by J. D. Barker
Behind her, Ms. Perez smirked and left the room, heading back to the kitchen with the broom, dust pan, and trash can in tow. That woman has no clue who is paying whom, Rachael thought.
The odor filled the air. The same nasty, putrid scent as their lawn. Nausea crept up from her stomach and Rachael ran toward the bathroom, not feeling much like eating dinner.
CHAPTER TWELVE
1692 – The Journal of Clayton Stone
JONAS TAUBER SHUFFLED THROUGH a number of papers before removing his glasses, rising, and approaching the bench. “You are the husband of one Elizabeth Knapp, are you not?”
“I am,” the man in the pulpit replied.
“She is maid to the Willard household?”
“She is.”
“Very well,” Tauber said, pausing for a moment. “Can you tell us how she came to see the doctor of Groton in the month of October, Anno, 1691?”
Ned Knapp wiped the perspiration from his brow, his eyes scanning those in attendance.
“Mr. Knapp?”
“Right,” Knapp said. “She took after a very strange manner, sometimes for days on end. Weeping, laughing, even roaring hideously with violent motions and agitations, crying out in the wee hours of the night, then forgetting all at first light. Our children are frightened still.”
“Rightfully so,” Tauber told him. “But there came more?”
Knapp nodded. “Her torment did not stop; it only grew worse. The doctor was not able to offer the cause; he only advised much rest.”
“Did this help?”
Knapp shook his head and wiped the sweat from his brow. “In November following, she fell ill. A sleep came upon her like no other, not so much as a stir came from her for nearly six days and nights. It worried me so; I soon found myself unable to rest. I stayed at her side, her hand in mine, watching her slip away from me.” A tear welled in his eye and he bowed his head for moment, his eyes avoiding those in the gallery.
Tauber walked back over to him. “What came next, Mr. Knapp?”
“It was when Pastor Willard arrived that a demon took possession of my beloved,” Knapp confessed.
Concerns rushed through the crowd. I myself felt my stomach tighten at the mere mention of such an event.
“A demon?”
He nodded. “On the sixth night, a heat came upon her and a voice grew within her without any movement of her lips. Words came in a voice not her own, words unknown to myself and the others in the room. It was then that her tongue had drawn out of her mouth to an extraordinary length and the demon began manifestly to speak from within her; some words were spoken from her throat while her lips were sealed, others came with her mouth wide open without the use of any of the organs of speech.”
“The demon belched forth most horrid and nefandous blasphemies, exalting himself above The Most High. These words were unknown to my wife; they were clearly the tongue of the devil himself. I dare not repeat them here.”
“And Pastor Willard, he witnessed all of this?”
“He did,” Knapp nodded.
Tauber walked back to his table, no doubt noting the pastor as a future witness. Without turning, he added, “What were the pastor’s thoughts on all this? Did he share them with you?”
Knapp looked down, his hands anxiously kneading at the rim of his hat.
“Mr. Knapp?”
A hush had fallen upon the crowd, one that only allowed the cry of the wind to be heard. It brought with it a chill like no other, a chill deep within the bones of all those now watching Knapp with intense interest.
“The pastor, sir,” Tauber pushed. “What were his thoughts on your wife’s affliction?”
“She had become a child of Hell,” Knapp breathed.
The crowd went silent for a moment, then came to life in a burst of conversation. The magistrate slammed down his gavel. “Silence!”
Knapp wiped his damp eyes and continued. “She cried out in one of her fits that a woman had appeared to her. She claimed to be the cause of her possession and only she could remove such a spell. Then my beloved was taken speechless for some time. She remains such to this day.”
“And her accused, the woman, you know of her?”
Knapp nodded. “I do.”
“This woman, is she among us?”
I watched as his eyes fell upon the blue-eyed girl in the pulpit before turning away in haste. He needn’t have said more.
—Thad McAlister,
Rise of the Witch
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Day 1 – 7:00 p.m.
THAD HIT THE CALL button on his iPhone and pressed it to his ear, cursing under his breath when a busy signal played for the fourth time in the past three hours.
Del chuckled at his side. “The pool boy must still be at the house; I can’t think of any other reason for a woman to have the phone off the hook for that long.”
“We don’t have a pool,” Thad replied, staring at the bottom of his empty glass.
“Mailman, plumber, massage therapist, tai chi instructor—any one of them could be shtuping your wife right now. Probably got the kid locked in the closet while your maid works the video camera for some website she hasn’t told you about.”
“You’re full of encouragement, aren’t you?”
“I’m full of this, too,” he slurred, holding up an empty shot glass. “Are you ready for another?”
They had spent the past few hours celebrating the film deal at the hotel bar, and Thad felt as if he had more alcohol than blood flowing through his system. He probably couldn’t stand and walk a straight line if his life depended on it. Not that it mattered; he was determined to have a good time tonight. He had signed the largest deal of his life and he deserved a good time. If Rachael was too busy to pick up the phone, so be it. He wasn’t about to let anything bring him down. Not now.
“Absolutely,” he slurred. “…another beer, too.”
