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“I am innocent to a witch. I know not what a witch is.”“How do you know, then, that you are not one?”-Examination of Bridget Bishop, Salem Village, April 19, 1692***“Abbie Hobbs is a witch,” Ruth said.Phoebe was standing with her locker open, brushing her hair. She hadn’t even noticed Ruth was there until the girl blurted out something about Abbie, and it was a few seconds until Phoebe registered what it was. “Um, okay?” Phoebe said. “Did she join the Wicca Club or something?” The final bell had rung, and the corridor was full of rushing students. Ruth looked over her shoulder, as if checking for anyone listening in. Then she whispered, “Not like that. I mean she’s a real witch. Like from history class? In Salem?”Phoebe put her brush down and closed her locker. She and Ruth suddenly seemed to be at a kind of standstill while the rest of the world hustled by around them. She wasn‘t sure where this was going, but she already didn‘t like it. “There were no witches in Salem,” Phoebe said after a while. “That was the point of the lesson.”“But what if there were?” Ruth said, leaning in. “What if they’re just really good at hiding? How would we know?”Phoebe backed up a step. “Ruth, I don’t know you that well. If you’re really freaking out or something, maybe you should talk to your parents. Or a priest, I guess?”Other than the fact that she was 18, a senior, that their lockers were right next to each other, and that they shared a history class, Phoebe barely knew anything about Ruth at all. But Ruth was one of the students who had tried to force the pagan kids to move their club activities off of school grounds last year, Phoebe remembered, so maybe this was some kind of religious panic thing.“My parents don’t believe me,” Ruth continued. “Nobody would believe me except you.”“Why would I believe you?”“Because you know Abbie. You know what she can do.”That was true. Normally, Phoebe would believe any nasty thing another girl had to say about Abbie. Normally…“There are lots of them in class,” Ruth continued. “And she’s their leader, and they want me to join them. Have they, you know, come to see you? Do they ask you to do things with them?”The hall was emptying out now, the sudden silence punctuated only by the occasional slamming of a locker door. “I haven’t talked to Abbie in months. You’re freaking me out, Ruth. You don’t look good.”“I can’t sleep,” said the other girl. “She comes every night and keeps me awake.”“Abbie sneaks into your room at night?”“It’s not really her. She’s like a ghost when she comes. I hoped you‘d seen her too. Now you don‘t believe me.”Pity and revulsion had a tug-of-war for Phoebe’s feelings. The bags under Ruth’s eyes made her look even spookier than usual. In spite of herself, she got closer to the other girl again. “I believe you. But you’ve probably been having nightmares is all. And we just finished studying colonial witch trials, so of course you might dream about them. I’ve had nightmares just like that.” That part wasn’t true, but the lie couldn’t possibly hurt. Ruth was picking up her bag and her books. “Don’t tell anyone I talked about this, okay?” the girl said. “Especially not Abbie?”“This is the last thing I want to tell anyone about, ever,” said Phoebe.“If she hasn’t come to you yet, she will soon. She wants you. I can tell.”With that, Ruth turned and practically ran away, leaving Phoebe alone in the corridor except for a row of 100 silent lockers. “Witches,” she said out loud. “Great.” As if a public school needed any more problems.The parking lot was, likewise, nearly empty when she got there, except for clumps of wet autumn leaves. It had dumped rain all day. The weather had been getting weird ever since the school year started; storms almost every day, and even hale a few times.The only other person she saw leaving was Mr. Dane, parked right next to her. He was always late in the morning and ended up parking with the students instead of taking the extra five minutes to go around to the faculty parking. It happened so often that other teachers had started calling him ‘the freshman.” “Hi, Mr. Dane,” said Phoebe. He looked up at her twice. “Hello Phoebe,” he said. Mr. Dane (his first name was Frank) taught civics and social science, and she‘d had him last year, when she was a junior. He was young, cute, a little gangly, and his hair was perpetually cow licked. “You’re late leaving today too?” “I just had the weirdest conversation and I couldn’t get away,” Phoebe said. “One of the other girls said that there are witches in class. Real ones, I mean; midnight sabbats and deals with the devil, that kind of thing.”“Who said that?”Phoebe almost answered, but at the last second she remembered the spooky look on Ruth’s face when she asked not to tell anyone. “Hmm. I probably shouldn’t say.”