by E. M. Moore
CHAPTER THIRTY
Sarah
I staggered forward even before my legs felt any pressure and then I started to jog. I needed to get to Mom.
My nose crunched as I slammed into something, but there was nothing. Absolutely nothing in front of me. I brought a hand to my nose as droplets of blood dripped into my palms. I wiped my hands off on my jeans and stretched them out into the space ahead of me.
It was just like the library. I rotated in every direction, reaching out, and an invisible hard surface met my searching hands all the way around. I dipped my shoulder low and banged into the wall. The force didn’t give, didn’t even groan, or reveal any evidence that what I did helped. I spread my palms out, pressed my forehead against the clear, solid air, and peered at my mom.
A thump sounded around the whole park, as well as the echo of the reverberation off the downtown buildings. My mom blinked until her eyes popped open. Townspeople rustled by her, uncaring, as if she too, was invisible.
“Ex-excuse me?”
My head snapped up as I heard the familiar voice. I looked around at the people moving past her. Oh. My. God. Mom was mic’d. I could hear everything she was saying.
“Excuse me. I’m looking for my daughter.”
I lurched backward and bounced off the wall. “Jennie, it’s my mom.” I turned and found Jennie still standing, unchanged. "Jennie!” I banged my fist against the wall. “It’s my mom. Help her."
Pictures blinked in my mind of Mom leaving the house with guys as she waved to me in my bedroom window, of showing up late to school concerts, shyly excusing herself as she bumped every other parent’s leg on her way to the lone empty seat in the middle. It was always that one empty seat in the middle, never a side seat, an aisle seat. And here again, my mother transcended the norm, elevated in the air in front of the whole dang town.
“Jennie.” I broke down, tears streaming from my eyes. “Please. It’s my mom. My mom. Help her.”
The townspeople gathered around, forming a semi-circle in front of her. My mom found me in the thickening crowd and broke down in tears, which was so not like her. She tugged on her wrists, cries echoing, bouncing around the park. “Sarah, I came to get you. I came to get you.”
Behind her, Rose crept out onto the stage. My aunt, possessed by a witch, marched right to the edge and looked down. The crowd ballooned out even more, eyes transfixed on her. She clapped her hands and bounced up and down on her toes. “Ha, this is so perfect,” she squealed.
The crowd applauded. Cici’s heels dug into the wood, scraping against the cross as she tried to gain her footing. I turned to face the crowd. Their faces lit up in excitement, a sneering grin passing from one to the other. Fathers lifted their tots on their shoulders so they could see. Little kids pulled at their mothers’ arms while they hopped up and down. They acted like little fan girls in the face of a celebrity.
My belly churned, an eggbeater tossing around the insides. I bent at the waist to throw up. Some of the liquid stained the invisible wall. A toddler close to me laughed and pointed, tugging her mother’s dress with her free hand.
She controlled everybody. Every last person in this park, she controlled them using the power of the pentagram like we wanted to. She was making them all stare at this as if they wanted it.
“Perfect,” Mother echoed again. “We’ll have a little appetizer before our dessert.” The old woman in my aunt’s body glanced to the side of the stage where two men in brown trousers held Marlene. Drake stood next to them, reaching out for her, his face contorted in agony. “Thomas and his beloved, Isabella.”
“Nooo!” I cried out.
Mother turned her head slow until it landed on me. It tilted to the side, then righted itself, standing square on her shoulders. “No? Who did you think it was? You?” She laughed and bounced on her toes again, a kindergartener at her school birthday party. "It was never you, Sarah. It’s always been Isabella.” She cupped her hand in front of her mouth and whispered as if we weren’t surrounded by a hundred people. “Well, Marlene.” Her voice sounded raspy, cracking as it came through the speakers. “It could've been you. I even tried to make it you. You just wouldn’t give the thought of your father up. Damn. Your persistence really pissed me off. Then, you couldn’t even get run over correctly."
My mouth dropped. The witch hardly noticed. She started speaking again. “Look at him.” She pointed to Drake and I shook my head, nose stinging from the jagged movements.
