-Examination of Bridget Bishop, Salem Village, April 19, 1692

***

“Abbie Hobbs is a witch,” Ruth said.

Phoebe was standing with her locker open, brushing her hair. She hadn’t even noticed Ruth was there until the girl blurted out something about Abbie, and it was a few seconds until Phoebe registered what it was. “Um, okay?” Phoebe said. “Did she join the Wicca Club or something?”

The final bell had rung, and the corridor was full of rushing students. Ruth looked over her shoulder, as if checking for anyone listening in. Then she whispered, “Not like that. I mean she’s a real witch. Like from history class? In Salem?”

Phoebe put her brush down and closed her locker. She and Ruth suddenly seemed to be at a kind of standstill while the rest of the world hustled by around them. She wasn‘t sure where this was going, but she already didn‘t like it. “There were no witches in Salem,” Phoebe said after a while. “That was the point of the lesson.”

“But what if there were?” Ruth said, leaning in. “What if they’re just really good at hiding? How would we know?”

Phoebe backed up a step. “Ruth, I don’t know you that well. If you’re really freaking out or something, maybe you should talk to your parents. Or a priest, I guess?”

Other than the fact that she was 18, a senior, that their lockers were right next to each other, and that they shared a history class, Phoebe barely knew anything about Ruth at all. But Ruth was one of the students who had tried to force the pagan kids to move their club activities off of school grounds last year, Phoebe remembered, so maybe this was some kind of religious panic thing.

“My parents don’t believe me,” Ruth continued. “Nobody would believe me except you.”

“Why would I believe you?”

“Because you know Abbie. You know what she can do.”

That was true. Normally, Phoebe would believe any nasty thing another girl had to say about Abbie. Normally…

“There are lots of them in class,” Ruth continued. “And she’s their leader, and they want me to join them. Have they, you know, come to see you? Do they ask you to do things with them?”

The hall was emptying out now, the sudden silence punctuated only by the occasional slamming of a locker door. “I haven’t talked to Abbie in months. You’re freaking me out, Ruth. You don’t look good.”

“I can’t sleep,” said the other girl. “She comes every night and keeps me awake.”

“Abbie sneaks into your room at night?”

“It’s not really her. She’s like a ghost when she comes. I hoped you‘d seen her too. Now you don‘t believe me.”

Pity and revulsion had a tug-of-war for Phoebe’s feelings. The bags under Ruth’s eyes made her look even spookier than usual. In spite of herself, she got closer to the other girl again.

“I believe you. But you’ve probably been having nightmares is all. And we just finished studying colonial witch trials, so of course you might dream about them. I’ve had nightmares just like that.”

That part wasn’t true, but the lie couldn’t possibly hurt.

Ruth was picking up her bag and her books. “Don’t tell anyone I talked about this, okay?” the girl said. “Especially not Abbie?”

“This is the last thing I want to tell anyone about, ever,” said Phoebe.

“If she hasn’t come to you yet, she will soon. She wants you. I can tell.”

With that, Ruth turned and practically ran away, leaving Phoebe alone in the corridor except for a row of 100 silent lockers.

“Witches,” she said out loud. “Great.” As if a public school needed any more problems.

The parking lot was, likewise, nearly empty when she got there, except for clumps of wet autumn leaves. It had dumped rain all day. The weather had been getting weird ever since the school year started; storms almost every day, and even hale a few times.

The only other person she saw leaving was Mr. Dane, parked right next to her. He was always late in the morning and ended up parking with the students instead of taking the extra five minutes to go around to the faculty parking. It happened so often that other teachers had started calling him ‘the freshman.”

“Hi, Mr. Dane,” said Phoebe.

He looked up at her twice. “Hello Phoebe,” he said. Mr. Dane (his first name was Frank) taught civics and social science, and she‘d had him last year, when she was a junior. He was young, cute, a little gangly, and his hair was perpetually cow licked. “You’re late leaving today too?”

“I just had the weirdest conversation and I couldn’t get away,” Phoebe said. “One of the other girls said that there are witches in class. Real ones, I mean; midnight sabbats and deals with the devil, that kind of thing.”

“Who said that?”

Phoebe almost answered, but at the last second she remembered the spooky look on Ruth’s face when she asked not to tell anyone. “Hmm. I probably shouldn’t say.”

“Ahh. Can‘t let the black cat out of the bag,” said Mr. Dane, and mimed locking his mouth and throwing the key over his shoulder.

It started raining again driving home, so much that Phoebe had to slow down. Some religious channel was the only thing that seemed to be coming in on the radio:

“It is a woeful piece of corruption, in an evil time, when the wicked prosper and the godly party meet with vexations. But adversity teaches us to war a good warfare, to separate the precious and the vile.

“It is the main drift of the Devil to pull all down! But Satan will not prevail, though he be aided by wicked and reprobate women. Christ will defend us from the power of death, and from the inward enemies of our own sins—”

She turned the radio off.

It was late by the time she got home. The wind sounded like it wanted to take the roof off the house, and the chimney leaked. She called out for Mom, but of course she wasn’t home. Mom was working a day job and a night job, and between them she only had one night off in ten. Phoebe was mostly on her own these days.

She changed out of her school uniform, then fed the cat (Belladonna) and started making dinner. Phoebe wasn‘t much of a cook, but she‘d memorized how to make six specific meals, and she rotated them every time Mom wasn‘t home. She made exactly enough for two people, leaving Mom‘s in the fridge every night, where it was almost always still uneaten the next morning.

Once dinner was ready, she lit some candles, put on one of Dad’s old records, and liberated a little bit of wine from Mom’s private stash. She meant to just eat and relax for the rest of the night, and maybe watch some TV with Belladonna curled up on her lap. When she switched the set on, though, she was startled by the blaring voice that came out of the speakers:

“Christ hath placed us in this world, as in a sea, and suffreth many storms and tempests to threaten shipwreck. Whilst in the meantime he himself seems asleep!”

