Witches of The Wood

by Skylar Finn

  If only I was a less observant person: there’d be nothing wrong with the situation. If only I didn’t have a totally confusing family telling me profoundly life-shattering things on a weekly basis. If only I didn’t choose the wrong men.

  I rolled over and immediately screamed. If only I couldn’t see ghosts.

  Colin, who still seemed strangely solid for a ghost, was watching me solemnly from a chair in the corner. He floated over to the bed and (kind of) sat next to me.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I’ve been watching you since you came in. You seemed upset.”

  “Could you have maybe let me know?” I said, exasperated.

  “You didn’t seem like you were doing private girl things,” he explained. “I just wanted to hang out in case you wanted to talk.” I didn’t feel like clarifying the parameters of his idea of private girl things.

  “I’m having a bad day,” I said finally. “Maybe a bad month. I don’t know.”

  “Join the club,” he said sympathetically. “At least you lived to tell the tale.”

  “Yeah,” I said. It did seem like the definition of self-pity to complain about my love life to a dead guy.

  “Did you read the diary yet?” he asked.

  I felt like kicking myself. I’d been so busy being distracted by Peter and feeling devastated and betrayed, I’d forgotten everything that was actually important right now. I went over to my coat and dug the black book out of the inside pocket.

  “I still don’t recommend it,” he cautioned me.

  “Duly noted,” I said. “What’s in it, anyway?”

  He scratched his chin thoughtfully. “It starts out fairly normal, like an ordinary diary of a young girl. But then it gets weird.”

  “A young girl?” Something was coming together in my mind, and I was suffused with dread. “What was her name?”

  “Gwendolyn? I don’t know, her handwriting sucks. I don’t understand why people ever even wrote in cursive.”

  “Gwyneth?” I stared down at the black book in my hands.

  “Yeah, that’s it,” he said. “Why, do you know her or something?”

  “Not exactly,” I said. “What did you mean when you said there were bad things written in it?”

  “I didn’t mean that she was talking about bad stuff,” he said thoughtfully. “It was like the words themselves were bad. I’d look at them and it was like they were moving on the page. I saw bad things in my mind. That book is dangerous, I think.”

  I bit my lip. If it was what I thought it was, it was a firsthand account of what happened at the inn, told directly from Gwyneth’s perspective. Not just before she went into the woods, but what happened after: to the travelers, and to the traveler’s daughters. Specific, concrete details that might explain what was happening in the house now.

  On the other hand, if what Colin said was true, there might also be spells in this book. I thought of the dark books in the shop. According to Aurora, I might have powers that would emerge around a powerful object or place. Tamsin claimed I didn’t know my own strength. What if just by reading the spells silently, I accidentally unleashed a force I couldn’t contain?

  No. I needed to be careful about this. I’d already been careless about Peter, and look what happened.

  I looked around the room. There was a length of blue ribbon tied to the chain hanging from the ceiling fan. I stood on the bed and untied it, then tied it around the book. It felt safer that way.

  I looked around the room. Stuffing it under the mattress seemed too obvious, and there were no helpful loose floorboards that looked like they would easily lift up, providing a hiding place beneath them. There was, however, an iron grate in the far corner that looked a little loose, and with a few sharp tugs at the bottom, I was able to form a wide enough space to slip the book inside. Tomorrow I would bring it to Aurora and ask her what it said.

  “Sam.”

  I opened my eyes. I looked at the clock hanging on the wall. It was midnight.

  At first I thought it was Colin, or Martha, but the voice was much higher than that: melodic, amused. I saw only a shadow in the doorway and sat up suddenly, afraid.

  Margo laughed softly.

  “It’s only me,” she said. Somehow, I found that less than reassuring. I stayed still beneath my blankets, quiet.

  “Will you come outside with us?” she said. “The moon is nearly full. It’s quite beautiful, you know.”

