The Witch House of Persimmon Point

by Suzanne Palmieri

  * * *

  Meanwhile, Nan sat on the edge of her bed holding the black book. She couldn’t deny it any longer. Anne was seeing spirits, and her other talents were growing.

  If left unguided, very dark things could be unleashed. Besides, Nan was beginning to ask herself some very important questions.

  What if turning her back on the magic was a mistake? Not for her—that was her sacrifice—but what if one of her future loved ones needed to understand their talents? That was the day she began to allow herself to believe—no, to accept her magic. The next day she gave Anne the black book.

  “What is it?”

  “Read it. Add to it. You’re a smart girl. Use it to help you. Start by seeing what makes those that hurt you afraid. When you know their fears, you can stop them from hurting you. Or at least you can try.”

  20

  Anne in the Closet with a Rope

  1951

  Anne walked home from school up Grand Street Hill and rounded the corner onto her own block. The spire of the cupola seemed to smile at her, welcoming her home. She picked up the pace, swinging her books by their belt, enjoying the crisp fall day. She’d heard that the further north you went, the better the foliage, but she didn’t care. Anne thought the most glorious natural show God created on the planet was right here in Haven Port at Persimmon Point.

  There would be a lot of work waiting for her at home today. Fall was always a transitional time for the Witch House gardens. There was the pruning back of perennials and the removal of annuals. There was the winterizing of sod and the fertilizing of the vegetable plots. The ivy turned bright red, and the berry bushes gave one last burst of fruit that seemed out of place on the tongue.

  The deciduous trees along the street and on the property took on jeweled tones that resembled large, half-ripe nectarines or lemons or pears. Anne thought that nature always mirrored itself and wondered if human nature did that, too.

  In the fall she would often leave the schoolyard before the bell rang to run down instead of up the hill in order to sit on the bridge for a while with her feet dangling through the iron guardrail bars. She would sit there and think about all sorts of things, but mostly she would watch the people. Her seat on the bridge had a sweeping view of the riverbanks where people would gather at the late-fall farmers’ markets and all the way up Grand Street to the downtown as well. This was a particularly brilliant and sunny afternoon, so Anne had lingered a little longer than planned. And now she was rushing a bit. She did have chores waiting and homework and daily news reports to give her ghosts, after all.

  She stopped to pick up an oddly formed stick that she thought would make a nice ax when she played Anne Boleyn with Jude in the ruins later on. Things had been way more interesting since he’d been kicked out of boarding school. They were just starting to get to know each other again … being cousins and all that. Walking with the stick, she even tried it out as a cane, pretending to be an old crone.

  She heard them before she saw them. The neighborhood children were not a kind bunch. And Anne, for her oddness, was an easy target. They were chanting that stupid rhyme they had made up about her.

  Crazy Anne is in your cellar

  Crazy Anne under your bed

  Crazy Anne is creeping slowly

  Just one look and you’ll be dead!

  Anne felt the first pebble hit the back of her head and began to run. When she reached the fence in front of her house, she ran dragging the stick against the bars … thunk, thunk, thunk, wanting to wake up the house, her ghosts, anything that might keep her safe. Anne had to think fast. She slowed, never letting go of the stick. Thunk … thunk … thunk … and arrived at the gate and faced her enemies. She pointed the crooked stick at them.

  “All of you, all of you gathered here! I put a curse on you! See these words above this gate? It’s Latin. The language of witches and priests. It says, MOMENTO MORI! Remember you will DIE!”

  She dropped her books and with her free hand pointed her first and ring finger at them.

  “Malocchio!” she cried. The call of the evil eye. It made the group nervous, because if anyone could curse them, it was Anne. They stood stunned for a moment and Anne took the opportunity to run through the gates and up the drive. She ran so fast she fell.

  “You okay?” asked a red-headed girl who Anne didn’t know.

  “Fine,” Anne said, getting up.

  “Why didn’t you go with them? And why did you come through the gate. No one does that. This is the Witch House. Aren’t you afraid?”

  “Should I be? I’m new here. And for the record, I wasn’t with them in the first place; they were chasing me before they found you.”

  “Why?”

  “My hair.”

