I’m getting the sense not many people were. “Wow, Jaxon. I don’t know what to say.” No wonder Jaxon’s so nice even though the school hates me. He knows what it feels like to have awful rumors spread about his family. “I could kill Lizzie for saying that to you.”
His grin returns. “Don’t let me stand in your way.”
We approach the edge of Salem Common, a large park in the center of town packed with people and lights. Music plays, and the air is thick with the aroma of carnival food. There’s the distinct roar of excited conversation.
Jaxon leads me through the crowd to his mother’s booth. “Hey, Mom. Look who I found on our porch. She was coming to talk to you.”
“Oh, Samantha! What a wonderful surprise. Have a funnel cake.”
I don’t resist as she hands me a plate of delicious fried dough covered with powdered sugar.
“Mom, you just killed my whole strategy.”
She looks from one of us to the other. “Samantha’s no fool. You’ll have to do better than bargaining my funnel cakes, Jaxon.” I laugh. She knows him so well. “Now, my darling girl, what did you want to see me about?”
She reads the hesitation on my face. “Jaxon, make yourself useful and help out in the booth while Samantha and I have a word.”
Jaxon walks toward the booth, and I wipe the powdered sugar from my shirt before I begin. “I know this is a weird question. But I was going through my grandmother’s things and I noticed that she had drawings in her notebooks of a woman with dark wavy hair. Does that mean anything to you?”
Mrs. Meriwether’s cheer fades. “Charlotte had a lot of nightmares, poor thing. Especially near the end. This woman was in most of them. She never saw her face, but she used to call her ‘the crow woman’ because there were always crows with her.”
I stop mid-bite. There was a crow in my dream this morning.
“She thought the woman was somehow connected to the Mather curse. Which I suspect you know all about, since you are reading Charlotte’s journals.” She raises her eyebrows.
She just saved me from my next awkward question. “Do you believe there is a curse?”
Mrs. Meriwether purses her lips. “I don’t know. But Charlotte did. She never figured out what it all meant, though. And Charlotte was very special to me, as I’ve said before. Sometimes you do things because you believe in a person, and not because you believe in everything they do.”
I guess the whole idea of a curse is a bit out there. I’m just glad my grandmother had Mrs. Meriwether. “That makes sense. Thanks.”
“Anytime. Now I imagine you’ll want to enjoy this lovely fair. Jaxon!”
Jaxon doesn’t need to be called twice. He hurries back. “Find out what you needed to know?”
I nod. Jaxon pulls me into the crowd. Could there be a connection between my dream and the crow woman? I want to ask Elijah. I scan the crowd for the Descendants, but no luck. I get a few nasty looks, though.
“Basketball?” Jaxon asks as we approach one of those carnival games where you need to make a basket in a hoop that is one inch wider than the ball itself.
An older woman is walking next to us, holding her husband’s arm. “I just have a bad feeling about it. There have been too many accidents and deaths recently. It’s not natural,” she says. They continue walking and are drowned out by carnival noise.
“Can we find Susannah first?” I ask, feeling even more urgency than I did before.
“Sam, unless there’s some pressing issue, I’m going to insist that you have some fun.”
I need an angle fast if I’m not going to explain myself.
“Archery?” I ask as we approach targets lined up against hay bales.
“Abso-friggin-lutely.”
We stop at one of the stations and wait for the guy with the bows. “There’s one condition,” I say, hoping I don’t regret this. “If I win, you help me find Susannah. If I lose, you choose the next game.”
“Deal.” His grin widens. When it doesn’t disappear after a second, I get uncomfortable.
“What?”
“You have powdered sugar on your face.”
“What! Why didn’t you tell me?”
He grabs my hand before I can wipe it off. “Leave it.”
“Are you nuts? I’m not leaving powdered sugar on my face.”
“I think it’s cute.”
“Well, it’s not.” I’m trying to sound annoyed, but fail.
He leans in and kisses the sugar off of me. My skin turns warm where his lips were.
