Spring Rain on the Wind

By Kristina O'Donnelly

After attempting to burn Mairenn Morgan at the stake for witchcraft, her cousin, an evil wizard pursues Mairenn to the new world of Colonial America. There he links with an Indian Shaman, granting the Shaman power and even immortality in exchange for his support in pursuing first Mairenn and then three more generations of women descending from Mairenn. Because Mairenn's blood holds the one threat to the wizard's ultimate victory.

When her parents are murdered, Bedelia (Spring Rain) Connall is adopted by Micahel Connall, who raises her as a white settler, but mixed-blood Bedelia wants to claim her Cherokee self as well as her white. When she finally has a chance to visit the capital of the Cherokee Nation, however, Bedelia discovers that this ancient people is under attack both from within and from their white neighbors who see the Indians as blocking their desperate need for land. Bedelia attracts the attention (and lust) of three men--white Indian Agent Julian, Indian Warrior Hector (Fire Panther) and shaman Black Eagle. All want Bedelia--desire her for her intelligence, wit, and beauty. All also see a hint of her power--with Black Eagle in particular able to reach out to that power. Bedelia fears Black Eagle, desires Fire Panther, and feels intellectually bound to Julian. Discovering and heeding her own heart will prove to be a challenge--just as it was for her grandmother, the original Spring Rain.

Author Kristina O'Donnelly spins a compelling story of magic, the attempts by both Indian and whites to create a sustainable Cherokee Nation, Colonial and early US history, and four generations of women who must confront both the powers of evil and the difficulties of chosing which man to love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rob Preece
• Release date: Oct 3, 2012
• ISBN: 9781602152182

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Spring Rain on the Wind

A Historical Time Travel

Kristina O’Donnelly

Published by BooksForABuck.com at Smashwords

Copyright Kristina O’Donnelly 1988-2012

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Prologue -- Anglesey, Wales, 1742

"BURN WITCH, BURN!"

It was a single chant, a man’s, high-pitched yet determined, ordering the rest of the men and women to join him. After a brief hesitation their mouths began moving, silently at first. Then their voices gained strength and unity, like individual flames leaping from branch to branch and creating a single sheet of blazing forest fire:

Burn witch, burn!

Their town sat close to the coast on the Isle of Anglesey, facing the Irish Sea, and undulating stretches of sand penetrated two miles inland. Situated off the north-west coast of Wales near the beautiful Snowdonia mountain range, Anglesey was called Mam Cymru 'Mother of Wales,' during the Middle Ages because its fertile fields formed the breadbasket for the north of Wales.

The execution was to be done in secret; therefore the men had opened a clearing amidst the one-hundred feet high dunes separating the settlement from the coastline.

As two black garbed, grim-faced men dragged the willowy redhead toward the stake upon the pyre of wood, she focused her amber eyes on the blue sky above the circle of hostile spectators. If she could remember that the soul is immortal and death but another form of beginning, she might endure the flames with some sort of dignity. Witch trials had declined throughout England and the last official burning in this peaceful hamlet of well-to-do farmers and tradesmen had occurred sixty years ago, with Dame Angharad Drake, her grandmother who’d been a renowned healer, and her two male assistants, Amergin and Torsdan. What bitter irony that she was to meet the same fate, and on Samhain – All Souls’ Day….

Though her trembling was out of control, she dug her teeth firmly onto her lower lip. Thus she managed to restrain the scream of terror lodged in her throat. But her teeth had sliced open the skin on the corner of her lip and her mouth was filled with the coppery taste of her own blood. Still, a part of her viewed her avid tormentors calmly, as if detached from their wretchedness that was propelling her to this fiery end. Out of the twenty-two gathered here, she had tended the illness and injuries of nineteen. It was unbelievable that they would find her guilty of sorcery. Yet they had, and she could not reverse the chain of events that had led to this moment. Her cousin Adrian Maddox’s eerie ability to manipulate the gullible members of his Methodist society had triumphed over reason as well as loyalty.

Despite her outward show of strength, in her mind’s eye Mairenn Morgan watched herself engulfed in living hell and felt disgust as she saw herself succumb to the final indignity – begging him for mercy.

