Winds of Salem (15 page)

He was in an excellent mood. Things with Gert had been ultrasmooth since his accident. He and his friends were still fixated on what happened at the last big fire and that was the usual lunch-hour conversation. The rescued college girl, Sadie, was alive and well.

“What happened, man? You’re usually our main guy,” Big Dave asked.

“Happens to everyone at some point. Even fire whisperers,” Jennie said sagely.

Freddie took a swig of his Pepsi and gave them a crooked smile, shrugging his shoulders.

Jennie winked at him, and for a second it did cross his mind that Jennie liked him more than just as a fellow firefighter. Now that he thought about it, she was kind of cute with those freckles and oversize blue eyes. What was he thinking? He loved Gert. Things were awesome at home.

“You healed friggin’ fast,” noted Hunter, reaching over the lunch table to push at Freddie’s head so he could see the burn mark on his neck. The towheaded Irish kid whistled, impressed. “It’s looking good, my man!”

Freddie’s burns
had
healed faster than an ordinary mortal’s would have, but usually such healing was near instantaneous for him. His neck still appeared red in spots.

After lunch, the lieutenant eventually sent them on a call—a rather innocuous one, it turned out. An old man had tripped down some stairs in his apartment building and pulled the fire alarm. He was fine, a tough, grumpy old guy who kept refusing their emergency medical care, pushing them away, muttering unkind epithets.

Work ended at five thirty, and Freddie walked to the gym to do laps in the indoor Olympic-size pool. It had occurred to him that swimming would revive his lungs, which had felt singed from that fire and had also been slow to heal. He had taken to going to the pool in the early evenings and gotten hooked. Fire and water were his favorite elements—
his
elements as the god Fryr—but fire had betrayed him. If his powers were diminishing he needed to compensate somehow. He had been thinking that if they were slowly becoming mortals, then so be it. He and Gert would live happily ever after and die of old age together. It wasn’t so
bad. They had each other. Once Freya returned, and she would—he didn’t doubt it—then life would be back to normal. He’d called Ingrid the other day and found his older sister sounding awfully blue. With Freya gone, they were all on edge.

The pale light of early evening filtered through the domed skylight above the pool. Freddie loved the smell of chlorine and the moisture in the air, the sounds of swimmers splashing through the lanes, the echo of voices, and even the occasional whistle from the lifeguard.

He dove in, slicing the turquoise water with the taut knife of his body. He did the crawl, getting into a rhythm: splash, silence, breath, splash, silence, breath… He was pure movement. When he reached the pool’s end, he curled into a ball, spun, then pressed his feet against the wall, launching out beneath the water like a rocket. His body felt agile and fit from these daily laps and all the sex he had been having with Gert lately. They had become insatiable, doing it as often as they could, wherever they could: downstairs in the laundry room against the spinning dryers and the tables used for folding clothes, in the car late at night, and once in a campus broom closet between Gert’s classes. Splash, silence, breath, splash…

When he couldn’t swim any farther, he climbed the ladder out of the pool. Panting, he removed his goggles and ran a hand over his forehead, pushing back his wet hair, shaking the water out of his ears. He rested, leaning over, hands on his thighs. His lungs stung but felt good.

He was not unaware of the other swimmers’ subtle looks, men and women alike gazing at him as he walked in his navy Speedo toward the lockers. Well, let them look… he looked good and he knew it.

He felt the pleasant ache in his muscles as he climbed the three flights up to the apartment. He unlocked the door and swung it open. His piglet familiar came running at him, as fast as its fat little legs would allow.

“Hey, guys, Daddy’s home!” Freddie called.

No one answered.

He petted his familiar. “Hey, Buster, Mr. Golden Bristles! Where’s everybody?” He tried again. “Hello?”

Nothing.

