The Witches of Dark Root: Daughters of Dark Root: Book One (The Daughters of Dark Root) (25 page)

She blushed and shrugged her round shoulders. She was never one to accept praise.

“June Bug helped. I think she has some healing abilities too. She would pick up the cats and they would calm down enough for me to treat them. It was pretty sweet.” Her face glowed with pride.

I couldn’t blame her. June Bug was terrific. For a kid.

“Merry, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask...” I looked at a photo of her, myself, and Eve. We were young, grinning, and standing in front of a giant cauldron on Main Street during a Haunted Dark Root Festival. I turned the photo over to see the year. 1996. The year before Ruth Anne left.

“Yes?” Merry asked, taking the photo.

“Did you believe in this stuff? The whole coven, Haunted Dark Root, Juliana Benbridge, every day is Halloween stuff? Or did you ever feel like we were just...”

“Pawns?” Her dimples deepened, a knowing smile on her face.

I laughed. “Yes, I guess, pawns. I mean, the festival kept Dark Root’s economy churning for the next eleven months. Mother dressed us up, paraded us around, and put our pictures in newspapers, the young descendants of Juliana Benbridge. We spent our whole childhoods being told how special we were but what if...”

“...What if it was one big farce?” Merry removed another picture from the box, a young Miss Sasha and Aunt Dora. They wore fitted lavender suits and pumps that showcased their slim figures. Merry checked the date: 1966. She wrinkled her brow, trying to determine how long ago the picture was taken, but gave up.

Math was never her strong suit.

“Ruth Anne didn’t believe,” I said, cautiously speaking the name of our eldest sister as I removed a picture of her from the bin. Ruth Anne was about twelve in this one, glaring defiantly at the camera. She didn’t like to have her photo taken and it showed. “...She said the story of Juliana was made up by Mom and her friends, just to get attention.”

“No, she sure didn’t believe, but, then again, she was always the odd woman out.” Merry inhaled and released it slowly. “I wish I knew where to find her––Ruth Anne––but some people never want to be found.”

At least we are talking about her.

I didn’t speak this out loud. I didn’t want to jinx things.

Merry continued sorting through the photos, paying special attention to the pictures of Ruth Anne. As her dainty fingers pulled each photo from the bin and placed them lovingly in their own stack, I realized, for the first time, that she and Ruth Anne probably had a special relationship I wasn’t aware of. After all, Merry was a year and a half older than me, and just three and a half years younger than Ruth Anne. I was gripped by a feeling of envy at their relationship, and pinched my leg to distract myself with the pain.

I wondered, not for the first time, why I felt the need to have Merry all to myself.

We sat in silence for several minutes, both lost in our own thoughts.

Finally, Merry spoke.

“We could have been pawns,” she said. “Yes. I have wondered that. But you can’t deny that there is something special about this town. And us. It wasn’t until I moved to Kansas and noticed that others couldn’t do the things I––we––could do, that I really began to understand.”

She removed a picture of a group of men and women standing in front of a large tree. I recognized many of them: Miss Sasha, Aunt Dora, Uncle Joe, and their friends. The men were decked out in bell bottom jeans and long side burns, while the women wore tube tops, short-shorts, and fake eyelashes. Except for my mother and Aunt Dora, who wore gigantic floral dresses and sun hats. It seemed their slenderness hadn’t carried over into the 70s.

“My husband even admitted that I had
something,
especially after June Bug was born,” Merry continued, placing the photo in a new pile and looking down at her ring.
 

“...Now,” she said, standing and wiping invisible dust from her hands. “...Can you go to the nursery? I think I saw a stack of boxes in there. We can start looking through those.”

She went to refill her coffee cup and I swallowed hard.

It had been many years since I had been in that room.
 

Could I go back?

Thirteen: Don’t Fear the Reaper

Sister House, Dark Root, Oregon

December, 1995

Maggie stood before her mother, knees shaking.

Miss Sasha had her firm face on, the expression she wore when there was no debating the matter. Maggie looked to her sisters for help. Ruth Anne and Merry were already pleading her case, while Eve twirled the ends of her hair nervously. Maggie glowered at Eve. It was her fault she was in this mess in the first place.

“Now, don’t you think I’d know if there was something haunting my own house?” Miss Sasha put her hands on her ample hips and the layers of excess flesh caused a mild wave that rippled from buttocks to breasts. “Are you saying I’m not that talented? Is that what you are saying?”

“Leave da girl alone, Sasha,” Aunt Dora chimed in. “She’s jus’ a kid wit an active imagination. As I recall ya had an imagination like dat when ya was little.”

Miss Sasha turned towards her younger sister and narrowed her eyes. “Now, now, Dora. I’m not in the mood.”

“But there is something in there,” Maggie insisted, pointing to the nursery door. “Ask Eve.” Maggie nudged her younger sister but Eve just lowered her eyes and said nothing. She was probably more frightened of their mother than of anything that might live in her bedroom.

