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Rosemary clipped the last candle to the highest bough of the Christmas tree, then stepped down from the footstool and stood back to critique her design. The candles were evenly spaced from top to bottom, side to side. Beneath them hung glass ornaments in various shapes and sizes, sparkling in the lamplight, most saved from her childhood. The garland of red glass beads that had been in her family for years swept from branch to branch, the perfect garnish for the whole effect.
She folded her arms, and nodded once at the finished product. Aloud, although she was entirely alone in her big house overlooking the sea, she said, “I don’t know why I bother,” and turned away.

She had never expected to be a woman completely alone at Christmas, but then, she supposed few people planned such a thing. A person doesn’t plan to lose both parents and a child and two servants to scarlet fever in the space of a month. A person doesn’t expect to wake up one day and realize her husband is also gone, driven away not by illness but by grief. A person doesn’t anticipate that the beautiful family home where she had expected to raise her children would be echoing and empty when she was only thirty years old.

Christmas the year before had been as different from this one as it was possible to be. Her mother and father were a bit frail, but in high spirits. Her husband had been promoted at the bank, and was uncharacteristically cheerful. She had spent days making cookies, soaking her homemade fruitcake in brandy, putting out fresh candles and refilling all the oil lamps.
And her little towheaded son, funny and happy and clever at six, had been whispering secrets to his grandmother and grandfather for days, then spending hours rustling paper and ribbon and tape in his room. He had brought down his treasures on Christmas Eve, just one year before this very day, a mismatched and awkwardly wrapped trove of little packages. He had stowed them proudly under the tree alongside the elegant gifts already tucked there, and had spent an hour arranging and re-arranging the colorful display.

Rosemary went to the great bow window that looked down on the restless waves below the cliff. With her arms still folded tight, she knelt in the window seat to watch the last of the daylight glimmer on the moving water. She had not dressed for the evening, because it was too much trouble. She was still in the shirtwaist and skirt she had worn all day, and they were none too clean. She had not made dinner, although the grocer had delivered a roasted chicken with peas and potatoes that afternoon. She had done no decorating except for the tree, and she doubted she would even light the candles. There were no gifts beneath it, which made it look bleak.

A great-aunt had sent her a card. It sat on the mantelpiece, unopened. The vicar’s wife had come with a basket of sugared plums and a rum cake. The basket lay on the kitchen table, its covering still intact.
“Do I feel sorry for myself?” Rosemary asked her reflection. She didn’t weep. She had not been able to weep, and often her eyes ached with the tears that would not come. She pressed her palms to her cheeks and scowled at herself. “Yes. Indeed I do. I think I’m entitled to that.”

Her reflection made no comment.
#
Benedetta crouched on her hearthstone to set the burning spill to the Yule log waiting in the fireplace. She was late. The solstice had come and gone, but she had been foraging along the cliff top every day, and forgotten the date. Her coven had all departed in recent years, passing through the veil to await their reunion on the other side, so there was no one left keep track of the calendar. Her chickens were no help. One day was just like another to them.

She had smudged her cottage, though, with a bundle of sage saved from the summer. She had made the spiced cider her coven had always drunk in celebration, and she had harvested a large stem of mistletoe to hang above her door. Her witch’s ladder dangled from a peg, where she could easily put her hand on it. She had made it herself, its knots of yarn carefully spaced, its totems woven into the braided strings. There was a silvery gull’s feather, a gray hag stone she had found on the beach, and a slender chunk of obsidian, worn smooth and shiny by the elements. She often ran the witch’s ladder through her fingers, pausing at each knot, contemplating the totems, a ritual that gave her comfort.

She sat back on her haunches, careful of her stiff knees, and watched the flame begin to dance. The log was nice and dry, one she had been saving for a long time, and the eagerness of the wood to burn gave her a little swell of satisfaction. She had made sure the wood was ready to crack before decorating with bits of pine and fir and spruce and threading it with pitch. When the evergreen needles caught fire, the scented smoke drifted neatly up the chimney she had cleaned just the week before.

She recited aloud, because it always seemed that the goddess heard her better if she used her voice:
“As the earth grows colder,
And the snow piles higher,
As the wind blows harder
And the restful darkness gathers,
Guide the light of the sun
To find its way home.”

She heard the voices on the wind singing through her rafters, the chants of her coven in their querulous voices. She closed her eyes to feel their awareness of her, and heard one whisper, “Soon, Benedetta. Soon.”

At that she opened her eyes. “Well, thank you very much, sister,” she snapped. “But not all that soon, I hope.”
Someone laughed, and the voices retreated so that she heard only the creaking of the roof beams and the chuckle of her hens in their coop. Benedetta levered herself to her feet. The Yule log crackled, sparkling in the dimness. She went to light a lamp, then on to her tiny kitchen to ladle a cup of cider.

She carried her cup back into the front room, and stood beside her window, looking out into the early dark. Above her cottage, set back a little from the road that ran along the cliff, she saw a glimmer of light from the big house. “Poor Mrs. St. John,” she murmured. She often talked to herself, had done it even when her coven sisters were still with her. “Poor, sad lady,” she repeated. “I’m used to loneliness, but for her it is painfully new. Such a terrible shock.”

It seemed to her the light was so small it could only come from a single lamp. One lamp, in that huge house! How dismal. She didn’t imagine Mrs. St. John, from her fine family, would care to drink homemade cider and watch the homely Yule log burn, but it was pitiful that there was no carriage trundling up the road bringing company to ease the grief of Rosemary St. John’s first solitary Christmas. To bring her a gift, perhaps, as was the custom of such people.

Benedetta sighed over the sadness of it. She was about to turn back to her hearth, to watch the dancing yellow flames inviting the sun to return, but something caught her eye.

It was just a flash at first, a flitter more pale than the darkness. It was low to the ground, perhaps the height of her waist. Which was, of course, lower than it once had been. Benedetta blinked, and leaned closer to the window. It came again, glowing white through the night.

She couldn’t think what that was. Her coven sister Sweetbriar always swore there were fairies along this coast. Benedetta had never seen one, but maybe that was because Sweetbriar left gifts for them, pinches of salt, heels of bread, once in a while a hen’s egg. Benedetta had done nothing like that. Maybe this was one of the fair folk come to demand its due.
But then she saw the face. The bit of color was a mop of hair so fair it was nearly white, and beneath it, the round, freckled cheeks of a child.

Benedetta gasped, and hurried to open her door. She leaned out into the chilly night, and called, “Hello? Hello? Are you there?”

There was no reply. Slowly, Benedetta pulled back inside, and closed the door to keep in the warmth. She drew a chair near the fireplace and settled in it with her cup of cider, but she frowned and worried, and couldn’t enjoy the moment.
#
Rosemary poured herself a glass of wine and knelt again in the window seat to look out into the blustery night. Across the road from her house, the sea heaved and swelled below the cliff, clawing at the beach and drowning the boulders. Another big house stood at the high point of the road, but it was dark, its inhabitants gone to town for the holidays. Rosemary looked the other direction, a little way down the hill. A spark of light showed from the witch’s cottage, which hunched beside the road, its roof uneven, its chicken coop as big as the house itself. The light emanating from it was bright, probably a fire in the fireplace.

