The Witch and Warlock MEGAPACK ®: 25 Tales of Magic-Users

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  “It’s malignant, isn’t it?” That from Muriel Toothaker.

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “What are her chances?”

  “It’s too early to tell. She could go into remission.” I tried to sound encouraging.

  “I must lend Alison a book I’ve just read,” Gladys remarked. “It’s about the Primal Scream—you know, the trauma we suffer at birth. Gives us all sorts of complexes and diseases, so if we can just—”

  “Fiddlesticks, Glad!” Aunt Jenny interrupted. “I was the one that was hurtin’ when you were born.”

  “Oh no, it hurt me far more, Mother. I can remember how your pelvic bones nearly busted my head when I pushed through.”

  “Hmph! You should have had a pain in the butt,” her mother snorted. “You were a breech.”

  “That must have been Muriel. I distinctly remember coming headfirst.” Gladys turned to me. “Alison simply must try this. It’s like being born again. You see, re-experiencing your birth rids you of your physical ills and being born again rids you of your spiritual ills. You must try it sometime, Mitti.”

  Elspeth rescued me by coming around from the next aisle at that moment. “I hear Ward isn’t speaking to Damon.”

  “It’s worse than that,” Gladys asserted. “I saw him slug him. I’d just arrived at the church to practice when Ward came tearing up the steps. They were putting Alison into the ambulance and Ward sent Damon sprawling clear down the church steps. He was yelling something about a pathology report Damon hadn’t had done.”

  I remembered the scene all too vividly. After I had relayed Dr. Brun’s warning to Ward, he’d gone to Damon who’d assured him the mole was nothing to worry about.

  When Ward saw Alison on the stretcher, blood staining her mouth and white dress, he’d gone berserk.

  The aftershocks had been more widespread than the initial earthquake. Bruce had rearranged his program at medical school to specialize in oncology. “I want to know more about this thing that’s killing my mother,” he’d said. He, at least, had a positive outlet. Linda had none. For the first time in her young life she realized that tragedies didn’t just happen to other people. She retreated into a world of her own, vacillating between complete withdrawal and moments of high, unnatural hilarity. She was spending long hours at the Patch, as if she couldn’t bear to go home and see her mother slip away from her.

  “It just goes to show how many erroneous zones we have,” Gladys was saying. “If Damon and Ward had…

  I nudged her. Charity was entering the store with Rosalind.

  “I don’t believe you’ve met Rosalind Bishop, Mitti,” she said. She turned to Rosalind. “Mitti is hesitant about our program for developing Peacehaven. Damon tried to explain it to her, but she didn’t understand. I mean to have you and Tyler and Mitti over sometime.”

  Rosalind gave a faint, forced smile. “Anytime, Charity,” she murmured. “Mitti obviously isn’t a business woman.”

  “Please, not now,” I objected. “I have too much on my mind with Alison and the pageant.”

  “Of course, dear!” My cousin laid her hand on my arm. “Oh, I must tell you! I’m redecorating one of the bedrooms. Which do you think Rowan would prefer, blue or green? Or perhaps yellow?”

  “Why?” I asked uneasily.

  “But didn’t she tell you? She’s to stay at our house at least once a week. You must share her with me, Mitti. You have two daughters and I have none.” Her mouth quivered.

  “Speaking of daughters,” Aunt Jenny said to the banker’s wife, “Muriel tells me yours is out at the witch farm.”

  Rosalind regarded her with eyes of tempered steel. “My daughter,” she said coldly, “is with the Peace Corps.”

  “No, she ain’t,” Aunt Jenny insisted.

  “Mother!” Muriel tried to stop her.

  “Muriel’s Harold told us,” the old woman persisted. “Muriel’s Harold—he belongs to the coven now. He said Sharon’s out there with a baby.”

  “Do you have that crown roast ready, Henry?” Rosalind whirled so suddenly, the butcher knocked his cleaver off the chopping block, embarrassed to have been caught listening.

  “Harold could have been wrong, Mother,” Muriel protested.

