Sanctuary

by V. V. James

  “And?”

  Old Fella spins around the copy of the list that he’s been annotating with student responses and taps a name he’s scrawled at the bottom.

  “Isobel Perelli-Martineau,” he says.

  Izzy? Who’s had mono and not attended school for weeks?

  Her moms believed she was in bed asleep that night. But plainly Isobel crept out to the villa. She must have escaped the party in time to avoid injury from the fire, then made her way home. In the chaos of the news that Dan was dead, and Harper and others had been taken to the hospital, no one would have worried about the one child certain to be safe—the one at home.

  Those four kids—Harper, Dan, Beatriz, and Isobel—all grew up hanging out together. It’s only natural she wouldn’t want to miss this party just because she was ill.

  “So, a kid sneaks out to a party,” I tell my officers skeptically. “They do that all the time.”

  “Thought you might say that.” Chester nods, smiling grimly. “But here’s the thing: all the kids that reported seeing Isobel? They say she was upstairs. On the landing.”

  He doesn’t need to say the last bit.

  The landing from which Dan fell.

  Eighty-Two

  Lead Story, Sanctuarysentinel.com Website

  MYSTERY SICKNESS STRIKES SANCTUARY

  WITCH CURSES CHIEF’S WIFE IN STREET

  Chief’s son hospitalized, other victims reported

  NEW PICTURE EXCLUSIVE

  By Beryl Varley, News Editor

  Jacob Bolt, 18, youngest son of local lawman Tad Bolt and his wife Mary-Anne, has been rushed to the hospital, where his condition has been described as “life-threatening but stable.”

  The youngster, a senior at Sanctuary High, fell sick a few days ago. After his condition deteriorated overnight, Sanctuary resident and Yale rare-diseases specialist Prof. Michael Whitman, MD, ordered immediate admission to a specialty ICU.

  It is not yet clear what has struck Jacob down.

  However, reports have emerged of a number of other Sanctuary residents also mysteriously stricken. These include several players on the Spartans football team, three members of Sanctuary’s police division, and high school principal Cheryl Lee.

  Meanwhile onlookers report an angry confrontation in Main Street yesterday between Mary-Anne Bolt and witch Sarah Fenn.

  “It’s plain what the witch is doing,” said one witness, who did not wish to be named. “That boy is the one who saw what her daughter did to Dan Whitman. She wants to shut him up.”

  After Mrs. Bolt made her allegations, Fenn cast a spell on her. This can be clearly seen in footage shot by a witness on the scene.

  <>

  “It was terrifying,” said the onlooker. “She used her hands, and the chief’s wife just stopped talking. She was struck dumb. It’s like what they say she did to that poor man.”

  A few days ago, Ms. Fenn faced accusations of unnaturally influencing a local man by means of magical compulsion.

  Her daughter, Harper, has been accused of murdering Daniel Whitman by magical means. Video shot on the night of Whitman’s death shows Harper Fenn using her hands in a similar fashion. The Sanctuary Sentinel has obtained images from that video, which it publishes here for the first time.

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  Fearful locals may be forgiven for asking themselves if there is more to this strangely selective “sickness” than meets the eye. And for asking why the investigating state detective has made no move to arrest either mother or daughter.

  Is she, too, under their spell?

  What will the witches do next?

  Eighty-Three

  Abigail

  “This video is obviously something Harper staged,” I tell Michael. “You know what girls are like these days, doing the sort of things that only porn stars did ten years ago. She probably set it up so she could hold this over him. You know how devious witches are.”

  “What if she didn’t stage it?” my husband says, his voice unnaturally calm.

  “Of course she did! Jesus, Michael, do you want your son to be the sort of boy who forces girls?”

  Michael’s hand, his strong, steady physician’s hand, lashes out and catches my wrist, pinning me to my seat. And with a reflex born of long experience, I go limp.

  “That’s exactly the sort of boy he was. I should know; I had to go around tidying up after him often enough.”

  “What?”

