Valora barely had time to lift the rug and climb down before angry voices filled the cabin above. “Blackwood, open up!” a man shouted. “We know the witch is here!”
Valora pressed herself against the dirt wall below, lungs tight. Jars of preserved food lined the shelves beside her like silent witnesses. Her breath came fast and shallow as she clutched her pendant.
“There’s no witch here,” Thorly replied calmly above her. “Just me and my dinner.”
“We followed her tracks,” another voice argued.
“Then you followed wrong,” Thorly said. “Only tracks out there are mine.”
Boots shuffled. Men muttered. Then one voice rose above the rest, carrying the weight of authority sharpened into cruelty.
“Silas Pewitt,” Valora whispered to herself, recognizing the tone even through the floorboards. Head of the Belwick Council. A man who smiled in church and made people poorer with his decisions.
“We have the right to search,” Silas declared.
“You’re on my land,” Thorly answered. “Leave.”
The sound of the shotgun being raised echoed through the cabin, metallic and final. Valora’s stomach tightened with fear. She pictured Samuel in the square, beaten because he loved her loudly.
