by E. M. Moore
“We can make her do whatever we want.”
Mother’s bitter laugh rose up through her throat. “You two are stupid.”
“Shut u—Ugh, God.” Jennie dropped to her knees, cradling her head with her hands. “Oh God please…”
“What’s wrong?” I flipped to Jennie’s side as she rolled to her back, her body arching in pain as she tore at her hair. “Jennie?”
Courtney appeared, skipping up next to the threesome and kicked at Jennie with her foot. I glanced up. Courtney’s short, pixie hair stuck out in all directions. “Remember me?” She picked up the doll Jennie dropped and knelt before Mother. “Don’t worry, Mother. I’ll fix this.”
“Please,” Mother said, disgust tingeing her voice. “I’m fine." She tore the doll from Courtney’s hands and threw the wasted spell on the stage. “Just wanted to let the girls think they were getting somewhere.”
I rubbed Jennie’s shoulders as she still writhed in pain, kicking out, her rubber-soled shoes peeling up grass mounds. “Shh, Jennie. Shh.” The more I comforted, the higher her cries got. I pivoted to Mother and Courtney, who smiled down, admiring. “Please, stop this.”
Courtney waved her hand over Jennie and closed her fist. Her cries quieted to whimpers. “There.”
Mother protested. “She got in my way.”
“She’s a powerful witch. We’ll be able to use her.”
Mother shrugged and nudged Jennie’s limp forearm with her foot. It fell back into place. She smiled and walked back toward the stage. “Bring the girl, Courtney.”
My heartbeat steadied to an even rhythm by the time Courtney grabbed my elbow. The witch led me to the stage right in front of my mom. I was scared, but willed myself not to show emotion.
The crowd, stone-faced once more, started to chant. A buzz rang through the air. As I got closer to the stage, I stared into my mother’s downturned eyes. Eyes reminding me of the ones I’d drawn repeatedly in art class.
The crowd gathered in, including Drake and Marlene. The two guards left them and prepared another cross. This one spiked out of the ground surrounded by hay and dead grass.
No one wavered. As Courtney turned me to face the crowd and stepped back into the semi-circle, she picked up the chant. The words were indecipherable, even if they were English.
I saw everyone I met and then some. To my surprise, the crowd started to cower before me. They were afraid. The witches spelled them to think whatever they wanted them to. Made them believe whatever they wished. I was Isabella. A convicted witch.
Marlene stood in the crowd in front of me. Her face bloomed red in circled splotches. “Witch!” she cried. She spat at me and it hit my shoe. I didn’t cower or retaliate, just looked straight ahead toward the growing flames.
Marlene’s act spouted other courageous ones.
“Witch!”
“Devil!”
“Burn!”
All the while, the hum continued to get louder, until it pulsed in the air. I could feel it as if the space around me were something physical. The air vibrated.
I stared straight ahead, finding the one face I needed and tried to etch every contour into my mind. Hoping that if this didn’t work out, and it seemed as though it wouldn’t, I could at least take this memory with me to whatever was after this.
His face was otherwise expressionless, though his eyes were full of hate. The fear Mother implanted into all these brains made them think irrational things. Different times, different beliefs, and the witch transported all these minds back to the 1600’s.
I knew when Drake stared at me like that, he wasn’t really seeing me, he was seeing an evil spirit. The devil incarnate in a woman’s body.
Marlene appeared next to him and grabbed his hand. He smiled at her. I stumbled, but Courtney moved forward, righting me, steadying me.
I arched my chin in the air. The crowd began to silence. Their lively chant now only a murmur.
I was actually in the middle of an angry mob of witch hunters.
“Isabella Lynne, you have been convicted of witchcraft, of befriending the devil. Your punishment is to burn, burn away your sins. If you be not a witch, God will save you and allow no harm to come to you. If you are a witch, you will be enveloped in flames and your evil soul will perish along with your lifeless remains.” Mother stood before the crowd, replaying the scene from all those years ago. She was the only witch in that town that should’ve burned, apparently. Yet, she stood before me now almost 400 years later.