“Look at him!” she screamed.
The speakers shrieked. I plugged my ears until the echo died before peeking over. Drake knelt before Marlene, shoulders heaving, his hands covering his face.
I shook my head in disbelief. “Not possible.” He loved me. He told me he loved me.
“I’m a witch. I can make the impossible, possible. I have...” She shrugged her shoulders like it was no big deal. “...powers.” She peered down at herself and grabbed the cotton of her frumpy dress. “Of course, I prefer the younger bodies. Unfortunately, Drake’s bitch of a mother had other plans and I had to make do.”
A warrior growl punctured the buzzing speaker silence and a rock pelted Mother in the head. She fell to her knees, her face flickering between her borrowed body and an old, haggard, sallow face with hateful eyes.
Drake’s grandfather ran forth from the crowd and pelted her again with a big, black stone. Mother covered herself and the rock bounced off her forearm, falling to the feet of Cici’s pyre.
My mother shied away from him, twisting, her arm bending in unnatural angles.
I yelled to her, “It’s okay, Mom.” My voice didn’t reach her, though. The reassurance fell empty in the expanse between us. I didn’t have a mic like the others.
Drake’s grandfather, relieved of all the rocks he’d stored in the crook of his arms, stood before the stage, hands empty now as they fell to his sides. His shoulders slumped forward, shaking. “You killed them. You killed them all.”
Mother stood, really pissed now, her face entirely mutated into the unknown one, who I would’ve guessed for everything was Mother Shipton. “You know I did.”
Mr. Connors’ voice broke and cracked. “What did you do to Drake?”
“There is no Drake. That’s Thomas. And I think you know what happened to Thomas. He made a decision. It was wrong. He had to be punished.”
“No, Drake is real. Turn him back. He’s not like Thomas. None of us were.”
“I think I’ve kept you around for long enough. You are of no use to me anymore. Which is sad, because I rather liked you.”
“Liked me? Liked me? You old hag.” His voice rose, snipping off the ends into curt, choppy remarks. “You only liked me because I reminded you of him. Your John. Your Ludington who betrayed you. But we’re not him. None of us.”
My stomach tightened and knotted around itself. Mother reached out and clawed the air as if her hands wound around someone’s throat. Mr. Connors coughed, then choked back and coughed again. A smiling grimace passed over his face as he dug at his neck.
“Feel familiar?” she asked.
My mind went back to when he coughed and choked at his house, Drake hovering over him. How he said he couldn’t say anything about who killed my dad. She was torturing him this whole time.
A cold vice clenched my insides. “Leave him alone,” I screamed. “Stop.”
Tiny red circles formed on his neck. Round blood droplets appeared on his skin as Mother clenched her fingers tighter, her fingers shaking. He gasped once more and fell to the grass, his head thudding off the hard ground.
Cici shrieked and I plastered my palms over my ears again, waiting for the screeching speakers to stop reverberating, all the while staring at Drake’s grandfather’s limp form. His head faced me, his eyes staring, yellow-tinged and lifeless under the coif of aged eyebrows.
Air whooshed out of me, a withered balloon deflating. I sank to my knees on the warm ground. Salty tears ran into my open mouth. I wiped at my face and tried to stand
only to collapse again.
Drake hadn’t even given the scene a passing glance. He could’ve saved him. If he’d only been himself, he could’ve saved him. Except he didn’t know who he was, nor see his tormented grandfather stand up one last time to save his family. Didn’t see how much he loved him.
I raised my fists and slammed them against the invisible glass. Except, they sliced right through this time. I fell forward, knuckles cracking as they met with the earth. I was free.
I was free.
My mind took up the short chant, bouncing the words over in my brain, trying to make sense of them.
A salt canister rolled in front of me. I twisted around to find Jennie already shaking some around her in a circle, the tiny white specks cascading all around her. I tipped open the spout and mimicked her, a white waterfall poured around my feet.
