How to Hang a Witch (26 page)

She shakes her arms and looks at me. I believe she interprets my shock as approval, because she wears a smug expression. She runs her hands through her waist-length waves. She's stunning and vicious. No wonder Elijah fell in love with her.

T
he transformed Vivian kicks off her high heels, and her cloak slips to the floor. She stretches like a cat. “Much more comfortable.” Even her voice is different.

The Descendants are having the same stunned reaction that I am. Mary's mouth is agape.

Vivian walks around the stool and circle, chanting the words of a spell with new confidence. The air flickers in the circle.
Elijah!
I move toward him as he materializes.

He looks from her to me. His eyes fill with dread. “Samantha, you are bleeding.”

“Elijah…” I take another step toward him.

She lets out a sigh of relief when I say his name. “See, that's one thing I could never do. I can't see spirits…but you can.”

Elijah tries to step out of the circle, but he can't cross the line. He struggles against it.
He's trapped.

“And if you can't see them, you can't do spells on them. You must know where a spirit is in order for it to work.” She says this part slowly and deliberately.

So I'm the Mather she chose because I can see spirits?
My tiny happiness from knowing that Elijah's okay disappears. She heard me talking to him in the foyer. She even invited me out for a celebratory dinner.
It's my fault.

Vivian faces the circle. She fidgets in a way I've never seen before, like a nervous girl. “I
am
sorry I kept you in limbo for so long, my little bird. I hope you'll forgive me.”

Elijah's face stiffens. She glides back to the table.

I walk toward him. “I'm so sorry,” I whisper.

“It should be me apologizing to you,” he replies, and his eyes contain a deep sadness.

I reach my hand out, and it passes easily through the circle's invisible boundary.
It must only trap spirits.
My fingers touch his.

“Give me your hands,” Vivian commands from behind me.

I glance over my shoulder; she holds a slender rope.
Not good.

“Run, Samantha. Get out of here,” Elijah pleads.

He doesn't understand. I mouth the words “I can't.”

Vivian touches my back and pain slides down my legs. I scream and pull away from her.

“Hands!” she repeats.

This time, I listen. She yanks at the rope as she wraps it around my wrists, tying my hands behind my back. The rope's pressure makes my palm bleed less, and the warm liquid stops running down my fingers.

“Get on the stool.” Her eyes linger on the circle before she walks back to the table.

My heart pounds so hard that I fear it'll break free of my chest. I step into the circle and onto the first rung of the stool, trying to balance without my hands. Vivian bends down behind the table and grabs the edge of an old gray wool blanket. Elijah helps me steady myself.

“Left pocket,” I whisper to him as Vivian drags the blanket toward the circle.

He pulls the small potion bottle out of my hoodie. I lift my right foot onto the top of the stool, and he supports me as I take the final step.

Vivian turns to face us. She mumbles something, and the noose slips itself over my head. The rope is rough against my neck. My hair sticks to my sweaty face and I spit it out of my mouth. I look at the lumpy blanket, and my stomach churns.

“Turn fully toward her,” Elijah says. “Do not let her see your hands.”

I adjust myself so that my arms are hidden. Only Elijah and the Descendants can see them.

“I will catch you,” Elijah says.

I swallow. Hanging is one of the worst things I can imagine.

She stirs her large bowl as Elijah loosens the rope around my wrists. Not so much that it comes off, but enough so I can slip it off. He places the inside-out potion bottle in my uncut hand.

She takes one final look at me, challenging me to change my mind. I no longer have to imagine how those people in the Witch Trials felt looking down at their friends who had accused them. People they had known their entire lives. “How could you?” I ask, and my voice wavers.

She flicks her fingers, and the stool flies backward and out of the circle. My body drops downward at a dizzying speed, and the rope scrapes against my neck, burning my skin. Elijah's arms wrap around my thighs before my full weight hangs from the noose. I cough and sputter.

“Relax, Samantha, or you will not be able to breathe! If I lift you any higher, she will know I am supporting you and she will hurt you. Please, stop fighting. Please!”

