Salem Falls

by Jodie Picoult

  “Maybe it should,” she said lightly, trying to joke her way out of this. “Maybe we should ask the jury to decide, since you and I don’t seem to be very good at it.”

  “Juries hand down wrong decisions every day.”

  She stared at him. “Are they going to be wrong this time?”

  Jordan didn’t know if she was talking about the verdict for Jack St. Bride or for their own relationship. He lifted her hand and brushed his lips over her knuckles, a promise. “Not if I have anything to say about it.”

  By three o’clock in the morning, Gillian not only had counted 75,000 sheep but she’d moved onto other barnyard animals for diversity. Time passed exceedingly slow, each second melting. But then, she had reason to be anxious. In six hours, court would reconvene, and Jack St. Bride’s attorney would have a chance to unravel all the work that the prosecutor had done.

  She had tossed and turned so much that the covers were knotted. Sighing, she threw back the blanket and let the air cool her skin. At the sound of a footstep in the hall, she froze.

  The light went on, and Gillian curled her hands into fists. The sound of running water, another creak. Very gently, very quietly, she reached down and drew up the quilt, a tight cocoon.

  By the time her father opened her door, Gillian had turned to her side, pretending to be asleep. She felt the floor tremble as he crossed the room, sat on the edge of her bed. His hand fell like a prayer on her temple. “My baby,” he whispered, the pain in his voice rocking her.

  Gillian didn’t move. She kept her breathing steady, even when a tear slid between her father’s hand and her own cheek, as binding as glue.

  Sad to say, the high point of Thomas’s day was getting the mail. It wasn’t even that he ever expected to get anything-well, the occasional solicitation for a credit card and some goddamned Boy Scouting magazine that he’d canceled when he was twelve but that had managed to follow him from address to address like a beleaguered ghost. But when you were fifteen and had to pick a daily peak experience from, oh, eating stale cereal for breakfast, reading assigned novels for next year’s English class, and strolling out to get the mail, this won hands down.

  Jordan McAfee, c/o Thomas McAfee.

  The package was light and bulky and reminded him too much of a dead mouse that had been sent in the mail by the brother of a Mafia client of his father’s who had been convicted. With trepidation, Thomas unsealed one end and shook a small notebook into his hands.

  He frowned at it. A black-and-white composition book was no big deal. But this one was wrapped like a birthday gift in a glittery silver ribbon. On its front were the words Book of Shadows. Thomas untied the bow and let the notebook fall open. How to Bring Money to You. Love Spell #35. The entries were arranged like the insides of a cookbook-ingredients, followed by directions. They were lettered by hand, but the writing varied, as if many different contributors had worked on it. In the margins were small notes and funny faces, like the ones he made in his history binder when he was bored.

  A longer entry: Imbolc, 1999. This one looked like a play written for four actors, with lines for each player. But the things they were saying, doing . . . it was like nothing he’d ever seen before. Brows drawing together, Thomas began to read.

  “So you understand how important your answers are,” Jordan murmured, nervously regarding the woman at his side. With her wild silver hair and rope sandals, her silver bangles and swinging earrings, she seemed a little offbeat-more the kind of person you’d expect to find beside you at a Grateful Dead concert than telling you truths from the witness stand.

  “Completely, Mr. McAfee,” Starshine said. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small blue bag tied with purple thread. “Would you give this to your client?”

  “Jack? What is it?”

  “A charm, of sorts. Just some bay laurel, High-John-the-Conqueror root, St.-John’s-wort, and vervain. Oh, a little pine nut, tobacco, and mustard seed too, just in case. And of course, a picture of an open eye.”

  “Of course,” Jordan repeated faintly.

  “So that justice will look favorably on him.”

  What to say to that? Jordan slipped the little bag into his breast pocket like a handkerchief, and Starshine ascended to the witness stand.

  Immediately, she had the jury’s attention. Starshine slipped her hand free of the long cowl of her sleeve and touched it to the Bible. “I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God.” She smiled. “And Goddess.” Then she turned to the judge. “May I have just a moment?”