“Are you trying to distract me so I don’t beat you at archery?” I ask.
He lands a kiss on my lips, and all the sensors in my body go off at once.
“Nothing like young love and arrows,” says the robust man with a full beard holding out our two bows.
We back away from each other, and I’m positive I’m beet red.
He chuckles. “How many arrows would ya like?”
“Three each,” I say.
I pull out my wallet and give him the money. Jaxon opens his mouth to protest as we grab our bows. “My challenge, my treat.”
“Have ya shot a bow before?” the man asks.
“Nope,” says Jaxon, and I shake my head. Good. At least my chances of winning are fair. There was no way I was going to beat him at that basketball game.
“Ya grip the bow here. Straight arm, solid hold. Put yer arrow in at the notch. Then ya pull back the string all the way to yer chin. Don’t pinch the arrow, ’cause it won’t go nowhere ya want it to. Got that?” We nod. He looses one arrow, and it hits a small x on the wall behind the target.
“Thanks,” Jaxon says, and the man steps back.
“You go first,” I say.
Jaxon approaches the short hay barricade and stands in the position the bearded man demonstrated. He lets one arrow go, and it hits the bottom ring of the target. His second hits the same area but slightly to the left. The third lands securely in the small ring around the bull’s-eye. Crapola.
“Looks like I’ll be choosing the next game,” Jaxon says. “I’m thinkin’ pie-eating contest.”
“Shut it.” I step up to the barricade. My first try, I pinch the arrow. And to my intense disappointment, it wobbles to the ground two feet in front of the target. Jaxon chuckles. Thankfully, my second one lands nicely in the middle ring.
“Nervous?” I ask.
“Not even a little.”
I take aim, and my arm shakes. As I release my last arrow, Elijah appears, and it goes right through his body. I scream and stumble backward into Jaxon. He wraps his arms around me, and the instructor takes my bow.
Jaxon squeezes me. “I have to admit that was one of the more dramatic approaches I’ve seen, but considering you just made a bull’s-eye, I can’t say much. In fact, I think I got conned.”
My heart rate slows as I realize that I won and everything is alright. What was that, a joke? Elijah looks too pleased for it to be accidental. Dark friggin’ humor. He’s dead, but come on. I suddenly become very conscious that Jaxon’s arm is around me, and I break contact. I shouldn’t care if Elijah sees that. The thought tugs at me uncomfortably.
Before I can gloat about my win, Susannah, Mary, and Alice walk up.
“Let’s go,” says Alice. I couldn’t be happier to see her.
Jaxon’s smile disappears. “Nice attitude.”
“I don’t have time for small talk.”
I hate to agree, but Alice is right, even though her attitude sucks. I turn toward Jaxon. He’s about to respond, but I put my hand on his chest. “It’s okay. I’ll give you a call later.”
“I don’t get you, Sam. Why are you jumping to Alice’s commands?”
“Because she’s less of an idiot than most people,” Alice says.
“Believe it or not,” I say to Jaxon, “I think that was a compliment.”
Jaxon shakes his head. “What could be so important?”
“I just gotta go.” I walk toward the Descendants.
> He looks disappointed. “You say that a lot.”
Before I can tell him I’m sorry, Mary grabs my arm and pulls me into the crowd. “We gotta move. My parents only agreed to let me out for a few hours.”
“And we lost a damn half hour going to your house looking for you. No one figured you’d come out into public,” Alice continues as we approach the edge of the Common.
“Is everyone really blaming me for that rash?”
Susannah nods. “I told the police it wasn’t your fault, but there are a lot of rumors.” I hope Lizzie didn’t come down on her too hard last night.
Alice pulls out Mary’s keys and unlocks the Jeep. “And the irony of this situation is that people are calling you a witch. I bet Cotton’s rolling in his grave.”
I would laugh, but the whole thing sucks. “Did you guys find anything that might explain what happened?”
“Alice’s house was a wreck. But nothing out of the ordinary. If you ask me, it was a spell,” says Mary. “The way it came and went so fast was eerie.”
