Witches (10 page)

It wasn’t until much later that Jane brought the cult up as they were busy firing the pots.

“You know, there’s been a brouhaha raging here in town.” Jane’s voice was deceptively calm.

“I know. Ernie told me about it.”

“He sure does get around, doesn’t he?” Jane quipped.

“Ah, he’s stopped by a couple of times to see how I was doing. He ordered another pot. This green one.” She picked up one of the larger pots.

They stacked the remaining ones methodically in the kiln on the fire clay stilts in levels and set the timer.

“Well, anyway, then you know about the Satanic cult scare around here lately? The murders?”

“Sadly, yes.”

“God, I hate to even tell you this.” Jane hesitated, distress coming into her voice. “I mean, I don’t see how they can—”

Amanda faced her friend over the kiln, leaning her elbow on the top of it and her chin in her hands. Something she wouldn’t be able to do later, when the kiln was hot.

The change in her friend’s manner had already warned her. “Jane, spit it out, what is it?”

“Yesterday they found another body, up around Black Pond, and along with the body and the usual Satanic symbols this time they found...your name in blood.”

“My name?” Pain clouded her eyes.

Was it going to happen again?

Was she the target this time and not her mother?

Her mother’s agonized, shredded face, as Amanda had vainly tried to save her at the scene of the accident, gazed hauntingly up at her again through the years. The sounds, the smells of that awful night as real as the guilt she still felt. Even though there was nothing more she could have done to prevent it. She’d known that a rogue cult had been stalking her mother, but her mother said she could handle it. She’d been wrong.

Her mother’s death had been no accident.

Now, for the first time, doubts began to form concerning Jake’s crash.

Was that really an accident?

Jane sighed heavily. “Someone’s malicious idea of a joke, I imagine, but the townspeople are spooked and on the warpath. A lot of them believe that because your name is there, you might be part of the cult. That it’s really a coven.”

She watched the incredulity dawn on Amanda’s features.

“I’m sorry, Amanda. I only wanted to tell you about it before someone else did, or before something happened. There’s been some nasty talk about you. It makes me so angry,” Jane said heatedly. “That they believe you could actually be involved. You. You’ve lived here for over ten years. That they actually think you’re a witch!”

“Ridiculous.” Amanda, her hands trembling as she lifted her chin from them, stood up straight.

“I know you had nothing to do with it.” Jane defended her fiercely. “I can’t believe that anyone could think you did.”

“But they do,” Amanda said so softly Jane probably hadn’t heard her.

“Do you know why your name might have been used?”

“No. No idea at all,”
Amanda mumbled
,
her thoughts far away. She looked up at Jane, but the light had left her face.

Amanda didn’t know what else to say.

“It’ll be a few hours until the pots are done,” Jane stated briskly, changing the subject. “They’ll be beautiful. You should be proud.”

“I am.” Amanda smiled faintly. Suddenly the joy she’d felt in her work only an hour ago vanished, replaced with a foreboding that something terrible was about to happen.

In the kitchen, Amanda asked, “By the way, where are the kids? I haven’t seen one of them since I got here.”

“They’re out playing somewhere. Impatient for Halloween and trick-or-treating tonight. Of course, a lot of us parents aren’t sure, with these murders and all, if we’re going to allow them to trick-or-treat. The town’s holding a party instead and I’ve already decided the boys are going, like it or not. No door-to-door stuff for them. I just haven’t told them yet. You want to come? You could come in a disguise, it’s Halloween after all, and no one would know it was you.”

“I don’t think so,” Amanda answered. She could just about imagine how the townspeople would greet her if they knew it was her. “Thanks for the offer.”

Jane didn’t try to change her mind, but instead rambled on about the children’s costumes. Amanda couldn’t help but think of Rachel, even though she tried not to. The dead witch. Had the town’s people spurned her, too? Misunderstood, feared, and hated her?

Like me
.

Had they murdered her for it?

