Page 1 of The Bairwick Witches
Chapter One
Unsure how long he’d stood on the pier, he resisted the nagging urge to move. Gazing out at the placid water of Lake Never, letting a lone escapist tear crawl languidly down his cheek, Schuyler wiped the traitor away and pressed tightly against the railing. In his head, he imagined himself as stoic and statuesque as Joan Crawford in the opening scene ofMildred Pierce.It was no longer early evening on the pier; it was the middle of the night.
He was wrapped in a full length, perfectly tailored delicious faux fur coat, instead of his navy polo and jeans. His face told the world, yes, there were woes, but nothing diminished this glamour. And boy, did he wish his woes were as simple as having an ungrateful daughter who’d slept with his husband, prompting a murder which led him to the pier,considering taking a cold plunge.
I’ll do it, I’ll just throw myself in.
He wouldn’t. He was simplya dramatic bitch.
Just plunge deep into the icy, cold waters and cease to be.
The water was neither cold, nor deep enough for anyone to ‘cease to be’.
They’ll find me, a gorgeous, young, floating corpse and they’ll wonder; whomst—whomst was this broken man?
No one would wonder. And he was neither young nor gorge-
Hey! I’m trying to have a moment. You’re here to narrate my story, let’s ease up on the commentary?
Fine. Where were we? Oh yes.
Alas, Schuyler’s situation proved far worse than the fictional Mildred’s, he had checked his social media. A simple enough act. But it’d driven him to the pier after an hour of wandering aimlessly, listening to melancholy songs with his headphones, and wanting to fling himself over the railing and into the—again—not at all icy, nor deep, water below. How the tourists milling around him would love that.
Bairwick Man dramatically tosses himself into lake, tourists’ evening ruined. The audacity! They cried over sliders later.
He smirked at the thought, yet Schuyler wasn’t the statuesque Mildred Pierce wannabe he so lovingly envisioned. He was still, however, a woman on the edge—as all gay men are only one minor inconvenience away from being at any given time.
Schuyler wanted quiet contemplation after breaking his self-imposed social media ban, where he hoped for a friendly nude or a spicy thirst trap from those he followed.Instead, he received a karmic gut punch; his ex-husband popped up and announced his new engagement. A shiny post about a new man, the start of a new life, complete with the maximum number of pictures allowed to proclaim such a joyous event to the world. And only three weeks after the divorce settlement.
The news wasn’t breaking to Schuyler. Zach’s body language, the shift in his tone and way he spoke the weeks before their separation all confirmed what his intuition knew way before any social media post.The announcement was no big deal; he wished them a happy joint STI and moved on with his day.The comments from his former coven, friends whom he’d not heard from in weeks, stating how nice it was to finally see Zach happy.Praising how great his new life would be. How happy they were for him, were all knives to his stomach. He thought they were giving him some space; turns out they were ghosting him.
Ostracized, and unsure why. He’d not done anything to his recollection. He’d helped all of them; five years of big moments, sweet times, and now all of them were blocked. Not that it meant anything in the real world, but at least he found a certain satisfaction in pressing the ‘block’ button. The feeling didn’t override the sense of upheaval. What crime had he committed? Nothing to his recollection warranted such harsh dismissal.
He pushed away from the railing with a heavy sigh and let the fantasy of a watery grave in the glamorous faux fur dissipate. The sting of the coven ghosting him hurt. Admittedly, being a cliché forty-year-old divorcee who’s returned to his hometown, moved back in with his Uncles, and working at their apothecary shop, proved to be a far more painful indignity.
There were couples around him. All laughing, taking pictures, kissing during selfies, recording their happy moments in brief clips. Some sat and watched the sky starting to change colors, holding hands. Others waited for the ferry to take them back across the lake. He wanted to curse them all, and he could, nothing really stopping him from hexing them. However, despite the deviations in his own journey, a part of him remained in love with the idea of love.
A text message from his uncle shook him out of his head. Beau questioned his lateness, and whether he'd stopped to get the pizza for dinner. He meant business too, the fourth text on the subject in an hour. Schuyler walked away from the pier and back toward Bairwick’s Main Street.
Since he’d come home, he always stopped for a brief moment at the same spot, where the pier ended and Main Street started. The view gave him the picture-perfect view of the street, which ran from the lake to the tip of the forest, where the site of the original town could be found.
The two-mile stretch was the lifeblood of Bairwick—a popular day-trip tourist spot that saw a fair share of people come through, all intrigued by the town’s morbid and infamous history.
Bairwick held the distinction of being the site ofthecountry’s last recorded witch trial and execution. And the most brutal. A piece of history often overshadowed by the events which started the witch-hunt mania in Salem. Bairwick leaned into its now very monetized past. Every proprietor on Main Street, from the Spiritual shops to apothecaries and coffee houses, the convenience stores, and even the restaurants, all themed to fit the spooky history of the town and lined each side ofthecobblestone road.
Sky enjoyed the smell of cinnamon almonds in the air and the music drifting from the various shops. All the buildings held a mix of different architecture but coalesced to create a sense of nostalgia; one second there’s an ice cream shop draped in pure 50’s Americana, and then an art deco frontage via Miami Beach. The haunted house attraction,Terror on Main Street,boasted an intricately woven wrought iron balcony and had the square, blocky feel of a house straight out of The French Quarter. A museum filled the old majestic movie house, which sat next toa diner themed off the classic tv show,Bewitched.There were Witch Trials reenactments. Parades. Festivals. Everything one would desire from an alleged haunted town’s main strip.
Borderline excessive, but the gimmick worked and had since 1955.
Schuyler loved it. And more so, the gag of it all—the whole street was a lie. The town of Bairwick didindeed carry a violent past of madness and mania, riots and mobs, witch trials and public executions. None of which still haunted the town as the residents made outsiders believe.
They corralled the curious cattle ontothe single lane,which had perfectly picturesque places to snap photos or, as they did now, film content. All the shenanigans kept them distracted and made them believe the town was literally only one single street. No one realized how large the real town was, and that helped conceal the fact Bairwick’s true population was entirely witches. The first of them settledthere to live and practice in peace centuries before and nurturedthe town to the self-sustaining oasis it’d become.
The spooky but photogenic tourist trap that ran up and down Main Street, enchanted to always feel like a charming Autumnal adventure; kept tourists’ eyes and attention from wandering and their wallets open.
Schuyler loved Bairwick. He often wondered why he ever left. Thecoming homewasn’t the issue bothering him, the feeling like a huge failure was.
He stayed in the middle of the cobblestone road, close to the large oak trees that lined the streets to avoid walking past the windows on the sidewalk. Someone he knew might notice him; might want to talk. And no thank you, that was the last thing he wanted.
