“Poppycock,” Agatha declared.
“The legend or my meld?” Flo asked.
Agatha sighed. “Both, dear.”
“Stories like that are what give real witches a bad reputation.” Sally shook her head. “People shouldn’t spread them around.”
“Tell that to the kids in my second-grade class.” Florence abandoned her cards, admitting defeat against Agatha, and wandered over to join the conversation. “They’ve all got the rhyme memorized. Recess is like one long spoken-word performance. Come to think of it, Georgia, your Rory is always the ringleader—” Flo froze, realizing what she’d said. “Oh, god. I’m sorry. I didn’t think…”
We all held our breath.
Gigi managed a tremulous smile. “It’s okay. Really. I like talking about him. It’s better than people avoiding the subject, acting like he never existed.” She took a shaky breath. “Declan taught him the story a few months ago. For weeks, the two of them would sit up in bed way past their curfew, holding flashlights under their chins, telling it over and over again. Giggling up a storm. I used to burst into their room, yelling at them to shut the lights and get to sleep.” Her posture crumpled inward. “If I could go back… I’d give anything to be lying in my bed, listening to them laugh through the wall.”
My heart gave a sympathetic pang.
Florence came unstuck from her spot in the middle of the kitchen. Moving to Georgia’s side, she slung an arm around her slim shoulders and hugged her tight.
“Rory will be back in his bed, safe and sound and driving you crazy, before you know it,” she said. “You just have to hold on a little longer.”
Gigi nodded. But, looking at the defeated slump of her shoulders, I wondered how much more she could take before she broke completely.
My thoughts wandered back to the vision I’d had this morning. Back to Declan and his friends in the woods, fighting their fear as they heard the wind howling through the trees and phantom footsteps on the fallen limbs.
“Where did the story come from?” I glanced around the kitchen. “When did it start?
Gwen shrugged. “No idea.”
“I could ask Desmond,” Florence offered. “He’s a big local history buff — it sort of comes with the job description as a professor of New England folklore. If there are real origins to the legend, he’ll probably know.”
“I’m also a big local history buff,” Agatha interjected, shouldering her way up to the counter beside Florence. “It’s called being eighty-one years old and having ears.”
I snorted out a laugh.
Agatha turned her sharp gaze on me. “That urban legend’s been floating around nearly half a century, now. You talk to the locals, they’ll tell you there have been sightings of this so-calledwitchfor years, deep in the woods. Mostly at night. Campsites disturbed, food and supplies gone missing…”
“Ag’s right,” Sally added. “There have been whispers for ages. But it wasn’t until maybe fifteen years ago they gave her that name.The Witch of Salem Wood.Right around the time…” She glanced at Agatha. Her brows went up in silent question.
Agatha nodded in confirmation, then murmured, “Yes. The Thurman girl.”
“I thought so.” Sally shook her head. “Such a shame, what happened. Horrible. Just horrible.”
The Thurman girl. They’d mentioned her once before, during our hair-raising drive to The Banshee. We’d had other priorities at the time — namely, rescuing Georgia from the O’Banion brothers — but now, my interest was piqued.
“What happened to her?” I asked. “Who was she?”
Sally’s eyes shifted to Georgia for a moment. “Maybe it’s better not to talk about this. It might be upsetting.”
We all looked at Gigi.
She sat up straighter on her stool. Her face was set in a stubborn expression. “Tell us. I want to hear.”
“Are you sure?” Sally heaved a sigh when Georgia nodded. “All right, dear. Annie Thurman was the last child who went missing in Salem.”
Every particle of air in the room turned solid with tension.
“Fifteen, maybe twenty years ago,” Sally went on. “She was playing in her backyard on a summer afternoon, then —poof! Gone. Her folks thought she’d wandered off to play with her friend down the street. Until night fell. She never came home.”
“A five-year-old girl, gone without a trace. The whole town was in an uproar, as you can imagine,” Agatha added, getting in on the story. “Search parties organized, flyers posted on street lamps. Police going door to door, neighbors searching their yard sheds and swimming pools.”