How to Hang a Witch

by Adriana Mather

  “If you ever want to talk about it or whatever…I mean, I know you have your stepmom, but I’ve been told that I’m an excellent listener.”

  I look at him. He has an amazing ability to lighten any subject. I wish I could be like that. “Is that a fact?”

  “Fact. And I love that you tried to kick John’s ass, by the way. That guy’s a dick.” He stops on the cobblestone sidewalk in front of the black iron fence and freshly cut grass of my house.

  “I would have messed him up, too, if you hadn’t stopped me.”

  “Obviously.” He heads up my driveway toward my house. “Let’s go check out that library.”

  I consider saying no, but I don’t have a reason besides having had a bad day. Plus, he’s been doing his best to make it easier on me. Jaxon and I drop our bags in the front foyer and head down the hallway to the library. The wooden boards creak lightly under our feet.

  “Let’s lock it,” I say, stepping into the library and flicking the light switch on.

  Jaxon shuts the door and turns the brass latch. Vivian said she wouldn’t be home for a few hours, but I’d rather not chance it. Once she knows, it’ll no longer be my secret.

  My fingers feel around for the hook, and a rush of excitement elbows out my stress. I’m actually glad Jaxon stayed. If he hadn’t, I’d probably be in my room right now with my face buried in a pillow. I pull the hook and the hinge clicks, popping open the dark brown panel to reveal the hidden door. Jaxon pushes the panel all the way open, and we enter the secret hallway.

  There’s a lantern hanging just inside the narrow passage. I pull it down. “Think this thing works?” It’s heavier than I expect.

  Jaxon inspects it in the dim lighting. “It’s an antique for sure, but more like seventy years old than three hundred.”

  I flip the little knob on the metal base and a small flame shoots up, throwing dancing shadows along the old brick. “If this thing is from the nineteen hundreds, I guess we’re not the only ones who’ve discovered this passageway.”

  Jaxon closes the door behind us with the handle on the inside. “Yeah, but for now this place is just ours.”

  Something about the way he says “ours” makes me very aware how long it’s been since I’ve had a friend. “You know, I don’t really talk to my stepmom about my dad. You said before that I had her to talk to. Anyway, I don’t know why I’m telling you this.” I take the first steps of the spiral staircase at the end of the hallway with caution. They were clearly meant for people with tiny feet.

  “ ’Cause of my listening skills,” he says from behind me, and I can almost hear his grin. “So what’s the thing? You guys don’t get along?”

  “Actually, before my dad got sick, we used to. We’re alike in strange ways—bad-tempered, independent, maybe too straightforward. It just got weird when my dad went into the hospital. I stopped talking for a while, and when I did talk again it felt like she was mad at me. I don’t know.”

  I reach the top of the stairs, and Jaxon’s right behind me. It’s everything I imagined a secret room might be. It isn’t big, and it has a cozy feel, like an old dusty bookshop in London. There’s a heavy antique desk covered in papers and books in front of a tiny square window.

  “Okay, this is awesome.” Jaxon runs his hand along the sloped wall. “This must be one of the gables you can see from the street.”

  “Gables?” I pick up a book on top of an old leather trunk, and the thrill of finding this place washes away my feelings about school. It’s like the library; stacks of books line the room.

  “The place where the roof comes to a peak. That’s why the walls are sloped.”

  “How do you know it’s called a gable, though?”

  “One of Salem’s most popular tourist sites is the House of Seven Gables. I’ve been there like ten times between field trips and visiting family.”

  “Oh,” I say. “It looks as if a lot of these books are about the Witch Trials.”

  “Yeah.” Jaxon blows dust off the stack near him. “And your relatives.”

  On the desk rests a faded photograph of a beautiful woman with her hair tied loosely in a bun. She grips a little boy’s hand. I catch my breath. My dad’s smile still looks exactly like that. I run my finger along the gold frame. “This must have been my grandmother’s study. She was stunning. I’ve never seen a picture of her before.”

  Jaxon joins me at the desk and peers at the picture. “Your father?”

