The Witching Hours

Chapter 1

Usually, Skye McMahon just saw things.

And in those images that appeared before her eyes or within her mind, it was as if history itself had been captured on a video hard drive and could appear before her clearly as if events had been caught for the viewer to enjoy exactly as they had taken place, over and over, in Technicolor on a life-sized screen.

Good things!

And bad things. Very bad things.

That was history.

And that was life. And she had learned long ago as a child, that it was possible to maintain her sanity by knowing that what she was seeing wasn’t real—not at the time, at any rate—just like seeing events on a movie screen wasn’t real.

But something was different that day. And it was strange, because she had been to Salem, Massachusetts, many times when growing up. And while she had seen and sensed the past before, there was something new …

And this wasn’t why she was here! The real world, the one they were living in now.

She wasn’t just seeing what had taken place. She wasn’t just hearing everything that was being said.

She was feeling it.

It was a bizarrely beautiful day and a breeze was stirring. She could smell the grass and the trees, see buildings in the far background, small wooden homes and farms that were far spread. In the distance, she could see a town center, and yet they were away from that center because …

People were gathered on the outskirts of town. And she quickly saw why. There were prisoners there.

Prisoners lined up to die.

She could feel such a mix of emotions. Fear. Horrible fear. Faltering faith … indignation, and a mix of anger and terror and a determination from one of the condemned that they would die well. Because soon, bodies would fall from the ropes strung high on the hanging tree.

She heard a sniffle of fear, a young woman, surely still stunned and confused, because of course …

None of them were really witches! No one was in league with the devil.

If the condemned had really had any kind of the power it was suggested they possessed, they’d have broken their bonds; if they’d been in league with a devil, surely that devil would have jumped out of his fiery pit to save them.

More …

Those who watched.

Many with relief to see what they’d been told was evil get its due! Shouting out that justice was being served …

Some were looking on with confusion clear on their faces. Puritan life was hard, and everyone knew the devil could walk on earth with man, that evil was real in the darkness of the forests, but these were their neighbors! People they lived among.

The accusers were there, of course. Any little wrong could be avenged. A cow had died. It had been cursed! By a witch!

Some indeed thought that justice was being done.

But others, no matter how pious, good people at heart in any age, had not expected the horror of hearing whimpers or sobs and seeing the way the feet of those hanged began to twitch so horribly …

Along with the strange and agonizing sense of the past, Skye felt a taunt from her childhood enter the stream of words that surrounded her.

Ding-dong! The witch is dead. Which old witch? The wicked witch!

In her mind, she also loathed herself for thinking of the song from the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz.

But it went with the flow of consciousness from those around her, a tangle of arguments in her head that became pure torture. A cacophony in her mind.

There were so many thoughts from those watching!

And the thoughts of those watching were torn.

This is all such a horrid lie! She’s not a witch! They just want her property confiscated. I need to protest to stand up … and if I do, I’ll die as a witch, too.

I thank Thee, great Lord in Heaven, for taking her; that witch might have cursed my family! Look at the children! Tituba started this, and she told the girls stories about things done in her land. And she said herself that others were involved.

But if she hadn’t, if she hadn’t confessed … she’d be ripe for the gallows, too!

No, no, no … this can’t be happening. People are just afraid of the dark, falling for the ridiculous pranks of spoiled children!

Good riddance!

“Skye!”

She blinked, startled back to reality.

The voice that said her name was real. Yes. Current. In the real world, where she was living at the current date.

Her vision ended as if blacked out.

And she was jolted back to the reality of the here and now.

The visions of the past were gone and were replaced by a pleasant day, and beautiful foliage surrounded them; the majesty of the earth was rich here with greenery.

They were still in a field. Jackson Crow had stopped for a minute so that she could get a good concept of the area where the old Bolton house stood.

They were a small distance from the center of the city, not that far from the main streets and the tourist and historical attractions that had come into being from the past. They were near a rocky tor that was known as Proctor’s Ledge and an area known in the past as “the crevice”—where bodies had once been tossed and discarded, more than buried—now a memorial to those executed there on three different occasions.

