“I don’t suppose you have rum?” Pete asked.
She glared at him.
He didn’t seem to notice her glare. He was still smiling, borderline delirious with joy as his eyes — actually,eye, singular, seeing as the other one was concealed behind a black patch — scanned her face. “You know, lass, I’ve sailed the seven seas, traipsed lands far and wide across this world, and never seen a beauty like yours.”
Hetti’s eyes narrowed. “Far and wide?Aren’t you from Peabody?”
Pete, to his credit, ignored this. “I may be but a poor sea dog, but I swear I’d face down the kraken for a chance to take you on a sunset sail. Savvy?”
“Pass.”
Pete’s expression crumpled a bit at her instant rejection. “Has another already laid claim to your heart? Tell me the scurvy dog’s name! I’ll cleave him to the brisket! Let him face me like a man, or walk the plank like a lily-livered coward!”
“Dude.” Hetti’s eyes flashed up and down, from his drooping eyepatch to the fake wooden leg fashioned over his pants. “I don’t wantanythingto do with your plank.”
The very picture of heartbreak, Pete glanced at me and shook his head slowly back and forth. “Bloody wenches. Can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em.”
Oh no.
Calling any woman a wench was a bad idea. Calling a woman like my barista a wench? That could prove catastrophic.
As predicted, Hetti’s throat loosed a low rattle. Fearing she might launch herself across the espresso bar and unleash her deep well of pent-up feminine rage on the pirate, I chose this moment to wade into the conversation.
“What’s that you’ve got there, Pete?” I asked, eyeing the stack of glossy pamphlets in his spindly arms.
“Ah! Right. When our bows last crossed, you said to bring some vouchers by. Half-off admittance at the museum.” He shrugged and set them down on the counter. “I’m hoping they’re enough to turn the tides. Blimey, business is sinking so fast, we’ll soon be fish food.”
I took the vouchers, with promises to pass them out to all our future customers, and waved off a dejected Pete as he moped to the exit. With one final longing glance at Hetti, he disappeared.
“You know, you could do worse,” I told her when he was gone. “He’s a nice guy, if you can get past the whole Jack Sparrow bit. I wonder if he stays in character in bed…”
“Shut up!” she snarled.
“What? I’m genuinely curious.” My lips twitched as I attempted to suppress my laughter. “Honestly, Hetti… do you think he screams ‘yo-ho-ho’when he comes?”
On the nearby sofa, the twins both chuckled.
My barista was not as amused. Based on the answering glare she shot at me, I was grateful looks could not, in fact, kill. Because if they could, I’d be on the floor bleeding out.
* * *
It wasn’tuntil we closed for business that I had a chance to look at Peg-Leg Pete’s pamphlets. I’d passed out a handful to our final customers of the day and was stacking the remaining glossy tri-folds back into an orderly pile — I was on counter cleanup while Hetti handled the high top tables — when curiosity tugged at me. I grabbed the top pamphlet and peeked at the contents. They were surprisingly high quality, with pictures of the museum’s attractions inside, along with the words WITCH CITY’S ORIGINAL PIRATE MUSEUM in old-timey red font across the front. A small perforated admittance coupon tore away from the bottom section. A full color map of Salem took up the entirety of the back panel. On the location of the museum, there was a bright red X, accompanied by the words “X marks the spot!”
I’d nearly set the pamphlet back down on the stack when my hand froze midair. My eyes bored into the map as something deep in the recesses of my brain clicked into place.
X marks the spot.
Not taking my gaze off the map, I reached blindly for a marker in the container by the cash register. Slowly, as though my hand didn’t even belong to me, I began to draw them. A series of Xs, scattered all across town. One at the dog park. One at Palmer Cove. One at Gallows Hill. One at Bertram Field. One at the alleyway behind my shop. All the animal sacrifices, dotted randomly across Salem.
But it wasn’t so random. Not anymore. Not now that I could see the pattern — one I’d missed before, one I hadn’t known to look for. My hand shook a bit as I drew a series of lines to connect the X’s, dragging the tip of the marker on a diagonal slant up, then down, then up, then across, until I’d formed the shape of a star. I nearly chewed through my bottom lip as I finished the symbol, looping my pen in a perfect oval, enclosing the shape I’d drawn.
A star within a circle.
A pentagram.
A perfect pentagram, interposed on the city.
Hellfire.