Witch Woman

by Jeanette Baker

  A light exploded inside Maggie's brain. Of course. The words weren't intended for her. They were for Abigail and they were spoken by her husband after she'd confessed that she had unusual powers. John March had spoken the words to his wife. John March with his pragmatism, his love for his children, his support of tradition and his steady blue eyes. John March who had waited until it was too late to rescue his wife and daughters. John March, her father. Deep in thought, she began walking toward Canal Street and Susannah's house of air and light.

  * * *

  Susannah welcomed her warmly, ushering her into the room with long windows facing the water. Lilly Hillyard and Laurie Cabot sat on the couch sipping tea, identical gray cats curled in their laps.

  "Hello, dear," said Lilly patting the space beside her. "Sit down. It's good to see you, no matter what the circumstances."

  Maggie's heart ached for her. Lilly looked terrible. She'd obviously been crying. "I'm interrupting. I'm so sorry. I'll come back later."

  "Don't be ridiculous," her mother said. "Sit down, drink some tea and be comfortable. Maybe you can shed some light on the subject of police investigations for Lilly. She's not feeling overly confident that enough is being done for Holly."

  Maggie sat down and smiled tentatively. "I didn't know the three of you knew each other."

  "Lilly and I have known each other for a very long time," her mother said softly. "Laurie only recently entered the picture but she's very dear to us."

  "How long?" Maggie asked carefully.

  Lilly looked at her, the gray eyes warm with understanding. "Years," she said softly. "I met you mother when she was younger than you are now."

  "Who are you?" whispered Maggie.

  "I'm Lilly," she replied. "But I suspect that I remind you of Rebecca Nurse. I'm very like the sketches in our family library."

  Maggie's hands shook. Rebecca Nurse. "They hanged her."

  "Yes they did. It was a shameful act. Rebecca Nurse is my ancestor."

  "Does Scott know he's descended from a woman accused of witchcraft?"

  "Of course. Everyone born in Salem has an ancestor accused of witchcraft. Few of us are the genuine article."

  Laurie interrupted. "Speak for yourself. I, for one, am the genuine article. What I want to know is, will this young lady use the powers she was born with to save Holly?"

  Maggie frowned. "I don't seem to be working at full capacity. Am I the only one charged with rescuing Holly? What about you?"

  "We aren't all blessed with the same gifts, Maggie." Susannah had stopped folding towels and began emptying the dishwasher. I have the gift of natural healing. Laurie knows when people aren't telling the truth. Lilly, poor thing, knows what they are thinking. You, my love, have been given the burden of understanding the criminal mind. I would have chosen otherwise for you, but none of us has a choice in the matter."

  Maggie rubbed her temple. "How is it possible? How are we all here together at the same time? And what about the animals? Once, I could communicate with animals. Why can't I now?"

  "It's complicated," said Lilly. "Perhaps you haven't tried. You should have explained it to her, Susannah."

  Maggie hurried to defend her mother. "She talked about a portal in time and parallel continuums. She didn't tell me about you. Are there more of you?"

  "You had enough to digest," Susannah said, "and, yes, there are a few of us, maybe more. I haven't kept track. As for communicating with animals, Lilly's answer is as good as any I could give you. I simply don't know why that part of you is gone."

  "We only mix with those we trust," said Lilly. "It's easier that way."

  "What are you?"

  "We, Maggie," her mother said. "You must include yourself. They call us witches, but that's an absurd classification. Just as others have abilities in music and art, we have abilities too, older ones and far more rare, but still passed down from some distant ancestor. I think there must have been a time when many women, and men, too, had the kind of intuitive knowledge that we have. Somehow it disappeared, only to show up so rarely that those with suspicious minds label us evil."

  "That doesn't explain time portals and travel between centuries."

  "That was an accident," her mother said flatly. "It happened. There is no explaining it. Some things have no scientific application. We just have to accept them."

  "Do you believe Holly is alive?" interrupted Lilly.