Rosemary had never met the woman who lived there. Everyone in the neighborhood called her the witch, but Rosemary thought that was just because she didn’t go to church. The poor thing was probably just an old woman living with her chickens and selling eggs to get by. Rosemary’s cook had often bought eggs from her, and they were wonderful, with dark yellow yolks and perfect whites.

There was something about that brave firelight dancing through the dark that made Rosemary’s heart ache. The old lady must be very brave. There had been other women there, also elderly, but they had all gone, and the woman was on her own. Was she lonely? Did she feel as Rosemary did, that there was nothing left in the world to live for?
She thrust that thought away. It was sinful even to consider it.

It was true, though, that a person could die of sorrow. Of a broken heart, as they often said. Her own heart was certainly broken. Shattered into a thousand pieces.

She turned from the window and gazed at her unlighted tree, with no pile of gifts beneath it, no little fair-headed boy arranging and re-arranging them. The icy cold of the night seemed to pierce the thick walls of the house and grip in unrelenting hands. It made her want to cry out that she was already in enough pain to last a lifetime.
Still dry-eyed she repeated, bitterly, “I don’t know why I bother.”
#
Benedetta couldn’t drink her cider. She gazed at her beautifully burning Yule log, but she kept seeing that little face, the shock of fair hair. Had she imagined it? Sweetbriar had gotten very strange in the last years of her life, always claiming she saw things no one else could. Benedetta didn’t want to be like Sweetbriar. The coven sisters had taken care of Sweetbriar, but there was no one left to watch over Benedetta if she grew strange.

At last she rose, and went to take her heaviest cloak from its peg. She wrapped herself in it, and pulled her scarf low over her forehead. She glanced back to be certain her fire was safely contained, then opened the door and went out into the night.
“Hello?” she called. “Is there someone there? Are you lost?” The hens fell silent as she stood on the top step of her tiny porch, listening, peering out into the gloom.

When something tugged at her cloak, she jumped, and nearly fell off the step. She seized the porch railing to steady herself. When two small, cold hands seized her arm, she squealed with surprise.
In an instant she collected herself, and looked down to see what had touched her. She saw a pair of wide blue eyes in a freckled face. She didn’t think it looked like a fairy, not that she had any experience with the fae. It looked like a little boy. A solemn-faced, worried little boy.

She squeaked, “Are you—are you real, boy?”

He nodded several times. His mouth worked, but no sound came out.

“Won’t you come inside, out of the cold?”

He shook his head side to side, emphatically. The two little hands, so cold against her flesh, pulled at her arm, and he pointed to the road.

Benedetta said, “Walking? It’s too cold to go walking. Please—come in, and we’ll—we’ll try to understand each other.”
For answer, the boy pointed to her cloak. She picked it up, and slowly wrapped it around herself again. Still, she was reluctant. Why would she walk on the road with a little boy who couldn’t speak, whom she had never seen before, who might not be a human being at all?

He pointed with one hand at the road, and tugged at her arm with the other. Still Benedetta hesitated.

Then she heard the voices of her coven again. One voice in particular. She recognized it, although it had been several years. “Benedetta! Now!” It was Sweetbriar. Of course it was Sweetbriar.

“I don’t want—I’m not ready—” Benedetta faltered.

“Not that, silly! Not yet. Go with him now!”

“Sweetbriar—”

“Are you a witch, or are you not?” Sweetbriar’s last words were so soft Benedetta wasn’t sure she heard them. It didn’t help that the little boy was pulling so hard on her arm now she thought she might topple over after all.

She told him, “I have to put the fire screen up. My Yule log is burning.” The look on his face didn’t change, and she suspected he didn’t know what a Yule log was. She said, “Just come in for a moment, and then I’ll go with you. I have to put up the screen so my house doesn’t burn down.”

He let go of her cloak, and stood with his little hands hanging empty beside him. She opened her door, and beckoned to him to come in, but he didn’t move.

Sweetbriar’s words echoed in Benedetta’s mind. “Are you a witch, or are you not?”

Benedetta was a witch. She had been since her girlhood. She had been known for her potions, which were really just smart concoctions of helpful herbs, flower essences, aromatic oils. She had learned from her mother, who learned from her mother, and so on back through the generations. She could have called herself an herbalist, or a healer, but she quite liked being known as a witch.

So, now, she set up her fire screen, took her witch’s ladder off its peg, and went outside. The sound of the sea rose as she closed her door, but subsided as she called, “Boy! Little boy! Are you there? I’m coming. Wait for me!”

She held the witch’s ladder in her hand, her fingers slipping over the knots, one by one, as she walked cautiously down her short path. She wasn’t as steady on her feet as she had once been, and she didn’t dare move too quickly in the darkness, lest she fall. She touched the feather on the witch’s ladder, pleading, “Make him wait.” When her fingers reached the hag stone, she said, “Show me where he is.” And when she reached the bit of obsidian, she commanded, “Now, please!” and there he was, standing in the shadows along the road.

The ocean bellowed its relief as she tucked her witch’s ladder into a pocket and walked toward him. She reached for his little hand, and it was like taking a handful of snow.
#
Rosemary sat on in the dark night, her glass of wine barely tasted, her dinner sitting ignored in the larder. It was at this time on a Christmas Eve that she would light the candles on the tree’s branches. The family would sit together, admiring the scene, and then each would open a single present before extinguishing the candles and moving to the dining room for their roast beef and potatoes and steamed pudding.

After dinner, they would bundle up in scarves and muffs and mittens. They would climb into the carriage, and sing carols as it trundled down the road along the cliff. At the bottom it would turn into the village, where the venerable Norman church was alight with candles and lamps. Rosemary would dutifully kneel with her family to hear the story of the baby’s birth, the little savior come to atone for human sins.

What sin, she wondered now, had she committed? She had neither lied nor fornicated nor murdered nor dishonored her father and mother. She had cleaved to her husband, and obeyed him in all things. She had loved the Christmas story, the sweet mother, the loyal father, the precious infant cradled in a bed of straw.

What had she missed? Where had she erred, that she should be tormented in this way?

She could only come to one conclusion, and that was that there was no one who cared that she had tried to be a good woman. Not the baby Jesus. Not the angels who sang above Bethlehem. Indeed, no spirit at all.

Even those thoughts, bitter as they were, weren’t enough to make her tears come. It seemed her dry eyes would ache forever, reminding her every day of what she had lost.

She heard the sea suddenly roar beneath the cliff as if it was calling her. Perhaps the sea cared enough to take her pain away. In a daze, forgetting that this would be a sin, eager for relief from her pain, she went to her front door and fumbled it open.
#
Benedetta let the little boy lead her up the dark road. The ocean surged on their left, glowing faintly through the night. The darkness of the hills rose on their right, blotting out the stars. Ahead of them the only light was that single lamp in the big house. It was hard to walk without being able to see the ruts and stones, and Benedetta worried she would trip, but the boy tugged at her, pulling her faster and faster.

