Free The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry

sixties were long over by then. “The sixties didn’t arrive in Salem until the seventies,” Lyndley used to say, and of course she was right. But when the sixties finally did arrive in the old port of Salem, Ann Chase was one of the first to jump on board. And when that ship sailed away again, Ann stayed behind waving from the beach. She had found her home port.
    Back then everyone could do a little magic, but Ann took it to a new level. Instead of reading tarot cards or throwing the I Ching, she took up phrenology. She could tell your fortune by reading the bumps on your head. She would grab your head with both hands and press it as if she were buying a melon at the market. In the end she could tell you when you were going to marry and how many kids you were going to have. Lyndley went to her a couple of times, but I never did, because I didn’t like having my head touched, and besides, I had Eva to tell my fortune if and when I needed it. What Ann was best at were the oils. She grew herbs in window boxes and began brewing remedies and distilling essential oils. One by one, as her roommates moved on, turning into yuppies first, then later into soccer moms, Ann replaced them with cats. She opened an herbal shop down at Pickering Wharf before it was a high-rent district, and she was successful enough to stay on when it became the The Lace Reader 61
    fashionable place to shop. Eventually, as the shop got more and more successful, she stopped trying to grow her herbs in the window boxes and started purchasing them from Eva instead. That was when they became friends.
    Ann’s evolution into “Town Witch” was gradual. To hear Eva tell it, you’d think that Ann just woke up one day and realized that she was a witch. In fact, it wasn’t a decision; it was an evolution. But her family history was what made her famous. The witches of Salem—
    the locals who have taken up the practice or the ones who’ve been practicing and have come to Salem because it has been declared a safe haven for witches—have all rallied around Ann Chase. They wear their association with her like a badge of courage, one that proves that the Salem witches really did exist here all along, a kind of “look how far we’ve come” thing. It proves nothing of the sort, of course (because Giles and Martha Corey were not witches, just unfortunate victims), but the connection, once made, was difficult to erase. I wonder as I sit here how Ann feels about being their mascot. She has been talking now for several minutes: about Eva’s gardens and her plant conservation, which has been written up in magazines I’ve seen over the years. I want to hear what Ann has to say, but that same person is whispering again, and it’s interfering with my concentration. I look around, but I can’t find the source, and so I try again to concentrate on Ann’s speech and on the details of my aunt’s life.
    “Eva saved at least one plant species that I know of from extinction,” Ann says.
    “Wild exaggeration, load of malarkey,” the same voice whispers, loud enough for me to hear this time. I reel around, shushing the women to my left, thinking it’s one of them. They look at me strangely. “As if you have two heads,” the voice whispers in my ear, louder this time, much closer. I recognize the voice. It is Eva. She is speaking loudly enough to fill the church, or at least to be heard in the rows around me, but it is clear that I am the only one hearing her voice. 62 Brunonia
    Barry
    “Eva Whitney was one of us,” Ann begins, and some of the witches clap. “Not officially, of course, but she was.”
    I’m looking at the reverend now, which is where Eva wants me to look. I don’t know how I know this, but I do. He was a good friend. I have memories of him at the house, discussing Scripture and literature late into the night. I look at Dr. Ward. I can tell he’s distraught. He’s trying to hold himself together for the sake of the congregation.
    “I am