by A. W. Jantha
“Well, I don’t know!” Winifred protested, then gave her sisters a knowing, secret smile. “Cat’s got my tongue!”
The Sanderson witches shrieked with laughter at Winifred’s joke. As the sound of it died down, Sarah chafed at the rope around her neck. “This is terribly uncomfortable,” she said.
Winifred cleared her throat, and before anyone in Salem could stop them, the Sanderson witches began to sing and chant in unison: “Thrice I with mercury purify and spit upon the twelve tables.”
“Don’t listen!” cried the judge. “Cover your ears!”
The gathered mass rushed to heed him as the sisters spat into the crowd.
“Don’t drop the book!” someone shouted, but it was too late. Elijah Morris, the judge’s apprentice and a boy who’d lost his best friend to these wicked sisters only that morning, covered his ears, too, dropping Winifred’s leather-bound spell book as he did. The heavy thing sank into the mud with a satisfied squish. A moment later it flew open of its own accord, hundreds of pages shuddering and chuckling in the wind.
Mary and Sarah looked gleefully at it, the latter clapping her slender hands.
But Winifred, the eldest, let her gaze linger on the back of the crowd, her brown eyes piercing and gone almost black but her expression somehow bemused, like a cat who’d just transformed her master into a crippled mouse. Then her attention snapped back to her spell book. A laugh tumbled out of her broad chest. “Fools!” she crowed, relishing the word. “All of you! My ungodly book speaks to you: On All Hallows’ Eve, when the moon is round, a virgin will summon us from under the ground.” Her delight bubbled over into her sisters, who giggled and beamed alongside her. “We shall be back!” Winifred proclaimed. “And the lives of all the children of Salem shall be mine!”
White lightning cracked across the sky, and the executioner, dressed all in black, kicked down the barrels, Sarah, Winifred, and Mary dropping in quick succession. Their bodies shuddered and their toes stretched on swinging stockinged legs, and at last they were still and singing no more.
As the crowd began to shuffle off, the spell book was closed and lifted. As the book rose, the eyelid on its cover blinked open and the watery green iris searched out its rescuer.
Through a film of cataracts and rain, the spell book’s eye saw thick dark curls obscuring a face, and then it was tucked beneath an arm and secreted away.
SALEM, 1993
Dani and Max had only been trick-or-treating for ten minutes, but Max was already angling to go home.
Before leaving the house, Dani had begged him to put on a costume, and he’d relented by pulling on sunglasses, a baseball cap, and an oversize suede jacket that belonged to their dad. He pulled the brim low as they walked, and the grimace on his face said that there was no universe in which this night would turn out to be fun for him.
“Lighten up, Max,” Dani said, leading him to the next house. He plopped onto the porch step to wait as she sidled up to the door after a pink princess and a pirate.
“What a festive little witch you are,” said the woman who answered the door.
Max rolled his eyes.
When Dani came back, pleased with both her haul and the compliment, she handed Max the extra candy bar she’d taken for him.
“Can we go home now?” he asked, dropping the chocolate into his bag.
“No.”
As they headed back down the walk toward the street, Max groaned. “Dani—” he started, but it was too late. Jay and Ernie had rolled up and were holding court with their goons. Jay was in a pumpkin-smashing contest with a beanie-wearing sophomore, and Ernie was perched on the brick-and-concrete wall of the steps that Max and Dani had to take to return to the street.
Max pivoted, deciding to cut across the lawn and walk down the driveway of the neighboring house. Dani did not get the memo.
“Ding, ding, ding, ding,” Ernie trilled.
At that, Jay hurried over to Dani. “Stop and pay the toll, kid.”
“Ten chocolate bars, no licorice,” added Ernie.
“Dump out your sack.”
Dani wrinkled her brow, unimpressed. “Drop dead, moron.”
Around them, the boys in denim jackets and ill-advised hats let out a chorus of shocked, delighted whoops and whistles.
“Yo, twerp,” Ernie quickly cut in, “how’d you like to be hung off that telephone pole?”
