She sniffed disdainfully but followed him. He only prayed there wouldn’t be any screaming when Dahlia learned she’d be sharing a room with someone who could out-brat her for days.
Chapter 6
Owen waited in the small, windowless room. He’d been sitting so long on the unpadded bench that his legs were falling asleep. Standing to pace a bit, he heard an upraised voice from the next chamber, but he’d been hearing rumblings and shouts for the last hour and they no longer interested him. He’d be able to make his case when they called for him and not until then.
He poked his head out the door to find Maria in the same spot they’d left her, standing motionless under a tree. The sun filtered through the leaves and dappled her skin and hair with golden light. He would have found that utterly charming not so long ago. When she had said she would marry him he felt a giddy, excited sort of fear for their future together. Now he was just plain afraid.
As soon as he laid eyes on her she turned and looked straight at him, but didn’t rush over to see if there were any answers yet, or wave, or even smile. He was too far away from her to know if she blinked but he’d been around her enough the last few days to know she probably hadn’t. It was impossible to get much out of her other than inane commentary on whatever she happened to be looking at.
She didn’t seem to care at all that the elders of the community were right now deciding if she should be banished from the village or not. She didn’t care if she was wet or dry, didn’t seem to feel hunger, cold, or fatigue. When he wasn’t with her, he could convince himself he was imagining things. When he was, he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he wasn’t with Maria.
“Owen, you can come in now,” Sorin called from the inner chamber.
Owen jumped, feeling somehow guilty for not sitting patiently up until the end. He waved at Maria, received nothing in return, and slammed the door shut.
The inner chamber was much larger than the waiting area. It was a sparsely ornamented room, much like everything else Owen had seen in the village. No one seemed to be lacking good food or comfortable shelter, but no one went in for showy decorations.
There were several tall, hand-carved chairs on a dais at one end. Sorin sat in one and the others were occupied by three old men, Agathe, and a stout woman with jet black hair. The three walls facing this array of stern elders were lined with benches, one of which had a girl about his age who dandled a cranky baby on her knee and several other villagers. None of them looked open to his arguments. Still, he had to give them.
“Er, thank you for hearing me out,” he said. “As you can see from Miss Winters being here for nearly a fortnight now, even before I arrived, that she’s no threat to anyone. She hasn’t done anyone any harm. She’s only ill. I’m positive once I figure out—”
“She’s not ill,” Agathe interrupted. “Nor is she Maria Winters anymore. And whatever that thing is that’s walking around in her form hasn’t done any harm yet. Who’s to say how it will react if one of us sets it off.”
“I don’t think that’s so,” the young woman with the baby piped up over the sounds of the child’s whining. “I have no sense of there being a demon in her at all.”
Owen gasped. Demon? Since when was that a consideration? The others nodded in agreement that it wasn’t and he supposed he was relieved.
“Did I say it was a demon?” Agathe rebutted. “At least with a demon we’d know how to deal with it.”
Owen’s relief dissolved. Something worse than a demon?
“That’s true enough,” one of the old men said in a wheezing voice. “And since none of us can identify it, we have to err on the side of caution.” He nodded toward the griping baby. “We have to think of the children.”
“You’re being cruel to someone who needs help,” the young mother said.
“There’s no help to be had for whatever that is,” Agathe said. She turned to Owen. “I’m sorry, but it has to go.”
“We haven’t decided that yet,” Sorin said.
Wasn’t his cousin supposed to be in charge of this village? Couldn’t he tell them that Maria was welcome? Owen studied Sorin and realized he was on the side of the people who wanted her gone.
“It’s something I did,” Owen said. “A spell. I’m not sure exactly what happened but if you’ll help me, I can figure out a way to reverse it.”
“Or send that thing back where it came from?” another old man asked gently. “Believe me, several of us have already tried before you arrived. Agathe’s right. Your Maria is gone. Son, none of us can figure out what it is or how to be rid of it. If the most powerful witches in this community are at a loss, well… it’s a lost cause, I’m afraid.”
“She’s not gone,” he shouted, alarming himself as well as the tribunal. “I know she’s not,” he said more quietly.
“Regardless of whether or not Maria Winters is still alive is a moot point,” the first old man said. “I’m very sorry for her if she is. But we can’t allow whatever has taken over her to remain in our village. We’ve worked too hard these past twenty years to risk our peace, safety, and freedom from another evil tyrant we can’t control.”
“Evil tyrant?” Sorin interjected. “Come now. That escalated rather fast, didn’t it?”
Sorin’s plea was overruled by a chorus of “Hear,
