#cottonmather

Chapter 2:

Jake was definitely with Amber.

She was straddling his crotch like his dick was her source of everlasting life. Her red catsuit and her devil horns were stripped and zipped down from her head and shoulders. Jake slipped his hand beneath the clasp of her bra sticking his tongue down her throat like he was feeding a baby bird. I slammed the garage door behind me and they both stopped and stared at me.

“E? Is that you?” he stumbled forward, throwing her to the floor. She dropped with a loud thud. He scrambled to cover his crotch. “E it’s not what it looks like. I’m just really drunk and she just wanted to give me water.”

My world became dizzy like my vision was hazy from too much heat. My head began to warm up and my cheeks flushed. I was too stunned to speak, so I turned on my heel and walked toward the first place that could give me peace and quiet; the woods. I began seeing red. There was nothing to say. There was nothing else to do but walk and walk into the night. Or was there?

I immediately ran back to the garage door and spat “Fuck you, Jake! Fuck you and you can go to hell! Enjoy an STD from slut-Zilla! I fucking hope you rot in hell and you two just fucking die together because you’re perfect together. Take it up the ass, Jake. Your dick’s small. You suck at kissing and Amber fucked your dad!”

Amber’s eyeliner ran down her cheeks. “I-I-I was just…”

“E, wait! You have to let me explain!”

“Fuck you, Jake!”

“You’re not hot enough to act like this!”

The house suddenly became silent with white noise with so many teens drinking, playing pool, playing darts, beer pong, and stripping naked in the pool. I push past the smell of weed and the naked boys with horse masks kicking a soccer ball in the living room. I shove past everyone until I see nothing but forest. The music of the party could barely be heard as I ran further and further through the trees and far from the backyard of Jake’s house until I was standing behind completely alone. He was supposed to be my first. My lungs were full of hot air and I could barely breathe. My heart…was broken. It was supposed to be special. My hands searched for my phone.

“Tina,” I take two deep breaths; my lungs feeling the fire grow within. “Tina. Tina.”

I grabbed my phone from my pocket and scrolled through my contacts. Dad. Mom. Tina. I scrolled back to Mom and took a deep hard look at her number. Wiping the tears coming from my eyes, I wanted to tell her what happened. But after hearing the whole ‘strong woman’ speech, this was something for my sister to help me with.

The phone rang.

And rang.

“Hello?

“T-Tina…”

“E?”

“T-Tina, you were right. You were right about everything! He was fucking her and I caught them. You were right about everything!”

“E, what happened? Did he do anal?”

I stomped my foot on the ground,” Tina please, you have to listen to me.”

“Stop talking like a fucking psycho! What happened? I can barely hear you! You’re breaking up!”

“He’s a dog! He’s a fucking dog! He is dead to me, T. Dead!”

“I-I can’t—hear—you!”

“Tina!” I screamed into the screen. “Fuck.”

My tears were allowed to fall freely once I was out of the woods and standing on the sandy pebbly beach. I wiped my nose. Be tough. Be strong. Nobody wants a sobbing mess on a night like this. Sniffing, I went to the edge of the pond and threw my basket into the black water screaming. I know my mom told me to be a strong woman but here I was crying over a boy; what a great birthday. I’m sure she would be proud of her little girl. The feeling of heartbreak and embarrassment felt nauseating and my head swam with possibilities it could bring, good or bad. 

My phone rang.

Mom.

“Mom?” I gasp, exhaling a big sigh of relief. Trying to catch my breath, I smile into the phone, “Mom, I’m so glad you called me.”

Thank god!

“Evey! I called Tina. Where are you?” she exclaimed loudly in a panicky voice. “Are you safe? Are you hurt?”

“Mom, I walked off. I saw Jake. I needed some air. It’s really stupid. I just want to come home.”

“Where are you? Are you safe?”

“I-I’m near the river. What’s wrong? You don’t sound right.”

Static came through the speaker. A rough noise came bellowing from my phone like a horn. Her voice faded until there was silence. The noise became a boom making me flinch and drop my phone.

“Mom!” I shouted louder this time, then I suddenly see a shadow move in the woods seen from the corner of my eye. I narrow my eyes to get a better look at this shadowy figure. The air turned ice cold and the hairs stood up on my neck.

“Hello?”

A gust of wind emerged from the woods towards me in a powerful gust. I could see my breath, it was so cold.

“Evey!” her voice came through the rough static. “R-Run, Evey! She’s c-c-oming!”

I knelt to the ground holding my phone,” Mom! What’s happening? Who’s coming?”

“E! E! Get back in the fucking house. Whatever she says she is lying to you! She’s a trickster Evey! She’s trying to take you away!”

Goosebumps prickled over my arms as the cold air had turned into snowflakes, softly falling from the sky. The lake water beside me began to transform into one giant iceberg. The leaves and flowers began to crisp, turn black, and crack into pieces. It was a tall shadowy figure standing against the trees almost as if this thing was wearing a large black coat over its head. My heart raced to watch this thing suddenly move as if it were made of clay, shaping and morphing into a face. It was mom standing against the trees.

“Evey!” my mother’s voice rang through the phone.

