October 31st, 1693. Salem, Massachusetts
I have to leave Salem at once. I am actually sitting on the outskirts of town as we speak. I have been walking for quite some time now and have to be a little ways out of the town limits at this point. I would have preferred not to stop, but I have my son with me, as well as Dorothy. They were both tired and starting to whine and cry so I had no choice but to stop and let them sleep, as well as feed my son.
The entire time, I have been alert. Even now, as I write this, I am barely seeing the pages. One reason is the dim lighting as night falls, for one thing. The other is that I am being extra vigilant for any unfamiliar sights and sounds. We are going to be followed, you see. They are going to track us down, starting with Judge John Hathorne.
It was an accident. The whole thing was an accident. Dorothy did not mean to do it. She did not mean for it to happen. I know because I know what has been happening to her and I have been trying to help her with it all this time-all these nights where I have been sneaking out to help her with her magic. I also saw the look of terror on her face tonight. I have been hearing her cry out for her father. Her mother as well, despite knowing at this point her mother has been gone for a while and is not coming back.
And now her father has met the same fate.
I had snuck out of the servant's quarters of Judge Hathorne's house, like I have been almost every night to go find Dorothy and help her with her magic. She had been coming along very nicely, learning how to safely control the things that she had come to view as strange and terrible, only because of what had happened to her and her mother. I knew how bad it could get if her fear of being put back into prison for what she was doing caused her to try and suppress it. That was why I decided to help. For her and for Sarah.
In any case, tonight I was walking Dorothy back across town to the bridge she had been sleeping under with her father. It broke my heart having to bring her back there. She needed proper shelter and food and care. But her father had nothing left after using everything to simply pay for her prison release. And I certainly could not give her any of those things. Not anymore. I hoped that perhaps one day I could, if I could manage to get out of my deal with Judge Hathorne.
I dream about escaping and starting over in a new town. Myself, my son, and Dorothy. We could get out of Salem and go somewhere else. Somewhere where no one knew us. But I was not sure how to get to that point without someone coming after us. Dorothy's father, for one. Or Judge Hathorne. I was his now, as much as the thought practically makes bile climb up my throat.
It made my heart break even more when Dorothy tugged on my sleeve and looked up at me with her large brown eyes. "Miss Elizabeth," she whispered. "I do not like sleeping outside every night. Can father and I go home with you? I would not be any trouble. I can help you cook and clean."
I sighed. "I wish you could, darling, but I am not staying at my house anymore. I am living somewhere else now."
"Is it because you and I were in the jail together?" she said. "Is it because of what I can do and what my mother could do? What you can do, too?"
"I suppose you could say that," I sighed.
"They hate us for it," Dorothy said matter of factly. "They say we are doing the devil's work. That we are freaks."
"Darling, no." I stopped in my tracks and crouched down to her level. "It is true that they put us in jail because they are afraid of what we can do, but I have told you, they just do not understand. Being like us is not a crime, do you hear me? You have not done a thing wrong. But you have to learn to control what you can do. You cannot try to ignore it or get rid of it. If not, you might hurt someone without meaning to. Otherwise, as long as you keep working at it, there will be no reason for you or anyone else to be frightened. The others just are unable to see that there is no reason to be afraid. They cannot understand it, and they fear what they are unable to understand."
"Could you teach them?" Dorothy asked. "Like you have been teaching me?"
"I wish I could," I said with a soft smile as I tapped her nose. "But they would not be as good of a student as you are."
She giggled quietly and took my hand again as we began walking back to the bridge.
When we were almost there, we were met by her father, who was in a terrible panic.
"Dorothy, there you are!" he cried, rushing over and pulling her into a hug. He looked up at me. "Where did you find her? And what are you doing out in the middle of the night? What are you doing out at all? I know you live at the Hathorne house now."
I swallowed nervously, but met his gaze firmly as I told him the truth. "William, I have been taking Dorothy out every night and bringing her back to my old house to practice magic."
"You what?" he asked, standing up and looking at me as if I were crazy.
Someone needs to teach her to control it and to do it safely. Otherwise, she will bury it and try to hide it and that will only do more harm than good. She could hurt herself, or you, or someone else in town and if they take her back to that prison, you will not be able to get her out this time."
"You dare to tell me what is good for my own daughter?" William asked, glaring at me. He was angry. I knew he would take it this way, which was another benefit of taking Dorothy out at night-he was usually fast asleep and never needed to know. He did not have an ounce of magic in him, you see. Sarah did, and Dorothy did. He knew about Sarah, of course, and I am not sure if he knew about Dorothy, but I am sure he considered the possibility at one point or another. She was too young to really be doing much magic anyway. Anything I had actually been helping her with was extremely minimal. She would not be showing clearer signs for another few years-when she was about seven or so. But when I took her back to my house, I was showing her books, pictures, potion materials. I showed her my grandmother's potion book-the one that included the very pregnancy test potion that I used on myself a year and a half ago now. It felt like a lifetime ago.
"Of course I do not want to tell you what to do, William," I said. "But in this case, I know what is best for her. Believe me, if she tries to hide what she can do, it will not turn out well. She could even die!"
"Come on now, I will not have you spewing this nonsense!" William said, his voice rising as he stepped closer to me. I hugged baby John, swaddled in blankets in my arms, to my chest, knowing that William would have the sense not to actually touch me if I had a baby. He would have the sense not to do so anyway, but he was clearly angry and it was not like I was a person of status anymore. I had sunk very low as far as anyone else was concerned. I had agreed to be a servant of a man who was hated in town by half of the people here.
