“Our Father…” they began in unison.
What happened next happened quickly. The prayer stopped, and the world fell silent. Callie opened her eyes, but the moon had passed behind a cloud, leaving only the stars as dim illumination. Rose was standing in the same place, directly across from her, still clutching the rosary beads, but she was no longer reciting the Lord’s Prayer. Her mouth was open, yet no speech came out. The only sound was a loud and desperate sucking. In shock, Rose stared at Susan, who was on the ground, facedown, a pool of crimson spreading on the dead grass that surrounded her.
Cheryl rushed forward, turning her friend over, revealing a deep, ugly gash on her neck.
Olivia screamed as she was seized from behind, torn away, and dragged toward the crevasse, letting go of her daughter’s hand forever.
Before Callie had a chance to protest, someone grabbed her by the arm.
“Run!” Rose screamed. Callie felt herself pulled backward, her legs responding only in an effort to stay on her feet.
It was Auntie Rose who had spun her around and was now pushing her forward on the path. “That way!” Rose said, and the two of them ran together as fast as they could until they found a clump of dense undergrowth. Rose shoved Callie into the thicket, scratching her skin on the thorny branches until she was in the middle of a nest of twining vines.
“Stay here. I’ll come back for you!”
“But Mommy—”
“Don’t make a sound!” Rose hissed.
Callie’s eyes were wide with terror. “Don’t leave me!” she begged in a whisper.
Rose pressed the wooden rosary into the child’s hand. “Here. Hold this! Close your eyes and keep them closed until I come back for you! And pray!”
In an instant, Rose was gone.
Callie closed her eyes and clutched the rosary as tightly as she could until her palm was stinging, and she could feel the blood running down her fingers from where the carved edges of the rose petals pressed into her flesh. She tried to remember the rosary prayers Rose had been teaching her, but they had vanished into the darkness along with her mother and the other women she called family. She heard a wailing sound, low at first, then growing louder and more shrill, pitching higher and higher until it sounded like the screams of a wild animal. It was unearthly, a sound of both agony and power.
She waited for what seemed like forever, until the sound faded to silence and the darkness finally gave way to morning light. Feeling the warmth of the sun filtering through the branches, Callie opened her eyes.
No one ever came back.
A few influential Salemites are calling for DNA evidence to be gathered, not from the body of William Barnes, who died on October 31, but from the three women nicknamed the Goddesses, murdered in 1989, a case in which Rose Whelan was once considered the primary suspect.
—The Salem Journal
He’d been looking at the photos of the Goddesses all morning. Six boxes of evidence had arrived from the archives, and he was expecting seven more. He hadn’t officially reopened the case, but he’d already opened the boxes and pored over their contents, staring at a Polaroid of Olivia that was curling at the edges.
Callie looked just like her mother: black curly hair, blunt cut and shoulder length. Brown eyes so dark you almost couldn’t distinguish the iris from the pupil, the only feature that played against the angelic porcelain of her skin. Olivia’s beauty had been legendary, as was her reputation and those of the other “Goddesses.”
The resemblance between them was profound. Good thing Towner had told her not to use her last name, he thought. Though Callie’s name hadn’t been published in the newspaper accounts of the murders, a lot of the locals remembered the Cahill surname.
The files said Callie’s father was a musician Olivia had met in New Orleans, but no name was listed, and Callie said she had never known who her father was. Olivia had come to Salem to trace her family tree, which dated back to the witch trials. There had been gossip that she’d practiced a little witchcraft herself down in New Orleans, though there had never been anything to back that up. Her behavior in Salem, as well as that of the rest of the girls, had certainly been bewitching, though more for seduction than for spells. Just one example, he thought, of why the women dubbed the Goddesses were so hated here. They were all beautiful girls, but they behaved more like men than like respectable young ladies.
He’d spent most of the morning watching and rewatching the tape of Callie’s questioning sessions. They were remarkable, really. She was so young, and she had so clearly loved Rose. She told the same story no matter how the investigators tried to poke holes in it: Rose had tried to save them all, she said over and over. Her answers never wavered. If he’d been harboring any suspicion at all that Rose was guilty, Callie’s testimony had convinced him of her innocence.
The evidence backed him up. Yes, Rose had been at the scene of the murders. Yes, she had been covered in the victims’ blood. But she had no defensive wounds on her, and the final victim, Cheryl Cassella, had put up quite a fight. Rose had no weapon. She didn’t have the “trophies” that were taken from Susan Symms’s body: a slice of skin from her forearm and a shock of white hair, skin still attached, cut from her scalp. Whatever Rose had seen that night had permanently unstrung her. It was no wonder she’d concocted a crazy story. She’d definitely dissociated. He’d seen other victims of severe trauma cope in similar ways.
When Jay-Jay called to tell him Callie was on her way in, Rafferty stashed the evidence box behind his desk. She had told him about the vision at the library, and she’d come by almost every day this week, telling him random things she remembered. Asking questions. Today, he had a question for her.
“What about this Leah you mentioned yesterday, the one you were waiting for who was supposed to be part of the blessing? Was she one of the Goddesses?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you remember her last name yet?”
She shook her head. “Sorry.”
“She didn’t live with you?”
“Not that I remember…I do remember how tense Rose was that night waiting for her to show up. I told you she’d been threatening to kick us out of her house.”
“Yes.” He’d heard it before, and Callie had confirmed it yesterday. She’d told him everything she remembered, and her memories were quite detailed, but there were definitely gaps.
“This time I don’t think it was a threat. She made us pack. I remember her telling my mother we had to move out the day after Halloween. Which was why we had to do the blessing that night. I think she really meant to throw us out.”
“Why that time and not the others?”
“I don’t know. They had parties sometimes, when Rose was at work. I told you that.”