Read Online 09 - Return Of The Witch by Dana E. Donovan - Free Book Online Page B

understanding.”
    “Thanks be not mentioned.”
    “So, tell me what you think about the old witch.”
    “ Paige Turner seems pleasant enough.”
    “ You’re sick. You know that? What do you think about the prophecy? Is there’s anything to it?”
    “ Mayhap so. Mayhap not. Thou cannot discredit that which is foretold and so hast come to pass already.”
    “Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking. I know one thing, though.”
    “Oh?”
    “If there is an evil power waiting to do battle, it’s not Ingersoll’s Witness. The Demdike Grimoire predates Ingersoll by eighty years.”
    “Who then might that evil be?”
    “I don’t have a clue.”
    “Methinks it wise we should follow the horse by what droppings it doth leave behind.”
    “What do you mean?”
    She held up a slip of paper with Dominic’s handwriting on it. “I have this, what I have borrowed from my Dominic’s desk.”
    I snatched the paper from her. “Let me see that.” I scanned it briefly, alternating glances between the paper and the road until I understood what I was looking at. Ursula, do you know what this is?”
    “Aye.”
    I read some of it aloud. “Terri Cotta—Salem, Amber Burns—Georgetown, Wendy Skye, April Raines, Newburyport, Ipswich…. This is a list of names and addresses for the four missing women!”
    “ I know. Did I do thee well?”
    “Ye s, you sneaky little cheeky monkey. You did thee very well.” I re-routed eastward onto 128. “Guess we’re going to Salem.”
    Ursula pointed out the window. “Lead thee onward.”

 
     
     
    Chapter 8
     
     
    We drove on to Salem, to a nice part of town in a neighborhood I knew well. Terri Cotta’s house, it turned out, sat just across from Harmony Grove Cemetery, a favorite haunt of mine in younger days. It’s peaceful there at night, as are most cemeteries, I suppose.
    I used to love it there in the fall. The rustling of dried leaves in the trees at night sounded just like waves breaking on the shore. I’d sometimes sit there for hours, gazing up at the stars and listening to the wind, its voice granted by hundreds of long-forgotten souls.
    It made me wonder if Terri ever went there at night. Did she ever lend an ear to the spirits whose voices still echo on a breeze that no one else listens to?
    I dropped the car into park and turned off the motor. “I gotta tell ya,” I told Ursula, looking out at Terri’s house. “This place gives me an uneasy sense of déjà vu.”
    “Aye, `tis the gnome.”
    “What?”
    Ursula tapped on the side window and pointed at the lawn ornament by the entryway. As gnomes go, it wasn’t too ugly. In fact, it was cute, a little bearded old man with a cherry nose, sitting at a potter’s wheel spinning a clay pot.
    “`Tis a pattern I see, this gnome,” said Ursula. “Mayhap I, too, should get one for my lawn.”
    “ I’m not talking about the gnome. I’m telling you that I have a strange feeling I’ve been to this house before.”
    “This very house?”
    “Yes, this very house.”
    “With the gnome?”
    “Yes with that stupid gnome.”
    She nodded. “Ah, `tis a tacky thing that gnome.”
    “Ursula, may I remind you that I have a gnome on my front lawn?”
    “I know.”
    “Hmm…. Forget it. Come on. Let’s go check it out.”
    The drizzling had all but stopped by then, save for a fine mist that gathered like perspiration on our skin and wreaked havoc on our hair.
    The passing weather front had also caused the temperature to plummet significantly, something neither Ursula nor I were prepared for. We were both dressed scantly in short-sleeved button-ups, blue jeans and open-toed shoes. What started out as a sunny morning had quickly declined to a miserable afternoon. I only hoped the weather was no indication of where the rest of our day would end up.
    We knocked first and then rang the bell. When it seemed obvious nobody was home, we tried the doorknob.
    “It’s locked,” I said.
    Ursula gestured a nod around back. “Then we