Frowning again, Phoebe tried changing the channel. It didn’t work. There was no picture on the set, just a gray and black blur of what was probably the profile of a man. The audio came through clear, though:

“Like young children overbold with fire, whose desperate parents hold them over the danger so the parental bluff might teach them the risk. Yes, all mankind, the whole apostate race of Adam. Even the very elect are by their nature dead in sin and trespasses.” It seemed as if the wind howled even louder overhead.

After several attempts at changing or muting the channel, Phoebe finally just turned the TV off. It hissed as the image on the screen faded out, leaving Phoebe alone in the house, with nothing but the sound of the rain beating on the tin roof.

Phoebe had some more wine and, judging that the bottle was now looking a little too empty not to arouse suspicion, topped it off with a little tap water. It’s a reverse miracle, she thought: wine into water. She laughed out loud, startling the cat out of her sleep.

She decided to read, but couldn’t concentrate on anything. The weird conversation with Ruth still bothered her. It wasn’t just how spooky the other girl had looked; the talk had reminded Phoebe of something that was lingering at the back of her memory, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it.

Returning her books to the shelf, she found the notebook she’d been using a month ago, during the colonial unit in history class. She flipped through until she found what she was looking for: Folded and creased photocopy pages from the research for the paper she‘d done. She’d highlighted few bits of the old trial records:

“The Juriors do present that Abagaile Hobbs of Topsfeild in the county of Essex in the year of our Lord 1688 wickedly and feloniously made a covenant with the evil spirit, the Devil, and did make contrary to the peace.”

She flipped through a few similar pages:

“She confesseth further that the Devil came in the Shape of a man. She was at the great witches’ meeting in the pasture, when they administered the Devil’s Sacrament, and did eat of the Red Bread and drink of the Red Wine.”

Phoebe paused in the middle of a drink of her own wine. Of course, it was harmless. She poured out the last bit anyway. “Wickedly and feloniously made covenant with the evil spirit,” she muttered.

So that explained it. Ruth must have noticed that one of the defendants in the old trials had Abbie’s same name. The old Abbie Hobbs had been a teenager too. Of course if Ruth was going to accuse anyone of being a witch it would be Abbie. Why she was accusing anybody in the first place was a mystery, but she always was kind of a weird girl.

Phoebe snuffed the candles one by one before bed and then clucked her tongue so that the cat would follow. For some reason she felt completely wiped out tonight. I’ll probably sleep like the dead, she thought, as she lay down…

She assumed at first it was her morning alarm waking her up. But the room—and the entire house—was still dark, and the sound was all wrong; it was a long, low, mournful noise, like a fog horn. When she sat up, she saw that a candle was burning again on the bedside table, and that Abbie Hobbs stood over her bed.

But she didn’t look quite right, Phoebe realized. She was pale and misty and almost blue, and her clothes and hair seemed to drift a bit. “Like a ghost,” as Ruth had put it. Oh God, thought Phoebe. I lied to Ruth about having nightmares like hers and now it’s coming true. I should have told her I have dreams about screwing Mr. Dane like a cat in heat. I’d much rather be dreaming about that…

Abbie looked precisely as she did every day in class, right down to the school uniform. She smiled, a cold expression. “Hey Phoebe.”

“Hey,” Phoebe muttered, putting a pillow over her face. Abbie pulled it away.

“Been a while. You look…” Abbie paused. “The same. I guess.”

“You look like Jacob Marley.”

“I don’t know who that is,” Abbie said.

“Never mind.” Phoebe sat up and yawned. The candle on the table didn‘t have anything underneath it, but she supposed dream wax couldn’t possibly hurt the wood. Abbie was holding out her hand, and instead of Jacob Marley Phoebe thought of the Ghost of Christmas Past, helping Scrooge fly away. Rather than take the proffered hand, she walked to the window herself. That fog horn noise was still going on. “What the hell is that?”

“They’re calling us,” said Abbie. “We’re going to be late. Come on.”

The field behind Phoebe’s mother’s house was empty except for wild grass and the broken down remains of a fence that had once separated two properties. Abbie bypassed it with ease. Phoebe had a little more trouble clamoring over, following Abbie instinctually, never questioning the dream logic. The ground was thick with mud, but there was no rain now, and the overcast was gone, revealing stars that seemed brighter, as if the rain had cleaned the entire sky.

“What a lovely place,” Abbie said. “You could murder someone here and nobody would ever hear you.”

“Don’t tell the landlord.”

Abbie laughed. Then: “I hear someone has been telling you stories about me,” she said.

“Hmm? Oh, that you’re a witch, yeah.”

“Who was it?”

“Just Ruth,” said Phoebe. “The spooky girl with the locker next to mine? We have Ms. Young’s history class together. You do too, technically, but you’re never there.”

Abbie stopped walking. “Little Ruth?” she said. Then, for three seconds, she burst into laughter. “That silly cunt,” Abbie said when she was finished. “I knew it couldn’t be one of my girls. They all know better. Thank you for telling me.”

“Mm hmm,” Phoebe said. She still felt abominably tired. Being tired in a dream, was that a sign that you were going to wake up exhausted? She heard the sound of the horn for a third time. It seemed to be coming from the woods on the other side of the field. Abbie looked back towards it. It seemed they were going towards that sound, for whatever reason.

“Now,” Abbie said. “What to do with you?” She looked Phoebe up and down, clicking her nails in thought. Phoebe flinched. She’d seen Abbie look that same way at the girls she used to push around after class. Like a worm on a hook.

Once, she and Abbie had been friends. Good friends, ever since grade school, when they bonded over having the same birthday. But then came last year, when Abbie took things too far, and they hadn’t talked since. Once inseparable, their mutual 18th birthdays had passed without as much as a phone call.

