Black Creek Crossing

— but even that had stopped years ago, and he suspected that her churchgoing habits were dictated far more forcefully by her profession than her convictions, which meant that she too was now a Congregationalist. Thus, when two prominent members of the church across the street appeared at his front door on a Monday afternoon, he’d assumed it must be church business of some sort. After they told him how they’d come to be there, he decided that he was right, at least in an oddly abstract way. After all, the church these two men went to was the same one that burned Margaret and Forbearance Wynton several centuries ago.

Now, in response to Blake Baker’s crude summation of his remarks, Mulroney tipped his head in recognition that, despite their crudeness, he wasn’t going to utterly discount Baker’s words. “I’m just telling you the same thing I told Martin Sullivan last night,” he said, “which is nothing more than what I’ve read over the years about the history of the town.”

“It sounds like you expect us to believe in — what?” Ed Fletcher hesitated, searching for a better word than the one that came to mind. But he didn’t find one. “Witchcraft?” he finally said. “Come on, Father — this is the twenty-first century. We don’t believe in superstition anymore.”

Mulroney spread his hands. “The difference between faith such as yours and mine, and what people like us often like to call superstition, is something that seems to elude me more and more with each passing year.”

He rose from his chair, moved to the window, and gazed at the huge old oak tree that stood in the graveyard across the street like a great silent sentinel. “Doesn’t anything about that tree ever strike you as strange?” he asked. He turned back to the other two men. “Its canopy is almost perfectly round, which is peculiar in and of itself. Still, it could in part be accounted for by careful pruning, except the tree doesn’t show any signs of ever having been pruned at all. Also, according to every record I’ve been able to find, the tree was already there when the town was founded. The town was named after the tree, gentlemen, and that was more than three hundred and fifty years ago. Even the trees down at Oak Alley in Louisiana aren’t anywhere near that old.”

“So it’s old,” Blake Baker said. “And no one’s ever pruned it — so what?”

The priest shrugged. “Maybe nothing at all. I just find it curious that not only does the tree show no signs of ever being pruned, it shows no signs of ever having burned or been struck by lightning either.”

Ed Fletcher frowned. “Maybe it never has been.”

Father Mulroney met Fletcher’s gaze. “But it has, Ed. I’ve seen it myself. The storms that came up out of nowhere yesterday and a couple of days before that? I was watching, and that tree was struck half a dozen times. And there’s not a mark on it.”

For the first time, a flicker of uncertainty came into Blake Baker’s eyes. “Well, there’s got to be some kind of explanation. I mean, maybe—” But before he could go on, a gust of wind slammed into the rectory, and outside, a huge thunderhead took shape. “Jesus!” Baker said. “Where did that come from?”

As the sun vanished behind the dark cloud that seemed to have come literally out of nowhere, another blast of wind struck the rectory. The structure shuddered again, followed by a blinding flash of lightning and then a crash of thunder that rattled the windows. Blake Baker flinched under the onslaught, but Ed Fletcher remained where he was, gazing out the window.

“You see?” Father Mulroney said softly as rain began to slash down from the sky.

As if to underscore the priest’s question, another bolt of lightning shot out of the sky, lashing into the top of the great oak tree and vanishing in a shower of sparks as another clap of thunder exploded. The uncertainty in Blake Baker’s eyes coalesced into fear. “I don’t get it,” he whispered, almost to himself. “What’s going on?”

“According to the oldest legends in Roundtree,” Father Mulroney said almost placidly, “someone is practicing witchcraft even as we are talking.”

Baker’s eyes fixed on the priest. “Who?” he demanded.

Father Mulroney’s lips curved into a sardonic smile. “Wasn’t it you that just said something about all this being — what was it?” He hesitated, as if trying to remember the exact words, then continued. “Ah! ‘A pile of crap,’ I believe you said.”

