The Burning by Susan Squires Read Free Book Online Page B

her she no longer blurted things out. But he must have seen in her eyes that she knew he suffocated his sick wife with a pillow whenhe couldn’t stand her moaning anymore. Ann didn’t blame him. She knew he did it to spare his wife the pain, as much as to escape the yoke of her sickness. She knew too that he suffered every day for it. But that didn’t make him love her for knowing it.
    “Hanging’s too good for her.”
    “Oughta be burned!”
    The voices clamored around her. All of them wished her dead or gone. Ann shrank back. They mustn’t touch her! She had to get out of here! “It wasn’t me,” she whispered. “I didn’t kill her, I swear.” But her voice was lost in the shouting. Angry faces closed in around her. She could hardly get her breath.
    “You might hear her out.” The commanding voice from behind her silenced them as if the man had waved a wand.
    Eyes shifted from her to the stranger and back again. She looked up. A hard look had come over the stranger’s face to replace the pain and remorse. That was even more frightening.
    “Tell them,” he ordered.
    And somehow, she did. “There . . . there was a man leaning over Molly as I came up the path. I . . . I surprised him. He looked up.” Would they believe what she had seen? “I think . . . I think he was biting her.”
    “Nonsense,” Fladgate said. “I see no man.” He heaved himself up awkwardly. “And these bites could not have caused her death. See? They bleed but a little.”
    “You’ll find her drained of blood, I think, if you examine her,” the stranger said.
    Ann stared at the stranger. Drained of blood? She turned back to Molly. Yes! Dear Lord, her flesh had sunk as though the capillaries that supported it were . . . empty.
    “It’s her. The witch did that. Who else could?”
    “She did it with her evil eye.”
    From the rear of the crowd came a commotion. UncleThaddeus pushed his way to the front, gasping. “Uncle,” she cried, and clasped her hands to her breast to keep from gathering him in her arms. “You shouldn’t be here. You don’t look well.” His face was gray.
    “I won’t let you harass her, Fladgate,” he gasped, his hand to his chest.
    “We don’t need your help, Brockweir.”
    “Then why did you come to Maitlands?”
    “Because Molly was missing, man, and we thought your ward might know something about it. Your ward turned out to be missing, too. Quite a coincidence. Now we find it wasn’t coincidence at all. Your niece committed a murder,” the magistrate decreed.
    The crowd yelled in agreement.
    “No she didn’t.”
    The cries were halted in mid-yell. The stranger’s voice had that effect; oddly compelling. An uneasy silence fell over the men.
    Fladgate cleared his throat. “And what have you to say to the matter?”
    The man stepped up behind Ann, though he did not touch her. She could feel his body, threateningly close. “I witnessed the whole. She tells the truth.”
    “Where’s this man, then?” one of the men in the front row of the mob challenged.
    “He ran off that way.” The stranger pointed down the path.
    “Whyn’t you stop him?” The man who challenged was the worse for drink.
    “The girl was still alive. It seemed wrong to leave her.” He was lying. He hadn’t cared about Molly, but Ann certainly did not want to point that out.
    “So you are saying that this killer just disappeared?”
    “You have two eyewitnesses to corroborate that fact,” the stranger said.
    And Squire Fladgate accepted it. Ann couldn’t believe it. They had waited for years for an excuse to commit her or worse, and here it was. Yet the squire backed down. He didn’t ask who the stranger was, none of them did. They didn’t ask how he came to be there. They knew she liked to walk in the woods at night. The whole town talked about her idiosyncrasies. But shouldn’t they be curious about a stranger?
    Would they let it go? The squire shook himself and peered at her. “She could have been in