Salem 1693
"My darling," crooned Winifred Sanderson, lovingly. "My little book. We must continue with our spell now that our little guest of honor has arrived. Wake up," she coaxed the book like a mother would their child. "Wake up, darling. Yes – oh, come along. There you are."
Thackery and Abigail climbed up the waterwheel, allowing them to enter the house through a thick paned window on the second floor. It opened onto a narrow loft that looked down into the main room, making it the perfect hiding spot. The children pressed themselves as far down to the floorboards as they could and peered over the edge at the little girl and the witches below.
"Ah, there it is," Winifred was saying. Her book was open on a slanted table, a massive cauldron bubbling over a fire beside her. She read aloud from the book's pages: "'Bring to a full rolling bubble; add two drops of oil of boil. Mix blood of an owl with the herb that's red. Turn three times, pluck a hair from my head. Add a dash of pox and a dead man's toe'." She turned to Sarah, the blond sister, who was once said to be quite the beauty. "Dead man's toe," Winifred ordered. "And make it a fresh one."
Sarah Sanderson instantly brightened and began to dance around the room, repeating the command.
Abigail recoiled at the list of ingredients in the potion. Nothing her mother had taught her to make required any of that. The potions she'd made usually involved picking flowers or herbs at midnight under a full moon or a new moon, and they certainly never involved the limbs of a dead man.
Thackery cringed. He thought of George Flamsted, the nice fisherman whose boat capsized late in September. He'd washed ashore untouched, save for his missing big toes. People had whispered for days about the Devil's work.
Mary tossed a toe in the pot and another at Sarah for good measure. But hit Winifred instead.
"Will you stop that?" Winifred demanded when the digit hit her back, rounding on both her sisters. "I need to concentrate." She turned back to her book and then, satisfied, called her sisters to the potion. The cauldron's surface was covered by a cloud of thick white smoke.
Thackery chewed his bottom lip as he spied, tasting blood. Emily was sitting quietly off to the side. He wondered what could be going through her mind. He'd seen a flash of recognition when he and Abigail had peered through the window earlier, but now his sister was sitting serenely as the doll he'd thought her to be when the mid-wife had first wrapped her in a clean blanket.
"'One thing more and all is done'," chanted Winifred, reading from the book once more, waving her hands over the surface of the pot. "'Add a bit of thine own tongue'."
All at once, the three sisters stuck out their tongues and bit down with a crunch. Abigail's stomach lurched; she couldn't imagine biting off part of her tongue for a potion. She cringed and buried her head in Thackery's shoulder. Thackery's stomach turned at the sight, but when Abigail's head rested on his shoulder he was distracted momentarily and wished he'd tried harder to send her back to town.
The sisters spat into the potion and began the vile liquid with a wooden spoon.
"One drop of this," breathed Winifred, "and her life will be mine." She caught herself, though her sister didn't seem to notice the slip. "I mean ours."
Thackery looked over his shoulder out the window but could hear nothing from outside. Where was Elijah? His father? Surely, they should arrive at any moment.
When the sisters scooped some of the potion onto the large spoon and advanced on Emily, Thackery didn't think, he jumped, and Abigail could do nothing to stop him.
"No!" he shouted as he jumped. Stopping them from feeding the horrible brew to his sister.
"A boy," Winifred growled. "Get him, you fools!"
Thackery dodged around the younger witches, moving around the bubbling pot so they couldn't catch him. He grabbed the lip of the pot and shoved. He didn't care about the searing pain that shot through his hands as he clutched the hot metal. He had to save his sister.
The brew spilled across the floor of the hut, and he rushed to his sister, but it was too late. Winifred had given her was left of the potion in the spoon. The old witch delicately wiped the corner of his sister's mouth before turning on him.
"Always keep your eyes on the prize, my boy!" She cackled, raising her free hand. The air filled with a violent green light, and Thackery's world filled up and spilled over with pain.
His muscled betrayed him and his vision went dark as he collapsed on the floor, like a puppet without strings.
Abigail nearly revealed herself then, but she knew her magic wasn't strong enough to fight all three of them. She might be able to out witch Sarah or Mary by themselves, but Winifred was another story. Perhaps if she could figure out a spell she could help. Her mind began to race through ideas, through rhymes, through the little Latin she had retained, anything that might help. Even if it meant revealing to Thackery that she too was a witch.