I couldn’t take my eyes away from this…thing. Mom, or whatever it was, began to slowly walk into the woods as slowly and as dimly as a shadow. Soon her arms and shoulders were visible to the point where her body figure stood amongst the trees, walking backward, never taking her eyes off of me. A voice in the back of my mind told me to follow her to wherever she was leading me. Her eyes weren’t her eyes, they were black, black as midnight. I took another step forward realizing I was halfway across the frozen lake. My stomach twisted in tiny knots thinking of the worst.

“Evey, come home…”

Its voice sounded so serene. So calm. But another voice came from behind, I turned my head to see my real mother.

My mother, my real mother came running and holding a hand against the wind erupting in a violent storm coming from the clouds circling above the lake pushing the leaves into a swirling vortex. She was still in her black dress with Tina by her side. She raised her voice waving her arms but I couldn’t hear her. I couldn’t hear any of them. The only thing I could see was the shadow and the only thing I could hear was…indistinct whispers. Whispers in all different voices but coming from only one person; her. I followed her farther out onto the lake, under the moonlight, until the darkness was so complete I was sure that I was lost until I saw her walk between a blanket of fog, steadily into thin air.

“Mom?” I called out, clutching the collar of my cloak tighter, protecting my face from the wind.

There was no answer, only more wind and a raging storm coming closer and closer until thunder and lightning broke the roar. Leaves whipped against my face while the lightning struck across the sky in bolts so big it shook the earth, and I shook.

“Mom!” I called out, kneeling to the ground, smashing my hands against the cold dirt. “Mom! Tina!”

The bolts of lightning momentarily lit my path of trees, leaves, and a figure standing among all of it. Somewhere Tina was calling my name and I was calling hers too, trying to find each other in these woods. Crescendos rang in my head until finally all together—it stopped. A silence so sudden I thought I had gone deaf. As soon as I opened my eyes, the world outside the circle was raging as violently as anything I’d ever seen.

Was I in some sort of bubble?

It was as serene and tranquil inside this invisible bubble. I stood up and saw Mom, smiling, with black eyes, standing next to the tree in a black dress and I wanted to say something to her, call out to her for help, and to come back with me to the house—until she disappeared. It’s almost as if the tree opened its mouth to eat her.

“Mom!?” I brought my hand to the tree, trying to find her. “Tina!?”

I bang my fists against the trunk and raked my nails across the hardwood, trying to understand what happened.

“Tina!” I screamed, realizing the lake was gone. I was standing on a pebbly beach and the lake had completely disappeared.

A voice reminds me to breathe, I inhale and a powerful feeling enters my lungs reaching higher and higher up into my head. It was a high feeling that I’d never felt before. A newfound strength rises and moves inside me, like a fire, and it’s getting stronger. With outstretched arms I feel the suction, being pulled into the dark mouth of the void and soon filled with warmth and reverence.

In a matter of minutes, the windy night sky transformed into a bright day. I’m falling, falling, and falling. The ground screams as it comes in contact with my face, I see a flash of white and red, I taste blood on my lip and the pain swells. My ribcage is pounding. I breathe, cough, and roll on my back looking at the sky. I flutter my eyes open and it takes a few seconds to adjust. Birds are in the trees while a cloud blissfully moves across the sky and the sun is warm against my skin.

What the hell just happened?

“Evey! Evey!” a voice, someone’s voice… Mom’s voice whispers in my head. “Evey, he needs you…”

“Mom?”

“He needs you…”

My face still hurts when I stand up and walk towards her voice, wobbling into the woods, reaching out for support. I have to get Tina, find Tina, and get the hell out of here and this nightmare will be over. Suddenly the whiplash sets in and all the contents in my stomach burst from my mouth in a fountain into the bushes leaving the sting of stomach acid lingering in the back of my throat and nose. My world suddenly becomes 2, then 3, then 4 images swirling across my eyesight in a kaleidoscope turning in circles. My knees turn into marshmallows as I fall back into the dirt and my world goes black.

2 Days Later:

I wake up in a cold sweat and kick off my covers, panting as if I ran a marathon. My body aches. I push the bed covers off of me. The furs and pelts fall into a heap on the floor. Sunlight pours in the windows and a rooster crows outside somewhere leaving me paralyzed in my place.

“Mom…” I mumble, holding a hand to my head. “Mom. Mom?”

Was I hungover?

“Be still,” a voice came from the dark, it was a man’s voice. His fingers come in contact with my head. “You’ve been asleep for nearly 2 days.”

His face looks blurry, like big blots of black paint in my vision moving across the room. My head is still swimming and my legs can’t stop shaking. I’ve never felt this way in my entire life.

“Dad?” I murmur, holding my fingers to my lips. “Dad, I had a bad dream.”

There was a pause before the man gently asks,” What’s your name?”

My tongue feels like an alien body in my mouth, dry and making disgusting noises as I try to speak,” Evey…”

Am I in the hospital? Through my lashes, he peers closer. My legs stop shaking and I finally see his face.

“Where am I,” I ask, barely whispering.

His whole demeanor tells me he wants something else, something important, besides knowing my name. I could feel it. The man nods his head pouring water into a cup before placing a hand against my head. He kneels up to leave the room for a moment to return holding a plate of food with a young girl walking beside him. She pulls back a hand before momentarily touching my head informing the man there was no sign of fever. They both look at each other for a moment before stepping out of the room to have a private discussion. He even closes the door. I wipe the crap out of my eyes and take a better look at the room. It’s…not home, that’s for sure. I sit up from bed to look at the beef and bread sitting on the bed table. My appetite is the least of my worries. I can hear the man and the woman argue outside my room before momentarily entering and it looks like the woman had the last word. He moves a chair in front of me.

