Salem's Witches (Neitherlands Book 1), page 10
He did not need to open it, for it opened itself as a huge black crow flew out. Howard jumped back, scared, while the bird landed atop a bust of himself he kept above the fireplace. The bird stared at him with red eyes, as if he was its prey.
“What is this?” said Howard, shaking. The bird had given him a good scare. Whoever had thought a crow, of all things, would make for a good gift would soon—
The crow cawed. It was a particular kind of caw, one he recalled having heard—
Damn it.
“So you’ve found me,” said Howard. “Have you come to kill me or to mock me?”
The crow cawed again and extended its wings menacingly, still staring at Howard.
“Have you then? What is it now that I have done, how have I angered you? Did I not do as you wanted?” said Howard, his voice trembling. He stood against the window, its glass the only thing keeping him from falling out of the building.
The crow kept staring at him, as if dissecting him. It could talk, he knew. Crows like that could always talk. They were somebody else’s eyes and ears. There were no reasons they couldn’t serve as their mouth.
“Will you speak, then or will you—”
“Heathen!” cawed the crow. “The heathen is scared, oh what a disgrace!”
Howard retreated further to a corner of the room while the crow stared at him. “Did I not do as you asked? Have I not helped you get rid of all those cults, all those false beliefs? Do people not—”
“Took those people for yourself, then condemned them straight to Hell!” the crow cawed again. “All those lost, confused souls, further misguided forever more. A poor writer spins his tales, only lies that he can tell!”
“I…” Howard had indeed taken all of those people for his cult, but hadn’t he done the right thing? Barely any fictitious religions remained in the city. That was what mattered, now people could choose between many real religions and a fake one. There would always be a false one, after all, so why not lead it himself? “This has cost me, you know?” he said, “It has cost me what which I loved the most, my—”
“Lost her, you did!” cawed the crow. “His own daughter sacrificed, lost his chance at paradise.”
Howard’s breath grew shallow. “That’s what I’m saying, I—”
“Couldn’t love her back, couldn’t stay on track!”
“But she was—”
“Trying to make things right, fighting a good fight!”
“Forgive me, please!” said Howard. “I… I’ve lost all power,” he added, his voice growing weaker. “I want to make it right, but LeFlay, he has—”
“Killed by his own tricks, a hunter’s life ends quick!”
Howard sighed. “Will you leave me be? I’m not long for this world. I just hope I can attain forgiveness, please, forgive me—”
“Nevermore!” cawed the crow. Howard stared at it and was almost sure he’d seen a smile. Could crows even smile?
“Then kill me now!” Howard yelled, curling up in the corner of the room. “Get rid of me, exact your revenge, oh whatever it is you are! I know a crow you are not, they’re but your servants, the tools you use to play with me! Won’t you at least ease my suffering?”
The crow stared at Howard. It was still smiling, he knew. “No,” It said. It then went silent for a few seconds, while Howard found himself unable to get up and face the bird. “My revenge I will exact, I’ll destroy this poor, sad act. But for that to come to pass, an army I must amass. I will come here with the dawn, will destroy you with my pawns!”
Howard sobbed, his face hidden behind his arms. He stared at the bird, pleading.
“But before that happens, many days will pass,” said the crow. “When you least expect it, I will come at last.”
That said the crow took flight toward the skylight. It flew straight through it, shattering the glass on its way out.
Howard remained there for a while, sobbing. Then he screamed—he screamed as he never had, letting out all of his despair and all of his worries. He screamed for minutes on end, crying with all his might and hoping his despair would bring upon his quick demise.
Alas, it did not.
It was a few minutes until somebody heard him. Perhaps luckily for Howard, but perhaps not quite so, it was Antoine LeFlay.
LeFlay entered the office, wondering what could have made his boss go crazy, screaming and crying. Nothing was out of place, after all, except for broken glass on the floor.
Oh, the window. It made sense, probably a hawk had been carrying a rock or something and let it fall, scaring the old man to death.
Well, not to death. He wouldn’t be so lucky.
“What happened, your Highness?” He braced himself for the most stupid of answers.
Nothing, however, would have prepared him for what came afterward. There, in front of him, the old man who led one of the biggest cults in history and who didn’t believe in gods went on a tirade about a crow harassing him.
A bloody crow. How absurd. How uncreative. How…poetic.
Paying no mind to Howard’s ramblings, he went straight to the liquor cabinet, which was hidden behind the third bookcase to the right. He served a full glass of whiskey, then gave it to Howard. “There, there,” he said. Nothing did the trick with Howard as well as whiskey. The man was known for being short tempered and throwing tantrums, but he had clearly gotten worse with age. A tantrum over a crow, of all things…
Howard drank his glass in one go, then seemed to calm down. “Will you protect me, Antoine?” he said, his eyes glassy.
“I will, Peter, I will,” said Antoine. “Don’t you worry. We’ll have that glass replaced and I’ll make sure no…crows ever attack you again.” He stared at the glass. All that scandal over a broken glass. “I’ll go get someone to replace it right away, master. As for you…try to get back on your feet. You don’t want your followers to see you like this, or do you?”
