Page 25 of The Witch

“It was fine,” I say.

The lights above us flicker.

“What did you do?” Gram asks.

“Just…this and that.”

Ethel turns her shrewd eyes on me. “Did you go to the museum?”

Ethel clearly knows exactly what I did today. Why try to conceal it? “I stopped by, yes.”

She arches an eyebrow. “And did you talk to anybody there?”

“Yes.” I lift my chin. “I had a discussion with the curator.”

“Ooh, he’s handsome, isn’t he?” Gram pipes up. “So much better than that Winston boy you were dating.”

“John,” I correct her under my breath.

The lights flicker again. I’d think there was a storm raging out there if I didn’t know better. I raise my eyes to find a light fixture with four bulbs, and all four of them are flickering.

Ethel’s expression is sour. “I don’t know what that con artist said to you, but don’t make any mistake about it—he’s trying to seize the home of an elderly woman for his own selfish reasons.”

I can’t call Henry’s passion for preserving the past entirely selfish, but part of me agrees with her. “Maybe…”

“He’s trying to seize what is rightfully ours,” Ethel insists, pointing a finger in my direction. “And let me tell you: She won’t stand for it.”

The lights flicker one more time, struggling to stay lit. Finally, they give up, and the kitchen is plunged into blackness. I suck in a breath as Gram lets out a yelp. Only Ethel seems completely calm.

“Not again,” she grumbles under her breath. The darkness is broken by the sound of her shuffling into the living room to find the light switch there. A moment later, the kitchen is illuminated dimly by the light from the adjoining room. “I better get Mick to change it.”

“I can change it,” I offer, imagining Mick’s unsteady frame balanced on a rickety chair. There’s no way that can possibly end well.

Ethel waves an arm at me. “He does it all the time.”

Seriously? “Do the bulbs blow out a lot?”

“Every couple of weeks,” Ethel replies.

“Every couple of weeks?” I repeat. “That’s nuts! There must be something wrong with the light bulbs or⁠—”

“There’s nothing wrong with the light bulbs.” With only the light from the living room, the shadows on Ethel’s face make her look strangely sinister, like she’s wearing a Halloween mask. “And there’s nothing wrong with the wiring either. Even the battery-operated lights have been blowing out recently.”

“But…” I frown. “Why?”

“I told you. She’s angry.”

“Who’s angry?”

Ethel steps into the center of the living room and stares at the grandfather clock. “I told you. It’s Caroline. Caroline Eldridge.”

I follow her into the living room, feeling a slight chill as I cross into the other room. The only sound is that clock ticking heartily. Sometimes it seems like it will never stop ticking, but it does stop. Every night at the same time.

“Caroline Eldridge has been dead for over three hundred years,” I feel compelled to point out.

“Hmm.” Ethel tilts her head to the side. “So after you die, that’s just it? You’re simply gone? No part of you stays behind? Is that really what you believe?”

I don’t know what to say. That night when I was nine years old is still burned into my memory. Was Caroline Eldridge the woman whispering in my ear?