“Bull. Who do you know who could make a spell that strong?” Alice demands.
“Well, Lizzie—”
“No.” Alice swerves around a car and my stomach drops.
I don’t like the idea that someone could wave a wand and everyone gets a rash. Feels too unpredictable. Speaking of which, where’s Elijah? “Wait, so Lizzie can or can’t do magic?”
“Well,” Susannah says, “it’s not that she can’t. We’re all a little inclined. But I, personally, think it was the curse that caused it.”
It’s not comforting to know there’s someone out to get you who has an inclination toward magic. “If it was the curse, then why didn’t I get the rash?”
“That’s the part we can’t figure out,” says Mary.
Susannah pinches her bottom lip between her fingers. “We will, though.”
I know I’m lucky they’re talking to me at all, but something about this Lizzie thing gnaws at me. “Why aren’t Lizzie and John with you guys?”
“Because Lizzie—” Mary starts.
“Hates you,” Alice cuts her off.
Susannah turns toward me in the backseat. “Lizzie thinks you’re responsible for certain things that have been going wrong in Salem. She links them to your arrival.”
“And she’s dating John, so there’s that,” Mary chimes in.
Well, Lizzie’s not wrong, exactly. And I’m not surprised they’re dating. I could have figured that out myself if I wasn’t so preoccupied with the curse and my dad. “That’s why she’s been following me?”
“Enough,” Alice says, and Susannah breaks eye contact.
“Did something happen I don’t know about?”
Alice jerks us to a halt in the Walgreens parking lot. “That rash wasn’t enough for you?”
Seeing the dark trees, and remembering that dream I had, makes me sick. “You know what I meant,” I say.
Mary hands me a hooded cape and I put it on.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
* * *
The Markings of Witchcraft
Alice takes the first step onto the slope and we follow. The silence between us is thick with secrets. I try to forget my surroundings, but as we lose the light of the parking lot to the overgrown forest, my anxiety tries to crush me.
My cape catches on a branch and I jolt to a stop. The other girls keep moving. I yank at the cape, but it’s stuck. Everything looks the same in the dark—faint, crooked shadows, black on black.
“Wait!” I yell to the girls, and my voice cracks.
The wind howls in the trees, and it sounds eerily similar to the woman’s wail I heard in that awful house. I pull at the branch my cape is attached to with force, and the rough bark scratches my palm.
“I am here, Samantha,” says Elijah.
I suck in air and put my hand on my forehead to steady myself. My shaky legs become steadier as Elijah untangles my cape from the branch. I grab his hand tightly, probably too tightly. He doesn’t say anything, but curls his cold fingers around my own. When we catch up with the girls, they start walking again.
We come to the little clearing, and Mary pulls out the blanket. I’m impressed that Alice found this place a second time. I’m not sure I could do the same. The girls unpack the herbs.
“This bears all the markings of witchcraft,” Elijah says, releasing my hand. I almost respond before I catch myself.
Susannah lights the candles, and I scan the trees for a noose. I wish I could delete that dream from my memory. In the candlelight, Mary looks as nervous as I feel, Susannah seems only slightly on edge, and Alice doesn’t seem bothered at all. I don’t get that girl.
Susannah starts the words of the…chant? Expectation hangs heavily like a cloud before a downpour.
“I call upon the power of fire,” I say clearly when it’s my turn. Elijah raises an eyebrow.
“That it may light my way and impassion my spirit. Only through purification may I see clearly,” they all continue.
We light the bundles of herbs and drop them into the wooden bowl.
“I mean what I say, and I say what I intend. Know my desire and give me clarity,” they say slowly, so that I can follow along. The strong scent of the burning herbs fills the air between us.
We join hands, and my muscles tense. For a moment, there’s nothing. Then, as before, their faces flicker—slowly and faintly at first, then building to a rapid blur. There’s a strange, ethereal layer to each of the girls, as though other people share the same physical space with them. The flickering faces are the same older women as before, and there’s something desperately sad about them.
