They walked in a daze, in shock, like victims emerging from a violent accident.
“We need to turn back,” Troy said. “I’ve seen enough!”
Ingrid appeared hypnotized. She stumbled ahead. She was hoping that she could help Bridget somehow, that she could change the course of events, but it was futile.
“It’s useless,” Troy insisted, but he couldn’t very well leave her here, so he continued by her side.
On Essex the dark wooden houses stood near one another, but the crowd turned north on Boston Road, where the houses grew farther apart and sparse, giving way to larger estates. They continued walking for about half a mile. Ahead, in the watery morning light, Bridget gazed out, to the right at the fields and orchards and then North River, to the left at the marshland and South River. She avoided looking straight ahead, where towering Gallows Hill came into view. Without noticing, Ingrid grabbed Troy’s arm.
As they made their way up the hill, the cart halted. The ascent was too steep and rocky to go any farther. Bridget was carried off the cart in her chains, then shoved forward and made to walk the rest of the way to the top. The girls and the crowd mocked her as she struggled up the hill.
“I am clear! You are the guilty ones, and you will suffer for this!” Bridget said before she was made to climb the ladder tipped against the oak tree.
The people only jeered and shouted back. The executioner climbed up behind her, then placed the thin white cotton hood over her face. Reverend Parris read aloud about fire and brimstone. There was no pity here.
Ingrid buried her face against Troy, barely able to watch, recalling how the rope had felt around her neck. She recited a calming spell for Bridget. That was all she could do. The girls and the crowd grew incensed and wild. There were cries of triumph and jubilation, but also screams of fear. At the back of the crowd couples kissed and groped at each other when they thought no one was looking. Hysteria. Sex. Death.
The executioner pushed Bridget off the ladder, and she swung forward. She gave a faint yelp, stopped short by the noose, and a dead silence fell over the crowd. The crowd froze as if startled by the horror of the culmination of their actions, as if suddenly aware of the brutal reality.
The only sounds were of Bridget gargling as she dangled, her arms and hands fluttering up and down her body. Beneath the diaphanous hood, Ingrid saw her face contort, her lips swell, her eyes bulge and redden. A trickle of blood seeped through the cloth at her mouth, and she went stiff.
Ingrid turned her head away.
chapter forty-five
The Man in White
It had been a week since their capture. Freya and James had been taken to the Boston prison and placed in separate cells. Freya huddled against a wall, pressing her skirt over her nose and mouth. The overwhelming scent of human waste made it nearly impossible to breathe. She was placed in the cell with women who admitted to covenanting with the devil. By now, many had confessed, having been told that doing so as well as naming other witches would spare them from a hanging.
She hadn’t been there a day and yet it felt like an eternity already. The women who had confessed, unlike those who had clung to their innocence, had not been shaved from head to foot to be searched for witch’s teats. Nor did they wear manacles meant to tether their specters. But like all the prisoners, they had wasted away to skin and bones. Most had bartered their clothes for additional food from the gaoler. They shuffled about in their dirty thin shifts and sat apathetically on the rushes scattered on the stone floor, their eyes large and vacant. Some stood, clasping at the bars, calling out to a husband, child, or friend in another nearby cell.
Freya called to James but there was no answer. She tried again and was ordered to be silent, but regardless of the harsh stares of her companions, Freya kept calling until her voice had turned too hoarse to continue and now she had no energy left.
There were whimpers and whispered prayers all around. The ill cried out in agony. The dying moaned. She closed her eyes, turning her head to the wall. She had been whimpering as well, although she was unaware of it until now. She hushed herself, slowed her breath, and sought to find a silence within.
Someone placed a hand on her shoulder. She jumped. Through a blur of tears, she stared at the woman in the dimness. It took time to parse out her features and recognize them; the woman’s skin, once lovely and creamy brown, was now sallow, dry, ashy. She looked years older, her black hair peppered with gray, her plump pretty face thinned, the spark in her eye extinguished. Dressed in rags, she stared at Freya with crusty, watering eyes.
