by Ts McKinney
The Witches of Salem
THE CURSE
TS MCKINNEY
The Curse
Copyright © 2017, TS McKinney
Published by Painted Hearts Publishing
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The Curse
Copyright © 2017 TS McKinney
ISBN 10: 1-946379-85-9
ISBN 13: 978-1-946379-85-6
Authors: TS McKinney
Publication Date: August 2017
All cover art and logo copyright © 2017 by Painted Hearts Publishing
Cover design by E Keith
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
“Dreams I can't remember now, hopes that I've forgotten. Faded memories.
Still I love to see the sun go down. And the world go around and around and around.”
--John Denver
Introduction
In the early 17th century, thousands of English Puritans settled in North America. They came for religious freedom. The trouble was, they didn’t allow anybody else the same privilege. Way back in 1658, long before the Salem Witch Trials, there was Elizabeth “Goody” Garlick, also known as the Long Island Witch, who tried to use her potions to help an unfortunate sixteen-year-old mother right before the teenager succumbed to a massive infection. Goody Garlick had subsequently been accused of practicing witchcraft. The local magistrates—even then overwhelmed by the gossiping and pettiness of their constituents—deferred the case to the Hartford, Connecticut court. Luckily for Goody Garlick, the Governor of the colony saw these accusations of witchcraft as hysteria and dismissed the charges.
Salem, Massachusetts, as we all know, was not so lucky. Thirty-five years later, between 1692 and 1693, there was another outbreak of witchcraft hysteria, leading to the tragic deaths of twenty individuals. All these poor people were complete innocents, guilty of practicing neither the black arts nor white magic. The real witches—both good and bad—weren’t even in Salem at the time, but still back in Long Island. You see, Goody Garlick was indeed a witch and a powerful one, though she’d tried her best to help that young teenager who died. The girl had simply come to Goody too late.
Goody had been born into the powerful Banks family of witches in northern England and had come to America with her husband, John Garlick. More of the Banks clan followed her to America in the late 1600’s, not long after the worst of the hysteria was over in Massachusetts. In fact, there was so much remorse in the inhabitants of Salem for the nightmare they had inflicted on themselves and their neighbors, that the head of the Banks coven, Nathaniel Banks, decided Salem might just be a perfect place for his family to settle. They would hide their magic in plain sight, even pretend to be good Puritan stock, if that’s what it took, all while practicing their white magic in the New World.
Other powerful witch families followed, including the Hargreaves family, led by Martha Hargreaves, one of the most powerful witches ever to set foot on American soil. Her family settled in nearby Marblehead, and the two covens, though cordial, kept a wary distance over the years. So much power concentrated in a too small an area tended to attract attention, and the political and religious climate was still too precarious to take chances.
Then, in early 1717, something happened that caused the Banks family to leave Salem in a hurry and travel north to Easthampton, and no one seemed to know why. That same year, Martha Hargreaves died under mysterious circumstances and one of her four children, Corbin Hargreaves, took her place as head of the Marblehead Coven. Later that year, he met a boy. But that’s getting ahead of the story. Suffice to say that the events that unfolded with Corbin Hargreaves and his one true love led to the events of this story. The story of the witches of Salem.
Prologue
There weren’t many times in the past year that I felt any semblance of peace, but when I was stretched out on my back on the roof of my dorm, looking up at the stars, peace was so damned close that I felt like I should be able to reach out my hand and grab it. Even so, there was something missing. Like some really vital thing I should know, but couldn’t quite grasp. It had all started on my last birthday and the closer I got to this year’s , the more it tormented me, this thing I should be remembering, but couldn’t.
My dorm was the tallest on campus, fourteen stories high, with a slightly slanted roof, making it perfect for stargazing while I was up there smoking a joint. Okay, so maybe smoking a joint on a slanted roof, fourteen stories off the ground, couldn’t technically be considered a good idea, at least not a safe one, but I defended myself by arguing that we all had different opinions of what was considered good and peaceful. Mine just happened to be a bit dangerous, especially since I was fucking terrified of heights. It was one of those stupid, unexplained, irrational fears, since I’d never fallen or been caught in a situation where I was afraid of falling, but the fear was real. As in, fucking terrified.
Why do this, then? Because, obviously, I couldn’t smoke a joint in my room, and once I found a way to access the roof, I knew it was the perfect place. No, I didn’t have any kind of death wish, but I loved lying there and communing with the moon and stars. This may sound crazy, but sometimes I could have sworn the moon was leaning out of the sky to whisper a name to me. Even the stars chimed in one by one to softly chant the word, but the harder I tried to grab onto it, to let it slide into my conscious mind, the more it slipped away. There were some who said it was just the weed, but I knew better.
