How to Hang a Witch (20 page)

B
ooks and old transcripts of the Trials cover the table where Elijah and I sit. The reference room of the public library is as stuffy as ever, but at least it's private.

I gesture at the book I'm reading. “This says Cotton was prejudiced against Burroughs for his unorthodox beliefs. As far as I can tell, Burroughs's hanging was the only one Cotton attended. I haven't read the trial transcript yet, though.”

Elijah nods. “I remember Burroughs. He had an unfortunate history with my fiancée's family. He owed them money. Although he eventually repaid it, my fiancée was well acquainted with gossip concerning him. When she twisted the gossip properly, she formed it into an allegation of witchcraft. He became pinned as the ringleader of the witches because he was a minister.”

It must be strange for him to research all these people his fiancée accused. “I'm not sure how these things tie together. It's so tangled. But there has to be some sort of common thread we're missing.”

“Indeed.”

I play with the cap of my pen. “I'm just thinking out loud. But what have we learned from the things I've seen? My first dream had a crow and a noose. The second was Cotton's sermon about witchcraft, and it had another noose. And my visions consisted of John being crushed and the girl hanging from a rope. The one time I actually called on Cotton, I saw Burroughs hanging. Before he turned into Susannah, that is.”

Elijah and I are both silent, considering for the hundredth time how these events connect. “Riddles, metaphors, double meanings,” I say. “Did you find anything on the crow woman Mrs. Meriwether said my grandmother used to dream about?”

“Nothing near the time of the Trials. But people were more superstitious then and would refrain from committing to paper anything that could attract a curse or black magic. It is possible I am not looking closely enough. I will search for more-recent diaries, from the eighteen hundreds. It may even be that the bird is wrong. Or that I am not considering the right metaphors for a bird.”

Metaphors for a bird…flight, flying, feathers. Feathers carved into a windowsill. House in the woods. Woman-with-dead-birds story.
“I missed something,” I say, putting my pen down. “I think I blocked it out, honestly. It happened before I believed most of this stuff could be real. Remember that day I spent with Jaxon, when you were waiting at my door? Did you see where I went that day?” Saying Jaxon's name out loud creates a sharp pain in my chest.

“No. I was engaged in my own research.”

The one time it would have been helpful to have him watching me, he wasn't. “We were in the woods. We went to find a house that's hands-down the creepiest place I've ever been. It has a bedroom with walls covered in scribbled rantings from some lunatic. And the windowsill has feathers carved into it. Jaxon told me a story at the time about an old woman who lived there and ate birds. It sounded so crazy that I disregarded it completely.”

Elijah sits unnaturally still.

“And my name and my dad's name were written on the wall. Our first names, anyway. I never thought those feathers could be related to the crow woman.” I'm really frustrated with myself for not considering it.

He snaps the pencil he's holding and puts it on the table. How could I be such an idiot? I should have told him about those names from the beginning.

“Where is this house, Samantha?”

“I can draw you a map.”

“Quickly.”

I draw the streets and what I remember of the woods. “Jaxon could see an old trail that led to the house, but I'm not positive of its angle. I'm pretty sure the place is haunted.”

“Did you see someone?” Elijah asks. He's almost frantic.

“No, but I heard a woman crying.”

He blinks out. I still think Jaxon's story is bull, but there might be some piece of truth in it. Like the birds piece. Birds, feathers, crows. It doesn't take a genius to put these things together. Thinking about Jaxon hurts more than I thought it would. I can't believe he would talk to the Descendants about me. I bet they had a good laugh about how he fooled me into thinking he liked me.

I flip through the pages of a book without reading it. My eyes well up, and I push my feelings away, hiding them with all the others that I can't deal with right now. Jaxon's not the first friend who's turned on me, and I'm sure he won't be the last. This is exactly why I don't let people near me.

This dimly lit room that seemed sort of old-world romantic when Elijah was in it suddenly feels isolated and devoid of oxygen. I prop open the wooden door to get some air, and there's a freshman from my school in the book aisle. He eyes me curiously. I return to the round table to pack up my things.

“Mather?” he says.

“Huh?” My heart beats a little faster.

“I saw your speech today.” He leans against the doorway. He isn't particularly tall, but he's stocky and takes up most of the entrance.