“Ahh. Can‘t let the black cat out of the bag,” said Mr. Dane, and mimed locking his mouth and throwing the key over his shoulder.It started raining again driving home, so much that Phoebe had to slow down. Some religious channel was the only thing that seemed to be coming in on the radio:“It is a woeful piece of corruption, in an evil time, when the wicked prosper and the godly party meet with vexations. But adversity teaches us to war a good warfare, to separate the precious and the vile.“It is the main drift of the Devil to pull all down! But Satan will not prevail, though he be aided by wicked and reprobate women. Christ will defend us from the power of death, and from the inward enemies of our own sins—”She turned the radio off.It was late by the time she got home. The wind sounded like it wanted to take the roof off the house, and the chimney leaked. She called out for Mom, but of course she wasn’t home. Mom was working a day job and a night job, and between them she only had one night off in ten. Phoebe was mostly on her own these days. She changed out of her school uniform, then fed the cat (Belladonna) and started making dinner. Phoebe wasn‘t much of a cook, but she‘d memorized how to make six specific meals, and she rotated them every time Mom wasn‘t home. She made exactly enough for two people, leaving Mom‘s in the fridge every night, where it was almost always still uneaten the next morning. Once dinner was ready, she lit some candles, put on one of Dad’s old avcılar escort bayan records, and liberated a little bit of wine from Mom’s private stash. She meant to just eat and relax for the rest of the night, and maybe watch some TV with Belladonna curled up on her lap. When she switched the set on, though, she was startled by the blaring voice that came out of the speakers: “Christ hath placed us in this world, as in a sea, and suffreth many storms and tempests to threaten shipwreck. Whilst in the meantime he himself seems asleep!”Frowning again, Phoebe tried changing the channel. It didn’t work. There was no picture on the set, just a gray and black blur of what was probably the profile of a man. The audio came through clear, though:“Like young children overbold with fire, whose desperate parents hold them over the danger so the parental bluff might teach them the risk. Yes, all mankind, the whole apostate race of Adam. Even the very elect are by their nature dead in sin and trespasses.” It seemed as if the wind howled even louder overhead.After several attempts at changing or muting the channel, Phoebe finally just turned the TV off. It hissed as the image on the screen faded out, leaving Phoebe alone in the house, with nothing but the sound of the rain beating on the tin roof. Phoebe had some more wine and, judging that the bottle was now looking a little too empty not to arouse suspicion, topped it off with a little tap water. It’s a reverse miracle, she thought: wine into water. She laughed out loud, startling the cat out of her sleep. She decided to read, but couldn’t concentrate on anything. The weird conversation with Ruth still bothered her. It wasn’t just how spooky the other girl had looked; the talk had reminded Phoebe of something that was lingering at the back of her memory, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. Returning her books to the shelf, she found the notebook she’d been using a month ago, during the colonial unit in history class. She flipped through until she found what she was looking for: Folded and creased photocopy pages from the research for the paper she‘d done. She’d highlighted few bits of the old trial records:“The Juriors do present that Abagaile Hobbs of Topsfeild in the county of Essex in the year of our Lord 1688 wickedly and feloniously made a covenant with the evil spirit, the Devil, and did make contrary to the peace.”She flipped through a few similar pages: “She confesseth further that the Devil came in the Shape of a man. She was at the great witches’ meeting in the pasture, when they administered the Devil’s Sacrament, and did eat of the Red Bread and drink of the Red Wine.”Phoebe paused in the middle of a drink of her own wine. Of course, it was harmless. She poured out the last bit anyway. “Wickedly and feloniously made covenant with the evil spirit,” she muttered. So that explained it. Ruth must have noticed that one of the defendants in the old trials had Abbie’s same name. The old Abbie Hobbs had been a teenager too. Of course if Ruth was going to accuse anyone of being a witch it would be Abbie. Why she was accusing anybody in the first place was a mystery, but she always was kind of a weird girl. Phoebe snuffed the candles one by one before bed and then clucked her tongue so that the cat would follow. For some reason she felt completely wiped out tonight. I’ll probably sleep like the dead, she thought, as she lay down…She assumed at first it was her morning alarm waking her up. But the room—and the entire house—was still dark, and the sound was all wrong; it was a long, low, mournful noise, like a fog horn. When she sat up, she saw that a candle was burning again on the bedside table, and that Abbie Hobbs stood over her bed.But she didn’t look quite right, Phoebe realized. She was pale and misty and almost blue, and her clothes and hair seemed to drift a bit. “Like a ghost,” as Ruth had put it. Oh God, thought Phoebe. I lied to Ruth about having nightmares like hers and now it’s coming true. I should have told her I have dreams about screwing Mr. Dane like a cat in heat. I’d much rather be dreaming about that…Abbie looked precisely as she did every day in class, right down to the school uniform. She smiled, a cold expression. “Hey Phoebe.” “Hey,” Phoebe muttered, putting a pillow over her face. Abbie pulled it away.