by V. V. James
Is this the story I’ve been searching for?
Harper outgrowing her friendships in Sanctuary as she chooses a different kind of life. Trying to break it off with her jock boyfriend, Daniel. The alpha boy of Sanctuary not wanting to lose face, drugging Harper and having sex with her while his friend recorded it to humiliate her.
Harper set on confronting him at the party, ranting angrily just like Jake said, but unheard amid all the noise and music. Maybe a Green Point pal—one of these burly guys—coming along as support. Dan, alarmed, stumbling over the banister and falling to his death.
An accident. Just an accident after all.
It’s a story that doesn’t account for the fact that the villa reeks of powerful witchcraft.
But I think I prefer it.
I pull myself together. Like I told Ches, we’re law enforcement. We don’t get to decide who’s guilty and who isn’t.
The case that I have requires a witch, and Green Point has one of those. Maybe she’s a surfer and doesn’t open her booth till she’s had her daily dip in the sea.
This little shoreside community is where my answers lie; I’m sure of it.
When the pair gets up, I tail them out and along the boardwalk. We pass the witch’s booth, a cute little place all sky-blue paint and calligraphed signage: “Siobhan Maloney—registered witch. Consult a fully licensed practitioner. Works like magic!”
A ship’s bell hangs to one side of the door for customers to announce their presence, and a blind is drawn down in the glass window. “Witch at work!” reads a card that’s been flipped over. Rowan’s in there. Good.
Harper and her friend, meanwhile, have gone into a store three doors further along. And surprise, surprise: it’s the tattoo shop.
Canvas, the place is called, its name gorgeously painted in coiling letters across the large window. Framed photographs hang on either side of the entrance, displaying the talents of its proprietor. There’s a newspaper article reproduced. It’s a photo of Harper’s friend giving a thumbs-up alongside a heavily inked man.
Tat’s brilliant is the headline. Green Point artist Jonny Maloney takes first prize in statewide tattoo contest. I don’t read any further. That surname gives me all I need to know. Harper’s friend is related to Green Point’s witch. A son, or brother, or husband.
I take a few photographs with my phone. I’m worried about being spotted, but the two inside are busy. Harper moves around confidently, preparing tools and instruments, syncing a phone so music starts up, low and growling. She produces a sketchbook from under the counter and shows something to Maloney. He evidently has suggestions, and they discuss the design.
Maloney heads out back, and I watch as Harper sets up a mirror alongside the medical-looking couch where the tattooist’s clients submit to his needle. She tugs off her vest top and turns this way and that, inspecting herself. Beneath her bra, her midriff is swathed in coiling designs.
She fits a needle carefully to the ink gun and lays it back in the metal dish. Then she pulls around a spotless curtain and hides herself from view. Jonny Maloney is nowhere to be seen. A moment later, just audible over the music, the needle starts to buzz.
And I realize those tattoos on Harper aren’t just beautiful—they’re her own handiwork. No wonder she feels at home here.
Just along the boardwalk, the bell rings outside the witch’s booth and Rowan exits. I hurry after them back to Chester’s car, eager to hear what they’ve learned.
Eager to finally fit everything together.
Seventy-Five
NOTES BY MAGGIE KNIGHT OF ROWAN ANDREWS’S (RA) CONVERSATION WITH SIOBHAN MALONEY (SM), GREEN POINT WITCH
• RA presented self as a vacationing witch struck with a headache.
SM age fiftyish. Performs approved assessment of RA.
• RA raised topic of Sanctuary & Harper Fenn.
• “A bad business, it’s got all the Connecticut witches fearful,” says SM. “Of course, it’s not witchcraft at all.”
• Does SM feel anxious so close to Sanctuary?
• “Yes & no. The girl who’s accused has friends here. Known to Green Point locals. She’s a very nice young lady. No magic to speak of.”
• Has SM spoken to her?
• A little. She’s friendly with SM’s son. Since the case blew up, SM has kept her distance so no one can link the girl to a magical practitioner.
• And she’s definitely not a witch?
• “No way.” SM believes the Whitman death must be “just a sad accident.” No witchcraft at all. Expresses sympathy for Sarah Fenn, who she “knows only a little.”
• SM concludes diagnosis of RA—an adverse reaction to recent magical exposure. Performs aura cleanse ritual & prescribes premix potion.
• RA compliments SM on her booth & practice. Is her son a witch to carry on the tradition?
• SM laughs. “He’s a surf bum. Not a magical bone in his body—though rather good with a needle.”
• RA pays & leaves.
Seventy-Six
From The Sanctuary Sentinel
UNDER THEIR SPELL?
Local man is witches’ latest alleged victim
By Beryl Varley, News Editor
Sanctuary has been rocked by fresh outrage about the actions of witches in our midst.
It is claimed that a local man—named by sources as Alberto Garcia, 48, of Anaconna—has unknowingly been subjected to magical compulsion.
When asked for a comment, a spokesperson for the U.S. Moot, the national body of magical practitioners, said that “the United States prides itself on having some of the most stringent guidelines for the practice of witchcraft of any country in the world. Anyone found to be operating without regard for these guidelines will be stripped of their license and, where relevant, may face prosecution.”
