‘Come out, one and all.’
Curious villagers had gathered by the fence to observe the sorry little group of women who emerged from their smoky hut.
Three elderly, one younger, and one … Oh. Evie. The girl who had danced by the fire in his earlier dream.
‘Not her,’ he found himself saying, urgently, to the witchfinder. ‘She is not one of them. They seek to take her soul, but it is still intact.’
As before, the witchfinder brushed his words aside.
‘She must be tested. She dwells in a coven, Reverend.’
‘I will attend the testing.’
‘No, that is not necessary. I shall take them to the manor house where I am staying and conduct my enquiry there.’
Adam followed the witchfinder and his mournful victims to the manor house, but he was not permitted past the gates, which were fastened firmly against him.
Evie looked over her shoulder at him as she trooped up the path at the back of the line, eyes wide and frightened.
He clutched at the gate bars.
He had to save her, even if it meant risking his own skin.
Looking back to make sure nobody could stop him, he climbed over the gate.
Adam woke up in a cold sweat.
Evie’s grandmother.
Tomorrow, he would visit Evie’s grandmother.
Honeysuckle Cottage showed more signs of life than it had done on his last visit.
The curtains were open and the postage stamp-sized lawn had been mowed.
Adam’s determined rap at the door was quickly answered by a dopy-looking man in glasses. The insurance salesman from Parham, no doubt.
‘Vicar?’ he said, squinting. ‘Collecting for something? Only I’m all out of cash.’
‘No, no. I was wondering if your, uh, your good lady was in?’
He laughed rumbustiously at that.
‘Don’t think I’ve got one of those, vicar. But if you mean my wife, she’s out the back. Just a moment.’
He turned and called out along the passageway.
‘Lyn!’
Lyn, thought Adam, not Evie, or Eve or whatever.
The woman who came to the door could not possibly have been Evie’s grandmother. She looked no older than forty, her hair big and bouffant and her face reminiscent of Sophia Loren’s, with dark almond eyes and feline cheekbones.
‘A man of the cloth,’ she said huskily. ‘We are honoured. Do come in.’
Insurance-man peeled off into a side room while Adam followed Lyn along a narrow passageway to a sunny back kitchen, considerably more pleasant than that of her daughter-in-law at the farm.
‘Do excuse me, I’ve just been baking. Hence the apron. Do you like walnut and banana loaf?’