Page 58 of The Witch

The dark holes where his eyes should be seem to burn into me. It takes a great deal of effort not to cry out. Never have I been so close to a man who brims with malice the way Jonas Reeve does. Though he has not moved from where he stands in his cell, his hands still gripping the iron bars, I can imagine those hands closing around my throat, cutting off my air.

It is so easy to imagine, it is as if it is really happening. My throat starts to close, and I feel a surge of panic.

“Do you understand?” he says.

I try to speak, but I cannot take in any air. He is somehow choking me, even though I can see with my own eyes that his hands are still on the bars of his cell.

“Do you understand, Mistress Eldridge?”

There is a maddening patience in his voice, as if he will stand there the rest of the night, hypnotizing me with his eyes, asking the question over and over until I tell him what he expects to hear.

“I understand,” I gasp.

“Good.”

Satisfied, he turns away from me and goes back to his task.

I will not tell Deputy Strickland what he has been trying to do. It will not matter anyway. He will not escape from this jailhouse by hitting the stone floor with his boot buckle. That is even more preposterous than believing I am a witch.

42

PRESENT DAY

JULIA

Especially after the debacle with my grandmother’s keys, there is no way I can invite a ghost hunter to Pemberton without talking to Ethel about it.

I broach the topic after dinner that night. I help her clear the table, and before she can stop me, I start soaping up the dishes. I tried doing the dishes the first night I was here and Ethel shooed me away, claiming they needed to soak, but this time I stand my ground. After seeing the state of the dishes in the cabinets, I can safely say that the soaking technique is not effective.

“You don’t need to wash the dishes,” Ethel insists. “You’re a guest.”

“Well,” I say, “you’re doing all the cooking, and I want to express my gratitude. I can do the dishes every night after we finish eating.”

“Thank you,” she says, sounding slightly perplexed but not entirely ungrateful.

I think again about her pregnancy all those years ago. I wonder if she thinks about the baby. I’ve never heard so much as a whisper about an illegitimate child in our family, so whatever happened, they certainly did a good job covering it up.

I want to ask her about it, but I suspect that after all these years, it’s the last thing she wants to discuss. Besides, I stayed in the kitchen for one very specific reason, and it has nothing to do with Ethel’s child.

“Listen.” I soap up the sauté pan with scalding-hot water. “I wanted to talk to you about some of the things I’ve been seeing at Pemberton.”

Ethel leans her elbow on the kitchen table beside me. “What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean.”

A ghost of a smile touches her lips. “You mean Caroline.”

I inhale sharply. “I have to admit, some strange things have been happening in this house.”

“Strange things have always happened in this house. You know that.”

It’s such a relief to finally be able to discuss these things after so many years. When I was a child, everyone insisted my paranormal experience was due to an overactive imagination. But Ethel wasn’t around back then, and she seems to have different ideas about the existence of the supernatural than my parents did.

“So, here’s the thing…” I rinse off the pan and place it in the drying rack. “I was hoping to get another opinion about Caroline.”

“Another opinion?”

I take a deep breath, not sure how she is going to handle this next revelation. “I’d like to hire someone who specializes in…you know, the supernatural.”