“Not going to wait for the fireworks, Ms. Russell?”
“I believe in being proactive, Pete,” she said. “Scarecrows work wonderfully well sometimes. Couldn’t hurt to try it. Apparently our garden doesn’t have the protection that Proctor’s Ledge enjoys.”
“That’s a strange thing, isn’t it?” Pete picked up the empty pizza box, clearing a space for the ambrosia, and started a fresh pot of coffee. “Almost like the witches are protecting the place where they died.”
“Bridget Bishop was the first to go,” I said, hardly realizing that I’d spoken the words aloud. “Oops. Sorry. We weren’t going to talk about that stuff.”
“Poor Bridget,” Aunt Ibby said. “All of them suffered such dreadful indignities. And you’re right—Bridget was the first. It’s no wonder she was so angry with her accusers.”
“Angry enough to cause peculiar accidents and mysterious deaths for some of them,” I said. “Ariel Constellation claimed that Bridget was most certainly a witch.”
At the mention of Ariel, his late mistress’s name, O’Ryan flattened his ears and his golden eyes seemed to grow larger. “Mmrrup,” he said, nodding his big fuzzy head. “Mmrrup.”
“O’Ryan seems to agree about that,” my aunt said. “Sometimes I wonder.”
“What did she do that was so bad that she got accused of . . . you know . . . witchcraft?” Pete asked, taking a spoonful of dessert. “Oh, wow. This is just like my mom used to make.”
“Glad you like it.” Aunt Ibby tasted hers. “Haven’t made this in years. To answer your question, Pete, I think Bridget’s main problem was that she was pretty, she owned a couple of successful taverns, liked to party, and when she tended bar wore a bright red corset over her puritan black dress.”
My brain clicked into overdrive. Like the bright red bustier River wore over her black velvet dress?
CHAPTER 17
After Aunt Ibby left, Pete and I finished off the pot of coffee, put the cartons into the recycling bin, and loaded the dishwasher.
“That was fun,” he said. “I love spending time with you like this. You and your cat and your aunt too. It’s so . . . easy, you know?”
“I know exactly what you mean,” I said. “Easy is the right word.”
“We’re good together.” He pulled me close.
“Yes,” I said, “we are.”
O’Ryan chose that moment to interrupt with a long bit of cat dialogue—something like “mow-mow-mow-mow” while repeatedly slipping in and out of his door.
“What’s up with him?” Pete still held me but seemed fascinated with the cat antics going on across the room.
“I know what he’s doing.” I sighed. “He wants us to go upstairs and get the clothes for Aunt Ibby’s scarecrow.”
“Oh, yeah.” He kissed my forehead and stepped away. “Let’s get it over with.”
I knew I was right about O’Ryan’s intention. We followed him out of the kitchen and down the carpeted hall to the door leading to the attic. I paused, closed my eyes for a moment, and grasped Pete’s hand. “Thank you for coming up there with me. I still dread this place. I know it’s crazy after all this time, but . . .”
“No. Not crazy at all. You damn near lost your life up there. When I think of how I almost lost you, I feel sick.”
“Well, anyway here we go on a scarecrow suit hunt.” I managed a smile, pulled the door open, flipped on the light switch, and together we started up the stairs. O’Ryan lay down beside the door, not making a move to join us. He doesn’t like the attic either. The smell of smoke and scorched wood had long ago been replaced with the pleasant smell of pine floorboards and fresh paint. The hodgepodge of odds and ends of old furniture, trunks, and boxes and bags of miscellany spanning generations were all gone. Nothing could have survived the heat and flames of that Halloween night.
Nothing.
Except Bridget Bishop’s spell book.
I shivered and Pete put his arm around my shoulders. “You’re cold. Want to do this some other time?”
“No. Let’s get it over with. It shouldn’t take long. Look at all these racks and bureaus.” The attic was much more orderly now, well lit, with clothes in neat plastic garment bags on rolling clothes racks and a row of identical bureaus, each with eight drawers. A long metal cart like the ones they use in airports held an assortment of suitcases, briefcases, and backpacks. Some of the bureau drawers were even marked with labels indicating their contents. “Here. This one says, ‘Hats.’ We can start dressing our guy from the top down.”
