Annabel Horton, Lost Witch of Salem

by Vera Jane Cook

  The men continued to punch Malcolm long after his heart had stopped and he lay with his eyes wide open, quite obviously dead. Of course, I fought to restore life to this body but my plea was rejected and off I went, like a burst of a sudden wind, into a darkness of indiscriminate thought. I prayed for Rachel and my granddaughter, just as death injected itself and I screamed out Matthew’s name as the breast of infinity clasped me.

  * * * *

  Beyond the death of flesh and blood, far beyond the layers of time and space, I felt my Matthew near me. From some revealing distance, I felt him force his breath into my lungs. Unfortunately, my memory began to fade, even though his dear face was once again so close.

  I struggled frantically, but I soon lost this image of my son. I fell into some timeless space for what seemed like forever. I became aware of nothing but my soul’s detachment from any human flesh. Somewhere in infinity, I began to lose all awareness of myself as Annabel Horton and I was pulled by something beyond my control. All I can remember of it now is that I heard someone breathing. I followed the breathing for a long time until I realized it was coming from a body that I was now in, though I had not a clue as to how I got into it.

  I felt enormously confused. Voices from far away seemed to be telling me that I was regaining consciousness. They appeared to be doctors, but my sight was so unclear. Still, I was able to see that they were dressed in white robes.

  “A near drowning,” I heard them say, as if from a great distance. They were strangers. I had never seen them before. That I knew. They spoke in an unusual way and appeared to me even more absurd than the language they spoke, a very strange English, sloppy and ungainly.

  I could see that I was in a light green room. The room was small and had two windows. From the windows I could see what appeared to be buildings, though their great height startled me. I rubbed my eyes, for everything appeared so vague. I knew I was very high from the ground. The great height caused an uneasy anxiety and the more I let my eyes travel to the windows, the more a vertiginous nausea overcame me and I could not help but grip the sides of my bed. One of the men in white had taken my hand and squeezed it. His hair looked like an enormous mop and almost made me laugh out loud.

  * * * *

  “Welcome back, young lady.” He smiled. “You’ve had quite a brush with death.”

  I stared at him.

  “Dr. James Welty,” he said as he held out his hand.

  “Doctor?”

  “You were pronounced clinically dead,” he said solemnly.

  “I cannot see clearly,” I told him.

  He pulled a light from his pocket and searched my eyes with it.

  “There appears to be nothing wrong with your eyes,” he said as he peered at me.

  “Where am I?” I asked.

  “New York Presbyterian Hospital,” he answered. “You fell off a boat into the Hudson River. Do you remember that?”

  I searched my mind so much my head began to ache. “No,” I said.

  “Your parents have been notified. They’re taking a flight out of Boston.”

  “Oh.” I smiled.

  “You made the evening news.” He grinned.

  I grinned back and asked for a copy of the Gazette. It made him laugh.

  “You have a friend outside that’s been waiting to see you.” He returned my hand to my stomach. “Are you up for it?”

  In my confusion, I nodded. Before I could ask him my name he left the room.

  Moments later, he returned with a man I thought I had never seen before. The man ran quickly to my side.

  “Annie,” he cried. “We thought we’d lost you.”

  “Good God, who are you?”

  “You don’t know me?”

  I shook my head.

  He turned to the doctor who came and leaned over my face.

  “Do you know who you are?” the Doctor asked me.

  I shook my head from side to side.

  “How about the president of the United States?”

  “William Henry Harrison?”

  The doctor laughed loudly.

  “Um.” He held up his hands. “How many fingers?”

  “Ten,” I said.

  “Do you know your name?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Ann Peckham. It’s a temporary memory loss.” He sounded as if he were trying to soothe me. “Not unusual. Let’s give it a few days.”

  He gave the man with the dark curls a reassuring touch on the shoulder and left the room. I noticed that the man with the dark hair seemed to be very tan from the sun and he wore a funny pair of pants. They were blue and had large wide cuffs. Above his waist he appeared to be wearing underwear, for his arms and neck were quite exposed. I tried rubbing my eyes to see him more clearly but my vision remained opaque.

  “Are we related?” I asked him.

  “Not exactly. I’m your neighbor. I live down the hall from you. I saw on the news how you nearly drowned in the Hudson. I got here as quickly as I could.”

  I studied his face, the sweet dark curls that fell on his brow and the eyes that searched mine with a concern that clearly revealed his affection.

  “I have no idea who you are, but you are very tall,” I said softly.

  It was then he took my hand and shook it.

  “Michele,” he said, illuminating a gentleness that caused me to stare. “Michele Philippe Guyon.”

  PART II

  REPRISAL

  Chapter Thirty

  Michele took me home from the hospital in a very strange but appealing hansom. There was no horse attached to it! The speed of the cab unnerved me at first, but then I found myself getting used to it, even enjoying how little time it had taken to get from one place to another. However, once we arrived, the pretty little street Michele told me I lived on did not look at all familiar. Even as I climbed the stairs of the building I had no memory of ever having done it before.

