The Witch Is Back (27 page)

Looking up as I heard the door open and close, I watched Colette make her way across the floor and toward her bed. She did a little turn as she went, forcing her bright purple tutu-inspired skirt to come dangerously close to showing off her underthings. I'd never seen anyone our age wear a tutu outside of dance class before, and on anyone else I would've thought it looked crazy. But Colette made it work. And paired with the black-and-white striped shirt she was wearing, it was kind of fabulous.

“You missed the craziest meal ever!” Colette exclaimed, plopping down onto her bed and turning onto her side to face me. The bed began to rise until I was finally able to look straight across at her.

“I'm afraid to ask . . . ,” I said, but abandoned my iPad anyway.

“The guys did some sort of spell on their food and it launched itself around the dining hall,” she said, shaking her head and laughing. “It was like a full-on food fight and nobody was safe. It was totally
spellacious
!”

I could see the tiny stains decorating her clothes now. They were all different shapes, sizes, and colors. Yet, Colette seemed fine with it. Like she'd enjoyed it even. Food all over my beautiful clothes? No thank you.

“Sounds like . . . a mess,” I said, giving her a smile.

She nodded emphatically before laying her head down on her arm. “Where were you anyway? We missed you.”

“I highly doubt you
all
missed me,” I said, raising an eyebrow at her.

The rest of the Cleri girls were full-on giving me the cold shoulder now. At first I thought they were just annoyed, but then, at some point, it seemed to have turned into something more than that. Whenever I was around, Jasmine was especially combative with me. And Abby had begun to spend more and more time away from our room. Colette had suggested she was just spending time with Fallon, but I had a feeling that wasn't totally it. Sascha had officially joined the ranks as one of Brooklyn's Barbies and I worried that we'd lost her to the enemy forever. Jinx wasn't exactly mean to me, but it was clear she was avoiding me, too. This was especially frustrating because as far as I could tell, the perfume I'd made her was working. She no longer looked Skeletorishly thin and the smile had come back to her lips. I wanted to ask her about it but things were just so uncomfortable that I figured I'd let her come to me when she was ready.

“I still don't get what's going on between y'all,” Colette said, scrunching up her face. “It's like your coven was close and then things got . . . weird. Are there typically a lot of mood swings in your group? I mean, it makes sense considering you're mostly females, but still. Seems a little excessive. Why can't we all, as women, just celebrate each other? There are enough men trying to keep us down: Why would we help to destroy our fellow female-kind?”

“Amen,” I said, raising my hands up to the ceiling.

Colette and I locked eyes and then laughed. Thank God for Colette. If she weren't around, I'd be completely alone.

“So why
weren't
you at dinner then?” she asked, changing the subject, but not to a better one.

I lifted up my iPad in response. “Working on my Brighton Witch Project.”

“I'm almost finished with mine,” Colette said, grinning like a fiend. “How far have you gotten?”

“Research.”

Silence.

“That's it?” Colette finally asked.

I nodded, but given her response, I felt embarrassed admitting it. “I've had . . . other stuff going on. Besides, we don't have to present for another week or so. I've done reports for school in less time. This can't be much different, right?” I asked.

Colette looked concerned. “Except for the fact that most of witch history isn't available on the Internet like your other school subjects,” she said. “And how you do on your project can be a deciding factor on whether you're asked back next summer. The elders take witch history sort of seriously.”

“I think I'll be okay,” I said, even though I knew she was right. I wasn't sure whether I'd even want to come back next year, but I certainly didn't want the decision to be made for me. Better to do what they wanted.

“So, now I'm curious,” Colette said, sitting up and facing me, her legs crossing underneath her. “What
do
you have so far?”

I sighed. I'd already spent a few hours on the project and had no desire to dive back into it. Colette seemed so eager though, and I didn't want to alienate the only friend who was still talking to me, so I relented.

Gripping my iPad, I placed my finger on the screen and pulled up my list. “These are just notes—it's not final or anything,” I warned. “So don't judge.”

“I wouldn't dare,” Colette said, crossing her finger over her heart.

“Okay, well, Sarah Good was born on July 11, 1653, and her early life was relatively unremarkable. Her mother died when she was young and when her father remarried, she and her new stepmother never quite got along. When she was just seventeen years old, her father committed suicide, leaving Sarah alone with his widow and her two sons. Soon after her father's death, her stepmother remarried and her new husband took the money that had been left to Sarah and forced her out of the house.

“Sarah ended up having to take care of herself from that time on, which wasn't easy considering she was practically penniless. She survived by living on the streets and depended on the occasional kindness of others to supply her with a roof over her head and food to keep her alive.”

I looked up to see that Colette seemed riveted to the story.
Man, she really
is
into witch history.
I continued.

“As a teenager, Sarah had been skittish yet curious. For this reason, most of the townspeople shunned her. It was very clear to Sarah that she was different than anyone else her age, but as the ‘changes' came and things began to happen that she couldn't explain, Sarah felt even more alone and isolated. Until the day a woman, Rebecca Nurse, took her into her home. Sarah quickly took to Rebecca, who was a well-respected townsperson, and she ended up helping Sarah discover the life-changing fact that she was actually a witch and had powers that the rest of the world didn't.

“Over the next twenty-five years Sarah worked on growing her powers as well as building a family of her own. Rebecca eventually welcomed Sarah into her coven, called the Supre. Sarah then married a former indentured servant, who ended up dying just ten years after her father, thus prompting her to marry
another
man by the name of William Good. Due to substantial debt the two piled up over the years, the Goods ended up selling their land to pay off creditors, resulting in the couple having to live on the streets. William began to blame Sarah for their predicament and as his resentment toward her grew, he became quite mentally abusive.

