Haunting the Deep

by Adriana Mather

  “No, probably not, but—”

  “Obviously not. Now stop hovering and sit, because I’m only going to say this once.”

  “Say what?” I eye her multicolored pillows.

  “You started something with that spell of yours. Now sit down!”

  And I do. “The spell we did last night? How do you even know about that?”

  “Don’t bother asking me that question. I know. I’ve been around a lot longer than you have, and that’s that. Now, what I was saying was that you and your friends started something last night, and you all must finish it.”

  I scratch my forehead. “We weren’t starting anything. I was trying to stop seeing spirits.”

  “Well, that’s ridiculous. There is nothing that will stop you from seeing spirits. You either see them or you don’t.”

  Who is she? Alice’s older twin? “Yeah, I’m getting that.”

  She inspects me. “You think you have it hard, do you? Feel sorry for yourself? You have a gift. Knock it off.”

  I meet her eyes, my temper sparking. “I definitely didn’t come in here for this.”

  “You disagree?” she scoffs. “You have a natural ability with magic and you see spirits. You’re young, rich, white, and healthy, for crying out loud. You are privileged. You have every opportunity to do spells because you live in Salem in a time when no one will jail you. That’s just the short list. Now use your brain for a moment and think about how much more difficult it could be. If you were half as smart or right as you think you are, you wouldn’t be arguing with me, you’d be listening.”

  I stare at her, my jaw clenched, but I don’t say a word. She’s right.

  She rests her arms on the table, and her silver bracelets clink against the wood. She shakes a finger at me. “This is why I don’t help people anymore. You know what Sartre said? He said, ‘Hell is other people.’ And I quite agree.”

  I half laugh. “You have a funny way of trying to help people.”

  She lifts an eyebrow. “I’m trying to warn you. You and your friends are about as subtle as drunk monkeys. And you’ll pay for it. So will lots of others, if I’m reading things correctly.”

  My pulse quickens. Maybe she’s not just a cranky weirdo. “What do you mean? Is someone in danger? Are we in danger?” All the sarcasm has left my voice.

  She grabs my hands. Her expression is dead serious. “Stop being so blind. You need to think past yourself, past your friends and your problems.”

  I try to pull my hands back, but she has a firm hold. “What did we do with the spell last night? What do you think we started?”

  She leans even closer to me. “You know that better than I do.”

  I swallow. “Does this have something to do with the key Alice found or the dreams I’ve been having?”

  She releases my hands, and I pull them back quickly. “I’ve said too much already. And I promised myself I wouldn’t get involved.”

  Now I lean toward her. “You haven’t said anything specific.”

  She sighs. “I don’t know the specifics and I don’t want to. All I know is that the course you’re all on right now will bring death. There—I’ve told you, which means I can thoroughly wash my hands of this whole mess.” She stands up. “It’s time for you to go.”

  “Wait a second, you can’t just say we’re headed toward death and then not explain it.” I stand up, too. “Who do you think is going to die?”

  She frowns. “It wasn’t clear.”

  “Me?”

  She hesitates. “Possibly.”

  “My friends? My family?”

  “I said it wasn’t clear.”

  I follow her to a different black curtain from the one I came through. “Yeah, but you also said ‘possibly’ when I asked about myself. Do you know something you’re not saying?”

  “No. Now stop badgering me with questions I don’t have the answers to.” She pulls the curtain aside and grabs a door handle. “And you’re welcome for the warning.”

  Her straight thick hair slides over her shoulder. It smells like lavender. The door clicks open and bright light streams in. I squint against it.

  “Hang on, I don’t even know your name,” I say, but she pushes me onto the sidewalk. The door closes behind me. I jiggle the knob, but it’s locked.

  I kick at the loose pieces of asphalt near Mary’s black Jeep in the school parking lot and check my cell phone. The last bell rang more than fifteen minutes ago.

  “Sam?” someone says, and I tense. I look up from the ground to find Dillon, Niki, and Blair. But no Jaxon.

  “I thought you were out today. I didn’t see you in history,” Dillon says.