"It is not nonsense," I said. "Your daughter has been traumatized by what she has gone through! It has affected her greatly! And I do not want it to affect her any further. Sarah asked me to-"
"To hell with what Sarah wanted!" William yelled, scoffing and turning away slightly before turning back to me. "If not for her and her-her-tomfoolery, we would not be in this mess! I know what she was and Dorothy is the same way! She is an innocent child who never asked for this sort of life! And she was imprisoned before she even turned five!"
"Daddy, please stop yelling," Dorothy said quietly, putting her hands over her ears.
"You are frightening her," I said, reaching for Dorothy, but William tugged her away from me.
"Keep away from her!" he yelled. He gave me a scathing look. "You are a danger. What you can do is a danger. I know what they say of you-all of you. They say you are carrying out the work of the devil himself," he said quietly.
"To say that of me is to say that of your dearly departed wife," I whispered fiercely. "And of your beautiful daughter." I nodded towards Dorothy.
William scoffed. "Believe me, Miss Proctor,"-I winced at the use of the word Miss, purposely punctuated to remind me that I was a widow-"there were times, especially towards the end where I hardly recognized Sarah. She was tired of being poor, tired of being an outcast. We all were. But she wore her bitterness on her sleeve."
"You know, Sarah did not ask for any of this either," I went on. "These accusations, these witch trials. It had a lot to do with why she behaved the way she did. She would tell me so. Besides, none of us should have to be sorry for who we are. She hated feeling guilty about the way she happened to be born."
"But Sarah never knew when to lay low," William argued. "She was the one taunting people who refused to give her a second look. She was spiteful of people who turned her away. If she had not started muttering under her breath within earshot of these people, they would never have accused her and brought our daughter into this. If she had just kept her damn mouth shut-"
"It may not have made a difference," I said. "And besides, there is nothing we can do about it now. Sarah is dead. Your daughter made it out alive and if you want to see her grow up healthy and happy-"
"How can she be?" William practically roared. "You said so yourself-she is traumatized from being in prison! She is traumatized from being dragged down the street to be brought in for questioning. She was worn down in questioning until she broke and sold her own mother out due to sheer exhaustion from hours in a courtroom! Her mother was killed for practicing witchcraft. So of course she is terrified! And instead, you-" he stepped closer to me again and jabbed his finger at me, but I refused to back away or flinch. "You think it a good idea to encourage foolish wand waving and ridiculous incantations and potion making? You think it a good idea to encourage her to do the very thing that got her mother killed?" He let out a bitter laugh. "Do not tell me what is good for my daughter. Do not tell me that her fear of what she can do is harmful! She should be afraid of it! When she gets accused of witchcraft a second time and taken in again, it will destroy her! And as you pointed out, I will not have the means to get her out. So if anyone's doing the harm here, it is you! And I will not let you be the reason my daughter gets taken away! Do you hear me?"
I steeled my gaze and looked at him, but did not answer. I was trying not to allow myself to rise to his level of anger. I was trying to keep myself calm. But this only seemed to enrage William more. He took another step towards me until we were practically nose to nose.
"I said do you-"
BANG.
The noise was so loud that I let out a shriek and my son immediately started crying as I clutched him in my arms and bent over him to shield him from whatever had happened. There had been the loud noise and a blast of light. I had felt a rush of wind, but I was still on my feet.
I began to bounce John slightly in my arms and gently soothe him as the light faded and I straightened up, immediately checking my surroundings. Dorothy was standing a few feet away, looking unharmed and I relaxed even more. But then I froze as I realized she was holding my wand. It must have fallen out of my dress sleeve where I had been storing it on the walk home. She was still holding it up in the air and staring in shock at the ground in front of her. I followed her gaze and almost fainted when I saw what she was looking at.
Her father was lying on the ground, his eyes wide and unblinking. William Good was dead.
There was no time to even fully process what had happened or even how, exactly, a five year old girl had managed to kill her own father. Even though I knew how. Anger, panic, fear, and months of trying to suppress magic can manifest inside young children in the evilest of ways. It builds and builds and builds until it explodes out of them. It was what I had been afraid of all along.
People had started to come out of their houses now to investigate. I heard doors opening and voices talking. I looked around me in a panic, noticing the stirring of people. They would be upon us in minutes. Perhaps seconds.
I grabbed my wand from Dorothy and tucked it away securely. Then I grabbed her hand.
And we ran.
The latest bombshell that had been dropped on me down in this underground room of the Proctor house really did make me drop my wand this time. I hadn't even realized I'd let go of it. I'd suddenly felt dizzy and I'd reached out to steady myself against the wall, dropping my wand in the process without fully even realizing it. It clattered to the floor at my feet. Eric seemed to take this as an opportunity and surged forward to grab it, stuffing it into his pocket once he did. I barely noticed. I was too preoccupied with my long lost mother standing in front of me, like some kind of ghost. Except she wasn't a ghost. She was real. And she'd been my foster mother the whole time. And I never knew.
"You have to be joking," I gasped. "The entire time I was living with you—you were lying to me! You were keeping the absolute biggest secret in the world from me!" I was getting angry now, and borderline hysterical. "Do you know how much I cried for you after the day you left me in the museum? I cried almost every day for a long time! I thought you didn't love me anymore. I wanted you to come back for me. And you never did, so I gave up hope. I gave up on you. And then you were right there, the whole time. For years! In the worst foster home I'd ever been in. You watched how he treated me and did nothing. And then you help him track me down in London, under another disguise! How could you?" Tears were forming in my eyes and my voice was coming out raw with emotion.
