by J. D. Barker
Glancing at the floor, he realized the water had receded even further. Little remained, pooled under her feet. Without hesitation, he kicked at the counter and pushed back with all his strength. Together they tumbled backward. Del’s head came down hard against the side of the bathtub and consciousness slipped away, but not before he realized he was alone again—her hold on this world vanished when she lost touch with the rainwater.
Del felt warm for a brief moment before the world went black. He felt the warmth of his own blood as it spilled around his head from the deep slashes in his neck.
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
1692 – The Journal of Clayton Stone
“WERE YOU PRIVY TO the testimony of George Jacobs yesterday?” Tauber asked of her.
She shook her head. “I was not, but it has been told to me.”
Tauber glanced down at his notes. “Then you are aware he has accused you of soliciting his signature for your book? He is one of nearly a dozen now—what should we make of this?”
“I have no book but the Lord’s book,” she insisted.
I knew the truth now, but said nothing. There was more to learn before I could consider sharing such things.
“The Lord seems to feel differently. Why else would he send so many witnesses?”
“They are all liars!” she shouted. “And God will stop the mouths of liars!”
“You will not speak in this manner in this court,” the magistrate scolded.
“I will speak the truth as long as I live!” she retorted.
The crowd grew restless, and Mary Walcott stood. “This is the very woman I saw afflict Timothy Swan!” she declared. “And she afflicted me several times. She came at us with a long barbed spear dripping in the blood of her victims—the very one she probably used on Mercy Short!” She then fell to the floor and seized—pumping, contorting, and twisting in pain.
John Henry and Timothy Swan lifted her from the floor and began to carry her toward the door, their eyes fixed on the girl at the stand.
“Is it true, Timothy?” the magistrate asked of him.
Swan hesitated for a moment, then nodded before continuing out the door.
“Liars! All of you!” she cried.
Tauber turned back to her. “Are you responsible for that which just befell that woman?”
“I am responsible for no such thing!”
Tauber paced, returning to the afflicted. “I know it’s difficult for you to speak out, knowing she is capable of punishing you in such a way, but it must be done if we are to expose her for what she is—an unbaptized child of the Devil. She is a danger to all of us.”
She glared at him from the stand but said nothing.
“She needs to burn,” a stranger’s voice sounded from across the room.
I hadn’t seen this man enter the church, nor was he familiar to me. Although the sun burned high in the afternoon sky, I could not clearly see his face beneath the shadow of his brimmed hat. His long coat reached nearly to the floor. Such attire was not common to Massachusetts; it was typically found in New York or such faraway places as London. If he had an accent, I could not make it out.
“She must die or all your lives are in danger,” he stepped into the room with a pronounced limp of the right leg and a pained effort which could be heard in his voice.
Worried voices flooded the church and the magistrate slammed his gavel repeatedly until the crowd fell silent. He then turned to the stranger. “Who are you and what business do you have here?”
The man did not immediately respond. His eyes were locked with hers; it was clear she knew of him as he did her. When he spoke to the Magistrate he did not look away; instead, his intense gaze held her still. “Did you really think you could hide in such a place?”
“Keep him away from me,” she growled, her hands clenching into fists. “He knows not of what he speaks. It is he who brings danger, danger and death by his very hands!”
The strange man stepped closer, fixating on her with dark eyes, reaching toward her with a gloved hand.
She shrank back in her seat. “Keep him away from me!”
When the floor began to shake and the walls trembled it felt as if a sudden storm had found us, yet the sun was still bright and no rain fell from the sky. My papers left the desk and fluttered through the air, riding a wind that could not possibly exist within the confines of the nave, yet it surrounded us all, howling angrily as it grew in strength.
The afflicted cried out and tried to reach the door but it slammed shut before them, sealing us all inside.
—Thad McAlister,
Rise of the Witch
CHAPTER SIXTY
Day 3 – 05:00 a.m.
THAD WAS LOSING HIS mind.
There was no other explanation for the things he had seen and experienced; nothing else could explain her. She was nothing more than a character in a simple story, one born of his own thoughts and imagination, no more, no less. He wanted so desperately to believe that, yet even as he spoke the words aloud, he found the fraud in them, the manufactured comfort they provided, no more real than the tooth fairy or the Easter Bunny.
He didn’t know how long he had been out in the rain, but the headlights of a large truck entering the parking lot woke him from his reverie. He was kneeling on the asphalt, surrounded by the gathering rainwater, his clothing soaked straight through. He still felt her in his arms; smelled her sweet scent on the air. Thad didn’t want to leave that spot, fearful she might return and he’d miss a final opportunity to end her. Then the cold brought him back, and the fear of being seen by someone overcame all others.
He scooped up the knife and walked back to his room, sat once again at the table, and emptied four of the small bottles of scotch he had found in the room’s minibar. When finally numb to his surroundings, he found true sleep. A sleep free of dreams.
Thad woke before dawn to the sound of thunder cracking with vengeance outside, striking so close the ground shook beneath him. Originally he had hoped he could wait until the storm broke before moving on, but he realized that simply wasn’t going to happen. The rain was as much part of the story as the witch. Thad knew as he neared Shadow Cove, her final resting place, the rain would accompany him as it had on the night they had placed her there, nearly four hundred years earlier.
