by Susan Harper
Brian and Isaac went their own way, so Monica, Holly, Sarah, and Abigail entered the room next door. It was a small, sparsely furnished room with two twin beds. There was one table between the two beds with a basin and a pitcher. Monica assumed it was for bathing, given that there was no indoor plumbing in this time. A threadbare rug sat between the beds, looking rather worse for wear. Abigail curled up at the foot of one bed as Sarah sat down at the head of the other, wringing her wrists. She was dressed in very Puritan looking clothes compared to some of the others they had seen walking around Boston. “So, you’re not from the city?” Monica asked, hoping to make her comfortable with them by getting to know her. Casual conversation and non-intrusive questions seemed to be the best way to go.
“Oh, yes,” she said. “I apologize. I don’t believe I remember your names?”
“Well, I’m Monica,” Monica began. “This is Holly, and that’s Abigail. So where are you from, Sarah?”
“I’m from Salem,” she said. “In town visiting Edward.”
“How do you know Edward?” Monica asked.
“Last time I was here in Boston with my family I met him and Cornelius and Alexander. All very friendly men. Gentlemanly. Edward and I have been exchanging letters for many months. He paid to have me travel here. I daresay, I thought the man was going to ask me to marry him,” Sarah said and then wiped tears from her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said and began digging around in her dress pockets, eventually pulling out a handkerchief that she used to dab her eyes. “Such a sweet man, that Edward.”
“You’re from Salem,” Monica said timidly. “A lot went down in Salem lately.”
“Went down?” Sarah asked, clearly not used to this modern expression.
“Happened,” Monica said. “A lot happened.” She was curious as to what Sarah knew about the witch trials, but she didn’t want to push the clearly fragile woman.
“You’re talking about the witch trials,” she said, her cheeks turning pink. “Yes, believe me, it’s a well talked about tale. A horrible tragedy, if you ask me.”
“You think they were nonsense, then?” Monica asked.
“My aunt—my namesake, in fact—lost her life during the trials,” Sarah said, tears welling in her eyes. She blinked hard and cleared her throat, looking down at her still-clenching hands.
Abigail’s head shot up suddenly, and Monica shot her a warning gaze not to say anything. “Who was your aunt?” Holly asked.
“Sarah Good,” Sarah said, sighing heavily. “Homeless woman. Poor thing. She was accused of witchcraft. Refused to confess. They killed her. My aunt was no witch, I tell you.” Sarah’s voice shook with passionate determination at her last statement.
Abigail hopped off the bed and silently crawled under it to hide. “I’m very sorry,” Monica said, giving the woman a kind smile.
“She was one of the first to be accused,” Sarah said. “I don’t think any of the people who were killed during the trails were real witches. Salem has always been a mystic-free zone. They’re not allowed there, you see. Those sorts.”
Monica frowned. “Not a fan of witches?”
“Of course not,” Sarah said, and Monica realized Sarah didn’t know what she was. “Devil creatures!” Sarah said. “If there was a real witch in Salem, I think they must be responsible for the hysteria. I don’t think any real witches or wizards were killed in Salem, but I often wonder if one of those girls…”
“You’re talking about the accusers?” Holly asked.
“Yes,” Sarah said with a tone of anger and disgust. “Mary Walcott, Mercy Lewis, Abigail Williams, Ann Putnam… I often wonder if there might have been a witch among them. Abigail and Mercy, I wonder especially. They fled, you see. Disappeared. Been missing ever since. If there was a real witch in Salem, it was one of them. Not my poor aunt.”
“We’re very sorry for your loss, Sarah,” Monica said. “But, you know, not all witches are out to hurt mortals.” Monica wasn’t sure how she felt about Sarah, but she knew she didn’t like the way Sarah was speaking about mystics and witches. Monica couldn’t blame her, though, given what had happened, given what Monica knew.
Sarah huffed and crossed her arms. “Tell that to my poor Edward. If I had known Alexander was a warlock… I never would have gone near the man! He doesn’t dress like one of those mystics. Doesn’t act like one. Probably was biding his time. I cannot believe I was ever interested in that fellow! Lord, forgive me for ever fancying such a man!”
