For months after the murder, I’d visited Mrs. Petrenko twice a week. She taught me to garden, taught me to identify the different herbs and their natural properties. She inspired me to look at what connected nature with humanity, which ultimately led me to my Wiccan faith, though I was certain that hadn’t been her intentions.
Mrs. Anatoly Petrenko was perhaps one of the sweetest women I’d ever met. And her pelmenis, hands-down, made for the best Russian cuisine I’d ever tasted. A few times, she told me I was the daughter she’d never had. She and Mr. Petrenko had come here to start their own business, and their hardships had gotten in the way of starting a family. For all these reasons and more, I eventually stopped visiting.
I didn’t deserve her kindness.
A car honked behind me—the light had finally turned green. I hit the gas and took off toward the hiking trails.
According to local legend, a girl had once been killed in the forest on this side of town. Eaten alive by cannibals. Bite marks all over her body—not quite human, not quite animal. The local teenage rite of passage was to spend a night in these woods, to face the ghost of the girl or the demonic forest-beings who had slaughtered her.
Of course, it was all a fallacy. We just sat beneath the forest canopy drinking cheap liquor. By adulthood, our fears eased. The poor girl had likely been mauled by a mountain lion.
I parked my Jeep and hiked to a small clearing. I sat on the ground and leaned back against one of the aspens. Cracks in the bark carved a road map to the rusted leaves above, and the sun leered through the tree’s skeletal branches.
I took my books from my bag and laid them out in front of me, inhaling their camphoric, oily smell. I cherry-picked relevant notes from the two library books, trying to find record of my ancestor.
When the library books bared no mention, I opened the book from Paloma. The preface spoke of the more than two hundred people accused of witchcraft. At first, only the homeless and the elderly had been damned. All because Reverend Parris’ daughters had a few temper tantrums. Or maybe it’d been the weather causing ergot of rye, which led to alkaloid poisoning. The result? Screaming, seizures, and trance-like states.
Soon after the early accusations, witchcraft became a weapon against those with enviable plots of land, those too old to be unwed, and those who were simply misunderstood. Twenty innocent people were executed. More died awaiting trial.
A footnote on the page read: ‘Only one true witch was executed during these times. She remains unlisted in traditional history.’
One ‘true’ witch? Who had decided that woman was really a witch, and on what basis?
At the same time, my mind began entertaining ideas. Elizabeth Parsons’ execution had taken place shortly before the Salem witch trials, and all I had to go on was the court document I’d found in my attic. Maybe traditional history books didn’t list her because her body had disappeared. What if she’d been the one assumed true witch? Or was I nuts to consider any of this?
I flipped idly through the pages, stopping at one with markings scrawled along the margins: ‘LC 47’ and, beneath that, a partial address: 793 Basker St.
The home of the previous book owner? If so, they might know more about the book.
A voice interrupted my thoughts: Can’t you do anything right?
I clutched my bag and glanced around. It’d been clear. Distinct. Not tangled with the mess of voices usually in my head. But, as quickly as it’d come, it was gone, sinking back into the pits of my mind.
Something wet struck my lip. Clouds gathered above, threatening rain as dusk closed in, the moon already visible. Absorbed in the book, I hadn’t noticed daylight slinking away.
A family of raccoons darted across the clearing, straw-like grass crunching beneath their paws. As they ticked across the field, my gaze followed them until a soft breeze picked up and muffled voices crept from the shadows.
I scanned the glade. Nothing. “Anyone there?”
The evening wind changed direction, carrying a moist chill and the stink of death.
I tossed my books into my bag and hurried down the path. As I stepped over a fallen tree, the thicket of silvery peeling aspen trees clustered together and obstructed the remaining light. The darkness sent tingles up my spine, just like in my childhood.
I will not panic. I am not afraid of the dark.
If I told myself enough times, maybe I’d believe it.
Tugging at my jacket sleeves, I waited for my eyes to adjust, then plowed through the underbrush and made my way over the knobby roots of the forest path. A squirrel scampered in front of me and perched on a cluster of burgeoning mushrooms.
I jumped back. Squirrels aren’t nocturnal, and there was something wrong with this one. Its eyes were lucent and the color of green apples. I’d never seen eyes like those—not in people or animals. I leaned forward to get a closer look, but it bolted into the brush.