Eventually, Abbie put a hand out. “I guess you can come too. I didn’t want you in yet, but you might as well now that that silly cunt Ruth has spilled it.”

Phoebe blinked. “Might as well what?”

“Join us,” Abbie looked different now. She’d shed her clothes, although Phoebe didn’t remember her actually doing it. Now she was as naked as anything, standing in the tall grass. Phoebe stared. I should look away, she thought, but she didn‘t. Abbie’s outstretched hand beckoned, impatient. “Come on already. It’s just this way.”

Phoebe was slow to extend her own hand. When Abbie grabbed her, she yanked her forward very suddenly, and they ended up almost embracing, Abbie’s nude body coiled close to hers. Phoebe froze at the touch of another girl’s naked skin, as if she’d been electrocuted and couldn’t move.

She waited to see how Abbie would react. The other girl assumed an almost bored look and crooked a red lacquered finger at her, indicating that she should come even closer. Drops of night dew now decorated Abbie’s skin. Without quite realizing what she was doing, Phoebe kissed a dewy spot along the curve of one of Abbie’s shoulders. She licked the moisture off with a quick, catlike flickering of her tongue. Abbie purred.

“That’s good,” she said.

The sounding horn sent a delicious shiver down Phoebe’s spine. Abbie’s hands trailed through her hair as Phoebe continued to kiss her way around the other girl’s body and ick the dew from her bare skin. It was cool on her lips, but Abbie was hot. Phoebe had expected Abbie to evaporate like a ghost when touched, but instead she was solid and warm and very alive.

The tall grass shifted. In a trance, Phoebe’s mouth closed over one of Abbie’s perky, upright nipples, flicking her tongue against it. Abbie sighed, so Phoebe did it again, and then sucked it into her mouth, tasting the hot, soft flesh and inhaling the mingled scents of their two bodies together. Without quite meaning to, she bit down, and Abbie cried out and then slapped her on the back of the head.

“Not so hard, you greedy bitch.”

Phoebe broke off, flushing with embarrassment. The night grew cold all of a sudden, and the sound of the horn seemed more ominous. She wanted to leave, but Abbie had her twined in her arms. Their faces were very close together, and Phoebe could taste Abbie’s breath on her lips every time she spoke.

“Don‘t be mad,” Abbie said, purring. “We have to go now, or we’ll be late.”

“Late for what?” said Phoebe.

“Just come on. Don’t you want to?” Abbie said. Phoebe was having trouble looking away from the other girl’s red, red mouth. “Haven’t you always wanted to?”

“Yes…”

“I always knew it. So why wait? Come on and let me show you. Come on…”

They kissed, Abbie’s red mouth opening to draw Phoebe in. Phoebe was falling into a bottomless red haze now, enveloped by the heat of the moment when their lips touched. Somewhere in that haze, Phoebe imagined there was another person, very much like herself but also entirely different, who was trying to find her…

Phoebe broke off and backed away. For a second Abbie looked furious. Then her features relaxed into something like indifference. “Be that way, then,” she said.

As suddenly as that, she was gone. Phoebe was alone in the clearing. Or at least, she seemed to be alone. Although she couldn’t see anyone, she had a feeling like there were dozens of pairs of eyes on her. Turning, she ran back to her house and locked the door. The sound of the horn didn’t stop for the entire night.

***

When she woke the next morning, Phoebe’s first thought was that it had all been real. She expected to roll over and see the burnt out candle on her nightstand and find that her shoes were still covered in mud and grass stains after walking in the pasture all night.

But there was no candle, and no dirty footprints in the hall. All that had happened was she’d fallen asleep after too much wine and had a weird, inappropriate dream about her ex BFF, and now she would have to hurry if she didn’t want to be late for class. That was the full extent of mystery and adventurousness in the life of Phoebe Chandler.

The TV was still out. She managed to get a few sentences of a news broadcast:

“At least 50 dead, and 70 to 100 more prisoner. Attackers burnt the other buildings and swept the outlying structures within five miles…”

The only other thing that came in was the faceless, staticky religious channel yet again:

“Have I not chose you twelve, and yet one of you is the Devil? Occasioned by dreadful witchcraft—”

She took only enough time to gulp down coffee (which stung her empty stomach) and feed the cat before racing to make it to class on time. The rain was showing mercy for now, but the black clouds were still there.

She’d meant to pay particular attention to Abbie and Ruth in history today, to see if anything weird was going on with them. But to her surprise (relief?) both of them were absent. Come lunchtime, she asked around. Nobody had seen Abbie or Ruth anywhere. In fact, a lot of the senior class girls were out that day; seven in all, a high number for a small school.

“Maybe they’re out shopping for matching broomsticks,” Mr. Dane said. She laughed. They were in the cafeteria, him on lunch duty overseeing the sophomores.

“I’ll bet that’s it,” Phoebe said. “Mr. Dane, do you ever think…” She paused, searching for the right words and finding that they weren’t quite there. “I mean, have you noticed anything strange lately? About the school year? Or any of the girls in class?”

“Everyone’s passing my civics class so far, that’s pretty unusual. Do you think it’s magic?” He winked in a way that she was pretty sure grown-up teachers shouldn’t do to their 18-year-old students, and without quite meaning to she crossed her legs. She decided she’d file that image away for later.

She’d been in such a hurry leaving the house that she hadn’t packed anything for lunch. Buying something off campus wasn’t in her budget for the week, but maybe she could beg a freebie off the cafeteria? She waited in line, listening to her stomach grumble. There were only a few minutes left until the bell. She wondered if it was the dream that had spooked her. Or was it just Ruth still?

