by Roger Hayden
The town hall was eerily quiet. I stole a glance at my mother. She remained seated, her hands folded neatly in her lap, as though respectfully waiting out Parris’s speech. Beside her, I saw Karma, Malia, and Laurel. All three were perched at the very edge of their chairs, as if ready to spring from their seats, looking more like sisters than I’d ever noticed before. The rest of the coven was similarly afflicted, but following my mother’s lead, they remained seated and silent.
“Leigh Lockwood,” Parris continued, “was a respected member of this community. She was a beautiful young woman, not only physically but mentally as well. She gave back to the town in every way.”
“Funny,” Leigh whispered in my ear. “He never spoke so kindly of me when I was still alive.”
“Halloween was Leigh’s favorite time of year,” Parris said. “She dedicated her time to helping the Historical Preservation Society prepare for the Fall Festival. She also volunteered to help the Summerses organize this outdated, sexist ritual that we’ve been tolerating for far too long. And look what it got her!”
The audience began to stir as Parris’s voice echoed through the hall.
“Detective Johnson has kept me up to date on the investigation,” Parris said. Behind him, Detective Johnson raised a hand in acknowledgement. “There is an astounding lack of evidence. No fingerprints, no footprints, nothing except the objects that were discovered at the scene. Now, tell me, how can you not understand that this murder, this sacrifice even, was orchestrated by one of them?”
He swept an arm out in the direction of the coven. All at once, the town hall exploded with noise. The coven and its small band of supporters protested loudly, while the other townspeople talked behind their hands and stared at us. Chief Torres attempted to restore order, but his efforts were overthrown as Parris continued his rant.
“They are the only ones,” Parris roared over the cacophony, “with the ability to compromise evidence in such an effective way. And one of them was even discovered at the scene of the crime!”
I closed my eyes, bracing myself for his next words.
“Morgan Summers,” he said in a surprisingly level voice. “How dare you sit there as if you have every right to be here?”
I looked up, aware of the overwhelming amount of faces turned in my direction. “I do have every right to be here.”
“You murdered Leigh Lockwood.”
As the town gave a collective gasp, I stood up. “Are you delusional?” I asked Parris. “First of all, I didn’t even know Leigh. I have no motive. All you have on me is the fact that I found the body. Were my hands covered in blood? Was I holding the dagger? Was I chanting Latin over her corpse? It’s no wonder the police haven’t found anything else. Your incompetence is astounding.”
Parris waved a hand in a sweeping gesture, as if dismissing my rebuttal. “Can you prove your innocence?”
“It’s supposed to be the other way around!” I said, outraged. “Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty?”
He ignored me. “I propose we rid Yew Hollow of its problematic witch population,” he announced.
“What are you going to do, kill us all?” I asked as the hall once again broke out in conversation. “We’re not ants. You can’t just spray us with pesticide and hope we go away.”
Before Parris could respond, my mother stood. Her aura washed out over the crowd, and though the townspeople may have not understood it, they could certainly feel it. The hall fell silent at once as the one and only Cassandra Summers took the floor.
“You forget, Parris,” my mother said calmly. “My family, this coven, is the root of Yew Hollow. Do not think you have the ability to oust the very family that founded this place. You will regret it.”
“Are you threatening me?” Parris asked, abandoning the podium to take several large strides toward my mother. As a whole, the coven stood, chairs scraping, and gathered behind my mother. Parris, faced with twenty witches, halted his approach.
“I am merely reminding you that this place was once impermissible to mortals,” my mother said, “and I will not hesitate to restore Yew Hollow to its former role as a sanctuary.”
For a moment, my mother and Parris engaged in the fiercest staring contest I’d ever witnessed. Parris retreated to the podium.
“Citizens of Yew Hollow,” he said. “You have heard firsthand the plans for which this coven holds for us. They intend to eradicate us, one by one.”
I rolled my eyes. He sure did know how to warp the truth.