  “Margo,” I mumbled, my voice thick with sleep in spite of the adrenaline currently rushing through my body. “It’s the middle of the night. It can’t be more than thirty degrees out there.”

  “Twenty-five with a low of seventeen. Clear. Chance of precipitation.” In the darkness, she smiled. I could see her white teeth. “We’re just having some wine in the clearing. A girl’s night, you might say.”

  The thought of wine made me physically ill. “I had too much to drink earlier,” I mumbled. “I’m sorry.”

  “A secret party girl.” She laughed. “I was wondering where you slipped off to. Was it that cute journalist from the other night?”

  “Yes,” I murmured, already drifting off again. Why it was so hard to stay awake with a possible enemy only feet away was nothing I could explain.

  “Next time, perhaps.” She eased my door shut like my dad telling me good-night. “You’ll be missed.”

  “Bye, Margo. Have fun.” I rolled over and buried my face in the pillow.

  Truth be told, I was still just a little bit drunk.

  A shower of sparks over the clearing. Dancing in a circle around a makeshift bonfire, holding hands, faster and faster at a dizzying rate. I was in my bed, I felt sure, but I hovered over the circle, observing it from above.

  “Your astral body,” said a voice. I looked up and saw Martha hovering in the night sky across from me. Like me, she wore a pale nightgown, her hair floating around her.

  “What are they doing?” I asked.

  “The same thing they do every night,” said Martha disapprovingly.

  Les, Abe, and Timothy were nowhere to be seen. The circle was comprised of Margo, Bridget, Kimmy, and…Pandora?

  “She’s influential, Margo,” said Martha, a little sadly, I thought. “The way I always thought I would be. She can get anyone to do anything.”

  “Did she do something to you?” I asked.

  “I don’t want to tell you,” said Martha. She drifted over to a nearby tree and settled in its topmost branch. I floated over and sat down beside her. I didn’t have to think about it, like why am I flying right now? It was weird, like whatever I willed in this state would then naturally occur.

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “I’m afraid if I tell you,” she said, her eyes on Margo and her acolytes around the fire. “You won’t want to help me anymore.”

  “Why wouldn’t I? I asked.

  “Maybe I’m not so innocent as you think,” she said, sounding distant.

  “You’re dead, Martha,” I said. “I’m pretty sure it wasn’t your fault.”

  We watched the women below as they danced around the fire, laughing and shrieking.

  “Is it magic?” I asked.

  “Not yet,” she said. “But it will be.”

  29

  Martha’s Memory

  I woke up the next morning with the mother of all hangovers and a taste in my mouth like battery acid. I remembered the night before. Before all of this happened, I would have told myself it was a dream, like the time I dreamed I left my body and saw my mother in a garden in a place that seemed familiar, but like one I had never seen. Now I wondered if that had been real, too.

  After everything that had happened, I had to acknowledge the reality that the things I was seeing and experiencing were real. Not only were they real, but they were incredibly dangerous. I’d be putting myself at risk by denying what was happening any longer.

  Not yet, Martha said when I asked if Margo and her followers were performing magic. But it will be. What did it mean? And what wa
s she afraid to tell me? How had Colin died? I was running into more questions than answers, which was understandable as I hadn’t exactly gone to school for investigating.

  Peter. The thought hit me like a freight train as I remembered why I was so hung over in the first place. Peter had gone to school for investigating, and now he was investigating me. All I had wanted to do was find out if my mom was here and if she still thought about me. If she was crazy and I was, too. To say I got more than I bargained for would be the understatement of the century.

  The house was silent, the night’s previous party victims presumably hung over in their beds. It was the perfect time to slip out undetected. I would bring the diary to the apothecary and see if the coven could make heads or tails of it.

  The morning light looked oddly menacing, filtered through the red stain glass windows. It pooled on the floor of the hallway like blood. I shuddered as I hurried past it.

