Witches of The Wood

by Skylar Finn

  “Oh!” Tamsin, who’d been absorbed in her phone, uttered a surprised cry before she realized it was me. “It’s you! Where’d you come from?”

  “The coffee shop.” I sighed with annoyance at her look of devious glee, cutting her off before she could ask me about Peter. It was already a sensitive enough topic for me as it was. “Where are you coming from?”

  “I was at the shop reading all the dark books,” she explained. “Minerva wasn’t happy about it, but she was also worried when I told her about Margo—worried about you—and she hates the dark books; she thinks just looking at them can turn you. So there was no way she was going to do it. She barely even wanted me to.”

  “Why does she keep them in stock at the shop?” I asked.

  “They’re not actually for sale,” she said. “They’re more a point of reference for situations such as these. Nobody in a small and puritanical town where everybody knows everybody else would be caught dead buying them.”

  “What did you find out?” I asked.

  “Nothing good,” she said. “There’s some deeply scary stuff in those books. Things that made it hard for me to fall asleep after I read them. I’m seriously worried about this situation that you’re in, Sam. If these people are what I think they are…I don’t know. I think maybe you need to get out of there.”

  We were walking aimlessly, almost automatically towards the apothecary. I had the same feeling I had in the woods with Cameron, when I felt, rather than heard, that we were being followed. I glanced over my shoulder. There was nobody there.

  “What exactly did you read?” I asked Tamsin. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe her, per se, I was just skeptical that any of this could really hurt anyone. If I ignored Martha, wouldn’t she eventually go away? And what exactly did casting a spell on someone entail? What could Margo really do? So far, all I’d seen her do was whine about her bathwater and record new music. She didn’t exactly seem like a menace to society. Although the unknown status of her most recent PA was starting to weigh rather heavily on my mind.

  “I’m not supposed to tell you,” she said ruefully. “They’re still annoyed I tried to explain the craft to you the last time you came over. They don’t think I eased you into it properly. I was actually just about to text you to ask you to come to dinner at the house. Everyone thinks this Margo situation needs to be addressed at some sort of round table.”

  “Great,” I said. I felt that it was anything but. I felt like I was being pulled involuntarily into something against my will, like a whirlpool. And none of it made any sense.

  Tamsin seemed like she had a sense of these things; at dinner with Margo, it was like she could just look at her and feel something strange was going on. I didn’t feel anything. I saw weird things, sure, but they usually seemed to come out of nowhere and pose a massive imposition on whatever I was doing at the time.

  If Tamsin detected my sarcasm, she chose not to comment on it. She ducked into the alley ahead of me and let herself into the shop.

  I followed Tamsin inside, closing the door behind me to the cold. I hated to admit it, but I was secretly relieved not to see my mother there. It was such a heavy dynamic, fraught with implications and landmines. As relieved as I was to have found her and to know she wasn’t insane, and therefore neither was I; as happy and grateful I was that she loved me, seeing her left me exhausted and emotionally drained. Even the thought of dinner weighed heavily on my mind.

  Minerva bustled through the curtain that led to the back and stopped when she saw me.

  “Sam!” she exclaimed. “It’s so good to see you.”

  “You, too.” I still felt a little shy around this person I was related to and had only just met. “How are you?”

  “I’m worried about you, Sam,” she said seriously. “Tamsin told me about what happened at dinner. This all sounds very odd to me. Of course, it could just be an ordinary person messing with things she doesn’t understand—I would even argue that it more than likely is—but on the off chance that it’s not…”

  “I told her she should leave,” said Tamsin. “Get out of that house.”

  “This is exactly why we told you not to tell her things without us,” scolded Minerva. “She can’t just leave. Where is she supposed to go?”

  “She can stay with us!” said Tamsin indignantly. “Are you being serious right now?”

  “You heard what Aurora said,” Minerva said impatiently. “The house is dangerous for Sam. Being around our powers, and the power in the house—it might release the forces in her before she’s ready, and that could be disastrous.”

  “Um, excuse me?” Not only did I intensely dislike being spoken about as if I wasn’t there, having alleged forces unleashed within me was definitely not cool.

  They turned to look at me simultaneously, and I was struck by their resemblance. At the same time, I was saddened by their obvious closeness, even when they disagreed. I wondered what it was like to be so close to another person that you took it for granted.

  “I’d really appreciate it if you could not talk about me in front of me,” I said.

  “I’m sorry, Sam,” said Minerva regretfully. Tamsin looked abashed. “We’ve been discussing this since Tamsin came home from that dinner, and it’s all we can think about. To be honest with you, we’ve never had to deal with anyone else but ourselves. The prospect of even a benevolent witch we don’t know being in town is startling.” I wondered if she meant me. “To think there might be one who’s not so benevolent…” She trailed off and fell silent.

  “We don’t have a precedent for it,” Tamsin finished for her. “Like a protocol. You know? We don’t really know what to do.”

  “Will you come back to the house with us?” Minerva asked. “Aurora has a few questions for you.”