“Why are we hurrying?” Benedetta gasped. There was no reply. Benedetta could hardly catch her breath, and her feet felt clumsy, stumbling over unseen obstacles. She wished she had kept her witch’s ladder in her fingers, but to pull it out would mean letting go of the little boy’s hand, and she knew she couldn’t do that. She would lose him in the darkness.
She spared a second’s glance down at his fair head, his grave face. He pulled and pulled, leaning forward with the effort, like a horse pulling a too-heavy cart. Benedetta did her best to respond, panting, the cold air aching in her lungs, her feet stinging from the stones that littered the road.

When she saw the woman coming down the walk from the big house, she barely had breath to cry out.

It was Mrs. St. John. Her poor bereaved neighbor, with her pretty pale hair and slender waist, and neither coat nor hat against the cold. Benedetta struggled to get enough air into her lungs to call to her, but it was a weak cry that didn’t pierce the roar of the sea. “Mrs. St. John! Mrs. St. John, wait!”

There was no doubt what the young woman intended. Obviously, she was not in her right mind. A gust of wind caught her hair, and it fluttered out behind her like a scarf caught in the breeze. Her shirtwaist looked thin, perhaps even ragged, and her skirt billowed around her ankles. Her shoes were only slippers, insubstantial bits of silk and leather. She looked neither left nor right, but walked steadily forward. When she reached the middle of the road, the cliff was no more than fifty feet from her.

Benedetta tried to get another breath, but the little boy was pulling so hard on her hand she finally tripped. “Mrs.—” she began, but broke off as she fell to her knees. The boy let go of her and dashed ahead. Pain shot through Benedetta’s left knee as she struggled to her feet, and began to limp after the boy. “Mrs. St. John!” she called, but the wind blew her quavering voice away, and she knew Rosemary St. John had not heard.

She was only a few yards away now, but Mrs. St. John was a young woman, and far faster on her feet than Benedetta. Benedetta felt a desperate sob rise from her throat, because she couldn’t reach her in time, and the little boy—

The little boy threw himself at Mrs. St. John, and she stopped walking. She didn’t look down, didn’t seem to be aware of him, but she stood absolutely still in the middle of the road. She might have been a wraith, so insubstantial did she appear, with her hair and her skirt blowing in the wind as she gazed longingly at the luminescent water surging below the cliff.

Benedetta reached her at last. The boy’s arms were around Mrs. St. John’s waist, his face buried against her skirt, but she didn’t lift her hands to caress him. She stood eerily still, staring at the ocean, as if she were the only person alive in the world.

“Mrs. St. John!” Benedetta gasped.

At last, the young woman seemed to hear. Slowly, as if her muscles hurt, she turned to Benedetta. “Who—”

Benedetta spoke in a breathless rush. “I’m your neighbor.”

“What?”

“From the cottage.” She pointed back the way she had come.

Mrs. St. John’s face was as vacant as if she had just woken from sleep. “Why are you here?”

“Because of the boy,” Benedetta said, beginning to recover her breath. “I followed the boy, because he wanted me to.”

“What boy?”

“Why—this one.” Benedetta indicated the child clinging to Mrs. St. John’s skirt.

Mrs. St. John followed her gesture with her eyes, then looked back at Benedetta. “I don’t see anything,” she whispered.

Shock swept over Benedetta, raising gooseflesh on her neck, making her hands shake, weakening her knees. When she spoke, it was also in a whisper, as if that could make what was happening less real. “You don’t see him?”

Mrs. St. John blinked, and repeated, in a voice even fainter than Benedetta’s, “I don’t see anything.”

A heartbeat later, neither did Benedetta.

The sudden and complete disappearance of the child made her catch her breath in wonder. Finally, she grasped what was happening and cursed herself for being slow. She took a long breath, and released it little by little, amazed and grateful and comforted. She was a witch. She was still a witch. Sweetbriar may have been strange, but she had been right.

Mrs. St. John began to shiver, and Benedetta said, “Come. Let me get you inside, where it’s warm.”

Mrs. St. John allowed herself to be led, trembling like a leaf in the wind, but she said, “It’s not warm.”

“Is it not? Well, then. You just let me build up the fire and wrap you in a blanket. We’ll get you warm quick as anything.”
“I was—I was going to—”

Benedetta opened the front door of the big house, and urged Mrs. St. John over the sill. It was true that the house wasn’t warm. They crossed a wide hall to a dim, chilly parlor. A forlorn Christmas tree stood in one corner, studded with unlit candles and glass ornaments. The big fireplace held nothing but a half-burned log, but there was a metal bin of kindling next to it, and a small pile of wood. Benedetta found a blanket thrown over one of the big divans, and coaxing Mrs. St. John to sit, she tucked the blanket firmly around her, and put a cushion under her feet.

In a short while, she had a fire burning energetically. She said, “Kitchen?” and Mrs. St. John nodded vaguely to a room across the hall. There Benedetta filled a kettle, brought it back to set on the hob to heat. She returned to the kitchen, where she discovered the untouched supper waiting in the larder. She left it there, but came back with a teapot, and set it on the hearth to warm while she waited for the kettle to boil. Over her shoulder she said, “I didn’t want to start your cooker. I’ve never seen one like that.”

Mrs. St. John didn’t answer.

By the time the tea was made, Mrs. St. John had stopped shivering. Benedetta put a cup in her hands, and poured one for herself. She sat down at the other end of the divan, not too close, but not too far, either. She said, “It’s not my place, but I want you to know how sorry I am for all that has happened to you.”

Mrs. St. John said, as if Benedetta had not spoken, “What little boy?”

“Ah.” Benedetta took a sip from her cup. It was very good tea, the best. She said, “Mrs. St. John, drink a bit of tea. It will calm you.”

Obediently, as if she were a child herself, Rosemary drank. Then she said again, “What little boy, Mrs. — Oh. I don’t know your name.”

“Just call me Benedetta. No one has used my surname in years.” Benedetta sipped again, then set her cup down on a side table.

“They say you’re a witch,” Mrs. St. John said, then put her hand over her mouth. “Oh. Oh, I’m sorry. I just—I was about to—”

“I know, Mrs. St. John. Don’t apologize.” Benedetta smiled a little, and pulled her witch’s ladder from her pocket. “Do you know what this is?”

Mrs. St. John shook her head.

“It’s called a witch’s ladder. It helps me accomplish things that are difficult.” Mrs. St. John’s eyes grew wide, and Benedetta thought if she grew any paler she would look just like the little boy. The little spirit boy.

She said, “Mrs. St. John, I did see a little boy. I think he might have been yours.”

Mrs. St. John’s hand suddenly shook so badly Benedetta leaned to take the teacup from her. “M-mine?” Mrs. St. John faltered. “How could it have been m-my little boy? He’s . . .” She covered her face with her hands.

“I know, dear. I know.” Benedetta slid her fingers down the knots in her witch’s ladder, feeling the feather, then the hag stone. “I think he brought me to you so you wouldn’t throw yourself into the sea. I think your little boy knew you would be sorry if you did.”

Mrs. St. John dropped her hands, and Benedetta saw that her eyes were perfectly dry. Had she cried herself out? Or had she been unable to cry at all?

“It can’t be,” Mrs. St. John said.

“And yet . . .” Benedetta’s fingers reached the bit of obsidian. She took care to speak softly, so as not to alarm the young woman, but clearly, so that Mrs. St. John would understand. “And yet, my dear, he is standing just there, at the foot of the stairs.”