Thackery's mind was blank from the pain. When he was able to blink again, he wasn't sure if he'd lost seconds or minutes or longer. His head tipped to the side and he saw Emily was still there, but so were the Sanderson sisters, unfortunately. He could hear mumbling, but none of the sisters seemed to be talking, just staring at Emily.
Up in the loft, Abigail was trying to think of a way to surprise the sisters, but her spells never did quiet what they were meant to, so she had to make sure this one worked just right. Maybe she could spell Emily so that she wouldn't die. She mumbled the spells to herself, halting in the middle of some, starting over, struggling with the rhymes. She didn't work well under pressure. Rhymes were hard to pull out of thin air and time was running out.
Emily sat quite as she did in church, she was serene but doll-like, unmoving, and unaware of the danger she was in. Her pale skin and white nightgown looked iridescent in the low light. But the glow became real, and the iridescence became one that might grace the form of an angel, soft and golden.
"'Tis her life force!" Winnie squealed. "The potion works." She held her hands out to her sisters. "Take my hands – we will share her."
Thackery dragged himself up on a nearby ladder, the world spun around him. His head swung upwards to look for Abigail, surly she'd fled by now, but no the girl was sitting up on the loft staring down at the sisters intently, her mouth moving, her brow furrowed. He wondered what she could possibly be doing, but his head hurt too much to try and string too many thoughts together. His attention turned to his sister, and he felt his heart would break.
The sisters inhaled and the light surrounding Emily disappeared behind their lips with each breath. At the final inhale, Emily's body went limp. Her face was drawn and sallow, her skin was grey as if her blood had been stolen from her too.
Thackery lurched forward towards his sister, but only vomited on the floor. He wanted to look away but couldn't tear his eyes from her. He stared in horror. Emily. Dead. Frail and shrunken like an old woman. He vomited again.
Abigail slumped back down on the loft. Her spells had failed. She'd tried to seal Emily's life force to her body, but the potion had already freed it. She'd tried to take the effects onto herself. She could jump out the window and run, her mother could reverse the potion, but that hadn't worked either. So poor Emily Binx had died. But Thackery was still down there, still in trouble. If she couldn't save Emily, she would try her best to save Thackery. She couldn't imagine a Salem without him.
The sisters were rejoicing their success.
Sarah Sanderson danced around, running her fingers through her newly golden curls. "I'm beautiful!" She cried. "Boys will love me!"
Mary's plump face had color once more and her white hair turned black as a raven's wing. Her face was almost pleasant. "We're young!" she laughed, clapping.
Winifred picked up a mirror and her face fell, perhaps she shouldn't have been so generous with her sisters. "Well, younger" she corrected. She seemed to regain her confidence with a surge of energy. "But it's a start!"
As the sisters promenaded together Thackery continued to drag himself to his feet, as unsteady as they were.
"Oh, Winifred," Mary cooed, "thou art a sprig of a girl."
"Liar!" Winifred shouted. "But I shall be a sprig of a girl forever," she twirled each of her sisters, "once I suck the life out of all the children in Salem!" She turned to Thackery, beaming, and then advanced on him. "Let's brew another batch."
"You hag," Thackery growled. "There are not enough children in the world to make thee young and beautiful."
His words made Winifred stop short.
"Hag," she repeated distaste coloring her words. "Sisters, did you hear what he called you?"
Thackery was clearly talking to Winifred, but was unable to speak, for Winifred spoke before he could muster the energy. "Whatever shall we do with him?"
"Barbecue and fillet him," Mary offered.
"Hang him on a hook," Sarah reached for his chest, "and let me play with him."
Abigail nearly jumped down with no plan at that, but she quickly gathered her wits again.
"No," Winifred snapped, then called for her book.
The book was a heavy tome that was bound in scraps of thick, tanned human skin and roughly stitched together in such a way that it looked like scars on a dead man's face. The metal clasp on the book's cover encircled a bit of puckered leather in the shape of an eye. Upon being called the book floated across the room to reach Winifred.
"Dazzle me, my darling," the ginger witch crooned.
The book opened of its own accord and Winifred flipped through the spells and potions before she found the perfect one. Above Abigail was trying to peer down so as to prepare a counter spell, but she found it impossible to see the pages of the book.
"His punishment shall not be to die, but to live forever with his guilt."
"As what, Winnie?" her sisters questioned, delighted by the prospect of endless torture.
Winifred moved forward, while Thackery tried to get away from her walnut brown eye and the sight of her narrow lips and large teeth. His ears filled with the sister's chanting.