“I propose we give the entire Summers coven three days to leave Yew Hollow and never return,” Parris continued. “Otherwise, we allow them to get away with murder. In three days’ time, if the coven has not wised up and left Yew Hollow, we will take matters into our own hands. All in favor?”
“You can’t be serious,” I said loudly.
“All in favor?” Parris called again.
I turned around to face the crowd, watching incredulously as hands went up one by one. Leigh, who had been shocked into silence, seemed dumbfounded. No one dared make eye contact with me as they kept their hands in the air like a tyrannical salute.
Parris, a satisfied smirk visible beneath his narrowed eyes, leaned over the podium and addressed the coven.
“Three days.”
Chapter Six
In Which My Family Is Actually Useful
The walls of the Summers house seemed to pulse with the anger of its occupants. The entire coven had squeezed into the dining room, crowded around the mahogany table as they expressed their outrage at Parris’s request. The place was overwhelmed by a rainbow of auras, which pushed and pulled at my brain. I leaned against the staircase, watching from a distance. Wren and Leigh flanked either side of me. We were a trio of confusion, unable to compute the disaster before us.
My mother, seated at the head of the table, called for silence.
“I understand why you are all so worried,” she said, “but we will figure this out. This is our town. We will not let the mortals take it away from us.”
As the discussion continued, Karma made her way over to me. She gave Wren a curt nod then propped herself against the banister next to me. Leigh scooched out of the way before Karma could step through her.
“What do you think?” Karma whispered to me.
“I think I need your help,” I said back in a low voice. “Tonight, after dark. Laurel and Malia, too. It’s time we took this into our own hands.”
At midnight, Leigh and I snuck out through the back door. In the silver moonlight, I could make out Karma, Laurel, and Malia across the yard, silhouetted against the swing set. I ran toward them.
“Hi,” I said a little breathlessly. Karma and Laurel sat on the swings, while Malia lounged against one of its metal support structures. “Thanks for meeting me.”
“What’s going on, Morgan?” Malia asked. “Do you know something?”
“I do, in fact.” I glanced at Leigh, who nodded in encouragement, then said to my sisters, “Leigh came to me. I’ve been trying to figure out what happened to her all week.”
Not one of them looked the least bit surprised. Laurel even rolled her eyes.
“Yeah, we know,” Karma said.
“You knew?”
“You’re not exactly subtle, Mo,” Laurel said as she leaned back in her swing to stare at the stars. “We knew as soon as you started poking your nose around.”
“Malia?” I said, turning to her.
She shrugged. “It was pretty obvious, Morgan.”
Laurel waved a hand in a random direction. “Hi, Leigh!” she said in a chipper voice.
“She’s over here,” I said grumpily, gesturing to where Leigh stood a pace behind me.
“Tell them I said hi,” Leigh said, a wide grin spreading across her ghostly features.
“She says hi,” I grumbled.
“We miss you,” Karma said, addressing Leigh’s general vicinity.
“Tell them I miss them too!”
“Sh
e says she misses you too,” I said.
“The reenactment planning has gone to shit, Leigh,” Malia said. “You were the only one who had any level of organizational skills in that entire society.”
“Tell them—”
“Wait!” I said, holding up a hand. “I am not a damn courier for the dead. We need to talk about Leigh’s death, not the ass backwards reenactment.”
“What are you thinking?” Karma asked.
“I have a plan,” I said, “but I have a feeling that none of you are going to like it.”
Despite a number of protests from each of my siblings, I convinced them to go along with my idea. I needed each of them in turn. I was hoping their collective abilities might reveal enough to jog Leigh’s memory. Then we’d be able to clear my name and prevent the townspeople from going all torches and pitchforks on the rest of the coven. Together, the four of us and Leigh made our way to the town square and the yew tree. I needed Laurel first. She could speak to the trees.
