Chapter 20

By the time I reach the cemetery, I’ve nearly forgotten why I came. The past is a bit fuzzy in my head. When I went to bed last night, I remember I wanted to get away from the dorm, from Beatrix and Julia, but now that it’s morning, I’m not exactly certain why.

My feet take me to the caretaker’s building before I make the conscious decision to see Trey. Is it too early for him to be here? Or is he at school? I realize I don’t know anything about him besides his name.

No. No. I’m not here for Trey. I’m here for Abigail, my long-lost ancestor who may or may not have been a shifter like me.

She was.

I’m careful this time to open the iron gate to the small graveyard, to be respectful of the dead below. I tread lightly on the grass but, as before, my duck shoes don’t leave any sort of impression behind.

I kneel beside Abigail’s grave and place my hand on her tombstone.

“Hello, Abigail. Remember me?”

What’s hidden in the earth below? What secrets did Abigail Sweet know? Why was she buried in this separate cemetery?

Do they have anything to do with me or my mother?

And then I remember the photo in my backpack. I take it out and hold it up to Abigail’s engraved name.

“Evie, meet Abby. Abby, Evie.”

The way I position the picture, it appears as if my mother’s raised hands are defending her against Abigail Sweet.

I laugh. I feel silly. Naïve. A little bit loopy. Maybe I should have stopped for coffee before I came out here. Then again, maybe if I had, I wouldn’t be here right now.

I hear the sound of a body moving behind me, of footsteps coming closer, and I turn, not at all surprised to see Trey approach. He’s wearing his Carhartt jacket again today, over a heather grey sweater and jeans.

“Kinda early to be sitting in a graveyard, don’t you think?”

“I didn’t realize there was a right time for that kind of thing.”

“Most people want a lot of sunlight when they’re wandering around dead people.”

“Well, then I’d be waiting forever in this town.”

Trey acknowledges just how right I am with a grin and a nod. “So…”

“So…”

In the wan blue light of the morning, and a thick cloud cover overhead, Trey looks even more like the caretaker of a cemetery: pale and a little sickly, like one of the dead himself.

But he’s still really cute.

As I watch him, Trey nervously shifts his gaze to the tombstone and his eyes register confusion.

“What.”

He points at the photo in my hand. “Where did you get a picture of Constance Meriwether?”

I glance at the picture – could it have shifted? – but it’s still my mother. “This is Evangeline Bellflower, my mom. Who’s Constance…what?”

“Constance Meriwether. She’s Abigail Sweet’s mother. She looks just like that.”

Now I’m confused. “What are you talking about?” I turn the photo in my hand.

Trey thumps the side of his head with his palm. “Duh, of course you can’t have a photograph of her. She died three hundred years ago.” He rolls his eyes as if he should have known better. “No cameras back then. Who is this again?”

I hand him the picture. “Evie Bellflower.”

Trey studies the photo and a smile curls his lips. “She’s pretty hot. Does she still look this good?”

I take the picture back and avoid meeting Trey’s eyes. “I have no idea.”

“Well, uh, she looks just like Constance Meriwether,” he says. “I mean, she looks like her portrait.”

“Does this mean you found out more about my family?”

Trey’s grin grows bigger, brighter, prouder. “Come on in and I’ll show you.”

As we walk back to the office, Trey assesses me with a sideways glance. “You okay? You look kinda out of it.”

My hand immediately goes to my face and I wonder if anything has changed there but I don’t feel different. “I guess I have a lot on my mind,” I tell him.

What an understatement! The hazing, the shifting, Fiona, Beatrix…what am I not preoccupied with this morning?

Trey nods in sympathy, even if he doesn’t entirely understand. When we arrive at the building, he holds open the door and the smell of strong black coffee overwhelms me. Thank god I’m not in the shift or else I might have keeled over from the aroma.

“You want a cup?” Trey asks me. I can’t immediately see a coffee pot but I know it must be here somewhere.

“Yes, yes. Please!”

Trey moves a stack of papers, revealing the French press on his desk. He presses the plunger slowly and steadily, through the water, until all of the grounds – well, most of them – are at the bottom of the glass carafe.

“Ooh, la la,” I say. “Pretty fancy shmancy for a cemetery.”

Trey shrugs but a blush rises to his cheeks. “It’s really pretty simple, actually. And it makes good coffee.” He pours some into two ceramic mugs and hands me one.

“No cream or sugar?”

