Teen Witch

"I am innocent to a witch. I know not what a witch is."

"Then ow do you know you are not one?"

-Examination of Bridget Bishop, Salem Village, April 19, 1692

***

Shutting her locker and leaning over so that nobody else would hear, Ruth Ann whispered in Phoebe's ear:

"Abbie Hobbs is a witch!"

Phoebe was standing with her own locker open and brushing her hair. She hadn't even noticed Ruth until the other girl said something about Abbie, and it was a few more seconds until Phoebe really registered it. A babble of voices from the other kids in the hall covered up their conversation.

"Um, okay?" Phoebe said. "Did she join the Wicca Club or something?"

The final bell had rung and hundreds of people filled the corridor. Ruth looked over her shoulder for anyone listening, then whispered again, "Not like that. I mean she's a real witch, like from history class. The ones in Salem?"

Phoebe put her brush down. If anyone else had started a conversation this way, Phoebe would have assumed it was a joke. But Ruth was the kind of person who would have to die to become any more serious, so Phoebe chose her next words carefully.

"There were no witches in Salem," she said. "That was the point of the lesson."

"But what if there were?" said Ruth. "What if there's always been witches and they're just really good at hiding? How would we know?"

"Look Ruth, I'd like to help but I don't know you that well. If you're really freaking out or something, maybe you should talk to your parents, or one of the teachers? Because I don't think I know what you're talking about."

It was true Phoebe didn't know much about Ruth, and in fact probably nobody in class did. She was 18 and a senior, like Phoebe and Abbie, and their lockers were right next to each other, and they shared a history class. But despite all that this might be the first time she'd ever actually spoken to Ruth directly, and something about that fact alone made Phoebe uncomfortable now, like she was talking at a funeral or something.

"I did tell my parents," Ruth continued, now dropping books into her bag one at a time with depressing thumps. "They didn't believe me. Nobody would believe me except you."

"Why would I believe you?"

"Because you know Abbie. You know what she's capable of."

That made Phoebe pause.

"There are lots of them in class," Ruth continued. "Witches, I mean. She's their leader, and they want me to join them. I don't know how long they've been doing it, but I don't think it's that long. Have they, you know, come to see you? Do they ask you to do things?"

The hall was emptying out now, the sudden silence punctuated only by the occasional slamming of a door far away. "No, I haven't talked to Abbie in months," Phoebe said, which was true. Then, sticking with the truth, she said, "You're freaking me out, Ruth. You don't look good."

Pinching the bridge of her nose, Ruth said, "I can't sleep. She comes every night and keeps me awake."

"Abbie sneaks into your room?"

"Yes, but it's not really her. She's like a ghost when she comes. I hoped you'd seen her too. Now you just think I'm crazy."

Pity and revulsion had a tug-of-war for Phoebe's feelings. The bags under Ruth's eyes made her look even spookier than usual, but she also looked as if she were about to cry. In spite of herself, Phoebe got closer again.

"I don't think you're crazy. But you've probably been having nightmares is all. And we just finished studying colonial witch trials, so of course you might dream about them. I've had nightmares just like that."

That part wasn't true, but the lie couldn't possibly hurt. Ruth picked up her bag. "I knew you'd say something like that. Don't tell anyone I talked about this, okay? Especially not Abbie."

"This is the last thing I want to tell anyone about, ever."

Shaking her head, Ruth added, "If she hasn't come to you yet, she will soon. She wants you. I can tell."

And with that she turned and practically ran away, leaving Phoebe alone with a row of 100 silent lockers. She stood in her tracks, trying to convince herself that the conversation had actually happened at all.

"Witches," Phoebe said out loud. As if a public school needed any more problems.

The parking lot was likewise nearly empty when Phoebe got there, except for clumps of wet autumn leaves. It had dumped rain all day. The weather had been getting weird ever since the school year started; storms almost every day, and even hail a few times.

The only other person still leaving was Mr. Dane, parked right next to her. He was always late in the morning and ended up parking with the students instead of taking the extra five minutes to go around to the faculty parking. It happened so often that other teachers called him 'the freshman."

"Hi, Mr. Dane," said Phoebe.