In light of the latest development, Chief Tad Bolt has exclusively told the Sentinel that he is reversing his decision to step back from the investigation into the death of Daniel Whitman.
“I cannot stand by and permit the failings of a state-level detective to thwart any chance of obtaining justice for Daniel and his parents,” said the popular local lawman. “And I will not let people lie awake at night, terrified of malevolent forces at work in our town. Here in Sanctuary, we deal with our problems ourselves.”
Alberto Garcia has been approached for comment.
Seventy-Seven
Sarah
My daughter has gone. My coven is broken and disbanded. Abigail has turned on me, Julia blames me, and Bridget is keeping her distance.
The sunstone rite I needed to end this madness is impossible now.
I have to leave the ritual spaces intact—once an offering is made, you can’t take it back. But I can clear up my workroom. The smell of the brew still pervades the space: pungent sage and the stale, greasy reek of evening primrose oil. But as I wash and purify the vials, cleanse the stones and pack them away, I begin to wonder if I shouldn’t just keep going. Pack it all away, even my ingredients and sticks. Sell the lot—or donate it to the Witches’ Benevolent Fund so some young and impoverished magical can benefit.
Move far away from here. Perhaps go see my mom and her third husband down in Florida. Mom always hoped that, like her, I wouldn’t have the gift, and our relationship was never the same after my grandmother’s talent showed up in me. Now the same thing is happening with me and Harper. My girl’s lack of ability is driving a wedge between us. Perhaps spending time with her equally giftless grandma will help my daughter settle.
Could I make us disappear?
An enchantment would disguise me and Harper. Would let us cross the country unnoticed and lie low in Florida until this has all died down, my daughter’s name has been cleared, and we can make a calm decision about whether to return to Sanctuary.
In my heart of hearts, thou
gh, I know that if we leave, we’ll never return. They’ll say we fled for a reason.
I go to a small cupboard in the corner. Behind my business’s more mundane supplies—the toilet roll and printer paper—is a safe Pierre installed for me. I cycle through its combination: 05261647, the date the state of Connecticut hanged Alse Young for witchcraft. She was the first witch in the Thirteen Colonies to die, and her body swung for days in Hartford’s Meeting House Square nearly five decades before Salem. My gramma always said that we can never be sure it won’t happen again.
I wish she was here now to advise me.
The safe contains only one thing: a book. Or technically, a grimoire.
It was printed more than two centuries ago, after witches supposedly rehabilitated themselves by proving their courage and loyalty in the Revolutionary War. The new American state recognized us—though it took another two hundred years to formally decriminalize us—and the result was a flowering of our art like we’ve never seen since in this country.
A coven in the town of Starcross, Pennsylvania, worked for a decade to assemble what they titled the Standard American Book of Lore, but which soon became known as the Starcross grimoire. They had a patron, a rich landowner who paid for copies to be made. These were freely given to magical families of “good heritage,” and some were acquired by those without the gift, who were fascinated to learn more of our art.
But the achievement of Starcross, the incredible detail it contained, was its—and our—undoing. Its pages revealed that we can make people fall in love, waste away, do our bidding. It even hinted at acts like that I used to bring back Daniel. Within a year of its creation, reprinting of the grimoire was forbidden.
And then, inevitably, the crackdown began. In a country trying to establish the rule of law, power that could neither be seen nor defined was viewed with suspicion. The body that eventually became the Moot cooperated, not wanting the public to learn and be frightened by the full extent of our powers. Volumes of Starcross were confiscated and burned.
A handful, of course, survived. Among them one possessed by my family.
It’s a crime, even today, to reproduce or sell copies of the book now in my hands. Any fragments that find their way online are taken down, and even universities and national libraries are barred from digitizing it. No one knows how many originals still exist. But up here in New England there’s more than one family, like ours, with a grimoire treasured more carefully than an old family Bible.
I carry the book to my workbench, savoring the feel of it, the leather worn butter-soft by the hands of the women and men who cherished it before me. The binding is loose, fragments dusting into powder at every turn of a page. I studied the grimoire the day after I brought Dan back, to check how closely what I had done matched the clues and hints recorded in its pages. I’d had to compress a painstaking rite into ten minutes of frantic work, so what I’d done was an approximation, but Starcross reassured me it was close. Close enough.
The aromas that rise up from the pages are the smell of magic itself. Incense, herbs, blood, and iron. Sweet, bitter, and salty. And something felt: tingling across my skin and lifting the hairs on my arms.
Harper was obsessed with Starcross when she was little. She loved the history and anecdotes, the long lists of potion ingredients. But above all she adored the illustrations—the woodcut pictures of witches at work, of ingredients and objects. She’d copy them onto art paper and color them. She’d ask all the time when her magic was going to come in.
She couldn’t wait to be a witch.
It’s only when a water stain appears on the crinkled page that I realize I’m crying.
I couldn’t give Harper magic. But I’ll use everything I have to give her the life she chooses. The book in my hands would be worth a considerable sum to a private collector not bothered about an illegal acquisition.