It was both, she decided. And a million other things too: the weather, the news, Mom, her class load, everything. Don’t worry, Phoebe, you’re just cracking up, she thought. You’re an adult now, it’s high time you had your first nervous breakdown. She wanted to laugh, but decided cackling to herself like a crazy woman in the lunch line wouldn’t help anything.

It was the smell that she noticed first, a sweet, crisp scent, like barbecue, but spoiled and sick, as if the meat had gone bad. It made her eyes water. She looked around, trying to detect the source so that she should make a point not to eat whatever it was. It took her a moment to really figure out what she was seeing, and when she did she gasped.

Abbie stood in kitchen. Except, of course, it didn’t look entirely like her; she was misty and pale around the edges, like the previous night, and Phoebe knew without even checking that nobody else in the room could see her. She was naked, standing over an open flame, and slowly turning a metal spit on its hinges. Skewered on that spit, looking as unreal as Abbie herself but still quite distinct, was a human figure, slowly roasting.

Phoebe dropped her tray. The girls next to her in line jumped, but she didn’t notice. Abbie grinned. Phoebe broke out in a sweat. If she had eaten anything already, it would have come up now. Instead she felt only a scream welling. This is it, she thought, it finally happened. I’ve been joking about losing my mind for so long that it’s come true. As soon as I start screaming, it’ll be official. All I have to do is open my mouth…

But before it could happen the bell sounded, and the specter of Abbie and her gruesome meal both vanished, leaving nothing behind to suggest that they’d ever been there at all.

Numbly, Phoebe shuffled out of the cafeteria and into the corridor. The chatter of other students suggested that nobody else had seen anything. Maybe it wasn’t real, she thought. Maybe it was…what? Another dream? In the middle of the day, while she was wide awake? That excuse was running out of steam pretty fast.

If she needed any more proof, she got it in her next class. Abbie was there too; not the real Abbie, but her specter again, perched on the rafters of the classroom ceiling. Occasionally she would make faces or obscene gestures at the teacher. Once, Phoebe very distinctly saw her playing with something that looked like a yellow bird.

Whenever a bell rang she would vanish like a wisp of smoke, only to reappear in whatever room Phoebe went to next. The final bell seemed to banish her completely, leaving Phoebe mercifully alone. Or at least, she hoped she was alone.

Phoebe waited until most of the school had trickled out of the building before collecting her things at her locker. She gave Ruth‘s locker a slightly regretful look, but the spooky girl was nowhere to be seen. The one time I would have wanted to run into her, Phoebe thought…

All the way to the library Phoebe expected Abbie—or something worse—to appear, maybe right in front of her or right next to her. Maybe the lights would all flicker and die one by one, like in a movie, and then she’d be there, and Phoebe would try to run but Abbie would catch her no matter what, and then—

But nothing happened. The library was open for an hour after the final bell. That was enough time for Phoebe. She sequestered herself in a chair in the corner and thumbed through a particular book until she found part she was looking for. Fortunately, it didn’t take long; it was a book she’d read recently, during the witch trials lesson:

“Ann saw a man, skewered on a spit, roasting in her parents’ hearth. ‘Goody Corey,’ she cried, ‘You be turning it!’ The maid struck at the spot Ann indicated. The vision disappeared, but only temporarily.”

Phoebe noted the page number and then flipped more pages until she found the second entry she wanted, about the hysterical girls spotting ghostly witches balancing on the ceiling beam. The yellow bird, too, came from the trial records. Abbie had never been a particularly good student. But it seemed that after all these years she’d finally found a subject she was really interested in studying.

Phoebe checked the book out and left. Her first thought was to find Ruth. But where could the girl be? Not at home, Phoebe was sure. If it had been only Ruth missing today, Phoebe would assume she’d skipped school to avoid Abbie. But the other absences suggested something else was going on.

Once home, she locked all the doors and windows. When this didn’t seem adequate, she put some chairs and heavy furniture against the back door and the front. Then, on a hunch, she found her great aunt’s Bible (dusty from years of never being moved from the top shelf) and placed it on the threshold. She fretted a bit over whether that was good enough, but what else was there to do?

She wished Mom was here. She thought about calling her at work, but what would she even say? Mom, there are witches, come home early and bring lots of firearms? It didn’t seem the best tone to strike when interrupting a night shift.

She spent the rest of the afternoon (minus a break to feed the increasingly insistent cat) reading the witch trial book and any old notes she could find from that assignment. It turned dark out, and the storm started all over again, a soaker that sounded like it meant to drown the house and the whole world with it. Phoebe kept reading:

“A great swarm of witches alighted in the pasture. You might have heard the trumpet that summoned them for miles. Rebecca Nurse sat at the Devil‘s side, handing out crimson wine and bread. Hobbes explained that the wine was blood, and better than real wine. The Devil offered his great book, which all signed.

“In this place they would establish Satan’s kingdom, where they would live in gallant equality. He would pay their debts, and offer riches. Why not cancel the Judgment Day, he said, and eliminate shame and sin? They would all, the Devil promised, have crowns in Hell.”

Phoebe didn’t remember falling asleep. She was only aware of suddenly waking up. She was lying on the floor in front of the fireplace, where she’d been reading. But the fire was out now, and six girls were standing over her in their school uniforms.

They were all from Phoebe’s class, although one or two she didn’t remember the names of. None of them were Abbie. The last of them, with her head down, as if refusing to look at anyone or anything around her, was Ruth. The tallest of the set (Miram, Phoebe thought her name was) held out a hand and said simply, “Come on.”

Phoebe put her back to the fireplace. The girls stood in a half circle around her, whispering to one another from time to time and, once or twice, sniggering. Phoebe didn’t move. Miram held her hand out again (a gesture that seemed as much command as invitation) and repeated the words, “Come on.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Abbie says you have to,” said Miram. She added, “We can make you come.”