“You wuss,” he says, as he slugs back a mouthful. “Ahh, perfect.”

I take a tentative sip. I don’t drink black coffee; I like it sweet and milky, like melted coffee ice cream. But this is excellent – and incredibly strong. It’s like chewing coffee beans and absorbing the caffeine directly into my veins. Every muscle and nerve awaken simultaneously. I knock back half the cup before I speak again.

“Holy crap, Trey.”

He smiles, pleased with himself. “More?”

I hold out my mug. “Yes, thanks.”

We sit in a relaxed and comfortable silence for another couple of minutes, drinking our coffee. Soon, I feel warmed from the inside out and loosen the scarf around my neck.

“You live around here?” I ask Trey.

He nods and points toward the door. “Not far.”

“Close enough in case any dead rise from their graves?”

He thinks for a moment, very serious. “Well, if zombies are attacking, I could probably get here before they eat your brains, but they might nibble on your face a bit.”

We both laugh. I appreciate a guy who can make zombie jokes.

“Are you the only caretaker?”

“It’s me and my dad. But Dad had an accident a few months ago so I’m by myself until he gets better.”

“Oh.”

“Not a big deal.” When Trey shrugs into his coffee I can tell it is a big deal but if he doesn’t want to elaborate…well, we each have our own parental issues, don’t we?

“You don’t go to school?”

“I graduated last year,” he says. “DCHS, the public school.” He grins at me, under a cocked eyebrow. “I’m a townie.”

I laugh. “Me too. I mean, I used to be. When I went to Catholic school.”

He makes a face. “Catholic school? Did the penguins hit you on the back of your hand with a ruler when you did something wrong?”

“Corporal punishment is so last century,” I say with a scowl. “Sisters of Mercy was much more progressive than that.”

“Sisters of Mercy?” Trey throws back his head and laughs for such a long time I have to actually snap my fingers to get his attention back. “Oh man, that’s priceless. Hey, did you have school uniforms?”

I nod.

“Yeah? The plaid kilts and knee socks?”

I nod again.

And now he looks a lot more interested. “I wish I could have seen you in that. You still have it at home?” He wiggles his eyebrows in what he no doubt thinks is a sexy manner but honestly, it just looks campy.

“All right, get your mind out of the gutter.”

“Wear it next time you visit me. Please?”

“Stop.” But I add a smile because, well, yeah, he’s still kind of cute, even if he is lacking in social charms. “Your research? What did you find out about Abigail?”

Trey loses the silly grin and gets down to business. Pushing aside some of the papers and the French press, he locates a stack of notebooks, leather and canvas covered journals like the plum one he showed me the other day.

“I went through my grandpa’s drawer and found these.” He offers me one. “They’re filled with letters and copies of newspaper articles and pages from books.”

I carefully open the front flap of a scuffed brown leather notebook. As with the other book, this one’s pages are thick and cream-colored, like heavy vellum. Tucked tightly inside are scraps of paper, some Xerox copies, others originals. I use the merest tip of my fingernail to pull one out and hold it up to the light. The typeface looks smudged in places, the letters in many different fonts from one paragraph to the next.

'Account of James Pettigrew of in the Matter of Mary Easty…Accused is suspected of Witchcraft in cruelly torturing & Afflickting several Children…'

I look up at Trey. “Salem? As in the Salem Witch Trials?”

Trey nods. “Demented Danny was kind of a witch aficionado.” He holds up a notebook and shakes it. “Every one of these is filled with deceit, devilry, and death.”

“You just come up with that?”

Trey smiles sheepishly. “Nah, that’s a Dannyism.”

“Brilliant.” I flip to another page and find this:

'After several questions propounded and negative answ'rs Returned

'she at last acknowledged that Goody Johnson made her a witch, And 'sometime last she made a red mark in the devils book with the 'fore finger of her Left hand…'

Oh, god. If I look hard enough and long enough, will I find something in here about Abigail Sweet? Will I see an Account of Witchcraft in her name? Will some Poor Soul accuse her of making them do the Devil’s Work?

I can feel my heart beat faster as I turn the pages, scanning the broken script for her name.

Bridget Bishop…Mary Barker…Rose Foster…Martha Sprague…

“Is she here?” I ask Trey quietly, as if a raised voice might disturb the contents of the notebooks.

“Not Abigail,” he says. “Constance.”

“You mentioned her before. Who is she?”

