Suffer a Witch Read online

  “Bridget Bishop?” Em asked. She forced herself to make a little shake of her head as if she hadn’t known Bridget for the last three hundred years.

  “I can’t believe you don’t know this,” Shonelle said. “She was the first Salem Witch to be hanged. Today was the anniversary of her hanging.”

  “Oh, that’s right,” Em said. “That Bridget Bishop.”

  “Yeah.” Shonelle gave Em a “You’re-old-and-useless” look. Em smiled.

  “How was the memorial?” Em asked.

  “I cried,” Shonelle said. “Poor Bridget. Can you imagine? They didn’t break her neck, so she choked and gasped for breath for more than ten minutes.”

  Shonelle’s eyes filled with tears, and she shook her head.

  “Pretty awful,” Em said.

  Em bit her tongue to keep from telling Shonelle the truth — Bridget thrashed on that rope for closer to thirty minutes before she died.

  “So you met this guy at the memorial?” Em asked.

  “He was running it,” Shonelle said. “They’re having another on July 19th. But get this . . .”

  Shonelle watched a customer walk by them. She leaned into Em.

  “He says he caught the spirit of Bridget on film,” Shonelle said. “You know what that means, don’t you?”

  “No,” Em said.

  “She’s still here,” Shonelle said. “They’re going to try to see if they can communicate with her.”

  “Why?” Em asked.

  “So they can relieve her suffering!” Shonelle said. “Maybe help the poor thing move on.”

  Em scowled.

  “You should come,” Shonelle said.

  “Come where?” Em asked.

  “To the séance,” Shonelle said. “I told him all about the store. He said he’d come in for supplies.”

  “When is the séance?” Em asked.

  “You should have it here!” Shonelle’s face brightened.

  “Here?” Em asked.

  “George is in town,” Shonelle said. “I bet George or one of the other women can lead it — Lizzie or Marie.”

  Shonelle nodded.

  “It would be a great way to get more people into the store,” Shonelle said. “Think of it! The Salem Witch séance — right here in the Mystic Divine!”

  “Sounds . . .” Em said.

  “You hate the idea.” Shonelle looked heartbroken.

  “‘Hate’ is a strong word,” Em said.

  Shonelle grinned.

  “What just happened?” Em asked.

  “I know you’ll give it a chance,” Shonelle said. “Whenever you say that — ‘hate is a strong word’ — you give things a chance. Plus, George is here.”

  “What does George have to do with anything?” Em asked.

  “Let’s just say you’re more relaxed when George is home,” Shonelle giggled.

  Em shook her head at the vibrant girl.

  “I’ll think about it,” Em said. “I’ll have to talk to the store investors.”

  “Why?” Shonelle asked. “They should be thrilled. These guys have thousands of YouTube subscribers. Their site is growing every day. Everyone wants to know what happened.”

  “What happened to what?”

  “To the bodies!” Shonelle said.

  “What bodies?” Em asked.

  “Of the Salem Witches,” Shonelle said. “Didn’t I say that?”

  “What are you talking about?” Em asked.

  “They’re missing,” Shonelle said. Her voice dropped to a conspiratorial tone. “Just vanished.”

  “What vanished?” Em asked.

  “The remains of the Salem Witches,” Shonelle said. “That’s why John, that’s his name — John Parker — that’s why he says they are among us. Isn’t that creepy?”

  “Creepy,” Em said with a nod.

  “We have to find their remains and put them at rest.” Shonelle gave a solemn nod. “That’s what John says.”

  “Sounds like a lot of work,” Em said. “How would you know it was their remains?”

  “Forensics!” Shonelle said. “U of Mass has already told John they will do DNA testing on anything we find.”

  Shonelle bounced up and down while clapping at the same time. Em’s scowl deepened with every bounce.

  “So, you’ll do it?” Shonelle asked.

  “Do what?” Em shook her head.

  “Have the séance here!”

  “I can’t promise anything,” Em said.

  “But you’ll check into it?” Shonelle asked. “I told John you would.”