“Do you have anything to say, Isabella?”
I stared, transfixed, at the entwined fingers of Marlene and Drake. “I am not Isabella. My name is Sarah.”
“The evil one has possessed another.” Mother sneered as a loud hiss rose from the crowd.
A figure stumbled toward me, bumping me.
Drake.
He spread my palm open and placed something soft in my hand before Courtney shoved him away. I encased the object in my fist. Canvas. Without looking, I knew it was Marlene’s doll.
Mother continued to talk and the crowd quieted again. No more hum, no more physical vibrations. I didn’t look at anyone else, but I felt a change in the air.
A plan.
Mother motioned to the guards in the costumed brown trousers. “String her up, boys.”
They nodded in consent.
My hand shot in the air. The canvas doll hung from its arm, dangling before them all.
Mother gasped. “Get that. It’s the doll to bind them.”
I ran to the middle of the two crosses, grabbed the torch from its post, and threw it down on the empty cross, the one meant for me. The fire blazed, rearing up, and the flames leapt out and reached for me.
I backpedaled until my foot caught on a root and I tripped, dropping the binding doll at the edge of the hay.
There were no flames to catch it on fire there.
Mrs. Shipton laughed. She took after me at a run, moving quite quickly for an older woman. Before she got to me, I flung myself on my back. The fire was so near, I knew if I went back anymore, I would be immersed in it.
Drake tackled the witch’s right leg and she ended up on top of me. Her elbow slammed hard into my forehead.
I kicked out, flailing, hitting Mother in the mouth as adrenaline coursed through me. I flung myself at Rose’s body, forcing myself on top, pinning her hands. I let my entire weight sink into her. A wetness streamed from my forehead and I knew I’d been cut. It started to run off in drips, landing on the witch’s exposed neck.
Looking behind me, I found Drake staring at us. Everyone was staring at us. Their eyes were coming back to their own. They twitched and swayed nervously on their feet.
“It’s done,” I said when Rose started to struggle beneath me. I held her face to the ground with my hand.
“Ha,” she laughed. “You foolish bitch.”
Rose’s words were muffled, half of her mouth smashed in the dirt, but I saw the object sailing at me from the corner of my eye.
A piece of wood.
Bright orange flames engulfed a smoldering log with red-hot embers. It flew at me. I tried to duck out of the way only to get caught on the shoulder.
My shirt went up in flames. Heat tore through me, boiling my skin.
The bitch could move things with her mind.
I rolled off Mother and kept rolling in the dirt to smother the fire. The pain was excruciating.
Hands patted me, trying to put the flames out.
Drake.
My shirt was singed. The skin underneath resembled one heck of a nasty sunburn and the air smelled funny. But the fighting had lessened the witch’s powers. More and more townspeople started to blink as if they were coming out of the trance.
“You okay?” Drake asked.
He didn’t wait for an answer. He pulled me up and even though I was burnt and bloody, I was ready to fight. Drake was already in an offensive stance beside me. He was the only one who’d fully snapped out of the spell. The others watched, looki
ng back and forth, like they had no interest either way. So, we faced the witch together. Just the two of us.
Part of the embers had gotten her too. Tiny burns had singed her dress, the edges crispy black. “How touching,” Mother feigned sympathy.
“You can’t hurt him anymore.”
“I see that.” She eyed Drake’s neck. “Black onyx. Protection stone. How’d you figure that out?”
“My grandfather.” Drake’s face contorted in pain. His grandfather’s dead body lay so near. “Your spell weakened as you were gearing up for this…” He opened his hands wide, gesturing all around them. “…show. He wasn't in pain anymore.”
I reached out and clutched Drake’s hand. I wanted to hold him, to ask him what happened.
He squeezed me back and Mother caught the movement. “So, I can’t control your mind like I can everyone else.”
I peered behind the witch. It was true. Everybody’s stare turned blank again, unblinking.