My mother looked at me pleadingly, tears forming in her own eyes and dripping down her cheeks. "Sophie, honey, didn't you-"
"Don't call me that," I snapped. "You don't get to call me honey after all that you did. Don't you get it? You don't mean anything to me anymore! I couldn't even decide if I'd rather you have been dead or not. Because at least if you were dead, you didn't have a choice in the matter of trying to find me!"
"But I did try," she said. "I did my best to find you again, but my options were limited. I had to keep it quiet and do it my own way or else risk getting found out." She tilted her head towards Eric. She swallowed and looked at me earnestly. "I was going to ask-didn't you say I was the best thing about that last foster home?"
"You were at the time, but that was before I knew that you were lying to me! The whole time-you knew! You knew who I was and who you really were and you never said a thing! You let me look like a complete idiot!"
"I couldn't say anything," she whispered, her voice cracking. "I wanted to, but I couldn't!"
"Why not?" I spat.
Eric cleared his throat, a twisted, gleeful smile on his face. "I believe that's where I come in," he said. "She couldn't say anything because I wouldn't let her. She was already working for me."
"You forced me!" my mother cried. "You threatened my life and Sophie's!"
"Quiet!" Eric yelled back. He turned to me again. "Your mother knew from very early on that if she did anything against my orders, she would pay the price, and so would you." He shrugged. "So I suppose she really was protecting you the entire time. Noble, really. And, of course, sweet. But also sickening."
"How did you find her?" I asked him. "After she left me. I wasn't ever able to..."
"That's because I'm the reason she went missing," Eric said. "I'm the very reason she never came back to get you in that museum. Remember she told you that she'd come back? Well it turns out she did mean what she said, but I made sure that she couldn't follow through."
"What?" I asked, my lip curling in distaste.
"The night I brought you to the museum," my mother began, "I had to go back to the house to get a few things. The necklace and the diary, in fact. I'd always kept them hidden, but I forgot them in my haste to get you out-get us out. It was a stupid mistake, really-they were important items that I planned on showing to you one day. I couldn't leave them in the house for anyone to find-especially him." She tilted her head towards Eric. "So I needed to go back. I couldn't risk bringing you with me and putting you into danger, so I-"
"Hang on," I interrupted sharply, "why were we leaving anyway? I remember you getting me out of bed and bringing me to the museum, but you never said why. You never said what the hurry was or why there was such an urgency."
Eric chuckled. "The answer to that," he said, "would, again, be me."
"You?" I asked, raising an eyebrow. I looked back at my mother. "What is he talking about?"
"He's been after us for a very long time," my mother whispered. "He started targeting us when you were a child. And he wanted that necklace and the diary. That's the main reason that I had to leave you to go get them..." She trailed off and then shook her head.
"Why would you want them?" I asked Eric. "What meaning do they have to you?"
"Lots," he said simply. "Mostly because of all the meaning they have to you."
I thought about that for a moment. "Judge Hathorne—from the diary—he's your ancestor, isn't he?" I asked, finally voicing the theory I'd only brought up to Fred to the one person who could tell me the truth.
"That would be correct," Eric said. "I assume you pieced that together from some of the hints you were getting." He glared at my mother. "Unbelievable," he muttered, clucking his tongue. "Practically giving away all the important information. Don't you know that in order to maintain the upper hand, we can't have everyone else knowing all our secrets?"
"So," I said, frowning in thought, "you're the reason why my mother decided we needed to flee not only Salem, but the entire country. She told me we could come here all those years ago. You chased us out of our home, and then when my mother went back for some family heirlooms, you, what, attacked her?"
"I guess you could say that," Eric said as my mother snorted.
"To put it mildly," she said. "I put up a fight. Naturally. And he fought back even harder."
"I knew I had the disadvantage of not having a magic twig," Eric said dismissively, "but I learned to just be smarter, quicker and stronger. I mean, the wand is only as good as the person waving it, yes?" He shrugged. "I know it must have crossed your mind how I've always managed to put up such a good fight against people with magic. But I've just learned to be better than they are through observation. Getting inside their head. Anticipating how each person reacts to situations and what spells they like to use the most..."
My mother sighed. "That night-he threw things at me. Chairs, plates, silverware...anything he could reach. It distracted me and eventually I started to tire. My reaction times were delayed. Eventually, he hit me in the head with a damn frying pan. Knocked me unconscious. Took my wand and took me hostage."
"And then what?" I asked, trying to fight through the dizziness I was feeling at the overload of information.
"By the next morning, you already had a lot of attention surrounding you," Eric said. "I couldn't just grab you from the museum. And after that you went into foster care, so I had to put together a plan, using your mother for help. Using her magic, we made sure something went wrong in each of your foster homes that would eventually cause you to be sent back into the system."
"What?" I squeaked out.
"Oh yeah," Eric said proudly, as if he were telling me of some big accomplishment. "The one when they decided there were already too many kids in their care only after they took you in?" He smiled and pointed to my mother. "Confundus Charm. Her doing."
"Under your orders," my mother snapped. She looked at me pleadingly. "He threatened to kill me if I didn't do as he asked. And I knew I had to stay alive-at least until I could figure out a way to clear things up with you. To tell you I didn't leave you by choice."
Eric dismissed her with a wave of his hand. He turned to me. "Remember the foster home where the father died and the mother couldn't keep you?" He pointed to himself. "My doing. It was snowing for the third Sunday in a row that winter, remember? He was on his way home from the grocery store. All it took was me cutting him off on the road and causing him to lose control of the car and hit that tree."