“Tituba!” Freya whispered. “Why are you here?”
Then she remembered—the girls, the accusations, the trials… it was all happening again. Tituba was one of the first victims.
“I am most sorry!” Tituba rasped. “He came to me! The tall man with the white hat. He gave me a pin to let my blood, and I signed the book. He made me do it… I am most sorry!” There was something crazed in her eye. “The demon had come! He appeared to me—he made me do it!”
The poor woman was terrified of something or someone. Who? Was it Mr. Putnam or the reverend? Who was the tall man in the white hat? Perhaps Tituba had lost her mind.
“Shh! Shh!” said Freya, rocking the woman gently to sleep. She left Tituba lying on the floor.
A feeble light poured into the corridor beyond the bars: the gaoler was coming down with rations of rancid biscuits and water. Freya’s belly grumbled.
Someone called her name, and when she looked through the bars, there was a man standing there. He was in shackles.
“Nate!” she said. “What are you doing here?”
“I helped James get you away, so they’ve charged me with conspiring with a witch.” He bowed his head. “I’m sorry about my uncle—I couldn’t stop him… it was Putnam’s idea from the beginning. He put it in his head. I lent James money and told him to take you as far away from here as possible. I’m sorry, I didn’t know Mercy would find you…”
“You helped us? Why? After what I did to you—when I sent you away,” she said, remembering their previous encounter in a different life.
She had fallen for him when he had called himself Bran Gardiner, but he had betrayed her. It was all a trick to get her to love him, to claim her for his own. But she loved Killian, had chosen him over Bran, as she had in their ancient past. In retaliation Bran had brought death and disease to North Hampton, releasing the doom of the gods, and she had banished him from her heart forever, or so she had believed.
“Isn’t it obvious?” He looked up at her, and she could see him—truly see him—the mischief in his eyes, the affection in them, the wildness that had always drawn her to him… to Loki. “I love you, Freya. I always have and I always will.”
His words stirred the magic inside of her, and somehow, she was out of the ugly, filthy prison, and she was standing in the woods, in the forests of Asgard, at the beginning of time, and she was young and beautiful, and alone. She looked up at the stars, how bright they were, flashing in the darkness, and she was waiting for her love.
There he was, the beautiful boy she had given her heart to. His name was Balder, and this was before, before everything, before the poison, before the breaking of the worlds, before Salem, so long before, when they were just spirits, young, and alive, and immortal, and beautiful.
He kissed her then, and she was all joy, and love, and their clothing fell away, forgotten on the grass, and she wrapped her arms around his strong back, and his mouth was on her breasts, and her hands were on him, and his body was tense, and hot, and they were slippery and ecstatic… and then… in the middle of their lovemaking…
She could feel the eyes on her.
Another pair of eyes.
But they were not eyes of hate, not eyes of jealousy…
But of love.
She opened her eyes and there he was, Loki, standing in the shadows, watching them… as Killian would watch her one day, when Bran took her in his bed… one of them, always in the shadows,
watching, while she was in his brother’s arms…
One of them outside the circle…
While two were joined together…
When it had happened so long ago, during the dawn of the universe, Freya had stopped and screamed, and sent him away, and the poisonous jealousy in his heart had festered, and centuries later Loki would take his revenge… but perhaps… perhaps there was another way… perhaps it could save them even… from this…
She looked deep into Balder’s eyes. “My love… we are not alone,” she said.
Balder continued to kiss her—giving her his blessing, she did not know—but she knew he would not stop her from doing what she must, what she thought might save them all…
She motioned to Loki in the trees. She would take away the hurt in his eyes. She would replace jealousy and anger and centuries of ruin and revenge with love. She was love. She was love. She was love. She loved him. She had always loved him. She put out her hand and motioned to him. “My love,” she called. “Join us…”
chapter forty-six
Down the Rabbit Hole
They had left the way station a long time ago and had already passed several levels of Limbo, but Freddie could no longer recall how many, exactly. The geography of Helheim had eluded him even as a resident. All he knew was that they were way down below, and it was getting colder by the second. He shivered in the cold damp of the stairwell, tugging the hood of his gray sweatshirt over his head. The pixies followed him down the endless flights, grumbling all the way.