  “Of course.” I was dutiful in my agreement, but I couldn’t escape the nagging feeling that it wasn’t too late to get out of all of this. I could pack up my things tonight and be at the Briar Rose in an hour. I could make excuses. I could work from two towns over and forget that any of this was happening, or pretend to.

  But first I’d go to dinner.

  22

  The Legend of the Dark Horse Inn

  At the house, the customary fog that hung over the cul-de-sac had temporarily lifted. Inside, the kitchen was warm and bright, and the fire in the old wood stove was lit. The room was filled with the smell of something savory cooking on the stove. My mom stirred the pot with a long wooden spoon.

  Minerva and Tamsin bustled around the kitchen, arguing good-naturedly as they set the table. I went over to the stove to see what was in the pot.

  “It’s beef stew,” my mother explained, extracting the spoon from the pot and offering it to me. She hesitated, looking concerned. “You’re not a vegetarian, are you?”

  “Not that I know of,” I said, taking the spoon. The stew was heavenly, like something I’d pay a lot of money for at a gourmet grocery store in the city. “Does being a witch make you really good at cooking?”

  “Not that I know of,” she echoed me, smiling. “Minerva is a terrible cook.”

  “I heard that!” called Minerva from the table.

  “It’s true,” said Tamsin.

  My mother lowered her voice confidentially as she turned the burner down under the pot.

  “Sam,” she said. “If you don’t want to hear about any of this stuff, I understand. We can talk about other things. I don’t want you to think that I don’t respect your decision, or that I didn’t hear what you were saying the other day. I don’t want to force any of this on you.”

  “What decision?” asked Tamsin, appearing at the stove.

  I bit my lip. I felt guilty. It felt okay to tell my mom I didn’t really want to stay in Mount Hazel and radically alter my existence, but for some reason, I felt terrible saying it to Tamsin. Like I’d be letting her down, or disappointing her, or like I thought there was something wrong with her for having magic and using it. Luckily, I was spared the feeling
by the appearance of my grandmother, Aurora.

  “She needs to hear this.” Aurora stood in the doorway, regarding us seriously.

  “What exactly is this about?” I asked. I was starting to get a bad feeling.

  “Sit down,” my mother said, ushering me over to the table. “I’ll serve. Let’s at least get some food in our stomachs.”

  I sat down next to Tamsin, who kicked me under the table, smiling. I felt a pang. I’d never known the camaraderie of having somebody young at the table beside me.

  Aurora sat at the head of the table. Minerva and my mother sat across from Tamsin and me, and the chair at the other end of the table remained empty. In memory, Aurora said the last time I was here, of my grandfather.

  “I should start by saying we don’t know any dark witches, Sam,” said Aurora. “None of us ever have. Most don’t choose to take that path because everything you put into the world comes back to you times three. It’s an old rule of magic that prevents those with power from abusing it.”

  “If everything comes back to you, then why would Margo want to do anything bad?” I asked.

  “It’s possible that she’s not really Margo anymore,” said Aurora. “At least, not entirely.”

  “What do you mean, she’s not Margo anymore?” I said, spooked.

  “I mean that she looks and sounds and acts like that person,” said Aurora. “In a larger sense, she technically is her. Technically. But when people start messing with forces they don’t understand, when they start letting in influences much larger and more powerful than they are, they cease to be themselves. They become eclipsed by what’s taken them over.”

  I was still confused. Macroeconomics was easier to understand than witchcraft. “What did she let in?”

  “It’s hard to say,” said Aurora. “I can speculate, based on her surroundings, what may have happened. But it’s only speculation.”

  “By ‘surroundings,’ do you mean the house?” I asked. I remembered what Manny said about the manor being possessed.

  “That,” said Aurora, “is precisely what I mean. In order for you to better understand what might be happening to Margo, you need to understand what happened in that house, before it was a house. When it was still the Dark Horse Inn.”

  Aurora and my mother had mentioned the Dark Horse Inn the first time I visited them at their house and they found out where I was staying while I was in Mount Hazel. I asked them why it was such a big deal if I stayed there. Now, I remembered their words with a chill: “Black magic. The worst kind.”

  Aurora regarded me for a moment before continuing.

  “I’m going to show you a memory,” she said. “It is comprised of many memories, and in this way, it forms a history. It’s a more objective account than anything you’d read in a book, which is biased due to its author’s opinions and feelings, no matter how neutral they claim to be.”

  My mouth had fallen open slightly and I was leaning halfway across the table.

  “You can show me people’s memories?” I asked.

  “The powers you inherited are quite large,” said Aurora. “Much larger than yourself. There are many witches in this world, Sam, but there are few more powerful than the witches of Mount Hazel. I’m going to show you something, and when I do, you’re going to have a better idea of what those powers consist of by the way that I show you. I just don’t want you to get overwhelmed.”

  “Okay,” I said. I was mystified but also intrigued. Would I finally see real magic now? Tamsin’s nature room and moving tattoos were cool; seeing and hearing ghosts was kind of a drag, but maybe now I was finally in for the laser light show of witchcraft.

  I glanced around the table and noticed for the first time that Minerva, Tamsin, and my mom had all bowed their heads slightly while Aurora was talking. Their eyes were closed as if they were in prayer, then they looked up in unison to the space above the table. I was bewildered.