  “Some girl on the club soccer team was the closest call. Why do you think I pulled Daniel from coaching?”

  “Dan stepped back to focus on his training.”

  Michael scoffs. “He quit because I told him it’d blow up in his face otherwise. He’d brought her back here one night. You’d gone to bed, but I came downstairs and found them. You don’t have a hand over the mouth of someone who enjoys what you’re doing to them.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Dan could have any girl he wanted. Why would he force himself on someone? Let alone a child barely in her teens with no tits or conversation.”

  “Twelve,” Michael says.

  “What?”

  “She was twelve when it started.”

  I hunch in the chair. Why on earth is Michael talking like this?

  “He was just giving her extra attention because she was a promising athlete,” I hear myself pleading. “And why would Dan rape Harper when she’s his girlfriend anyway?”

  Michael shrugs. “Maybe he enjoyed it.”

  I can’t bear it—neither Michael’s words, nor the cold detachment with which he’s saying them. I explode, hands clawing, arms flailing.

  Something—a fist, a vase—slams into my chin, and my head snaps back with such force I’m sure something breaks.

  I black out.

  When I come to, I’m in my own bed. The curtains are drawn, the light dim.

  I see a shape in the armchair in the corner. Michael, asleep.

  Who is this man I married?

  I need to get away, to think clearly about everything he said last night. I’m practiced in tiptoeing around him and ease myself up from the bed.

  “We need to talk, Abigail.”

  My heart races. Michael’s not asleep after all. He drags his chair over, and I shrink back against the pillows. My husband cups one of my hands between his, not touching but confining, like a bird in a cage.

  “Are you saying all this because you’re jealous of Dan?” I ask, fear making me reckless. “You are, aren’t you? You always were.”

  His hand strikes upside my jaw so hard that my teeth clash and I taste blood.

  “Shut up, Abigail, and listen. You know Dan did those things, and now there’s a video to prove it. So, our son was a rapist. That’s what everyone will say. I said shut up.”

  He wrenches my wrist again, because I’m sobbing loudly. He’s right. He’s so right, and I can’t endure it. Those sisters Dan offered to babysit for? The girl down the road whose puppy he always stopped to play with? How proud I was of my charming, helpful son.

  Was there a moment when I chose not to understand?

  “Think about how it will reflect on us,” Michael continues. “All those years I’ve put in. For nothing. I’ll just be ‘that rapist’s dad.’ How will I be able to hold my head up with the faculty? Who will collaborate with me? What will happen to my research? My legacy?”

  He’s looking at me intently as he rants about his career, and it’s wrong. So wrong.

  Then I finally realize what I’m looking at.

  It’s Sarah’s work again.

  I begged her, all those years ago, to make Michael successful. To give my diffident husband drive and ambition that matched his talent. And she did it.

  She did it too well. And now that’s all
Michael is. No love for me. No pride in our son. If he’s cared about either of us or done anything for us, it’s because of how our actions reflected on him.

  He knew our son was rotten to the core, and he covered it up. He summoned the Spartans to organize the vigil, a huge public statement of how popular his son was, to make sure that any slurs on Dan’s name died with him. It was always all about Michael’s own position.

  Is there any part of my life Sarah’s magic hasn’t touched and ruined?

  “If this video gets currency, there’s a chance some of those other girls might come forward.” Michael is still talking. “So we have to shut it down. Some explanation that makes it her fault, not his. Maybe what you were saying before about Harper staging it to hold something over him, or to extort money from us. Or perhaps it’s just racy play. Teens experimenting. Witches are like that, and half the town thinks she’s a whore anyway.”

  But I’m only half listening, because suddenly everything has joined up.

  Sarah worked magic on Michael, and changed him.

  Sarah worked magic on Alberto, and changed him.

  And Sarah worked magic on Dan. On my darling boy. And she changed him.

  Yes, technically Daniel may have done those things. The soccer girl, and those others. The rape. But none of it was his fault. None of it was ever his fault. Our boy died when he fell from the window at Bridget’s. And whatever Sarah did to bring him back, she twisted him in the process.

