by Oakes, Tara
Oh God! I’m driving myself mad. Just being this close to him is frying my brain cells. I’m turning into an idiot.
“So where are we going, then?” Nina wants to know.
“One of the oldest houses in town. Well… it used to be a house. It’s been abandoned for decades but, surprisingly, it’s pretty intact. The historical society won’t touch it. Needs too much work and it won’t bring in the tourists like some of the more famous houses do,” Will answers Nina, but there’s an unintended harshness to his tone. “It’s all about money and attractions with those people. To hell with all the real pieces of history that are just falling apart and decaying around here.”
I can tell it’s a sore subject for him, the exposed flesh of his neck is reddening in stark contrast to the bright white of his shirt. His right hand is perched on the gear shift centered between us. I extend my fingers and touch his skin to reassure him.
“It’s good that people like you actually remember, then. Keep those places alive before they’re forgotten.”
His pointer finger maneuvers out from under my hand and wraps around my finger, squeezing thanks for acknowledging something clearly important to him. I leave my finger be, wound up in his.
“So… is this like a date, you two?” Leave it to Court to have impeccable timing.
“Yes.”
“No.”
Will and I answer simultaneously.
He looks at me and cocks an eyebrow.
“No?”
“Yes?”
We ask in unison again, this time answers switched.
Court pats Will’s shoulder before sitting back. “I’m rooting for you. Really, I am.”
Fifteen minutes and several turns later, we’re slowing into a small residential area. This one isn’t as grand as the one that welcomed us to town yesterday. Some of the houses are in disrepair, some in the early stages of neglect. Aging cars line the street and park in the drives of the small single-family homes that are most definitely part of the working class of this town.
We pull to a stop in front of an empty lot. Well, empty of house, but full of trees.
“This is it.” Will says, signaling our arrival.
Court and Nina stare at each other. I decide it’s best not to linger long enough to give them cause to start to complain, so I open and shut my door quickly, leaving them isolated in the truck cab until they grow tired of it and join us.
Will stands taller than I remember from last night, but one glance down explains why. He’s wearing thick-soled work-style boots.
“It’s a short walk. They’ll catch up.” He takes my hand in his and leads the way down a thin but well-worn dirt path cutting its way through the brush.
“Popular place, huh?” I ask him as we follow the steps apparently taken by others before.
“Teenagers love to hang out and drink in these old houses. And…” he stops himself.
“And what?”
He exhales deeply. “And some people who follow old beliefs come to this place thinking it will bring them closer to…”
He stops yet again and eyes me. I squeeze his hand. “To what?”
“To power. Some say this is where witchcraft started in Salem.”
He immediately judges my reaction.
I laugh. “You know, I met a charming cashier on our way up here who told me to stay away from the crazies.”
“Oh yeah?” He pulls me in close, arms resting loosely on my waist. A low-hanging branch soon appears, justifying his sudden move. He turns to face me, still close. Hands still positioned as before, however no more branches in sight. “So she thinks they’re crazies. Do you?”
“I don’t know. I think there’s a lot of magic in this world. I’m just not sure it would fall under the category of witchcraft.” I answer the best I can. Truthfully, I’d never given the topic much thought.
“Coming through!” Courtney’s voice pierces around the trees. She and Nina quickly follow. “There was a homeless man. He was scary and he was eyeing us!”
Will laughs. “That’s just Crazy Eddie.” The name does nothing to change the girls opinion of him. “He’s harmless. He lives on the other side of town in one of the Veterans homes. He walks the town every day. Keeps an eye on things.”
“Yeah, well, he was keeping an eye on us, and I didn’t like it. So we’re crashing your date.” Nina passes us now, marching even further away from Crazy Eddie.
I roll my eyes and shrug my shoulders.
Will laughs again. “All right. Let’s keep going. It’s about thirty yards up ahead.”
True to his word, about thirty yards ahead is a cleared out section in the brush. Aside from one or two empty beer cans laying about, the place shows no signs of modern times.
A foundation of rounded boulders demarcates the outline of where the antique structure stands. Planks of wood cover the outside like a spider web, with empty sections where nature has had its way with the façade.
Strangely enough, there is a door, or at least I think it’s a door in what must be the front of the house. A large brass knocker is dead center in it.
I step closer, examining it. “I can’t believe this is still here. I mean, you would think someone would have stolen it by now. Especially with teenagers hanging around.”
Courtney and Nina are equally as intrigued by the old house, walking the perimeter, inspecting it.
“Not from this place.” Will steps closer behind me. “I meant what I said about how people feel about this place. Anyone with half a brain would think twice about stealing anything from here.”
I turn to him, my back now facing the abandoned home. “Like hallowed ground or something?”
Will grunts. “This place is anything but holy. But, in a way you’re right. It’s a powerful place. Even the people who don’t believe in that power still respect it. Because deep down they’re afraid that they just might be wrong.”
I get that. The whole “that which isn’t known should be feared” kind of thing. I remember from Psych 101 that it’s one of the most basic human reaction to things.
