The Awakening (The Fempiror Chronicles Book 1) Read online

  James returned to his buttons, and then Jonathan became aware of his youngest son standing next to his chair. He continued his work on the drawing.

  “Father,” David said.

  Jonathan did not look up. He was certain whatever David wanted would benefit only David and not the family or the business.

  “What is it, David?” Jonathan asked.

  “I was wondering,” David said, “if it would be permissible for me to see Abraham and Beth tonight.”

  Jonathan stopped. He lowered his parchment and looked David square in the face. He noticed that even Mark and James had stopped what they were doing to see this answer. He knew David was close to Abraham and Beth, and they spent a lot of time together. He also considered that it would be unlikely for them to have any problems in a group, but he could not set an unfavorable example of allowing his son to break the current mayoral restriction.

  “David,” he said, “the mayor has banned all activity after dark until this business with Ben Thurman has been cleared up.”

  David scoffed. “Surely, you don’t believe the unholy demon story,” he challenged.

  Jonathan smiled. His family was well aware of his feelings about Barliman Whitt’s version of what happened to Ben, and from a more personal standpoint, he felt that the people of the town were off their nut for lending the least amount of credibility to the tale.

  “Nonsense as far as I’m concerned,” Jonathan said truthfully, “but the mayor doesn’t want to take any chances. The law is the law, and we follow it. Are we clear?”

  David looked into Jonathan’s face for a while as if expecting some other secret answer, but Jonathan was wholly aware of James and Mark also not breaking their glances. And as he said, the law is the law, so this answer could not change for any reason. Jonathan gave no indication that he would change his answer either. His face remained humorless and serious.

  Finally, David nodded, looking dejected. “Yes sir,” was all he said before turning to the stairs.

  Jonathan watched his son and wondered if he were really going straight to bed as he appeared, or if he would climb out his window, as Jonathan was well aware he had done before, though he never let his son know that he knew. He was young once too and even suspected there was more to his son’s life than David had ever said. With as much time as Elizabeth Carpenter had been spending with his wife lately on spinning and learning the mantua trade, he wondered if there was more between them than either was willing to admit.

  His wife appeared out of the kitchen in time to see David heading up the stairs. A warm feeling passed Jonathan’s heart. Mary Taylor was a homely woman who looked average to everyone except him. She was the queen of his household, and although she looked tired after her long day, she was still more than radiant in his eyes. She loved this house, her family, and the life she had helped Jonathan make for them. He knew she was happy that Miss Carpenter had been willing to learn her trade since they had no daughters to apprentice into it.

  “Are you going to bed already, David?” she asked. David paused on the stairs and looked back at her.

  “Forgive me, mother, but I feel as if the day has worn me out,” David said, a little too unconvincingly for Jonathan’s taste.

  “Are you feeling all right?” she asked.

  David shrugged. “I’m just a little tired,” he said, “I’ll be fine tomorrow. With your permission, I do wish to rest.”

  “Very well. Good night, David.”

  “Good night, mother.” David turned back to climb the stairs.

  Jonathan felt he had better say something so David would know he is no fool to his son’s movements. “If you are going to bed, then I’d best find you there when I come up later,” he said. “Are we clear?”

  David looked back at him. Was that a hint of concern?

  “Yes father,” David finally said, nodding. “Good night.”

  “Good night, son,” Jonathan said.

  David walked up the stairs and Jonathan could hear his door close. Jonathan went back to his sketch before he noticed that his wife was at his arm. He put the parchment down and looked at her. He knew that look. She thought he knew something she did not.

  “What was that all about, husband?” she asked.

  “Don’t worry about it,” he replied and went back to his sketching. She only stood there for a moment before walking away again. Jonathan truly hoped David would not do what he feared he would tonight. Regardless of Barliman Whitt’s explanation of Ben Thurman’s fate, Jonathan believed that something had happened, and he did not want the same to happen to his son.

  * * * * * * * * * *

  David opened the window of his room on the second story of the Taylor house. He looked down to the ground only about eight feet below his window – a clean drop. He glanced back at the closed door of his room and the pillow he had placed in his bed to simulate someone under the covers. He knew it would not fool his father, but he hoped it would hold him off long enough for David to get back.

  David leaped out his window and landed softly on the ground. He had done this many times before, and so the leap was second nature to him. He glanced back to the house behind him to ensure no one had heard his escape before running off into the slowly dimming evening.

  He ran along the row of houses on the west side of town to a grove of trees just to the north and west of the town square. Here the trees grew very tightly together, and as the town had not reached into this part of the land, there was never a need to disturb them. Within the trees, there was a small opening that David had discovered when he was younger. It opened up within the trees to an area about the size of an average bedroom. He and Beth often met here first before making their way to more distant places after they’d found that they were so close to some of the houses on this side of town that the people in them could overhear their conversations when they talked at length.

