How to Hang a Witch (4 page)

I
head straight to the public library, excitement about the secret study fueling my steps. After a useless search online for that house my grandmother wrote about, I figure my only shot at finding it
and
the hanging location is to look in the old archives.

The air's crisp with the smell of autumn, and the first few leaves have started to change color. The streets have that family-friendly feel. Store windows already have pumpkins and witches' hats in them. I pass an old brick-walled pub called Mather's Maleficence and trip on a tree root jutting out of the sidewalk. Fantastic—so everyone in this town knows my relatives.

I stop in front of the library, marked by a handmade wooden sign hanging from a post. It's a brick and brownstone building with columns supporting the doorway. Apparently, it used to be the home of Captain John Bertram, a successful merchant and shipowner. He had bad luck, and most of his family died off in the mid-1800s, probably in this very building. I read all about it when I was looking up the address.

I push open one of the heavy wooden doors and make my way to the woman at the front desk. She's a small, white-haired creature with reading glasses balanced on the end of her nose.

“I'm looking for some old records of Salem from the seventeen hundreds,” I say quietly.

She inspects me over her glasses in a way that makes me conscious of my posture. “I haven't seen you here before.”

Great. I get to be the new girl in Salem High
and
in the town. “I just moved here.”

“You'll be needing a library card. What's your full name?”

“Samantha Mather,” I whisper.

“What was that, now? Speak up, girl,” she says, and leans a little closer.

“Samantha Mather,” I say a little louder, more conscious of my own last name than I've ever been.

“Mather, is it?” she replies at full volume. She raises a disapproving eyebrow at me. “Lots of history here. Not all of it good.”

I nod, and can feel eyes staring at my back. I bet there are at least a couple of people here who know about my locker incident today.

“Do you know where I could find information about where people lived in the late sixteen and early seventeen hundreds? And maybe a map?” I ask, anxious to leave the onlookers.

“Upstairs to your left, in the back, small room on your right. Have copies of all the original town documents from around the time of the Witch Trials. Come back when you're done and we'll see about that card.”

“Thanks.” I dart for the stairs without making eye contact with anyone.
You can judge me, but I don't have to look at you while you're doing it.

Two hours with a stack of dusty old books at a small wooden table in a cramped room and I'm finally getting some useful information. I found the address for Symonds's house that Perley referenced in his essay “Where the Salem ‘Witches' Were Hanged.” But it's unclear if it exists anymore. It doesn't line up with the current streets.

I run my hand along a pile of books about my relatives Cotton Mather and Increase Mather. If my last name is gonna be such an issue here, I want to know why. I mean, they
were
highly respected members of society. Increase even brought over the charter from England saying that Massachusetts was a province.

Unfortunately, Cotton was kinda the thorn. He was crazy smart, graduated Harvard at sixteen, and wrote seven languages, including Iroquois, by the time he was twenty-five. Some historians say he was good and honest, but more think he was the main instigator of the Witch Trials. He was so concerned with uprooting “evil” that he was willing to let people hang to do it. I can't help but think how the tables have turned for the Mathers in Salem.

A shadow falls on the page I'm reading. I look up to find Lizzie standing just outside the doorway of the reference room. I notice she has two different-colored eyes—one golden brown and one green—that seem more dramatic because of her black hair.

“So it's true,” she says, and inspects her black nails with glittery skulls painted on them.

“ 'Scuse me?” I fold the paper with the information I was collecting and push it into my pocket.

“They told me you were here.”

What's her angle? “They, who?”

“You can't hide in a town like this, Mather.”

I can't help but think about the witch accusations. And the fact that she's addressing me by my last name doesn't escape me. “Are you saying you followed me here?”

“What I'm saying is that I know where you are.” She lifts her gaze from her nails, and her two-toned eyes assess me.

Goose bumps sprint down my arms. I'm not even going to pretend I'm not creeped out by this. She clearly doesn't mean just now. She means always. I try to play it off. “So, what, you spend your free time tracking me? Your life sounds like it sucks.”

For the briefest of seconds her eyes narrow. “You'll find that there're only a few things that matter in Salem and that you're not one of them. No one cares what happens to you here.”

Was that a threat? If there is one thing I learned in the City, it's that I can't show her this bothers me. “I'm not sure I care if you know where I am. You found me reading a book. Congratulations on your discovery.”