“Evey,” he begins gently, pausing for a moment, looking back at the woman as if he was getting impatient with acting polite. “What business did you have in the woods?”

I rub my head against my hands, fuck I need some painkillers right now.

He’s waiting eagerly in his chair, tugging on a hair from his chin,” What business did you have in the woods?”

“What?” I whisper. “Oh my god, where am I? Are my parents here?”

It’s his last nerve and he stands from his chair,” The woods! You’ve been sleeping and speaking folly in your sleep. What did you—“

“Why were you alone out there?” the girl asks, holding his shoulder. She pushed him back behind her, separating us. “Especially all alone. You could have ended up in the belly of a bear or at the hands of savages.”

“Bears? There are no bears in Salem,” I look at her through my lashes. My head is still spinning, “I was just… looking for my mom. I just want to go home.”

“Your mother?” the man narrows his eyes,” That deep in the woods? No bears in Salem? Our guest must have struck their head harder than we expected.”

After splashing water over my face, I got a better look at them now and my mouth dropped. My heart dropped to the pit of my stomach when I saw… whatever they were wearing. I saw the room. I saw and tried to digest where I was.

What in the fuck happened in the past 2 days!?

The girl rolls her eyes,” You must excuse Mr. Alden, I think the girl is quite parched, don’t you think? She must not be thinking quite clearly. Fetch her water please?”

Everyone in the room knew it was a tactic for him to leave the room which I would enjoy instead of receiving his suspicious glares. He kneeled from his chair and shut the door behind him. I wasn’t getting that water, was I? The girl put on a kind smile on her face and for a moment we both stared at each other, not knowing what else to say.

So, I was going to break the ice.

“Who are you?”

“Who are you?”

We both blurted out.

She straightened her back, “Anne Hale, it is nice to meet you, Evey…?”

“Blackwood, Evey Blackwood,” I nodded my head, rising from the bed and looking out the window. “Where… W-Where am I?”

A rooster screams somewhere in the distance as I look out the window. I see a group of pigs point their snouts in the mud while men and women wearing—whatever the hell it is they’re wearing—walking. Women hold baskets of fruit and bread and walk with their children while the men talk to each other in groups. The rooster’s scream jostles me back to reality and Anne comes up behind me.

“Evey, what is it? Are you ill?” she stepped closer.

I pull my hair into a messy ball on top of my head and grab my shoes at the foot of the bed wiping tears coming down my cheek. Anne is already grabbing the tray of food and closing the shutter window, rushing after me. This house is smaller than I expected, turning around a corner wall into the main living room. On instinct, I touched the wall for a light switch but there were none. There was no sign of modern technology, flat-screen TV, electric outlets, or any sign of indoor plumbing. Warning signs ring in my head as I take a deep breath and open the door to the outside world, but it’s nothing that I expect. I can’t take another step forward and my hand tightens around the door knob.

This is a dream, wake up.

“Wake up,” I repeat out loud, closing my eyes hard, and opening. “Wake up…”

I let go of the doorknob and step out into this different world. I don’t recognize anything! Or anyone! Anne is behind me trying to decide whether to let me wander like a poisoned sheep or help me back inside the house before I lose my mind.

“Wake up…” I repeat, louder this time.

“Oh, dear.”

Anne steps in to hold my shoulder and try to lead me back to the house trying to ignore the people stopping in their tracks to whisper among themselves. She tries to tell me to return to the house, but as soon as I see the body of…--- a body? My blood freezes, instantly, shackling me to the ground in invisible chains as I see the body of a woman hanging from a noose on a platform in the middle of the town. My bottom lip trembles, my stomach sucking up against my spine, while my memory is reeling in every detail of the corpse in high definition. She wore a black dress with a black bonnet over her drooping head with a red apron covered in something stinky, hanging limp as a doll.

Anne came up behind me, swallowing a sob, “I know how you feel. It’s an abominable thing; she didn’t deserve a fate such as this. I am as disgusted as you are,” Anne looked upon the hanging body with grief before scowling at the ground. “It’s madness. Complete and utter madness.”

“Anne!” a voice came from behind us, but I was too frozen to move or look who was talking. The smell of death was right in front of me and the sight of it was there too.

“Anne! What is she doing out here? If any of the selectmen or your father spy her prowling out here dressed like that then it’ll be a swift walk to the gallows! For all of us!”

Instantly, I feel my body being moved from the streets and back into the house. As soon as the door closes behind us, I suddenly feel relief, the world had gotten much smaller and composed of a single room with Anne and his man here with me. I could finally breathe. He shoves a glass of muck water in my hands and has a private word with Anne in the other room, while I decompress from shock. They’re speaking to each other, arguing even, as two parents would over their troubled child.

I’ve never seen something like that before.

In fact, no one should.

But this is Salem, only centuries before anyone I knew was born. Fucking time travel. I sniffle, wiping the tears away from my eyes. The word witch comes to mind and I’m hoping against all the odds that I’m not the century I think I am. That woman’s dead face, her blue dead face wasn’t leaving my mind, the image was still flashing in my head. What’s wrong with these people!? A rooster screams from outside the window reminding me what’s out there and I can’t help but feel alone like I’ve never been alone before.

