It was as though she couldn’t catch her breath. Her face turned a soft pink, and her amazing eyes, a stormy emerald green, shimmered with wetness.
I grabbed Annette’s hand and hauled her out of the shop and through the mass of tourists, anywhere that was away.
“Did you see that?” she asked.
“Seriously?”
“That was crazy.” Her enthusiasm, like champagne, came with lots of bubbles.
“I’m going to go out on a limb and say she’s the real thing.”
“Ya think? This proves it. You still have your powers.”
Crap on a cracker. “This proves nothing of the kind.”
“Please. Why else would she react that way to you?”
“A history of mental illness comes to mind.”
“Clearly your powers are still there. Like they were before Ruthie taught you how to access them. We just have to work on getting them back.” She looked at her hands. “Also, I shoplifted, but it’s kind of your fault.” She showed me the illegal contraband in the shape of a cauldron as proof.
I took it from her. “It’s so cute.”
“Right?”
I flipped it over. “Twenty-five dollars!” That was an expensive refrigerator magnet. “We have to go back and pay for it.”
“Not in this lifetime. I’ll mail her a check.”
“That works.”
We headed back toward the restaurant, Annette rambling about my powers and Love’s reaction and how hard it was to be a psychic in a skeptic’s world. It did make one question a few of life’s certainties. Like the fact that psychics were fake. That belief had been so firmly ingrained that even knowing what I knew now about witches and magics and the preternatural, it still made any evidence to the contrary seem trivial.
Something in my periphery dragged me out of my thoughts. I turned to see Roane among a group of tourists. He was leaning against a house one minute, watching me with that dark gaze of his, but gone the next. Then I saw the house.
“Wait.” I stopped before Annette could adjust.
She ran into me from behind then followed my gaze.
I read the sign. “The Witch House,” I said, my voice full of awe.
Like with Love, I felt a pull. A gravitational tug. But unlike with Love, the energy wasn’t positive. Not totally. It was a mixture of light and darkness. I knew enough about the house to know that it had belonged to one of the judges in the Salem witch trials.
“It’s so cool,” Annette said. “It belonged to Judge Jonathan Corwin. They believe that many cases were initially investigated here. You have to buy tickets in advance, but I know a guy.”
“You know a guy?”
She grinned. “Wait here,” she said before heading inside.
I frowned and studied the ground around the house as a man tried to get me to sign a petition to stop the demolition of an old print factory. I signed it because why not then studied the manor. Made of thick, black timber, it towered above the tourists posing for selfies. I looked for Roane again, but like before, he was gone.
When Annette came back with two passes, I said, “It’s been moved.” Either that or my bearings were off.
“Yes,” she said, impressed. “They had to move it thirty-five feet to keep it from being torn down when they widened North Street. How did you know?”
I lifted a shoulder. “I must’ve read it somewhere.”
Annette studied the spot I’d been staring at. “I don’t think so. What did you see?”
“Nothing. It’s just, I don’t know, off-center.”
“Let’s go in. You’ll love it.”
Normally, I would agree with her. I loved history. But the closer we got to the entrance, the more uncomfortable I became. Dark energies swirled around me. Light as well, but the dark was disorienting. Dizzying. Nauseating.
I pulled up my bootstraps and soldiered on. We ducked inside and traveled four-hundred years into the past. Wood floors creaked beneath our feet as we perused the entryway. Glass cases displayed items form the era, including a woman’s boot and a witch bottle. I found the bottle particularly interesting.
“This is the only structure still standing with direct ties to the Witch Trials of 1692,” Nette said.
I wiped all expression from my face. “You just read that in the brochure.”
She brought a brochure out of her back pocket and waved it. “True. Doesn’t make it any less cool. Or sad. Depending.” She tapped it on my arm and led the way into the parlor. “Many would say Judge Corwin paid dearly for his part in the trials.”
“How so?”
“The Corwin Curse. Eight Corwins died in this house.”
“That’s awful.”
The former magistrate’s parlor was appointed with primitive furnishings and household items like candles and quills and some gorgeous silver platters. A huge brick fireplace took up an entire wall. A table, where the judge had likely heard the accusations of the residents, sat along another.
The kitchen was no less impressive, only the fireplace was even bigger with a beehive oven on the back wall and a cast iron pot hanging inside. An ornate carpet lay across a thick wooden dining table, and a butter churn sat in one corner along with thick milk bottles and tin cups.
We took a set of narrow wooden stairs up to the second floor to the master bedroom. The energy hit me hardest there. A wave of dizziness washed over me as we examined the contents of the room. A cradle sat near another huge fireplace with a bedpan hanging from it. A silk dress was on display in one corner and a bible box sat on a nightstand beside a canopied bed. Inside it, the Corwins would’ve kept their bible and important documents.
But the most interesting thing about the bedroom had to be the little blond boy dressed in period clothing dangling his feet over the side of a small writing desk.
“He’s adorable,” I whispered, not wanting him to break from his role. “A little boy in period clothes. He’s dressed so authentically.”
He looked up at me and waved.
I put a hand over my heart. “I want to take him home.”
