How to Hang a Witch (15 page)

“Is everyone really blaming me for that rash?”

Susannah nods. “I told the police it wasn't your fault, but there are a lot of rumors.” I hope Lizzie didn't come down on her too hard last night.

Alice pulls out Mary's keys and unlocks the Jeep. “And the irony of this situation is that people are calling
you
a witch. I bet Cotton's rolling in his grave.”

I would laugh, but the whole thing sucks. “Did you guys find anything that might explain what happened?”

“Alice's house was a wreck. But nothing out of the ordinary. If you ask me, it was a spell,” says Mary. “The way it came and went so fast was eerie.”

“Bull. Who do you know who could make a spell that strong?” Alice demands.

“Well, Lizzie—”

“No.” Alice swerves around a car and my stomach drops.

I don't like the idea that someone could wave a wand and everyone gets a rash. Feels too unpredictable. Speaking of which, where's Elijah? “Wait, so Lizzie can or can't do magic?”

“Well,” Susannah says, “it's not that she can't. We're all a little inclined. But I, personally, think it was the curse that caused it.”

It's not comforting to know there's someone out to get you who has an
inclination
toward magic. “If it was the curse, then why didn't I get the rash?”

“That's the part we can't figure out,” says Mary.

Susannah pinches her bottom lip between her fingers. “We will, though.”

I know I'm lucky they're talking to me at all, but something about this Lizzie thing gnaws at me. “Why aren't Lizzie and John with you guys?”

“Because Lizzie—” Mary starts.

“Hates you,” Alice cuts her off.

Susannah turns toward me in the backseat. “Lizzie thinks you're responsible for certain things that have been going wrong in Salem. She links them to your arrival.”

“And she's dating John, so there's that,” Mary chimes in.

Well, Lizzie's not wrong, exactly. And I'm not surprised they're dating. I could have figured that out myself if I wasn't so preoccupied with the curse and my dad. “That's why she's been following me?”

“Enough,” Alice says, and Susannah breaks eye contact.

“Did something happen I don't know about?”

Alice jerks us to a halt in the Walgreens parking lot. “That rash wasn't enough for you?”

Seeing the dark trees, and remembering that dream I had, makes me sick. “You know what I meant,” I say.

Mary hands me a hooded cape and I put it on.

A
lice takes the first step onto the slope and we follow. The silence between us is thick with secrets. I try to forget my surroundings, but as we lose the light of the parking lot to the overgrown forest, my anxiety tries to crush me.

My cape catches on a branch and I jolt to a stop. The other girls keep moving. I yank at the cape, but it's stuck. Everything looks the same in the dark—faint, crooked shadows, black on black.

“Wait!” I yell to the girls, and my voice cracks.

The wind howls in the trees, and it sounds eerily similar to the woman's wail I heard in that awful house. I pull at the branch my cape is attached to with force, and the rough bark scratches my palm.

“I am here, Samantha,” says Elijah.

I suck in air and put my hand on my forehead to steady myself. My shaky legs become steadier as Elijah untangles my cape from the branch. I grab his hand tightly, probably too tightly. He doesn't say anything, but curls his cold fingers around my own. When we catch up with the girls, they start walking again.

We come to the little clearing, and Mary pulls out the blanket. I'm impressed that Alice found this place a second time. I'm not sure I could do the same. The girls unpack the herbs.

“This bears all the markings of witchcraft,” Elijah says, releasing my hand. I almost respond before I catch myself.

Susannah lights the candles, and I scan the trees for a noose. I wish I could delete that dream from my memory. In the candlelight, Mary looks as nervous as I feel, Susannah seems only slightly on edge, and Alice doesn't seem bothered at all. I don't get that girl.

Susannah starts the words of the…chant? Expectation hangs heavily like a cloud before a downpour.

“I call upon the power of fire,” I say clearly when it's my turn. Elijah raises an eyebrow.

“That it may light my way and impassion my spirit. Only through purification may I see clearly,” they all continue.