Reaching into his bag, he grabbed a bottle of aspirin and took two. He then tried calling home, hanging up as soon as he heard the busy signal he had halfheartedly expected. When the phone rang in his hand, he nearly dropped it. He cursed himself and pressed the ANSWER button, muttering a brief hello.
“You’re running out of time, Thad. She’s growing restless, and I have to admit, I am too.”
Thad brushed a hand through his thick hair. “Was that you out in the rain?”
Christina fell silent, only her breath on the line exposing her presence. “Does it matter?”
“I need to know I’m not going crazy.”
He fumbled with the bottle of Risperidone, his fingers popping the cap, then replacing it. Pop and replace, the pills rattling inside.
“I’m flattered that you’re having trouble telling us apart, I really am.”
“You look so much like Her, but it’s not possible.”
“Don’t you think we’re past the point of denial, Thad?”
“I can’t tell what’s real and what’s not anymore,” Thad breathed. “How do I even know you’re on the phone? What if I’m imagining this call? What if you’re making me imagine this call?”
She giggled. “Like our little adventure on the plane?”
He looked down at the knife. “I could end this right now—take my life.”
“Then what becomes of your family?”
“If you’re not real, then you don’t have my family. It’s all in my head,” he told her. “It ends with me.”
“I assure you, we have them,” she replied.
“Prove it. Let me speak to my wife.”
Silence, save for the sound of her breathin
g.
“Christina?”
She cleared her throat. “The clock is ticking, Thad. You have your map; you shouldn’t waste any more time on such thoughts.”
“In the book, they put her away for a reason. She’s dangerous. She hurt a lot of people,” Thad insisted.
“You need to focus, Thad, for your family’s sake. They’re running out of time. Their blood will be on your hands if you fail us, if you fail Her.”
“When I saw her story, as I put her story to paper, I saw only death behind her and a fierce hatred in her eyes. She has no love in her heart, no compassion, only this deep, dark hatred. If you see anything else, it’s only because she’s blinding you—using you to get what she wants.”
Christina disconnected.
Thad dropped the phone into his pocket.
Outside, thunder crackled wildly. The storm filled with excitement as he gathered up his things and pushed out through the door to his awaiting rental car, the map crumpled in his hand.
Only a few more hours now.
The car roared to life and he disappeared down the dark back roads of Massachusetts, his mind swimming with thoughts of Her.
Christina dropped her cell phone on the passenger seat of her black Lexus. In her other hand, she still grasped the lock of Thad McAlister’s hair. She closed her eyes and reached out to him.
“Coreveo, Balta di mothresta,” she breathed.
Her mind transporting—the sensation of floating, flying, racing through blackness. Then her eyes were one with his, seeing what he saw.
Thad back in the rental car. Shadow Cove and Her playing at his thoughts.
He was so fragile, this man. His mind, once complex and sure, broken in only a few short days.
She had no regrets; this had to be done.
For Her.
All for Her.
Thad McAlister and his family were nothing more than pawns. Necessary pieces to complete a puzzle.
As a little girl, when she had first heard the stories of Her, she had been fascinated. Her mother, her grandmother, and their mothers before her, they all knew the tales; they passed them down from generation to generation for hundreds of years. Stories of this witch of centuries old, one so powerful dozens had died in Salem to protect her secret, many others in the world beyond. They offered their lives as false witches simply to protect Her, the one true witch. Their willing sacrifice necessary to guard Her through the ages, to keep Her safe until her time of rebirth, until now.
Magic has long since been forgotten. Now nothing more than fodder for film and literature. Witchcraft, thought of as nothing but a minor religion. Spells lost to the ages. Her return would usher in a new era, one in which She would rule. As a direct descendant, Christina would be at her side.
Her eyes popped open and she dropped the hair into the cupholder. She would check on Thad again shortly.
A woman walked past with a toy poodle on a leash, plastic bag in her hand.
Cars raced up and down the road.
A fat jogger leaned against a light post, catching his breath.
They were all oblivious.
They knew nothing.
This world was over; a new one would come with the next dawn.
Lowering her window, she stared up at the large brownstone across the street, her mind reaching out to this man, this Del Thomas. The first to read Her story. The first to cast Her spell. He would awaken soon from his slumber, awaken only to serve Her.
Christina would be there to welcome him. The first to join their order in over a century. He had gotten a copy of the book from Thad. She couldn’t help but wonder what would happen when her story was published, when millions read of her and cast the spell for themselves.
Their small family was growing.
It was growing indeed.
Soon she would welcome many new brothers and sisters on this first dawn of dawns.
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
Day 3 – 05:05 a.m.
RACHAEL DIDN’T REMEMBER FALLING asleep, but somehow she had. When her eyes fluttered open, gray light from the lamp on the street corner crept in through the bedroom window. Her daughter was asleep at her side and Buster was lying on the floor beside them, his eyes half-closed as he fought slumber. She found Ms. Perez sitting in the chair at her dressing table, her gaze locked on the window and her fingers wrapped around the golf club she had used earlier. She offered a soft nod and wiped the sleep from her eyes.
