09 - Return Of The Witch Read online

  The first thing that struck me after entering the room was the feeling of décor suffocation. Swank curtains framing the windows and thick paisley tapestries on the walls and floors created an acoustic dead zone that nearly made my ears bleed.

  Worse, was the velvety wallpaper with vertical stripes jabbing into cornice and jambs like a putty knife under the nails.

  The second thing that struck me was the subdued lighting, compliments of scented candles made necessary by the window shades, which were black and pulled down tight to the sills.

  Paige Turner used her cane to shoo two cats off an old camelback sofa. She used it again to point at the sofa and then told us to sit. We did, keeping our butts on the edge of the cushion and our hands folded neatly upon our knees.

  She hovered there awhile, perhaps attempting to assess our level of comfort with the accommodations. I nudged Ursula, and the two of us smiled up at her, conveying our utmost approval. Satisfied, she crossed the narrow room and took a seat on a porter’s chair, settling into the hooded back like a cobra.

  “So, Lilith of New Castle, why have thee called upon my house.”

  “We called because…. Wait a minute. I didn’t tell you I was from New Castle.”

  “Are you not?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Sister,” said Ursula, palming my wrist.

  I turned to her and allowed her gaze to direct my attention to the ceiling. There, centered directly overhead, was a nine-foot wide witch’s circle, complete with brick dust, candles and a pentagram with points terminating in small circles like a sheriff’s badge.

  I looked at Paige and nodded at the ceiling. “Nice touch, but how did you….”

  Her crooked smile widened. “When thy eyes have seen the years I have, my dear, ye shall see that boundaries exist not for thee, but for those who seek to find them.”

  I laughed. “Oh, I think you’d be surprised to learn just how many years I’ve been around.”

  She shook her head. “Hast thou pressed the rite of passage one and one hundred times?”

  “No, of course not. No witch—Whoa, wait a second!” I felt my jaw drop. “Do you mean to tell me….”

  She looked at Ursula. “Whence came thee, dear lass?”

  “New Castle, Milady.”

  “Before, I mean. Hath thee been to Salem ever?”

  “Aye, when just a girl. Methinks it hath changed since, much for the better.”

  “`Your opinion, I am sure, but tell me. Did thee know Bridget of Salem whose surname ye both share?”

  “As I should, Milady. I knew her well.”

  “Kin, I should think?”

  “Aye.”

  “Grandmother?”

  “Nay, Milady. Bridget was my sister, born three and twenty years `fore I.”

  “Of course. I see the resemblance. Not at first, but I see now. I knew Bridget Bishop. A fine woman she was. Shame they hanged her. Thou doth look as Bridget looked in years of youth. How be it then, thou hath stayed so fair through so many rites of passage?”

  Ursula wrinkled her petite nose and shrugged. “I have but yet to make first passage.”

  “I do not understand.”

  “I did it,” I said, buffing my nails on my chest. “I brought her back from a box of bones.”

  The old woman reeled back, surprised. “Aye, the revivification spell. I have heard of it. I have of mind a Georgetown witch did that.”

  “Nope. That was me, a little ol` New Castle girl.” I sniffed and pitched a nod toward Ursula. “I dare say she’s some of my best work.”

  Paige Turner nodded. “Mayhap thy best doth lay before thee now.”

  “How so?”

  “The prophecy.”

  “Yeah, the prophecy. See that’s why we’re here. I believe you mentioned something about that in your blog.”

  “Then ye both must know `tis true, for it has begun.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The great battle, as forewarned by the Pendle Six. Have thee not acquired the quintessential?”

  “I have not.”

  She leveled her stare and studied my face, curious, if not suspicious. “On thy word?”

  I shook my head. “Look, do you think we’d be here if I possessed the quintessential?”

  “Did ye both not make travel to the dark dimension and back?”

  “The E.S. Yes. We did, but I’m telling you. I came back empty-handed. In fact, I lost something very dear to me in the process—someone very dear.”

