“I’ve been to the library,” Helen said.
“So I see.” He came closer, leaving soggy footprints on the old linoleum floor.
“It’s small but has a lot more than I imagined it would. I signed us both up for cards,” Helen said. “But they don’t actually give cards. They just keep the patrons’ names in a card catalog–looking thing. Very cute.”
“I guess.” He picked up one of the books piled on the kitchen table and read the title out loud. “Witchcraft in New England?” He glanced at the other titles, all books on witchcraft, ghosts, and the occult. “You’re not planning to cast a spell on me or anything, are you?”
She smiled. “Only if you tease me about my research. Then I just might turn you into a toad.”
“I’d prefer some sort of bird,” Nate said. He picked up another book and glanced at the title:Communicating with the Spirit World.He frowned in disapproval but said nothing.
Mr. Science had never approved of anything otherworldly or unexplained.
She frowned back at him. “Those who are the victim of spells don’t get to decide. And watch out, Nature Boy, you’re getting my library books all wet.”
Nate put the book down, took a step back. “And what, exactly, is the goal of this research?”
“Remember what the realtor told us? About the bog being haunted? And remember the little foundation we found?”
Nate nodded. “Did you find out anything at the town clerk’s office?”
“Uh-uh. They were closed. But I asked at the library and it turns out this woman, Hattie Breckenridge, lived in a little house at the edge of the bog back in the early 1900s. That foundation we found is all that’s left. And get this—people said she was a witch!”
“A witch?” Nate raised his eyebrows. “Like Glinda? Or like the Wicked Witch of the West?”
She rolled her eyes. “Hearing about Hattie got me curious. I didn’t realize witchcraft was a thing in New England in the 1900s. The Salem trials were back 1692. As I understand it, the witch craze was all over with by 1700.”
“Your point is…”
“I don’t have a point. I’m just curious. It’s an area I don’t know much about.”
He nodded. This he understood. The need to learn whatever you could about the things you didn’t know, to fill in the gaps, to be constantly supplying your brain with new information and facts.
“And this is our new home,” she added. “Her land, it’s ours now. Don’t you think we should learn Hattie’s story?”
Nate smiled. “Of course.” Then he laughed.
“What?”
“I was just thinking about Jenny—wait until we tell her our land comes with its very own witch ghost!”
“We’ll tell her no such thing!” She waggled her finger at him warningly, laughing herself. “Not until I’ve done my research and found out who Hattie really was, what her true story is. She was probably just an eccentric woman, you know? Think about it—a woman on her own building a little house out by the bog all by herself, in that time. Of course she was shunned, called a witch.”
Nate smiled, leaned in and kissed her forehead, dripping on her books. “Isn’t that kind of what we are? The eccentric outsiders building a house by the bog? What will the people in town call us?”
Helen laughed, but it was an uneasy laugh. She remembered the way the kid at the store had looked at her, with suspicion, then outright loathing.I know who you are.
“There’s something else I learned,” she said, hesitating, unsure how much she should share with him.
“Oh?”
She told him about Edie Decrow.
“My god, that’s awful! No wonder he let the place go for so cheap. Remember what I told you about the spring—who knows how deep it is out there in the middle of the bog. Don’t go too close, okay? If you’re down there on your own, stay by the edge.”
She thought of telling him the rest, that the librarian said Mr. Decrow was convinced it wasn’t the bog that had nearly drowned his wife, it was Hattie. But that would only annoy him, possibly lead to a lecture about how the human mind looks for explanations and patterns when terrible things happen, how it makes us prey to fairy tales and nonsense…
She only nodded. “I’ll be careful,” she said.