“Even so, Sarah remained with William, and before long, became pregnant with their first child. When little Dorothy Good was born, things actually got better between the two for some time. But it didn't last, and within three years, William and Sarah were back to being in a loveless marriage. So, she turned to another man for solace. The affair lasted for just under a year, and Sarah was sure that she'd done a good job at hiding the infidelity from her husband. But he knew.”

Didn't they always, though?

“Instead of confronting her and either demanding a divorce or moving his family away from his wife's new lover, William had more dastardly things in mind. He began to hold back any earnings and food he was able to procure from jobs around the town, forcing Sarah to wander door-to-door asking for handouts. This annoyed and even angered the people in her village, especially when Good would mutter under her breath as she left empty-handed.

“It's common knowledge now that the witch trials were ultimately orchestrated by Reverend Samuel Parris. But few realize that the idea for the trials was actually sparked by a single sentence spoken by William Good one night outside of a local tavern. William began to spill his guts to his friend, confiding in him that his wife was sneaking off to do unholy things, and that she had come home with mysterious bite marks on her shoulder. ‘The mark of the devil,' his friend had replied. William responded, ‘I want the witch to get what is coming to her' or something to that respect.”

If I'd ever needed proof of Parris's wickedry, this seemed to be its beginning. He single-handedly ruined everything he touched.

“Parris felt the same way about Bridget Bishop—the woman who happened to own the bar they were currently standing in—and while overhearing this conversation, he finally knew how to take her down. As the most powerful witch in the Cleri, and likely the world, Bridget had consistently shot down every idea Samuel had ever had to advance their coven's status across their area.

“Anyways, Samuel had been looking to overthrow Bridget for some time, and being the sketchy douchebag he was, Samuel approached William and his friend, and began to lay the foundation for what would become the basis for the witch trials. After many hours, and more beers than they could count, Samuel had devised a plan to have his daughter and niece accuse Sarah and two other townspeople the men disliked of practicing witchcraft.

“On February 25, 1692, with a magical nudge from Parris, Abigail Williams and Betty Parris accused Sarah Good, Tituba, and Sarah Osborne of witchcraft. They all ended up in jail and were completely abandoned by their families and friends. But that was just the beginning. There were many more after Sarah, including Bridget Bishop, and even Rebecca Nurse.”

I shook my head, finding it hard to understand what it must've been like to be wrongfully accused of performing harmful acts on innocent people. True, I'd practically lived through it in my dreams, but still. It was unimaginable.

“During the trial, the kids and their friends testified that Sarah had bitten, pinched, and abused them. Other residents claimed that Sarah would curse them when they refused to give her food. Sarah explained that she was just saying the Ten Commandments and blessed each household even though they had turned her away. But when her accusers asked her to repeat the Commandments while on the stand, she couldn't remember a single one. This was, of course, the work of Samuel, who'd placed a forgetful spell on her so she'd come across as a liar.

“Shortly after Sarah was arrested, it became clear to everyone that she was pregnant with her second child. So certain was William that the unborn child wasn't his, he ended up testifying against her during the trial, saying that he had seen ‘the devil's mark' below her shoulder. William also said he believed her to be a witch or that she was close to becoming one.

“Even worse, he forced their four-year-old daughter, Dorothy, to speak out against her, claiming that she herself was a witch and that she'd seen her mom consorting with the devil. But then two of the younger accusers insisted that Dorothy had bitten them, too. Just after turning five, Sarah's daughter became the youngest person accused in the trials and was sent to jail. Ironically, Dorothy came into her own powers once the trial was over, though she'd never actually witnessed Sarah practicing magic like she'd claimed.

“Sarah ended up giving birth to her second daughter, Mercy, while chained in her Ipswich jail cell. Sadly, Mercy died shortly after birth, most likely because of the horrible conditions of the prison. Dorothy was eventually released, but evidently suffered major psychological issues for the rest of her life as a result of the whole situation. Not that
that's
a surprise. Who
wouldn't
go psycho after having a family like that?”

I didn't wait for Colette to respond before continuing.

“Anyways, on July nineteenth, a little over a week after Bridget Bishop was killed, Sarah, Rebecca Nurse, and three others were executed. While waiting for the noose to be fitted around her neck, Good proclaimed her innocence over any evil doing. At one point she even yelled out to Judge Nicholas Noyes, ‘I'm no more an evil witch than you are a wizard! Take my life and God will give you blood to drink.' Looks like the jerk got what was coming to him, because he ended up dying twenty-five years later with blood in his mouth and throat. Maybe he was a vampire. . . .”

I looked up from my iPad for the first time since I'd begun to spout out Sarah Good's life story. I'd scoured the witchboards and Witchipedia and then added in what I knew to be true from my dreams. Every once in a while, it was nice having a direct line to the past. What I'd read to Colette wasn't even half of what I knew.

Rubbing my eyes tiredly, I waited for them to focus again on my roommate, who was sitting quietly across the room from me. When my vision finally cleared, I saw tears streaming down Colette's cheeks.

“What's wrong?” I asked, worried. I hadn't even heard her start sniffling. “Is it that bad?”

“It's just so . . .
sad
,” she said, taking off her glasses and wiping at her face. “Sarah was just a woman who was different than her peers, and happened to fall on some bad luck. Then those people
destroyed
her for not looking or acting like them.”

“Those
men
destroyed her because they wanted to control her, and she wouldn't do what they wanted,” I answered, my hatred for Samuel Parris reigniting.

“The women weren't much better,” Colette said, shaking her head. “People can be so cruel and hateful. It's been like that throughout history. We're punished for being unique.”

I studied Colette and realized that my happy-go-lucky friend might have a dark side after all. It was true. People couldn't be happy all the time.

“Well, I guess we'll all have to be a little better at celebrating people's uniqueness then,” I said, smiling at her.