"Stop it," I said, but my voice was losing any strength that had previously been in it as I backed myself against the wall for support. My head was spinning-I was feeling even more lightheaded than before and it was taking all my strength to not pass out. I shouldn't have done this. I shouldn't have looked for Eric or revealed myself to him. I shouldn't have dropped my wand. I shouldn't have left Rachel. I was getting answers, but it was suddenly too much too quickly and the weight of them was going to crush me. It was breaking me down, which was probably what Eric wanted. He wanted me off my game as much as possible. It was the only way he could win. And I'd helped him by isolating myself, giving up my form of protection, and telling no one where I was going.
"Of course, it wasn't my first experience with something like that," Eric went on, actually seeming to enjoy how the information was affecting me. Of course he was. I knew he was.
"What do you mean?" I asked, trying to keep myself from sliding down to the floor. Eric may have grabbed my wand, but I refused to put myself in any further sort of position of weakness in front of him.
"That teacher from school," Eric said. "Her and her daughter, remember them?"
My head instantly snapped up to look at him as my breath caught in my throat. They'd died when they were hit by a car. The driver was never found...
"No..." I whispered. I couldn't help myself from sliding down to the floor at this point. My legs just wouldn't support me anymore. "No."
"Yes," Eric said, nodding his head. "They both flew into the air like rag dolls. They were dead before they hit the ground."
"Stop it!" I yelled, suddenly finding my voice again as I covered my ears with my hands. I didn't want to hear any more. I wanted out of here. I was suddenly hit with a surge of regret worse than before. Regret for putting myself in the position I was in. Regret for coming here alone and for giving my only source of protection to Rachel. Regret for leaving her at all. Eric had managed to do what he seemed to be able to do every time I was with him. Manipulate me into feeling paralyzed with fear, hopelessness, or in this case both. In addition to shock from all the information I'd just been given. He was right when he said he'd learned to be smarter and better. He couldn't overpower anyone with magic, but he had perfected being able to weaken them in other ways.
"Why would I stop when the story isn't over yet?" Eric asked me. "And I don't know about you, but I'm having so much fun."
"Come on," my mother scoffed from across the room. "You're torturing her."
"Exactly," Eric said. He looked at my mother. "But need I remind you that you are the one who wanted her to know the truth, weren't you? You wanted her to figure it all out so she'd have a better chance of beating me." Eric turned back to me and smiled wickedly again. "So...eventually your mother put her disguise together and became Andrea, my lovely and darling wife." He crouched next to her and put a hand on her cheek as she shrugged him off. "We managed to produce foster care licenses—fake, of course—and we managed to make sure you would wind up in our care. Which you did." He scoffed. "The day we took you in, I thought that your idiot mother would give it all away when she first saw you. The way she was acting...honestly." He scoffed in disgust.
"I thought back to the first day under Eric and Andrea's care. Eric being cold and distant, while Andrea was so nice and was practically in tears at the sight of me. She'd said I was such a beautiful girl and that they were so happy to have me. I'd thought she had just wanted a child in general, but in reality she was seeing her biological child again after years of being apart. And she couldn't even say anything. I looked at my mother from across the room, studying her as she gave me a small, reassuring smile.
"So what did you even want with me?" I asked Eric, my voice quiet. "What did you want with us?" I gestured to my mother. "If you wanted to kill us, you would've done so. You had so many opportunities."
"Well, I couldn't do anything while you were still legally in the foster care system, and especially under my care. That would look suspicious. When you turned eighteen and were a legal adult, that would've been a different story, but you ran away."
"You could have adopted me to get me out of the foster system if it meant that much to you," I scoffed. "You put a lot of effort into the rest of your dumb plan."
"I considered that, but I didn't have the time," Eric sighed. "But I didn't want to kill you right away anyway. I wanted to make your lives a living hell first. For what your filthy ancestors did and because of what you are. Freaky magic people who do more harm than good." He paused. "And then, yeah, eventually I would've had no problem killing you. To finish what my ancestor started and ultimately failed to do because he was tricked by a silly witch. I, on the other hand, refuse to let that happen to me. Another wonderful motivator to make sure that my mind was quick enough and sharp enough to always be one step ahead."
I swallowed sand closed my eyes. Eric seemed to be growing angrier now and I was still trying to process all of the information and get my shit together.
"But now, Sophie," Eric went on, his voice low as he came over and crouched in front of me, "you're back in Salem, in a room nobody else knows about or can even enter. No one even knows you're here. You're back where you started. I've found you again and I no longer need your mother's help finding you. You're no longer an orphan or a foster child and you're seen as a legal adult in both the magical world and the real world. The normal world."
I knew exactly what he was getting at. Nobody would really notice if I was gone. He could kill me and my mother and get away with it. Or so he thought. The thing was, I knew people would look for me. I may have given my bracelet away to Rachel, but that wouldn't stop Fred and George. Or any of them for that matter. I just didn't want them to get hurt doing so.
"Someone will find me," I told him. "Someone will look for me."
"I wouldn't be so sure of that," Eric laughed. "And even if they do look for you, or even find you, you'll be long dead by the time they do."
"You're an asshole," I spat.
Eric suddenly moved swiftly and grabbed me roughly by the arm as he dragged me to my feet. Ignoring my protests of pain, he pulled me across the room and threw me to the floor next to my mother. He grabbed some more rope and started to attempt tying my wrists together. I fought him with all my might, kicking at him and trying to hit him as I screamed as loud as I could, but he managed to reach out and close one strong hand around my neck.
