Bones of a Witch

by Dana Donovan

  Naturally I responded the only way I knew how. “Putnam?” I said. “Go fuck yourself.”

  He smiled as if pleased with that, and after removing the witch’s stone from around his neck he draped it over mine. “No, Miss Adams,” he said. “You go fuck yourself.” And he gave the chair a good hard kick, collapsing it out from under me and Ursula.

  Our bodies fell with immeasurable sufferance, so much so that I thought Putnam had grabbed on to our legs and was swinging along with us. He wasn’t, of course. Within seconds, my world faded to black, but I had not passed out. That much I was sure of, for the pain would not have been so great had I been rendered unconscious.

  Overhead, late autumn leaves shook loose and rained down upon us, as the branch we hung from complained only mildly about its chore, groaning some; creaking less. Who knew how many had burdened its majesty before? I forced my eyes open, and in a squint could see the rut of a hundred ropes grooved into its bark. Where does it end, I wondered. Here? I swallowed, or tried to, but found it impossible with the rope burning into my neck, its every fiber like tiny teeth cutting deeper into my skin as my body swung with Ursula’s in a phantom breeze. Off in the distance I heard Putnam’s sickly laugh. He was walking away, and I found solace in knowing he would not see me die.

  For the first half-minute or so I felt Ursula kicking her feet, perhaps involuntary. When she stopped, I thought she had given up. I’ve often thought about that moment since. It’s the only time in my life when I also thought of giving up. But in that brief instant, when the rope around my neck conspired with gravity to deprive me of another breath, fate intervened. Spinelli, whom I thought had died for certain, positioned himself below Ursula and me and began to thrust us upon his shoulders, relieving the worst of the weight from our ropes.

  At last, I could swallow. I coughed and rejoiced at my ability to reclaim air into my lungs. Soon Ursula gasped, too, her breathing more labored than mine, but constant.

  “Dominic, you’re all right!”

  He staggered wildly to catch his balance, and in his struggle I heard grunts of pain and distress. “For now,” he said. “I don’t know how long I can hold you.”

  “Where are you hit?”

  “Don’t worry `bout me. Are you all right?”

  Each time he staggered away from center I felt the rope tug at my neck like a rusty chain. I knew he could not hold out for long. “I’m all right,” I told him. “Can you reach the chair?”

  He turned with some difficulty toward the chair, but the sigh in his voice told me to give that up. “It’s busted,” he said.

  “Can you shoot the rope?”

  “Sorry, no gun.”

  “How `bout your phone? Can you call Tony?”

  “Negative. I tried calling him when I first got here. There’s no reception.”

  “Damn it. All right, listen, can you reach this witch’s stone around my neck. I need you to yank it off me and pitch it as far as you can?”

  “I’ll try,” he said, and he did, but he could not reach high enough to get it, and with the noose around my neck, I could not lean over to lower it to him.

  “Dominic, you’re going to have to go and get help.”

  “No. I can’t leave you.”

  He stumbled again, and the rope tightened against mine and Ursula’s neck so hard it nearly jerked us off his shoulders.

  “Dominic.” My voice was faltering now, choked to a harsh whisper by the noose. “You can’t hold us up indefinitely. If you’re hurt badly you might bleed to death.”

  “I don’t care. I’d die for you, Lilith.”

  “Baby, that’s sweet—but stupid. Listen, if you die then we die. You get it?”

  “Lilith, I can’t leave you.”

  “Okay, look, maybe there’s another way. If you can make a spark, I think I can get us out of this.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s the witch’s stone. I can work some magic if we can just figure out a way to interrupt the magnetic field around it. I just need a spark.”

  “Like from a lighter?”

  “No. It needs to be electrical, like from a stun gun.”

  “Sorry, no stun gun.”

  I could feel Dominic’s strength weakening by the second. His breathing had grown labored, and his hardly noticeable grunting noises had become very noticeable gasps of pain.

  “Dominic, is your car down the hill?”

  “Yeees, uuhh.”

  “Can you take the battery out and bring it up here?”

  “What?”

