Page 18 of Hallows End
“Hallows End? Is that where I am?”
“Yes. Hallows End in 1692.”
She sits back and eyes me warily. “That’s impossible.”
“I would have thought so, too.” I glance around my modest cabin and gesture to the stove, the lanterns. “But as you can see, there are no modern conveniences here. We are held forever in this time, at least until I can break the curse.”
“What curse?”
“The curse of the blood moon,” I reply and watch as Lucy gasps. “What is it?” I ask in response to her reaction.
“A weird coincidence,” she mutters, shaking her head. “My shop is called Blood Moon Apothecary, and I never understood why I had to name it that. I just knew that I did.”
“Fascinating,” I murmur.
“So, the town is stuck in 1692, but you townspeople can move back and forth from Hallows End and Salem?” she asks.
“No. Only I can. And don’t ask me why, because I’m not sure. I’m also the only one here who remembers and knows what happened. Each month with the new moon, time resets one month, and they live through the same twenty-eight days, year after year, century after century.”
“You’re the only one who knows?”
I nod slowly. “And now, so do you. I don’t know how you were able to follow me here. No one, aside from me, has been in or out since 1692.”
“Who cursed the village?”
“I did.” I lick my lips and feel my stomach jump at the thought of that night so many years ago. “The witch hunters were headed our way, and because so many in this village are witches, I knew that we would all be slaughtered.”
“Many. So, not everyone here has magic?”
“No. There are also Christians here. And still others who have no particular faith at all. But the curse was placed on the whole village, not just those with magic.”
She nods. “Go on.”
“The decision was made to cast the curse, with the intention of being able to break it once the hysteria was over. We would essentially make Hallows End disappear, along with any knowledge that it ever existed. We should have been caught here for no more than two years.”
“Instead, it’s been more than three hundred years.”
I exhale, relieved at the understanding in her gorgeous eyes. “Yes.”
“Jonas.” To my horror, tears fill her eyes, but when I reach for her, she shakes her head and stands to walk to the fire, staring down into the flames.
Nera whimpers and sits up so he can lick his mistress’s hand. She brushes her fingers over his head and whispers, “All is well.”
That she would work to soothe her familiar when she was in turmoil herself says so much about the woman Luciana is. It makes me ache to touch her. Before I can get up to do just that, she turns and pins me with those luminous green eyes, her lashes glistening with moisture.
“This is a far worse punishment for you than death.”
I feel my hands flex in and out of fists, and then I simply nod. “There are days that’s true, yes.”
“I can help you lift the curse,” she says. “I told you earlier—there are powerful people in our coven. Iknowthat if we put our heads together, we can lift this and set you all free.”
“I don’t think it’ll be that easy.”
“I don’t think it’s going to be easy at all,” she agrees but then crosses to me. She kneels before me and takes my hands in hers. “But this has to stop. For all of you. We’ll find a way, but I don’t know enough to do it alone.”
“Clearly, neither do I or I’d have lifted it centuries ago.”
She looks down at our hands, tracing the mark on her skin and then mine.