How to Hang a Witch

by Adriana Mather

  I look at him for the first time since we started talking. “How did the Descendants find out about my dad being in the hospital?”

  “I don’t…Oh, shit.”

  “Shit is right.” I adjust my gaze downward again and walk faster than before. There had been some part of me that still hoped it wasn’t him. I shouldn’t have trusted him.

  “It’s not what you think.”

  “I don’t want to have this conversation.”

  “Sam, you weren’t there. You don’t know what I said.”

  “I don’t care.” I’m better off alone.

  “Well, I do,” he says. “By lunchtime of your first day, I heard the Descendants were going to make your life hell. There were rumors all over about you. I talked to Susannah, told her to get the group to back off, that you were going through some tough things. I had no idea they were going to use it against you.”

  The weight of the day settles behind my eyes and I want to get away from him before I embarrass myself more. I make my way onto the sidewalk near my house. He steps in front of me before I reach my driveway.

  “Move,” I say.

  “No. Not until you say you believe me.”

  “Jaxon, come on.” I make eye contact with him. “You’re a junior with a ton of friends. People like you. I don’t believe for a second that you want to spend all this time with me.” My voice shakes a little. “I just want you to stop making fun of me.”

  “I’m not making fun of you.” He’s so sincere, I’m not sure whether to hit him for being such a good liar or to believe him.

  “You already won. I feel like crap. Job done.”

  “Come over and talk to my mom.”

  I stop. What’s he up to?

  “I’ll make a deal with you. Come talk to my mom, and if you’re not convinced I’m telling the truth, then I’ll leave you alone.” He watches me consider it. “And I’ll do our history paper. You won’t even have to talk to me.”

  I eye him suspiciously. “Fine. But you better not suck at history.”

  I follow him to his house, with its blue shutters and nautical star. The moment he opens the screen door, delicious scents of warm dough and apple-cinnamon fill my nose.

  The house is surprising. Its interior is reminiscent of the inside of a boat, one with high masts, used for adventures. Rustic raw-wood beams stripe the white ceilings. The shelves are made from driftwood, and so is the banister.

  “Mom!” Jaxon yells, and heads down the hallway to the left. He leads me through an arched wooden doorway.

  The kitchen counters are covered with cookies, pies, and every wonderful thing. Models of ships decorate the walls, and glass jars of spices line the windowsills.

  “Samantha!” Mrs. Meriwether beams from behind her mixing bowl. “You’ve finally come to visit.”

  “Hi, Mrs. Meriwether.” I approach the island filled with sweets.

  “My mom owns Sugar Spells Bakery in town,” Jaxon explains. “But she spends most of her time here, making new recipes.”

  So she owns the bakery. I nod, hoping that Vivian didn’t yell at Mrs. Meriwether over those pastries.

  Mrs. Meriwether smiles. “Have anything you like.”

  I choose a heart-shaped tart with fresh raspberries and bite into it. “It’s delicious.”

  “Mom, tell Sam what I told you when I came home after the first day of school,” Jaxon says.

  She tilts her head. “He told me the students were turning on you.”

  “And?”

  She eyes Jaxon curiously. “And that he knew what it was like to have that happen and would try to stop it.”

  “See.”

  I look back and forth between them.

  Mrs. Meriwether puts down her mixing bowl. “Jaxon, leave us a minute.”

  “Mom—”

  “Jaxon.”

  He huffs, but walks out of the room.

  “Take a seat,” she says, and I pull out one of the high-backed chairs at the island. She adds brown sugar to her bowl before continuing. “Did you know I grew up in this house?”

  I shake my head.

  “Your father and I were practically inseparable. We were born one month apart. Did everything together. He was the best at thinking up pranks but a total cheat at running races.” She laughs. “Used to make me look the wrong way and would take off.”

  I try to imagine my dad acting silly with a young Mrs. Meriwether. After everything started going downhill for me socially, my dad lost a lot of his playfulness. He took it hard that he couldn’t change things for me. I sigh. “I always wanted to know about this place, but he wouldn’t talk about it. I didn’t know about you.” I worry I’ve said the wrong thing, but she only looks thoughtful.

