The Devil's Mistress by David Barclay (summer reads txt) 📗

Lady chuckled, doing a small pirouette near the fallen torch. As her features passed before the flames, it appeared—for the briefest moment—as the face of a man.

Jacob flung the weapon away as if it were a living snake.

“This is what I offer.” The Lady withdrew from her gown a hollow vial full of dark liquid and set it upon the log. “Consider this a gift amongst friends, my dear Jacob. You may yet consider me a friend before the night is done.”

It took him a moment to find his tongue. “What does it do?”

“Two drops upon her tongue, and she shall be returned to you.”

“Impossible.”

She smiled. “I think you know better than that, my dear boy.”

It was true he had not believed in such things once upon a time. Now, the efficacy of the Lady’s wares were the least of his doubts.

He sat down heavily upon the log. Isabella was fading now, her breath as quiet as it was shallow. He grabbed the vial and held it before his eyes. ’Twas an odd thing. A single, black thread lay suspended in its center, floating amidst the swamp-colored muck.

“Save her,” the Lady offered.

The question was, which Isabella would be saved? Would it be the innocent, blonde-haired girl or the dark creature he had seen upon the pier? And if it was his Isabella, what toll would the Lady exact in return?

The woman smiled again, seeming to know his very thoughts. “Consider it well, Jacob of Blackfriar. We shall speak again.” And with a twirl of cloth, she began walking back into the forest.

Jacob barely noticed. He was still staring at the vial, contemplating its terrible purpose.

He lifted his head and screamed into the night, a cry born of rage, and sorrow, and helplessness. As his voice quieted, so too, did the song of the wood. The frogs, the birds, the insects had all but ceased. Time was almost up.

A hand touched his cheek. His Isabella, staring at him from her place upon the log. She opened her mouth to speak. This time, there was no sound in his head, no voice upon the wind. Only the final words of a tongueless girl, rasped through her soft and delicate lips.

“Leave…me…be…”

The vial slipped from Jacob’s hand. It fell to the forest floor and disappeared amongst the stones.

He grabbed his beloved and held her to his chest. Because he could not bear the silence, he began to tell her all the things that would never come to pass. He told her of the farm they would build. He told her of the food they would grow and the animals they would stable. He told her of the children which would one day grow in her belly. A thousand times, he told her he loved her.

Then, as the sun began to rise in the east, as the darkness began to slip from the forest, Isabella Ashford slipped from this world. Her final gift, the same mischievous smile she had given him upon the path, the day she had found him shirtless at the stable. The smile that told him everything.

He laid her down with gentle hands, imparting one final kiss upon her cold and lifeless lips. There was nothing to be done now save to carry her back and bury her. He would give her a proper burial. For no matter what she might have done in those few, fleeting moments, she was the same girl who had risked everything to save her father from a terrible end. The same girl who had given her life to save her lowly servant boy.

Jacob rose and turned toward Blackfriar, pausing just long enough to find the vial and crush it beneath the heel of his wooden leg. The Lady of the Hill may one day come again, but it would not be this day.

This day was for the living.

Acknowledgements

The Devil’s Mistress takes place in 1705, twelve years after the Salem witch trials, and thirty years before the 1735 Witchcraft Act, which effectively ended witch hunts in the greater British Empire. I might have set the story fifty years earlier, during the height of the witch craze, but there’s something about the early eighteenth century that somehow seemed more appropriate. It’s a time when the superstition of the old world and the progress of the new were at war. A period marked by equal parts reason and fanaticism, scientific progress and inhuman cruelty. It seemed the right setting for my young witch and her would be lover, both of whom, in their own ways, are too innocent for the world in which they live. I hope I’ve done them justice, and you’ve enjoyed their tale, dark as it may be.

Navigating the waters of any historical novel is an incredibly difficult task. I wanted to give special thanks to those who helped me steer the ship. Without you, this work wouldn’t have been possible.

Thanks first and always to my wife, who is my constant first reader. To my loving family. Thanks to Neil Laird and Matthew X Gomez for their repeated insights for this and other works. Matt has been a particular inspiration for genre, Neil for historical fiction. You guys rock. Thanks to Dave Johnson for reading many of my stories over the last five years. Everyone in the Scribophile Ubergroup (I don’t use you enough). And thanks to Paula and all my NY Pitch friends for teaching me the art of the pitch.

About the Author

David Barclay is the author of numerous short stories and the 2021 novella, The Maker’s Box.

After growing up in Maryland and attending Washington College, David believed he was going to use his English degree for good and become a teacher. Instead, he used it for evil and became a game developer. He's worked as a designer and writer in the industry for over fifteen years, providing blood sports for the masses and corrupting today's youth. When he’s not busy in games, he’s writing novels, and is already hard