  Em gave Shonelle a vague smile. Shonelle was a bright girl with a lot of interests. It was likely that Shonelle would forget all about this tomorrow.

  “Oh look, he’s here!” Shonelle said.

  A young man waved at Shonelle through the window to the shop.

  “Can I go?” Shonelle asked. “He’s going to show me ghost-hunting techniques in the Common Burying Ground.”

  “You know how to ghost hunt!” Em said. “You’ve been doing it since you were a little kid!”

  “I know that, but he doesn’t!” Shonelle said. “I mean, he can come in and wait for me, if you want. You don’t want to meet him now, and really . . .”

  “Go.” Em smiled at the girl.

  Shonelle waved to the boy through the window, indicating she’d be right out. She ran to Em’s office to clock out and practically skipped out of the store. Em watched Shonelle hug the young man. They walked off arm in arm toward the Boston Common.

  “What was that?” Sarah asked.

  “Danger,” Em said.

  “Oh?” Sarah asked. She turned to watch Shonelle and the young man jaywalk across Tremont Street. “Looks like young love to me.”

  Em turned to watch them for a moment.

  “He says that he’s a descendant of the child that Salem Witch Alice Parker had after she was hanged,” Em said.

  “Oh?” Sarah glanced at the couple again. “What’s Alice say?”

  “Child died when he was five or six months old,” Em said. “They waited seven days before burying him, to be sure. Buried him in Charleston.”

  “And you believe Alice?”

  “It’s not like her to lie,” Em said.

  “So something’s happening, but we’re not sure what,” Sarah said.

  Em nodded. Without warning, Sarah hugged Em.

  “It’s going to be all right, Em,” Sarah said. She let Em go and started counting her class receipts. “We’ve survived all this time. What could happen now?”

  “We could get found out,” Em said.

  “Who would believe it?” Sarah gave her a doubtful look.

  “It could all happen again,” Em said.

  In spite of her doubt, Sarah shivered. Em nodded. Sarah regained her composure and shook her head. She hugged Em again.

  “You’re such a mother hen,” Sarah said.

  She put a rubber band around her class receipts and held them up to Em. Em nodded.

  “I know,” Em said.

  “Whatever it is, Em, we’ll get through it,” Sarah said. “We have for more than three hundred years. We will this time, too.”

  Sarah gave Em a firm kiss on the cheek. She stepped back, nodded at Em, and left the store. Em thought through Sarah’s logic. Turning back to the store, Em used her senses to check to see if anyone was there. Feeling no one, she took her seat behind the glass counter. She created a wall of white light around her body for protection. Her body and mind would go through the motions of taking George’s client’s payment, helping his next client, and even closing the store. She didn’t need to be there for that. Using her breath, she calmed her soul.

  Em stepped back from the store. She pulled her soul out of her body, out of the store, and into the world. She floated high enough to see what had been Salem Village and the store. If she squinted, she could pick up faint tendrils of historic energy. Her own move from Salem Village to Boston in October of 1692 came as a faint yellow line. George�
�s more mercurial energy flitted back and forth. She watched until she saw the seventeen witches’ faint energy lines as they fled what had been Salem Village. Hoping to catch a sense of what was happening now, she watched for tendrils of energy stretching from Salem Village to the store and back again.

  There were new energy lines. This energy was new and vibrant. She called the energy to surround her. This new energy was filled with bright curiosity, giddy enthusiasm, and something she couldn’t place.

  “Em.”

  The sound reached her high above the world. Em worked to stay with the energy just a little bit longer so that she could understand this unknown component. The more she stretched toward it, the more it evaded her.

  “Em. Come back to me, my love.”

  Em’s soul was drawn back into her body. She opened her eyes. She was sitting on her stool behind the glass counter, and George was kissing her lips. He smiled when she’d returned.

  “Time for bed,” George said.

  Before she could protest, he swooped her off her stool and carried her up to bed.

  Chapter Three

  MALICE.