“But I can keep you guys apart before I do the binding spell.”
Mother thrust her hands out to the side and the hold we had on each other ripped apart. Both of us went flying in opposite directions. I landed on my side, clutching my ribs, my insides burning.
I sat up and searched for Drake. He’d landed on his back. He struggled to sit and coughed as if he had the wind temporarily knocked out of him.
“Courtney, bring me the materials for the binding spell.”
Courtney rushed to the side of the stage and brought back a wooden box. Mother took out red ribbon, two pictures, and a knife while Courtney ran to get the doll I’d dropped at the edge of the hay. She placed the two pictures facing each other and poked holes around the outside, puncturing the pictures with the tip of the knife and then turning it. "I bind you two to one another. I bind you two to one another.” She repeated the same line, while sewing the red ribbon in and out of the puncture holes until she tied off each end around the binding doll.
And it was over. Just like that. My face crumpled, salty tears burned the cuts marring my skin. I struggled to get up. I did it too fast and a stab of pain speared my side. “No!”
Too late, Marlene ran to Drake and hovered around him, hugging him.
I stood now, fueled by rage. I stalked up to the old woman who gleamed down with pride at her spell and I pushed her. I lowered my good shoulder, ignoring the chorus of agonizing stings that ravaged my body, and rammed myself into her back, sending her sprawling toward the fire. The old woman’s body stopped, just an inch before the sticks and hay, her hands flailing, trying to recover her balance. I ran at her again and tackled her into the fire.
Oppressive heat smothered me. Flames leapt up all around us. Mother screeched within the licking red and orange heat. The face of Mother Shipton contorted into a heaping mess as her skin melted away.
I rolled and kept rolling. My bare arms and legs stung a lot, a hell of a lot. For the most part though, I had used Rose’s—and then Mother Shipton’s——body as a shield. I stood and watched the fire envelop the old hag. Thick black smoke rose above the park, wafting toward the star filled night.
I limped toward my own mother and looked into her face. Cici smiled down. “My baby,” she said.
My eyes drooped and I fell into my mother’s bramble of sticks.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Sarah
My eyes fluttered open. The light stung, searing my irises. I looked around, dazed, eyes wanting to close on me.
“She’ll be okay,” an unfamiliar male voice answered an unheard question.
“Do you think she remembers?” It was his voice. Drake’s.
I tried to call out to him. Nothing happened. My eyes still fluttered.
“There’s no reason that she shouldn’t. Her CT scan was negative, but…”
Stay awake! I screamed inside myself.
My eyes blinked closed once more.
***
I started to regain consciousness again. I blinked a couple times. The room was dark and I could tell I wasn’t in the hospital anymore. I breathed out in relief.
I slowly opened my eyes, letting them adjust and focus around me.
I turned my head. A bouquet of red roses sat on the nightstand. The door was open at the foot of the bed, letting in a shaft of light and I was swathed in an orange and green patchwork quilt.
I turned my head the other way. Drake sat in a chair reading. This felt oddly comfortable, normal, though something my mind wouldn’t let me believe before.
The binding didn’t take!
I tried to shift my position and the bedsprings coiled and uncoiled with a metallic creak.
“It’s okay, don’t try to move.” Drake sprung up. The book he'd been reading fell to the floor with a thump. “Can I get you something?”
“Water,” I croaked. My shoulder and throat burned slightly. I could look up and see a bandage on my forehead, but I still couldn’t stop myself from smiling.
Drake still loved me. He must still love me.
He walked over to the dresser and poured me a glass from a pitcher. He helped me sit up a little as my dry, cracked lips found the rim of the glass.
I drank. Every gulp tore at my throat, but at least my mouth wasn’t dry anymore.
I smiled as he lowered the glass. “Thank you.”
Drake stared at me and then remembered to smile a ‘You’re welcome’. His face then set into that same look of intense thoughtfulness I'd become accustomed to in my dream-like state.
“Is everyone okay?” I asked. “My mom?”
