by Maya Gold
Here again, I hit a dead end. Did I miss someone? I go back, retracing my steps. It’s not just about doing well on this project for school, though I definitely want to override that B minus. It’s also that I’m feeling more connected to Mom. I keep hearing her voice in my ear as I search for her ancestors.
But my eyes are getting tired and all the names are blurring together. The next thing I know I’m slumped over my laptop, and Dad’s shaking my shoulder and telling me that it’s past midnight and I need to get to bed now. I mumble something to him about a genealogy assignment before I stumble into bed.
Staying up late has a fringe benefit: I’m too tired to have any more of my strange nightmares. Still, I’m pretty bleary when I get down to breakfast the next day.
Mom always used to make us French toast and elaborate omelettes on weekends. I’ve tried to keep up that tradition — she taught me how to cook and I totally love it — but today my stomach’s too nervous for anything more than Greek yogurt. Watching Matt and Kevin inhale chocolate milk with the donuts Dad bought them makes me want to hurl. I’m relieved when they leave the table and charge upstairs, looking for Matt’s soccer kneepads.
This is my moment. I get up and refill Dad’s coffee cup, adding sugar and half-and-half so it’s just the right color.
“Thanks, Abby,” he says, running a hand through his bristly dark hair and glancing up at me. My father’s a good-looking guy — tan and rugged. I couldn’t look any less like him. If you didn’t know my blue-eyed mother when she was alive, and just saw him with me and my brother, you’d probably assume that I must be adopted.
I’ve got Dad’s attention, a rare thing on a Saturday morning. I blurt out my question before he disappears into soccer-coach mode and forgets that I’m here. “So, remember that project I was working on late last night? I’ve got your family traced all the way back to Cristobal Silva, who shipped out of Lisbon in 1907. But I hit a brick wall on Mom’s side.”
Dad looks impatient, and I get the feeling there’s something else he wants to talk to me about. Or maybe it’s just that his mind’s more on soccer than homework.
“Your mother’s family came over from England, a couple boats after the Mayflower,” Dad says. “Your teacher can’t seriously expect you to go back four hundred years.”
“Well, the thing is, I did. I found the first two generations, but then there’s a gap of about ninety years. Did Mom ever say anything about her ancestors?”
“Ann wouldn’t have cared. She thought all that New England blue-blood stuff was nonsense. Good thing, or she’d never have married the son of a Portuguese fisherman.” Dad chugs his coffee, checking the time on his sports watch.
I know he’s right. Mom was a botanist, and didn’t hold stock with purebred anything, not even dogs. “Mutts make the best pets,” she used to say. “Hybrid vigor.” But that doesn’t explain why her line disappeared altogether for almost a century.
“Ready!” says Matt, skidding into the kitchen in his green-and-gold uniform with Kevin right behind him.
Great. There go my two minutes of focus. “Dad, it’s for school. She never said anything?”
Dad stands up, grabbing his coach jacket off a hook. “Nope. But one of her great-uncles took me aside at our wedding and said, ‘Joe, your bride may be lovely, but she’s got witch blood. They were hanging her people at Salem.’”
The hair on the back of my neck stands up. “Really?” I say at the same time as Matt says, “No way!”
“That great-uncle was a loon,” says Dad. “The witch part was probably a joke, but I do think a few of her ancestors settled in Salem.” He picks up a net bag of practice balls, grabs his car keys off the hook, and then he, Matt, and Kevin are gone. Not even a word of good luck, hope you pass your driver’s test. Mom would have wished me well.
Scratch that. Mom would have taken me.
I throw the breakfast dishes into the sink. Then I take my laptop out onto the screen porch and boot it up, googling SALEM. The first thing that pops up is WITCH TRIALS, with thousands of weblinks. I click on the first one and take a deep breath as I read about the witch-hunt hysteria that gripped the Puritan village in 1692:
One of the darkest times in American history began with a false accusation by schoolgirls. Between 1692 and 1693, the village of Salem tried dozens of people on charges of practicing witchcraft. Twenty men and women were put to death; still more died in prison awaiting trial.
