Dark Shadows 2: The Salem Branch

by Lara Parker

  He felt the sway of the trees beside his window, and branches heavy with withered leaves beat against the glass. A pale moon glinted on warped rooftops, the leaning chimneys, and sagging gutters. Thin clapboard with no insulation allowed the chill to creep into the room. He was disappointed in his lodgings but excited to be in Salem. He anticipated reliving the story of the Puritans—the hardships and deprivation, and the stalwart faith that had sustained them—still in the spirit of the place. As he looked out on the dark roofs, he hoped the greed of tourism had not sucked away all the fascinating history.

  He wondered whether he had journeyed to Salem as a child and he thought he surely must have, with his father in the business of building ships—his cover for being a slave trader—and the port of Salem so accessible. From his window he could see the lights of the harbor and he strained to hear the ships’ sounds: the cries and commands, the snap of sails, hulls groaning against the docks. Pondering once again the branch of the Collins family in Danvers, which had been Salem Village, he imagined an earlier century when the town was chartered: the crash of falling trees, the sweat of sawing and shaping, the meetinghouse raised for worship with its black-robed parishioners, so devout and inflexible, the struggles with the Indians. Were their ghosts still here?

  At last dullness came over him, and then a great weariness, and he lay down beside David and fell into a deep sleep.

  TEN

  SATURDAY, HALLOWEEN, DAWNED BRIGHT and windy. Barnabas and David decided to walk to the Witch Museum, several blocks away. The streets were teeming with people in costume: witches and vampires, of course, with the odd mummy or Frankenstein thrown in. There were modern-day monsters as well, zombies, ghouls, and skeletons with shredded flesh and dangling eyeballs. It seemed that blood was the theme of the day. A pretty Juliet had a knife in her chest and blood dripping down her bodice. The headless horseman approached sporting a neck complete with extended arteries spraying crimson liquid. A Roman soldier brandished a sword, and his mangled arm was cut off at the elbow. Salome had the blinking, breathing head of John the Baptist on a silver tray. It was all so silly, and so delighted David that Barnabas experienced a dizzying sense of euphoria.

  Just as they were approaching the museum, they saw an old woman coming towards them. She was a true hag of the town, with her hooked nose, her wrinkled skin, her protruding skull, and a dangling cigarette in her slack mouth. The hood of a cheap black ski jacket covered wispy white hair and she hunched over a shopping cart filled with junk; she moved with effort, dragging her feet. Barnabas had often noticed how a subtle combination of features seemed indigenous to a certain part of the country. This old woman so favored the paintings and woodcuts of Salem’s witches, she could have been their model. Was she born to the breed? Or the last of the line? he wondered. Where else but in Salem would such a hook-nosed, beady-eyed hunchback be found? Then something happened that Barnabas found odd. She looked up at him as they passed, and caught his eye with a cold, accusing glare. An icy stab found his bones.

  Eager to see the presentation, Barnabas and David squeezed behind a tour group into the Witch Museum. The crowd gathered into a cavernous room and stared in a dim-witted stupor at the vivid dioramas on the four walls, which were enhanced by a blaring recording that told the story of the famous Witch Trials. In the Puritan kitchen, awkward mannequins of bored young girls were hard at work: weaving, candle-making, and sanding the floor. The children stole away to the forest, cast spells in an iron pot, and danced in the moonlight. In the courtroom, misshapen dummies representing the afflicted girls babbled in tongues and crawled about on the floor like dogs. Spectral evidence was dramatized by projected shapes of ghosts flying about the room. David watched mesmerized, but Barnabas was disappointed in the trite dramatization, and soon became restless, shifting his weight on the bench as he looked out over the crowd, searching, inadvertently, for a golden-haired head.

  The pentagram in the center of the floor came to life and glowed crimson as the mock trial began. Black-robed judges intoned the accusations, and dummies of women with arms outstretched, their hair flying and their eyes wild with terror, pleaded their innocence from a tinny loudspeaker. In one of the scenes a robust settler refused to testify for fear of losing his property and he was crushed to death under an enormous pile of rocks. “More weight!” he shrieked, and the crowd laughed. In the last image they witnessed the piece de resistance, the hanging scene. Limp and broken-necked bodies swayed against a blood red sky, their little shoes peeking from beneath their black skirts, their recorded moans pitched over the music.