Please, someone save me!

Anybody!

On The Sea:

It began with a dead blue girlchild, no older than two or three years, lying amongst the festering rats, intertwined among the bodies of her siblings and mother and father. Lifting her eyelids her eyes were white, riddled with red veins, milky, evident of unnatural death. The ship did not rock, nor did it stir, refusing to voyage any further in these deep waters lucidly sitting among the fog underneath the full moon. But it was not the water creatures beneath that disturbed the great witch-hunter Reverend Mather, nor were its dead passengers, but the evil that resided on this ship, living largely on the dead souls it served itself. With a heavy boot, he pushed her body on her back revealing her worm face slick with sea slime, pouring water from her lips, rotting in her bones. The poor girl never had a chance. The Captain, in his state of selfishness, urged the Reverend to return back to the deck explaining a strangeness spreading throughout the ship but Increase, coiled and brazenly angry, snarled and pushed the Captain away from him. The serious matter was not being understood by the Captain, but how could he understand, he had not dealt with forces such as these. Forcefully disregarding his orders to return—only an insidious truth and discovery has been revealed.

“Reverend! These are not your quarters; please return out of this foul place. It has been 7 days becalmed, no wind, with our food and water diminishing.”

“Foul, it is indeed,” the Reverend hissed looking out over the ocean. 

His gloved hand moved the head of an unconscious man back and forth as if checking the head of cabbage, checking, rechecking, dismissing then moving on to the next poor soul that would never live to see another day on this ship nor on land.

The Captain gazed upon the poor souls with a grimace, “Is all of this meant for a purpose?”

“Does this…” he lifted the body of a boy, limp, blue, frozen from his spot. Lifting the body with both arms and shoving it into the Captain’s arms with a shove, sending him trembling in his place. Increase pointed to the boy’s face, dead, cold, and tragic. “Need purpose?”

The Captain huffed, circling in front of him. “We are hopeless. This ship is becalmed between lands, we are stuck.”

“This ship is spelled,” growled Increase, ruling across the floor back and forth, not looking at the Captain, but looking at the faces of the diseased, snarling, feeling, smelling, knowing a demon lurked somewhere here, now, taunting him. Never go weak or weaponless into the darkness and Increase will do just that.

“It’s here.”

The Captain stepped closer, cautious to give the strict Reverend his space, “What’s here?”

Quickly, he fetched his book from his pocket, gripping the leather bind with intense vigor it ought to crumble into dust, and he, at last, gazed upon the Captain, “Make no mistake—I will find him.”

Chapter 3:

Anne fidgeted with her red locks.

“She hasn’t spoken a word since this morning. She seems to be in shock. Something out in those woods frightened her. Two days ago, Salem endured the worst hurricane on these shores in years. Times are beginning to become more unnatural but one thing is for certain: she’s no agent of the French.” Anne crosses her arms, nervous and somewhat anxious about the occurring circumstances. The morning had been a cold and slow trod for the whole village but she had become restless.

John Alden spies the girl lying in bed, through the cracked opening of the door,” No one appears out of thin air like a ghost, even after the storm. I suspect she is hiding something.”

“She failed to mention where she comes from,” Anne paced in the hallway, weaving her fingers together. “I agree her wardrobe is quite… different. Perhaps she is just lost. Perhaps maybe she and her mother lost their way from Boston.”

“Or she is a sad lonely little girl unable to cope with the fact she has no home, no family, and not but a name…She’s a runaway.”

“How?”

“Look at her. Look at her clothes. Look at her shoes. Look at the red paint on her lips. Look at the paint on her fingernails. Look at what she is and at what she isn’t. And she’s anxious—anxious to speak with me at least.” He strides into another room.

Anne followed him, “We cannot keep her here?”

He shook his head, “It will be impossible. In times like these… with so much going on here in Salem, we cannot stow a runaway. If people know I am keeping this then there will be another scandal. Or worse: a hanging.”

“She’ll have nowhere to go. She has no possessions or family to look after her. You’ll be condemning her to nothing.” Anne took a step toward him, an arm’s reach away, then hesitated herself. “We’ll be condemning her.”

“We?” he raised a brow.

“Yes, you found her in the woods. You could have left her there to be eaten by wild creatures or kidnapped by savages or hunted and killed by witches, but you did not. You chose to bring her here on your accord. Don’t you see? You have a heart Captain Alden and you cannot sit idly by while this beautiful and kind stranger falls victim yet again to this horrid nightmare we call Salam,” Anne smiled at him, knowing she was affecting him with her words, maybe his heart as well. John shook his head looking up at the ceiling; she gained her courage ready to pound the final nail in her campaign. “You decided to make her your responsibility, Captain Alden, and if we just throw her out then she’ll surely starve or worse—”

“She cannot be my responsibility, Anne. I’m sorry. I have far more important matters that I must attend to,” he gazed out the window to the Sibley house, his eyes drawn to those dark windows. Where his mind and heart always reside.

“Captain Alden, why on earth would you rescue this poor lost soul if you would condemn her to the harshness of Salem? If we do not do something now then it’ll be the whore house. If we do nothing then we are the same as those men whom you protest against so much--”

“Anne…”

“She is our responsibility, Captain Alden. Please, I beg of you.”

