The Death of Sadie Marcus

three

"I've got a good feeling about Salem." Sadie said. There was a candle on the nightstand—which sat between our beds—that was illuminating the room. She blew it our between her words. "Hey, maybe I'll meet a witch!"

"That's not something people want to do." I said, blinking to see if my eyes would adjust to the sudden darkness. "Just do what Anne says, like help her with cleaning and house stuff."

"Aye, aye, captain." She said with a sigh. I could practically hear my sister roll her eyes.

I woke up when it was still dark, although the sky was blueish rather than black, so I decided that it was probably morning. Henry was putting his boots on in the living room.

"You're wearing those?" Henry asked, clearly judging my own choice of shoes, which were the standard traveler shoes. They were the only pair I owned, which I had assumed would be fine.

"I don't have anything else." I said to him. Henry finished tying the thick laces and wordlessly left the room. He came back moments later with another, older pair of boots and dropped them in front of me. 

"These will have to do." Henry said as he turned to do something else in preparation for the day of fishing. I replaced my shoes with the boots and lent him a hand. It was still dark outside when we left.

Despite the time of morning, there were still people milling around the docks. It was mostly men beginning their day building boats, embarking on a trading trip, or in our case, fishing.

"Don't you have a boat?" I asked when Henry walked past the wooden docks. 

"You don't need a boat to fish." He replied gruffly. I nodded and followed him across the dock until we reached what looked to be a small shop. Inside, there were rows of fishing rods, crab and fish crates, bait, and lure. Henry gathered what we would need and I went with him to the short beach. 

I watched and scrambled to help as Henry hammered hollowed pipes into the sand. He swatted me away because I was doing it wrong. 

"That sister of yours sure is something." Henry said as he set up the fishing rods in the pipes. "She has to be careful."

"Why?" I asked, brows furrowed.

"Don't get me wrong,  Sadie's a lovely girl." Henry shook his head. "You remember how we were discussing Elizabeth Howe?" I nodded. "As I said, the council is trying her. They've been getting increasingly more paranoid. Anne and I think this is all ridiculous, but if they get word of two strange kids coming to Salem and taking lodge in our house, both Anne and Sadie will be suspected of witchcraft."

"Okay." I said, unsure of how to respond to the idea of Salem wanting to send my sister to the gallows. 

"We decided that we're going to say that you and Sadie are the children of our oldest daughter, Edith. Her husband decided to send the two of you to us because of insufficient finances."

"Okay." I said again.

"But nevertheless, tell Sadie not to make friends with any women, not to behave out of line, or exhibit any birthmarks to the public." Henry said.

"Is that how you find a witch?" I asked. To me, that seemed like a very flawed system. If a teenager is friends with other girls, she's a witch in the eyes of the town.

"There are countless reasons the council would grow suspicious of someone, but those are the ones are off the top of my head." Henry replied as he finished setting up the fishing rods in the pipes. I noticed small cowbells at the tips of each pole. Henry followed my gaze. "Those are so we know when we've caught a fish."

"How was fishing?" Sadie asked when we finally returned to the house, eyes landing on the metal bucket full of fish. "You caught some!"

"Well, yeah," I said, dropping the bucket onto the counter. By now, the sun was looking to set soon. 

"Sadie, you and I are going to clean them." Anne said before turning to me. "Charlie, you're going to have to take these to the market once we've finished."

"Okay." I nodded. By the time the two finished, the sun was had barely set on it's way down and Henry was at the saloon. I took the bucket of fresh fish and went down to the market that I had discovered the day before. Henry had already told me to give them to a man with a blond beard named Mose. It took a short while to find him, but I eventually did.

"Do you know where the Grey Saloon is?" I asked Mose.

"Yeah, kid, that doesn't exist." Mose replied with a scoff. "Do you mean Greyson Saloon?"

"Yes! That's the one." I nodded quickly. "Which way is it?"

Mose wordlessly pointed east and I set on my way. I had promptly changed out of the boots Henry lent me, so I was walking normally rather than waddling like a duck. I walked down the street until I saw the hanging sign that read Greyson's Saloon and Lodge. I walked in to find Henry and a few other men sitting at a wooden table with mugs of beer. There were other people in there, of course, but my goal was to win Henry's liking. 

"What are you doing here?" He asked upon seeing me. "You know what, it doesn't matter. Sit down."

I did and one of the men at the table ordered me a beer of my own.

"It's brewed right here in Salem." The man said, receiving a scoff from Henry. He ignored him and reached his hand over the table to shake. "Thomas Gasbury." He had auburn colored hair and brown eyes.

"Charlie Marcus." I introduced myself. There were four other men, aside from Henry and I. Miles Carter, Thomas, Hugo Braye, and Felix Howard. Miles, because of his dark eyebrows, looked angry even when he was smiling. Thomas had the grin of a child even though they were all around the age of forty. Hugo looked to be closer to Henry's age than the rest of the guys, although his hair wasn't quite gray yet, and Felix seemed to be the youngest of all of them, maybe thirty. Henry was definetly the oldest, despite the fact that Miles' black hair had gray streaks breaking through.