I gasp for breath, but it comes out as more of a wheeze.

“Samantha!” Susannah's voice yells from behind me.

Vivian stares at the blanket and begins to chant. “Life and death a circle make. What's alive must wither, and what's dead shall wake.” Elijah flickers. His grip loosens ever so slightly, and the rope tightens around my neck.

She repeats her words. The third time, I actually understand them.
Reverse life and death?
Wait.
Does that mean the spell might work on her, too? If I can get my hands on it, I can use it against her.

She cuts her own finger and lets her blood mix with mine. Then she pours our blood into the larger bowl with the rest of the potion. Elijah flickers more dramatically.

“I fear that I cannot hold you much longer,” he says, straining.

The wool blanket starts vibrating next to us, and then its corners fly open. From inside it, a skeleton sits straight up. I want to close my eyes, but they refuse to do anything other than watch the whole horrible thing play out. I gag and the rope cuts into my skin. There are gasps of surprise from the Descendants, behind me.

“How dare you!” Elijah says.

The skeleton moves toward Elijah as though Vivian's controlling it with strings. It fits itself into his body and wraps around me where his arms are supporting my weight. Vivian's smile vanishes when she realizes where Elijah actually is. Her nails gouge the table.

There's no time left. I slip the rope off my wrists, and the fibers prick my open cut. I pop the top off the tiny bottle containing the inside-out spell.

Vivian lifts the bowl of potion she's been mixing over Elijah's journal. She allows three drops to fall on the leather. Nothing happens.

“Now,” I whisper, and drop the rope. Elijah and his skeleton lift my head out of the noose.

She puts down the bowl and stares at the journal like it betrayed her. I'm on the floor in one swift movement and running toward her with the bottle of potion. She lifts the journal cover, and the protection knot falls out. Her mouth opens.

“You!” she shrieks, throwing her hand in the air and making a fist.

Whatever spell she's using makes my heart tighten and burn like it's being ripped out of my chest. I scream and force myself to keep moving through the intense pain.

“You'll suffer before you die!” she yells.

It takes every molecule of my will to lunge forward and fling the open bottle at her. My movements are jerky, and the bottle spins in the air, spraying us both. She gasps as the potion hits her skin, and she drops her hand. The pain in my chest subsides. I suck air into my aching lungs.

She mutters spells at a dizzying rate as her hair turns white and her skin wrinkles. In a matter of seconds, the inside-out spell strips the youth from her entirely. She becomes a seventy-year-old version of herself. I focus on her spell bowl. I'm at the table in two strides. I reach for it, but she's faster and pulls it away.

“No!” I yell, searching for something to use against her. I grab the protection knot and Elijah's journal in one hand. And in my other, I take a lit candle. I hold it near the journal so that the flames almost touch the old pages. It all happens so fast that for a couple of seconds there's complete silence while we assess each other.

One of her hands makes circular movements over her face. Streaks of brown return to her hair, and her skin is younger in places. But the transformation's only partial, like our spells are fighting each other.

“I had no idea you could make a spell like this,” she says. “I guess I have those nitwits to thank.” She looks confused. One of her partially wrinkled hands flies to cover her mouth. “Why did I say that? What is this? What did you do to me?” Her voice is muffled through her fingers.

“What did
I
do to
you
? You're my goddamn stepmother and you want to hang me!” It feels worse saying it out loud, as though it makes it more real somehow. I try to focus on the fact that she doesn't look like my Vivian. Some part of me wants to believe she isn't.

We face each other from opposite sides of the table, her with the potion, and me with the journal and the candle. We both have something the other wants.

Her eyes are piercing and defiant. For the first time since the physical transformation, she reminds me of my Vivian. “And you want to kill me with my own spell.”

The truth of her words stuns me. “Yes, I do. Oh, holy hell. Why did I say that out loud? No! The truth serum's messing with me, too.”

“You will give me that journal one way or the other.” She points a finger at me, and my arm holding the journal moves toward her.