“Been a while. You look…” Abbie paused. “The same. I guess.”“You look like Jacob Marley.”“I don’t know who that is,” Abbie said. “Never mind.” Phoebe sat up and yawned. The candle on the table didn‘t have anything underneath it, but she supposed dream wax couldn’t possibly hurt the wood. Abbie was holding out her hand, and instead of Jacob Marley Phoebe thought of the Ghost of Christmas Past, helping Scrooge fly away. Rather than take the proffered hand, she walked to the window herself. That fog horn noise was still going on. “What the hell is that?”“They’re calling us,” said Abbie. “We’re going to be late. Come on.”The field behind Phoebe’s mother’s house was empty except for wild grass and the broken down remains of a fence that had once separated two properties. Abbie bypassed it with ease. Phoebe had a little more trouble clamoring over, following Abbie instinctually, never questioning the dream logic. The ground was thick with mud, but there was no rain now, and the overcast was gone, revealing stars that seemed brighter, as if the rain had cleaned the entire sky. “What a lovely place,” Abbie said. “You could murder someone here and nobody would ever hear you.”“Don’t tell the landlord.”Abbie laughed. Then: “I hear someone has been telling you stories about me,” she said. “Hmm? Oh, that you’re a witch, yeah.”“Who was it?” “Just Ruth,” said Phoebe. “The spooky girl with the locker next to mine? We have Ms. Young’s history class together. You do too, technically, but you’re never there.”Abbie stopped walking. “Little Ruth?” she said. Then, for three seconds, she burst into laughter. “That silly cunt,” Abbie said when she was finished. “I knew it couldn’t be one of my girls. They all know better. Thank you for telling me.”“Mm hmm,” Phoebe said. She still felt abominably tired. Being tired in a dream, was that a sign that you were going to wake up exhausted? She heard the sound of the horn beylikdüzü escort bayan for a third time. It seemed to be coming from the woods on the other side of the field. Abbie looked back towards it. It seemed they were going towards that sound, for whatever reason.“Now,” Abbie said. “What to do with you?” She looked Phoebe up and down, clicking her nails in thought. Phoebe flinched. She’d seen Abbie look that same way at the girls she used to push around after class. Like a worm on a hook. Once, she and Abbie had been friends. Good friends, ever since grade school, when they bonded over having the same birthday. But then came last year, when Abbie took things too far, and they hadn’t talked since. Once inseparable, their mutual 18th birthdays had passed without as much as a phone call.Eventually, Abbie put a hand out. “I guess you can come too. I didn’t want you in yet, but you might as well now that that silly cunt Ruth has spilled it.”Phoebe blinked. “Might as well what?”“Join us,” Abbie looked different now. She’d shed her clothes, although Phoebe didn’t remember her actually doing it. Now she was as naked as anything, standing in the tall grass. Phoebe stared. I should look away, she thought, but she didn‘t. Abbie’s outstretched hand beckoned, impatient. “Come on already. It’s just this way.” Phoebe was slow to extend her own hand. When Abbie grabbed her, she yanked her forward very suddenly, and they ended up almost embracing, Abbie’s nude body coiled close to hers. Phoebe froze at the touch of another girl’s naked skin, as if she’d been electrocuted and couldn’t move. She waited to see how Abbie would react. The other girl assumed an almost bored look and crooked a red lacquered finger at her, indicating that she should come even closer. Drops of night dew now decorated Abbie’s skin. Without quite realizing what she was doing, Phoebe kissed a dewy spot along the curve of one of Abbie’s shoulders. She licked the moisture off with a quick, catlike flickering of her tongue. Abbie purred.“That’s good,” she said. “The sounding horn sent a delicious shiver down Phoebe’s spine. Abbie’s hands trailed through her hair as Phoebe continued to kiss her way around the other girl’s body and ick the dew from her bare skin. It was cool on her lips, but Abbie was hot. Phoebe had expected Abbie to evaporate like a ghost when touched, but instead she was solid and warm and very alive. The tall grass shifted. In a trance, Phoebe’s mouth closed over one of Abbie’s perky, upright nipples, flicking her tongue against it. Abbie sighed, so Phoebe did it again, and then sucked it into her mouth, tasting the hot, soft flesh and inhaling the mingled scents of their two bodies together. Without quite meaning to, she bit down, and Abbie cried out and then slapped her on the back of the head. “Not so hard, you greedy bitch.” Phoebe broke off, flushing with embarrassment. The night grew cold all of a sudden, and the sound of the horn seemed more ominous. She wanted to leave, but Abbie had her twined in her arms. Their faces were very close together, and Phoebe could taste Abbie’s breath on her lips every time she spoke. “Don‘t be mad,” Abbie said, purring. “We have to go now, or we’ll be late.”