After a while, Amanda excused herself. “I have other errands in town, some necessities to gather. I’ll be back later for the pots.”

“Be careful out there, will ya?” Jane warned her before she left, an uncomfortable reminder of their earlier conversation.

“I will but I’m sure you’re overreacting. This is the twenty-first century. People don’t really
believe in bad witches anymore, now do they?” Amanda’s tone was sarcastic. It was a stupid thing to say and she knew it as soon as it left her mouth.

“You wouldn’t suppose they would, but these murders have turned everyone paranoid,” Jane said in a low voice, her eyes troubled. “I know I’m frightened. I’m locking my doors for the first time in my life. Thinking of getting a gun.”

As if a gun could fight black magic.

“Good idea.”

Jane and Amanda said their good-byes and then Jane saw her out and watched her walk down the street away from the shop. Amanda felt her eyes on her back for a long time.

The sun was still shining and the day was still beautiful so Amanda tried to shake off her growing uneasiness. Besides the shopping she had to do, she wanted to eat lunch out somewhere. Treat herself. Walk through the shops.

Jane had paid her for the pots she’d sold since she’d seen her last and Amanda felt rich. She wanted to buy herself some new clothes, but after a while changed her mind about both lunch and the clothes.

The first sign of trouble was when the people she passed on the streets refused to meet her eyes. She thought she heard a couple behind her muttering. There were those who openly pointed and stared malevolently at her—from a safe distance, of course.

What the hell did they think she was, anyway? A mass murderer?

She strode by the quaint shops and busy stores, her feet moving faster and faster, her head bowed. Still people glared at her. Moved away from her as she walked past them, as if she had the plague. She caught some of them snarling things under their breath, things they meant to hurt her.

“Hey, witch,” someone taunted sullenly from somewhere behind her. “You and your coven celebrating Halloween tonight by cutting up a few cats...or will it be children tonight?” Cruel laughter.

Amanda stopped dead in the middle of the sidewalk, spun around. There was no one there.

She studied the stores around her, the dark corners. Whoever had accused her was hiding.

“Go away...we don’t want you here—”

“Witch.” A different voice to her left.

“Witch!” To her right.

She didn’t look this time, just turned and continued to walk toward the restaurant she’d been heading for.

Out of nowhere, a barrage of rocks pelted her. One stone hit her in the face, under her left eye. Amanda brought her fingers up to touch her swelling cheek, and felt blood. Another inch higher and it would have hit her in the eye.

She wasn’t going to stay where she wasn’t wanted. She didn’t need anything that badly. She wasn’t that hungry.

Amanda turned and headed back to Jane’s, her hand still cradling her wounded, throbbing face. The tears trapped behind her eyes. She’d experienced worse. Much worse.

This had been her and Jake’s home for a decade. She’d been happy here for so long. She’d almost forgotten Boston. The hatred. The loneliness.

Amanda heard the screams and curses behind her, the sound of running shoes, and there was Amadeus at her feet, grinning up at her.

Took care of them, I did.

“What did you do?” Amanda exclaimed, not sure if she should be angry or not. She could hear wails going into the distance.

Made many Amadeuses...bit bad people. Bit hard.

In spite of herself Amanda laughed, and picked the cat up into her arms. “That wasn’t nice.” She tried to be firm.

Wasn’t nice what done to you. Taught lesson.

“I’m sure that helped my situation a lot.”

The cat licked at her injured cheek and suddenly not only was the pain gone, but the cut when she touched it was nearly healed. She kissed the cat on his head and dropped him to the sidewalk.

“Go home, Amadeus,” she told him, not unkindly. “I’ll see you there later after I get my pots and the scooter.”

Her familiar meowed and disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Thank goodness there was no one around. The streets had suddenly become empty.

She’d simply collect her ceramics, and get out of town.

She didn’t need people. She didn’t need anyone. Her home and Amadeus was all she needed. Suddenly that’s all she wanted.