  Aurora could feel my bewilderment and silently supplied the explanation that it was a sign of respect when a very powerful witch was about to perform magic.

  Aurora glanced around the kitchen and all the lights went out. I jumped. She looked at the fire and it grew larger. She never even moved. It was then that I understood for the first time the nature of my inheritance. It was the simplicity with which she performed these acts, as if they were no more difficult than blinking her eyes.

  She looked up at the space the others were and all at once, it was as if somebody projected a high-definition image over the table. The image was crisp and clear as if we were there.

  It was a village square, a very early version of the present day Main Street of Mount Hazel’s current downtown. Except in this version, there were barely any buildings and there was a plethora of bare trees that indicated it was winter. Not only could I see it, but I could smell and hear everything that was taking place.

  “You can look at it that way,” said Aurora. “Or you can close your eyes and experience it. Whichever you prefer.”

  I closed my eyes. All at once, it was as if I was there: like I was standing in the middle of the dirt road outside what looked like an old courthouse, in the space that would later become the coffee shop. I looked down. I had no body or physical feelings; I seemed to simply exist in time and space without actually physically being there. I wondered if this was what Martha Hope felt like.

  As she spoke, the scene changed: the ground fell away, the scenery rushed past, up the road to the steep hill that led to Margo’s manor. Instead of green trim, the house was black from the roof to the foundation. There was no front porch, just a hanging sign swinging over the front door: The Dark Horse Inn.

  I saw the muddy narrow road, at the top of which sat the inn. I saw a girl bringing in a bucket of water from the well. I saw a man in a white peasant top yelling from a distant bedroom up the stairs. I could hear my grandmother, like a voiceover, in the background of the scene at hand.

  In the old days, when Mount Hazel was first settled, it was little more than an outpost for travelers between cities. Not many chose to make their home in what was still a vast and tangled wilderness far from civilization. Many who passed through thought the woods were haunted, and on a dark moonless night, nature seemed to take over in a way that the travelers who passed through the town were not entirely comfortable with.

  The inn was owned by a man named Worm Wheaton; Worm being a nickname, of course. Worm had fallen ill and placed his daughter in charge of running the inn on a day-to-day basis. Her name was Gwyneth.

  Gwyneth was a strong-willed and stubborn girl, but even for Gwyneth, the ordinarily demanding job of running the inn alongside her father when he was well had without him grown taxing beyond what was possible for any one human being to stand. It was hard enough to keep up on the housework when there were no guests; even a handful of travelers would keep Gwyneth running from dusk till dawn to keep up on meals and cleaning. Her father paid no mind to the toll this was taking on the girl, demanding that she do more and accusing her of laziness when she fell behind.

  One day, Gwyneth wandered into the surrounding woods to look for firewood. She was terrible at chopping logs and hoped to find enough dry kindling from fallen branches to sustain the inn for the evening. She went deeper into the forest than she ever had before. She was distracted by her resentment toward her father and her fantasies of running away. In her favorite one, a wealthy traveler passing through convinced her to elope with him and leave the inn and Mount Hazel forever, to travel to a big city like Philadelphia or New York where she’d live in comfort and style for the rest of her days. Within the confines of her daydreams, she hardly needed convincing.

  Gwyneth was startled out of her fantasies by a sharp crack. She dropped the wood she was carrying with a surprised cry and looked to the surrounding woods. She looked behind her and realized she could no longer see the inn. She became concerned. What direction had she come from?

  Gwyneth turned in a circle, thinking she should just go backwards and
this would enable her to retrace her footsteps. But which way was backwards? She turned again, this time in the opposite direction. Then she turned once more.

  There are some that say that magic was much simpler in those days. They say that if you went into the woods with your heart on your true desires, and you turned three times, both this way and that, forward then backwards, you could summon the shadows of the woods. Gwyneth turned the third time and set off in that direction, telling herself if she only walked fast enough, she’d see the inn soon enough. Instead, she went deeper into the forest. The sky was losing light fast; it was winter and the sun set earlier each day. The trees became denser and more tangled, the branches closing in over her head.

  It was then that she knew she was lost.

  She was afraid. She wasn’t afraid of animals, for there was nothing particularly dangerous in that part of the forest; nothing that she knew of, anyway. But she’d heard the stories of the travelers, who staunchly refused to stray from the road and never traveled at night when they went through Mount Hazel.

  She believed there were other things in the woods that could harm you, and those things were what threatened her now. Or would, if she couldn’t make it home before the dark. And the farther she ventured through the woods, the more lost she became.

  Gwyneth was frantic. For all she knew, she was going in the opposite direction of the inn, of town, of the road. She might become so lost in the forest she’d never be seen again. She could sit and wait till Father noticed she’d never returned and called for the sole traveler staying at the inn to venture into the woods to find her. But the thought of waiting in the woods all night frightened her more than being lost.

  It was then that she heard a sound: the sound of rushing water. The river! Gwyneth knew that if she followed the river, eventually it would come out by the old covered bridge. Even if she followed the river in the wrong direction, she could turn and go the opposite way. She had a compass to steer by.