  I nod without looking at him and pick up a leather-bound journal. I open it to the satin ribbon marker. The page is filled with beautiful cursive. I read out loud.

  It was a good day of research. I’m delighted by a letter I found in one of Perley’s books. Good and thorough historian, Perley was. The letter was written by Dr. Holyoke on Nov. 25, 1791, and read: “In the last month, there died a man in this town, by the name of John Symonds, aged a hundred years lacking about six months, having been born in the famous ’92. He has told me that his nurse had often told him…she saw, from the chamber windows, those unhappy people hanging on Gallows’ Hill, who were executed for witches by the delusion of the times.”

  Finding Symonds’ house in Salem will once and for all clear up the mystery of the hanging spot. I will look for it first thing in the morning. I must go now, however, my teakettle is whistling.

  I wrinkle my face. “What do you think this means?” I peer at Jaxon, whose cheek is now close to mine. I breathe in his woodsy smell. “Is she saying people don’t know where the witches were hanged?”

  “Sounds like it,” says Jaxon. “I always learned it was at Gallows Hill Park. It’s possible it’s not. I never questioned it.”

  The next page is blank. “This was her last entry.” I flip back to the beginning of the journal. Again, I read out loud.

  I spoke to the mayor today. Nice and all, but a complete imbecile. He has no idea if the hanging spot is correct. And, he freely admits Upham willy-nilly named the current spot in Gallows Hill Park. Then everyone in this town blindly followed. Upham even admits that he has no evidence for naming that place. Ridiculous.

  I’ve asked the mayor to look into it and he politely brushed me off. Disgraceful, if you ask me, that Salem does not know the most historically important spot in its own town. Mable and I will sort this. My biggest hope is that this will bring me closer to getting my Charles and my Samantha back home to me.

  I close the journal, not sure how to process that last line. My grandmother wanted a relationship with me? My dad always said that she was the reclusive eccentric type, which I assumed was a euphemism for grumpy and crazy. I knew they fought, but if she really wanted to see me, she would have, right?

  “My mom’s name is Mable,” Jaxon says.

  “Really?” I pause, looking at my grandmother’s picture on the desk. “What do you think she meant by that last line? I don’t see how the hanging spot’s related to me.” I wonder what his mom knows about this.

  “Yeah, it’s pretty mysterious. I think we found our paper topic for class, though.”

  “The location of the hangings? That’s actually a really good idea. It’ll be like a treasure hunt, trying to find the place.”

  Jaxon’s phone rings and he glances at it. “It’s my mom. I kinda forgot about a dentist appointment today.”

  “Forgot?”

  “Or, maybe wanted to come here more.” He turns his body to face mine.

  I’m suddenly very aware that my grandmother’s journal is between us. “Thanks for being nice to me when no one else is. I can’t promise I won’t screw it up, though.”

  Jaxon smiles. “You’re the strangest girl I’ve ever met.”

  I realize I’m smiling, too. “Well I’m not sure what that means about you, since you want to spend time with me.”

  “It means—” He leans forward a little. His phone rings again, and I take a step backward. Was he going to kiss me? Do I want him to kiss me?

  He looks disappointed. “Gotta go,” he says, looking at his
phone.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  * * *

  Watching and Whispering

  I head straight to the public library, excitement about the secret study fueling my steps. After a useless search online for that house my grandmother wrote about, I figure my only shot at finding it and the hanging location is to look in the old archives.

  The air’s crisp with the smell of autumn, and the first few leaves have started to change color. The streets have that family-friendly feel. Store windows already have pumpkins and witches’ hats in them. I pass an old brick-walled pub called Mather’s Maleficence and trip on a tree root jutting out of the sidewalk. Fantastic—so everyone in this town knows my relatives.

  I stop in front of the library, marked by a handmade wooden sign hanging from a post. It’s a brick and brownstone building with columns supporting the doorway. Apparently, it used to be the home of Captain John Bertram, a successful merchant and shipowner. He had bad luck, and most of his family died off in the mid-1800s, probably in this very building. I read all about it when I was looking up the address.