Pete pulled the drawer open and we selected a bright yellow wide-brimmed straw hat I remembered Aunt Ibby wearing on a trip to the Florida Keys. “A little effeminate for a scarecrow, I guess, but it’ll flop nicely in the breeze.” I agreed and we moved on to one of the racks. The next few minutes produced a man’s suit in navy blue polyester. What was my maiden aunt doing with it? Don’t know and will never ask, but we decided it would look fine stuffed with straw. A red silk ascot tie provided a jaunty touch.
“Do scarecrows wear shoes?” Pete asked, holding up a pair of black-and-white wing tips.
“I don’t think so, but take them anyway. Let’s get out of here.”
Pete rolled the clothes up and tucked them under his arm along with the shoes, and plunked the yellow hat onto my head. “Job well done. He’ll be the coolest scarecrow on the block.”
“Hope he does his job and scares them all away.” We started down the stairs with Pete in the lead.
“If he doesn’t, I have a few cherry bombs left over from last Fourth of July,” he offered, “and a couple of giant sparklers.”
“Might take you up on that,” I said, turning off the light switch and firmly closing the door. O’Ryan stood, stretched, and trotted down the hall ahead of us. “Especially the sparklers. They’re so pretty.”
“Not supposed to be pretty. Supposed to be scary. Remember? We’re trying to scare crows, not entertain them,” he teased.
Bridget Bishop was pretty yet she really frightened people. Why else would they have killed her?
Back in the comfort of the apartment, surrounded by familiar things, I began to relax. We put the suit, scarf, and shoes into a paper bag, topped off with the yellow hat. I put the whole thing next to the living room door with a reminder to Pete to drop it off in the downstairs hall when he left for work in the morning.
“You want to tell me about the gazebo at the Dumas place now?” he asked. “I guess your aunt didn’t want to hear about it.”
“There’s really nothing to tell,” I said. “I haven’t actually seen it yet. Maybe it isn’t the same one. Maybe it’s just a coincidence that there’s a gazebo at the site of Shannon’s wedding. Maybe it’s a coincidence that guests are going to be wearing black and the dead man in the vision is in a black tux. I don’t know. I’m too tired to even think about it anymore.”
“I’m beat too,” Pete said. “It’s probably all a big coincidence.”
He doesn’t believe in coincidences. And this time I don’t’t either.
I looked at the Kit-Kat clock. “Time for the late news. We can watch my promo from bed.”
“Works for me.”
The quince tree–stripping sequence was even creepier than I’d thought it would be. Marty had sped up the action so it appeared as though that poor tree had been denuded in seconds. I looked all right and sounded as though I knew what I was talking about. It was, I thought, a darn good thirty-second promo for my debut as an investigative reporter.
Pete agreed enthusiastically. We turned off the TV without watching the rest of the news and I fell happily, safely, confidently asleep in strong, loving arms, where no crows, no witches, no visions could touch me.
* * *
Wednesday morning was quite another matter. At first, everything seemed normal enough. Pete was the first one up and started the coffee. He makes it better than I do anyway. I grabbed my robe and went downstairs to my old bathroom on the second floor to shower while Pete use
d the one in the apartment. O’Ryan passed me on the stairway on his way down to Aunt Ibby’s, where he preferred the breakfast menu. It wasn’t until I was back in my own kitchen that I noticed the silence.
The coffeemaker gurgled, the Kit-Kat clock’s tail tick-tocked back and forth. Otherwise, the room was still. I opened the window. No cawing or cackling. Not even a peep. Where were the birds? I lifted the screen, stuck my head out over the fire escape, and looked toward Oliver Street and our maple tree, where a crowd of crows had gathered the night before. Green leaves ruffled by a slight breeze. No crows. Had the city fathers—and mothers—learned how to make them go away so soon? How? I’d have to figure it out before my broadcast, that was for sure.
