Sand Witches in the Hamptons (9781101597385)

by Jerome, Celia

  And I had to talk to Oey. And my mother.

  Mayor Applebaum called for the next speaker, another man in a suit, an out-of-town lawyer who wanted permission for his nutcase client to build a new lighthouse on a hill overlooking the bay, right above where the sand was rapidly disappearing. The head of the planning board cited zoning laws, the natural resources chairman referred him to the map of unbuildable wetlands and fragile dunes, Mrs. Ralston had a secretary hand the lawyer a copy of the engineer’s beach study that he obviously hadn’t listened to, and the village attorney noted that only the federal government could authorize or build a new lighthouse.

  The audience laughed again, more cheerfully this time. No disasters, no diseases, just some rich bastard who thought he could build anything, anywhere, simply because he had enough money.

  The lawyer shrugged. “I only do what my clients pay me to do. I tried to tell them they were wasting their time.”

  Voices shouted out asking who.

  Privileged information, the lawyer replied, and he couldn’t say if it weren’t, because everything had been done electronically. No names, untraceable holding companies, and bank codes only. They did pay on time.

  Weird. But I could understand in a way. If you were rich enough to buy that tract of land, you wanted privacy. Ditto if you wanted to build a lighthouse. I’d always thought living in a lighthouse might be ideal, as long as it was attached to the mainland, avoiding the need for boats. Of course, in my daydreams, no shipwrecks, hurricanes, or undermining erosion occurred. Lighthouses were secluded, scenic, important. A writer could have important ideas in a place like that.

  Mayor Applebaum consulted the notes Mrs. Ralston handed him and called up the next item on his agenda. I missed the name of the bronzed youngster who stepped to the podium, because my phone vibrated, indicating a text message. I know the signs said to silence all cell phones, but text messages didn’t count, did they?

  The screen showed a message from Russ, who was monitoring my computer. Several others, including the police chief, also carefully checked their phones, so I knew it had to be bad.

  While some of the board members listened to the surfer-type, and some admired or despaired over the tattoos on his bare arms, others read their messages from their laps, under the table.

  We’d heard from Deni. He hadn’t taken the bribe, or the bait. He hadn’t sent his manuscript, just another threat. “TOO LATE, BITCH. I HEARD YOUR MOTHER’S A WITCH. YOU KNOW HOW THEY GET RID OF THEM, DON’T YOU? BURN, BABY, BURN.”

  I wanted to jump up and run out of the meeting room. I had to beg my mother not to come north. Not till we found this monster.

  Lou leaned forward to tell me, “We’re on it. She’ll have an agent with her.”

  That was not reassuring when someone might be planning to burn up her house or her car. I needed Piet, the fire-damp wizard. I needed the National Guard and a pack of Rottweilers.

  Doc Lassiter put a hand on my shoulder. Calm immediately spread from his hand to my racing heart, the way it always did when Doc touched anyone. “She’ll be fine. They’re tracing the email now. They’ll get him this time. Breathe, Willow.”

  He was right. No one knew where my mother was, not even me. Like the lawyer and the lighthouse dude. No one could say what plane, what rental car, what state she’d be in. And Harris had Mom’s house so wired for security a shadow couldn’t get past it. Unless, of course, Susan let in another delivery man, one with a bomb. DO NOT LET MY COUSIN GO NEAR THE HOUSE, I sent to Harris.

  Next I sent a text to my mother, typing as fast as I could, warning her to beware of unknown messages, strangers, anyone with a match. THREATS, I wrote. SERIOUS THREATS ABOUT WITCHES AND BURNINGS.

  She sent back: STOP LISTENING TO YOUR FATHER. BEEN CALLED A LOT WORSE THAN A WITCH.

  I turned and whispered to Lou, “Try to convince her the danger is real and to stay where she is for now. And tell her about Carinne.”

  “Me? Hell, no. I don’t even know the woman.”