"'Twist the bones and bend the back'," Winifred chanted, her sisters murmuring a spell beneath her words. Thackery winced, pain shooting through him, worse than when the green light filled the small house. Winifred continued: "Trim him of his baby fat. Give him fur as black as black. Just… like… this.'"
The last spell had felt like lightning under his skin, but this one made his bones feel like they were being boiled. His body felt like it was twisting in on itself, his bones snapping and turning into smaller thinner versions of themselves. As he screamed his voice became a shrill yowl.
In his haze of pain, he could only hope that Abigail had the good sense to run away, back to town, or to find the men that should be on their way. But his hopes were dashed as he heard his name called out from above.
"Thackery!" A thump on the floor made the boy realize his friend had jumped down from the loft. He could hear her murmuring words over him, sounding more and more frustrated. He felt so small, she seemed so much larger than he remembered. He'd finally grown taller than her in the past year, a fact that he held over her head quite a bit.
"What have you done, you horrible witches!" Abigail whirled around to face the shocked sisters.
They hadn't expected Thackery to show up, much less that he brought a friend along with him.
"Another child," Winifred recovered from the shock first. "Hello, my dear, aren't you a pretty one."
"What have you done to Thackery, witch?" Abagail knew not to listen to their sugary words. She'd seen everything that had happened in the cabin and her mother had told her that they were the worst sort of witches.
"We only punished him as we saw fit," Winifred responded her voice still sugary sweet. "Now, won't you stay for some stew? We're going to cook up another pot."
"I'll not fall for your tricks," Abigail nearly snarled, her lips curling in disgust. "I know your tricks and your magic; my mother has worked her whole life in Salem to keep your evil out."
"Ah, the white witch's daughter." Winifred dropped the act. "Well, what are you going to do? Throw salt at us?"
There was a pounding on the door, voices were heard. The house shook from all the pounding.
"It seems I won't have to do anything."
"It's no matter if we die today or on the marrow," Winifred hissed. "We will come back and we will suck the life from all the children of Salem. And when we do come back, you'll be dead and unable to stop us."
Abigail's green eyes narrowed. "I'll make sure if you ever come back, witch, that I'll be there to see you ended."
"Unless you're planning on turning yourself into a cat, like your dear Thackery, I don't see how that's possible."
Abigail was silent for a moment, the voices of the townspeople were louder, angrier, making it much harder to think.
"A curse on my soul,
From flesh to stone
Turn my body and bone.
To wait out centuries
Immune to their miseries.
Untouched by time or age
I'll wait to fight thine rage.
When thy evil returns,
I will live to see thee burn,
Only then may my death toll."
The stiffness started in her toes. They grew cold and hard. It crept up her ankles and her legs. She couldn't bend her knees. Her hips were soon paralyzed as well. It was harder to breathe when her chest became stone. Her eyes closed when the stone reached her neck. Seconds later she was left a statue.
Thackery had crawled away under a chest of drawers. He fought through the pain to stay awake, he had to know what was going to happen to Abigail. He needed to know if he was going to fail and lose her as well.
His mind reeled when he saw her spell herself. She was a witch, like the Sanderson sisters! He couldn't grasp it. Perhaps the sisters cursed her. It was hard to think through the pain. And he could no longer hold onto consciousness. So, once again, his world went black.
The Sanderson sisters were guilty before the trial began; their case was not helped by their lack of remorse for the children that were lost.
The same night that three children were lost, the sisters were stood on barrels with ropes around their necks. The cackled and teased the witnesses as their crimes were readout.
Thackery's father asked one last time where his son was, but the witches refused to answer.
Dr. Cromwell also pleaded with the sisters to reverse whatever spell they cast on his eldest daughter, but the witches only shrieked with laughter again.
Hope was lost for the two families. Before the sisters hung, they swore to come back when a virgin lit the black flame candle on All Hallows Eve.
It took 300 years and a move across the country for a boy named Max to light the candle. It was a long 300 years for Thackery Binx, who spent every minute of it as a black cat, but for Abigail, it was over in a flash. She was oblivious to the passing years and the changes in the world.
Her statue form was moved to the Salem cemetery and stood over her empty grave. Waiting to stop the Sanderson sisters, should they ever return.
A/N: I know I said every three days, and I plan on sticking to that, but I realized AFTER I uploaded the first chapter that I should have put it up on the 3rd, not the 1st. But I'm terrible at math so I figured I'd just switch the days to when I meant to post for this chapter. Sorry about that!