I eyed Mother, now perched on her knees, head cradled in her hands.
“What the hell is going on?” I whispered to Jennie.
“She’s weak. For now. It broke the spell from me.”
“She killed him.”
“Who?”
“Drake’s grandfather.”
Jennie emptied the entire contents. Peaks and valleys of salt encircled her. She gave the crumpled body of Mr. Connors a cursory look and tossed the empty canister aside. “What now?”
“We have to save my mother…and Drake.”
“Your mother?”
I pointed to the woman on the cross. The woman who sobbed, the chest of her shirt covered in splotches of wet drops.
“Holy shit,” Jennie said as she took in the scene.
The crowd stood, unblinking, never wavering from their positions. They didn’t smile, or applaud now. Their eyes glazed over into pale numbness.
“She’s got the whole town under a spell. Nobody can help.”
A cackle rose from the stage, a deep throaty laugh that melted into hysterical giggles like an ugly wind chime. Mother rose to her feet. “Oh, how I hate when people bring up my John. It just really...pisses me off, you know?”
“You didn’t have to kill him,” I shouted.
“Oh yes I did. I have to kill them all. I cursed them, all of them. The entire blood line.” Her voice dissolved into laughter again. “They'll all end up dead, eventually.”
“And my dad?”
Cici’s cries cut off, her head swiveling to the old lady.
The old woman shrugged and jumped off the stage, landing like a Goth ballerina. “He figured out I wasn’t his aunt.” Her confident strides headed in a beeline for me. My feet tensed and I willed them to stay in place.
“You’re a lot like him. But he tried to kill me.” She pulled the scoop of her dress away from her skin and stared down smiling, then cocked her head again, head tilting to one side like a confused dog. “How would you say it? Hmm. I wasn’t havin’ that.” She snapped her fingers and shifted her hip.
I folded my arms over myself, bold, cocky, wishing to hell the salt would hold up. “That’s so ten years ago.”
“Well, excuuuse me. That’s what being over five-hundred years old does to you. Decades go by like that.” She snapped her fingers again.
Wait. 500 years? That didn’t make sense. The Adams witch burnings weren’t until the 1600’s. 500 years would be the 1500's. “You’re kind of arrogant for someone who can’t even do math."
Mother stared at me blankly, then her lip twitched.
“You said yourself Adams was colonized in 1610. Even if you came over from England, you couldn’t be much more than four-hundred years old.”
“Please, you think Adams was my first show? I was over a hundred years old by then. I’m ancient. I have the powers of those that came before me. I am strong. It wasn’t until Adams when the town burned me that I needed to find another body. It wasn’t until Adams that I fell in love and then cursed him when he wronged me. I’m glad I did, too.” She played with the skirt of her dress. “I was getting bored until I fell in love and then of course there was the curse. I still get bored until the heir grows up to produce another heir. That’s when I get to have some fun.”
A cry sounded and I twisted my head to the stage. Drake still knelt before Marlene as she struggled against her captors.
“One down.” Mother pointed to Mr. Connors’ unmoving body. “Another to go.”
Her eyes lifted to Drake and I followed them. “Pathetic, isn’t it? If only John and Thomas had shown such remorse. I may have been lenient.” She shrugged and her eyes shone. "But probably not. The whole family line is disgusting.”
I dropped my chin to my chest, unwilling to look at Drake until a tiny strand tugged in my brain saying, Hey stupid, listen to me. “You can’t kill him yet. He doesn't have an heir.”
She shook her head. “No kidding. Just when I thought you’d already got it.”
“How are you going to do it? You can’t make them…” A lump snowballed in my throat. “…have sex.”
“All this isn’t for them. This is for you and Mommy over there. I put on this whole show for you. And you’re the star."
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Sarah
Relief flooded through me at first, and then a whole swarm of panic. I didn’t need to worry about saving Drake. I needed to save myself…and Mom.
