Dime Store Magic (Otherworld 3)

"You can't take those," Margaret called after me.

I bounded down the stairs and opened the back door.

"Lucas says we have to go," Savannah said. "It's getting late."

"I'm done. Just let me grab my shoes." I remembered our other purpose and turned to Margaret. "Could I borrow your car? Just for tonight. Please?"

"I don't think--"

"I'll be careful. I'll fill it up, wash it, whatever. Please, Margaret."

"Savannah?" She noticed her niece for the first time and turned to me. "Did you leave her outside alone? What are you thinking, Paige?"

"I didn't leave her alone. Now, I really need to borrow your car."

"Who--" She stopped, peering outside, her eyes picking out Cortez's form in the yard. She slammed the door. "That's--you--you left my niece with a sorcerer?"

"Oddly enough, I'm having trouble finding baby-sitters."

"Lucas is fine, Aunt Margaret," Savannah said. "Can we borrow your car? I need the stuff for my first menses--"

"Savannah just got her period," I cut in. "I'm out of supplies for menstrual tea, and she's having very bad cramps."

Savannah pulled a face of sheer agony. Margaret looked at her and blinked.

"Oh, yes. I see." Her voice softened. "This is your first time, isn't it, dear?"

Savannah nodded, lifting wounded-puppy eyes to her great-aunt. "It really hurts."

"Yes, well ... I suppose, if you need to use my car ..."

"Please," I said.

Margaret retrieved the keys and handed them to me. "Be careful in parking lots. I had someone dent the door just last week."

I thanked Margaret and prodded Savannah toward the door before Margaret could change her mind.

Next stop: Salem, Massachusetts, world-renowned epicenter of the American witch-hunt craze.

One can argue about the causes of the witch craze that visited Salem in 1692. Theories abound. I even read something recently that attributed the madness to some kind of blight on the rye crops, a mold or something that drives people crazy. What we do know, without question, is that life wasn't a whole lotta fun for teenage girls in Puritan America. In the harsh New England winters, it was even worse. At least the boys could go out hunting and trapping. Girls were confined to their homes and household tasks, forbidden by Puritan law to dance, sing, play cards, or engage in basically any form of entertainment.

As we drove into Salem, I imagined Savannah plunked into that world. Regimented, repressed, and restricted. Bored as hell. Is it any wonder they'd be eager for diversion? Maybe a little mischief? In the winter of 1692 the girls of Salem found exactly that, in the form of an old woman, a slave named Tituba.

Tituba belonged to Reverend Samuel Parris and was nursemaid to his daughter, Betty, whom, by all accounts, she doted on. To amuse herself during those long winter months, Tituba showed Betty and her friends some magic tricks, probably mere sleight-of-hand learned in Barbados. As the winter passed, word of this new entertainment swept through the community of teenage girls and, one by one, they found reasons to visit the parsonage.

In January, Betty, the youngest of the group, fell ill, her Puritan conscience perhaps made uneasy by all this talk of magic and sorcery. Soon other girls caught the "fever." Reverend Parris and others insisted that the girls name their tormentors. Betty named Tituba, and at the end of February the old slave was arrested on a charge of witchcraft.

And so it started. The girls soon grew addicted to the attention. No longer relegated to house and hearth, they became celebrities. The only way to prolong their fifteen minutes of fame was to up the ante, to act wilder, more possessed. To name more witches. So they did. Soon any woman that the girls might have had reason to dislike fell victim.

Four Coven witches died. Why? The witch-hunts often targeted social or gender deviants, particularly women who didn't comply with accepted female roles. This described many Coven witches. Outspoken and independent, they often lived without a husband--though the fact that they weren't necessarily celibate was a lifestyle choice that wouldn't have been too popular in Puritan New England. That lifestyle, in my opinion, is what put those witches on the gallows.

I tried telling that to the Coven once. How did they react? They agreed with me completely and declared that if those women had had the sense to keep their heads down and conform, they wouldn't have died. I could have beaten my head against the wall.

Today the Salem witch-hunts are a tourist attraction. Makes my skin crawl, but the upside is that there are plenty of practicing Wiccans in the area, and several New Age shops in Salem that sold ingredients I'd have had a hard time finding elsewhere.

Most of "tourist" Salem had shut down around dinner hour, but the shop we wanted was open until nine. The streets were quiet and we found parking easily, then headed to the tourism core, several tree-lined streets restricted to pedestrian traffic. It took less than tw

enty minutes to gather what I needed, then we were back in Margaret's car and heading for the highway.