“Late for what?” said Phoebe.“Just come on. Don’t you want to?” Abbie said. Phoebe was having trouble looking away from the other girl’s red, red mouth. “Haven’t you always wanted to?”“Yes…”“I always knew it. So why wait? Come on and let me show you. Come on…”They kissed, Abbie’s red mouth opening to draw Phoebe in. Phoebe was falling into a bottomless red haze now, enveloped by the heat of the moment when their lips touched. Somewhere in that haze, Phoebe imagined there was another person, very much like herself but also entirely different, who was trying to find her…Phoebe broke off and backed away. For a second Abbie looked furious. Then her features relaxed into something like indifference. “Be that way, then,” she said. As suddenly as that, she was gone. Phoebe was alone in the clearing. Or at least, she seemed to be alone. Although she couldn’t see anyone, she had a feeling like there were dozens of pairs of eyes on her. Turning, she ran back to her house and locked the door. The sound of the horn didn’t stop for the entire night.***When she woke the next morning, Phoebe’s first thought was that it had all been real. She expected to roll over and see the burnt out candle on her nightstand and find that her shoes were still covered in mud and grass stains after walking in the pasture all night.But there was no candle, and no dirty footprints in the hall. All that had happened was she’d fallen asleep after too much wine and had a weird, inappropriate dream about her ex BFF, and now she would have to hurry if she didn’t want to be late for class. That was the full extent of mystery and adventurousness in the life of Phoebe Chandler. The TV was still out. She managed to get a few sentences of a news broadcast:“At least 50 dead, and 70 to 100 more prisoner. Attackers burnt the other buildings and swept the outlying structures within five miles…”The only other thing that came in was the faceless, staticky religious channel yet again:“Have I not chose you twelve, and yet one of you is the Devil? Occasioned by dreadful witchcraft—”She took only enough time to gulp down coffee (which stung her empty stomach) and feed the cat before racing to make it to class on time. The rain was showing mercy for now, but the black clouds were still there.She’d meant to pay particular attention to Abbie and Ruth in history today, to see if anything weird was going on with them. But to her surprise (relief?) both of them were absent. Come lunchtime, she asked around. Nobody had seen Abbie or Ruth anywhere. In fact, a lot of the senior class girls were out that day; seven in all, a high number for a small school. “Maybe they’re out shopping for matching broomsticks,” Mr. Dane said. She laughed. They were in the cafeteria, him on lunch duty overseeing the sophomores. “I’ll bet that’s it,” Phoebe said. “Mr. Dane, do you ever think…” She paused, searching for the right words and finding that they weren’t quite there. “I mean, have you noticed anything strange lately? About the school year? Or any of the girls in class?”“Everyone’s esenyurt escort passing my civics class so far, that’s pretty unusual. Do you think it’s magic?” He winked in a way that she was pretty sure grown-up teachers shouldn’t do to their 18-year-old students, and without quite meaning to she crossed her legs. She decided she’d file that image away for later. She’d been in such a hurry leaving the house that she hadn’t packed anything for lunch. Buying something off campus wasn’t in her budget for the week, but maybe she could beg a freebie off the cafeteria? She waited in line, listening to her stomach grumble. There were only a few minutes left until the bell. She wondered if it was the dream that had spooked her. Or was it just Ruth still? It was both, she decided. And a million other things too: the weather, the news, Mom, her class load, everything. Don’t worry, Phoebe, you’re just cracking up, she thought. You’re an adult now, it’s high time you had your first nervous breakdown. She wanted to laugh, but decided cackling to herself like a crazy woman in the lunch line wouldn’t help anything.It was the smell that she noticed first, a sweet, crisp scent, like barbecue, but spoiled and sick, as if the meat had gone bad. It made her eyes water. She looked around, trying to detect the source so that she should make a point not to eat whatever it was. It took her a moment to really figure out what she was seeing, and when she did she gasped. Abbie stood in kitchen. Except, of