Chapter 3
3
SALEM, PRESENT DAY
Sephy sat with her eldest sister, Lucine, and read to her. She liked to listen to stories and was particularly fond of the current book they were reading: Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens. Her sister was enjoying being whisked away to the marshes of North Carolina.
A gentle snore filled the room and she looked at Lucine who was dozing, her shoulder-length silver hair glinting in the candlelight. She looked as if she was in her late forties, not sixty-one, and had gone grey prematurely, but her emerald eyes were losing their sparkle, the light inside them dimming. It was always the same. It was the eyes that gave the English sisters away, all of them had the same vivid green eyes and hair like spun silver. Except for Dora; her eyes were a slightly paler shade of green, her hair a raven black. They had also been blessed with skin that didn’t seem to age the same as most women, although she also credited the cold cream she had been making since time began with helping to keep the wrinkles at bay. The cream along with her herbal teas were her most in demand at her little shop.
Closing the book, she placed it on the nightstand next to the bed. Standing up, she blew out the candles. She couldn’t go to the shop and leave the house with them burning even though Lucine preferred candlelight to the harsh electric lights. There was a small nightlight and she switched that on, so she wasn’t in the dark. She hated leaving her sister when she was so tired and frail, but they had made a promise a long time ago that as long as the townsfolk needed help they would provide it. Which Lenny thought was ridiculous. It was the townsfolk who had persecuted them for doing just that back when the Salem they knew was nothing more than a farming village. It was tradition though and if there was one thing the English sisters were good at it was keeping the family traditions alive.
The small shop Sephy owned on the corner of Essex and Summer next to the tattoo shop was a profitable one. She could stare over at the Witch House all day if she wanted, which she didn’t because she didn’t need the constant reminder of what had happened to them that first time around. She did love watching the tourists dressed as witches standing out front having their photographs taken and often wondered what that brute Judge Jonathan Corwin would think of it now. There was no bigger screw-you than having thousands of wannabe witches standing outside your own front door where you once lived after sending innocent women and men to the gallows accused of witchcraft.
Out the front of the store she sold all the usual things that visitors who came to Salem expected to buy: tarot cards, crystals for every occasion and situation, spell books, candles, books on witchcraft, mugs with pictures of witches on, tiny little pink cauldrons; you name it, she sold it. What the tourists didn’t know about was her consulting room at the back, and her beautiful apothecary. The English women had sold teas, potions, creams and soaps for as long as they could remember, and the townsfolk loved them. Even the men would come after dark when the consulting room was open if they needed something. But the women, well they came in droves to see Sephy whenever they needed something that Doctor Parish couldn’t give to them; oh how times have changed, she thought to herself.
Downstairs she tugged her cloak around her shoulders and heard a loud miaow from behind her as Ophelia, their black cat, strode towards her and began to rub herself against Sephy’s ankles, demanding to be fed.
She stared at her. ‘I fed you not an hour ago, are you still hungry?’
When she was a child, she used to think that the cats they’d always kept would answer in a perfectly formed human voice and had been bitterly disappointed that, despite the years of living with the Englishes, they had never quite mastered speech. She hurried back into the kitchen to see the bowl. Opening the fridge, she took out some milk and poured some into a saucer.
‘Be a dear and go keep an eye on Lucine for me. She’s asleep so don’t go waking her up but if you could keep her company, I’ll give you sardines when I come home. Is that a deal?’
The cat looked up at her and let out a long purr which Sephy took for a yes. She let herself out of the front door. The porch light was out again. That was another thing to add to her never-ending list of jobs. If Lenny was here, she could shoulder some of the burden for a change. Life never used to be this complicated. She remembered with great fondness the times when they grew their own vegetables and herbs, spending time together of an evening after a hard day working the land. They would be tired but talking among themselves and enjoying each other’s company, unlike now when everyone was glued to their cell phones.
She grabbed her bicycle which was leaning against the fence, snapped the buckle on the helmet and began the short ride into town. It was easier to cycle, although her cloak was sometimes a nuisance if it was particularly blowy, but she tucked it under her bottom. The large wicker basket on the front was just big enough for most of the things she had to buy from the shops, and it saved her many lost minutes trying to park the van.
The shop was one of the oldest still standing in Salem and always had been since as long as she could remember. Lenny used to say they should shut it, move with the times and work online, but Sephy much preferred meeting people face to face. There was so much coldness and indifference through buying your goods online; it was great if you needed things that weren’t readily available in town and that was it. How could she read what a person really wanted if it was all carried out through a computer? There was no personal touch to it. The English women all had special gifts: Sephy was a natural at healing and knowing exactly what a person needed before they could tell her themselves, while Lenny had the gift of seeing things before they happened – although it was a dreadful shame it hadn’t kicked in before they’d found themselves the victims of a vicious witch hunt in 1692.