Lights buzzed, flickering off and on. Water trickled along the puckering orange-and-yellow trompe l’oeil print of the 1970s wallpaper. Between levels, the stairways changed decor, sometimes lavish but always with a faded kind of splendor—broken chandeliers, dusty candelabras, peeling velvet-flocked wallpaper—suggesting not only a prolonged period of neglect but hardship, even ruination. Most likely, Freddie guessed, this dilapidation had resulted from the destruction of the Bofrir bridge.
He stopped on a landing, turning to the pixies behind him. “Why did you say I wasn’t supposed to make eye contact with Fenja and Menja when we were in the waiting station?”
Kelda grabbed the rusty chrome banister beaded with moisture. She took a breath. “You know what, Freddie, I really think we should go back. Maybe your trident isn’t down there.”
“Yeah,” agreed Nyph. “Let’s go back, you don’t need it anyway.” She hugged her tattered dress, her teeth clattering in an exaggerated way. “We aren’t properly dressed. It’s freezing. We really should go back.”
Irdick swiftly slid down the banister while Sven hopped onto the landing. “Stop your kvetching! We’re almost there. It’s just a few more levels down,” Sven said.
“We’ve come this far,” said Freddie. “They’re right.” He looked at the girls empathetically and shrugged.
The girls glowered at Sven and Irdick, then turned to each other, sighing helplessly. Kelda took off her jacket, offering it to Nyph, who donned it.
“I still want to know why we aren’t supposed to make eye contact,” Freddie said.
Sven gave Freddie a little shove toward the steps. “Cui bono? It’s nothing. Keep going.”
“Excuse me?” Freddie was ready to smack Sven right then.
Irdick righted the hat on his head. “If Fenja and Menja made eye contact with you, they would have fallen in love. That’s all. You’d have two sister snow giants at each other’s throats, fighting for your attention.”
“Not fun, not good,” concluded Sven. “Now let’s go!”
They continued downward, and it became even colder and darker.
chapter forty-seven
Appointment with Death
So this was death. It wasn’t terrible really, just sort of gray and dim, like she had stepped into an old black-and-white movie. She had died in mid-world and had awoken in the twilight of the glom. A fan whirred noisily, barely stirring the stagnant air. It had taken Joanna hours to get to this particular waiting room, one of many inside her sister Helda’s byzantine offices, housed in an unremarkable gray skyscraper in Tartarus, the capital of Hell. Helda’s trolls had ostensibly sent Joanna on a wild-goose chase throughout the building. But this time, having arrived on the top floor, Joanna glimpsed the plaque on the receptionist’s desk and believed she had finally gotten much closer to finding her sister.
The plaque read MRS. DELILAH DELAY. Joanna was familiar with the name. She was looking at Helda’s personal messenger of death, but scarcely had she begun addressing the woman, when she found herself in a heated argument. Mrs. Delay now glared at her from behind thick, bleary cat-eyed glasses with dull rhinestones. Joanna glared wordlessly back. A staring contest had begun during which Joanna became all too aware of an unpleasant odor.
When she had first approached Mrs. Delay, she had gleaned from her desk that the receptionist was on a strange mono-food diet. Among the towers of folders and papers sat stacks of cans, each with a plain white label that said all of two words in black: TUNA FISH.
“Yes?” said Mrs. Delay, continuing to leer at her from above her glasses.
“I said, ‘I am Joanna Beauchamp!’ ”
Mrs. Delay harrumphed vociferously. “I know.”
“Otherwise known as Skadi… Helda’s sister?”
“Name-dropping isn’t going to help you, ma’am.” Mrs. Delay ploddingly grabbed a folder, opened it, then began running a pudgy finger along its lines.
