by J. D. Barker
With her free hand, she pulled off the blanket and dropped it on the floor, exposing herself in the dim light of the cabin. She then ran a finger down her chest, over her breasts, to her thighs, moaning as her fingers briefly disappeared before continuing down her legs. Christina closed her eyes for a moment, then leaned against him, her warm breath drifting over his ear. “I want to fuck you, right here, Thad, right now.”
Sliding over to him, she pulled down his pants and slipped into his lap. Thad’s arms wrapped around her, a will all their own. His arms wrapped around her and pulled her close, slipping down to the small of her back. When her lips found his again, he tried to fight, but his body wouldn’t obey. His tongue pressed into her welcoming mouth.
Bring me my box, Thad.
Bring me my box and I’ll reward you so…
“Sir?”
Thad looked to his left and found the flight attendant watching him, her hands on her hips.
Christina was gone. The blanket was bunched around his waist, covering the briefcase still resting in his lap.
“We’re going to be landing soon. Please fasten your safety belt and place that beneath the seat in front of you.”
Thad nodded and she moved on to the next row.
Christina’s perfume filled the air; he could still taste her breath.
On the seat beside him lay a small pile of dirt, much like the ones he had seen in his yard yesterday morning.
It smelled dead, moist with rot.
Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out his Risperidone. Without hesitation, he took one more.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Day 2 – 8:30 p.m.
RACHAEL WORKED THE SHAMPOO through her daughter’s thick blonde hair, careful not to get any in her eyes. Ashley hadn’t spoken since they had found her in her room, and she was getting worried. She had tried calling Thad’s cell again but as expected, only reached his voice mail. She left a rather harsh message that she now regretted and tried to put it out of her mind.
“Honey, it’s okay. I’m not mad at you.”
Ashley continued to stare down at the water, her hands brushing across the top of the bubbles. Buster sat at the side of the bathtub, his tail thumping against the tile. He appeared to be worried about Ashley, too.
Just beyond the door, Ms. Perez banged around the hallway, going out of her way to make as much noise as possible as she cleaned up the mess in Ashley’s room. “Ashley, baby, you need to talk to me,” Rachael pleaded.
She glanced up, but didn’t make eye contact. Instead she looked at the door, then returned her gaze to the bubbles. “I want Daddy to come home,” she finally blurted out.
Rachael sighed. “Me too, honey. He should be home soon.”
“He’d believe me; he’d know it was Zeke who messed up my room. He knows I wouldn’t do that.”
Rachael frowned. “Let’s not talk about that right now.”
“You don’t believe me,” Ashley sulked. “You don’t think Zeke is real.”
Now it was Rachael’s turn to fall silent. She wouldn’t fall into her daughter’s delusion. Having an imaginary friend was one thing, but it wasn’t healthy to blame him for her own mistakes.
“Zeke is very angry about something. He wants us to leave.”
Enough, Rachael thought.
Behind her, Buster’s tail thumped twice.
Rachael reached for the handheld faucet and rinsed out her daughter’s hair. “Do you want to sleep with me tonight?”
“Can Buster sleep with us, too?”
Rachael forced a smile. “Sure, Buster can stay with us, too. We’ll have one big sleepover.”
“Maybe Zeke will stay out if we’re all there,” Ashley hoped.
“We can only hope,” Rachael agreed. “Are you ready to rinse?”
Ashley nodded, stood up, and pressed her eyes shut tight.
With the handheld faucet, Rachael rinsed away the bubbles and soap. She then lifted Ashley from the bathtub, wrapped her in a large bath towel, and dried her off. “Do you want some hot chocolate before bed?”
Ashley smiled for the first time in hours. “Yeah!”
Rachael grinned. “Okay. I set some clothes out on my bed for you—go get dressed and I’ll meet you down in the kitchen; I just want to clean this up.”
Ashley rushed out of the bathroom with Buster chasing behind her while Rachael released the tub drain and mopped up the water from the floor.
She was exhausted.
Sleep had been eluding her, and tonight’s little episode would only add to the problem. If not for the baby, she would take a sleeping pill or two, something to knock her out.
Down the hall, Ms. Perez started the carpet shampooer.
She felt bad about asking her to clean up her daughter’s mess, but she didn’t really have a choice. In her condition, she wasn’t able. She couldn’t expect her daughter to scrub that mess off the walls. How had she gotten the dirt so high? If Thad were home…
But he’s not home, is he?
Who knows when he’ll be home again.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
1692 – The Journal of Clayton Stone
VERY FEW SPENT TIME with her—that is to say, with the exception of William Hobbs. A husband, he was not. Perhaps a close friend at best. One of the few she allowed inside her small home, one of the few with insight into her life. By association, many considered him to be a witch, although little evidence exists—certainly not enough for a trial, most definitely not a conviction. Those who know him speak of a quiet man, an outcast. Those who do not know him fear him, if for no reason other than his association with her.
William Hobbs entered the church cautiously, scanning the faces of the gallery. Most turned away, unwilling to meet his gaze. The magistrate guided him to the pulpit and allowed him time to seat himself before beginning the morning’s questioning.