He looked up at her twice. "Ah, Phoebe," he said. Mr. Dane (his first name was Frank) taught civics and social science, and she'd had him last year. He was young, a little gangly, and his hair was usually a mess (another reason she knew the other teachers teased him). "You're late today too?"

"I just had the weirdest conversation and I couldn't get away," Phoebe said. "One of the other girls said that there are witches in class. Real ones, I mean; midnight sabbats and deals with the devil, that kind of thing."

"Who said that?"

Phoebe almost answered, but at the last second she remembered the spooky look on Ruth's face when she asked not to tell anyone. "Hmm. I probably shouldn't say."

"Can't let the black cat out of the bag," said Mr. Dane, and mimed locking his mouth and throwing the key over his shoulder. Phoebe laughed louder than the joke probably deserved, but she didn't care.

It started raining again on the drive home, and the storm seemed to have knocked out everything on the radio except for some religious channel. A depressed sounding man was preaching without pause:

"It is a woeful piece of corruption, in an evil time, when the wicked prosper and the godly party meet with vexations. It is the main drift of the Devil to pull all down! But Satan will not prevail, though he be aided by wicked and reprobate women. Christ will defend us from the power of death, and from the inward enemies of our own sins—"

She turned the radio off.

It was late by the time she got home. The wind sounded like it wanted to take the roof off the house, and the chimney leaked. Dropping her books by the door she called out for Mom, but of course she wasn't home. Mom was working two jobs, and between them she only had one night off in eight. Phoebe was mostly on her own these days.

She changed out of her school uniform, then fed the cat (Belladonna) and started making dinner. Phoebe wasn't much of a cook, but she'd memorized how to make six specific meals, and she rotated them every time Mom wasn't home. She made exactly enough for two people, leaving Mom's in the fridge, where it was almost always still uneaten the next morning.

Phoebe had gotten so good at looking after things that Mom used to she was the only high schooler who was 18 going on 32. But these days Mom didn't joke about much at all. No time.

Once dinner was ready she liberated a little bit of wine from Mom's private stash, filling the house's only wine glass up to a point. The plan was just to just eat and relax for the rest of the night and maybe watch some TV with Belladonna curled up on her lap. But when she switched the set on the blaring voice that came out of the speakers startled her:

"Christ hath placed us in this world as in a sea, and suffreth many storms and tempests to threaten shipwreck. Whilst in the meantime he himself seems asleep!"

Frowning again, Phoebe tried changing the channel. It didn't work. There was no picture on the set, just a gray and black blur of what was probably the profile of a man. The audio came through clear, though:

"Yes, all mankind, the whole apostate race of Adam. Even the very elect are by their nature dead in sin and trespasses!"

It seemed as if the wind howled even louder outside. After several attempts at changing or muting the channel, Phoebe finally just turned the TV off. It hissed as the screen faded out, leaving Phoebe with nothing but the sound of the rain on the tin roof.

Helping herself to more wine, she judged that the bottle was now looking a little too empty not to arouse suspicion and topped it off with a little tap water. It's a reverse miracle, she thought: wine into water!

She decided to read, but couldn't concentrate on anything. Putting a magazine down, she realized that the weird conversation with Ruth was still on her mind.

Part of it was just how spooky the other girl had looked, but thinking back Phoebe realized there was something else also; the talk had reminded her of something lingering at the back of her memory, a detail that had once troubled her but subsequently slipped her mind. Even now she couldn't quite put her finger on it...

Picking her way through the mess in her room, she found the notebook she'd been using a month ago during the colonial unit in history class, right in the middle of an unsteady tower of binders. She flipped through until she found what she was looking for: Folded and creased photocopy pages from the research for her final report. She'd highlighted few bits of the old trial records, including the one she was looking for now:

"The Juriors do present that Abagaile Hobbs of Topsfeild in the county of Essex in the year of our Lord 1688 wickedly and feloniously made a covenant with the evil spirit, the Devil, and did make contrary to the peace."

She skimmed through a few similar pages:

"She confesseth further that the Devil came in the Shape of a man. She was at the great witches' meeting in the pasture, when they administered the Devil's Sacrament, and did eat of the Red Bread and drink of the Red Wine."

Phoebe paused in the middle of a drink of her own wine, looking at the red liquid swirling around the bottom of the glass.

Of course it was harmless. But she poured out the last bit anyway. "Wickedly and feloniously made covenant with the evil spirit," she muttered.