  “Wrong about a girl he’s known all his life? Humph!” There was no stopping Aunt Jenny. “Harold also said he saw you and Dana out there, Mitti.”

  I said we’d dropped by one morning, aware Rosalind had turned her head slightly and was listening. What a sad pair they made—Charity so desperate for a child and Rosalind so desperate to disown the one she had.

  “Did you see Sharon and her baby?” Elspeth had no mercy.

  “I met a lovely girl named Maia, and she had an adorable baby boy,” I equivocated as I dumped my groceries at the check-out counter. Elspeth fell into line behind me.

  “It seems odd, Mitti,” she said in her shrill voice, “that you would let that Indian woman drag you into a den of witches.”

  “What seems odd to me, Elspeth,” I retorted, “is that with your heritage you should make such an observation.”

  It was an ill-chosen remark. I knew it the moment I’d said it. I’d made no friends this afternoon.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Aunt Bo had made Halloween a memorable affair for the children of Peacehaven. Even though the climb up the hill was long and arduous, none would have missed our house. Dana and I continued her custom of serving doughnuts and hot cider to the goblins, monsters, and skeletons who paraded through the kitchen and living room.

  Mother Carrier sat in her favorite chair holding a little blonde Indian in her lap—Cariad, who’d been dressed up by Dana. Dr. Brun, a jovial Odin in Viking costume, superintended the apple-bobbing contest. Rowan was away babysitting for the Wardwells.

  Dana wore her ribbon-work Winnebago costume with headband and feather and I prevailed on Greg to don my long black monk’s cape and hood and a devil’s mask. Dana had been dismayed when I came down dressed as a witch. “People don’t do that in Peacehaven. You won’t see any of the children dressed as witches.”

  It was too late to change, but Greg’s face confirmed Dana’s words, and even the children eyed me uneasily. Cissie and Carol and Nancy lingered after the others. Nancy pulled at my false nose. “That’s not yours. I like your real one. You’re pretty.”

  I hugged her. “You’re pretty, too, Nancy.”

  “We’re gonna see a real witch tonight,” she whispered.

  I should have paid more attention, but at that moment Cissie began splashing water out of the apple tub at Carol.

  “Nei, nei!” Dr. Brun brandished his short sword with mock ferocity. “I’ll put you inside a ring of fire like Brünhilde.”

  Cissie had never heard of Brünhilde, but she got the idea. “Are you going to put me under a spell like you did Rowan?” she asked, intrigued.

  “Nein, Mädchen,” he said, shaking his horned helmet, “there is more chance of your putting me under a spell.”

  Well turned, I thought, but Cissie’s insinuation disturbed me.

  “C’mon, Cissie,” Carol tugged at her pitchfork, “let’s go!”

  Nancy squirmed out of my arms. “We’re going on a big adventure,” she trilled.

  “You’re not, Nancy!” Carol told her. “We’re going to march you down to the bottom of the hill. Pa said he’d pick you up at nine o’ clock and it’s five to right now.”

  “How come you get to go?” Nancy pouted.

  “Because I’m older.”

  “It’s pretty late,” I said doubtfully. “Your mothers will be worrying.”

  “My mother’s gone to a meeting,” Cissie replied, “so I can stay out as long as I want. We’ve had our treats—now for the tricks. Are you positive your Pa’ll let you come, Carol?”
>
  “Sure,” with a little uncertainly. “He doesn’t care what I do ’cause I’m a girl and girls aren’t worth much.”

  After they left, dragging a wailing Nancy with them, Dana and Dr. Brun took Mother Carrier home and I whisked Cariad off to bed. When I returned to the living room Greg had taken off my cape and had seated himself before the fire, his long legs propped up on the inglenook. I stood there, watching the firelight playing tricks with his features—deepening his eyes, giving him a harlequinesque, almost satanic expression, then, with a flicker of the flames, turning him back into the serious, gentle person I knew.

  He took his feet off the stone ledge and drew me down next to him, but a sputtering sound at the window made me start.

  “What’s the matter? You seem fidgety tonight.”

