Annabel Horton, Lost Witch of Salem

by Vera Jane Cook

  I took heed and fell quickly into darkness just as the rope was slipped about my neck. I remembered nothing about my soul’s release. I awoke in Elizabeth’s arms.

  * * * *

  “It is all right, Annie. You are safe now,” she whispered as she stroked my face with her fingers.

  “Where is Michele?” I asked her as I searched the room for him.

  “He went to save you,” she told me as she took the hair from my eyes. “It seems that his power was found in his weakest moment, when he thought he might lose you.”

  “Bring him back!”

  “I cannot.”

  “You must.”

  “If only I knew how to bring him back. Then Matthew would be here and Philippe and Meredith Mae and Emie. I would bring everyone back so that we could all be together, but alas, I cannot.”

  “You used him to secure the existence of your beloved Matthew,” I screamed. “I would send you to hell if I could.”

  “If hell is having a human heart then I am already there, Annie,” she whispered.

  * * * *

  Elizabeth took me back to Charles Street that evening, though I did not want to leave her apartment until Michele returned.

  “Ann Peckham’s parents will worry, Annie. You must go home,” she insisted.

  “But Michele?” I cried. “We must find him. What if he is in danger?”

  “He is not,” she told me confidently. “He fathers Matthew, Philippe, and Emie. Obviously, he finds a way back.”

  “Are you sure, Elizabeth?”

  “You had memory in the trance,” she said. “You have none now?”

  Sadly, I shook my head. “The last thing I remember is falling asleep on the floor,” I told her, “and waking up to find that Michele had disappeared.”

  She came to me and put her hand in mine.

  “Michele will return. I am certain of that, Annie. Let us not incur suspicion. We must get you back downtown.”

  * * * *

  As Elizabeth had suspected, Ann Peckham’s family had driven down from Boston to be with their daughter, after her near-fatal accident in the Hudson River, and they were worried sick that she was not there. Still, I was shocked to find them sitting in apartment 2C with the pretty white shepherd. Ann Peckham’s mother was quite hysterical and ran into my arms the moment I entered.

  “Good God, Ann, where have you been?” she said through her tears as she hugged me and just missed singing my hair with a foul smelling cigarette that she held between her fingers.

  I started to speak, but Ann’s father came to my side and I found myself lost between the two bodies as they nearly squeezed the breath from me.

  “Who are you?” Mr. Peckham asked as he released his bear hug and stared at Elizabeth.

  “I have just come to take care of Ann’s dog, but I see you have retrieved her. I ran into Ann as I was coming up the stairs,” Elizabeth said and began to back out the door but I grabbed her arm.

  “No, come in,” I called as I released myself from Mrs. Peckham’s grip. “This is Elizabeth Guyon, Michele’s friend. You remember Michele? He lives across the hall. He had my dog while I was in the hospital,” I told them as I brought Elizabeth into the room. “How did you get her?”

  Mr. Peckham ran to the phone. “I must call the authorities and tell them you’re safe. We reported you missing when we didn’t find you here.”

  “Darling, where did you go?” Mrs. Peckham asked as she took my hand and led me to the sofa. “We were so worried.”

  “Well, I needed to get out. I needed air,” I told them. “How did you get the shepherd?”

  “Why didn’t you wait for us at the hospital? They said you had some amnesia and couldn’t remember your name. Is that so?”

  Mrs. Peckham took some smoke from her cigarette and stared at me.

  “No, no. I am fine now,” I said and put my hand over hers. I noticed that Elizabeth sat in a chair and looked uncomfortably back at me.

  “How did the shepherd get here?” I asked again.

  “She was here when we arrived, dear,” Mrs. Peckham said. “Perhaps your neighbor brought her home—Michele, is it?”

  Mr. Peckham returned from the kitchen and sat at my other side. His weight brought the couch into an ocular slump. I nervously sat between them and stared at Elizabeth.

  “We’re taking you to the beach house for a rest, sweetie. I want you to pack your things,” Mr. Peckham told me and took my other hand. Mrs. Peckham’s smoke drifted before my eyes and further distorted the little sight I had.

