See No Evil

by B. A. Shapiro

  “When will Faith arrive, little fella?” Deborah cooed to the canary, running her finger over the soft feathers on his breast. “Will it be soon?” Her questions were not rhetorical: The sages spoke to her through the bird. The coven had to have Faith Osborne—or, more accurately, the body in which Faith’s soul now resided—to perform the Immortalis. For until the lethal crescent was carved into Faith’s neck with Rebeka’s lancet, the coven’s ascendence to immortality could not occur.

  Summerland’s intelligent black eyes met Deborah’s. He tilted his head and opened his beak. The store was filled with his sweet, gurgling song. The canary stopped singing for a moment and looked at her. Eight short chirps trilled through the air, then he was silent once again.

  Deborah nodded. Eight days. The sages were letting her know that Faith would arrive within eight days, assuring her that the Immortalis would take place. She ran her tongue along the top of Summerland’s head and deposited him back in his cage. Then she picked a few leaves from the packet of fresh greens she kept nearby and sprinkled them in his dish. “Thank you, little one,” she said, closing the latch.

  As Summerland ate, Deborah thought of the past three Immortalises, when, after sacrificing Faith Osborne, the coven found themselves born once again as human. This Immortalis would be different. With the fourth sacrifice of Faith, the cycle would be broken. In this, their fourth incarnation, the six had finally amassed enough power to escape from the bonds of humanness. The sages had promised Deborah that eternal life in summerland awaited them on the other side of this year’s ritual.

  Deborah’s hands clenched into fists as she thought of the squandered time. Had Faith not caused Dorcas to be separated from them, the coven would have had enough power to reach summerland after the first Immortalis. It had taken 300 years—and many human lifetimes for each of them—to amass what would have been theirs if Dorcas’s power had not been lost. A combined total of eighteen hundred wasted years lay upon Faith Osborne’s head.

  Deborah looked at the antique ink block print of Dorcas by the artist Deodat Willard. Jackie Pappas had given her the small picture, and she had hung it across from the cash register so she could see it often. It brought back bittersweet memories of the immense power lost to the coven because of the blindness and stupidity of the girl’s mother, Faith, and the narrow-minded depravity of her stepfather, Oliver Osborne, a powerful magistrate who was the primary architect of the witchcraft hysteria in Massachusetts Bay Colony.

  Deborah had been mesmerized by the ink block when she had seen it in Jackie’s kitchen, for Deodat Willard had caught the essence of Dorcas. Seated on a craggy boulder, the young girl beckoned to a field of towering corn that bent in obedience to her command.

  Actually, Dorcas had been able to seduce far more than cornstalks. Livestock and birds and wild animals from the forest had all responded to her power. But Dorcas’s soul had been ripped from the coven when, at seven years of age, she had become the youngest “witch” to be hung on Gallows Hill. And although Deborah had searched for her in, and between, every lifetime, Dorcas’s soul was lost in the eddying tides of time.

  When Deborah had seen the print at Jackie’s, Dorcas’s unexpected presence had evoked such powerful emotions in Deborah that she had been stunned into silence. Watching Deborah carefully, Jackie had lifted the picture from the wall. “I can see this touches something in you,” Jackie had said. “I want you to have it.”

  Late that same evening Deborah had had the vision. She was sitting on her mat in the small closet behind her living room, doing her shibboleth, magic that thinned the veil between the worlds and opened contact with the sages. She drifted into a deep trance. Kamalo, she repeated to herself. Kamalo.

  She saw herself wearing a long black dress. She was carrying the chronicle and climbing a snaking path up the side of a mountain. At the crest of the mountain, Jackie waited. When she reached Jackie, Deborah held out the book. Jackie took it, pressed it to her breast, and then slipped down the other side of the precipice. Suddenly, a black raven filled Deborah’s vision. The bird was large and shiny. Its unblinking eyes met hers, luminous with life. Then the eyes clouded and rolled upward and the raven fell into the dark river, disappearing without a splash.

