“It came from over there!” Adam pointed to the remains of an old barn, and they raced towards it! Inwardly, Lisa prayed that Delron was alright because if he wasn’t, it would have been all her fault! She let herself get convinced to go against her better judgment and allow Delron to go across the property alone, and she involved him in this whole supernatural affair in the first place! He was such a sweet, kind guy, and he didn’t deserve to endure a fate like this! She spotted him in the distance, and it relieved her to see him still standing, but she wasn’t entirely certain that proved his condition was still stable… Adam queried, “Are you okay?”
“That scream didn’t come from me,” Delron reported. “It came from inside of here, but I don’t see any sign that anyone was actually in here! I’m sorta scared to go in there and investigate!”
Lisa stepped forward, “I’m going in!”
Delron ogled at her audacity. “Really? You’re not scared?”
“Of course I am! But someone’s gotta do it!” Lisa asserted.
“Come on!” Adam instructed Delron. “She’s not doing this alone!” Delron’s expression still wavered, but he complied.
Lisa visually scanned the floor, but all she could see was old hay. She didn’t expect to instantly stumble into anything substantial, but she knew that eventually they would wander into the territory of something that was important to the spirit of whoever occupied this area in the afterlife, and when this occurred, they would likely get forced into an unearthly combat! She had no clue what was getting guarded here, but she was willing to fight for it in order to end their apparational nightmare once and for all!
They tiptoed across the ground for a minute, and the trio collectively appeared to have gotten the impression they would elicit a response quicker than they had, and when nothing happened, Delron stated, “We’re walking into a trap!”
“Let’s split up,” Lisa suggested. They seemed frightened by that concept, so Lisa elucidated, “Whatever’s in here may not have the ability to attack at a wide range, so we have a greater chance of survival if we spread out.” The two men nodded in agreement, and after Delron went left and Adam went right, Lisa moved forward and beseeched the universe that she hadn’t created more of an opportunity for peril to prevail by enacting this measure! They operated in a concentrating silence until…
“Hey!” Adam called out, which made Delron and Lisa jump slightly. Adam pressed his right-foot onto a specific plank, and he observed, “This spot’s hollow!”
Delron posed to him, “Can you open it up without tools?”
Adam affirmed, “I’m gonna try!”
Lisa and Delron watched with intrigue from their positions. Lisa crossed her fingers that they would uncover a concealed treasure that Rebecca stashed prior to her imprisonment, and while she acknowledged that it very well could have been a den from one of the few creatures who dared to roam Blackthorn Orchard, she had a strong feeling that they had discovered a valuable token! As they eagerly awaited the results of this find, Peanut started barking wildly at something near Lisa! She didn’t comprehend it initially, but a cold chill made his behavior so clear…
Once she turned around and beheld it, Lisa gasped. Adam’s jaw dropped, and Delron lost all of the color in his face! They beheld a translucent figure of a woman in a long dress and an antiquated hairstyle, which prompted Delron to nervously verify, “This isn’t… you know who?”
“I’m Goody Blackthorn!” she addressed them in an ethereal voice. Her speech frightened them, but they did not believe that she posed a threat to them… yet. “What are you doing on my land?”
“Goody Blackthorn, we…” Lisa wasn’t positive on where to begin. Obviously, this was the original wife of Rebecca’s second husband, and surely, she witnessed the horrors that Rebecca went through before injustice drove her into madness, but how much insight did she possess into more modern events? She decided to initiate their interaction by relaying to her, “We mean you no harm!”
Folding her arms in a displeased manner, Goody Bishop curtly stated, “That is always nice to hear, but it does not answer my question!”
The trio grew frightened by the possibility of upsetting her further, and no one knew how to react initially. Not wanting to risk the wrath of her impatience, Delron gingerly spoke to Goody Blackthorn, “We… We’re… We want to rid the region of a terrible evil, and in order to do that, we need an object from a person who lived here long ago…”
“You’re talking about the mistress,” Goody Blackthorn stoically reacted. “The one who took my husband and my land.”
“She tried to, you mean,” Adam supportively told her. “I saw her above your property once, but she didn’t come back, did she? You drove her off, didn’t you?”
They felt a jolt of relief as she smirked with pride! Goody Blackthorn basked in the glow of this memory, and she triumphantly conveyed to them, “She tried to claim this as her territory, but it is not hers to take!”
Lisa confidently assured her, “And we want to prevent her from disturbing anyone ever again! But we need your help! Please, is there anything in your land that does belong to her?”
