This is the first Your Way Wednesday of 2021! I hope you enjoy it. This week’s story was inspired by the following prompt: First person POV of a woman accused of being a witch in colonial times.
Now I have to admit… this idea got away from me a bit. I think I could write an entire novel based off of this little spark which is great for you guys because that means – THIS is only Part 1! I will try my best to post Part 2 by Friday. Please feel free to make a comment below or tell me what you think below.
– Allie
Part 1
It was late afternoon. The sun beat down on my neck and the smell of earth clung to the air as it sometimes does in the Summertime. I was busy gathering herbs in Miss Thatcher’s garden for our medicines when Nathan came up the rough pathway making a racket.
Nathan normally had manners, so I knew something was wrong immediately. I stood from my knelt position in the dirt and dropped the limp leaves and roots I held into the small basket beside me. Then I brushed my hands on my apron, my eyes watching as Nathan approached.
He was holding his arm at an awkward angle and even from this distance, I could see the problem. He had dislocated his shoulder.
“Abigail,” he said with a pant. His cheeks were rosy, his eyes large and round. “Is Miss Thatcher here?”
I eyed him warily.
“No,” I said slowly. “She’s in town checking up on Mary Horn. She’s due any day now.” He normally never bothered to ask after Miss Thatcher.
“Good. I need your help,” he said, with a strained grin and indicated the obvious with his head.
My stomach plummeted. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to help him. Nathan was my closest friend. It was just DANGEROUS if I helped him.
I scowled.
“I’ve told you not to come to me for these types of problems, Nate.”
“I know, I know, but I was careful. No one knows I’m here. Everyone on the fields thinks I headed to Smithy.” My scowl deepened. The old physician already hated me. If he found out about my involvement with mending an injury like this, I’d be run out of town. “Plus, everyone knows that if you don’t want to lose a limb or have a reoccurring lifelong injury to go to you. Not Smithy,” he said, drawing out the old doctor’s last name far longer than he needed to. I would deny it if pressed, but Nathan’s lopsided grin always had a way of making my defenses crumble.
“Fine,” I spat, and turned on my heel to lead him back into the house where we saw newly expecting mothers. As the midwife’s assistant, I knew enough about the basics of the human body to get by, but it wasn’t Miss Thatcher’s training that made me a good healer.
I instructed with my hand for Nathan to sit on the low table and he took his seat stiffly. When I pulled out a pair of shears, his face went white.
“What are you going to do with that?” He asked, clearly petrified.
“I need to see your shoulder.”
At that, Nathan’s lazy smile rested back into place.
“Abigail, if you wanted me to take my shirt off, all you had to do is ask.”
My cheeks immediately flushed. Nathan never said such things. That’s when I finally noticed the stink of alcohol on his breath.
“Nathan Johnson, are you drunk?” I asked, speechless.
“It wasn’t my idea. Mark gave it to me. Said it would dull the pain. It hurts really bad, Abby,” he said pathetically. I rolled my eyes and carefully cut through his shirt. He winced when I worked his injured arm through the sleeve.
It was so much easier to see the path clearly once the fabric was gone. I could see the different colored lines surrounding every individual’s body, constantly dancing over the surface of everyone’s skin, but they told a story of what was happening inside when something was wrong.
Nathan’s heavy silver line from his arm to his shoulder was broken. The yellow lines were strained and I could tell that if I didn’t re-fit his arm back into the socket there, he would have intense issues later, especially as a farm hand.
“Damn you, Nate. Why did you come to me?” I scold him. If all the other farm hands saw this, they would know immediately that he had come to me for help. There was no way Smithy would be able to get him back to working condition in time for the last harvest of the season… But I could.
“Whoa, Abby. That’s not very lady-like of you,” Nathan said easily, but his eyes were tight with worry.
“This isn’t good.”
“I know,” he said quietly. “That’s why I came to you. Smithy would’ve ruined me.” I pace for a second, take a deep breath and then place my hands as gently as I can on his stiff arm and injured shoulder.