He checked the bedroom while Buster followed, snuffling at his heels. The bed was made but there was no Gert sitting there in a pile of books as she often did in the evenings. It was almost seven. Usually, around this time, she was here, reading and asking him to order pizza, Thai, or Chinese. Perhaps she was stuck at the library. He checked the pixies’ room. Their beds were not made, messy and rumpled—he’d get on their cases—but empty, too. Had everyone gone to the movies or something? Without him? A sad thought. That new comic-book hero film
Sky Boots
had recently opened, and it was all the pixies could talk about lately. He had promised to see it with them. Freddie had actually grown used to having them around. As much as he might be loath to admit to Gert, having them as his wards did satisfy a deep craving inside him. There was something very cool about being a
dad
—so to speak. This had been on his mind recently, and he had been waiting for the right moment to bring it up with Gert. Freddie wanted to be a father, and he believed he was ready. They
were
married. Wasn’t that what marriage was for?

He strode into the kitchen to make himself a sandwich, which he would eat by the window to keep an eye out for his family. He could always eat again with them if they hadn’t already eaten. He was famished. As he walked to the fridge, he did a double take. On the red fifties Formica table, he saw a note. He recognized
Gert’s pale yellow stationery with the faint initials
GL
, and his heart sank like a sun plummeting too fast behind the horizon.

Freddie,

I’m sorry, I know this is unexpected and the last few weeks have been wonderful, but I need my space right now. I really need to get my degree without any distractions. I’ve only got one more semester till I graduate, and I have to concentrate on my thesis. I’ve gone to live with friends who are also studying. I hope you can wait for me. Please?

—G.

Who the hell were these friends? Judith? Or that pretentious asshole with the mustache—beard—whatever. He read the note again, irate. Just when he thought things were good, Gert pulled this one on him. What was wrong with her? She had been so loving since his accident, and he had been helping quiz her with her study cards after each one of their heated, sweaty sessions at home.

What did she mean by “distractions”? Was sex a distraction? Was
he
a distraction? He read the note a third time, not quite believing what he was reading and halfway expecting Gert to jump out of a closet and tease him for falling for a joke. But this was no joke.

He had been completely blindsided. He shoved the kitchen table, furious with himself and with her, and the note fell to the ground. He had believed they were back on track. That he was on track. Marriage. Children. Domesticity. Monogamy.

That’s when he saw the purple Post-it with a smiley face that had been stuck to the Formica beneath Gert’s note:

Picked up the scent. On our way to retrieve trident. Back soon. Please refill fridge for our return.

We had gone to parsonage with Mr. Putnam. We were to stand around the pastor’s hall, praying for the girls. It had grown dark outside. Abby and Betty were considerably more tranquil, as they had exhausted themselves. Invariably, they calmed in the evening in time for dinner and bed. Betty sat on the floor, her petticoats falling over her splayed limbs. She drooled as she stared down, her head like a poppet’s that had come loose at the neck. Meanwhile, Abigail crawled on all fours, mewling.

“Who did this evil?” Reverend Parris asked.

“Tell us! Who did this to you?” Mr. Putnam cried.

“Tell us! Who was the witch?”

The more the men badgered them, the more riled the girls became. Abby rose and ran across the room. “Whish, whish, whish!” she whispered, flapping her arms, while Betty flopped on the floor like a fish.

Abby stopped at the hearth and threw a firebrand across the room, then attempted to run up the chimney as she had oftentimes done before, but Mr. Ingersoll, the tavern owner and innkeeper, caught her and held her back. She eventually calmed, then fell and rolled about, hiding herself in her skirts.

“TELL US! TELL US!” the men demanded, their voices angrier and their faces red from rage.

“She will not let me say!” Abby screamed, holding her hands to her neck as if she were being choked.

Betty took the cue. “She torments me but I will not sign her book!”

“Who is it? Who is making you do this? Who is trying to make you sign the devil’s book, you poor child?” Reverend Parris asked.

Abby sat up, eyes wide, staring. Betty followed her lead.

“Do you not see her?” said Abby, pointing. “Why, there she stands!”

They all turned to me.

—
Freya Beauchamp,
June 1692

salem

may
1692

chapter nineteen

Miracle Worker