her. He smiled . . . and nodded.
She didn’t know that it should, but it seemed a reassuring gesture. She didn’t know if he saw the hatred in Shard LeFel. She didn’t know if he saw the Strangeness of him and his man. But all the same, she was glad to see there was at least one—no, three other people in the room who weren’t caught under Mr. LeFel’s thrall.
“I was out,” Shard LeFel crooned, “taking an evening constitutional, and by and by I wandered past the widow Lindson’s property. I heard a terrible crying—a child wailing—and beyond that, I heard a woman singing. But not any church song. It was a witch’s tune.” He paused a moment, letting his words steep.
“I didn’t want to believe it myself.” He shook his head, and more than one head shook along with him. “But when I stepped up close to look in the window, I saw Mrs. Jeb Lindson, working her magic—the devil’s magic—on this poor boy.”
He nodded again, and this time all the folk nodded with him.
“Nonsense.” Alun’s voice cut across the silence like a fire across the plain. “Do you have any proof at all? Anything that would cast that poor woman as a witch?”
Shard LeFel’s head snapped up and Rose saw the devil himself behind those eyes. No, worse than the devil; she saw the Strange. “Of course,” Shard LeFel growled. Then, regaining his composure, “Of course I have proof. Mrs. Gregor, if you would just pull up your son’s shirt, you’ll see the mark, the cursed spell, she left there on his back.”
Rose couldn’t see Mrs. Gregor’s face from her place on the stairs, but she heard her gasp as she drew up Elbert’s shirt.
Rose instead watched Sheriff Wilke’s reaction, since he could easily see the boy’s back. He frowned and shook his head.
“It’s a pentagram.” Mrs. Gregor stood up with Elbert in her arms. She turned toward Mr. Gregor. In doing so, she revealed the boy’s back to the room.
Very clearly, the mark of a star standing on one point was scratched into his back.
“Mae Lindson has done harm to this boy,” Shard LeFel said. “And that’s all the proof needed. She is a witch.”
“Witch,” Mr. Shunt repeated from the shadows.
“Witch,” the people in the church echoed, inhaled, exhaled, back and forth to one another, the word building and growing, breathing stronger at each repetition until it seemed as if the very walls vibrated with it.
Until another word was born in its place: “Burn. Burn her.”
Rose couldn’t believe her ears. In just as much as a heartbeat, the entire town had gone mad. Regardless of if Mrs. Lindson was a witch or not, this was a civilized age. People didn’t go around burning people just because one man stood up and called them a witch.
Her heart was pounding and every instinct told her to run, to flee, to get away from these people before they turned on her and called her something worth burning.
But Mae was her friend. She had to do something. Anything to help her. To stop this. Which meant she had to stand up against Mr. Shard LeFel.
And an entire town of people with murder in their eyes.
Rose pulled her shoulders back and walked down the stairs, her boots making too much noise for such a quiet room. Her knees shook and her hands went slick with sweat.
“You’re wrong,” she said, blunt as that.
Mr. LeFel looked over at her, hatred twisting his face into a mockery of a smile. He opened his mouth to speak, but Rose spoke first.
“Mae Lindson isn’t a witch. She’s a kind and helpful woman who hasn’t done more than mind her own business and weave blankets for this town. She’s a lace maker, a wife, and nothing more.”
“Don’t mind the girl,” Sheriff Wilke said. “She doesn’t understand these things.”
“I understand you are all talking about killing an innocent woman,” Rose said.
An angry murmur rose up in the room, and Rose caught more than one voice saying “mad,” “wild,” “crazy.”
Shard LeFel waited a moment, letting the voices hush against the rafters. Then he spoke. “You have seen what this ‘lace maker’ has done to the boy, Miss Small. She has left him with the devil’s mark, taken his blood. Would likely have killed him. She is a witch. And that is the proof.”
“That,” Rose said, “isn’t the Gregors’ boy. I don’t know what gears and steam you have cobbled together, but that boy isn’t Elbert. It’s a monster.”
A startled cry rose up from the women of the town and the men’s deep grumbling rolled beneath it. This time it did not quiet, but instead grew.
“I swear to you,” Rose said, “that it’s some Strange thing left in Elbert’s place. Some Strange matic.”
“Rose!” her mother called out sharply. “This is no time for your fool mouth.” She stood up from where she had been sitting near the front of the room and stormed toward Rose.
“It’s the truth. That’s not Elbert.” Instead of retreating, Rose walked down the crowded outer aisle, getting more than one surreptitious prod and elbow. But she didn’t care. She only needed to make one person believe her. She marched over to Mr. Gregor.
The sheriff stepped in her way, keeping her from coming any closer to Mr. Gregor, or the boy.
“You believe me, don’t you, Mr. Gregor?” Rose asked. “I tell you true—that’s not your boy. I’d know Elbert. I’d know him like my own brother.”
Mr. Gregor shook his head, his expression a mix of shame and pity. “That’s enough, Rose. Go on, now. Do as your mother says. You should go home.”
“I’m not wrong.” She searched his face, searched his expression, for the man who had always smiled at her curiosity and applauded her strong spirit. Looked for the man who had always believed in her. “I’m not crazy, I promise you so.”
“Go on, Rose,” he said tightly. “This business isn’t for . . . people like you.”
Rose felt like he had just dunked her in a trough of cold water. He didn’t believe her. He thought she was insane. Wild. Foolish.
She might believe the whole town could be blinded by a stranger’s words, but not Mr. Gregor. He had always been kind and helpful to her, and wasn’t afraid to speak against a crowd with calm words and reason. But not today. Today she meant nothing to him.
Sheriff Wilke put his hand on her arm. “Mrs. Small,” he said. “Please see your daughter home.”
“Rose Small,” her mother said. “Come here this instant.”
Rose knew a losing fight when she saw one. There wasn’t a single chance anyone else in this town would believe her. They were set on burning an innocent woman alive for a crime she didn’t commit. Rose might not be able to change their minds, but that didn’t mean she was going to stand aside and do nothing.
Rose shook off Sheriff Wilke’s hand and started walking. But not toward her mother. She was headed toward Mr. Shard LeFel. “I know what you’re doing, Mr. LeFel.” She was close enough she could smell the lavender and spice of his expensive perfume. “And I know what you are—what you and your man are. Strange. Come to blight this land.”
LeFel’s eyebrows raised again. And his man, Mr. Shunt, lowered his head, until his eyes burned from beneath deeper shadow.
“I am quite sure you are mistaken, Miss Small,” LeFel murmured. “I am here with only the highest regard for this town and these people. I am bringing to Hallelujah all the riches and future the rail and steam can offer.”
“You are a liar.”
Mr. LeFel’s hand shot out so fast, Rose didn’t even see him move. He caught her wrist in his grip, and squeezed down tight.
The entire room seemed to go distant and fuzzy. No one moved. Seemed like no one breathed.
“Mind your tongue,” Shard LeFel growled. “Lest you lose it altogether.” He squeezed down so hard, she couldn’t feel her fingers. She slipped her left hand into her apron, fumbling for her gun.
Still no one in the church spoke. Still no one moved.
Except the Madder brothers.
Rose could hear them push away from the door as if they were one man. She felt the vibration of their steps as they marched down the aisle, their boots heavy as the mountains falling from the heavens.