  I scan the parking lot, looking for the Descendants. “I was.”

  Niki examines her nails and acts like I don’t exist.

  “Man, I wish my parents would let me stay home,” Dillon says. “I have to do full-on theatrics and throw myself on the floor when I’m sick. And most of the time they still say no.”

  “Same,” Blair says. “And with all this dance planning and organizing, Niki and I barely have a minute to breathe. After it’s all over, I’ll probably collapse.”

  “Exactly. So don’t come near us if you’re contagious,” Niki says with more force than she needs to, and rubs her glossy lips together.

  “I’m not sick,” I say.

  “In that case, you wanna join us? We’re gonna grab a bite with Jaxon at his mom’s bakery,” Dillon says.

  Niki gives him the death stare.

  They’re going to Sugar Spells? I’m liking Dillon dating Blair even less now. I point to Mary’s Jeep. “Thanks, but I’m meeting Alice, Mary, and Susannah.”

  “Ohmigod, don’t tell me you stayed home because you had to confront a ghost or something,” Blair says, like I’m a fascinating headline. “I can’t even imagine.”

  Before I can respond, Matt rounds the corner of the big SUV parked next to Mary’s Jeep and bumps into Niki’s bookbag. He doesn’t apologize.

  “Ugh! Watch where you’re going. This bag’s suede,” Niki says with a good dose of drama.

  “Wait, ’old on,” Matt says, and stops walking. “It’s made outta suede?”

  And here we go.

  Matt smiles. “You want to tell us ’ow much it costs, too, Niki? I’m sure we’d all be impressed.”

  I think I like this guy.

  “If you’re jealous that I’m going to hang out with Jaxon, just say it,” Niki says, looking quite pleased with herself.

  Was that for my benefit or his?

  “Jealous of Jaxon?” Matt looks at me pointedly and back at Niki. He laughs. “Nope.”

  Niki turns red as Matt walks away. “You’re such an ass, Matt,” she calls after him.

  “And ’ere I thought you had dibs on that,” Matt says without turning around.

  An embarrassed Niki glares at me, and I realize I’m smiling. “You think he’s funny?”

  How did this get turned on me? “Whoa—”

  “I know I do,” Alice says behind me. “Now move it before Mary undoes your nose job.”

  Mary winks at Niki as she comes to my side. Niki’s hand shoots to her face protectively and her lips tighten.

  Blair pulls Niki away from us. “Let’s go.” Blair looks at me. They saunter off with their matching white jeans and knee-high boots.

  Dillon rubs his neck, looking guilty. “Sorry, Sam. Really.”

  “It’s fine,” I say, and he walks away.

  “They’ve been acting entitled like that since they could talk,” Mary says.

  “We haven’t gotten along with them since third grade,” Susannah says with a grin. “Not since Alice tarred Niki’s playhouse with a bucket and a broom.”

  Alice looks at me. “We’re neighbors. She thought it was funny to dangle my kitten in front of her dog.”

  I open my mouth. “Completely deserved.”

  “Agreed,” Alice says, and pauses. “So…let me guess, you’re here to tell me I’m right and you nee
d us?”

  I hold my hands up in concession. One order of humble pie. “I do need you. Do you guys know anything about an older woman in town who wears lots of silver jewelry and has blacked-out windows in her shop?”

  Mary’s mouth opens. “Shut up, you saw Redd?”

  “She’s a local legend,” Susannah says.

  Alice unlocks the Jeep and gestures at the doors. “Get in. I have no intention of having private conversations in the midst of these morons.”

  Susannah and I slide in the back, and Mary takes the passenger seat.

  It takes Alice all of two seconds to screech out of the parking space. Startled students jump out of the way.

  I grab the car door. “So what do you guys know about her? Why are her windows blacked out?”

  Susannah straightens her black skirt. “That building used to be Redd’s store. She sold herbal creams and tonics—they were the absolute best. Half the town went to her instead of the doctor. But she got fed up one day and basically said the town didn’t deserve her help anymore. At least, that’s what my mom says.”