  “Beth,” David said in a whisper once he was in the small grove, “Beth, are you here yet?” In the dimming light, the grove had grown pitch black. It only gave them another reason to move elsewhere since they were unwilling to light a candle within the brush here.

  “My love, you made it.” Beth emerged from deep within the trees. It was so dark that she was invisible even as close as she was to him. She practically jumped into his arms and their lips touched briefly but passionately.

  “Shall we go?” David asked.

  “Please,” Beth replied, and they ran out of the trees and behind the row of shops and houses on the north side of the town towards the east.

  Their destination was the old mill, of course, and he hoped that Ben would not be there this time. In fact, he suspected that someone had gone out there already just to see if Ben did end up there, but it was hard to be sure. The town looked after its own, but many people also expected someone else to do that for them.

  Typically, someone else ended up being no one at all.

  They slowed to a brisk walk once they were out of the town proper and looked to the mill only a few hundred yards ahead of them. Their hands clasped as they walked.

  David suspected what Beth was going to talk about when they got there. She had been pressing harder and harder for an end to the secrecy they had been keeping, and perhaps it had finally come to a head with her.

  The old windmill was a tall gray brick structure with a thatched roof and large props covered in tattered white cloth that still spun when the breeze hit them right. Mrs. Miller had left several years ago when Mr. Miller had died after falling from the top of the tower on the inside. While Mr. Miller had been a resident of Hauginstown for many years, he was the last of his family, and he had met Mrs. Miller while selling his extra wares in another town.

  After he died, Mrs. Miller had no one in Hauginstown, so she had taken their two children and gone to live with her family, leaving the mill to the elements. No one ever had the desire to take up Mr. Miller’s trade or live in the house where he had died, so it remained on the open fields for whoever ha
ppened to come by.

  David opened the door to the mill (which was never locked, even when Mr. Miller was alive) and looked inside. Dust and cobwebs covered everything. Parts of the roof had fallen through exposing the inside of the mill to the elements and the darkening night sky. The remaining light shone through the opening, more than sufficiently illuminating the inside of the structure. The mill wheel still moved slightly since the assembly was still attached to the outside prop.

  David and Beth closed the door behind them and stepped in quietly. A set of recent footprints marred the perfect dust cover, so David suspected someone had been out here recently.

  “Hullo,” Beth called out.

  “Anyone here,” David added.

  They paused for a moment, listening to the sounds of the night echo in through the open roof.

  David smiled. Nothing. The mill was completely silent. He looked at Beth.

  “It looks like our secret is safe,” he said.

  “Good,” she said, “because we need to talk.”

  David walked to the mill wheel, brushed the dust away, and sat down to listen. Beth paced for a few moments; it looked like she was trying to gather her thoughts together.

  “This is about us, isn’t it,” David prompted. It was an obvious question. Why else would they have come all the way out here? Any other conversation could be had anywhere in town.

  Beth nodded finally. “At first, the secret was fun,” she began, “and then necessary so we could see each other without being trailed by family.” She stopped and looked at him. He could see the longing in her eyes. “But David…”

  “It’s getting old,” he finished for her. Even he was feeling this way lately.

  “We’re both old enough to be married,” she continued, “and no one would object. What are we waiting for?”

  “Well, before now, it was the fear of being watched all the time like young couples tend to be,” he said. “Of course, if anyone learned of this rendezvous, we’d be lashed either way.”

  “If we get married, we’ll be free to be together whenever we want,” she said, “and the only thing we’ll be watched for is grandchildren.”

  David smiled and held out an arm. She sat in his lap and he held her. He could tell she was worried about what he would say. Maybe she was afraid he felt they were not as ready as she thought they were, but Beth had been with him almost his entire life. There was no reason he could not hold her for the rest of it. In fact, the thought of not having her by his side did not even seem like an option.

  At seventeen, they were still younger than most people were when they got married, and it was even more unusual when the man was not considered a master of his trade. He could not establish how they would live, considering how little he was involved in the heart of the family business. He understood it well enough to move up, and if he was going to be married, it would change his status in the family enough that it might force his father to teach him the parts he was longing to learn. That is if both of their fathers approved of the match.

  “Whenever you want to tell, I’m with you,” he said.

  “Really?” she squealed with delight. She hugged him tightly and then jumped to her feet, pacing again, but excited this time. He watched her with rapt attention, enjoying her mood.

  “Well,” she said rapidly, as if she had been planning this as well, “I think I’d want the wedding next spring, so I think probably in a couple weeks we could reveal ourselves and allow a natural courting period…”

  Her pacing area widened across the floor of the mill. The rotten planks of the wooden floor creaked beneath her feet. David found it almost difficult to keep up with her.

  She moved toward an outside wall. “You would, of course, have to ask my father for his blessing, but that should be easy…”

  Easy for you to say, he thought with a shiver at the idea of approaching the formidable Patrick Carpenter for something as precious as his daughter’s hand. Beth never stopped for a second.