  As it would turn out, Ann Peckham lived in a very small space on the island of Manhattan. There were five flights of stairs in her house and four doors on each floor. I asked Michele if, in fact, it were a rooming house. He must have found that amusing because he laughed.

  I stood at the top of the stairs and noticed that I was in an ugly hall. I felt enormously disappointed. How awful it appeared to me. I could see through my opaque vision that the walls were a dingy yellow and the doors were a rather putrid brown. I stood before the door askance. I tried desperately to recall myself there but I could not. I was petrified of the noise coming from behind the doors, and I kept putting my hands up over my ears. It seemed just as piercing as it had been from the hansom. The world was too loud, much too loud. I did not know it then but your modern dimension of space was quite an affront on my soul.

  Michele eyed me strangely as he unlocked the door to apartment 2C, and I cowered like a threatened animal before it. He handed me back my purse.

  “You live here, Annie.”

  “No,” I said and shook my head.

  “Come on.”

  He held out his hand and reached for the fist I had shoved defiantly into a pocket. But something in his eyes made me trust him. I unloosened my grip and allowed him to lead me in.

  “What is it?” he said to me as I looked at the gruesome furnishings. I must have scowled.

  “This is all of it?” I asked, with a bewildered look as I noticed that the walls did not lead into other rooms.

  “Yes, just another New York breadbox, I’m afraid.”

  “It is so like a prison,” I said. “All it needs are the bars.”

  “You talk funny,” he said suddenly.

  “What?”

  “The apostrophes, you don’t shorten your words. You pronounce everything. It’s unusual. You say, ‘It is unusual.’ See the difference? It’s like some old English. People don’t usually talk like that.”

  I found nothing unusual about my speech patterns and avoided comment.

  “It is so distasteful here,” I said instead. />
  He smiled mischievously. “Yes, it’s the food. Chinese; Indian; Italian. It’s dinnertime. People are eating all sorts of things. That’s what you smell.”

  Actually, I had hardly any sense of smell, but I must have had a funny expression on my face and he assumed I detected cooking odors.

  “Chinese? Indian?” I laughed. I couldn’t help myself. It seemed so peculiar to think of people eating such strange food.

  He grinned back at me.

  “Do you remember anything at all about your surroundings, Annie?” he asked as I stared at the peculiar furnishings.

  I shook my head. As I continued to observe the horrid room, I noticed some pictures over a mantle that should have harbored a working fireplace, but instead was completely covered with part of the wall. I could see you couldn’t burn any wood in it. It was utterly useless.

  “How strange,” I uttered as I walked to the mantle.

  I was startled by the color in the little pictures. I thought at first that they were fine little watercolors, but then I noticed how shiny and realistic they appeared.

  “Who are these people?” I asked him as I stared at them curiously.

  “Well, let’s see,” he said as he came to me and looked at the little pictures in their clear frames.

  “That one there is a photograph of you, Annie, with your mother and father. And this one here is your brother, Bill.”

  I searched the pictures intensely. I was staring at strangers, particularly my own face. The girl Michele called “Annie” had a familiar expression, but I knew instinctively it was not my own.

  “My hair is not so dark,” I told him.

  He gave me a strange look and held up another photograph.

  “Here you are with that boyfriend of yours.”

  “Boyfriend?”

  “You don’t remember?”

  “Let me see his picture,” I said.

  He handed it to me. It was different than the others, larger, and framed in glass, with a fancy wooden border. It was not in those shiny colors like the others either. As I took it I was immediately startled by what I saw, yet I was not sure I understood my own reaction.

  “What is it?” Michele asked.

  Perhaps I had turned pale. Without thinking, I let the picture fall to the floor. I could hear, as if from a great distance, the glass shatter.

  “I do not like him,” I said.

  Michele went quickly for a broom to sweep up the glass.

  “Are you all right, Annie?” he asked as he swept the pieces up.

  Before I could stop myself, I ripped the photograph from the frame and tore the picture into pieces and threw the pieces near his feet.

  “Why did you do that?” he asked me. I could see that he was quite startled.

  Without thinking, I answered, “I know the devil when I see him.”

  Michele sat back down and stared at me. I had the feeling I was acting differently than girls he might be used to so I went and sat opposite him. I thought it best to change the subject and not say whatever came into my mind.

  “I hate this room. It is ugly,” I said.

  “Well, let me throw some light in here.”

  He got up and went to the window and drew up a shade. Outside, I saw a tree.

  “That is pretty,” I said.

  “Come, sit near me.” He grinned and motioned with his hand to a place beside him on the bright orange sofa.

  “Where am I?” I whispered as I sat.

  “Greenwich Village,” he told me. “Charles Street.”

  I sighed deeply. I remembered nothing, not even my name, and yet, I was feeling a comforting familiarity with the young man at my side, even though I suspected that he thought me quite insane.

  “You are familiar,” I said. “But not in the way you think you are familiar.”

  He looked into my eyes for a long time before he spoke.

  “You’re different, Annie. I don’t know what it is, but you are very different then the Ann Peckham I knew before the accident.”