Then she was placed in front of the uneven stake, her arms pulled back and tender wrists bound together with stinging lashes around its rough surface, while faggots were heaped all around her. Every touch upon her already smarting skin sent fresh echoes of pain reverberating from the top of her head to her toes. Earlier, her bare feet had been desensitized by the cold in her dank stone cell. But as luck or the Devil would have it, today the weather was unseasonably temperate and the wind balmy. Once outside, its touch had soothed her frozen flesh, bringing it to life with an embrace reminiscent of a mother’s.

Confess, Mairenn.

Her sight was blurred from staring skyward, and she had to blink several times to focus on the glowering, paste-colored face barely two feet away from her. Maddox had stepped onto the pyre and was hovering dangerously close to her. He was very tall, lean, with shoulder-length, white-blond hair and piercing blue eyes – eyes that were reptilian in their coldness – and he wore a black cloak. He could have been termed handsome but for the expression of haughty disapproval permanently etched onto his blunt features.

Lifting his right hand, he thrust the Bible under her nose. Confess, Mairenn! Confess and repent.

I have nothing to confess, and you know that for a fact, she replied through cracked lips. Each word was uttered with great difficulty, each releasing blood pooled in her mouth. A thin line of crimson rolled down her dirt-smeared chin.

It is too late to redeem your body, Maddox declared urgently, but there is still time to save your soul!

Terror drumrolled through her veins and she shuddered, her teeth clattering loudly enough for him to hear.

His ice-blue eyes narrowed with glee he could not contain. You need but to confess, and I will order you strangled first by a rope and then burned. You will be spared the agony of the flames as they consume your flesh.

She opened her mouth to defy him again, but her voice failed to carry out her will.

I pity you, sweet Mairenn, he spoke softly. Yes, pity you even though you have disappointed me more than you can ever comprehend.

"And I damn you, Adrian! Mairenn shouted with a last ditch effort, and the rest of your misguided society, too!"

An uncomfortable silence fell upon the assembled. His hand holding the Bible drooping to his side, Maddox reached out with his left hand, touching first her shoulder, then the bare expanse of her arm.

Her skin crawled. His touch felt heavy, his palm cool and smooth – like that of a serpent.

Why did you have to kill Elizabeth? he whispered, his tone rueful. There was no need to it. I was going to take care of her in my own way, at the right time.

Shivering, Mairenn realized that at last she was facing the true depths of her cousin’s madness and delusion. Although he was the culprit, he had convinced himself that she had poisoned his wife. Yet, mad or not, Adrian was too clever for her to prove otherwise. Neither was she able to expose the other murders she suspected he had committed before.

You and I … cousin … we go back a long time … she whispered, her head spinning as she recalled how it had all begun.

They were second cousins, came from a noble family proud of its ancient, Welsh-Celtic roots, and were born on the same day, only five miles apart, to unrelated mothers who had died soon after giving birth. At the age of seven, Mairenn’s father Sir William Morgan, the Viscount of Anglesey, had initiated both of them into the secret world of Druidism.

Their isle had long been associated with the Druids. At the time of the Roman occupation of Wales, Anglesey had stood out as one of the last strongholds of the warrior Celts and their druidic priests. Infuriated, the Romans had deemed it vital to invade Anglesey and annihilate the priests, subduing them only after protracted battles.

Though the Romans had destroyed the Druid shrine and cut down their groves of sacred oaks, they had not been able to eradicate their spirit. According to family lore, one of the black-robed women Furies who battled the Roman soldiers to death had been Alluvia, a red-haired ancestress of Dame Angharad Drake, her very own maternal grandmother.

As Mairenn and Adrian came of age, often sharing the same bench and desk, they had studied theology, science, history, herbalism, and the physics of the earth and stars.

Although they had gotten along at first, later, when Adrian had attended Oxford University and met the brothers John and Charles Wesley, they had grown apart to serve opposite masters: she, nature’s all-loving Mother, he, Satan.

In that service, Adrian Maddox used the ultimate disguise, that of the most-devout Christian. Inspired by the Wesleys’ Holy Club, in which members sought to live the Christian life through methodical study and devotion – leading them to be nicknamed ‘Methodist’ – he had joined the movement of founding local societies to ‘spread scriptural holiness throughout the land.’

Reliving his final visit to her home, Mairenn saw her legs trapped between his, his cold hand at the hem of her skirt, wrenching at it, trying to pull it up.