Phoebe stuck out her chin. “Go ahead then”

With half a smile, Miram pointed. When Phoebe turned, she saw a strange shape crouched by the fireplace, a squat, hairy creature with wings, seemingly warming itself by the heat of a blaze that wasn‘t there anymore. When it realized she had seen it, the thing growled and bared its teeth. Startled, Phoebe scrambled away, only to run straight into another apparition, a great white dog with red eyes, that barked when she got close.

And then suddenly the entire house was alive with strange creatures darting to and fro in the rafters and the corners of the room, little imps and strange animals and half-glimpsed figures, a blue boar and a gray wolf and a bear’s snapping head, and a bird with the head of an old woman that perched on the ceiling and laughed at her.

Flames burst in the hearth as a hysterical laugh bellowed down the chimney, and the house was full of the most awful sounds from every corner. Phoebe put her hands over her ears, stood up, and shouted: “Stop it!”

And, very suddenly, it all stopped. The strange creatures disappeared, and all of their cries went silent, as if they‘d never been there (which of course, they never had). Phoebe stood trembling for a second, but then lowered her hands. Taking a deep breath, she looked Miram in the eyes. “You can’t scare me with that stuff,” she said.

Miram looked at her with an unreadable expression for a moment. Then she shrugged. “Okay then,” she said. “We won’t try to scare you. We’ll just hurt Ruth.”

Ruth’s eyes went wide and she fell into ball on the floor immediately as the other girls encircled her. But before anything else could happen Phoebe jumped forward. “Stop!” she said, and all the girls turned in unison. “You win. I’ll do whatever you want. Just leave her alone, okay?”

Miram shrugged again. “Come on,” she said. “You’re making us late. Both of you, let’s go.”

The girls led Phoebe and Ruth to the back door. Everything was still locked, and the furniture was still in place at every exit, so they had to move it out of the way. One of the girls picked up the Bible on the threshold, and when she saw what it was she laughed and threw it over her shoulder.

They were going to the pasture again, apparently, all of them in a line, with Phoebe at the back, comforting Ruth with her arm around the other girl’s shoulder. She let the other girls get a little ahead of them, then put her mouth close to Ruth’s ear. “We’ll run,” she said. “On three, just as soon as they get a little bit further on. Ready?”

Ruth stopped immediately and shouted: “She’s going to run! She’s telling me to run! Don’t let her get away!”

Phoebe was so shocked that she couldn’t move. Miram turned around and, without pause, slapped Phoebe so hard in the face that she knocked her to her knees.

“Cunt,” said Miram. Then she prodded Phoebe with the tip of a shoe. “Get up.”

They continued their trudge through the wild grass and over the broken old fence and into the back pasture. Ruth hugged against Phoebe and whispered. “I’m sorry. They’ll hurt us worse if we try to run. Please don’t hate me.”

“You tried to warn me yesterday,” said Phoebe. “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you.”

“Yeah,” said Ruth. “Me too.”

Halfway across the pasture they stopped. One of the girls pulled something out of the grass; it was a long wooden pole, seven or eight feet. She inspected it for a moment and then, apparently satisfied, pointed at Ruth. “You come with me,” she said.

Ruth shrank away. Impatient, the other girl grabbed her wrist. “Come on,” she said. “Stop thrashing. If you thrash while we’re in the air, I’ll drop you.” The girl held the pole out and indicated that Ruth should grab onto it too. Ruth shook and cried and said:

“Oh, please no. I don’t want to. I don’t—”

But it was too late. There was a sound like a great rush of air, and a powerful wind blew through the pasture, turning Phoebe’s and everybody else’s hair about. Ruth screamed once and then both girls, pole and all, were gone, Ruth’s scream trailing in the breeze.

Miram retrieved a similar stave and, holding it at her side, indicated that Phoebe should come with her. Phoebe looked at the setup doubtfully. “You can’t be serious,” she said.

The look on Miram’s face said that she was. Phoebe took one step back but, finding that the other girls had closed ranks behind her, she had nowhere to go. So she stepped up beside Miram, grasped the shaft with as much courage as she could muster, and then—

It was like the entire world fell away. Before she knew what had happened they were soaring through the night sky, Miram sitting with poised confidence on the thin breadth of the pole, both legs dangling over one side, as if mounted sidesaddle. Phoebe clung to the tail end with her knuckles white, screaming at the top of her lungs. The wind sucked all of the sound away from her.

Miram laughed like a little kid on a roller coaster. “Look down,” she said. Phoebe refused, ratcheting her eyes shut. “Look down or I’ll drop you,” Miram said, so Phoebe opened her eyes then.

She gasped. A roiling ocean of black and gray storm clouds spilled out underneath them, gilded with moonlight and blue bursts of lightning. Wisps of cloud parted and trailed around the other five girls as they flew up after them.

“It’s beautiful!” Phoebe cried. She couldn’t help it. Miram smiled and nodded in reply, then threw back her head and laughed, long and wild. After they’d been flying for several minutes, Phoebe dared to call out, “Where are we going?”

Miram pointed. A mountain peak penetrated the clouds up ahead. As they flew closer, Phoebe made out lights on the summit. A few seconds later her stomach lurched as the beam angled downward. “We’re going to land,” Miram said.

“Oh no. Oh no!”

“Hang on,” said Miram, laughing still, and Phoebe screamed some more, and down they went.

The landing was an exercise in terror. If she’d eaten anything all day, Phoebe would surely have thrown it up. Instead she was left heaving up nothing while crouched in dry grass and pebbles, her knees and the palms of her hands scuffed and scratched from sliding in the dirt

Miram, on the other hand, touched down quite easily, abandoning the pole and walking right by Phoebe to join the festivities. It was Abbie who helped Phoebe to her feet. Abbie, naked again, but not a specter this time. She pulled Phoebe up and helped brush the dirt and grass off her uniform. “There,” said Abbie. “You’re finally here. Now come on.”

