Lavender-Green Magic (22 page)

Holly had never been so patient in her life. Usually, when she wanted to do something, it had to be done right away. But this time there was no other answer. She drew out a book she had borrowed from the library shelf at school. It was a story, not real history, but it was about the Salem witches, and she read it with care. There had been girls, just like her, or Judy, and they had started it all, accusing people of bewitching them. The book made Holly uncomfortable, but she had read it through.

That was Salem. This was Sussex. But there had been a witch hunt right here at Dimsdale. If she could only find out more about it!

She was still staring down at a page when she was aware that Judy was standing by her side.

“Holly!” Judy no longer treated her as an enemy, by now. But neither did she tell Holly everything she was doing, as she used to. “Holly, there's something wrong—”

Judy looked anxious and uneasy. She had on her jacket and cap, and Holly knew that she must have just come in from outside.

“Wrong—where?” Holly snapped shut her notebook.

“In Grandma's plant place. Holly, it's—it's bad!”

Holly sat very still. She had gotten plant food, dumped it
into those pots where she had planted the seeds and the root Hagar had given her. She had gone in to water them at times. But so far none had shown signs of life. And she was afraid that if they did not grow, she would have no chance to bargain with Hagar.

She did not dare to ask what Judy meant, but she must see. Now it took only a few moments to scramble for her own outdoor clothing, follow Judy.

“Grandma,” Judy explained as they went out into the cold, “said she would let me water all the pots; I could learn about herbs that way. But Holly, I must have done something wrong!” Judy was very close to tears now. “They're all dying! They're turning yellow and looking funny as if they're sick. Do plants get sick, Holly?”

Holly was really afraid now. If Hagar's plants died, how could she ever make her bargain? What had Judy done to them?

When she demanded to know that, Judy shook her head. Tears were rolling down her cheeks now, and she made no attempt to wipe them away with her mittened hand. “I didn't do anything at all. 'Cept put water on them from the little can just like Grandma showed me. That's the truth, Holly.”

When they entered the garden end of the fix-it shed, there was an odor which made Holly's nose wrinkle. It smelled a little like when you open a garbage can on a hot summer day. She could see the drooping plants: yellow and indeed sick looking.

“Tamar's things, they were just beginning to grow good.” Judy gulped down a sob. “And they're dying, too. Grandma
will think I did something bad, and I didn't. I just gave them water, 'zactly how she said to. Holly, what ever could have happened to them?”

But Holly was hardly listening. She was pushing aside pots in which things drooped and had lost proper color, looking for her own planting. Yes, there were shoots showing. And those were not sickly looking at all, but standing up well and healthy looking. She gave a big sigh of relief. So far, then, she was safe—

“What's that thing?” Judy had crowded closer. “What's that you're looking at, Holly?”

Without thinking, Holly answered. “One of those I planted. It's all right. What about the others?” She shouldered Judy out of her way to find the next pot she had hidden, and the next. In each there was visible growth looking both vigorous and healthy.

“
You
planted? Holly, what do you mean? Those Tamar gave us, I planted. And they were all in the red pots. I ought to remember, because I put them in just like she said. So where did you get something to plant?”

Holly was squatting on her heels by the table, peering under it at the larger pot in which she had put both the root and an extra helping of the plant food. There was a shoot almost as tall as her middle finger.

“Holly.” Judy's hand closed pinch-tight on her shoulder, jerking her back so she overbalanced and landed sitting on the floor. “I'm asking you—where did you get those plants? Who gave them to you?”

Again before she thought, Holly answered. And this time
she was able to say the name: “Hagar did. And Judy, they're all right. She said if they grew and were all right she and I—she said I could have witch wishes! I can get rid of that Mrs. Deevers and all those who want to take away Dimsdale—”

Judy was no longer crying. Her face was stern, set; in that moment somehow she looked just like Mom when Mom was angry.

“Who is Hagar?”

In that second Holly realized what she had done. But why could she talk about it now and not before? she wondered fleetingly. That was not important, anyway. What was important was that Judy must understand how well her plan, this part of it, had worked.