“Please state your name for the record,” he ordered.
“William David Hobbs,” he replied in a deep, raspy voice. One that belonged to a much older man.
“Do you fear testifying today, here, in this house of the Lord?”
Hobbs shook his head. “I can speak in the presence of God safely, as I must look to give account another day,” he declared, “that I am clear as a newborn babe.”
“Have you never hurt these?” inquired Tauber, indicating those in attendance. They winced at Hobbs’ s every glance.
“The children claim to have seen your spirit moving throughout the town on many occasions: at the home of Mercy Lewis, Mercy Short, Mary Walcott... How can you explain this?”
“It is nothing more than the imagination of a child.”
“This is not a skill taught to you by her?”
He shook his head. “I have no such skill. I have hurt none of them. I will deny it to my dying day,” he insisted.
“You have not attended services in some time. What of that?”
“I have been ill.”
“Yet you and your spirit have been seen around town,” Tauber pointed out. “You have been seen with her.”
“Her roof was in need of repairs. She paid me for my services, nothing more,” he told them.
Whispers washed across the crowd.
Tauber cleared his throat. “Did she make you sign her book?”
“I know of no such book.”
Tauber scoffed at him in disbelief, but he left the subject unanswered. “What can you tell us about her sisters and her mother?”
Hobbs returned a puzzled gaze. “I have never met a sister, nor her mother. I know nothing of her family.”
“What of her name? Do you know her true name?”
“I do not.”
“So you are nothing to her? Just a roofer, a handyman at best?”
Hobbs paused for a moment, taking in his words. “Yes,” he finally said. “Nothing more.”
His lie was clear even to my untrained ear, but Tauber didn’t press him further. He dismissed the man with the knowledge that he was being watch
ed, that he could be called back at any time.
I couldn’t help but wonder if this man was intimate with her. I understood his reluctance to speak of this, for I hadn’t told anyone of her visit to me the previous night. I held no plans to ever speak of this.
—Thad McAlister,
Rise of the Witch
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Day 2 – 9:30 p.m.
DEL GLANCED DOWN AT the directions he had printed from Mapquest, slowing his car as he neared the next intersection.
“Bridleway Road, bingo!” he said aloud, turning right.
The rain had slowed to a steady drizzle as night crept across the sky. He dropped the printout on the passenger seat and began scanning the house numbers for 5375. When he found it, he drove past about one hundred feet, then pulled the car to the side of the road and placed it in park.
He killed the engine and surveyed his surroundings.
The tree-lined road represented picture-perfect America, the type of place Del avoided at all costs. He may have sold his goods to this demographic, but he never had a need to live among them. He would make this fast.
Scooping up a brown paper sack from the floor and a pair of scissors from the passenger seat, Del stepped from the car into the evening air. The thin rain found him and goose bumps crawled over his arms. He started down the road at a brisk pace, heading back in the direction he had come.
5375 was a large two-story English Tudor-style home probably built in the late twenties, early thirties. The dwelling was set back from the road about fifty feet and surrounded by a tall stone wall topped with wrought iron spikes pointing at the heavens. A cobblestone driveway began at a gate and wove through large oaks to the front of the house. There was a small metal box (presumably an intercom) as well as a camera mounted atop the gate, glaring down the drive.
None of this concerned Del, though; he had spotted the bougainvillea bushes flanking the driveway at the gate, only a few feet from the road. He approached them with caution, monitoring the road for the prying eyes of strangers. It wasn’t every day an overweight man in a black trench coat wandered their streets during a rainstorm. A conscientious neighbor may consider him a threat and call in the cavalry while others may spy from their windows, curious to see what would develop from such an intrusion into their private little world.
As he stepped off the road, the muddied earth sank beneath his feet.
Not quite the work his nine hundred-dollar shoes were made for, he thought.
Jumping a small drainage ditch, Del found himself facing one of the tall bushes—his breath caught in his throat as he realized how beautiful they were. The plants’ long, thin branches seemed to twist and turn together as if caught in a timeless waltz, dressed in the most elaborate of violet blooms, glistening as the rain dripped over them and fell at their feet, creating a shimmering dance floor on the ground below, one which reflected back the thick purple mass with a hint of jealousy, knowing it would never know its touch.
It’s just a plant.
They hold power—the book had told him so. She had told him so.
While the long, sharp thorns would have frightened away most, Del was drawn to them. Like the teeth of a vampire, they drew the blood of the unsuspecting, providing the nourishment this beautiful flower required to survive. They also protected the branches against those who wished harm.
The perfect plant. Gorgeous.
Del reached for the bougainvillea with trembling hands. He only needed one branch, two at the most.
The blades of the scissors crunched down on the first branch with a hungry jaw, severing it from the rest, sending the piece falling toward the ground. Del caught the sampling midair, grimacing as the thorns dug into his palm, as the plant fed on the drawn blood.
Hurriedly, he dropped the branch in the paper sack, then cut another, then finally cut a third in case the first two proved insufficient.
He traced his footsteps back across the ditch to the road and shuffled back to the car.