She actually smiles. “Give it time. You will.”

That's it. I'm done with this conversation. I kick the door with my black boot and it slams in her face. By some highly unfortunate coincidence, as the door booms shut the lights turn off. From outside the tiny sliver of a window in the door, which is now my only source of light, she laughs.

You've got to be kidding me.
I stand up and bang my knee into one of the wooden chairs. “Ow!”

I push the chair aside and more slowly make my way to the wall.
This cannot be happening right now.
I swat the wall with my hands and land on a small switch. Up, down, up, down. Nothing.

I grab the door handle and pull, but it doesn't budge. I pull harder. Nothing. I throw my weight back, and with all my might I pull again. Still nothing. Lizzie walks away, leaving me stuck and all alone.

Did she lock me in somehow?
As far as I can tell, there's no manual lock. She would need a key. How'd she do it? Maybe it's an old lock and it jammed when I slammed the door? But that still doesn't explain why the lights went out. I reach for my cell phone, but there's no signal.

That only leaves banging and yelling.
“Help!”

What if no one hears me? I'm in an unpopular part of the library. Not so unpopular that Lizzie and her spies couldn't find me, but still. What's that girl planning, anyway? I find it hard to believe that this and the locker stunt are unrelated.

Twenty minutes pass before a scraggly-looking janitor finds me.

“Please help me get out of here!” I yell. It's starting to smell really musty, and it's dark. Plus, I'm not a huge fan of spiders, which I'm sure have taken up permanent residence in this rarely used room. I can almost hear them crawling toward me over the old manuscripts. Above all, I don't like being trapped.

He fidgets with a ring of keys but doesn't seem to have the right one. He puts his hand up as if to say “Hold on” and walks off.

Another ten minutes pass, and I'm getting jumpy. In fact, I'm sweating pretty badly. I press against the window.
Please, someone come back…anyone.

My face is fogging up the glass when the librarian from downstairs appears in front of me. My heart jumps into my throat.
Holy moly, she scared the crap out of me!
And she didn't come alone; there's a small group of spectators forming behind her.

“Don't panic. It only makes it worse!” she yells.

“I'm not!” I lie.

“Good. They can feel it, you know,” she warns.

“Who can feel what?” I ask.

“The ghosts,” she says loudly.

Involuntarily, I look over my shoulder. Nothing's there. Of course nothing's there. What's wrong with this town? I want to yell that I don't believe in ghosts, that it was probably Lizzie's fault the door locked. But by this point I've already made enough of a spectacle of myself.

There's a low buzzing noise.
A drill?

“Stand back!” yells the janitor.

The door vibrates, and within seconds a small metal bit falls near my feet. The door swings open, almost hitting me. I jump out of the way and crash backward into the table, my feet lifting six inches off the ground. I flail my arms wildly to regain my balance. There are gasps from the crowd.

“Are you all right?” asks the librarian with a bit of drama in her tone.

“Yeah. Thanks,” I say to her and the janitor. I must look crazy. With all these eyes on me, I half wish I could stay in the dark room until everyone loses interest. I'm slick with sweat, there are little tendrils of hair stuck to my face, and I just threw myself into a table. Much to my disappointment, the watching and whispering crowd has doubled in size.

I step into the light and I spot John near one of the back rows of people, leaning against a bookshelf. We make eye contact, and my abused nerves go haywire. I don't think. I just run.

“I
got a call from the principal today,” says Vivian from the living room doorway.

I sit cross-legged on the big white couch. Papers and books surround me in disarray.

I fidget. “Did he tell you about the locker?”

“Yes.” Judgment's written in her eyebrows. “I just don't understand how you could garner that kind of reaction so quickly.”

I tense. “As though it would make more sense if it happened later on? When people knew me better?”

“You know I don't mean it that way. You snap at people unnecessarily. What's going on with you lately? You don't tell me anything anymore.”

I steady myself. She's right. Before my dad got sick, I would have told her what happened and she would have made some biting comment about the kids who did it. Which of course would make me laugh and make the whole thing easier somehow. Now it feels like I'm always on the defensive. I sigh. “There was something wrong with those pastries this morning. More than fifteen kids went home puking. Everyone blames me. That's why they wrote PSYCHO on my locker.”

Her lips tighten. She places a small pizza box down on the couch next to me. “I'll handle this.” She walks out of the room.