It’s well-known, among those who smoke a lot of marijuana, anyway, that to stop smoking is to invite a sudden torrent of crazy, vivid dreams. Just Google “weed and dreams” and there are tons of stories. So it was easy enough to chalk up all the weird dreams I’d been having this past year to my use of illegal substances. But I knew better. I knew that whatever it was, it was coming for me, for good or ill, and I had to be ready. And I knew that when it came, it was going to change my life. All I had to do was remember what the hell it was.
My college was a small, no glam, no prestige university called Kempler College, nestled in the mountains of Tennessee. It was a state funded school where many kids like me who grew up in the foster system, were given grants and scholarships so we could attend college for free. Tennessee was where I’d spent the last five years of my life and had, up until my birthday a year ago, been where I’d planned on spending the rest of it. Then all the dreams and yearnings started, and I began to feel like my destiny was someplace else, someplace far away from the beautiful Tennessee hills. All I had to do was figure out where that place was.
I’d gotten a late start in college, because, while I had received a small scholarship, it didn’t pay all the bills and I had to work and save for a couple of years after high school to be able to afford tuition. I majored in History, maybe because there were so many gap
s in my own, and I had graduated at the end of the first semester that year. For lack of anything better to do, I applied for a Master’s program and had been accepted. I was taking a little break until summer session started up in June. I had some vague idea about eventually teaching, but mostly I guess I was just drifting, waiting for my future to happen.
All my plans and dreams changed abruptly one day, though, with one brief visit from a lady I’d never met or even heard of before.
I’d made plans to meet a friend of mine after class, but first I’d decided to stop by my room and change clothes. As I walked through the front door, I noticed a silver BMW parked in front of my building. An elegant, white-haired lady was sitting in it as I passed by. My first thought was that she must be some parent picking up their kid and then I wondered if she was lost because of the way she was looking around at all the students passing by. As I sauntered past the car, the window glided down and she leaned out. “Excuse me, boy. Are you Nicholas Bailey?” she asked, looking me up and down. “You are, aren’t you?”
“Uh, yes ma’am that’s me. But I have to tell you if you’re selling magazine subscriptions or Avon or something, you’re barking up the wrong tree. I’m as broke as a convict.”
She looked at me like I’d suggested she might come up on the roof and light up a joint with me. “No, young man, I am not selling magazines, and I don’t think people go door to door selling Avon anymore, do they?” she asked with a little sniff. “No, I don’t have anything to sell you, but I have been looking for you for the past year.”
“You have? Why?” I blushed a little because she was still staring at me so intently, and I was puzzled as to what this could possibly be about, but I didn’t want to be rude or anything. I mean, she was kinda old. And rich. I could see that as she got out of the car, wearing expensive clothes and flashing a lot of diamonds on her fingers and wrists.
I smiled politely and began to back away from the car. “Uh, I think you must have the wrong Nicholas Bailey, ma’am.”
“No, I don’t think so. You have the look of your father.” Okay, that got my attention.
“My father?” I replied, choking on a bitter little laugh. “Now I know you have the wrong person. My old man is dead and has been since right after I was born. And I have to tell you if this has anything to do with him, then I’m not interested.”
“Don’t be rude, child. If you’ll just invite me in for a minute, I can explain.” She gave me a look that told me, A—she didn’t like my attitude and B—she wasn’t used to people turning her down. What was I gonna do? Turn my back on her? To tell the truth, I would have been afraid to. The look in her bright blue eyes was fierce. I had to admit I was curious. I invited her to follow me inside.
We rode up in the elevator without saying another word and she came in my room looking around at the empty pizza boxes and books and trash on the floor and then gave me one raised eyebrow. I smiled a little sheepishly and shrugged. Hey, she was the one who wanted to come up to my room. She sat down on the edge of the one chair in the room that I got at the Goodwill, doing one of those one butt cheek hangs, like people do when they’re afraid they’ll get the cooties if they sit back too far, but they’re trying to be polite. I noticed she kept her expensive handbag in her lap. Good call—I hadn’t vacuumed the rug in…hell, who was I kidding? I never vacuumed.
I grabbed a Coke from the little fridge I had under my desk and offered her one, which she declined with another little sniff. I shrugged and sat down.
“Lady, if this really is about my father, I have to tell you I don’t really care. I’m not trying to be rude, but my parents—”
I broke off, a little choked up. I had no idea why it bothered me after all this time. Maybe it was the waste of it all. I’d always just assumed my mother and father must have been on some heavy-duty drugs. I didn’t know that for sure, but they had killed themselves five days after I was born, within five feet of my baby crib. With me in it. Selfish bastards.
“People like my parents are not people I want to know anything about.”
