Chapter 3
Chapter 3
T he sign on Route 1 that flashed past my window indicated that I was seven miles from Ipswich—and only eight miles from Salem. The shadows cast by the nooses that once swung on Gallows Hill were long, and I felt their chill.
It wasn’t the first time I’d been to Ipswich. My mother had insisted we stop there en route to summer vacation in Maine and have fried clams in the town’s legendary Clam Box. Dad had been uncharacteristically quick to anger and sharp of tongue during the ride from Cambridge, as he preferred to get to the small cabin in East Boothbay as quickly as possible, with a minimum of stops for ice cream and antiques. I sat outside at a picnic table, slurping down a frozen root beer slushie, while they fetched the food at the pickup window. My parents’ raised voices floated toward the parking lot, setting my face afire with mortification at the thought that everyone could hear them argue.
I couldn’t recall what they had been fighting about—though I now suspected it might have had something to do with our proximity to Dad’s family.
I turned off Route 1 and onto the old road from Topsfield to Ipswich, leaving behind the land of strip malls, pizza parlors, and national donut chains. A quiet stillness descended as the traffic was reduced to a trickle and sprawling old houses with green lawns replaced the neon signs of commerce that lit up Boston’s northern suburbs. It was like driving back in time to pass by the eighteenth-century houses, with their pristine paint and picket fences.
I drove into the center of Ipswich along Market Street, one of the town’s main thoroughfares, and pulled the Range Rover into a parking spot outside a thriving café called The Thirsty Goat.
Outside, under a swinging sign with an image of a goat in seventeenth-century clothing tipping his head back to drain a goblet, the tables were filled with a wide range of locals: young mothers sipping lattes, their children parked next to them in strollers; old salts in overalls and worn baseball caps clutching paper cups full of steaming brew; and people with laptops clicking away at their email while downing mochas. The Thirsty Goat was clearly the hub of the local community.
It was also the perfect place to ask for directions to Ravenswood. Though I’d plugged Gwyneth’s zip code and the word Ravenswood into the navigation system when I left New Haven, the directions had only landed me here in the center of town. Without a street name and number, I was going to have to rely on local knowledge to find my great-aunt.
I turned off the ignition and grabbed my tote bag from the passenger seat. I was in desperate need of hot tea to revive my courage before meeting Gwyneth Proctor for the first time.
When my feet touched the pavement, a nudging tingle filled the air as though a thousand witches were blowing kisses. My eyes swept the crowd, looking in vain for a witch among the prams and baseball caps, but I couldn’t locate the source of the warning that witches were nearby.
My senses on high alert, I entered the café. It was a cheerful space with a lofty beamed ceiling. The crisp white on the rafters extended down until it met chair-height red paneling, and the work of local artists covered the walls.
The cozy atmosphere turned chilly as I felt the strong probe of a witch’s gaze. Then another.
Behind the café’s counter stood two witches. One had wild black hair piled into a topknot and a nose ring. Her arms were covered with tattoos: a new moon, an owl feather, a moth, a tarot card, and more that were hidden in the sleeve of her black T-shirt. Embroidered on her apron was a name— Ann —along with a vivid rendering of the High Priestess card from the Rider-Waite tarot deck. The other witch had a colder, more forbidding air. Her apron was embroidered with the name Meg, and the Queen of Pentacles was displayed across the bib. Meg wore a pin that read Coven Membership Committee.
Not even the most obtuse human could overlook that these were witches. As if to prove it, I spied one of the industrial Italian coffee machines that Matthew adored. Though not a cauldron, it was black and set in a prominent place. Occasionally, it discharged a puff of steam. A sign taped to it read No cappuccinos under the balsamic moon due to power surges. Take your complaints to the Topsfield Coven.
“Can we help you?” Ann’s tone was brisk, her power carefully banked and managed. It was not wild like the power of the elemental witches in London’s Rede, or delicate and precise like a weaver who made new spells. The image that came to mind was that of a highly trained, magical figure skater willing to patiently inscribe modest school figures in the ice so that she could explode later into effortless quadruple spins.
I smiled brightly. “A hot tea with milk, no sugar. To go.” I was grateful that my order wasn’t restricted by the lunar cycle since I had no idea what phase the moon was in at present.
“Our specialty tea is Witches’ Brew. It’s not on the menu, but it’s a town favorite.” Meg’s lips rose in a sardonic smile, the force of her stare intensifying. She had strange, mottled eyes that contained different hues: sea-glass green and bark brown, a mixture of water and earth.
