Annabel Horton, Lost Witch of Salem

by Vera Jane Cook

  * * * *

  Catherine stood in the doorway and stared as Maebelle lost herself in some wild, delirious screams.

  “Get out of here. You’ve upset her,” Catherine called to me, as she called for Eliza to bring more of the brandy.

  I rose slowly and took to the stairs. I wanted to rip this vile flesh from my bones, to rip this vile flesh from my soul. Instead, I stopped at the foot of the stairs and went back into the room.

  “I will be taking her out of your attic, as soon as possible. I will bring her where she can get some help. First, I have business to attend to.”

  “She’s insane. You can’t take her from here,” Catherine yelled over Maebelle’s screaming.

  “I am taking her. And I am not relinquishing the money. I will give you a portion of my twenty five percent to live on, and nothing more.”

  Eliza came running into the room but Catherine did not take the brandy from her. She walked directly to me as Maebelle continued to scream.

  “What did you say?” she asked me.

  “You heard me. Seventy-five percent of the estate will be returned to Meredith Mae. It belongs to her. You were never entitled to it and certainly Louis is not entitled to no more than a fee.”

  I expected her to hit me but she did not. She laughed. She laughed as loudly as the hysterical Maebelle was screaming.

  “Then I will go to the authorities immediately and tell them what you have done to the child, if you don’t die first, Father,” she said with such hatred that my heart skipped a beat and my blood ran cold.

  “What? Who would kill me?” I asked as I grabbed her arm and held it tightly.

  She shook herself free and ran to Maebelle to administer the laudanum, but not before I heard her say, “Who else, you fool?”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  I had to see Silas. I had to question him about his father’s murder, if I were to help prove his innocence. I also had to ensure that the estate was returned to the rightful beneficiary before Malcolm wound up in a ditch. I knew that I did not have much time now that I had insisted upon a transfer of funds. I suspected that Louis Boussidan was the scoundrel behind this deviousness, and I began to form a plan as I sat in the carriage that took me to the county jail on Jay Street.

  * * * *

  As I suspected, Silas refused to see me. I insisted that a message be brought to him and told the officer that I would wait for his reply. I remembered that when I inhabited the flesh of Patience Guyon and had agreed to attempt my passage through time, I had given William a code word so that he would always recognize my wishes and be able to honor them. I knew that I was leaving the body of poor Patience to the fish in the Hudson, and I had wanted to insure that I could always communicate with William, if I needed to. I never planned to remain in Salem, Massachusetts, in a century of such Puritan piety for as long as I did, but I protected myself from the possibility that I might.

  I carefully wrote the code word on a piece of paper and told the guard to ensure that Silas read it.

  “If anyone should ever come to you and say the word, ‘Annascha,’ you must acknowledge whoever it is, for whoever utters the word ‘Annascha,’ carries my instructions,” I had told William on a wet afternoon in 1840.

  “Annascha?” he had asked me quizzically. “How odd, Patience. How very odd.”

  Still, he honored my wishes, as I knew he would, for honor was valued then, so ambiguous a concept in your twenty-first century world but not so foreign in nineteenth-century chronology.

  “What does it mean?” he whispered.

  I remember smiling. How could I resist the truth knowing he would never believe it?

  “Annascha is the name my mother calls to me from the grave.”

  How he laughed at me. “Patience,” he had said. “Your imagination is most endearing. I will honor the call of ‘Annascha’.” With that, he had taken my hand and held it as he smiled and elongated the name once again. I prayed now he had passed the code word to his son.

  * * * *

  “He will see you,” the guard told me as he came back around to where I was sitting. “Follow me.”

  I walked behind him as he led me through a locked door and past several cells. Men sat staring at me as I passed, their eyes held a challenge I did not understand, but it left me feeling as if Urbain lingered in their desperation like the smoke that precedes fire.

  Silas was brought to me as I stood behind the iron bars that separated us.

  “Whom have you tortured to learn of that code, you bastard?” he spat at me.

  “You must trust me,” I whispered. “I am here to help you.”

  He threw back his head and laughed. He laughed so hard that tears fell on his cheeks. I watched him, and waited, before I began again.

  “Listen, Silas, you have no choice but to trust me. I want to get you out of here and clear your name. I know you did not kill your father.”

  “Why help me, Malcolm? I am taking your place in hell.”

  I took a deep breath. I had suspected that Malcolm was responsible for involving Boussidan, but I was still unsure which one of them had actually pulled the trigger on poor William. I needed to know everything that Silas knew in order to assure his freedom. So I relayed to him the most preposterous story. I knew he would think me mad if I told him that I had robbed Malcolm of his body and he was nothing more than a flicker of meaningless evil, adrift in an infinite paradox, but perhaps he would accept that I had found God, and in that miraculous transformation I was spared any memory of evil wrongdoing. Silas looked on, transfixed, while I shed such easy tears and told him that I sought absolution in his forgiveness. I thought I had certainly moved him for he reached to touch me.

  “You remember nothing? God spared you your memory?”