She leaned forward a little. “Young man, you have no idea what you’re talking about. My name is Hephzibah Banks. I was your mother’s aunt, and I know for a fact that both your parents loved you very much. They were so excited when you were born…” She opened her bag and took out a little hankie. No shit. Not some wadded up Kleenex, but an honest to God white hankie with embroidered initials on it. I just stared at her as she dabbed at her eyes.
“I’m sorry. I still get emotional even after all these years.”
“Yeah, um, I see that, but look, Mrs… Uh?”
“Banks. It’s your mother’s maiden name, you know.”
“Okay. And excuse me, but I’m having a problem believing that line of—excuse my language, ma’am—bullshit, since my parents killed themselves like I said and just left me there. I wasn’t found for three days, and not another living soul understood how I even survived. I’ve spent the majority of my life thinking that they hadn’t intended for me to survive. The way I figure it is that they just didn’t have the guts to kill me themselves. So they left me to die slowly, completely alone and surrounded by the decaying bodies of people who should have loved me. What kind of people do something like that?”
She leaned forward again and fixed me with a look. “Young man, I don’t know you. But I can tell you right now, without any fear of contradiction, that you are full of shit.”
That surprised a laugh out of me and she smiled. “Young people aren’t the only ones who can curse when they need to get someone’s attention. Your mother was my niece. I knew both your parents well. I visited her those last few months on several occasions, and I helped her decorate the nursery, laughed with her over baby name books and watched her cry real tears of joy when she talked about the baby growing in her womb. Your father was equally smitten with you, working two jobs so there’d be plenty of money to purchase all the things a new baby would need. Regardless of how many hours he worked, or how tired he had to be, he was always excited to come home and see the progress she’d made on the nursery. Because she worked on that room every chance she got. She was so proud of the baby boy coming to her.”
That all sounded really sweet and all, but I still wasn’t picking up what she was putting down. Again, I was calling bullshit in my head, but I let her keep on with her fantasy story. I hated to be rude, but I was going to let her have her say and then politely walk her out to the curb.
Then, out of nowhere, her voice got low and conspiratorial. She leaned so far toward me I just knew she was about to fall off that chair. She acted like she had some kind of epic secret to share. “I have something to tell you, young man. Something shocking. One month before you were born, someone or something frightened your parents badly. Your mother had been expecting it in a way, but when it actually came, she was devastated. Shocked. And after that, everything changed. Your parents were no longer happy and excited about your birth. They became terrified and grief-stricken. They knew they were going to die.”
I swear to God a cold breeze wafted through the room out of nowhere and slipped down the neck of my shirt. I shuddered and opened my eyes wide to really look at this woman. “Ma’am, if you don’t mind my asking—and I really hate to be an asshole and all—but just who the fuck are you?”
She smiled. “I already told you. I’m your great-aunt Hephzibah. Don’t you believe me?”
“I’m not exactly sure what to believe right now.”
“What I’m telling you is the truth. I assure you your parents’ love for you never wavered or diminished in the least, but they both changed almost overnight from excited and happy parents-to-be to paranoid people who began to let fear rule their lives. Your mother’s health deteriorated. She was doing everything in her power to keep her little family safe. Unfortunately, it didn’t work.”
She reached down in that bag again and brought out an envelope. “I made a vow to your mother that
if anything should happen to her and to your father, I’d find you when the time came and give you this letter. The fact that my family did nothing to stop this thing from happening to your parents still haunts me to this day, but our hands were tied. We were devastated, but were powerless to stop it. There was a curse, you see.”
I gave her a look of blatant disbelief. “A curse?”
“Yes, and don’t give me that look, young man. Curses, like witches, have existed throughout all time. This was a curse of black magic. An evil curse so powerful that none of us could break it. The spell was made with a blood sacrifice, you see. An unthinkably evil one.”
She held the yellowed envelope out to me, and for a minute I was actually afraid to even touch it. I felt another chill run down my back. Somebody just stepped on my grave. I looked up wordlessly at Mrs. Banks, the woman who called herself my great aunt Hephzibah, and she shook the envelope a little. “Well go ahead, boy. It’s not going to bite you.”
I jerked it out of her hand with maybe a little more force than I absolutely needed to and opened it up. The envelope contained some faded pink stationery, five pages of it stained with tears. It was written in a flowery longhand that I could barely even read. It took me a while to decipher it. It was from my mother.
Like my visitor had already told me, my mother declared in her letter how much she and my father loved me, how much they’d wanted to stay with me. There’d been sweet details about the first time my mother had felt me move inside her or how amazed my father was when she’d placed his hand on her belly and let him feel the butterfly flutters. There’d been plans for my future, all the things they wanted to see me do—like take my first steps, hear my first word, witness my first day of school, throw a football—the list had gone on and on. Then on page four, the letter had taken a decidedly malevolent turn.