The grimoire is my family’s past. But if I have to sell it to secure my daughter’s future, I will.
I stroke the pages of the book, and then turn to the section on Spellworke for hiding of a person, power, or object.
Which is when my phone rings. I frown at the number. It’s not Harper, the school, the cop, or Pierre, Bridget, Julia, or Abigail, so I let it go to voicemail before listening to the message.
It’s a woman’s voice, pleading, and she sounds absolutely broken.
Seventy-Eight
Sarah
Securing the workroom and hurrying out, I spot her right away, standing distraught and bewildered in the small central park on Main Street. She couldn’t find my booth, even though she’s standing almost directly opposite it, because of the concealment charms I laid.
I want to hasten her inside, not stand in public like this. But it’s too late.
“You did it, didn’t you?” shouts Mary-Anne Bolt. “You did. To punish him.”
What’s she talking about? Has something happened to Tad?
“When you came to our house. You came that morning, and he got sick that afternoon. You cursed him.”
She’s crying hysterically, and her finger is pointing right at me. It’s midafternoon, and Main Street is busy. At least half a dozen people just heard that accusation.
“I did nothing to Tad, Mary-Anne.” Nothing except threaten him, anyway.
“Not Tad. Jake.”
“Jacob?”
“He’s in a coma. Michael Whitman came and had no idea what’s wrong. My boy’s breathing failed in the ambulance on the way over, and now some machine is all that’s keeping him alive. And you did it, didn’t you? To shut him up.”
All my words fail me. My craft fails me. I have no idea what to say or do, because no option is good. We’re drawing a small crowd of onlookers.
“It’s not just Jake. Some of Tad’s boys have gotten sick, too. The ones who were on duty at the vigil for Daniel. Only them. You did it. You.”
And with a scream, arms flailing like she wants to claw my eyes out, Mary-Anne launches herself at me.
I grab her wrists to fend her off. She’s strong but uncontrolled, and twists in my grip. There’s only one way to calm her down quickly, and that means working magic on the chief’s wife in front of an audience. But if I don’t, who knows how long this will continue, drawing stares.
I’ve no choice. I make the sign for pacification—that one I use on bitey dogs—and murmur the accompanying cantrip, all the while praying to the goddess that the Sentinel photographer isn’t hiding behind a tree, snapping away.
But somebody spots my fingers working in the air.
“Magic!” calls a voice from those gathered on the sidewalk. “The witch just cursed her!”
A small child shrieks and run away. Someone spits. Unable to evade in time, I watch disbelievingly as it spatters my sleeve.
Mary-Anne is quieter. Her struggles are weaker. But I’ve no idea what to do with her. Several of the spectators have followed the child and fled. But the few who are left edge closer. Panic bubbles inside me. To lay the cantrip on them all, here in the middle of Main Street, would be madness. But what can I do? They’ll be on me in a moment.
“Get your hands off her, witch!” snarls one man, bolder than the rest.
Which is when Bridget appears, out of breath after jogging over from her salon.
“Come on, Mary-Anne. Come and have a sit-down. What are you looking at?” she snaps at the gapers. “Can’t you tell when a woman feels faint? It’s nothing serious.”
“It’s magic,” says the man. His fingers are clenching as though he’d just love to take a swing. “The witch did it.”
Bridget ignores him, leading the chief’s wife away to her pet salon as I stand there uncertainly. But Bridget hasn’t forgotten me. She bellows back over her shoulder for me to follow them, so we can all “have a drink and a quiet chat.”
The huddle parts to let us through, but I don’t miss the
slur words. The threats. As I pass, old Nikos from the deli where I pick up baklava makes the fig sign for warning off the evil eye. Their fear and hatred weighs me down. It’s ironic that Sanctuary is panicking about how powerful I supposedly am, when in truth, I’ve never felt more powerless.
Bridget leads us to her little office and lifts a box of dog shampoo off a chair so Mary-Anne can sit down. She shouts for one of her assistants to fetch us all a glass of wine and some cookies, and I don’t miss the girl’s disgusted glance as she brings it. Mary-Anne’s shoulders are shaking, but she’s quieted. Bridget presses a glass into her hand, makes her take a few sips, then coaxes the story out of her.
And it doesn’t look good for me. Apparently right after I visited the Bolt house, Jacob started feeling unwell. They assumed it was mono, but Jakey went downhill fast. Michael Whitman took him off to the university hospital for evaluation, and Mary-Anne’s been there all day, coming apart bit by bit as her son’s indicators went from bad to worse.
Eventually, Michael gave her some sedatives and sent her home to rest. But she didn’t. She came to find me.
“Why did you do that, Mary-Anne?” Bridget asks.
The chief’s wife looks groggy, and Bridget frowns. It’s a side effect of magical pacification, but given Cheryl’s judgment of me, I’m not going to tell Bridget what I just did and fuel that fire.
“Must be the sedatives,” I say, as we watch her struggle to speak.
“She’s managed the rest of her story.”
And, okay, I may have made the pacification stronger than a simple calm-down. The scene she was causing was getting out of hand.