The Witches of New York Read online

  Also by

  AMI McKAY

  The Birth House

  The Virgin Cure

  PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF CANADA

  Copyright © 2016 Ami McKay

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Published in 2016 by Alfred A. Knopf Canada, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited. Distributed in Canada by Penguin Random House Canada Limited, Toronto.

  www.​pengu​inran​domho​use.​ca

  Alfred A. Knopf Canada and colophon are registered trademarks.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  McKay, Ami, 1968–, author

    Witches of New York / Ami McKay.

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-0-676-97958-9

  eBook ISBN 978-0-307-36678-8

    I. Title.

  PS8625.K387W58 2016   C813′.6   C2016-903786-X

  Ebook design based on book design by Kelly Hill

  Cover images: (glass jar) © Daniel Regan / Arcangel Images, (raven with key and roses) © Eisfrei, (smoke) © Amnartk, (parchment background) © design36, all Shutt​ersto​ck.​com

  Interior images: (feathers) © mart, (raven with key and roses) © Eisfrei, (paper background) © design36, (phases of the moon) © Magnia, all Shutt​ersto​ck.​com

  v4.1

  a

  Contents

  Cover

  Also by Ami McKay

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  September 4, 1880.

  City of Wonders.

  By Knot of One.

  September 17, 1880.

  Between Sleeps.

  The Girl Who Knows.

  Beatrice Dunn Takes Flight.

  Shop Talk (and Secrets)

  Knocks and Rappings.

  A Moth Seeks the Light.

  Mr. Beadle’s Witch.

  Messages From Abroad.

  September 18, 1880.

  Mirror, Mirror on the Wall.

  A Preponderance of Marys.

  The Amazing Dr. Brody.

  Seeing Is Believing.

  Lady Hibiscus.

  Phantasmagoria.

  Dr. Brody’s Ghosts.

  The Lunatics’ Ball.

  The Song of the Sibyl.

  September 25, 1880.

  The Witches of New York.

  Study.

  Divinations and Dreams.

  October 3, 1880.

  Into the Fire.

  The Preacher’s Confession.

  October 8, 1880.

  An Unsent Letter.

  The Devils Also Believe and Tremble.

  October 9, 1880.

  The Final Fitting.

  Parade.

  The Coming Storm.

  Lost and Found.

  Taken.

  October 10, 1880.

  Church Bells and Seekers.

  Witch’s Mark.

  The Office of Missing Persons.

  Prayers Are the Daughters of Jupiter.

  October 11, 1880.

  Come, the Croaking Raven Doth Bellow for Revenge.

  This Is the Place Where Death Delights to Help the Living.

  A Brand Pluck’d Out of the Burning.

  St. Clair and Thom.

  The Witch of Blackwell’s Island.

  The Third Night.

  Careful What You Wish For.

  October 12, 1880.

  Mr. Palsham.

  October 31, 1880.

  Home.

  January 21, 1881.

  Cleopatra’s Needle.

  Acknowledgements

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  For Mary Ayer Parker

  who was hanged at Gallows Hill,

  September 22, 1692

  A rebel! How glorious the name sounds when applied to a woman.

  Oh, rebellious woman, to you the world looks in hope.

  Upon you has fallen the glorious task of bringing liberty to the earth and all the inhabitants thereof.

  MATILDA JOSLYN GAGE

  Resist much, obey little.

  WALT WHITMAN

  City of Wonders.

  IN THE DUSKY haze of evening a ruddy-cheeked newsboy strode along Fifth Avenue proclaiming the future. “The great Egyptian obelisk is about to land on our shores! The Brooklyn Bridge set to become the Eighth Wonder of the World! Broadway soon to glow with electric light!” In his wake, a crippled man shuffled, spouting prophecies of his own. “God’s judgement is upon us! The end of the world is nigh!”

  New York had become a city of astonishments. Wonders and marvels came so frequent and fast, a day without spectacle was cause for concern.

