Resting Witch Face

by Constance Barker

  “So what happened to you, then? Did people stop thinking you were a Satanist?” Echo asked.

  “I don’t know. I left town for college, stayed away for law school. By the time I joined a practice, the whole thing had blown over.” Gary shrugged. “Other than the way I dressed, I never figured out why I was made out the scapegoat. Or one of them, anyway.”

  “Well, we did,” Fredrickson said. “At least, we had our suspicions. After the presentation from the Pitt group, we turned our investigation inside out. Instead of hunting Satanists, we began to ask who might benefit from all these rumors. We never made an arrest or anything, but in comparing 911 calls, anonymous letters to the department, reports from citizens, we found a pattern. Three or four girls were making all the accusations, Jamestown High students. Our prime suspect’s father owned a gun store in town, and business was booming. Another suspect’s father sold home security systems. We didn’t have anything concrete, but a few informal interviews with the girls stopped all the panic rumors. But like Gary said, by that time, the thing was blowing over.”

  “Wow, it sounds just like what’s going on in my home town,” Echo said. “This guy, Steve, he’s in a heavy metal band. People are accusing him of the same stuff.”

  Higgins gave her the eye. “Steve? Where are you from?”

  “South Fishburn, PA,” Echo said. “Nobody’s heard of it. It’s in the middle of the woods—”

  “Steve Bender,” Higgins said.

  Echo’s eyes widened. “Yeah.”

  “What did you say your name was again?”

  “Echo. Echo Hutchinson.”

  Higgins stood up abruptly. “We’re done here. Tell your sisters to expect their asses to be sued. Especially if they would stoop to this.”

  Echo shook her head. “What are you talking about?”

  “I have a license to practice law in Pennsylvania. Steve Bender is my client.”

  QUINN WATCHED THE OTTERS, smiling at their play. Why would Leshy be afraid of river otters? They’re so cute! But then, Leshy was kinda weird. She shook the container. It looked like some kind of survivalist canteen. The contents sloshed with an odd sluggishness. Above, the sun dropped low.

  Her sister took note as well. “How did it get so late?”

  “We were half in the Twih, I think. Time—“”

  Harvest stood up when her cell phone rang. “I have to take this,” she said, looking at the screen.

  The otters wrestled with each other, making squawking noises. Even if their numbers were increasing, it was rare to see one, let alone a bunch. They moved so quickly, Quinn couldn’t count them all.

  Harvest bit her lower lip and disconnected.

  “Who was that?”

  “Dr. Stanislas. She apologized for Nora Albright’s recent behavior. Her assistant is overstepping.”

  Quinn stood and brushed off the seat of her pants. “She called you for that?”

  Her sister’s brow lowered, as did the corners of her mouth. “She said that, thanks to you, she was able to track down the parathion order from the serial number on that can. It was ordered by Priest Hollow Farm. They grow alfalfa for cow feed there, so it’s legal. Someone picked it up at the feed store, paid cash. Thing is, Scott Barnes, owner of the farm, says he never ordered the stuff. He had no need for forty gallons of powdered pesticide. Mike Danowski, the guy who Steve Bender’s brother works for, says he doesn’t grow crops that allow parathion use.”

  “Weird,” Quinn said. She watched the otters slip and slide back into the river.

  They started back for the car. “Oh, it gets weirder. This particular mixture of parathion was developed to control Asian giant hornets.”

  “It’s bee-killer?”

  “Yep. And there’s another can of it out there. Someone is after us, Quinn. I can feel it.”

  Quinn beeped open the Chevy. “It can’t be. The Jade Coven is in the wind. Some are committed, some are worm-food. Literally. Sheriff Bennet is dead.”

  “It’s not like when the coven came after us. Whoever this is, they’re attacking our personal lives, our jobs.”

  She thought it over as she started the car. “What do we do about it?”

  “I have no idea. For now, we watch our backs. And get your horny sasquatch friend’s Twih juice to Mom.”

  “THAT’S STRANGE.” JAMIE Everett put down the phone. “Piper should be helping move patients form the day ward to their rooms. Nobody’s seen her since this afternoon.”