Blake Baker ignored both the priest’s tone and his words. “If you know what’s going on, you’d better tell us,” he said, as yet a third bolt of lightning shot out of the sky, and the rectory once more trembled under the crash of thunder.

“According to the legends, it always comes from one place,” the priest said as the thunder died away. “The old house at Black Creek Crossing. And it always involves an adolescent girl.” Before either of the other men could say anything, there was a sharp rapping at the study door. “Come in,” Father Mulroney called, certain he knew who it was.

The door opened, and Myra Sullivan stepped in. “Father, what’s hap—” she began, but her words died on her lips as she saw the two men who were with the priest. “Ed?” she said. “What are you doing here?”

Instead of answering her question, Ed asked his own. “Did Angel go to school this morning?”

Myra’s eyes flicked from her brother-in-law to the priest. “What—” she began again, and this time was interrupted by Blake Baker.

“Angel?” he repeated. “That’s your daughter?”

Myra frowned. “I don’t understand,” she said.

“Well, I don’t understand either,” Blake Baker stated, his voice hardening. “According to Father Mulroney, here, your kid’s some kind of witch or something, and—”

Myra turned to face Father Mulroney, her face ashen. “You’re a priest!” she breathed. “How could you say such a thing? How could you even think such a thing?”

“I didn’t say Angel is a witch, Myra. I—”

“You might as well have,” Baker fumed, wheeling on the priest. “And given the way my kid is acting, maybe she is!” He turned to Ed Fletcher. “I think it’s time you and I got to the bottom of whatever happened last night. I’m going over to the school and find Seth. If Zack was telling the truth, my boy’s in so much trouble, he’ll never forget it.” His furious eyes fixed on Myra. “And if I find out your girl was involved—”

“My Angel wouldn’t—”

But Blake Baker wasn’t listening and cut her off. “You coming, Ed?” he asked, and stormed out of the study without waiting for an answer. Ed Fletcher followed a moment later.

A shocked silence hung in the room as Myra Sullivan gazed at Father Mulroney in bewilderment. Finally the priest sighed, gently took her elbow, and guided her toward the front door. “School will be out in another twenty minutes,” he said quietly. “I think maybe you should be there. And I’d better go with you.”

Seth Baker had been thinking about it ever since lunch, when first Angel had taken off, then Chad, Zack, and Jared cornered him upstairs by his locker. If Mr. Lambert hadn’t come along—

But Mr. Lambert had come along, so his nose was still unbroken, his eyes unblackened, and his teeth intact. This afternoon, however, after school, things would be different. They wouldn’t come after him at school, of course, where one of the teachers might well see them. No, they’d wait until later, when they were all away from school, and corner him somewhere. And then, judging from the fury in Chad’s eyes after lunch, they’d give him a beating that would be far worse than anything his father had ever given him.

At least his father only hit him with the belt.

Chad and Zack — and maybe even Jared — would come at him with anything that came to hand.

He knew it wouldn’t do any good to just hang around after school either. By now, Zack would have told everyone he knew to keep an eye on him, and even if he outwaited everyone, sooner or later they’d lock up the school and he’d have to leave. And Chad would be waiting, with Zack — his head bandaged — right beside him. He would have no chance at all. It was all Seth thought about through fifth period, and during the break before his history class he knew people were watching him, whispering, and he wished he could just disappear.

Like Angel had disappeared. But where had she gone?

Then, when he saw the flash of light through the window at the far end of the corridor, followed so quickly by the crash of thunder that he knew the lightning had struck within a block or two of the school, he knew where Angel had gone. She was in the cabin, and the fire was burning on the hearth, and the old wrought-iron kettle was heating. And Seth knew what he had to do.

Instead of going to his sixth period history class, he hurried back to his locker, packed everything he needed into his backpack, and headed down the stairs at the far end of the corridor. As the bell rang signaling the beginning of the last class of the day, he pushed the door open and stepped out into the breaking storm.

Another jagged bolt of lightning ripped out of the roiling clouds overhead as he started down the steps, and