  “The battery. We can make a really big spark from it, can’t we? Go down and get it.”

  “Lilith, I can’t get the battery. I would have to leave you hanging here too long. Besides, I have…” He stopped there to cough and spit up blood. “I have no tools to remove it.”

  “Then we’re all dead,” I said. “You need to drop us. Drop us and try to get yourself to a hospital.”

  “Lilith I…. Wait.”

  “What?”

  “My phone.”

  “Yeah, I thought you said it wouldn’t work.”

  “No, I said it wouldn’t call out.”

  “So, what good is it?”

  “You don’t understand. It has a dual resonance flux compression magneto. If I can reverse its polarity and off sync it with the capacitor regeneration modular, then I can induce a static charge of….”

  “Jesus, Dominic. All right already. Just do it, will you?”

  I have no idea what the hell the boy was talking about. I only know that he took the back of his phone off, flipped something around and then told me to count to three. I did, and when I got to three the device blew up with the biggest damn spark of blue and white light this side of St. Elmo’s fire. At that instant, I exercised a spell that turned the noose ropes into straw, and like a house of cards, we tumbled to the ground, Dominic on bottom, me on him and Ursula on me. Immediately after getting up, I removed the witch’s stone from around my neck and pitched it into the night as far as I could. I helped Ursula to her feet, next. She seemed unsteady, dazed and I’m sure sore as hell from rope burns and bruises. I asked if she was all right, but my own voice came out sounding so shredded and hoarse that I don’t think she understood.

  It was not until I bent over to help Dominic that I realized the gravity of his situation. He told me he had been hit, but I had no idea. After lifting his jacket away, I saw that Putnam’s bullet had entered his chest dangerously close to his heart and exited his back, punching a hole there so large I could almost put my fist in it. How he managed to hold Ursula and me up on his shoulders in spite of his wound is an unprecedented testament of human will and sacrifice. I think at that point I knew exactly what I had to do.

  Ursula had already begun tearing off segments of her blouse to use as bandages and applying them with pressure to Dominic’s wounds. I gave her some words of encouragement and assured Dominic he was in great hands before telling them that I was going off to find some help. I didn’t think she’d notice, but it turns out Ursula is a bright individual. She caught me heading off in the direction of Putnam’s retreat and called me back.

  “I believe Mister Spinelli’s coach is waiting down the hill that way,” she said, pointing.

  I nodded. “It is, but I have a quick errand to run first. You keep pressure on those wounds now. I’ll have help up here before you know it.”

  Naturally, I’m not at liberty to discuss what my errand was, but suffice to say it was a necessary task that did not take me long to accomplish. After all, I do hate it when loose ends are not tidied up.

  Tony Marcella:

  I feel like a fool. What can I say? A total damn fool. Why didn’t I listen to Spinelli? He tried to tell me back at the tavern that he thought Putnam had the girls up on Gallows Hill, but I wouldn’t listen. I was so Goddamn pigheaded, and because of it, all three of them nearly died. Jesus, I don’t know what I would have done then. If I ever lost Lilith and Dominic, too, I wouldn’t…I j
ust couldn’t…. Forget it. I’m not going to go there. There were already enough tears to go around at the base of Gallows Hill when Carlos and I drove up on scene thirty minutes too late to make a difference to anyone, except maybe for Lilith. She seemed so genuinely happy to see me that even I started to cry. And Carlos? Gees, forget about it. When he saw Dominic all strapped into the ambulance gurney with the oxygen mask over his face and forty yards of white bandages around his chest, well, that big old teddy bear wept like a baby, I wanna tell you.

  “Can I see him?” I remember Carlos asking, his face strung like taffy and his eyes like two leaky water balloons. “Can I see my buddy?”

  “He’s sedated now,” said a paramedic, whose name I recall only as Pete. “Let us finish getting him stabilized.”

  “Is it bad?”

  “Yeah, it’s serious. He’s been shot in the chest,” Something big, too. It blew right through him.”

  “It’s a .45 I bet.”

  “Maybe, or a small cannon.”

  “Oh, God. How could I let this happen?”

