The Coven Read Online Free PDF Page A

New York, United States.
    My jaw dropped open as I stared at the screen. Imbolc. Litha. Those were Wiccan sabbats. This Maeve Riordan had been a witch.
    A sudden wave of heat pulsed through my head, making my cheeks prickle. I shook my head and tried to think. 1986. She died the year after I was born. And she was born in 1962. Which would have made her the same age as the woman listed on my birth certificate.
    It’s her, I thought. It has to be.
    I clicked all over the screen, trying to find links. I felt almost frantic. I needed more information. More. But instead a message popped up: Connection timed out. URL not responding.
    Frustrated, I shut down the computer. Then I sat tapping my lower lip with a pen. Thoughts raced through my head. Meshomah Falls, New York. I knew that name. It was a little town not too far away from here, maybe two hours. I needed to see their town records. I needed to see their . . . newspapers.
    Two minutes later I had grabbed my jacket and was in Das Boot, heading for the library. Of Widow’s Vale’s three library branches, only the biggest one, downtown, was open on Sundays. I pushed through the glass door and immediately headed downstairs to the basement.
    No one else was down there. The basement was empty except for rows and rows of books, out-of-date periodicals, stacks of books to be mended, and four ugly black-and-wood-grain microfiche machines.
    Come on, come on, I thought, pawing through the microfiche files. It took twenty minutes to find the drawer containing past issues of the Meshomah Falls Herald . Another tedious fifteen minutes trying to figure dates, counting forward from my birthday to about eight months after it. Finally I pulled out an envelope, turned on a microfiche machine, and sat down.
    I slid the tiny film card under the light and began to turn the knob.
    Forty-five minutes later I rubbed the back of my neck. I now knew more about Meshomah Falls, New York, than anyone could possibly want to know. It was a farming community, smaller and even more boring than Widow’s Vale.
    I hadn’t found anything about Maeve Riordan. No obituary, nothing. Well, that wasn’t really surprising. I should probably get used to the idea that I would never know about my past.
    There were two more film cards to look at. With a sigh I sat down again, hating the machine.
    This time I found the article almost immediately.The little hairs on the back of my neck prickled, and there it was: Maeve Riordan. Stiffening in my chair, I scrolled back to center the page and peered into the viewer. A body burned almost beyond recognition has been identified as that of Maeve Riordan, formerly of Ballynigel, Ireland. . . .
    My breath caught in my throat, and I stared at the screen. Was this her? I wondered again. My birth mother? I’d never been to Meshomah Falls. I’d never heard my parents talk about it. But Maeve Riordan had lived there. And somehow, in Meshomah Falls, Maeve Riordan had died in a fire.
    I surprised myself by shaking uncontrollably as I gazed blankly at the screen. Quickly I scanned the short news clipping.
    On June 21, 1986, the body of an unidentified young woman had been found in the ruins of a charred and smoldering barn on an abandoned farm in Meshomah Falls. After an examination of dental X-rays, the body had been identified as belonging to one Maeve Riordan, who had been renting a small house in Meshomah Falls and working at the local café downtown. Maeve Riordan, twenty-three years old, formerly of Ballynigel, Ireland, was not well known in the town. Another body found in the fire had been identified as Angus Bramson, twenty-five years old, also of Ballynigel. It was unknown why they were in the barn. The cause of the fire seemed unclear.
    June 21 might have been Litha in that year—it varied according to exactly when the equinox was. But what about a baby? It didn’t say anything about a baby.
    My heart was thudding painfully inside my chest. Images of a recent dream I’d