God, she missed Jake. He would have taken care of this mess. Would have chased the culprits down, punched them out. Later would have gathered her into his loving arms to soothe away the hurt.

Jake was gone, though, and moving through the desolate streets of Canaan back to the sanctuary of her friend’s shop, she’d never felt it so acutely.

Is this how Rachel had felt?

Perhaps she was stepping on the very same ground Rachel had three hundred years ago, staring up at the very same sky, and weeping inside like she had wept. She couldn’t help but feel a sisterhood with the dead woman.

“You’re back so soon, you just left.” Jane paused, seeing the look in her friend’s eyes and seeing her still-puffy face for the first time after she’d let her back in. “What happened?” Jane demanded, her expression worried.

Amanda looked at her challengingly. “Would you believe I tripped on the way into a store and fell against the edge of the open door? I never even got the things I needed.” The ice in Amanda’s glance kept Jane from asking any further questions.

“If you say so.” Jane shook her head disbelievingly. “You’d better let me put ice on it. It’ll help the swelling.”

“I can do it myself.”

Amanda didn’t protest as Jane led her into her bathroom and helped her.

Her pots still had another hour to go in the kiln, so eventually Jane pried the whole story out of her. She always did.

“I wish I knew what to tell you, Amanda,” Jane murmured. “I warned you to be careful now, didn’t I? The whole town’s gone bonkers.”

“I wasn’t doing anything, Jane. Just walking down the sidewalk, for heaven’s sake. They taunted me. Threw rocks at me. For no reason. I didn’t even see who it was.”

“I’m sorry, Amanda. I mean it. I speak up for you every chance I get. I can’t believe...” Her voice dwindled away, as she met her friend’s gaze.

“They talk about me that much, huh?”

“Only lately,” Jane said lamely.

They both knew why it had happened and denouncing it wouldn’t change anything.

Amanda looked away.

When the pots were ready, Jane asked, “How about supper? We’re having fried chicken and there’s plenty. You look like you need some meat on your bones.”

“Oh, you want to keep me here until dark, huh, so I can slink away unseen—like a criminal?”

“Listen, Amanda, I want you to get home safe, that’s all. I’m your friend, remember? It wasn’t so bad until yesterday when they discovered the latest body. It was the worst yet. Finding your name there clinched it.”

“You really think they’ll ambush me or something, huh?”

“In the mood the town’s in, I’m not so sure they won’t. A lot of people are partying tonight, getting into mischief, getting drunk.”

“All right, I’ll stay. I wanted to see the kids in their costumes, anyway.”

Jane’s boys burst into the kitchen not long after that, excited over the coming evening. Soon Amanda was busy joking and laughing with them and helping them with last-minute touches on their costumes. On her face, a faint bruise.

They made her feel welcome, even if the town didn’t.

Ned, the youngest at four, was going to hide under an old bed sheet and be a tiny ghost.

William, the middle boy, was small for his age, with long red curly hair like his mother’s, and the same eyes. He was always smiling mysteriously, like he knew something secret no one else did. He was going to dress up as a tramp and he’d slipped into his room, returning in muddy brown trousers with holes in them, a dirty shirt, and one of his father’s old worn fedoras on his head. Amanda helped him smear charcoal over his impish face.

She cut the eyeholes in the sheet for Ned.

Jane’s oldest, Jonny, a somber chestnut haired boy with thoughtful eyes, was going as a ghoul. He’d whipped up some sort of makeup that cracked on his face and after he’d added the finishing touches—slashes of crimson paint—the overall effect was frighteningly realistic. At ten, Jonny was tall and lean for his age, but incredibly smart. He read everything he could get his hands on, and was usually nursing some wounded animal he’d found out in the woods in his room. Jonny was like that, a soft heart for everything and everyone. Jane was sure that he was going to be the first doctor in the family—or at least a vet. Amanda believed he’d become a writer, the way he loved books. Jonny was the sort of child, Amanda always thought, she and Jake might have had.