How to Hang a Witch Read online

  Her lips tighten. She places a small pizza box down on the couch next to me. “I’ll handle this.” She walks out of the room.

  She’s calling the bakery. Her voice gets progressively louder and she’s using her you-are-obviously-an-idiot tone. We both have short tempers, and being on the receiving end of hers is terrifying. There were only two times when I was little that we lost our tempers at each other. But those fights were so bad, our neighbors called the police on us, once because she threw a vase at our connecting wall and another time because she screamed so loud and so long that they were afraid someone was being murdered.

  Of course, my dad wasn’t home for those fights, and I never told him. They were about me going to therapy because I didn’t have friends, and she thought I was too attached to my dad. There was always some part of me that was afraid she was right, that I was the problem.

  I open the box and take a bite of the cheese pizza—not New York standard. I check my phone for the hundredth time to see if Jaxon texted me. Nothing. All the stuff he told me today seemed real. It is a little odd, though, that he’s really nice when no one else in school is. Great, Vivian’s suspicion of nice people has rubbed off on me.

  I stop mid-bite and put the half-eaten pizza back in the box. Jaxon admitted today that he knew about my dad. No one else in school knew. How could they? That’s the only way John could have found out. I feel sick.

  I gather my books and papers and head for my room. I can’t believe I almost trusted him. It’s easy to trick someone who’s lonely with pretty words. I’m so stupid.

  “That doesn’t change the fact that I’m going to talk to Mable about this.” Vivian has steel in her voice. “Sorry isn’t good enough.”

  Mrs. Meriwether? I plod up the stairs. What does she have to do with the bakery? Suddenly what Jaxon said about his mother’s cooking makes sense. The sick feeling I have spreads. Maybe Vivian was right about them.

  “It’s handled,” says Vivian from the bottom of the staircase.

  She’ll fight for me, but right now I really need comfort more than anything. “Great.” My tone reflects my disappointment.

  “You’re welcome,” she says, and I walk down the hall toward my room.

  There’s a light creaking of old wood as I approach the burgundy bedroom. I peek inside and flip on the light. The rocking chair moves back and forth. I grab the arm and it stops. I scan the room, but everything’s still.

  Stepping back into the hallway, I look both ways before heading to my room, wishing the hallway sconces were brighter and didn’t cast so many shadows.

  I stick my hand in my room and flip the lights on before I enter. I slowly push the door open to find my clothes are once again in a pile on my floor.

  “What the hell,” I say to the empty bedroom.

  Okay, that’s it. Either someone’s messing with me or there’s something wrong with this armoire. I press the old latch a couple of times, and it squeaks. I lift what remains of the folded clothes in the upper part of the armoire and place them on the floor next to the pile. In the center of the back panel is a delicately carved black-eyed Susan, matching the rest of the furniture in my bedroom. I check all the edges of the wood and the hinges, to see if anything is faulty.

  As a last resort, I knock on the wood itself—the doors, the sides, and the back panel. Wait, this part sounds different. I tap near the flower. Definitely hollow. I pull my head out of the armoire and give it a push to move it from the wall. It doesn’t budge. The thing weighs like five hundred pounds.

  I return to the flower and grab the edges of it. There’s a small noise, and one of the petals appears to have tilted. Did it just move or did I imagine that? I brace the flower with the tips of my fingers and pull. It pops off easily and lands in my palm.

  I reach my hand into the hole where the flower was, and the edge of something silky brushes my fingertips. I lean forward and manage to pinch it. Carefully, I pull out a bundle of old letters tied with blue ribbon. They’re yellowed with age and have a musty perfume smell. I now couldn’t care less about my clothes being all over the floor.

  I sit at my vanity and untie the bow that holds them together. Gently, I open the flap of the first envelope and unfold the thick stationery inside. The writing is small and so elaborately curled, it’s difficult to make out.