  “They’re crazy, it’s lovely,” Anne said, feeling generous.

  “Thanks!” The girl smiled shyly. “So, you are Anne, right?”

  “Yep, that’s me. Crazy Anne. And who are you? I don’t have the benefit of a poem.”

  “Fiona. A pleasure to meet you, Anne.”

  “Well, Fiona, would you like to come over for a while?”

  Fiona hesitated. She was new to the neighborhood and had heard the stories. But she was ever so curious. She could make a friend, or at least come away with classified information that could perhaps be used as a bartering tool for a few days of peace.

  “That would be lovely.”

  Anne closed the iron gate behind them and the two girls walked up the poplar canopied drive arm in arm.

  * * *

  “What a cute garden!” Fiona exclaimed as Anne steered her toward the back of the house. “Like elves or fairies live there!”

  “That is the vegetable garden. We grow a lot of vegetables. And it would be too big for fairies. Fairies are small, like fireflies. Maybe elves though,” Anne said, her voice serious.

  Suddenly, Fiona felt a little silly. “What kind of vegetables do you grow?” she asked, trying to change the subject.

  As they walked through the garden, Anne gave a verbal tour. “There are lettuces and sweet peas in the early spring; pole beans and tomatoes, cucumbers and squash, beets, radishes, onions, garlic, carrots, cabbages and even rhubarb.” Abruptly, she stopped talking. “Fiona, are you ready? For the real secret?” she whispered to her new friend.

  Fiona nodded her head.

  Behind the vegetable garden was the meadow that was the footprint of the old house. In the middle stood the ruins. The gardener’s cottage still stood, a thriving, though overgrown, herb and perennial flower garden next to it. And the property line was marked by a small juniper and pine tree forest and incredible amounts of overgrown wild raspberry bushes that would, magically, bear fruit from June through the first fall frost.

  Anne ran into the meadow. “Come on!” Fiona ran after her, fascinated by all she saw. The cottage, the ruins, the sheer expanse of it. The girls ran in circles until they fell together into a dizzy, laughing heap.

  “Do you like it?”

  “Oh, Anne! It’s wonderful!”

  And Fiona did like it. She felt warm on the inside, fuzzy with delight. She never wanted to leave. She sat up on her elbows and looked around again.

  But then, a strange feeling came over her, a badness. Fiona began to sweat. Anne noticed the change.

  “Want to come in the house?” she asked

  Fiona was now sick to her stomach and shaky.

  “May I have a glass of water, Anne?”

  “That would mean you would have to come in the house, so is that a yes?” Anne felt giddy. She was very, very close to having a real friend. A girl. Her own age! She liked Fiona. And it seemed as if Fiona liked her back.

  Anne grabbed Fiona’s hand and dragged her across the meadow, through the backyard, and up the back porch steps into the kitchen. Anne reached up before opening the screen door and pulled on the clothesline that was attached; she rocked the rope back and forth to hear the squeaking. Fiona looked at her funny.

  “I do it for luck. I ha
ve a lot of habits.”

  Fiona shrugged it off. It seemed a fine explanation. And she wanted water.

  There was an old woman in the kitchen. Her gray hair was tied in a severe bun and parted in the center. The part seemed to mirror the small space between her top teeth. She was peeling and rinsing a sink full of beets. She turned to the girls and wiped her red-stained hands on her apron.

  “Well, Anna, what do we have here? A guest? Oh, my, you are a pretty girl.”

  “Yes. A guest. A new … friend. Fiona, this is my grandmother, Nan. Everyone calls her that—even her daughter, Lucy, my mama. Even the ladies in the Ladies’ Guild. Even the priest! Her real name is Anna, but you should call her Nan, too. I am named for her, so it avoids confusion anyway.” Anne liked sounding like the authority on her family.

  “Nan, please get Fiona a glass of water.” The two girls sat down at the large oak table, and Fiona drank her glass of water while Nan tried to clean Anne’s scratches and pulled the pine needles out of her braids.

  “Come on, Fi,” said Anne, trying out a pet name already. “Let me show you around!”

  “Anna, don’t bother your mother,” Nan warned in Italian.

  “It’s my house and I’ll do what I want,” said Anne.