Sephy shuddered at the memory of the awful time they spent cooped up on the stinking, dirt floor covered in urine-stained straw in the dark, dank dungeons below the county jail. Sheriff George Corwin, the judge’s nephew, had taken a liking to Lenny, much to their horror, which had been the start of his wicked persecution of them all.
She shuddered, pushing thoughts of Corwin out of her mind for now. For the last few lifetimes Lenny had been a skilled surgeon so she was more of a modern-day healer than Sephy was. Lucine, their elder sister, had the gift of natural healing too, she’d taught them both everything they knew, how to grow, pick and dry the herbs they needed to make their potions and creams. It was Lucine who knew a lot more about things than they did and she was the one who had kept a beautiful spell book that had been gifted to her full of everything they should need. They had never seen it since the first time they died. She could talk to the animals too, Sephy was sure of that; they all followed her around almost fighting for her attention.
Lucine had always had a pet crow called Hades who would come and go as he pleased; he’d sometimes disappear for months then turn up out of the blue. He’d come back two days ago; he was always around when the end was near for Lucine which she found a great comfort. The crow is known for its links to the other side and said to be able to cross over from the living to the dead, Hades’ name came from the Greek god who was the king of the dead, which was a pretty appropriate name for a bird with feathers as black as the night. Hades and Lucine were as thick as thieves and Sephy was convinced there was something more to their relationship or knowledge but who was she to ask.
Then there was Dora, or Isadora as she was called in her first life. It was funny how all of their names except for Lucine’s had been shortened over the centuries to something less dramatic. Sephy had loved being called Seraphina; Lenora, however, had loved shortening hers to Lenny. Dora’s special power was being able to grow anything, no matter what or how shrivelled and dead it might be. If she picked it up and whispered to it, before you knew it blooms would appear and the shrivelled-up plant that had been about to be thrown into the trash would be living its best life on someone’s kitchen windowsill. She was as good with scents as she was plants and could remember a person she’d seen for even just a fleeting glance with her sense of smell. She spoke the language of flowers, which was a beautiful gift, and Sephy thought that she also had the most powerful magic out of them all if only she could figure out how to tap into it. All their gifts and ability to do good in the world hadn’t stopped them from that treacherous persecution and horrific death at the end of the hangman’s noose the first time around and she let out a long, drawn-out sigh at the thought of it.
She leaned the bike against the shop wall and locked it to the drainpipe. Sephy didn’t trust many people – the local kids were a nuisance, always messing around with stuff they shouldn’t be. They called them witches, but no one took the slightest bit of notice these days. Hundreds of years ago it had been a death sentence, but now, well it seemed as if everyone on the internet was calling themselves a witch. To Sephy this wasn’t a bad thing, it was nice that they had come full circle from doing what nature intended them to do, to dying for a noble cause, then being reborn again and again. Each time the stigma surrounding what they were had got weaker and weaker until nobody really cared one little bit, except for the hunters. They didn’t forget.
‘Can you help me?’
The voice jolted Sephy from her memories. She had a tendency to forget where and what she was doing, which was the main reason she didn’t drive very much – she was far too easily distracted and there had been a few close calls with a ditch and a couple of signposts. Turning to look for the owner of the voice, she couldn’t see anyone but could sense them hiding in the shadows close by.
‘Who said that, where are you?’
She stood tall against the night, looking quite the figure. She was the tallest of them all, Lenny much to her disgust was shorter and spent a small fortune on designer high-heeled shoes. Sephy preferred her boots, she’d always had a passion for red boots which had been replaced with pink once the world caught up and started using colours other than red, brown or black. Looking around, she couldn’t see anyone but could feel their vibrations in the air, wavering like a mirage and giving them away. She knew they were out there.
‘Well, if you don’t show yourself there isn’t an awful lot I can do to help you, is there? I’m here for a couple of hours and then I’m off home so you best decide how badly you need my help because I might not be open the rest of the week and I’m not doing house calls or taking visitors to my home.’
Turning back, she took the key for the shop from her pocket and opened the back door, switching on the outside light as she did. It filled the evening sky with warm white light, a beacon of hope to all who were in need. She knew that they would come, they always did, and eventually the owner of the vibrations would pluck up the courage to tell her what it was they so badly needed.