BONES OF A WITCH (Detective Marcella Witch's Series. Book 4) Read online

  Bones of a Witch

  Dana E. Donovan

  Author's notes: This book is based entirely on fiction and its story line derived solely from the imagination of its author. No characters, places or incidents in this book are real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, places, events or locales is entirely coincidental. No part of this publication may be copied or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy or otherwise without the expressed written permission of the author or author’s agent.

  © Dana E. Donovan 2008, 2012

  Books in this series include:

  The Witch’s Ladder

  Eye of the Witch

  The Witch’s Key

  Bones of a Witch

  Witch House

  Kiss the Witch

  Call of the Witch

  Gone is the Witch (late 2012)

  Other titles by Dana E. Donovan:

  Abandoned

  Death and Other Little Inconveniences

  Resurrection

  Skinny

  Follow Dana E. Donovan on Facebook

  This book is dedicated to the victims of the Salem witch hunts and all those persecuted in the name of fear and ignorance throughout history.

  “Let not divergences weaken our bonds when true strength lies in our diversity”.

  Dana E. Donovan

  “In time ye pass this one of eight, as thou doth hang in morn of late.

  Let earth and ash be thy fate till beckoned home to Bishop’s Gate”

  Lilith Adams

  For eword

  In 1688, John Putnam, an influential elder in Salem village, offered Samuel Parris a job as the village minister. That year Parris, a struggling plantation owner from Barbados, moved to Salem with his wife Elizabeth, their six-year-old daughter Betty, a niece Abigail and a Barbados slave woman named Tituba.

  Four years later, in the spring of 1692 the villagers, having weathered an especially harsh winter, found themselves suffering through economic hardships, political discord and divisional inequities. This, along with anxieties over an on-going frontier war with Indians, led many to believe that the Devil was at work against them. When a number of children in the village, including Betty Parris and Putnam’s eleven-year-old daughter Ann, became inexplicably ill, it was suggested that their illness, along with the rest of the village’s misfortune, was the direct result of witchcraft.

  Acting up on that, one of Putnam’s neighbors proposed a method to determine the culprit. She instructed Tituba to make a witch’s cake containing the urine of one the bewitched girls, believing that when fed to a dog it would reveal the source of the witchcraft. When that failed, young Betty and her cousin Abigail took matters into their own hands, accusing Tituba of being a witch. Nearly immediately, two older girls, Mary Walcott and Mercy Lewis, collaborated with Betty and Ann to bolster their accusation and further accused Sarah Good and Sarah Osborn of the same charge. From there, the charges and accusations of spectral attacks ran wild, and the more practiced the girls became at staging spontaneous fits of seizures in the presence of the accused, the more believable they became.

  The first woman to stand trial for witchcraft was Bridget Bishop, June 2nd. 1692. Bishop lacked respect in the Puritan community. She owned a tavern that allowed drinking on Sundays and she did not attend church. That, along with her quarrelsome nature and reluctance to pay her bills, made her a probable candidate for persecution.

  By then, many had been charged with witchcraft, and witnesses of all ages came forward offering testimony condemning the accused. One particularly convincing field hand testified he saw Bridget Bishop stealing eggs before turning herself into a cat. Others claimed to have been approached by Bishop’s specter, who pinched them and asked them to sign the Devil’s book. But perhaps the most damning evidence came when confessed witches, Deliverance Hobbs and Mary Warren, testified that Bishop was one of them.

  On June 10th 1692, Bridget Bishop was found guilty and hanged on Gallows Hill.

  Rebecca Nurse, whose family had ongoing disputes with Putnam’s family, stood trial next. Evidence against Nurse was hearsay, speculative and outright fallacious, yet when Ann Putnam and the other girls fell into choreographed fits in her presence, mimicking her body movements and pretending to be struck dumb; jury members found it hard to believe her innocence.

  Rebecca Nurse and four other women were hanged on Gallows Hill July 19th. 1692.

  Subsequent defendants followed Deliverance Hobbs’ and Mary Warren’s example, finding reprieve from the gallows by confessing to the accusations. Parris’ own slave woman, Tituba, admitted to being a witch through coercion, claiming the Devil sometimes came to her in the form of a dog, asking her to sign his book and bid his work by hurting the children.

  Ironically, such confessions only gave creditability to the accusers, making their assertions more believable. Those taking a stance against the witch hunts soon found themselves targeted with the very same accusations. But confessing did not mean freedom. Those who confessed often escaped the gallows only to endure intolerable suffering in jail where some died anyway or went completely insane.

  In all, nineteen men and women were tried and hanged in the summer of 1692. Hundreds were accused of witchcraft; and one man, Giles Corey, who refused to stand trial, was pressed to death. Even animals were not immune, as several cats and dogs suspected of aiding witches were summarily executed.

  Almost as suddenly as it began, however, the hysteria of the Salem witch hunts stopped. With urging from a prominent Boston minister and a mandate from the governor’s office, spectral evidence and touch tests were ruled inadmissible in court. The final straw may have come with the hanging of the village’s ex-minister, George Burroughs, accused of being the witches’ ringleader. At his execution, Burroughs vehemently maintained his innocence, reciting perfectly the Lord’s Prayer; something thought impossible for a witch.