  “Now,” Mary says, turning around from the front seat, “no one knows what she does in there. A couple of shop owners complained about it last year, and the fire marshal went in to check it out. But the marshal reported it was just empty rooms.”

  Alice swerves onto her street. “Redd’s a Descendant.”

  If I didn’t have my seat belt on, I’d probably soar right out the window. “Redd…as in the accused witch Wilmot Redd? Why wouldn’t she tell me her name, then?”

  Alice slams on her brakes by the curb in front of her house and we fly forward. “We all have our secrets.”

  “Tell us everything,” Mary says.

  I open my door, grateful to be out of the Jeep. “It was all pretty mysterious. She plucked me off the street and told me we started something last night with that spell and—”

  Alice shushes us as we approach her massive white colonial house with pillars. Her front door opens before she lays a hand on it. A tall man in a suit and white gloves stands on the other side. He’s not the butler I remember from Alice’s party last semester. How many people does her family employ?

  We step into the entrance hall, and our shoes echo off the shiny stone floors.

  “Alice darling,” a woman’s voice says from a hallway to the left. She’s dressed in a flowing floral dress, and her blond hair is pinned into a twist.

  “Mom,” Alice says.

  “We’re having the Coreys over for dinner tonight. Wear something appropriate.” She pauses. “Unless you’re not coming, which is fine.”

  Whoa on so many levels, where people call other people “darling.”

  “I’m not coming,” Alice says flatly. No wonder Alice doesn’t sugarcoat.

  Alice’s mom continues down the hall, and Alice marches straight through a formal sitting room decorated with Victorian furniture. She opens a door at the back of the room and we file through.

  Mary hits a light switch controlling two Tiffany floor lamps. The room is upholstered with black fabric from floor to ceiling. Heavy black curtains snuff out any light from the windows, and it smells faintly of the herbs the girls burn in their spells. There’s a black area rug, a desk, and a cozy black couch with a matching love seat and armchair.

  I sit.

  Susannah plops down next to me. “Did you soundproof this room?”

  “Yup,” Alice says. “My parents don’t care. And there are always people in and out of this place. No one can stand to work for my mother for more than a month. I don’t want every new person in my private business.”

  “Redd’s room was lined with black fabric, too. You guys are the same brand of suspicious.”

  Alice rolls her eyes at me. “There are all kinds of spy spells, genius, and this helps block them.”

  “You really think people want to know what we’re talking about?” My question doesn’t hold the oomph I want it to. Salem’s nosy, and everyone pays particular attention to the Descendants.

  Mary sprawls out on a love seat with her arm behind her head. “Someone in town started tracking Alice last year. He tried to poison her because we caught on to the scam tour he was running.”

  Of course the people I make friends with would be almost as prone to dangerous situations as I am. And who poisons anyone in the twenty-first century? No wonder the Borgias was a dance theme favorite.

  Susannah kicks off her shoes and pulls her legs up under her long black skirt. “So what did Redd tell you?”

  I lean back into the pillows. “She said that we started something with that spell and now we need to finish it.”

  “Started something how? Did you mention the key I found in my bedroom?” Alice asks with an uneasy edge to her voice.

  “She wouldn’t give me any details. She said we would know better than she would.”

  “Great. Typical cryptic Descendant,” Mary says.

  “She also said that the course we’re on would bring death. Possibly mine. She wouldn’t say. And then she shoved me out the door. It sounded like she felt guilty not warning us, but also that she wanted nothing to do with the whole thing.”

  “Death,” Susannah breathes, and looks at Alice. “My mom always said Redd was the honest type. She never told you something worked if it didn’t. I think we have to assume she means what she says.”

  “Which also makes me think that when Alice’s bones said darkness would be over us and our rest would be a stone, it was most likely ominous,” Mary says.

  “Don’t you know all of the Descendants?” I ask.

  Alice scratches her shoulder. “We don’t follow around every Descendant in town and put them on a naughty-or-nice list. We’re definitely not all the same. And again, we’re secretive.”