We sat in a circle at the base of the yew, leaving a space for Leigh. I glanced at Laurel, who was already sifting handfuls of dirt through her fingers, eyes closed, and humming a soft tune that seemed to float around us on the gentle wind. She grasped my hand in hers, and I reached across Leigh to take Karma’s hand. Karma held Malia’s hand, who completed the circle by grabbing Laurel’s other hand. I felt their auras pulse through me, like the combination of different songs being played over top of one another.
Without warning, Laurel’s hum was taken on by the trees. They seemed to harmonize with her, the song stirring the leaves as if a firm breeze were blowing through them. It grew and grew, until I could feel it purring through my bones. Laurel sang louder, her long hair whipping around her delicate face as the trees warbled to her.
Then, all at once, it stopped.
Laurel opened her eyes.
“Well?” I demanded, squeezing her hand.
“It was a man,” she said, her eyes oddly vacant, as though her mind still belonged to the nature around her. “Young, they said. Statuesque. Petty. Rainy eyes.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Tall in physical form,” she expanded, “but his intentions were skewed. He was crying. That’s all they told me. They’ve been trying to heal, to forget.”
I turned to Leigh. “Does that help at all?”
Her eyebrows furrowed together, as if she was imploring her brain to remember. “I remember walking to the town meeting. I was late, so there was no one around. Someone grabbed me from behind. Someone strong.”
“And then?” Karma prompted.
Leigh shook her head. “That’s it.”
I sighed. “It’s okay. We haven’t exhausted all our options yet. Karma? You’re up.”
Karma had been the most reluctant to participate in my plan. I understood why. She feared her own power. Fortunately, we weren’t using it for anything particularly devious. From her pocket, Karma produced a small doll, made of cloth and cotton, and a handful of colored pins. Cautiously, she selected a pin with a purple head. She moved into the center of our circle. The rest of us linked hands again.
“For manipulation,” she murmured.
She pressed the pin into the heart of the doll. Eyes closed, her fingers deftly maneuvered the pin this way and that. It was an exact art, one that required steady hands. In our general vicinity, nothing magical seemed to be happening, but I knew it would soon.
“There!” Malia said, letting go of Laurel’s hand to point down the street.
The night guard from the police station was walking toward us. His eyes were blank, unseeing. He halted beneath the yew tree, close enough for me to make out the name “Smithson” embroidered on his collared uniform shirt. Karma tweaked the movement of the pin, and he knelt down, drew an item from his back pocket, and placed it before us. Then he turned and faded into the darkness back toward the station.
I leaned forward, picking up the object. It was wrapped neatly in a Yew Hollow Police Force T-shirt. I slowly unfolded the shirt, exposing the bloodstained, bone-handled dagger that had so recently pierced Leigh’s skin. Leigh eyed it warily as I passed it to Malia.
Malia grasped the handle, her hand shaking. As soon as she touched it, her whole body tensed, and she drew in a sharp breath. Out of all our gifts, Malia’s always seemed the most alien to me. She couldn’t describe in words her connection with objects or how she gained information from them. Inanimate things didn’t have auras, so I never understood how her ability worked.
“Someone’s tainted this knife,” she said and dropped it into the dirt as if she could no longer bear to hold it. “It won’t show me anything useful.”
“Nothing?” I asked in disbelief. “You didn’t see anything at all?”
“Two men handled it, not just one,” she said. “And it showed me exactly where Leigh had been cut by it, which by the way was traumatic. But whoever used it must have known we would try to scry with it. Everything’s blurry around it.”
“How is that possible?” Karma asked. “I didn’t know you could conceal objects like that.”
“You can’t,” Malia said shortly. “It’s more evidence that someone’s been meddling with dark magic. They’re breaking all kinds of rules.”
I swore colorfully, at the end of my rope. I was sure that the combination of all my sisters’ powers would shed some light on the situation. Leigh tried to put a reassuring hand on my shoulder, but of course it sank right through.
“I don’t know what else to do,” I said to her. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s so like you to not ask for my help,” a voice said from behind the yew tree.