course, it didn’t look entirely like her; she was misty and pale around the edges, like the previous night, and Phoebe knew without even checking that nobody else in the room could see her. She was naked, standing over an open flame, and slowly turning a metal spit on its hinges. Skewered on that spit, looking as unreal as Abbie herself but still quite distinct, was a human figure, slowly roasting. Phoebe dropped her tray. The girls next to her in line jumped, but she didn’t notice. Abbie grinned. Phoebe broke out in a sweat. If she had eaten anything already, it would have come up now. Instead she felt only a scream welling. This is it, she thought, it finally happened. I’ve been joking about losing my mind for so long that it’s come true. As soon as I start screaming, it’ll be official. All I have to do is open my mouth…But before it could happen the bell sounded, and the specter of Abbie and her gruesome meal both vanished, leaving nothing behind to suggest that they’d ever been there at all.Numbly, Phoebe shuffled out of the cafeteria and into the corridor. The chatter of other students suggested that nobody else had seen anything. Maybe it wasn’t real, she thought. Maybe it was…what? Another dream? In the middle of the day, while she was wide awake? That excuse was running out of steam pretty fast.If she needed any more proof, she got it in her next class. Abbie was there too; not the real Abbie, but her specter again, perched on the rafters of the classroom ceiling. Occasionally she would make faces or obscene gestures at the teacher. Once, Phoebe very distinctly saw her playing with something that looked like a yellow bird. Whenever a bell rang she would vanish like a wisp of smoke, only to reappear in whatever room Phoebe went to next. The final bell seemed to banish her completely, leaving Phoebe mercifully alone. Or at least, she hoped she was alone.Phoebe waited until most of the school had trickled out of the building before collecting her things at her locker. She gave Ruth‘s locker a slightly regretful look, but the spooky girl was nowhere to be seen. The one time I would have wanted to run into her, Phoebe thought…All the way to the library Phoebe expected Abbie—or something worse—to appear, maybe right in front of her or right next to her. Maybe the lights would all flicker and die one by one, like in a movie, and then she’d be there, and Phoebe would try to run but Abbie would catch her no matter what, and then—But nothing happened. The library was open for an hour after the final bell. That was enough time for Phoebe. She sequestered herself in a chair in the corner and thumbed through a particular book until she found part she was looking for. Fortunately, it didn’t take long; it was a book she’d read recently, during the witch trials lesson:“Ann saw a man, skewered on a spit, roasting in her parents’ hearth. ‘Goody Corey,’ she cried, ‘You be turning it!’ The maid struck at the spot Ann indicated. The vision disappeared, but only temporarily.”Phoebe noted the page number and then flipped more pages until she found the second entry she wanted, about the hysterical girls spotting ghostly witches balancing on the ceiling beam. The yellow bird, too, came from the trial records. Abbie had never been a particularly good student. But it seemed that after all these years she’d finally found a subject she was really interested in studying.Phoebe checked the book out and left. Her first thought was to find Ruth. But where could the girl be? Not at home, Phoebe was sure. If it had been only Ruth missing today, Phoebe would assume she’d skipped school to avoid Abbie. But the other absences suggested something else was going on. Once home, she locked all the doors and windows. When this didn’t seem adequate, she put some chairs and heavy furniture against the back door and the front. Then, on a hunch, she found her great aunt’s Bible (dusty from years of never being moved from the top shelf) and placed it on the threshold. She fretted a bit over whether that was good enough, but what else was there to do? She wished Mom was here. She thought about calling her at work, but what would she even say? Mom, there are witches, come home early and bring lots of firearms? It didn’t seem the best tone to strike when interrupting a night shift. She spent the rest of the afternoon (minus a break to feed the increasingly insistent cat) reading the witch trial book and any old notes she could find from that assignment. It turned dark out, and the storm started all over again, a soaker that sounded like it meant to drown the house and the whole world with it. Phoebe kept reading:“A great swarm of witches alighted in the pasture. You might have heard the trumpet that summoned them for miles. Rebecca Nurse sat at the Devil‘s side, handing out crimson wine and bread. Hobbes explained that the wine was blood, and better than real wine. The Devil offered his great book, which all signed.“In this place they would establish Satan’s kingdom, where they would live in gallant equality.