  The front of the house closely resembled a small parking lot with the slew of cars in the driveway. The van for transporting Margo’s entourage was parked at the back, so I didn’t have to go back in and wake anybody up to get out.

  Downtown Mount Hazel was still waking up, with only a few stragglers on Main Street doing their weekend errands. I parked the van in the cul-de-sac that held the apothecary and went inside, the bell jingling over the front door.

  At first, I thought there was no one there. Then the black curtain that led to the back of the store ruffled and Minerva appeared.

  “Sam,” she said, surprised. “What are you doing here?”

  “I found something,” I said, approaching the counter and dropping the black book on it. “I think it’s the diary of the innkeeper’s daughter.”

  Minerva, who’d been looking at the book curiously and on the brink of opening it, recoiled as if from a hot stove.

  “What?” she said, shocked. “How do you know?”

  “There’s another ghost at the manor, of a kid who worked there before me,” I said in a rush. “He said it was the only book on the shelves he could physically handle, and that awful, frightening things were written in it. He said it starts out as a diary, but then it turns into something else. Something terrible is going on, Minerva. I don’t know what to do.”

  Minerva studied the book without picking it up. Then she looked up and shot me a beady-eyed glance.

  “I thought you were staying at the bed and breakfast in Mount Lenore?” she asked.

  “I was. I mean, I am,” I lied. It was just a tiny white lie, for their own good, so they didn’t worry about me. “There was a shoot for Margo’s new music video yesterday. That’s when I met the ghost and found this book.”

  “I don’t like you being there at all, Sam,” she said, shaking her head. “I know that you’re trying to find out what’s going on because these people could be a danger to us all, but I don’t think it’s worth it if it puts you in danger.”

  “But we’re in danger, anyway,” I argued. “Aren’t we? Something very weird is going on, and if they’re powerful, wouldn’t it threaten the whole town? And everybody in it?” I told her about what I’d witnessed in the clearing the previous night. “And Margo is famous,” I added. “Or at least she was, and could be again. She could influence the entire country!”

  Minerva looked alarmed as she considered this, then puzzled. “Sam,” she said slowly. “How did you see this? What you saw in the clearing last night?”

  “I was asleep,” I explained. “Then I was just sort of…there. Martha Hope was there, too. It was the first time I heard her voice. I can usually only hear her in my mind, even though when I talked to Colin, it sounded like he was talking out loud. But last night, I could hear her as if she was speaking out loud, too. Which is weird, right? Anyway, she said it was my astral body. Do you think that’s why I could hear her? Because we were both sort of like…disembodied?”

  Minerva looked floored. “Sam, these questions that you’re asking me…I’m not sure that I can answer them,” she said. “I’m not even sure that Aurora could. I’ve never communicated with the souls of the dead. I don’t understand how it works, or why it would be one way with one and different with another. You’re in completely uncharted territory.”

  She paused to let these words sink in. I was experiencing things that even the experienced couldn’t explain to me. This thought scared me more than any, even the prospect of what might be going on at the manor. If no one could explain it to me, how would I figure out what to do?

  “As for your astral projection…” she trailed off. “We don’t usually do that. Let alone accidentally! I mean, Aurora can do it, obviously, but she rarely does. She says the temptation not to return to her body is overwhelming. The fact that you did it without even trying, well.”

  “What does it mean?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said, sounding helpless. “It all adds up to something, but what, I can’t yet see. Your mother is the one with the visions, but she hasn’t had one for years. Part of me wants to tell you to go home to the city and never think about any of this again. Your powers are obviously building, and the Dark Horse Inn is no different from our house. You’re in an old, magical place that’s filled with power, and it’s drawing your power out, especially if you’re around other people who may have it. But you’re in a dark place, surrounded by the wrong people with the wrong kind of power. I’m not just worried about you. I’m afraid for you.”

  This scared me even more. One of the only people who could have explained all this not only couldn’t, but was frightened by what was happening to me.