Mrs. St. John sat up very straight, first staring at Benedetta, then following her pointing finger. She shook her head. “There’s nothing there.”

“There is, actually,” Benedetta said. “You can’t see him, but fortunately, I can see him for you. No doubt that is why he came for me.” She pushed herself up from the divan. “I’m going upstairs with him. Would you like to come?”

For a long moment, Mrs. St. John stared at what must be, to her, an empty stairwell. Her lips were apart, her eyes stretched so wide Benedetta thought they must hurt. But then, with a little anxious moan, Rosemary stood, and followed Benedetta to the stairs.

The boy had already started up, and Benedetta labored after him, clinging to the banister for support. He didn’t look back, but turned into one of the rooms on the second floor. Its door stood open. When Benedetta reached it, she glanced back. “Does this room mean something, Mrs. St. John?”

Mrs. St. John was just behind her. “This is my little boy’s room.”

“Ah. Well, the child has gone inside. May I go after him?”

Mrs. St. John’s arms were wrapped tightly around her middle. She nodded, and when Benedetta went into the room, she followed.

The bedroom was perfect for a child, with charming small animals on the wallpaper and shelves of picture books and toys. The bed was made up with bright pillows and a thick rug. It all looked as if the child who lived there had just gone out.
But he was there. He turned his solemn expression on Benedetta, and pointed a finger at the bed, then under it. Stiffly, she lowered herself to her knees, bracing herself on the bed post.

“What are you doing?” Mrs. St. John breathed.

“He wants me to look under the bed.”

“Oh! My son always hid things under his bed!”

Benedetta reached past the ruffled bedskirt, stretching out her arm as far as it would go, scrabbling with her fingers, but not finding anything. She pulled back, panting a little, and found the boy crouched next to her. He put his head under the bedskirt without lifting it, an action that was a bit unnerving to observe. When he re-emerged, he took her hand in his little cold one, and directed it. This time she felt a small package beneath her fingertips. She had to stretch her fingers as far as they would go, but she was able to grasp it.

She pulled it out, and set it on the bed before she began the process of getting back on her feet. When she was upright again, she looked at the package. It was a gift, awkwardly wrapped, with uneven corners and badly-tied ribbon, but still, clearly, a gift. A Christmas gift. An oversized label was attached, and the word “Mummy” written there in a childish hand.

Benedetta glanced at Mrs. St. John.

The young woman stood with her hands pressed to her cheeks. Tears streamed through her fingers and down her face, more tears than Benedetta had ever seen one person shed. It was as if a dam had broken, and all the tears that had held back burst forth in a torrent.

The spirit boy was gone, disappeared without a trace. But his gift for his mother, the one he had wrapped weeks before and hidden where he thought she wouldn’t find it, was there in his place.
#
Rosemary cried for an hour. She didn’t sob, but the pent-up tears poured down her cheeks as she huddled on the divan with her son’s little gift in her hand. She didn’t open it. She thought she might never open it. What was inside didn’t matter. What mattered was that he had made such an effort to guide her to it.

She had never seen him, but the old woman from the cottage obviously had. When Rosemary’s tears eased for a time, she asked her—Benedetta, that was her name—she asked Benedetta how her boy looked, if he seemed well, if she thought he was all right.

Benedetta, sitting close beside her, not touching her but clearly ready to do so if necessary, gave her a small, wrinkled smile. “Everyone is all right, my dear,” she said. “Every one of us is all right in the end. Your child is no different.”

Rosemary said, “I am not all right, Benedetta.”

“No. Not at the moment. I’m so sorry.”

Rosemary surprised herself by murmuring politely, “Thank you.” She couldn’t recall having said anything so normal, so quotidian, since the first of the deaths had struck her house. Thinking of that made the tears begin again.

The old woman sat patiently beside her as she wept for another hour. When that bout of tears slowed and stopped, Benedetta patted her arm. “I saw some dinner in your larder,” she said. “Let us take it to my cottage, if you don’t mind stepping just a bit down the road. We can watch my Yule log burn, have a sip of cider and a bite of supper. You look as if you haven’t eaten in some time.”

Rosemary surprised herself once again by acquiescing, and she soon found herself warmly dressed, with shoes and stockings on her feet and her fur coat around her, following a woman she had never met before down the dark road and into the tiny house. It was warm inside from the log that glowed gently in the hearth. Benedetta settled Rosemary on a chair near the fire, then stirred it up until the log blazed up as if with joy.

As Benedetta pressed a warm cup of cider in her hand, Rosemary asked, “Will I ever feel joy again?”

For answer, Benedetta placed the witch’s ladder in her lap. “Drink your cider,” she said, in her creaking voice. “Then work the witch’s ladder with your fingers. You will know that joy returns, in its time.”

Rosemary did just as she was bid, and she learned, though it made her weep again, that the witch was right.

THE END

This week’s stunning triumph for a courageous 80-year-old woman, added to the preposterous maltreatment of a film director whose work set all sorts of records and earned the production company obscene amounts of money, have for some reason reminded me of my grandmother. I haven’t blogged in forever, but I want to acknowledge the debt women of 2024 owe to the brave, often suffering, struggling women who came before us. My mother was one such, a quiet heroine who worked miracles in a life with no support and no privilege, but just now I’m thinking of my grandmother.
Her name was Elizabeth Lucinda Morgan (yes, I borrowed her name as a pseudonym) and she was born, we guess, in 1890. She lied about her age so much we can’t be sure. We called her Lu, at her request, and we have always thought of her as the original San Francisco hippie before there were hippies. She was an artist through and through, against all odds, against societal norms, against the strictures of an abusive marriage and trying to raise two children in the Depression. She was a significant minor painter in the 50s and 60s, in San Francisco and in Taos, New Mexico. As kids, we thought she was weird, though we adored her. As an adult who has also spent my life as an artist, I think she was completely, utterly amazing.
In the early years of my life, I struggled to become the artist I was meant to be, but the obstacles I dealt with pale before the ones she faced. Who would take seriously the ambitions of a girl from Iowa who wanted above all to be a painter? Who would allow her the freedom to leave her marriage, to take her children and build a new life away from the tyrannical rule of a hard-eyed man who thought her ambitions were foolish?
To shorten a long story, my grandmother Lu did become a painter, and a popular teacher of painters. She was celebrated with a showing at the Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco, and is remembered in a book about artists of her day. A gallery in Taos sold her paintings, and preserved a number of them for posterity. You can see one of my favorite works of hers below. She had vision, and talent, and discipline—all the things that go into the character of an artist—and along the way she loved her grandchildren and did her best to support them in their own dreams. She used to play the piano for us so we could dance. She used to sit up with us and let us spin our own stories. When our family fell apart, she stepped up in the only way she had, her presence. She had no money, but she had ideas, and they were precious beyond price.
1890. Women were still wearing corsets. Their skirts dragged on the ground, impossible to keep clean. They knew nothing of marriage until they married, and then they were trapped. World War I came, and then the Depression, and then World War II, and my grandmother made art all through. Amazing. Brave. Disciplined.
We women have come a long way, and we’re not going back. Yes, we terrify some people as we choose our own path and refuse to be bullied into the one they prefer. But I know my grandmother would be proud of us, and I am so very proud of her, and of all the strong, defiant women who have come before us.
There are many details of my grandmother’s life we will never know. Some she simply kept to herself. Others are lost in the confusion of the passing years. I am happy to say, however, that her art remains, and it speaks for itself. I hope she finds that enough.