“They’re right outside, Ms. Rachael. In the hallway and also outside the window. I saw one cross the ledge not even an hour ago,” Ms. Perez told her in a hushed tone.
She had hoped this was a dream, just another nightmare bounding forth from one of her husband’s tales, but her housekeeper’s words erased such thoughts.
“What do you think they want?”
Ms. Perez fell silent, choosing her words with care. “Your daughter, she spoke of the woman with the long fingernails. This woman—”
She held up Rachael’s cell phone. The image of Thad’s sketch filled the tiny screen.
“Since I saw this drawing last week, she has come to me in my dreams. Terrible dreams filled with death and pain. She is a frightful woman, evil. I’ve never believed in such things, but now I feel we must. I do not know what she wants and I do not know what they want but if they wished us dead, I think they would have already killed us.”
“Give me the phone. I’ll call for help.”
Perez tossed it to her. “It does not work. No calls out. No calls in. I tried. Somehow, they block it.”
“Thad’s latest book, I think it’s about witchcraft. Old witches and spells.”
“Bruja,” Perez confirmed. “Evil bruja.”
Rachael rose from the bed, careful not to wake Ashley, and went to the window.
Ms. Perez had told her about the dirt last night, but she couldn’t see it clearly until now.
Not only did dirt cake the window sills, but the edges of the window jam were packed tight, too. She didn’t bother attempting to open the window; she knew it wouldn’t budge. She also didn’t need to inspect them to know every other window in the house suffered from the same fate.
As lightning struck, Rachael caught a glimpse of her yard.
At first she wasn’t sure what she had seen, but when lighting once again filled the sky, her first thoughts were confirmed. “Ms. Perez, come here. Look at this.”
The woman glanced warily at the bedroom door, at first unwilling to give up her post, then she crossed the room with the golf club in tow. She leaned into the window, pressing her forehead on the glass. “How could such a thing be?”
Rachael shook her head. “They look like tiny rose bushes.”
“Bougainvillea,” Ms. Perez corrected her. “They are bougainvillea, many of them.”
“They cover the entire lawn,” Rachael agreed.
“We had many in Mexico, but they are tropical plants. They don’t belong here.”
But they were here, Rachael thought. And they were flourishing. As her eyes fought to pierce the predawn veil of darkness, she realized they covered every inch of their lawn, replacing the grass with what appeared to be a solid thorny mass covered in the most beautiful red and purple blooms. How had they grown so fast? She didn’t know the answer to that question any more than the others. They were simply there now, something else she accepted.
“There is no walking through them,” Ms. Perez explained. “Their thorns are like tiny little daggers. I’ve never seen them grow so thick, so quickly. They must have done it, those tiny little devils.”
“Minions,” Rachael corrected her.
“Minions,” Ms. Perez agreed, nodding her head.
Rachael saw dozens of them running beneath the bushes. Were they carrying something? Rachael couldn’t be sure from this distance. “We need to get to the car,” she said.
Once again, Ms. Perez nodded, her grip tightening on the club.
As if in response, Rachael heard a loud thud. The bang hadn’t co
me from outside but instead from above, something in the attic.
“Maybe one of the neighbors will see all this and help,” Rachael offered.
“The bruja has blocked the phone, killed so much in your yard, and now grows all this overnight. Her spells are strong. I fear the neighbors see nothing at all. They only see what she wants them to see,” said Perez. “No one comes to help us.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
Day 3 – 05:35 a.m.
RACHAEL GLANCED DOWN AT her daughter’s little hand in her own and took a deep breath. She held her husband’s gun in her other hand while Ms. Perez stood at her side with the club. Buster sniffed and pawed at the bottom of the door, whining between breaths.
“We’ll stay close together; nobody wanders away from the group, agreed?” Rachael said, waiting for everyone to nod in acceptance before reaching for the doorknob and turning it.
She opened the door only enough to peer into the dark hallway. When satisfied that none of the minions were guarding the door, she opened it enough to pass through. With the gun held high, she stepped out of the room and gestured for the others to follow. She felt their eyes all around her, but she couldn’t see them. She imagined them crouching low in the corners and beneath the furniture, lurking in the murky shadows just beyond sight. If she listened close enough, she thought she could even hear them breathing—tiny little breaths drawn out of necessity, drawn as quietly as possible, unwilling to give up their position. Ms. Perez spoke softly under her own revealing breath. Rachael recognized the Lord’s Prayer.
When Ashley screamed and pointed at the stairs, Rachael didn’t hesitate; she lowered the gun and fired off a round at the top step. She caught a glimpse of one of them ducking out of the way, a soft thud followed as the minion jumped to the first floor and scampered off. Rachael didn’t think she had hit the creature. Even when a loud, shrill cry pierced the silence, she knew it was out of frustration rather than pain. She wasn’t so sure these things even experienced pain.
Behind them, the bedroom door slammed shut, the lock engaged, and dirt poured out from beneath, sealing the space between the door and floor. There was no turning back now.
