The elevator operator rode Miss Adelaide all the way to the very depths of the Bennington without a word; he’d only been there two weeks and had already learned not to question the Proctor sisters. While the lift rumbled down, Miss Addie chanted softly to herself, “The land is old, the land is vast / He has no future, he has no past / His coat is sown with many woes / He’ll wake the dead, the King of Crows.”
The elevator gates clanged open on the Bennington’s underworld. The young man at the elevator’s controls peered into the darkness. “Shall I wait for you, Miss Proctor?” he asked uncertainly.
“It’s quite all right, dear. I’ll ring you shortly. Run along now.”
Shaking his head, the young man closed the gate and the elevator groaned back up, leaving Addie alone in the dim basement. Immediately, she took out the candle and lit the wick, waiting for the glow to brighten the gloom. She fed one end of the bundled sage into the flame and waved it through the air, spreading out in wider circles. Next she wiggled up the sleeves of her robe and nightgown. The paper-thin skin of her wrist glowed nearly blue in the dim light from the narrow street-level windows that ran along the park side. Speaking ancient words, she slid the small knife across her thumb, hissing as she dripped blood into the bowl. She pressed her bloody thumb to the basement’s eastern corner before marking the room’s three other corners. This done, she bandaged her finger, then scooped salt from her pockets, sprinkling frost-thin lines along the windowsills, where she hoped the janitor wouldn’t find them. Night pleaded at the windows to be let in. Addie snuffed the candle, gathered her things, and pressed the elevator’s call button, watching the golden arrow tick down the floors to the bottom.
When the doors opened, the elevator operator helped Addie onto the lift. “You smell smoke, Miss Proctor?” he asked, alarmed.
“It’s only sage. I smudged the basement, you see.”
“Beg your pardon, Miss Proctor?”
“I lit a bundle of sage and smoked the room.”
Curiosity and suspicion proved too much for the young man at the controls. “Now, Miss Proctor, why’d you want to go and do a thing like that?”
“For protection,” Addie said, resolute.