How to Hang a Witch (9 page)

I
study the map I made of the house's location.

“It's definitely in those woods. I'm telling you,” Jaxon says.

I frown at the large trees, not willing to accept that truth. I'm not an off-roader. “I didn't bring a flashlight.”

He laughs. “It's the middle of the afternoon.”

Woods always make me nervous. I grew up on concrete.

“If your map's right, then I know the house you're talking about…know
of,
anyway. It's one of those things that everyone dares each other to find on Halloween. There's an old tale about it.”

“Oh, that makes me feel much better.”

“It's just a bunch of ghost stories. Nothing to worry about. None of it's true.”

He doesn't know it, but that's the worst thing he could have said. “What if we get lost?”

“We won't. I have a compass on my phone.”

Cell phones. That's right. At least there's that.
“Okay, but who lives in the middle of the woods? It doesn't seem natural.”

I walk reluctantly. The moment we hit the shade of the trees, I shiver.

“It looks like there's an old trail headed in the right direction. See how the growth is younger over there?” Jaxon points ahead and to the right at some short brush. “Also, I'm sure it wasn't weird to live this way when the house was built. It's not like they had paved roads then.”

The idea of no paved roads only makes me feel more out of control. A bird caws, and I grab Jaxon's arm. He slips his hand into mine, and I'm too consumed with nerves to analyze my feelings about it.

He stops to look at the ground around us. “If your map's right, I think it's up this hill.”

“You're paying attention to which way we walked, right?”

“You know, it's pretty cute the way you're ready to punch John out in the middle of a hallway like it's nothing, but trees scare you.”

“I'm not scared.” Neither of us believes me.

“Then maybe I should tell you the story about this place.”

My stomach twists. “Wouldn't bother me at all.”

He puts on the dramatic voice he used to tell me that Giles Corey was pressed to death. “Legend has it, an old woman lived out here for hundreds of years. She wasn't ugly like in storybooks, but she had mean eyes. And she could kill you just by looking at you. She ate birds, and her house was filled with their dead bodies. Most of all, she hated people who were in love. Once in a while a young couple would wander too far out and would never be seen again.”

Strangely, that made me feel better. “That's ridiculous.”

“Yup. Told you it was.”

“People actually believe that crap?”

“People believe a lot of weird stuff in Salem.”

Through the trees ahead of us, a rundown two-story black house becomes visible. The windows are made up of tiny panes, half of which are broken. The trees press close to the sides and vines overgrow parts of the walls.

Every instinct I have tells me to turn around and go home. “You guys really like your black houses here.”

“Yeah.” Jaxon scratches his neck with his free hand. “That's weird. It's not more than a mile into the forest.”

“Why is that weird?”

“I've just never heard of anyone actually seeing it before. I mean, if it's only a mile in, it should be totally findable. I considered telling you before we started that it was most likely made up. But I didn't want to ruin the adventure of searching for it.”

I have to force my body to continue toward the house. “So what are you saying?”

Jaxon grins. “You must be good luck.”

“Well, that would be a first.”

“Wanna go in?”

“Not really. But we need to go to the second floor to look out the bedroom window to see the hanging location.” My palm sweats against Jaxon's.

“If you want, I'll go in and take a look, and you can wait here,” Jaxon offers.

“Yeah, that's definitely not happening.”

We approach the front door, and he grabs the door handle. Very unfortunately, it unlatches. Why isn't this thing boarded up?

The door opens into a large, empty room with a fireplace at one end, like the one in my library. There is barely any light, and I step tentatively onto the creaky floorboards. It smells like decaying leaves. The strange thing is, it's too clean.

“I don't get it. This place has been abandoned for a long time, right? Shouldn't there be graffiti or garbage or something?”

“Maybe we're the first people to find it.”

I don't buy it. “Let's just go upstairs and get this over with.”

There is a narrow hallway to the left of the room. And in it, the bottom steps of a staircase are shadowed in dim light. Jaxon heads for it and I stay close behind him, gripping his hand and trying to steady myself. The stairs groan under our feet. Jaxon stops.