  By the spring of the following year, Governor Phips of Massachusetts pardoned all the convicted witches and ordered the release of those accused still in jail. That effectively put an end to the witch hunts, but it did not eliminate the fears and apprehensions of many who believed that witches still operated freely among them. In the void left by the courts, came the insurgence of a grassroots campaign aimed at eliminating witches everywhere. What follows is their story.

  Tony Marcella:

  It was something Lilith said to me on our walk back from the Cyber Café that got me thinking about my eventual legacy. I really hadn’t given it much thought before; the future seemed so distant to me then. Now, however, it’s all I can think about, and I wonder if a second lifetime is even enough time to affect a meaningful legacy at all.

  The sun had been tucked behind a rolling band of clouds all morning, casting a dull grey shadow-less light on the sidewalk that gave the impression we were walking on dirty ice. Subconsciously, I suppose my mind worried I might fall, and so I tried several times along the walk to take Lilith’s hand, but she waved me off, apparently not sharing my insecurities.

  We were two blocks into our three-block walk home when she broke what had been a silent journey thus far to ask me, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” She said it sarcastically, of course. Sarcasm doesn’t just come easily for Lilith, it comes naturally. Sometimes I don’t think she even realizes she’s doing it, but I guess that’s why I love her. The spit and vinegar in our relationship keeps us both on our toes.

  Her question, if I read her right, referred to my recent promotion as Detective 1st class at the 2nd precinct, made possib
le by Dominic Spinelli and his wizardry with E.I.N.I., the electronic intelligence network interface system at the Justice Center, a system he helped develop. After I graduated from the academy for the second time in my life, he was able to somehow merge my official entry into the force with my previous records as a senior detective and have it spit out a legitimate title for me.

  So, to the computer I am an old acquaintance. To the rest of the guys on the detective’s floor, I’m the new kid, Tony Marcella Junior, son of a legend and green as a toad. But that’s all right; I don’t mind. Starting over lets me do differently all the things I wished I could do differently before going through the rite of passage ceremony with Lilith, returning me to my physical prime and shaving forty years off my age. For me it’s a second chance to get the nuances of my old life right. For Lilith, it’s a chance for me to do what she believes I was put on this earth to do in the first place: be a witch and become a legend among legends of history. A tall order, I know, but she thinks I have it in me.

  “Are you going to start with that again?” I said. “You’re always asking me what I want to be when I grow up. I’m not a child, you know.”

  “Tony, it’s been over a year now since the ceremony and you haven’t cast your first spell. Don’t you feel like you’re wasting precious time?”

  “Wasting it?” I laughed, which pissed her off. “Lilith, ever since that rite of passage thing, it feels like all I’ve got is time. Don’t you see? A year ago I was sitting down in Florida sipping frozen guava drinks and counting liver spots on the back of my hand. Now I feel like a kid again—hell, I am a kid again. And what’s more, I get to do over all the things I screwed up in the past and no one will know the difference.”

  “But that’s just it.” She swung her computer tote over her other shoulder and yanked my arm, causing me to stop and face her directly, thus forcing me to look into her eyes.

  I have always contended that anyone who looks into Lilith’s eyes does so at great peril, for either she is scouring your psyche with her ever-intrusive, hauntingly penetrating glare for the purpose of reading your soul, or she is harvesting the nature of your being in a way that draws you into her, making you surrender your defenses and submit to her will. The latter, I’m sure, was her intent this time. But in the year since inheriting the powers of the coven, I have learned to deflect her clever attempts at mind manipulations—most of the time.

  “Lilith,” I shook a scolding finger at her. “Don’t try it.”

  “Try what?”

  “You know.”

  “Tony, look. All I’m saying is that you had your crack at playing detective. You were good at it, damn good. But now there is a new door open to you. Why don’t you step through it and have a look around?”

  I shrugged. “Maybe I don’t want to go through that door just yet.”

  “Why? Are you afraid of what you might find?”

  “No, I simply like what I’m doing now.”

  “But you’re wasting a special gift.”

  “Hey, I didn’t ask you to include me in on your ceremony; you know that.”

  “No, but don’t tell me you would take it back if you could.”

  “You’re right, I wouldn’t,” I said, and I cupped the sides of her face in my hands and brushed her cheeks softly. “Because then I wouldn’t have you in my life.” She smiled thinly, her lips like a slender thread curved up slightly at the ends and dimpled in place. “You know how happy you make me, Lilith, don’t you? In sixty-five years I’ve never met anyone who makes me feel the way you make me feel. If I died this moment because of that damn ceremony, it would have all been worth it.”

  “Oh, Tony,” she said, and she slapped my wrists away from her face. “You’re such a bull-shitter.”

  We turned and started walking again. I reached down to take her hand, but again she waved me off. As we rounded the corner, nearing our apartment, the sun came out, turning the dirty ice-looking sidewalk into packed beach sand with hopscotch blocks and crisp black shadows from curbside trees and automobile silhouettes. I looked to Lilith and said, “Nice. Did you do that?”