“Ah, Christ,” Del said. “I need to catch a red-eye home and it’s after seven. Thank God for cabs and my sensible packing habits.”
“You’re going to abandon your number-one client? I’ll remember that at contract renewal time.”
“I’m sure you’ll be fine, Sparky. You’re a big boy,” Del told him. “Just don’t forget to stumble back to the airport tomorrow to catch your own flight. You don’t want to be stuck in the big city. Their way of life might warp those small-town values of yours.”
“I think we’re past setting boundaries. Consider me warped,” Thad said as the bartender set two tall glasses of beer on the bar in front of them followed by two shot glasses, which he promptly filled with tequila.
How many was that now? Thad had lost count. He vaguely remembered something about liquor making you sicker before reaching for it.
Del slid his shot and beer down the bar to Thad. “All yours, buddy. I gotta go. I’ll give you a call early next week once I get all the details on this thing. Meanwhile, you have a good time. Serious congratulations are in order!” Pulling out his wallet, he handed two crisp hundred-dollar bills to the bartender. “Keep them coming until he falls off the stool, then pour them on his head until the cash runs out.”
The man nodded with a grin and shoved the money in his pocket. Thad quickly found he had no problem drinking alone. He downed Del’s shot, shivering as the liquid burned his throat, then took a sip of beer as a chaser. The bartender returned a moment later with a bowl of peanuts. “Dinner is served,” he said. “Our finest imported nuts from the great land of Planters.”
Thad dug into the bowl, scooping a fistful and dropping them into his mouth.
“I heard a rumor floating around that you’re someone famous.”
Thad turned to find a young girl standing at his side. No more than twenty or twenty-one, she had long dark hair that fell over her shoulders and halfway down her back. She wore a white button-down blouse, short black skirt, and heels which easily added four inches to her height. She was smiling at him shyly, her dark blue eyes glistening in the soft light of the bar.
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Did he know her? Something about her…familiar. His mind was awash in alcohol, unable to string together a cohesive thought.
“A pretty girl like you shouldn’t talk to strangers,” Thad said, doing his best to keep from slurring his words.
“Some would say a handsome young man shouldn’t sit alone in a bar unless he wanted to be talked to,” she replied. “Do you mind if I join you?”
Thad hesitated for a moment before nodding at the empty stool beside him.
She looks like—
If she had seen him remove his wedding ring, she didn’t acknowledge it. Instead, she leaned toward him and breathed her name in his ear, her hand casually resting on his thigh.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Day 1 – 8:30 P.M.
RACHAEL HUNG UP THE phone with a frown. She had been trying to reach Thad for hours and his phone kept going to voice mail. She checked online and found out that his flight had touched down on schedule. He always called, particularly this late in the day.
Del.
Fucking Del.
She had never been a fan of her husband’s agent. The overweight prankster disgusted her. While she believed his constant advances were nothing more than crude attempts at humor, his drinking and lack of any moral sense left much to be desired. If the man didn’t do such a good job, she would have asked Thad to fire him years ago.
She debated calling the hotel; she’d leave a message with the front desk. She decided against it, though—he would think she was checking up on him.
That’s exactly what you want to do, right?
All alone in the city, how much do you really trust him?
When he was with Del, there was no telling what he might do.
She wanted to trust him, she did.
There had been one time, only that one time.
Once a cheater.
Rachael shook away the thought and set down the phone.
She wouldn’t.
He would call home. He must have gone straight from the airport to his meeting. The meeting just ran a little longer than planned, that’s all.
He always called.
Except when he didn’t.
Maybe the pregnancy was making her anxious. She had been emotional throughout. Mood swings, hormones…now with the baby’s constant kicking at her abdomen. She had to contend with Ms. Perez, the problems with their lawn, Ashley acting strange…
She was juggling so much.
When was the last time you made love to your husband? the voice taunted. Four months, five months…
A long time.
You’re thirty pounds overweight and haven’t dressed up or touched so much as a mascara wand in nearly two months. Do you honestly think he’s attracted to you?
How long, really?
Rachael didn’t remember.
How long since she had even wanted to?
How long since he had wanted to?
Rachael glanced in the mirror near the front door and ran her hand through her hair, watched it fall limply back against her shoulders.
She could be beautiful.
When you want to be.
She hadn’t felt beautiful in so long.
After the baby she’d bounce back; she had after Ashley. She’d hit the gym as soon as her doctor gave her the green light. She always watched her diet. A couple months, tops.
She’d bounce back. He’d wait.
He didn’t wait the last time. What’s he really doing in New York, Rachael?
A tear welled up in her eye as she pondered being alone, raising two children by herself as her husband trotted the globe promoting his latest book and probably another movie.
Something clicked at her ear and she turned, finding nothing but an empty living room behind her. It was the third time she had heard the sound today, and each time her mind drifted back to the dream which had filled her nights for weeks.
Rachael couldn’t shake the image of the old woman standing in the shadows at the corner of the room, a twisted smirk playing at her lips as she rattled her long, sharp nails against each other with a clickity click.
She didn’t want to be alone—not now, not ever.
Rachael just wanted her husband to come home.