“She's Tamar's own sister. Only she knows a lot more than Tamar—” she began when Judy interrupted her.

Now Judy's expression was one of fear. “We—then we did find the house—but Tamar wasn't there. That other was. She—she's bad, Holly—bad!”

“No, she isn't!” Holly's long-restrained impatience broke free at last. “You're just a silly little girl, a baby, Judy Wade. That's what you are!”

Judy was retreating, her eyes on Holly. She looked—Holly refused to believe that Judy was really watching her as she had watched the brush monsters in the maze.

“She's bad,” Judy repeated, “and somehow—somehow she's making you bad, too, Holly.”

“Judy!” Holly got to her feet but not in time. For her sister flung herself at the shelves, was snatching at the green
pots, smashing them violently to the floor, so that the dirt flew all over.

Holly jumped to stop her. But her boot went down hard on one of the young plants and she skidded and fell again, bumping her head against the table leg in a way which made her feel very queer. Somehow, though she struggled, she could not get up again in time to stop Judy. One by one the pots thudded to the floor. Now Judy was trampling fiercely on the soil that spilled from them, stamping again and again at the plants, until they were just a mash.

With the aid of the table leg Holly pulled herself to her feet. She felt so queer, perhaps it was the bump on her head. Then, suddenly, when she looked at the mashed plants in the mess on the floor, it was as if something other lay there—nasty things, but mashed and helpless now. Judy was crying, but she still hunched down and reached under the table to jerk out the final pot. She upended it in the middle of the floor and then jumped with all her might on that crooked root and the small stem that had grown from it. When she had done, she stood, panting.

“Bad,” she repeated. “All bad. And they killed Grandma's plants and Tamar's, too!”

Holly's head felt light and queer. She was dizzy and weak, as she had been once after she had the flu and got up and tried to walk and her legs were wobbly and had no really stiff bones in them. And—she felt empty. Not empty the way one does when one is hungry, but another kind of emptiness. She was crying, and she never knew she had started to, the tears just were there. While a choke in her throat hurt.

“You were helping the witch,” Judy said slowly. “You really were, Holly. I can remember now. We weren't just lost in that maze, we found Tamar's house all right. Only Tamar wasn't there. That other one, she was. She's—she's the witch, Holly. Don't you see, those people—Sexton Dimsdale, the others—they thought Tamar was the witch. I'll bet that other one made them think so. And she made you believe it, too!”

Holly was shaking. She was sick at her stomach and her head was so funny. When she tried to see Judy, the room began to swing around.

“Hey, what're you doing in here? What a mess! And what's wrong with Holly?” Crock had somehow appeared.

“The witch got her,” Judy said solemnly. “We
did
go through the maze, Crock, I remember it all now. Don't you? And that other one, she
was
a witch, a real one. She's got Holly and—”

“I'm going to be sick,” Holly quavered.

“Come on!” Crock caught her by the arm. “Let's get out of here. I'll take you to Grandma. Judy, you'd better see if you can clean up this mess some before Grandma sees it.”

Holly was sick, very sick, right outside the door of the shed. And her head was still swimming. She was hardly aware of Crock's steering her into the barn-house.

It was dark when she awoke again, to find she was on a cot near the fire. She was warm and then she was cold; her throat hurt, but her head did not feel so floaty anymore. Grandma brought a cup of something which smelled like herbs and had her drink it all. Then she went back to sleep.

There were dreams. She thought once she saw Hagar, only she wasn't smiling, she looked old and ugly, and Holly was afraid. Afterward Tamar stood there, nodding, as if all were well again. Following that, Holly did not dream, at least not that she could remember.

Grandma said she had the flu, but somehow Holly did not quite believe that. Though she had been sick and now she was getting better, much better. Privately she thought deep down inside that she had been sick ever since she took the pillow by cheating and everything started going wrong.

As soon as she had a chance to be alone with Judy, she asked: “The plants?”

“I cleaned up.” Judy talked fast for fear Grandma would come back and hear. “Crock helped me later. We got rid of the bad ones. Now the rest are growing all right. Those others were poison, I guess, those you planted.”