  Maggie sighed. "Yes. She's alive. I'm sure of it. But I don't know where she is. I can see her, but that's all."

  Lilly's lip trembled. "Is she alone?"

  "I don't know that."

  "Is she afraid?"

  "Yes," Maggie said gently, "but she hasn't been hurt."

  Lilly dropped her face into her hands and sobbed. "My poor little girl. Who would do such a thing? Who? Why would she lie to her mother?"

  "It narrows the list of suspects to people she knows. If there's anything going in our favor, it's that we're fairly sure she knew her abductor."

  "You will help us, won't you, Maggie?"

  "I am trying, Lilly. I know it's slow going when every minute seems like eternity, but I'll do the best I can. It's just that Scott—" she stopped.

  Lilly sat up. "What about Scott? Has he said anything to you?"

  "He doesn't want me to interfere."

  "How can your interfering possibly make the situation any worse than it is? Don't listen to him. Penny wants your help and so do I."

  "What is it, Maggie?" asked Susannah. "Is there something else?"

  "I don't understand it," Maggie confessed. "I should be able to see more. I don't know why I'm so blocked when it comes to Holly. I thought that knowing who I am and where I came from would be the end of it, but apparently it's not. My mind is still taken up with Salem in the seventeenth century."

  Susannah and Lilly exchanged looks. Lilly stood. "Laurie and I should be going now," she said. "You, two, need some privacy."

  "I've been thinking," said Maggie, when they were alone again, "that there seem to be parallel personalities in the Salem of the past and here in the present."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Here and now you're Susannah Davies. Once, you were Abigail March. There's Lilly and Rebecca Nurse, and this morning I left Scott Hillyard thinking he reminded me of John March. Is he like my father?"

  Susannah answered slowly. "For centuries, Salem has been a small town. The same families have intermarried over and over. It wouldn't be unusual for similar characteristics to show up in subsequent generations."

  "You didn't answer my question."

  Susannah sighed. "I don't see it, Maggie. For me, no one is like John March. At first I didn't love him and then I did, quite desperately. I miss him terribly. I want to go back to him, to the life we had together."

  "You can't go back. Not after what they almost did to you."

  "I wouldn't go back to Salem. John and I lived in Barbados with Judith. We sailed on the Sealark with Nathanial Burke the very day I sent you here."

  "How can you know that everything won't have changed? You've lived here for years."

  "I know he waits for me." Her eyes shone with such conviction that Maggie's heart ached.

  "Judith will be grown. She'll have a family."

  "I hope so," her mother said. "I hope she forgives me. I left her when she was very young to find you. She's spent a lifetime without a mother."

  "So did I." Maggie couldn't keep the bleakness from her voice.

  "Oh, my darling." Susannah stroked the bright hair. "Don't you think I know that? If I could have saved you any other way, I would have."

  "You kept Judith. You didn't send her away."

  "I had strength enough for you," Susannah explained. "You were smaller and younger. Difficult as it was, the adjustment for a child your age was easier than it would have been for Judith. I had to choose the one more likely to survive." She was near tears. "I had no hope that Judith and I would live. If it hadn't been for Nathanial we wouldn't have. Please u
nderstand, Maggie. It was you I chose."

  Maggie fell into her mother's arms. "I don't want you to go back. I need you. I've missed out on you my entire life. Please don't go."

  Abigail March held on to her daughter for a long time. Then she gently disengaged herself. "I want to go home," she said simply. "I'm Abigail March. I don't want to be Susannah Davies. I'm not comfortable here. My purpose is finished. I found you. I offered you a place with your family. I respect your decision. You're grown up now. Please respect mine."

  Maggie's eyes memorized her mother's features, the lovely, sharp bones, the oval face, her hair and the eyes like her own. It was like looking at herself and she wondered how anyone could have missed the resemblance. "Your whistle," she whispered. "I remember your whistle."

  "I'm glad."

  "You never answered my question about similarities."