There’s a strange pounding inside my head and I can’t shake the creepy sensation that I already know what I’m reading about. But how could that be?
Salem’s not far away from where I’ve always lived, but I haven’t been there since I was a toddler. It’s not on a direct route to anywhere else — you have to drive out of your way to go into the village. Mom thought the whole place was a tourist trap, especially around Halloween. So even though some of my classmates’ families went there every fall, we steered clear of the whole Salem witch thing. Now I wonder why.
The names in my research swim past my eyes: Sarah Good, the mad beggar imprisoned with her four-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Dorcas … Tituba, the Caribbean slave who taught young girls how to tell fortunes by cracking eggs, and was accused of witchcraft when three of the girls in her charge started showing strange symptoms …
When I read about the afflicted girls’ fits, writhing and twitching and clutching their hair, my heart starts to flutter.
It’s just like my nightmare.
I don’t even hear Rachel pull into the driveway. “Abby?” she calls, letting herself in the front door.
Oh, right. My driver’s test. “Coming!” I yell. But as I reach over to turn off my laptop, a name on-screen catches my eye.
It’s my mother’s.
“YOU’RE KIDDING,” SAYS RACHEL AS WE drive away from my house. “Do you mean just her first name? Because there are plenty of Anns in New England.”
I shake my head, still in shock. “It was her middle name,” I say. “Solart. Which is much rarer. Mom told me that ‘Solart’ came from an old family surname. And, according to the website, Solart was the maiden name of one of the women they hanged, Sarah Good. So I really might be descended from witches.” A shiver comes over my skin as I say it out loud.
“Accused witches,” Rachel corrects me. “The charges were trumped up. The people they hanged were all innocent. Haven’t you read The Crucible?”
I shake my head.
“Well, you should. It’s a great play. It’s all about accusation and rumor.” She starts telling me how Arthur Miller wrote it as a parable about the anti-Communist “witch hunts” in the 1950s, but I’m not really paying attention. I can’t shake the idea that this really happened, that one of my distant relations was hanged as a witch in a town not so far from here. I get an idea.
“Hey, why don’t we go to Salem after my test, for my victory lap?”
“Are you kidding?” says Rachel. “We’re going to Boston, remember? We’re getting dim sum in Chinatown!”
“I want to find out more about this,” I insist. “You’re my tutor; you’re supposed to be happy when I get studious. Besides, it’s my victory lap. Shouldn’t I get to choose where we go?”
Rachel sighs. She knows me well enough to recognize my stubborn streak coming out. “You know what? Here’s a deal. If you pass your driving test, you get to choose. If not, you’re buying my spring rolls.”
“You’re on.” This is such a safe bet, because I am so going to ace it.
“Most people have to retake their test at least once,” Rachel says in smug tones. “I’m just saying.”
Most people aren’t me. I am getting my license today, no matter what. My whole summer depends on me having a car. As soon as I’ve got my license, I can start looking for jobs — there’s nothing within walking distance that pays. I can’t even babysit without asking someone to drop me off and pick me up.
Must. Pass. This. Test.
The test site is in Gloucester, some twelve
miles away. On the way there, Rachel gives me the lowdown. “There are two inspectors, an older man with a buzz cut and a Mexican woman with long black hair who spoke Spanish with me. You better hope you get her. The old guy is an ex-Marine, and he gave me points off for everything. I had him for both of my first two tries. The third time was the charm.”
We’re approaching the bridge near the Gloucester fisherman statue. As always, I close my eyes, holding my breath until we get across.
I don’t know why I hate bridges so much, but I always have. It’s that feeling of being suspended, with nothing but a thin strip of metal beneath you, then layers of air and deep water. Maybe it’s because I never learned how to swim. Which is the drag of the century when you live in a harbor town with three creeks and a river, three miles from the Atlantic Ocean. For sixteen years I’ve been that girl stuck at the pool party praying that no one will notice she never goes into the deep end.
It isn’t that I’m scared of water — I’m scared of drowning. I love taking showers. I even love rain. It’s being surrounded by water that I hate. When I was little, my summer camp counselors spent hours trying to convince me that everyone floats. Not true. I’m the one who doesn’t.