“No eye of newt?” I asked sweetly, fishing for the wallet inside my Bodleian tote bag.
“Only in sorbet,” came Ann’s quick reply.
“English Breakast would be fine,” I said, refusing to take the bait. These two may enjoy going full witch on the tourists who had straggled in from nearby Salem, but I wasn’t going to encourage them.
“Anything else?” Meg demanded, her eyes narrow with suspicion.
“Everything all right, Meg?” A slight woman with jet hair iced with white and holding a parasol to shield her skin from the sun entered the café, power and magic following her like Cinderella’s train at the ball. The witch studied us from behind round, rose-colored glasses.
“Just an unexpected visitor,” Ann said, placing a slight emphasis on the last word. What she meant was witch. Did Ipswich’s coven require magical passports for creatures likeme?
“It’s under control, Goody Wu.” Meg bristled at the unwanted interference.
Goody was an old-fashioned form of address, and one that I’d not heard uttered in a community of witches since I timewalked to Elizabethan London.
“Oh, I think not,” Goody Wu said softly, breathing out a stream of sea glass–tinged air that sparkled and chimed in the light. It reached me in curious wisps that tickled my ears and slid up my nostrils. “Quite the opposite.”
How many witches were in this town? I’d been here less than ten minutes, and I’d already met three.
“Hellooo!” A tall, slender willow of a witch breezed through the door, adding another creature to my tally. She was wearing a pink canvas bucket hat emblazoned with a griffin and the kind of plaid madras shorts my mother had worn in the early 1980s, when preppy was high fashion. A messy ponytail attempted to capture her blond-and-gray hair, the length of it bundled up under the brim of her hat. An enameled pin proclaimed her to be mistress of coven ceremonies. As she drew closer, I could see that her energy and agility, along with her delicate features, had made me think that she was far younger than the fine lines around her eyes indicated.
“Welcome home, coz!”
I looked around to see whom the witch was greeting. After an uncomfortable pause, I realized she was referring tome.
“Hi.” I waved weakly.
The witch flung her arms around me, knocking her own hat off in her enthusiasm. She whispered into my ear, “I’m Julie Eastey. Just play along and I’ll get you out of here.”
Eastey was a name to conjure with in this part of Massachusetts, just like Bishop and Proctor. Four victims of the Salem panic had been members of this old Essex County family. If Julie was indeed my cousin, then the list of my relatives caught up in the dark events of the hanging times would expand exponentially.
“Fancy meeting you here.” Julie pulled me away so she could get a better look at me. She beamed with pride, but a warning sparked in her pale aquamarine eyes. “Aunt Gwynie is waiting for you out on the neck. She sent me to town so you wouldn’t get lost.”
“Gwyneth didn’t mention she was expecting guests at the last meeting.” There was a thoughtful note in Goody Wu’s voice.
I was sure Goody Wu didn’t mean the PTA or the local garden club.
“It’s summer, Katrina. You know how it is,” Julie said with a dismissive flap of her hand. “Ipswich is crawling with tourists. Not today, though! It must be pagan discount day. I see you’ve met Meg and Ann.”
Two fresh sets of witchy eyes pinned their attention on my back. I turned to see that the exit was blocked by a woman in her forties wearing a navy suit and a crisp white blouse. She was carrying the same distinctive Coach messenger bag with the flap and the brass closure that my mom had taken to Harvard every day, and in the same tan leather, too. At her side was an elderly dumpling of a witch with tight white curls that were tinged pink to match her cardigan.
“Oh, look, Hitty Braybrooke and Betty Prince have arrived,” Julie said cheerfully, though her eyes narrowed a fraction. “Busy day here at The Thirsty Goat.”
“You called?” Hitty asked Ann.
Someone had hit an invisible alarm button to notify the community that there was a strange witch in town.
Betty stared at me with open curiosity. “Is that—a Bishop ?”
“My cousin, Diana Bishop, yes.” Julie gathered me into her arm. The firm squeeze she gave me was tight enough to make me wince. “She’s here to visit with Gwynie.”
“That’s a disturbing procedural irregularity,” Hitty observed. “ Gwyneth should have notified us so that we could take proper precautions. I’ll be taking this up at our next meeting.” Though she wore no identifying pin like Meg and Julie, I suspected Hitty was the coven parliamentarian, the unlucky witch who had to master the rules and regulations.
