Bones of a Witch (17 page)

“No, but he had one hell of a killer smile. I
think his name was Ron, or Tom or something like that.”

“Miss Adams, I thought you told me you always
told the truth.”

“That’s right.”

“But isn’t it so that not one answer you’ve
given me here tonight is the truth?”

“No.”

“No, it’s not so, or no you’ve not told the
truth.”

“No it’s not so.”

“Then you deny you’re a witch?”

“Oh no, not at all.”

“
Not at all what? You’re not a
witch, or you’re not denying it?”

“Look, Manny, let me spell this out for you so
that we can stop pussy-footing around the May pole. I’ve never
shape-shifted into a dog; I’ve never asked anyone to sign the
devil’s book, I’ve never flown around in the mist on a broom, or
anywhere else for that matter and I’ve never told anyone to kill
someone. Mind you, I’ve helped others kill before, but that’s
another story. The problem here is that you haven’t asked the right
questions yet, and you might save all of us here a whole lot of
time if you just come right out and ask me point blank if I’m a
witch.”

Hilton drew back, a curious scowl deforming his
face. I could see him thinking of all the smartass answers I might
give him if only he asked that most pertinent question of all. In
the end, however, he realized he had to tread there, regardless the
outcome. So he shook the brood from his grimace, cleared his throat
and asked outright, “Are you a witch, Miss Adams?”

I sat up tall in my seat, smiled proudly and
said, “You’re damn right I am. I’m a witch and a damn good one at
that. But now you’re all gonna die.”

Spectators and jurors alike recoiled in a
collective gasp that nearly sucked all the oxygen right out of the
room. Strangely though, no one uttered a single word. I waited
until those who hadn’t yet exhaled were about to faint before
admitting, “Nah, I’m only kidding. You guys are all right. Now, why
don’t you just cut these ropes off my hands and I’ll be on my
way.”

It’s funny how you can misread a room
sometimes. The simple folks of Salem seemed plenty virtuous and all
when I first sat down on the witness stand. Though I didn’t really
expect them to condone my lifestyle, I surely didn’t think that
every last one of them would turn back the hands of time to a
period in history that even the Puritans admit was a grievous
mistake; especially after hearing the facts about James T. Putnam
and his murderous crusade. But you know that’s just what they did.
The bastards threw me right under the bus. I swear a witch just
can’t catch a break sometimes. Even as the murmurs were beginning
to sound a lot like the chants of a lynching mob, I tried appealing
to the clerical nature of Pastor Hilton.

“You can’t really let them do this,” I said.
“There are people looking for me. They will find me.”

“Who, your boyfriend and his incompetent
sidekicks?” he snipped. “The truth is I hope he is the one who
finds you. Maybe seeing your lifeless body swinging from the top of
Gallows Hill will persuade him not to pursue his own inclinations
towards witchcraft. But then, it’s not for me to say what happens
to you now, is it?”

“No? Then whose?”

Hilton rolled his eyes up at the magistrate. My
eyes followed, and what I saw were two beady oil-soaked pearls
swimming in blood red pools, staring down at me like vultures. It
was then I realized I was in the presence of pure evil; for this
man was no ordinary human being. His soul had been stripped of
humanity and laced with venom. Death had come for him and passed
him up a thousand times, and in return he delivered Death to a
thousand innocent souls. I struggled to find a voice, for my lips
could hardly part, but when they did I asked him in a cracked
utterance, “Who are you?”

He smiled through bent, crooked teeth, pitted
as if etched in acid and caked in a yellow-brown tartar like
baker’s crust. “Who am I? You mean you don’t know?”

I shook my head. “It’s why I asked.”

Hilton answered, “That’s G. Thomas Ingersoll.
Maybe you’ve heard of his tavern?”

“No, you’re not
that
Ingersoll,” I
said.

The old man struck his gavel down once and
proclaimed, “In obtaining a confession from the accused, this court
finds Lilith Adams of New Castle, guilty on all charges and
therefore decrees the punishment as proscribes by our forefathers:
Death by hanging on Gallows Hill. Court dismissed.”

Carlos Rodriquez:

After Tony told me to run the siren and
lights, I started making some good time. We’re really not supposed
to do that, of course, without first notifying the cops in whose
district we’re crossing, but I figured the worse that could happen
was we’d pick up an escort here or there along the way and that
would get us there faster. As it was, no one challenged us, and we
made Salem within the hour.

“So where to now?” I asked Dominic. He had been
feeding me directions off his Merc-Vector 280, but as soon as we
crossed the Salem city limits he clammed-up. I caught his eyes in
the rear view mirror. “Well?”

“I’m working on it. There. Take a left at the
stop sign,” he said, adding, “I think.”

“You think? What’s that supposed to
mean?”

“Nothing. Take the left and go
straight.”

I took a left, went straight and then followed
the road to a dead end. We got out there and looked around, but for
a couple of teen punks smoking cigarettes on a bench seat under a
streetlight, we found no one else around. I went up to the oldest
looking kid and asked him if we were at Gallows Hill.”

“`Swhat the marker says,” the kid replied,
“ain’t it, Pops?” He pointed with his cigarette in hand at a small
granite slab and pedestal behind us. I turned and nearly tripped
over the damn thing. Dominic shined his penlight down on it and
read the inscription aloud.

“O What breath we here have
taken

Damn thee now and crush thy
will

The Lord we trust hath not
forsaken

Thy souls He claims from Gallows
Hill”

When finished, he looked back over his shoulder
and added, “Guess we’re here.”

“Yeah,” said Tony, “but where’s Lilith?” He
walked up to the punk kid who had called me pops and crowed him
back into his seat. “You guys see a young woman here tonight, maybe
with an older guy?”