I closed the screen and went back to the bedroom to dress for the day—for Megan’s town hall service. Maybe I’d watch the early news while I decided what to wear. I pulled my old standby little black dress from the closet, held it up in front of me, and studied my reflection in the mirror. I really dislike black, so the LBD is the only black item in my wardrobe.
Maybe with a gold belt and a blue silk scarf. Megan liked blue....
The swirling colors and sparkling lights began immediately. I sat on the edge of the bed and watched the vision come into focus.
It was Megan. But such a different Megan! The bent and wizened body was upright and supple, and the thinning hair, now a snowy white nimbus, framed an unlined, fine-boned face. Bright violet eyes sparkled where dull unseeing ones had been. She stretched a smooth, unblemished right hand toward me, and a crow, wings fluttering, alighted on her wrist. She moved her hand back slowly until the bird sat on her shoulder, where she stroked shining black feathers. Her smile was kind, benevolent, as it had always been.
With her left hand, she made a graceful motion toward the bird. Instantly, it disappeared. Didn’t fly away or fade away. It simply disappeared. She looked straight at me and winked one of those startling violet eyes.
CHAPTER 18
I sat there on the edge of my bed leaning closer to the mirror. Megan waved her hand again, and the crow reappeared on her shoulder. Then they both disappeared just as rapidly and completely as the crow had moments before. Once again, the only reflection there was my own—a puzzled redhead in a bathrobe.
What are you trying to tell me, Megan?
Pete walked into the bedroom, shirtless, hair wet from his shower, humming a slightly off-key version of “Rhinestone Cowboy.” He selected a white shirt from the armoire, then turned toward me. “Do I have any decent neckties here, babe?” He cocked his head, studying my face, then sat down next to me. “You okay? You look—um—a little confused.”
A handsome, shirtless, nice-smelling, well-muscled man on your bed can snap you out of muddled thinking immediately. “I’m fine,” I said. “Just deciding what to wear for Megan’s service.” I gestured toward the LBD, now draped across the pillows.
“Yeah. That’s why I need a tie.” He looked from me to the mirror and back. “Uh-oh. You’ve been seeing things again.” He sat beside me, putting an arm around my shoulders. “Want to tell me about it?”
“Yes, I do,” I said. “But as usual, I don’t know what it means.” I tried to describe what I’d just seen, aware as always that I was talking to a detective, attentive to every detail.
“The crow was there, on her shoulder,” he repeated what I’d told him, “then it disappeared.”
I nodded. “Yes. Then she waved her hand again and it came back.”
“And disappeared again.”
“Yes.”
“So Megan made it come and go by waving her hand?”
“Yes.” I stood up then, excited, understanding. I took his hand. “Yes! Come on and look out the window. You’ll see. They’re gone. The crows are gone. They’ve disappeared, just like the crow she showed me.”
He followed me and once again I raised the screen. “Look over toward Oliver Street. The trees were full of them. They’re gone now. See?”
He stuck his head out the window, just as I had. “You’re right.” He lowered the screen. “Let’s turn on the news and see if it’s happening anywhere else.”
I clicked on the kitchen TV and Pete poured us each a cup of coffee. The commercial for The Gulu Gulu café seemed to go on forever. “Come on come on,” I muttered. “Tell us about the crows.”
Phil Archer did just that. “City officials, representatives of the Audubon Society, and biologists from the USDA are meeting at this hour in an attempt to understand what’s happened to the giant influx of crows that have plagued this city for several days.” Behind the veteran newsman the video of the Proctor’s Ledge roost played, complete with the grating, raucous sounds of the crows. “According to the mayor, none of the suggested remedies for dispersing the roosts have yet been employed, although individual citizens have tried various means on their own. Officials are attempting to gather information on these methods to determine whether one or more of them may have had the desired effect.”
“Your aunt hasn’t even had a chance to make her scarecrow yet.” Pete shrugged into his shirt. “She’ll be disappointed.”
I’d found a few of Pete’s neckties in my closet. I handed him a blue-and-white-striped one. “Here. Megan’s favorite color was blue. Let’s give Aunt Ibby the scarecrow outfit anyway. The crows will be back.”
“You think so?”