We light the bundles of herbs and drop them into the wooden bowl.

“I mean what I say, and I say what I intend. Know my desire and give me clarity,” they say slowly, so that I can follow along. The strong scent of the burning herbs fills the air between us.

We join hands, and my muscles tense. For a moment, there's nothing. Then, as before, their faces flicker—slowly and faintly at first, then building to a rapid blur. There's a strange, ethereal layer to each of the girls, as though other people share the same physical space with them. The flickering faces are the same older women as before, and there's something desperately sad about them.

The older woman now occupying Mary's face looks around her and settles her gaze on me. She says, “These trees were locust once. This growth is new.”

“The water used to come right up to this hill,” says the old woman sharing Susannah's body, also turning toward me. “It was called Bickford's Pond. It is how Benjamin Nurse came to retrieve his dead mother.”

“From the crevasse where they
threw
our bodies,” says the older Alice with a toughness that reminds me of her young counterpart. My eyes follow her pointing finger to barely visible rocks that steeply drop off.

My skin goes cold, and sweat forms on my palms.
What is this?

“July nineteenth, sixteen ninety-two. I was in the first group to hang,” continues the old Susannah.

I'm not seeing this. Am I?
These women…I don't know how to process this.
My heart punches me inwardly. I try to stand, to end the vision or whatever it is, but my body won't move. I can't even lift a finger.

“The first time I walked into that court”—the old Susannah says “court” with severe distaste—“the young girls started having fits. One even threw her glove at me.”

Are the Descendants using a spell on me?

The old Susannah's wrinkled face frowns. “I laughed at them. I knew immediately by the astonishment of the magistrate that I had deeply misjudged the situation. ‘Do you laugh at this?' he asked. ‘Well I may at such folly' is what I told him. But the magistrate was serious. ‘Is this folly? The hurt of persons?' he asked. I declared that ‘I never hurt man, woman, or child.' I even recited passages from the Bible to prove my faith. But they only claimed that the Devil's servants could imitate the innocent.” She sighs.

“The worst part was that jail,” says the old Mary, shivering at the memory.

“No,” says the old Alice. “The worst was that we were denied counsel and sentenced to death because children said they had visions of us hurting them. When that girl had a fit in the courtroom and accused me of being the cause of it, I told her plainly—”

The older women's faces flicker. Mary gasps and wheezes, breaking the circle. The hold on my body shatters like ice hitting concrete and my hands fly to my chest, pulling at my clothes to get more air.

“It felt like the life was being sucked out of me,” Mary says between pants.

“We were getting somewhere,” says Susannah, leaning forward with both hands on the ground in front of her.

“We should try to continue,” says Alice.

Mary shakes her head. “No way. That was terrifying! And for what? For stories we already know?”

They know these stories?

“We didn't know about the trees or the water,” Susannah says between staggered breaths.

Elijah kneels beside me. “You appeared as Cotton Mather.”

My head snaps up. “Cotton!”

Alice doesn't miss a beat. “How'd you know your face looked male?”

“I didn't. It was a guess.”

“Bull. You were the only one who didn't speak.”

Mary, gaining control over her breathing, pulls her knees into her chest. “Let's discuss this in the car.”

“I'm not leaving until Sam tells us the truth.”

It suddenly occurs to me that they must have known last time that my face blurred with Cotton's. And they said nothing. What game are these girls playing? “You know what? I'm done answering your questions. You
knew
I looked like Cotton last time we were here.”

Alice regains control of her breathing. “Well, now you know, too.”

The confirmation that they hid it from me really bothers me. I look at Susannah. “And you wanted me to trust you?”

Alice looks at Susannah, too. “You talked to her without us?” Alice asks. “So Lizzie was right. You were disloyal.”

Okay, now I'm lost.

Susannah folds her small hands in her lap. “I told you I think it's a bad idea not to tell Samantha everything we know. You think we're being careful, but what we're doing is shutting out the one person who could help us.”

“Or hurt us,” says Alice.