  “Yes,” I answered. “I remember nothing, so you must tell me what happened so that I can clear you. I owe your father. I owe it to myself to take responsibility for my actions.”

  “But if God spared you, why should I return you to your sins?”

  I did not want to waste my time with Silas in philosophical meandering. I thought quickly.

  “The priest has willed it. In confession he advised me to know my soul.”

  Silas searched my eyes. Finally he spoke. “I find it difficult to believe you, Northrup,” he spat at me once again.

  “Who else is there to help you, Silas?”

  He continued to stare at me. His mouth was set tightly and his jaw was firm. “All right, what difference will it make to me anyway?” He sighed.

  “You must relay it to me as if I were a stranger,” I told him.

  “Are you playing with me, Malcolm? Because if you are…” He leaned forward and clutched the bars and even through my opaque sight I could see his knuckles turn white.

  I cut him off. “You have got to trust me”

  He leaned back and stared at me for several moments. “I guess I do. Don’t I?”

  I relaxed my body and shifted Malcolm’s massive weight. I listened intently to Silas as he revealed this most disturbing tale.

  * * * *

  “We had not seen Patience and her granddaughter for many years, yet we continued to carry out Patience’s instructions just as she had advised us,” he began.

  “Yes, yes,” I said, “and what about me?”

  “We did not see or hear from you for several years, as well, but then, one day in 1847, you burst into Father’s office and insisted that Patience and Meredith Mae had perished abroad, yet you could produce no proof of their death. Still, you declared yourself beneficiary and demanded the estate. For God’s sake, man, don’t you remember all this?”

  I ignored him. “Is this around the same time that Louis Boussidan came here from France?”

  “No, he did not arrive until later.”

  “Then what, Silas?”

  “My father refused you. You see, Patience had told us to expect this behavior from you if she did not return soon enough. And so we ignored you, which only made
you more furious. You retained a lawyer in order to force proof that Patience and Meredith Mae were indeed dead. But Father and I produced a will that declared that the estate never be turned over to Malcolm Northrup, not even in the event of her death.”

  I smiled at how diligently William had followed my requests. I had written in that will that if Meredith Mae and Patience were to be proven dead, the money was to go to several Christian charities for the care and well-being of orphaned children.

  “Then how did I finally get my hands on it?” I asked him as I leaned into the bars.

  “Boussidan,” he whispered.

  “Go on,” I said.

  “It was shortly after this that Jed went to France. Don’t you remember that?”

  I shook my head. “No, why France?” I asked him.

  “He said he was drawn to the country, and of course, Father Jacques…”

  “Father Jacques?” I interrupted.

  “Yes, he was a great influence on the boy and was able to find a parish in the country, I don’t remember the town, but it’s not far from Paris.”

  “Loudon?”

  “I don’t really retain French. I’m sorry. Anyway, he went abroad and the following year he wrote to his sister Catherine and asked if she might put up his French tutor. It appears his tutor was moving to America to study law. Just until he found a place of his own.”

  “This tutor?” I asked him. “Was it Louis?”

  “Yes. Louis came in 1848 and stayed with Catherine. He even refurbished her home. Have you memory of that?”

  “Unfortunately, yes,” I said.

  “He stayed for quite some time. A year or so, I believe. He became a citizen in ’49 and set up a law office on State Street in 1850. He was hired, at some point, by Malcolm and Catherine to help them contest the will.”

  Silas stopped speaking at that time and just stared at me.

  “Go on, go on,” I said quickly.

  “They lost. You lost. No proof of death. The original will was upheld. For God’s sake, don’t you remember anything?”

  I shook my head sadly and he continued.

  “Clearly, Catherine was madly in love with Louis by this time, and together they must have concocted some hideous plan to steal poor Patience’s estate once they realized that conventional legal channels were lost to them.”

  “Catherine and Louis?” I said aghast. “What about me? What about Malcolm? Wasn’t I involved?”

  “I’m sure you were all involved. After Father’s murder and my arrest the estate changed hands. The will was destroyed. There was that mysterious fire that burned all the old wills. Anyway, a new one was forged but I could not prove that.”

  “But Meredith Mae had already returned in 1850.”

  “Everyone denied that she was really Meredith Mae. She left Brooklyn at the age of ten. And besides, Louis was now in charge of our accounts.”

  “Why did you sell your practice to him?”

  “I never did. Louis has proof of a contract that I never signed.”

  I stepped back, as if I needed more air. Silas leaned in closer.

  “I think they used you, only because they needed your name, but they would have gotten rid of you sooner or later. There’s rumor about you, Malcolm. They would have blackmailed you right out of your share of the estate. They’re evil, those two. I’m sorry. I know she’s your own daughter but…”

  “Rumor?” I said softly.

  “God bless your transformation,” he whispered.

  “Thank you,” I uttered. I quickly brought him back to the matter at hand. “Who is responsible for the murder? If not you, then who?”

  “I was nowhere near that office on the afternoon of August 10th, but I couldn’t prove it. Wednesdays are always my gardening days. Anyone would have known that.”

  I noticed how he clenched his fist and put his forehead to the bar. I felt his despair.