  My dearest Abigail,

  Nothing wouldst give me more joye than to once agane see your smile. I verily believe mother's illness is nigh finished and that I maye return to you. Have patience, my love, for I am over a barrel with these unfortunate times.

  Forever yours,

  William

  Old love letters. How romantic. I bet they belonged to the girl in the portrait by the piano. Was this her room? And for some reason, I have a strong feeling it was. She loved black-eyed Susans. That’s why they’re all over this furniture.

  The lights go off, and I jump. You have got to be kidding me! Not now! I put the delicate letters down and feel around for the flashlight on my nightstand. My hands shake.

  “Vivian!” I yell as I run through the dark hallway, but no one responds. When I get to the top of the stairs, lights glow in the foyer. “Vivian!”

  “What?” Her voice comes faintly from down the hallway.

  I run all the way to the kitchen, knowing that’s where I’ll find her. She always makes loose-leaf tea at night. I push the swinging door at the end of the hallway. She’s next to the stove, lighting a flame beneath an antique kettle.

  “My lights went out again,” I say.

  “The repairman fixed the lights.”

  After the weird things that have already happened to me today, I’m definitely not excited about my room being dark. “Well, they’re out in my bedroom.”

  She puts her empty mug down with a clang on the marble countertop and walks out the back door to the patio. I follow, and hold the flashlight as she opens the breaker box filled with switches.

  “You’re right; one of them is off.” She flips it back into position. “Let’s go take a look.” She enters the house, moving quickly.

  I don’t want her to see those letters. “It’s fine.” I keep pace with her. “I’ll let you know if they’re back on.”

  “I’ll look myself. If there’s still a problem, I’ll call that idiot and make him come back. I have no interest in spending another evening bumping into my own furniture because I can’t see ten feet in front of my face.”

  There is no arguing with her, especially when she’s feeling snippy. We walk toward my room. Did I close my door? I don’t remember doing that. The back of my neck tingles. I grab the handle before Vivian does, hoping I can hide those letters. “The light’s on,” I say quickly.

  “You’re acting like a nervous wreck. Are you okay?” She eyes me and pushes my door open.

  I immediately look at my vanity, but the letters are gone. Gone! What the…? I walk to it and pull the chair out to see if they fell.

  “This room’s a disaster.” Vivian wrinkles her nose. “Sam, are you sure everything’s okay?”

  My heart sinks. I can’t understand where they could have gone. “Yes. And I didn’t do this.”

  “The lights?”

  “This!” I point at the clothes. “It was like this when I got here. And now something’s disappeared, and I think someone’s messing with me.”

  “Are you trying to tell me you think someone was in the house? All the doors were locked.”

  “Something is missing from my room, and this is the second time my clothes are all over the floor.” I’m having trouble keeping my cool.

  “Slow down. What’s missing?”

  “Just something.”

  Her eyes land on the hole in the back of my armoire. “If you’re not going to tell me, then how can I help?”

  “Fine. Letters. I found them in the back of my armoire.”

  “So you’re telling me that someone threw your clothes on the floor. You somehow found letters in your armoire. And then the lights wen
t out and they disappeared?”

  “And the rocking chair in the burgundy bedroom was rocking by itself.”

  She frowns. “Are you sleeping well? You know I was kidding when I said the ghost didn’t like you, right?”

  “I don’t think it was a ghost. I think it was a person.”

  Her kettle starts whistling. “I need to get that. Then we can talk more about this.”

  “No.” I close the door behind her as she leaves.

  This is only going to start the therapy conversation again. I’m not crazy. And my sleep has nothing to do with this. I’m being deliberately toyed with. Would those witch lunatics from my school go so far as to mess with my house? Yes, I think they would. Maybe even Jaxon’s in on it. I bet they’re all having a good laugh over this.

  My cell phone buzzes on my nightstand. It’s a text.

  Jaxon: Find anything?

  For some reason this makes my blood boil. He’s playing me for sure.

  Me: A liar.