  “What she means,” Susannah says, “is that some Descendants form groups, like us. Some go solo, like Redd. Some have no interest in magic. And others become amazingly good. Take our parents, for instance. They never cared about it. The three of us and Lizzie learned spells from our grandmothers. They were friends, just like we are. And it’s not only witches. There are lots of warlocks in Salem as well.”

  “So you think Redd was telling the truth?” I ask.

  Susannah nods. “From what I know about her.”

  “At the very least, if Redd bothered to talk to you, then she thinks whatever we just got ourselves involved in is a big deal.” Alice bites her nail. “When she said we would know better than she would, what were you talking about exactly?”

  “The spell we did last night. She compared our subtlety to drunk monkeys.”

  Susannah leans forward. “But how could a spell to keep spirits away have started something?”

  “That’s what I wanted to know,” I say. “And I’ve been playing it over and over in my head. The spell said that spirits should ignore us unless we have ‘tangled lore,’ and the last line was ‘From now on I will only find the spirits whom I need to mind.’ ”

  “You think we found a spirit we need to mind?” Mary says with no enthusiasm.

  “Possibly,” I say. “What if we not only pushed spirits away, but drew some to us? There was that book that appeared right after the spell finished, and Alice thinks a spirit left her that key.”

  “Hmmm.” Alice leans back in her armchair.

  “Also, I brought a spoon back from my dream this morning.”

  Mary pops up. “What?”

  “You wait until now to tell us this?” Alice says.

  I push my hair behind my ear and rest my elbows on my knees. “I fell asleep and dreamt I was on the Titanic again, only it wasn’t like the other dream. It didn’t have that dreamlike shifting quality to it. Everything seemed clear. But the weird thing was that no one could see me. I was an observer. I got pissed and tried to move things on one of the fancy lunch tables. I grabbed a spoon. When I woke up, it was still in my hand.”

  Alice and Susannah share a look. “That’s not a dream,” Susannah says. “I
don’t know what that was. But it definitely wasn’t a dream.”

  “But I was sleeping.”

  Mary’s eyes widen. “Wait, are we now saying that not all dreams are dreams? That’s so not gonna work for me.”

  Alice taps her fingers on the armchair. “We only did that spell last night. Yet I woke up to a key with some strange letters on it, and Sam had a nondream where she took a spoon. Redd says the course we’re on will bring death, and so far this all makes not one ounce of sense.”

  For a second we’re quiet.

  “Should we do another spell?” I ask. “Is there one that might give us more information?”

  “No. Not yet,” Alice says. “The last one we did backfired. We need to go over what’s happened so far. Figure out how everything connects.” She pauses. “And look who’s suggesting magic all of a sudden.”

  I shrug. Alice knows she’s won.

  Susannah smiles. “So you’re joining our circle?”

  They turn and look at me.

  “Yeah, I guess I am.” And without meaning to, I find myself smiling, too. “Also, I need you to see a painting in my house.”

  My dad leads the girls down the sconce-lit hallway toward the…ballroom? I can’t believe I’m calling it that now—or more accurately, that I even have a room like that in my house. As I pass the painting that I’m convinced has changed, I scowl at it.

  Susannah glances back at me, and I pull my eyes away from the woman’s face. “This place is huge.”

  “Perfect for a party. We love planning parties,” Mary says.

  “Some of us more than others,” Alice says.

  Mary ignores her and pats her stomach. “I just wish I wasn’t so full. I think I ate a loaf of garlic bread by myself. And those chocolate-dipped cannoli…wow.”

  “You were eating like you’ve been starved half your life,” Alice says, even though she did the exact same thing. “And I know your mother keeps your refrigerator full.”

  “Correction: she keeps it stocked with organic vegetables and granola parfaits, and no cannoli.”

  “You’re welcome here anytime. We have enough sweets to feed the whole town,” my dad says as we enter the ballroom. It’s obvious he’s thrilled they showed up to eat a meal with us and even more thrilled they asked for a tour of the house.