Skye had seen the past.

And it had been painful. Different times, different beliefs—and still, human beings were always as conflicted as ever, and where it seemed there was always the suffering of the innocent …

There were things that were horrific and tragic, no matter the time and place in the history of the earth and humanity.

She gave herself a firm mental shake.

Thankfully, she was back to the present!

Well, hopefully, she would be able to help now—there was nothing she could do to change the past, she could only hope this strange sense she possessed could help her make something better in the now!

Salem today, of course, was so very, very different!

Today they could take a short drive—or walk—and reach the modern commercial area, places like the Peabody Essex Museum; the Old Burying Point, or Charter Street Cemetery, the memorial there to those who had died; the Salem Witch Museum and so much more.

There were many, many shops that now featured “potions” and other such paraphernalia that were needed by a practitioner of the modern-day wiccan belief.

“Skye!” Jackson repeated.

“Yeah!” She smiled at Jackson, who was the SAC, or special agent in charge, of the Special Circumstances Unit of the FBI, called the “Krewe of Hunters” by some, since their first case was in the city of New Orleans, or … well, the “Ghostbuster Unit” by a few as well.

On paper, they dealt with cults, with unusual circumstances, and those killers who thought they had legendary or mystic powers—or just wanted to pretend they did.

“Are you all right?” Jackson asked softly.

His hand was resting gently on her shoulder. Near him, Angela, Jackson’s wife, and also a special agent with the Bureau’s Krewe of Hunters, was watching her with concern.

They knew. They understood she could see the past replay before her in all its Technicolor glory.

Not many people did, of course. They would be convinced she was—partially at least—crazy, and it was all in her mind. Well, in a way, it was in her mind, but …

Angela was looking at Jackson, and while Skye didn’t read minds, she knew what Angela was thinking.

Angela is worried that it had been a mistake. A mistake to bring me here. It was cruel to make someone witness that much tragedy and pain.

But it wasn’t a mistake, Skye thought. She’d learned her weird ability to see the past could be helpful.

Painful, but helpful. Sometimes she just brought justice to victims. Sometimes she was able to save them. And that made whatever discomfort she experienced worth every minute.

It had been incredibly difficult, of course, because she couldn’t tell her co-workers just what helped her see the truth so often.

Which was what was so amazing about today. Jackson and Angela knew! Unbeknownst to her … they’d been watching her.

She had known about the Krewe, and she’d considered trying to transfer; but it was almost a hands-off operation, even when it came to the highest circles with the Bureau. They were an “elite” unit, both here and in Europe.

And now that she had been interviewed and knew what the Krewe of Hunters was about, she understood why they accepted the weirdness that was her.

Skye gave herself a serious mental shake. She forced a smile to her lips.

“I’m fine—I mean, as fine as anyone can be here, wondering how on earth we—as human beings—ever believed that pacts could be made with the devil, and witches could curse their neighbors!”

“Sadly, this wasn’t the only occasion in the colonies,” Jackson said, looking toward the ridge.

“In 1636, the Plymouth Colony made it illegal to ‘form a solemn covenant with the devil by way of witchcraft.’” He shook his head, looking back at Skye.

“The first so-called witch executed in the colonies was in 1647, in Hartford, Connecticut, Alse Young. In Massachusetts, the first recorded event was in 1648, when Margaret Jones was executed in Boston. Cotton Mather, a truly respected theologian, believed in the power of the devil and that people could make a pact with him—he was influential in all that happened.”

“Wow, you’re, um … up on all this!” Skye murmured.

“Well, we’ve been around,” Jackson said.

“In Cotton Mather’s book On Witchcraft, which was published in 1692, and another of his books, The Wonders of the Invisible World, published in 1693, he defended his role in the trials.

People believed in the devil, and the darkness scared them.

Native Americans were different … Still, they estimate that anywhere between sixty and a hundred thousand people were executed in Europe during the craze, so it seems that someone here got a grip of things a little faster. ”