  Judge Justice seemed beyond the power of speech. She waved the witness on.

  Starshine reached into a hemp bag she’d carried up to the stand and withdrew a thermos, a green candle, a cup, a packet of sugar, and a spice bottle marked SAFFRON.

  “Here we go again,” Matt Houlihan muttered. Then, louder, “Objection, Your Honor.”

  “Sustained,” the judge said. “Ma’am, I have to ask you what you’re doing.”

  But the woman was swaying slightly, her arms splayed and her eyes shut. “Just raising energy, Your Honor,” Starshine said. “I’m doing a safespace spell.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “May I turn the chair? I need to be facing south.”

  At the defense table, Jordan buried his face in his hands.

  The judge deferred to the prosecutor, who let a smile creep across his face. “Oh, by all means,” Matt said. “If we need a safe-space spell, we need a safe-space spell.”

  Starshine lit the candle, then poured some of the liquid from the thermos into its attached cup. “It’s just milk,” she said, then added the two packets. “Mixed with a little saffron and sugar.” She lifted the cup to her mouth and inhaled deeply, her eyes drifting shut as she imagined a woman in black, a woman in red, and a woman in white all walking toward her. “I have been with you from the beginning,” she said, and drank.

  A calm settled over the courtroom. Even the people in the gallery could feel it, small susurrations of surprise swept through the rows. Starshine earthed the power in her mind, bound the spell, and released the circle. “I think that takes care of it.”

  Judge Justice turned to Jordan. “Have fun, Mr. McAfee,” she said.

  Jordan rose, shaking his head. On the one hand, having Starshine be a crackpot worked nicely with his defense, because Gillian was playing at Wicca, too. On the other hand, if the woman was too much of a nut, the jury would never believe anything she said. “Do you know Gillian Duncan?” he began.

  “Yes, I do. She comes into my shop quite often.” Starshine turned to the jury, suddenly a saleswoman. “I run the Wiccan Read, an occult bookstore in Windham.”

  “An occult bookstore? What’s that?”

  “We sell books and charms and herbs for people who follow earth-based religions.”

  “When did Ms. Duncan last come into your shop?”

  “On April twenty-fifth.”

  “What was she looking for?” Jordan asked.

  “Objection,” Matt called out. “Hearsay.”

  “Judge, this goes toward impeaching her credibility on what happened that night,” Jordan argued.

  “Overruled, Mr. Houlihan. I definitely want to hear this one.”

  Starshine continued. “She wanted to ask me about witch’s flying ointment.”

  “Maybe we ought to back up for a moment,” Jordan said, feigning confusion. “Witches?”

  “Yes. That’s just what followers of the Wiccan religion are called.”

  “Can you tell us what Wiccans believe?”

  “It’s very simple, actually. First, do no harm, but follow your will. Second, that any witch is capable of raising energy, casting spells, performing magick, and communicating directly with the Goddess.”

  “Objection, Your Honor,” Matt said. “This is a rape trial, not an episode of Bewitched.”

  Jordan turned. “If I could just have a minute, Judge. I’m laying a little groundwork.”

>   The judge overruled the prosecutor. “Are there many witches?” Jordan asked.

  “Three to five million worldwide, but not too many come right out and tell you.” She glanced at the judge. “Why, this lady herself could still be in the proverbial broom closet.”

  “Don’t count on it,” the judge said dryly.

  “Old habits die hard, and discrimination is very real, although all witches really do is honor women and respect the environment. It’s not unlikely for a witch to be blamed for things that go wrong in a town, or to be singled out as a Satanist.” She smiled. “Why, in Salem Falls, you only have to look as far as the statue of Giles Corey on the green to remember the hysteria of 1692.”

  “You said Ms. Duncan was asking about flying ointment. What’s that?”

  “Back in medieval times, witches used astral projection ointment to produce psychedelic effects. It contained elements like hashish and belladonna, which created the psychic tripping, if you will. Needless to say, we don’t use it nowadays. Gillian came into my shop asking if I had a recipe for it.”

