Black Creek Crossing (25 page)

She mounted the steps, pushed open the door, and stepped through the vestibule, then into the library itself. Straight ahead was the front desk, and off to both sides were immense library tables. Unlike the new library in Eastbury, which was lit by bright fluorescent fixtures suspended from the high ceiling with ugly steel cables, here the old milk-white globes still hung from brass rods. The only concessions to technology were the scanner the librarian used to check books in and out, and the three tables on the right that had been divided into carrels equipped with computer monitors. Scanning the tables to the left for Seth, Angel recognized only Heather Dunne and a dark-haired girl whose name she didn’t know. She was about to turn away before Heather saw her when she spotted Seth emerging from one of the aisles that led into the long rows of bookcases that filled the back of the building. Seeing her, Seth waved, and Angel started toward the table where he’d already piled a dozen books, threading her way circuitously around the table where Heather and her friends were giggling among themselves, ignoring the glares of the librarian as completely as they were snubbing Angel.

Pulling off her jacket and hanging it on the back of the chair next to Seth’s, Angel gazed at the books he’d found on the shelf. One was a slim volume bound in green cloth, the title embossed in flaking gilt that had all but vanished over the years:
A BRIEF HISTORY OF ROUNDTREE.
Beneath the title there was a stylized image of a tree that was, indeed, perfectly round, supported by an absolutely straight trunk. Two more books had titles that told Angel they weren’t going to make her want to use her flashlight under the covers to read them:
THE WYNTONS OF ROUNDTREE: A GENEALOGY,
and
THE PREACHING PARSONS: FOUR GENERATIONS OF PURITAN MINISTERS.

Then she saw the fourth book, and the same kind of chill passed over Angel as when she and Seth stood at the head of the cellar stairs. It was bound in dark red cloth that looked as if it was the same shade as the leather of the book they’d found hidden in the stair. Though it was smaller than the rest of the books on the table, it appeared as close in size to the hidden volume as it was in color. Was it possible that Seth had found another copy of the book, right here in the library?

As she lowered herself into the chair, she reached out and pulled the book over so it was in front of her. Gingerly, as if it might somehow have the capacity to hurt her, she opened it.

The flyleaf was gone, and she found herself looking at the title page, which was printed in the same ornate type she’d seen in the book hidden in the stair:

Beneath the title the author’s name was inscribed in the same ornate typeface:

Angel gazed at the words for a long time; somehow, when Seth spoke about witchcraft in the cafeteria, it had been easy for her to dismiss the whole idea. But now, with the old book lying open before her as she sat at a table in the library in the very town about which the book had been written . . .

Her heart quickened again, and her breath caught in her throat, just as it had as she’d walked through the lonely darkness to the library.

But now she was in a brightly lit room and there were people all around her.

She was safe.

Then why did she feel so strange?

She tore her eyes away from the title page and looked at Seth. “I—I don’t believe in this kind of stuff,” she said, but even as she uttered the words, she heard the doubt in her own voice, and memories began churning through her mind.

The girl in the closet, engulfed in flames.

The smell of smoke still there the next morning.

The strange reflections in her mirror, of another girl’s face peering over her own shoulder.

But none of it was real—none of it
could
have been real! Either she’d dreamed it, or was sleepwalking, or there was some other explanation!

The markings scrawled on the mirror that had led them to the book hidden in the stair.

That
had
been real—as had the stains she washed out of her sheets herself.

And finding the book was real, and finding the cabin was real. The cat had led them directly to both the book and the cabin.

The black cat.

The kind of cat that every witch had in every fairy tale she’d ever read.

They all had black cats, just like Houdini.

Was it possible that . . . ?

Then, through her confusion, she heard Seth’s voice.

“. . . it wasn’t an inscription,” he was saying. “It was a name.”

Angel blinked, trying to make sense of his words. “What?”

“ ‘Forbearance,’ ” Seth said. Glancing around, he lowered his voice. “I think that’s who the book belonged to. Look.” He opened one of the books stacked in front of him—the history of the Wynton family—and turned several pages. “Here,” he said, holding his finger under a line in the middle of the page and turning the book so Angel could read it, though the type was so small she could barely make it out:

3. Forbearance—b. 1678 d. 1693.

“She was the daughter of Josiah and Margaret Wynton,” she heard Seth saying. “And I found out all kinds of weird stuff about her and her mother.”

A ripple of excitement flowed over Angel. “What kind of stuff?”

“They were accused of being witches,” Seth told her. “It’s all in that book.” He nodded to the red volume that lay in front of Angel. “The guy that wrote that? He was her cousin.”

“But what did they
do?
” Angel pressed.

“This book says they put hexes on people. Someone swore Margaret made him fall off a horse, and someone else said the girl made lightning burn their house down.”