Howard assented but made no effort to get up or stop babbling like the idiot he was.
LeFlay got up and went to the door. “Now don’t you worry, master,” he said again. “I’ll deal with this. You just relax. You have me to deal with…well, with everything.” He closed the door behind him, wondering how such a huge idiot had managed to build such a cult. Sure he once had lots of charisma and a creativity that went unrivaled, but…really? People went crazy to follow the teachings of a man who felt haunted by crows?
Well, perhaps this was good. Maybe one day details of this scene would…accidentally go public. And then, as a result, the man would be declared unfit to lead. It was certainly a possibility. And a good one to boot.
“It was the butler,” said Laura. She had just heard Salem’s description of a supposedly interesting new case he was putting them on so they’d stop wasting their time looking into what he described as a wholly innocent church. They cracked the case within a minute.
“How can you know that!” said the parrot. “You haven’t been to the crime scene. You haven’t looked for evidence or found any of the blood spots under the rug. Why, you haven’t even made a list of suspects!”
“The old woman was rich, lived alone with her butler three hours away from the city, and her testament stated he was to receive everything after her passing. The butler casually skipped town just hours later with the woman’s fortune. There’s nothing to investigate. The butler grew impatient because she wouldn’t die already, poisoned her, then left town with everything before anyone learned of it. When did this happen again?”
“Two weeks ago, but that proves nothing. You know how things go in the countryside. News travel really slowly. I still think you all should go and investigate.”
“Not in a million years,” said Sarah. “We have way more interesting things on our hands right now.”
“Like what?” said Salem. “Did you lot find a new case, or are you still hell bent on getting rid of any and all good beliefs in this world?”
“I’d say the latter, but then again the whole good beliefs thing is an oxymoron, so…neither?” said Veronika. She got nothing but nice stares from her friends in return. Really nice stares.
“Salem, we just need you to stop being so obtuse about our investigation,” said Sarah. “I mean, when have we been wrong about—”
“You wore white heels once last autumn.”
“That has nothing to do with—”
“Not only were you wrong by doing that, you insulted any and all good taste with that move. So don’t come to me acting like you’re always right. You’re not.”
Sarah sighed and rolled her eyes. “Salem, you know what I mean!. We have never come to a wrong conclusion during a case, and I’m sure this won’t be the first time! Just…let us continue!”
“The only reason you haven’t ever failed during an investigation is that I have always been around to lead you girls along the right path. As I’m doing right now, by closing the case.”
“Will you at least hear our latest findings before you dismiss the whole thing?” said Laura. She had prepared a document with all of the findings and spent the whole night editing and formatting it so it would be just right. There was no way she’d lose all of her work. “After all, we are supposed to report everything to you…”
“Fine. Go ahead, tell me everything you know, but this better be juicy.”
“First, the Church of Quackology has taken Annabella Bostwick prisoner and—”
“Don’t be ridiculous, churches don’t take prisoners. Don’t you think maybe she felt bad and decided she wanted to join them again? People sometimes do see the light and reform, you know. It’s not unheard of.”
“Salem, we went to her apartment,” said Sarah. “It was completely trashed.”
“She wanted to destroy all of those things tainting her existence.”
“Her stalker was there and he heard what happened!” said Veronika.
“He’s probably drunk and a compulsive liar. All stalkers are, you know? I had one once. The things he’d say, oh dear. I’m lucky the tabloids never paid him any attention. He’d come up with the weirdest things and say he’d seen me do them in the privacy of my own house.”
“But there’s more than that,” said Sarah.
Laura could bet she was dying to know what those stories the stalker said were. She wouldn’t blame her, either. The stories were, after all, likely true. “We went to the church, Salem.”
“You…you did? Why didn’t I know of this?”
“Because you would’ve said no.”
“Of course I would have said no. You shouldn’t go around desecrating holy ground with your suspicions and investigations and all that. It is not proper!”
Sarah rolled her eyes again. Laura feared she would roll them out of her head that morning—she desperately needed to learn new facial expressions. “Salem, we learned about their beliefs. Do you want to know what these people believe in?”
“This guy called Shyanshuu, or something like that!” said Veronika, grinning and making a noticeable effort to contain her laughter. “They think he’s a magical being from space who has us all enslaved, it’s all sorts of—”
“Be respectful of other people’s religions!” exclaimed Salem. “As long as you remain on my payroll, you’ll keep yourself from laughing at people! Everyone is free to believe in whatever they want to believe in.”
“They also put Annabella on a ship,” said Sarah. “Don’t you think it’s rather suspicious that she’d disappear of sudden and then they say she’s on a ship? I bet they have her chained in a dungeon underground.”
“Oh, drop it! I hoped you’d tell me that after going to the church you people have learned respect, but I can see I was asking for too much. I can’t believe you lot have become such a horrible, hateful lot who can do nothing but— Oh dear what is this!”
A sudden silence followed, putting Laura on alert. Had something happened to Salem? Could the Quackologists have found out about their investigation and gone after the ringleader in order to send them a message? Her friends seemed just as puzzled about the situation as she was.