  Where the bird had entered the water, Raven Wing arose, an Atlantis in reverse. She, Deborah, was standing at the cash register. A tall woman, her face obscured by shadow, approached. When the woman lifted her face, Deborah saw the countenance of Faith Osborne, and Deborah knew the sages were instructing her to draw Faith to the coven by giving Jackie the chronicle.

  Coming back to herself, Deborah blinked at the Deodat Willard. Touching a finger to the smooth cheek of the young Dorcas, Deborah headed toward the book corner nestled in an alcove in the back of the store. She retrieved an oversize paperback on herbal home health care that had been left on a bean-bag chair and replaced it on the shelf. Then she told the clerk she could go home, that she, Deborah, would handle the store by herself.

  Within moments of the clerk’s departure, Bram Melgram pushed open the door and threw himself across the threshold. “Did it happen as you had seen?” he asked, the gold hoop piercing the skin below his right eyebrow quivering in his excitement. “Did she come? Did you give her the chronicle? Will everything work out as we need it to?”

  “Of course.” Deborah’s voice was icy. “Did you ever doubt it?”

  “I’m sorry, Mahala,” Bram mumbled. “Of course I never doubted you. I was just worried. There’s barely a month left and no sign of Faith.”

  Deborah looked at the young man, his shoulders tense and his face flushed with embarrassment at having questioned her. Bram’s had always been an insecure soul, in need of constant reassurance. But the soul had improved much over time, she reminded herself, remembering how uncertainty had rendered Foster Lacy almost powerless, but how now, in this fourth incarnation, Bram had grown into an impressive sorcerer. “Perhaps there is no sign,” Deborah said. “And perhaps there is.”

  “Another human came with the Pappas woman?” Bram asked, his shoulders dropping in relief.

  Deborah grabbed a handful of fliers lying on the table and began to hang them on the bulletin board near the door. “Someone else came.” She stabbed pushpins into the cork.

  “Was it Faith?” Bram demanded, then his face flushed again at the impertinence of his tone.

  “It is not clear to me yet,” Deborah told him impassively.

  Bram nodded and lowered his eyes.

  Deborah placed her hands on Bram’s head. He trembled under her fingertips. “Faith Osborne will come to us within eight days,” Deborah told him. “Of that I am certain. She will stay among us until the twelfth waxing crescent moon of 1995. Then, together, we shall all consummate the Immortalis.” Deborah stretched her arms toward the heavens. “When her soul is destroyed, we will finally be free.”

  Bram raised his eyes and they smiled at one another.

  “It will happen as it was foretold,” Deborah said. “Now go and tell the others.”

  Bram touched the crescent-shaped scar at the base of his neck and left the store.

  Four

  “WELL, THAT SURE RANKS RIGHT UP THERE WITH THE weird experiences of my life,” Lauren said, leaning across the wide table toward Jackie. They were sitting in Jackie’s dining room—office, having gone there directly from RavenWing so Lauren could borrow a few books. “What do you make of her?”

  “She’s not your ordinary shopkeeper, that’s for sure,” Jackie said.

  Lauren absently tapped the pile of papers in front of her. “It’s the contradiction that amazes me. How can someone who’s so obviously intelligent, someone capable of presenting a reasoned argument and running a successful business, also believe in cursed chronicles and magic lancets? Or that she’s the reincarnation of a seventeenth-century witch?” She shook her head. “Is there a kind of mental illness where you can be so deluded and still function?”

  “Maybe it’s not a mental illness—and mayb
e there’s no contradiction,” Jackie argued. “Maybe Deborah just sees what the rest of us are too blind to see.”

  “Do you really believe that?”

  “Probably not,” Jackie admitted. “But it might explain what happened to our coven.”

  Lauren walked to the vast fireplace at the far end of the room. Its deep, gaping opening was at least eight feet wide and its lintel came to just below her eye level—and Lauren was over five foot eight. She used her fingernail to trace the words Friends and Publick etched into the leather of an old fire bucket hanging from a hook imbedded in the rough-hewn lintel. Their coven. The people they were researching weren’t even a coven—for a coven was comprised of actual witches. Their seven were just ordinary souls, convicted of a ridiculous crime in an absurd time.