“Take a deep breath. This isn’t going to feel good-”
“Distract me,” he says abruptly. I pause.
“You know the longer I wait to fix it, the worse it is for you.” He takes a deep breath.
“Yeah, but I might faint in front of you if you don’t tell me something to keep me awake. Distract me.” A part of my mind wants to shrug him off. The other part of me wants to use this opportunity to find out what he really thinks of me.
“You called me a lady. Since when do you see me as a lady?” I ask it like it’s a joke, but my palms sweat a bit against his skin. Nathan’s eyebrows raise in surprise.
“Since last spring.”
I feel my face pinch.
“Really?” I ask. I can’t believe it was that easy to ask and have him answer so plainly. He smiles up at me and my heart races.
“You had a flower crown in your hair and you looked like an angel-” he yelped in pain as I jerked his arm back into place. He groaned deep in the back of his throat. “Did I say angel? I meant demon. You have horns, Abigail Byrd.” I couldn’t help but grin as he continued to moan. I worked quickly, holding my flat palm to the areas where the yellow strings looked too long and stringy. I can feel my had growing warm, but there is no outward clue that I’m doing anything. Nathan’s groans subside gradually and he grows quiet, waiting for me to finish.
“That was a dirty trick,” he grumbles at me once I step away. I feel like I can breath again now that I’m no longer touching his bare skin. I avert my eyes as he tugs on his shirt, a long cut down the front of it.
“You told me to distract you,” I say, shrugging, before I turn to get a strip of cloth for a makeshift sling. He sits back down on the table so that I can reach around his shoulders and tie the fabric.
“What do you think?” He asks after he stands, his arm looking good as new, aside from the sling.
“I think you need to rest that arm for this next week. Even when it feels better, don’t use it and you should stay off the fields for the next few da-”
“Abby,” he says softly, taking my hand. I freeze, unable to look anywhere other than our two hands entwined. “I meant, what do you think about… us?”
I finally look up at him through my eyelashes, petrified to look at him face on.
“I -”
“Abby! Would you be a dear and go get some potatoes from the cellar?” Miss Thatcher’s voice is enough to make us jump apart.
“You can’t let her know I did that,” I hiss at Nathan. He raises one hand in innocence.
“I wouldn’t dare,” he promises. Miss Thatcher enters a minute later and comes up short at seeing Nathan there.
“Oh goodness, what happened to you, Nathan?” Miss Thatcher asked.
“Just an accident on the fields today. I went to Smithy, but came by here to see if you ladies needed anything,” Nathan said with an easy smile. Miss Thatcher giggled like a school-girl.
“You are always so thoughtful, Mr. Johnson. What help could you do with an injury like that?” She waved at him like the thought was absurd, but still pleased he’d come. “Would you like to stay for dinner?”
“Thank you, Miss, but my mother would whip me if I came home late.”
“Well then you better hurry on home, Mr. Johnson. You give my regards to your mother,” Miss Thatcher said easily and breezed past us towards the kitchen.
“I’ll just walk him out,” I say as we make our way to the door. As soon as the front door swings shut behind us, I turn to Nathan, my eyes ablaze. He throws his good hand up in a show of innocence.
“No one will know it was you, Abby. Promise.” My jaw clenches in irritation. “As long as you promise me something in return,” he tacks on, a mischievous smile playing across his lips.
“And what’s that?”
“Dance with me at the Fall Festival.”
I laugh at the suggestion.
“I always dance with you at the Fall Festival,” I say, but his warm eyes make my heart leap.
“Just promise me,” he says softly, taking my hand again. My heart stutters for a minute before I can remember how to talk again.
“Okay.” And with a grin, Nathan turns. I watch him walk away for a long time. Something feels monumental at this moment, but I can’t put my finger on it. When I turn back to the doorway, I catch a glimpse of movement in the trees. I quickly rip open the door and close it shut securely behind me.
Someone saw what I did.
Want to continue reading? Click here for part 2.
Allie Marin 