Harriett led Nessa along a path that wound through the garden. Raised beds radiated in a spiral around a giant mound in the center of what had once been the lawn. Nessa wondered if it might be some sort of ritual altar.
“That’s where I perform the human sacrifices,” Harriett said, as though she’d been reading Nessa’s mind.
Nessa gulped comically and Harriett laughed.
“Kidding,” she said. “It’s a compost pile. Here in my garden, looks are deceiving. You must judge what you see with something other than your eyes.” She stopped by a patch of unimpressive waist-high weeds with toothed leaves. “These, for example, are stinging nettles. The leaves and stems are bristling with thousands of microscopic needles. When you brush against them, they deliver chemicals that cause a painful rash. Yet nettles are one of the most medicinally useful plants in the world. You can use them to treat everything from arthritis to diabetes.” She moved on to a shrub from which plump orange fruit dripped like teardrops. “This is an iboga plant from West Africa. Its extracts are used in other parts of the world to treat opioid addition. They’re illegal here in the United States.” Last, she pointed to a regal plant on the other side of the path, the top of its tall stem crowded with delicate purple flowers. “And that is a species of aconite, also known as monkshood or wolfsbane. Every part of it is highly toxic. Touching it will turn your fingers numb. Eat even the smallest bit, and you’ll suffocate on your own vomit. Growing beside it is holy basil, which has been used as a medicine for two millennia.”
Nessa looked around. There had to be thousands of different species planted in Harriett’s garden. “What do you plan to do with all of this?” she asked.
Harriett pondered the question as though it had never occurred to her. “Make things for those who have need of them, I suppose.”
“Or use them to punish men like Brendon Baker?” Nessa asked.
Harriett’s smile spread across her face, revealing a rather large gap between her two front teeth. “Perhaps,” she said.
“He deserved what he got. He’s not a good man.”
Harriett shrugged. “Good, bad—they’re mostly meaningless concepts. Baker is a pest,” she said. “I should have done worse. I guess I always still could.”
Nessa sensed the opportunity to get to the reason for her visit. “I met a woman like you when I was little.”
“You don’t say?” Harriett’s smile gave nothing away. “What kind of woman would that be?” She seemed to be daring Nessa to call her a witch. Nessa knew she needed to choose her words carefully.
“Her name was Miss Ella. She lived near my family down in South Carolina. My grandmother told me she’d worked as a librarian for thirty-five years. Then one day, Miss Ella left her husband and moved out of town and into her grandfather’s old shack in the middle of the swamp. The only things she took with her were her books. She taught herself how to make nature do her bidding. They said she could heal or kill depending on which mood struck her. An uncle of mine swore he’d once spied on Miss Ella talking to snakes.”
“I’ve never tried talking to a snake before,” Harriett said. The idea seemed to appeal to her.
“The point is, Miss Ella and my grandmother worked together sometimes. On projects, you might say. I was hoping you and I might do the same.”
“You have a project for me?” Harriett asked.
“There’s a dead girl down by the ocean who needs our help. She’s been calling to me, and she won’t be found unless I go look for her.” Nessa stopped and sighed. She’d never told anyone outside her family about the gift. She hadn’t even been able to confess to Jo. “I’m sorry. Does this all sound crazy?”
Nessa waited for Harriett’s reply. The woman had absorbed the information with no sign of incredulousness. Nessa had anticipated some healthy skepticism. But maybe it all seemed perfectly normal to a witch who preferred to do her gardening in the nude.
“If the dead girl’s been calling to you, why haven’t you gone to her?”
Nessa had wondered the same thing. She gave Harriett the only answer she’d found. “The gift wanted me to find you first. I think the situation might end up being dangerous. I was sent to another woman before you—one with powerful energy. I think she’ll be able to protect us.”
“So you’ll find the body. She’ll make use of her powerful energy. And what will I do?” Harriett asked.
“You’ll punish whoever’s responsible for killing the girl.”
Harriett nodded as if that was all very acceptable. “When can we start?” she asked.
“First thing tomorrow morning,” Nessa said.
Josephine Levison’s Thirty-Year War
Jo ran five miles every morning, regardless of the weather. She took a different route each day, and over the course of a month, she’d travel most of the roads in town. Only when the ground was covered in snow would she resort to a treadmill. She needed the run to remind her of what she could do. And she wanted Mattauk to see what she’d become.
She’d grown up in town, the daughter of the town’s optometrist. Back then, Mattauk’s loops, squares, and cul-de-sacs had felt like a maze—one Jo was seldom allowed to explore. Her childhood memories all seemed to take place in the same cramped corner on which the old family home sat. That was the one intersection in town Jo did her best to avoid. The moment the brick Tudor came into view, the air would grow close and her claustrophobia would kick in. Jo waited eighteen years to get out of that house, watching silently, teeth gritted, as her three older brothers escaped one by one. Back then, she would have thrown herself into the sound if she’d known she would one day return to Mattauk to spawn.
Jo wondered if any of her neighbors still thought of her as the girl she’d been—the quiet redhead with the prissy, overbearing mother. The girl whose mom chose her clothes and wrote notes to excuse her from gym class. The girl the kids in ninth grade had called Carrie.
Like being the smelly kid or the kid with home-cut hair, it wasn’t the kind of thing you ever really lived down. Jo had carried the humiliation with her for thirty-three years. It was finally something she felt like she owned.
The first time a kid in high school called her Carrie, she hadn’t understood. It seemed perfectly plausible that the boy who’d whispered it had simply forgotten her name. Jo had never called attention to herself. She’d discovered early on that if you stayed still and silent, people often forgot you were there. With a mother like hers, that seemed the right strategy; every movement called attention to a flaw to be fixed. Eventually, Jo was certain, she’d follow her brothers to freedom. Until then, she did her best to fly under the radar.
And then one day, everyone in school was staring straight at her.