She's calling the bakery. Her voice gets progressively louder and she's using her you-are-obviously-an-idiot tone. We both have short tempers, and being on the receiving end of hers is terrifying. There were only two times when I was little that we lost our tempers at each other. But those fights were so bad, our neighbors called the police on us, once because she threw a vase at our connecting wall and another time because she screamed so loud and so long that they were afraid someone was being murdered.

Of course, my dad wasn't home for those fights, and I never told him. They were about me going to therapy because I didn't have friends, and she thought I was too attached to my dad. There was always some part of me that was afraid she was right, that I was the problem.

I open the box and take a bite of the cheese pizza—not New York standard. I check my phone for the hundredth time to see if Jaxon texted me. Nothing. All the stuff he told me today seemed real. It is a little odd, though, that he's really nice when no one else in school is.
Great, Vivian's suspicion of nice people has rubbed off on me.

I stop mid-bite and put the half-eaten pizza back in the box. Jaxon admitted today that he knew about my dad. No one else in school knew. How could they? That's the only way John could have found out. I feel sick.

I gather my books and papers and head for my room. I can't believe I almost trusted him. It's easy to trick someone who's lonely with pretty words.
I'm so stupid.

“That doesn't change the fact that I'm going to talk to Mable about this.” Vivian has steel in her voice. “Sorry isn't good enough.”

Mrs. Meriwether?
I plod up the stairs. What does she have to do with the bakery? Suddenly what Jaxon said about his mother's cooking makes sense. The sick feeling I have spreads. Maybe Vivian was right about them.

“It's handled,” says Vivian from the bottom of the staircase.

She'll fight for me, but right now I really need comfort more than anything. “Great.” My tone reflects my disappointment.

“You're welcome,” she says, and I walk down the hall toward my room.

There's a light creaking of old wood as I approach the burgundy bedroom. I peek inside and flip on the light. The rocking chair moves back and forth. I grab the arm and it stops. I scan the room, but everything's still.

Stepping back into the hallway, I look both ways before heading to my room, wishing the hallway sconces were brighter and didn't cast so many shadows.

I stick my hand in my room and flip the lights on before I enter. I slowly push the door open to find my clothes are once again in a pile on my floor.

“What the hell,” I say to the empty bedroom.

Okay, that's it.
Either someone's messing with me or there's something wrong with this armoire. I press the old latch a couple of times, and it squeaks. I lift what remains of the folded clothes in the upper part of the armoire and place them on the floor next to the pile. In the center of the back panel is a delicately carved black-eyed Susan, matching the rest of the furniture in my bedroom. I check all the edges of the wood and the hinges, to see if anything is faulty.

As a last resort, I knock on the wood itself—the doors, the sides, and the back panel.
Wait, this part sounds different.
I tap near the flower. Definitely hollow. I pull my head out of the armoire and give it a push to move it from the wall. It doesn't budge. The thing weighs like five hundred pounds.

I return to the flower and grab the edges of it. There's a small noise, and one of the petals appears to have tilted.
Did it just move or did I imagine that?
I brace the flower with the tips of my fingers and pull. It pops off easily and lands in my palm.

I reach my hand into the hole where the flower was, and the edge of something silky brushes my fingertips. I lean forward and manage to pinch it. Carefully, I pull out a bundle of old letters tied with blue ribbon. They're yellowed with age and have a musty perfume smell. I now couldn't care less about my clothes being all over the floor.

I sit at my vanity and untie the bow that holds them together. Gently, I open the flap of the first envelope and unfold the thick stationery inside. The writing is small and so elaborately curled, it's difficult to make out.

My dearest Abigail,

Nothing wouldst give me more joye than to once agane see your smile. I verily believe mother's illness is nigh finished and that I maye return to you. Have patience, my love, for I am over a barrel with these unfortunate times.

Forever yours,

William

Old love letters. How romantic.
I bet they belonged to the girl in the portrait by the piano.
Was this her room? And for some reason, I have a strong feeling it was. She loved black-eyed Susans. That's why they're all over this furniture.

The lights go off, and I jump.
You have got to be kidding me! Not now!
I put the delicate letters down and feel around for the flashlight on my nightstand. My hands shake.

“Vivian!” I yell as I run through the dark hallway, but no one responds. When I get to the top of the stairs, lights glow in the foyer. “Vivian!”