I’m pleased by the response to my offhand mention of the ghost in my house, because I love ghost stories, my own and others’. As promised, here’s my tale about how I met my ghost–and I promise it’s not scary.

I saw a full-body apparition in my back garden several years ago. It was not my first unusual experience, although it was my first apparition. I’ve been the recipient of too many premonitions to count (one of them really scary, about a problem with an airplane, that proved terrifingly accurate), several visitations, some true dreams, and not a few incidents of extra-sensory perception. But Fosdick was, and is still, my only actual apparition.

I collect other people’s experiences, too. I was at a Cabi party (it’s like Tupperware for clothes, and the togs are fantastic) and the poor saleswoman got completely sidelined while we all swapped our tales of extranormal experiences. Two stood out from that evening: One was told by a woman who heard a voice telling her not to pull out into an intersection, and narrowly missed being T-boned. The other was a widow whose deceased husband showed up at their daughter’s wedding, wearing the running clothes he had on when he was struck and killed by a vehicle.

My little story isn’t nearly that exciting, more curious. Something about the very mundanity of it pleases me.

Three days before we moved to the Town at the End of the Road, my beloved Scottie, Piper, who was my heart dog, unexpectedly and traumatically died. I was heartbroken, grieving in the midst of the excitement of moving to a place we had always wanted to live. In the enormous back garden, which at that time was unfenced, so that theoretically anyone could walk in off the street, I made a little shrine with the tiny urn of Piper’s ashes in the center. I surrounded it with stones, and put in a couple of flowering plants.

That simple little memorial was clearly charged with emotion. Birds gathered there often, perching on the stones. One morning I found a fawn, all by itself, curled up next to the urn. (There are lots of deer in this town, but usually fawns stick close to their mothers.)

The day of my sighting I was alone at the house. Our bedroom is on the lower level, with windows and a glass door opening onto the garden. The bathroom is connected, so that when you come out of it you can turn right and go out into the garden if you want—and if you have clothes on—which I didn’t.

I had just come out of the downstairs shower, starkers, headed for my closet for some clothes. I glanced casually to my right, and to my horror, saw there was a man in the garden. He was wearing a bright blue shirt, and he was kneeling beside Piper’s shrine, reaching in as if to straighten the little pottery urn.

I leaped back into the bathroom for a towel to wrap myself in, a maneuver that could only have taken three seconds. When I looked out at the garden again, the man had disappeared. Of course I went out the door, looking for him, but he was gone.

I spent some time trying to convince myself I hadn’t seen what I saw. I do have a vivid imagination, of course, because I couldn’t do my work without it. It was no use trying to talk myself out of it, though. He was there. I think he was drawn to the emotions around that little shrine, and I also think, after doing some research, that it could have been a man named Fosdick, who lived in this wonderful house for many years. I can imagine he loved this place as much as we do, and left a bit of his energy behind.

I only saw him once in that way. Since then, half a dozen times or so, I’ve caught a glimpse of a shadow moving down an upstairs hallway. It’s not in the least scary, or creepy. He’s welcome here, and he’s doing no harm at all. I had to move the shrine as we improved the garden. We have a fence now, to keep the deer out and the new dog in. I don’t expect to see Fosdick again. It was just a unique moment, a startling experience that probably won’t repeat. I wish he’d come back and say hello, though!

It has always been my intention to hold a ghost story night at the Rainforest Writers Retreat or at some friendly convention. We would have to have rules, like stories with only one or two degrees of separation, but it would be fascinating. At one of my events for the release of The Witch’s Kind I was asked about my own paranormal experiences, and once I got started, I talked for almost an hour. I hadn’t even realized I had so many, and I received a lot of them in return.

If you would like to share yours here, please do, but no debunking, please. We know these events are neither provable nor repeatable. They are the unique expressions of intense emotions, ours or the ghost’s, or the result of some external condition, like my airplane premonition, things we can’t control (and which I hope never to experience again!) Like this lengthy anecdote, they require context and explanation, which is why a candlelit gathering of writers and readers—with wine, I hope—would be the perfect venue.

Let’s do that sometime, my friends, when we’re able to be together! In the meantime, stay safe in this Year of Plague. As the redoubtable Queen Elizabeth says, we’ll meet again.

This is Oscar, familiar spirit to Louisa Morgan. He’s a three-year-old irrepressible Border Terrier with boundless energy, who adores all human beings and sometimes can be polite to other dogs. He loves to snuggle up next to the writer when she’s working–as long as she sits in his favorite chair.

I feel worse about Nathan and Judy than I do about anyone else, even my son. They weren’t the only ones responsible for this, of course, but they were always the closest agents to me. They’ll be the ones to take the blame, Judy especially. I wish I could do something about that. I was their responsibility, and I know how much trouble they’re going to be in. Judy has two young children. Nathan takes care of his elderly parents. They’re sure to lose their jobs, if they haven’t already. I worry about them all the time.

I’m aware that makes me look like a terrible mother. Uncaring. Selfish. But my son could hardly be safer than he is right now—especially now. Everyone will be on high alert.

But Nathan and Judy—I gave them the slip, and they weren’t expecting it. I’m sorry, because they’ve been kind to me. Of course, they looked the other way when the president did the things he did, but they didn’t have much choice. Ultimately, he’s their boss, and he’s a dangerous man to cross. No one knows that better than I do.

It’s weird to watch the story grow on the television programs. They keep showing my picture from Inauguration Day, talking on and on and on, guessing, speculating, sometimes pretending they know what happened. It feels strange to be the object of all that chatter. Usually it’s my husband they rattle on about, criticizing or praising or ridiculing.

I have to keep the sound off, but I watch the chyrons rolling beneath the faces of those familiar television reporters with their coifed hair and glistening lips. When I first got here, the chyrons spoke to everyone’s curiosity: Where is she? Where’s the First Lady?

There were some imaginative ones: Is the First Lady on a secret mission for the president?

And there were critical ones: The First Lady continues to shirk her duties.

I knew that would come. The people who say such things don’t know what it’s like to have to hide your bruised face, or your broken finger, or the cut on your forehead where he threw the tv remote and, for once, hit his target. I can’t go out to visit a hospital or speak to a ladies’ luncheon when my eye is so swollen I can’t put mascara on it, or when the outfit I was supposed to wear won’t fit over the bandage on my knee from where he pushed me in the bathroom.

Nathan and Judy ran interference for me with my social secretary. They knew—probably the whole detail did—but what could they do? If they went to the head of the Secret Service, he’d have to speak to the president. Knowing my husband, he would probably fire the whole detail. No one outside the White House would believe them. No one would believe me. He would lie, and he’s the president.

My husband is a very, very good liar. Maybe one of the best liars in the world. I figured that out, far too late. I don’t think the rest of the country is ever going to understand just how adept he is at convincing people of untruths. It’s a blessing, really, that he spends no time with our son. He would lie to him, too. He’d rather lie than not. It comes naturally to him. It’s his nature, repellent though it is. I wish I had understood that sooner.