“You fancied Alexander?” Monica asked.
“If my father knew how I had been, flirting with two men! Honestly, this is what I deserve, I suppose,” Sarah said. “Such a crude woman I’ve been. I came out here to see Edward. I should have never given Alexander the time of day. Only a warlock would dare act the way he did toward a woman who was obviously spoken for.”
Monica was starting to find Sarah rather annoying, but she knew that the woman was most certainly a product of her time. She had to remind herself that they were in an era where relations between mortals and mystics had finally reached its peak. They were in a time that had gotten so bad that the Sorcerer’s Council performed the Split, creating an entirely new world for mystics to live in peace away from mortals. Why wouldn’t Sarah feel confused about mystics? She had grown up in Salem, after all. She had lived through the witch trials and watched an innocent relative die because of the witch hysteria, and now a man who was practically her fiancé was dead and people were accusing a local warlock of it.
“I’m sorry you feel that way about mystics,” Monica said. “But they’re not all bad.”
“Yes, I’m sure,” Sarah said. “Just as there are a few wicked mortals, I’m certain there are a few good mystics out there. I’ve just never met one myself, if you ask me. I still think Abigail and Mercy are the only real witches in Salem. Why else would they have run? Honestly… I think they did it all for fun. Accused people. Pretended to be possessed by demons. I think it was a good laugh for them. And that is what a witch is. That’s what a mystic does. They think they are better than us mortals. Just look at the way those kinds are treating immortals. Immortals have their history with mystics, of course, but most of them are living and hiding in fear, and the mystics are hunting them down like they’re vermin. I don’t care for immortals any more than mystics, but I see how afraid the immortals are. It’s quite sad.”
“I’ll have to agree with you on that,” Monica said. “I saw an immortal being arrested in the street today. He was terrified.” Monica could feel anger swelling in her chest as she reflected on the events of earlier that day. She knew it wasn’t her time, knew there was nothing she could do about it, but she hated that immortals were being systematically exterminated.
“Because an immortal being arrested for any reason is a death sentence,” Sarah said. “The world has gone quite mad lately.” Sarah looked at Monica curiously for a moment. “You are a rather interesting woman yourself. Why do you and your friends dress so oddly? I’ve never seen a woman wear such clothes before. You look almost like a man in those trousers.”
Monica thought for a moment. Was there any harm in telling Sarah that they were time travelers? What could she even do with that information? “They’re blue jeans,” Monica said, and she decided to be honest with Sarah at last. “And we dress this way because we’re from the year 2019. We accidentally got a hold of a time coin, and it sent us here. The Remembrance group stole our coin.”
“Oh, you poor dears!” Sarah exclaimed.
Holly gave Sarah a look of startled confusion. “You’ve heard of time coins?” she asked curiously.
“I’ve never seen one myself. I’ve heard them talked about by some mystics before. They are very rare from what I understand. Remembrance stole it from you? That’s terrible! See what I mean, though? Remembrance. A filthy group. Worst of the worst of their kind. They torture mortals for fun, and they hunt down some of their own. At first, I thought they just enjoyed torturing non-wizard mystics, but last year, t
hey found a bunch of a dead witches they call unnatural out in New York. Five of them tortured and killed by Remembrance. That group is just awful!”
Monica felt rather sick. “They killed five unnatural witches?” Monica’s felt dizzy and nauseous at the same time. Five unnatural witches. She hadn’t thought it possible for her to detest Remembrance anymore, but this proved her wrong.
“Tortured them something awful,” Sarah said. “I don’t like witches, but to torture them like that… It was terrible. They seem to take some sort of sick pleasure in what they’re doing. That’s what Remembrance does, you see. They think they should cleanse the earth of mortals and all non-wizards. They like immortals all right from what I understand, but they still think of them as less than themselves. Stealing your time coin, though! That’s just terrible. I do hope you will find your way back home soon.” Sarah studied Monica for a moment with a curious expression. “Is this really how women dress in the future? How odd! Though, I think I might like it. A part of me has always wanted to try pants.”