So that explained it; Ruth must have noticed that one of the defendants in the old trials had Abbie's same name, and the old Abbie Hobbs had been a teenager too. So of course if Ruth was going to accuse anyone of being a witch it would be Abbie.

Why she was accusing anybody in the first place was a mystery, but she always was kind of a weird girl. She was very religious, Phoebe remembered; Ruth had been one of the students who tried to talk the schoolboard into moving the Pagan student's club activities off campus last year, so maybe this all had something to do with that still?

Whatever it was, Phoebe hoped Ruth got the help that she needed. Although the less charitable (and increasingly loud) part of her just hoped that she could stay out of Ruth's and Abbie's and everybody else's way for the rest of the year. Just long enough to graduate and get away from this school and this house and everything else.

Lying on the bed and listening to the rain again, Phoebe thought about the future and places like Boston, New York, London. And also money, new clothes, relief from housework and schoolwork; almost everything that happened between that future and now seemed like a potential obstacle that might send her tumbling off of the path to better things. Please, she thought, just let me get through this.

Phoebe snuffed the candles one by one before bed and then clucked her tongue so that the cat would follow. For some reason she felt completely wiped out as she cleared some clutter off of the bed and slid underneath her heaviest blanket. I'll probably sleep like the dead, she thought, as lay her head on the pillow, checked her alarm one more time, and tried to drift off while thinking about nothing at all...

She assumed at first it was her alarm waking her up, but when Phoebe opened her eyes the room—and the entire house—was still dark, and the sound was all wrong: It was a long, low, mournful noise, like a fog horn. When she sat up she saw that a candle was burning again on the table, and she also saw Abbie Hobbs standing over her bed.

But she didn't look quite right, Phoebe realized. Abbie was pale and misty and almost blue, and her clothes and hair seemed to drift a bit. "Like a ghost," as Ruth had put it.

Oh God, thought Phoebe. I lied to Ruth about having nightmares like hers and now it's coming true. I should have told her I have dreams about screwing Mr. Dane like a cat in heat instead...

Abbie looked precisely as she did every day in class, right down to the school uniform. She smiled, a cold expression. "Hey Phoebe."

"Hey," Phoebe muttered, putting a pillow over her face. Abbie pulled it away.

"Been a while. You look..." Abbie paused. "The same. I guess."

"You look like Jacob Marley."

"I don't know who that is," Abbie said, turning her head.

"Never mind." Phoebe sat up and yawned. The candle on the table didn't have anything underneath it, but she supposed dream wax couldn't possibly hurt the wood. Abbie was holding out her hand, and instead of Jacob Marley Phoebe thought of the Ghost of Christmas Past, helping Scrooge fly away.

Rather than take the proffered hand, she walked to the window herself. That fog horn noise was still going on. "What the hell is that?"

"They're calling us," said Abbie. "We're going to be late. Come on."

"Late for what?" Phoebe said, shuffling her feet as she followed after Abbie, who only beckoned in reply.

The field behind Phoebe's mother's house was empty except for wild grass and the broken down remains of a fence that had once separated two properties. Abbie bypassed it with ease; Phoebe had a little more trouble clamoring over, following Abbie instinctually, never questioning the dream logic. The ground was thick with mud, but there was no rain now and the overcast was gone, revealing stars that seemed brighter than usual, as if the rain had cleaned the entire sky.

"What a lovely place," Abbie said. "You could murder someone here and nobody would ever hear you."

"Don't tell the landlord."

Abbie laughed. Then: "I hear someone has been telling you stories about me."

"Hmm? Oh, that you're a witch, yeah." Phoebe rubbed her eyes and tried to hold back a yawn.

"Who was it?"

"Just Ruth," said Phoebe. "The spooky girl with the locker next to mine? We have Ms. Young's history class together. You do too, technically, but you're never there."

Abbie stopped walking. "Little Ruth?" she said. Then, for three seconds, she burst into laughter. "I knew it couldn't be one of my girls," Abbie said when she was finished. "They all know better. Well, thank you for telling me."

"Mm hmm," Phoebe said. She still felt abominably tired. Being tired in a dream, was that a sign that you were going to wake up exhausted?