  “I am not going anywhere,” I insisted.

  I heard Mr. Peckham sigh as he gripped my hand more tightly.

  “We’re not asking you to move home, dear,” he said. “It’s just for a while, to rest.”

  “Darling,” Mrs. Peckham insisted as she stood and grounded out her cigarette, “it is for your own good. You need attention and care. You’ve had a nasty accident.”

  “Who will take care of my dog?”

  “We will take your dog with us. We’re driving back tonight.” Mrs. Peckham stood in front of me and put her hands on her hips. “There is nothing more to say,” she added.

  “I really must go,” Elizabeth announced and rose to her feet. “You know where to find me, Annie.”

  “Annie, how cute. No one’s called you that since you were a child,” Mrs. Peckham said as she began to pace the room. “No one except that damn Jacques. I told you not to go boating with him, I told you not to.”

  “Young Todd Sheehan has been asking about you.” Mr. Peckham smiled and winked at me. “Don’t upset the girl, Gloria,” he said and looked at his wife.

  “That’s nice,” I responded. I tried to get up from the couch, but it was so low to the ground that I could not rise to my feet.

  “Good night, Annie,” I heard Elizabeth say.

  “No, wait!”

  “Let the poor woman go,” Mrs. Peckham told me and turned to Elizabeth. “Say hello to that nice young man. What’s his name, the black boy?”

  “Michele,” Elizabeth said.

  “Black?” I said. “He is a black man? Michele is a black man?” I wondered why I had not seen that.

  Mrs. Peckham laughed and went for another of her foul little cigarettes.

  “Good God, Ann. What has that accident done to you? Although he does look a bit like an Indian, wouldn’t you say, an American Indian?”

  I looked over at Elizabeth and she nodded.

  “Oh,” I said.

  “Are you sure?”

  Mrs. Peckham eyed me with her brow raised. “Dear?”

  I ignored her and turned back to Elizabeth.

  “Michele Guyon’s father was from France and his mother was from one of those little islands in the Caribbean—Haiti, I believe, or is it Jamaica? Anyway, those things no longer matter in this century, Annie,” Elizabeth whispered to me.

  “What things?” Mr. Peckham inquired.

  “Black and French European? Well, that accounts for his striking good looks, wouldn’t you say?” Mrs. Peckham blew the smoke back over her shoulder.

  Elizabeth extended her hand. “Nice to meet you both,” she said.

  “Yes, same here,” the Peckhams said.

  “Elizabeth, do not go!” I cried.

  “Ann! What’s wrong?” Mrs. Peckham came quickly to my side.

  “Michele. Michele is missing,” I told her.

  Both Mr. and Mrs. Peckham looked at each other as Elizabeth ran to me.

  “Do not worry, Annie,” she told me. “Everything will be all right. I promise.”

  “Is this true?” Mr. Peckham looked at Elizabeth. “Is the young man missing?”

  Suddenly I became very cold and began to shake.

  “Lock the door,” I screamed. “Quickly! Lock the door.”

  But no one moved. They sat and looked at me as if I had suddenly gone mad. I began to cry louder. I made my hands into fists and began to pound them at my sides. Soon I was sobbing uncontrollably. I sa
w Elizabeth rise. I heard the scream fall from her lips.

  The Peckhams stared at us in disbelief, for they did not understand our horror. There at the door, stood Urbain Grandier. I could smell the rancid air around him though his face was clean and chiseled.

  “Annie,” he uttered as he came to me like lightning; his large, imposing figure swept before me like some gallant prince. He took me forcefully into his arms. “I’ve been beside myself with grief, so worried, my darling, so worried.”

  I felt his face in my neck and his long, nearly white hair before my eyes.

  The shepherd began to raise her lips and growl. Urbain pushed her aside.

  “Begone!” I shouted and threw up my hands.

  Urbain fell back on his knees and laughed.

  “Such fire in your soul, little Annie.” He grinned.