  Harvest felt her stomach drop. She knew nothing about Piper Zimmerman, other than she seemed like a nice young woman who doted on Mom. Her intuition still told her something was wrong.

  “Can we still see Mom?” She didn’t like the pleading sound in her voice. It made her intuitive fear feel more real.

  Jamie picked up the phone again. “Standing orders from Dr. Pye state that your visits are of a highly therapeutic benefit to the patient. Let me find someone to take you to Ward 6.”

  The big, open ward stood empty, patients returned to their rooms for the night.

  “Witches!” A voice shouted from a distance. “Witches! They’re back!”

  Harvest and Quinn had to walk fast to keep up with the orderly. He was a tall black man with a shaved head, long legs and huge shoulders. “We should never let these patients watch the news,” he said.

  “Are there witches on the news?” Quinn shot a frown at Harvest.

  “Some kinda cult thing supposed to be going on. Satanic graffiti showing up on buildings, animal sacrifices, upside down crosses.” The orderly made the sign of the cross. “Don’t know what this world is coming to.”

  They finally reached Mom’s room at the end of the hall. The orderly moved to open the door. “Huh. That can’t be.”

  Harvest’s gut took an elevator to the basement. “What?”

  “These doors don’t lock from the inside.” He put some effort into turning the knob. “Stand back, ladies.”

  With that, the orderly took two steps back and charged the door with his broad shoulder. It shuddered and opened under the impact. With a shout, the man stepped back, arms raised.

  Three feline forms leapt from the room, clawing, snarling and spitting at the orderly. Though the cats were merely two feet high and four feet long, their ferocity quickly drove the man to the ground. In seconds, the spotted felines vanished down the corridor.

  “Damn! I need a medic!” Shredded scrubs showed growing blood stains. The man’s arms were a bloody wreck from shielding his face.

  Quinn shouted out, “We need a doctor!”

  Harvest raced into the room. She breathed a little easier at the sight of Mom resting in bed, staring at nothing. “You okay, Mom?”

  She didn’t expect a response. Mom’s single word made her jump.

  “Return.”

  In the hall, she heard the sound of running feet and voices.

  “How the hell did bobcats get in that room?” the orderly whispered. Another orderly and a nurse got him on a gurney and rolled him toward the elevators.

  Quinn gripped Harvest’s arm. “What kind of witches are these? They can turn into animals? Is Mom okay?”

  “She’s fine—not a scratch...”

  Quinn stepped fully into the room. “What is it?”

  Harvest pointed at a rolling table that sat next to the IV pole. A syringe and an unlabeled vial sat on top of it.

  Chapter 12

  “That Gary guy was kind of a dick,” Bunny said from the back seat.

  Even though Dr. Stagg convinced Higgins that the interview was legitimate, the heat never left the lawyer’s eyes. Echo worried about her sisters. Higgins had gone through the same thing Steve was going through now. It gave the attorney motive to mow her sisters down like tall grass.

  “I apologize, Echo.” This time, Dr. Stagg rode shotgun. He’d called it first. “I had no idea your sisters were involved with one of Higgins’ clients.”

  The sun set on the left as she passed houses and fields. “Not much
to say about it now.”

  “At least you got a few good quotes, a couple good stories. It’s a solid start for your research paper.”

  Start? Echo thankfully didn’t say this out loud. She sure didn’t want to interview any other subjects with a sore spot for the topic at hand. Back at SUNY Fredonia, she dropped off her passengers and headed for Reed Library.

  Finally alone with her thoughts, and a distinct lack of spontaneous cheers from Bunny, she studied for a geology exam, looked over her notes for the American Lit take-home midterm, read her chapters for American History and General Chemistry I. She was holding her own in Conversational Spanish, although in college they focused on Latin American Spanish as opposed to the European she’d taken in high school. Tomorrow was what she thought of as a fun day, with chem lab, Spanish and Ceramics.

  Feeling caught up, she put on her cell headphones and transcribed some of the stories Fredrickson and Higgins related. When she got to the part where the former chief of police mentioned the group from Pitt, she stopped the recording. A thought struck her.