  "Pay attention to the Woodcocks, particularly Deborah."

  "Deborah Summers?"

  "Yes. There's something wrong there."

  Maggie nodded. "I felt it, too. She's very confident for a blind woman."

  The older woman's eyes welled. "I'll miss you so, Maggie, more than you can ever know."

  "Will you leave soon?"

  "Yes."

  Maggie sniffed. "I'll miss you, too."

  "I think the reason you're unable to see Holly is because you weren't firmly committed to staying here. It will be easier now that you are. Everything will be easier for you now."

  "Will I see you again?"

  "If I can, I'll say goodbye before I leave." She held Maggie's face between her hands. "You're so lovely and so good. I'm delighted with the way you've turned out. I'm proud of you."

  "I don't want to leave you just yet."

  "You don't have to. Stay for as long as you can. There are so many things I'd like to know about your life. But first, come with me." She stood. "It's lunch time and I make a mean hamburger."

  Maggie smiled and followed her into the kitchen.

  Chapter 29

  The following morning, Maggie woke before the alarm, nibbled on a piece of whole wheat toast, fed Muffin and pulled on her sweats. Daylight was breaking over the ocean as she turned down Canal Street and ran past the harbor and back toward the cemetery. As usual, except for construction crews and night shift workers, Salem was asleep. The East was nothing like California. Traffic hour in the West began at six, and bagel shops and coffee houses opened before first light. Here in town, it was cozy. People slept in, ate breakfast with their families and rarely faced the day before a civilized nine a.m.

  Routine, she decided, was important, as was making a living. She couldn't keep her store closed forever. Today, she would open the doors at ten. She didn't want to think about Scott Hillyard's practice and when, or if, he would work again. He'd suffered two tragic losses, three if his marriage was included. How anyone could recover from pain of such magnitude was inconceivable to her. She had only to think of sweet, funny, irreplaceable Holly—Maggie stopped, leaned against the gate to catch her breath and control the tears that came too often and too easily lately.

  Normally, at this hour, she had the Old Burying Point Cemetery to herself. She liked running among the stones of those whose lives were now history. It was comforting to think of Annie's ashes floating on the wind and of her husband, Thomas McBride, buried with his ancestors. Maggie had even more to explore now. The Marches were here, her own people, her grandparents, Jerusha and Benjamin, and their children. Her father wouldn't be here. John March had lived the majority of his years in Barbados and, presumably, had died there with her mother, Abigail. And yet, Abigail was here in Salem, living in a house on Canal Street. Maggie's mind swam with abstracts. The idea of separate continuums and time having no relevancy was alien to her. She didn't understand it. Maybe it was something one had to accept rather than understand, like religion.

  Pressing her hand against the small of her back, she stretched, closing her eyes, clearing her mind. When she was settled again, she shook out her hair and walked toward Thomas McBride's grave and the bench where her own story began.

  On the far side of the green lawn, behind a crypt steeped in shadows, something moved. Maggie stopped, motionless, her green tracksuit blending with the green pines and new growth leaves. There was something not quite right about the figure moving surreptitiously through the shadows toward the open gate. Maggie sensed danger. No, it was stronger than that. The woman, moving stealthily and effortlessly through the shadows without the slightest hesitation, her eyes wide and focused, was more than dangerous. She was evil. At first Maggie didn't know her. Her steps were too confident, too surely placed. Realization dawned slowly, but when it did, there was no doubt. It was Deborah Summers, the sculptress, blind Deborah Summers, who all at once was able to see.

  Everything fell into place, Abigail's warning, Deborah's family name, her interest in herbal sleep aids, her attentions toward Holly. Deborah had Holly. Maggie was sure of it. It hadn't come to her the way an abductor's identity normally did, through methodical study of a profiled criminal. This time the knowledge was intuitive, a blinding bolt of realization, a notion completely without evidence, but one that had come as surely and irrevocably as any derived from police scanners, bugs and hidden mikes. Would Mike Costello, who had nothing to lose, believe her if she went to him with her newly-found knowledge? Probably not. She needed something more, something that would convince him. If only she could figure out where Holly was being held.