“Staying here while she settles everything. I’m afraid you got the worst of it.”
“Ain’t that always the kicker? Someone goes out of their way to save somebody else and they always get the worst of it.” I laughed and Drake seemed surprised. His eyebrow arched, making his forehead wrinkle. Okay. Not in the mood for joking. Got it. It’s no wonder, though. He probably thought he lost me. I thought I’d lost him. More serious now, I asked, "What about you? Are you okay?”
“Actually.” Drake looked sheepishly to the floor. “Yeah, I’m doing really well.”
A knock sounded on the door that sent my heart into a flip. Drake held up a finger, crossed the creaking wood floor, and pulled the door open. I twisted my head. I couldn’t see around Drake’s body though. His voice low, caressing as his head swooped down.
My heart froze and I sucked in a deep breath. I couldn’t seem to get enough air inside me.
Drake shut the door and waited, his hand still on the knob before he turned around again. “Hmm. Sorry.” He crossed back over to the chair and smiled again, a half smile, a nervous twitchy smile. Not the smile that lined his face when he first met me. Not the smile he gave me so many times after. “This definitely isn’t the right time to tell you this, but…Marlene and I are back together. Since she just showed up, I knew you'd be wondering and…” Drake blabbered on, his chair groaning as he shifted positions several times and stared down at his hands where they lay against his thighs.
My heart sank. I was sure, since I was here, recovering in Drake’s house, that the old witch dying negated the spell. That he must’ve still loved me. Cared for me. My heart thundered in my chest, a storm of emotion sweeping through me.
“You see,” he started again, “after all that happened. It became clear to me that I belong with Marlene.”
Panic coursed through me, and my eyelids closed again. It was too much to bear.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Epilogue
Sarah
I bounded down the steps until they rounded down into the foyer.
Since Mom was Rose McCallister’s eldest relative, she was the executor and benefactor of all her possessions. We were staying at the old house until we figured out what we wanted to do with our lives. Well, that was what Cici thought. We were actually staying at the house until I could convince her to stay in Adams.
Yesterday, we went to go pick out an urn for the aunt my father loved, and for
the aunt I couldn’t help but mourn. I didn’t want to think that maybe she still lived somewhere inside that body when I pushed Mother Shipton into the flames. I hoped, prayed she hadn't been in there.
It wasn’t long after the whole ordeal when I learned that the Aunt Rose I knew pretty much lied about everything. She did know me. Well, the real aunt knew about me. It was Cici’s idea to avoid contact with her because of a strange phone call she got from Dad before he died. And since Rose never tried to contact her again, Mom didn’t think any more of it.
Cici waited at the bottom of the stairs, her face solemn, lips tight. “Hey, you ready?”
“Yup.”
Today, Cici was taking me to the cemetery to see where we would bury our aunt.
She peered over, her sunglasses hiding her eyes, to study me once I sat in the passenger seat. She patted my arm lightly over the bandages. I looked up and smiled.
“How are you doing, honey? Okay?”
I nodded.
Within a few minutes, Cici turned the huge Escalade onto a small dirt road leading into an old cemetery. The iron gates were so close to the SUV that I looked down to see if they might scrape against the sides of the vehicle.
Huge trees sprouted up here and there throughout. A mixture of new headstones crowded around very old ones, chipped and flaking, and with barely readable engravings.
Cici pulled over a little, not enough to make a clear roadway, but it was that, or drive over someone’s stone. She pointed off to a corner. “Over there,” she said.
We got out of the car and walked up. My heartbeat quickened, my temperature jumping about twenty degrees. I gasped when Mom pointed down at the gravestone between us.
David Perkins
Beloved Father and Husband
I fell to my knees, tears spilling over instantly. “Dad? He’s buried here?”
“Yes,” Cici said.
I turned around. It was as if I stared in the mirror. The sunlight reflected off Mom’s wet cheeks. Cici took a tissue from her purse and dabbed at her face. I placed one hand on the hot stone and closed my eyes.