Phoebe stumbled. “Where are you taking me? I just got here. And I don‘t feel all right. And I‘m not—”

“Come on,” was all Abbie said. “Come on.”

Here there were dozens of women all gathered around fires, talking and laughing and doing very strange things which Phoebe only glimpsed in passing as Abbie dragged her along. Almost everyone was naked. Near the edge of the summit, where the cliff dropped into a seemingly endless black gulf, someone was blowing long notes on a horn. Nearby, somebody else pounded a drum. Although she couldn’t really see them, Phoebe felt the musicians were not people but things, and her skin crawled at even the impression of their silhouettes.

Ruth was here, sitting on her knees at the edge of the cliff, the picture of misery. Someone else was with her, a tall man dressed all in black, difficult to pick out from the night sky. When he looked at Phoebe her heart fluttered in shock. “Mr. Dane!” she said.

He didn’t answer. Instead he held something out with both hands: a heavy book, with a red binding. Flipping through it, he revealed page after page of red splotches and untidy scribbles. When he came at last to a blank spot, he offered it to her. She took a step back, confused.

“Mr. Dane, what are you doing here? What do you want? Why—”

Then she looked the man squarely in the eye. He returned a small nod of acknowledgment.

“You’re not Mr. Dane…” Phoebe said. He continued to offer the book, but Phoebe didn’t take it. The Black Man (whoever he was) eventually pushed the book toward Ruth instead. She recoiled, as if it were a dead animal.

“Oh no,” she said. “I won’t sign it. I don’t even know what book it is. It’s the devil’s book for all I know!”

Ruth became hysterical, and the Black Man soon turned away, disgusted. Abbie was right behind Phoebe, and she whispered, “You should sign.”

“I…I don’t know.”

“You should sign,” Abbie said again, and, before Phoebe knew what she was doing Abbie grabbed her hand and thrust it forward. The Black Man presented the blank page again, and Phoebe‘s fingertip touched it. The paper turned dark red, as if it were bleeding in the shape of a crescent. He seemed satisfied when he closed the cover. Abbie did too.

“See?” said Abbie. “That was easy.”

They took Phoebe with them as they sat by the fire, putting her between them in what seemed like a prominent place. They brought Ruth along too, although they sat her far away, and the other women looked at her with unveiled disgust.

Abbie put something into Phoebe’s hand. It was a cup made of wood, sloshing with something thick and red. It looked more or less like wine, but it didn’t smell right. The Black Man gave her something like a piece of bread, but it was red too, like it had been stained by lying too close to something unpleasant for too long.

By the light of the roaring orange flames she saw the other women greedily tipping their cups back, spilling thick red wine down their naked bodies and feeding scarlet morsels to one another. Ruth was refusing both and making a lot of noise. “I won’t,” she said. “I won’t, I won‘t!”

When they tried shoving the bread in her mouth she spit it out. Angry, the women rubbed it in her face, and when she bent over to spit out the crumbs they overturned the cup on her head, laughing. Phoebe frowned

“Try it,” Abbie said, putting the cup and bread in her hand again. “This is your body. This is your blood. Do you see?”

Phoebe didn‘t see. But when the Black Man placed the bread very gently on her tongue and stroked her chin she couldn‘t help but swallow. She hadn’t eaten all day, and she suddenly remembered how hungry she was. When they offered her more, she ate more, and it tasted good.

“Now try this,” said Abbie, raising the cup. The drink was both sour and sweet, and it coated her lips so that the taste never entirely faded. Abbie drank hers too, then surprised Phoebe with a kiss. When their lips touched Abbie poured a mouthful of wine into Phoebe‘s, where it flowed into her belly and became part of her blood.

“Dance with me,” Abbie said. Phoebe got to her feet (somewhat unsteadily). Around and around the fire everybody went, all the women’s naked hides painted red by flames. Two women Phoebe didn’t know began taking her uniform off, and she didn’t stop them. Then they all went in circles around again, leaping, twisting, crawling, and shouting, and Phoebe with them.

“This is my body,” she muttered, slurring the words in a drunken haze. Looking at her own bare arms and legs, she understood. “This IS my body!” she shouted, and Abbie shouted for joy with her, and they both went round in a dance of hellish joy.

Now and then Phoebe glimpsed Ruth, who still sat and stared, wide-eyed, at everything. But every time Phoebe saw her for even a second the Black Man blocked her view. Only now he looked different. Sometimes he was still Frank Dane, but sometimes he was a woman, or a little girl, or a bear, or a goat, or a black dog, or a white horse. No matter what he was, he was always watching her.

Phoebe didn’t know the women who began kissing her. She kissed them back without question or reply. Their hands moved on her, three or four pairs, stroking and fondling and groping and finally pulling her right into a knot of bodies on the ground. Phoebe’s head lolled and her eyes rolled back as half a dozen attentive mouths began exploring her.

The drumbeat pounded in her ears, complimented by little gasps and squeals of delight over her from the assembled women. She put her hands out and touched anything that came close, stroking a strange woman’s face, and then the firm flank of a backside, and then testing the sensitivity of a bare breast or exposed thigh. Everything was orange and red in the firelight, the women’s faces like black lines painted on a flickering backdrop.

She gasped when the first woman’s mouth found its way between her thighs. She couldn’t see anything of whoever it was except for a head of wavy hair, which she grabbed and pushed down on even as she thrust up with her hips. The women around her laughed. “So eager,” one said. “You don’t have to rush.”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” Phoebe said. She grabbed the woman and pulled her down for a kiss, tongue stabbing deep into her mouth as someone else’s tongue explored her curves and folds below. The air was thick with sex and sweat and too many bodies. Giggles, moans, and sounds of excited affirmation filled the night like tinkling bells.

