Page 44 of In the Pursuit of Haven
I groaned, reaching for Haven’s quilt to pull it over my shoulders while I read through my aunt’s notes. Ann’s profile actually fit the part of Crabb’s witch, but the sadness from the past seemed to reach through history to grip my heart in our shared sorrows. Did she love the man who’d abandoned her and her three children or was she pining for the one who was even farther from her reach?
“I cannot bear the thought of losing ye!” My arms wreathed under my pirate’s arms to clutch him to me in that dirty prison we’d shared for too long.
After the sheriff had undone my shackles with his intention of taking me away, I was free to move about with wild abandon. This was the first time I could holdAsherCrabb to me and feel the warmth of his skin against mine.
“My darling,” said he. “Time is not on our side, but…” he hesitated, his eyes full of anguish. “But stay ye awhile. I shall be brief.” He bent to kiss me.
Impossible man! I was to save his life and all he should think of was love?
And yet… kissing my pirate was as a blessing; his touch was world’s away from the man who’d abused and deserted me to my humiliation. Crabb was unlike any I had ever known. How was it he was the one languishing in prison when he had such strength of conviction?
“Ye are all that matters to me,” he breathed against my cheek.
“Then return with me,” I said. “Put more craft into forcing the sheriff to spare your life. Forget these plans of revenge.”
“My dearest heart,” he called me. “I was doomed before ye met me… howbeit, our love will live on.” His fingers found mine, and he whispered the secrets of his treasure into my ear.
What? What had he told her? That was the mystery of it all.
Pulling back from me,Ashergave me a sad sort of smile. “Keep this knowledge close to yer bosom, Ann, and ye shall be free from all that try to hurt ye.”
The sheriff returned with many a loud shouting and clanging with his keys against the prison doors. “Ye have been pardoned, witch. Ye can thank this miserable pirate for yer life.”
The morning light brightened the blue curtains with its unwelcome intrusion. I yawned, peeling Haven’s notebook from under my cheek.
I’d fallen asleep sometime between throwing Haven’s quilt over me and sympathizing with Ann Dolliver over losing her pirate.
Grimacing, I noticed my wrinkled clothes. The jeans were definitely not as comfortable as my dress from the night before. I slid from bed, steadying my bare feet against the carpet while I snatched up my pajamas. No way did I want Jessie catching me acting out of the ordinary, and for the second time in two days, I peeled off my clothes from the day before to put on my pajamasafterwaking up.
These had shorts to them at least.
Grabbing my toothbrush from my bag, I left Haven’s room for the shared bathroom upstairs. Immediately the smell of pancakes and bacon seduced my senses. Jessie must be cooking. He did that when he was stressed, and I ate when I was stressed, so pretty much we were doomed.
I staggered into the bathroom with my mind going a million directions, from Haven’s secret room to her suspicions that Matthew was murdered to what Crabb had told Ann before he’d died.
According to all the history books, the real Ann Dolliver had been released from prison, and the word was that she’d never recovered. I figured it was the long prison stay that had ruined her, but also going back to a normal life would be almost impossible under the shadow of doubt cast over her.
But what if there was more to her story that none of us historians had guessed?
“Poppa!” I clung to the good reverend’s hands. He’d always been fair and kind, though he watched me with tormented eyes like he’d done since I’d left that place of horrors.
“I’ve fallen in love and… Poppa, they’ve taken his life. He lies in a shallow grave at Gallows Hill. Can Asher not be buried in holy ground?”
“Impossible, my sweet daughter.” He watched me as if he did not quite believe what I was saying, and at times, even I did not quite believe myself. Had my pirate been real at all or just a wild fancy as I struggled to make sense of all that had happened to me?
I let out a tormented cry and sank to the earth, my hands beating at my chest. “He was innocent of any wrongdoing,” I said. My heart was now as dead as my pirate’s as he lay still in that wretched place, and be that as it may, I could not stop weeping. Did the dead weep? For surely, I was dead as he was. My hand went to my tears and I stilled as I drew my fingertips back to watch the sparkle of it against my skin. “We must dig him up,” I said with a wooden nod. “Aye, we must give him a proper burial.”
“If he was found guilty, he is as unclean as those witches do be.”
My head bowed. My secrets burning deep within my bosom, even as I grew mad with this aching sorrow. “Am I unclean now, Father?”
My father fought for words. “Nay—God knows the truth, even if man does not.”
“Then God knows I do tell the truth,” I said and wiped my tears against my hands and then against his shoes. “Asher does deserve more than what this earth gave him. We must cover him with its most holy of grounds.”
“Nay, my child, we cannot go against the magistrates or we face punishment ourselves.”
Mine was the insanity of not repeating their lies. I did let out shrieks of my mourning in public, stared blankly rather than reveal the visions of my eyes, but mostly I lay there on my bed, trembling and weeping for my Asher.