“Alright! Alright!” he waved his hands in defeat. Dear god in heaven, he hoped upon a falling star he was not making a colossal mistake. “She may stay one night and no more.”

Anne stepped forward to embrace him, hesitated, but only took satisfaction in his gaze of acceptance as a reward.

“Thank you. That is all that is needed.”

The Next Day:

I stood on top of the bed reaching as high as I could holding my cellphone waiting to catch some bars. For the half-past hour, I’ve been trying to catch any signal but no luck. This was impossible! I slipped my cellphone back into my pocket and sulked in bed. I had already cried my tears, said my prayers, and closed my eyes hoping this nightmare would end. After accepting this nightmare was real, I convinced myself I needed to escape. Every sound, every smell, every unfamiliar sound, creaked and moaned in this tiny house and it made me sick to my stomach.

I needed to get out of here and go back home!

Anne offered breakfast like a sweetheart. A breakfast plate of dry-crusted bread with a boiled egg and undercooked beef that looked like lamb brains.

I declined.

But she persisted.

Like she persisted on many other things.

“So, what is your mother’s name? Does she live in Boston? Where were you born? Did you come from London, England? Is your father in Boston?” Anne poured a cup of hot tea into two cups for us both, smiling.

So far, Anne was an absolute angel and she had no trouble keeping me company while the Captain went hunting in the woods. I had overheard some of their conversations from upstairs and the thought of being with him alone under one roof made me shiver. She was the daughter of a very important man in town and the Captain was a veteran war hero who was in love with an unattainable woman. Mary Sibley, the wife of George Sibley. The richest man in the country. At least that’s what Anne had explained to me.

“Um, Catherine, but everyone calls her Cathy,” I replied, accepting her homemade tea. I watched her forehead crease in curiosity.

“And your father? Is he from Boston or New York? Or has he journeyed here from London?”

From Arizona and California, but I don’t think that has been established as a state yet. I bite my lip accepting her cup of tea. 

“He’s… not from here, in fact, I haven’t seen him in years. He went off… to explore… the western lands. He’s far away.”

More like 300 years away from my time.

“How brave and adventurous of him! An explorer! I suppose there’s more in the world to explore than little Salem, I envy him. Truly I do,” she complimented.

She sat in her chair for a moment keeping a hawk’s eye on me. I sipped my tea and tried to hide the sour look on my face. The herbs were strong and sour like cough medicine but resulted in a soothing after-feel in my throat warming my belly. But she was happy she was being a good caretaker for my well-being.

“And your mother?” she sipped from her cup, eyeing me the entire time. “I imagine she’s worried sick about you. Is she coming here to Salem as well? I’m sure you’re worried sick about her and I’m sure she’s most certainly worried about you.”

“I’m not sure,” I whisper, remembering her face shrinking into the woods. But my memory was limited. I remember her being swallowed by the fog and disappearing. “But I… don’t think I’m going to see her or anyone I know again.”

“Where does your family come from?”

Lived in California, and moved to Salem when I was 2 years old because my mom was sick and tired of her weird nagging parents and my dad got a better job.

“I’m… from the far west coast,” I lied, feeling my little white lie win her naïve trust. “I don’t know how I ended up here. I don’t know what happened. Everything happened so fast. I really, really, really don’t belong here. I don’t know how to explain it.”

That was the truth.

“I don’t belong here and I don’t want to stay here.” I put down my cup on the tray with a little too much force. “All I want to do is go home. I need to go back! And I… don’t know how to do that. I don’t know how I got here.”

I couldn’t tell her any more than that.

I can’t give too much information.

If I gave her any more information they would find me and hang me as a witch. It’s the one thing Salem is famous for. 

“Be calm, Miss, it will be all right.”

Maybe it was cabin fever or dread, but my body was restless. She swallowed, pressing her lips together in thought looking at the little herbs swirling in her cup, trying to find a comforting retort. At the moment she thought of a response, John walked in through the door and gave Anne a quizzical look. He was a filthy wild man carrying three hares over his shoulder tied to a string. He took his furs off his shoulders and kicked his muddy boots on the door frame. His entire outfit smelled like mud, blood, and death. The Captain dropped the tip of his axe onto a wood stump and placed his bow and quiver on the table in front of me. I winced at the blood on his hands and wondered how on earth I was going to convince him I was a normal person. His striking brown eyes captured mine and for a moment; all I could see was suspicion and distrust.

“What’s going on?” I rose to my feet, standing beside Anne. “What’s happening?”

John snarled, dropping the dead rabbits on the table,” Dinner.”

“What!?”

“Ah, how kind of the Captain to fetch dinner at this fine hour. I’m sure, we ladies can prepare the hares and return such kindness. Miss Evey, we can change you into proper dinner attire and cutlery. Then we can fetch the skinning knife?”

“Y-You mean we’re actually going to skin those rabbits and cook them!?” I gasped.

First big mistake.

Captain Alden and Anne stared at me and placed me under a microscope. A thousand voices automatically screamed at me to stop talking and stop being a moron. I could feel the deep gaze of his eyes studying me.

“You’ve never stepped foot in the kitchen, Miss Blackwood? Are you… so below your class?” Captain Alden eyed me once more picking me apart one molecule at a time.

“Perhaps… we can change … your attire… and attend my household for dinner, Miss Blackwood. I have a few ideas of what your place might be here in Salem.”

