LITMIR.BIZ

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got your dance.”

      “And then some.” He grinned. “You’re more talented than I realized.”

      “I’m so glad you approve,” she said dryly.

      “I always approve. In fact, I—”

      And just in that moment, a slightly worse-for-wear Bart Ziffer barreled drunkenly back into Lainie, sending her off balance. Sending her into J.J., pressing her up against him for a blinding second, so that his arms went around her reflexively.

      Something happened then, something that she didn’t even want to know about. Champagne, Lainie thought, but she was very afraid it wasn’t, because it was the same treacherous thing that always happened every time they got a little too close. Normally she kept her distance. Normally she could laugh him off and get away until her system settled. But this night, with the champagne fizzing in her system, the dancers holding them together, it was too late.

      She looked, she couldn’t stop looking, and it was as if some part of her vision widened so that he was all she could see, looking more alive, more real, more there than anything or anyone else in the room. Everything else faded away, and there was just J.J., looking at her first with surprise, then confusion, then some special attention that sent a shiver through her. His hands tightened, pulling her closer rather than releasing her.

      She should look away, she knew, but she couldn’t stop staring. And, dammit, she couldn’t stop feeling—the hard lines of his athlete’s body, his arms tightening around her even as they stood, the warmth of him as he leaned just a bit closer…

      And utter panic vaulted through her.

      Lainie wrenched herself away, turning without another word to flee blindly through the couples dotting the dance floor.

      “Wait a minute.” A hand landed on her shoulder, and J.J. spun her around to face him, staring at her with a hint of the same confusion she felt herself. J. J. Cooper, the man with the ego the size of Mount Washington, the man who couldn’t even commit to a facial-hair style for more than a few weeks.

      Not to mention a woman.

      And it was that that had her turning toward the door.

      “Where are you going?”

      She barely threw him a dismissive glance. “Sorry, Speed, but my fairy godmother told me to be home at midnight. I’m out of here.”

      “Out of here? The party’s just getting started.”

      “Clock ticking, got to go.” She definitely had to go, before she got caught up again. Before she threw common sense aside and planted one on him just to find out what it was like.

      Before it was too late.

      Chapter Three

      It made her cranky, pure and simple, Lainie thought as she shepherded a school tour into the main room of the museum. Fourteen years after her brief obsession with J.J., and here she was, once again thinking about him every time she turned around. Only, this time she was twenty-six, not twelve.

      It was ridiculous.

      So what if they’d had that weird little moment of chemistry at Gabe’s party? He was a lightweight, a good-time guy who was only out for himself and his own fun. Skiing, parties, women. She didn’t know many things conclusively, but one thing she did know was that she’d be better off volunteering as a crash test dummy than starting something with J.J. Cooper. In fact, if she got involved with J.J., she’d be a dummy, of high proportions. He didn’t bear thinking about, not even for a minute.

      Realizing that she was, in fact, thinking about him just put her in a bad temper. Better to concentrate on work.

      Lainie looked around the throng of avid-faced fourth graders before her, and her mood brightened. “Okay, who knows what a witch looks like?”

      The whole crowd of them raised their hands.

      “Ugly,” offered one.

      “Warts.”

      “Flies on a broomstick.”

      “Plays Quidditch,” someone shouted. “When does the match start?”

      Lainie smiled. “If you want Quidditch, you’ll have to come back Halloween week for the Hogwarts Festival. But let’s talk about witches, okay?”

      “Yeah!”

      One thing she loved about working at the Witchcraft Museum was that the kids showed up eager and bright eyed with curiosity. They were lured by the promise of witchcraft, the sensationalism of the trials. Instead of a lot of dry display cases to stare into, they saw the story told by the characters. The learning almost sneaked up on them while they were concentrating on other things.

      “Who knows where the word witch comes from?” Lainie asked.

      A little girl with dark corkscrew hair and red shorts raised her hand. “Wicca,” she announced.

      “That’s right—the word witch comes from Wicca, a religion of the earth.”

      “Religion happens in churches,” the little girl countered.

      “Not always,” Lainie corrected. “Religion happens wherever a person wants it to. There were and are people who worship the earth outdoors. Some of them call themselves Wiccans. Long ago, that word turned into witches. A lot of times they learned how to use herbs to help people feel better. Sometimes people appreciated them for the good they did. And sometimes people persecuted them as being in league with the devil. Sometimes even non-Wiccans were persecuted as witches. Do you know what persecuted means?”

      The little girl raised her hand again. “People were mean to them?”

      It was the most apt definition she’d heard. “Yes, people were mean. If you got accused of being a witch, there was no real way to prove you weren’t. Lots of times, people accused of being witches were killed.”

      “By mean people.”

      “No, by ordinary people who just didn’t know any better. That’s what happened here in Salem. But instead of me telling you the story, I’m going to let the people of Salem tell you the story. Look above your heads.”

      Lainie pressed the wireless control in her palm. Even as the lights went down, the Wiccan wheel of the year set into the floor began to glow a pulsing red. A little murmur of excitement and alarm passed through the crowd of children. They all backed away from the medallion a little as a basso voice greeted them.

      “Witchcraft…possession…trials and hangings. The story you are about to hear really happened here in Salem. The year was 1692. It began with a group of girls…”

      On the perimeter of the room, on a level above their heads, a roomlike section grew bright to reveal the figures of three young girls crouched by a fireplace and staring up at the figure of a housekeeper wearing a colorful headkerchief. In the next moment the figures began to move and speak, drawing “aahhs” from the audience, taking them back to the seventeenth century and a time of madness.

      One after another the dioramas lit, and bit by bit the tragic dance played out. And Lainie felt the familiar sadness. Fear, ignorance and boredom, a toxic brew under any circumstances. Add a little fanaticism and power lust and you had a destructive force that had spelled the ruin of dozens. It might have happened long before, but the story still touched her every time.

      As it touched the people who visited the museum. They came from near and far, young and old, all drawn by the story. And the numbers were rising by the week. Halloween was the high season for a town whose name was synonymous with witchcraft. Ghost walks, festivals and galas, costume parades and reenactments, the events began at the start of October and ran all month long. Of course, the planning started well before that, which was why only a day or two into September, Lainie found herself with barely time to think.

      Even as the show went on, she was busy reviewing her to-do list. Her alarmingly long to-do list.

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