  Black capitalized word floated like a leaf on top of multicolored streams of energy.

  MALICE.

  Dreaming, Em watched the word until the current of the energy river broke the word into separate letters. The letters floated apart from each other like separate leaves on top and within the rivers of energy. The word became unrecognizable as individual letters.

  Suddenly, she was at the party this morning. The letters swirled around each of the drinking, laughing witches on streams of multicolored energy. Seeing Em, the letters lined up to present themselves to her. Sarah Good’s mansion was gone. The Salem Twenty were gone. Em was standing alone in front of the word “Malice.”

  She sat up in bed.

  The letters began to spin in a tornado-like formation. They spun and spun until only the dark color of the letters was visible. Her ears filled with the sound of people whispering to each other. Like words being carried on the wind, people’s evil gossip whipped the tornado into a frenzy. More and more gossiping voices joined in the chorus. The louder their voices grew, the faster the tornado spun. Em covered her ears with her hands.

  “Stop!” Em commanded.

  The tornado stopped spinning. The letters fell to the ground, revealing a figure — more shadow than living being — that had been hiding inside the vortex. Em made out his cloven feet and a single horn. She screamed in terror at the form of the devil that had haunted her Puritan life.

  “Be gone!” George’s voice came into her range of hearing.

  At his command, the demon’s leathery snout poked out from the shadow. He sniffed in George’s direction and stepped into the light. He had the charcoal-grey, leathery skin of a rhinoceros. A horn jutted out from where his hairline should be. He wore a black, fitted tuxedo vest and a top hat over the crown of his head. His muscular shoulders and thick arms ended in human hands. His cloven hooves jutted out of the bottom of tight, black leather chaps. Feeling Em’s horrified stare, the creature turned in her direction. His black, beady eyes, shaded by his pronounced browridge, glimmered beside a jutting nose and masculine jawline. He gave Em a ragged-toothed smile before sauntering back to the multicolored river of energy.

  “Be gone!” George’s voice commanded again.

  The demon laughed at the repeated command. He hopped onto the letter “M” and floated down the river of energy. Just before he disappeared over the horizon of her vision, he took off his top hat and bowed to Em.

  “Em!”

  George’s hand came into view. He grabbed the vision, and it burst into flame with a pop.

  “Em!”

  George’s hands went to her shoulders. He gave her a gentle shake.

  “Are you stricken?”

  She was shaking so hard that he wrapped his arms around her. She shook her head.

  “Can you speak?” George asked.

  “Ter . . .” Em tried to say “terrified.”

  “Yes,” George said.

  He pulled her out of bed. Pushing and prodding, he got her under the shower spigot. He turned on the water, and a blast of cold water fell onto her head. She gasped at the cold. He threw a handful of salt over her head and reached to change the water temperature. There was a tremendous Pop!

  The bathroom windows blew outward, showering the street below with glass. The power went out, and she collapsed.

  Wrapped in three thick blankets, Em sat with her knees against her chest in a tattered armchair in her living room. She held a large mug of chamomile tea up to her nose while she watched George talk to Ann Pudeator. Ann had been a midwife in Salem Village and now ran the midwife department at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Since the Salem Twenty had unique medical issues, Ann had always been their medical doctor. Plus, she loved delivering babies. It wasn’t hard for her to continue in this profession.

  She was one of George’s lovers. Em peered over the mug of tea to watch them talk to each other.

  Em wasn’t jealous, mostly because she wasn’t a jealous person. She didn’t feel possessive of George. If anything, she relished the time he was away serving the homeless and the nights he visited the other women. She knew that George considered her apartment home because she held him so lightly.

  Em didn’t have real relationships with human beings. Since Salem Village, she’d met only a few unique, human beings she felt she could truly trust. Human beings killed that which they didn’t understand. She had always been something that human beings didn’t understand. Since they’d killed her once, she figured she’d just leave them alone.

  She had George and the others. Most days, that was enough for her. George caught her eye and smiled. He nodded to Em, and Ann looked up. They walked over to her.