I have come to give you the good news that as your only living male relative, I shall do right by you, and take you under my protection as my wife, he had declared matter-of-factly, oblivious to her protests. We shall be wed after a reasonable period of mourning Elizabeth. Then at last, all your estates that have fallen under disrepair ever since Sir William’s death will have the firm and astute ownership of a man to thrive on.

When she had refused and shown him the door, Maddox had proven that hell hath no fury like the devil’s errand boy scorned.

Mairenn drew in her breath, gearing to slap his face. Then the fact that her arms were immobilized struck her with a paralyzing sense of futility.

As she glared at him defiantly, perspiration broke out on his face. Thick threads of it trickled from his wavy, white hairline across his wide, deeply lined temple. She swung her head aside, avoiding his eyes.

Maddox’s jaw clenched, his hand cupped her chin and jerked it around to face him fully. His black-garbed lean figure was so close that the smell of his sweat was putrid in her nostrils. Hooking her teeth on the insides of her cheeks, she fought to hide her defeat from his penetrating gaze.

Time froze in its hourglass.

On Maddox’s face a tender, almost loving expression broke through its curtain of condemnation. Farewell, beloved, he mouthed. Take heart for we shall meet again – in hell.

Maddox took a step back, hesitated, and then took another.

The last vestiges of her strength crumbling, Mairenn’s shoulders sagged. Oh, she so wanted to live and mayhap have a daughter to whom she could pass on the gift and duty handed to her by the gentle, loving Brighid….

Returning her gaze to the blue sky, she forced herself to think: I am ready to meet you, O Lord; it was only by Your Will that I’ve lived to be thirty-three, and stayed healthy so I may perform my calling.

She wanted to add, forgive them Lord for they know not what they are doing, but could not, for the pain of the first flames licking at her feet obliterated all rational thought.

* * * *

When Marquis Bradford Alden, the blond, sixteen-year old heir-apparent of Percy Alden, Duke of Mansfield, approached the assembled on horseback, the first thing he saw was the top of her foaming, curly red hair. Wisps of black smoke rose high around the stake.

His heart sank. He was too late. The woman who had saved his life through great skill and patience when he’d been struck down with scarlet fever was dying in the hands of the people she had given her all to serve.

For the love of God, stop this madness! Bradford spurred his powerful white stallion with a kick that leapt him right in front of Lady Mairenn.

She was strangely silent but struggling with a desperate strength that shook the stake, dislocating it partially and freeing one of her already blistering hands. There was no time left to lose.

The rest was only a blur for the young heir as he drove his stallion through fire swift as lightning, wrenched the woman away from the stake and up onto his saddle.

When he emerged on the other side of the fire, his red cape, blond hair, as well as the tail of his white horse, were smoking, afflicted with insidious sparks.

As they galloped away, the villagers scattered quickly, terrified of his father’s wrath yet furious because Lady Mairenn Morgan had escaped. Not long before, they had greatly respected The Lady, but in light of Sir Adrian’s claimed revelations about her true motives behind that façade of goodness and light, that respect had turned into loathing. They sincerely believed in that the only method of driving away the witch was to burn her alive. And now that she was not, they were due to face untold calamities, for she would surely take revenge.

Adrian Maddox remained behind, a statuesque, white-blond haired and black-cloaked solitary figure staring in the direction of the horseman until the last dune stopped waving in his wake.

In the dark space behind his ice-blue eyes, Maddox concentrated on a vision of himself slowly changing into a sleek black eagle that would follow Mairenn and all her descendants to the Four Corners of the world….

Cherokee National flag

Chapter One

Blue Ridge Mountains, Crown Colony, 1762

"SPRING RAIN! WAIT FOR ME! Rain, please, wait…."

Red Hawk’s bass voice sounded breathless, perhaps even in pain. Compelled to pause, Spring Rain looked back over her right shoulder. As her friend appeared from behind a hemlock tree around the bend, his looped gold earrings and naked, broad-shouldered body gleamed under the sun. His long black hair was loose; he had discarded his breechclout and was perspiring, unusual for him since he had hardly exerted himself.

Then she noticed the smug grin, his wolfish, large white teeth a streak of lightning across his bronze face. Red-hot anger shot through her. Rascal! He had tricked her.