  “Yes.” She stirs her bowl. “He divorced this place after your mother died. He was devastated. We all were. But he didn’t let it interfere with being a father. You should have seen the way he wouldn’t put you down as a baby.”

  I look at my hands. “I miss him.” Every day without him feels empty.

  “I know you do.” Her voice is kind. “My heart breaks for you, thinking how you must be suffering. But it won’t help to shut people out. I see Charlie’s stubbornness written all over you. You know, he sprained his ankle one year while we were ice-skating down at the river. Dragged himself home the whole mile and a half. Wouldn’t even let me carry his shoes. Charlotte nearly had a fit.”

  “I’m not trying to shut people out. It’s just, no one really likes me here.”

  “Jaxon does. And if you let him in, you might find something worth knowing under all that bravado.”

  “I don’t have any bravado,” Jaxon says from the hallway. “I’m just naturally awesome.”

  “Jaxon, eavesdropping is a terrible habit,” she says, “made common by swindlers and little old ladies.”

  He appears in the doorway with his confident grin. “Don’t worry. I just came back to see if you were done.”

  “That’s up to Samantha,” she says.

  “Yeah, I think so,” I say. “Can I come back at some point? I’d love to hear some of those stories about my dad.”

  “There’s nothing I’d like more.” She scoops out a mound of batter that smells like eggnog and warm butter.

  Jaxon gestures for me to follow him.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  * * *

  The Friendship

  “How are you not fat?” I ask, gripping the warm cup of hot chocolate with a hint of chili and cinnamon from Mrs. Meriwether’s Sugar Spells Bakery.

  Jaxon pats his flat stomach. “Good genes.”

  We cross the street toward the harbor, and I get my first view of the enormous ship. “Whoa.”

  “You haven’t seen The Friendship yet?” He’s all smiles.

  “Is that what this pirate ship’s called?”

  He laughs. “It’s actually a reconstruction of an East India trading ship, built in 1797.”

  I look at him sideways. “You know the exact date?”

  “My father used to take me down here as a kid. He built boats, and he loved this one in particular.”

  Suddenly his house makes a lot more sense. I sip my hot cocoa.

  “It traveled the globe over a dozen times and returned to Salem after each trip, bringing things from all over the world.” He looks out at the masts with their complex wooden tiers.

  “Really?” I’m charmed by Jaxon’s love for this old boat.

  “Unfortunately, the British took the original in the War of 1812 and sold it for parts.”

  “That’s sad. It’s beautiful.”

  There’s an openness about him when he talks about this ship. “Yeah, I hate when people tear apart beautiful things.”

  My cheeks warm. “So you used to come here with your dad?”

  “Yeah, he’d explain all the parts of a ship and how they worked. That’s why I like to build furniture. I built a lot of things with my dad.”

  The sky has started to turn from orange to pink. “What
was he like?”

  Jaxon smiles. “He always wore suspenders, and he had a deep laugh, one of those ones where your whole body shakes. And he carried this old pipe around with him that drove my mom nuts. She used to say he was stinking up the place. But more than anything, he loved my mother. He had the biggest sweet tooth. He used to sneak into the kitchen late at night and eat the new pastries she made for the shop. She would complain, but secretly she loved it.”

  His love for his father is so relatable that my breath catches in my throat. “He sounds wonderful.”

  He puts his arm around my shoulder and pulls me closer. I tense at his touch. Maybe Mrs. Meriwether was right about Jaxon. I haven’t even really given him a chance. I’m just not used to people being nice to me. The couple of times someone from school sought me out like this, it was to play a trick on me, which didn’t exactly help me in the trusting department. I relax my muscles and lean gently against him, getting a whiff of pine needles.

  “I didn’t have any friends in the City.” We watch the colorful sky reflected in the water, and I wonder about his arm, which hasn’t released me.