But now I huddle, alone, in the elegant salon of my old friend’s anchored yacht, Sea Secret. I watch the television news with no sound and all the blinds drawn tight, so no one will walk along the dock and suspect someone is in here.

Everything is battened down on the boat. The big galley is closed down, though the refrigerator is stocked so I have food. Everything on the decks is covered with tarps, and the crew has all been let go—for the duration, Tony said. I feel bad about them losing their jobs, but I was desperate, and I had literally one friend in the world I could trust.

At least, I hope I can trust him. My husband has a talent for making people betray the ones who trust them. As I said, he may be the best liar in the world.

As the days pass, the chyrons grow more and more intense. Most other news is being buried beneath the weight of the nation’s—indeed, the world’s—curiosity. The White House staff finally noticed my absence, my bed not slept in, my bathroom not used, the books and magazines in my sitting room undisturbed. People have started to ask questions.

The chyrons scream: In a break with protocol, the First Lady is not at the president’s side for a state dinner. And The First Lady cancels all appearances. Is she ill? And, in an attempt to be jocular, Call in if you’ve seen the First Lady!

They would expect someone to recognize me if they saw me on the street, or in a car, or on a train. What they don’t understand is how a designer dress, a designer hairdo, even a designer cosmetics job, can make a woman look utterly different from the way she looks every day. I don’t look anything like that Inauguration Day image now. It’s unlikely anyone would recognize me. No makeup. Sweatshirt, jeans, sneakers. My hair cut (badly, since I did it myself) and now the gray roots are showing. I can see how I look in the stateroom mirror, a tired, too tall, too thin middle-aged woman.

And now, finally, the chyron I’ve been expecting. He will hate this one, because it means he can’t ignore the situation any more. The press secretary will get questions. The secret service will show up in the Oval. The newspapers will go crazy. My parents will call, and insist on talking to him, and go to the television people when he refuses.

It’s this one, the right one at last: The First Lady is missing.

And now that they’ve gotten there, the real questions start. Was she kidnapped? Has she been poisoned, and is being kept in a secret hospital? Or Is the First Lady dead, and no one will admit it to the public?

And, of course, How could she escape the Secret Service? How could she get out of the White House with no one knowing?

This is a good question. The White House is a fortress, despite its lovely old architecture and graceful interiors. The windows are impenetrable, the gardens are walled and guarded, every door is monitored. The Secret Service is an army, armed, dangerous, omnipresent. It’s all designed to keep the president and staff safe, to keep dangers out.
And, as it turns out, to keep the First Lady in.

###

The ‘how’ of it all was worthy of a thriller. My friend—let’s call him Tony—was a special friend of mine, of us both, really, from before the nightmare days, when a botched election landed me in a role I never wanted. I hadn’t seen him for months, but Tony was a guest at one of the endless white-tie dinners we have to host at the White House. When I saw his name on the list, I managed to persuade one of the butlers—who are very sweet, and really do everything they can to make the first lady happy—to switch the place tags, so Tony was seated beside me, on my left. On my right was an ambassador from some African country, whose language I don’t speak and who speaks very little English. I was free to chat with Tony.

At first we talked about little things, his children, my son, their schools. We drank two glasses of wine apiece, and by dessert we were sharing more personal confidences. I was careful. I checked under my plate, and under the table, and felt around the bottom of my chair to be sure there were none of the listening devices my husband loves to plant. Tony’s marriage was coming to an end, he said. Infidelity, hers, not his. I took his word for it.

My marriage was off limits for our conversation, but I did admit I hated D.C., I hated the job I had to do, and I especially hated living in the fishbowl of the White House. Tony knows my husband well, no doubt better than I do. He has known him for years. Did business with him, which means got cheated by him. Tony had no illusions about what my marriage was like.
Months went by before I saw Tony again.

He was visiting with the president in the Oval, something about trade imbalances, which Tony is an expert in and which my husband misunderstands, as he misunderstands so many things. After the meeting, Tony asked one of the staff if he could say hello to me, his friend from the old days. The staff member escorted him to my office, and the two of us—with Nathan following at a discreet distance, sunshine glinting off his oversized sunglasses—went out to walk in the Rose Garden.

It was one of the first bits of luck I’d had in a long time. Nathan’s second language is German. Tony speaks fluent French. Judy speaks French, too, but it wasn’t her shift, so Tony and I could murmur to each other in French without worrying about being understood.

He said, “I have a crazy idea. You can laugh it off if you want.”

“What is it?” Qu’est-que c’est?

“You can leave him. You should leave him.”

“Leave him? As in, walk out?”

“Yes, walk out. Now. In the middle of his term. Say goodbye.” Au revoir.

“He’d kill me.”

“Only if he could find you. And I have an idea about that.” He grinned down at me. He’s tall enough to do that, and he looked good, clear skin, a full head of dark hair, naturally white teeth. I felt almost normal, walking with him, his hand under my arm, Nathan keeping a respectful distance because we were safe, there in the garden.

I said, “How, Tony? They watch me all the time!”

“Have you been down to the tunnels?”

We rounded the corner, into a shady spot where there was a bench to sit on. With a nod to Nathan, inviting him to join us if he liked, Tony and I sat down. Nathan stood a few steps away, his sunglasses flashing as he scanned the path and the lawn.
“Tunnels?” The word is the same in French, although pronounced differently from the English word. Tony’s French is much better than mine, and I wasn’t sure I had heard right.

“Yes. Beneath the house. There are dozens of them.”

“There are?”

“There are. Sometimes you can see them on the tours.”

“They don’t let me take tours.”

Tony kept his hands in his pockets, but his shoulder deliberately brushed against mine, and it felt good. I couldn’t remember the last time someone touched me just because they wanted to. Even my son, with the cameras constantly flashing at us, won’t hold my hand, or let me put my arm around his shoulders, or stand still for a hug.

“I’ll get you a map,” Tony said, his mouth so close to my ear I felt the warmth of his breath. Tony has sweet breath, smelling like citrus, or peppermint. My husband’s is sour from all the junk he eats.

I thought the whole conversation was in jest, of course. Tony was fantasizing to make me feel better. I was sure it wasn’t possible for me to really escape. And there was my son to think about. Of course, he’s old enough now to make some decisions for himself, and he would certainly be safe . . .

I wouldn’t have given Tony’s wild suggestion another thought, except that night my husband knocked out one of my teeth and I had to be rushed—in secret—to a dentist to have it replaced. Judy went with me. I was so ashamed of the whole thing I couldn’t meet her eyes. We didn’t say a word, either on the way to the emergency dentist or on the ride back. I sensed her wish to reach out to me, possibly even touch my hand, but of course that wasn’t in her job description. The other members of the detail kept their eyes averted from my swollen face. I don’t know what Judy and Nathan told them, but none of them ever asked me a direct question, nor acknowledged my condition.

My husband is a violent man. His first wives both said so, but he said they were lying. I was younger then, more naive, and I believed him. He is a very, very good liar.

He is also a very unhappy man, a miserable man. In public, he shouts and preens and postures. In private, the frustrations of his life boil over. The constant fear of his inadequacy rises to the surface, and he lashes out. He breaks things—a vase, a glass, a chair. When I’m the closest thing, he breaks me.