  Paige Turner stood and crossed the room. She retrieved a book from a shelf above a tin-horned phonograph and returned it to her seat. The book looked like a Grimoire, only much older than any I had ever seen before. It was tattered, dusty and exceedingly worn. Clearly, the old girl had used it a time or two.

  She set the book on her lap and laid both hands upon it. “Do you know what this is?” she asked.

  “Of course,” I said, shooting her an involuntary bite-me look. “I have one, too. Only mine was printed in days of movable type.”

  She cracked her own version of a bite me smile. “Then yours is not complete.” She opened the book to a page previously bookmarked with a black ribbon and read from it.

  “Lo the darkness what returns, for evil bides within the silent shade of night. She preys upon the weak and naïf when pale becomes the jilted moon. Be thee warned thy Guardians of Four, lest her cunning ways shalt reap what essences thou doth squander. Alas, ye art blind to her wicked deeds, for evil be thy name.

  “Yet perish not in vain, young souls, thy dust doth scatter here and yon. Behold the Pentacle Prodigy. Forfend she wilt the vile cloud. Dudgeon fuels her battle. Possessed of right and the quintessential, she shalt fear naught and availeth much.”

  Paige closed the book and looked up at me, her hooded eyes awash in the yellow glow of candlelight. “Well?”

  I turned my palms up empty. “Well what? That passage isn’t in my Grimoire.”

  “I should think not. This is the Demdike Grimoire.”

  “Demdike…Demdike. Where have I heard that name before?”

  Ursula said, “`Tis Elizabeth Southerns. She and Demdike art but one and the same.”

  “Of course, Lizzy Southerns, the Pendle Six matriarch. You mean to tell me that’s her Grimoire?”

  “It is,” Paige replied. “The prophecy is written within the margins in her own hand, penned the night before her trial. See and bare witness that she speaks of a jilted moon, and of thee, the Pentacle Prodigy.”

  “Me, a prodigy? That’s rich. What are you, high?”

  She stood and crossed the room, clutching the Grimoire to her chest in one hand and pointing her cane at me with the other.

  “Thou hast walked the dark dimension,” she said, gritting her teeth. “And in so doing did upset the counterbalance. Now the Guardians of Four are gone, their dust scattered here and yon.”

  “Are you blaming me for that?”

  “I blame no one, for it is written in the Grimoire. Thou hath heard with thine own ears, seen with thine own eyes that which hast come to pass already.”

  “Yeah, well even Nostradamus got it right once in a while. I mean you throw enough shit on the wall and some of it has to stick. Know what I’m saying?”

  “Blasphemy! The great battle awaits thee and yet thou doth mock the words of the Grimoire?”

  “Now wait just a nipple-pinching minute!” I palmed the tip of her cane and shoved it out of my face. “I take the Grimoire very seriously. You can ask Ursula. I mean no disrespect to your book, but I use the standard Jamestown edition, which I am certain makes no mention of this great battle that Madam Southerns predicted.”

  “Explain thee how then what hast been foretold and hath come to pass of late?”

  “I don’t explain. How do you explain that I obviously don’t possess the quintessential? I can’t be the Pentacle Prodigy without it, now can I?”

  The old woman tugged on her shawl and shuffled to the door. She opened it and
pointed again with the cane. “It is best you leave now, Lilith of New Castle. Prepare as thou wilt, for thy battle awaits thee ready or not.”

  Chapter 7

  We left Paige Turner’s apartment and hopped into the car just as it started to drizzle. I have to admit, the old woman creeped me out just a bit, which might explain why I ran the first red light we came to. Ursula screamed, and then I screamed, and only after I cleared the intersection did I realize what happened.

  “Damn! I’m sorry,” I said, checking the rearview mirror for casualties. Aside from an old nun in a Volvo, no one had cause to be shaken up too badly. “Did you see that?” I hiked my thumb up over my shoulder. “That nun back there just gave me the finger.”

  “Did she?”

  “Yeah.” I turned my wipers on, which probably would have been a better idea three blocks earlier. “She’s gonna have to say a few extra Hail Marys tonight for that one.”