  I push open one of the heavy wooden doors and make my way to the woman at the front desk. She’s a small, white-haired creature with reading glasses balanced on the end of her nose.

  “I’m looking for some old records of Salem from the seventeen hundreds,” I say quietly.

  She inspects me over her glasses in a way that makes me conscious of my posture. “I haven’t seen you here before.”

  Great. I get to be the new girl in Salem High and in the town. “I just moved here.”

  “You’ll be needing a library card. What’s your full name?”

  “Samantha Mather,” I whisper.

  “What was that, now? Speak up, girl,” she says, and leans a little closer.

  “Samantha Mather,” I say a little louder, more conscious of my own last name than I’ve ever been.

  “Mather, is it?” she replies at full volume. She raises a disapproving eyebrow at me. “Lots of history here. Not all of it good.”

  I nod, and can feel eyes staring at my back. I bet there are at least a couple of people here who know about my locker incident today.

  “Do you know where I could find information about where people lived in the late sixteen and early seventeen hundreds? And maybe a map?” I ask, anxious to leave the onlookers.

  “Upstairs to your left, in the back, small room on your right. Have copies of all the original town documents from around the time of the Witch Trials. Come back when you’re done and we’ll see about that card.”

  “Thanks.” I dart for the stairs without making eye contact with anyone. You can judge me, but I don’t have to look at you while you’re doing it.

  —

  Two hours with a stack of dusty old books at a small wooden table in a cramped room and I’m finally getting some useful information. I found the address for Symonds’s house that Perley referenced in his essay “Where the Salem ‘Witches’ Were Hanged.” But it’s unclear if it exists anymore. It doesn’t line up with the current streets.

  I run my hand along a pile of books about my relatives Cotton Mather and Increase Mather. If my last name is gonna be such an issue here, I want to know why. I mean, they were highly respected members of society. Increase even brought over the charter from England saying that Massachusetts was a province.

  Unfortunately, Cotton was kinda the thorn. He was crazy smart, graduated Harvard at sixteen, and wrote seven languages, including Iroquois, by the time he was twenty-five. Some historians say he was good and honest, but more think he was the main instigator of the Witch Trials. He was so concerned with uprooting “evil” that he was willing to let people hang to do it. I can’t help but think how the tables have turned for the Mathers in Salem.

  A shadow falls on the page I’m reading. I look up to find Lizzie standing just outside the doorway of the reference room. I notice she has two different-colored eyes—one golden brown and one green—that seem more dramatic because of her black hair.

  “So it’s true,” she says, and inspects her black nails with glittery skulls painted on them.

  “ ’Scuse me?” I fold the paper with the information I was collecting and push it into my pocket.

  “They told me you were here.”

  What’s her angle? “They, who?”

  “You can’t hide in a town like this, Mather.”

  I can’t help but think about the witch accusations. And the fact that she’s addressing me by my last name doesn’t escape me. “Are you saying you followed me here?”

  “What I’m saying is that I know where you are.” She lifts her gaze from her nails, and her two-toned eyes assess me.

  Goose bumps sprint down my arms. I’m not even going to pretend I’m not creeped out by this. She clearly doesn’t mean just now. She means always. I try to play it off. “So, what, you spend your free time tracking me? Your life sounds like it sucks.”

  For the briefest of seconds her eyes narrow. “You’ll find that there’re only a few things that matter in Salem and that you’re not one of them. No one cares what happens to you here.”

  Was that a threat? If there is one thing I learned in the City, it’s that I can’t show her this bothers me. “I’m not sure I care if you know where I am. You found me reading a book. Congratulations on your discovery.”

  She actually smiles. “Give it time. You will.”

  That’s it. I’m done with this conversation. I kick the door with my black boot and it slams in her face. By some highly unfortunate coincidence, as the door booms shut the lights turn off. From outside the tiny sliver of a window in the door, which is now my only source of light, she laughs.

  You’ve got to be kidding me. I stand up and bang my knee into one of the wooden chairs. “Ow!”

