Bond With Death by Bill Crider Page A

Ellen’s hair was. As Ellen was around fifty-five, Sally was sure the color wasn’t natural, and it didn’t make Ellen look any younger.
    â€œThat’s it,” Winston said, pointing through the doorway to a stapler that sat on Ellen’s desk atop a stack of photocopied student essays. “My name and office number are scratched into the metal on the side.”
    Sally stepped as far into the crowded office as she could and tipped the stapler over. She saw S. Winston A-175 on the metal.
    â€œI guess I made a mistake,” Ellen said. “I thought I took my own stapler with me. It must be around here somewhere.”
    Sally picked up the stapler and handed it to Winston, who thanked her and went away.
    â€œI hope you don’t think I took it on purpose,” Ellen said when he was gone.
    Although Sally did think exactly that, she didn’t want to destroy anyone’s hopes. So she said, “If you need a new stapler, you can get one at the bookstore and charge it to the departmental budget.”
    â€œSomeone stole my stapler. It looked just like that one, and I thought I’d found mine.” Sally didn’t mention the name scratched on the stapler’s side, and Ellen continued. “You always make such a
big deal about what a small budget we have and how we should all try to avoid spending money that I try not to charge things at the bookstore. I’ll buy my own stapler.”
    Staplers disappeared now and then, Sally knew. People left them in classrooms, and when they went back to get them, the staplers were gone. Students, and even instructors, seemed to think that anything sitting unclaimed in plain sight was there for the taking.
    â€œYou don’t have to buy your own stapler. I think the college can afford to pay for one. I might even have a spare in the office. I’ll go have a look.”
    â€œDon’t go to any trouble on my account,” Ellen said.
    â€œIt’s no trouble at all,” Sally said.
    She went back to her office and looked around in all the desk drawers. Sure enough, there was an old black stapler down in the back of one of them. She filled it with staples and tried it out. It worked just fine, so she took it back around to Ellen’s office.
    â€œIt’s a little rusty underneath,” Sally said. “But it seems to be working.”
    â€œThanks,” Ellen said, but her tone wasn’t grateful.
    â€œYou’re welcome,” Sally said, and left it at that.
    She returned to her office and looked around for her world literature textbook since she had to teach a class at eleven o’clock, which was only minutes away. She was always punctual in meeting her classes in the hope that her own dependability would encourage her students to be equally reliable. The hope was seldom borne out, but Sally kept trying.
    She located the text under a stack of papers and fished it out. She got her grade book out of the desk drawer and started out the door.
    Vera Vaughn nearly bumped into her. Sally jumped back, startled.
    â€œI’m sorry,” Vera said. “I wanted to catch you before you went to class. We have to talk.”
    â€œAbout what?”
    â€œHarold Curtin. He was a witch.”

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    From Cotton Mather’s The Wonders of the Invisible World

    Now, by these confessions [of those condemned in Salem] ’tis agreed that the Devil has made a dreadful knot of witches in the country, and by the help of witches has dreadfully increased that knot: that these witches have driven a trade of commissioning their confederate spirits to do all sorts of mischiefs to the neighbors, whereupon there have ensued such mischievous consequences upon the bodies and estates of the neighborhood, as could not otherwise be accounted for … .”

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    S ally couldn’t quite believe what she’d just heard.
    â€œWhat? Harold? A witch?”
    â€œWe can’t talk here,” Vera said.