  Ursula laughed at that. It reminded me how good it felt to be in her company again. It’s ironic that the thing I needed most to help me deal with Tony’s death was the thing I kept pushing away. I reached across the seat and patted her knee.

  “I love you, Urs. You know that?”

  “Aye.”

  We drove on for another block. I waited for her to say something like, yeah, Lilith, I love you, too, or hey, you want to go back there and bitch slap the shit out of that nun in the Volvo? That’d be fun.

  I came up to another red light and this time I stopped for it. After sitting a minute with nothing to do but drum my fingers on the steering wheel, I decided to break the ice.

  “Listen, Urs, I um...I wanted to tell you something. I know that lately I’ve been a little—”

  “Bitchy?”

  “What? No! I wasn’t going to say that. I was going to say I’ve been a little unapproachable, but…yeah, I guess bitchy fits, too. I’ll give you that.”

  She shook her head. “Think not of it, Sister. I do not pretend to know what pain thy heart doth bare. I can only but imagine in my own pathetic way.”

  “No. We have the witch’s light, kiddo, you and me. I know you’ve been hurting, too. I wanted to say I’m sorry for that. I suppose I could have been a little more…. I don’t know, understanding.”

  “There be a passage in the Grimoire,” she said, “One little known. It reminds us there is no wrong way one can go when grief doth steer the course of moons. It takes thee on what road it must to heal thy naked wounds.”

  “Wow. That’s powerful. I never knew that was in there.”

  “Aye, `tis a passage `tween the sleeping spell and the wake-me-not charm.”

  “Oh, sure, that makes sense.” The light turned green. I continued south on 125. “Anyway, thanks for understanding.”

  “Thanks be not mentioned.”

  “So, tell me what you think about the old witch.”

  “Paige Turner seems pleasant enough.”

  “You’re sick. You know that? What do you think about the prophecy? Is there’s anything to it?”

  “Mayhap so. Mayhap not. Thou cannot discredit that which is foretold and so hast come to pass already.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking. I know one thing, though.”

  “Oh?”

  “If there is an evil power waiting to do battle, it’s not Ingersoll’s Witness. The Demdike Grimoire predates Ingersoll by eighty years.”

  “Who then might that evil be?”

  “I don’t have a clue.”

  “Methinks it wise we should follow the horse by what droppings it doth leave behind.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She held up a slip of paper with Dominic’s handwriting on it. “I have this, what I have borrowed from my Dominic’s desk.”

  I snatched the paper from her. “Let me see that.” I scanned it briefly, alternating glances between the paper and the road until I understood what I was looking at. Ursula, do you know what this is?”

  “Aye.”

  I read some of it aloud. “Terri Cotta—Salem, Amber Burns—Georgetown, Wendy Skye, April Raines, Newburyport, Ipswich…. This is a list of names and addresses for the four missing women!”

  “I know. Did I do thee well?”

  “Yes, you sneaky little cheeky monkey. You did thee very well.” I re-routed eastward onto 128. “Guess we’re going to Salem.”

  Ursula pointed out the window. “Lead thee onward.”

  Chapter 8

  We drove on to Salem, to a nice part of town in a neighborhood I knew well. Terri Cotta’s house, it turned out, sat just across from Harmony Grove Cemetery, a favorite haunt of mine in younger days. It’s peaceful there at night, as are most cemeteries, I suppose.

  I used to love it there in the fall. The rustling of dried leaves in the trees at night sounded just like waves breaking on the shore. I’d sometimes sit there for hours, gazing up at the stars and listening to the wind, its voice granted by hundreds of long-forgotten souls.

  It made me wonder if Terri ever went there at night. Did she ever lend an ear to the spirits whose voices still echo on a breeze that no one else listens to?

  I dropped the car into park and turned off the motor. “I gotta tell ya,” I told Ursula, looking out at Terri’s house. “This place gives me an uneasy sense of déjà vu.”

  “Aye, `tis the gnome.”

  “What?”