“She did not create the crevice you found,” Goody Blackthorn briefed the three. “That belonged to her servants, they put objects in there to manufacture her guilt. She chanced upon it ere they could show it to the authorities, but she did not have the opportunity to destroy it ahead of her arrest. She did drop something of hers in there though, a valuable token she intended to retrieve for repayment of my husband’s debts… I cannot bear to set my sights on that horrid thing! It serves as a constant reminder of what was taken from me after I succumbed to my disease!”
“We can take it far from here!” Lisa offered. “Then you can spend an eternity in what’s yours and only yours!”
Goody Blackthorn contemplated this matter for a moment, which caused Lisa, Delron, and Adam’s nerves to spike as though they stood upon pins and needles! Finally, Goody Blackthorn aired her determination, “You may retrieve it! Protect your ears from my utterance when I’m forced to lay my eyes upon it for the final time!”
Lisa nodded in understanding, and then she as well as Delron joined Adam by the cache he discovered. The plank that concealed it remained steadfastly unmoving, so Delron assisted him in lifting it. After quite a bit of tugging, the clandestine horde got unsealed! Lisa immediately dove down, and her fingers brushed against something soft but coarse. She carefully pulled it out, and they were surprised to see a cloth doll with rough, unrefined hair and black buttons for eyes! Delron assessed, “That’s a voodoo poppet! The court records indicated that her servants reported seeing them in the horse stable, but no one ever verified this allegation. Their word was all they needed, so I’m not sure why they even bothered to create this evidence! They just as easily could have lied!”
Adam and Lisa shrugged at the premise of knowing the motivation of the servants, and then Lisa continued to clear out the rest of the stash. She pulled out five of these effigies, and she continued to scour the surface, she got the notion that they were watching them! Evidently, the others had experienced the same sensation because Adam pondered, “Did these things actually get used to curse anyone?”
The room was mute to speculate on the issue that he raised. Goody Blackthorn sustained her pursed lips, and Delron ogled them as though he were trying to discern whether or not the curios contained dark magic within them. Meanwhile, Lisa’s palm examined every inch of that trove. She momentarily worried that Goody Blackthorn had communicated in deception, but she heard a very visceral scream earlier, so she did not entertain the option of giving up for long! At long last, her skin came into contact with something icy, and she knew without a doubt that she had located the commodity they sought! She warned the others, “Brace yourself!” They muffled their hearing as she drew it out…
A pang coursed throughout Lisa’s eardrums as Goody Blackthorn let out a blood-curdling scream. Lisa put her hands over her ears, but it did benefit her much to do so- the volume of that hollering was so high that Lisa suspected they could hear it on the opposite end of Melas! Once the cacophony had ceased, Lisa planned on putting it in her pocket and then thanking Goody Blackthorn for her cooperation until…
“Trespassers, exit the vicinity right now!” Sheriff Marshal’s dulcet tone blared over a loudspeaker. “Go to the street with your hands up!”
“What would he do if we refused to leave?” Adam sniffed in disapproval of Marshal’s actions. “It’s not like that d-bag has the balls to set foot onto the orchard!”
Delron forlornly pointed out. “It’s not like we can stay here forever! We’ll have to obey his command, and… knock on wood that we can concoct a plausible explanation for the judge!”
Marshal repeated himself, “Trespassers, exit the vicinity! Go to the street with your hands up!”
“As far as anyone knows, this is mine!” As Lisa raised an ancient emerald ring above the traditional digit to adorn such a piece of jewelry, Adam and Delron vehemently shook their heads. “They’ll confiscate what’s in my pockets, not what’s on my body!” Preceding their shot to protest this act any further, Lisa slipped it on! Her entire being flooded with a bitter glacialness as she raised her limbs and departed from the building.
“See, Sheriff Hopkins! There was someone in there!” Beth bragged to Marshal. “Ooh, there’s three of them!”
Marshal supplanted her sentence, “No, it’s the three! I knew that girl had mischief up her sleeves!”
Lisa rolled her eyes at his sentiments, but Adam became defensive, “Hey! We had a perfectly legitimate reason for coming here! We… we’re waiting for our lawyers before we say anything further! What are you two doing here?”
“Don’t you remember? You offered to loan Abby some of your mom’s old clothes while she’s displaced.” Ann indicated to a bulky bag beside her. “We can’t take it though ‘cause it’s far too big for her slender frame! Oh, it’d be perfect for you though, Lisa!” Ann sneered at her, and Lisa purposely didn’t flinch at her contempt.
“Let’s go!” Marshal’s bravado gained its fervor back as they climbed over the fence. He eagerly cuffed Lisa, and while he placed her under arrest, Lisa began to grow fearful that they would not get freed in advance of Rebecca’s next assault!
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