  The rising heat within his body drove Barnabas to the exit. Breathing heavily, he wandered into the gift shop, and, stifling a desire to vomit, he tried to focus on the objects for sale: sacks of fresh herbs and incense, magic potions designed To make your love grow stronger or To cure a broken heart. He took up a packet and read on the cover. Powder to chase away Vampires—of the spirit, of course. To rid you of those cruel persons who suck you dry of your dreams. He held the envelope containing the herbs between his fingers, and stared at the crude drawing of a grotesque man with canine incisors.

  A flyer caught his eye: Visits from the Afterlife. Hauntings, spirits, and reunions with departed loved ones. Identify and enhance your own psychic abilities, speak to those who have crossed over. It was an advertisement for a seance from something called the Witch Education Bureau.

  Grimacing with disgust, he moved into another room empty of tourists where he was astonished to find three glass cases that held life-sized wax figures of witches. Supposedly displayed in their natural surroundings, they were so realistic he thought they might speak. The first, a black-robed crone, clung to her broom and rode the wintry sky with the moon and her cat; she could have been the old hag he had seen on the street that morning. The warted nose and pointed hat might easily have belonged to that humpbacked creature who had glared at him with such temerity. This wax personage stared at him with perfect contempt as well. How alive she seemed. Turning away, he walked slowly to the second case. In the forest with the Devil, who was unmistakable with his raven cape and blood red eyes, stood the vixen witch as he knew her, capricious and venomous, caster of spells. Her golden mane and flushed cheek only enhanced her knowing countenance. She greeted him with a look of cool disdain, and the stark trees towered over her as she displayed the book where she had signed away her soul. That is she, he thought with rancor, my tormentor.

  But the third witch caught him by surprise. Radiant within an autumn woodland, a Mother Goddess gazed down at him. Wavy, copper-colored hair hung softly below her shoulders, and her dress was a weaving of grasses and wildflowers. The trees behind her glimmered with scarlet and gold, and the ground at her feet was strewn with herbs and sparkling dust. Her eyes were of the softest blue, and so kind he thought she poured out her soul in love only for him. WICCA the sign read, FIRST, DO NO HARM. Barnabas was transfixed. The resemblance was there; it was not her portrait, but in many subtle ways he thought she favored Angelique. As he stood entranced by the figure, he heard a sound behind him, a whispering and fluttering, and the hair stood up on the back of his neck. He turned to find the space as empty as before.

  THE OLD BURYING GROUND was a tiny plot in a rise off the street and surrounded by tacky shops and museums. A loudspeaker blared haunting music mixed with absurd sound effects of shrieking wind and howling wolves. An iron gate swung on rusted hinges. But once within the low stone wall, nothing could diminish the quiet power of the place. Fall foliage shrouded the little graveyard with clouds of amber and rust, as though the trees were flowering with fire, and a carpet of leaves littered the ground. An old oak tree as large as a ship towered over the oldest graves, its gnarled arms reaching out as if to shelter them, its chocolate leaves clattering in the wind.

  “That would make a good hanging tree,” David said.

  Barnabas agreed. The spot was haunted. “But alas, no witches were hanged here,” said Barnabas. “Their place of execution was Gal
lows Hill, and I read it’s now a housing tract outside of Salem.”

  “But some of their graves must be here.”

  “Unfortunately, not even that. There are no ghosts of witches scurrying around our feet, you may be sure. This was a churchyard, and no witch could be buried in hallowed ground.”

  “Where were they buried?”

  “They were cast into shallow graves, I’m afraid, near where they were hanged. Sometimes human limbs were exposed by heavy rains.”

  “Ugh, that’s awful,” said David. “And they were all innocent, weren’t they?” He looked at Barnabas, his hazel eyes flecked with gold.