Even full of pain medication, I couldn’t sleep that night. I listened to the constant traffic noises, the comings and goings inside the White House, the drone of the television in my husband’s bedroom.

I couldn’t stop thinking about what awaited me in the coming days. They wanted me to give a speech, which terrified me. They wanted me to make a television appearance, which terrified me even more. They wanted me to fly overseas with the president on Air Force One, for the optics, they said. I wouldn’t be able to get out of his sight for days on end.

My thoughts spun endlessly, and my eyes burned with sleeplessness.

In the small hours, I surrendered. In a bottom drawer I had hidden a little burner phone, a silly thing I had bought before moving here, impelled by some instinct, I suppose. I got out of bed, opened the drawer, and found the phone.
I texted one word to my old friend Tony: Oui.

###

Tony was right about the tunnels. There are so many of them! They lead to all kinds of places, meeting rooms and bunkers and bomb shelters. The entrances are disguised, and some of them are accessed through a door that looks like it opens onto a broom closet. There’s a passage in the Oval Office, where you push on a panel and a wall opens, and you can descend into the tunnel system.

I did that. I told poor Judy I was going into the Oval to speak to my husband, and she didn’t realize he had already gone to the residence. She should have known, of course, it was her job to know, but why should she doubt me? Me, who never has a word of her own to say, creeps around like a frightened kitten, cowers in corners and hides in her bedroom for hours on end. I’m sure they think of me as they might a pretty doll, one everyone likes dressing and playing with and taking pictures of, but one that gets put on a shelf at the end of the day. One that has no mind of her own, no will, no power.

So I went into the Oval, pressed the panel to open the door, closed it carefully behind me, and descended into the tunnels. I found the right one, with the help of the diagram Tony had mailed to me, tucked into a book. I walked for three hours, and emerged in a nondescript building designated for emergency evacuations. Tony was waiting for me, and drove me here, to his yacht.

That was seven days ago, and it seems we’ve been successful. No one but Tony knows where I am. When I cut off my hair, I wrapped it in a bag with rocks in it so it sank to the bottom of the Potomac. I found the jeans and sweatshirt and sneakers in one of the staterooms, along with some toiletries, which have come in handy. I watch the television because I don’t have a computer or a smartphone, and I wouldn’t dare log on to them even if I did. There are some battered paperbacks, and I read those. Mostly, I watch the silent news programs, and assess the building storm around my disappearance.

I slipped out once to go to the convenience store beside the moorage to buy juice and tea and newspapers, and no one noticed me. I felt triumphant about that. When I was safely closed into the salon again, I wondered if that was how it felt to be an ordinary woman, to go out and do something without anyone paying attention, to wander freely without having to explain, or dress for the cameras, or follow instructions.

The newspapers were cautious. The New York Times said almost nothing at first about my absence. The Washington Post let it go for three days before they reported a rumor that the First Lady was missing.

When I had been gone five days, when the chyrons on cable news began to get excited. The Post delved more deeply into the story, but of course, they don’t have anything to go on. I’m not there. I’m gone. I’m missing, and no one knows why or how or if I’m coming back.

And the president? He hasn’t said anything yet. Not a word.

He doesn’t do press conferences, of course. He hates answering questions. He likes to call in to his favorite cable television channel, but he’s careful which host to talk to, for the same reason. Even at Fox there are some actual journalists. He never does interviews unless he is promised in advance that they’ll be friendly.

But now? He’s trapped. He’s going to have to say something, try to explain my absence. He’ll try to feign worry, perhaps, though he’s lousy at anything approaching empathy for another human being. What he’s really feeling, I feel certain, is rage. Helpless fury. He’s going to be humiliated, and I’m the cause.

Am I going back? Never.

Will he kill me if he knows where I am? Absolutely. I would not be the first.

Of course, he wouldn’t do it with his own hands. But he has ways. He has people.

I make a cup of tea, and huddle on the low sofa in front of the yacht’s big screen television. With the remote in hand, I click from one channel to the next. There are other stories in the news, of course, but I seem to be the predominant one. That is, my absence is the predominant one. I doubt very much anyone beyond my parents and one or two girlfriends actually care about me. I see shots from my wedding, pictures from when my son was small, a few posed fashion photos, but there’s nothing personal. None of it is about me. It’s all about the president’s wife not being in her proper place.

It’s the chyrons that tell the story, and they grow more and more frantic.

Secret Service desperately searching for the First Lady.

President mum on whereabouts of the First Lady.

FBI, CIA, and Interpol search for the First Lady of the United States.

First Lady sightings reported from a dozen countries.

Is the First Lady being held hostage?

Exclusive: First Lady being held in secret Russian gulag.

Did aliens steal the First Lady?

I couldn’t have made my escape without Tony, of course, and I know that. Tony is a rich man, much richer in real terms than my husband is. Women like me, by which I mean women who look like me, tend to be surrounded by rich men, men who can buy who and what they want. My husband didn’t buy me, exactly, but I was inexperienced enough to be dazzled by the gilded surroundings and the sparkling accessories of his life. I wasn’t exactly in love with the man, but I was head-over-heels in love with the life I thought he was offering.

Now Tony is offering me a new life, and I want to take it. I’m not in love with him, either, but I like him very much, and I believe he likes me. That seems much more important to me now. And his wealth is essential to our plan. Wealth has always surrounded me, though it has never been my own wealth. It can be a cruel master.

So, the plan: I will wait here for another three weeks, until such an expensive boat being out of commission might command notice. Tony will hire a new crew, which I think will mean a captain, a cook, and a couple of other people, carefully selected and generously paid for their ability to be discreet. They’re not to know who I am. The story will be that the yacht is being loaned to friends in France, and off we’ll go. I won’t have to worry about a passport or that sort of thing, because no one will know I’m here until we’re in international waters. No one will know, again, that I’m here until we’re safely docked in a tiny French port.

Obviously, this is a huge violation of my pre-nup. It also violates the post-nup I signed after the dreadful results of the election, but I no longer care. Once he’s out of office, and people aren’t looking for me any longer, Tony promises to bring my son to my French hideaway. Until then, we’ll let the mystery stand.

The Washington Post tells me my parents took my son home with them. My press secretary announced it was a planned vacation for him, but I know it was simply that my husband couldn’t be bothered to deal with him. That was always my job, and it was the only job I cared about—until recently.

Fox News continues to claim that I’m on a secret mission for the president, and that he’s keeping quiet about it until it’s accomplished. MSNBC speculates that the First Lady committed suicide, but the president is too embarrassed to admit it. CNN takes the position that the First Lady has been kidnapped by some foreign agency, and that she’ll be killed if anyone talks about it.
NBC, CBS, ABC all limit themselves to counting the days since I was last seen in public.

It’s a testament to how dangerous my husband is that neither my emergency dentist or any of the emergency physicians who treated my various injuries have spoken up. I don’t blame them. They have careers and families to worry about. And though it’s shockingly lonely, being completely isolated this way, I take comfort in knowing that I took control of my own life, for better or worse. I’m not that doll on the shelf anymore. I’m a graying middle-aged mother who still has half her life ahead of her and longs to spend it in freedom.

