Sanctuary

by V. V. James

  But Dan still needs me. Because his death wasn’t an accident. He was killed by Harper Fenn. At least that’s what the video shows.

  I can still hardly believe it. I don’t want to believe it.

  I use Dan’s bathroom. His shower products. I can’t stomach the thought of food but robotically make myself a coffee. I smashed Sarah’s potion bottle last night, so I need something to sharpen me up. Then I snatch my car keys.

  “Abigail. My god, are you okay? Come in.”

  Sarah is shocked to see me. She draws me over her threshold and I duck, as all visitors must, beneath the bundle of wire-tied twigs that dangles above the door.

  Inside, the house is the same as it’s always been. I love this quaint little place. Tipped-down louvered shutters cast everything in a half-light. The rooms are full of clutter, and it’s impossible to tell the junk from the witch bits, the houseplants from the potion ingredients.

  Witches adore that sort of ambiguity. Is their necklace just jewelry, or an artifact? Is the cat a pet, or a familiar? It’s always charmed me. But now I think: Is Sarah’s daughter one more thing whose true nature isn’t what it has always appeared?

  “I was just making a pot of tea,” Sarah says, steering me into the kitchen. “Would you like some? Maybe valerian…?”

  Valerian’s a sedative.

  “I’m not here for tea, Sarah. I’m here because of what your daughter did.”

  “Harper? What do you mean?”

  “Harper killed Dan,” I say. “The police have a witness. There’s evidence.”

  Sarah recoils as if I hit her. From the darkness comes a sharp mew, and Aira shoots into the kitchen. The cat butts against Sarah’s ankles and she picks it up, burying her face in its fur. Anyone can see the communion between them: witch and familiar. An unbreakable bond.

  I had a bond like that with my child. I still remember the smell of Daniel’s skin as a newborn.

  “Impossible,” Sarah says. “You know our beliefs reject violence against any living creature. And Dan’s more than half a foot taller than her and twice her size. And at a party, in front of dozens of people?”

  “Witchcraft,” I say.

  “No. You know that’s not possible.”

  “It is. There was a witness.”

  “Who?”

  I purse my lips.

  “So no one you can name? Some kid who was drunk or delusional on weed? Abi, tell me who they are, and I’ll go shake sense into them. They should be ashamed of themselves, causing you more distress when…”

  “Sarah, could it be true?”

  My vehemence startles her, and our eyes meet. Sarah has been my friend for all these years. The woman I’ve trusted with all my hopes and hurts. Has she lied to me—to all of us?

  “It’s not true. I’ll show you.”

  Sarah leads me upstairs. A warped skylight casts a thin golden sheen onto walls whose every inch is covered: family photographs, an old map of Long Island Sound, pale watercolors, botanical sketches, wooden masks, painted ceramic tiles. Swathes of faded fabric wrap around the banisters like wedding bunting. As we reach the landing, my cheek tickles, and I brush aside scarlet ribbons dangling from a woven willow circlet.

  The second door on the left has a calligraphed plaque bearing Harper’s name. I freeze as Sarah halts beside it. Am I going to come face-to-face with my son’s murderer? My heartbeat takes off frantically, and I remember Sarah’s false comfort in a bottle. Heartsease.

  Tad Bolt suggested that Sarah gave it to me deliberately, to dope me up. Could that be true? Does Sarah know what her daughter did?

  The woman who I’d thought was my friend is knocking on the door, calling her daughter’s name. There’s no response.

  “You see?” Sarah says, throwing the door open.

  Her voice is fierce, almost accusatory. As if she’s trying to prove something to herself as much as to me.

  Harper’s room is the opposite of the rest of the house. Its bare walls are finished in soft chalk paint, and gauzy white fabric is layered over the window, twisting in the breeze. There’s a queen-size bed—I screw up my eyes, trying not to think about whether Harper ever shared it with Dan. Michael was very strict about that sort of thing not happening under our roof.