  “That’s what they say. But I have always wondered, what if the elders were right?”

  “What do you mean, right?”

  “That there were real witches.”

  “No way.”

  “Do you believe in reincarnation?”

  “Maybe I used to be a tiger or something.”

  “Do you believe there is a God?”

  “Sure. But not a Devil.”

  “But you are in Salem, David. This is where the Devil resides.” David merely snickered. “Wait a minute,” Barnabas continued. “Have you considered the possibility that the Devil was alive and well in 1692, and the magistrates were wise in conducting a witch hunt in an effort to wipe him out?”

  “Oh, come on Barnabas. That’s stupid.”

  “But you remember it was a new country, tempting for a deceiving Old Soul. And the forest full of wild beasts and Indians lay just outside the town. It was a terrifying place.” David’s eyes glazed over and he wandered off to read tombstones.

  “Seventeen twenty-one,” he shouted. “Sixteen seventy-three! Look! Here’s a little baby, six months old, with a tiny plaque.”

  David ran from tombstone to tombstone reading off the dates. Then Barnabas noticed a young woman who stood at the other side of the cemetery looking down at one of the inscriptions. She was tall and wore what at first seemed to be a costume, a cape of sky blue velvet which fell over her shoulders and a hood hiding all but a wayward lock of her golden hair. As he watched her, he thought she could have been from another century, with her straight back and slender form. She seemed to be at home in the Old Burying Ground, a breathing statue marking the grave of some poor girl who had met an untimely demise.

  Then he heard David’s voice from behind.

  “Barnabas, look. There’s Toni.” His blood rushed to his face. David seemed equally surprised at her appearance. But they both hesitated to approach her, and stood apart among the tombstones, checked by her mood, for she seemed wrapped in a veil of sadness. Like some penitent, she bowed her head, and her shoulders quivered as though she were weeping. She looked up, and straight at Barnabas, and his breath stopped in his chest. He thought he caught a Bicker in her eye. Then she turned and walked through the gate of the cemetery and climbed into her car.

  Barnabas moved over to the grave where she had been standing. It was a small stone, worn to the softness of snow. It had fallen to one side and the inscription was barely legible, but he was able to make out: INFANT OF MIRANDA DU VAL.—BORN OCTOBER 29—DIED OCTOBER 31, 1692.

  Now that he had seen her, Barnabas felt certain he would find her again. The rest of the day he searched for her, and every venue was imbued with her presence. Once he thought he had tracked her down. He had convinced David that the Moby Duck Tourmobile which plunged into Salem Harbor could wait, and they had resisted the Pirate Museum with its rubber-masked employees dressed as Frankenstein and Dracula. However on the same street, alongside its tawdry entrance, Barnabas noticed a carved oak doorway bearing a copper plate on which was engraved in small letters WITCH EDUCATION BUREAU. A slip of paper fluttered from a tack and read: Circle, midnight tonight. Barnabas hesitated, then, unable to resist, pushed open the door and peered inside. He saw curtained walls and a polished floor, but the room was empty.

  Exhausted now, he and David drove to the site of Gallows Hill, almost hidden in a tasteless subdivision, where, out of a sense of respect, they forced themselves to read the names of those who had been hanged as witches. The final words of the accused were embossed on a weathered plaque.

  “Rebecca Nurse. Hanged March 23, 1692. ‘I am innocent as the newborn babe.’

  George Jacobs Jr. Hanged May 10, 1692. ‘Well, burn me or hang me. I stand in the truth and say I know nothing of these lies.’

  Miranda du Val. Hanged October 31, 1692. ‘If you take away my life, God will give you blood to drink.’”

  Barnabas stopped and stared long and hard at those words. God will give you blood to drink. A cold shudder ran down his spine. Who was this Miranda du Val and what sort of innocent victim had she been? What a vivid and remarkable thing for her to say. God will give you blood to drink. Of course, it was a curse! From the gallows, in her last breath, she had cursed those who hanged her.

