Bones of a Witch (21 page)

“But it’s likely some cops are involved,” I
said. “This organization couldn’t thrive otherwise. It tends to
mirror the Ku Klux Klan. In its heyday, the Klan had members
infiltrating some of the highest public offices in the
land.”

“So what do we do next?”

I turned to Lilith. “Think you can get us to
that barn where they held you at trial?”

She nodded in the direction of Main Street.
“It’s just a couple of blocks that way.”

“You up to it?”

She laughed. “Please, I’ll race you
there.”

“No. You’ll stay close to us. I don’t need you
getting into any more trouble.”

“Fine. Let’s go.”

As we headed back to the car, Carlos pulled me
alongside and whispered, “Just how deep was that puddle, anyway?” I
didn’t answer, but the smirk on Lilith’s and Dominic’s face told me
they had figured it out easily enough.

We got to the barn, and as expected found it
empty. Gone were the rows of spectator seats where the town’s
people gasped in horror at Lilith’s stunning admission that she was
a witch; the wooden planks off to the side where a jury of twelve
sat in pre-judgment of her; the elevated desk that served as the
magistrate’s bench and the crude pen they called the witch’s box.
The only signs that anyone had recently been there at all were the
few still-burning lanterns, a woman’s poke bonnet freshly laundered
and a child’s stuffed animal toy, still sticky with lollypop goo on
its purple fur.

“That’s Ann’s,” said Lilith, pointing at the
stuffed toy Dominic now held. “Can you believe the children were
part of this, too?”

“That’s how it works,” I said. “It’s how all
prejudices take hold. Kids learn it from adults at an early age
before they can decide for themselves what’s right and what’s
wrong. Then they grow up and follow the examples of their fathers.
It’s the reason persecution still exists today, not just here in
Salem, but in Africa, the Middle East, the Baltic’s; hell, anywhere
you find people. Discrimination and persecution are kissing
cousins. Where one seeks to isolate, the other seeks to eliminate.
It’s a learned thing, Lilith, so don’t hate those two young girls
for it.”

She looked at me and scoffed. “Hell, I don’t
hate those girls for it.”

“You don’t?”

“No. I just hate all little snot-nosed boys and
girls. I think people should get puppies instead. They’re quicker
to potty train and they pretty much stop whining after six
months.”

I shook my head and turned away. “Let’s go
home,” I said to the others. “I think that with Putnam and Hilton
gone we’ve seen the end of Salem’s witch hunting days.”

“Halleluiah,” said Dominic. “Salem sure looks
like a nice town to visit….”

“But there’s no place like New Castle,” Carlos
finished.

I slapped them both on the back.
“Amen.”

Dominic Spinelli:

There are a few really great memories that I
will take to my grave, I’m sure, but none greater than that of
bursting in to Our Lady of Grace church in Salem and seeing Lilith
Adams standing there in her most unbelievably sweet birthday suit.
Lady of Grace, man did they get that name right. I know I should
have looked away, but so help me God, I simply couldn’t. If I
should live to be a hundred, I believe I shall never behold a more
glorious sight. I swear, sometimes I think Tony doesn’t appreciate
what he has with Lilith, and I’m sure Carlos would agree if he
weren’t so obsequious to Tony most of the time. If Lilith were my
girlfriend I would…well, let’s just say that I wouldn’t take her
for granted the way I think Tony does.

I suppose I’m telling you all this so that you
might understand why I did what I did the day after we got back
from Salem. It was about eight in the morning and I was on my way
to pick up Tony to give him a lift into work. I had just pulled up
across the street from their place when I spotted Lilith leaving
the apartment and carrying a large brown box. Naturally that
tweaked my curiosity, especially when I noticed how she kept
looking suspiciously over her shoulder to see if anyone was
watching. I found myself slinking down low into my seat, peering
out the side window just above the doorframe. There I watched as
she placed the box onto the backseat of her car, jumped in behind
the wheel and sped off down the street.