  The shelves are half books, half skincare products—the sort you buy at Sephora, not her mom’s potions—and girlie bits: a hairbrush, eyeliner pencils, ear studs, and chunky silver rings. The desk is tidy, with a computer, a tub of pens, and not much else. Strings of fairy lights are wound around the bookcase and bed frame. My eyes drink in everything, searching for clues. Is there something here that whispers: I belong to a witch. I belong to a murderer?

  “Nothing,” Sarah says. “You see? Nothing at all. No artifacts. No spell books.”

  She yanks the closet doors so hard, they bang against the wall. The contents of the clothing rod are as black as the room is white. Sarah is pulling open drawers in a frenzy, snatching up a handful of Harper’s thongs and padded bras as if they’re some kind of proof.

  “Just clothes. Normal girl stuff.”

  She slumps onto the bed, the energy gone out of her, and wipes her face. When she looks up at me, she’s crying.

  “Don’t you think I’d know, Abi? My own daughter. It was all I ever wanted for her.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “Because of the rite—the Rite of Determination.”

  “It must have been wrong.”

  I look down at Sarah, hunched on the edge of the mattress. Normally the sight of my friend so distraught would cut me to the quick, but I’ve no tears now for anyone but my son and myself.

  Sarah’s shaking her head.

  “It’s never wrong.”

  Fourteen

  Sarah

  It’s Abigail’s grief speaking. It has to be. She can’t believe this far-fetched story of police and evidence and witchcraft.

  I’m the only witch in Sanctuary. Abigail knows that. Tad Bolt knows that. Everyone knows that. And they know that it’s the sadness of my heart.

  So I tell her everything about Harper’s Determination. I was in pieces afterward, and my friends were the only thing that got me through, Bridget and Julia and Abigail. But I never told them the whole story. It would have felt like a violation of Harper’s privacy—after all, she was the one who asked that no one be there.

  In witch families, the rite is a big celebration. Think Christian confirmation, Jewish bat mitzvah, sweet sixteen, and prom all rolled into one. The family’s witch friends and nongifted coven members will come from across the country to share their love and blessings.

  My own Determination was one of the happiest days of my life. It was held a few weeks after my thirteenth birthday in a field my gramma owned, not far from her and Ompa’s house. A creek ran through it, and there was a hazel coppice—a fertile place for magic.

  Gramma had hung lanterns from the trees and set up a long table laden with my favorite foods: sweet potato pie, mac and cheese, and apple cake. There was champagne for the adults and dandelion wine for us kids. We danced and ran riot, then at moonrise, Gramma made my Determination.

  I remember how it felt when she’d finished her incantations, and suddenly I could see it. We all could. My magic bright within me. For a few shining moments, you’re like a human firefly. It lights you up from the inside and sparkles off you like fairy dust. It soon fades, but you never forget what you carry inside.

  Gramma always told me that a witch’s purpose was to keep showing that light in everything we do.

  When Harper was little, I’d daydream about her Determination. That field is still in our family; I go there to harvest ingredients. I didn’t expect my mom to come up from Florida—I remember her at my party, sitting by herself and rebuffing all congratulations. People told me later she was drunk and vicious. But my aunts, uncles,
and cousins wouldn’t miss it for anything. Nor my gramma’s coven members who’re still alive. Plus my own coven—Bridget, Julia, and Abigail, with their children and partners. Harper would prattle about it, too. When I’m Determined…she’d say. And I’d laugh and tell her she was born determined.

  But the closer it got, the less she talked about it. I couldn’t understand it, at first. I wondered if she’d seen what happened that time… Whether it had frightened her, and she was scared of the power she’d have. I tried talking to her about it, to draw out if she’d seen or suspected anything, but she only withdrew further.

  When I started party planning, she begged me not to. Just us, she’d say. I don’t want anyone there. I couldn’t understand it—was certain she’d change her mind. But her thirteenth birthday got closer and closer, and she was still adamant.

  I never suspected the real reason for her reluctance.

  It was almost five years ago now. A warm September night, two months after Harper’s thirteenth birthday. I’d given in to her wish—no party. No witnesses. But I’d packed a picnic of all her favorite things. I was sure it was just nerves, the understandable fear of any child reaching the first significant milestone in their life. Once it was over, she’d be ecstatic. But we never ate a bite of anything I prepared.

