Page 72 of The Vanishing Bookstore
She opened the door and whispered, ‘After you, boy.’ She could almost hear the leather seat creak with the weight of the muscular black dog that had been an Italian mastiff in his mortal life. She turned and waved, then took off. She didn’t know Salem now, but she could remember the Salem from centuries ago and she drove out of Chestnut Street towards where Corwin was waiting for her, less than a five-minute drive away.
It struck her how close to all the horrible memories and places Sephy still lived. Once she was almost there, she would find the rocky outcropping on the small parcel of land where they had hanged the innocent victims of the witch trials. Where her aunts and mum had been hanged, after being kept in squalor and tortured for days in the jail. Her insides churned with pent-up anger and sadness at the injustice of it all. Her phone began to vibrate and she saw Ambrose’s name. She slid her finger across and could barely hear him; the van had no hands-free.
‘Sephy said you need to find Proctor’s Ledge; she knows fine well you aren’t on your way to Boston.’
Dora grinned. So her aunt could read minds too. ‘I’m on my way to Gallows Hill.’
‘She thought so. Dora, it’s not Gallows Hill, there is a low spot we used to call the crevice below Proctor’s Ledge. It’s where they dumped the bodies after they cut the rope around their necks, letting them fall. No one was hanged on the hill, it’s the ledge, and below it is a memorial. It’s a small, curved, walled memorial in between two houses. If Lenny’s not there, then you can walk up the hill and a little farther up is Proctor Street. It runs directly behind the memorial, you can get to the wooded area that way. This is where you all died in case he’s hiding somewhere a bit more discreet. I can be there in ten minutes if I set off running now.’
‘No. Please don’t, if I need you, I’ll tell you.’
Dora ended the call and turned onto Pope Street, driving slowly until she saw the curved stone wall of the memorial sandwiched between two white clapboard houses. She shivered as she wondered if the people who lived there could hear the cries and wails of the innocent people who had been murdered in the spot between both properties late at night when there was no traffic around.
She stopped the van a little way up the street, not wanting to walk straight into Corwin’s trap so brazenly and give herself a fighting chance. She got out and gave her shadow dog time to follow. She didn’t even remove the key from the ignition so she could get away fast if she needed to. She couldn’t see Lenny or Corwin at the memorial, but Corwin wasn’t going to be somewhere so open. No matter how powerful he was, she doubted he would try to kill both her and Lenny in such plain view of neighbouring houses.
As she got closer, she spied a small black mound on the floor and felt her heart rip in two. No longer caring about the element of surprise, she ran towards the entrance to the memorial andsaw Hades, his crushed, lifeless body on the floor. Dora had to stifle the scream that was bursting to erupt from her throat at the sight of her watcher, her friend, no longer able to be anything to her other than a memory. Dora fell to her knees, hot tears falling freely from her eyes as she gently scooped the bird’s broken body into her hands and held him close. He was still warm. The pain in her chest was unbearable as it gripped like a vice, squeezing every inch of life out of her. She could feel Caesar next to her and wondered if Hades would turn into a shadow animal. She didn’t want him to. She looked at the stone his body had been thrown under and felt a stab of anger begin to burn inside her stomach.
It read ‘Lenora English’.
Dora looked up the hill to see if Corwin was there watching her from the cover of the trees. He would love to see her so upset and would be enjoying the show. She kissed her friend’s head and carefully placed Hades on the wall. She clambered onto it, then stood up on the side of the hill that had been planted with trees and evergreen ferns.
It was fully dark, and the moon illuminated some of the hill but not all of it. She wanted to scream Corwin’s name in fury, but was conscious of the two houses and their occupants. Instead, she made her way up the steep incline as far as she could go. There was only a narrow part of it accessible, the rest was fenced off. He wasn’t here – she’d missed him but not by long. And then it hit her. She knew where he was. This place was far too public, but the field Giles Corey had been slowly crushed to death in over the course of three days wouldn’t be. That’s if it was still a field, she wasn’t sure. All she could do was head in that direction and hope for the best.