“What?” Her voice comes faintly from down the hallway.

I run all the way to the kitchen, knowing that's where I'll find her. She always makes loose-leaf tea at night. I push the swinging door at the end of the hallway. She's next to the stove, lighting a flame beneath an antique kettle.

“My lights went out again,” I say.

“The repairman fixed the lights.”

After the weird things that have already happened to me today, I'm definitely not excited about my room being dark. “Well, they're out in my bedroom.”

She puts her empty mug down with a clang on the marble countertop and walks out the back door to the patio. I follow, and hold the flashlight as she opens the breaker box filled with switches.

“You're right; one of them is off.” She flips it back into position. “Let's go take a look.” She enters the house, moving quickly.

I don't want her to see those letters.
“It's fine.” I keep pace with her. “I'll let you know if they're back on.”

“I'll look myself. If there's still a problem, I'll call that idiot and make him come back. I have no interest in spending another evening bumping into my own furniture because I can't see ten feet in front of my face.”

There is no arguing with her, especially when she's feeling snippy. We walk toward my room. Did I close my door? I don't remember doing that. The back of my neck tingles. I grab the handle before Vivian does, hoping I can hide those letters. “The light's on,” I say quickly.

“You're acting like a nervous wreck. Are you okay?” She eyes me and pushes my door open.

I immediately look at my vanity, but the letters are gone.
Gone! What the…?
I walk to it and pull the chair out to see if they fell.

“This room's a disaster.” Vivian wrinkles her nose. “Sam, are you sure everything's okay?”

My heart sinks. I can't understand where they could have gone. “Yes. And I didn't do this.”

“The lights?”

“This!” I point at the clothes. “It was like this when I got here. And now something's disappeared, and I think someone's messing with me.”

“Are you trying to tell me you think someone was in the house? All the doors were locked.”

“Something is missing from my room, and this is the second time my clothes are all over the floor.” I'm having trouble keeping my cool.

“Slow down. What's missing?”

“Just something.”

Her eyes land on the hole in the back of my armoire. “If you're not going to tell me, then how can I help?”

“Fine. Letters. I found them in the back of my armoire.”

“So you're telling me that someone threw your clothes on the floor. You somehow found letters in your armoire. And then the lights went out and they disappeared?”

“And the rocking chair in the burgundy bedroom was rocking by itself.”

She frowns. “Are you sleeping well? You know I was kidding when I said the ghost didn't like you, right?”

“I don't
think
it was a ghost. I
think
it was a person.”

Her kettle starts whistling. “I need to get that. Then we can talk more about this.”

“No.” I close the door behind her as she leaves.

This is only going to start the therapy conversation again. I'm not crazy. And my sleep has nothing to do with this. I'm being deliberately toyed with.
Would those witch lunatics from my school go so far as to mess with my house? Yes, I think they would. Maybe even Jaxon's in on it. I bet they're all having a good laugh over this.

My cell phone buzzes on my nightstand. It's a text.

Jaxon:
Find anything?

For some reason this makes my blood boil.
He's playing me for sure.

Me:
A liar.

Jaxon:
???

I throw my phone on my bed and grab my metal flashlight—a light source or a potential weapon. I resist stamping down the staircase only because I have no desire for Vivian to know where I am.

I go into the piano room and stand in front of Abigail's painting, examining every detail. She's calm, with her dark brown hair and happy gray eyes. Behind her, everything is heavily shadowed. But I'm pretty sure she's standing next to the fireplace in the library, right in front of the hidden door.

“Somehow I've stepped into your world of secrets,” I say to her painting.

I look for a painter's signature, but there's none. Carefully, I shine my flashlight behind the portrait.
Bingo—
there's an index card taped to the back, with some writing in my grandmother's cursive. Thank you, Charlotte. It reads
Abigail Roe ~1691.

The year before the Witch Trials?
I look at her lace and silk dress again. This seems way too fancy for Colonial America. I've seen drawings of Puritans from that time in my history textbook and they wore super-plain clothes and bonnets. Black and earth tones, not these cheery blues and whites. From what I read, children didn't play or have toys because those things were considered frivolous and sinful. There's no way she could have walked around in this thing in seventeenth-century Salem
. Something is off here.

Behind me, a crystal glass falls to the floor.