“Why are you joining us today?”
“Oh, I’m not—that is, you certainly have my sympathies. But I’m awfully busy at work, and I just don’t have time—”
Miss Stone has already turned away from her. She addresses Juniper again. “Miss Lind will add your name to our member list and discuss upcoming committee meetings you might join.” Juniper tries to look eager, though she finds the wordcommitteeunpromising.
“And will you be making a contribution to our Association fund?”
“A what now?”
Miss Stone exchanges a look with her secretary as Bella hisses, “Money, June.”
“Oh. I don’t have any of that.” Never has, really. What work Juniper did back in Crow County was paid in kind—jarred honey or fried apples or cat-mint picked on the half-moon—and Daddy never let them see a cent of his money. “I’m between jobs, see.”
“Between—?” Miss Stone sounds puzzled, as if she is unfamiliar with the concept of jobs, as if money is just a thing a person finds whenever they reach into their handbags. “Oh. Well. No woman is barred from our cause by poverty.” She says it all lofty and generous, but her tone hooks under Juniper’s skin like a summer briar.
Miss Lind launches into a lecture about all their various letter-writing campaigns and subcommittees and allied organizations. Juniper listens with her temper simmering, bubbling like a pot left too long over the fire.
“And then the Centennial Fair is coming up in May, of course, and we feel it’s an excellent opportunity for another demonstration. Get people’s minds off th-the equinox.” Miss Lind’s throat bobs in a dry little swallow. “Anyway. What projects interest you? The campaign for the vote is paramount, naturally, but we also promote temperance, divorce rights, property ownership, and various charitable—”
Juniper tilts her head and says, “Witching.” It lands like a barehanded slap, flat and loud. Beside her, Bella makes a soft, pained sound.
“Ibegyour pardon?” Miss Stone’s mouth has gone very small and dry, like an apple left too long on the windowsill. The secretary’s mouth is hanging wide open.
Juniper is tired of this mincing and dancing, sidestepping around the thing they ought to be running toward. “You know. You saw it: the tower and the trees, and the mixed-up stars.” Both of them are blinking at her in horrified unison. “That was real witching, thegoodstuff, the kind that could do a whole lot more than just curl your hair or shine your shoes. The kind that could cure the sick or curse the wicked.” The kind that keeps mothers alive and little girls safe. The kind that might still, somehow, find a way to steal Juniper’s land back from her dumbshit cousin Dan. Juniper spreads her arms, palm up. “You asked what I wanted to work on, that’s it.”
Miss Stone’s mouth shrivels even smaller. “Miss West. I’m afraid—”
Her secretary interrupts in a nervous little blurt. “The men did it. Those union boys in Chicago last year—they say machines rusted overnight, and coal refused to burn . . .” Miss Stone casts her the sort of look that turns people into pillars of salt and the secretary subsides.
“The Women’s Association is not interested in what some degenerate men may or may not have done in Chicago, Miss Lind.” She draws a deep, not very calm breath and turns back to Juniper. “I’m afraid you have entirely misunderstood our position. The Association has battled for decades to afford women the same respect and legal rights enjoyed by men. It is a battle we arelosing: the American public still sees women as housewives at best and witches at worst. We may be either beloved or burned, but never trusted with any degree of power.”
She pauses, her mouth shrinking to the smallest, bitterest apple seed. “I don’t know who was responsible for the abnormality at St. George’s, but I would turn her in myself before I let such activities destroy everything we’ve worked for.”
Miss Stone extracts a ruffled copy ofThe New Salem Postfrom the front desk and flings it at Juniper and Bella. The splashy over-sized headline reads MAGIC MOST BLACK, with a smaller line printed beneath it: MYSTERIOUS TOWER TERRORIZES CITIZENS. Some imaginative artist has provided a sketch of a great black spire looming above the New Salem skyline, complete with brooding storm clouds and little bats flapping around the top.
Juniper squints her way through the adjectives and hysteria, skimming past excitable phrases like “terrified wailing of innocent children” and “malevolent apparition” and landing on the last few paragraphs:
While Mayor Worthington’s office has claimed there is “no evidence of serious witchcraft” and urges the citizenry to “remain rational,” others are less sanguine. There are rumors that the notorious Daughters of Tituba may be behind the occurrence, although the New Salem Police Department maintains that no such organization exists.
Miss Grace Wiggin, head of the Women’s Christian Union, points to the recent and virulent fevers that have run rampant through New Salem and recalls the ancient connections between witchcraft and plague. “Surely we need not wait for a second Black Death before we act!”
Mr. Gideon Hill left us with this sobering reflection: “I fear we have only ourselves to blame: in tolerating the unnatural demands of the suffragists, have we not also harbored their unnatural magics? The people deserve a mayor who will protect them from harm—and there is no harm greater than the return of witching.”
Indeed. And Mr. Hill—an up-and-coming member of the City Council and third-party candidate for New Salem mayor—might be just the man for the job.
Juniper tosses the paper back on the desk. “Well,” she offers, “shit.”
Miss Stone regards her grimly. “Quite.”
“Who are the Daughters of Tituba?”
Bella opens her mouth, but Miss Stone answers first. “An unsavory rumor.” She stabs a finger at the paper. “Listen, Miss West: you are welcome to assist the Association in our mission. Saints know we need every warm body we can get. But you will have to abandon your pursuit of this, this”—she taps the article—“devilry. Am I understood?”
Juniper looks at her—this little old woman with a powdered wig and a big office on the fancy side of town—and understands perfectly well. She understands that the Women’s Association wants one kind of power—the kind you can wear in public or argue in the courtroom or write on a slip of paper and drop in a ballot box—and that Juniper wants another. The kind that cuts, the kind with sharp teeth and talons, the kind that starts fires and dances merry around the blaze.
And she understands that if she intends to pursue it, she’ll have to do it on her own. “Yes, ma’am,” she says, and hears three sighs of relief around her.
Miss Stone invites Juniper to report to the Centennial March planning committee the following Tuesday evening and instructs Miss Lind to add her name to the member list and give her a tour of their offices.