Someone was lying right next to Phoebe, her nude body splayed like a table setting for the others. Phoebe rolled over just enough to grab the other girl and kiss her, their mouths opening to overwhelm each other and moan into the hollow of each other’s bodies. The circle of naked, writhing, dancing, ecstatic women picked over from one girl to the other, trading spots back and forth between their thighs, licking their naked breasts, kissing their exposed arms, shoulders, and thighs. Phoebe gushed.

She had assumed the girl next to her was Ruth, but when she opened her eyes again she saw that it was someone she didn’t know, a woman a few years older. Curious, Phoebe stood up (unsteadily) and picked her way through the assembly, until she spotted where Ruth was hiding. The other girl sat on a rock, hugging her knees, staring in terror. Phoebe put out her hand.

“Come on,” she said.

Ruth shook her head.

“Come on,” Phoebe repeated. “You‘ll like it.” The flames leapt higher, making a twisted black kaleidoscope of shadows on the rocks. Ruth shook her head again.

“Forget her,” said Abbie. She was lying by the fire nearby. Phoebe went to her, dropping halfway and crawling across the grass, arriving on her hands and knees as Abbie parted her legs and pulled her in. The scent of wet sex surrounded Phoebe as she leaned in to kiss and lick the pretty pink slit between Abbie’s thighs. The sharp, hot taste made her tongue tingle.

Phoebe lay on her belly on the ground and buried her face into Abbie, exploring every curve of her. Abbie didn’t cry out or moan; her only response was to hiss between her teeth and push up with her thighs in encouragement. Phoebe closed her eyes and leaned in to kiss and suck harder and deeper, drinking her classmate’s body into her open mouth.

Rough hands grabbed her from behind, seizing on her hips and pulling them up, so that her rear arched into the air. She gasped and tried to look, but Abbie forced her head down again. When she felt the hard protrusion trace the line of her ass until coming to the place where her wet pussy splayed out she knew who it was: Mr. Dane.

Phoebe gasped again when he slid the tip inside, then cried out harder. Abbie arched an eyebrow. “It’s not your first, is it?”

“No…” Phoebe said. But it was certainly her first like this. It didn’t feel warm and human; it was a cold, hard thing, like a toy nobody had lubed up, but it filled her completely when he started to fuck her. She went half-limp, letting the feeling rack her body back and forth on the ground.

“Serve me,” said the Black Man. And again as he rocked in and out of her: “Serve me.”

“Oh…oh…yes!”

Abbie stroked Phoebe’s face, guiding her back to the warm cradle of her thighs. Phoebe gave herself up to it. The cold, hard thing continued to pump her from behind, until soon, it spilled over, filling her with the cool, wet, spurting nectar of its ancient lust. There was more than she could take, she knew. It was a fountain that would never run dry, saturating her body until there was just as much of it as her in her own body, hidden deep in her black insides.

***

Phoebe woke up sick. She thought she should run to the bathroom, but found she was there already. That was lucky. She was back at her house (although she didn’t remember how she got here), half-dressed with her legs bare. Her calves and ankles were cut and bleeding and, as she watched with a vague horror, her cat, Belladonna, crouched over her, licking the blood from her scratches.

“Stop it,” she said. Then, louder, “Stop!”

The cat gave her a bored look and crept out of the room, tail swaying. Phoebe slumped over between the toilet and the bathtub. She wanted to curl up and bury herself until her hangover went away. Or maybe just until she died. Whichever happened first.

Eventually, she crawled to the living room. The TV was on, with its bleary images of faceless ministers. When she unmuted it, the broadcast said only one thing:

“What contract have you made with the Devil?”

Phoebe blinked. The TV spoke again:

“Why do you seem to act witchcraft before us with the motions of your body, which have influenced the afflicted?”

“I don‘t know what you‘re talking about,” said Phoebe, putting her face in the crook of her arm. “I don’t even know what a witch is.”

“If you don’t know what a witch is, how do you know you aren’t one?” said the TV. Then the set turned itself off.

Dragging herself to the kitchen, she fumbled with the phone receiver. Which job would Mom be at today? Or was she out of town again? Phoebe couldn’t remember. But it didn’t matter, because no sooner did she touch the phone than it rang, startling her. She snatched it up and thrust the receiver to her ear. “Hello?”

“Hello?” said a man’s voice. “Who is this?”

The hair on the back of Phoebe’s neck stood up. “Mr. Dane?”

“Is that you, Phoebe?”

“Yes. Mr. Dane, why are you calling me? I…I guess I’m late for school, aren’t I?”

“It’s Saturday, Phoebe. I’m calling because you called me.”

“No I didn‘t? I don‘t even know your phone number?”

“I got a weird call from this number. It sounded like…well I don’t know what it sounded like, but it sounded pretty bad. I didn’t realize this was you. You really didn’t call me?”

“I’m not sure. I think I‘ve done a lot of things I‘m not sure about. I think…” She paused, and then before she had the chance to think better of it she said, all in a rush: “Mr. Dane, can you come here please? I’ve hurt myself somehow, and nobody’s home, and I really need help. I’m sorry, but will you come here right now please?”

He seemed to hesitate. Phoebe held her breath. “Okay,” he finally said. “Where do you live?”

Phoebe paced as she waited and made a halfhearted attempt at tidying the house up. She spotted Mr. Dane through the window before he knocked. She wanted to smile at him when she answered the door, but the best she managed was a weak wave.

“You look awful,” he said, coming inside.

She shut the door and locked it. “It’s not as bad as it looks.”

“Phoebe…” he said, turning away and looking at the wall. “You’re not wearing any pants.”

She glanced at her bare legs. She wasn’t wearing underwear either. Mr. Dane was blushing, but Phoebe just laughed. “I guess I had better get dressed. Come in and wait?”