“I do.” I pointed to the TV. “Look. He’s going to show my promo.”
Phil Archer gave a quick introduction to the video, explaining that my investigative reports would be a continuing feature. Marty had provided a wonderfully creepy title screen with Gothic lettering proclaiming, “A Murder of Crows.”
“It looks good, doesn’t it?”
“Are you kidding? It looks amazing. So do you.” He leaned down and kissed me. “Do I look all right?”
I straightened his tie. “Perfect,” I said, meaning it. “I’ll look for you at town hall.”
“There’ll be a crowd. Boston TV stations, even the big networks and all that. Megan was pretty famous for being Salem’s oldest witch.”
“She’ll be missed,” I said, thinking again of the way I’d seen her in the mirror, “not just because she was old.”
“I know. I’ve got to get going. I’ll grab breakfast later.” He retrieved his gun from its hiding place, adjusted his holster, and donned his jacket. “I’ll take the bag of clothes down to your aunt on my way out. Megan’s service is at ten. It’s nearly eight-thirty.” He tugged on the collar of my bathrobe. “Better think about getting dressed yourself, sleepyhead.”
“Yep. I got distracted there for a minute.”
He pulled me close again. “I understand.” His voice was gruff. “I wish you didn’t have to see those things.”
“Me too. But I’m starting to get used to it. They don’t freak me out as much as they used to.” I realized as I spoke the words that they were true. I was actually getting used to the visions. That didn’t mean I liked them, though.
I walked with Pete and O’Ryan to the living room and watched from the doorway as they disappeared down the back stairs. Back in my kitchen once again, in my bathrobe, I sat in the chair next to the window. The TV was still tuned to the news. My coffee was nearly cold, but I sipped it anyway. Phil Archer had moved on to coverage of the school committee’s annual budget requests, but I barely heard his words. In my mind I replayed the scene in the mirror—Megan stroking the crow’s feathers and giving me that conspiratorial wink as the bird disappeared and reappeared and disappeared again.
I stood and once again lifted the screen and leaned as far out of the window as I could. First I looked toward Oliver Street, then in the other direction, toward Winter Street. No crows, either way. I knew they’d be back, though. That’s what the vision meant. I smiled. I may not welcome the visions, but I was getting better at figuring them out.
Aunt Ibby and I had decided to walk to town hall, rather than try to find a parking space on downtown Salem’s crowded streets.
It was a perfect day for a walk, cloudless and cool. The street sweepers had been out early, so the long Essex Street pedestrian mall between Hawthorne Boulevard and Washington Street was reasonably free of bird droppings. I’d paired my LBD and baby blue silk scarf with the blue kitten heels. My aunt, wearing a beige linen pantsuit and tan sandals, looked stylish and trim as always. Essex Street offers some super window shopping. There are antiques and gift stores, clothing boutiques, the ubiquitous witch shops, and even a world-class museum.
We chatted about the absence of crows and she thanked me for the scarecrow duds, saying she’d decided to make one anyway. “There’s always a chance they’ll be back. After all, apparently nobody knows what scared them away.”
It seemed like a good time to tell her about the Megan vision. So I did. “I’m sure it means they’ll be back,” I told her when I was through. “Sooner or later.”
We paused in front of an art gallery, admiring an Emile Gruppe harbor scene. “Have you arranged a meeting with that Madigan art thief person yet?” she asked.
“No, I haven’t. Actually, it slipped my mind. So much has been going on.”
“True. I guess it can wait. The wedding is still a couple of weeks away, isn’t it?”
“Right. June twenty-first. Shannon got the invitations done at a quick-print place. Sent them in overnight mail. You should get yours tomorrow.”
She made a “tsk-tsk” sound. “In my day, the properly engraved invitations were sent at least two months in advance.”
“I know. It all seems kind of rushed, but it had to be at a time when Shannon’s dad would be in town. He travels a lot. Dakota likes the date because it’s the longest day of sunshine.”
“The Dumas house is beautiful, as I recall. Saw it on a tour of Marblehead homes once.”
“Did you see Poe’s aviary? Or maybe a gazebo on the property?”
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