EPILOGUE: GOD'S WORK
Salem, Massachusetts
June 1689
The men's voices were hushed. They were meeting under the cloak of darkness. Young Lizzie Godric would be persecuted if ever it were revealed that she was meeting alone with seven men while her parents slept a few houses down. She understood this was a risk she had to take.
Lizzie Godric knew she was different.
She'd known it for years, understood that something about her was strange. To begin with, she hadn't slept in 647 nights.
"You understand what we have told you, Lizzie?" he asked, his voice urgent.
Lizzie nodded. "Once they take us to the West, we must stay away from all other people. Isolation is the only way to keep ourselves safe and to keep the people safe," Lizzie said, repeating what they had told her.
"Very good," he said. "I mean this. If you listen to nothing else I have told you, listen to that."
"When will it begin?" she asked.
He did not hesitate. He had seen it clearly. "In three years' time. It will likely be winter or maybe even spring when the first accusations begin, but it will not be until the next winter that you leave. That's when all will leave," he said. Lizzie looked around the table at all seven men. "All but me," he said, his voice quiet.
"Why not, sir?" Lizzie asked, fearful. He, the strange prophet, had been her mentor throughout her body's strange hardening, her mind's heretical betrayal. She hated to think he would not come on their treacherous journey.
"I cannot explain it now," he said, the pain clear in his voice, "but they will never choose exile over execution if I volunteer to go. It will have to be these six," he said. "But I will come for you. If you do as I say, I'll come for you."
Lizzie nodded, terrified and overwhelmed by all that she had been charged with, especially since learning of her companion's vision of a witch hunt in Salem.
"Just remember that all that we do will be to protect you. We'll accuse as many as we think may be like you, like me, though there is some chance we will overestimate. It's a risk we have to take," he said. Understanding Lizzie's expression, he added, "We're meant to do God's work, Lizzie. Please do not forget that is our purpose."
Just then, his daughter came into the room in her sleep clothes.
"Daddy?" she asked, rubbing her eyes. She was surprised to see the gathering in her kitchen.
"Go back to bed, Hannah. I'll look in on you in a while," he said. His daughter did as she was told.
YOU ARE READING
The Survivors
Paranormal"It's unlike any paranormal book I've read--very smart, very fresh, and very addictive, and very still in my mind." –And Anything Bookish In 1692, when witch trials gripped the community of Salem, Massachusetts, twenty-six children were accused as w...