  Men involved themselves with the business of making miracles. Men in starched collars and suits, men in wool caps and dirty boots. From courtrooms to boardrooms to the newsrooms of Park Row; from dockyards to scaffolds to Mr. Roebling’s Great Bridge—every man to a one had a head full of schemes: to erect a monument to genius, to become a wizard of invention, to discover the unknown. They set their sights on greatness while setting their watches to the drop of the Western Union Time Ball. Their dreams no longer came to them via stardust and angel’s wings, but by tug, train and telegraph. Sleep lost all meaning now that Time was in man’s grasp.

  In the building beneath the tower that held the time ball, a mindful order of women sat—side by side, row on row, storey upon storey, one hundred young ladies in all, working round the clock to translate the wishes of men to dots and dashes. Transfixed by the steady click-clack of their task, the ghost of Mr. Samuel Morse hovered near. He’d tried to get to Heaven on numerous occasions, but could never seem to find his way past the tangled canopy of telegraph lines that criss-crossed the skies above Manhattan. What he needed was an angel, or better yet, a witch. Someone to translate the knocks and rappings of his soul, to convey all the things he’d left unsaid. Where could one be found? Were there any left?

  In a halo of lamplight near the Western Union Building, a prostitute leaned her aching back against the bricks. Lips rouged, eyes rimmed with charcoal, she was waiting for a man. Puffing on a cigarette she’d begged off a stranger, she blew a steady stream of smoke rings in the air. At the edge of her sight, a shadowy figure in the shape of a fine-dressed gentleman appeared—five feet off the ground, coattails flapping in the breeze. Rubbing her eyes, the girl shook her head, thinking she’d had too much to drink. She swore, hand to God, she’d get off the booze one day, not now, of course, maybe in the spring.

  As the ghost dissolved from her view, the girl flicked the stub of her cigarette to the ground and crushed it with the heel of her boot. Hand in her pocket she reached for a trinket she’d been given by her last john. “A lucky rabbit’s foot,” he’d said, “blessed by a bona fide witch.” “Liar,” the girl had complained when he’d offered her the charm along with half of what he was supposed to pay. “No, no, no,” the john had insisted. “I tell you, she was real…a real witch with a very fine ass.” With that, the girl had grabbed the trinket and sent the john on his way. Something was better than nothing. She needed all the help she could get.

  Stroking the soft fur of the rabbit’s foot, the girl thought of all she lacked. She was tired, she needed sleep, but she wanted more booze. When she glanced at the spot where she’d snuffed out the butt, there was a shiny new dime in its place. Picking the coin off the ground, she wondered if may
be the john had been right after all. Maybe the damn foot was lucky. Maybe the witch was real. Maybe her luck had changed because the john had dipped his willy in a witch and then dipped it in her, leaving behind some strange magic. There were worse things she could catch, she guessed.

  In the shadow of the Great Bridge, a young widow knelt to plead with the river. Just after supper she’d spied something terrible in the soapy murk of her dishwater, a vision she’d seen once before, and she’d just as soon forget. Each time she closed her eyes, it came to her again—a man’s face, bloated and blue, gasping for air. The last time she’d seen it, it’d been her husband’s. This time it was a stranger’s.

  “I understand,” the woman said to the river, touching the surface of the water with a finger. “I know how it feels to be slighted.” She also understood that the river required payment from those who wished to cross it. Blood, flesh and bone were what it liked best. The widow didn’t have much of anything to give as an offering—a few pennies, a splash of whiskey, the cheerful tune of an ancient song—but she hoped that if she were gentle, persuasive and kind, the river might change its mind. Was it witchcraft she was plying? She didn’t care so long as it worked. Something had to be done. Something was better than nothing.

