Page 3 of The Book of Unwritten Stories

Dora had quietly sobbed into a beautiful black handkerchief that had a tiny, silver crescent moon embroidered into the corner. It had been handmade by Lucine. It was her most treasured possession, along with her mom’s talisman necklace, which she never took off.

The funeral home had been full to capacity for the memorial service, so many Salem residents and customers from Sephy’s shop had turned up to pay their respects, which was lovely. When Dora turned to look around the back of the room, it was full of mourners standing along the wall. They filled every inch of the room. It made Dora sad that these people had known her mom a lot longer than she had.

At Lucine’s request, the service had been a celebration of Lucine’s life. She’d wanted no morbid, long speeches about how she was going to be missed, because the English women knew it was only a matter of time before she would be reborn again, just like they all had every other lifetime. Hades, Lucine’s familiar and trusted pet crow, who was now Dora’s, had flown above the hearse all the way to the cemetery, landing on the lowest branch of the beech tree to watch his beloved mistress be lowered into the ground once more. Dora’s aunts, Lenny and Sephy, stood on either side of her, all three of them holding hands. Dora was beyond sad that her mom had died so soon after she’d arrived back in Salem, but she was comforted to know that Lucine had been taken to the light by Hades and when the stars aligned and the time was right, she would be back to live her life again. For the family were witches, fated to be reborn, and Dora had just managed to get rid of the shadow of George Corwin, who had hunted them down for centuries.

Dora still had nightmares about the confrontation she had with Corwin in Howard Street Cemetery. But it had put a stop to his persecution of the English women for now and for what she hoped would be all of eternity.

Dora had left her simple life in London and her beautiful flower shop to come to Salem. And she had since decided to stay permanently. Discovering she was a bloodline witch who had first lost her life in 1692 when she’d been hanged along with her mum and aunts at Proctor’s Ledge had been quite the surprise. But it was clear she was supposed to stay here. They had been the last women hanged at the infamous Salem Witch Trials, and despite the gravity of knowing this she still felt as if she had come home – this place, and the people who lived here, were in her blood.

‘Breathe, Dora, let it go. Focus on the here and now, lingering where Corwin is will do you no good and we don’t want to give him the slightest power over us now, especially not when you fought so hard and ended that damn curse.’

She turned her gaze in the direction of her aunt Lenny, who had the most annoying habit of reading her mind. Lenny shrugged and whispered, ‘Sorry, but when your thoughts are that loud, I can’t help but hear them. I mean it’s not as if I want to, you know.’

Dora smiled at her beautiful aunt. ‘I will and I forgive you this once but only because Lucine wouldn’t want me to be annoyed with you when we’ve only just buried her.’

She felt her hand squeezed tightly on the other side by her aunt Sephy, whose hushed tones were filled with pain.

‘This is dreadful, why do we keep having to do this? Enough of this place, let’s go make some black magic, get drunk in Lucine’s honour and have ourselves a little kitchen disco. I need to feel some life; I am positively tired of the lack of it and all of this sadness.’

Dora leaned towards her and kissed her velvety, damp, soft cheek. ‘What about Ambrose?’

Ambrose Corwin was standing behind them, dressed in a black suit, looking even sadder than they were. Ambrose who had the misfortune to be born as a Corwin was the polar opposite of his uncle George.

‘He’s part of our family, of course he can come to the kitchen disco in Lucine’s honour, but not the rest of them. I am in no mood to entertain mortals no matter how sweet they seem.’

Dora looked at the handful of people who were gathered around. This had been a private burial, but a few mourners had ignored their requests and turned up anyway. Richard, the mortician, had whispered into Sephy’s ear asking if she wanted them turned away, but she’d shaken her head. The mourners had kept a respectful distance from Dora and her aunts. The three women were a sight to behold, dressed head to toe in black, except for Sephy’s pink boots, with striking white hair in matching loose top knots and sparkling bright green eyes that were filled with tears. Beautiful, mystical, and probably more than a little terrifying to anyone who didn’t know what kind souls they were or the suffering they had endured lifetime after lifetime.

Sephy, whom Dora had thought would crumble at the edge of the burial plot and weep uncontrollably, had managed to keep herself upright throughout the whole service. As the minister said his final words, they stared down for one last look at Lucine’s purple coffin that had the galaxy painted over it. Dora knew that when the time came her aunt Sephy would have the pinkest, most sparkly coffin there was. Lenny, she suspected, would be more traditional and request plain black. Dora wanted a combination of black and glitter. She exhaled a sigh so deep, centuries deep, that life was far too short. She wondered when Lucine would be back, if she could come back sooner this time? Normally they’d only be reborn once they’d all died, but now Corwin was gone, surely anything was possible?

All three women dropped a single white rose onto Lucine’s coffin, and then Dora heard Lenny and Sephy whisper, ‘Until we meet again, sister, we love you, watch over us, you’re in our hearts forever.’

