The Awakening

Page 8

First, an old deaf woman, Rebecca Nurse, was accused, and nearly dismissed—she had been a good, churchgoing woman. But when she was nearly let free, the girls began to scream and howl in anguish again, and she found herself condemned. Others followed her to the wretched jails. A local man, John Proctor, protested. "The girls will make devils of us all!" he was reputed to have said. And soon, he was accused himself. A plateau of the gallows was later illuminated. A one-time minister said the Lord's Prayer perfectly—a sure sign of innocence, supposedly. But his words were ignored, and the murmuring crowd was shushed. The Devil had helped his henchman, and justice would be served. In all, nineteen were hanged, and old Giles Corey was pressed to death. Justice there, maybe, Finn thought, since Corey had stood as a witness against his own wife when she had been accused.
Years later, one of the girls recanted, her words read by a minister of the church. The craze was over.
Witches had gone to trial before in the colonies, and they would go to trial again. But the insanity that had seized this little part of Massachusetts was over.
The lights came up. Finn realized that he'd been squeezing his wife's hand throughout the presentation.
She grinned up at him. "Good, huh? And sad, really sad."
"Very," he said softly.
They exited through the gift shop, pausing to look at a few books, T-shirts, and other memorabilia. As they studied some titles and Finn tried to decide what book to buy that would give him a good overview of the area, a man approached them.
"Megan?"
She turned around, frowning, apparently not recognizing the man who had tentatively spoken her name.
He was twenty-five to thirty, nicely dressed in a tailored suit and suede jacket. His sandy hair was a little shorter than Finn's, and had the look of being run through absently and often with his fingers.
Good-looking face, all well-spaced angles, dark brown eyes. Medium tall.
"Mike?" Megan said cautiously.
The man smiled. Dimples creased in his cheeks, taking away the somewhat severe look of the academic the man had.
"Yeah, it's me." He caught both her hands, kissed her cheeks.
"It's great to see you," Megan said. "What are you doing here—well, obviously, you still live in the area."
"Grounded in the home haunting grounds, I'm afraid," he said ruefully. "But you—I haven't seen you in years! Have you moved back?"
"No, I'm living in New Orleans now." She turned then, looking at Finn. "I want you to meet an old friend, Mike Smith. Mike, this is my husband, Finn Douglas. We're back playing at the new hotel for Halloween week."
"So you kept up with the music!" Mike Smith said, turning what seemed to Finn to be a too adoring gaze from Megan to acknowledge her introduction. "Hello, Finn. Nice to meet you. And congratulations.
You've married the girl of my dreams."
"Thanks," Finn said, shaking hands with the fellow. "Nice to meet you, too." Was it? He was disturbed by the sense of jealousy that took root inside him.
"So what are you doing these days?" Megan asked him.
"Working at the new museum." He glanced at Finn. "A really good museum. No hocus-pocus. This place is great—they do a really good job with the facts. Not all of the 'museums' here do. We're down the street, near the wharf, and cover the founding of the area, the Puritan tradition, and how it was possible for the craze to have gotten started. We also have a huge section on the seafaring days. Come by and see us."
"We definitely will," Megan said.
"We're a little booked for today," Finn reminded her.
Mike Smith waved a hand in the air. "I'll be there all week. I'll give you a behind-the-scenes tour when you come. Just ask for me at the window."
"Thanks," Megan said, and Finn nodded, acknowledging the invitation as well.
"Just stopped by to get a new book that they've gotten in and we haven't," he said with a grimace. "It's great to see you, Megan. And good to meet you, Finn. Congratulations on your marriage, and your music."
"Thanks," Finn murmured.
Mike Smith waved a hand in the air and walked off.
"Old beau?" Finn couldn't help but query.
Megan shook her head, smiling with a little wrinkle of her nose. "Way too academic for me, back then. I wanted to be a wild child. Of course, I wasn't very wild, either, but I suppose I was in my own mind.
Mike was a few years older than me in school. Valedictorian and all that. Back then, he had huge, horn-rimmed glasses and his nose in a book all the time. I should have figured he'd wind up in a museum.
Or teaching, or creating something in a laboratory, or the like."
The guy was gone. Megan had been so offhand.
Finn dismissed his absurd sense of jealousy.
When they came back out on the street, the beautiful bright blue sky that had graced the morning was gone.
A gray pallor had settled over the town.
"Want lunch now, or later?" Megan asked.
