Anabel Horton: Lost Witch of Salem by Olivia Hardy Ray - Book Tour + Giveaway
Fantasy / Paranormal
Date Published: March 11, 2015
Publisher: Chattercreek
From the Salem Witch trials through the Nineteenth Century and beyond, the devil’s disciple pursues young and innocent Annabel Horton. During the Incident at Loudun in 1633 Urban Grandier’s soul was taken by the devil in a furious confrontation between good and evil. The once pious priest becomes the demonic priest. His curse is on Annabel for forsaking him to Lucifer and he pursues her through time as she taunts his beliefs and he reviles hers. As Annabel flees the devil’s fire she must take the bodies of those that the devil favors to protect her family. She must uncover the motive behind the illusive Ursula/Louis Boussidan, the scandalous cross-dresser who is pursuing her beautiful granddaughter, and she must learn, being one of God’s most powerful witches, how to use her power. But will it be enough to save her husband from Urbain’s fiery inferno? Will it be enough to save her children from demons greater than themselves?
Excerpt
Chapter Two
This
is my magic, my ability to see spirits, or to feel them. But is it evil? Is it
harmful to anyone? I think not. None of us were of the devil, and Reverend
Parris’s slave knew it. Yes, Tituba knew it. The children knew it too. I begged
Father to take me to New York to escape the madness of murders around us, but
we could not leave the farm, and Father did not believe that any harm would
ever come to me. My brothers swore they would protect me, but I knew better. I
knew I would be named a witch and taken to the tree. I could not sleep at night
or enjoy the sun as it burst upon me in the mornings.
Soon
enough, they served me my warrant as I lay in the field praying that God would
see fit to help me. Ann Putnam had accused me. She hardly knew me, but she had
seen me in Andover buying wheat and grain for the farm. My brother James tried
to shield my face from hers when she fell on the ground before me and writhed
at my feet. She pointed and held her side in pain.
“She
torments me!” she screamed.
I
fell into my brother’s arms and wept.
“Look
into her eyes,” she called to all who listened. “They are of the devil, green
as evil’s slime.”
I
turned from her accusations, but she would not desist.
“Begone,
witch,” she called.
And
the townspeople came and stood around me. They looked into my eyes and said,
“Yes, it must be so.”
“She
accuses everyone that comes to mind,” I pleaded.
“She
is weak and stupid,” I heard my brother say.
I
took his hand. I knew that I could not prevent my fate, surrounded as I was by
fools.
I
hated the insidious evil that had inflicted the village. God, cure them, I
prayed. They have surely gone mad.
I
knew the truth and tried to speak it, yet none would hear it. There was only
one other that knew as much as I did: the Reverend’s slave girl, Tituba. Yes,
Tituba knew. She recognized the darkness and made a pact with the devil, and
the devil saved her from the tree. I made no pact with the devil; I swayed by
my neck in the August sun.
You
might as well know the truth. It was the slave girl that told the children
stories of witchcraft. That is true. The stories came with her from the slave
ships. They were a part of her heritage. But it was Thomas Putnam that used the
Arawat to incite the children.
“Give
them your magic,” he told her. “I will see you safely removed from Salem when
the time is right.”
And
why should she not survive in a land that sold her kind like meat at the
village square?
“What
will you have me do?”
He
bent down close and held her face firmly in his hand. “Fill their heads with
the nonsense that is in yours.”
So
Tituba planted the seed in the minds of the children because Thomas Putnam bade
her to do so. The ignorance and cruelty that surrounded her was fuel for the
devil’s fire. Do not blame the slave girl. She believed she would save her own
soul by recognizing evil when she stood in the presence of it.
I
will tell you where the evil thrived in Salem. It was in the child, Abigail
Williams, and in the deviousness of the town leaders. They should have
destroyed the girl right off and recognized the vindictive plan behind Thomas
Putnam’s perfidious handshake.