I shook my head,” Yes, Anne, that would be nice.”

“But certainly, we can change your very interesting… garb. I believe my household has not seen such an expensive, beautiful, exquisite wardrobe and it would certainly put my mother and me to shame. However, my father will be a very interested and fascinated host.”

“Anne…” Captain Alden cut in, looking at Anne with a warning. “Shall we truly believe that is a good idea?”

“One must adapt to survive, Captain Alden,” she smiled in return.

“I do want to survive…” I chimed in.

“Yet, you stray so far from home?” Captain Alden leaned forward in his chair, his gaze burning more than ever. My stomach flipped when I met his gaze. “How is it, pray to tell, Miss Blackwood, you could travel so far from home without an inch of survival instinct in your body? I’ve never met a woman who’s never skinned hares without the exception of being… royalty. Then appear out of thin air on my doorstep, proclaiming you wandered from the woods, yet your tracks tell me a different story.”

Anne gave him a look, “Captain Alden is just—”

“I’ve found many strange things in those woods. Your tracks do not come from anywhere. It is as if you have appeared like an apparition from another world…”

“I… can’t remember,” I simply stated, tearing away from his suspicious gaze and biting my bottom lip.

I couldn’t turn to face him. One look and it would be all over.

He fetched his axe from the wooden stump, fetched his coat, and headed towards the door,” I am not done asking my questions. This will continue, Miss Blackwood. The truth always comes forward, especially when we least expect it. Anne, do as you see fit.”

In three long hard strides, he stomped out the door, shot me a quick gaze, then disappeared to go hunt. I tucked my hair behind my ear hoping to god he wouldn’t come back from those woods. If he finds out that I’m different, then he’ll send me to the noose.

“Well, shall we go Anne?” I asked, breaking the tension.

“Perfect. But I must warn you about… my father,” she spits, rolling her eyes. And then I understand. Anne sees the realization on my face and smiles. “He’s a magistrate of Salem, and he’s so keen to bring the whole town to ashes because of this witch panic. But he is the one man in this whole town to help you find your roots and make Salem your home. I will see to it that he assists you. It would also certainly relieve Captain Alden of such a wonderful guest in his home. He will be utterly devastated to see you go.”

“Yea, I’m sure he’ll hate to see me leave…” 

When I heard the word witch my heart dropped to the pit of my stomach. This is the age where everyone thinks women are a bunch of crazy bitches. The abuse, the violence, and the cruelty towards women are unfathomable. It’s the worst century ever! Especially for young girls whose time traveled 300 years to the past! Hot panic rises. Anne brought me to the back and changed my whole wardrobe. I put my Halloween costume in the closet with my boots. She fixed my hair into a braid tucked into a bonnet. Then I’m suddenly wearing almost 3 layers of clothing with a skirt and new shoes. When we were done I hid my cellphone underneath my bedroom floorboard. Anne walked with me out into the courtyard and this was my first real outing. Salem, 300 years in the past, was everything I thought it was.

“My house is across the courtyard. You can see my father there.”

“He’s your father?” I whisper, looking out the window at the man with silver hair and wearing a broad square hat. His long black cloak swishes against the cobblestone steps of his home greeting his wife waiting for him at the door. Maybe I need to stay on his good side. To me, he seemed like a strict man, full of power and ignorance. I trembled, my hand tracing to wipe the hot sweat from my brow. These psychos fucking hang people! What happens when they finally see that I don’t fit in? Will they think I’m a witch too?

“Anne? What do they do to people who are… different?”

“Different? In what way?”

“I’m just new to town.”

“It’s all right, Evey, fear not. You do not deceive me, I dare say, in some way or other, of which I formed the idea that you weren’t being completely honest with me. But I completely absolutely forgive you. We are friends. New faces of people have misrepresented themselves, changed like the face of the moon when they are running away from their past.”

“What?” my face dead-panned.

“While I can have a morning to myself,” Anne said walking towards the foot of her door’s entrance. “It is enough—I think it is no shameful sacrifice to join occasionally in my own fantasy that I do not belong here in Salem either, and I live another life somewhere. And I profess myself a secret imagination that I am someone else. And I know now that you are imagining yourself as someone else, right now.”

Earth to Evey! She’s telling you she has your back! This is the first homegirl you’ve made that’s from another century!

“Okay…” I replay everything she just said and reorganize every word. “You caught me. I’m a runaway. What do they do to runaways? They don’t brand them, do they? Do they go to jail?”

Or hang!?

Anne squeezed my hand,” Fear not! The whore house is not for you! Nor a jail cell! Nor the noose. Come! You must find your place here in Salem, lest you be living on the streets which would be most unsuitable for a darling young lady like yourself!” Anne pulled me into her home. “And I know just the thing! It’ll be perfect! Come along!”

1 Hour Later:

“Father, you are not listening—"

“Lovely to meet you, Evelyn Bankingwood, such a pleasure, Anne, dear, I have to attend a meeting tonight and I am running late. Stay with your mother after you introduce the new Headmistress and please be sure to come straight home, your mother will have my skin if you are not put safely in bed.”

“Father, you have not gazed upon our guest. She is—”

“Tomorrow we shall discuss more of this matter. But for tonight, Anne, please stay out of my affairs, I have plenty on my plate as it is. This witch panic has my entire focus.”