“I want an appointment with my sister!”
It was clear Mrs. Delay was losing her patience because she then spoke as slowly as one could: “I’ve already told you, I can only give you an appointment with Helda’s receptionist.”
Now they were going in circles. “But you are Helda’s receptionist!”
Mrs. Delay took a deep breath, then a long exhale. “I am the receptionist to the receptionist of Helda.”
“No, you’re not!” said Joanna.
Here Mrs. Delay glared at her, but Joanna could tell the woman was laughing on the inside. It wasn’t funny. The receptionist searched for something on her cluttered desk. “Just have a seat. Someone will be with you shortly.”
Joanna knew what shortly meant in the eternal dwelling place, and it certainly did not mean soon. She glowered at the woman.
“We have a lot of work here, ma’am, and believe it or not, we’re understaffed.” With her long, glossy black Goth nails, Mrs. Delay excavated a grimy can opener from beneath a pile of magazines.
Joanna thought it best to try another tack—perhaps some friendly conversation might loosen up this Mrs. Delay. “I just have one more question… well, a rather silly one if you don’t mind?”
The matronly emissary of death peered up at her without expression. “Yes?” she droned.
Joanna playfully looked at her sideways with a smile. “On my way over, in the square, I couldn’t help but notice that some festive preparations were under way. Could you possibly tell me about the upcoming fete?” She didn’t want to insult this woman’s city, but it would have been more apropos to say gloomy preparations, because everything in the glom, the twilight world, had a glum air. It would, however, be impolite to suggest this. In the square, trolls were stringing up garlands of desiccated flowers and dim twinkling lights in the black trees around the wading pond, where a lone black swan floated sullenly on the water. Pavilions as well as a fancy gazebo were also being erected.
Mrs. Delay gave another tuna-scented sigh. “This isn’t the tourism office. For that, you’ll have to go downstairs to the sixth floor, but then you’ll have to go through whatever rigmarole you went through to get here again. And I’m being kind by even telling you that.” She worked on opening a can of tuna, a challenge with her long nails.
“Yes, you are,” Joanna acknowledged. “I certainly don’t want to go through all that. Very nice of you!” She gave a languid smile. “Oh, come on, Mrs. Delay… Can’t you tell me?”
She gave another sigh. “Will you leave me alone if I do???
?
Joanna promised she would. She could tell the woman just wanted to eat her tuna fish lunch in peace.
Mrs. Delay swiveled around in her squeaky chair. Everyone in the cubicles behind her seemed to be minding their own business, clacking away on keyboards. She leaned forward, her large bosom pressing into the papers on her desk as she whispered, “Those preparations are for the arrival of the goddess of love.”
It took a little while for this to sink in. Then Joanna could see it dawn on Mrs. Delay that she realized she had just made a gross blunder. No, Mrs. Delay shouldn’t have told Joanna that the upcoming fete was for welcoming her daughter Freya to the underworld.
Joanna’s face turned scarlet. “I want to speak with my sister now!”
chapter forty-eight
Alpha Girls
At the crack of dawn on the Monday following Bridget Bishop’s hanging, a small horse-drawn carriage carried Ingrid and Troy from the port of Salem Town to Salem Village. They bumped along the road, Troy at the reins, their chestnut stallion, Courage, moving headlong at a gallop. Ingrid’s cape flew in the wind. The light grew brighter, the sky bluer as the sun rose higher.
It had taken too long to get a fair price for Troy’s gold and buy Courage and the carriage. The townspeople had sent them from one shady person to the next. Finally they had come across an honest man, a spice merchant with a gold tooth, who had warned them to stay as far away from the backward village as they could.
Ingrid glanced at Troy, who was still pale looking. Bridget’s hanging had shaken them to the core, had brought back their recollections of this terrible time—and now Freya was cursed to endure the same fate at the noose’s end unless they could find her. The horse unexpectedly drew to a halt.
Troy shook the reins but Courage let out a sigh, refusing to go any farther.