  In the cellar of a modest house on the edge of the Tenderloin, a weary housekeeper lit a candle and said a prayer. Taper in one hand, glass jar in the other, she poured wax around the edge of the jar’s lid to seal it shut. The jar—filled with stale urine, old needles, shards of mirror, brass buttons, bent nails and thirteen drops of blood from her left thumb—was what her wise grandmother had called a “witch’s bottle.” While others might call it humbug, the housekeeper saw the jar and its contents as her last hope to dispel the strange darkness that’d settled in her midst. What else could explain all that’d happened since the master of the house had passed? For weeks she’d been plagued by what she thought was a ghost or, perhaps, a demon, lurking in her room, stealing her sight, shaking her bed, night after night. What did it want? Where had it come from? Why wouldn’t it leave her alone? Prayers, hymns and a desperate stint of almsgiving hadn’t driven it away. She feared the terrible thing wouldn’t rest until it saw her dead. Had she been cursed? Something had to be done. As her grandmother would say, Wo gibt es Hexen, gibt es Geister. Where there are witches there are ghosts.

  In a quiet corner of a cozy teashop just shy of Madison Square Park, a magnificent raven sat on a perch, preening its feathers. As the bird tugged and fussed at its wing, three women conversed around a nearby table—one, a lady of considerable wealth, the others a pair of witches, keepers of the bird and the shop.

  “Can you help?” the lady inquired, worry catching in her throat. “I’m at my wit’s end. Something must be done.”

  One witch answered with a confident, “Of course.”

  The other humbly replied, “Leave it with us.”

  The raven cast an indifferent eye upon them. He’d witnessed this sort of thing before—the woman, unable to manage her affairs, needed a witch (or two) to make things right. That was all fine and good, but he was more interested in a faint sound coming from overhead, an enchanting jangle akin to when prisms on a chandelier touch. But how could that be when there was no chandelier to be found in the shop? He was certain unexpected magic was afoot.

  Tea was poured, complaints and concerns heard, sympathy given. Crystal ball and grimoire consulted. Palms and tea leaves read. How pleased the bird was when he noticed the tray of teacakes in the centre of the table had barely been touched. How pleased the lady was when the witches presented her with a small package tied with red string.

  The lady was sure she felt something move within the parcel. A tiny tremor of mystical vibration, perhaps? A sign of things to come? She’d heard rumours from a friend of a friend that these women could work miracles. She prayed it was true. She wanted to believe. Lowering her voice, she said, “You swear this thing has been touched by witchcraft?”

  One of the women gave a polite nod and said, “Of course, my dear, of course.”

  The other replied with a smile and a shrug. “Call it what you like.”

  The raven simply cocked its head. It was all he could do not to laugh.

  By Knot of One.

  THIRTY-SIX MILES UP the Hudson as the crow flies, a young woman stood atop the widow’s walk of a grand house in Stony Point. To the east lay the silhouettes of ships’ masts and church towers beneath the first stars of night. The girl was looking for signs of change—in the skies, in the weather, in her heart.

  “Starry. Crisp. Clear,” she pencilled in a small notebook. Licking the tip of her finger, she raised it above her head to check the direction of the wind. Nothing unusual, she thought. Nothing unusual ever happens here. “NW wind,” she wrote beside her other observations. “No sign of rain.”

  Bright and bored at seventeen, Beatrice Dunn longed for her life to take an extraordinary turn. She had no reason to think such a thing would ever happen—still, she hoped, she prayed, she wished.

  She knew, from reading yellowed copies of Scientific American and The Old Farmer’s Almanac, that the slightest shift in chemistry, in temperature, in the atmosphere, in the stars, could bring about tremendous transformation. An avalanche begins with a sound or a misplaced step. Gunpowder explodes with the tiniest of sparks. One flaw in a steam boiler can lead to catastrophe. Lightning can be conjured inside a jar. From time to time Beatrice made lightning of her own by scuffing her feet on the rug in her room and touching her finger to one of her iron bedposts. A sharp charge of static would run through her hand as her nightgown clung to her skin, and the tiny hairs along the back of her neck rose to attention. Occasionally the taste of metal fizzled in her mouth. It was a childish act, she supposed, but it thrilled her nonetheless. If only she could find a spark to set the tinder of her days ablaze.