  She rolled her eyes and made that tisk sound with her tongue. “Yeah, that was me. I rule the sun and skies. Would you like to see it rain?”

  See what I mean about the sarcasm?

  We were nearly home when a young girl of about six or seven playing outside our apartment building came up to us. She had obviously been crying. I asked her what was wrong and she pointed up into a nearby tree. “My balloons,” she said, in a pouty voice. “They flew away.”

  “They did?” I knelt down on one knee so that our eyes were nearly parallel. “I’ve not seen you around here before,” I said. “What’s your name?”

  “Abby,” she replied.

  “Abby? Is that short for Abigail?”

  She nodded. “Ah-huh.”

  “I see.” I looked up and winked at Abby’s mother, who had come up behind her holding another child’s hand. “Is this your mom?”

  She turned, looked and nodded again.

  “And who is that, your sister?”

  She looked back at me and grimaced. “That’s Annie. She let my balloons fly away.”

  “She did?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I’m sure she didn’t mean it.” I looked up into the tree. Four of the balloons were tangled in the lower part of the canopy. Two had popped already and a frisky breeze threatened to rake the others over some spiny branches, popping them, as well. A glance back at Lilith told me she was sorry that the tree hadn’t already eaten them all. I stood up and said to Abby, “Would you like me to try to get your balloons down for you?”

  Her face lit up like sunshine. I winked at her mom and reached up for the closest, thickest branch that I thought might support my weight. I barely got both hands around it when Lilith came up to me and said in a harsh whisper, “What are you doing?”

  “What does it look like I’m doing? I’m going up to get the kid’s balloons.”

  She leaned in closer. “I can see that. Why don’t you get them the other way?”

  “What other way?”

  She narrowed her eyes and clenched her teeth. “You know.”

  I whispered back, “Witchcraft?”

  “Yes.”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because, I don’t need to. Lilith, I’ve climbed trees before. It’s been a while, but I think I still know how to do it.”

  “That’s not the point.”

  I had to avoid looking directly into her eyes now. She had begun drawing a bead on me so focused that I could almost feel the burn coming from them. “What is the point?”

  “The point is that you have the power to get them down without risking your neck.”

  “No. The point is that you want me to use witchcraft so that I will step through that stupid door you keep talking about. And I told you, I don’t care to—”

  “Forget it.” She extended her hand up toward the branches, yet the strings, interlaced into one strand, remained well out of her reach. They hung from the balloons like limp noodles, but as Lilith stretched for them further they began stiffening as if taped to a rod. Then, with just a wiggle of her fingers, the balloons floated down to her in a clutch. She peeled two of them off and handed them to Abigail, tying the other two around the younger one’s wrist. Next, she turned to me and asked sarcastically, “We done here?”

  I gestured with opened palms. “I guess.”

  “Good, then can we go home now?”

  “Sure.” I looked to Abby’s mother. Her expression had turned to stone. “Nice to meet you,” I said. “Welcome to the neighborhood.”

  Back up in the apartment I turned on the TV and settled onto the sofa. Right away Lilith started in on me again about not using witchcraft to help those kids out. I turned the TV down a stitch, but she grabbed the remote from my hand and switched the set off entirely.

  “Okay, that’s it,” I said, and I snatched t
he remote back from her and turned the TV on again. “What exactly is your problem, Lilith?”

  She positioned herself in front of the television, her hip thrust just so, her right hand perched upon it like a raptor, the other hanging loosely, perhaps ready to swing. “My problem,” she said, “is you. All you do anymore is work, come home, eat, watch TV, sleep and get up and go to work again.”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “It’s bringing me down. Haven’t you noticed how I hardly make potions anymore? I try to work a simple spell and it bombs in my face.”

  “So?”

  “So? Tony, witchcraft is exactly that. A craft. If you don’t use it you lose it.”

  “Lilith, I’m not so sure I ever really had it.”

  She pitched her weight onto her other hip before crossing her arms at her breasts. “Trust me. You have it. The question is for how long?”

  “All right, I have it. But what’s that got to do with you? I don’t stop you from practicing witchcraft.”

  “That’s just it. Don’t you see?” Her words were beginning to soften now. “You’re a big distraction for me. You living here keeps me from dedicating the time I really need to spend on my craft.”

  “Oh,” I said, feeling as though someone had just knocked the wind right out of me. “So, what are you saying? You want me to move out?”

  She dropped her arms and ambled to the couch, taking a seat beside me close enough that our knees touched. “That’s not what I’m saying. You know I want you here. It’s just that.… Did you know I haven’t been able to perform a level five spell ever since my return to prime?”

  “No. I didn’t know that.”

  “It’s true. Every time a witch goes through the rite of passage, she emerges refreshed, replenished with the force of the coven. But like a butterfly emerging from its cocoon, she needs to spread her wings and exercise them before she can take flight. There’s a lot of work involved in harnessing all that power.”