  Maybe she’d listen to my father, even if he got things half-assed backward some of the time. He didn’t text, and I couldn’t step outside to call him, so I sent my mother another message: CALL DAD. WARNINGS? AND NEWS.

  She sent back: ALREADY HEARD ABOUT THE ENGAGEMENT. WHAT COULD BE BETTER? TTYL. DRIVING.

  She would have killed me, driving while talking. But texting? Good grief! I didn’t have to wait for Deni to find her. Some highway patrol car would find her in a ditch first.

  Doc Lassiter put his hand back on my shoulder.

  Right. She had a dog in the car. She wouldn’t take chances. Most likely someone else was driving, or she’d pulled over. I’d call her later, her and my father. I put the phone away.

  Right now, my attention switched to the high schooler’s complaints that the town had nothing to offer its young people. They’d shut down the skatepark and put in a curfew. The community rec center stayed open only a few nights a week now that it was the off-season, and the high school cut back on sports and clubs, to save money.

  Too late I realized that Carinne wasn’t listening to his speech; she was wheezing, gasping for air like an asthmatic. Oh, lord, a teenager. I’d thought we’d overcome her anguish of “reading” a younger person by channeling it into pictures so the voices in her head quieted. How arrogant of me to think I’d fixed my half sister in half an hour.

  How selfish of me not to think about who might be at the meeting and what effect they’d have on Carinne. All I could do now was thrust a pad and pencil at her. She shook her head. “He’s not here. He’s not here when he’s thirty-seven!” She started crying and holding her hands over her ears.

  Jimmie appeared too upset or too frightened to help. He’d turned pale and trembly. I turned to Doc. “Do something!”

  He put his arms around a sobbing Carinne, and he and Lou led her out of the meeting room. Monteith followed, looking concerned. I would have gone, too, but I had to stay with Jimmie, who appeared too shaken to move.

  The kid at the podium said, “She’s right. I won’t be here when I’m thirty-seven because there are no jobs here, no affordable houses, no future unless I want to wait on tables for tips and collect unemployment in the winter.”

  He did not understand. I did, and almost cried. Jimmie had a tear rolling down his cheek, but I did not know if it was for the boy or for Carinne. Then members of the audience started calling suggestions to the teenager.

  “You could go to school and learn a trade, Brock. There’s plenty of opportunity in the Harbor for plumbers and electricians, tile setters and masons. I had to wait three weeks for someone to come out from Sag Harbor.”

  Brock made a face. I guess a blue collar was not what he wanted out of life.

  Rick from the marina called out, “I’ll pay the tuition and guarantee a job for anyone who takes boat mechanic courses.”

  The kid scowled this time. Grease under his fingernails did not suit him, either.

  Someone else said he should study harder. We could use a doctor of our own, and a dentist. A man in back thought he should join the army, serve his country.

  No! I almost shouted. He’d never come back from war.

  Finally one of the town councilmen asked, “So what do you want to be, a rock star or a world-class athlete? I’ve heard your band and seen you on the field. Son, you’re just not that good. And why aren’t you in school now, anyway?”

  Brock answered that he was. Coming here was part of his civics project. “Find a cause, Mr. Syragusa said, see if you can make a difference.”

  “All right,” the councilman replied. “You’ve stated your complaints, but it’s easy enough to find fault. What do you propose?”

  “We want a park for motorbikes and ATVs. We were thinking of that cliff where the asshole wants to put a fu— Excuse me. Where the rich dude wants to
put a lighthouse.”

  This time I did shout, “No!” I’m no clairvoyant. Maybe my runaway imagination provided the graphics, but I could see this handsome young man crushed under the weight of one of those daredevil, air-polluting, peace-shattering vehicles.

  Others also protested. The extreme sports were too dangerous. The village couldn’t afford the insurance. The neighbors would have fits. The land was privately owned.

