My hands are folded in my lap. The sleeves of my black dress cover my wrists and make my arms itch. I hate wool.
“It should next be proved that witchcraft is!” booms a voice at the pulpit in the front of an old-fashioned church. It’s the man from the woods. He looks too young to have that voice.
“The being of such a thing is denied by many….Their chief argument is, that they never saw any witches, therefore there are none. Just as if you or I should say, we never met with any robbers on the road, therefore there never was any padding there.”
I glance side to side, to see if anyone else thinks this sounds crazy. I discover the pew is full of people wearing essentially the same crap clothes I am, and bonnets, too.
“What the hell?” I say.
All eyes turn toward me.
“Do not call for things you do not desire,” says the man, his eyes boring into mine.
He takes a few steps toward me. I push past the people in the pew and back down the aisle. A rope grazes my shoulder. I jerk away from it and look up. A noose hangs from the ceiling. When my gaze falls back on the man, he’s only inches from my face.
My eyes fly open and I grip the sides of my desk.
“Nice of you to join us,” says Mrs. Hoxley, her lips pushed together like a cranky fish’s.
To my left, Susannah looks concerned. School. Right, it’s Thursday morning. I rub my eyes.
“Sorry,” I say, and look down at Cotton Mather’s book on my desk. I don’t remember taking it out of my bag. I’m really not getting enough sleep.
“As I was saying, those of you who are participating in the historical reenactment will report to the auditorium for first period. Mr. Wardwell and Ms. Edelson asked me to remind you. It will be the same every Thursday for the next two weeks.”
This is so not good news. A breeze blows in through the cracked window, bringing with it crisp fall-scented air. The bell rings.
I rub my eyes again and put on my jacket. The Descendants are out of the room without a word. So much for civility.
I enter the hallway, walking at a slow pace toward the auditorium. As soon as people see me, they recoil, like they don’t want to chance touching me. Damn that rash.
“Sam,” says Mrs. Lippy, waving at me right outside the auditorium door. Her hair falls limply around her face and she has lipstick on her teeth.
Not this. “Is everything okay?”
“Peachy. But I will need you to come to my office after classes today.”
“I thought our meeting wasn’t until Monday.” I don’t really have time for this.
“Just the same. I’ve had a few calls. Not all of them pleasant.” She straightens her duck brooch. “Parents worry. As we all do. Some of us more than others.”
Great. This is only going to make things worse. What happens next time Vivian is called to the principal’s office? If Vivian was telling the truth, they could expel me. And with the way our relationship has been going lately, I wouldn’t be surprised if she lets them.
The bell rings. “Okay, well, I gotta go to class.”
I open the heavy door and walk the long center aisle to Mr. Wardwell.
“You’re late,” he says, and hands me what looks like a play.
Everyone is on stage already. And with Ms. Edelson’s class, there are twice as many people to watch me stutter through my lines. My mouth goes dry.
I’m getting some pretty nasty looks. Except from Jaxon, of course. I walk up the stairs and stand near him on the stage. He smiles.
“The packets I gave you contain the entire performance with stage directions. I’d like us to read it all out loud. That way if there are any questions we can address them immediately,” says Mr. Wardwell in an overly enthusiastic voice that suggests he’s likely the playwright.
Ms. Edelson joins him. Not far from me and Jaxon, Alice, Mary, and Susannah stand with Lizzie and John. I didn’t know they were in Ms. Edelson’s class, but I’m willing to bet they knew I was in Wardwell’s. Is that why they left homeroom without a word, because they didn’t want to walk with me? I chew on my lip. Alice and Lizzie appear to be arguing about something, but their voices are too quiet for me to make out their words.
“Everyone not directly involved in a given scene will stand against the curtains and wait their turn,” Ms. Edelson says in a voice that’s gratingly high-pitched. “The restrooms are in the back. If anyone needs to use them, feel free, just don’t hold up a scene you’re in.”
My hands shake as I flip through the first few pages, looking for Cotton’s name. It’s not there. “Who are you again?” I whisper to Jaxon.
“Reverend Parris. I’m up first,” he says with fake enthusiasm.
I sympathize even though he’s perfectly calm. We arrange ourselves against the curtain, with Jaxon and a few others center stage. There’s ten feet between me and the next person. This is so unfair. They’re treating me like I have leprosy, and I was the only one without the rash.
In my peripheral vision I see Lizzie staring at me. I can’t help it; I look at her. She holds the little Mather doll against her side and is wrapping something that looks like hair around its neck. I can only assume it’s my hair. The other girls don’t seem to notice, or maybe they don’t care. Maybe everything Susannah told me last night was to get information out of me. My stomach tenses, and I turn toward the restroom.
I slip through an opening in the curtain and into the backstage area. It’s dimly lit and smells like an attic. There are pulleys that control the curtains and large metal shelves. I head for the hallway in the back right corner.
A warm hand slips over my mouth, jerking my head back against a male chest. I struggle, but the grip is too strong.
“It’s easy to hurt you,” John’s voice says in my ear, my neck straining. “You should never have come to Salem, Mather. We know all about you. I owe you one for that rash. And for Lizzie’s—”
I slam my elbow into his ribs. He grunts and loosens his hand on my mouth enough for me to bite down, hard. There’s a moment before he reacts, and I worry he might not care. His arm tightens around my rib cage, making me gasp for breath. I keep my teeth clamped onto his hand.