“I’d like to see you try,” said Dani. “It just so happens I’ve got my big brother with me.” She looked over her shoulder at Max, who was staying in the background—dreaming of dodging the boys by heading down the block but not willing to abandon his sister. “Max!” Dani said.
“Hollywood!” Ernie called in recognition.
Max stuffed his hands into his pockets and looked away.
This time, the swell of sound bubbled with laughter. “Awkward,” intoned a guy with the world’s smallest ear gauges.
“So,” said Jay, swaggering over to Max, “you’re doing a little trick-or-treating.” He mimicked the action with Ernie, which gained a cheap laugh from their friends.
“I’m just taking my little sister around,” Max said, stepping into Jay’s personal space.
Jay hummed. “That’s nice,” he said. He slapped down the brim of Max’s ball cap. “Wow! I love the costume.” He leaned in close. “But what are you supposed to be? A New Kid on the Block?” He grabbed Max’s elbow to keep himself from falling over as he cracked up at his own joke.
“For your information,” Dani announced, “he’s a little leaguer.”
The boys laughed hard at that, with Ernie pretending to strike a pitch from Jay with a tiny invisible bat.
Max shouldered past them.
“Wait a minute,” said Ernie, grabbing Max’s shoulder. “Everybody pays the toll.”
“Stuff it, zit face,” said Dani.
Ernie dropped Max’s jacket to turn on her. “Why, you little—”
“Hey!” Max interrupted, putting himself between Dani and the bullies. “Ice, here,” he said, and pressed his own paper bag of candy into Ernie’s thick chest. “Pig out.” He took his sister by the arm. “Come on, Dani. Let’s go.”
As he stalked down the block, Dani skipping to keep up with him, he heard Ernie send a last volley across the road: “And, Hollywood, the shoes fit great!”
Max let go of Dani’s arm and shoved his hands into his coat pockets, his face burning.
He didn’t say anything as they made their way down the block. He could tell Dani was disappointed in him, which only made him more annoyed with her. It was great that she thought he could take ten other guys in a fight—but seriously? Now Jay and Ernie would never forget his face. And now that he’d given them both his shoes and his candy without fighting back, they’d never leave him alone.
He followed Dani up the front steps to another house.
“Should’ve punched him,” Dani finally grumbled. She didn’t look at Max.
Her flip suggestion made Max’s irritation flare. “He would’ve killed me!”
“At least you would’ve died like a man,” she replied.
“Hey!” Max imagined that Allison would have kept her cool and turned Dani’s gendered stereotyping into a teaching moment, as she’d done when their geometry teacher made a joke about girls being bad at math, but right now he was just afraid that his little sister might be right. “You just humiliated me in front of half the guys at school,” he told her hotly. “So collect your candy and get out of my life.”
Dani’s eyes filled with tears. She brushed past him on her way back down the steps. “I wanna go home. Now.”
Max sighed as she dashed through the yard and down the sidewalk. He hadn’t really meant that—and he certainly shouldn’t have said it out loud. It wasn’t Dani’s fault that Jay and Ernie and their gang were so awful.
There was a display of haystacks and seasonal decor in front of another house, and she tackled one of the pumpkins as if it were one of the fluffy pillows on her bed.
<
br /> “Dani,” Max said, walking over, “I’m sorry.” He sat down heavily on the hay next to his shaking, sobbing sister. “It’s just that I hate this place,” he said, snatching off his ball cap. “I miss all my friends. I wanna go home.”
“This is your home now,” Dani said over her shoulder, “so get used to it.” She sniffled and wiped snot from her nose.
Max sighed. If only it were that easy. Dani had always been better at rolling with the punches. But he also knew that just because she was, that didn’t mean he should take out his own dislike of change on her. He leaned over. “Yeah,” he admitted. Then he asked gently, “Gimme one more chance?”
“Why should I?”
“ ’Cause I’m your brother.”
She turned to look at him, and Max gave her an exaggerated pout. She giggled, and the sound of her laugh made him smile, too.
Max looked up past the glare of the streetlights.
“Whoa,” he said, “check that out.”
“What?” asked Dani seriously.