  It took some time to find a librarian, but eventually Echo was led to the microfilm room. She sat at a reader with boxes of film piled next to it, all from the year 1988. On the old film, she recognized a few of the Satanic Panic stories she’d already found online. But that wasn’t what she was looking for. Hours passed as she searched, the old-fashioned machine spinning and whirling. And then she saw it, a headline, a brief story, and most important, a photo. She read:

  The path between faith and fact: Investigators from U-Pitt to give presentation to college, law enforcement.

  Echo gaped at the photo. It showed three people, two men and a woman. To be certain, she read the caption beneath. (From left) Nicholas O’Broin, Trinity O’Broin and Cade Hutchinson, anthropologists from the University of Pittsburgh, will give a presentation about Satanic ritual abuse at JCC tonight.

  She used the print function to make a hard copy. Holy moly, Mom and Dad and Uncle Nick from thirty years ago. Echo wanted to feel amazed about how young they looked, but truth be told, Dad hadn’t aged a bit. Mom, despite her current blank features, did as well. Uncle Nick even wore the same outfit she had seen him wearing when he pulled her into the Twih in August.

  How were Mom and Uncle Nick able to live in this realm? Certainly, Mom wasn’t doing well here. Her brother hadn’t shown up to help. What was different in 1988, and could the same circumstance allow Mom to fully reunite with her daughters?

  She hadn't thought about it much....seeing her mother. Maybe it was a reflex action. She and her sisters had never known their mother and then to see her somewhat comatose, well, how was one supposed to feel? She believed her sisters felt much the same way. Like her, they were taking emotional baby steps where their mother was concerned.

  Before she could think deeper, her text alert beeped. When she saw the 911 message from Harvest, she gathered her things and hurried outside to call.

  “Mom’s fine, okay, so just listen.” Harvest said.

  Echo had to find a bench to sit down as her older sister related a story about bobcats leaping from Mom’s hospital room and a mysterious drug and syringe in her room.

  “I’m coming home.”

  “No, you’re not. We got this. There’s a big meeting tomorrow to discuss how this happened, and what we’re going to do about it. There’s a security guard posted at Mom’s door. Don’t worry, I’ll keep you posted.”

  Echo took a few breaths. Mom was okay. But speaking of... “You won’t believe this, but I found a picture of Mom, Dad and Uncle Nick.” She sent the photo to Harvest’s phone.

  “How did you find this?” Harvest said after she received it. “I’ve never been able to find a single thing about Mom, and I hired a decent PI.”

  “It’s not on the internet or anything. It’s from a newspaper, we have it on microfilm here.”

  Harvest asked the same question Echo had. “How could Mom have lived in our realm back then?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll keep looking into it. Don’t worry, it’s kinda related to school stuff.”

  “Okay, whatevs. I’ll call you tomorrow. When’s your first class?”

  “Ceramics at ten.”

  “Okay, Squirt. Talk to you soon.”

  Echo returned to the archives room, but other than the one story, she found nothing further. She did find a number of small articles about vandalism blamed on Satanists. She printed out a bunch of pages including the photo of her parents. She then retreated to an empty nook and wrote a loose draft of her term paper. It turned out to be two pages long. She inserted some quotes. Three pages. She still needed an introduction and a conclusion. But an announcement came softly over the PA system. The library closed in fifteen minutes.

  Echo started and checked the time on her laptop. Holy smokes, it was almost midnight. Making sure she saved her work, she moved to shut down her computer. On impulse, she grabbed a thumb drive out of the laptop bag. She might need to work on the paper over the weekend, maybe on her machine back home.

  She filed out of the building with the few dogged scholars working this late. October chill made her pull up her hood as she walked the crisscross paths between the library and Mason Hall. Echo only got a few steps before a scream made her whirl around.

  They were on her, too fast for her to process. Something knocked her face down into the grass. Growling made her turn her face from the dirt, even as she was pinned down. A mangy animal sank fangs into her laptop case. Shaking its head back and forth, the canine pulled the bag free.