  “It is so nice of you to visit but she needs her rest, Jacques,” Mr. Peckham said as he watched Urbain rise. The demon was dressed in black, what you would call contemporary clothes. His shirt was small and showed his massive build, his pants so tight I could see the muscles move on his thigh.

  I noticed that Elizabeth stood glaring at him from a corner of the room.

  “Where is Michele?” I asked him.

  “We’re taking our daughter back home to Massachusetts,” I heard Mr. Peckham tell Urbain. “You know, we have a beach house there on the Cape.”

  “Is that so?” the devil said.

  “Go to hell!” I suddenly called out.

  Everyone in the room turned to stare at me. I heard Urbain’s laughter.

  “She is going nowhere with you,” he said and turned back toward Mr. Peckham.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You heard me,” Urbain said. “I am sending her on a trip.”

  “What?” Mr. Peckham demanded. “We are her parents. We say where she goes, not you, young man.”

  “You bastard.” Gloria Peckham rose and stood defiantly before Urbain. “Our daughter almost dies in your care and you dare to tell us what to do with her?”

  “Your daughter almost died when the engagement ring I gave her slipped from her finger and into the Hudson River. She fell from the boat trying to retrieve it. The idiot woman got me all wet; I wound up under the boat.”

  “Now listen here Jacques…” Mr. Peckham began but was cut off by his wife.

  “How dare you, you overblown son of a bitch. Leave this apartment before I call the police.” Mrs. Peckham shook her finger in his face.

  “You are threatening me?” He smiled as he said it. “I wouldn’t do that.”

  I found myself rising. “Begone, beast!” I commanded and held my hands before me.

  Suddenly he spun around. “Her anger charms me so,” he said as he fell to his knees and rubbed his head. He appeared dizzy.

  “Where is Michele?”

  “The devil’s curse is on you all.” He spat three times on the floor and spun around again, his massive body continued to turn as we all stared in horror. “Simplistic, naive ninnies. You deserve your God. You deserve your fate,” he called out.

  The shepherd chased behind him and yelped loudly as she tried to nip at his heels.

  “He’s insane,” Mrs. Peckham called. “Call the police, Mark,” she screamed.

  “Get the hell out of here,” Mr. Peckham demanded but did not try to stop his spinning.

  “I am chewing up your souls,” Urbain shouted. “And I will spit you out like soiled food.”

  I watched as Elizabeth came toward him with the dog’s leash and began to thrash him on the back. “Return to fire, you demon!” she yelled.

  “Ha-ha!” he laughed. “Poor little Elizabeth.” Suddenly, he grabbed her and spun her around with him. “You are old now,” he told her. “At least sixty-four. What will your precious Matthew want with you now?”

  “I command you to release her,” I screamed.

  “Didn’t I tell you, Ann? Didn’t I say he was a madman?” Mrs. Peckham screamed.

  Then, suddenly, the room became pitch black. I could see nothing through the darkness but Urbain’s long white hair and the blue of his eyes dazzling the imposing nigrescent sheath like stars above the earth. I felt myself hit something, as if I had been thrown against a wall, but I felt no pain. I knew that Elizabeth had been thrown as well, though I could see nothing. The Peckhams’ voices began to dissolve and fade out. I began to cry softly. I felt Elizabeth as she held me close to her. When the darkness finally lifted, the Peckhams were nowhere to be found, and Elizabeth and I, along with the pretty white shepherd, were standing on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  We looked at our surroundings for a long time before we spoke. The dog seemed as confused as we were, but after a while she began to act like a dog and sniff the ground. Soon she was running and playing in the grass on the other side of the street as if nothing unusual had happened to her.

  “Good, God. Where are we?” Elizabeth asked.

  Off in the distance there appeared to be houses.

  “This is somewhat familiar,” I said at last. “We have left the twentieth century behind for sure.”

  “You have some memory?”

  “Are you all right, Elizabeth?”

  “Oh yes. But where are we? Where has the demon sent us?”

  “Let us go there where the houses are.” I pointed ahead.