“Okay.” I eye the space between him and the doorway, trying to decide whether or not I could squeeze past him if he turns out to be a creep.

“I know all about your family.”

“Great.” I'm not sure if he's making fun of me or trying to talk to me.

“Can I take a picture of you?” he asks, pulling out his cell phone.

“Seriously, no. Go be weird somewhere else.” I want people to stop hating me, not treat me like a sideshow.

“Cheese,” he says. Only before I can say “What?” that little punk flashes his cell phone light in my face and takes the worst picture ever. Then he runs down the aisle, laughing.

“I will break that phone!” I yell after him as the white-haired librarian comes around the corner. I'm developing a phobia about this library.

“Keep your voice down,” she says. “Five minutes until closing.” Then she peers at me in a you-know-what-you-did way and walks off.

I grab my shoulder bag and head toward the stairs. Why did that boy take a picture of me? Is that a sign that people might not hate me, or does that just mean they're finding new ways to torment me?

As I exit the library, I fold my arms against the cold night air.

“More spells,” says Elijah, blinking in.

“What?”

“The house…” He looks more agitated than when he left. “There are stones by the windows and doors bound with string and sealed with black wax. I do not know the exact meaning, and I do not dare cross the barrier.”

I try to remember if I saw that, but in all likelihood I wouldn't have noticed. “But you're already dead. What's the worst that can happen?”

His look tells me I don't know the half of it. “I need to talk to you. Important conversations are not intended for the street.”

I smile at his formality. “There's a garden right over there.” I point toward the Ropes Mansion, where I met the Descendants.

“Yes, that will do.” He walks at such a fast pace that I almost have to run to keep up. I've never seen him like this.

I follow him under the trellis and into the labyrinth of flowers. Even in the dark, this place feels alive. The Gothic tower looms over us in the moonlight. He winds along the dirt paths to a bench under a canopy of vines. I sit before he asks me to. He sits next to me.

Elijah collects his thoughts. “Reading through old diaries, I found accounts regarding my fiancée that were disturbing. I did not tell you because I believed them my personal business, and irrelevant. You see, my fiancée formed an obsession with my death. She buried my body at the edge of her property.”

That's right. If you commit suicide you can't be buried on hallowed ground, or whatever.
I vacillate between curiosity and dread.

“Her family found her wailing over my grave night after night. She spoke to me freely around her house, refusing to accept I was gone.” I'm reminded of what Jaxon told me about his mom when his dad died. “Out of spite, her witch accusations became more frequent and demanding. When the Trials concluded, she snapped. She became vicious and incoherent. She had luck on her side, though. Because the shame of the Trials was so great and her family so influential, they refrained from arresting her.”

“You could be arrested for being crazy?”

“If your fits cause others physical harm, then yes. And her fits were…terrifying, from what I have read. Even though they spared her arrest, she was banished from the town. She refused to leave on the grounds that she would not be parted from me.”

“So you think she lived in that house? The one in the woods?” I interrupt, feeling anxious.

“I know it. Her parents bought it for her because it was just outside the town limits. That house was remote even then, well surrounded by trees. For a while, her mother visited her. My fiancée was losing her mind, and her violent outbursts increased. After a while, her mother stopped going altogether. I found a letter saying she saw my fiancée from a distance years later, feral and dirty.”

“Okay.” My voice is measured. “What does this have to do with the feathers I found on the windowsill and the story about the birds Jaxon told me?”

Elijah looks regretful. “Like everyone else at the time, I kept a diary. It was leather-bound, with a feather on the front. It was part of a set, and she had the matching one. She inspired the purchase, in fact. She used to say my hair was as black as a raven's, and her nickname for me was Bird. She would tell me that when we died we would fly away together.” He looks away.

Suddenly the writing on the walls seems way worse. And the crying I heard when I touched the carved feather. My brain is on overload.
Why was my name there, and what is that place used for now?

“Elijah, maybe the stories about the evil old woman that lived there with birds were about your fiancée, not the crow woman…” My voice trails off as I try to figure out how the crow woman and Elijah's fiancée could be different people. I can't.

“I did not associate the word ‘crow' with my fiancée. I am frustrated that I did not make this connection sooner. There was something about your grandmother's drawing that struck me as familiar. The way the woman's hair fell. The way she held her body. I just could not put my finger on what it was until now.”