“After the running you over bit didn’t work, I thought about killing you like I did your father.” Mother thrust her hand out at my body, chest height, and turned her fist again and again. A heart attack. “But then, Mommy showed up and you and her just reminded me of something. “A young girl, who I also tried to warn by the way. Next time, don’t be where you shouldn’t be,” she mocked, trying to sound like a nice old lady. "Her and her mother burnt together. And I thought, well, it being Settler’s Day and all, we might as well pay tribute to some past settlers with a little reenactment.” She hopped up and down, beaming, her mouth stretching from one side of her face to the other. “Except, the funny part is, the Lynnes that are here won’t get to enjoy it.”
Mother scanned the crowd. Eyes stared back, following her path. Lynnes?
This must have been the girl Jennie told me about. The convicted witch. I watched Mother’s eyes roam the crowd. “Now, come on, Lynnes? Step forward.”
No one did. They gazed at each other shrugging, stupefied, until her head swiveled back to me.
My foot took a step toward Mother without even sending the thought to my brain. I stared down, then slowly trailed my eyes up Rose’s blue dress to the scoop collar, all the way to the witch’s mischief-taunting eyes.
“I’m not a Lynne.”
Mother’s face lit and she clapped her hands again. “How did you know? It doesn’t matter who you really are.” She opened her arms wide and stared out at the crowd, face bursting in happiness. “It only matters what they think. Or what I make them think.”
“Well, let’s see, your dad’s already gone, I’ve taken over your aunt's body.” She ticked off the people on her fingers one by one. “Your mother…and you, will be burning. That'll take care of your meddling family.” She pouted, thrusting her lower lip out. “It’s a shame you won't get to see what actually happened all those years ago. But just imagine, while you’re reliving Isabella’s life, what it would be like to stand by and watch something so horrible happen. Watch innocent people persecuted. By the way, I know my shield isn’t up anymore…and your little salt didn’t work, did it?”
She looked down at my leg, the one still frozen a step ahead of the other. My jaw dropped and I sneered. “Why us? Why make us suffer something so horrible? We’re innocent too.”
“I tried to help the Lynnes because they didn’t get in my way. You most certainly have tried to get in my way.”
“You’re sick.”
The old woman smiled, tiny creases splintering her lips. “Hmm. Thank you.”
Mother spun around, tapping her chin. “Now, let’s see here. What to do? What to do? Both at once? Have the younger one watch? Decisions. Decisions. God, it’s so h
ard planning out a delicious appetizer.”
I squirmed in my spot, scared to move. “I thought you couldn’t hurt Drake.”
“I’m not. He’s going to be making an heir today.”
My heart accelerated with Mother’s words. “What?”
“Well, maybe not exactly today. That will happen in due time, but I’m binding them. You know, so he can’t go off and mate with anyone else. Like you, for instance. Twenty-first century men are finicky, sexually charged. Ever since the seventies, I’ve had to bind the couple together. You never know if one might stray, then I’ll have to track down more and more heirs.” She waved her hand. “I’m…opposed to doing that in case I might miss one.”
I shook my head, stomach erupting in hot, acidic lava.
“After tonight, there will be no one else in Drake’s heart but Marlene.”
“He said he loved me.”
“He probably meant it.” Mother Shipton shrugged. “But not after tonight.”
My pulse dialed up inside, blood rushing through my veins. I took off at my aunt’s body in a flat out run.
Mother’s eyes widened. She couldn’t do anything else before I tackled her and held her wrists above her head, pinning them to the ground with her hands. Mother bucked underneath, but something had snapped inside. I wanted to take her down, kill her even.
Jennie raced up beside me, chanting at the old school canvas doll in her hand. “I bind you to me, I bind you to me.” Her eyes shut tight, she laid a hand on my shoulder and a shock rippled through me.
I followed her lead, repeating the chant in the same melodic voice.
Mother’s eyes searched frantically around the park. “What are you doing? What?”
I twisted. People shook their heads, whispering to each other. They were coming out of their trances.
“There,” Jennie said. “She’s bound to me."
“Which means?” I asked, still pinning Rose’s hands to the grass.
