Sadie thought about Luke as she headed downstairs to let her aunt know she was leaving. After years of suppressing feelings of affection and attraction to him, spending time with him had eaten away at her resolve to be indifferent. She dreamed about him. She felt longing for him. He was everything she had always thought he would be. Imagine! A Barrington—but such a sweet one!
She found her aunt in the living room. Liora was sitting in the middle of the pentagram that was permanently etched in iron on the living room floor. She had flickering black candles set in each directional. Behind her the hearth was lit, and hanging from cast iron rods was a black cauldron with bubbling liquid in the middle. It was that concoction giving off the steamy, earthy smell. Not an unusual sight, but it was a bit early. She stepped into the room.
“Sadie,” her aunt said in a hard voice.
Alarm bells went off in Sadie’s head. She tried to back out of the room but found that she couldn’t move. She looked in horror at her aunt but her aunt’s eyes were unfocused. She was just sitting there swaying and chanting. It wasn’t Liora who had said her name. Sadie could now sense another presence. It was circling the room at a very fast rate. The curtains swayed as it roared past. The china cabinet started to shake and the crystal and china started to rattle. Sadie was thoroughly terrified. The entity began to laugh in a mocking and cruel way as it started to circle Sadie. Sadie’s skin began to prickle with intense fear and she opened her mouth to scream just before she blacked out.
At the library, Luke was waiting for Sadie with a feeling of excitement running through him. He had missed her over the weekend. They did not move in the same social circles, so when they were out of school, he didn’t get to see her at all. He actually wasn’t sure whether Sadie had a social circle, or friends. Certainly not a boyfriend. Maybe she did, he mused. How does a girl that pretty not have a boyfriend? Just because he wasn’t involved in her life, doesn’t mean another boy wasn’t. The thought made him unhappy, and a little jealous. Luke, he thought to himself, you’ve been mooning over this girl since you were five, and have been more than a little crazy about her for two years now. It’s time to do something about it. As he worked he wondered what she thought of him. Every time the door opened his head snapped to see if it was Sadie. He wished his computer faced the doorway.
“You’re going to get whiplash on the left side of your neck if you keep doing that,” Liz smirked. They were working side by side. Luke was entering the new books after Liz coded them with the library’s numbering system.
“What? Oh, yeah…uh, well, I’m waiting for Sadie Kellar,” he mumbled. “She’s coming to get some books,” Luke said with a faint blush.
“Really?” Liz said loudly, staring at Luke with great interest and a big grin on her face.
Luke groaned, here we go, he thought to himself. But today was Luke’s lucky day, or so he thought. A small boy tugging at Liz’s skirt saved him.
“Miss Liz, can you help me find me a book on monster trucks?” he asked shyly. “My daddy wants a new car and told mommy it was going to be a man car this time no matter what she says,” he said decisively. “I agree, so I’m helping him out.”
Liz smiled and took the little man’s hand and headed into the children’s non-fiction section.
“Thank you God,” Luke prayed silently. He already had enough interference in his life with his mother.
The door opened and Luke’s head turned involuntarily once again. He was disappointed. It wasn’t Sadie. He was about to turn back to his work when as the door slowly swung closed, he got a glimpse of long black hair and a white dress drifting by on the sidewalk. Luke’s heart leapt. Sadie! But she was walking by. Why wasn’t she coming in? Curious to see if it was actually her, Luke got up and walked outside and stood in the library’s entranceway. He shielded his eyes from the sun and looked. It was Sadie all right. He knew that form and that white dress better than anything. But something was wrong. Very wrong. She wasn’t acting anything like the Sadie he had known for years.
She was drifting along the street, moving lithely and gracefully through the people. It was a quiet Monday morning and most of the merchants were outside their shops on the sidewalk chatting with each other and enjoying the sun. A lot of them were boys he knew. Many of the businesses in Barrington County could trace their roots back to when Barrington was first founded. The Smiths at one time had a smithy, which they converted into a hardware store more than a century ago. The Farmers still had a farm but also ran the local grocery store. There were a few families like that. Most of them had a boy or a girl to work in their shop during the summer. Luke scanned the street. Yep, he knew everyone.