My heart races. “Why would my grandmother draw your fiancée?”

“And why would Cotton show you a crow in a dream?” He sounds as anxious as I feel.

Elijah's fiancée is the crow woman. There's only one thing that explains this. “She's wrapped up in the curse. She must be.”

“I just never imagined…” He doesn't finish.

He told me several times she was one of the main accusers of witches. It makes sense she would be involved in the curse. “She helped start the hysteria.”

“Yes. And if she is involved, I do not believe myself exempt from this situation, as I once did,” Elijah says.

“Are you suggesting you're part of the curse, too?”

“Indeed. It is possible. I was the one who disapproved of her actions at the time. Then I killed myself because of the Trials, and left her alone. And here I am again, helping you attempt to stop the curse. She has every reason to seek revenge.”

“If you're tied to this and we figure it out, what will happen to you?” I always thought he was stuck here because of his suicide, not the curse.

“Are you inquiring whether I will remain a spirit?”

I nod at him.

“I cannot say.”

A tightness forms in my chest. For the first time since I learned about the curse, the idea of solving it doesn't feel like a relief. “Do you want to stop being a spirit?”

His face is unreadable, but he maintains eye contact. “I have often wished it.”

The tightness spreads. “Of course.”

“In truth, I have not enjoyed these years. I have loathed many of them. And returning to Salem only increased my suffering. Then…”

As he talks, it becomes increasingly hard to breathe. “Then what?” I whisper.

“I recalled the reason I was in pain. Loss of beauty, of connection. Abigail's singing while I painted. How we laughed so when no one was watching. And how finding a black-eyed Susan tucked into my business contracts reminded me of why I was doing that business in the first place. To really care for another is a reason to live. When that beauty was blotted out of my world, I no longer wanted to be in it.”

I understand him completely. Without my dad, I don't know who I am.

“You reminded me of that beauty again. Not in one minute of my death have I wished for my life back, until I met you.”

Under the vines, on that little bench, I stare into his gray eyes. Before I can consider what I'm doing, I lean forward until I'm only inches from his face. He gently brushes my hair behind my ear. “Samantha, I—”

“I don't care,” I whisper.

He doesn't argue with me. Instead, he leans forward and presses his lips to mine. Softly at first, then with pressure. The coolness of his mouth warms against my own. Everything about him feels alive and hungry. His hand moves under my hair to my neck and pulls me toward him.

His tongue slips into my mouth, and my body tingles from my lips to my thighs.
I want this, you, all of it. I don't care if it doesn't make sense.
I reach out, entwining my fingers in his clothes and pulling him closer. He holds me tightly, the tips of his fingers pressing into my back. Then, like flipping a switch, he stops kissing me.

I look at him, confused. There's a pause before I release my hands from his body. “What?”

He shakes his head and stands. “This cannot be, Samantha. You are living.”

T
he clock on my bedside table reads 2:27 a.m. I snuggle farther into my down comforter. With the crap sleep I've gotten recently, I should have passed out hours ago. But all the details of the curse won't leave my head, and it's driving me crazy that I can't connect them. How much time do I have left?

There is a soft tapping on my window, and I launch myself from my bed in a tangle of blankets. I squint at the crouched silhouette on my roof and can just make out the shape of a bun. “Susannah?”

“Sorry,” she says, but her voice is muffled by the glass.

I kneel on the window seat and open the window.

“How did you get on my roof?” I peer behind her just to make sure she's alone.

She slides into my room and closes the window. “I climbed the latticework and jumped up.”

She scaled my house?

I flip my bedside lamp on. She's wearing green plaid pajamas and a fluffy white winter coat. Okay, so she's not wearing black, she's a mini ninja, and she's on a midnight mission. What else don't I know about this girl?

“Everything's a mess, Samantha,” she says, and sits down on my window seat.

“Yeah, I know,” I say. I'm not sure how to process this visit. I'm partly relieved and partly suspicious, especially after Lizzie's hateful speech.

“No, I mean it's gotten worse. I need to know—have you had any more visions?” she says, and I can hear the fear in her voice.

“You mean other than the one of you?” I wish I had phrased that better.

“Yeah. Anyone else? Even someone you don't know?”