“I'm sure we can solve this in the Jeep,” Mary says.

Alice and Susannah turn to her. “No!” they say in unison.

I can't help but feel bad for Mary. Elijah's being here is the only reason I'm not running out of these woods. And even with him here, I catch myself peering into the blackness suspiciously.

“I think you're making a mistake about Samantha, and people could die because of it. My sister could die because of it,” Susannah says.

Alice takes a breath. “And what if you're wrong?”

“Then I'll take responsibility for that.”

“Lizzie won't forgive you,” Alice says.

Susannah nods. “I know.”

Elijah paces next to me.

“Fine,” Alice says, and gestures toward Susannah.

“Alice reads bones the same way some people read tarot cards,” Susannah says, as though that is even a quasi-normal thing. “And about four months ago, she got a reading that something really bad was about to happen.”

“My dad went into a coma four months ago,” I say before I have a chance to think about it.

Alice and Susannah exchange a look. “The readings Alice did after that showed sadness and loss and the same warning that something bad was coming.”

Mary hugs her knees a little tighter. “Alice's readings are always right.”

Alice nods. “Then you showed up. And every reading since then has just been you.”

“Wait, what do you mean, just been me?” My practical self is struggling with this. Bones and spells and ghosts. I want my simple reality back.

“Just your name,” Alice says. “Over and over.”

Their strong reactions to me the first day of school don't seem so weird anymore.

“Lizzie and I think it means
you
are the bad thing that was coming, but Susannah isn't convinced.”

“Is that why Lizzie's been stalking me?”

“Lizzie's been affected strongly by this awful chain of events,” Susannah says. “And she blames you. If she knew we were talking to you openly, she might do something.”

I would ask how Lizzie was affected, but I know Alice would shut the conversation down. “Do what?”

“A spell,” Mary says.

Elijah stiffens beside me.

“You have to understand that strange things have been happening all over town,” Susannah says before Mary can continue. “It's not just the descendant deaths. Alice's uncle owns a coffee shop. And when he opened up yesterday, each table had a noose on it. There were no signs of a break-in, just nooses.”

“Was it The Brew?” I ask.

“You shouldn't know about this,” Alice says. “Only a few people were told.”

They all stare at me, even Elijah. “I went there the other day and my latte had a coffee stain on it that looked exactly like a noose. I thought maybe the girl that worked there was messing with me.” I'm starting to regret my little outburst.

“See, even when we have information, you have it right after us. The blurred faces, Cotton, the pattern of deaths,” Susannah says.

They all wait.

I look at Elijah. “Just leave my personal details out of it,” he says. He doesn't seem bothered, just resolute.

“I…I see spirits. Well, one, at least.” No one reacts, and I wonder if they heard me.

“I knew it,” Susannah says.

“You're a witch,” says Mary.

“I'm not a witch.”

“And this ghost is here now?” Alice seems skeptical.

“Yes.”

“Prove it.”

“No.” I don't have to look at Elijah to know he's not going to perform some trick.

Alice raises an eyebrow.

Mary scans the trees nervously for Elijah. “Can we please go? I need to get home.”

Alice stands in answer and Mary shoots up like she can't get out fast enough. There are still so many questions I need to ask them. And some part of me worries that I
am
the cause of these awful things. Maybe the curse is part of me?

We blow out the candles and pack everything into Mary's and Susannah's bags. The woods become even darker.

Alice turns to me. “If you're lying to us about that ghost and I find out you were somehow involved in these deaths, you won't like the consequences.”

“I have just as much to lose as you do if we don't figure this out.” I can tell she accepts this, because she turns around and walks into the trees without another word.

“Alice,” I say, and she stops, her blond head the most visible thing in the blackness. “The vision we just had. What did Alice Parker say when that girl accused her of witchcraft?” Mary said they knew these stories, but I don't. And whether they're messing with me or not, those women were trying to tell us something.

Alice turns. “In response to the accusations, she said, ‘I wish God would open the earth and swallow me up presently, if one word of this is true.' ”