“What if they make me drive over the bridge?” I ask Rachel, who knows all about my phobia.
“They won’t. It’s a marked course in a big parking lot,” Rachel reassures me. “Forget about bridges. Focus on parallel parking. That’s where he got me, both times.”
I take out my wallet and look at my permit, with its photo of me looking pale as a fish belly, a 45 SPF case in the land of summer tans. HAIR: BLONDE. EYES: BLUE. Which is what I put down because “it depends what I’m wearing, time of day, and the weather” isn’t an option on Massachusetts state forms. My eyes change like the sky, from clear blue to blue-gray to charcoal. The one thing that’s always the same is the faint rim of gold right next to the pupil. Matt once told me my eyes look like playground marbles. Nothing like having a nine-year-old brother.
We’ve arrived at the RMV test site, and all thoughts of bridges, witches, and my strange eyes leave my mind. Rachel parks behind the white line at the side of the road, and as we wait for the test car to finish its rounds, I twist my frizzy ponytail into a bun. That should help me look neater. I’m not taking chances.
I can’t see through the glare on the windshield, but as soon as the driver — a girl about my age — opens her door, I can tell that she just got bad news. Sure enough, the passenger door’s opened by a man with white hair and a clipboard.
Just my luck. I got Sergeant Harsh.
“Mmm, dim sum,” Rachel says with a grin. “Looks like we’re going to Chinatown.”
“Don’t count your chickens yet,” I tell her, slamming the door shut, and I hear her shout, “Good luck!” through the window.
I bring my permit and form to the white-haired inspector, who crushes my hand in an ultra-firm handshake. I crush his right back, looking him right in his steely blue eyes. I am passing this test today, dude. You’re not going to stop me.
I get into the driver’s seat of the test car, adjusting the mirrors and fastening my seat belt. Locked and loaded.
“Pull out,” says the man, and I do.
“Turning signal,” he says, marking his checklist with grim satisfaction. I wince, mentally subtracting the points for forgetting to signal. I can still pass, but I can’t afford to make even one other mistake.
I redouble my concentration. He takes me through all the maneuvers — left and right turns, stop signs, passing on dotted lines, three-point turn. So far, so good.
Now it’s time to do parallel parking.
There’s practically no place to parallel park in our little town, but I’ve practiced and practiced, lining up Rachel’s Volvo and Dad’s well-scrubbed Honda in front of our house. This is different, though. Instead of two cars and a curb, there are lines of orange and red safety cones. If I knock one of them down, I’m a goner.
Just take it slow, I tell myself. I pull up alongside the first set of tall orange cones and back up till my front wheel’s in position, pause. I crank the wheel, angling in. Then I hesitate. How far away is that row of red curb cones? I don’t want to hit them. I lift my foot off the brake, backing up slowly, carefully…. Got it! I’m in!
The inspector looks out the window. “Too far away,” he says with the same satisfied gloat in his voice. He must just adore flunking teenagers.
“Are you sure?” I beg him, though I can see my front wheel’s at a bit of an angle. I notice that the second instructor, the one Rachel mentioned, is standing nearby with a clipboard, watching us. She’s a full-figured woman with olive skin and she does look a lot friendlier than Sergeant Harsh.
“You want me to get out and measure?” he asks.
“Yes,” I say. “Yes, please.” Frowning, he opens the door and gets out, unspooling a measuring tape. Every ounce of my being is concentrated on passing this test. Be close enough, I think. Don’t make me lose this.
I see him bend down with the measuring tape, and the air seems to shimmer. I think I’m about to get one of my headaches, and I have the weirdest sensation that the red cone is moving. Not much. Just enough.
When I look up, the other instructor is staring at me through the windshield, as if she saw it happen, too. The look in her eyes gives me chills. I’m still holding my breath as my instructor straightens up, hiking up his pants by the center belt loop. He lopes back to the door and looks in at me.
“Twelve inches,” he says in gruff tones. “On the dot.”
My whole body floods with adrenaline. Two thoughts barrel into my brain: We’re going to Salem! And right underneath it: Did I make that cone move?
