Cabot's Neck: A supernatural novel with demons, curses and time travel

 CABOT’S NECK

 

by

G. Wayne Miller

Copyright 2025 gwaynemiller.com

WGA registration # 2286466

Chapter One

Nothing there

 

“I love this beach!” seven-year-old Cassie Cabot said. “Momand Dad, can we come back here tomorrow?”

“Yes!” said her mother, Daniela Cabot.

“And every day until vacation’s over!” said her father, JimCabot.

“Yay!”

It was the summer of 2027 and the Cabots, who lived inBoston, had rented a house in Ipswich, Massachusetts, to celebrate goodfortune: Daniela, one of the world’s top video game designers, had justcompleted her latest game; Jim, an expert in AI, had recently been promotedfrom visiting lecturer to assistant professor at MIT; and Cassandra, who likedbeing called Cassie, would start second grade at summer’s end after acingfirst.

Cassie packed the seashells she’d collected into herbackpack, her parents gathered the blanket and cooler, and they started towardtheir car down the long, narrow, tree-covered path that was the only landaccess to the beach.

“Dad, can you tell me again how this peninsula got itsname?” Cassie said. She was precocious, but she never flaunted herintelligence.

“You never tire of that story, do you,” Daniela said.

“Nope,” her daughter said

“Cabot’s Neck was named by one of my ancestors, JosephCabot, son of John Cabot, who came to America from England in 1700,” Jim said.“Joseph was born in Salem and he became wealthy enough to buy this land, which laterCabots donated to Ipswich for public use.”

 “But he made hismoney in a bad way,” Cassie said.

“He did,” Jim said.

“In the rum and slave trades,” Daniela said.

“For which Cabots born later made reparations,” Cassiesaid. “Tell me again: what are reparations?”

“Amends for terrible things done in the past,” Jim said.“My family later apologized and paid a lot of money to descendants of slaves.But money of course cannot undo the damage.”

“Your family was good,” Cassie said.

“Some members, anyway,” Jim said. “Now enough history.Let’s gather our stuff and get out of here. Hotdogs for dinner and S’mores fordessert.”

“Yay!” Cassie said. She ran ahead of her parents andstopped by an old oak tree.

When Daniela and Jim reached her, she was rubbing her handalong the tree trunk.

“How old do you think it is?” she said.

“It probably was here when Joseph Cabot bought this land,”Jim said.

“Wow,” Cassie said. “That’s ancient.”

“That lower limb has a rope tied around it,” Daniela said.

It was a small, weathered strand that had been cut near theknot.

“Probably was a rope swing,” Cassie said.

“Or an ancient gallows,” Jim joked. “Maybe they marchedwitches in from Salem to hang them.”

“Not funny, Jim,” Daniela said.

“I wasn’t joking,” Jim said. “There were witches galoreback then, or so the Puritans believed. Let me show you the latest story Ifound. It’s fascinating.”