  Mrs. Ralston took over when the mayor asked what the boy wanted for the third time. “What else do you want? We can see if there’s a way to keep the skatepark open on weekends, and try to find a way to keep the rec center open more hours.”

  Brock nodded. “With more interesting stuff at youth nights, not just b-ball and Ping-Pong.”

  “We are not turning the center into a video game arcade.”

  “Right, but now most courses and activities are for old farts. That is, senior citizens, or little kids. Even Ms. Tate’s course last summer had an age limit, and met in the afternoon when everyone over fourteen had summer jobs.”

  So I volunteered to teach a high-school oriented graphic arts course. “On one condition. You have to take the course.” I’d do anything to keep Brock off a deathtrap.

  He had to think about it, but he agreed. “It’s my girlfriend who wants to take a course. She made me add that to my presentation. I guess I’ll get to spend more time with her that way, and her parents can’t complain.”

  “Excellent.” Mrs. Ralston complimented him. “I’d give you an A for effort. B for results.”

  He grinned, showing dimples. “I’ll get an A+. We knew we’d never get the motocross track. That was a scare tactic.”

  Looks and brains and charm. The kid had it all, except for a future.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  I had a better understanding of the horrors Carinne must go through every day. I had no idea what to do about them, except wonder how she hadn’t had a breakdown before this.

  Before I could get up to find her, to offer what comfort I could or beg Lou to find an answer, the mayor wandered out, forgetting to close the meeting. Mrs. Ralston did it, then told the cameraman to shut off the videotaping. “We are going to have an informal meeting of the Halloween festival committee, so anyone not involved please feel free to leave.”

  I was not volunteering to help at the witches’ sabbath, so I got up to go. I thought my news should be more important than trick or treating, but Paumanok Harbor took its traditions seriously. I’d come back and talk to some of these people separately.

  As people filed out, though, Mrs. Ralston asked if I might stay behind. “We’d love to hear your ideas, Willy.”

  That’s what I’d come for, so I couldn’t leave.

  For the sake of the strangers, some who lingered near the exits, chatting, she explained how everyone in town took so much pride in having a famous author among them; they begged to know about my latest book. Besides, she told them, my plots were always so creative, I was bound to have some notion of how to save the beach where the festival got held every year, an idea no one had considered for dealing with erosion. She apologized, but told the strangers they needn’t be bothered with listening to fairy tales. She told Brock to get back to classes, thank God.

  “Right away, Mrs. R.”

  I didn’t need any Royce genes to know that for a lie. What kid wouldn’t extend his official get-out-of-school pass for the rest of the day? He sauntered out, grinning.

  Mrs. Ralston apologized again. She wasn’t apologizing for practically shoving people out the doors, but for the lies.

  The police chief clutched his bottle of antacid tablets. Someone else’s face turned red, and Rick from the marina rubbed at his ear. I didn’t know how many more suffering truth-mavens sat at the table or in the audience, but I could work with what Mrs. Ralston had given me.

  I picked my words carefully, not wanting to hurt the psychic lie detectors more than I had to. They’d be upset enough to hear my theories. The biggest lie, of course, was that I’d discuss my work in progress with anyone except my editor, and that rarely and grudgingly.

  The original idea didn’t come from me, I started, which was the absolute truth. I’d developed my sand people from a mention in Dr. Harmon’s fabulous as-in-fabled bestiary, a book he’d written under the pen name of James Everett many years ago while teaching creative writing at Royce University in England. I was honored to be permitted to illustrate a new edition.

  I introduced the professor, Jimmie as he liked to be called, and made him stand up. He bowed to the council.

  When he sat down, I told how he’d described a group he named Andanstans, belligerent creatures who inhabited seashores and deserts and seabeds, constantly trying to steal the sand from each other’s domains.

  My grandmother nodded. She’d read his book and heard some of my conclusions.