Monica laughed slightly. “Yes, women dress this way, but they still wear dresses too. Every woman is different. Wear what they want, really.”
“How fun!” Sarah said, smiling. She sighed, her mind seeming to drift a bit. “I do hope they find out what happened to my poor Edward. He was a good man, you know? He and Cornelius. They just started doing investing. Quite a jump from what they were doing before.”
“What were they doing before?” Monica asked.
“They were blacksmiths last time I was here in Boston. They grew their business and sold it last year, and then they started doing investing. That was my Edward! He had such big dreams. I think that’s why he waited so long to ask me… Not that he had asked me just yet, but I suspected that’s why he wanted me here in Boston this week was to ask me to marry him. He wanted to wait until he had grown his business, wanted to be a man he felt…deserved me… Oh, he treated me so well! My poor Edward… I’m so tired of all these mystics! I really am.” Tears fell down Sarah’s cheeks. Tears of frustration more than sadness. It seemed that Edward’s death hadn’t really hit her yet, she was just using her anger at mystics to keep herself moving.
Monica’s shoulders slumped. “I know that things are difficult now. But…”
“You are quite a little mystic lover, aren’t you?” Sarah said, sounding annoyed. She angrily swiped a hand across her cheeks, wiping her tears. Her face had clouded with frustration.
“Hey, don’t get upset with Monica,” Holly warned. “We just don’t like to put people in a little box. Not all mystics are bad. You surely must realize this.”
“I haven’t met one that I like,” Sarah said with a shrug.
“You liked Alexander,” Monica said.
“Yes and look where that has gotten me!” Sarah exclaimed. She stood upright, huffing. “World would be better without them. All of them, and I’m hardly in the minority with my opinion.” Sarah’s voice was getting louder the angrier she got.
Monica huffed right back. “I am a witch,” she said at last, and Sarah went rather pale. “I’m an unnatural witch from the future. I’ve been sitting here listening to you, trying to be kind, but you’re really rude. I don’t know if I want to listen to you talk about my people like this anymore.”
Sarah lowered her arms for a moment, looking slightly embarrassed. “Why didn’t you tell me you were witches?”
“I’m not a witch,” Holly said.
Sarah looked at her curiously. “I see the future is a rather disgusting place. One in which witches and mortals take little trips together through time like it is nothing.” She glanced down at the floor where Abigail was peeking out from under the bed. She shrieked. “Oh! And I bet that’s a familiar, isn’t it? Filthy little creature! I’m leaving! I cannot believe I let a nasty little witch try to comfort me.” She stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind her.
Abigail slowly made her way out from under the bed. “Well, that went well,” she said.
“Not particularly,” Monica said. “Though she was spot on with you. Was Mercy a witch?”
“No,” Abigail said. “We ran away together from Salem, but we split off from each other pretty quickly. Think she wound up in Boston too, but I’m not sure. Never saw her after we went our separate ways.” Abigail kneaded the threadbare carpet under her paws, staring at the ground. Monica knew the interaction with Sarah must have been difficult for her.
“I’ll be glad when all of this is over,” Holly said with a sigh. “I’m really not liking this time period too much at all.”
“Told you it was awful,” Abigail said with a thrash of her tail. “The sooner we find that time coin the better.”
Monica nodded. “Agreed.”
6
Brian and Isaac settled down in their own room. Isaac jumped up onto one of the twin beds, leaning his head back and sighing heavily. “This is just nuts,” he said, staring up at the ceiling
Brian watched him for a moment. Isaac looked sick, tired, and wildly confused. “You holding up all right, Isaac?”
“How long have you known?” Isaac asked. “About all this? The world of the mystics, I mean.”
“Not long,” Brian said. “Little over a month. It’s been a crazy whirlwind.”
“I can’t believe they didn’t tell me,” Isaac said and turned on his side. “Do you know if Monica and Holly were ever going to tell me the truth if I hadn’t been blasted here with you guys by mistake?”