I’m so pumped that I don’t even notice we’re crossing the bridge out of Gloucester. By the time I do realize we’re over water, we’ve practically crossed it. I take in a big gulp of air, but I don’t shut my eyes.
“You see?” Rachel’s voice is triumphant. “It’s all in your head. When you’re happy enough, you forget to be scared. Am I right?”
“You’re right,” I admit with a grin.
“Glad to hear it. Because there’s a really long bridge between us and Salem. It goes all the way across Beverly Bay.”
Just the thought of it makes my heart pound, but you know what? My heart’s pounding anyway. I can’t shake the sensation that the cone must have moved, and that — somehow — I made it happen.
Does this mean I’m losing my mind?
It’s one of those perfect spring days when the sky is as blue as a postcard, and everything seems to be blooming at once. I crank down my window and breathe in the heady perfume of white lilacs and freedom. I decide to forget about the traffic cone. I just got my license!
We head past salt marshes and farmland, and then into Beverly, a funky old mill town that seems to be full of art students with giant portfolios and hipster glasses. Then we crest a hill, and spread out before us is Beverly Harbor. I see sailboats riding at anchor, a couple of rainbow-striped windsurfers, a fishing trawler chugging out to sea.
And a humongous arched bridge.
Rachel doesn’t ask me if I’m up for it, which is a really good thing, since I’d probably bail out. But once you’re strapped into your seat on the roller coaster, there’s nothing to do but hold on for the ride.
I close my eyes. And something inside my head tells me to open them.
Great. Now I’m on a bridge, hearing voices. It doesn’t get much more psycho than that.
The bay bridge has a long arching span, so we can’t see the downward curve at all. It’s as if we’re just rising up into thin air. I hold my breath, keeping my eyes locked ahead. That’s not water down there, I tell myself, not too convincingly. We’re just driving up a long hill. A very long hill. I’m in agony, fighting a panic attack.
Rachel glances at me, but says nothing. She cranks up the music, an oldies station that both of us love. Santana’s 1970s classic “Black Magic Woman” is play
ing, and I can’t help wondering if it’s in heavy rotation in Salem.
“Got your spell on me, baby,” Carlos Santana croons, and suddenly we’re at the peak of the bridge, looking down into Salem.
The breath I’ve been holding explodes from my lungs like a violent sneeze. Images fly through my brain like a supercharged slide-show, much too fast to see any of them in detail. Is this my life passing before my eyes, the way people say it does when you’re about to die? But the flickers I manage to catch don’t seem like they’re from my life at all. The clothing is dark and old-fashioned, like something I’ve seen in a movie. Or one of my nightmares. And why do I have a strong sense of déjà vu?
Something is thumping. It might be the drums in the song or it might be my heart, I can’t tell. Am I scared, or is it something else? All I know is that even the colors look brighter. I feel tingly all over, and wider awake than I’ve ever been in my life.
I don’t even try to tell Rachel what just happened to me. I mean, what would I say? “We got to the top of the bridge, and suddenly everything turned Technicolor, like I just arrived in the land of Oz”?
Salem does have a sort of Munchkinland quality, I see as we drive into the town. The houses are mostly brick and clapboard, in the scaled-down proportions of earlier centuries, with painted wooden shutters and window boxes overflowing with flowers. Half-circle windows perch above miniature doors, and brick sidewalks buckle around marble stoops. We drive past the village green, with its Greek-temple-styled band shell, losing our way in a thicket of one-way streets before we spot a sign for the harbor and the historic district.
“Look!” Rachel points. “That’s the House of the Seven Gables! Like the book.”
I remember reading the Gothic, spooky Nathaniel Hawthorne novel of the same name in my freshman English class. The house looks haunted indeed — it’s the color of charcoal briquettes, with different sections attached at odd angles below the triangular gables. Just beyond it is the Derby Wharf, a long pier with a single tall ship and a lone customs house looking way out of place on a broad swath of lawn. It all seems bizarrely familiar, and not just from my research or postcards I’ve seen — I can picture horses clopping down these same bumpy cobblestone streets with a jangle of reins and the slow creak of wagon wheels. I can almost smell sawdust and hay.