  Barnabas had almost given up on seeing Antoinette again when at last he thought he caught a glimpse of her walking up the steps to the library of the Peabody Essex Museum. If it were she, it would be a perfect spot for a meeting, far away from the crowds. Without allowing himself a moment to lose his nerve, he sent the boy off to view a film on Salem’s seafaring history, and he dashed across the square.

  He opened the door to a large hall, but she was not there, and he climbed the divided staircase to an upper gallery lined with books. Long cherry tables reflected the globes of four brass chandeliers, and white Corinthian columns with gilded leaves encircled the reading area. The room was empty of all but a handful of readers.

  Pretending to peruse a section on family genealogies, he took down several books and read the names: Phelps, Pickering, Rice, Reed, Randolph, and Sacketts, scanning their dates of landing in New England and the property they acquired. Some were merchants, or craftsmen; others were farmers. It was difficult to concentrate, and he walked back to the balcony and checked the entrance again, wondering where Antoinette, or the woman who resembled her, could have gone, before he returned to the books.

  Marriages and children were listed, and times of death. He read a bit about John Alden selling powder and shot to the Indians and then lying with their squaws. He found a piece about passing a baby through a Witch’s Tree on Proctor Street to save it from spells. All the time he expected to see her at any moment.

  A small pile of books and notes was strewn on one of the tables and, still seeing no one about, Barnabas wandered over and looked down at an open page. He was astonished to see his own name—Collins. It was a book very much like the one he had been reading, and it was open to his family history. Copious notes were scribbled on a yellow pad and they drew him like a magnet. Her handwriting was cramped but he could make out: Miranda du Val signed the book of Judah Zachery. Trial by water. Stolen farm.

  He leaned in to read further: The Collins family curse began the night Miranda was hanged. Among the judges at the proceedings was Amadeus Collins, patriarch of the line of Collins which stretched back to Salem, actually Danvers, and before that to England. He died of internal hemorrhage—choked on his own blood. Barnabas was so engrossed he never heard her walk up behind him.

  “Excuse me, but those are mine.”

  He jerked back, alarmed to see her standing so close. She smelled of pine trees, and he stared into the eyes he could never forget, pale turquoise with dark rings around the irises. He tried to gather his resolve, but he could not speak, and it was she who broke the silence.

  “You’re Barnabas Collins, aren’t you? What are you doing here?” After a long pause during which he was helpless to answer, she said in a low tone, “Are you following me?” Now he could see her clearly, and examine her mouth, her cheekbones, her brows. It was the face of Angelique.

  “I was, yes.” Could that have been his voice? He covered his mouth and coughed.

  “Oh, and why?” The familiar lilt.

  He steeled himself, and the words felt awkward. “You know perfectly well why.”

  “Oh-h-h,
I see . . .” She smiled now, and in that smile he recognized the vagaries of mood Angelique so often displayed, a taunting cut of the eyes, the mouth slightly open, humor and contempt mingled in a wicked gaze, impudent and challenging. And yet, something was different, something he couldn’t define.

  “Perfectly well? And how would I know that?”

  He was taken off guard. What did she mean? She had merely repeated his words and grinned, and he saw the very human crow’s-feet at her eyes. Her hair was pinned up but tousled, and limp tendrils clung to the sides of her face. Her lipstick was worn away on a chapped bottom lip. He was not prepared for her to be so modern. She wore a sheer blouse through which he could glimpse the shape of her nipples, and at least seven necklaces of colored stones and beads around her neck. Earrings that could only have been made from—were they actually peacock feathers?—peeked at him from behind her hair. He had put the moment off too long, and he blurted out, “I must have a word with you.”

  She shrugged, then smiled again, her eyes dancing. “Well, okay.” She turned to gather her papers. The down on her arms reflected the lamplight. “You want to go have some coffee?”

  “My dear, I have no desire to make this a social engagement.”

  She hesitated, then stopped and looked up at him. Her expression was one of easy amusement. “My goodness, you are in a hurry. I didn’t realize you had been thinking about me in . . . that way. Why didn’t you let me know?”