  Ursula tapped on the side window and pointed at the lawn ornament by the entryway. As gnomes go, it wasn’t too ugly. In fact, it was cute, a little bearded old man with a cherry nose, sitting at a potter’s wheel spinning a clay pot.

  “`Tis a pattern I see, this gnome,” said Ursula. “Mayhap I, too, should get one for my lawn.”

  “I’m not talking about the gnome. I’m telling you that I have a strange feeling I’ve been to this house before.”

  “This very house?”

  “Yes, this very house.”

  “With the gnome?”

  “Yes with that stupid gnome.”

  She nodded. “Ah, `tis a tacky thing that gnome.”

  “Ursula, may I remind you that I have a gnome on my front lawn?”

  “I know.”

  “Hmm…. Forget it. Come on. Let’s go check it out.”

  The drizzling had all but stopped by then, save for a fine mist that gathered like perspiration on our skin and wreaked havoc on our hair.

  The passing weather front had also caused the temperature to plummet significantly, something neither Ursula nor I were prepared for. We were both dressed scantly in short-sleeved button-ups, blue jeans and open-toed shoes. What started out as a sunny morning had quickly declined to a miserable afternoon. I only hoped the weather was no indication of where the rest of our day would end up.

  We knocked first and then rang the bell. When it seemed obvious nobody was home, we tried the doorknob.

  “It’s locked,” I said.

  Ursula gestured a nod around back. “Then we try another.”

  “After you.”

  We walked around to the back of the house and onto a small deck outside a sliding patio door. Cupping our hands over our eyes, we pressed our noses to the glass and peered inside.

  “There,” I said, directing Ursula’s attention to a spot halfway between us and the front door. “You see that on the floor? What is that, brown sugar?”

  “Brown something,” she answered.

  “We’ve got to get in there and see what it is.”

  I tried pulling on the slider. It wouldn’t budge. Ursula tried a nearby window. Locked. There was only one other thing to do.

  “We have to break in,” I told her.

  I thought she’d protest; maybe try to talk me out of it. Oddly, though, she didn’t. I can’t say why, except that I suspect her recent adventure in the Eighth Sphere had emboldened her to take chances she normally wouldn’t. Either that or her taste for rebellion against Dominic had developed into something of a thirst for defiance against authority in general. In short, my little witch wa
s all grown up.

  After looking around, Ursula pointed to a gas barbecue grill and suggested we hurl it through the slider. I suggested she start with something smaller and perhaps set her sights on a window instead.

  “It’ll make less noise and less mess,” I explained.

  “Aye, `tis why thou art the ringleader and not I.”

  “What? I’m not a ringleader. Who calls me that? Dominic?”

  She shook her head.

  “Carlos? Did that overgrown Cuban cabana boy tell you that?”

  “Nay, `twas Master Tony what said that.”

  “Tony?” I felt my fists unclench. “He said that?”

  She turned a pencil-thin smile up at me. “Oh, but I am certain he meant it in a most agreeable way.”

  “Yeah, I suppose I do sometimes act like—”

  “Hey you! What are you doing there?”

  We turned and found a crotchety old man leaning over the fence separating Terri Cotta’s yard from his. I noticed he held a cell phone in one hand and a crucifix in the other. I thought of asking him, Who you gonna call, Jesus?

  “Did you hear me?” He soured his ugly face for greater emphasis, perhaps because we hadn’t hopped down off the porch and begged his forgiveness quickly enough. “I asked what you’re doing back there.”

  Ursula responded, “We came around the back for the front door was locked.”

  “Ursula, please.” I touched her arm softly. “Let me handle this.” I said to the old man, “We came here to see Terri Cotta.”

  “And I asked why have you come back? I know you’re the woman from the other night.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I told the police about you. They know.”

  “They know what?”

  “You did something to that girl. I heard the screams, the whistle. I saw you loitering around the house.” He shook his crucifix at me. “I bet you didn’t know someone was watching. Didja? But I know it was you. I told them everything.”

  I hopped off the porch and started toward him. “Well, how about you tell me, old man. What did you hear? What did you see?”