Now, I know it wasn’t any of my business, and
another guy might have just called out to her, said hello, waved
politely and then let her go about her merry way. But something
inside told me to follow her; police instincts maybe, though I
doubt Tony would have credited me with that. Whatever my reasoning,
I started the car up, dropped it into gear and tailed her clear
across town.

I thought I had lost her a couple of times,
having pulled way back so that she wouldn’t spot me in areas where
traffic thinned to almost nothing. Eventually though, the roads
became so deserted I could only guess that I was still behind her,
expecting that at any turn she would be there waiting for me and
that I might end up ramming right into her back bumper. But that
didn’t happen, and as luck had it, I spotted her car from a
comfortable distance stopped on the side of a lonely country road
just outside New Castle. She had angled in on a ninety in front of
the old access gates leading to a quarry that had long since been
abandoned. And though I know that it’s still a popular place for
teenagers to go and drink at night, the odds of finding anyone
there on a Sunday morning are nearly nil. It’s the perfect place to
do—whatever—if you don’t want anyone to see you do it.

I waited until she got the box out of the back
seat, carried it through the gaping hole in the fence and
disappeared down a grassy trail. Then I drove up beyond her,
stashing my car around a blind bend. After that, tailing her got a
lot easier. Most people don’t know this, but I am one-quarter
Chippewa Indian, as well as a former Eagle Scout. My grandfather,
who taught me to track deer up in the hills, once gave me the
Indian name that his grandfather gave to him: Timber Fox. I tried
getting Carlos to call me that, or even just Fox, but he won’t buy
it. Some friend, huh?

I picked up Lilith’s trail starting at the
fence. She had followed a well-defined path for about twenty yard
before branching off down another less traveled track that took her
through hedgerows of thorny thickets and heavy scrub. Further down
I found the ground lay deep with pine needles and deciduous leaves,
alternating in scattered patches as the mix of trees dictated.
Below the leaves, the spongy earth allowed the subtle impressions
of Lilith’s footprints to telegraph her journey. If she thought she
was being followed, she certainly chose her course well. Anyone
else would have made a ruckus thrashing about the brush, snapping
twigs and stomping leaves following her, but not me; not the Timber
Fox.

I caught up with her about another thirty yards
in where the vegetation graciously gave way to an open circle of
flat grass and firm ground. And there, behind a crouch of dogwood
shrub, I hunkered low and watched her.

By the time I took up my position, Lilith had
already laid out what looked like bones onto the ground in a
pattern resembling a human form. A few days earlier, Tony told me
about her claiming her Aunt Ursula’s bones from a city excavation
site down at the cemetery, and so I guessed those were them. I
hoped so anyway, otherwise they were Tony’s and that meant I’d have
to take back all the bad things I had ever said about him not
appreciating Lilith. Man, I hate eating crow. Still, I suppose that
would mean that she’d be free to date again. Hmm….

After completing a few final
adjustments in bone placement, Lilith stood erect, raised her hands
to the sky and began chanting something in Latin, or maybe Greek,
or some Aboriginal monkey speak; I don’t know, but it was bizarre.
I know I heard the word
Grimoire
spoken. I recognized that word from some of the
stories Tony told us about his rite of passage ceremony. Whatever
the words, I know they held some powerful influences over the skies
above. Almost immediately upon uttering them, a low dark cloud
formed directly over Lilith and her collection of bones. The wind
around her picked up in a spiral, spinning slowly at first in a
counter-clockwise motion, stirring up the grass and leaves and
collecting them in a train like a ribbon trailing in the
breeze.

I watched in awe, stooped on knees and wanting
so much to stand and applaud her mastery of kinetic manipulation.
But I dared not, and before long the spinning vortex around her
increased in both mass and velocity, at times blurring her out of
focus for the curtain of debris trapped within its walls. It was
then I sensed the true threat for her safety. I remembered Tony
telling me how a similar phenomenon had wiped Lilith’s house
completely of its slab, and if not for the fact that he and she
were alive today to testify to it, I might have run to Lilith then
and tried to stop her.