"Stay still!" He yelled as I started sputtering and choking beneath the weight of his hand. Even so, I kept trying to fight him off until he managed to pin me beneath his knees and forcefully slap me across the face. I cried out in pain, and I heard some expletives even coming from my mother, aimed towards Eric, but he ignored her. I was quiet now, and I'd stopped fighting, too tired and in pain to do it anymore. Eric remained over me, still pinning me down, but he let go of my neck. I gasped for air, feeling lightheaded as he tied my wrists together, the rough rope scraping painfully against my skin as he yanked it tight. It was almost the same position he had me in the night I'd ran away and he'd given me the scars on my back. He'd pinned me down that time too, but I had been lying on my stomach. I'd also had the use of my hands and my wand. I felt incredibly stupid now for allowing myself to drop it.
"You're not going to get away with this," I said breathlessly, pushing myself up on my elbows as Eric stood up.
"Oh, but see, I intend to," Eric said, looking down at me. "I've even got a plan to deal with those silly friends of yours if they start poking around."
"No," I pleaded, "leave them alone."
"It's a little late for that," Eric snorted, looking down at me in amusement. "I'm the one who got those twins out of the way by sending some friends of mine to attack their sister."
I squeezed my eyes shut as I tried not to cry. I knew it. I knew he had something to do with that.
"And also thanks to me," Eric went on, "your friend Rachel is drunk beyond belief back at that bar."
My eyes flew open. That I didn't know about. "What do you mean? How did you have anything to do with that?"
Eric smiled. "One of the things your mother was helping me with was keeping us stocked up on some grotesque potion." He looked at my mother. "What was the name of it?"
"Polyjuice Potion," my mother said through gritted teeth.
"Ah, yes," Eric said. He leaned against the wall across from me and folded his arms. "The one I drank for that Nick guy tasted surprisingly good. I didn't expect that from a bartender with tattoos." He smirked down at me as my mouth fell open in shock.
"Nick?" I asked. "You were him the whole time?" Rachel had been having so much fun with him that first night. He'd seemed like a decent guy. I wouldn't have thought Eric was capable of even acting that nice.
"Not the whole time," he said. "Just since earlier this evening when he showed up at the hotel. It was all part of the plan to get you out here alone and I couldn't do that unless Rachel was out of the way. So I got her drunk. I tried to drug one of her drinks too but some other girl began causing a scene..." He shook his head. "Doesn't matter though, your friend was a second away from vomiting by the time I left. She'll be out of commission for a while."
I groaned and tipped my head back against the wall. Perhaps I'd been stupid to leave her with Nick. I'd always been so untrustworthy of anyone I didn't know, but I'd let myself get so wrapped up in how much fun I'd had the night on the boat that I hadn't given Nick much thought. Mostly, though, I'd trusted Rachel and her judgement. I knew she'd be the first to say she didn't trust someone. She wouldn't have wanted to continue hanging out with Nick if she didn't like him. And after that, I'd been so set on my own plan of finding Eric that I didn't even realize he had been acting on his own plan to find me. The only consolation now was that I'd given Rachel my bracelet. With any luck, Fred and George would be able to get her some help.
"What other times have you used Polyjuice Potion?" I asked, almost afraid to know the answer. It seemed that the extent of Eric's plan and involvement in my life without my knowing never ended. Somehow, a sick realization was starting to form in my mind and I was starting to piece more things together. "You did kill Noah, didn't you?" I asked. "And then you posed as him for a few days afterwards."
"See, you are smart," Eric laughed. "That's right, I killed Noah and his mother. Couldn't have her snooping around and exposing me. She'd know right away that something was up with her son. But yes, I killed him the night he left the Leaky Cauldron after spending time with you. He fought back valiantly, let me tell you. He tried so hard." He clucked his tongue and shook his head in mock sadness. "But ultimately, I won. Pinned him to the ground and gave his head a nice, hard crack against the cobblestones."
"Stop," I begged, feeling my stomach churn and tears prick my eyes as I turned my head into my shoulder. Images of Noah's body from the night I'd found him began to fill my head again. "Please stop."
"But don't you enjoy hearing about all my accomplishments?" Eric asked. "I know I do." He smiled again before continuing. "Believe me, it was really something watching the light leave that boy's eyes."
I rolled to my side and fought back a gag as my stomach churned and I felt sick. I closed my eyes and braced myself for the vomiting, but nothing came up. I hadn't eaten since breakfast, so my stomach was nearly empty. Tears pricked my eyes and my chest felt tight. I tried to catch my breath, breathing in and out slowly.
"After I killed Noah," Eric went on, amusement in his voice at my obvious suffering, "I did take some of his hair and put it into a vial of that potion. I'd taken to carrying some of it around everywhere. And then I fed you and Rachel that story of Noah's mother going missing, hoping you'd offer to stay with him for the night. Which you did. Even though you'd noticed him acting strange, I was able to attribute it all to his missing mother and you were none the wiser. And then that night once the potion had worn off, I attacked you and tried to get you to bring us back here, but you managed to slip away."
I swallowed and squeezed my eyes shut harder as I remembered my suspicion about Eric posing as Noah that night. My repulsion at the suspicion that he'd kissed me as Noah. I felt even more nauseated knowing it was true. The feeling of his hands on me and his mouth on mine resurfaced in my mind and I almost gagged again. I reminded myself once more to just breathe. In through my nose, out through my mouth. Just like Fred had said. I wished he were here. I needed him right now. But he had no way of knowing where I was because I'd given my bracelet to Rachel. I still regretted leaving her without any sort of protection for myself. But at the same time, I was glad she had protection under the circumstances we were in. She was currently in her own kind of trouble and with the bracelet, she'd be able to get help.
"I thought I saw someone else in the house that night," I finally said. "In Noah's house. A shadow. But when I went to investigate, there was no one." I turned to look at my mother. "Was that you?"
"No," she said, glaring at Eric. "I didn't know a thing about that part of the plan. He didn't tell me he was luring you back to Noah's house, posing as Noah himself."