The two of them stood up.
“Something just flew across the moon,” Max said.
Dani wandered closer to the street, craning her neck.
Max glanced down at her, smirked, and grabbed her around the waist, shouting.
She squealed, breaking into another wave of giggles.
“Fooled ya,” Max said, dusting hay off her jacket.
Dani relaxed for a moment against her big brother, and for a second it felt like they were back home in Southern California, happy. “Let’s go, jerk face,” she said, tugging on his sleeve.
They turned down the walk to the closest house and gasped in unison.
Check out this house.” Max ogled the building, which was at least two stories tall, though light glowed warm through a series of windows in the roof, as well, suggesting a finished attic.
The house itself was made of white clapboard, with dark shutters framing each window. Candlelit jack-o’-lanterns, poised behind thick windowpanes and lining the red-brick walk, peered at them. The sounds of a party spilled down the front steps and through the iron gate to where Max and Dani stood, looking like dumbstruck street urchins.
Max felt a pang of envy, but Dani interrupted before he could truly wallow.
“Rich people,” she said matter-of-factly, shrugging. “They’ll probably make us drink cider and bob for apples.”
Max looked down at her, wondering how a girl her age could be so good at keeping things in perspective. Despite her prediction, she dashed up the steps and pushed open the door. Max joined her, taking in the party.
The entry hall was bigger than his and Dani’s new bedrooms combined, with a staircase sweeping up one side. In the adjoining room, adults his parents’ age milled around sipping wine. They were all dressed in frilly, expensive-looking clothes that reminded Max of Marie Antoinette. In a far corner, a pianist and string quartet played discreetly.
“Is this for real?” Max breathed.
“Jackpot!” Dani had honed in on the cauldron of candy on a table in the middle of the entryway. They dashed over to it together, and Max plunged both hands in, feeling a giddiness he hadn’t experienced since he was close to Dani’s age. The cauldron was almost overflowing with full-size 100 Grand and Oh Henry! bars, plus Gobstoppers, Butterfinger BB’s, and chocolate lollipops shaped like witches and Frankenstein’s monster. Dani picked up a witch wrapped in cellophane and ran a finger over the warty nose reverentially, as if she could get a sugar high just from touching it.
“Max Dennison.” The girl’s voice sounded like she’d caught a toddler with his hand in the cookie jar—or in this case, the candy cauldron.
Max looked up to find Allison on the second-floor landing, leaning over the wooden handrail. Like the older women downstairs, she wore a long silk dress with lots of trim and complicated buttons. The cream sleeves of the dress ended at her elbows and turned into a waterfall of white lace. She wore an expensive-looking necklace, too, made of fat white pearls and one of those medallions with a Victorian woman’s profile carved into it. The dress didn’t seem like Allison’s style, but the smile on her face—big and broad and a bit sly—was all her, and it made Max’s heart do a complicated flip.
“Allison,” he said, stepping away from the candy cauldron.
“Oh,” Dani said conspiratorially. Her eyes darted from her brother to the girl at the top of the staircase. “Allison.”
Max shot her a death look.
Allison grabbed her flouncy skirts to prevent herself from tripping down the steps. “I thought you weren’t into Halloween,” she said, making her way toward them.
“I’m not,” said Max. “I’m just taking my sister, Dani, around.”
“That’s nice,” said Allison, smiling.
Max’s stomach turned into a warm, melty mess. He’d never made Allison smile like that before—not like she was being polite but like she was actually impressed. He grinned back and put an arm around Dani’s shoulders. “I always do it,” he said proudly.
“My parents made him,” said Dani smartly.
Max nudged her.
Allison’s smile grew bigger as she watched the two siblings tease each other. “Do you guys want some cider?”
“Sure,” said Max before Dani could protest. He shot her a warning look when Allison’s back was turned as she headed into the adjoining room, but Dani only smirked at him.
Allison filled two orange paper cups with warm cider and returned to them.
“Thanks,” said Max, taking the cup she offered him. “How’s the party?”
