Only the Stars Know Her Name by Amanda Marrone

Author:Amanda Marrone
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: little bee books
Published: 2019-11-18T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Elizabeth unfolded the fabric and Tammy impatiently grabbed the book from her and placed it in her lap. We gathered around on our knees, peering at its cover.

“Who shall be our first victim?” she sang.

Elizabeth glared at her. “Tammy, I know not how you can be so carefree about this! I hope there is no name at all!”

I held my breath as she opened it and then exhaled with relief.

There was nothing else on the page beside our three names, still spattered with blood.

“Where is the name?” Tammy slapped her hands on the pages. “We have worked un-Godly magic! Why is there no name?” Frantically, she flipped blank page after blank page and then turned back to the start. “I don’t understand.”

A smile broadened my face as relief flooded through me. “Perhaps the moon is telling us that there are none to punish. Perhaps this is a sign the past will stay in the past and we are to move forward.”

Tammy shook her head. “No!” she growled. “There should be a name! Martha Wilds assured me we could work this magic with three strong women, and I have hoped with everything I have that at least Mr. Sewall’s name would appear. That man did so many things to me—so many—at the very least his name deserves to be in this book.”

To my amazement, I saw that Tammy Younger was crying.

I reached out to her. “Tammy.”

She slammed the book to the ground. “And what of your Betty and Abigail or Reverend Parris? How can it be, Violet, that we have conjured familiars—we have magicked coins—but not a single new name appears in this book?”

Her tears softened me, and I leaned against her. “Perhaps our own names are enough?” I whispered. “Perhaps this coven—our friendship—is enough.”

Tammy rested her head on my shoulder, and I took the book, opened it on my lap, and sighed. There would be no flight to the stars, and I would have to be content simply being Violet Somebody. I touched the tip of my finger on the V in my name. “Our names will have to be enough,” I said definitively.

Suddenly, an icy chill rose from the book into my body, causing bumps to appear on my arms. My teeth chattered uncontrollably. I snatched my hand away as the blood suddenly sunk into the page and the penciled letters disappeared one by one.

“No! No! No!” I swiped my hand repeatedly across the page trying to get them back, hating that I’d set something in motion. “No!”

“What magic now?” Elizabeth whispered frantically, as her name—and then Tammy’s—disappeared.

When the last bit of pencil and blood faded, new letters appeared—formed in red, one by one—and Tammy howled with glee.

As soon as I saw the first was a G and not a T, my body shook in relief. “Not Mama.”

I held my breath as letter after letter came quickly. I struggled to string each one into a name.

“George Corwin,” Elizabeth said, before I could work it all out. “Sheriff George Corwin is the first named.

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