by N. M. Howell
“Thanks, Finn,” I murmured. I made my way up the stairs, shielding my eyes from flashes of the cameras that tried to snap photos through the front entryway. The guys had pulled the curtains closed, but the lights were still bright, and it made my stomach churn.
I knocked gently on Agatha’s study door, but there was no reply. After waiting a few seconds, I knocked again and pushed open the door. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t think you were in here,” I quickly apologized, seeing Agatha’s small frame bent down over something on the floor.
Agatha looked up at me. “No bother, I was just fussing with something. How are you doing, dearie?”
I let the door fall closed behind me and gazed down at the large box that she had before her. “You know, I’ve had better days.” Like the days when the media didn’t think I was a killer and I didn’t have to ask a ghost had they committed suicide. I offered the old woman a smile before returning my attention back down to the numerous clippings that she had piled in the shoebox before she slipped it away in the drawer next to her, slamming it shut.
The guys followed me into the room, but Tom and Finn turned into cats immediately as they arrived. I frowned at them and then looked at Pussy, still in human form. Agatha stared at the cats for a long moment before murmuring, “The magic is fading.”
I raised my eyebrows. “You remember your magic?”
Agatha shook her head softly and stared down at the cats, a deep frown setting on her face. “No, not really, just little bits and pieces.” She screwed her eyes shut and a look of fierce concentration crossed her face. “But I remember the magic is fading.” She paused and looked me straight in the eye. “We’re losing control.”
“We? What do you have to do with this?” I looked between Agatha and the cats and then up to Pussy. I was even more confused than I had been before. “Your magic, Agatha? Is that what keeps turning the guys back into cats? Will they be your familiars forever? Unless we can fix your memory?”
Agatha froze in place, averting her gaze from mine. She stared into the corner of the room. “We’re losing control of the magic. That’s all I know. It’s just a glimpse, but I can see it. I can sense it. The chaos, it’s growing.”
I took a step toward her. “Agatha, could that be why you reached out for me? Why you needed an assistant, one you thought was a witch? Could that be why you left everything in my name, because you were losing control of something?” I took another step, lowering my voice. “Is that why you stopped leaving the house, Agatha? Is that why you were depressed?”
“What?” Agatha turned her beady glare on me.
I swallowed. “Before you died, you were depressed—”
“Not that, the other thing,” she snapped.
“About not leaving the house?” I said. “You hadn’t left the building for weeks, you couldn’t leave, do you remember? The guys said you felt like you were trapped?”
With a low hiss, Agatha vanished before I could ask her anything else. I called after her, but she didn’t reply. I turned back to Pussy, who frowned at me and knelt down next to the other cats, running his hand through his hair. “She’s upset. I haven’t seen her look this upset in a long time. Maybe just leave her be, Price?”
“I don’t want to upset her, Pussy, but we need answers and fast. There’s people outside the door baying for my blood. I need to find something to help us figure this out.” I turned my attention to the drawer where Agatha had shoved the box, trying my best to ignore the constant buzz of noise from outside the store. I yanked the drawer opened and pulled out the shoebox Agatha had hidden away. “What was she doing here all day?”
Pussy shrugged and leaned back against the wall. “I don’t know, maybe scrapbooking or some shit like that.”
I flipped through the newspaper clippings in the box. There must’ve been hundreds in there. Some were new, but most were old and brittle. I picked them up as carefully as I could. I flipped through the first few and paused when my eyes fell on an image of a younger Agatha with a tall, elegant Asian man. I gasped as I stared down at him, confused. “Oh my God.”
Pussy edged closer to me to peer at the paper in my hand. “Who’s that?”
“This is Dr. Lee,” I whispered. I couldn’t believe what I was looking at. “Agatha knew Dr. Lee? She recognised when I was using his calming technique when I first got here, but she never told me she knew him. ” I stared down at the image, wondering just how well she knew the man. Had this photo just been taken in passing? Were they close? I had so many more questions for her, I wished she would come back. “Oh my God. She’s so lucky.” Pussy raised one eyebrow. I grimaced. “Well, except for the whole murder victim thing, obviously.”