Isaac sounded a little…hurt? Brian wasn’t sure. There was something more than curiosity. He assumed it had to do with being lied to and the shock of being transported through time. It wasn’t the easiest thing in the world to handle.
“Honestly?” Brian said, lying down on his bed as well, sighing. “Probably not, Isaac. I mean, you broke into Monica’s house once to try to figure out if she was keeping a secret. You’re a blog writer. A news journalist. You understand, though, that you can’t go back home telling the world about this, right?” Brian gave Isaac a pointed look. He needed Isaac to understand how important it was to keep this information to himself.
Isaac frowned. “They really thought I wouldn’t keep this secret for them? They didn’t trust me?” His tone was definitely that of one whose feelings had been deeply hurt. Lack of trust was a tough thing to move past.
“You haven’t exactly given them a reason to, Isaac,” Brian said. “But you know now. Prove them wrong. You can’t talk about this on your blog, you know?”
“I know!” Isaac exclaimed, frustrated with the second reminder in as many minutes. “Besides, I don’t write about mystics. I write about aliens… Which seems kind of stupid now.” Isaac stared at the ceiling. He was a little sore about the fact that aliens weren’t real, but witches and warlocks were. What a waste.
“A little bit,” Brian said and laughed. “I mean, it’s really saying something when a witch looks you in the eye and rolls her eyes at you for believing in aliens.”
“Whatever,” Isaac said with an eyeroll of his own. “So what is Holly exactly? They kind of explained it to me, but it was rushed.”
“Holly grew up thinking she was mortal,” Brian began. “But Monica went to do a memory charm on her, and it didn’t work right. Because it was a charm meant for mortals, not mystics. Magic works differently on mortals and mystics. They did some digging into it, and she managed to find her birth father. Basically, he was part-immortal.”
“Aren’t we in a time in which all the immortals are being systematically wiped out, though?” Isaac asked.
“Yes,” Brian said. “Some of them will survive past the Split. Holly’s grandfather is one of them. Generations from now, he’ll meet Holly’s grandmother and have Holly’s father, a son. He’ll eventually be killed by the Sorcerer’s Council like all the other immortals, but the council didn’t know he had a son. The council of our time has stopped hunting immortals, not that there are any left. Holly’s father is probably the last one, but he’s
even just a half-breed and ages just like a mortal. But Holly’s mom, a witch we still haven’t been able to find, slept with him. She gave birth to twins—Ibeji twins.”
“And what is that exactly?” Isaac asked. He still didn’t quite understand.
Brian sighed and took a moment to figure out the best way to explain. “When an immortal, even a half-breed like Holly’s father, has a child with a mystic like Holly’s birth mother, it creates Ibeji,” Brian began. “Basically, it’s one soul but two bodies. The Ibeji twins are destined to kill one another before adulthood. Same thing happened to Holly’s little sisters Angel and Anniston. Anniston accidentally killed her other body. Not really murder, because they were one person, and it was an accident. Anniston just never matured into her full abilities. Because if on the off chance Ibeji twins manage to make it into adulthood, their soul becomes two separate persons. Which is what happened to Holly.” Brian glanced at Isaac, still staring at the ceiling, to gauge the other man’s understanding of the subject. He was nodding and looking pensively.
“So… Holly has a twin sister out there somewhere whom she used to share a soul with and didn’t even know it?” Isaac asked.
“Pretty much. Holly’s mother gave Holly to her father to stay in the mortal world while she took the other twin to the mystic world. Can’t kill each other if you never meet. But now that they’re adults, they are no longer destined to kill each other and each have their own soul,” Brian said. “It’s really confusing, but I think I’ve finally figured out how Ibeji work.”
The door had opened just as Brian was saying this, startling both Brian and Isaac. It was Roderick, back from the crime scene. Brian’s heart leapt in his throat. How much had Roderick heard? He shuddered and frowned at them. “You two talking about Ibeji?” he asked, kicking off his boots with a sigh of relief and plopping down in a chair in the corner.