  People so ordinary, in fact, that Rebeka Hibbens might have lived in this very house, Lauren thought as she played with a set of old toasting forks hanging next to the bucket, twirling them around on their chain, snapping the two pieces closed then opening them again. Rebeka might have used the fire bucket and the toasting forks and the bread box inside the fireplace. Or the spinning wheel in the corner. But Rebeka, and the six other ordinary people, had disappeared from their prison cells without a trace.

  Rubbing her arms, Lauren looked around the room. It was the perfect repository for Jackie’s antiques—and for Jackie. The house was well over 300 years old and the wide fireplace marked this room as the original kitchen. In keeping with the earliest use of the room, Jackie had suspended iron pots, copper kettles, and all kinds of wooden and pewter kitchen utensils—some period and some not—from chains inside the chimney. The computer and fax machine on the table gave the place a jumbled, anachronistic spirit, although a quite pleasant one.

  Lauren picked up a cracked wooden ladle from the mantel and lightly tapped a pockmarked copper pail that hung from the longest chain; the hollow copper made a reassuring clank as it hit the black iron hanging next to it. Could Rebeka have served family’s porridge with this ladle or boiled sap into sugar in this pail?

  “Are you saying you believe in reincarnation?” Lauren asked.

  Jackie rested her hand on the chronicle’s leather cover. “Right now, more people in the world believe in reincarnation than in Jesus Christ.” She regarded Lauren over her reading glasses.

  “Hey, I’m Jewish,” Lauren said, holding up her hands. “I don’t have to believe in either.”

  Jackie walked to the front window, which was small and made of a thick, wavy glass. The autumn sun fell on her face, highlighting the signs of age her wide eyes and thick hair denied. “Sometimes I just don’t understand you,” she said softly, playing with a mottled green glass bottle, one of dozens that filled a triangular shelf wedged into the corner. She kept her back to Lauren. “Don’t you want to push beyond what we think we know? Push into that great unknown? We have a chance to use history as a key to the present—as a way of enlightening our world—not just as a place to hide.” She turned and looked at Lauren.

  “What do you mean ‘hide’?”

  “Sometimes I think you use the past—your books, your work, your fascination with what was—as a way to escape the present,” Jackie said. “And even though, as your professor, I’ll admit your amazing ability to grasp the essence of seventeenth-century life is what made me want to work with you on Rebeka Hibbens, as your friend I’ve got to warn you that it’s a mistake to use this skill to hide behind. You can’t keep running away from the things that scare you.”

  “I’m not scared and I’m not escaping into the past,” Lauren declared vehemently, staring down at the chronicle. “And I never said I didn’t want to read their book. I’m a historian. I study Colonial America, for God’s sake. Of course I’m curious to see what’s in there.” She looked up at Jackie and smiled. “Even if it isn’t a primary source.”

  “History is more than primary sources.” Jackie tossed her eyeglasses onto the table. “Come on. Let’s have some tea. Then there’s something funny I want to show you.”

  Relieved by this reprieve, Lauren followed Jackie into the kitchen, which fit snugly under the roof that started at two-and-a-half stories at the front of the house and sloped steeply to almost ground level in the back. She sat down and watched Jackie fill the kettle with water, thinking how deeply she loved and respected this woman, and how much it hurt to disappoint her.

  Despite her assertions to the contrary, Lauren knew she did turn to her work whenever life—especially her current problems with her husband, Todd—began to overwhelm her. And she did like things predictable and stable, preferring to reexamine old ideas from a new perspective rather than strike out in a new direction. Todd was always telling her to “let go,” but Lauren just wasn’t the “let go” type. It had taken him years to convince her to give up her job and go to graduate school—a decision that had brought her many positive results, Jackie’s friendship being one of the best.

  Jackie poured their tea and, grinning slyly, pulled a paper bag from a cabinet. She offered Lauren some carrot chips, well aware that Lauren was fonder of the high-salt, high-cholesterol type. Lauren reluctantly popped one in her mouth; she was forced to acknowledge that it was actually quite good.

  Jackie sat down across from Lauren. “You’ve got to give these women a chance, Lauren. They could hold the key to our whole book.”