  “Hey, I just bought that!” She started to protest, when several blows in the back knocked the wind out of her. Echo struggled to her knees. In the distance, she saw three dogs running for the stand of trees known as Forever Wild.

  Echo was surrounded by three students who helped her to her feet. “Those dogs took my computer!”

  “Dogs?” A tall young man gripped her by the shoulder, steadying her. “Those were no dogs. Those were coyotes.”

  “ATTACKED BY WHAT?” Quinn stared at Harvest’s phone, on speaker. They sat in the state hospital parking lot, early for a meeting with the staff.

  “Did you have Twinkies in the bag?” Harvest asked. “Cheetos?”

  “No!” Echo’s voice reverberated the speaker. “Security found the computer on a path in the woods.”

  Quinn sighed. “Well, at least you didn’t lose anything. Are you hurt?”

  “I’m just a little scratched up. But I did lose something. All the documents I printed from the microfilm reader, the picture of Mom and Dad. The freakin hard drive was wiped.”

  “How the hell did coyotes...”

  Harvest ticked off on her fingers. “First raccoons, then bobcats, now coyotes.”

  “Don’t forget the otters,” Quinn frowned.

  “What are you guys talking about?”

  “There were raccoons in your room the other day,” Harvest said. “There were bobcats in Mom’s room last night.”

  “Are these some kind of witches we don’t know about?” Echo asked. “I mean, obviously wild animals aren’t computer savvy.”

  Quinn’s eyes went big. The raccoons were sitting at Echo’s old computer. Harvest caught on to what she was thinking and put an index finger over her lips. “Listen, Echo, we have to meet with Mom’s doctors and the hospital staff. When’s your first break?”

  “Eleven, after ceramics. I have chem lab at one. Were there really raccoons in my room?”

  “Talk to you then. Gotta go. Bye.” Harvest hung up the phone.

  Quinn leaned her head on the passenger window. “We gotta check her computer.”

  For a moment, it looked like Harvest might try to blow it off. Instead, she opened her door. “Let’s see what Dr. Pye and company have to say first.”

  Chapter 13

  Harvest wore her constable uniform for a reason. She thought it would put her on a level above hospital security. But when they entered the conference room, she was surpris
ed to see the sergeant of the Warren State Police station as well as a National Parks warden in attendance. Dr. Pye stood when she and Quinn entered.

  “First things first, I want to apologize to you ladies. We’ve never had an incident like this at the hospital. I want to assure you that every measure has been taken to keep your mother secure.” Pye looked contrite. “We’ll give you the few answers we’ve come up with.”

  “What was in that vial?” Harvest took a seat.

  “An illegal recreational drug, 4-Bromo-2,5 dimethoxyphenethylamine, better known as 2C-B. It’s a designer hallucinogen along the lines of MDMA, or Ecstasy. The lab was already on the lookout for possible substances that can cause states of catatonia, and injected 2C-B has a few documented incidences of just that.” Pye frowned at the table. “There was none in the tox screen when Trinity was admitted, so the questions are who would want to inject her with it, and why.”

  Harvest took this in, thinking of the mysterious witches plaguing the sisters. “I’m just as concerned about wild animals in her room.”

  Pye nodded at the game warden.

  “We’re still looking into that. There’s no obvious entry point for the wildcats. They’re rare in the wild, and shy away from people. We were able to track them as far as the river, but then we lost them.” The warden ran a hand over his face. “There’s no food on the ward, nothing to attract them.”

  Sgt. Oberon, commander of the local state police, was a man Harvest had few dealings with, even though she was also local law enforcement. Her usual contact with the troopers was Sgt. Shafer, who led the investigations unit from the Erie barracks. Since Sheriff Bennett’s death, Shafer hadn’t been in contact much, other than to chastise her. Oberon leaned forward.

  “Trinity Doe’s charge nurse was Piper Zimmerman, who subsequently vanished just prior to the incident. Miss Zimmerman is not who she appears to be. She has no ties to any local schools and a little digging shows most of her documentation is forged. We put out a BOLO on her vehicle, and an APB.” Oberon shrugged. “Hopefully, when we find her, we’ll find a few answers.”