Once inside, he placed the bougainvillea samples on the passenger seat and wrapped his injured hand in a handkerchief before starting the car and heading back toward the city. Behind him, the moon began its slow journey across the night sky.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Day 2 – 11:30 p.m.
THUNDER CRASHED WILDLY, STIRRING the dark clouds swirling ominously above the McAlister home, dropping a thick veil of rain on the remains of their lawn, now nothing more than a muddied furrow, brown and dead. Carver knelt, ran his hand through the soil, and smelled. “Ahh, settled like a fine wine,” he crooned. The frigid rain drifted across his skin and quickly soaked him. Carver didn’t care, though; he welcomed the rain.
His eyes never left the house, nor did he disregard the varied movements just beyond the curtained windows. He was very much aware of his surroundings, particularly the actions of the McAlister family.
“You’re never that far from my thoughts, Mrs. McAlister. Don’t you worry your little head about that, no ma’am.”
The muffled moon provided little light, but it was enough. Carver reached into his leather bag and pulled out a small canvas sack. Carefully, he placed the bag on the ground at his feet and closed his eyes.
“Be ye far from us, O ye profane, for we are about to invoke the descent of the power of Her. Enter Her temple with clean hands and mind, lest we serve the source of life. Learn now the secret of the web that is woven between the light and the darkness, whose warp is life evolving in time and space, whose weft is spun of the lives born upon this earth. Behold Her sanctuary; arise with the dawn, from the grey and the mist and the dusk. Behold life; arise for Her.”
Thunder bellowed through the night, defiant and angry.
“Evocatio Spiritualis de Septendecim Valcyriis Mortiferis.”
The wind and rain grew with an unnatural anticipation, swirling around him in a mist of life, lapping at his old bones, craving the contents of the bag.
Removing the twine twisted at the top of the sack, Carver held it over his head and tilted the mouth toward the McAlisters’ home. The black seeds were whisked away, thrown across the yard by the gentle hands of the livid wind, scattered within the rotten dirt. Carver held the bag high until there were no more, then crumpled the empty sack in his pocket.
With a tip of his hat, he bid farewell to the McAlisters and made his way back to the truck which he had parked down the road, taking a moment to inspect the large tree that had fallen in the center of the yard. “Sleep, my child,” he breathed, stroking its bark. “All will be well soon.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
1692 – The Journal of Clayton Stone
I WOKE IN THE FOREST.
On the lives of my family, I have no idea how I ventured to this place. My last memory was of lying in my bed, overcome by sleep. Then I was here, standing among the brush and trees in the black of night, wearing nothing more than my night clothes, my bare feet sinking in the damp earth.
The moon drifted across the sky, and soon my eyes adjusted to the dim light. When I spotted the small cabin centered in a clearing to the north, I knew exactly where I was and I knew She had brought me here.
These grounds had been forbidden by the magistrate the moment She was arrested. I was breaking the law just by being here; how I arrived would be of no concern to anyone.
I knew at that moment I should have returned to my home, but I did not; instead I found myself drawn closer to the small cabin, toward a flickering candle in its single window.
The door opened just moments before I reached for the handle, creaking inward like the mouth of a beast welcoming its prey. Although I should, I felt no fear as I stepped inside, not even when it closed behind me. I simply held still and waited for my eyes to adjust to the glow cast by that single candle.
When a hand found mine, I knew it was her; how she could be here I did not know.
She led me inside, toward the glowing embers of a fire that had died some time earlier, and gestured for me
to sit at its hearth.
“I knew you would come,” she said, finding a seat at my side. “You are a good man; you can see how my family has been wronged.”
“I have not come of my own free will,” I told her, “but you know that already.”
“I cannot make you do anything you do not wish to do. Your heart led you here, not I.”
I turned to her for the first time, ready to argue this point further, but when I saw the sadness in her face, I could not bring myself to hurt her.
“Please tell me I am not wrong about you.”
“If you are not a witch, how do you explain this? You are locked in a cell beneath the church, yet you are here, too. How is that possible?”
“Because I can do such things, does it make me evil?” she asked. “Does it make me deserving of death?”
“Witchcraft in all forms is against God’s law.”
“For generations we have cared for the sick. Your own father came to us when you fell ill as a child and again when your mother suffered the red fever—”
“Stop—”
“We have never harmed anyone.”
“There are many dead, two this week alone.”
“Not by my hand,” she countered.
“Then who?”
“There are those who wish us dead.”
“At such cost?”
“Yes.”
“Who would be willing to do such a thing?”
“The very same in which you place your trust.”
“The magistrate? Tauber? They are men of God! To speak such an accusation is blasphemy!”
“Let me open your eyes so you may see them for what they really are. I can show you the truth.”
“More witchcraft?”
Her hand reached out and gripped mine, her fingers entwining with mine before I could pull away. My vision filled with light, then quickly went black. An energy the likes of which I cannot describe flowed through my every fiber, chilling my bones as if I’d fallen in an icy lake. Then I heard her voice. I heard her weeping softly as my sight returned.
I was in the cell beneath the church and she was in the far corner, cowering on the floor, her eyes filled with tears.