Annette turned to me. “Okay, but don’t get us arrested again like last time. Most children are accompanied by at least one parent.”
Several other people were perusing the room at the same time, but none of them paid the least bit of attention to the boy. “Where do you think they are?”
“Who?” she asked, checking out a picture of a woman.
“The boy’s parents.”
He smiled again, hopped down from the desk, and darted out of the room. Only he didn’t go through a door. He went through a wall.
I froze as a wave of terror gripped me like nothing I’d ever felt before. No idea why. It wasn’t like he was scary. I’d thought I’d seen a ghost once as a kid. Turned out to be Papi wearing an avocado mask.
“What boy?” Annette asked, looking around.
I felt a tug on my jacket but didn’t move. I knew it was him. It had to be. No one else in the room was that short.
“Deph?” Annette snapped her fingers in front of my face. It was super helpful. “You in there?”
I snuck my left hand up and pointed nonchalantly to my right side.
She looked and shrugged.
I gritted my teeth and tilted my head.
She looked again and tilted her head back.
I had no choice but to risk a quick glance to clue her in.
Blond boy. Big blue eyes. Period clothing.
After offering her my best deer-in-the-headlights, she shook her head. “I don’t get it.”
He tugged again, and my lungs seized. Why? It was just a boy. A gorgeous, playful little boy who couldn’t have been more than two or three. The gravity of what was happening began to sink in.
Annette froze too, but only for a moment before she whirled around, her gaze darting about wildly.
The boy lifted his hand as though he wanted me to take it, but I was still in the throes of terror and couldn’t move.
; Annette whirled around again like a drunk ballerina, gaining the attention of everyone in the room. They cast glances over their shoulders that were both curious and irritated. “Where is it?” she asked, flapping her jacket as though trying to shake him off.
It was the little boy’s actions that snapped me out of my stupor. He wilted, the hope in his eyes vanishing as he lowered his hand and began to walk away.
“Wait,” I whispered to him. He stopped but didn’t look back, and I had to wonder how many times he’d tried to get someone’s attention over the years. Hell, over the centuries. How many times had he tried to connect? I closed my eyes a moment, then knelt. “Wait,” I said again.
Annette stopped her Elaine dance, her expression equal parts interest and horror.
He turned toward me, his face the loveliest thing I’d ever seen.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “You just startled me.”
Two dimples appeared on his cheeks, and I melted, almost falling through the floorboards to the kitchen below. He walked up to me and put his hand on my face. I could barely feel it, like a brush of cool air.
By that point, we’d gained the attention of the others in the room. There were only five, but they were very interested in what we were doing. One of them, a woman in her early thirties, brought out a phone to record the crazy lady talking to air.
I was pretty much done with others seeking their fifteen minutes at my expense. As calmly as I could, I leveled my best glare on her and explained, “I am a witch. If you even think about recording me, I’ll fry your phone and the 4,738 pictures on it.”
Slowly, as though I were a snake about to strike, she lowered the device and tucked it into her pocket.
I turned back to the boy. “How old are you?”
He struggled to raise the proper number of fingers, using his other hand to help, then held up three. “Free.”
Three? If he was three, he’d only recently seen that birthday when he’d passed. He looked younger.
I crossed my arms over a knee and buried a smile behind them. “What’s your name.”
“Samwell.”
“Samuel?” I asked.
He nodded, then turned and pointed to the open doorway. “Open.”
“Deph?” Annette asked. “I need some verbal cues here.”
A man came rumbling up the stairs and skidded to a halt. We’d been ratted out.
“Hey, Karl,” Annette said. He had to be her guy. “We’re just looking around like everybody else. Nothing to see here.”
His face was bright with wonder. “Is it the little blond boy or a man?”
“A man?” I asked him, afraid to take my eyes off Samuel for very long. Considering my crouched position, I had to wonder why he would think it was a man. Or what he thought I was doing to a man in said position.
“Sir,” Samuel said. Then he pointed again.
“Yes.” Karl chanced a step closer. “There’ve been several accounts over the years, but all of them report seeing either a blond boy or an older gentleman. They believe the man is Jonathan Corwin himself, but pictures of him don’t match their description. The boy could be one of his children. He lost five. But we just don’t know.”
Annette had taken out her phone and was already looking something up. She shook her head. “He’s not one of the judge’s children. Jonathan Corwin didn’t have a son named Samuel.”
“His name is Samuel?” Karl asked, astonished.
It amazed me how he didn’t even question the authenticity of my sighting.
“Can I take a picture?” he asked. “I might get an orb. Or even an outline.”
I finally acquiesced. “Just a picture. No video.”
He took out his phone, and everyone else in the room followed suit. In fact, our audience had grown by about six more people, all wanting to see what the hubbub was about.
I held out my hand. “Is Sir here?” I asked the boy.
He nodded and pointed again. “Open.”
“Okay, I’ll try, but you’ll have to show me.” Before I could follow, he vanished through the wall again. “Excuse me,” I said, squeezing through the crush at the door.
Annette and Karl followed, everyone else trailing behind them.
I thought I’d lost him until I went down a few of the steps and spotted him in the entryway.