I clench the protection knot and focus. “Not if I can use this protection knot.” I pull backward and bring my hand to a stop. “This spell blows. It's supposed to tell me your plans, not have me tell you mine.”

The room's silent. Not even the Descendants make a noise. I glance at them. “Lined up in a row, you remind me of the group hangings at the Trials. Wait.” I shift my focus back to Vivian. “You brought four of them. Why not one or two?” I bite my tongue to stop from talking. I realize I've overlooked something. “You've been the one killing them for centuries, haven't you? Just like you did in the sixteen hundreds.”

“Yes.”

“Why?” I blurt out. “They were the victims.”

“They all need to go. The Trials killed my Elijah. I'm erasing them.” She stamps her bare foot and mumbles under her breath.

My thoughts tumble over each other and out my mouth. “The pattern of deaths. You try to kill us all every time you think you've perfected the spell to bring him back, don't you? Maybe it's even part of the spell. No wonder all my relatives are dead. But how did you know Elijah would be in Salem?” I ask, half angry with her and half with myself for not being able to shut up.

“The moment you found Abigail's letters I knew he would come back to chase you off.”

My eyes widen. “You were using me as bait.”

She grinds her teeth together in frustration. “I knew that if I threw those clothes out of your armoire, you would eventually find the letters. I also knew he would hate you for being a Mather. A dark shadow staying in his sister's old room.”

“It worked. He did hate me.” I narrow my eyes, an expression I learned from her. “But he also hates you.”

She screams low in her throat. “Enough!” She points a finger at me. “Burn!” The flame from the candle redirects itself toward my body.

It singes my cut hand and I lose my grip on the candle. It falls to the floor, putting itself out. I pull the journal toward my chest.

“The knife!” yells Alice. I scan the table, looking for it.

I glance at Vivian, but she doesn't advance. Instead, she reaches her hand out and Alice's body starts twitching. Alice screams in agony. Her knees buckle under her.

“She's going to fall! Stop!” I yell at Vivian. I abandon the idea of the knife and run to Alice, whose back arches unnaturally. I slip the protection knot into her boot. Slowly her body relaxes and she regains her balance, but the look of horror remains in her eyes.

“You continue to choose them over me!” Vivian says behind me.

What does she mean?
Before I can turn around, my neck tilts backward. My body flies to the ground and slams down so hard that all the wind whooshes out of my lungs. I gasp for air as my body slides across the wooden boards. A spell pulls me by my hair toward her. I brace the journal with one hand and my other hand clenches my hair.

I come to a stop and my head smacks into the ground. My waist is exactly on the circle line, pain radiating down my neck and along my spine. I attempt to stand but can't. It's as though I'm stapled to the floor.

Elijah bends down and brushes the hair back from my sticky face. His eyes are demanding. “You cannot stay in this circle or she will kill you. I told you once you are powerful. You need to focus.”

Tears blur my vision. I don't know what he thinks I can do—I just barely learned how to cast a spell a few hours ago. I try to lift my head, but it's no use. I'm not changing things or bringing peace, like he thinks I am.
And I'm not more powerful than she is.
“I gave Alice my protection knot.” My voice is raspy from hanging. He flickers.

Vivian carries the bowl of potion. Her bottom lip quivers as she watches him sitting next to me. “You think she's innocent? Well, she's not! We're alike, she and I. We both kill to get what we want!” Her eyes are wild.

We're alike.
Her words ring in my ears—
We both kill to get what we want.
How am I better than Cotton? I tried to kill her.

“I vowed never to speak to you again,” Elijah says to her, struggling to talk while under her spell. “Do you know why?”

She leans close to him, as though she can only barely make out his words.

“Everything beautiful in you died centuries ago,” he continues. “Now you live to crush and abuse. How many people have you killed? All the spells in the world cannot make you beautiful again.”

She stiffens. “I'm doing this all for you.”

He shakes his head. “No, you are doing this to control me. I will give you a chance now to do the right thing. The only one I will ever give you. If you stop hurting these girls, I will stay here with you and do as you want. But if you continue, and you harm Samantha further, I will do more than despise you. I will forget you entirely.”