Was she holding a bird?
As he grew closer, he saw it was a raven. It was large and sleek, and apparently docile. As carefully as if she was cradling a newborn, Helen crouched down and let the raven hop from her hands. There was something wrong with its leg, and it bobbled uncertainly before gaining its balance and pecking at the ground.
The crunch of gravel under Gabriel’s shoes gave him away. Helen stood back up, her expression turning stony as she watched him approach.
“Helen, was it?” Perhaps she could answer the questions that Gabriel had been too diffident to ask Mrs. Carver.
She scowled, an expression that he would have thought permanent on her face, if he had not seen her light up when Mrs. Carver spoke to her. He kept one eye trained on the raven; could it be one of those he had seen his first night in the church?
“You’ll forgive me for asking, but do you know about all the dead animals, the strange things that people have been finding around town?” The tack might have been too direct, but he had nothing to lose by asking her; she already clearly disliked him.
Helen gave him a measured look, answering him slowly, as if he were a small child. “I know that folk like to make a fuss out of nothing.”
“But you work for Mrs. Carver...you don’t share their opinion of her?”
In an instant, the closed, suspicious look evaporated from her face, and her dark eyes misted. “Never,” she said. “Sophy saved me.”
“Saved you?”
“That’s right,” she said, jutting her chin.
“How do you mean?”
Helen heaved a sigh and crossed her arms. “If you must know, after my husband left, I ended up in the poorhouse.”
She was staring at him with unnerving intensity. “I’m sorry to hear that,” he said.
Her scowl deepened. “I don’t need your pity. She took me on as a housemaid, and I haven’t left her side ever since. We saved each other,” she said, her eyes frighteningly bright.
“Saved each other?”
“You wouldn’t understand,” she snapped at him, apparently done with her nostalgic reminiscing. “Now, if that will be all?”
She didn’t give him a chance to respond before she was scooping the raven back up and briskly making her way to the house.
Gabriel walked slowly back toward the road, Helen’s story swirling in his mind. He could picture the gentle and elegant Mrs. Carver, basket on her arm, leaning over women in their sickbeds in the poorhouse and doling out comforting words. But good God, what was he missing? How could that same woman be painted as a witch, a murderer?
When he reached the gate, he stopped and glanced up to the windows, but again, no face stared back down at him.
Helen stood in the carriage house window, watching the interfering minister finally turn and leave the grounds. She let out a breath.
What right did he have to come in here, dredging up painful memories and upsetting Sophronia? Sophy would never say as much, of course, but Helen could tell that the visit had taken its toll on her.
The raven let out a soft squawk in her arms, and she absently stroked its head. She still remembered the day Sophronia had come to the poorhouse. She had been like an angel with her bright blue dress and ready, sympathetic smile. She’d come armed with charity baskets for the women, God bless her soul. When she passed by Helen’s bed, she’d asked her in the kindest, gentlest voice what ailed her. Helen had told her it was a chest complaint, though in truth it was so much more than that. It was a broken spirit from being abandoned by the man who had sworn to protect her, a broken heart for the children she would never have.
Sophronia had come back the next day with a bottle of medicine. Helen had taken her hand to thank her, and it was then that she knew that their destinies were intertwined. She felt something pass between them, like a flame leaping from the match to tinder. When she was well enough to leave, Sopronia had taken her on as a maid, and since then they had grown as close as sisters, as dependent on each other as mother and child. But no matter how close they were, Helen knew from experience that pretty words and promises were not enough.
She hadn’t been resorting to hyperbole when she’d told the minister that she and Sophronia had saved each other. When Sophronia had whisked her away from that wretched poorhouse, Helen had felt forever in Sophronia’s debt. But Helen had since returned the favor.
Sophronia would never know how much Helen had done for her, would never know the lengths to which she had gone to keep her safe, and Helen would not burden her with that. But a childhood spent learning herb-craft and spells from the woman on the farm next to her family’s in Vermont meant that Helen had the tools to protect Sophronia in a powerful, binding way.
Moving away from the window, she let the raven down onto its wood perch. She paced about the empty carriage house. Sophronia hadn’t stepped foot in here since that night four years ago, and Helen was glad for it. It gave her a private place where she could come to practice her craft. Sweeping up and down the dusty room, she recited the words that she had muttered so many times that they might as well have been engraved on her heart.
“Love me well and bind the spell,
I cast the charm against those who mean thee harm,
But should another love thee, untethered ye shall be.”
It was a strong charm; once undone it could not be done again. She could give her mistress protective herbs, sprinkle salt at the threshold, but it was the spell that bound her. No, she would not let that minister tempt Sophronia away from her. For if he did, it was more than just Sophronia’s heart that would be in jeopardy—it would be her very life.
Gabriel ought to have gone to the church and continued in his work of clearing away the debris and rubbish. He’d long since undertaken the unpleasant task of disposing of the animal remains, but there was still dust caking the windows and splintered pews that needed repairing. If he was going to have the church up and running anytime soon, he needed to stop procrastinating and embrace this new life that he had forged for himself and Anna’s memory.
But instead of going to the church, after he left Castle Carver, he found himself meandering down the wide, tree-lined road to the water. He was caught between being disappointed that Mrs. Carver hadn’t been an old crone or a witch—because that certainly would have been very interesting—and uneasy that she was so charming and gracious. Even more disturbing was that he was able to find a woman charming at all. After Anna, how could he even think such things?
When the trees gave way to the broad vista of gray water, Gabriel stopped, hands in pockets, and breathed in the sharp, salty air. A little boat loaded with fishnets slid by, the boy in back raising a hand in greeting to Gabriel as he sailed past. Though his mind was far away, Gabriel absently returned the gesture and watched him go.
It