  The dog followed behind us as we walked and nipped at our ankles. What a strange couple we must have made in our twentieth century clothes; Elizabeth in her brightly colored skirts and both of us in such curious shoes.

  We followed the dirt road, which soon became Clover Hill and eventually led us, miraculously, to the house on Montague Street.

  “My God!” I said as I dropped to my knees before it.

  “What is it, Annie?” Elizabeth asked as she huddled close to me.

  “I know this house as my own!”

  “Your memory has returned then?”

  I rubbed my head. “Yes. Everything is still a bit foggy, but yes, I seem to be remembering everything. Oh my. My memory has returned intact, I think.”

  “Oh, Annie, that is such good news.”

  “Elizabeth, I have missed you so terribly much,” I said. “I have so much to tell you now that I know who on earth I am.”

  “And I, as well.”

  “My thoughts are coming at me so quickly that I cannot sort them.”

  “What dimension of time do you think we are in?”

  “I know not.”

  The shepherd barked loudly at us and began to run in circles around us.

  “It appears to be early morning,” I said to Elizabeth as I looked at the rising sun.

  “We mustn’t bring attention to ourselves,” Elizabeth whispered and tried to quiet the dog, but she continued to bark and run out ahead of us.

  “She’s going to wake up the neighborhood,” I said.

  “I think we are in the nineteenth century, Annie. Look at the buildings, and there are no skyscrapers.”

  “It is Brooklyn. We are near the river, and this is the home we always spoke to you about when we were in Salem together. Everything might be perfect, if only Michele were here.”

  “Look, there is a man. He wears such a handsome suit. Is it a nineteenth century suit?”

  “Quick! We must hide. We cannot be seen dressed like this.”

  We tried to stand behind a tree, hoping it would shield us from the passerby, but the dog only barked louder and circled the tree. The man eyed us.

  “Good morning, ladies.” He grinned at me and tipped his hat. As he passed, he stopped to turn back and smile at me. He must have assumed I was with a traveling circus.

  I returned his smile and watched him continue down the road, swinging his cane and whistling.

  “Oh my God! What form do I have?” I suddenly realized I had flesh.

  “Why, I see you as Annabel Horton but I think you look the same. You are still Ann Peckham.”

 
; “How unnerving that I can walk through time and not have to kill off a body. It has never been like that before.”

  “Urbain willed you here; perhaps that is why,” she whispered as if he lurked in the shadows.

  “Urbain has no will over me.” I laughed. “If Urbain could will that so easily, then I have no power to thwart the devil, and I know that is not so. I must have wanted to be here. I must have allowed it. I must have the power to cross the barriers without doing away with anyone. It is a shame I do not know how to use this power.”

  “Perhaps, you do,” she said.

  “My only weakness is not remembering my own magic,” I told her.

  “That must be,” she said and squeezed my hand.

  “Should we knock on the door?” I asked quietly. “Matthew might be there.” I grinned.

  “Urbain might be there, as well.”

  I laughed. “Yes, the devil thinks this is his house.”

  “I think it is a chance we must take,” she told me, “before our pretty dog wakes up the entire city and we are left to explain why we look like misplaced actors.”

  “Come, Beauty!” I called to the dog and took Elizabeth’s hand. We walked to the front door.

  “If it is Urbain that answers, what should we do?” Elizabeth asked.

  “Nothing. I will not bargain with the devil,” I told her.

  “He feeds on pain, Annie. Are you strong enough for that?”

  “Strength is a force of faith,” I whispered as I pulled on the familiar chime. “And my faith is greater than the devil’s game.”

  * * * *

  We waited only a moment before the door opened. Two people stood there, and neither of them was Urbain; a third stood just beyond them.

  “Mother!” Matthew cried as he reached for me. “My God, at last!”

  “Matthew!” I whispered as I embraced him.

  “Grandmamma!” my beloved Meredith Mae said as she took me in her arms.

  I recognized them at once as my son and granddaughter. I was so overjoyed I might have burst at the seams. Together we cried and laughed, large tears rolling down our faces. Then, quickly, my granddaughter broke away from my embrace and ran to Elizabeth.