Court and Nina are now on the far side of the building, out of view.
“So, why is this place so powerful?” I run my fingers along the oxidized metal of the old door-knocker.
“It’s a long story. I don’t want to bore you.” His hand reaches up and covers mine, pulling our joined fingers back to break contact with the object.
“I like long stories,” I reply playfully. “Besides… I have a feeling you tell really interesting stories.”
Will’s eye arches. “Okay. Well… it started a long time before this place actually. In France. In Marseille, I think. There was a young man. His name was Malcolm. As far as anyone knows, he was actually an Englishman.”
I find myself stepping away from the house, following him as he leads me to an oversized, old worn wooden tree trunk that had been cut. The top surface is smooth. We both sit, and he continues his tale.
“Legend has it he was handsome, charming, and greedy. He practiced magic but didn’t feel that he was powerful enough. The more power he harnessed, the more he wanted. That’s what led him to France. He wanted the highest, strongest of powers. But someone else possessed it. An old witch that had bewitched herself to age slower than slow. She was one of the three most powerful in the world. One of the Triad.”
I’m entranced by his account. “The Triad?” I find myself asking.
He nods. “The Triad. They were… kind of like the governing body of those who practice magic. They possessed more than any others and would kind of keep control over the rest. Well, Malcolm wanted that power for himself--”
“He wanted to become part of the Triad?” I interrupt.
“You don’t become part of the Triad. The three are old, and their power had made them arrogant, paranoid. They did anything necessary to hold on to their position. Their power was as much a part of them as their bodies were. The only way to have the power of the triad was to either be giv
en it freely by one who posses it before, which was very unlikely considering how selfishly they regarded it, or… to take it by trickery. Either way, once their power was given or taken by another, they would die without it. For that reason, the three practically isolated themselves and kept few close.”
I find myself biting my lip in anticipation of the lesson. Will sees and his eyes hone in to my mouth. I see him shift and adjust his posture. I release my lip just as a swell of hot liquid adrenaline plunges to my core.
He clears his throat. “So Malcolm found one of the three, the Marquess de les Songe. He charmed her and she took him as a lover. He invested time and energy into trying to get her to love him, but she loved no man. The only person she loved was her daughter Marcelle. The daughter was kind-hearted and beautiful. She was innocent. When Malcolm saw that he was getting nowhere with the Marquess other than in her bed, he became inwardly bitter toward her. In secret revenge, he seduced Marcelle. She fell madly in love with him, blind to his shrewdness.”
I inch forward on the trunk, literally on the edge of my seat.
“Once the Marquess found out that her lover was cheating on her with her own daughter, she felt betrayed, and banished them both. They went back to England, but still feared her retribution, so they migrated here among the early settlers.”
“It was a love story.” I feel myself getting sappy.
Will shakes his head. “Not exactly….”
Nina and Courtney reappear. “We’ve seen the old scary house. It’s lovely. Can we go now?”
CHAPTER FIVE
“You two have fun.” Nina closes the main door to the hotel behind them as they enter, leaving Will and me standing outside.
They’d grown tired of our kind of sightseeing and asked to be dropped off at the hotel to catch some rest before we head out to the candlelight ghost tour at midnight.
I’m not tired, having already napped after my ordeal with Mamia Magda earlier. Thankfully, Will asked me to grab some food with him.
“Shall we?” He jokingly crooks his arm. I laugh and take it, slipping my wrist through. “How do you feel about frozen yogurt for dinner?”
“I say you’ve read my mind.”
~*~
“How’s yours?” he asks as we sit on the half stone wall, each with a plastic spoon in hand.
“Delicious. Yours?” I speak with a half-full mouth of melting dessert.
He takes another bite of his own. “Really good.”
I swirl my neon pink spoon in the puddle of melted fudge. “So… that thing that you were talking about before, the three thing. The Triad.”
“Um hmm…” I can see him struggling against brain freeze.
“Remember when I told you I couldn’t go to the museum this morning? Well, it was because I got dragged along to a psychic reading instead. It was really weird.”
He lowers his cup. “Weird how?” He seems genuinely interested.
I hope he doesn’t change his opinion of me after he hears this.
“I don’t know. I think it was a scam maybe. But… there was something about three.”
He’s quiet. I imagine he’s planning some emergency or forgotten appointment that he needs to skip off to, leaving the crazy psychic visiting girl alone with her yogurt.
“Well… the number three is a very influential number. It’s prevalent in almost everything. A perfect balance, a triangle, has three points. Each season has three months. There are three phases to life… birth, life, death. Some people even manipulate this. Darker magic takes a variation. 666. They double the number to 6, but there are three of them.”
I finish another spoonful of yogurt. “You know a lot about this.”
He holds his hand outstretched, waving it, showcasing the buildings in front of us. “I live in Salem, Massachusetts. It’s kind of hard not to know these things around here.”
I laugh at his explanation. “True, true.” Another spoonful as my dessert is melting. “So do you think it was weird?”
I see his lips purse as he swallows his yogurt. “Depends. Which psychic did you see?”