  “Level with me, Jack,” Lauren said. “Do you really believe Deborah’s the reincarnation of Rebeka Hibbens or that Cassandra woman is Millicent Glover? Don’t you have a problem with evil curses and magic lancets—not to mention how they remember all the details of their previous lives?”

  “I’m agnostic,” Jackie said. “I’ve no proof that it’s true—and I’ve no proof that it’s not.”

  Lauren groaned. When Jackie became “agnostic” about something, her mind was made up: She was going to be open-minded to the end.

  Jackie reached over and tapped the table in front of Lauren. “I’ve done my bit in the straight historical world. I’ve more than paid my dues. This book is my great adventure. It’s as if we’re exploring a new world—or at least a new way of looking at the old one.”

  “Maybe I just don’t have the pioneer spirit.”

  “Beats working your way through graduate school waiting table like I did.” Jackie’s voice was gentle but firm.

  Lauren nodded and sipped her tea. She was grateful to Jackie—extremely grateful indeed—for involving her in this project and making her the envy of her fellow graduate students. Jackie had handed her a great dissertation topic and enough money to last until she finished her degree—although she had spent most of her share of the modest advance.

  “When I spoke with Nat this morning,” Jackie was saying, “he hinted that if Deborah’s chronicle pans out we might be talking a much larger print run.”

  “I’m not doing the talk shows,” Lauren joked, waving a carrot chip at Jackie. “I can just see it now. They’ll have us on with women who have had sex with the reincarnation of their husbands’ brothers.”

  Jackie looked at Lauren sadly. “This is serious scholarship—it’s just scholarship in an area that, because of our society’s narrow views, isn’t usually studied. This book contract is a gift—and you of all people should know I would never let it be turned into a circus.”

  Sufficiently chastised, Lauren studied her teacup. “You had something funny to show me?”

  “Oh, right,” Jackie said, jumping up from her chair. “You’ve got to see what Paul Conklin sent me.” Paul Conklin was a professor in their department who specialized in modern American diplomatic history—and practical jokes.

  “Another one of his less than amusing pranks?” Lauren called as Jackie went into the living room.

  “This one’s pretty amusing,” Jackie said as she returned to the kitchen carrying a narrow shoe box. “And quite clever.”

  “I thought he swore off his jokes after the last one backfired and Gabe Phipps’s car ended up getting towed.”
r />   Jackie placed the box on the table. “Apparently not,” she said, shoving it toward Lauren.

  A dank, not unpleasant odor reminiscent of hay-rides and childhood visits to her grandmother’s farm rose from the box. Lauren hesitated. Although she had no tolerance for practical jokes—finding them at best stupid and at worst hurtful—more than her lack of appreciation of Paul Conklin’s humor gave her pause; she somehow knew that she didn’t want to see what was in the box.

  “Go on,” Jackie coaxed, laughing. “It’s Paul at his best.”

  Lauren didn’t move for a long moment, then she slowly raised the lid. Inside was a naked doll: a misshapen, sloppily made doll, constructed of old rags and straw. Its eyes were crooked and it stared up at her with a lopsided, slightly demented grin.

  “Oh,” Lauren cried, pushing the box away. “That’s awful.”

  “Here’s the note that came with it,” Jackie said, handing Lauren a white note card.

  Lauren opened the card. Those who risk the sanctity of the coven shall be punished with eternal death: Do not touch the chronicle. She dropped the card to the table. “I don’t think that’s funny at all.”

  “Oh, come on, Lauren,” Jackie said, laughing again. “Lighten up. Everyone in the department knew we were picking up the chronicle today—he was just joking around.” Jackie was not one to keep secrets, whether in her personal or professional life. She shared everything from her latest historical breakthrough to where she kept the spare key to her house.

  Reaching into the box, Jackie lifted the doll. “Where do you think he ever found a poppet? And such an authentic-looking one at that.” She turned the doll over a few times, admiring it, then placed it carefully back in the box. “The guy’s amazing—it’s perfect.”

  Lauren frowned. “You’re the amazing one. Paul sends you a voodoo doll with a threatening note and you think it’s ‘perfect’?”