  “What’s the prognosis?” Em asked.

  The lights came on in the apartment.

  “The power’s back,” George said.

  He left the room to turn off the lights and appliances they’d turned on to test the electricity. Ann sat on the arm of her chair.

  “Do you feel any better?” Ann asked.

  “Sure,” Em said. “Maybe. I don’t know what you’re asking, really.”

  “You had a terrible fright this morning,” Ann said.

  “You think I made it up,” Em said.

  “No,” Ann said. “Of all the things that I believe, I don’t believe that you made up seeing a demon last night. I’m just not sure why you saw the demon or what you were doing to cause the demon to look at you.”

  “I was trying to figure out what those kids are up to,” Em said. “Mostly it seemed like they were fun, curious kids, but there was this other thing.”

  “Malice,” Ann said.

  “Malice.” Em nodded.

  “Are you sure you didn’t go looking for the devil and so you found one?” Ann asked.

  Em drank her tea and thought it through. After a few minutes, Em shook her head.

  “No, I think it’s connected to this,” Em said. “I think it’s looking for us.”

  “Looking for us?” Ann shook her head. “Why?”

  “No idea,” Em said.

  “Why now?”

  “No idea,” Em said.

  “Do you think the Devil made us immortal?” Ann asked. “Gave us these powers?”

  Em shrugged.

  “George always said that it’s a mark of God, like Cain,” Ann suggested.

  “I don’t know about Gods and Devils,” Em said. “They aren’t my thing.”

  “But you think . . .”

  “I think this demon creature did not leave when George commanded it,” Em said. “I think . . . Well, honestly, I don’t know.”

  “George said that Shonelle wants to do a séance for the Salem Witches here,” Ann said, “at the Mystic Divine.”

  Em nodded.

  “Would you . . .” Ann started. “No. You wouldn’t, would you?”

  “If you’re asking
if I’d have a séance to trap a demon, possibly the entity that did this to us and brought all of that pain to Salem Village . . .” Em looked up, and Ann nodded, “No. I’d be happy if I never saw it again.”

  “What about your ever-burning need to know?” Ann said with a smile.

  Em shook her head. She loved mysteries, but this was different.

  “It must have been horrifying,” Ann said.

  “How am I, Doc?” Em asked to change the subject.

  “You seem fine,” Ann said. “Your physical body doesn’t show any effects of the episode. Your spirit body shines pure white, as always. You just seem tired.”

  “Is the demon draining me?” Em asked.

  “Oh, I doubt it,” Ann said. Ann’s eyes flicked to where George had gone. “It’s more likely that your partner came back from a month-long trip and you’ve been catching up.”

  “Are you offering to take him for a night?” Em grinned at Ann.

  “It does sound fun,” Ann said. “But, no. As you know, I’m seeing the head of surgery. He’s . . . fun, young, no baggage, doesn’t have time for kids. He also gives me nice little presents.”

  Ann held up a large diamond ring on her left hand.

  “Congratulations,” Em said.

  “Thanks,” Ann said. “I thought it was time for another husband.”

  “Probably,” Em said. “I’m sure you’ll be very happy.”

  “I don’t have the hang-ups about humans that you have.”

  Em smiled.

  “I don’t like this, Em,” Ann said. “Neither does George. I’m going to talk to Margaret. I’m seeing her today for lunch. She’s good at long-term prediction. Do you mind?”

  “No.” Em shook her head at the idea that her friend, and fellow witch, Margaret Scott, would look into her long-term future. “I think we should all be on our guard.”

  “Why?” Ann asked.

  “I don’t know,” Em said. “Just feels like . . .”

  George came back into the room with another cup of tea, which he gave to Em. He put his arm over Ann’s shoulder.

  “Just feels like?” George said.

  “We’re in danger,” Em said. “Something has changed. For us. What do you think?”

  While Ann closed her eyes to think, George didn’t take his eyes off Em.

  “I think you’re right,” Ann said in a low voice. She glanced at George. “You?”