Cursed be the Wicked (11 page)

Finn looks up at me and I recognize this look. It’s the same one she gave me in Geneva’s kitchen yesterday, just before she turned away.

She’s uncomfortable.
I swallow down the urge to kiss her and say, “History says Gallows Hill is back that way.” I point behind me, toward the general area I know it’s located.

Boston and Bridge Street.

“Sometimes even history is wrong,” she insists, searching my eyes for something behind them.

I get the impression she’s telling me something more than what she seems to be. Before I can verbalize that thought, she frees herself from my arms and begins to feed me information about another hill I hadn’t ever heard of, even as a local.

“I read this book that goes into specific details about where the hill is located. That tourist stop doesn’t even fit the description.”

She shakes her head and mutters under her breath and whatever moment we were having passes. I follow behind as Finn rattles off what she’s read and when we arrive at our destination, I’m once again questioning her knowledge.

“What is this, Finn? You’re pulling my leg, that’s not nice,” I tell her.

We’re behind a Walgreens. Like, butt up against the back parking lot and I can see the dumpster where they ditch their garbage every day.

Finn leaves my side for a moment and takes a deep breath when she stops at a small hill behind the building. It’s steep and rocky. Finn gets a good footing and then closes her eyes. She nods slightly, then opens her eyes up and looks over at me with a small grin.

“There used to be a railway that ran through here,” she tells me, then twists around to point toward the Walgreens. “There was a pond over there.”

I should be asking questions, challenging her, but all I can do is listen.

She faces the hill again.

“They hanged people for being different.” She points. “Right up there, on the flat of that hill, Mr. Stone.”

I look to where she’s pointing. I want to tell her she’s full of shit with this story and the location of this place, but I can’t. I actually believe her. My gut tells me Finn doesn’t have it in her to lie.

That’s my job.

If I think she’s upset by the story behind this place, she’s even more so when she waves at all the houses just beyond the hill.

“I wonder if all the people who live back there would have bought that property if they had known the ghosts of the Salem witches lingered in their backyards.”

I don’t believe in ghosts or witches, but I know those homeowners would have bought that land regardless, and made a hefty profit reselling to the city for tourism had they indeed known the real Gallows Hill was right behind them.

“Well, what people don’t know, won’t hurt them, I guess,” I say, when I look around at the shambles the back of this Walgreens has become. “It’d probably cost the city too much money to make this spot into a tourist attraction anyway.”

Finn stops me from going any further with that line of thought.

“Wouldn’t you want to know the truth?”

Her words pierce the center of my chest. Once again, I’m thinking about my dad and that blog post I read on him today.

“Well?” Finn pushes but I insist, “I know the truth.”

“Do you?” she asks.

I turn away from her because something about Finn and the way she sees right through me is unsettling.

When she asks, “Why are you
really
here, Mr. Stone?” I can’t answer. I want to tell her. I want to spill everything, including who I am, why I lied, how that article I read this morning has me questioning everything I thought was truth. But I can’t. My lips won’t move and my mouth won’t say the words.

What it is about my reaction, I don’t know, but Finn seems satisfied with it even though I’ve said nothing.

She turns to go, just like that. I linger for a minute to take in one last look at the place she’s brought me to see, then as an afterthought I call out to her.

“Aren’t you going to take a picture?”

“No, I have pictures of this place already,” she tells me. I catch up with her, assuming we’re headed back to our parking spot. Only we’re not. Finn takes another path, deeper into the woods. I start to think she’s planning some sort of kidnapping, or séance, or something, until we come to an old church. It looks like it’s seen more years than Gallows Hill back there.

The foundation and frame are still intact, surprisingly enough, but the shingles are slowly fading and falling. The windows have all been broken. It probably only held about ten to fifteen people comfortably in its heyday. It doesn’t look safe enough to take a look inside, but I make a few imaginative notes to myself so I’ll remember later when I write about it.

“Found this place a couple of weeks ago,” Finn informs me as she takes the camera out of her bag finally. “I’ve been meaning to come back out here but I’ve been busy.”

“Busy filling in for your friend over at the B&B?”

She ignores the question and drops her bag. She stares up at the steeple before pointing the lens and snapping a few photos.

“Do you know the story?” she asks me.

I don’t. I’ve never seen this church in my life. Another piece of history Finn’s shown me and we’re only on day one.

“No, Finn, but I have a feeling you’re gonna tell me,” I gibe. She smiles and I hide the smirk on my face while she begins.

“Gran says a long time ago, Wiccans used to come here and pray.” She kneels down onto the ground and
snap, snap.
I walk around the grounds as Finn gives me a history lesson, imagining a line of women, dressed in long black robes, singing as they walked to their “church”.

“They couldn’t do it in town because people shunned them for what they believed in, but the head Priestess of the coven knew this man.”

Snap.

Finn stands up to find a different angle.

“Gran says they were in love, but a lot of people that lived back then claimed the Priestess influenced the man with her magic. Said she killed him and drank his blood in some ritual once she didn’t need him anymore.”

She takes a few more pictures and then she’s done. The camera gets put away and Finns turns to me.

“Horse dung, I say, but once something’s written down . . .”

She huffs as she waves a hand in the air. I’m grinning ear to ear at how she’s so passionate about the truth. Vehemently so, apparently, when it comes to Wiccans.

“Anyway, he borrowed supplies he needed from the construction site he worked at and helped build them this church so they’d have a place.”

I look up at it again. The guy did a good job for doing it alone, that’s for sure.

“Many of the Wiccans called this place home when they were thrown out of their own because their families and friends didn’t approve of what they were doing. Kind of like a halfway house for the wicked.” She laughs, but it’s lacking in luster.