  “Look, Detective, your friend has a condition known as dextrocardia, and he’s—”

  “Dextro…. Oh, no. Tony did you hear that? Dominic’s has dex-o-trada.”

  “No,” said the paramedic, “dextrocardia; it’s a genetic condition where a person’s heart forms on the opposite side of his chest. He was born with it.”

  “Really?” Carlos turned to me with his hand covering the right side of his chest. “His heart’s over here?”

  I shrugged. “Who knew?”

  Pete said, “It’s more common than people realize. In some cases it’s not just the heart, but all the internal organs. It doesn’t affect their quality of life, and most who have it never even know. I mention this because in Mister Spinelli’s case it’s a lucky thing. If his heart were on the left side of his chest where yours and mine is, he would be dead right now.”

  “So he’s going to be all right?”

  Finally the reassuring smile that Carlos (and yes, I) needed inched across Pete’s face. “Well, he’s lost a lot of blood,” he said in a confidential tone. “But yes, I think he’ll make it.”

  “Oh, good God,” Carlos sighed, and I with him. We stepped back as Pete closed the door on the ambulance and watched him jot around to the passenger side. He was barely in when the driver dropped it into gear and sped off with lights flashing and siren wailing. I patted Carlos on the back and mumbled something about how everything was going to be all right. He nodded, but kept his head down so that I would not see his tears, which worked out well, as he couldn’t see mine either.

  Across the lot sat another ambulance where Lilith and Ursula were being treated for rope burns, contusions and possible internal injuries. I say that now with some reservations, as Lilith seemed vocal enough to complain about her treatment without too much apparent discomfort. Fearing a no-win confrontation between her and the paramedics, I excused myself from Carlos and hurried over to see if I could calm the situation.

  “All right, Lilith, tell me what the big fuss is.”

  “This guy,” she said, pushing away a young-looking EMT with a chin full of peach fuzz shorter than Spinelli’s. “He keeps trying to take my blood pressure even after I told him not to.”

  “But that’s his job. He’s got to take your vitals.”

  “No, he’s got to get out of my face before I go all witchy on his ass.” She reached up and pulled me in by my lapels. “What do you think he’ll say when he sees that my blood pressure is only forty over twenty?”

  I rolled back a curious grin. “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  “Huh, he’ll probably wonder why you’re not in a coma.”

  “Exactly.” She let go and pushed me away. “Now tell the twerp I don’t need my blood pressure checked.”

  I walked the paramedic off to the side a few steps, putting my arm around his shoulder for an air of confidence. “Look,” I said, “the young ladies’ are not up to getting her blood pressures checked right now. But I’ll tell you what. Just as soon as we get them back to New Castle I take them to the emergency room for a thorough check up. We’ll get their blood pressures checked then, along with their pulse and everything else. What do you say?”

  The kid brushed my hand off his shoulder as if it were toxic. “Forget it,” he said. “I heard her. The woman’s a bitch. You do whatever the hell you want with her.” He marched off toward the front of the ambulance, leaving me to slink back to Lilith on a bead of thin ice.

  “Well?” she said. “What did he say?”

  I smiled convincingly. “He said he knows you.”

  She gave her hair a flip back over her shoulder. “Of course, they all say that.” And she hopped off the bumper and put her hand out for Ursula. “Come on, Urs, let’s go home.”

  We had just started for the car when I spotted Carlos together with another gentleman walking toward us. Right away I knew the other guy was a cop. The first give-away was his manner of dress. We plainclothesmen all have the same street smart sense of fashion, only it’s always at least two years out of date. But the biggest give-away was Carlos, or more accurately his walk: shoulders back, chest out. You see, anytime he’s with one or more cops he always tries to be the tallest in the group. With anyone else he slouches, usually with his hands in his pockets. It’s a small thing, I know, but it’s one of the little quirks that endear him to me.

  “Tony,” he said, after meeting up with the girls and me half way. “This is Detective David Chandler of the Salem PD. He has a few questions for you.”

  “Oh?” I put my hand out. “Detective, pleasure to meet you.”

