The response rises as a roar from hundreds of thousands of throats,No More Salems! No More Salems!It makes the back of my neck tingle, my hair stand on end. I remember the frenzied crowd in the stadium at Sanctuary little more than a year ago. Sarah and Harper shaking but upright in front of two nooses rigged for them by Abigail Whitman and Tad Bolt. The crowd had been yelling a different slogan then.Justice for Daniel!Are we fickle, or fearful, or simply easily led?
There’ll be more Salems one day, I’m sure. There always are. But it’s hard not to feel hopeful we’ve staved one off here and now.You did it, I think in the direction of Sarah and Harper, who I hope are watching what’s happening today.
Which is when among the milling protesters, I catch sight of a face I didn’t expect to see. A cloud of springy blonde hair.My hackles rise again, mistrust coursing through me. Telling Chester to stay close to Naomi, I push my way through the press of jubilant marchers. What’s she doing here? Causing trouble? Spying for Ortiz? I shoulder my way faster before she can drift off to the crowd’s edge.
‘Beatriz!’ I call loudly, and Garcia turns round. So do the women beside her – Bridget Perelli, and her and Pierre’s daughter, Izzy.
Garcia is holding a sign demanding ‘Witches’ rights, right now.’ Izzy’s wearing aNo More SalemsT-shirt she’s customised with glitter and sparkles. Perelli’s got a placard, ‘Magical moms are moms too.’ All three of them look like they’ve been through the wringer, and at the sight of Izzy especially, my heart softens.
‘A little surprising to see you all here,’ I say.
Bridget’s chin wobbles. ‘Sarah was my best friend,’ she says. ‘Is.I let her down when she needed me most. Is she here?’
‘She’s not,’ I say.
Sarah and Harper’s location is something only a handful of people know, and it’s going to stay that way.
‘I wanted to see Harper,’ Izzy says, fingers twisting the bottom of her T-shirt. ‘Or if I couldn’t see her, then for her to see that I’m here, maybe, on the TV cameras or something, but there are so many people.’ Tears well in her eyes. ‘I wanted to say sorry. I was so harsh the last time I saw her, about our dads. I didn’t mean it. I know she loved my dad as much as I did.’ She sniffs. ‘Almostas much as I did. No one could have loved him more. You even loved him a bit, didn’t you, Detective Maggie?’
Professionalism be damned; I’m giving this girl a hug.
‘Not a detective anymore,’ I say, holding her to me. ‘But damn straight on the rest of it. And Harper will know thatanything you said came from a place of pain. This past year has been unbearable for all of you.’
As I pat her shoulders comfortingly, I find myself looking over Izzy’s head to where Bea Garcia is standing a little apart. Her face is carefully blank and I think again of that awful night in Bittershore woods, which bound us all together: her, Luka, me, Sarah, Pierre, Bridget. Not only that night, but her journey since, has taken this young woman to some very dark places. But looking at the sign in her hand, I’m hopeful that given time she’ll find her way back to a world-view with some light and shade. Registering my scrutiny, she tilts the piece of cardboard to read it, then lifts her chin.
‘I’m figuring things out,’ she says. ‘I’ve learned a lot. I’m still learning.’
I never expected this would end with me smiling at Bea Garcia, but I do. Izzy raises her head from where it’s been buried against my chest.
‘Where is Harper? Do you know?’
‘And Sarah?’ Bridget steps forward to lay a hand on my arm. ‘Please just tell us they’re okay.’
‘They’re a long way away,’ I tell them. ‘But they’re safe and they’ll be okay. You all will.’
And as I say it, I believe it.
83
HARPER
Fall arrives earlier here than it ever did on the East Coast – even, Dad says, earlier than up in Maine. And now Winter is hustling in after, stamping her feet on our doorstep and pinching my cheeks red as frigid wind skirls at her back.Too soon, I tell her.Give us a few more weeks. And I block the doorway, looking out from its glowing rectangle toward the shifting colours of the sky. Blue fades to indigo, to violet, with a flare of pallid green along the horizon like a potion cooling and revealing its basenotes.
This time last year, Mom and I were at Darkening Pine Campground. Memories of its nightly bonfires inspire me to spark up our firepit and get a proper blaze going. A beacon against the darkness. Sparks swirl and crackle and I inhale the greasy lanolin of oil-soaked firestarters, because we’ve been doing everything as mundanes for months. Over the stone wall drifts the chatter of school kids making their way home. The accent I found impossible to catch, at first, until dad started using it around thehooseto make me laugh. Hebridean Scots, like his mom’s side of the family.
As our days here have turned into weeks, then months, the local speech has started rubbing off on him for real, his Maine accent shading into something rougher yet more tender. Or perhaps it’s Mom’s presence that’s done that.
‘Tonight’s the night, kiddo,’ he says suddenly behind me, in an exaggerated American drawl like he overheard my thoughts. ‘All that crap will definitely be out of my and your mom’s bloodstreams.’
Lachlan’s leaning against the jamb of the whitewashed stone croft that’s our home now, wearing a truly embarrassing pair of tartan PJs with a thick chunky-knit sweater on top, plus sheepskin dad-slippers. He offers me a mug of steaming coffee and grimaces as he sips his own. ‘Firearms instead of hexes? Sure thing. But I never did get the hang of brew made the mundane way.’
‘Ugh, it’s gotten cold out.’ Mom squeezes past him and pads across to the Adirondack by the firepit, pulling her thick cardigan tighter. ‘How can you still be in that crop-top, Harper?’
‘She likes to show off those edgy tattoos,’ Dad says. ‘Here, I’ll warm you up.’
He parks his butt on the chair arm and pulls Mom into his embrace, cuddling tight. I wait for her to protest, but she doesn’t. Maybe nestles a bit closer to that ticklish sweater. Tucks her head beneath his bearded chin. And yeah, I guess that’s how they are, now.
‘I’m ready when you are,’ I tell them. ‘I can’t wait for this. You make pretty unbearable mundanes.’