  “What did you say to her? You speak … what was that, Italian?”

  “Yes, fluently,” said Anne, tossing her braids vainly. “Let’s go.” She hooked her arm inside of Fiona’s, and off they went.

  “Don’t you just love all the windows? The volunteer glassmakers gave what they had, so we have all these different types of glass. I think it is brilliant.”

  Everywhere Fiona looked there was something to see. The rooms on the first floor were enormous and danced with light.

  “My Nan can’t help it,” said Anne as they looked upon the bright, warm color combinations: orange glass canisters, plum drapes, and red velvet fabric. “She is drawn to the warm colors of the Italian countryside.” Anne liked feeling exotic.

  The air in the house had a peculiar smell. There were drying herbs hanging from the large wooden beam that ran the length of the kitchen. They perfumed the whole house with a bitter earthiness. Fiona couldn’t help feeling like she had walked into a fairy tale. Like Hansel and Gretel. Anne saw Fiona looking up at the beams and molding.

  “The builders took every bit they could from Haven House to build this one, so sometimes there are odd things about. There is always something new to find!”

  As they crossed the foyer into the great room, Fiona caught a glimpse of a life-size statue of a saint and hundreds of flickering candles in red glass jars, like at church. Fiona looked away, back into the light of the great room. It glinted off bottles of all shapes and sizes. Glass of all kinds, everywhere she looked. Her eyes fell on a photograph on the mantel.

  Fiona was blinded for a moment by Anne’s hands covering her eyes. “Don’t look at that picture, Fiona, it is a picture of a dead little girl, and she might eat you up!”

  “No, you’re teasing me, that’s not a dead girl.”

  “It is! I own her ghost. She lives here with me. I have two of them, actually.” And then Anne took a chance. It was now or never. “Want to meet them?”

  And then Fiona, woefully unskilled at crazy, made a very bad mistake. She laughed. She was cursed with the disease of laughing when nervous, and Anne’s harsh look only served to make her laugh louder and more hysterically.

  Anne was confused. And hurt. And mad. She cocked her head to one side and stared hard at Fiona. Anne didn’t think that this girl belonged in her house after all.

  “Stop laughing,” Anne demanded.

  But Fiona couldn’t stop.

  “Stop laughing!” Anne shouted with a stomp. “I was going to show you the heart of the house.”

  Fiona laughed a little harder.

  The shift in mood was palpable. The light seemed to have shifted, too. It was darker now.

  Anne ran out of the room and back into the foyer.

  Fiona heard a door close upstairs.

  “Anne?”

  She walked upstairs and down the hall. No Anne, and it was dark. Fiona ran back down the stairs, heading for the double front doors. The carvings on them of the mermaids and mermen seemed to be glaring at her, their eyes fixed on Fiona. She let out a little yelp and tried twisting the doorknobs. The doors were locked.

  Afraid to go back into the living room, she had no other choice but to go back up. Fiona ran up the sweeping staircase, no longer shy. She took her two little fists and pounded on the first door she saw.

  It seemed like a lifetime, but the door opened, and Fiona couldn’t quite believe her eyes. It was Lucy. It had to be! All the kids would be amazed that she’d even met the elusive legend Lucy Amore! And though she was terrified, there was a part of her yelling “Bonus!” deep inside.

  Lucy was as stunning as the stories, but her eyes were wild. She wore a silky white bathrobe and a fancy black shawl strewn across her shoulders. One armed was cocked out with a lit cigarette, and she smelled like alcohol. Fiona knew the smell too well. Her father owned a pub.

  “Well, well, well. What do we have here?” asked Lucy, blowing out a cloud of smoke as she spoke.

  “I … I lost Anne. I lost Anne and I can’t find her and I can’t get out!”

  Lucy, remembering that she had been a nurturer once upon a time, decided to practice the art of kindness again. She beckoned the girl toward her. Lucy stubbed her cigarette out in an ashtray. There were ashtrays everywhere.

  She leaned down to face Fiona and said, “I know. This house can be difficult. It won’t let me out either.”

  Lucy stood up and put her hand on Fiona’s shoulder. “Okay, Red, let’s look for her together. How about that?”