“Precautions?” Julie snorted. “Goddess above, it’s not 1692, Hitty. Give Diana a break.”
The town’s bells sounded one o’clock.
“Is that the time?” Julie exclaimed. “We need to get to Ravenswood. Gwynie takes a nap at three, and she’ll want to catch up with you first.”
I turned toward the door.
“Don’t forget your tea.” Meg held out a paper cup with the distinctive goat logo.
I hesitated, tempted to walk away without it. Meg smiled, slow and satisfied as a cat.
“Thanks.” I marched over, plucked the tea from her grip, and headed straight for the door. “Ready when you are, Julie.”
“Ready as I’ll ever be!” Julie said. “Gwynie’s been dying to have a good gossip.”
Ann blinked at this announcement.
“I predict it’s going to be an interesting summer,” Goody Wu said, addressing the café’s customers, all of whom—human and witch—were watching our drama unfold.
“And you’re never wrong!” Julie said over her shoulder as she took me by the elbow and rushed me past Hitty and Betty. “Katrina is our chair of divination and prophecy, Diana. She always knows what the future will bring.”
“I’m sure we’ll meet again.” Goody Wu’s eyes fogged with possibilities. “Goodbye for now, Diana Bishop.”
—
We reached the sidewalk and I took in a lungful of magic-free air. The power in the café had been stifling and the clean, salty tang was welcome.
“Keep moving.” Julie’s pleasant demeanor changed as soon as she was out of the café. “We need to escape before Meg starts working the coven phone tree, otherwise someone will flag us down at every intersection. Which is your car?”
I pointed to the large black Range Rover.
“Of course it is.” Julie shook her head. “Vampires. Conspicuously consumptive with no regard for the environment.”
I opened my mouth to defend Matthew’s choice of vehicle.
“Follow me. I’m in the blue truck.” Julie pointed across the street to where a pastel blue vintage Ford was parked at a sharp angle in a spot designed for motorcycles.
Julie waited until I closed the car door before she dodged through the thickening traffic. Once in her truck, Julie performed an astonishingly speedy U-turn without crashing into oncoming traffic and pulled alongside.
“Stay close,” Julie said through the open window. “We don’t want to get separated.”
I’d fallen out of a fantasy novel and into a spy thriller, complete with a car chase. Julie’s U-turn had been a sample of her driving style, which was erratic and confident in equal measure. After a near miss with a cyclist, and a brief conversation with a uniformed officer of the Ipswich police department, Julie slowed down and remained in her own lane.
This gave me a chance to observe the changes as we left Ipswich’s dense center and turned onto East Street toward the old harbor. This had once been a bustling economic hub for the area. Now it was the site of a quiet marina for leisure craft. Crouched seventeenth-century houses popped up regularly among the statelier eighteenth-century buildings. Ipswich was clearly proud of its history, and white wooden plaques with black lettering identified each house, the person who first lived in it, and the date it had been built. I followed the signs back in time. 1671. 1701. 1687. How had these houses survived the pressure of development?
Julie’s truck bounced along as the road swept to the northeast. We had arrived on a long spit of land that stretched out toward the water. I felt another prickle from the past, heard a window open and my mother laugh as she drank in the sea air. There was a song playing on the radio, and Mom was teaching me the words.
I nearly went off the road at the sudden flash of memory. And yet I had been sure I’d never been anywhere in Ipswich except for the Clam Box.
Julie’s hand waved out the window to alert me that we were close to our destination. I spotted a battered sign for Ravenswood and slowed the car. We peeled off the paved two-lane highway and onto a worn carriage road. Someone had dumped gravel on it to fill the deep ruts left after winter’s hard freezes and a wet spring. The ancient, overhanging trees created a luminous green tunnel that cast everything in an otherworldly glow.
I lowered the window, drinking in the scent of grass and marsh and muck, the earthy aroma sharpened with a faint tang of salt. There was no loud music playing from nearby houses as there was in New Haven, or the banging of doors and shouts of students. There was only the hum of insects and the raucous caws of the birds as they flew overus.
A man walked in the ditch at the side of the road. He was dressed in short, baggy trousers tied below the knee and held a pair of sturdy shoes in his hand. His long white shirt, the sleeves rolled up, grazed the top of his thighs. It was made of a coarse cloth, as were his breeches. A worn hat with a floppy brim and a wilted turkey feather stuck in the band shielded his face so that I could not make out his features. Still, he seemed familiar.