  Back at home, she picked up the police detective's card and dialed the number. She would give him the benefit of the doubt and then she would move forward on her own. Despite the early hour, he answered on the first ring.

  "Costello."

  "This is Maggie McBride," she said, coming to the point immediately. "I saw Deborah Summers coming from the Old Burying Point this morning. She's definitely not blind."

  The silence on his end of the phone unnerved her. She culled her instinct to fill in the gaps and waited.

  "What were you doing in the cemetery?"

  "Running."

  "Do you do that often?"

  She lost her temper "Listen, Detective. This isn't about me. I called you as a courtesy and with the faintest of hopes that you might follow up. If not, I'll continue doing what I'm doing."

  "Are you saying that you're on board?"

  "I've always been on board," she snapped. "I just didn't have anything to go on."

  His sigh was long and forbearing. "Okay, Ms. McBride. I'll check it out."

  "Do me a favor."

  "Shoot."

  "Do a background check on Deborah Summers and get back to me. Don't leave anything out, even if you think it isn't valuable."

  "Will do. I'll call you when we have it."

  Maggie hung up, looked at the clock, decided to postpone the opening of her shop for yet another day, sat down at her desk in front of the computer and typed in Woodcock family, Salem, Massachusetts. Surprised at the number of links, she clicked on the first one, settled down and began to read.

  Four hours later, Abigail found her there. She'd knocked and rung the bell several times. Finally, she took the initiative and walked in uninvited, startling her daughter. "You didn't answer," she explained. "The door was open."

  "It's Deborah Summers," Maggie said, skipping the preliminaries. "I saw her this morning at the cemetery. She isn't blind. I know she has Holly."

  "Are you sure?"

  "Completely."

  "Have you told the authorities?"

  "They're running a background check. I've done some research on my own. Deborah claims to be a Woodcock descended from the original family, but I can't find anything on her that goes back more than twenty years. She's got to be at least forty-five. There are no school records, no work history and she doesn't show up in any of the Woodcock families. There's a marriage license and a recorded date for her marriage to Wayne Summers, but that's it. She had a child, a little girl, who was stillborn. She'd be about Holly
's age."

  Abigail's face paled. "It can't be," she whispered.

  "What are you thinking?"

  "Except for the stillborn child, the biography could be about me."

  Maggie laughed. "I'd expect you to be missing some pieces, but Deborah—" she stopped. "My God. Is it possible?"

  "If it's possible for us, it's possible for her."

  "Would she know who you are?"

  "Undoubtedly. If she can see, she knows who you are, too, Maggie. No one who's seen them before would ever mistake those eyes." She knelt down and took her daughter's hand. "It's terribly dangerous for you here. Please reconsider and come with me. I'm here to say goodbye. It's time. I can't wait any longer. The portal is closing. The moon is shrinking. Once it disappears, it's over for me. I must leave tonight. Please, come."

  Maggie shook her head. "I can't."

  Abigail sank back on her heels, defeated. It was over, her journey at an end. She smiled sadly. "If you change your mind, I'll be at the fire circle in the woods when the moon is directly above us. You'll know where it is." Holding Maggie's face in her hand, she kissed her on the lips. "Never doubt my love for you, Margaret. It will always be there." She touched the spinning wheel and pointed to the wool, finely-pulled and lovely, in the wicker basket. "You've become very accomplished. Think of me when you sit down at my wheel."

  "It's yours, isn't it?"

  "Yes. When did you figure it out?"

  "When everything came together. I realized your connection with spinning and then you knew so much about this particular wheel. It's why it took me back."

  Susannah smiled. "Smart girl."

  "Will I see you again?" Maggie waved her hand. "I don't mean now, but someday?"

  Abigail thought a minute. I suppose, but I really don't know." Again she smiled. "We can hope. Have faith."