  “Tell me about the accident.” I had some fading recollection of feeling deliriously happy but I could not connect it to anything. But, then again, perhaps my happiness had only to do with nearly drowning in the river and being miraculously saved from doing so.

  “He took you boating.”

  “Who took me boating?” I questioned.

  Michele nodded to the empty frame on the floor.

  “What happened?” I asked, though I suddenly had a vertiginous loss of balance and knew Michele had reached for me.

  “The boat tipped over,” he told me. “And from out of nowhere a man jumped into the river from a passing ferry and swam out to you. He managed to pull you aboard another boat that came to your aid, and I believe he kept breathing into your lungs until you came to.”

  “Where is this man?” I questioned.

  “In all the commotion he vanished and we were unable to thank him. It was almost as if he had disappeared into thin air. I think he came to the hospital and inquired after you but no one really knew for sure.”

  “Do you know his name?”

  Michele shook his head. “Perhaps he simply wanted to avoid the publicity and took off before all those pesky reporters could bombard him.”

  “Was there anyone else on board the boat I fell from?” I asked.

  “Only that boyfriend of yours, who seemed to have mysteriously escaped without a scratch,” he said. “He told the authorities that he was knocked unconscious for a moment, and when he regained consciousness he found himself under the boat and didn’t see you.”

  “You don’t like this man either,” I said. Michele looked away. “Were you jealous?” I asked without censoring myself at all. I knew it was a rather brazen thing to say but the words tumbled out of me.

  “No,” he said.

  “Why not? You are very drawn to me, I think.”

  “Yes, I am drawn to you, but it’s weird. Oh, I don’t mean anything offensive by that. I mean, you’re quite beautiful, but before the accident you were just a neighbor, nothing more. Yet now I feel that there could be more between us. But that’s ridiculous,” he said as he turned away quickly and looked out the window.

  I remained quiet. After a moment, he turned back to me. “We’ve been living across the hall from each other for three years, and we have been nothing more than friends. You have a very jealous boyfriend and my attentions are elsewhere.”

  “And who are your attentions on?” I teased, feeling a surprising disappointment.

  “An apparition,” he said. “You see, I’m a bit obsessed with the occult. It’s a hobby, and all my energy goes into it. You used to tease me about it and call me an idiot, but I’m afraid I’m in love with a ghost.” He made a face and I knew he was making light of it.

  I put my head in my hands and I cried as if my entire soul had just been caressed by his words, even though he didn’t seem to be taking himself seriously.

  “I’m sorry, Annie,” he said. “I didn’t mean to upset you. Was it something I said?”

  “No,” I answered through my tears. “You do not understand. I am crying because I feel good.”

  “About what?”

  “About your saying that you love a woman long gone, a ghost, as you call her.”

  He took my hands in his and looked deeply into my eyes, as if the color he found there fascinated him.

  “Who are you?” he whispered as he searched my face. “You’re different. Very different.”

  “Take me to a looking glass,” I commanded as I rose to my feet.

  Michele took my hand and led me to a door. When he pulled the door back, I saw a looking glass there.

  “Aha!” I whispered. “Look!”

  My image in the glass smiled back at me, not the face I had seen in the photograph, but one so familiar and appealing.

  “I suspected that I would not look like your Ann Peckham,” I said.

  “Jesus,” I heard Michele whisper as he walked up close to
the glass and touched the image. He seemed not to be breathing.

  “And there I am.” I smiled. “That is so much better.”

  Michele continued to stare at my reflection. “You are not Ann Peckham,” he whispered, his eyes wide open. “My God, you resemble a friend of mine, younger but very similar.”

  “I am not the woman in the photograph,” I said quietly. “I am not Ann Peckham.”

  Michele seemed stunned and could not even open his mouth to speak to me.

  “I am not Ann Peckham,” I repeated. “Though she does appear to look like someone I know.”

  “Who are you?” he finally asked as he looked back to me. “How can the glass reflect a different image from what I see in the flesh? Good God, who are you?”

  I shrugged my shoulders. I had no answer to give him.

  “Look, I have a friend,” he began. “She is the one you resemble in the glass but she’s several years older than you. I have the feeling she might be able to help solve this mystery.”

  “Who is this Ann Peckham, and why is she familiar to me?”

  “Her full name is Ann Arlin Peckham,” he told me as he reached out and touched the reflection of my hair in the glass. “Does that mean anything to you?”

  “No. That name is not familiar.”

  “Her family is from Massachusetts. Do you remember her mother? Her father?”

  I shook my head. Michele was still a bit shocked and kept staring at me with wide-open eyes.

  “They visit her regularly. She’s always terribly upset after their visits. They want her to transfer back home, to a local college, and marry some boy called Todd Sheehan, especially her mother.” He laughed. “They hate this new boyfriend of hers and I can’t say I blame them.”

  “And why does she not she marry Todd Sheehan?” I asked him. “Is he not a good man?”

  “She’s in love with this ex-priest, this Jacque somebody or other.”

  “What do you think of this Jacques?” I whispered.

  “He’s a schmuck.” Michele laughed.

  “A what?” I had never heard the expression.

  “A blowhard,” he said seriously.

  “Is she rich?” I asked.