  “No,” I tell Michael calmly, laying a hand on his arm. “This is what we say. Yes, Daniel did that to Harper. But he couldn’t help it. It wasn’t his fault—it was Sarah’s. We reveal everything about what she did that night six years ago. How she brought him back. But we say she brought him back wrong. No matter what comes out, Daniel is the victim. Sarah is to blame.”

  It’s more than just a convenient story. It’s the truth. I feel it in my bones.

  Sarah spoiled my husband and my marriage.

  She spoiled my son.

  And now the world will hear what she did.

  Eighty-Four

  Maggie

  It takes heavy-duty knocking and yelling “Police!” through the door to get Bridget to open up.

  “Detective? Can I help? It’s just that Cheryl’s not doing well, and Izzy is still…”

  “I just need a moment of your time.”

  Reluctantly, Bridget lets me in, talking half to me, half to herself about her wife’s condition. Then she stops and turns so abruptly I nearly walk right into her.

  “It’s not magic, is it, this sickness? I know Sarah wouldn’t… But that article said some cops and those football boys are ill, too, and you know that Cheryl had to untangle that nasty incident with Harper and Beatriz, and she worried that Sarah felt she wasn’t being supportive of Harper…

  “She does get migraines, but this one’s real bad. She’s in bed, curtains drawn, can’t eat and in too much pain to sleep. Oh god, I can’t believe I’m even thinking it. I should just ask Sarah, but she’d be devastated that I even imagined…”

  And right there in her hallway, Bridget Perelli-Lee bursts into tears. She does it quietly, so as not to disturb her family, and swipes at every tear as soon as it spills. I gently touch her shoulder as she cries it all out.

  “I’m sorry,” she sniffs. “I’m sorry. It’s just, I’m scared for Cheryl. I’m scared for all of us. I was in Sarah’s coven. The last couple of days, my salon’s been real quiet. What if no one’s coming because they think I’m mixed up in it, too? I was thinking I should shut it down for a few days. I saw what was done to the town sign, before it was cleaned off. You know we were always taught in history class that during the persecutions, innocent folk were driven out along with the witches. Anyone suspected. I’ve done magic with her for years…”

  Her voice trails off. I’m startled and saddened by how distraught she is. Fearful for her wife. Fearful that it might all be the doing of her oldest friend. Fearful that the town’s suspicion could fall on her, too.

  When I tell her why I’m here, she’ll be in bits that suspicion is falling on her daughter, too.

  “I’m still standing, aren’t I?” I offer, in hopes it’ll raise a smile. It doesn’t.

  “Take a seat,” Bridget says, steering me toward the kitchen table. The room is full of cats playing hide-and-seek in the empty box of a new TV, or curled up on kitchen surfaces. With Cheryl laid up in bed, the house is plainly reverting to its natural state.

  “Shoo! Down!”

  Bridget swats a cat from the table. At the last minute it daintily evades her, and she sends a stack of workbooks and folders cascading to the floor, where they scatter among loose cat litter.

  Bridget swears. She’s worn to a frazzle.

  “I’ll get them,” I say. “It’s no trouble, if you wouldn’t mind fetching Isobel? It’s her I’m here to see.”

  “Izzy?”

  Bridget’s voice rises in alarm. She looks at me like one betrayed. I figured that if I mentioned on the doorstep that it’s her daughter I’m here to speak to, Perelli might not have let me in. Looks like my hunch was right.

  “It’s just about something she may have seen. I’m sorry if she’s sleeping. Just a quick word.”

  Bridget gives in the way animals do, resentful but obedient. I stoop and pick up the books. It’s Izzy’s school stuff where she’s been working from home. I pile up the texts, then reach for the last book. It’s a daily planner, pastel and covered with rainbow stickers. It landed spread eagled, and as I flip it over, the pages fan—and I see something I could never have expected.