“Abigail’s mother.” Trey holds up a photocopy of a pen and ink sketch of a young woman standing on a slightly-raised platform in what looks to be a church or a courtroom. She wears a white apron over her floor-length skirt and her head is wrapped in a dark scarf. Her hands are clasped in prayer – or supplication. She looks like she’s pleading the stern-faced men surrounding her for something…

Her life?

“Is this what I think it is?”

Trey looks over my shoulder, as if he needs to remind himself of what he gave me. “'Constance Meriwether was accused of witchcraft in 1692 and sentenced to death by hanging.'”

I bring the picture in for a closer inspection. I can understand Trey’s initial surprise when he saw my photo of Evangeline: the woman does bear a striking resemblance to my mother, with her round face and high cheekbones, her well-defined chin and wide-set eyes. It’s sort of eerie how much alike they appear to be. I wonder what shade of brown her hair is beneath that scarf, what color Constance’s eyes are.

And what of her daughter, Abigail? If Constance looks like Evie, does she look like me?

Beneath the photo is a handwritten note in a sharply-slanting script, what I presume to be Grandpa Danny’s writing.

'C. Meriwether on trial, Salem Village, 23 May 1692.'

“So Abigail’s mother is my…”

“Yes, you are related. I don’t know how many great’s it is. I’d have to count, starting with Constance and then, let’s see, Abigail and then her daughter…”

While Trey talks, I turn the page over, hoping for another picture, another description, something that gives me a better explanation of why my ancestor is on trial for witchcraft. Nothing. Trey’s grandfather has taken copious notes on the trials, on various women and men accused of 'feloniously & maliciously practising witchcraft.'

So many names, so many accusers, so many accounts of possession and torment and acts of torture upon the 'Fine Citizens of Salem Village in the County of Essex.'

And what exactly were these acts of so-called witchcraft and devilry?

'Samuell Gray of Salem Aged about 42 years Testifieth and say that he going to bed well one Lords Day at night, and after he had been asleep some time, he wakened & looking up, saw the house light as if a candle or candles were lighted in it and the dore locked & that little fire there, was Raked up he did then see a woman standing between the Cradle in the Roome and the Bed side and seemed to look upon him soe he did Rise up in his bed and it vanished or disappeared then he went to the dore and found it locked.'

And another account:

'Some little time after which, I going well to bed; about the dead of the night felt a great weight upon my Breast and awakening looked and it being bright moon; light did clearly see s'd Bridget Bushop -- or her likeness sitting upon my stomach and puting my Armes of of the bed to free myself from that great oppression she presently lay hold of my throat and all most Choked mee and I had noe strenth or power in my hands to resist or help my selfe.'

“These are obviously people who were sleepwalking or dreaming or having nightmares or something,” I say, interrupting Trey’s stream of ancestral consciousness. “They’re all waking up in the middle of the night and seeing things.”

And then I find it, another image of young Constance, and a gasp escapes me.

“Oh my god…”

In this drawing of Constance; half of her face looks like her own while the other half is an old woman with stringy hair and sunken eyes, deep wrinkles across half of her forehead, and withered lips.

She was a shifter.

Like me.

Someone must have seen her shifting, must have watched her become someone else, and naturally frightened, accused her of being a witch. Her accuser must have described the process to the person who drew this, and however inaccurate it actually is, it has to be a shifting Constance. After all, what else could she be?

I page beyond this picture and find an official account from one of her accusers:

'Susannah Sheldon aged about 18 years who testified and said that on this 2 May 1692 I saw the Apperishtion of Constance M’riweth’r and Immediatly appeared an olde woman and said that she ware my mother who dyed of pox.'

She shifted. She must have touched this Susannah Sheldon, absorbed her, and then perhaps was frightened or upset about something and became the girl’s mother. A simple mistake with monumental consequences.

“Are you okay?” I hear Trey ask me. His voice echoes in my head, so far away.

I stare at Constance’s image and feel like I’m falling, falling, about to plunge headfirst into the 17th Century. Was the shift an accident? Did she understand exactly what was happening to her? Or was it terrifying for both Constance and her accuser?

My palm automatically goes to my neck, feeling the rope burn against my flesh as I imagine how horrible it must have been for her to be hanged, how violent her death must have been. Such cruel people: who was torturing whom?

Thank god we’ve progressed in the centuries since. What might we do to someone like that these days?

I can’t help it; I whimper like a small, frightened animal. I know I should be careful. I know unchecked emotion could turn me into Constance Meriwether.