Angel’s eyes widened. “You mean like she made it strike the house?”

Seth nodded. “Wouldn’t that be cool? Can you imagine the look on Chad Jackson’s face if the next time he started in on me, I could just hit him with a bolt of lightning?” He grinned at Angel and stabbed at the air using a forefinger as a bolt of lightning. “
Zap!
Wouldn’t that be neat?”

“What did they do to them?” Angel asked. “I mean, was it like what they did in Salem?”

Seth nodded. “Oh, yeah! And when they went after Margaret and Forbearance Wynton, guess where they were living?” The look on his face was enough to tell Angel the answer. “The house at Black Creek Crossing,” he said. “Your house.”

“You mean it’s all true?” Angel asked, her voice louder than she’d intended it. “All the stories everyone tells really happened?” She saw Heather Dunne turn and look at her, then smirk as she turned to whisper to the dark-haired girl.

“It’s all here,” Seth said. “Look!”

For the next hour and a half, Angel and Seth went through the books, reading and rereading every passage that made any reference to either Forbearance Wynton, her mother, or the house at Black Creek Crossing. Finally, at ten minutes of nine, they gathered up the books and put them on the table for the assistant librarian to return to the stacks.

“Do you think anything really happened?” Angel asked as they walked down the front steps. “I mean, everyone always says the witch hunts were crazy—that those people hadn’t done anything at all!”

“That didn’t keep them from getting burned at the stake, or drowned, or all the other things they did to them,” Seth replied. “And it sure explains why nobody ever stays in your house for very long.”

Angel stopped at the bottom of the steps leading to the sidewalk. “You mean you believe the witches were real?”

Seth hesitated, then shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s just interesting, that’s all.”

“But do you believe it?” Angel repeated, her voice rising.

Seth looked at her, his head cocked. “Do you?” he countered.

“I asked you first.”

“I don’t know,” Seth said. “I guess—” His eyes shifted away from her and his voice dropped. “I guess I just think it might be kind of neat if it
was
real, you know?”

Angel hesitated, then nodded. “That’s what I was thinking too.”

There was a hoot of laughter from the top of the stairs, and then they heard Heather Dunne’s mocking voice. “You already
look
like a witch,” she said, her eyes fixed on Angel. “So now are you going to actually be one?”

Heather and Sarah Harmon were peering down at them. “Why don’t you just leave us alone?” Angel demanded. With Heather’s words still burning in her ears, she turned away and ran across the street.

A moment later Seth followed.

Neither of them saw Heather and Sarah leave the library, hurry down the sidewalk, and go into the drugstore.

Chapter 25

EATHER’S WORDS WERE STILL RINGING IN HER HEAD
as Angel began the walk back home. Seth had come with her as far as the corner of Black Creek Road, but when he asked if she wanted him to walk her all the way out to the Crossing, she shook her head, afraid of what might happen if her father saw her with him.

But as she left the streetlights behind and the darkness of the night began to close around her, Angel once more had the feeling that she was being watched, and wished she’d let Seth come with her. It was too late to change her mind—when she looked back, he’d vanished into the darkness.

She tried to ignore it, to pretend that she felt nothing, but as a cloud passed over the half moon hanging low in the sky, and the blackness seemed to wrap around her like a shroud, she felt her pulse quicken along with her stride.

Then, from somewhere off to the right, she heard a sound.

Angel froze, listening.

Silence.

She resumed walking, but hadn’t taken more than three steps when she heard the sound again. It was closer this time, and more distinct, a rustling sound from somewhere toward the creek.

“Houdini?” she called out softly. “Is that you?”

The rustling stopped.

“Come on, Houdini,” Angel called again. “Here, kitty, kitty. Come on!”

More silence.

Angel stood still, listening, but the night had gone deathly silent.

In the terrible stillness her heart pounded so hard it seemed it would drown out anything else.

But there isn’t anything else,
she told herself.
It wasn’t anything but a mouse or something, poking around in the leaves.
But when she began walking again, she crossed the road to the other side.

Now another sound came out of the darkness—a low, faint hooting.
An owl,
she told herself. But still, she stopped to listen.

The sound came again, closer now.

But there had been no fluttering of wings.

The hooting changed, becoming a moaning sound, and Angel shivered, pulling her jacket tighter around her throat. Then, hearing the sound again, she felt an awful crawly feeling on the back of her neck.

Something was behind her.

Something dangerous.

Crack!

A twig snapped, so close that Angel jumped, and she whirled around to peer into the darkness behind her.

There was a flicker of movement, gone in an instant, swallowed by the darkness so quickly that Angel wasn’t sure she’d seen it at all. She backed away, turned, and began to run.