  “Same here,” he said, and he shook my hand with a quick but firm grip. “Actually, it’s these young ladies I need to chat with.”

  Lilith stepped between us. “We’ve already given full statements to the lead investigating officer, Detective. I’m not sure if there is anything else we can add to it.”

  “Yes, I understand, but we have a new development and I just need to ask you a couple of questions about it.”

  “New development?” I looked to Carlos and could tell from the expression on his face that he knew what it was and that it was a biggie. “Have you apprehended Putnam?”

  “We have,” the detective answered. “That is to say, we found him. He’s dead.”

  “Ha!” said Lilith. “Good riddance to him.”

  I inserted my arm between Lilith and Detective Chandler and eased her out of the circle. “I don’t understand. How did he die? Did Spinelli shoot him?”

  I looked at Carlos again; his face lit up like a neon sign. I knew it was killing him that he couldn’t be the one to tell me.

  “No, it wasn’t your detective. It looks like an animal got him. Tore him apart something awful. That’s what I wanted to ask these ladies about.” He stepped around me to gain direct access to both Lilith and Ursula. “Either of you see anything prowling around these parts tonight?”

  “Prowling?” said Lilith. I knew she knew something.

  “Yes, you know, like a wolf or a bear?”

  “How `bout a big cat?”

  “Sure, maybe a big cat. You seen such a thing?”

  She pursed her lips momentarily and broke them apart with a tisk noise. “Nope, nothing like that.”

  He looked to Ursula. “Miss?”

  Ursula shook her head slowly, seemingly giving more consideration to her response than Lilith had. “For certain I have not, kind sir,” she answered, her voice sounding soft and fragile. “But forgive me my thoughts, for I could suffer no longer Mister Putnam’s cruelty and I pray he hath found solace with the devil.”

  Chandler thinned his lips and dropped a subtle nod. “I see.”

  We stood there then, the four of us looking at Ursula staring down at the ground in solemn reflection. Detective Chandler could not know the horrors she had experienced at the hands of Putnam and those like him back in seventeenth-century Salem, but it seemed hi
s capacity for intimate cognition allowed him a connection of vicarious existence with others. And I sensed this connection he had with Ursula. In some ways I felt that he, too, may have journeyed through stagnant glitches in time, only to find himself standing right back where he started. I suppose stranger things have happened.

  “Well, if there is nothing else,” said Lilith, clapping her hands clean. “It’s a long ride home. Detective?”

  Chandler shook Lilith’s hand. “Miss. Adams, thank you.” He then shook mine, Carlos’ and Ursula’s, and stepped aside for us to pass. We walked off together, but as we began piling into the car, I noticed Chandler talking to the young paramedic who had given Lilith such a hard time; or she him. He told me when we walked off together that he heard what Lilith said. I supposed he meant he heard what she said about her blood pressure. If he believed it, or worse, if Chandler believed it, then I guessed we might not have heard the last of the Putnam/Hilton story. Lilith seemed none too worried, though, and neither did Carlos. The first thing out of his mouth after we hit the road was when do we eat? Some things never change, and I find that strangely comforting.

  Lilith Adams:

  Tony seemed grumpier than usual for the first week or so after we got back from Salem. He blamed it on me because I asked him to sleep on the couch so that Ursula could have his bedroom.

  “Why can’t I just sleep with you?” he asked. Sure, like I was going to let that happen. “It’s not as though we haven’t slept together all night before.”

  “Tony, if I let you sleep with me every night, then you’re going to want to…you know, every night.”

  “No I won’t. I’ll just be glad to have a soft bed to sleep on so that I can go to work in the morning without being all stiff and sore.”

  “Yeah, well it’s you getting all stiff and sore at night that I’m worried about.”

  “Lilith.”

  All right, so the following weekend I let him sleep in my bed. And just as I suspected (okay, maybe planned) he wanted to fool around all night. But I’m an understanding girl; I figured what could it hurt? I also didn’t see any harm in understanding again the next morning. After all, he was all stiff and sore. Afterwards, we were just lying there catching our breaths, when he said to me, “Man that was wild. I hope we didn’t wake Ursula.”