Sadie had always kept her distance. No boy, or girl, could actually say they were friends with her. Luke heard the typical boy’s locker room comments about the local girls, including Sadie, but never heard that any of the guys actually pursued her and asked her out or dated her.
Sadie was not acting distant right now. As she moved past the different shops she stopped to chat briefly with a few of the guys from school. She seemed to be…glowing. Her skin was as white as winter snow. She was laughing and touching their faces. On some of them she kissed her fingers and placed them on their foreheads. She was quick and she worked her way around Town Circle, as if she were dancing in a circle with an invisible partner. From here, Luke could see that the guys were charmed by her as if she had cast a spell and everyone was trapped in it. They were smiling and laughing, trying to grab her arm or the tail of the bow at the back of her dress. She just danced out of their reach and made her way around. Luke was stunned. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. What on earth was Sadie doing?
Sadie ended up back at the library after making the tour of Town Circle. Luke stared as she drifted up the steps to him and smiled. His initial perception was correct. Sadie was glowing. Her lips were bright red, like rubies, and her violet eyes a deep, shining purple. Her long, gorgeous black hair was thick and straight and luxurious. It looked alive as it swayed behind her. The cheekbones of her face were prominent and when she smiled, her teeth were blindingly white. She kissed her fingers and touched his forehead before he realized what she was doing. He looked in her face and felt something click into place inside him, something that had been waiting to be woken up. He looked closely at Sadie and could see two people, a double image. Sadie was there, but so was someone else.
Luke’s brain tried to process what it was seeing. Sadie’s eyes narrowed, but the smile never left her face.
“The Seer,” said Sadie, looking up at Luke and reaching up to touch his face.
Luke was terrified. He wanted to back away but he couldn’t move. He felt evil all around him, and he was trying not to hyperventilate with fright.
Sadie snatched her hand back and stepped away from him. Luke could see the struggle between the two beings. Sadie bared her teeth and looked at Luke. “She fights hard in your presence. I bid thee farewell for now, Barrington,” she managed to threaten ominously before Sadie’s eyes rolled into the back of her head and she crumpled. Luke caught her and held her close. She smelled very good, like lavender. The glowing features were dimming and Sadie began to look more like herself. Luke, however, was wheezing and was finding it hard to breathe as he stood there holding her. Sadie opened her eyes and pushed him away from her. She took one look at him and pushed him into the cool dimness of the library and made him sit in one of the large red velvet chairs by the door. She was obviously disoriented, but she had enough wits to force his head to his knees and instruct him to breathe.
“You have to relax, Luke,” Sadie said calmly.
Her mind was racing. How on earth did she get here? The last thing she remembered was whispering with Luke on the phone. Sadie was scared. She’d lost time again and now Luke had seen her. What had she been doing? She wanted to ask him, but she didn’t want him to know something was wrong. What was she going to do now? She had no one to talk to who wouldn’t think she was crazy. Was she going crazy?
Luke’s breathing was returning to normal. She shook her head as he wheezed. She had always liked Luke Barrington and she didn’t want him to get hurt. She was in agony, and she didn’t know what to do.
“Sorry,” he said in a muffled voice, speaking through his knees and trying hard to hide his embarrassment. “My heart races really fast sometimes, and I’m tall, so this is what happens…” He tried to laugh but he couldn’t. Something strange had happened to Sadie, something terrible, and he was terrified for her. “Sadie, do you know what happened? I saw something…well, someone, actually, and she spoke to me. It wasn’t you.” Luke raised his head to look at her, but Sadie was already gone. “Ah, crap,” he said, putting his head back down.
Sadie ran home. Her heart was pounding and she was scared. She now knew for sure that she was not mentally ill with multiple personality disorder, or anything normal like that. She knew without a doubt that she was being haunted and possessed involuntarily. She wasn’t sure why, but she suspected by whom. She needed to speak to her aunt.
