Heather Graham - The Keepers - Christmas in Salem

“Ten minutes—how do you know all this?”

“No, no,” June said. “It’s already on YouTube and Twitter. And the local news is all over it, too.”

“Over a bite? Calm down, June. Tell me slowly. Maybe it was a dog bite, or a crazy squirrel, or a bird swooped down and—”

“No, it wasn’t a dog, a bird or a crazy squirrel,” June said, staring at her evenly. “Come on. I’ll show you.”

She set the platter on the table next to the turkey Sam had cooked and the two women rushed past the Christmas tree in the formal parlor, the menorah on the mantel and the Nativity scene to one side of the archway and into the family room. The flat-screen TV was on; June had obviously been watching. There was Salem Common, white with snow and filled with people. The Believers, a local group, had been playing Christmas music, but according to the reporter on scene the show had stopped abruptly when a young woman had suddenly begun to scream loudly, leading to chaos. She had received what was by all accounts a human bite; the young man sitting next to her had suddenly lunged closer and bitten her.

“Did you record any of this?” Sam asked June tensely.

“Of course,” June assured her.

Sam glanced at her. “Thank you. You’re thinking like a Keeper,” she said.

June hit the remote. The local station had been airing live from the concert even before all hell broke loose, and they’d done a good job panning the crowd, allowing Sam to slow the recording and search faces.

She gasped. There was August Avery. A handsome man in his early twenties, he was in a wool coat, watching the concert, hands in his pockets. The girl next to him smiled at him, and he gave her a smile back. August bent as if he was about to whisper in her ear, his eyes light, his fingers moving back a lock of tawny hair.

And then the screaming began.

Sam swore. “All right, June, I have to leave the rest of the party prep to you—I’m off to find August,” she said, then turned to rush back out of the house.

She opened the door and crashed right into Mrs. Livia Peabody, a local scion of the Baptist church.

“Sam, dear, the house looks beautiful! Am I the first to arrive? I’m always the first—and let me say, perhaps I will also be the first in heaven.”

“It’s lovely that you arrive so early,” Sam said quickly. “June will take your coat. I’m afraid I forgot something, so I need to run out. I’m so sorry.”

She sped past Livia before the older woman could stop her.

The plastic Santa began to sing “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.”

Sam raced out to the road, wondering who on earth had thought it was a good idea to put that song onto the playlist of a smiling plastic Santa—and realized that she didn’t know where she was going.

Stop, think , she told herself .

The house wasn’t far from Salem Common, so she hurried in that direction.

Would August have stayed around?

Perhaps. He might have been eager to see the chaos his actions had caused.

She passed crowds of people on the streets, both locals and tourists. While Salem’s main tourist season was summer through to Halloween, people poured in for the holidays as well, because the town and its inhabitants knew how to do Christmas.

Bright lights were shining everywhere, and at least half the people she saw were wearing red and green. But when she listened as she passed them, they were all talking about the tourist who’d claimed she was bitten during the concert.

“At least the poor girl is going to live,” one woman said to her male companion, shaking her head as she read the latest news on her smartphone. “Apparently she didn’t lose much blood. But the doctor says it was definitely a human bite, which is ridiculous. Humans don’t bite.”

“Are you sure of that?” the man said with a smile. Remember how James bit the dog when he was two?”

“That’s different,” she said. “James was teething at the time.”

Sam hurried past them, glad to hear that the woman was going to live. As long as she didn’t bleed to death, the damage could be repaired.

She reached Salem Common, bright under the lights that had been set up for the concert. People were still standing around in little groups. The live music had stopped; now the music came from a sound box up on the stage.

She saw a couple of local college students talking to Nils Westerly, a young vampire. His friends obviously had no idea what he was or they would have run away shrieking, considering the earlier events.

Sam headed toward him with long strides. He saw her and went pale.

“Nils!” she called, then asked, “Did you see August Avery here earlier?”

“Um, hey, Samantha,” he said, his expression uneasy. “Meet my friends Charlie Sizemore and David Hough.”

She nodded curtly to both men.

“Wow, Nils, you should introduce us to all your friends,” the man named David said. “Nice to meet you, Samantha.” He offered her a hand, his smile obviously flirtatious.

She smiled back briefly but ignored his hand. “Nils, where’s August?”

“I don’t know. I swear I don’t know, Samantha,” Nils said. There was a pleading tone in his voice. “He was here earlier, but then I lost sight of him. He’s been depressed lately.”

“Depressed? Why? What has he been saying?” she demanded.

“His girlfriend left him,” Charlie offered. “He was madly in love with her—and she just up and left him.”

“When?” Sam asked.

They all looked surprised by her interest, but they answered her anyway.

“Uh, I’m not sure,” David said. “Recently. He was crushed—went on and on about Christmas being a sham, that there was no love in the world and when love did exist, the world conspired to make it end badly. He says he hates what he is … Though, you know, I didn’t get that, ‘cause honestly? His grades are great, and he’s on the football team—a starter.”

“Do you have any idea where he hangs out?” Sam asked.

“He likes to walk around the Old Burying Ground,” Nils said.

“Or Dead Horse Beach,” Charlie said. “Crazy—middle of winter, the guy likes to hang around at the beach.”

Sam inhaled a deep breath. From the Common she could see the Gothic edifice of the Salem Witch Museum. It was one of the best venues in the city if you were looking for a concise history of the witch trials, she thought. She just hoped August Avery’s stupidity wasn’t going to plunge them into another dark era worthy of a museum.

“Thank you,” she told the boys, then turned and hurried away from the Common, passing last-minute shoppers and carolers.

It wasn’t late; it wasn’t even evening yet—it just felt like it because of the darkness.

She passed the Hawthorne Hotel and raced back down Essex Street, turning to head toward the Old Burying Ground.

A sign announced that it closed at dusk. As if that word meant anything anymore!

Despite the holiday, a few people were visiting the memorial connected to the cemetery, sitting on the benches provided for visitors paying homage to the innocents who had been executed. She’d always thought the place was beautifully done and that there was something extremely special and poignant there, especially in winter, when the tree limbs were skeletal and the old gravestones rose beyond the memorial in the cemetery itself.

She hurried through the memorial area and entered the cemetery.

Gravestones broke through the snow that covered the ground. She hurried through them, thinking of what it had been like growing up in Salem—knowing the town’s history, learning the lessons of tolerance born of hate.

“Samantha!”

Startled at the sound of her name, she turned quickly. For a moment she didn’t see anyone. Then old Ogden Taylor—a benevolent ghost who often chose to haunt the cemetery—materialized.