Witch Hunts, a Novel

The setting is the Massachusetts north shore. The Whitakers trace their roots to the one man executed in the Salem Witch trials, pressed to death beneath a heavy door piled high with stones. The family has survived three centuries with some success. They have a gift for finance. Ben Whitaker, the sole remaining male heir, inherited this gift. He married into a prominent Boston family and runs a leading hedge fund outfit.

Ben moves into the family's historic estate. Ben’s grandmother, Gamma, and his great aunt, Bird, live in a cottage on the property. Espoused atheists, the women take exception when the Reverand John Dodge moves into the saltbox behind their property. We learn that all is not quite normal in the Whitaker clan. Whitakers are “remarkable”; that is they have paranormal abilities passed on from one generation to the next, abilities that are subtle, varied, profound and difficult to control. Bird has limited powers of telepathy. Gamma can sense vitality with touch. The old ladies use their remarkable abilities to try to force the pastor to move away.

The ladies know that Ben also has remarkable abilities, though he is unaware of this. When Ben’s mother-in-law suffers a fatal aneurysm, the spinsters know that Ben likely caused it. They must tell him of his “remarkable” ability. Ben is reluctant to accept this revelation, but it explains so much he'd attributed to cleverness, intuition and luck. In the meantime, pastor John Dodge, suffers the paranormal "hauntings" of Bird and Gamma while he struggles with the demands of a needy, elderly parish. The lives of the Ben and John intersect again and again, during the pastor’s hospital visits, with Ben’s wife Patience’s convalescence from breakdown, with the birth of Ben’s son. When the SEC, in a witch hunt of sorts, challenges some fortuitous trades Ben’s firm made just prior to the announced bankruptcy of a public company, trades he ordered on a hunch, Ben is shaken. The SEC finds no evidence of wrongdoing in that case, but charges Ben's firm for an unrelated, technical violation.

In the penultimate conclusion, Patience recovers and decides to attend church. Pastor Dodge spies her in his congregation and is happy she has recovered and is engaged with the world. Patience asks to speak to him privately after the service, so they arrange to drive home together. Patience invites the Pastor into the main house. The two join Ben, Gamma and Bird in the estate garden. Mimosas and pastries are served. The minister notices then that the Whitaker's outdoor table looks like a door he had removed from his carriage house. He's aware of the tragic end of the Whitaker’s ancestor and when a local handyman located this door in a vacant wall in the carriage house, John noted the scars on the door and surmised its history. He told the handyman to remove the door, dispose of it and now, there it was, fashioned into a picnic table in his neighbor's garden. He's compelled to look at the underside, to verify the scars and when he does, the shock along with the Mimosas, cause him to lose his balance. Gamma sees this and takes his hand. Ben then notices John’s and Gamma’s predicament and he grabs her arm and the table. In that moment, all three experience the moment of the pressing of the unfortunate ancestral Whitaker three-hundred-plus years-before, each from a different perspective. This is all too much for Gamma. Both Ben and John Dodge struggle to understand and deal with this shared experience.

The book ends as Ben, newborn son in his arms, stands in a gentle rainstorm and watches the movers vacate the neighbor’s old Saltbox. Dodge is moving on. Ben too has decided to make a profound change in his life; he has decided he can no longer run his financial empire. He will sell his business interests and move on.