  “You always say what you think, don’t you?” He says this like it’s a good thing.

  I shrug. “Vivian says I have no filter. Funny thing is, I think I get it from her. But really, I just don’t see a need to sugarcoat things.”

  “So then I guess you don’t miss New York?”

  “Not exactly. But I miss being able to go to the hospital every day. This is the longest I’ve gone without seeing my dad since he went into a coma. The apartment sold way faster than Vivian thought it would, and we had to move before we could get him transferred to Boston.”

  Jaxon holds me a little tighter, and I don’t resist snuggling into the warmth of his body. My chest rises and falls a little faster against his side. Jaxon looks down at me. “If you don’t mind my asking, what happened?”

  I pause. Jaxon’s the first person to ask me to tell this story. “Four months ago, my dad was cooking breakfast. It was Saturday morning, and before he got sick I had a talent for sleeping till noon. I’d sleep through car alarms, fire trucks, basically anything. But that morning, somewhere in my unconscious brain, Vivian’s panicked voice registered and I shot straight out of bed. I didn’t know it then, but what I was reacting to was her on the phone with nine-one-one.

  “I just remember running into the kitchen and seeing my dad lying on the black tiles. The weirdest thing is, in that exact moment I realized that he had been in the middle of making me my favorite breakfast—chocolate chip banana pancakes. His eyes closed just before I reached him.

  “The doctors said there was a small tear in the lining of his heart. They fixed it with surgery, but he’s been in a coma ever since. They don’t know why.”

  Jaxon shakes his head. “I’m incredibly sorry.”

  “I wake up feeling panicked a lot now. I…I think it might be my fault. My dad’s getting sick, I mean.” I’ve never admitted that to anyone.

  “Sam, it’s definitely not your fault.”

  Suddenly I feel exposed and have a desperate need to hide. I pull away from Jaxon’s side. “You don’t know me that well. People always get hurt around me. I’m like a magnet for disaster.”

  “You can’t blame yourself for—”

  “Let’s just drop it.” I bite my lower lip. “I better get home. I never told Vivian where I was going.”

  “Sure.”

  We walk off the dock and back toward the street. It’s colder without Jaxon’s arm, but I’m not sure I’m comfortable being that close to anyone. Mostly people don’t touch me.

  “Is there anything else to see on the way home?” I ask, hoping to push out my own dark thoughts. “Historical landmarks or anything?”

  “Yeah, they’re everywhere,” he says as we walk. “Down that way a couple of blocks is Old Burying Point, the oldest graveyard in Salem. One of the Mathers is buried there. I’ll take you one day when it’s not dark.”

  “Who’s scared now?” I ask.

  He grins as we walk through a small street lined with beautiful old houses. “And down that way, Judge Corwin lived. A lot of people from Salem went there to discuss witchcraft accusations.”

  His hand grazes mine, and I pull it away before I consider if I want to. “You really do know a lot of history. I’m impressed.”

  “Is that a compliment?”

  “I give them when they’re deserved.”

  “Can you repeat it? I wanna remember it.”

  “No.” I try not to smile, but fail.

  He stops in front of a ginormous mansion with big glass windows and a roof dotted with cupolas. It reminds me of a New England–style castle. The greens are beautifully laid out, and an imposing fence surrounds the property.

  “What is this place?” I ask.

  “It used to be a jail.”

  “Fancy jail.”

  “It held prisoners from the War of 1812,” he explains. “A lot of people died here, most of them hanged. Home to the Boston Strangler.”

  He points past the building to a graveyard. “Howard Street Cemetery.”

  “You guys have cemeteries everywhere.”

  “I guess there are just a lotta dead people in Salem.”

  “That’s not creepy at all,” I say.

  “Giles Corey was pressed to death here.” His voice has a dramatic edge. “It happened in this very alley.”

  “What? Why would anyone do that?”

  “Well, when he was accused of committing witchcraft as a very old dude, he refused to plead guilty or not guilty. Giles was stripped naked, put in a pit, and two heavy boards were laid on his chest with heavier and heavier rocks placed on top.”