The walker from the card.
I had already passed by him, and I peered into the rearview mirror to take another look.
He was gone.
I slowed down, searching the trees to track him, but there was nothing to see but rough trunks and thick underbrush. Julie honked her horn impatiently and I pressed my foot on the gas pedal.
After sailing slowly over the dips and swells like overloaded galleons, we reached the first fork in the road. A sign pointing to the right read orchard farm. The only features of the house that were visible were the two chimneys that anchored its sloping roof.
Julie drove past the turnoff for the farm and proceeded up a barely visible dirt track. Another crude sign nailed to a post indicated we had arrived at the Old Place.
I tried to spot a house through the thick hedges speckled with white polka dots, but an aged chestnut tree blocked my view. It stood like a sentinel, ramrod straight on the rise, with limbs spread wide and distinctive ovate leaves. Its rough, gray bark looked like feathers, the ends tipped up and away from the trunk in delicate furls. Golden catkins dropped from the branches, their heavy scent filling the car.
But the fuzzy panicles were not the only ornaments on this tree. The chestnut was festooned with objects and pieces of paper, too. They were tied to the trunk with faded ribbons and frayed string and drooped from the branches on wire coat hangers and bits of old rope. Doll legs and heads swayed eerily in the breeze. A worn shoe beat against the trunk, a muffled toll to announce someone had arrived.
A witch’s tree. My mother had written an article about such trees, once upon a time. People left messages and offerings on the branches hoping that the witch who lived nearby would pass them on to ancestors and other intercessors.
Even through the car’s robust frame, I could feel a magic shimmering around the bedecked tree that was both protective and inviting. Visitors were welcome to leave their tokens and prayers here, but the tree would keep anyone from venturing farther—unless they were welcome at Ravenswood.
Ahead, Julie had stopped her truck. She honked again to capture my attention and waved her hat out of the window to make sure that I knew our goal was still unrealized. Out popped her blond head.
“You can visit the tree later!” Julie called. “Get a move on!”
As my heavy vehicle crested the rise, a primrose-colored clapboard house appeared below, hunkered on the edge of the salt marsh with a wide horizon of blue sea beyond it. It looked like it had been built in the late seventeenth century, with its simple saltbox shape and single central chimney. And unlike houses of the same period I’d passed in Ipswich, there was no busy road inches away from the front door or a gas station perched nearby. This house was a rare survivor, perfectly preserved in its original setting of deeply forested woodland and waterside meadows.
I took a closer look at the house after I switched off the ignition and set the parking brake. The clapboards were narrow, confirming its age, and layers of paint and lashings of wind and rain had made them bow and bubble, giving the house the wrinkled appearance of an old dowager. From the side, the Old Place seemed to have three floors. A single attic window was set in the peak of the gable, while two windows set at slightly different heights marked the second floor as though the house were squinting. The ground floor had two more windows and a door with an overhang to protect anyone entering or leaving from being drowned in a sheet of falling rain or impaled by an icicle.
Julie parked her car where the sharply sloped roof nearly met the ground, leaving only a scant three feet of wall between the tufts of green grass and the eaves. While this might have been the place where the road from town ended, it was decidedly not the front of the house, with its odd angles and tiny door. The two windows tucked under the low eaves were wider than they were tall, and reminded me of the narrowed looks I’d received from the witches at the café. The old house was peering out at me from under its lowered brow—and with just as much suspicion as Meg and Ann had showed, too.
Home, the susurration of chestnut leaves said.
Home, the bees buzzed.
Home, a raven called from its perch on the ridge of the roof.
Home, my heart echoed.
I belonged to this place where I’d never been, and a sense of rightness settled over me as Ravenswood exerted its pull, like the moon on the tides. I savored the feeling, drinking in a little more of its magic with each passing breath.
A slender, elderly woman with neatly bobbed gray hair held back with a velvet headband stepped out from the side door, her blue-and-white-striped shirt and trim gray cotton trousers straight out of a Talbots catalogue. An old pair of slip-on SeaVees, stained with salt, were on her feet. She bore a subtle but unmistakable resemblance to my father, especially around the eyes and in the widow’s peak that framed her forehead.
I released my seat belt and opened the door, sending one tentative foot toward the ground.