I recognize the look on her face. I've worn it myself. “Your sister…”

Her eyes widen.

“No, I mean, I didn't see your sister. But did something happen to her?”

Her panic deflates. She nods. “She was admitted to the hospital not long after I came home from school. She collapsed.” Her voice shakes.

I sit down next to her. “I'm so very sorry. I don't know what to say.”

“And she's not the only one. Lizzie's brother and cousin got in a car accident. Her cousin's dead and her brother's in the ICU. And Alice's uncle, the one who owns The Brew, had a heart attack.”

Lizzie's brother and cousin?
That's what those purple roses in town were about.
It takes all my self-control not to jump up and start pacing. “It's escalating.”

“I think you might be the key to figuring all this out.”

I'm so nervous, I almost laugh. “You guys have been keeping me in the dark. Why would you do that if you think I can solve the curse?”

“That's why I'm here. Anything I know that can help you, I'll tell you.”

I definitely didn't expect that answer. “What changed?”

She takes a breath. “We did the clarity spell with Lizzie and it didn't work.”

“Do you mean you didn't see the blurred faces?”

“Let me back up. Alice, Mary, Lizzie, and I have been friends since we were little. Our mothers were friends, and their mothers. And from the time we were ten or so we were casting. It took us a long time before we could make anything work, and it wasn't until recently that any of us besides Lizzie could do spells individually. We always needed the circle. We still do, for most things.”

“The circle?”

“Four of us.”

“What about John?”

Susannah hesitates at the mention of his name, and I regret bringing him up. “He wasn't as interested as we were. When he was there, it was mainly for Lizzie.”

“So everyone knows you do witchcraft—they're not just spreading rumors?”

“Not exactly. People make guesses, but we never discuss it with anyone outside of ourselves. That's why I didn't answer when you were asking me questions the day I came to your house.”

I was right. They're like a secret society.
“But you did a spell with me. Isn't that a violation of your secrecy?”

“Yes and no. The thing is, I get feelings about people. Not everyone, but certain people I just know things about. And as much as Lizzie and Alice kept saying you were the bad thing coming to Salem, I knew the moment I met you that wasn't true. Alice argued with me, but Lizzie wouldn't hear it. Eventually, Alice agreed that if I could prove it, she would help me convince Lizzie. That's when we met you in the garden, and that's why Alice agreed to do that spell.”

Alice reads bones and Susannah reads people?
I'm really not sure which end is up anymore. “You were testing me?”

“Yes. The clarity spell should have told us something about you, brought to light the truth. But those blurred faces were something no one planned on. Nothing like that had ever happened before. When we saw Cotton, Alice and I started arguing all over again. We decided to go back one more time to sort it out before discussing it with Lizzie.”

“But why were you arguing with your friends about me?”
What does she see when she reads me?

She places her hand on mine. “Samantha, Alice's bones kept directing us to you. You are obviously connected to us for better or for worse.”

“And so what happened with Lizzie?”

“We tried the clarity spell in the same spot in the woods, and we didn't even get a normal reading. We got nothing. It didn't work at all.”

“Could it be a fluke?” I don't know how this stuff works, but it sounds like I need to. I look at my dad's picture.

Susannah shakes her head. “Things like that don't happen randomly. You made that spell work; I'm sure of it.”

I open my mouth to protest, and shut it again. “Did you ever tell Lizzie?”

Susannah fidgets with the zipper on her coat. “Alice brought you up in the auditorium, right before…everything happened.”

Oh no. That has to be the worst timing ever.

“Lizzie's not thinking clearly. She's coming after you. She's convinced that these deaths and accidents are your fault, and she's doing everything she can to convince the town of the same thing. And because she's angry with us, she's not telling us what she's planning. But it's not just gossip. Her family is well connected here.”

“What do I do?”

“Meet us tomorrow in the woods behind Walgreens at midnight. We'll bring Lizzie, and we'll sort this thing out. If we can't work together, then we're all gonna lose. These divisions are costing us time.”

A chill runs through me. “Okay.”

Susannah pulls out her phone. “I have to run. My parents are expecting me back at the hospital.” She lifts my window and slips through it.

“Susannah, be careful. That vision I had…”

“Just meet us tomorrow,” she says, and closes my window behind her.