Free HEX by Thomas Olde Heuvelt Page A

silent.
    They were in the lounge of The Point to Point Inn, sitting in vintage leather armchairs that smelled of age. The coffee table in between them was littered with half-full glasses, bottles, and thermoses. After the innkeeper prepared a room for the Delarosas, she had withdrawn to bed, leaving the dimly lit hotel bar to her guests. Pete VanderMeer and Grim were having beer; Steve drank coffee. Jocelyn was sipping from a steaming mug of chamomile tea, as was Bammy Delarosa—but not until after Grim made her down a shot of vodka. Her husband needed no such encouragement: he was already on his third shot. He wasn’t altogether drunk yet, but was well on his way. Probably a good thing, Steve thought.
    Burt and Bammy Delarosa were far from the arrogant snobs Grim had made them out to be. Steve found that he rather liked them, insofar as this was a good time to judge. Now that the initial shock had passed, they were able to take the situation a bit more lightheartedly. That wasn’t to say that they had come to grips with it. They were numbed, with the same numbness that undertakers so cleverly exploit when practical matters have to be discussed with the bereaved. Tomorrow, or during the weekend at the latest, reality would hit hard, and when it did they’d be better off knowing what they were up against. In any case, now they had the chance of making the discovery within the safe confines of the hotel. There was nothing in the world that could have persuaded the Delarosas to go back to their dark, abandoned house … where she was.
    Grim had gone to pick up Pete, Jocelyn, and Steve in his Dodge Ram, and the new folks had greeted them, politely but with trembling hands, in the lobby. Steve felt racked and dazed; he and Jocelyn had been asleep for almost two hours when the phone rang. But now that the coffee had settled in his stomach, his mind was finally starting to clear.
    â€œKatherine van Wyler,” Burt Delarosa said unsteadily.
    â€œYes,” Pete said. “She lived in Philosopher’s Deep, in the woods behind where Steve and Jocelyn and my wife and I now live. It was in Black Spring that she was sentenced to death for witchcraft in 1664—although they didn’t call it Black Spring back then; it was a Dutch trappers’ colony known as New Beeck—and it’s here in Black Spring that she’s remained ever since.”
    Behind them a block of wood crackled in the fireplace, and Bammy shot up like a jack-in-the-box. The poor woman was as nervous as a deer, Steve noticed, and there were deep furrows of tension around her mouth.
    â€œIn Highland Falls, Fort Montgomery, and of course The Point they all know that the hills and woods around here are haunted. They don’t even need to know the details. You can feel it because it’s in the air, like the smell of ozone after a lightning storm. But the witch is a Black Spring problem, and unfortunately we can’t do anything but try to keep it that way.”
    He sipped his beer. The Delarosas looked forlornly at their own drinks and couldn’t bring themselves to pick up their glasses.
    â€œLittle to nothing is known about her life, which only adds to the mystery. She must have come here on one of the Dutch West India Company’s ships in about 1647. New Amsterdam was a bustling port city at the time. The outposts up along the Hudson, where they traded with the Indians, were very primitive, and stories went around by word of mouth. Many of them were lost over time. Katherine may have been a shepherd, or maybe she was a midwife. The role of women in the New World was to build up the community.”
    â€œBy bearing children,” Jocelyn explained.
    â€œRight. They were sowing the seeds of a new civilization, you see. The settlements that the Dutch founded were mainly along the secure riverbanks. But the woods out west were full of game, and the Munsee did their trapping in what’s now known as Black