All at once he releases me. I fling myself forward and away from him. In the dim lighting, I stumble into the pulleys. I get caught in the ropes and struggle to untangle my legs. I grab on to one to steady myself.
Just before I turn to face John, terrified he might be ready to pounce on me again, everything goes black. I look around frantically, but I can’t see the room at all. All I can see is the rope in my hand—every detail of it and nothing else.
Panic creeps along my skin. At the top of the rope there’s a girl’s body hanging. She rotates slowly in my direction, but her hair covers her face.
After a few seconds of forever, I release my grip on the rope. The moment I let go, the blackness dissipates and the backstage area comes back into view.
What’s in front of me is just as gruesome as the image of the girl hanging, though. One of the huge metal shelves is on the floor with its contents scattered around it. Under the shelf is John, facedown, blood oozing from his head.
I freeze. It’s the vision I had in the woods with the Descendants.
Students rush back to where we are. Screams erupt. Mr. Wardwell pushes through the crowd. “Ms. Edelson, call nine-one-one!” he yells. Then, to a couple of the frightened students, “Help me pick up this shelf!”
It takes five of them to lift it. Jaxon’s one of them. Meanwhile, the blood around John’s head forms a pool. Lizzie screams, and rushes to him. Susannah, Mary, and Alice comfort her. I can’t make out their words.
“Everyone, move!” yells Ms. Edelson. Some of the students back away, and the Descendants pull Lizzie from John.
“Sam. Samantha!” Jaxon walks up to me.
Ms. Edelson tries to remove the traumatized students from backstage. My vision blurs in and out. Time passes, but I couldn’t say how much. Someone is sobbing. More teachers show up, and Brennan is with them.
Then come the EMTs. “No pulse,” one says. Jaxon steps between me and John’s body, breaking my view of the blood for the first time. I blink.
Jaxon grabs my hand and pulls me gently. My feet move. He asks me if I’m okay, but my mouth refuses to answer. I just keep thinking about my vision in the woods. I didn’t even try to figure out who was in that vision. Now it’s too late.
How many seconds did I miss while having that vision of the hanging girl? I didn’t hear the shelf fall. I don’t understand how a shelf falls by itself. The only things I’m sure of are that I have to figure out who was hanging and I need to tell the Descendants about what I saw.
I snap my head up and scan the room for them, seeing the chaos for the first time. I’m sitting in a chair in the front of the auditorium. When did I sit down?
“I think she’s in shock,” Jaxon explains to a policeman with a bushy gray mustache who takes the seat next to me.
“Can ya hear me, Sam?” says the policeman with a husky voice.
I meet his eyes. “Yes.” Jaxon seems relieved.
“Do you feel up to answering a few questions about what happened back there?”
“I guess so,” I respond.
“I’m Captain Bradbury. I’ll go nice and slow. You let me know if you need a break,” he says, and Jaxon sits down on the other side of me.
“Okay.” The room’s full of policemen, and other students are being questioned, too.
“As I understand it, you were the only person backstage with John when the shelf fell. You wanna tell me what you remember?” He licks his thumb and flips the page of his notepad.
“I went backstage to go to the bathroom.” My voice shakes. “I felt a hand over my mouth and another one holding my stomach.” Jaxon tenses. “He whispered in my ear, ‘It’s easy to hurt you.’ I managed to get my elbow into his ribs and I bit his hand. He let go and I went flying forward into the ropes. I got tangled in them.”
Bradbury furrows his brow. “You’re saying this young man attacked you?”
“In a way.”
“Have you had any altercations with him before?” Bradbury asks.
I hesitate. “Well, not exactly. He doesn’t like me.”
“Had he ever physically assaulted you before today?”
“No.” I can’t tell him about the locker or the rock because I can’t prove those.
“And how did the shelf fall?” Bradbury asks.
“I’m not sure. I blacked out when I hit the ropes.” Hanging girl. “And then he was just lying there.”
“It’s not likely you’re strong enough to knock over one of them shelves….It would take two of my bigger officers to push one of those over. I’d imagine something else musta happened. Did you hear anything or see anyone?”
He already checked out the shelves? I must’ve been sitting here for a while. “No. I blacked out.”
“Shock, most likely. It’s common.” He really is trying to be nice. “If you remember anything more, even in a few days, I want you to give me a call.” He hands me a business card. “We might have you down to the station to give a more formal statement.”
“Okay,” I say, examining the card with a witch logo on it and tucking it into my wallet.
Bradbury stands and pats me on the shoulder.
“Sam, he attacked you?” Jaxon seems conflicted.
“He’s dead, isn’t he?” I already know the answer, and the weight of it is more than I can bear.
Jaxon nods. “I’ll call my mother to pick us up.”
I scan the room again. “Where are the Descendants? I have to tell them something.”
“They left. Lizzie was pretty hysterical.”
I can’t let this vision, or whatever it was, go. The last time I did that, someone died. Next it’ll be a girl, possibly someone I know. I need to find Elijah. I stand, and Jaxon stands with me. My legs feel weak and my head spins. I reach out for Jaxon. I feel his hand on my arm before the room blurs.