With an indignant toss of her head that set her hip-length braid bouncing, she resumed her run on the narrow trail of red clay earth strewn with fallen leaves and pine needles. Her moccasin-shod feet touched the ground silently, the only noise in the air the thrum of crickets, mosquitoes and birds. High overhead, a moist hot breeze whistled in the hemlock, poplar, maple and ash trees, stirring their branches.

Spring Rain! Red Hawk called again, his tone brimming with laughter, It’s no use, I’ll catch you anyway. Why don’t you slow down and save your strength for a sport we can enjoy together?

A renewed flash of anger shot through her. Arrghh, that vain fool! They were playing hunter-and-prey and he was already basking in the glory of his presumed victory. This meant he took his physical superiority over her for granted. So she’d better teach him another lesson. She was as agile and surefooted as any deer and none of the obstacles on their race to the scenic mountaintop could slow her. Besides, reaching that lofty spot was a trophy for winner and loser alike. Sitting there made them feel equal to a pair of eagles leisurely drinking in the view of their private domain.

Pshaw! she retorted contemptuously, "Show me one thing I would enjoy doing with you, and I will slow down."

When it’s all over and you’re my captive doing my bidding, he taunted with a wink, "remember that it was you who asked for it."

His last challenge gave her the edge needed to turn her feet into wings. She pushed forward with coltish long strides, her tanned buckskin skirt flapping around her knees. Her speed created its own wind, mellowing her anger as it cooled her cheeks and dried the moisture on youthful breasts that bounced beneath her beaded tunic top. The landscape passed by her in revolving flashes of green and brown. On her left, scattered below the tall trees, were clusters of flowering rhododendron and laurel bushes. On her right, the hillside dropped dangerously from the steep trail to the banks of the fast-running Oconee River below, a sun-soaked silver ribbon of foamy water.

Suddenly her eyes widened in surprise. Straight ahead, light and shadow painted mosaics on a mossy rock, using the harbingers of the still-distant autumn – six ruby red leaves.

Their incongruous presence startled her, freezing her mid-motion. Holding her breath, she stared, imagining the tangy scent of countless dying leaves, their color ablaze upon the entire mountain range in a blood-soaked farewell to life. To her, autumn meant fertile summer’s self-consuming demise. Unlike Red Hawk, who cheerfully welcomed autumn as a bracing tonic against summer’s heat and cannibal insects, she could not help turning melancholic each September.

As Spring Rain lingered, contemplating life and death, Red Hawk caught up with her. Moving soundlessly, he came to stand behind her, grasped her arm and turned her around to face him. With a happy grin, he teased her, So, my favored, you have decided to save your strength for me. I am pleased.

She grimaced, his gentle grip on her arm a hard reminder of her momentary folly. Red Hawk was not short, but she was tall, her amber eyes almost on the same level as his. When she met his gaze, the good-natured triumph in his slightly slanted brown eyes disarmed her. With a deliberate scowl, she pointed to his dangling gold earrings. Why is it that when I look at you, I think of a peacock?

Hawk’s confident stance did not waver. But his eyes narrowed, studying her expression. Why, she was truly angry at him for having won the race! His happy grin faded as he wondered aloud, And why do you keep trying to best me? What is it that you are trying to prove to yourself?

Spring Rain bit her lips. His words had rung a chime in her soul that she did not care at all to admit existed.

Troubled by the extending silence, he was prompted to free her arm. Stepping back, he inquired gingerly, Sweet sunshine of my heart, did I say something to displease you?

His hand was no longer upon her flesh, yet she felt caressed by his eyes, infused with tender concern. Guilt bore through her and flamed in her cheeks.

She snapped, If that were the case, I would not have kept it a secret from you.

The note of irritation in her voice resembling that of a grown-up’s annoyed by a child’s nuisance rose and struck at him like a rattlesnake. Perplexed, he stared at her. He’d known Spring Rain from the day of her birth, and yet now she looked a stranger.

You should stop exposing yourself like this! she pointed grimly, We’re not children anymore. I am in my sixteenth summer and you in your nineteenth - in the prime of your manly strength. Cover yourself immediately and don’t ever do that again. Not in my presence. It is sinful behavior.