The kid looked up at Tony, showing him a touch
more respect than he had shown me. “No. We ain’t seen no one here
tonight.”

“You sure?” Dominic said. “You’d remember her;
she’s smoking` hot.”

I elbowed him in the side. The kid nodded up at
me. “What, is she your daughter or somethin`?”

“She’s my girlfriend,” said Tony, and he
grabbed the kid by his shirt and pulled him to his feet. “You sure
you haven’t seen anyone?”

“Tony.” I stepped between them and broke the
two up. “He said he hasn’t seen her.”

“Yeah, Mister, give me a break. What-a-ya, high
or somethin`?” He flicked his smoke into the bushes, and then he
and his friends soldiered off.

Tony dropped his head in despair, scratching
the ground with his foot before taking a seat on the bench. I
brushed the boards next to him with a clean handkerchief and sat
down beside him. Dominic took the seat to his left. We sat there,
not speaking, taking turns checking our watches and wishing—me
anyways—that we smoked so that we would have something to do with
our hands. I remember feeling hopeless about the situation and
wondering what the hell we were going to do next, when out of the
blue Tony said, “I don’t know.”

I looked at him. He was still staring down at
the ground. “You don’t know what?”

He looked over at me. “What we’re going to
do.”

“Oh, yeah.” I blinked a couple of times and
then turned away.

A moment or two later I started thinking how
maybe we should have stayed in New Castle, that maybe Putnam didn’t
take Lilith to Salem like we thought. But again Tony shook his
head, and without prompting, said, “No, she’s here. I can feel it
in my bones.”

This time even Dominic looked at
him like he was crazy. He started to say something, but I motioned
with a subtle gesture for him to hold his words. Then I
thought,
Are you sure
?

Without hesitating, Tony nodded and replied,
“Yeah, I’m sure. We’re close.”

“Tony,” I said, “how are you doing
that?”

He looked up at me, puzzled. “Doing
what?”

“You’re reading my thoughts.”

“Huh?”

“Yeah, you’re reading my thoughts and answering
my questions without me asking.”

A thin, suspicious smile inched across his
face. “No I’m not.”

Dominic said, “Yeah, Tony, I think you
are.”

“Really?”

I slapped his knee. “Yes, you are, and maybe
that’s good. You say you can feel it in your bones that Lilith is
here somewhere?”

“Yes.” His gaze drifted off into an empty patch
of darkness beyond the reach of the streetlight. “She’s here; she’s
close, very close.”

“Can you connect with her?” Dominic asked.
“Maybe pick her up like psychic radar.”

“Yes,” I said, “it’s your witchcraft. I bet
it’s heightened because of where we are. This place is rich in
witch history. There’s probably an aura of witchcraft residue all
around us. Use it, Tony. Use it to find her.”

I watched him reel his thoughts in and focus
all his concentration on Lilith’s radiant energy. Before long he
lifted his head high, sampling the air as a hound might after
catching scent of a lost trail. He stood and faced south, pointing
as he spoke. “This way. I think she’s closer to
downtown.”

“But he’ll take her here,” said Dominic, “won’t
he? Shouldn’t we wait here for them?”

“No.” He shook his head. “Something’s not right
about this place. I don’t know what it is, but she’s not coming
here; I can assure you that.”

“Then we go,” I said. “Everyone in the car.
We’re heading downtown.”

I thought after we all got going that Tony
would lead us right to Lilith, but it seemed the longer we drove
around, the more lost we became. Finally, after passing the same
gas station four times, he told me to stop the car.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Didja lose the scent?” Dominic
followed.

Tony shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t
have that feeling anymore. I have to get out and walk
around.”

“You want us to wait here?”

“No, you guys come, too. I can use your
support.”

We parked the car at the curb along a strip of
mostly closed retail shops and small restaurants. Pedestrian
traffic was nearly nil, and even for the few establishments open,
business seemed pathetically light. Dominic commented how ghostly
the streets appeared and wondered aloud where everyone
was.

“Conducting a trial,” Tony remarked. Somehow,
we knew he was right.

We had made a brisk hike of the brick-lined
stretch of pedestrian mall linking the downtown historic and
commercial districts and had barely started back when I causally
pointed into a shop window and said, “Look there, isn’t that
strange?”

“What is?” said Tony.

“That.” I zeroed in on a peculiar looking stone
dangling from a string up in the corner of the window. “See
there?”

Dominic cupped his hands to the window and
pressed his forehead between them. “You mean that colored
stone?”

“Yeah, did you notice that virtually all the
shops have something or another just like it hanging in the window?
What do you suppose it is?”

Tony cupped his hands to the glass similarly
and commented, “That’s a chunk of dolomite.”

“Doodle-mite?”

Dominic returned, “No, dolomite. It’s a common
sedimentary rock sometimes used in ceramics and
fertilizers.”

“Why has everyone got it hanging up in their
windows like that?”

Tony rocked back from the window. “It’s a
scarecrow.”

“What?”

“Yeah, I found out recently that dolomite is
often used as a kind of witch repellent. What you’re looking at is
called a witch’s stone. In sufficient quantities and proximity it
can dilute a witch’s power or zap it altogether.”

“Like kryptonite,” I said.

He rapped the back of his hand against my
chest. “Exactly.”

“That’s why you can’t connect with Lilith
anymore,” Dominic remarked. “Look at this. The entire town is
ringed in dolomite to ward off witches. We have to get back to
Gallows Hill so you can reconnect.”

“No.” Tony trained his gazed back up at the
stone. “Something still is not right. I get a feeling of
misdirection back there. Frankly, I don’t think that was Gallows
Hill.”

“But the marker said—”

“What? Think about it. What exactly did the
marker say?”