When she got home her aunt was in the kitchen preparing a soup. Sadie stopped in the middle of the room. It was very warm and steamy and it smelled strange. It was a spice or an herb she had never smelled before. Sadie stood there and found she was getting a bit dizzy.
“What’s the matter with you, child?” Sadie’s aunt asked, peering at her from the stove where she was slowly stirring the bubbling mixture. Sadie felt queer. She felt as if she were floating. Sadie smacked herself on the forehead to ground herself and backed out of the kitchen. She’d try and talk to her aunt later.
“I’m going to lie down,” Sadie said to her aunt. “I’m not feeling well.” Suddenly she felt so exhausted that she could barely keep her eyes open.
“Okay, dearie,” her aunt said placidly, turning back to the stove and her stirring.
Sadie went back to her room, changed into her pajamas, and curled up in bed with her stuffed cat Blackie. She slept the whole day and didn’t even wake up for dinner.
Luke finished his shift at the library and headed home. He didn’t live far—the manor was right behind the library so he cut through the forest in the back and was immediately on Barrington grounds.
Barrington Manor, along with the town’s church, St. Thomas of All Angels, took up almost one half of the South East Residential Quad in Barrington. Barrington was broken up into four residential quads with Town Circle in the center. Only four roads lead into Barrington, and they came from each cardinal direction and intersected with Town Circle, which acted like a roundabout. The quads were ringed by trees, so no matter which road you took in or out of Barrington, the residents’ homes were not visible. The idea was to give the inhabitants the sensation of living in the forest, and at the same time, to provide them with a modicum of privacy during the Harvest Festival when thousands of strangers rolled into town.
After the tree line the lawn rolled smooth and green up to the manor, which was situated on a slight rise. The lawn was currently occupied by two little boys playing killer croquet. It was their way of turning a “sissy” game into one suitable for the male gender. Basically, while you try and hit your ball, any of your opponents can tackle you or distract you in any way. Even throwing rocks was acceptable, but not burrs. Those were not allowed.
“Wanna play, Luke?” they asked as they rolled on the ground wrestling each other. They were the youngest Crofts, Eddie and Zach, aged five and holy terrors. Luke looked at the grass stains on their clothes and the dirt on their faces and grinned.
“Pretty rough game you’ve got going there,” Luke said. “Not sure if I feel like getting beaten up today.”
The boys stood up, brushing themselves off. Both were beaming and red in the face. “We’ll go easy on ya, Luke.”
Luke laughed. “I’ll pass. I’m going to go for a swim. How’s Dean? I haven’t heard from him in a few days.”
The boys’ expressions changed instantly to disgust and Zach said, “he’s not here. He’s on vacation with Nathalie. He’s changed, Luke,” the boy confided.
His brother nodded. “He’s useless now. He just moons over Nathalie. She’s nice and all, but she’s a girl. Ew.”
“Yeah, ew, and he won’t play with us any more,” Zach added. “All he thinks about is kissing.”
“He’s been macuslated!” Eddie said.
Oh boy. Who thinks this? Luke considered how to respond. “That would be ‘emasculated,’ and therefore, untrue,” Luke said sternly.
“I knew that was the wrong word,” Zach whispered fiercely to Eddie.
Luke smiled and his expression softened. “Look guys, as boys get older, their thoughts turn to girls and kissing.”
It was the wrong thing to say. The boys were horrified.
Then Eddie brightened up and piped in, looking at his brother.
“Zach, you do kiss Ben.”
“Yeah, but Ben’s a dog, not a girl.”
“Yeah,” Eddie said, unhappy again.
Luke stifled his laughter at their logic and considered the two boys who now looked bereft. Eddie was scuffing his shoe and attempting to murder a small dandelion. Dean was their adored big brother, so his preoccupation with Nathalie must really be bothering them. As his best friend, Luke knew all about Dean’s love for Nathalie. Sometimes that was all Dean talked about.