As she part stumbled, part jogged down the incline with tears rolling down her cheeks, she almost ran straight off the edge of the memorial, and only just stopped herself in time. It was difficult in this dress, but she didn’t care. She managed to getherself down and heard a small tearing noise as the seam gave way on one side. She could feel the air whooshing up through the slit but it didn’t matter, it gave her more movement. She tenderly picked up Hades and put him in the hem of her dress, holding it up so he was covered in case any tourists walked past on a mission to see the memorial. They would be in for a treat with her dressed in a now damaged, stolen, seventeenth-century dress as she cradled her dead pet bird and talked to her shadow dog with snot and tears running down her cheeks.
She made it to the van just as a large group of tourists turned into the street. Once she was sure Caesar was in, she carefully laid Hades onto the back seat and shut the door, then got in and drove away just in time, a vision of the group turning on her and shouting, ‘Witch, witch, witch.’ Over and over the cries filled her mind, past lives colliding with this life. She had to push them away and tell herself they were not a mob of angry Puritan villagers baying for blood.
Her phone began to ring again. She swiped it but instead of managing a hello she let out an anguished cry and Ambrose’s panicked voice filled the front of the van.
‘I’m on my way, are you okay?’
‘No, I’m fine. They weren’t at Proctor’s Ledge.’
She glanced in the rear-view mirror at the dead crow and decided not to tell Sephy until she had to. A dead crow was probably a sign of impending doom.
‘Ambrose, where is the field Giles Corey was killed in?’
‘It’s a cemetery now, they built over it and he’s supposed to be buried in there. It’s called Howard Street Cemetery; Dora, I’m coming, I can’t wait here.’
She heard Sephy in the background. ‘We’re both coming.’
Dora ended the call; she couldn’t think about Ambrose or Sephy. She had to focus. If Lenny was dead then she was sureCorwin would have left her body back at the memorial and not Hades’.
She drove way too fast for the streets of Salem towards where she remembered the field was. Turning onto Federal Street, she passed a building with a black-and-gold plaque on it that read ‘Old Witch Gaol’, and then made her way along Bridge Street until she saw the entrance to Howard Street, the cemetery filling one side of the narrow residential road.
Dora wasn’t sure if there was any magic left to run through her veins because they seemed to be threaded with fury at Corwin and his senseless persecution of all women who were bloodline witches. She knew if he’d already hurt Lenny there would be no stopping her. She didn’t care what happened to her as long as she broke the curse and got rid of Corwin for good.
She didn’t bother being discreet and stopped the van outside the black, waist-high, chain-link fence that ran around the perimeter of Howard Street Cemetery. Dora opened the door and waited for her beloved dog to jump out.
She whispered, ‘Don’t show yourself until I ask you, please.’ A wet nose pushed against the cold skin of her thigh where the dress had torn and she felt her love for him begin to fill her heart, as it pushed away a little of the sadness.
The gates were closed but it didn’t matter. Thank God Dora had her Doc Marten boots on, they equipped her for all eventualities. She ran at the fence and in one swift swoop found herself on top of it. She balanced for a minute before landing on the other side, the ground thumping as Caesar landed next to her. She scanned the old graves, looking for a sign of Lenny, and then got the faintest smell of something gone bad carried on the wind and knew Corwin was hiding out of sight. The dog next to her stood on edge, his silent growls only she could hear echoed inside her head and she patted his head.
Walking further in she called out, ‘I can smell thee, I know who you are, George Corwin. Why are you hiding from me when thou foul disposition gives thee away?’
She strode in the direction of the far end of the grassy cemetery where the moonlight didn’t cast its glow, leaving it shrouded in darkness and shadows. She saw a figure on the floor, and knew it was Lenny. She was lying underneath an old tombstone that was far too heavy for her slight figure and a rush of fury filled Dora’s veins, so intense she could hear the crackle of static. Corwin stepped out of the shadows, a large boulder in his hands.
‘What took you so long, Isadora, and look at you. Give a girl the right dress and she’s right back where she came from.’
