Delilah Recovered **2017 Watty Winner**

Chapter Twenty-one

Any moment the crowd would arrive at the steps, they were closing in on her fast. Too fast. Her thoughts were a wild freight train about to go off the rails. I have to get inside. Inside we'll be safe. Open the door. Please.

The door scraped against the wooden floorboards and she fell inside. She felt a wave of relief as the sounds of locks falling into place echoed through the sanctuary. Samuel, wearing a long black cloak and a long white clerical collar, pulled her up onto her feet. She fell into his arms, into safety.

Torches danced outside the stained-glass windows, as rocks sailed through them with the inflamed crowd circling the church. Followed by torches, the wooden pews were kindling, spreading rapidly into flames. The door buckling under pressure from a battering ram thrusting against it. They had moments until they would be burned alive.

Delilah focused on Samuel. His eyes were black and dead as he wrenched her hands behind her back and tied them with a rope. Was he planning on feeding her to that bloodthirsty mob?

She fell to her knees, tears, salvia running down her face. "Our child, save our child. I beg of you."

He jerked the rope pulling her up on her feet while waving his hand, opening the church door. "That child is an abomination. You brought this down upon your own head."

The crowd parted to let them pass. Delilah could feel the heat from their torches on her back. She was a wild animal corned with adrenaline pumping, her stomach churning, an icy cold sweat streaming down her corset.

"Witch!" an old woman yelled, spitting in Delilah's face. The spittle slithering down her face and chin.

Samuel towed her through the crowd by the rope. The throng beating like a single heart pumping hate toward Delilah and her unborn baby, pushing and shoving her.

Delilah's only thought was... tonight I will die.

Stopping suddenly Delilah, ran into Samuel's back and fell to her knees. He kicked her back knocking the wind out of her. "This woman knows Satan. This woman holds Satan in her heart."

"I am carrying his child," Delilah screamed into the night winds pointing at Samuel.

Pulling Delilah up to her feet by her hair. "Blasphemy! This witch attempted to seduce me to dance with the Devil, but as a man of hearty faith, I persevered against temptation."

"Kill the witch!" The crowd chanted as Samuel pointed to a fresh grave with an open coffin surrounded by lanterns.

Samuel held up his arms silencing the crowd. "Delilah D'Arc you have been accused of witchcraft and are hereby sentenced to die by the power instilled in me by our Lord God and the good people of Salem."

Delilah strained against the ropes in an attempt to break free, only to tighten them. She focused her attention on the torches and summoned the wind. As she took a deep breath, tiny funnels circled up from the ground, pulling the torches out of the dirt and hurling them into the crowd. The mob scattered like roaches. A torch landed on Samuel's neck setting his long clerical collar on fire burning his neck and face.

The sky opened up dropping heavy wet rain from the clouds, pelting them as lightning bolts shot out of the heavens. Delilah broke free of the binds and ran from the open grave. Samuel caught her and tackled her. She dug her fingers into the ground, into the dirt, scraping large rivets, as Samual pulled her back to the coffin.

"Dust to dust, dirt to dirt, now I command this earth," she chanted, as the ground began to quake and split open.

She looked up at him, the skin on his neck and chin was charred black, he tossed her into the coffin. Slamming a piece of wood over her, she cried out as the nails, one-by-one bore into it sealing her in her living tomb.

The moment Delilah was fading into unconsciousness, the wood was peeled back and standing over the grave, her black cloak whipping in the wind and rain, was Tabitha Anthea.

Reaching into the coffin, she yanked Delilah out, placing her hand on Delilah's head, she mumbled a spell. Delilah was convulsing trying to catch her breath. The graveyard had descended into chaos. The horde had turned on one another. They were now using their shovels, sticks, and axes to fight each other. Tabitha Anthea carried Delilah to a carriage, They fled into the shadows of the night.

"Delilah, wake up," Jonathan said, shaking her. When she opened her eyes. "Thank God. Can you sit up?" He asked as he packed up his backpack. She slowly sat up in the rowboat. Her mouth felt like it was stuffed with cotton.

"Look, um, we unleashed something and we need to get outta here like now," he said, helping her out of the boat.

In the distance, she heard a crowd yelling. "Kill the witch!"

"Where am I?"

"You're in Graceland Cemetary. You just uncovered a memory and in the process might have unleashed a seventeenth-century pissed off mob of Salem townsfolk," he explained.

The sounds of chanting were getting closer.

"Let's say you definitely unleashed them."

"And the good times, keep going. Can we unleash them?"

"We can stay here and try or we can run like the wind and lock em in the cemetery," he said as he put on his backpack.

He took her hand, "Let's go."

As they started running, Delilah's legs were wobbly like she just got off the stationary bike at the gym. The cemetery was surrounded by a screen of misty fog and darkness, they couldn't see where they were going.

Running in circles, Jonathan and Delilah, stopped at a mighty oak tree, looking up they saw two nooses hanging from a thick branch. There was no way out, the mob had them surrounded and was going to hang them.

Delilah remembered the spell from her memory. She laid on the ground. "Dust to dust, dirt to dirt, now I command this earth," she chanted.

Nothing happened.

"What the hell are you doing?" Jonathan screamed. "Get up! Now."

She ignored Jonathan, and continued to chant, gradually, the earth around the tree began to pull apart around the tree forming a circle. Leaving Delilah and Jonathan on an island under the tree, as a moat formed protecting them from the throng. Moments later, the ground swallowed the Salem townsfolk sending them back in time.