"Let's stop by Morwenna and Joseph's first," he said, wishing his grin didn't seem so forced now.
As they walked the short distance from the museum to the shop, he tried to tell himself again that the streets were still filled with tourists. Mothers, fathers. Children. Laughing. Some of them with costumes on already, though Halloween itself was still days away. Aliens, pirates, and princesses abounded, along with the more ghoulish. Movie theme characters were walking around as well—some sci-fi, others from horror flicks. Still, normal, he told himself.
They came down the street, heading for the centuries-old building with a large plaque that read "Spiritual Sustenance." Megan started right in.
Finn was amazed to feel as if a foreboding washed over him. No… as if a heaviness had come into the air, so strong that it was hard for him to put one foot in front of the other.
"Finn?" Megan paused, looking back at him.
He stared at his wife. She had never appeared more beautiful—or even angelic. Pure, filled with light, golden hair streaming softly around her shoulders, eyes like blue pools of the ocean.
She had worn black that day, too. A long black sweater-coat kind of a thing over black jeans and a scoop-neck long-sleeved black knit blouse. Both hugged her form. He wanted to keep her from the shop. From whatever evil lay within.
He gave himself a firm mental shake.
"Great window display," he said. He hadn't even looked at it.
"Yeah? Morwenna did major in art for a while," Megan said.
She didn't feel it. Didn't feel the miasma hanging over the shop.
Because it didn't exist Once, he'd almost lost his wife. And after her nightmare last night, he was just being a horse's ass. He was afraid. He'd spent a few years thinking that he was just too hot, that he wasn't going to bow to what he considered ridiculous fears and suspicions.
And now…
He was damned afraid himself.
"Hey, maybe they have some really great gargoyle bookends in here," he forced himself to say cheerfully.
Determined, he walked up the steps.
Bits of prayer flew into his mind.
Yeah though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…
Ass! he charged himself. He was walking into a shop! And what the heck was the matter with him? He'd just watched a program on how feelings, suspicions, and spectral visions had sent more than a dozen innocent people to the gallows. Get a grip, man, it's the twenty-first century, here. No such nonsense allowed.
Hand in hand, he walked closer to the entry with his wife, a smile glued to his face.
Even from the sidewalk, they could see that the shop was crowded. There was a man—all in black, naturally—sitting on the stairs that led to the upper level of the old place. He was monitoring the amount of people heading in and out of the shop. He rose, about to stop them, then recognized Megan.
"Hey, Megan!" The fellow hugged her. Megan's hand was dragged from his own.
"Jamie!" Megan said, and turned. "Jamie, my husband, Finn. Finn, Jamie Gray. He's worked for Morwenna and Joseph for ages."
"Hey, there," Jamie said. "Good to meet you. Go on in. It's wild in there today. Getting close to Halloween. Tons of gawkers are out."
There was nothing evil or weird about the guy, Finn told himself. Lots of people wore black. He wore black a lot himself. Hell, they played a lot of Celtic music. Black jeans and loose-sleeved, medieval type shirts worked well on stage. That's what all this was, too, of course. Wiccan. They were performers.
Living a lifestyle to sell their wares.
"Thanks, we won't stay long," Finn told Jamie.
"You're family—you stay as long as you want."
"Well, we're family, and so we shouldn't get in the way of the paying, tourist-season customers," Finn said. He sounded all right, he thought. Sincere.
He was sincere. He wanted out of the shop as fast as sanely possible.
There were far too many people in the main store area for the space. When they slipped in, Megan was immediately lost to him. He looked around the best he could while being jostled by those anxious to purchase the right little semiprecious gemstones, herbs, oils, books, and curios. The displays were excellent, a rational part of his mind told him. And Morwenna and Joseph knew how to buy for the store.
They carried really beautiful pieces, glass and pewter dragons, fairies, and gargoyles. Excellent pieces of sculpture and art. Really fine jewelry, mostly in silver.
"Finn!" He heard Megan calling him from across the store.
He turned. She was trying on a black cloak. It was gorgeous on her. He hated it.
"What do you think?"
"She's incredible!" someone else by her side cried out. It was Joseph. Raven black hair queued back as usual. He was tall. Finn was a solid six-three, and Joseph might have been even taller than he was himself. Lean and hard. He didn't like the guy standing by his wife, admiring her.
For Christ's sake, he was getting paranoid! The guy was her cousin's husband!