  I push the chair aside and more slowly make my way to the wall. This cannot be happening right now. I swat the wall with my hands and land on a small switch. Up, down, up, down. Nothing.

  I grab the door handle and pull, but it doesn’t budge. I pull harder. Nothing. I throw my weight back, and with all my might I pull again. Still nothing. Lizzie walks away, leaving me stuck and all alone.

  Did she lock me in somehow? As far as I can tell, there’s no manual lock. She would need a key. How’d she do it? Maybe it’s an old lock and it jammed when I slammed the door? But that still doesn’t explain why the lights went out. I reach for my cell phone, but there’s no signal.

  That only leaves banging and yelling. “Help!”

  What if no one hears me? I’m in an unpopular part of the library. Not so unpopular that Lizzie and her spies couldn’t find me, but still. What’s that girl planning, anyway? I find it hard to believe that this and the locker stunt are unrelated.

  Twenty minutes pass before a scraggly-looking janitor finds me.

  “Please help me get out of here!” I yell. It’s starting to smell really musty, and it’s dark. Plus, I’m not a huge fan of spiders, which I’m sure have taken up permanent residence in this rarely used room. I can almost hear them crawling toward me over the old manuscripts. Above all, I don’t like being trapped.

  He fidgets with a ring of keys but doesn’t seem to have the right one. He puts his hand up as if to say “Hold on” and walks off.

  Another ten minutes pass, and I’m getting jumpy. In fact, I’m sweating pretty badly. I press against the window. Please, someone come back…anyone.

  My face is fogging up the glass when the librarian from downstairs appears in front of me. My heart jumps into my throat. Holy moly, she scared the crap out of me! And she didn’t come alone; there’s a small group of spectators forming behind her.

  “Don’t panic. It only makes it worse!” she yells.

  “I’m not!” I lie.

  “Good. They can feel it, you know,” she warns.

  “Who can feel what?” I ask.

  “The ghosts,” she says loudly.

  Involuntarily, I look over my shoulder. Nothing’s there. Of c
ourse nothing’s there. What’s wrong with this town? I want to yell that I don’t believe in ghosts, that it was probably Lizzie’s fault the door locked. But by this point I’ve already made enough of a spectacle of myself.

  There’s a low buzzing noise. A drill?

  “Stand back!” yells the janitor.

  The door vibrates, and within seconds a small metal bit falls near my feet. The door swings open, almost hitting me. I jump out of the way and crash backward into the table, my feet lifting six inches off the ground. I flail my arms wildly to regain my balance. There are gasps from the crowd.

  “Are you all right?” asks the librarian with a bit of drama in her tone.

  “Yeah. Thanks,” I say to her and the janitor. I must look crazy. With all these eyes on me, I half wish I could stay in the dark room until everyone loses interest. I’m slick with sweat, there are little tendrils of hair stuck to my face, and I just threw myself into a table. Much to my disappointment, the watching and whispering crowd has doubled in size.

  I step into the light and I spot John near one of the back rows of people, leaning against a bookshelf. We make eye contact, and my abused nerves go haywire. I don’t think. I just run.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  * * *

  Something Is Off Here

  “I got a call from the principal today,” says Vivian from the living room doorway.

  I sit cross-legged on the big white couch. Papers and books surround me in disarray.

  I fidget. “Did he tell you about the locker?”

  “Yes.” Judgment’s written in her eyebrows. “I just don’t understand how you could garner that kind of reaction so quickly.”

  I tense. “As though it would make more sense if it happened later on? When people knew me better?”

  “You know I don’t mean it that way. You snap at people unnecessarily. What’s going on with you lately? You don’t tell me anything anymore.”

  I steady myself. She’s right. Before my dad got sick, I would have told her what happened and she would have made some biting comment about the kids who did it. Which of course would make me laugh and make the whole thing easier somehow. Now it feels like I’m always on the defensive. I sigh. “There was something wrong with those pastries this morning. More than fifteen kids went home puking. Everyone blames me. That’s why they wrote PSYCHO on my locker.”