Red Hawk sighed with relief; she had been teasing him. Well, he grinned, switching to English, "if I do not sin once in a while, I’ll be the only Brave in your Christian paradise. How could I ever live among all those pure, holy men and women? Surely I am better off in hell. There I can be as savage and ... uh, what is the word? Ah, licentious!" He rolled his eyes heavenwards, Yes, oh yes, in hell, I can be as licentious as I can manage to be....

Spring Rain could never stay cross with him for long. Oh, you dear shameless braggart, she broke out laughing, slapping his cheek. I know it’s hopeless, but I can’t stop trying to reform you.

His tortured groan was a dramatic rendering of gallantly endured, long suffering. Then his grin returned and with a wink, he urged, Admit that your motives are selfish.

Spring Rain shook her head gamely. Indeed they are. Without you to worry about, or to fight with, I would be bored to tears up there.

Swiftly Red Hawk pulled her into his arms and kissed her soundly on the mouth. She sighed contently, her hands running down the length of his muscular back. When she reached the curved top of his left buttock, she paused, her sensitive fingers tracing the outline of small hives – mosquito bites?

He let out a yelp, Careful, it’s itching!

She stepped around him for a close inspection. Be still so I can take a good look at it!

Kneeling, she peered at the reddened, swollen patch of skin, inflamed with watery blisters. Poison ivy, she decided as she deftly explored the burning spots on his lower back and buttock. And I thought you had learned to safely navigate in the woods. Poison ivy leaves are made of three leaflets, and they have small, whitish berries. How could you overlook them?

Easy; I was concentrating on you. He flinched as her touch heightened his discomfort. I didn’t feel it until the string of my clout rubbed it the wrong way. That’s why I had to take it off.

Nonetheless, you cannot run around buck naked, she declared, straightening up. Next thing you know, it could be termites dining on your jewels. Go get your clout and then come find me by the riverbank. There’s a shallow spot from where I can get the medicine you need.

Red Hawk obeyed her silently, brooding. Retrieving the piece of buckskin from a branch on the maple tree, he donned it around his slim hips, careful to keep the garment just below the smarting area. He had stowed his sheath knife, bow and arrows in the bushes under another tree, intending to hunt for small game on their way back. By the time he found them, he felt tempted to give up, returning for them later. His itch was more than an annoyance by now, new painful spots appearing on his right hand and arm. He felt dizzy, out of sorts, impatient for relief. He’d been stung by poison ivy before and believed himself immune; why this strange reaction all of a sudden?

He stared at his weapons in dismay. Normally they were no burden at all, yet at present, the simple act of carrying them seemed to require more strength than he possessed.

Scowling, he reached for his bow, weighing it in his hand. Carved of black locust, it was over three feet long, flat, broad and tapered toward both ends, its taut spring made of gut. Bah, light enough for a toddler to use it. Biting his lips, he slung the quiver with the twelve arrows over his shoulder, tucked the steel knife under the belt of his breechclout, cursing when the effort made him break out in sweat. His arrows were light, too, made of mountain cane and each boasted two eagle feathers attached by deer sinew. Yet from their weight on his shoulder, he would swear he carried a very fat wild boar.

Holding his bow in one hand, Red Hawk bounded down the trail to the river, his face blanched with grinding pain. Despite his agony, Spring Rain’s earlier strange behavior would not leave his thoughts, disturbing him greatly.

Distinguished in hunting, warfare and ballgames, Red Hawk was a happy-go-lucky person, always striving to see the sunny side of things. He loved Spring Rain and refused to consider that she might feel otherwise for him. He had a healthy appetite for women and life, but could not envision a future for himself without her at his side. Although he was not one to rationalize his feelings, he sensed that she was so indispensable for him because he had lost much when he was little.

Red Hawk was a Catawba, adopted into Spring Rain’s tribe after his people were defeated by the Cherokee. His family was killed in battle and he would have joined their fate but for the will of Chief Kolannah, Rain’s father. Kolannah had found the sturdy four-year old trying to guard his decapitated mother with a tomahawk bigger than himself. Impressed, he had taken him to his hearth. His curly red-haired, scar-faced White wife had been heavy with child, and ill. Yet she had embraced Red Hawk like a mother. When he would wake up in the dark of the night, crying out for his own, slain mother, she would