The older woman now occupying Mary’s face looks around her and settles her gaze on me. She says, “These trees were locust once. This growth is new.”
“The water used to come right up to this hill,” says the old woman sharing Susannah’s body, also turning toward me. “It was called Bickford’s Pond. It is how Benjamin Nurse came to retrieve his dead mother.”
“From the crevasse where they threw our bodies,” says the older Alice with a toughness that reminds me of her young counterpart. My eyes follow her pointing finger to barely visible rocks that steeply drop off.
My skin goes cold, and sweat forms on my palms. What is this?
“July nineteenth, sixteen ninety-two. I was in the first group to hang,” continues the old Susannah.
I’m not seeing this. Am I? These women…I don’t know how to process this. My heart punches me inwardly. I try to stand, to end the vision or whatever it is, but my body won’t move. I can’t even lift a finger.
“The first time I walked into that court”—the old Susannah says “court” with severe distaste—“the young girls started having fits. One even threw her glove at me.”
Are the Descendants using a spell on me?
The old Susannah’s wrinkled face frowns. “I laughed at them. I knew immediately by the astonishment of the magistrate that I had deeply misjudged the situation. ‘Do you laugh at this?’ he asked. ‘Well I may at such folly’ is what I told him. But the magistrate was serious. ‘Is this folly? The hurt of persons?’ he asked. I declared that ‘I never hurt man, woman, or child.’ I even recited passages from the Bible to prove my faith. But they only claimed that the Devil’s servants could imitate the innocent.” She sighs.
“The worst part was that jail,” says the old Mary, shivering at the memory.
“No,” says the old Alice. “The worst was that we were denied counsel and sentenced to death because children said they had visions of us hurting them. When that girl had a fit in the courtroom and accused me of being the cause of it, I told her plainly—”
The older women’s faces flicker. Mary gasps and wheezes, breaking the circle. The hold on my body shatters like ice hitting concrete and my hands fly to my chest, pulling at my clothes to get more air.
“It felt like the life was being sucked out of me,” Mary says between pants.
“We were
getting somewhere,” says Susannah, leaning forward with both hands on the ground in front of her.
“We should try to continue,” says Alice.
Mary shakes her head. “No way. That was terrifying! And for what? For stories we already know?”
They know these stories?
“We didn’t know about the trees or the water,” Susannah says between staggered breaths.
Elijah kneels beside me. “You appeared as Cotton Mather.”
My head snaps up. “Cotton!”
Alice doesn’t miss a beat. “How’d you know your face looked male?”
“I didn’t. It was a guess.”
“Bull. You were the only one who didn’t speak.”
Mary, gaining control over her breathing, pulls her knees into her chest. “Let’s discuss this in the car.”
“I’m not leaving until Sam tells us the truth.”
It suddenly occurs to me that they must have known last time that my face blurred with Cotton’s. And they said nothing. What game are these girls playing? “You know what? I’m done answering your questions. You knew I looked like Cotton last time we were here.”
Alice regains control of her breathing. “Well, now you know, too.”
The confirmation that they hid it from me really bothers me. I look at Susannah. “And you wanted me to trust you?”
Alice looks at Susannah, too. “You talked to her without us?” Alice asks. “So Lizzie was right. You were disloyal.”
Okay, now I’m lost.
Susannah folds her small hands in her lap. “I told you I think it’s a bad idea not to tell Samantha everything we know. You think we’re being careful, but what we’re doing is shutting out the one person who could help us.”
“Or hurt us,” says Alice.
“I’m sure we can solve this in the Jeep,” Mary says.
Alice and Susannah turn to her. “No!” they say in unison.
I can’t help but feel bad for Mary. Elijah’s being here is the only reason I’m not running out of these woods. And even with him here, I catch myself peering into the blackness suspiciously.
“I think you’re making a mistake about Samantha, and people could die because of it. My sister could die because of it,” Susannah says.
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