side by side in the darkness. A smile crossed her face, understanding what her grandmother had seen in Jeff.
“Jeff? Still no sign. She picked up the phone by the bed and dialed down to the office but still didn’t get a reply. Oh well, he could warm it up later. For now, the spicy aroma from the bag was too much to resist. Although her numbed legs tingled in the warmth of the room, so she decided to have a quick shower before eating.
Feeling like a new woman after a hot shower and a fresh change of clothes, Brenna devoured a good helping of butter chicken, a container of rice and a naan bread. She couldn’t remember the last time she had eaten so much, but she felt better with a warm meal in her stomach. She threw one of the paper bags into a small wastebasket in the bathroom and left the other one, which was still full of food, for Jeff, on the cabinet by the bed.
Brenna twisted the cap off of a bottle of water and plonked herself on the bed. She took big gulps of the water then put it on the bedside cabinet. Then she dug the book out of her handbag and found the page she had bookmarked earlier with the gum wrapper. The old book’s pages told Brenna all about the witch trials at Witches Hill. She scanned through the pages, not paying much attention until she came across the name Rowena Ravenwood. Her eyes shot open as wide as they could go and she moved her face close to the book. She put her finger up to the words and followed them with her finger as she said them out loud. “Rowena Ravenwood was an important figure during the trials. She was a witch who went into the prisons undercover to give tortured witches nutrition and hope. On October 31st, 1645, she was to be burnt at the stake for the crime of witchcraft. The judge responsible for the damnation of Ravenwood and hundreds of other women was never seen after that day and many believe he was the victim of foul play.”
Brenna stopped reading. If the judge hated the women that much, and he was a victim of some sort of revenge for his role in the witch slayings, she might have just found the identity of the black entity. If what this book said was true, she had one angry judge on her hands. She scanned through the pages trying to find the name of the judge, but was disappointed to find him being constantly referred to as ‘the Judge.’ No name was given. She closed the book and tapped her fingers on the cover. Then she stood and paced the floor, the book clutched to her chest like a baby. A glance at the alarm clock told her it was nine-thirty. She had been engulfed in the book for longer than she thought.
Brenna pulled her boots out from under the bed and slid them on. She donned her long coat and found a scrap of paper and a pen (what a miracle that was) in her bag and wrote a note letting Jeff know she bought him dinner and attached it to the brown paper bag. Her car keys jingled merrily in her hands as she headed back outside where her red convertible which was still under attack by sleet and heavy rain.
When she reached the bottom of the staircase, she walked along the misty path that led to the office and went inside, dropping the food on the counter. “Jeff?” Pushing away and niggling thoughts that something might have happened to him, she made her way to her car. Her boots splashed through deep puddles as she unlocked the car with a blip. Was that a noise behind her? Brenna spun around, but all she saw through the falling rain and sleet was the empty office with its orange glow, a firefly in the night. Stop jumping at shadows. You’ll drive yourself crazy. She turned back to her car and hopped in, relieved to be out of the hammering rain. She started up her car and turned the radio up loud. Her favorite song blasted from the radio. Singing along to her song didn’t make her feel good like it usually did. Not with Maggie missing and a pissed-off judge haunting her every move.
When she pulled up at The Herbery the rain had settled down a bit, letting