  Harper made me look away as she changed into the white ritual robe. Then barefoot and grave, she lay down on the grass. I remember her eyes as I worked, wide and solemn.

  I dug a trench around her and filled it with water scooped from the brook in a silver bowl. I set beeswax candles in a larger ring and lit them. Opened my wrist for enough blood to drip in a still-wider circle on the grass. Walked around all three rings, clockwise and widdershins, as I spoke the words of the rite. Harper lay there, girdled by water and fire, blood and breath. Her eyes watched me to the end.

  Nothing happened.

  I thought the sob was Harper’s, but it was mine.

  On my knees, I begged her forgiveness. I’d performed the rite wrong. Made a mistake. I’d do it again. It was all just a horrible misunderstanding. Of course she was a witch. Of course she was.

  Harper put her skinny arms around me.

  “You did it perfectly, Mom,” she said. “But it’s okay. It’s okay.”

  And my little girl comforted me as I cried.

  “So you see,” I tell Abigail as she stands over me in Harper’s bedroom—the bedroom of a normal teenager. “If it was witchcraft, it can’t have been my daughter. I understand that you want some explanation or reason. But it wasn’t Harper.”

  I can see from Abigail’s face that she wants to believe me. But if there are police and a witness involved, I’ll need more than that.

  I’ll have to prove my daughter’s innocence. Any way I can.

  Fifteen

  Maggie

  The little takeout Thai place just off Main Street has stayed open during my half decade away from Sanctuary, and my taste buds are telling me their stupendous pad thai hasn’t changed one bit.

  Maybe I’m trying to trick myself back in time, to see if I can jolt my memories of why so many names and faces in this case seem familiar. Or maybe I’m just a sucker for good fried noodles.

  I’m hunched over the piece-of-shit computer in the office, accessing my old case log. You’d think I could just hit CTL+F to search the Perelli-Lee address and up it would come, but no such luck. I can’t decide if the state law-enforcement database was created by a person who hated computers, or who hated cops, or who loved overtime bonuses.

  My fork is forlornly scraping the bottom of the takeout carton when I finally find it. My eyes can’t take any more squinting at the grainy screen, so I hit Print so I can read it later in my rental apartment.

  I’m just figuring out how to enter my authorization ID into the printer and wondering if a fist on the keypad wouldn’t work just as well, when there’s a nervous cough behind me.

  It’s my new assistant.

  The chief called me into his office this morning, and we discussed how his son coming forward as a witness affected my inquiries. I told him we’d best continue to keep Jake’s statement under wraps, so as not to compromise the investigation. Tad pushed back at first, seeing it as me questioning his son’s testimony. (I didn’t point out that questioning testimony is, uh, what cops do.)

  But I convinced him that it was in everyone’s interests. With a school full of traumatized students, I couldn’t have a teen girl put at risk by an unproven allegation. And as for Jake, well, I reminded the chief of that proverb: Even good witches make bad enemies. His blue eyes bugged, and he gave me some bluster about Sarah Fenn being a decent woman. He got my point, though. Accusing a witch of murder could be considered a little risky.

  So to speed the investigation along—in other words, to prove his son right—he’s given me an assistant. Thankfully it’s neither Asshole Cop nor Overly Eager Evidence Reviewing Cop. It’s Helpful Cop, a.k.a. one Sergeant Chester Greenstreet.

  Chester’s so pale he’s practically luminous, with a shock of light-copper hair, freckles, and invisible golden eyelashes that make him look permanently startled. But as I turn to wave him in, it strikes me that he’s startled for real. I asked him to go through the lab results that came back from Forensics on the party house and chase down Toxicology for findings from the boy’s cadaver. What he’s got in his hand right now, though, is a big-ass law book.

  “Can I have a quick word, sir… I mean, ma’am? In private?”

  I hear a wolf whistle from Asshole on the front desk as I motion Chester to close the door.

  He lays the book on the table, and you can practically see the puff of dust rising from it.

