The Harlot (Taskill Witches 1)

The key turned in the lock. She frowned heavily.

His footsteps faded away. Still she stared at the door.

“Gregor Ramsay,” she said to the closed door, the very look of it making her anger swell. “Why do you still have to lock me up, Gregor Ramsay?” She’d been well-behaved, she’d shown willingness to learn and they’d shared much pleasure that morning. There was more trust between them, but it did not extend to leaving her alone without a lock and key.

Impatiently, she paced the floor. She would have to escape the room by magic again, but she couldn’t risk going out there if he had not left the inn. Being confined this way was something she detested. It went back to her childhood. When she and her siblings were orphaned, she’d found herself imprisoned every night by those who had taken her in.

She wondered if her brother and sister had fared any better than her, as they grew up. They were all three torn apart and kept that way, after their mother’s burning. It was for the good of their souls, Jessie was told. The hard knot of grief she nursed ached every time she thought of her kin. She did not even know where they had been sent, but images of Maisie kicking and screaming as she was lifted into a carriage with the curtains pulled closed haunted Jessie. Who had taken her? Someone wealthy enough to have his own crest on the door of the carriage, that’s all she knew.

Deep in her heart she felt that Maisie and Lennox would be drawn back to the Highlands, as she was, to the place they were born. If it took her last breath she would find them. She sat down on the cot and let her thoughts continue to wander back in time.

No fancy carriage had come for her. Jessie had stayed in the village where their mother had been stoned and burned. Every time she was forced to walk past the place where it had happened she’d had to fight back tears. The grief was overwhelming, but soon enough she learned to hide it, for it angered her keepers.

A local teacher had taken her in. Mister Niven was his name. It was a charitable act undertaken as a result of pressure from the local minister, rather than willing kindheartedness. But the teacher’s wife had been afraid of the witch’s offspring. She never left Jessie alone with her children. Mister Niven’s wife would not even let her take lessons with them and used her as a servant instead. At night she locked Jessie in the outhouse, telling her it was for her own safety—much as Mister Ramsay did.

For a long time Jessie had been too afraid to use her magic to escape, after what she’d seen them do to her mother. Then the confinement angered her. That brewed for a long while. Ultimately, it was as much boredom as rebellion that had forced her to react.

She would escape by magic and roam about at night, and it was then that she began to learn things. Stealthily, she eavesdropped on the teacher and his wife, and learned just how afraid the wife was of her.

“I heard what they do. Those that practice the evil ways of witchcraft congregate in the woods when the moon is high to plot against us good Christian folk,” the woman had said one night, as Jessie listened. The teacher’s wife then begged her husband to be rid of the witch’s child that had been thrust upon them. “Demon’s spawn they are. How can you let one of them get close to our own?” Mister Niven had wearily agreed, but said he could not anger the minister lest he lose his work at the schoolhouse.

Jessie had listened, learning all the while. There were others like her somewhere, and they met in the woods at night! Her heart had filled with hope, hope that still forced her footsteps onward years later, and had done so even during the times when her life in the gutter was so dark there seemed nothing to live for. Oftentimes she’d been ready to lie down and wish herself to sleep forever. Stubbornness had taken root in her, though, and she nurtured it. She had vowed to find them, her kin.

“They’re at it like wild animals, fornicating under the moon.” That was another thing she had overheard.

It took Jessie a while to learn what “fornicating” meant, but once she had, she instinctively knew it was not wrong to feel desire and to act upon it. That’s what people like her did, and they felt no shame. Shame was something that was taught by those who despised nature and did not want to be connected with it.

“Evil they are.” The teacher’s wife had told her that much to her face, spitting the words at her as if in doing so she would be protected from the evil.

Even as a child, Jessie had denied it. Her mother had taught her different.

We are not evil, we are nature’s children. I

t is they who subscribe to the devil, not us, though they will accuse us of it. They do not under stand our ways, that is all.

That was true. Every day of her life had only proved that to her, yet still Jessie longed to find her true path—and still she found herself locked up against her will!

Darting over to the door, she put her ear to it. All was quiet in Gregor’s room. Dropping to her knees, she whispered into the lock.

She blew into the cavity and pictured a key as she whispered the ancient enchantment. A moment later light shifted around the lock and then moved inside it in a thrusting, rolling manner, as if her spell had taken form and become bright and visible.

Startled, she drew back, observing. It wasn’t anything she had seen before. When the lock opened, it was with a musical chime, and the door swept toward her as if ushering her out.

Astonished, Jessie put her fingers to her mouth.

My magic, it flourishes. Why?

She had felt it burgeoning these past months, and the urge to perform enchantments had come over her more frequently. It was harder to resist courting danger by exploring her craft. It was if she was coming of age. That’s how she had explained it away. Much like the time when her body had reached full womanhood and she’d craved the touch of a man to satisfy her. Yet she could not explore her magic, because of the danger.

Magic was and always would be her secret gem, an invisible jewel that she couldn’t exchange for comfort, but made her feel blessed. It frustrated her, too, because she could not use it for fear that others would call her out in spite, fear and even jealousy. It was her gift and her curse. She had long since accepted that.

There was something different about this spell, though. It glowed brightly, as if alive—as if her magic was more powerful than it had been the day before. How odd. Jessie shrugged and stepped across the threshold into Gregor Ramsay’s rooms, glancing about eagerly for something to occupy herself with.

First she returned to the trunk that stood by his bedside. Once again it was locked. Once again she opened it. Nothing had changed since the day before. Returning it to its former state of security, she sat on the bed. Plucking at her bodice, she gazed around the room. There was so little to distract her. Well, there was so little to distract her when he was not here. She smiled as she thought on that. Mister Gregor Ramsay himself was very much a distraction.

She flung herself back on his bed. Smiling, she moved her hand to feel the dips his body had made, then rolled next to that spot. She closed her eyes and breathed in his scent from the bolster. Savoring it, she remembered the pleasurable tumble they had shared that morning and how pleasant it had been to share breakfast with him afterward.

It was an unfamiliar feeling, but for some reason she missed his presence when he went out. It wasn’t just being locked up that irked her today, it was the simple fact that he had once again gone and left her. She’d quickly grown used to the sound of his sardonic laughter and his teasing words, and his brooding glances never failed to draw her attention and stoke her fires. There were brooding glances aplenty when he was around.