  “What did you tell her?”

  “That it was illegal. I suggested she should redirect her energy and celebrate Beltane instead.”

  “Beltane? What’s that?”

  “The last of the three spring fertility festivals, a sabbat that marks the wedding of the God and the Goddess. In a word, Mr. McAfee,” she said, “it’s all about sex.”

  “Is there a traditional way to celebrate Beltane?”

  “Witches hang offerings of food and herbs to the God and Goddess in the branches of a tree. There’s often a bonfire to leap over and toss away your inhibitions.”

  “A bonfire?” Jordan repeated.

  “Yes. And a maypole, and often there’s handfasting, too-”

  “Handfasting?”

  “A trial marriage. You grab your intended’s hand and jump the flames, and you’re tied to each other for a year-a test period, if you will. And of course, after handfasting, there’s always the Great Rite.” She laughed at Jordan’s blank expression. “Making love, Mr. McAfee, right out there in the fields of the earth.”

  “Well,” Jordan said, coloring. “That sounds festive.”

  Starshine winked. “Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it.”

  “Is Beltane celebrated on a certain date?”

  “The same time every year,” Starshine said. “At the stroke of midnight on April thirtieth, as the calendar rolls onto May first.”

  * * *

  It spoke volumes that the first person McAfee had put on the stand did absolutely no harm to Matt’s case. It didn’t matter to him if Gillian Duncan was a Pagan, a Buddhist, or a tribal shaman. Despite the hocus pocus and the candles and the safe space, nothing could take away from the fact that Gillian Duncan had been raped that night.

  “Ms. Starshine,” Matt said. “Do you have any way of knowing, other than by what she told you, that Gillian Duncan is a witch?”

  “I’m not in her coven, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Were you in the clearing behind the cemetery on Beltane?”

  “No. I was celebrating elsewhere.”

  “In fact, you didn’t see Gillian that night, did you?”

  “No.”

  “And you didn’t see Mr. St. Bride that night, either?”

  “I’ve never met the man,” Starshine said.

  “So you have no way of knowing whether the defendant and Ms. Duncan were together on the night of April thirtieth?”

  “No.”

  Matt started to walk back to his seat but then turned. “That safespace spell you did when you got up here . . . is that something other witches would know?”

  “In some form or another, a protection spell is fairly common, yes.”

  “What does it protect you from?”

  “Negative energy,” Starshine said.

  “But if the defendant were to step up there right now and grab you-”

  “Objection!” Jordan cried.

  “-if he were to throw you onto the ground and pin you-”

  “Sustained!”

  “-could a protection spell keep a witch from being raped?”

  “Mr. Houlihan!” The judge rapped the flat of her hand against the bench. “You will stop now!”

  “Withdrawn,” Matt said. “Nothing further.”

  Dr. Roman Chu was dressed like a skateboarder, with his hair on end and a black T-shirt that read SHREDDER. If Jordan hadn’t known him personally, he would have assumed Roman was a kid plucked off the street and paid to play a part. But then the toxicologist was sworn in and began to speak, listing his credentials and his certification by three separate boards, as well as so many forensic testimonies under his belt that the prosecutor stipulated to his expertise. “My job involves demonstrating evidence of drug intake by means of isolating, identifying, and quantifying toxic substances in biological materials,” Chu explained. “Basically, I’m a very expensive bloodhound.”

  “Can a forensic toxicologist tell if a drug is taken in a therapeutic dosage, or as an accidental or intentional overdose?” Jordan asked.

  “Yes. We use modern analytical procedures like chromatography and spectometry to measure drugs, and then we identify the relationships between these drug levels and the clinical response to understand the pharmacological effect.” He smiled at the jury. “We also go to graduate school and learn to use words that are never less than six syllables.”

  He had them laughing, which was one of the reasons that Jordan loved to use Roman as an expert. “Dr. Chu, did you analyze a sample from Gillian Duncan?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “What were your results?”