I let out a dry laugh. "Well, he did. He held me at knifepoint. And before that, while I still thought he was Noah, he kissed me. He had his hands all over me and I had to essentially force him to stop. It wasn't like Noah at all. I knew something was wrong. But like he said," I tilted my head towards Eric, "I thought it had to do with Noah's mother going missing."
My mother was glaring at Eric even harder now. "How dare you," she practically spat. "You think this is all a game, isn't it? You think it's a fun game of payback and revenge for something our ancestors did to your ancestors-something that none of us had anything to do with. When in reality it was people like Judge Hathorne that made the lives of people like the Proctors miserable. They died at his hands."
"They did it to themselves!" Eric yelled. "They were a bunch of dangerous abominations. "They were the ones who put people in danger. It was the duty of the town's law enforcement to put them in their place. They took out quite a few of those freaks, but they didn't manage to get all of them." He shot us a scathing look. "Clearly. If Elizabeth hadn't managed to get the best of John Hawthorne, you two most likely wouldn't be here right now. So if you're going to blame anyone for your current predicament, blame her."
"That's insane," my mother laughed. "You're asking us to blame a distant ancestor for your anger and poor actions?"
"Who else did you use the Polyjuice Potion to pose as?" I demanded, looking up at Eric stonily. As much as it all disgusted me, I suddenly needed to know who else I had interacted with while they weren't who I thought they were. I had a sudden terrible thought as I remembered Fred kissing me on the boat and me showing him my scars at Ropes Mansion. Him kissing me again in the flower garden. What if it hadn't actually been him? What if it had been Eric instead? The idea made me sick. I suddenly couldn't trust any of the interactions I'd had. Not until I heard the truth from Eric. If I found out all of my recent interactions with Fred hadn't even been real, it might have actually been enough to kill me. But just in case they were real, I needed to know for sure.
"I never disguised myself as Fred, if that's what you're asking," Eric scoffed. "Unfortunately for me. That would have been fun."
I let out a sigh of relief. The two times he'd kissed me-they were real. Fred's feelings for me were real. I'd shown my scars to Fred and Fred only. No one else.
"Who did you pose as?" I asked again. "Tell me."
"Let's see," Eric said thoughtfully, tapping his chin and gazing up at the ceiling. "There was a man at the Leaky Cauldron, the day when you were visiting the twins and came to pick up food. You made eye contact and he smiled at you. He was sitting with a woman." He gestured to my mother. "That was us. It was actually the same day you were attacked in the alleyway by that guy who tried to rob you but disappeared before anyone could come take him in. That was me, too."
My face paled as I remembered the man in the Leaky Cauldon smiling at me. It had seemed innocent enough, but my skepticism had almost made it a red flag. Which it had been. The man in the alleyway I remembered a lot clearer. I'd even filed a report with the Ministry describing the guy. But that man, whoever he really was, was innocent. It was Eric the whole time.
"I was also at one point a man staying at the Leaky Cauldron," Eric went on. "I spent a lot of time as him talking to Noah. That's how I tried to learn as much as I could about him for future reference. I couldn't pose as him if I knew nothing about him. Of course, I also asked about you, Sophie, just out of curiosity. Trying to find out for sure who you were close with and what you'd been up to. Not that I couldn't see for myself, but I wanted to know for sure. Just to make my job easier in the end."
"We all noticed that guest was chatty," I said. "He—you—stayed for a week. And Noah told me you were asking questions."
"But you never suspected it was me, did you?" Eric asked. "Oh, and remember that guy at the Muggle pub you went to? The one in the baseball hat that came over to talk to you? Mike, I think? He made you so uncomfortable that you had to leave, didn't he?" He laughed. "That was also me. I almost blew my cover when you gave me a fake name. You told me your name was what, Emily?" He laughed again as another wave of nausea hit me.
"Is that all?" I asked, trying to keep my voice steady.
"I believe so," Eric said, his laughter subsiding. "I can't believe you never knew a thing! I admit, I had some occasional doubts about how well that would go over-especially since I knew just how high you had your guard up." He shook his head. "But I guess you weren't as vigilant as you thought you were, huh?"
In that moment, I felt so incredibly stupid. I had perfected the art of not trusting anyone and all this time, Eric had been right under my nose. He'd killed Noah and his mother. He'd killed the only friend I'd had while in school, and her mother as well. He was the reason my own mother left me and the reason why I never had a real family. He'd had Ginny attacked. He'd tried to drug Rachel. He'd taken almost everything away from me. I'd tried so hard to escape from him, but in the end, he'd been everywhere. Watching me, meddling in my life, hurting and even killing people that meant something to me. I suddenly felt completely hopeless. Was there no escaping this man? Had I been completely stupid to even try? Had I simply just brought him into the lives of another group of people so that he could keep hurting people and killing them all in the name of justice? It was as if he were a disease—he was the biggest problem here—but I had help spread it. From America to England and back again. I had helped make my own small mess bigger than it should have been. The one thing I'd wanted to avoid was the very thing I'd ended up doing.
"Now," Eric said, clapping his hands together as he pushed away from the wall. "I think I should let you two get reacquainted." He gestures between me and my mother. "I, on the other hand, think I should make sure Rachel is still down for the count and that those twins are still sitting by their sister's bedside all the way across the Atlantic." He took in a long, proud sounding breath. "From what I hear, the girl was doing pretty poorly. Lost a lot of blood. I wonder if she'll make it through the night."
"If she dies..." I said threateningly.
"You'll what?" Eric let out a short, amused laugh. "What are you going to do? It's only a matter of time before you're dead yourself."