  “I am,” I confessed. “I’ve been on edge all evening—as if something bad were about to happen. So I get spooked by my own jack-o’-lanterns on the windowsill.”

  He laughed. “That’s the way you’re supposed to feel tonight. This is Samhain, the great witches’ sabbat when they all go out riding on their broomsticks and the dead come back to haunt us.”

  I sighed. “That would be nice.”

  “To be haunted?”

  “No, to ride a broomstick. I’d like to perch on the cusp of the moon and break off a piece of cheese.”

  He had withdrawn his arm and now he drew a stained, yellowed fragment of paper out of a manila envelope and held it out to me. Curiosity before romance. “What is that?” I asked.

  “I was going through the Towne family genealogy last night, checking dates,” he explained, “when I noticed for the first time that two pages were stuck together with something in between. I pried them apart with a paring knife and found this.” He handed the fragment to me, half-reluctant to let it go, as if my touch might crumble the brittle paper. “This is a missing page from Bered Towne’s diary. I think this explains the two skeletons on the tombstone.”

  I slanted the paper so the firelight illumined it. The script was reasonably clear, although embellished with flourishes and the archaic ‘s’, which looked like an ‘f’ and took me a few seconds to get used to: “At laft”—no—“At last the thing which I fet”—“set out to do is accomplished. May God add his blessing to my deed. Ten yeres ago, during the night after my fifter”—“sister Mary was hanged for a witche, I reskewed her body from the commun pit in wich she was buried with the others and reburied it in a secrete plaice. This day did I concele her bones in the hollow I carved out of the monument for William Stoughton and I seeled them in with cement and overlaid them with that slab of marble wich is the lid. So may his spirit be trubled with the burden of her death. May she rest in peace.”

  Maybe the dead did come back at Halloween! Shivers were running up and down my arms and the back of my neck. “What a twist! How that old bachelor must be turning in his grave! And yet—” I paused, words echoing in my brain: “Nay, William, I belong not to Satan—I belong only to God—and to thee!”

  “Perhaps some curious fate bound them together—Stoughton and Mary Esty, I mean,” I said aloud.

  “I don’t know what fate they would have shared,” he replied stiffly, slipping the paper back into the envelope, “beyond the fact that he was her executioner.”

  “Maybe they’d once been lovers,” I suggested.

  He looked at me, incredulous. “Nothing would be more unlikely. He was gentry, she a commoner. Her life probably meant no more to him than a fly to be swatted. You’re an incurable romantic, Mitti. The last thing—what the—!”

  An animated ink blot bounced off the back of the sofa and onto his lap, then proceeded to lick its hind leg.

  “That’s Can’s new kitten,” I laughed. “Darcy gave him to her. We named him Loki because he’s as mischievous as the Norse Loki was.”

  “How do he and Macduff get along?”

  “They adore each other—it’s a circus around here.” Loki flexed his tiny paws and yawned, then settled down for a nap.

  Greg scratched him under the chin. “That purr is bigger than he is.” He continued to stroke the kitten absently, but his mind was far away. “I’ve something else to tell you, Mitti, something you may not like…

  Oh, oh, he’s going to marry Iris!

  “Tyler Bishop came before the planning commission this week.”

  Was that all?

  “He offered to annex Bishop’s Bluff and the ravine that separates it from your property to the city, on the condition they grant him zoning for an industrial park.”

  “But they’d be insane to grant such a thing!” I protested. “I don’t see how the location would be practical, dragging supplies up there.”

  “He plans to situate the industrial complex in the low area, as close to your property line as setback requirements will permit. As an added incentive, he offered to construct a water tower on top of the bluff to service the park and the city itself.”

  So this was to be their game! “Can we stop them?”

  “You can contact the Department of Natural Resources, for one thing. They may take a dim view of a project that would overtax the already inadequate sewer system here and pollute the river. And I’ll back you up with an editorial campaign.”

  Suddenly I was very weary. Alison, the hurly-burly of the evening, and now this—it was all too much. Tears splashed down my cheeks and his arms were around me and I was crying against his broad chest…

  The back door slammed, springing us apart.