“Father—”

“Good evening my daughter. Good evening, Miss Coalwell…” Magistrate Hale didn’t even look me in the face.

He seemed like a busy man. He didn’t even look me straight in the eye.

“It’s Blackwood, actually.”

He slammed the door leaving his daughter and me standing in the hallway. That went a lot better than I thought it would.

“As I was saying before my father rushed out and did not attempt to know your name… my friend, Bridgette Bishop, was a midwife and she was a dear friend of mine. She’s lived here in Salem all of her young life. They hanged her for being accused of being a witch,” she whispered, holding up her drawing book to me.

The portrait of a woman seemed to affect Anne, her face darkened. They seemed like they were pretty close. It made me sick to think so many people would sentence her to death; she was an innocent woman. She looked like my 4th-grade teacher. She didn’t look like a witch at all.

Now she was dead.

Anne embraced her book to her chest, “The townspeople saw it fit to loot the orphanage when their headmistress was… removed. They tore everything apart and after they left my father hired Captain Alden to renovate and repair the house in hopes of reviving the orphanage. The children here are in dire need of a new Headmistress…”

“They hanged her for being a witch…”

Oh my god, those poor kids.

“Yes, it’s madness! It’s all insanity!” Anne pulled out a large chest from beneath the bed and opened it, pulling out coifs, waistcoats, petticoats, and aprons with shoes. “She was taken to trial and judged by the selectman and—and it was Mary Sibley who cast the vote for Mercy Lewis to judge her.”

“Mary Sibley? John Alden’s ex?”

“Pardon?”

“I mean… his former love interest?”

“Yes. Mary Sibley, the richest woman in all of Salem and the country rules behind her husband and fears no one and loves no one, certainly in these times. She and I share… no similar opinion and I don’t care what mother says; she is a vile and loveless woman. But an attentive neighbor she is true, she is the sort of woman whom one cannot regard with too much deference. Beware of her husband, he has the most influence over the whole village.”

Oh my god, the 1600’s had their own Regina George. They love to hate her.

She tied her black coif around her head and stopped to look back at me from the doorframe, smiling warmly at me as if I had a halo above my head. Anne could see me do no wrong. She saw the good in everything and everyone. Especially when we both shared… a clean and unique point of view. All in all, we were equals.

“I’m so sorry, Anne… sounds like you’ve been through tough times.”

“Thank you, Evey, I know you will make a great new Headmistress with such a head for compassion and loveliness. You will be a great success. Thank you for everything, I’ll be back tomorrow to check on the children and you. Then we shall begin your training into the perfect little secret runaway.”

Whatever you say, Miss Queen of Goodness and Charity and Mercy.

“No, thank you, Anne. At least now I have a chance.”

I smile unclipping the cloak from my back and hanging it up on the chair before turning to look back at her, squeezing my fingers together against my stomach, trying to figure out what else to say. I don’t know if I would survive in this place without her.

“Thank you again, Anne,” I said before she left. She stopped at the doorway. “You know… for giving me a place to stay and not telling anyone about this. I bet there are people who are scared of… different.”

300 centuries of different.

“I would never!” she smiled her biggest smile, stepping closer. “We all have a choice and a destiny. Yours is right here, in Salem. You were meant to become our new Headmistress. Can I speak truthfully? Your past is history, but it is just that, history, and do not consider me now an elegant female, intending to plague and pity you, but a rational girl, speaking truth from her heart that you and I are the same. You are splendidly charming! I am persuaded to introduce you to the whole Council in church this Sunday if you could join us. The people of Salem would love to meet the new Headmistress, Evey Blackwood!”

Everything happened so fast and I couldn’t be more grateful. I looked at the pair of keys in my hand and immediately felt the responsibility on my head. But this was also a chance to find my way back home as well. I embraced Anne thanking her one more time and felt a cold shadow loom over me again. I felt cold. Or maybe I wasn’t used to so much girl-bonding time with someone besides Tina. But I guess it couldn’t hurt.

“Yea, sure...” I smiled. “I’ll be there.”

Anne walked me to the building where I would be residing. It was a tall two-story building made of dark wood sitting against wild ferns, weeds, and sunflowers. Large bushes were strewn all over the walls and had grown onto the windows. A thin tall white tree sat on the side of the building with a string and a wooden board attached to the highest branch where the children could play. A functioning water well lay rooted like a barrel beneath the white tree attached to a pulley system and a bucket. The pine door had been broken in, the windows smashed, and all of the furnishings had been stolen or destroyed. There were no children here but their empty bunks were proof they had resided there. The bunk beds sat side by side on each side of the room for at least 20 children

The whole upstairs was completely dedicated to the Headmistress, which was me, and it was just as robbed and destroyed. The floorboards bent down in the center of the room due to a large hole in the floor created by a fire. A bed cot had been the only thing the people of the village hadn’t taken.

“This place is absolute trash…” I whispered.

“Pardon?”

“I said ‘this place is absolutely… lovely’” I grinned with a fake smile, kicking a bucket across the room. “It just needs a few touchups.”

“Captain Alden will be here tomorrow to finish the roof after it caught fire. Sadly, when the orphanage was burning the children fled for their lives and hid in the alleys and crevices of the town. They fear that if they return they will face the same fate as their previous Headmistress. When Miss Bishop was burned as a witch, no one dared to search for them, or else they land in the stocks.”