I shook my head. "If I don't stop you, Fred and George will. Rachel, too. Everyone back home,"-I fought back a smile at my own reference to London as home-"they won't stop until they take you down."
"Not if I kill them all first," Eric answered tantalizingly, sing-singing the words.
"Haven't you meddled enough?" I asked furiously, adjusting myself to try and get comfortable in the awkward position I was in.
"I'm not going to stop until you and everyone you care about is dead," Eric said. "But don't worry, I'll make sure to kill you before your friends. That way you won't have to watch. In fact, maybe they can watch as I kill you."
I wished he were close enough for me to spit at him or at least try to kick him. But he was keeping his distance. "How are you even going to get in and out of this room?" I asked. "Don't you need one of us?" I glanced over at my mother.
Eric shook his head. "Before we came down here, I had her charm the stone in the entrance to recognize my hand." He jerked his chin in my mother's direction.
"You forced me, is more like it," my mother muttered bitterly.
"Same thing," Eric shrugged, heading for the stairs.
We listened to his footsteps climbing the stairs one by one. We heard the bricks shifting, first open and then closed. Finally, there was silence. Once Eric was gone, I shifted around even more than before, trying to get as comfortable as possible despite the fact that I was tied up.
A few moments of silence went by before my mother spoke.
"I'm sorry." Her defeated voice came from behind me. I had turned away from her as I tried to get myself comfortable and I was now curled up on the floor in the fetal position, my back to her.
"You helped him," I whispered, my voice cracking slightly as a few tears dripped across my face. "You helped him disguise himself as all those people. You helped him get here and you helped him find me. You helped him put a lot of people I care about in danger. Ginny is in the hospital because of me. She could die. If she does die, it'll ruin their family. They can't go through something like that again. Fred especially. If she dies, he'll..." I couldn't even finish the sentence. Instead, I just shook my head as my face scrunched up with the new wave of tears welling behind my eyes.
"Ginny is in the hospital of Eric," my mother practically spat. "It was his idea and his plan. One that I didn't not help him put into action."
"But what about all the other parts of the plan that you did help him with?"
"I was nothing more than a pawn, Sophie. He was using me. He tortured me-physically, mentally, and emotionally. He used me for the parts he couldn't do himself. None of it was of my own free will. None of it. I told you he threatened to kill me as well. And I couldn't go knowing that I left things off with you the way I had. You were the only reason I wanted to stay alive. Otherwise, things were so bad, I sometimes wished for death. Until I remembered you, of course. It sounds cliché, but it's true."
I took in a shaky breath, but was otherwise quiet as I processed what she'd said. "You know, Eric wouldn't even be doing the things he's doing if it weren't for me. Or you. You heard him. He has it out for us."
"We may be the reason-the motivation-behind his actions, but he is the one who thought them all up. He is the one who did them," my mother reasoned.
"And again, you helped."
"I've told you, it was all against my will. Completely."
"Yeah, but you still did all of it. "
Silence fell again. "He's hard to get away from," my mother finally whispered. I heard her shift around slightly, getting herself comfortable just like I had. "You know that. I wanted to find you, and I couldn't get away from him. So I had to do the best I could and I hoped we could get away from him together. Just like we planned to do before."
"Well that didn't exactly work, did it?" I asked bitterly. "Our first escape plan?" There was a pause after I spoke. "Do you know what he did to my back? The night I escaped?"
"I heard you screaming," she said. "I know he had a knife." She shrugged. "I made assumptions, but I never knew for sure, no."
"I've got two long scars going down my back," I said. "I've had to live with them every day since. I hate them. I got away from him that night but I kept having nightmares. And even when I was awake, I still had those scars..." I looked over my shoulder at her. "You're right. It is hard to get away from him. Even when I escaped physically, he still haunted me. Every single day. And now he's got me trapped again and, at this point, I wonder if I should even bother trying anymore. Even if I get away again, he'll just hunt me down again. You heard him. He won't stop. And even if he did, he invades my dreams, and when I'm awake, I'll be constantly looking over my shoulder, wondering if every person I see is him in disguise. So, really, what's the point?"
"You can't let him do this to you again," my mother said sadly. "You have to fight against all of this hopelessness. There is a point to all of this. Those friends you have-they're the point. I don't think they would want you to give up."
"You don't even know them," I snapped.
"Well, fine, then you tell me. Would they want you to give up?"
A short pause. "No," I muttered. "Probably not. Definitely not. They're persistent and insufferable that way."
My mother actually chuckled. "Well I'm also guessing that you care about them just as much as they care about you. They came all the way here for you, didn't they? And you're deeply concerned with protecting them. If you didn't care or were really giving up, you wouldn't be worried, don't you think?"
"What I think is that you're not exactly authorized to give me advice right now."
"No, you're right, maybe not," she answered. There was a pause again. "I cried too, you know."
I turned to look at her over my shoulder again. "What?"
My mother nodded slowly, staring at the wall, lost in thought. "I cried. For a long time. After Eric took me hostage...I obviously knew I'd left you and I knew what would happen to you. I knew and I couldn't escape. I couldn't go back to you. So I cried. Every night. I tried to escape him once. Early on. And he gave me a scar of my own." She tugged at the rope around her wrists. "I can't show you-it's down the length of my arm. He shoved me into a mirror." She shrugged slightly. "It broke." A wry smile appeared on her face as she glanced at me. "How many years of bad luck is that?"
"Seven," I whispered, still staring at her intently. I sat up and turned fully to look at her, studying her face. Her expression. The look in her eyes. I saw a lot of things that I saw in myself. Exhaustion. Fear. Helplessness.
