many souls would have been lost when the scarlet fever came through here three years ago. And I have not forgotten how Doctor Cillian saved me from the snakebite, either. We all owe them our lives in one fashion or another, and that is God's own truth of it!" Stone paused in his nervous rambling as if deciding whether or not to say something more, then plunged ahead.
"Surely you will not let Mistress Cillian marry Magistrate DuLaque?" There was an almost angry edge in his voice and his fierce blue eyes darted around them, as though searching the darkness for eavesdroppers. Laurence DuLaque controlled the isolated village of Endor, an iron-fisted king in his tiny domain, and like many a tyrant before him he had little tolerance for criticism.
"I will confess that were Mistress Cillian my daughter, I do not think I would choose a man such as the magistrate for her," Carsen answered truthfully, "But she is not mine, and she is an adult, so the final decision shall be hers." Seeing the alarmed look on the constable's face, Flynn gave him a tired smile of reassurance.
"Fear not, Sheriff—I will do my best to steer her in another direction if I am able," he said, forcing a note of joviality into his voice as he gave Stone a wink of one eye. "But be assured that if I am unable to dissuade her, I am more than certain that my good wife will!" That drew soft chuckles from both men; Goodwife Eve Carsen could be a very formidable woman when she put her mind to something, and every person in the village knew it.
The two men said their goodbyes and parted after that. Flynn watched Sheriff Stone walk away in the last feeble light of the dying day and felt a cold sense of dread clutch at his gut. The minister turned back to face the fresh grave that now scarred the ground behind him. He drew a deep breath and sighed loudly as he removed his hat.
"I vowed to look after Cassandra for you, Samuel, and I shall do my best to keep my word," Flynn said sadly, and shook his tousled head slowly. "But you have certainly not made things easy for me in that regard, my friend." He felt a lump beginning to form in his throat, and he paused for a moment. Tears welled in his eyes and fell over his worn cheeks, but Flynn let them fall freely. It was no sin to grieve the loss of a loved one, no matter what Magistrate DuLaque proclaimed. Flynn stooped to lay his hand on the mound of soil.
"I will remember what you told me, Samuel," he said, his voice cracking as grief settled over him, "I shall retrieve the scroll as soon as I can, and I shall tell your daughter who she is, and then we shall see what comes of it all." He patted the grave and stood up, dusting his hand on the long skirt of his tired cloak. He then scrubbed his hand over his face as he turned toward the sleepy village and began the slow walk back to his home, replacing his hat as he walked.
The days ahead were not going to be easy neither for Cassandra Cillian— nor for the Carsens, either, for that matter. Indeed, all of their lives could be put in grave danger. But he and Eve would do what they could to help Cassandra through any troubles that might arise, for friendship's sake.