We planned carefully, Tony and I. It was hard, because we couldn’t often even sit next to each other, much less be alone. Gifts and mail that come into the White House are closely vetted, but Tony and I share a love of reading, and he sent me books. They contained coded messages, disguised as dedications on the flyleaves: Hope to see you in February. Hoping you and your family can join us on Sea Secret soon. Here’s looking forward to that French holiday.

I sent him books back, similarly inscribed. February is perfect. We can’t wait to see Sea Secret. Thank you for the map.
I read the books he sent, too. He chose literary novels, mysteries, sometimes thrillers. My husband, who doesn’t read at all, paid no attention to any of these exchanges.

We used the burner phone selectively, and only for the final details. When I left, I had it with me in my pocket. I threw it as far out into the river as I could, the moment I got out of Tony’s car. I had another phone, of course, a better and more recent official one, but I left that in the residence. I double-checked all my old text messages on it, but there was nothing there either from or to Tony. In fact, there was little there at all. The tweets from me that people love to share are all written by staff, and they use their computers to do that.

Yet, despite all our care, I was afraid. When people trooped by on their way to another boat, or there were raucous parties on nearby yachts, I turned off the television so its light wouldn’t penetrate the blinds. I hid in my stateroom in the darkness like an injured cat going to ground. It’s a strange, distorted life, a reverse image of the one I had been living. No one sees me. No one speaks to me. I wear the same clothes every day, and I don’t style what’s left of my hair or put on makeup. I am invisible.

###

We thought, after a month had passed, that the story of the First Lady going missing would begin to die down. We were mistaken.
If the chyrons were anything to go by, the furor has only intensified. The four weeks are nearly up, but each week the story seems to get bigger. Wild stories are circulating, the president is under daily pressure to say something, and heads are rolling at the FBI and CIA and in the Secret Service. Even Congress is threatening to summon the president to speak to them about the First Lady’s whereabouts. He has tweeted that it’s none of their business, but it seems for once his tweets are having no effect.
I knew it would be bad. I didn’t know it would precipitate a national crisis.

Now, and only now, are those who treated my injuries beginning to speak out. They start by telling reporters details off the record. Then, as their numbers grow, they gain confidence. Now the dentist, two emergency physicians, and my personal aesthetician, who has had to disguise my bruises many times, have been interviewed on television. My husband has plenty of enemies, and they’re making the most of the scandal. It has become an international sensation.

Some are saying it could bring down the presidency, an outcome neither Tony nor I anticipated. I fear the whole thing has grown much too big for Tony to tolerate.

And now, as I stare at CNN in horror, I see that Tony has been called to the White House.

Everyone knows Tony’s face, of course. Ostensibly, he is being called in as the president’s old friend and confidante, to comfort a grieving husband whose wife has disappeared—or to provide cover if the husband has done something to his abused wife. But as I watch the silent pictures shown over and over on CNN and then the other cable channels, and finally on the mainstream news shows, it’s clear that Tony has some sort of Secret Service escort—or FBI or whatever, I never can keep straight which department does which.

I turn off the television, and huddle on the couch in the salon, fearing the worst. Tony and my husband know a great deal about each other. They have had many business dealings over the decades. I’m afraid Tony is as vulnerable to blackmail as my husband is, and if my husband threatens him, he may have no choice but to give me up.

It occurs to me, too, for the first time, that Tony may have done all of this to hurt my husband rather than to help me. Their history is a complicated one. My husband is capable of any dirty trick he can think of. I wonder what he may have done to Tony. I wonder if I’ll ever know.

Tomorrow is the day we’re supposed to leave. The new crew will arrive. I will shut myself in the smallest stateroom, ready to fold myself up into a cargo compartment if necessary, until we know we’re safe. At least, that was the plan. I have no way of knowing if it still is.

I don’t sleep. I shower, and then stare at myself in the mirror. I don’t even recognize my own face. I am pale, terribly thin, big-eyed and hollow-cheeked. Even my bust, once so important to my husband, looks shrunken. I look every single one of my years. He wouldn’t have me now, I think. I am no longer a trophy wife. I’m a refugee.

I lock the stateroom door, as I’m supposed to. I lie on the bed, and watch the morning light begin to rise beyond the drawn blinds. Helpless in my ignorance of what’s happening beyond my luxurious prison, I wait.

They arrive early, whoever they are. I hear someone in the galley. I hear several pairs of feet on the decks. I hear the rustle and bang and rush as the tarps are taken in and the blinds are lifted. My stateroom has no windows, only the single locked door, which I don’t dare open. I cower on the bed, clutching a pillow to my middle.

Who is out there? I don’t know. Is everything happening according to our plan? I don’t know that, either.

The engine starts with a great thrumming vibration that I feel in my bones. There are calls back and forth, laughter, orders, shouts of farewell. The yacht begins to move, a gentle motion at first, as it glides out of its moorage, then a sense of gathering speed as it gets underway.

I lie back, and close my burning eyes. The rocking of the boat soothes my nerves, and a cold acceptance quiets my mind. Either I am making my escape, or I am not. Either I will be allowed to live the rest of my life in peace, or I will not. Someone is guiding this boat to its destination, but it is not me. I have done what I can. I have earned my fate.

I sleep.

Terrific chat with Rodger Nichols of Cover to Cover Bookbeat.

My publicist sent me the link to this WAMC (public radio) program. I knew it was a review of A SECRET HISTORY and I had a bellyful of butterflies!

Happily, the butterflies soon subsided. It’s a charming review, and the clever Zazu managed to describe the feminist themes of the novel without making the whole thing sound tedious.

It’s also short and sweet–the whole thing only lasts eleven minutes–but it is bound to add to your to-be-read list! It certainly did mine.

http://wamc.org/post/book-picks-bookloft

The craft the Orchiere witches practice, the one they refer to as the “old ways”, is invented, based on an ancient and inherited system, deeply rooted in a matrilineal tradition. I’ve borrowed from Wicca, the neo-pagan practice developed in the mid-twentieth century, but the Orchiere witches are not Wiccan, nor are the witches of the Glamis line, who appear in the Book of Veronica.

The Wheel of the Year is so lovely, though, and so evocative, that with the license granted to me as a creator of fiction, I’ve allowed my witches to use it. It also emphasizes the ancient history of their craft, and its connection with nature, which Wicca also celebrates.

The rites of the Orchieres also borrow from Wicca and from other neo-pagan traditions. The circle of salted water for protection is one such element, as is the use of a newly-poured candle and a consecrated altar. The herbs they use in their rites and potions and philters are based in real herbology. In fact, many so-called witches of medieval times were innocent herbalists, useful in times of illness, but all too easily blamed when their remedies were unsuccessful.

The witches of A SECRET HISTORY are neither the wicked hags of medieval times or the wacky suburbanites cooking up potions in their twentieth-century kitchens. They are women–grandmothers, mothers, granddaughters–with power. They are at risk because society has always feared women with power. Scripture provided an excuse to persecute them, and western culture has persisted in viewing them as dangerous, because they threaten the traditional balance of society. They endanger the fixed assignment of roles to women, and that frightens people.

There will be more to come! Please visit again.