  “That’s seriously barbaric. Why didn’t he just plead not guilty?”

  Jaxon shrugs. “All I know is that over two days he was asked to plead three times. And all he said was, ‘More weight!’ At some point people say his tongue came out of his mouth and the sheriff pushed it back in with his cane. Then right before he died, he cursed the sheriff.”

  “That’s one of the most horrible things I’ve ever heard.” I wish I wasn’t visualizing it.

  “Apparently, every sheriff since then has died of a heart attack or contracted some blood disease.”

  “Oh man. So what’s this place used for now?”

  “Eventually the town bought it and turned it into apartments and a restaurant.”

  “Huh. People live in an old jail.” I wonder if I could ever do that.

  “People say that Giles Corey haunts this place and that sometimes you’ll feel a cold hand on your shoulder.” He lifts his eyebrows.

  “I don’t believe in ghosts.”

  “Yeah, me neither. But we might be the only ones.”

  The wind picks up and I cross my arms. At which point, something lightly grazes my shoulder. I jump. Jaxon laughs.

  “That’s not funny.”

  “I thought you didn’t believe in ghosts?”

  “I don’t! Doesn’t mean I don’t jump when people poke me unexpectedly.”

  “Got it. No unexpected pokings.” He smirks. “Only expected ones.”

  “For a moment there, I was almost thinking how mature and knowledgeable you are. Then you act like a total ass.”

  “What was that? I heard everything up to the knowledgeable part.”

  “Unbelievable.” I shake my head, and we turn around the corner as the sun sets behind the old houses and tall trees.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  * * *

  The Right Time to Leave

  The floorboards creak under my feet in the long hallway that leads to the library. A painting of a particularly surly-looking old man with a large dog catches my eye and I stop short. My dad told me about this painting.

  “Tell me again how you met Mom,” I said as I slid under my covers.

  My dad sat on the side of my bed and tucked in the blankets around my feet. “I was fifteen at the time, six years older than you
are now. And I was the most handsome thing you’d ever seen.”

  I giggled. I’d seen pictures of my dad at fifteen, and he was skinny, with hair that stuck off his head in patches like a half-bald porcupine.

  “Your mom was delivering some books to your gram. Your mom’s family owned the local bookshop. And I was walking down the hallway toward her. She stepped to her right to let me pass, but I stepped the same way at the same time. We went back and forth like this five or six times. I admit that in the end I was doing it on purpose just to look at her a little longer.” He winked at me.

  “Your mom demanded that I stop moving altogether, and when I did, she pushed me with both hands into the wall. I knew in that moment that I loved her, with her wild curly hair. Above me, my great-grandfather’s painting scowled down disapprovingly. I couldn’t help but grin at the cranky old man and his basset hound.”

  I sigh and walk into the library, toward the fireplace. There is so much about my family I don’t know. I don’t even really know the story of how my mom died. My dad always said that she died happier than he’d ever seen her because I was in her arms. That for a few short minutes after I was born, we were the perfect family. Then he would shut himself in his office for the rest of the night.

  I pull the hook, flick on the lantern, and push the secret door closed behind me. The bricks and old wooden beams light up. I go to the spiral staircase and take the steps slowly, enjoying the thrill of this hidden place. I wonder if my dad ever knew about this passageway or if it was something my grandmother kept to herself.

  I smile at the little room filled with books and make my way to my grandmother’s desk, strewn with papers that she must have expected to return to. I set down the lantern and situate myself. I open the journal and read.

  I received a letter from Charles today containing pictures of my darling Samantha. I simply cannot bear this wall he constructed between us. He won’t even let me visit New York. I understand why Charles fears this family. He fears the curse, even though his stubbornness prevents him from saying so.

  I am more determined than ever these days to solve this mystery. Mable is a great help and a dear comfort. Although, I’m not sure I haven’t gained a few pounds from her cooking.