  “Where was Boussidan?” I asked quickly.

  “He was seen by several people at a Pub on Alistair Street. He dined there every Wednesday. Besides, he was never a suspect.”

  I was shocked. Clearly, it was Malcolm then who had murdered William. “Good God,” I cried. “It was I?”

  “No. You dined with your associate at Barron’s. You were seen by many people for you argued with the waiter over a discrepancy in your tab. You were loud and caused quite a stir.”

  It was all he could get out before the guard came and began to escort him back to his cell.

  “Wait!” I yelled. “Then who killed William?”

  “Good God, man. Isn’t it obvious?” And with that he disappeared behind a door.

  I took a long breath. Somewhere, the answer was clear but I could not yet accept it, or allow myself to know it.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Evening was starting to fall as I walked back to the house on Montague Street. I had sat for hours at the small square by the county jail to ponder how poor William’s murder had come about. I could not believe that Catherine could be responsible for killing a man, but who else was there in this horrid tale to suspect?

  The air felt cool and pleasant against my borrowed flesh as I walked. The sun appeared as an enormous orange ball that began a dramatic decent behind the perfect crescent of the earth. Women in beautiful pastel dresses passed me by with smiles and gentle, nodding heads. Men walked gaily at their sides with their arms extended in a proud manly showing of chivalry. They, too, nodded as I passed—a gentleman’s acknowledgment between us. I smiled to myself at how privileged I felt in the flesh of a wealthy man. Children called me sir and circled me with laughter as they ran in playful pursuit of each other. How glorious to feel utterly winsome, to be completely alive and contained in this conformity of pure and passive innocence. I blessed the beauty of this glorious experience—a moment in which only love of life existed, without the tedium of order, and the despair of death.

  * * * *

  There was no one home at the house on Montague Street when I entered. I was curious and wondered where they were, my Meredith Mae and Emie. I had so much to tell them. I hoped they could shed some light on how we might vindicate Silas. The house was welcoming. We had left the front windows open, and the evening air blew in with the scent of hyacinth and roses. I realized, that since my return, I had not had the time to truly revisit this house that I so loved. Now I needed that solace and I walked through the rooms touching the frames around the doors and stroking the backs of chairs. I was welcomed with a sweet tranquility as I gazed with approval at the tasteful revisions. I remembered how large the house had seemed when I first saw it from my hazy opacity as Patience Stokes. It had been a considerable structure for its time and had looked to me like a great white temple. The house had curves and there was a swirl to the staircase that I had not seen in other houses of the century. The rooms were regal and yet not overbearing. I was glad that Malcolm, at least, had the taste to honor its character.

  I went into the library on the second floor, a room I had not been in since my return. I lit the oil in the lamp and sat in a comfortable chair with beautifully clawed arms. I noticed the books on the shelves were all leather bound and did not look familiar. I stood and began to read the titles. I found there Hobbes, Descartes, Spinoza, Aristotle. How odd. I wondered if this were Emie’s taste in reading, for I myself had had nothing but literature, and of course, the Bible. Though I searched, I found no Bible and the only literature the shelves held were some obscure texts that I had no familiarity with. I took one book and sat back down with it. It was a large, dusty book and I could not read the language, for it was written in German, but some words were familiar to me and I was able to interpret brutal references to the measures taken against German witches by Pope Innocent VII in 1484.

  I was a bit horrified to find such a book in my library. I lay my head back against the soft contours of the chair to contemplate who might have changed the collection of literature that I had cherished. I knew that Malcolm had never had an interest
in books of any kind, with the exception of Almanacs. Yet, I saw not one Almanac on the shelf. As I searched the room, I noticed the table upon which I had kept the music boxes, the ones that were given to Patience before her marriage. I walked to one that did not look familiar to me and opened the lid. It played a beautiful waltz by Johann Strauss, The Redetzky March. “How very lovely,” I said. I noticed that the entire room was filled with a beautiful collection of music boxes, some as tiny as a pin chest.

  “I cannot believe that Malcolm would care for such sweet and delicate beauty,” I said aloud.

  The laughter was low at first, as if it were only over my shoulder. I shuddered, for the room had suddenly turned quite cold. The oil in the lamp lowered though I had not touched it.

  “Who goes there?” I whispered.

  It was then I sensed a presence in an old wooden chair that was turned away from me. I stood transfixed, unable to move. I saw that the wind had turned quite fierce and had picked up the drapes with a sweep as they blew toward me.

  “Welcome home, Annabel,” the devil spoke.

  The air was now cold upon my flesh and I felt chilled.

  “Who goes there?” I commanded, though I knew who sat there as surely as I knew that he would turn in his chair to face me and that I would be held in his sight like a tack on a magnet’s rim.

  “Annabel,” he spoke again.

  The dim light from the lamp cast shadows in his eyes as they flickered in collusive dominance, and he appeared from behind a natural darkness like the vision of the moon on a black sky. I noticed, with alarm, that he sat staring at me in the garb of a Catholic priest. The hair that fell to his shoulders glistened so golden from out of this illusive illumination that it appeared as a halo, as if he were an angel of God.