I’m still searching for something to say, and wondering what happened to the priestess and her lover.

“Everyone should have a place they can call home. Don’t you think so, Mr. Stone?”

Her question hits a nerve. I don’t really have a home and I seem perfectly fine. I’ve lived in a lot of places over the past ten years.

“Mr. Stone?”

“What happened to them?” I ask her, ignoring her question completely while I compare her story somehow to my mother and father.

“She was eventually arrested for using
unnatural
medicines on the ill. He disappeared. People speculated that she’d killed him, but there was never any actual proof that he died much less at the hands of the priestess.”

This story sounds eerily familiar. I want to know the end. I want to know everything was okay for some reason. Maybe because it wasn’t for my parents.

I jut my chin out at her. “What do
you
think happened?”

She hesitates for only a second before answering.

“I tend to think he went into hiding maybe. Died of a broken heart, most likely.”

Interesting.

I take a deep breath. “I think I expected something a little more dramatic, considering we’re talking about witches here.”

Finn is not fazed. At all. “What’s more dramatic than true love, Mr. Stone?” she asks me.

“I wouldn’t know,” I tell her honestly and uncomfortably. “I have no idea what love is. On any level.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Finn says. “I think you know more than most about what love is. You just don’t realize it yet.”

“What—?”

“It’s getting late,” she tells me quietly. “We should get back.”

The trek back to the car is quiet. Too quiet. I’ve already grown accustomed to Finn
not
being quiet. I like her much more when she’s rambling, so, as we arrive back to civilization, I try to drum up some conversation.

“So, how long have you lived here, Finn?”

“About ten years, I guess,” she tells me. I notice that’s right about when I left.

I have horrible timing, I decide.

“Ten years is a long time,” I say, and all she gives me is a quick, “Yep.” I know what she’s up to. She’s making this difficult on purpose. She wants me to just come out and say what I want to know. So I do. Sarcastically.

“Where did you move here
from, Miss Pierce
?
” I say it slowly, and with a southern drawl, exaggerating the one she has.

She smiles for me but shakes her head. “Georgia.”

I fight the urge to take her hand in mine and ask another question, wanting to know more.

“Parents?” I ask in my own voice, quieter than before.

Finn’s smile fades and she looks off at the distance. I know the answer before she tells me and want to kick myself for asking.

“They’re gone,” is all she says, trying to bring a smile back yet failing miserably. I feel guilty for asking but other than that, I like that it’s something we have in common. We’re both orphans. Morbid as that might be.

I don’t push her on the topic, as much as I’d like to. It seems to be a sensitive topic. I can identify with sensitive. I also don’t want the conversation to get awkward, so I point across the street, toward what looks like a witch’s tavern.

“Hey, what’s that?”

Finn reacts to my change in tone as expected with an eager look to see where I’m pointing.

“Oh, shoot,” she shouts when she sees the store. “I completely forgot I need to grab some crystals.”

I smile. I don’t care why she needs the crystals, I’m just glad that she looks and sounds more herself again. “Great. Let’s go check it out.”

We run across the street in a race to see who can get there first, laughing the entire way. When we get there, I notice a man leaning against a wall in one of the alleyways. I recognize him from the other night. He’s even wearing the same clothes.

I stop Finn.

“Hey, who is that?” I ask her, motioning toward the man.

Finn glances over at him.

“That’s Jack Diggs,” she tells me. “From what I hear, he used to have a lot going for him but now,” she sighs, “People see him as a drunk.”

The way she says it tells me Finn might have a difference of opinion, and when she goes inside, I linger behind and take my opportunity to approach the man. He seems like a shadow of his former self, leaning against the brick wall, watching everyone else live their lives. Whoever he was isn’t there anymore.

He still looks like a strong man, although I don’t get the impression he’s interested in any sort of confrontation. He looks to me like he’d pay good money to become that wall he’s standing up against.

Unnoticed.

I can identify with that.

As I approach, I consider it a small victory that he doesn’t run away this time.

“Hi.” I wave to him with a friendly smile but now he’s taking a tentative step away from me.

“I wasn’t doing anything.”

He says it gruffly, defensively, like I was accusing him of something.

“No, I almost hit you last night, remember?” It’s a bizarre way to introduce myself but I’m going with it. “I just wanted to make sure you weren’t injured.”

He nods and grumbles. “I’m fine.”

“I thought maybe,” I hesitate. I’m not sure how to proceed here. When his eyes shift toward me and then back away again, I bite the bullet. I don’t have much time here.

“You looked like you might know me when you saw me,” I tell him. “Do you know me?”

He spots a group of men down and across the street from us. I’m not paying much attention to them but Jack must not like the looks of them. He starts to go.

“Wait.”

I blurt it out and he stops but it’s clear he’s not staying put for long. I run a hand through my hair because this is really awkward. I’m not big on advertising my heritage. This is a first for me. Something about this guy though, I don’t know. I figure I’ll take what I can get if it leads me to information.

“Do you, I mean
did
you used to know a woman? Her name was Margaret Shaw?”

He doesn’t say anything at first. In fact, he refuses to look at me until a few seconds of thought pass and then he side eyes me. “I knew it was you,” he mumbles. “You’re Cooper, aren’t you?”

My entire body deflates when he says it. I don’t even know what to say after that, so I just stand there, rubbing at the stubble beginning to form along my jaw. That’s when I glance over at the men who’d caught his attention and I realize who they are.

I can’t catch a break in this town.

They notice me too, or maybe it’s just Jack they notice, I don’t know. Regardless, they start towards us. It’s too much for Jack so he takes off on me.