She heard the sound of the horn for a third time. It seemed to be coming from the woods on the other side of the field. It seemed they were going towards that sound, for whatever reason.

"Now," Abbie said. "What to do with you?" She looked Phoebe up and down, clicking her nails in thought. Phoebe flinched. She'd seen Abbie look that same way at the girls she used to push around after class. Like a worm on a hook.

She and Abbie had been friends once, ever since grade school, when they bonded over having the same birthday. But then came last year, when Abbie took things too far, and they hadn't talked since. Once inseparable, their mutual birthdays had passed without as much as a phone call this time.

After contemplating her for a strangely long time, Abbie put a hand out. "I guess you can come too. I didn't want you in yet, but you might as well now that stupid Ruth has spilled."

Phoebe blinked. "Might as well what?"

"Join us," Abbie said. She looked different now; she'd shed her clothes, although Phoebe didn't remember her actually doing it. Now she was as naked as anything and standing in the tall grass. Phoebe stared; I should look away, she thought, but she didn't.

Abbie's outstretched hand beckoned, impatient. "Come on already. It's just this way."

Phoebe was slow to extend her own hand. When Abbie grabbed her she yanked her forward very suddenly, and they ended up almost embracing, Abbie's nude body coiled close to hers. Phoebe froze at the touch of another girl's naked skin, as if she'd been electrocuted and couldn't move.

She waited to see how Abbie would react. The other girl assumed an almost bored look and crooked a red lacquered finger at her, indicating that she should come even closer. Drops of night dew now decorated Abbie's skin. Without quite realizing what she was doing, Phoebe kissed a dewy spot along the curve of one of Abbie's shoulders. She licked the moisture off with a quick, catlike flickering of her tongue. Abbie purred.

"That's good," she said.

The sounding horn sent a delicious shiver down Phoebe's spine. Abbie's hands trailed through her hair as Phoebe continued to kiss her way around the other girl's body and ick the dew from her bare skin. It was cool on her lips, but Abbie was hot. Phoebe had expected Abbie to evaporate like a ghost when touched, but instead she was solid and warm and very alive.

The tall grass shifted. In a trance, Phoebe's mouth closed over one of Abbie's perky, upright nipples, flicking her tongue against it. Abbie sighed, so Phoebe did it again, and then sucked it into her mouth, tasting the hot, soft flesh and inhaling the mingled scents of their two bodies together. Without quite meaning to, she bit down, and Abbie cried out and then slapped her on the back of the head.

"Not so hard, you greedy bitch."

Phoebe broke off, flushing with embarrassment. The night grew cold all of a sudden, and the sound of the horn seemed more ominous. She wanted to leave, but Abbie had her twined in her arms. Their faces were very close together, and Phoebe could taste Abbie's breath on her lips every time she spoke.

"Don't be mad," Abbie said, purring. "We have to go now, or we'll be late."

"Late for what?" said Phoebe.

"Just come on. Don't you want to?" Abbie said. Phoebe was having trouble looking away from the other girl's red, red mouth. "Haven't you always wanted to?"

"Yes..."

"I always knew it. So why wait? Come on and let me show you. Come on..."

They kissed, Abbie's red mouth opening to draw Phoebe in. Phoebe was falling into a bottomless red haze now, enveloped by the heat of the moment when their lips touched. Somewhere in that haze, Phoebe imagined there was another person, very much like herself but also entirely different, who was trying to find her...

Phoebe broke off and backed away. For a second Abbie looked furious. Then her features relaxed into something like indifference. "Be that way, then," she said.

And as suddenly as that, she was gone. Phoebe was alone in the clearing. Or at least, she seemed to be alone; although she couldn't see anyone, she had a feeling like there were dozens of pairs of eyes on her, from somewhere just beyond the trees.

Turning, she ran back to her house and locked the door. The sound of the horn didn't stop for the entire night.

***

When she woke the next morning, Phoebe's first thought was that it had all been real. She expected to roll over and see the burnt out candle on her nightstand and find that her shoes were still covered in mud and grass stains after walking in the pasture.

But there was no candle, and no dirty footprints in the hall. All that had happened was she'd fallen asleep after too much wine and had a weird, inappropriate dream about her ex BFF, and now she would have to hurry if she didn't want to be late for class. That was the full extent of mystery and adventurousness in the life of Phoebe Chandler.