He stood by a glass display case and pointed at the top shelf. “Open.”
I hurried to him. “The case? You want the case open?”
We had a couple of new people join the group. The crowd behind me was taking pictures like crazy. Wonderful.
Samuel shook his head and pointed again.
I scanned the case. The only thing that high that I could open was the witch bottle. I stilled. Witch bottles were historically filled with urine or hair or fingernails, and they always had pins or nails in them, supposedly to trap a witch inside. Fine. Whatever. But this sweet boy was no more a witch than I was a warlock. Had the bottle somehow trapped him? Anchored him to the house?
I turned to Karl. He was good-looking and rather nerdy. A dark-haired, college-aged kid with a clear affinity for all things supernatural. “Could a witch bottle somehow trap a small boy?”
He blinked in thought. “I don’t know. I mean, maybe. It’s all so speculative. I never believed a witch bottle could trap a witch, but if it can, why not a boy?”
I got to my knees, and Samuel put his hand on my face again. He had perfect pale skin and a soft, ethereal glow, rather like Ruthie. I had to try.
People were whispering all around us, the newbies trying to ascertain what was going on. The more experienced in the group, those who’d been with us since the beginning five minutes ago, were explaining. They jostled and volleyed for a better view.
There was nothing I could do about that now. “Karl, can I open the bottle?”
“Sure.” He put on a pair of gloves, brought out a set of keys, and opened the case. “But I have to say, it’s been opened before.”
“Really? I don’t know what to tell you. He wants it open,” I said with a shrug.
He shrugged back at me.
Annette knelt beside me. “Deph, maybe we should think about this.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, maybe he only looks like a kid. Maybe he’s, I don’t know, a demon seed who’s going to open the gates of hell and suck us all in.”
The corners of the boy’s little mouth turned down.
I almost laughed. “One thing I’ve learned—quite recently, in fact—is that I can feel the difference between a malevolent spirit and a friendly one.” I looked back at him. “There is not a mean bone in this baby’s body.”
“Because he has no bones!” she whispered through clenched teeth, making a valid argument.
Someone nearby chuckled softly, a deep, exhilarating sound. Roane.
I glanced around in surprise but didn’t see him. But I’d recognize that laugh anywhere.
“I mean, who’s to say what you’ll release?” Annette asked.
“Karl said the bottle has already been opened.”
“They even had to replace the cork a few years back,” he added.
“See? What harm will my opening it do?”
“Have you not been paying attention for the last six months?” Nette asked.
“Not really. No.”
Karl gave me a pair of gloves.
I put them on, and he handed me the bottle, a small ceramic cask in the shape of a gourd vase. I took it, gave my BFF one final challenging glare, and popped the cork. So to speak. And . . . nothing happened. Unless you counted the room filling with a foul stench that reminded me of old urine and vinegar.
The onlookers groaned. A few of them left.
“Wow.” I quickly pressed the cork back on and waved a hand in front of my face.
“That didn’t happen last time.” Karl held a sleeve over his nose as he took the bottle back and replaced it.
I looked around for Samuel. But he’d vanished. “He’
s gone!” I stood and turned in a circle before whimpering.
“Serves you right,” Annette said. Then she gagged. “I threw up a little in my mouth.”
“Serves you right back, missy.”
Before we left for lunch, I searched for Samuel again. I even checked under tables and called his name. Nothing.
“I just hope you didn’t just unleash a deadly plague upon the people of the land,” Annette said as we hurried to the restaurant.
“Fingers crossed.” Bummed about losing Samuel, I vowed to come back every day for the rest of my life if I had to. Then a thought hit me. “Hey, maybe I really did set him free. Maybe he, you know, crossed to the other side.”
“That would be amazing.”
“No, it wouldn’t. I’ll never see him again.”
“Defiance,” she said, clearly appalled.
“I know.” I was appalled too. “But I still want to see him again. He’s so beautiful, Nette.”
She put her arm in mine and pulled me closer. “Like me?”
“Exactly like you.”
Six
If overthinking situations burned calories
I’d be dead.
-Meme
The Ugly Mug Diner, a restaurant on Essex, was known for its mimosas, homemade sodas, and mimosas. Mostly its mimosas.
Before we stepped inside the restaurant, I felt a sense of serenity, like a cool breeze on a hot summer day. After we stepped inside, that serenity was bolstered by a surge of relief as I spotted a certain blond-haired boy grinning at me from behind a patron wearing a Hocus Pocus sweater. He waved and then took off, disappearing into the madding crowds.
Smiling, I let Nette lead me toward a table of ten women and two men.
Ruthie’s coven stood, all of them, and waited for us to make our way over.
“Hey, guys.” Annette gestured toward me, putting me on display like Vanna White turning over the next letter. “This is Defiance. Defiance, this is the Salem Arc of the Coven-ant.”
“We are not called the Arc of the Coven-ant,” an older woman said.
Annette looked at me. “Only because I haven’t convinced them yet.”
I smiled and offered a sheepish wave, especially since they all stood there, half with their mouths slightly ajar and half with them open to the floor.
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