Carolina Moon

you.”
    “You’ll already be there.” She didn’t know why she did it. She couldn’t foresee future events, she couldn’t predict. That was one small blessing. But she focused her eyes on his and spoke as if ripe with visions. “You won’t live the year out, and you’ll die in pain and fear and fire. You’ll die screaming for mercy. The mercy you never gave me.”
    He went white and shoved her away from him so that her back hit the wall and supplies tumbled. He lifted an arm, pointing. “‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.’ You remember that. You tell anyone you saw me here today, I’ll come back for you and do what should have been done the minute you were born. Born with a cowl over your face. Devil’s mark. You’re already damned.”
    He shoved out the door, ducked his head, and hurried away. Tory simply slid down to the floor. Already damned? She stared blankly at the scissors, teetering on the edge of the under counter. She’d nearly had them in her hand, very nearly …
    One of them would have been in hell if she’d firmed her grip on them. She wasn’t sure she would have cared which one of them. At least it would’ve been over.
    She brought her knees up, pressed her face into them, and curled into a ball as she’d done so often as a child.
    That’s how Faith found her when she came in with a wriggling puppy under her arm.
    “Jesus, Tory!” With one glance she took in the open and empty register, the scatter of supplies, and the woman trembling on the floor. “God, are you hurt?”
    She set the puppy down, and as it scampered joyfully away, rushed behind the counter. “Let’s have a look, let me have a look at you.”
    “I’m all right. It’s nothing.”
    “Getting robbed in broad daylight in this town is something. You’re shaking all over. Did they have a gun, a knife?”
    “No. No. It’s okay.”
    “I don’t see any blood. Well, ouch, you’re a little raw back here on the neck. I’ll call the police. You want a doctor?”
    “No! No police, no doctor.”
    “No police? I just saw some big brute of a man skulking out of here, walk in, and see your cash register open, empty, and you sprawled behind the counter, and you don’t want the police? What do they do in the big city when they get robbed, make cupcakes?”
    “I wasn’t robbed.” Exhausted, she let her head fall back and rest against the wall. “I gave him the money. Under a hundred dollars. The money doesn’t matter.”
    “Then you want to give me some while you’re at it, ‘cause if that’s how you plan to run your business, you won’t be here very long.”
    “I’m going to be here. I’m going to stay here. Nothing’s going to make me run away again. Nothing. No one. Not ever again.”
    Faith didn’t have much experience with hysteria, unless it was her own, but she thought she recognized it in the rise of Tory’s voice, the sudden wildness in her eyes.
    “That’s the spirit. Why don’t we just get up off the floor here, go on in the back a minute.”
    “I said I’m all right.”
    “Then you’re stupid or a liar. Either way, let’s go.”
    Tory tried to push her away, tried to stand on her own, but her legs wouldn’t manage it. They buckled as Faith pulled her up and left her no choice but to lean.
    “We’ll just go on back. I’m going to leave the puppy out here.”
    “The what?”
    “Don’t you worry about her. She’s about half housebroken. You got anything back here to drink that’s got a bite to it?”
    “No.”
    “That figures. Tidy Tory wouldn’t have herself a bottle of Jim Beam in the drawer. Now, sit down, catch your breath, then tell me why I’m not calling the police.”
    “It would just make it worse.”
    “Because?”
    “Because it was my father you saw leaving the store. I gave the money to him so he’d go away.”
    “He put that mark on you.” When Tory simply stared, Faith drew a deep breath in and out. “Guess it’s not the first time. Oh, Hope didn’t tell me. I imagine you swore her to secrecy, but I had eyes. I saw you with bruises and welts plenty of times. Always had a story about falling down or running into something, but the funny thing was, I never noticed you being clumsy. As I recall, you had a number of those welts and bruises the morning you came to tell us about Hope.”
    Faith walked over to the minifridge, found a bottle of water, opened it. “Is that why you didn’t meet her that night? Because he’d walloped you?” She