  Jaxon: ???

  I throw my phone on my bed and grab my metal flashlight—a light source or a potential weapon. I resist stamping down the staircase only because I have no desire for Vivian to know where I am.

  I go into the piano room and stand in front of Abigail’s painting, examining every detail. She’s calm, with her dark brown hair and happy gray eyes. Behind her, everything is heavily shadowed. But I’m pretty sure she’s standing next to the fireplace in the library, right in front of the hidden door.

  “Somehow I’ve stepped into your world of secrets,” I say to her painting.

  I look for a painter’s signature, but there’s none. Carefully, I shine my flashlight behind the portrait. Bingo—there’s an index card taped to the back, with some writing in my grandmother’s cursive. Thank you, Charlotte. It reads Abigail Roe ~1691.

  The year before the Witch Trials? I look at her lace and silk dress again. This seems way too fancy for Colonial America. I’ve seen drawings of Puritans from that time in my history textbook and they wore super-plain clothes and bonnets. Black and earth tones, not these cheery blues and whites. From what I read, children didn’t play or have toys because those things were considered frivolous and sinful. There’s no way she could have walked around in this thing in seventeenth-century Salem. Something is off here.

  Behind me, a crystal glass falls to the floor.

  CHAPTER NINE

  * * *

  Cursed

  I slow my pace in the hallway to leave no time for Jaxon to talk to me before class. It’s only my third day, and no one will make eye contact with me. Where I’d normally have to squeeze between people, they just step out of my way. It’s not like how they move out of respect for the Descendants; it’s like they’re afraid to touch me. I overhear snippets of conversations about my library fiasco, which is already common knowledge.

  The bell rings as I reach AP History, and I try to ignore the tightness in my chest. I steel my face and open the door. Wardwell gives me a disapproving look but can’t say anything since I’m technically on time.

  I take my seat next to Jaxon but keep my gaze straight ahead.

  “We’ll begin with your paper assignment.” Mr. Wardwell wears a tweed blazer with suede elbow patches.

  “Sam?” Jaxon whispers. I ignore him, and the tightness spreads.

  “Jaxon,” says Mr. Wardwell, “if you’re so eager to talk in my class, then maybe you’d like to tell me your paper topic.”

  “Sure.” Jaxon isn’t fazed. “I’m working with Sam, and we’re doing our paper on the location of the witch hangings.” He leaves out the bit where we think the current location is wrong.

  The pretty girl who saved Jaxon a seat the other day doesn’t turn around to look at us, but everyone else does. Don’t worry, I think in the pretty girl’s direction, you can have him.

  “Wonderful choice.” Wardwell nods. “We’re visiting Gallows Hill Park on Friday. You can do some research then.”

  I raise my hand, and Mr. Wardwell nods. “Yes?”

  “Can I do the paper by myself?”

  “No. It’s a group assignment.” He moves on to another student, and Jaxon stares at me. I don’t dare look at him or I might cry.

  Lizzie turns toward me from a few rows up, her hair hiding her awful smile from Mr. Wardwell. Behind her desk, she pulls out a little handmade doll with MATHER embroidered on it and a noose around its neck. Jaxon grabs my arm, as if to tell me not to react. I shake it off.

  John, from the desk next to Lizzie, mouths “cursed” at me.

  I freeze. This was the word that tore apart my friendships as a child. It started not that long after my friend Kara fell into the lion’s cage at my seventh birthday party.

  “She’s not well enough to see you,” Kara’s mother said, holding the door only halfway open.

  “We’ll come back in a couple of days,” my dad said, and put his hand on my shoulder.

  “Sam?” Kara’s voice came from down the hallway.

  “I’m so sorry, Kara!” I yelled, trying to peer around her mother. I didn’t know what I was apologizing for, but I knew I was sorry.

  As Kara reached the door, her mother yanked her backward. “Kara, you’re not going to be seeing Sam anymore. They were just leaving.”