“They just ran? They didn’t come back?”

“They simply disappeared and no one has seen them since. I pleaded with my father and other men to go into town and search for them, but he insisted they would be in god’s hands.”

“That’s stupid,” I whispered under my breath. “That’s just an excuse not to face the consequences of their actions. People here preach about being pure and good but judge others for what they’ve done; judge not lest ye be judged. When they realized that she wasn’t a witch when she was being hanged no one searched for the children?”

Anne frowned,” The men in town were afraid they would be thrown in the stocks, receive a branding, or meet the other end of a rope. Then Captain Alden volunteered to look for them to bring them back home, but they are rather good at hiding”

“Well, that’s even worse. Who told the people that she was a witch?”

“Our very own Reverend Cotton Mather, son of Increase Mather, a world-famous witch hunter.”

“It’s completely idiotic. If people know that when they burn a woman and she lives; she’s a witch. But if she dies because she wasn’t a witch, she’s innocent, then why wouldn’t anyone go looking for the children after realizing the big mistake they just made? They were innocent, too.”

Anne stayed silent for a moment and was about to respond but another voice entered the room.

“Because people are losing faith in finding good in each other. When people stop finding the good, they learn to thrive in the bad. Then they become the monsters they were taught to fear and hate,” Captain Alden appeared in the doorway.

Anne beamed at his sudden presence but I was the absolute opposite. She pushed her hair to one shoulder while he approached and stood in the door frame of the bedroom. He could definitely make his existence known without even saying a word. She took his presence with great, great, great importance. He brought in wooden boards under both his arms for construction and dropped them against the wall before politely taking a bow. A proper greeting in Salem, I’ve come to learn.

“Captain Alden, what a surprise!”

“Peace be upon you, Miss Hale,” he greeted politely, turning his gaze toward me. “Can I have a word with our new… Headmistress?”

This should be good.

Anne, though slightly disheartened, politely bowed and obliged his stern request and exited my new living quarters. Captain Alden stood in the doorway, axe resting on his broad shoulder, while I carefully stepped into the kitchen to sit at the table. This shouldn’t feel this scary to be near a man like him, but it did, it really did. I could feel his heavy footsteps trail slowly behind me and he took a seat too.

“What have I done now?” I started first. My voice shook when I said it, and I hated that. I sounded weak. I’d never wanted to sound weak in my entire life.

It was such a desperate cliché question. If these were to be my last words, they felt like stupid and unimportant ones, but I had to know. I had to know what he was thinking. My life may depend on it. 

“I just need to know…” he whispered,” I need to know who you are.”

“My name is Evey—”

“I know your name, Miss Blackwood. My question is: who are you? Anne is convinced you are no agent of the French and I agree that you are no spy. I’ve seen you stalking around town. I can sense you truly do not belong here. The people here may see you as an outsider, they can feel you are misplaced. We can all feel it. I… can feel it.”

“I’ve done nothing wrong…” I remember thinking this was how spy movies often started with sensory deprivation; the first step to getting the intruder to spill her secrets.

I had no secrets. I was just as stumped as he was and maybe that was the problem. The table between us groaned as he stood up once more to build a fire in the fireplace. I sat in my chair, helpless. He knelt down and placed a few logs, got a match, and bingo! Flames were burning in less than a minute which I was grateful for, I didn’t know how to start a fire. The floorboards beneath his weight creaked exactly like they do in scary movies. At least now I knew what kind of scary story I was in, no sense fooling myself about it now.

Why had he chosen me? Did I send out a vibe or was he just obsessed? Was there something about me that screamed victim? Or witch?

“I just need to know if you truly desire to be the Headmistress of Salem orphanage. Anne and her father may have placed that title on your belt, but nay, I believe you’re running from something. Your story does not connect and it is a damn lucky coincidence that you are Headmistress now that Miss Bishop is dead—nay, murdered. The timing is too close. The orphanage, all of Salem, and I—we don’t need another imposter pretending to be something that she is clearly not. I’d like to tell you all the ways that I can dismember a wolf pretending to be a sheep in thy home, Miss Blackwood.”

His thumb swiped at the blade of his axe and my eyes roamed over his large hands. I could only imagine all the damage he could do with those hands… and all the good too.

“But… if you are in danger… then let it be known now. If you are in fear for your life, then perhaps, under the circumstances, I will help you. Even protect you from whatever you fear.”

I sigh, biting my bottom lip.

He notices.

“If not, then I will surely get to the bottom of this mess you have brought. I will discover your secret, Headmistress… When I do discover your secret, I cannot protect you or help you. Neither can Anne and I will bring you forth into the light.” Captain Alden had been itching for an answer.

Any kind of answer.

But the truth was still blurry.

“As I told you before, I don’t remember…” I reply, my voice barely above a whisper. “I can’t remember how I got here.”

“Very well…” he sighed, looking disappointed. Agitated, even angry, he was nowhere nearer to the truth. “We shall see what brought you here, won’t we, Headmistress Blackwood…”He disappeared into the darkness leaving me in my new little orphanage house. His exit allowed me to hyperventilate, almost suffocating to breathe, and I ached for comfort. I moved my cot closer to the fire and covered myself with my cloak. The blankets were itchy and filthy. I slowly drifted off to sleep, not knowing, a single solitary woman stood in the corner of my room in a long black cloak with eyes as black as midnight.