Familiar Spirits by Leonard Tourney Read Free Book Online Page B

Ursula Tusser or her shape, appeared yesternight. With her was a legion of spirits in monstrous shapes that entered at every window and door, came down the chimney, and hovered above the house an hour or more, screeching and threatening as if all hell broke loose.”
    “A mighty tumult,” said Matthew dryly. “I wonder it did not raise the town.”
    “It was observed by many,” Parker said.
    “Who, pray?”
    “A great multitude,” said Parker.
    “You saw it yourself, then? At what hour did it happen?”
    The corn-chandler scowled at the question and made a gesture of impatience. “No, not I. Samuel Jenkins and Jeremy
    Barnes saw it. Two or three other townsmen as well. It was about midnight.”
    “I wonder they were abroad at so late an hour.”
    “Well, sir, they had been at a tavern and were on their way home.”
    “I see,” said Matthew. “And these men brought the news to you?”
    “No, I had it of my wife, who got it from her neighbor Mrs. Miller.”
    “I see,” said Matthew again, well aware of this particular chain of communication.
    “Now it is clear Ursula was not the only witch in Chelmsford,” Parker said, stroking the loose flesh of his neck thoughtfully.
    “How’s that, sir?”
    “Why, it must take a witch to raise one from the dead, for surely the spirit of Ursula Tusser would not have returned save she were beckoned by some secret incantation. Thus do witches work in summoning spirits to have intelligence of them regarding the future and to work their curses upon their enemies. You must find Ursula’s confederate, Mr. Stock, and soon, or else we are undone.”
    At that moment the corn-chandler was drawn away and the necessity of Matthew’s responding to his charge went with him. Matthew continued to circulate among the watchers. He entered into casual conversation with others of his acquaintance, especially those who lived nearby and might have seen the new manifestation of which the corn-chandler had spoken. By several of the wives he was informed that Ursula Tusser’s spirit had visited elsewhere. She had been seen just before dawn in the form of a large blinking owl atop the church tower calling out strange words in Hebrew.
    “Hebrew!” exclaimed Matthew to the wide-eyed matron who had conveyed this news to him. Knowing the woman to be no scholar, he asked, “Hew were you able to discern it was Hebrew and not some other tongue—say, Latin or Greek or Dutch?”
    The woman pondered this. “Hebrew is the Devil's
    tongue,” she asserted vigorously. “What else therefore could it have been she spoke but that?”
    The woman made a face to suggest her logic was irrefutable, and Matthew walked on. Her eyes had been full of fear and conviction, and he realized it would be futile to argue with her.
    He was about to go up to the house to see how the family had spent the night when he, and everyone else in the street, was startled by a sudden cry of alarm.
    “There she is, there she is! It is the witch’s shape, her very shape!”
    A few feet away from him, a gaunt woman with a pack on her back was pointing up at the house and trembling. All eyes turned in the direction she was pointing. A tiny window under the eaves had opened and the face of a young woman could be seen peering down to the street. Though the face was visible for only a moment, Matthew recognized it as that of Brigit Able.
    But by now, the damage had been done. The gaunt woman’s alarm had triggered a general panic. Others were pointing at the now closed window and screaming. A woman next to Matthew fell to the ground in a faint, and there was a rush away from the house and a great commotion. People tripped over each other as they fled. In vain, Matthew called out after them that it was no ghost they had seen but only one the Waites’ servants. His explanation did little good. Soon he found himself before the house with only a handful of companions, mostly close neighbors who had