He loitered around the interior, not sure what to do. “Where are your parents?”

“Mom’s not around,” she called from the laundry room. It looked like she had nothing clean. She settled for pulling on just the skirt of one of her uniforms. That left her at least somewhat decently covered. When she looked into the living room, she found Mr. Dane eyeing the previous night’s books curiously. The cat sniffed around his shoes. Now she did manage to smile.

“Do you want anything? Something to drink? Or something else?”

“You told me you were hurt.”

“I was. But…I think I’m much better now. I was mixed up. I’m sorry I scared you. It was sweet of you to be worried, though.” Now that she wasn’t alone, she didn’t feel sick anymore. Or even scared. Suddenly, she felt very good.

He stood with his hands in his coat pockets, like he didn’t trust himself with them. “I’ll get going then,” he said, although his face clearly showed that he didn’t believe a word she’d said.

“Please stay? Since you’re here already.”

“I can’t be alone with a student in a private setting.”

“Why not?”

“It’s inappropriate.’

“I’ve done worse,” Phoebe said. “I bet you have too.” She skirted closer to him, sliding her bare feet over the floorboards. He was standing in front of the couch and she put her fingertips to his chest, trying to push him down onto it. He didn’t budge. “Loosen up. It’s a weekend, right? School‘s out.”

“I’m leaving.”

“If you really want to.”

Abbie was standing right behind Mr. Dane. He didn’t seem to realize she was there, not even when she put her hands on his shoulders and pushed him down into a sitting position on the couch. Phoebe clambered onto his lap and spread her legs, so that her naked cunt pressed into his crotch. She ran her fingers through his unruly hair. From behind, Abbie licked the ridge of his ear, although again he didn’t seem aware of this either.

“What’s gotten into you?” he said.

“All sorts of things. You want to put something else into me?”

“This isn‘t right. I could lose my job…”

“I won’t tell. I‘m good with secrets.” She unbuckled his belt. Thrusting her fingers inside, she found the bulge and rubbed it over and over while she kissed Mr. Dane’s mouth and jaw. He didn’t kiss her back, but neither did he stop her.

She circled a thumb and a finger around his cock and squeezed through the cotton of his underpants. The surface of Mr. Dane’s cock felt silky and smooth when her fingers pushed the last layer of clothing away. Strange, she thought. It was simple flesh, easy to use, but dangling and hapless until inflamed by her touch or the proximity of her own body.

Abbie wiggled her eyebrows at Phoebe and grinned. Phoebe pushed Mr. Dane’s legs up so that he was lying on the couch instead of sitting on it. She pulled his belt off in one go and yanked his pants down. They became tangled around his shoes, which she’d neglected to take off of him, leaving him somewhat hogtied at the ankles. Oh well.

His body smelled like a hot animal. She stroked his naked cock some more, as if testing. This part at least seemed ready for business, despite the teacher’s squirming reluctance. She kissed the tip. He groaned. “This will mean trouble,” he said.

“Just come on. Don’t you want to?” Phoebe said. She licked her teacher‘s cock with her red, red mouth. “Haven’t you always wanted to?”

“Yes…”

“So come on” Phoebe sucked the head of his cock into her mouth, pursing her lips against it and smiling around him as he collapsed into quivering helplessness. She’d expected it to have a raw, meaty taste, but the actual sensation was surprisingly sterile. Testing, she inched him into her open mouth a bit a time. Abbie stroked her hair and coaxed her along. She nearly choked once, but after a moment the muscles at the back of her mouth opened up and allowed her to swallow him all the way down.

Phoebe’s mouth latched on, and her throat rippled with a swallowing motion as she milked Mr. Dane’s cock. Abbie straddled her from behind, watching everything with bright eyes from over Phoebe’s shoulder while whispering encouragement in her ear and, occasionally, reaching around to squeeze and stroke Phoebe’s tits through her shirt. Her body ached as she bobbed her head up and down.

Mr. Dane seemed stuck in a daze, staring at the ceiling with his mouth open and one of his hands dangling off the couch. He looked ridiculous, Phoebe thought, half-dressed with his pants down, helpless against an 18 year old girl who had nothing to use against him except for a pair of pretty lips. Her gasped once, when her teeth grazed him. “Not so hard, you greedy bitch,” Abbie whispered.

Mr. Dane squirmed harder, thrashing back and forth with his hips. Rather than risk him bucking her off, she slid him even further down her throat. His lips still parted in a long, paralyzed gasp, even as he started to buck, thrusting up against her wantonly sucking mouth as his orgasm hit him and then he began to spurt.

Phoebe’s eyes went wide in a moment of surprise, but she repressed the urge to spit it all out. Instead she swallowed, and felt it running down her throat and into her belly. Although her teacher appeared to have been deflated by his own climax, Phoebe felt fuller than ever. She opened her mouth and let the last bit that she hadn’t swallowed dribble down her chin.

Abbie kissed her and then, looking right at Mr. Dane, she said. “I don’t think that was appropriate at all. I think you may have seriously violated your students’ trust.”

Mr. Dane looked at Abbie for the first time. “Oh God!” he said. “This isn’t—that is, I’m not—”

“Oh hush up,” said Phoebe. She bit her lip and then he did too, only and suddenly he couldn‘t seem to speak. When she tugged her hair he sat and then couldn‘t stand back up. Abbie laughed and patted him on the head. Phoebe laughed too. It was just too funny.

The girls kissed. “How do you feel?” Abbie said.

“Perfect,” said Phoebe, and it was true.

“It‘s only going to get better from here,” said Abbie. They drew together in a tight embrace, and in Phoebe’s ear Abbie whispered every secret she knew.

“It’s all yours now,” she said. “All the kingdoms of the world, in all of their authority and splendor. It’s all been given to me. And I’ll give it to you.”

And she saw how good it was.