Traitor to the Crown The Patriot Witch by C.C. Finlay

mother. It had been days since he'd seen her. She had to be worried about him, worried that something had happened to him, either in battle or because someone had discovered his secret.
    He lifted his eyes to see if the way was clear, but the young woman had nearly reached his hiding place, and he ducked quickly to avoid being spied by her. He needn't have worried. All her attention was focused on the woman in the wagon. Her lips moved in silent prayer as she led the way down the trail.
    The cart was close enough that Proctor could hear Emerson's voice bringing up the rear. “… there is no point in persisting in your wickedness any longer. You have been caught. Reveal your purpose in the attack on the farm, and earnestly repent of it, I implore you.”
    The widow sat silent and unmoving, head bowed, face hidden behind her shawl. And her hands weren't folded in her lap—they were bound with ropes, the hemp knots clearly visible now because they contrasted with the black cloth of her sleeves.
    “Thou art wasting thy breath,” the old man murmured, just like a Quaker. “She hasn't spoke a word since we caught her.”
    “We must do the right thing whether she chooses to or not,” Emerson replied. “And that includes giving her the opportunity to admit her sins and make amends.”
    The cart bumped past Proctor's hiding place, and as it did, the widow showed her first signs of life. She lifted her head, sniffing, then tossed her head back, knocking the shawl from her face. Her age was difficult to determine; gray circles under her eyes and a wrinkled throat made her appear old, though her face was smooth and her hair dark like a younger woman's.
    An electric tingle shot over the surface of Proctor's skin, and he swayed with vertigo. He thrust out his arm for balance to keep from tipping over.
    The cart was directly beside him now, no more than fifteen feet away. From her perch, the widow turned her face to peer over the bushes directly at Proctor. He saw that his impression of her was wrong. It was just as he'd first suspected: the woman on the cart could have been his mother, with gray streaks through her hair and a face careworn before its time.
    Only her eyes were different—they flashed, like lanterns in the night, as old as the beacons on the hills that warned sailors off difficult shores. Over the eerily distant tone of Emerson's ministerial voice, she spoke.
    “It's in the blood.”
    The words shaped a smile on her lips, not of joy but of relief. Emerson stopped in his tracks, staring at her as the wagon rolled away from him; the Quaker woman shouted something and hurried back, halting twenty-five or thirty feet short of the wagon; the old man at the bridle turned his head, patting the horse on the flank as he pulled it to rest, and said, “What did she say?”
    The widow looked at Jedediah, the fire in her eyes sharp like lightning, bright as the medallion on Pitcairn's chest, and said something under her breath. The words tumbled out, like water over rocks, falling from streams to rapids, and rising into a roar without individual parts.
    Proctor started forward, ready to help, though not knowing how, and then the widow glanced at him a secondtime, still pouring forth the torrent of words in some language he had never heard before.
    In an instant, her head flattened and grew a snout and whiskers; the black cloth of her dress and shawl rippled and became a furry pelt; and the roar of words deepened into the snarl of a panther, black and sleek and angry.
    Proctor's jaw dropped open and his hand groped blindly for a weapon, a stick, anything, as it would if he had stumbled on a real panther unawares. But to that was added a second layer of panic—if this was true witchcraft, then what else could she do?
    On the road, Emerson staggered back, eyes wide in fear, his voice imploring God for aid. Jedediah reached out to grab the panther by its bound wrists, or ankles, what ever they were. But the creature writhed and