Out of Salem: Chapters 1–3

Darren and Suzanna and their daughters Mary and Lucy were interred here this past week and I saw many of your faces at the funeral.

Their necklaces and styled hair contrasted sharply with Z’s disheveled appearance.

The situation was so macabre. They waited for some sign that Hugh thought it was funny.

As she approached, her manner intent and gregarious, her knees cracked.

She brandished a monstrous hot-pink umbrella hung with water-repellent charms.

She proffered the silver case of mints.

“Susan is undead, but she’s perfectly lucid. I’m her godmother, I should know.”

And allow for an investigation to confirm that no illegal necromancy is being performed and that the deceased’s state is the result of a preexisting curse or condition.

“The impudence of that man,” Mrs. Dunnigan said bitterly as they got onto the bus to go and buy Z replacements for all of their clothes the next morning.

“It’s disintegrating rapidly. It could be that the other loci were dissolved immediately with the death of the spellcaster.”

“Perhaps. Was she a dissident?”

Every evening after she took her vitamins Mrs. Dunnigan would make a strong-smelling salve out of various powders from the jars of herbs on her shelf and tell Z to put some on the bruises, but all that seemed to do was to keep the cats from getting as close to Z.

They realized as they spoke that their voice sounded less than convincing; their voice was still raspy, deep, and ominous.

“I’m perfectly capable of child care,” Mrs. Dunnigan said with a hint of ire.

A little drop of red-black viscous liquid had bubbled up at the cut.

It was a little sad, since every one of his students knew that salt only worked against fey—who were not allowed at the Integrated School or anywhere else in America—and that knocking on wood didn’t do anything at all, besides maybe give one splinters.

“The late nineteenth century,” Cecil drawled, “was a time in which many towns along the Western Coast expanded at unprecedented rates..."

The loud whisper Mr. Holmes was using had a theatrical resonance. Z would have been astounded if any of the students passing by didn’t hear him.

Across the room, Tommy Wodewose was standing on his plastic chair and chanting quietly. In front of him on the cafeteria table was a bowl of salt, a bowl of water, and a tall black taper.

Aysel took off her haphazardly mended glasses, leaned over the sink, and splashed water on her face.

Cecil, his name having been included in the canonical account of events, felt obligated to speak up.

She was miffed that Cecil had center stage.

Ginger smiled at everyone deviously.

Cars’ wheels spun through puddles and splashed her intermittently with muddy water.

She was trying to make the evening routine again, and think of mundane things.

The flicker of Aysel left in the back of the wolf’s mind worried about waking up with a stomach full of raw venison, but that was tomorrow, and tonight the wolf was excited by the scent of the deer scat and the sound of soft moving creatures ahead.

Z was not clear on exactly what spells were involved, but everyone at Lower Salem Integrated School had talked for weeks about how the chemistry teacher had managed to trap the golem within a circle before undoing the original life-binding spell by climbing up its body and reaching into its mouth himself to pull out the shem as it tried to crush him in its hands.

Z compliantly took a bite of their pie.

Mrs. Dunnigan took a moment to finish chewing, looking at Z contemplatively.

They imagined their sinews coming unraveled as no sustenance strengthened them, imagined their face sunken and rotten and gray, covered in spots where blood had pooled beneath the skin.

He kept his voice low and confidential, and Z wondered if he was patronizing them.

“The teachers all seem to know.”
“I do. We were told.” Mr. Weber paused. “I personally think it was a breach of your privacy, but school policies, you know.”

Leo the bearded dragon looked distressed and began to paw the glass with a petulant tapping.

Aysel and Z shuffled awkwardly across the parking lot carrying the lizard in its dry, sandy terrarium.

Z turned and looked at Aysel with trepidation.

The fat girl looked depressingly earnest for some reason.

Mrs. Dunnigan was late coming back from the bookshop; she returned with arms laden with groceries she could barely carry.

The author was called Dean Goldsmith, and he grinned unflappably from the back of the dust jacket, his hair coiffed into a style nobody had worn since before Z was born.

Z had found the book in the section of the library dedicated to expository nonfiction intended for teenage readers writing reports.

Toward the end he mentioned, briefly, the fact that some zombies seemed to be capable of “some limited cognition, maybe equivalent to that of a mentally ill living person.”