  “Yes, thank you,” whispered Fiona.

  Lucy put pressure on Fiona’s shoulder and guided her through the house.

  “Let’s see. She isn’t in here. And she wouldn’t be in my room.” The room made Fiona afraid. The door was ajar, and everything looked somehow rotted. The vines on the wallpaper seemed to shift and writhe. No, don’t be silly, Fiona, they can’t be.

  Lucy took the girl downstairs.

  “Nope, not here either…” Now they were back across the dining room in the kitchen. “Hold on,” said Lucy, holding up a finger to her lips in an amused hush. “Let’s go back upstairs. We need to check the bathroom. Sometimes she hides in the tub and waits for me. She just stands there for hours. She wants to kill me. The house. Nan. Anne. They are trying to kill me. Shhhhhh … Don’t tell her I know.”

  “Nope,” she said, pushing past Fiona. “I need a drink.”

  “Miss Lucy?” asked Fiona.

  “Ahhh … she knows my name. Do they all know my name? Still … I suppose it is a good thing.… Still fancy after all these years.…”

  “Miss Lucy,” Fiona persisted.

  “Yes?”

  “I need to find Anne … or to leave. Can you show me?”

  “Oh, right. Look, Red, see that door? That door leads to the attic. Try there. I don’t go up there. No one goes up there. But be my guest, sweetheart.”

  Fiona went into the attic. She didn’t want to, but she had nowhere else to go. It was huge, running the length of the house. It was set up like a bedroom with colorful quilts and pillows everywhere. It seemed a comfortable place, and yet, there was a dryness to the air that hurt her throat.

  Something moved in the corner under the eave. She heard a muffled laugh.

  “Anne? Come on, Anne, this isn’t funny.”

  The tightness in her throat increased. She started coughing. She couldn’t breathe. Choking, Fiona ran from the attic and back to the hall. Lucy leaned against her bedroom door swirling a glass of whiskey.

  “Do you want a sip? It is imported. From France,” she said, taking a drink. She didn’t seem to notice Fiona’s hands clawing at her little, pale throat … or the silent ackkk coming from her open mouth.

  Fiona fell to the floor. She th
ought she was dying. And then it stopped. The strangling feeling was gone as fast as it came.

  She got up from the floor, shaky.

  “Please?” she pleaded. “Please let me go home.…”

  Lucy stared at her. The emptiness Fiona saw in her eyes was something she never wanted to see again.

  “I know where she is,” Lucy said, flatly. “Follow me.”

  Lucy, very drunk now, staggered and swayed down the hallway, then stopped. She pointed at a closet door in front of them.

  “You open it. I won’t.”

  Fiona opened the door.

  She began her screaming on the up arc. It was immediate and relentless. She turned in a circle, unsure of which way to go. She ran and slid down the front hall stairs to the front doors. She yanked on them with all her strength, and they opened with an unexpected and oily ease that threw her whole body backward. She scrambled back up and ran out the door, still screaming, all the way under the poplar canopy to the main road.

  Lucy stood looking at her daughter. Anne was in her special place. A linen closet turned into a clubhouse of sorts. The shelves were removed, and the walls were a collage of all things dead. Magazine pictures of awfulness clipped from National Geographic and vile photos ripped from newspapers overlapping with prayer cards and religious pictures. The pope peeked out from under a lion eating the inside of a zebra. Hanging from the slanted ceiling were dolls’ heads whose lips were smeared with lipstick, creating jagged grins across porcelain faces.

  Anne was hanging, too. Swaying back and forth.

  “Really, Anne, come on now. That is no way to make a friend.”

  * * *

  Anne opened her eyes. She unhung herself and felt warm inside. Her mother had said something motherly. Then she got mad at herself. Why did she care?

  Anne retreated to the attic. The ghosts were not there. They were supposed to be there when she needed them. This has to stop, she told herself. She would have to write some rules. If the ghosts were all she had, the ghosts must listen to her. That was that. She went to an old book of nursery rhymes Gwyneth used to read to her and tore out a blank page. She found a pen and called her ghosts. They didn’t come. She called again, and still she was alone. She waited, and eventually they floated up the stairs.