I held the piece of paper against my chest. Agatha knew Dr. Lee. I felt my lips curve. Maybe she wasn’t such an awful old witch after all. I placed the newspaper cut-out beside me before continuing to flip through the rest. If I thought I was shocked when I saw the photo of Agatha and Dr. Lee, what my eyes fell upon next nearly stopped my heart.
“What the freakin’ fruit loops!” I turned to Pussy and the two cats. “Guys, you all need to see this.” I felt my heart skip a beat in my chest as my skin grew cold and clammy. The two cats rubbed against my hand and all three men were in human form again. I didn’t even care that two of them were naked, I simply held the piece of paper up to them for them to see. By the expressions on their faces, they were just as shocked as I was.
“Is that you?” Finn asked, his eyes wide.
I pulled the paper back toward me and gazed down at it, nodding slowly. “Yeah, it is. Why the heck would Agatha have a newspaper clipping of me from this long ago?”
Tom shrugged and took the paper from my hand. “Maybe she was doing some research on you before your interview?”
I stared down at it and considered but then frowned. “This newspaper came out five years ago. She wouldn’t have any way to get her hands on a paper copy recently. She’s had this for a while.” I didn’t know what to make of it. No matter what way I twisted the pieces of Agatha’s puzzle, they didn’t add up to a clear picture, and I was beginning to suspected that I was more involved in all this than Agatha had initially let on. Or that she could remember, anyway. “What the hell is going on here, guys?”
Finn shook his head and rubbed my back with his hand, soothingly. “It’s just a photo, Price. Maybe it doesn’t mean anything.”
“A photo of me from years before I’d ever heard of Agatha Bentley or her crazy thrift shop?” I spread my hands wide for emphasis.
Finn relented. “Okay, it’s really weird, you’re right? I don’t know, maybe you have a bigger role to play in Agatha’s life than you think. Maybe you really are a damn witch. Maybe Agatha has the hots for you and has been secret stalking you for the past five years.” He dropped to the floor beside me. “I don’t know why she has it, Price, but I really don’t think she knows either. She’s crazy, but she wants this mystery solved more than anyone.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat and placed the picture of me down, my eyes failing to pull away from the image of my younger self. I sighed and forced myself to consider Finn's logic. It was an image from ages ago, one that had been in a paper that was distributed all over Oregon, and Agatha had a billion paper cuttings. Who knew why certain things took her fancy? It could be explained by a thousand different reasons.
Flipping through the rest of the papers, I had nearly given up hope of finding anything useful, when I came to a folded piece of yellowed parchment at the very bottom of the box. I lifted and carefully opened it, the paper brittle and thin, like an old archival newspaper that hadn’t been properly cared for.
“What’s that?” Tom asked, looking over my shoulder at the delicate paper. I shrugged as I opened it as carefully as I could, the corners crumbling in my fingers. I very, very slowly unfolded the paper.
“Wow,” I breathed. “The newspaper dates back to 1895.” I pointed toward the date in the far top corner. The image was faded and I lifted up to th
e light and looked closer. The air froze in my lungs. “Oh my God.”
Over my shoulder, I heard the sharp intake of Tom’s breath as he realised what we were looking at. I held the paper out for Finn and Pussy to see, while I screamed for the ghost. “Agatha Bentley, get your ass in her now. It’s important!”
Grumbling, Agatha swept through the wall. “What’s wrong with you, girl?” She gave me a disapproving once over. “I thought my last assistant was shrill, but only dogs can hear you when shriek like that. You’ll wake the dead.”
She smiled smugly at her own joke, but her grin faded when I held the piece of paper in front of her face. “This is you, isn’t it?” I demanded. I knew the answer already. I jabbed at the date on the clipping and glared at the old witch. “This is you in 1895, Agatha.” My lips felt dry enough to crack as I slid my finger down the page and landed on the smiling faces of the two figures standing next to Agatha in the photograph. “And that’s Bianca and Dot.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
My heart was beating so fast I felt like I was going to pass out. Seeing the craziness my life had descended into on the sepia pages of a centuries old newspaper was too much. I gaped at the ghost. “Agatha, this image is dated 1895. How is that possible?”