  “The blood sample I tested showed signs of the substance atropine.”

  At the prosecutor’s table, Matt went very still. The jury leaned forward, riveted by the proof that Gillian had lied.

  “Atropine?” Jordan asked. “What’s that?”

  “A drug used medicinally to relax the muscles of the intestine, to increase heart rate, to reduce secretions during anesthesia, and occasionally for treatment of asthma.”

  “How long does the drug take to kick in?” Jordan asked.

  “It’s a very rapid onset, with peak plasma concentration within an hour, and the effects last between two and six hours.”

  “For you to find atropine in a blood sample, how long ago would the person have to ingest it?”

  “Within twenty-four hours of the specimen being drawn,” the toxicologist said.

  “Was the level of atropine found in Ms. Duncan’s blood consistent with a normal dosage?”

  “The usual therapeutic dose is zero point one to one point two milligrams. Her test showed a blood level of twenty-three nanograms per milliliter at about four hours after she drank it. With a drug half-life of three to four hours, that would correspond to a blood level of forty-six nanograms in the first hour. Working backward with the parameters of Ms. Duncan’s weight, body fat, and approximate time of ingestion, that indicates a dose of ten milligrams of atropine . . . roughly ten to one hundred times the norm.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Ms. Duncan had overdosed,” Chu said.

  “Would that have impaired her functioning?”

  “Oh, yeah. At a dose of just two milligrams, a person would have a rapid heart rate, palpitations, dryness of the mouth, dilated pupils, blurred vision. Up the dose to five milligrams and the person would also be feeling restless, having trouble speaking and swallowing, headaches, hot skin, reduced intestinal peristalsis. If you take ten milligrams of atropine, like Ms. Duncan, you’d feel all that, plus have a rapid, weak pulse; blurred vision; flushed skin; restlessness and excitement; trouble walking and talking; hallucinations; delirium and coma.”

  “Are the effects lasting?”

  “Nope. It’s a short trip,” Chu said, grinning.

  “But hallucinations are likely?”

  “Yeah. In fact, recently in Holland four brands of Ecst
asy were found to contain atropine, for that reason exactly.”

  “Other people, then, have used atropine as a recreational hallucinogenic drug?”

  Chu nodded. “That’s what I hear. In fact, those hallucinations are what usually tip a doctor off to the possibility of atropine poisoning . . . because atropine doesn’t show up on a routine ER tox screen, and blows your short-term memory, which makes it very difficult to get an accurate sense of if or when the drug was taken.”

  “Would you know if the things you hallucinated were real memories or not?”

  Cho shrugged. “You wouldn’t be able to tell. Like all hallucinogens, from LSD to peyote, it creates altered perceptions.”

  “Could someone in the throes of a hallucinogenic drug imagine a physical attack?”

  “Objection,” Matt called out. “This isn’t the witness’s area of expertise.”

  “I’m going to allow it,” the judge said.

  Chu grinned. “Think of all those guys who scratched their skin off after tripping on angel dust, convinced they had bugs crawling all over. If you’re using a psychedelic drug, what you believe to be true becomes true.”

  “One final question,” Jordan said. “Is atropine derived from any particular substance?”

  “It comes from the liquid extract of a plant, which has a long and varied history of being used as a poison, an anesthetic, and to induce a trancelike state. Remember that sleeping draft Juliet drinks in the Shakespeare play? Same stuff.”

  “What’s the name of this plant, Dr. Chu?”

  “Oh,” he said. “That would be Atropa belladonna.”

  Matt called for a fifteen-minute recess and left the courtroom fuming. He stalked upstairs, to the small conference room he’d secured to sequester the victim, on the chance that he needed to recall her after the defense finished its witness list. When he burst through the door, Gillian was bent over a table, doing a crossword puzzle.

  “Don’t you ever lie to me again.”

  She dropped her pencil. “W-what?”

  He braced an arm on either side of her puzzle. “You heard me,” Matt said angrily. “You ‘had nothing to drink that night.’”