“What?” I ask reflexively.

“Nothing—just a broken stair. Be careful.”

Behind me, a step creaks. “Did you hear that?” I ask as we maneuver around the broken stair. “The steps creaking when we were standing still?”

“Sam, it's an old house. They make noises.”

I'm not convinced. I look over my shoulder every two seconds. I don't know what I'm expecting to see, but whatever it is, I don't want to see it.

Reaching the top of the staircase, we find ourselves in another small hallway. There are two doors to choose from. Jaxon drops my hand and heads for the one on the left. He opens it.

“It's too small for the master bedroom,” I say from the hallway, not wanting to go in if I don't have to.

Jaxon walks past me and toward the second door. The wood whines as he opens it, and I wrinkle my nose at the dusty, stagnant air. It's larger than the first room and has a broken rope bed frame and a few pieces of decrepit furniture.

Jaxon smiles optimistically. “At least there's only one window in here. Makes it easy to figure out where to look.”

I approach the shattered diamond-shaped panes. “And it also makes it dark.”

“Look.” Jaxon points to the wall behind the rope bed. “Your name.”

My muscles tighten.
What did he just say?
I leave the window. As I get closer to him, I notice the walls are covered floor to ceiling with writing, blurred under a layer of dirt. Near Jaxon's finger are written
Charles
and
Samantha.
All the blood drains from my face.

“That's not funny. Charles is my dad's name.” I knew I shouldn't have come here.

Jaxon gestures at the room. “Sam, did you see these walls? They're covered with names and crazy stuff. I'm sure it's just a coincidence.”

“How do you explain that our names are together?”

“They're both really common names. I thought it'd make you feel better. This is the graffiti you were missing downstairs.”

I look at the writing more closely. “No, this looks like the rants of a psychotic person who was locked in here for years. Let's find that hanging spot and get outta here.”

I walk back to the window, my skin crawling.
I want out of this place.
The windowsill has carvings that look like bird feathers. I can't help but think about Jaxon's ridiculous story.

Jaxon joins me. “Okay, definitely wasn't expecting that,” he says as he takes in the view. Over the tops of the trees there's a small hill way in the distance just behind the Walgreens.

Walgreens?
“No. No way. That's crazy.”

He nods. “It's the only hill in sight. Everything else's flat. If the letter you found was right and you can see the hill from this window, that's the place.”

I lean forward to get a better view of the forest, and place my hand against the weathered frame. A woman sobs, a deep rib-cracking wail. I whip around. My heartbeat pounds in my ears. “What was that? Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“A woman crying.”

Jaxon puts his hand on my lower back, and I jump. The walls with their writing feel claustrophobic. I can't stay here. I head for the exit, not waiting for him. As my feet hit the hallway, the door at the end of it slams shut. I lunge for the staircase.

“Sam, it's just the wind,” Jaxon says as he tries to keep up with me. I can hear him grinning.

I jump over the broken stair. “So not okay.”

I'm moving so fast, I'm positive I'm going to trip. I sprint through the room with the fireplace and swing the front door open. An amused Jaxon follows me out. I shake my hands in front of me, trying to get the feeling of the house off me.

“Honestly,” I say, speed-walking away from the awful place, “you didn't hear that?”

“Sam, it was a bird.”

I slow down a little and look at him. “Maybe.”

“Definitely.”

“Let's just get out of these woods. Worst place ever,” I say.

“Yeah, you're officially off date location duty.”

J
axon and I walk up my redbrick driveway as the last bit of light leaves the horizon. Under the overhang of the doorway stands Elijah.
Did he find something?

“I'm gonna go over to Dillon's house in a bit. He's having a couple of people over. You should come,” says Jaxon.

I stop a few feet away from the overhang.

“She will be otherwise engaged,” says Elijah.

I glare at him before I catch myself. “Actually, I need to get up early in the morning. We're driving to Boston to see my dad.”

Jaxon moves closer to me. “I'll text you tomorrow, then.”