  “I only got my badge last year and, well, I took it so seriously I actually read this thing. Cover to cover.”

  It’s the Sentencing Guidelines of the State of Connecticut. We all took classes on its contents during training, but it’s stuff for the legals—the judges and attorneys—not us uniforms. My sergeant has marked a page with a coffee napkin.

  “I’m glad you have faith in our investigation, Chester, but whatever Jake Bolt says, I’m far from certain yet that there even is a crime, let alone a verdict and a sentence.”

  “Well, we’re going to have to be certain,” he says. “Very, very certain. Because there’s a lot at stake.” He winces. “No pun intended.”

  His finger is pointing to a paragraph titled “Exemption to Repeal of Capital Felony.”

  Which is all wrong, because there are no exemptions. Connecticut abolished the death penalty in 2012. Prior to that, our state had executed only one prisoner in about four decades. And just a few years ago, the state drew a double underline beneath its decision when it commuted the capital sentence even for the eleven perps on death row. Connecticut’s got no stomach for execution.

  There’s only one paragraph because there’s only one exemption: Homicide by Unnatural Means. I read it. Then read it again.

  “That’s saying what I think it’s saying…?” I ask Chester.

  “Uh-huh. I did some research. The colony of Connecticut got its royal charter in 1662. Between then and the Revolutionary War, we executed dozens of people for crimes committed by witchcraft. The colony’s leaders considered magic such a threat to the moral and spiritual wellbeing of the people of Connecticut—that’s a quote, I’ve got nothing against witches myself,” he adds, hastily. “Such a threat, that when we joined the Union in 1788 and became the fifth state, we were granted exemption in perpetuity from future amendments or repeals relating to capital felonious witchcraft.”

  I hiss through my teeth. This is no dead letter. It’s an irrepealable current requirement of Connecticut state law.

  If what Jake Bolt alleges is true—or if a jury decides it is—then Harper Fenn will die for it.

  Sixteen

  INCIDENT ATTENDANCE LOG: BLACK HILL COUNTY, SANCTUAR
Y DIVISION

  CALL RECEIVED: 10:32 p.m., August 8, 20——

  ATTENDING OFFICER: Sgt. Knight, Margaret

  INCIDENT #: 14–1009

  Notification received via call to central reporting line at 10:32 p.m. from female identifying herself as a neighbor of Pierre MARTINEAU and Bridget PERELLI of 258 Shore Approach. Disturbance reported—a female screaming. Also “commotion.”

  Caller stated this was unusual, as MARTINEAU and PERELLI are “good folks” and “usually quiet,” although “mixed up in witch stuff.” Caller then launched into diatribe about “coven activity” and how neighbors had complained to Perelli that it might affect property values.

  Call handler (Sgt. GRAYSON) brought caller back to specifics. Caller said it was “probably nothing,” but the screaming had been “something awful,” and she had felt it should be reported. Caller was thanked and told an officer would pay a visit.

  Checks revealed no records held for PERELLI. Five traffic violations but no other offenses for MARTINEAU.

  Sgt. KNIGHT was dispatched. Arrived at house 10:57 p.m.

  Attending officer found that a dinner party had been in progress on the property’s patio. Present were Pierre MARTINEAU, Bridget PERELLI, Michael and Abigail WHITMAN, Sarah FENN, and Julia GARCIA. Additionally, the house contained four minors, all children of the above-named adults.

  One minor, Daniel WHITMAN (12), was lying on the couch downstairs, his mother with him.

  Sgt. Knight was informed that the boy had taken a tumble down the stairs. On hearing the noise, the adults had found him unconscious, and his mother had screamed. However, the boy had quickly come around and showed no apparent injury.

  Boy was conscious and speaking. Stated: “I went to get us cookies, but it was dark and I missed the stair.”

  When the attending officer recommended that the child be checked over by a medical professional, Michael WHITMAN stated that he was a medical professional, being a professor on the faculty of Yale School of Medicine, and that he was satisfied that his son was “a little shocked, but unharmed.” “We’re all more upset than he is,” said WHITMAN.