Luke had come home hoping to catch his dad alone, but if the Croft boys were outside and not in the pool, there was likely a town council meeting going on and he’d have to wait until after dinner to catch his dad alone anyway.
“Okay, one game of killer croquet. But no kicking me in the package when I’m down, like you did last time!”
The boys were wild with happiness. “Okay Luke!” they yelled as they got him a croquet mallet and a ball. “You first!”
Luke groaned as he took aim while the little boys plotted.
An hour later Luke limped into the house, and after depositing the two squirming little monsters in front of a plate of cookies and a jug of milk, he found his father in the main salon humming and mixing cocktails for the council members.
Luke smiled and punched his dad in the arm. “Are you sure you’re supposed to be drinking during working hours dad?”
John Barrington smiled at his son and added an olive into each martini glass with a flourish. “Luke, no one’s going to be driving, and council meetings are a lot friendlier when everyone’s had a bit of liquid sunshine, so bottom’s up. He he.” He was still humming.
“You could have an accident in the pool,” Luke reminded him and wondered how many drinks of “liquid sunshine” they’d already had. The town council consisted of most of the businessmen in Barrington, who were fairly affluent. Their parties were legendary.
“Nah, we’re all old and out of shape. We only wade in the shallow end like children.”
Luke laughed. “Oh, well, nothing to worry about then.” He hesitated and then continued. “I need to talk to you later, once you’re done your meeting. I saw something strange today and I thought I was going a little crazy. Happens to geniuses I heard,” Luke said worriedly.
John Barrington had stopped humming. He looked at his son quizzically. “What did you see?”
Luke started to feel stupid. “You know what, it’s nothing dad,” he said, turning away, but his father grabbed his arm in a vice grip. Luke looked back.
His father’s face was serious. “Give me a brief summary.”
“I thought I saw…a ghost? Two people in one? A double image? A person superimposed on another? I don’t know what I saw. I couldn’t understand what I was seeing. Do we have a history of mental illness in our family? Am I too smart??” Luke tried to laugh, but it was weak.
John Barrington relaxed his grip and said casually, “nah, no mental illness. Could have been the heat, Luke. It does funny things to our senses and perceptions. After dinner we’ll talk about it in more detail and see what we should do.” And with that his father was gone with his tray of drinks.
/> Luke headed upstairs and found he was exhausted. He lay on his bed and slept until dinner.
The town council usually met once a month, and during the summer months, met in the luxurious Barrington home.
John Barrington brought the drinks out by the pool. The men were standing in the shallow end with water up to their waists, lounging by the side and chatting. A couple of them had cigars lit and were puffing away contentedly.
“Don’t get any ash in the pool, Eric.”
“Don’t be such a woman, John.”
“It’s Claire you’ll have to answer to,” John said with a grin.
“Ah, well, who the hell needs that,” Eric Sweet mumbled and moved his cigar to the side of the pool.
John passed out the drinks and tossed his back before he spoke. “Noah found information on the windmill in The Circle’s ‘Book of Record.’”
“According to the book, the windmill was designed to be a warning to the town. It only spins in the presence of pure evil,” Noah informed them.
Eric snorted. “Maybe my wife walked by it,” he said with a laugh.
Noah Baker looked at him with disbelief. “Man, you have the sweetest wife…”
Eric raised his eyebrows.
“Er, no pun intended,” he said with a laugh.
Eric gave him the finger.
“Boys, boys…can we please take this seriously? Something is wrong. There is no physical way that windmill can be working, and it has been spinning for weeks.”
“John, the men who compiled this book believed lightening came from God when he was angry. They believed in magic and witchcraft. We know that none of that is true. Therefore, there has to be a reasonable explanation for this,” Daniel Smith said dryly.
John shook his head. “They weren’t perfect, and they didn’t have the knowledge we have now, but they were smart. They knew things that have now been lost in time. They saw something. Why did they spend so much time, and detail, on this record then? We need to trust that the warnings they recorded for our benefit are true. The windmill was one of them, and I quote from Jacob’s diary:
HEX Page 7
