Deadly Harvest by Heather Graham
For Sharon Dale, with so many thanks, the
wonderful folks at the Peabody Essex Museum,
the House of the Seven Gables and the
beautiful city of Salem, Massachusetts.
Prologue
It began when Mary and Brad Johnstone went to the psychic fair and happened upon the tent offering readings. Neither of them believed in such things. Still, as Brad said, with a wry grin, “When in Rome…And this looks like the place that guy at the museum was talking about.”
Of course, it was possible to get a reading just about anywhere in Salem, Massachusetts—especially now, on Halloween. They’d already been through several haunted houses, visited costume shops and met locals ranging from wiccans to historians. A guy they’d talked to at a museum dedicated to local history days had told them to get a few readings, because they would all be different, and given them a rundown of some of his favorite places to go.
Not long after that, Mary had gotten her first reading in a shop called the Magick Mercantile, run by a couple of real wiccans, Adam and Eve Llewellyn. She looked like a hippie, and he dressed all in black. He chewed gum nonstop, though, which made him look a little more normal. Brad doubted that Adam and Eve were their real names—everyone here seemed a little theatrical—but they had been nice. Eve had looked at Mary’s palm and assured her that her ability to dance would take her far. Talking about it afterward, they were both sure they hadn’t mentioned her profession. “Maybe they saw you on that local access show you did,” Brad suggested. In any case, it had been a nice look into the future.
This guy, though…He was pure Halloween creepy. He was wearing a cape and a turban. Tall, dark and lean, he had piercing eyes darkened by liner and shadow.
Inside his tent, he had a small table covered in dark fabric lightened only by a design of moons and stars, with a crystal ball on a stand in the middle of it. Everything was so carefully arranged that his tent could have passed for a permanent place of business. There were sculptures everywhere: Egyptian gods and goddesses, dragons, demons and more.
Mary immediately asked, “Are you a wiccan? A witch or a warlock?”
The reader offered her a wry smile. “There are no warlocks in the wiccan religion. Wiccans are just wiccans. And, no, I’m not a wiccan. Just a simple reader of signs, of the moon and the stars, and all that has come before.”
“I’m Mary Johnstone, and this is my husband, Brad,” Mary said. She almost tripped over the word husband. She remembered just how recently they had been headed for divorce.
“And I am Damien,” the reader told them.
“Can we stay together?” Mary asked him. “A double reading, I guess.”
She was actually feeling a little chilled, she realized, then told herself not to be silly. This was Halloween. Things were supposed to be scary. Like a horror movie. What good was a horror movie if you didn’t jump a little?
She still felt oddly uncomfortable. But she would be fine if Brad stayed in here with her.
“Of course,” Damien said with a smile. “What I see…will be what I see. Sit down. There are two chairs.”
They sat at the table. Brad squeezed Mary’s hand. She reminded herself that they were on vacation, far away from the Florida beaches of home and doing something entirely different. They were trying to heal old wounds and start over again. They were going to have fun.
“Now, look into the ball,” Damien told them with a flourish.
Mary looked, and decided the man was certainly a master of effects. The clear crystal ball began to swim with mist. As she continued to stare into it, she thought she saw fire. A fire leaping toward an unseen sky. Then the fire faded away, and she found herself looking at a desolate hillside. There were a few scrawny trees, with gnarled branches. And there were people. She couldn’t hear them properly, but they seemed to be chanting. Suddenly a scream broke through the chanting. She almost jumped, but she realized Brad was at her side, grinning, having fun. She had too much imagination, he always told her that. And she was too timid.
She reminded herself they were repairing their relationship. That they both needed to work at it, even if he was the one who had strayed. He never would have wanted a lifetime with Brenda, she told herself. She had only appealed to him because she was brash, willing to take chances, and because she was…slutty. Mary couldn’t help a moment’s rancor.
Brad loved her, and she knew it. But she had been hurt. Still, she didn’t want to ruin their future by dwelling on the past. She was going to make some changes, starting with becoming more adventurous.