“Boring,” said Allison. “It’s just a bunch of my parents’ friends. They do this every year.” She walked back over to the cauldron and gestured. “And I get candy duty. By the way, Dani, I love your costume.”
“Thank you,” said Dani. “I really like yours, too. Of course, I couldn’t wear anything like that, because I don’t have”—she paused, turning innocently to her brother—“what do you call them, Max? Yabos?”
Max choked on his cider. The sting of cinnamon and powdered cloves went up his nose.
“Max likes your yabos,” Dani said. “In fact, he loves them.”
Max looked apologetically at Allison, trying to convey both abject horror and kids will be kids, but probably just managing to look like a stalker.
Allison laughed and picked out a few more pieces of candy for Dani.
Max, meanwhile, wondered how he could possibly redeem himself, or at least explain himself. He also wondered whether his parents would mind if Dani mysteriously went missing and ended up living with their aunt in Seattle.
“I’m really into witches,” said Allison, admiring Dani’s costume.
Max was too relieved by the change in topic to be annoyed that they were again talking about witches as if they were baseball cards or Bon Jovi.
“Really? Me too.” Dani unwrapped her chocolate witch and nibbled on the tip of her hat. “We just learned about those sisters in school.”
“You mean the Sanderson sisters?” A look of real excitement came over Allison’s face, the way it did when Miss Olin started talking about the Bill of Rights in US History. “I know all about them,” she went on. “My mom used to run the museum.”
Dani grinned, equally excited. “There’s a museum about them?”
“Yeah, but they shut it down because”—Allison leaned in and lowered her voice to a whisper—“a lot of spooky things happened there.”
Max felt like his plan had boomeranged and fallen in his lap, and he wasn’t about to let it slip away again. “Why don’t we go to the old Sanderson house?” he asked. He hoped he sounded fearless and cool, especially since his attempts to impress her up till then had come off more like schoolyard teasing.
Allison turned to him, startled.
Dani shook her head, looking frightened, which confused Max because she’d seemed so excited just ten seconds before.
“Well, come on,” he said to Allison. “Make a believer ou
t of me.”
Allison met his eyes, and he couldn’t stop himself from smiling.
He was surprised when she smiled back. “Okay,” she said, smoothing her skirts. “Let me get changed. They’ll never miss me.”
When Allison was on her way up the stairs, Dani turned on Max. “We’re not going up there,” she insisted. “My friends at school told me all about that place. It’s weird.”
“Dani.” He touched her wrist, but his eyes didn’t leave Allison. “This is the girl of my dreams.”
“So take her to the movies like a normal person,” Dani insisted.
“Dani!” Once Allison had rounded a corner at the top of the stairs, Max sighed and sank down onto one knee, facing his sister. “Look, just do this one thing for me, and I’ll do anything you say. Please?” he pleaded.
Dani looked thoughtful.
Max didn’t know why Allison was giving him the time of day now, after blowing him off only a few hours before, but he suspected it had something to do with Dani. He wasn’t going to let this second chance—or his little sister—get away from him.
“Please?” he begged, clasping his hands. “Please?”
Dani patted his shoulder to quiet him. “Okay. Next year we go trick-or-treating as Wendy and Peter Pan”—she leaned in close, her nose almost touching his—“with tights, or it’s no deal.”
Max looked longingly at the empty staircase.
Dani shrugged and spun away.
“Okay, okay,” he said, grabbing her around the middle before she got too far. Like it or not, Allison seemed more relaxed when Dani was around. And like it or not, he felt more relaxed, too. Was that weird? He didn’t have time to psychoanalyze. “Deal,” he said. “Deal.”
Dani beamed and slapped his back.
Allison led the way, though Max knew exactly where they were going, too. She cut through the graveyard, which made Max nervous they might come across Jay and Ernie again. The last thing he needed was to be forced into a fight to defend Allison’s honor—or his own.
The graveyard was eerie at night. It seemed less like a place to watch Salem Harbor and more like a place to perform weird occult rituals. The tombstones resembled crooked teeth, and the linden trees towered like gaunt, broken-boned skeletons watching them in the dark.