  “I think you need to get out of town,” she said. “The coven will handle this. Stop by the house and tell your mother what you just told me, and I’m sure she’ll say the same. I’ll bring the book to Aurora tonight. She’s the only one who can safely open it.” She glanced down at the book. “How did you know to tie the ribbon around it?”

  “I didn’t,” I said, startled. “I mean, I found it. It just seemed like a good idea.”

  Minerva smiled at me. “Miles away from us, with no knowledge of who or what you were, and magic is still so strong within you, Sam,” she said. “I have no doubt in my mind that you can keep yourself safe. Please promise me you will.”

  “I will,” I said.

  It was my second lie of the day.

  I didn’t know how Aurora had seen the memories of the people at the inn, but if I could do things that only she could, it seemed to follow logically that I could see people’s memories, too. She said that it was powerful magic, but she was looking at the memories of half a dozen people, and I only needed to see the memories of one.

  I didn’t know exactly what I was doing, but if I could inadvertently astrally project myself into the woods while sleeping, talk to ghosts, and bind an evil book without casting a single spell, it made sense that maybe I could do this, too, without being taught or having it explained to me. I knew the coven wouldn’t approve, and it occurred to me that maybe what I was doing was dangerous, but I knew they’d never go along with it. And I needed to know.

  I couldn’t just leave, knowing my family was in danger. Knowing my mother was in danger, who I’d only just met. And Tamsin. I’d known her for such a short time, and she already felt like not only a friend but a sister. I promised Martha and Colin I would help them. And maybe I was the only one that could.

  I went back to the woods, where Martha Hope’s body had been discovered. Even if she was reluctant to tell me what happened, or couldn’t, maybe I could see what happened, anyway. The problem was, I didn’t know what to do. In the story Aurora told, Gwyneth turned three times in a circle, but that was old magic and anyway, something evil appeared when she did. So I didn’t want to do that.

  I looked around the clearing and saw an old tree that towered above the others. It looked like it had been struck by lightning, split and blackened at the trunk. I went over to inspect it more closely.

  When I placed my hand against its trunk, I
immediately jumped back. I hesitantly reached out and touched it again. It issued a warmth that spread from my fingertips down to my palm and up my arm.

  “Whoa,” I whispered. “What is this?”

  The feeling spread, up to the back of my head until I felt like it was flowing out of my skull like a crown. I took my hand from the tree, but the feeling remained.

  I turned to look at the clearing. I closed my eyes. I tried to imagine what I’d seen in my dream, when I’d been Martha. I had—she had—stopped in the clearing when she realized that Paul was following her. She threatened Paul. He stepped forward as if to stop her, and then what? He had seen something behind her. Something bad.

  I opened my eyes. I saw Martha and Paul in the clearing.

  Had I traveled back in time? I waited to see if they could see me, but neither of them reacted to my presence. I reached forward and the air in front of me shimmered. My hand wouldn’t pass through it, like I was touching a screen.

  I was completely overwhelmed. It was similar to what Aurora had done in the kitchen, but it seemed like the next level beyond it. I was there, I was watching them. But I was here at the same time.

  Paul was staring behind Martha, slack-jawed, eyes glazed. Martha stared at him, then turned around to look behind her.

  Into the clearing stepped two figures in blood-red robes, their hoods lowered. I could hear the fear in Martha’s voice, as if she’d just encountered something even worse than Paul, which seemed entirely likely.

  The smaller figure extended its hand from its robed arm. The hand looked like a gnarled old branch. The figure raised the gnarled limb in the direction of Paul. Whatever it was doing seemed to paralyze him. It turned its hand in a single sudden sharp motion, and Paul fell to the ground.

  Martha looked at him, wide-eyed. “Is he dead?” she asked.

  “Catatonic,” the voice answered. “Re-living all his worst memories on a loop.” I couldn’t see its face, but the voice sounded like it was smiling. “Nothing less than he deserves.”