“I'm getting this out of you once and for all,” Miss Sasha said, grabbing Maggie by the elbow. Maggie planted her heels into the carpet, trying to make herself immovable, but her mother outweighed her twice over. “You will stay in there until you’re not afraid anymore. When you can tell me, honestly, that there is nothing inside the room I will let you out.”

“No, Mother!” Maggie’s eyes grew wide as Miss Sasha threw open the door.

Ruth Anne and Merry begged their mother to stop while Eve cowered behind Aunt Dora.

“It’s just a room...you’ll see. And you’ll thank me for it later.” Miss Sasha continued to drag Maggie into the nursery, past the crib, the toddler bed, and the old rocking chair. With one hand still on Maggie’s arm, she partially unscrewed the light bulb overhead, so that, except for the light coming in from the hall, the room was dark.

Maggie could make out the shapes of the toys around her––dolls, teddy bears, and blocks. A clown doll on the top shelf seemed to smile at her, causing goose bumps to rise on her legs. Maggie dug her nails into her mother’s arm and begged her to reconsider.

Miss Sasha shook her head. “It’s for your own good.”

With that, she marched out of the room and locked the door from the outside.

“What are you doing?” Maggie could hear Ruth Anne in the hall. “You’re crazy.”

“Please, Mama, let her out,” Merry pleaded. “I’ll talk to Maggie. She won’t make up any more stories.”

“I’m done discussing this. That child’s imagination needs to be reigned in.”

Maggie stood in the dark room, listening as her family’s footsteps disappeared down the hall. She gasped as the temperature dropped, the cold air closing in around her.

“Maggie,” Eve’s voice said from the other side of the door.

Maggie rushed towards the door and lay down, peeking under the large gap. She was nose to nose with her sister. “Evie...please tell Mother I’m not lying. Please tell her about the voices you hear in the nursery. Or about how you wake up bruised sometimes.”

“Mom says they are just nightmares,” Eve said. “If I tell her again, I will get in trouble.”

Maggie was exasperated.

She was here because she had been trying to convince her mother that Eve needed to be moved into the attic with the rest of them. There was something ‘bad’ in the nursery and it was getting worse since Maggie had moved out of the room. But under their mother’s inquisition, Eve wasn’t brave enough to back her up. And now Eve was free, while she was trapped.

Without warning, the room began to vibrate. Maggie could feel her cheeks rumble against the bedroom floor. She widened her eyes as she pushed her hands down to make it stop. Instead, the trembling increased, sending small waves across the room.

“Do you feel that?” Maggie whispered.

“Uh-huh.”

“Eve, unlock the door. Please. Please.” The entire room was shaking now, knocking toys onto the floor. Maggie could hear the crash of dolls and blocks around her and she covered her head with one hand to protect her face. “Unlock the door!”

Eve stood and Maggie could hear the jiggle of the doorknob. “Hurry, Eve, hurry.”

A book bounced off the wall above her, dropping down just inches from Maggie’s face. The jiggling on the handle continued, then suddenly stopped.

“Did you unlock it?”

Eve began to cry. “I can’t. I’m afraid...”

Maggie’s heart stopped as her sister’s soft footsteps raced through the hallway, and down the staircase. The light in the hall suddenly went out, and except for a dim light coming in from the small, high window, Maggie was in the dark.

Maggie sat up, braced her back against the door, and folded her hands around her knees. The large dollhouse in the corner of the nursery fell forward, scattering small pieces of furniture across the floor. She pushed her face into her knees and cried, wondering why she had tried to help Eve in the first place.

It wasn’t fair. None of this was fair.

The porcelain clown doll fell to the floor near Maggie’s feet, its mocking glass eyes fixating on her.

“Leave me alone!” Maggie screamed, kicking the doll away from her.

It crashed into the far wall, its face shattering with the impact.

“Leave me alone!” she repeated, standing up and addressing whatever was in the room. “Leave me alone!”

The ‘thing’ in the nursery had never really been after Eve, Maggie now understood. It had wanted her all along. And now that it had her, it was going to do whatever it took to break her down and keep her here.

“You can’t have me!” she screamed, stamping her foot as a book whizzed by her face and crashed against the door.

Maggie picked up the book and threw it across the room with all her might.

The light bulb flickered on. The tremors lessened from a roil to small waves and then ceased altogether.

Maggie crossed her arms, defying whatever had been in there with her to start up again. But it didn’t. She knew the ‘thing’ wasn’t gone, but it had given her the win.
 

This time.

Maggie advanced to the bedroom door and jiggled the handle. It opened easily.

She walked calmly through the hall, down the stairs, and into the living room, where her family was still arguing. Upon seeing her, they all stopped, staring speechless. Maggie moved past the others and fell into the arms of Merry, who stroked her hair and kissed her cheek.

Without saying a word, Miss Sasha marched upstairs. Aunt Dora and Ruth Anne followed behind. When they returned Miss Sasha said, “Well, I think you’ve learned your lesson.” She looked at Maggie like she wanted to ask something, but decided against it. Instead she said, “What a mess you’ve made. I’ve a good mind to have you go in there and clean it all up.”

But she didn’t.

Eve moved into the attic that night.

Their mother, Maggie learned, did not like to be wrong. About anything.