For the past few weeks, there had always seemed to be someone knocking on Harriett Osborne’s door. Annette Moore kept track of the visitors. She’d lived in one of the houses across the street from 256 Woodland Drive ever since she returned home from her rained-out Hawaiian honeymoon two decades earlier. In all the years that she and Harriett Osborne had been neighbors, the two women had exchanged exactly sixty-two words. But the mental dossier Annette kept on Harriett was nothing short of exhaustive. She liked to think of herself as the eyes and ears of Woodland Drive, and the truth was, Harriett Osborne was the only resident worth watching. Throughout the months of July and August, Annette had noticed a steady stream of visitors to the Osborne house. The women—they were always women—would park their vehicles several blocks down the street and travel the rest of the way on foot. They clearly didn’t want their cars to be spotted outside the witch house, as it had become known throughout Mattauk. They’d stand on the porch, one toe tapping nervously as they checked over their shoulders to make sure no one was watching, and wait for the front door to open. There were always people watching, of course. It wasn’t just Annette. And a few of the visitors would have set tongues wagging. Among them, Annette recognized the mayor’s trashy daughter-in-law and prissy Juliet Rocca, the chief of police’s wife. But after what happened to the head of the homeowners association, Annette kept her mouth shut. Brendon Baker still showed up once a month to weep on the witch’s front steps. Everyone in Mattauk knew all about it—and no one dared mess with Harriett Osborne.
According to Annette’s observations, Harriett’s guests usually stayed for twenty minutes. A few would disappear into her jungle for hours. But when the women emerged, they invariably carried a little brown baggie. As they speed-walked back to their cars, clutching the bag as though it were the most precious object, they all seemed a little more at ease in the world.
“You know, I think Harriett Osborne is selling marijuana out of her house,” Annette said as she peeked between the blinds.
“Naw, Eric sells the pot. Shrooms, too,” her teenage daughter replied absentmindedly as she shot aliens on the TV.
“Who’s Eric?”
“You know, the hottie from the grocery store.” No more explanation was needed. Mother and daughter both managed to be near the front window whenever Eric delivered Harriett’s groceries.
“How do you know he’s the one who sells drugs?” Annette demanded.
Her daughter rolled her bloodshot eyes. “Everyone knows,” she said. “His prices are crazy good.”
“I don’t know who told you that,” Annette snipped, “but you’re not allowed to hang out with them anymore.” She swiveled back toward the window just in time to see another woman rap on Harriett Osborne’s front door. Annette gasped and pressed her forehead to the glass. “Oh my God, I think that woman works for your dad.” She remembered the woman from the Halloween party at her husband’s dental practice. He’d forced his oral hygienists to dress as the backup singers from “Addicted to Love,” a video which none of them were old enough to remember.
“Is it the lady with the great boobs or the one with the sweet ass?” the daughter inquired.
“Excuse me?” Annette glanced over her shoulder and saw an alien’s head explode on the screen. “We don’t talk about other women like that.”
“Really? Then tell your revolting husband. That’s how he refers to his ‘girls’ when his friends are around.”
Annette felt nauseous. Truth was, she’d been nauseous for years. “My revolting husband happens to be your father.”
“Yeah, don’t remind me,” said the girl.
Annette watched Harriett greet the hygienist, whose ass, even in scrubs, did appear to be sweet.
“If Harriett Osborne’s not selling drugs, what are all of these ladies buying?”
Her daughter snickered. “Payback,” she said.
Annette’s daughter had never shown a gift for prophesy—or for anything, other than alien massacres. But in that one word, Annette suddenly saw her whole future. She let the blinds fall back into place and didn’t say anything else.
The next night, Annette was lying in bed when her husband came home late from work. She remained silent and still as he headed straight for the bathroom as he always did. He liked to wash up before coming to bed. These little things she’d always blithely accepted—the late hours, the showers—had taken on new meaning. When he emerged a half hour later, Annette switched on the bedside lamp, ready to confront him. But her eyes were immediately drawn to a flaming red rash peeking out from the waistband of her husband’s tighty-whities and inching its way up his belly.
“What is that?” she gasped in horror.
Her husband snatched a shirt out of a drawer and pulled it on, hiding the rash. “What does it look like?” he snapped. “You bought the wrong soap again.”
He’d always been good at that—convincing her she hadn’t seen what she’d seen. But Annette suspected the rash was Harriett’s handiwork. Perhaps it was the payback the hygienist had been seeking. What could he have done to the woman to deserve such a punishment?
“No.” Annette wasn’t going to let it happen this time. “You didn’t get that from soap. You got it from something else that you shouldn’t have touched.”
She slept in the guest room that night—and all the nights after that.
By the end of the week, the rash had conquered her husband’s chest and scaled his neck past the collar of his shirt. Annette walked in on him in the bathroom as he was about to climb into an oatmeal bath and saw that it had consumed his entire body, all the way down to his ankles. She woke up that night to the sound of her husband tiptoeing past the guest room, down the stairs, and out the front door. Intrigued, she assumed her favorite position at the living room window. She saw him on his knees on Harriett Osborne’s porch, his rash-covered fingers woven together as he begged. Harriett didn’t appear to be listening. Her eyes had found Annette in the window across the street.
The next morning, after her husband went to work, Annette threw his clothes on the lawn and called an attorney. When the doorbell rang that afternoon, Annette opened the door to find Eric standing on her front porch. The sight of him in a tight T-shirt and jeans would have been gift enough. But he flashed his movie-star smile and held out a small brown paper bag.
Annette took it and looked inside. At the bottom were a few shriveled mushrooms.
“Harriett says these will help your depression.”
“How does she know I’m depressed?” Annette wondered.
“If you weren’t, you would have kicked that asshole to the curb a long time ago.” Eric smiled again. “Those are her words, not mine.”
“Let me get my purse,” Annette said.
“No need,” Eric told her. “They’re a gift. And if you want some company, Harriett says feel free to stop by after business hours any time this week.”
After the Newsnight debacle, traffic briefly dipped at Furious Fitness. A handful of women canceled their memberships and a few were noticeably chillier. But most of Jo’s clients came and went as they always had. Some even made a point of stopping to tell her she had their support. The first time it had happened, Jo had sprinted straight to a shower stall and turned the water on cold. Then she stepped under the frigid spray in her workout gear and sneakers. Steam had risen from her skin as she cried.