Dora had to swallow the lump in her throat, then she was being tugged away by her aunts’ gentle hands and led towards the waiting limousine to be driven back to Sephy’s beautiful pink house on Chestnut Street. They were going to drink black magic cocktails and dance around the old pine kitchen table in her mom’s honour. Hopefully, until Dora blacked out because she just wanted today to be over with. Tomorrow she was flying back to London to visit her best friend Katie Ryan who had almost died after being attacked by Corwin when she was looking after Dora’s little flower shop, Vintage Rose. She was going to sign the shop over to Katie as her way of saying sorry. She also wanted to hug Mabel, her other close friend, who lived in the flat above the shop. She needed to apologise to her for involving her in her messy life when she wasn’t even in the country.

Dora had realised after much soul searching in the days after she’d fought Corwin that she couldn’t leave her aunts; she wanted to be here in Salem. She had fallen so in love with this quirky little town that she couldn’t bear to leave it. She wanted to learn everything about magic that Sephy could teach her. It was going to take Lenny a little while longer to sort out her penthouse apartment on the South Bank and arrange to leave her job as a surgeon at St Thomas’s, but Lenny had been down this route far more times than Dora had. She wasn’t thrown by it at all and had promised Sephy that she wouldn’t run away from Salem again, at least not this lifetime. They were reunited in their grief and loss of Lucine, but they were a whole family unit once more, and the English women had always, always been stronger together.

THREE

Morana had pushed the brown bag with the book inside under the counter. The first of the day’s tourists had begun lining up outside Nocturne ready to browse the magic inside of this beautiful shop that Kim and her partner, Mike, had created. Her shift had literally flown by in a whirl of iced coffee, serving customers, taking cute photos of dogs and wondering what the hell kind of book the crazy lady had dumped on her. Lauren had come to take over and Morana was more than a little relieved. Unable to leave the planchette necklace behind, she unlocked the glass display cabinet and took it out. Hooking it around her neck, it felt good. It felt as if the necklace had sighed in her ear, a quiet whisper of relief that she hadn’t abandoned it.

The book was a different matter. She was unsure if she should leave it under the counter and feign complete ignorance about where it came from or if she should take it with her. Morana realised that she couldn’t leave it, she needed to know what was so important about it. Why had it made the woman act so weird?

Morana decided to get herself a coffee from the iconic Blackcraft Coffee to take home with her. She felt as if she needed something and as much as she enjoyed cocktails or champagne, she thrived off coffee – it was her guilty pleasure. It didn’t matter if it was gone nine p.m., she could still drink a cup before bed and get to sleep.

The store was a short walk from Nocturne. There were tourists everywhere, filling the sidewalks and overspilling into the roads. There were lines of them outside every shop and restaurant, but she’d had the foresight to message her coffee order to her only friend, Addison, who worked in the magical coffee shop at the back of the huge store. The line outside of the store was long, but she knew Fin, the guy running the line, and he waved her inside even though she had no reservation. Nobody complained because Morana looked as if she was an employee. She stopped in the middle of the store to look up at Nydia and blew her a kiss.

Nydia was a shadowy, painted witch who dangled from the centre of the stained-glass dome that was lit up orange today. She was a huge witch, and if she had to guess she’d estimate she was at least thirteen foot high. Morana loved her, she encompassed everything about Salem that she adored. She had only lived here for six months, moving from Boston because she was so obsessed with the whole Salem vibe, but boy was she smitten with the witch city.

Standing in line for the coffee shop she realised her hands were a little shaky and had no idea why. The book was safely tucked into her coffin-shaped backpack, and she imagined it glowing inside of there, those little red sparks zapping from it that she’d seen when the crazy lady had thrust it towards her. Maybe all the exhaustion and excitement had been too much for her and she’d imagined it.

The small coffee shop was like stepping into a witch’s cottage. It had a huge cauldron on the counter that housed the coffee machine, bunches of dried flowers dangling from the ceiling and on the wall was a huge print of a group of older witches sitting around a table drinking coffee. Addison was busy, but grinned when she looked up to see her and pointed to the most wonderful reddish, coffee-coloured iced latte on the counter. The label read ‘Slasher Latte’ and Morana grinned. She and Addison had spent the last four Fridays tucked under throws covered in ghosts and spider webs, watching all the old slasher films, using Addison’s pumpkin cushions to cover their faces when Michael Myers or Jason Vorhees got a little too stab happy.

‘Impressed?’ asked Addison, and Morana laughed as she picked up the cup, using her finger to scoop a dollop of the whipped cream covered in red sauce and biscuit pieces into her mouth.

Sucking her finger clean, she nodded. ‘Totally.’

Addison shrugged. ‘Good, I thought you’d approve.’

Morana took out her wallet to pay, and she waved her away. ‘That’s an experimental one, so it’s on the house.’