Spirit by J. P. Hightman

daughter, and suitor all ended up in Blackthorne. They were tracked down and killed, all three, accused of witchcraft: the young man, Wilhelm, for consorting with witches and the girl, for the darkest of magics. The crowd, they forced her to kiss the lips of the dead Wilhelm, before she died herself. It is a known fact. And what they say is…well…in dying these witches somehow left a curse on every person who ever sets foot on this ground to die and be tortured after death, with such brutality that the very soul itself bleeds away.”
    No one took a breath.
    â€œOr some such,” said Jurey, with a touch of pleasure.
    The mention of a doomed couple in 1600s Salem gave Tess a slightly unwanted thrill—a delicate disturbance not easily explained by the fact these two had also been reckless and young.
    The tawdry man reacted unkindly. “Sir, you seem to have anunhealthy interest in—”
    â€œThen came the deaths,” added Jurey. “Murders. Infants dying in their beds. Suicides. An epidemic came through Blackthorne and wiped everyone out.”
    â€œWell, that’s quite a lot of death,” said Tess. “A curse is almost convincing, I’d say.”
    â€œWhy? Because there was some sickness? An epidemic, unh?” Gil, the historian, looked at her with contempt. “It’s now believed it was cholera, which even today kills people the world over—the devil’s work, maybe, but we don’t say it’s witchcraft. We’re smarter than that. The people in Blackthorne let superstition get the best of them, and it drove them to insanity, unh?”
    â€œBut people around here believed in the curse, didn’t they?” said Jurey. “The town died out. No one ever went back in to live there.”
    â€œSo many terrible things happened there. Why go back now?” Tess wondered.
    â€œThe railroad’s built new lines between Salem and Vermont, and they want a shortcut to them,” Gil’s wife, Elaine, answered her. “That takes ’em right through here. Someone decided to have the winter carnival in Blackthorne to try to bring people back in. The old men of Boston and New Haven who own the town need new blood—young people like yourself—coming here to settle. They can’t have this great ugly hole between townships….”
    Gil scowled. “You ask me, they ought to cover up the history, the traditions, any trace of the whole thing. You can put a pretty bow around it, but people don’t like this ‘witching’ talk. They’re superstitious. Part of old Salem even changed its name to Danvers.”He looked around the car. “Fact is, there are people on this train who are related to those that killed the witches. They don’t want that blood on their hands.”
    Some passengers did indeed look disturbed.
    â€œWe’re going into the last piece of America where the Salem witch trials are still a fresh scent in the air,” Gil went on. “Folks here remember it well. But history is finally blowing it all away. They’re even going to put in electricity up there. Scare away the spooks.” His joke failed, and Gil retreated. “Oh, calm yourselves. Now, just because the town slaughtered a few witches and then was wiped out by a plague doesn’t mean there’s a curse on it.”
    Everyone stared at him in dead silence. Tess wanted to laugh.
    â€œWell, it’s an adorable story,” said Tobias. “I think you should use that to attract people. I mean, there are all kinds of nutty fudges who would love to see where they killed the witches. You should make it the theme of the carnival. Nothing says Christmas to me better than the skeletons of real-life witches, I can tell you that.”
    As usual with Tobias’s remarks, no one was quite sure what he meant at first.
    â€œYou should roll out all their old, wormy remains and let us have a look,” he continued.