The old woman opened her mouth but her answer was interrupted by fresh banging at the door. I cursed the journalists under my breath and turned back to Agatha.
Bang, bang, bang.
Tom was the first to jump to his feet as the sound of heaving wood filled the air. A loud voice called though the door, “Priscilla Jones, we have a warrant for your arrest. You need to vacate the property immediately and accompany us to the station.”
I froze, staring up at Agatha, pleading with my eyes. “Agatha. 1895. I need you to remember. What’s going on? How is this possible? It’s 2018.”
Agatha floated before me, open mouthed for a long second, before she gasped and landed on the floor.
Bang, bang, bang. We were running out of time.
Agatha stared at me with eyes like pools of midnight oil. “I remember.”
Bang bang bang. It sounded as if they were trying to break the door down. Tom, Finn, and Pussy looked as though they were going to explode, and my pulse raced as my heart thundered in my chest. I pleaded with her. “Please, Agatha. Tell me.”
“Price,” Tom cut in. He grabbed my shoulder in a tight grip. “We need to leave. If they get in here, they’re gonna take you away.”
I squeezed his hand, but continued pleading with Agatha. “Please, Agatha. Please. I need you to remember. Just remember!”
Agatha’s eyes opened so wide that I could see the whites surrounding her irises. Her voice was a sweet lilting breeze, a child’s song, and I swore I could her hear the cracked playing of a clockwork music box. “Once we were witches, one, two, three. Friends and sisters for all eternity. Don’t betray your sister, you know that isn’t nice.” Her voice lowered to a vicious whisper and I leaned forward to hear her final words. “Don’t betray your sister, or you shall pay the price.”
I fell backward as the witch threw herself at me with her hands as gnarled as claws. I screamed, preparing for her attack, but she passed straight through me and flung herself down the stairs, screaming like a banshee as she hurled herself through the front door at the cops who had almost succeeded in breaking the door from its hinges.
In a heartbeat, Tom had me in his arms like a football and ran us back toward the rear door. We had almost reached the far wall when he turned back into a cat, and I came slamming down on the wooden floorboards, hitting my head hard. I rolled onto my back and groaned. I looked at the massive black cat.
“Shit, I’m so sorry Price,” he swore.
The other two cats skidded into the hall and we gaped down the stairs at the front door as it heaved one last time, the hinges nearly bulging free.
I reached for the cats to turn them back into human form, but they jumped back from me. “No,” Pussy shouted. “You go. We’ll take care of them.”
I was frantic. “Huh? No! What are you guys going to do? You’re three cats and a ghost.”
The three of them huffed up, their fur standing on end. Tom’s voice was a low snarl. “Trust us, we’ve got claws and teeth, we can do some damage. We’ll stall the cops. You go talk to Dot and Bianca. I told you that Bianca bitch was wrapped up in this somehow.”
Before Tom could say another self-satisfied word, the door smashed open and splinters flew everywhere. I gasped and sprinted back through the door, slamming it behind me as I jumped into the car. I went to turn it on and realized I didn’t have the damn keys. I looked down and saw them sitting on the passenger seat next to me with a sticky note with a little heart sketched on it. I looked up to see Pussy watching me through a window. He winked before disappearing in a puff of white and brown fur.
Just as the engine roared into life and I accelerated down the alley, two cops, neither of them Bert, smashed through the back door. In my rearview mirror, I saw the three massive house cats jumped on the cops, slicing him with sharp claws and preventing them from pursuing me. I swerved as I nearly choked on my own breath, my foot firmly on the accelerator. I didn’t pause as I screeched onto the street, revving the engine to speed past the bloodthirsty rabble gathered at the front of the building.
As I flew through the streets of Salem, a wave of emotions flooded through me. Panic, fear, but mostly guilt at having left the cats alone with people capable of hurting them. People armed with guns. What if they were taken by animal control? I nearly slammed on the brakes to turn around and go back to them, but the thought of Tom’s face if I dared to come back without answers was enough to keep my car pointed in the right direction. I had to get the answers we needed. That was the only way forward. Answers, and then I would run back to them and this whole thing would just go away.