  She’d read in the New York Herald that great changes were set to sweep the world in the coming days.

  Strange, malefic times (whatever cynical people may say to the contrary) are soon to begin, due to the presence of an immense planetary influence not seen on the Earth for two thousand years. The vitality of every living thing will be subjected to extraordinary pressures. Surely miracles and mayhem will arise in its wake.

  To prepare for whatever might come her way, Beatrice had begun keeping track of things that couldn’t be explained. Charting every instance of the miraculous that appeared in the news, she faithfully logged them in her notebook as she did the weather, noting the hour of their occurrence, as well as the phase of the moon. She aimed to measure the rate of the inexplicable, the temperature of strange.

  According to her records thus far, instances of unnatural phenomena had risen substantially in the last month. Most notably within the city of New York.

  AUGUST 1—Woman Has Premonitions of Death.

  AUGUST 5—Doppelgänger Seen on Delancey Street.

  AUGUST 10—Girl Thrives Without Food or Drink.

  AUGUST 15—Ghosts Haunt the Fifth Avenue Hotel.

  AUGUST 20—Accusations of Witchcraft Abound.

  To Beatrice, such accounts were deliciously compelling—not only for the fantastic stories they held, but for the many questions they raised.

  What is the weight of a soul? Where does it go when we die?

  Are there such things as ghosts?

  Can they speak to the living?

  What of spirits, demons, fairies and angels?

  Can dreams hold portents, visions, foretellings?

  Are witches real?

  Does magic exist?

  Night after night, kitchen shears in hand, she’d sit at her desk clipping squares and columns of newsprint to pin to the walls of her room. Printed matter from Vennor’s Almanac, Scientific American, The Ladies’ Companion, Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, New York Saturday Journal, The Fireside Library and Madam Morrow’s Strange Tales of Gotham soon crept across the rose-patterned wallpaper, replacing blossoms and stems with headli
nes, illustrations and odd bits of news.

  Even the advertisements intrigued her. Find God! Find your match! Find your fortune in the west! Become an expert in calligraphy, telegraphy, engraving, pottery, telepathy, mesmerism, clairvoyance, embroidery, pianoforte, violin. Charm lessons, five cents! Discover the ancient art of getting what you wish! The back pages of every newspaper were peppered with the calling cards of mediums, clairvoyants, seers and mind readers, boasting the ability to converse with spirits, predict the future, find lost treasures, conjure true love. Madam Morrow the Astonisher. Miss Fortuna the Lucky. Mrs. Seymour. Madame Prewster. Miss Adelaide Thom. Was it possible for one city to contain so many mystics? Beatrice was counting the days until she could discover the truth for herself. Twelve days, thirteen sleeps.

  Beatrice had spied the notice while combing through the latest issue of Harper’s Weekly. As soon as she’d seen it, she’d felt it was meant for her. Even though she guessed there’d be other girls who’d feel much the same, she couldn’t imagine that any of them were half as qualified as she was. Had they read Flowers and Flower-lore by Reverend H. Friend, cover to cover? Did they have an aunt who was as staunch about the proper preparation of tea as her aunt Lydia? She doubted it, especially when it came to the latter. Her proficiency with sums was excellent, her appetite for wonder insatiable. She’d need to brush up on her etiquette, but she could do that quite easily with a quick re-reading of How to Behave.

  If she didn’t get the job, then she’d simply march down Third Avenue to the Cooper Union and enroll in their women’s course on telegraphy. She’d already committed Mr. Morse’s code to memory by practicing the longs and shorts of it on the end of a ruler she’d rigged with elastic to the edge of her desk. If her quest to become a telegrapher failed, then she’d return to her aunt’s house in Stony Point, the place she’d called home for the last seven years, and resign herself to a safe, secure and predictable life.