“Okay, Poe, freaking myself out here, huh?” she said aloud.
It was only about nine at night, and since they were on daylight savings time, there was still a little glow of light in the sky.
“It’s still light out, for heaven’s sake,” she said.
Poe squawked.
“Maybe I do need a dog. A large one,” she murmured.
Poe protested again.
“Okay...”
She looked around and then headed into the bedroom and grabbed one of her old hockey sticks out of the closet and started out. “No sense in being stupid. I can wield a wicked hockey stick.”
She heard the sobbing again. It was coming from the trees to the west of her house, from the little stand of trees that separated her from her neighbor.
“Please, I’m trying to help you,” she said softly. “Hello? Are you lost? Are you hurt? If you’ll just let me help you...”
She walked into the trees, then began to question her own wisdom.
The sky was darkening. Beneath the trees the light was all but gone.
She tightened her grip on her hockey stick.
And then she saw her.
She was young, a slight blond woman, wearing a black dress and a shawl that looked to be of the Puritan period. She was peeking out from between two trees.
There was nothing unusual about her outfit. This was, after all, Salem.
“Hey, there you are. I don’t know what’s wrong, but you can come in and we can call someone—someone to come get you. Someone who can help,” Devin said.
The young woman looked at her with enormous brown eyes. She shook her head and began to sob again.
And then she disappeared into the trees.
The woman might have been twenty or twenty-one—or she might have been a teenager—but she certainly didn’t look dangerous. Determined to help her, Devin headed back to her cottage and swept the electric lantern off the mantel. She hurried back out, turning the light on as she went.
“I’m not leaving you out here!” she called. “Come on, speak to me, please.”
She headed toward the spot where she had first seen the woman. She didn’t hear sobbing anymore, but the woman couldn’t have gone far.
Maybe she was a foreign tourist who didn’t speak any English and had gotten lost.
Maybe she’d been on a date or gone out with friends who had decided it would be fun to explore the old cemetery down the road from Devin’s cottage, and she had gotten lost and ended up terrified.
Maybe some jerk had just driven her out here and dumped her.
Or maybe...
Devin let out a shocked, ear-piercing scream.
The woman lay in a tiny open area between several large trees with gnarled branches. She was faceup, arms and legs outstretched, so her body resembled the design of a pentagram.
Her sightless eyes stared up into the darkness of the night. On her chest was a silver chain with a medallion.
Much like the silver pentagram she herself had just purchased.
But that seemed like nothing.
Because...
Around her throat...
There was a ribbon of blood.