Chapter 35

Betsy, no! You can't!" Laura started to scurry after me. "Nobody's seen us and we can get out of here safely, and even if we couldn't, we can't interfere. Are you nuts?"

"All sorts of men and women and kids, kids, Laura! Hung for no reason at all. No. Worse than that. Hung because nobody could be bothered to stand up and say, 'Cut the shit, you Puritan fucks.' Well, I'm gonna."

I'd gone up exactly one step to the church doors when Laura tackled me from behind.

"Ow! Laura, if I get tetanus from splinters, I'm gonna have to walk for a long time to find an appropriately stocked ER." I tried to stand-I'd fallen right against the steps-but she was hanging on to my calves like grim death.

"We can't interfere!"

I stifled the urge to stomp on her knuckles. "Why not?"

Laura opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Unfortunately, that had no effect on her grip. For a cutie in jeans and her dad's belt, she had the grip of a crack-addled anaconda. "Come on, have you never seen a movie or read a book about time travel? Things always get worse when people meddle."

"Meddle?" I squatted and started gently prying her fingers off me. "You sound like you're channeling a villain from Scooby Doo. 'And I would've gotten away with it, if it wasn't for you meddling kids and your stupid talking Great Dane.' "

"You could make things worse!"

"Worse than this?" I gestured at the church, supposedly a symbol of light and love, but right now nothing more than a prison run by asshats.

"You could really screw things up. What if you accidentally kill-um-Benjamin Franklin's grandfather?"

"Jeez, Laura, I'm not going to kill anybody." Probably. "I'm just gonna give that awesome witch a helping hand. Not that she's a real witch." Probably.

"Please don't make this worse!"

"Oh that's nice! Do you recall me spending most of our field trip to hell explaining to you, multiple times, that we should not time travel, we should not teleport, you should not grow wings, and we should not go to hell in the first place? Huh? Because I remember it all very vividly, Laura. So don't get in my way now unless you're running for hypocrite of the year."

I bent down to loosen her grip again, but, stricken, she let go. Her big eyes were shining-she wasn't crying, but only just, and I instantly felt seriously shitty. "I didn't think of it like that. You're right. It's pretty mean for me not to support you when you've been doing so much to help me."

Well, nuts. That took the wind out of my sails. Call me a dumbass, but I almost didn't like it when people sincerely apologized while I was still mad. I'd be all puffed up and pissed, when, whooooosh. And you can't keep bitching after you get the apology. That is not cool at all.

"It's all right," I said, because it also wasn't cool to not acknowledge the apology I didn't want at that time. "Just, you know. Watch it. Or something."

"But I'm not going in there with you." Which would have been more of a threat if she weren't telling me this while following me up the stairs. "I'll just sort of hang back."

"Good idea. This won't take long. Then we can shuffle off to hell again."

Chapter 36

l raised my foot, had a split second to admire my navy blue loafer (Misty Moccasin, Beverly Feldman, $265, because sandals didn't seem a sensible choice for hell) before my leg pistoned out and the church doors flew open, slamming back against the walls with a satisfying double crash.

"Don't even," I said as Laura cowered behind me, groaned, and covered her eyes. "This is me being subtle, so don't even say it. Hey! Asshats!" I stomped down the aisle, ready to kick some uptight bigoted Pilgrim ass. "You guys. All you old white guys. And also your uptight wives. And why are there kids in here? You want your children to watch you lie and get hysterical and trump up charges and scare and hang innocent people? Let me guess: there's gonna be a potluck supper afterward."

The woman on trial-it had to be her, she was standing in front-looked at me with eyes gone huge. And the first thing I noticed was how gorgeous she was.

Don't get me wrong, it's not like I surround myself with the deformed. If anything, I usually found myself hanging out with men and women who were obscenely good-looking (I had yet to meet the fugly vampire). Hell, Tina alone could have won Miss America blindfolded with two black eyes and a runny nose. And pimples! Okay, maybe not with pimples.

The would-be witch was quite small-the top of her head was way, way below my chin. But then, I was tall for an undead heathen.

Her hair, a gorgeous rippling brownish red, was piled on top of her teeny head. She had so much of it, it seemed as though the weight of all those tresses would yank her head back if she let them down.

