Page 47 of The Vanishing Bookstore
George Corwin had always been a vile man, he absolutely thrived off causing pain and being cruel. She had witnessed his atrocious behaviour several times on her trips into Salem town. She wished that they had never set eyes on each other, but he had found her outside Ingersoll’s, attending to Goodwife Ingersoll who had gone into an early labour. He had helped her get her into the ordinary, now it would have been a bar but back then everything was more complicated, and upstairs to her bedchamber, but had been unable to draw his gaze away from Lenny, much to her embarrassment. She had to chase him out of the room, asking him, if he wanted to be of some use, to go andfetch her sisters from the cabin to bring what herbs they needed to make a tincture. She had even given him directions. Lenny shook her head. She had led that animal straight to their door and he had been like a dog with a bone, he had kept coming back again and again.
At first, he’d been charming, and Lenny had almost fallen for him, giving in to his constant requests to join him for walks, if only to stop him following her around. In today’s world she would have reported George Corwin to the police as a stalker, and he would have been served papers to leave her alone at the very least, but back then men ruled the world and women were nothing more than entertainment. Lenny shuddered.
She had promised to go to London for Dora. But time was running out.
29
Dora was walking through the streets of Salem, her feet leading the way until she found herself at the witch trials memorial sandwiched between Liberty and Charter Streets. It was shaded by trees and, despite the time of day, very peaceful. She stared at the stones with each victim’s name and date of death carved into them. On the other side of the wall was The Old Burying Point Cemetery and inside of it were the gravestones of many of Salem’s notable figures including the notable hanging judge Hathorne. Ambrose’s father, and owner of the historic Witch House, was Judge Jonathan Corwin and he was buried in Broad Street cemetery, not this one. She paused. How had she known that?
She stepped closer to the first stone and saw Bridget Bishop’s name. A wave of sadness washed over her and she kissed her fingertips, pressing them onto the stone. Everyone knew Bridget’s name. Her only crime was being a little outspoken, not one person had anything good to say about her, yet Dora had been fond of the woman who had not deserved to die like that. How cruel that the judges and accusers all had graves with headstones in cemeteries and the victims had been tossed intoa ravine, their bodies left to rot with the elements and animals with no proper burial.
She shivered. It was cold in here and reminded her a little of those dark, dank cellars in the jail where Lenny, Sephy and Lucine had been held. She caught herself –the courthouse’s dark cellars where her aunts had been kept as prisoners for being nothing but kind, helpful healers.There was a sharp pain in the side of Dora’s temple, it was so severe she had to squeeze her eyes shut and put both hands to the sides of her head to try and rub it away. The stones and trees swam in and out of focus, going blacker and blacker until she couldn’t see anything, and then there was an explosion inside her mind so loud it sounded as if a huge firework had gone off in her skull and she stumbled to lean against the wall.
Dora thought that she was having a stroke or maybe an embolism of some kind, that this was how it was going to end this time. She hadn’t even made it to the age of thirty-five. She felt as if she was being sucked through some great black void and her mind was falling in on itself. As she leaned there, holding her head and rocking backwards and forwards to ease the pain, a bright white light filled her mind, so piercingly brilliant that she couldn’t see through this either, and then there was the loudest pop that she had ever heard, followed by a whooshing sound.
At some point someone must have called for paramedics when they saw her flailing around as she fell to the floor because the next time she had a conscious thought that seemed to belong to her she was lying flat on her back on a hospital bed in a cubicle in the ER at Salem Hospital. She felt the top of her arm tighten as the blood pressure cuff cinched the flesh on her bicep and heard a voice say:
‘Well hello Dora, how are you feeling?’
She blinked a few times and stared at the nurse, who had the most amazing lilac and pink dreadlocks fashioned in a top-knot.
‘I, erm. I don’t know, what happened? I remember being at the witch trials memorial.’
‘According to that very nice policeman that brought you here you were having some kind of seizure. Do you suffer from epilepsy?’
‘No, at least I don’t think I do in this lifetime.’
The nurse arched one eyebrow at her. ‘This lifetime? What a curious thing to say, how many lifetimes have you lived?’
She started to laugh, and Dora realised she should probably be careful what she told the hospital staff, or she might end up back in an asylum like Lenny had said she had once before.
‘Sorry, I feel a bit confused but I’m okay. Did I have a stroke or something?’
‘Not that we can tell, all your vital signs are good. Have you been feeling a bit off? Sometimes when we get run-down and are working too hard our bodies find strange ways to tell us to slow it down a little bit. I’m Estella, by the way.’
‘Not working too hard but I did fly to Boston from London yesterday.’
‘Do you drink a lot of alcohol, Dora?’
‘No, God I’d like to but an occasional cocktail or glass of wine once a month if I’m lucky.’ She didn’t mention the anti-homesickness tea that Sephy had overdosed her on.
The curtain opened and in walked a tired-looking doctor in washed-out green scrubs. He picked up her chart and began to study it. The nurse removed the cuff and started taking her pulse.
‘How is everything?’ asked the doctor.
‘Good, her stats are looking great.’
‘Dora, I’m Ash. Can you tell me what happened?’
‘I felt something pop inside my head and everything went blank. The next thing I know I woke up here.’
‘How are you feeling now, headache, nausea, dizziness?’
Dora moved her head from side to side and was pleased to find there was no pain or sickness.
‘No, I feel fine.’
He shone a torch in her eyes and told her to follow his finger, which she did. When he’d completed his tests and was satisfied, he took hold of her hand.