She wanted him to come home and hold her in his arms until all these feelings washed away.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
1692 – The Journal of Clayton Stone
“TELL ME ABOUT THE Book of Red,” Tauber said. “Your collection of signatures, where is this tome now?”
“I know not of this book you speak.”
“It has been said you are collecting souls in exchange for freedom from your torment of late,” he told her. “Subjecting those around you to afflictions until, unable to take anymore, they willingly signed your book.”
“Her familiar bit me!” Mary Walcott shouted from the gallery. “Just now, on my arm!” She jumped and raised her arm. The others gasped at the site of a fresh bite mark, blood dripping to the floor. Elizabeth Hubbard stood and wrapped the wound in a cloth with haste. “I saw it!” she shouted. “For only but a moment. A creature struck and disappeared under the chairs!”
At that, those in attendance came to their feet, most fleeing while a few of the men cautiously searched beneath the seating.
“What do you say to this?” Tauber shouted above the noise.
The magistrate slammed his gavel down. “Quiet!”
“What do you say!”
She only smiled, her fingers unconsciously clicking together.
When finally satisfied that the familiar was gone, the crowd returned to their seats, watching the floor with wary eyes.
“Tell me about this book.”
“There is no book.”
“She lies!” Carol Bender shouted. “Before the eyes of God, she lies!”
Tauber turned. “What knowledge of this have you?”
“I signed her book,” she confessed. “On the lives of my children, she made me sign.”
“I too was made to sign,” Abigail Rawling told them.
Through the confessions, my eyes remained on her. One would believe their words would draw fear, but that is not what I witnessed; instead, I found delight in her as she leaned back in her chair.
“Where is it?”
“I do not know of what you speak.”
“Is the book with your sisters?” Tauber pushed.
Silence.
Tauber pounded the table, then turned to the gallery. “Will anyone among you testify to this book?”
Without hesitation, Mercy Short stood. “I will testify against this witch! I too signed this book.”
“So be it,” Tauber said.
—Thad McAlister,
Rise of the Witch
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Day 1 – 11:48 P.M.
THUNDER CRACKED IN THE distance followed by a web of lightning that reached across Ashley’s room like the gnarled fingers of an old man, scratching at the corners of her walls, long nails inching toward her bed, toward her.
Ashley pulled the sheets over her head and brought her knees up to her chest.
“One one-thousand, two one-thousand, three one-thousand, four—”
Another rumble filled the night and she caught her breath before it had a chance to escape and give away her hiding place; every little girl knew that was how the monsters found you—the slip of your breath always gave you away.
Buster whimpered at her feet and she poked her head out for one brief second. “Quiet,” she instructed before disappearing again under her grandmother’s heavy quilt.
He grumbled and plopped down to the floor, letting out a loud sigh.
“They’re gonna hear you!” she scolded.
Across the room, dozens of stuffed animals stared back at her, their black beady eyes glistening with hunger in the crackling light, their mouths moving in the shadows. Their arms and legs seemed to shuffle ever so slightly, mocking her, inching a little closer. She imagined that they planned their attack
while she slept, each toy dropping the charade of lifelessness the moment she drifted off, stretching their tiny limbs, taking their places among the army of plastic and fur to await instruction.
“Buster, you’ll protect me, right?” she asked.
The dog raised a floppy ear and grunted, then closed his eyes again, content to sit this battle out at the side of her bed.
The dolls sat in silent patience.
Outside, the storm grew. The wind howled in defiance as viscous clouds suffocated the moon, taking the night as their own. When the rain began to fall, drops pelted the window, millions of tiny spears and rocks thrown by unseen hands at the glass.
Would it hold?
Ashley couldn’t be sure.
She watched, glancing away only long enough to revisit the army of stuffed animals. They wanted the window to break. They wanted the rain and wind to get into the room so they could make their move under the cover of the storm. They didn’t fool her, none of them. She had caught on to them about a week ago.
She had thought Elmo was clumsy, the way he always fell from the shelf on which he sat with the others. After all, each morning he’d be lying on the ground while the rest of her toys remained still. When a tiny hand reached out from behind Winnie the Pooh and pushed, she gasped. She witnessed Elmo tumble to the floor, the little hand then disappearing back behind the other toys. Buster had seen it too and padded over to investigate, his tail slapping against his hind legs, his nose in detective mode. After about a minute, he gave up and returned to his favorite spot beside her bed, his eyes fixed on the toys until sleep overcame him.
The entire event had happened so fast and with so little noise that Ashley wasn’t sure she had witnessed anything at all. She couldn’t tell her mommy or her daddy; they wouldn’t believe her. There was only Zeke—with intent, he had listened to every word, nodding on occasion, offering his support. In the end, he had agreed there was a problem and volunteered to guard the animals while she slept or was out of the room until they determined the cause of the uprising.
Tonight, Zeke was missing.
Sometimes he liked to hide, but tonight Ashley felt certain he wasn’t in the room. She didn’t think he was even in the house. She quietly called his name and there was no reply. He had good ears; he usually responded regardless of where he hid. If close, he would surely have come to her, wouldn’t he?