Her skin was pale, except for two hectic flares of color on her cheeks-not blush. (I was pretty sure Revlon hadn't been incorporated yet.) It was the hectic color of anger or fright or excitement ... or all three. And her eyes seemed almost to take up half of her face, enormous and so deep a brown they were nearly black, with dark slashing eyebrows and long lashes.

Her outfit was right out of a museum exhibit: a big fat dress-fat because of the hoopskirt thing. Big-time modest, too; she wasn't exposing so much as an elbow dimple. The gown, too, seemed to emphasize her tiny frame and delicate features; she looked like a kid playing dress-up.

Her dress was pale blue; her neckerchief thing was transparent white lace. Long sleeves, long skirt-I could barely make out the toes of her shoes when I glanced down.

She smelled terrific, like clean cotton and sunshine. If I could have bottled that scent and brought it back to the twenty-first century, Sinclair and Jessica could have thrown their zillions away.

She had only one piece of jewelry I could see: there was a black ribbon tied around her wrist, and from it hung a little painting of an older woman. It was so small I could only make out the woman's graying brown hair and teeny-weeny face.

Taking in the would-be witch's museum-exhibit clothing had only cost me a couple of seconds, which was good because it meant people were still astonished, and no one was sneaking up behind me to brain me with a hymnal.

I pointed to the gorgeously wronged Massachusetts resident who stared at the tip of my finger and backed up a step. "You think this is a witch? This is not a witch, jerk-offs."

"Be gone from here, wretch, and cover yourself!"

"Okay, um, no. And is that any way to introduce yourself?"

"To be fair," Laura called from the back of the church, "by their standards you're wearing the Puritan equivalent of a garter belt and peekaboo bra."

"Oh yeah?" I looked at the other person standing, the guy, I figured, who was after the lady's farm. He, too, looked like he'd stepped right out of a colonial America clothing exhibit ("Gift shop on your left, and yes, we validate parking"), with a white linen shirt, black culottes (or whatever men's suit pants that only came to the knee were called), and a matching black coat with dazzling gold buttons.

He was clutching a cane so hard his knuckles were white. So was his face, but from fear or rage I hadn't yet figured. I was smelling lots of fear, sure, but it was coming from the pretty brunette, not to mention the thirty people sitting in pews behind us.

"Tell me, do my awesome leggings and Eddie Bauer shirt make you bitches nervous? Hmmm?" I wriggled my shoulders back and forth, shaking my tits at the head asshat, whose face went redder. Cool. If I flashed him, I could probably give him a stroke. Ah, good times. "Or is it just female sexuality in general that freaks you out?"

The congregation was too startled to so much as murmur, and they were shaking their wriggling fingers at me. At first I thought I was observing the invention of American Sign Language. Then I realized they were all forking the sign of the evil eye at me. Ha! If that didn't work for my old babysitter, it sure wasn't going to help them.

"This is what you do? Because TV and the Internet haven't been invented? You make up lies and then hang your neighbors? Or rack them? Or crush them to death under big rocks? Pathetic, with a capital P."

Dead silence. Nobody was even shifting their weight.

"Wow, really? Nothing to say? Because I heard plenty from outside. Cat got your tongue? Or maybe the devil?

"You want a witch? You think torturing people will save your moldy black souls? Do you really think when you show up at the Pearly Gates, God's not gonna have serious questions for you? And especially you, fuck-nuts."

The man in the black suit was, I just now noticed, clutching a Bible, which made me laugh.

"You think lugging that around means God's not gonna want to give you the old one-two punch and send your ass to hell? How will you ever justify telling him that you lied and sentenced an innocent to death ... so you. Could get. A farm. A farm! When there are, like, a hundred people in the whole country right now and zillions of acres up for grabs! When you're living in a time when there is more than enough land and resources for every single person on the planet, you piece of shit!

I was seriously considering placing a private bet on when he'd pass out. He stood straighter and straighter, and got whiter and whiter. "You will not speak so, witch!"

"Oooh, that hurt my feelings." I yawned.

