Saving Marina. Lauri Robinson

      Hosting only two windows and a few short candles, the interior was dark and dank, but that hadn’t stopped men from gathering around tables and emptying tankards a barkeep kept full using a pitcher he refilled from the line of barrels resting upon a rack on the far wall. Richard walked across the room, which was unusually quiet compared to most taverns he entered, to where a man stood behind a long board stretched between two barrels.

      Without a word, Richard laid down a coin. Using one hand to slide the coin across the wood, the barkeep grabbed a wooden tankard with his other hand. The coin dropped into a hole at the end of the bar, clanking against others when it hit the bottom. After pouring ale into the cup, the barkeep set it before Richard.

      Giving the droopy-eyed man a nod, Richard lifted the cup to his lips. The ale was strong and bitter, stealing his breath as he swallowed. He turned then to survey the men at the tables. A few were returning his gaze. Curious, no doubt. He didn’t let his sights rest on them. Answers were what he needed, not questions.

      A single man, thin, with his head hung low, sat alone in the farthest, darkest corner. The flame of the short candle on his table flickered as if burning up its last bits of tallow. Richard walked to that table and asked, “Care if I join you?”

      The man shrugged. “I make sorry company.”

      “It’s not company I seek,” Richard replied. “Merely a chair to sit upon while drinking my ale.”

      With a hand, the man gestured to the opposite chair. His expression hadn’t changed, nor his posture. The man was clearly downtrodden, browbeaten to the edge of his being. Richard had seen that before.

      He took a seat and another swallow of the pungent ale. “Your community holds the air of hostility.” There was no sense denying the surliness filling the room.

      “The evilness is everywhere.” His companion’s voice was a whisper. “Ye’d be better off to keep traveling. There’s no rest for the weary here. No escape, either. Except perhaps death.”

      “You sound like a man with no hope,” Richard acknowledged.

      The man closed his eyes but not before Richard saw moisture, as well as a tear that escaped and trickled down the man’s sunken cheek.

      Richard waited a moment, wasting that time by lifting the tankard to his lips again. His mouth refused to accept another drop of the vinegary brew, and he set the cup down. “Why?”

      Lifting his chin slightly, as if it was all he could manage, the man shook his head. “My mother was hanged today.” His gaze slowly turned to the other occupants in the dim room. “Along with some of their family members.” Turning back, he croaked, “There was nothing we could do. Nothing any of us could do.”

      “What were their crimes?”

      “Witchcraft.” The man wheezed in a breath of air. “Those who denied the accusations were hanged in Salem Towne this morning.” His fingers shook as he wrapped them around the handle of his tankard. “I begged her to confess, but she insisted upon taking her chances of being one of God’s chosen few rather than rotting away in jail, awaiting the devil’s arrival.”

      Marina’s image instantly appeared inside Richard’s head. “What had she done?”

      The man’s lips pulled tight and a spark of anger glistened briefly in his eyes. “Took a switch after the reverend’s daughter for snitching out of our garden. She was accused of putting a spell on the children to make them behave so and then for scorning them instead of leading them toward salvation. The girls were at her trial, claimed she was pinching them from across the room and that they’d seen her in their dreams, with a familiar suckling her blood.” Another tear escaped the corner of his eye. “The court ordered the removal of her clothing to reveal her extra teat. When one wasn’t discovered, the girls fell upon the floor on all fours and started barking like dogs. That was ruled evidence enough.”