But god, they would have done that to me too! Her fate could have been mine had I been born three hundred years ago. That could have been me begging for my life to be spared. That could have been my portrait of a shifter.

I feel Trey’s arms around my shoulders, and give him only the slightest resistance when he pulls me closer to him. My head fits so naturally in the crook of his neck, my hands so easily grip his waist. After a few moments like this, I manage to get my act together and stand up straighter.

I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand before I step back from Trey. I’m sure I look like crap, weepy, red-eyed and splotchy-cheeked. Just perfect.

“I’m sorry,” I sort of mumble. But Trey doesn’t look bothered at all.

“For what?”

“Well…” I point at his collar which looks like it’s been sprayed with water.

He shrugs. “It’ll dry. You okay?”

“Oh sure, yeah, of course.” I close the notebook and hand it back to him. “It’s just a little, you know, weird finding out someone you were related to was hanged for being a witch.”

Trey shakes his head. “She wasn’t hanged.”

I feel my eyes widen. “She wasn’t?”

“I don’t think so,” he says. He holds up a list of names, again, in his grandfather’s precise penmanship: men, women, but no Meriwether.

My heart lightens seeing this. “Thank god! But what happened to her?”

“She must have been exonerated.”

“Oh wow. What do you suppose she did after they let her go? I mean, how do you recover after someone accuses you of being a witch?” I feel a giddy laugh bubble up in my chest, the pressure like a cork inside a shaken Champagne bottle, and I need to let it go, need to release it and feel the tension leave my body.

Suddenly, Trey puts one hand on his hip and adopts an effeminate mocking tone. “Oh, Susannah, really, it’s fine. I’m sure you were just hallucinating from all the work we Puritan women do. Why don’t we just have a coffee and call it a wash?”

I snort my approval. “Except the Puritans didn’t drink coffee.”

Trey looks at me, puzzled. “A latte?”

And now the bubble of laughter explodes from the back of my throat and I laugh like I will never find anything funny again.

Trey grins, watching, pleased.

Finally, I catch my breath and point a finger at him. “I thought you were gonna call me when you found something out.”

“Oh yeah,” he says and looks away.

“Oh? That’s all you have to say?” I cross my arms over my chest. “What happened? You lose my number?”

Trey turns his back to me and futzes about with his grandfather’s journals again. Have I struck a nerve? I was only teasing – well, kind of. I guess I thought he liked me. I thought we had connected when we met. Or was that just me?

I don’t know. I don’t know anymore. Apparently I’m a bad judge of everyone and everything. I don’t seem to know who to trust anymore. Maybe Beatrix was right: keep a low profile, stay off the radar, remain invisible.

And as always, thinking of my aunt reminds me of all the things I’m not doing. Like studying or cleaning or meditating or something more meaningful and productive than hanging out in a cemetery with a stranger.

“Well, I guess I better leave,” I say, heading for the door. “Thanks for—”

And as I pass the desk, my eye catches something on one of the pages lying there: a small gold symbol I’ve seen before, two interlocking figure 8’s with an upside-down L.

Now where did I see that before? Think, Calliope, think. On a book, that much I remember. Which class was it? Spanish? Calculus? Was it on one of Bea’s poetry collections?

No, no. And then I remember: it was in Mrs. Gibson’s cramped library on the spines of a trio of canvas-covered books on her shelf.

Trey follows my gaze to the papers on the desk. “Callie?”

“That page. Can I…?”

They’re irreplaceable, I hear in my head when I asked to see the books. Mrs. Gibson with her tight smile saying, You understand, don’t you?

Trey hands me the paper. Like the others, it is thick and stiff and brittle with age, cream-colored though unevenly shaded, handmade. The gold symbol is a stamp. My finger traces the figure 8’s, like a pair of infinities.

Double infinity? Is that even possible, I wonder wildly.

Below the symbol are the words, 'Bell Book & Candle.' And below that, in Grandpa’s writing:

'The true and accurate history of the original Witch Hunters.'

I smile and hold the paper up to Trey. “Is this a joke?”

“Excuse me?”

“This…a history of witch hunters?”

Trey takes the paper from me and turns it over a couple of times. “Looks like Grandpa was writing a book.”

“A book?” I laugh. “About witch hunters?”

Trey’s lips curl. “What’s so funny?”

