The Betrayal by R.L. Stine Page A

morning.”

Chapter 10

    â€œFled the village?” William cried frantically, staring over Giles Roberts’s shoulder to the straw piles where his wife and daughter were twisting in terror against the wooden stakes that held them.
    â€œBefore dawn,” Giles repeated solemnly.
    â€œBut I paid Matthew—!” William cried. “I paid him to—”
    â€œThe Fiers robbed us,” Giles told him. “They emptied the storehouse. They left us no food for winter. They took everything. Everything.”
    â€œI—I don’t understand!” William cried, feeling the ground tilt and whirl beneath him. He shut his eyes, tried to steady himself.
    â€œThey loaded all their belongings onto wagons,” Giles told him. “And they disappeared with all of our supplies.”

    â€œBut didn’t they speak to you before they left?” William demanded, desperately clutching at Giles. “Didn’t Benjamin tell you? Didn’t Matthew tell you?”
    â€œThey didn’t speak to me, William,” Giles replied softly. And then he added firmly, “Please let go of me.”
    â€œBut the sentence against my wife and daughter was to be reversed! They are to be freed, Giles! Benjamin should have told you. He should have—”
    â€œHe told me nothing,” Giles said. The deputy magistrate’s features grew hard. “The sentence must be carried out.”
    There was no use struggling, Susannah realized.
    Her hands were tightly bound. She could not free herself from the stake. It poked uncomfortably into her back. Her wrists throbbed against the tight cords. Her shoulders ached.
    She raised her eyes to the sky. The sun had lowered itself behind the trees, the trees she had loved to walk among. The piney sweet-smelling trees that had brought her so much joy. The trees where she and Edward had hidden during their brief secret meetings, during her brief happiness.
    Lowering her eyes, she thought she saw Edward.
    He stood at the edge of the crowd, staring back at her.
    At first Susannah saw hurt in his eyes. Pain.
    But as she gazed at him, his face appeared to harden before her eyes, until it became a mask of cold hatred.
    She cried out—and realized it wasn’t him.

    It wasn’t Edward.
    The boy didn’t look at all like Edward.
    Two circles of yellow light approached from out of the grayness.
    Two torches.
    â€œMother—” Susannah cried. “Mother, will it hurt?”
    Tears streamed down Martha Goode’s swollen cheeks. She turned her face from her daughter, struggling to stifle her sobs.
    â€œWill it hurt, Mother? Tell me, Mother—will it hurt?”

Chapter 11

    William Goode pressed his hands against the sides of his face. But the anguished screams of his wife and daughter invaded his ears.
    I’ll hear their screams forever.
    Eyes closed, he could still picture their bodies twisting on the flaming stakes, still see their melting faces, their fiery hair.
    He had tried to run to them.
    But the two officers had held him back, pushing him to the ground, holding him on his knees as the choking black smoke fogged the sky and the howls of agony rose higher than the flames.
    Martha. Susannah.
    My family …
    William was still on his knees when the fire hadbeen doused and the silent crowd had departed. He hadn’t noticed that he was alone now.
    Alone with his grief.
    Alone with the stench of the smoke in his nostrils.
    Alone with the screams of his wife and daughter ringing in his ears.
    They burned so brightly,
he thought, sobbing.
    They burned as bright as stars.
    The ground beneath him was puddled with his tears.
    He raised his eyes to the night sky, the color of coal, pierced with pale white stars.
    I know you’re both up there,
William thought, climbing unsteadily to his feet.
    I know you are both up there, bright as stars.
    He uttered one last, wrenching sob. Then his grief quickly gave way to his fury.
    He strode