A few seconds later they heard quick, shallow breathing followed by Salem’s voice. “What did you girls say the woman’s name was?” He sounded oddly giddy. “The one who was smearing this good church all over the place, what was her name again?”
“Annabella… Bostwick,” said Laura. “Why are you—”
“You girls will never guess what I just learned through the grapevine![15]”
An awkward silence ensued. Usually when Salem heard something through the grapevine and said they would ‘never guess what happened’ it was followed by piece of gossip. Normally the witches would humor him by asking but at the moment they were just too annoyed and weren’t having any of that. His feeble attempts at creating intrigue and excitement in the conversation by making a rhetorical question and then forcing a moment of silence[16] were doomed to fail.
“Seems we have a difficult crowd today. Anyway, it’s Annabella Bostwick, right? Well, guess what I just learned!”
More silence followed. This time it lasted a whole minute, and for a moment Laura feared Salem would remain silent until the end of time if they didn’t ask.
“She’s dead,” said Salem in the least ceremonious of ways, and even then, you could hear just a tinge of excitement in his voice: It was, after all, a piece of gossip. There was no way he wouldn’t be excited about it.
“What?” said Laura. “Salem, don’t you find this suspicious? This woman disappeared not even three days ago, and now she’s dead?”
“Oh, come on. People die all the time. It’s a fact of life, girl. You can’t go around blaming every death in the world on a church. It’s ridiculous, it reeks of prejudice and it should be illegal. Just drop it already, you’re all making fools of yourselves.”
“What happened then?” said Sarah. “How exactly did she die, if she wasn’t killed by the Quackologists?”
“That’s the most exciting part!” said Salem, squealing. He seemed to have a really twisted definition of excitement. “They’ve brought her ashore and performed an autopsy on her. Her body is intact, can you believe it?”
“Intact?” said Veronika. “What killed her then?”
“The current hypothesis is that she died of death.”
“Nobody dies of death,” said Sarah. “There’s always a cause somewhere. People don’t just drop dead out of the blue, for no reason at all.”
“I’m sure it was her cult that poisoned her,” said Laura. “Some poisons can be hard to trace, and if the church was the organization to perform the autopsy, well…”
“Drop it! See? You all are grasping at straws now, struggling to find reasons to blame a religion for everything that’s wrong with the Neitherlands. Shame on you all!”
No one said anything in response. No one was amused. “Anyway, I just thought you would like to know that,” Salem continued. “Her funeral will be held tomorrow morning. Maybe you all should go pay your respects? It might help take your minds off the case, which by the way is decommissioned now. We’ll start something new and more interesting tomorrow.”
“All right, goodbye Salem,” said Veronika. Then, without waiting for him to answer or for her peers to act, she hung up.
For a moment after ending the call, the witches stared at each other in silence.
“I think I’ll take that step and mention what we all fear,” said Laura. “I think Salem is protecting the church, not us.”
“Why would he?” said Sarah. Of course she would, good old Sarah. She always tried to see the best in everyone. “He’s not the one running it, and for all his faults he has always tried to make this city a better place. Why would he try and keep us from freeing an imprisoned, and now dead, woman?”
“It’s obviously because they brainwashed him,” said Veronika. “It’s what they do. They probably slipped something in his water to control him, or perhaps they know things about him, but it’s clear they’re behind this! We should go and—”
“How would they excise mental control on anyone?” said Laura. Veronika had, at times, a little too much of an imagination. Mental control was by far the absurdest of the lot. It made the whole case sound like a bloody fantasy novel. “Look, I don’t say I know why he’s doing this, but he’s getting in the way of the investigation. He has never done that before.”
“So…what do we do about it?” said Veronika.
A moment of silence followed.
“Maybe we should just get on with this as far as we can,” said Sarah. “Maybe we will find something to convince him this church is a part of the problem. I mean, after all we don’t have evidence, just…hunches.”
Laura stared at Sarah, who was proposing the weakest approach to the case. She then glanced at Veronika, and immediately understood she was about to propose they go and raze Salem’s house. Perhaps a weak approach was the better one. “I’m with Sarah,” she said before Veronika had a chance to open her mouth. After all, she wouldn’t do it if she found herself outnumbered from the get-go. “Only, we should try and not just find more information on these people, but try and figure out why Salem is protecting them. He’s not religious, so that façade of religious freedom doesn’t convince me.”
“I…” said Veronika. She stared at Laura almost pleadingly. It was as if they could read each other’s minds. “I guess I’ll join in, although I’m not happy with this. I had a much better idea.”
Laura smiled. Veronika’s refusal to say what exactly this much better idea was told her it wasn’t better at all. Just more…fun, perhaps.
“So we’ll meet tomorrow?” said Sarah. “For the funeral, I mean.”
“Just one thing,” said Laura, once again trying to get ahead of Veronika. “If any of us finds out anything, anything at all about Salem, we discuss it first. And we act later. All three of us together. Deal?”
“Deal,” said Sarah.
Veronika looked uncomfortable. “Deal,” she said eventually, sighing. She had probably already made up a hundred scenes in her mind where she found something horrible out that led her to deal with Salem on her own. “But what now? I mean, we have a funeral tomorrow, but today?”