At least, that’s what I told myself.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Retracing my steps from earlier, I made my way back to Bianca’s house with break-neck speed. My body shook, and my hands barely gripped the wheel as I tried to focus on traffic, weaving in and out of cars as I sped toward her large Art Deco home.
When I reached the gates, I pulled the car over, hardly bothering to park in line, and bolted up to her front entryway. After banging on her door for at least a few minutes, I figured she wasn’t home, and ran back to the car to made my way to the only other place I thought she could possibly be. Arriving at Dot’s bakery, relief filled me as my eyes fell on the two of them sitting sipping tea at the front seats of the bakery through the storefront window. On silent feet, I slipped inside.
“Price,” Dot’s cheerful voice chirped up at me as I padded toward their table. A flush crept up on her cheeks as she lifted her tea to cover her mouth. “Lovely to see you here, sweetheart. Are you here for some more treats?”
I shook my head and pulled up a chair, sitting between the two. Dot smiled at me warmly. Bianca, on the other hand, wore an expression of pure steel.
“To what do we owe this pleasure?” Bianca asked, and from her tone I knew it was no pleasure at all.
“I know what you are,” I spat. “I know you’re witches.” I folded my arms over my chest and glowered at Bianca. “And I’m pretty certain one of you is a very wicked witch.”
Bianca stood up and with a wave of her hand, everyone in the bakery vanished, the doors slammed shut, the lights dimmed, and the curtains closed. I wanted to clap my hands in delight, it was like a scene straight out of a wizarding movie, but I refused to give Bianca D’Arcy the satisfaction of my awe. I kept my lips pressed together tightly.
Bianca sat down slowly, her movements calculated. She turned her head in my direction in a fluid motion. Exorcist, eat your heart out. “Go on, Priscilla. You have our attention.”
I leaned forward in my chair, feigning a confidence I didn’t feel. “You know, when you told me you’d met Agatha working at the woollen mill, I hadn’t expected it to be in 1895.”
Bianca’s pupils expanded and contracted like a nuclear explosion in her otherwise frozen face and I felt a kick of satisfaction in my gut. Take that, sly bitch. Dot reached for a pie of cake, stuffing it into her mouth with her fingers. I stared at the plump old woman as she avoided my eyes and opened my mouth to ask her something.
“Agatha was a special breed of witch, you could say.” Bianca cut across me before I could address Dot and her steely voice sent a chill up my spine. She reminded me of Cruella Deville, with her over-the-top black fur coat and perfectly coiffed icy hair. “She was powerful, we sensed that the moment we met her. Dorothy and I had been raised in witching families, magic was part of our culture as well as our blood, but Agatha’s mother was a Blank. A child with no magical ability, born into a witching family. She left the family home at a young age, met a man, had Agatha. When she realised what Agatha was…” Bianca’s voice faltered and she frowned at the table for a moment before she spoke again. “Agatha bore the brunt of her mother’s bitterness at being a Blank. The more Agatha’s magical ability flourished, the more her mother made her suffer.”
Dot took over the story. Her voice was strained. “By the time Sissy, Agatha’s aunt, found her, Agatha had developed her own brand of magic, unbound by the rules and traditions those of us who grow up in magical families believe to be sacrosanct. Maybe it was in her nature, or maybe it was a result of her desperate need to find strength deep within herself to survive the terrible things she’d faced, but whatever the reason, by the time we met Agatha when she started working for my father at the mill, she was more powerful than any other witch I’d ever met.”
“And we were drawn to her like moths to a flame, we’re we, Dotty?” Bianca's face softened as she looked at her old friend.
Dot chuckled and patted my hand. “We got into some scrapes in those first few years, I can tell you that much, Price. Damn near broke my parent’s hearts. We went against all tradition and decided we weren’t being sent off to some coven our parents chose, Portland or Newport or Astoria. Salem was a young city back then, with a very small magical population, and the witching council had no intention of granting the city rights to its own coven.”