All five us, Leigh included, jerked in surprise. My mother, Cassandra, emerged from her hiding place beyond the tree. How she knew we were there, I could’ve never guessed. A mother’s instinct, I supposed.
“Karma, Malia, Laurel,” she said, “go home.”
At once, the three began to protest, but my mother held up a hand. “This will be easier without the extra auras. I need Morgan and Leigh, of course, but the three of you should go.”
Reluctantly, my three sisters stood, brushing dirt and grass from the seat of their jeans. Only Leigh and I remained, watching as they headed back in the direction of the Summers house. Once they’d disappeared from view, my mother leaned against the yew tree.
“Over here, Morgan,” she said, motioning for me to stand.
I obeyed, joining her at the tree. I took her outstretched hand. “How did you know?” I asked.
“Please, Morgan, I birthed you,” she said dismissively. “I know everything about you. How’s Leigh?”
“Still dead.”
“And so shall she remain, unfortunately,” Cassandra said. Then she spoke to Leigh herself, somehow managing to look her straight in the eye. “Leigh, I’m going to help you see what happened to you. It will be quite strange. You’ll be forced to relive the event, this time fully aware of your surroundings. Do you agree to this?”
Leigh nodded, though I could see the anxiety in her expression. “She says yes,” I said to my mother. “What are you going to do?”
“The third eye has many uses,” she said. “It often shows me the future, but if I argue with it, it will also show me the past. Keep an eye on me, will you? I may faint.”
Then she took Leigh’s hand as if she were alive.
My eyes widened. “How did you do that?”
“Years of practice.”
Without warning, the scene changed. I squinted, eyes adjusting, as the town square was suddenly illuminated by the lazy sunset of last Sunday. Leigh, very much alive, strolled down the sidewalk. She walked with purpose, her gaze set on the town hall at the end of the road. Then her body convulsed, as if someone invisible had tackled her from behind. She struggled, letting out a yell, before something struck her head. She passed out.
Next to my mother, Leigh’s spirit remained, transfixed by her own history. Leigh’s body was then lifted into the air,
carried to the yew tree, and deposited in front of us. The invisible entity began to adjust Leigh’s arms and legs until she lay spread-eagle on the ground. Then, starting at Leigh’s head, Leigh’s murderer began to draw in the dirt. I watched in horror as the pentagram appeared. As the black candles materialized, lit and placed at every point of the pentagram, I suppressed the need to shut my eyes. I didn’t want to see what happened next.
A jagged tear opened in Leigh’s left arm, spilling her blood out into the trough of the pentagram. An identical tear appeared in her right arm.
“I can’t, Mom,” I said, ripping my eyes from Leigh’s body. “I can’t watch.”
Beside her, Leigh’s spirit was trembling. Unlike me, she seemed unable to stop watching the tragedy unfolding before her. I suddenly understood. Since it wasn’t my memory, I wasn’t able to see Leigh’s murderer. Leigh, on the other hand, could see everything.
The dagger drew another line.
“Mom, enough,” I said firmly. Leigh’s spirit had faded. Her fingers slipped through my mother’s.
My mother staggered. As I steadied her, the scene vanished, once again encasing us in the dark of the night. Only the silver light of the moon illuminated the town square. I breathed heavily, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. Leigh’s spirit sank to the ground, curling up into a ball at the base of the yew tree. I knelt next to her.
“Did you see?” I asked.
A nod.
“Who?”
“I can’t tell her.” Leigh’s voice was barely a whisper. “Cassandra.”
Without further prompting, my mother brushed her hands off on her long skirts, turned, and left. She melted into the night, leaving Leigh and I to our own devices.
I wanted to shake Leigh, to pry the information from her lips. Instead, I allowed her to sit with her head resting in her arms, hoping that once she’d gathered her emotions, she would let me in on whatever she’d seen in my mother’s vision. I sat next to her, so close that she brushed against me, sending a blast of cold air through my rib cage.