“Say farewell or I will for you,” says Elijah.

In any other circumstance I would tell him where to stick it, but I just made up with Jaxon and I don't need to look crazy again.

“Sounds good,” I say, and turn toward my door just as Jaxon leans forward.

Jaxon lingers for a few seconds before turning toward his house. I push my door open and close it before Elijah can follow. It doesn't matter, though, because he walks right through the wall.

“What the hell, Elijah? Are you trying to embarrass me?”

“Who's Elijah?” Vivian asks, entering the foyer. She's in a particularly good mood.

I look down at the mail on the table, trying to act casual.

“You succeed artfully in embarrassment without any help from me,” Elijah says.

“No one important,” I say to Vivian. “A boy at school.”

Vivian's eyebrows push together. “Then why were you talking to him in our foyer?”

“I wasn't. I was talking to myself.”

“Right.” Her look of worry turns to a smile. “Are you hungry? I thought we might go out for a change. Celebrate your father's transfer.”

“No thanks. I grabbed some food with Jaxon on my way home.”

“Suit yourself,” she says.

I walk past her and up to my room, Elijah by my side.

“Don't do that!” I whisper, and close my bedroom door behind me.

“I do not enjoy waiting,” he says flatly, his wavy hair brushing against his cheek.

“Then why didn't you come find me?”

“I have no intention of searching all of Salem for you.”

I scowl. “I was trying to find the hanging location. Which I could've just asked you for and saved myself a lot of trouble, if you didn't disappear last night.”

“It is behind the Walgreens.”

“I know!” I snap, although I wasn't convinced until he confirmed it.

“I have made sense of the death records.”

“Really?” Curiosity replaces my annoyance.

He picks up a few sheets of paper from my window seat and sits down. The handwriting on them is in old-fashioned cursive. I sit down next to him, and for just a second I swear he smells like freshly cut grass.

“At first glance, the clustering of death tolls follows no discernible pattern.”

He speaks with his old-world accent. His eyelashes are long, longer than mine, and his eyebrows are perfectly shaped. It seems unfair that they're on a guy, especially a dead one.

“I looked for medical causes, but there was nothing out of the ordinary during the years your grandmother dog-eared. In fact, the rest of Salem's population was birthing and dying at a perfectly consistent rate.”

“Is there something different about the Witch Trials' families?”

“Kindly do not interrupt me,” he says with anything but kindness.

Kindly I will smack you in your perfect face.

“After a few false starts, I mapped out the approximate population size of the Witch Trials' families. My efforts showed that there was a significant increase in the number of descendants living in Salem around years with more deaths. And, more important, there were members from each of the major families in Salem itself. In years when there were not, everything was status quo.”

“So it has to do with the number of descendants in Salem? I'm not following.”

“The deaths appear to start when critical mass is reached,” he says.

“Elijah! What does that mean?”

“Stay in school, Samantha.”

You arrogant SOB.

“At least one descendant from each major family must be present in Salem. The moment they are, the deaths start.”

My thoughts go straight to my dad. “What about now? Are there descendants from all the families in Salem?”

“Yes.”

My stomach drops. “Are you sure?”

“By the proportionately largest number to date.”

My mouth is dry. I know the answer to this question, but like a moth drawn to a flame, I feel compelled to ask it. “Have there been any descendant deaths?”

“Seven. All since you moved here. You were the only missing lineage.”

And John's great-grandfather was one of them. “Seven? Maybe it's over?”

“Unlikely, if you compare the numbers to previous years. If I had to guess, I would say there are a lot more coming.”

It's hard to breathe. I look at his papers to make sense of the figures he's written out. But when I see the death count at twenty-five for a previous year, I wish I hadn't.
Please don't let my dad be one of them. Please.

“So there is definitely a curse. You see that, right?” I start pacing.
We actually moved my dad closer to Salem from New York. Does that make it worse? Can we transfer him back?

“I do not know.”

“But you admit that it's more than a coincidence?”

“It is unusual, yes.”

“How are you so calm?”

“I am already dead.”