My mother let out a breath of laughter. "Well...I've had more than double that, seems. Sixteen years to be exact. Ever since the night I lost you."
It fell quiet between us for what felt like the millionth time since Eric had left us alone.
"You really didn't want to leave me?" I finally asked
She scoffed. "Of course not, Sophie. I know you were young, but you must have some memories from before that night."
"I do," I admitted. "Mostly you teaching me to ice skate."
My mother nodded eagerly. "Exactly. You were--are-my entire world. It was always just you and me. I didn't leave you because I wanted to. Eric gave me no choice. Any and all feelings of hopelessness that you feel while you're around him, I've felt too. Just as much, if not more. Because I knew I'd failed you as a mother. And that's the biggest failure of all."
I sighed deeply and squeezed my eyes shut. "I just never knew what the hell happened! I never knew where you went or why you left me at the museum in the first place or why you never came back. Everything before that night felt like it could've been a lie because of the fact that you left me."
"Well, now you know why," she whispered. She tilted her head towards the shelves beside her. "You saw the pictures in the box?"
I nodded. "How did they get there?"
"I managed to sneak away sometimes to come here. I kept the diary and the necklace here to keep them away from Eric. Until I passed them on to you."
"That explains why the place is cleaner than I thought it would be," I snorted.
My mother laughed quietly. "How far are you in the diary?"
"About three quarters of the way done, I think. Elizabeth and Dorothy just went on the run."
"Ah," my mother said. There was another long pause. "You know...your father left us because of the fact that we can do magic. He was a Squib, you know." She looked across the room aimlessly again, staring at the wall without really seeing. "Shortly after you were born, we actually tested something out from Elizabeth's grandmother's potion book, just to see if you would be-well, to see if you'd be able to...To see if you'd be able to do magic or not." She trailed off and shook her head. "I didn't want to do it. It was mostly your father's idea. He was insistent actually. He wouldn't let it go. Anyway, we found out you were like me. Your father said he was thrilled. But then he left in the middle of the night. I woke up the next day and he was gone as well as all of his things. I never saw or heard from him again."
"Really?" I asked quietly. "He just left?"
"Without a word," my mother sighed. "He did to me what it appeared I did to you. But he is the one who really had a choice. Nobody forced him to do a thing. He was jealous and let that get the best of him..." She finally turned towards me again. "So I know somewhat how you felt being left there. And how you felt about it as you grew older and understood more. I understand your anger and your betrayal and your frustration. Because I felt all of those things too. I hated him for leaving me to raise you alone. I hated him for leaving you. For not wanting to have anything to do with you because of who you are. I hated him and yet I wanted answers from him for a long time. And because I understand so well what it feels like to have someone you love leave you willingly...I would never do it to someone else. Especially you. My own daughter. Her voice cracked slightly and I saw tears forming in her eyes. "And I'm so sorry it worked out that way. I have hated myself every second for the past sixteen years for doing that to you."
I swallowed the lump that had formed in my own throat as I looked back at her. "What was his name?" I asked. "My father."
"Brian," she answered, a hard edge in her voice.
I nodded slowly as I thought for a second. Finally, I looked up at her and met her eyes. "Brian's an asshole," I stated.
She let out a loud but short laugh and covered her mouth with her hand as her shoulders shook for a second. "Sorry," she said as she composed herself. Then, she looked at me slyly. "Actually, no, I'm not sorry." She shrugged and laughed. "You're right. He is."
I smiled and let out a quiet laugh of my own.
"Sophie?" My mother said. When I looked up at her again, I saw the look of sincerity on her face. "I'm sorry," she said. "For everything I've put you through. You might not be able to forgive me...I do hope maybe one day you can, but if not, I hope you can at least just understand. I didn't know how to get away without someone getting hurt. I wanted for us to be together again, but without one of us getting hurt in the process."
I was quiet for a second as I thought that over. "Yeah, I do understand that. More than you know." There was another beat of silence. "Do you think we have a shot at getting out of here? It was hard enough to get out the first time, and even that failed pretty badly."
"Well," my mother said slowly, "remember when I asked you if you thought your friends would want you to give up so easily?"
I nodded. "Yeah."
"The thing is that I don't think they'd give up on you so easily either," she said. "They'll do anything to find you. Like I said, they came all the way here to help you. I saw the way that boy-Fred, was it?-defended you on the boat. I've seen you with him at his shop in Diagon Alley. I've seen the way he looks at you."
"If anything happens to him..." I began. "If anything happens to any of them...I've dragged them into this mess."
"They've been in it for a while," my mother reasoned. "Might as well let them see it through and help with the clean up. I don't think they'd have it any other way. Am I right?"
I nodded. "Yeah, I think you are."
"Maybe we could send them some sort of signal," my mother suggested. "I'm sure if we put our heads together we could figure something out."
"Yeah," I said slowly, thinking of the bracelet I'd given to Rachel.
My mother let out a sigh as she got herself comfortable again and leaned against the wall casually. "I've got time," she said, looking over at me with a small smile. "What about you?"
I found myself actually smiling back. "Oh, I don't know," I said, raising my rope-bound wrists, "I'm a little tied up right now."
My mother laughed. "Merlin, we've gone insane. We're locked in an underground room and we're making jokes."
"I think it's what Fred and George would do," I said, leaning against the wall. I looked over at my mother again. "They'd also find a way out of here. They're smart. And creative. So I think if anything, we should think like they would."
"You know them best," my mother said. "So, tell me, what would Fred and George do?"
I took in a deep breath and wracked my brain as for the first time in the fairly solemn life I'd led, I thought like a prankster.