The Witch's Diary Part IV

"How did you find us?" Nathan asked Amanda as the four of them sat in a coffee shop next to the hotel.  "We didn't tell your sisters where we were staying."

"You met my sisters?  I'm so sorry," Amanda said with a sad smile.  "No, I didn't hear about you from them.  They haven't spoken to me in years.  The best explanation I can give is that the diary led me to you."

A month ago, that statment might have sounded strange to Melissa.  Now she thought of the way she had been drawn to the grave beneath the lilac bush and understood perfectly.

"I was born after the family left North Dakota, so I never knew Rebecca," Amanda said.  "My parents said she died in a car accident. I'm glad I finally know what really happened to her. May I ask how you got the diary?"

"My car went off the road in a thunderstorm near your family's old house and I went inside the house to get out of the storm."  Melissa hesitated, unsure of what to say next.  "This is going to sound crazy, but Rebecca...well, she appeared to me and gave me the diary."

She looked at Amanda and Jim anxiously.  Other than Nathan, she had never told anyone what she saw in that house.  Amanda and Jim only nodded as if they saw wraiths in old houses every day.

"You saw her?" Amanda asked, sounding envious.

"Yes.  You look so much like her."

"I know."  Amanda smiled.  "Since I was a little girl, people have been telling me how much I look like my older sister and my grandmother.  Everyone except my own family meant that as a compliment.  Daddy looked frightened and disgusted every time he set eyes on me, and Mama just looked sad.  When I was six, my sister, Katherine, told me that Rebecca and my grandmother were devil worshippers who were burning in hell.  She said that since I looked so much like them, I would probably go to hell too."

Melissa cringed, thinking of Katherine's cold eyes and biting voice.  Growing up in the same house with her must have been horrible for poor Amanda, she thought.

Jim squeezed his wife's hand.  "Rebecca and her grandma practiced folk magic and had what people around here call the sight," he said.  "The devil had nothing to do with it. The grandma did a lot of good around here.  People still talk about how she helped find that little girl who had been kidnapped.  Saved her life."

"When I was in high school, I found Grandma Becky's grave and felt an instant bond with her," Amanda said.  "I knew she wasn't evil, no matter what my family thought.  About that same time, I started seeing things in my head before they happened and having dreams that came true.  I dreamed about Jim a whole year before I first met him."

"I've never been able to hide anything from her," Jim said, smiling at Amanda. "It's tough living with a woman who has the sight."

"Daddy thought it was a mark of the devil, so I tried to hide it from him, but he knew.  No witch is going to live in my house, he said.  He shipped me off to boarding school, and I haven't had much contact with my family since.  My sisters won't let me visit my parents.  They say I upset them too much, which is probably true. At least I understand why now."

"We tried to tell them what really happened, but they wouldn't listen," Nathan said.

"Thank you for trying, but they're a lost cause, I'm afraid," Amanda sighed.  "When I read the diary, I realized something.  I know why Daddy saw the creature that night, when nobody else but Rebecca could see it.  It's because he has the sight too, even though he probably doesn't know it and wouldn't admit it if he did.  Grandma Becky was his mother, after all.  He was so self righteous, condemning us for something we probably inherited from him."  Her voice trembled, and her green eyes blazed.  "Rebecca sacrificed everything to save my family, and they see her as a demon.  Without her, they'd all be dead, and I would have never been born."

She touched the diary, then shuddered and pulled her hand back.

"What's wrong?" Melissa asked.

"Rebecca has always been a mystery to me, but when I touch the diary I feel a bond with her, just like I have with Grandma Becky.  Rebecca's spirit is so loving, so strong.  But, I also feel the creature, whatever it is.  It's cold and hateful, and it wants to kill. It's still there, still in that house.  That's why I have to go there."

"Amanda, don't you even think about it," Jim said. "I don't want you going near that place."

'I have to Jim.  I owe her that much."

"I agree with Jim," Melissa said.  "Your sister's ghost told me the house was dangerous, that I should never go back there."

"What you saw wasn't a ghost," Amanda said. "Rebecca's still alive."

"But if she was still alive, she would be more than sixty years old.  The girl I saw was younger than I am.  And she appeared out of nowhere, and vanished right in front of me."

"I can't explain it, but I know she's still alive, and she's trapped in the house with that monster.  Her mind and her magic are strong, but she can't keep that thing in there forever. She needs me." Amanda looked directly at Melissa.  "She needs us."

To be continued...