The Fifth Petal

9781101905609 excerpt

Barry / THE FIFTH PETAL

Chapter One

October 31, 2014

Salem

There were no witches in Salem in 1692, but they thrive here in great numbers now.

-Rose Whelan, The Witches of Salem

Rafferty had never seen so many trick-or-treaters on Chestnut Street. Nor had he ever been charged with escorting such a large Witches' March up to Gallows Hill. There were at least 150 of them this year-Wiccans, Druids, Celts, nature mama hippies with psychic tendencies, pantheists and polytheists all-walking slowly behind his 1980 Crown Vic cruiser, the one he'd rescued from the junk pile. For safety reasons, several streets had been blocked off. Traffic was already backed up onto Highland Avenue as visitors streamed into town for the festivities.

He'd been living in Salem for almost twenty years now. Back in the nineties only summer and early fall were filled with tourists; by midsummer you couldn't find a parking space anywhere downtown, which was a pain in the ass. But come November 1, you could park anywhere you wanted. Not so anymore. This was no longer a forgotten seaport. No longer an aging industrial city. Salem had been discovered, and not just as a tourist destination but as the new hot place to live. These days, you were lucky to get a parking space in town at any time of year, which is why Rafferty always drove the cruiser, even on his day off. As chief of police, he could double-park anywhere. More often than not, a tourist would ask him to pose next to the cruiser so they could capture its Witch City logo: a police badge emblazoned with a flying witch on a broomstick wearing a pointed hat.

But all that was nothing compared to what happened here in October. The city had been dubbed the Halloween Capital of the World. That was no big surprise. But no one had expected it could turn into a monthlong celebration. Lately, it was even more than a month, which was great for the merchants: The population grew by at least 300,000 each

Brunonia Barry is the New York Times and international best selling author of The Lace Reader, The Map of True Places, and her latest book: The Fifth Petal. Her work has been translated into more than thirty languages. She was the first American author to win the International Women's Fiction Festival's Baccante Award and was a past recipient of Ragdale Artists' Colony's Strnad Invitational Fellowship as well as the winner of New England Book Festival's award for Best Fiction. Her reviews and articles on writing have appeared in the London Times and the Washington Post, and the Huffington Post. Brunonia co-chairs the Salem Athenaeum's Writers' Committee. She lives in Salem with her husband Gary Ward and their dog, Angel. Gary and Bru are the organizers of the Salem Literary Festival.

Praise for The Fifth Petal:

"Dark and suspenseful, Barry's well-constructed tale is filled with traps and red herrings as the truth is slowly revealed and Salem is forced to confront its sordid past."
-Publishers Weekly

"Barry fans will welcome the return of beloved characters and the introduction of new ones into a contemporary Salem appropriately fraught with remnants and reminders of its dark and twisted history. This spooky, multilayered medley of mysteries is sure to be a bestseller."
-Booklist (starred review)

"In contemporary Salem, a murder has taken place, with roots that reach back to the seventeenth-century witch trials. Filled with twists and turns, as well as ancient tradition and modern mystery, Barry's story has deft pacing, a marvelous sense of place, and a quirky cast of characters. The Fifth Petal is another haunting tale by the author of The Lace Reader where past and present collide."
- DEBORAH HARKNESS, New York Times bestselling author of the All Souls trilogy

"Brunonia Barry's Salem is alive with rich history, and with a unique and colorful cast of characters: witches and healers, lace readers, the well-to-do and the down-and-out. And everyone's got secrets. The Fifth Petal is a mesmerizing take on the ways the past affects and influences the present. "Time isn't linear," says one of the characters, and the way Barry artfully weaves together a modern-day crime, a twenty-five-year-old murder case, and the Salem witch trials, you'll close the book believing that she's absolutely right."
- JENNIFER MCMAHON, New York Times bestselling author of The Winter People and The Night Sister

"Banshees, lost memories, and secret pasts each play a significant role in this novel; enthusiasts of the author's earlier work and readers interested in the history of witchcraft and the occult will enjoy this return visit to Salem."
-Library Journal

"[An] entertaining occult murder mystery."
-Kirkus Reviews

"The Fifth Petal is a literary