“Come down from there, Diana.” Gwyneth took a few steps then stopped, her tone vinegar. “I’m eighty-seven, and too old to be scampering up hills.”
I hopped down from my seat. When my feet touched the ground, the soles sent roots deep into the soil. I swayed in place, startled by the change to my center of gravity.
“Steady on.” Julie put a supportive hand under my elbow. “You’ll be fine. You just need to get your witchlegs under you. Who wants tea?”
I’d been so absorbed following Julie and looking at the local landmarks that I hadn’t taken a single sip from The Thirsty Goat’s cup. My stomach let out a gurgle.
“The kettle is on the hearth.” Gwyneth shielded her eyes from the sun. “Come closer, my dear. I don’t bite.”
Silvered laughter sounded at Gwyneth’s joke.
Canst thou remember a time before? My mother whispered the line from Shakespeare’s Tempest.
“Mom?”
I had seen the ghostly form of my father, and my grandmother Joanna Bishop. I’d even caught glimpses of Bridget Bishop, my ancestor who had been hanged at Salem. But the one time I’d seen my mother was after the witch Satu J?rvinen had dropped me into an oubliette. I had never been sure it was her ghost who visited me, or just a trick of my panicked mind that made me think Mom was there.
I looked for her in the trees, the meadow, and the marsh. At last I spotted her at the edge of the thick wood. Like the man on the carriage road, her outlines were clear, as was her familiar red Plimoth Plantation T-shirt, banded at the neck and sleeves in navy, with the passenger list of the Mayflower printed on the front. This was no ethereal ghost. Here was my mother, right down to her old boat shoes.
“Mom!” My feet sped down the hill, and another sharp memory surfaced, cutting through my heart. I’d run down this hill before, hand in hand with my mother. We were laughing as we ran toward—
I crashed into Gwyneth, who despite her frailty was able to catch me before I could reach the thicket of trees. She held me tight as my mother vanished into the shadows. Like the witches in town, my aunt’s power was substantial and carefully managed, but it was not hidden. Nor was it dressed up in love spells and embroidered into lavender-filled pillows to help you sleep. Darkness frilled the edges ofit.
“Not yet, Diana.” Gwyneth’s eyes were a shade greener than Julie’s brilliant aquamarine, but had the same translucent paleness. “That’s the Ravens’ Wood, and the source of a Proctor’s power. You need to get accustomed to the place—and it to you—before you barge around in the trees.”
“My mother—” I struggled to break free, but my great-aunt’s grip was surprisingly strong.
“Has been waiting here for you for some time, just as I have,” Gwyneth replied, her voice low and compelling. “She’s not going anywhere. But you’re not ready to meet with her just now. Be patient.”
I took a deep breath, inhaling Gwyneth’s scent of cinnamon and buckthorn and crushed stone. It blended into the salt tang of the marsh air and conjured images of crackling fires and rocky, windswept beaches. The scent was both grounding and comforting.
“That’s better,” Gwyneth said, releasing me. “As for your witchlegs, you’ll have to forgive Ravenswood for greeting you so enthusiastically. Like your mother and me, it’s been expecting you.”
“Are you two coming?” Julie had reached the low door into the Old Place and was squinting back atus.
“Wait,” I said, planting my feet. There was a question that my aunt needed to answer before I went any farther. “Why didn’t you reach out to me before? Why now?”
“The oracles told me it was time to make contact,” Gwyneth replied. “It’s a good thing they did, too, for the ravens took flight two days later. I hoped the U.S. mail would deliver my message before a flock of birds arrived.”
“It did,” I said. “But I didn’t open your message until afterward.”
“That’s a pity,” Gwyneth said sadly. “Was your daughter with you when they appeared, like my sister Morgana foresaw?”
MFP stood for Morgana Proctor—another unknown great-aunt.
“She was.” My words were abrupt. I wasn’t ready to talk about Becca and Pip and what my trip to Ravenswood might mean for them. And with every passing moment, I was more convinced that my current situation had as much to do with my father’s past as it did my present, or the children’s future.
Gwyneth took note of my tone, and her response was equally brisk and to the point. “There are things you need to know, Diana. About the Proctors. About yourself.”
A sense of anticipation hung in the air of Ravenswood.
“Come inside. Have some tea. We’ll take this one step at a time.” Gwyneth’s eyes were warm and filled with compassion. “After forty years of silence, our Proctor noise must be deafening.”
I took a step, then another, down the dark path unspooling beforeme.