At that moment, the cloud overhead began
churning in colors, morphing from dark grey and black to deep
purple with streaks of cobalt and crimson; the cyclone’s grip below
squeezing ever tighter, constricting like a python to barely an
arm’s length in either direction. Tiny sparks like fireflies
flickered all around its perimeter, snapping and crackling in
static electric charges that seemed to increase in number and
intensity with the growing tempest. Lilith, the conductor of this
great orchestra, bowed on one knee, making a fist over the bones.
She then opened her fist, allowing what looked like ordinary beach
sand to cascade over her palm, into the wind. A clap of thunder
erupted instantly. The swirling wall of wind turned a crisp ocean
blue, then yellow and then finally, in a brief flash, white, with a
blast of heat so harsh it pushed me to the ground.

When I rose again it was gone, all of it: the
cloud, the wind, the ribbons of grass and leaves; everything. But
in its place stood a miracle of science, nature and whatever other
affinity of Cosmo-creations one can accredit if he so believes. I
rubbed the scratchy bits of dirt from my eyes. My jaw hung slack.
My throat narrowed to a tiny straw-sized opening that allowed just
barely enough air to tunnel through it so that I might not pass out
from lack of oxygen. But none of that did I notice at the time,
instead it was all I could do to wrap my mind around the sight of
two preposterously gorgeous women standing before me: one, of
course, was Lilith; the other her stark double, the near spitting
image of perfection personified. She stood facing Lilith at
comfortable ease and totally nude. Her hair, silky long and thick
fell across her shoulders like an ebony tide, splitting
symmetrically down her back and front and covering her nipples just
barely. She smiled at Lilith with a teasing sort of grin,
suggesting familiarity in acquaintance and finality in acceptance.
Her body shape and tone mirrored her maker exactly. Their
bewitching eyes, haunting and beguiling, shared a seductive allure
unmatched by any siren or fairy temptress. Even that sassy stance
that defines Lilith so keenly found compliments in this other
woman’s posture.

In the still of early morning, with the faint
whisper of falling leaves still settling from the sudden absence of
spiraling winds, I heard Lilith say, “You look well, Ursula, all
things considered.”

Ursula approached Lilith and the two hug. “And
thou,” she said, “hath thou waited long?”

Lilith shrugged lightly. “Only sixteen and
three hundred.”

“Years?”

“Yes.”

“Blessed. How came this tardy
spell?”

“It’s a long story; don’t ask.” She turned
suddenly; catching me off guard but luckily did not see me. Then
she bent over and reached into the box that she had carried in with
her, removing a small bundle of clothes and handing them to Ursula.
“Here, put these on,” she said. “They’re not exactly what you’re
used to, but I think you’ll find them most comfortable.”

Ursula unfurled a pair of blue jeans and held
them out at arm’s length. “Breeches?” The pitch in her voice made
her sound young and naïve. “What costume have thee presented me
that I should dress like a man?”

“Not a man,” said Lilith, “a woman. We have
come far in three hundred years. We dress as we please now. We are
emancipated. Women in this century vote; we hold jobs of all sorts:
doctors, lawyers, warriors and politicians; there is no position
barred to us these days.”

“None?”

“Not in America.”

“Have we a woman pope?”

“A pope?”

“Yes.”

“No, that’s not America, but check back in
another three hundred years. Maybe the church will give in a little
on that. In the meantime, come on, get dressed.”

Ursula stood in silent contemplation,
scrutinizing the garment with a level eye and a curious grin. She
seemed especially amused with the zipper, which she figured out
quickly and delighted in repeating the function of zipping it up
and down a number of times. She then looked at Lilith, only now
realizing how complementary the jeans looked on her. “You wear no
shift below these?” she said.

“Shift?”

“An undergarment.”