  My eyes began to fill with tears, and my dad stiffened next to me. “Of course you’re upset about what happened. But it’s not Sam’s fault. Keeping the girls apart is an over—”

  I reached out for Kara, but her mother blocked me.

  The door slammed in my face. I didn’t really understand what it all meant. All I knew was that I didn’t have Kara anymore because there was something wrong with me, and I wasn’t sure I could take that.

  John grins at the shocked look on my face. Is there some way they could know about all the bad luck I had when I was a kid? Or is this just some awful coincidence?

  “I’m not cursed. And if you say it again, I’ll smack that smile off you!” I yell. The room goes silent and everyone stares.

  Mr. Wardwell stands straighter. “Miss Mather, I will not have that kind of threatening outburst in my classroom. If you cannot control yourself, you’ll leave. Is that clear?”

  Lizzie tightens the noose around the little doll’s neck.

  I clench my fist. “So it’s totally fine that she has some sick voodoo doll with a noose? Are you kidding me? They took my freaking hair the other day!”

  Mr. Wardwell looks at Lizzie, but the doll is nowhere in sight.

  “Out!” Mr. Wardwell points toward the door. I yank my bag up and storm off.

  “Mr. Wardwell,” Jaxon says, “it’s not—”

  “I don’t want to hear it, Jaxon.” Mr. Wardwell follows me into the hallway.

  “I want you to go into that room there.” Mr. Wardwell shakes his finger at me. “And calm yourself down. I’ll be in to talk to you when I’m ready.”

  I cross the hall, enter the empty classroom, and throw my bag on the floor. I know I shouldn’t let my temper get the better of me like that, but those Descendants are completely insane. Who does that? I don’t believe in witchcraft or whatever that crap was, but still. And was Jaxon defending me? I don’t need his help. I’ve always been just fine on my own. I don’t know why I got it into my head I might make friends here.

  I pace around the room until I wear myself out. I kick the desk near the window before I sit in it. I want my dad back. I need to talk to him. I need to hear that eventually things will get better. Right now everything is so very wrong. And it seems to be slipping further out of my control by the minute. I put my head in my hands, and my hair falls in my face.

  My dad knelt down beside me. “It’s not your fault. You know that, right, Sam? That woman is a…She’s scared about what happened to Kara and she wants to blame someone.” He pushed my hair back from my wet cheeks. “You’re one of the most kind and beautiful people I’ve ever known, and I promise you I’ll do everything I can to fix this.”

  I nodded. “Okay,
Daddy.” But somewhere inside me, I knew things would never be the same.

  After some minutes of closing my eyes, my breath slows. When I sit up again, the dark-haired guy I collided with the other day stands just inside the doorway. For a few seconds, we’re both silent.

  “You will leave.” His voice is flat, but his face is intense.

  “The classroom? I can’t.”

  “Salem,” he says, and for the first time I notice that he, too, wears all black.

  CHAPTER TEN

  * * *

  Under All That Bravado

  The bell rings at the end of my sixth-period literature class, and I’m the first person out of the classroom. I can’t wait to get out of this place. If I hear one more person whisper that the Descendants cursed me, I’ll scream.

  I rush to my locker. Good, Susannah isn’t there yet. I spin the numbers on my combination lock and quickly open the latch. As I grab my notebooks, Jaxon heads straight for me. I slam my locker shut and walk toward the exit. But by the time I reach the door, he catches up.

  “Sam, what the hell’s going on?”

  “Go away.”

  “Not until you tell me why you’re so angry.” He keeps pace with my speed-walking. “You’ve been avoiding me all day.”

  “You know why.” I turn down the sidewalk away from the school.

  “No, I really don’t.”

  “Please, I don’t need to feel any more ridiculous than I already do.” I watch the cracks in the sidewalk pass under my feet, trying to steer my mind away from how hurt I feel.

  “I’ve been nothing but nice to you. Am I missing something here?”