She's Up to No Good(47)

“Do you text while driving too?”

I started to protest and explain myself. But it was almost like I felt my grandmother’s presence, whispering in my ear that I was being boring. And I wasn’t boring! Instead, I shrugged. “Only if there’s a cute cop nearby to stop me.” Jenna, what are you doing? I didn’t back down, and he eventually shook his head and continued walking. But I saw the hint of a grin as he turned away, and I felt my nerves crackling with electricity.

Flirt a little, that’s fine, I reminded myself. But you’re going home next week. And you’re still married.

We walked in silence for the next quarter mile until Joe stopped. “We’re here,” he announced.

I looked around. The trees were less dense, and there were a lot of rocks, but I didn’t see anything that resembled a town. He was looking at me expectantly. I looked around again. “Uh . . . what am I looking at?”

He spread his arms expansively. “Welcome to Rockland.”

“You’re putting me on, right?”

“Huh?”

“Rock Land?” I gestured to the rocks littering the ground.

“They weren’t real creative with place-names in the 1600s, I’ll give you that. Most towns in Essex are named for places in England and the rest are about the terrain. But this was a real settlement up until around 1800.”

“Did they live in the trees like Robin Hood?”

“A lot of the trees came later. You can see them growing in the ruins of houses. Come on, I’ll show you.” He began picking his way through the flora until we came to something that was square enough to let me see that it was man-made.

“So why did the people leave?”

“Most left because it was safe to live on the coast again after the Revolutionary War. And the fishing industry started to really be a thing . . .” He trailed off.

“And the rest?”

He looked up at me, a spark of excitement in his eyes. “Well, you asked about Salem.”

“Witches?”

“That’s what they say. When everyone else left, this was a safe space for them.”

I felt a slight shiver of excitement. “You don’t believe in that stuff, do you?”

He shrugged. “Not really. But they did back then. And some of them were pretty well known.”

“So what happened to them?”

“Maybe they’re still here. People say it’s haunted.”

I tried not to look apprehensive. I didn’t believe in magic. But in the middle of nowhere with a strange guy and no cell service . . . I laughed nervously. “You . . . uh . . . you meant it when you said you didn’t bring me out here to kill me, right?”

“They do like their sacrifices.”

There was a zero percent chance I could find my way back through the woods. What did you do, Grandma?

He laughed. “I’m messing with you.” Then he turned more serious. “It’s actually a sad story. People came from Hereford and burned what was left of the town. You can still see charring on some of the foundations.”

“Why?”

“Bad harvest one year. Someone decided it was the witches.”

“And they killed them?”

“Depends who you ask. I don’t doubt people died, but they say that the women knew the men were coming and hid. They just lost their houses.”

“Just,” I said, thinking about the fact that I was now living with my parents.

“On the plus side, if they really were witches, I bet they hexed them good after that.”

“And if they weren’t, they starved.”

“I told you it was a sad story. But you seemed interested in witches, so here are Hereford’s. And they do say these woods are haunted.”

“And what do you say?”

He grinned. “We used to come out here to drink in high school. On Halloween, even. And I never saw anything out of the ordinary.”

“Maybe the witches just like you.”

“Maybe. I don’t bother them, they don’t bother me.”

“Probably smart. You don’t want two-hundred-year-old witch ghosts mad at you.”

“No.” He looked at his watch. “Do you want to walk back or Uber?”

I pursed my lips. “Funny.”

“I’m serious.”

“Oh, okay, let me just use my nonexistent cell service to get an Uber to pick us up in the middle of the woods. Do the witches get a discount?”

Joe pointed through the trees. “There’s a road about a quarter mile that way. And cell service another tenth of a mile up the hill once you’re out of the trees.”

“And we just walked—how far did we walk?”

“About three miles.”

“When we could have driven?”

“Where’s the adventure in that? Besides, it’s good for you. Builds character.”

I shook my head but passed him my phone. “If I had to hike all this way to an abandoned witch town, I need a picture. And now that I know you’re a photographer, I want something artsy for my Instagram feed.”

He handed my phone back, set his backpack on the ground, and pulled out a camera. “I work better with my own equipment. Come on, there’s a more complete foundation on the way to the road, and the light is better.”