“Mamia Magda. In the white house.”
His eyes widen. “She’s pretty legit. Around these parts, every corner has some type of psychic. But she’s authentic. Did she scare you?”
I roll my eyes. “A bit. But I think I scared her more.”
Now he’s curious. I see him wanting to ask more about the reading, so I change the subject quickly. “Tell me more about the love story. Malcolm and Marcelle.”
He’s finished with his food, so he sets his almost empty cup down beside him and leans back. “Where did I leave off?”
“They came to America to be together.”
He nods. “Right. Well they came to America, all right. But not exactly together. Marcelle left her mother quickly, with nothing but her slave girl Josephine. She was almost penniless. Malcolm wasn’t about to live as a pauper. So he convinced her it would be better to live apart. More of his manipulations.”
My eyes widen. So this isn’t a love story after all.
“He found a wealthy woman destined to be a spinster. Charmed her just as he did the Marquess de les Songe. They married and he gained all of her wealth, her dowry. Her father was wealthy, powerful in a non-magical way. But she didn’t satisfy him. I don’t think a person like that was capable of love, but what he felt for Marcelle was the closest he could come to it.”
Okay. Back to a love story. I’m getting whiplash.
“Marcelle didn’t have the powers her mother did, but she knew the ways. One of the things she’d mastered was something called Transposition. She could switch places with another. Not just take over another person, but actually physically switch places all together. At night, when Malcolm’s wife had fallen asleep, Marcelle would transpose with her, taking her place in Malcolm’s bed. Where the other woman was Malcolm’s wife in name, Marcelle was his wife in body.”
I also finish my dessert and stack it into Will’s cup, lifting my knee to the bench to allow me to face him completely. I haven’t been this intrigued in a very long time.
He also turns, facing me as we sit cross kneed in front of each other. “Well, of course she got pregnant. Knowing that her baby would face endless persecution and ridicule as well as being shamed the bastard child of a sinner, Marcelle did the only thing she could think to do. She begged Malcolm to take the child and raise it as his own with his wife.”
I inhale deeply and raise my hands to cover my mouth. “No!! How heartbreaking!”
Will can see that I’m terribly shocked. His hand settles on my knee.
“Twin girls were born, both healthy. One blonde as straw. One raven haired. Malcolm took them to his wife who had longed for a child. The dark-haired baby had a mark, a beauty mark. To the wife, this was surely a devil’s token. So she agreed to take only the blonde baby. She named her Elizabeth.”
“The dark-haired baby was given back to Marcelle to raise. And she was right. Stigma and ridicule followed them both. But, they had a deep bond. A true unconditional love that helped the girl become pure hearted, innocent. She was as beautiful on the outside as she was on the inside.”
I feel the tears welling. This is a tragedy. One of the saddest stories I’ve ever heard. I feel a hitch in my throat as I try to speak. “That poor mother. I-I.…”
Will can see how visibly affected I‘ve become. “Let’s finish the story another time. It’ll give us a point to pick up tomorrow. For now, let’s walk around a bit before I bring you back to the hotel.”
~*~
We stopped at an old bookstore and a candle shop while walking the dusk hued streets of Salem on our way back to the hotel. I carry the small brown paper shopping bag with the lavender scented candle that I’d bought for my mom in one hand and the warm cup of tea Will had ordered for me at the bookstore in the other.
The temperature has dropped about five degrees from our frozen yogurt break, and the tea helps to keep the chill away.
“Getting cold?” he asks, with some sort of coffee concoction of his own being brought to his lips.
I shrug. “Not really. But I’ll probably change before I take that tour later.”
He sips long and hard on his Styrofoam cup. Very carefully his free arm swings itself to rest on my shoulders, bringing me in closer to his warmth. My heart pounds against my chest as our bodies touch.
“Better?” He asks.
I grin. “Much.”
We finish our caffeinated drinks in silence, walking the old cobblestones streets. Those who pass us smile. I have yet to come across an unfriendly person in this quaint little town.
The moment is perfect. The deep purple and orange swirls in the low setting sky, the tiniest of chill in the air to bring us together. Even the sound of our steps along the natural road below. I’ve never had a moment like this before… where I wasn’t worrying about what the next would bring.
Will’s cell phone shatters the slice of perfection. He tosses his emptied cup into a nearby public metal wastebasket and checks the screen. I see him hesitating while staring at it. I can’t help but dart my eyes over to quickly read the letters.
Liza.
The same heart that was nervously pounding moments before at his touch is now sinking fast at the very feminine name on his phone. My shoulders stiffen.
“Hey, Liza,” he calls into the air around the receiver as his phone is placed in that nook by his ear.
I can hear a muffled vibration, but no words are clear. I find my mind wandering, assigning imaginary meaning behind them. A girlfriend perhaps? Had I completely misjudged him? Is he the kind of guy to be in a relationship and then hang out with a girl on the side?
We hadn’t done anything that could technically be considered cheating, but I know I’d be damn pissed if I had a boyfriend who was getting chummy with another woman.