Holly moved restlessly in the nest of sheets and blankets. “She told me I was like her, a witch,” she said in a low voice. “I guess I was acting like one. But I kept thinking what I could do with the witch wishes—help Grandpa and Grandma and Dimsdale. But mostly I was thinking about using those wishes to hurt people, too.” It was hard for her to admit that. “Judy, what about Tamar—and Halloween?”

“We have been thinking about that. Crock and me,” Judy replied. “I just bet that Hagar, she never told Tamar trouble was coming. We have to get back—”

“I can't go, not if I'm sick,” said Holly from the depths of dark disappointment.

“Halloween comes on Saturday.” Judy stated what Holly
already knew. “The party isn't until four in the afternoon. Mom isn't coming that weekend again. If you used the pillow the night before—”

Holly shook her head. “No, I spoiled things when I cheated. You or Crock, you do it.”

She was sure she would be well by Halloween, a whole week and two days away. And she set herself to the task of getting well. Nor would she agree that she would take the pillow again. Even if it came to her fair and square, she would be afraid—afraid that what Hagar had said was the truth and that there was something way inside her which would lead her the wrong way again.

Holly had a lot of time for thinking during the next few days. Judy came home twice with cards Holly's class had signed as cheer-ups. She studied these, picturing the person behind each name. They wouldn't have sent cards if they had really not wanted her in the class. It was hard to have to change ideas about people and things. But see how wrong she had been about Hagar. More and more she wondered how she could have been so very wrong. And what would have happened if Judy had not found and destroyed those plants? Yes, she had a lot to think about.

When Holly went back to school, she was shy at first. It was hard to change all around and try to talk to people. However, she could thank them for the cards. And, since everyone was talking about the Halloween party, that was something she could eagerly listen to. Also Mrs. Finch took them for a second visit to the library to work on their projects. This time Holly had a chance to ask about the journal
of Seth Elkins. When she said she was living at Dimsdale and was writing about that, Miss Noyes allowed her to read the typewritten copy of that part of the journal which covered Seth Elkins's connection with the Dimsdales. Halfway through, Holly found a part that made her shiver:

This woman did give unto my good father that which she swore would heal the pains within his stomach. For a space did he seem the better, and arose from his bed and went cheerily about his business. But the second time she did make a potion for him, his pain did not ease, but became the greater, so that he suffered much. Master Dimsdale, chancing to come to sit with him one night, did question him closely. When my father did say he had the potion from the healing woman, Master Dimsdale became wroth, telling my father that he had dealt with a witch. He took up the bottle of medicine. Some he poured upon a piece of meat and this he threw to our old mastiff. The dog did eat, and shortly afterwards it had a fit, so that it was as if mad. Master Dimsdale did then take my father's pistol which was nigh to hand, and did shoot the dog dead. Having thus proven, as he said, that the witch did deal death to those she held in hatred, he summoned those of substance in Sussex, telling the tale and showing them the dead dog. He did say to them that the following night being that one of evil repute known as All Hallows' Eve, that be the time to burn out this witch, destroying with her all which was hers, lest something of her fearful powers linger to plague us. So it was decided among the elders that this was right and proper for the preservation of all of us.

When it came to the next night we did gather, each man with a torch well aflame, and we went to that house where she dwelt. But I, knowing what was to be, had sent to H. a warning, for why must she suffer for that which was not of her doing. But T. was there, and she faced our company boldly, being doubtless strengthened by her lord, the Devil. They would have taken her and bound her, thrust her back into her den and set that to the flames. Only then there sprang out of the house devils such as make a man fearful to remember. And being afeard, all fled.

Master Dimsdale was not minded to be so frightened off, and at a later hour he returned, this time well-armed, having run forth silver bullets such as all devilish creatures cannot face. But when he came, and those others with him, there was no house there. But they did say that out of nowhere sounded a voice to curse the Dimsdales root and branch, saying that all would waste and perish until that which they had taken would be returned. But of the meaning of the latter words, none knew.