What
wickedness there was. Surely, both were the devil’s prey. Tituba knew this. She
also knew that none would accept that evil could dwell in a child’s soul. Yes,
Tituba knew better, and she saw the devil’s presence in the child the day she
followed the girl out to Crane River.
It
was an afternoon in late spring. I learned of it as I sat in jail awaiting my
trial.
Tituba
had watched as Abigail Williams held a child’s puppy, a sweet thing named Lark,
under water, despite the poor dog’s struggle for freedom. Tituba had fallen to
her knees in fear as Abigail held poor Lark down by his neck and sang a church
song as she did. The puppy yelped and whined for air, but Abigail continued to
sing and to giggle and to hold the poor dog down until it was silent.
Tituba
watched quietly as the child dragged the dog’s poor limp body from the water
and poked it with a stick. The sweet brown hair was matted and wet, the eyes
still open in fear. Then Abigail sat by the dead puppy and sang. Certainly, the
child was the devil’s own, and Tituba knew it. Anyone who was not of the devil
would have known it.
Later
that evening, Tituba went out to Porter’s Hill with fresh chicken blood and
called forth the witches of light. She asked for protection against the white
man’s evil. She called forth the witches, but it was the devil who answered her
call.
The
next morning, when Tituba awoke, she began to tell Abigail tales of witchcraft.
“Drink
this potion,” she told the child. “And the devil will come to you. You will
have the power of Satan’s sword.”
Quickly,
Abigail drank the chicken blood.
Soon,
under Thomas Putnam’s instruction, Abigail, believing herself infused with the
power of Satan, convinced the other children to follow her lead, and they
pointed their fingers at Putnam’s enemies.
“There
is the presence of the devil in this town,” Thomas Putnam told the courts. “We
must cleanse our streets.”
“Nay,
we must cleanse our souls,” they cried.
The
entire town fell under Thomas Putnam’s control. Under the name of God, Putnam
served the devil. Abigail was only possessed with her own meanness. She was a
perfect vessel for the devil’s insidiousness. The other children were only
pawns in Urbain’s game to upset the pious and sacred God-fearing village of
Salem. Yes, Urbain Grandier, the devil’s own disciple, was having his day once
again. Urbain had a perfect conduit for his plan. But Abigail Williams had no
real power. She was no better a witch than Tituba. You must remember that once
the devil’s servant was through with Abigail and Putnam’s insatiable hatred, he
cast them all aside and left Salem.
I
thought that the devil came to Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692 because there was
too much of God to be found there. I thought he came because Tituba called him
and the child Abigail could receive him. But he did not come because of God or
Tituba…or even the demented Abigail. He came because of me. For many of your
centuries, I did not know that. But I know it now. The devil rejoiced in Salem,
Massachusetts, in 1692. But the devil always rejoices. Your world is shrill
with the devil’s laughter. He continues to make fools of us. Perhaps he always
shall.
About the Author
The first novel I ever wrote, Dancing Backward In Paradise, won an Eric Hoffer Award for publishing excellence and an Indie Excellence Award for notable new fiction, 2007. The Story of Sassy Sweetwater and Dancing Backward in Paradise received a 5 Star ForeWord Clarion Review and The Story of Sassy Sweetwater has been named a finalist for the ForeWord Book of the Year Awards. I have published in ESL Magazine, Christopher Street Magazine and I have also written early childhood curriculum for Weekly Reader and McGraw Hill.
The pen name for my fantasy and paranormal novels is Olivia Hardy Ray. There are two other books in the Annabel series, Annabel Horton and the Black Witch of Pau and Annabel Horton and the Demon of Loudun. Black Witch is book 2 in the series and should be published this year. Also penned by Olivia is my novel Pharaoh’s Star and my soon to be released, Pindar Corners.
Aside from Southern fiction and fantasy/paranormal fiction I write women’s fiction with two titles to be published in 2019 and my presently published Lies a River Deep.
As for pleasure I love wine, chocolate, dogs, cats and other creatures of the jungle. I also love to travel, read, write, watch films and go to theater. I value friendship, history, my enormously loving family and quiet times under a summer sun.
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