  “Then we could begin the actual planning process—” but she was cut short. The wooden floor had rotted to the breaking point and collapsed under her. With a scream, she disappeared completely under the floor of the mill.

  “Beth!” David screamed. He was understandably panicked. He ran to the open space in the floor and looked down into a deep hole. “Beth,” he called again. A faint coughing issued from inside the hole.

  He knew he had to follow her down into wherever this led. He was not going to have the love of his life fend for herself in the bottom of this unknown pit. He stood up and looked around briefly for rope or anything he might use to get them back out of the hole once he jumped into it, but this mill had been used for its materials over and over again to the point that there was little left of something as universally usable as rope.

  He looked back down the hole. “Beth, I’m coming down,” he shouted. He did not relish a drop into darkness, but he had to go after Beth.

  He lowered his feet into the hole and let go.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Transmutation

  The sides of the hole were rough, and clearly, the passage was not handmade but as the result of a collapse into whatever was beneath him. He scraped the sides of the hole frequently as he made the short drop into a large cave.

  He looked around quickly, his eyes adjusting to the lack of light. He could just make out the light shade of Beth’s dress a short distance from him. He crawled to her.

  “Are you all right?” he asked breathlessly. He could barely make out her nod, but she seemed to be unhurt. His eyes continued to adjust to the dim lighting and now he could see that she had gotten the brunt of the collapse. She was dirty from head to toe, her pretty dress caked with the dirt she had broken free during her fall.

  A look around the cave showed that the hole they had fallen through was, indeed, not an intended feature of the cave, and the mill was not too far above them. Only the coincidence of the floor giving way just above this passage created the collapse of the ceiling in the tunnel. A pile of dirt directly below the new opening served to show how much dirt they had loosened in their descents.

  What remained of the sunlight shined in through the cave's entrance several yards from where they had landed. As close as it was, that would mean that the cave began on the other side of the hill just past the mill, but he had been all over this part of the land and never knew such a cave existed.

  “Where are we?” Beth finally said.

  David looked back to her and held out his hand. She took it and stood up. David gazed deep into the cave and saw that there was light further in. Somebody might be here. Since this cave had not been here his entire life, David was intensely curious as to who might be living here and why.

  “Well, we can either go out,” he said pointing to the cave’s exit, “or we can check out where that light is coming from.” He pointed to the light source deep inside the cave.

  “I’m not sure I want to check out a strange light,” Beth said, and her grip on his arm further solidified this stance.

  He could understand her fear in this. After all, something might have been attacked Ben the previous night, so whoever attacked him might still be in this cave. But there was the matter of this demon nonsense that someone had to dispel. If they could establish that a person was back there, they could bring others out here to deal with it tomorrow.

  David considered whether they might just leave now, and bring others out here tomorrow without checking it out at all. It was certainly the safer alternative, and he did not want Beth hurt. But his curiosity got the better of him, and he thought as long as they were careful, they should not run into any trouble. Besides, this is an open cave. Anyone with any sense could almost expect people to wander in.

  “It might help us figure out what happened to Ben,” David tried to assure her. “People are going crazy over it.”

  He looked at her for any kind of response. She just shrugged and nodded but maintained her grip on his arm.
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br />   They walked down the carved tunnel towards the artificial light source within until they reached a small round room carved out of the dirt. A crude wooden table sat in the center of the room with a lamp on it providing the light source, though it only barely illuminated the outer edges of the room. Off to the right, there was another room, though this one did not appear to have light in it.

  “It’s someone’s house,” Beth whispered.

  “Beth, look at that lamp,” David whispered. They looked closely at the lamp and found that there was no flame in it. There appeared to be a thin wire in the center of the lamp that was glowing bright enough to light the room.

  “There’s no fire, but it glows,” Beth marveled.

  David glanced around the room again trying to see into the dark corners. On the ground next to a far wall was someone lying on the ground, apparently sleeping. He tapped Beth on the arm and pointed.

  “There’s someone over there,” David said. Immediately, Beth’s grip on his arm strengthened, and her pull showed she was not at all interested in finding out who that might be.

  “David, let’s get out of here, please,” she whispered desperately.

  “I just want to know if it’s Ben,” David said. “Maybe we can stumble across him tomorrow and be heroes.”

  She maintained her grip on his arm as he closed in on the sleeping form. Slowly, he knelt beside the person and looked carefully at the face in the gloom. It was Ben Thurman.

  “Found you,” said David.

  Ben looked no worse than he ever had. He was a bit more disheveled than usual, probably due to his being so far out of town, but he looked fine. Beth tugged on David’s shirt again. He wondered why she was being such a coward about this.

  “Look at his neck,” she said.

  David looked and saw two puncture wounds, side by side. If something with unusually long teeth had bitten him, it would probably look like that. It set his mind wandering as to what was really out there. Beth probably had the right idea at this point.