“Well, first of all, Bell Book & Candle isn’t a witch hunting group,” I say. “It’s a sorority.” I stop. “I probably shouldn’t be telling you this.”

“Why? Is it secret?”

“Yeah, it is.”

Trey rolls his eyes. “Look around you, Callie. Who am I gonna tell?”

“I guess. Okay.” I give him the shortened version of my pledge story, conveniently leaving out any sort of shifting activity, cop interference, and jumps from a second story window. Which leaves Mrs. Gibson and her genealogy books.

“You don’t think there’s a connection, do you?” I ask him. “Two groups with the same name?”

Trey shakes his head, which is comforting. “I’m sure there are lots of things with that same name.”

“There’s a movie!”

“Yeah, and it’s a really old phrase, from the ninth century, something related to the Catholic Church, I think.” Trey frowns, dismissively. “I highly doubt your sorority and this group have anything in common at all. But I guess if you really want to know, you should probably ask that librarian of yours, the one with the books.”

“I could do that.”

Trey eyes me, curiously. “You really want to join a sorority?”

“Well, yeah, wouldn’t you?”

“And hang out with a bunch of hot senior girls? That’s a definite yes.”

I laugh. “If it were a fraternity, I mean. Duh.”

I watch Trey consider the question and his expression turns thoughtful. “Probably not. Groups like that are so exclusionary, you know? They’d rather keep people out than bring them in.”

“Well, okay, I guess…” He is kind of right, now that I think of it that way. Even though they invited me, Julia and Fiona and even Mrs. Gibson have been so intent on uncovering or eliminating reasons why I shouldn’t join: my family tree was traced for the sole purpose of uncovering skeletons that could embarrass the group.

And yet…they want me. This prestigious, secretive group wants Calliope Bellflower to be a member. As Julia said, the genealogy report was simply a routine procedure. If having someone like Abigail Sweet in my lineage was a deal breaker, they never would have hazed me, however badly it ended up.

No, I’m certain there’s no connection between the two groups.

“I’m good with what I’m doing, thanks,” I tell Trey with as much confidence as I can muster. To wit, I zip up the front of my jacket and shove my hands in my pockets.

“You know that old Groucho Marx joke?” Trey asks me and I shake my head. I couldn’t pick Groucho Marx out of a lineup with a gun to my head. “I wouldn’t want to join any club that would have me as a member,” Trey says in a nasally voice and then he taps an imaginary cigar in the air.

It’s not funny; in fact, it’s kind of a lame joke and I don’t really understand what the cigar has to do with anything. But I laugh anyway. There’s something about Trey that’s generous and self-effacing. That he would willingly look silly just to get me to smile is…sweet.

“All right, I’ll talk to Mrs. Gibson.” I guess it can’t hurt. She’ll probably tell me I’m crazy – or more likely, she’ll use some polysyllabic library word – and send me to my dorm and that will be that. “And now, I must be going.”

Trey’s eyes widen slightly and then he roars with laughter.

“What’s so funny?”

“You just did Groucho.”

“I what?”

Trey sort of shrugs. “Not exactly but close enough.”

“I did?” That’s weird but whatever. I hustle my butt to the door before I miss my bus back to Darby Prep. And then a thought occurs to me. “Hey, Trey?”

“Hmm?”

“You think I could talk to your grandfather sometime?”

“Yeah well…” Trey looks down at the ground. “He passed away.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. God, really sorry.”

When Trey looks up at me, his mouth is set in a tight line and he blinks quickly. “Thanks,” he says with a curt nod. “He was a good guy.”

I don’t know what to say. The pain on Trey’s face seems so fresh and raw and I wonder how recently Grandpa Danny died. I reach a hand to him and place it on his shoulder. His collar is still wet from my tears.

Trey’s smile is grateful, as if I’ve done him a huge favor by acknowledging his granddad, and I pull my hand back, feeling suddenly awkward. I’ve known Trey for such a short time yet we accelerated our friendship just by revealing these small things about our families.

Our past really is ourselves, isn’t it? It makes us who we are, gives insight to who we can be, who we will be. Mrs. Gibson was right.

“I gotta go,” I say softly. “Call me?”

Trey nods but his eyes aren’t so certain. He looks so lonely, all by himself in this crummy building. What is his alternative, I wonder, where could he go? He must have friends, family, hobbies that don’t involve tombstones and cemetery lawns. I wish I could stay with him, keep him company, but I do have to get back to my real life.

I raise my hand in a wave and head out for the bus.