  “I just drew the people he described.” Someone gagged. Okay, that was not the truth. “Here is what I came up with.” I’d brought a sketch of the Andanstans to pass around. “They’re very small and impermanent. That is, they can re-form or reconfigure themselves into humanoid shape instantly, simply by pulling together a few grains of sand.”

  As the story in my head developed, I told the council, the Andanstan character developed, just as it did for all my heroes and heroines and villains. The way I saw them, the Andanstans were fierce warriors, constantly at battle, but with an honor code as strict as West Point’s. According to their standards, one theft deserved another in return, one favor deserved one back. The bigger the favor, the bigger the debt owed.

  Someone said, “Uh-oh.”

  “That’s right, uh-oh. Say someone needs help and these sand beings come together for once and save the day, or save a ship, for instance. But once the ship is saved, not only are they ignored, unthanked, but they are physically assaulted. Blown up, in fact. The way I’d write the story, which I won’t because it’s the professor’s and I am delighted simply being the illustrator, the Andanstans do not mind the destruction so much as the disrespect. The dishonor.”

  “Oh, shit.” That came from the side wall, where Rick stood, his arms crossed, not rubbing his ear. He knew what I said was true.

  I ignored him. “So they steal the sand. When that does not result in a respectful reciprocation, or at least a worthy war, they send rashes to everyone who might have had a grain of sand blow into their eyes or their noses, to get our, that is, their attention. All it needs is a pinprick or a scratch to activate. The rashes are not life-threatening revenge, simply a means of communicating their displeasure, their demand for tribute.”

  The police chief stopped swallowing Tums like popcorn, but he did not look pleased. My story might be true, but he didn’t see any happy ending.

  I went on. “It’s all about payback. My father tried to tell me.”

  A couple of people groaned. My father’s reputation did not lend confidence to his predictions.

  “Bosh!”

  Ready to defend my father and his talent, I looked toward the back of the meeting room where the rude sound came from. I hadn’t realized Ms. Garcia and the engineer had been standing in the doorway comparing their failed missions. Now she stamped her foot.

  “You people don’t take anything seriously, do you? I tested the sand. There is nothing dangerous about it. Payback? From imaginary sand people? You’d waste your time listening to this claptrap instead of assisting scientific studies? No wonder this place is on everyone’s list to avoid. They told me it was like falling down Alice’s rabbit hole, but I didn’t believe there’d be a whole village of village idiots.”

  “It’s just a story!” Mrs. Ralston yelled to her as she stormed through the door.

  The chief clutched his stomach. The man next to him turned scarlet. Rick from the marina rubbed his ear so hard he rubbed it raw,
which caused a rash, which had him pulling his Yankees hat down low so no one could see it.

  The marine engineer laughed. “I’ve heard everything now. Little soldiers stealing the sand. The flu hunter is wrong. You people aren’t backward morons. You just like a good joke. Well, I hope you’re laughing when your houses fall into the bay. Maybe the little sand guys can bring it back. I can’t.” He left, too.

  “I write fantasy stories,” I shouted after him, vehemently, truthfully, and for anyone who didn’t know what else I did.

  Everyone left at the council’s table nodded and urged me on, which meant they were all espers.

  Two members of the remaining audience were not: my friend Louisa’s husband and an older woman. Dante Rivera had lived his whole life here and had no talent other than making money. He donated a bunch of it, and his time and efforts, to keeping Paumanok Harbor the kind of place he wanted his children to grow up in. Now I heard him tell the older woman beside him, a beach-front property owner, that I wrote good books and won awards.

  I smiled at him and made shooing gestures. He smiled, nodded as if he understood what we were about, and escorted the older woman out.

  We could all relax now.

  The town attorney asked me, “So how can you get these Andywhatevers to give the sand back?”

  I ran some of my ideas by them.

  Everyone offered a broken cuff link or a single earring, maybe a coin, in case the Andanstans liked gold. Mrs. Ralston took off her gold hoops. “They hurt anyway. Melted down, maybe we could write thank you in the sand.”