  Hastily, I pull out my phone and snap some pictures. I turn a few more pages. Another.

  Snap, snap, snap.

  My heart stutters when I see the last one.

  “Are you all right, Detective?”

  Bridget has returned with Izzy. I murmur some excuse about having a bad back and kick the journal further under the table before straightening up, groaning. When they find it later, they’ll think I simply overlooked it.

  Izzy stands before me in another rumpled onesie. She looks sweet and hesitant, with her mom’s round face and her dad’s gappy teeth.

  “Come and have a seat, Isobel. I’m sorry to get you up. Don’t be alarmed. It’s just we’re going back to everyone who was at the party the night Daniel died and…”

  Izzy has barely touched the chair to sit down before she springs out of it, as though electrified. Bridget looks pissed off.

  “You’ve obviously forgotten, Detective, but Isobel wasn’t at the party. She’s been sick for weeks.”

  “Oh, right.” I feign confusion. “Okay. I didn’t compile the initial list of attendees, but when we were going over it with kids at the school this morning, four students confirmed seeing you, Isobel, so I thought…”

  Izzy looks terrified.

  “I wasn’t… I…” She’s shaking her head, that hair flying.

  “Detective, we’re all having a difficult time right now, and I could do without this. Izzy wasn’t at the party, so she won’t be able to help you.”

  “Of course, of course,” I murmur to Bridget, getting to my feet. “My mistake. Thank you, Isobel. Glad to see you looking better.”

  The kid’s staring at me like I’m her worst nightmare come to life and standing in her kitchen.

  As I’m stepping over the threshold, I turn back to Bridget.

  “Sorry, I should make a note for my records in case anyone queries it. The night of the party, what was the last time you checked on Isobel? And did you check on her again later?”

  “I don’t know, Detective. You can imagine what that evening was like. I certainly checked before making dinner. Then the whole thing went to hell with the phone call, the texts from Harper and Beatriz. I did look in on Izzy before I went to bed, but I’ve no idea what time that was.
<
br />   “There’s no way she could have been there, though. Kids at that party were taken to the hospital, talked to by cops. You’ve seen how sensitive Isobel is. She couldn’t have simply crept home and into bed as if nothing had happened.”

  “I get it. Thank you. And I hope Cheryl makes a quick recovery.”

  Bridget can’t shut the door fast enough behind me.

  I can’t make sense of it, but I wouldn’t deserve the name of cop if I didn’t recognize in a heartbeat what Izzy’s reaction was just then.

  Guilt.

  I pull out my phone, swipe through the images, then compose a quick email to Chester.

  Get back to the station—leave the old fella to finish the interviews. And bring Rowan.

 

  Eighty-Five

  Maggie

  “They’re the Old Signs,” Rowan says, frowning at the photos on my phone as the three of us study them. “Ancient. Powerful. Also: banned.”

  “What the hell are they doing in a schoolgirl’s journal?” I ask. “Where might she have seen them—online?”

  “Nope.”

  Chester fidgets uneasily.

  “These are from a text called the Standard American Book of Lore—all witches know it as the Starcross grimoire. It’s two and a half centuries old, and class-1 restricted. Starcross can’t be copied, loaned, or consulted. Whoever drew these has technically already committed an offense. In fact, you have, just by taking these photos. You shouldn’t email them, print a copy, or store them on your database.

  “During the fight for magical decriminalization, the movement that became the Moot attempted to track down and destroy copies of Starcross to reassure people that witches and witchcraft aren’t threatening. So they’re super-rare. They’ve usually been quietly handed down in families for generations.”

  “This sign, though? It’s like…”

  I point to the third picture, the last sign I saw in the journal before Bridget interrupted me. If you didn’t know it was magic, looking at it would make you think you need spectacles, because it slips and writhes on the page. It’s as if the letters of every vile word imaginable got broken into bits and jumbled up, and now they’re trying to re-form all by themselves, straights and curves all out of place. As if the one word they’d form would contain every awful thought every written or imagined.