He brandished the Bible. In fact, he'd been clutching it so tightly, his fingers had left marks in the leather. I was willing to bet Mr. Big Shot hadn't been talked to like this by anyone, never mind a saucy wench dressed in what he assumed was her whorish underwear.

(I had whorish underwear, of course. But he was never going to see it. That was strictly Sinclair's domain. Mmm. Better not think about him, or I'd start worrying about that weird stupid fight.)

"-to the bowels of hell!"

"What? Sorry, I zoned out for a few seconds. I assume you predicted I'd go to hell? You think that scares me, the day I've had?"

I turned to the woman. "And you. Are you okay? They didn't start with the torture before I got here, right?"

"That-that is correct, ma'am."

"Actually, you can call me B-" Laura made frantic hand slashing motions ... hmm, good point. "Beverly," I finished. "Beverly Feldman, yeah, that's me." If only.

I turned back to the congregation, who were frozen in shock or fear or anger or maybe all three. "That wasn't rhetorical, by the way," I said, addressing them as well as the head jerk-off. "I really do want to know how you can reconcile deep, honest religious faith with this." I pointed at the tiny brunette. "What's she supposed to have done, anyway? Do you even know?"

Nobody said a word, and then I got another surprise. She spoke up. "They claim I ..." Her voice shook, and she made a visible effort to steady it. I could see her throat working as she swallowed and tried again. "They say I witched their cheese and their milk."

"Witched it?"

"It spoiled. It went bad. They-they say I did it a'purpose."

I gaped, then whirled. "You decided she's a witch because no one's invented refrigeration? Dairy products go bad because you're storing them in warm cupboards but that's witchcraft?"

"It seems flimsy to me," Laura called from the back.

I was so furious I was actually dizzy with it. There were so many bitchy, sarcastic observations to make, I was having a sarcasm stroke. "My God! You people! You're-you're so stupid you're making my eyeballs throb. They're throbbing, dammit!"

Their duly elected witch started to laugh, which she then choked off by clapping both hands over her mouth.

"No, no," I said. "Don't be nervous. Laughing? Just now? Is totally the correct response. If you can't get to a gun, I mean. What else?"

"I would not marry."

"Uh-huh. Let me guess. Jackass McGee here, right?" I jerked a thumb toward Black Suit.

"He is called Will-"

"Silence yourself, witch!" he roared, and finally his face was getting some color.

"William. Putnam," she said, and her voice wasn't shaking at all now, nope. From the look she leveled at him, I half expected Putnam to burst into flames. That would have been a cool way to end our trip. "He funded the building of this church. He thinks it is his church and his town and that we are all his, and he does not like that I am not."

"Mmm, wow, there's nothing more attractive than a sore loser who's also a bully. The ladies must love you, Putnam."

"It's true," Laura called. "That's just terrible, Mr. Putnam. Little kids know better."

"Yeah, well, maybe not in this time and place. That explains why you're up here, cutie."

I was walking back and forth, almost pacing, while I voiced my thoughts. "But how about the other ones? The ones you guys killed? The ones you arrested and will kill? You got them stashed somewhere? Jail, I'm guessing? And for what? So you can get your name in the paper as the big bad witch hunters? Well, why?"

I took another look at Black Suit. Yes, he looked quite tidy and prosperous. In fact, he was the nicest dressed guy in the room. Built the church. Liked getting his way. "Let me guess. Political aspirations?"

The congregation seemed to sigh all at once.

"Aw. That's just charming." I glanced at Laura, who was making time-to-go motions. And she was right, we'd certainly pushed our luck more than long enough. But I wasn't satisfied. I didn't want to leave just now. This will sound weird, but I was hoping the jerk-off would try something really stupid so I could-

He took three quick steps (more like stomps, actually) forward and brandished his cane. "Witch! Filth! Devil's whore!"

"Well, which one is it?" I asked.

"Be gone from this place! Cover your nakedness, cover your lewd flesh, lest you tempt honest men from God's path!"

"Oh, thank you," I cried, jerking back so he couldn't brain me-the brass tip of his stick was easily two inches across, and he swung it like it had some heft. I heard the soft whshhh as it passed about three centimeters from my nose. "You've made me so happy."