  “I’m glad you came, Rowan,” I said quickly. “I was afraid you’d meet the other girls and go off with them.”

  “No, they wanted me to, but I thought it was a dumb idea.” Her eyes glinted in the soft light. “Do you remember my father?” she asked Greg abruptly.

  He flushed. “I knew of him, of course.”

  “No one can ever take his place,” Rowan said with a half sob.

  “I’m sorry, Greg,” I murmured as she ran from the room, “she idolized her father.”

  Rowan had spoiled the evening.

  * * * *

  Rowan—Greg. The two names went round and round in my head as I tossed in my bed that night. Greg, so deeply conventional and Rowan, a barbed arrowhead in my side. When I checked her before retiring, I found her sitting cross-legged on her bed, humming softly to herself, her eyes regarding me impersonally.

  “Did you know Aunt Charity is decorating a bedroom for you?”

  Her fists were knotted in the covers. “It wasn’t my idea,” she said in a small, choked voice. “Aunt Charity’s lonely. It’d be handy when I go to a party or baby-sit.”

  “You know I’d always come and get you if you I wanted.” I took her fists in my hands and gently forced them open. “I love you, Rowan. I truly love you.”

  She rolled away from me. “You loved Daddy, too,” she whispered. “And Daddy is dead.”

  “You were so little—you never understood.”

  “It would only be once or twice a week,” she mumbled, her eyes averted. “You could have Greg to yourself then.”

  So she was jealous of Greg—if only that was all!

  “I told Aunt Charity Cari needs me. I wanted to take her with me, but she said Cari should stay here.”

  At least my cousin had shown some sense. “I think we’d better have a talk with her,” I told her, twisting the tasseled cord of my robe. “Perhaps you don’t know, Rowan—ever since she lost her baby girl, she’s developed crushes on a succession of girls. Linda was one of them and you won’t be the last. Someday she’ll drop you like a hot potato.”

  “Oh—I don’t think so,” she replied dreamily, in the half-light the blue of her irises almost eclipsed by her dilated pupils. “Uncle Damon wants me, too. I’m the first one he’s ever wanted. Aunt Charity told me so.” />
  Another device to drive me away? I wondered, struggling to suppress the angry words rising to my lips.

  “Your place is here, Rowan. They’ll have to understand that,” I said instead.

  “Iris says I’d do Aunt Charity a lot of good.”

  Iris! The name screamed at me. She was part of this!

  “She said you and I weren’t born under compatible signs and shouldn’t be together too much.”

  “Iris isn’t the only astrologer in the world, Rowan,” I said, fighting to keep my voice steady. “I could take you to a dozen and we’d get a dozen different readings.” I planted a shaky kiss on her forehead. “Now go to sleep, sweetheart.”

  Too upset to return to bed, I went down into the living room. Deciding against watching television, I scrunched down in the wingback chair and stared into the fireplace. A huge log glowed with a fiery face that winked at me, then collapsed in a shower of sparks, leaving a dark hollow where spurts of flame moved like tiny torches held by masked dancers…

  * * * *

  …leaping about a central figure in black hood and cape, silhouetted against a low-burning fire. Faster and faster they circled, uttering weird muffled chants to the beat of a tom-tom. From the soft lilt of their West Indian dialect I knew most of them to be slaves, stolen out of their various homes in the area to perform a heathenish rite this All Hallows Eve.

  I was crouching behind a clump of bushes, hoping my mare, tethered some yards away, wouldn’t betray my presence. I’d stumbled across this eerie convocation while returning home from sitting up with my sister Rebecca, who’d been taken with stomach pains again. ’Twas an unseemly hour to be out, but once Rebecca had fallen asleep I insisted on riding home, for my Hannah lay a-bed with the ague. I enjoyed the clear, crisp air as my horse trotted along Meeting House road, then out across the meadows. The last of the way was marked with gulleys and hillocks and was out of sight of dwellings and the town watch. As I came over a ridge, I spied the fire and the figures swaying rhythmically around it. I dismounted and crept on alone to see what was afoot.