Commack

By R. Merrill

Angels and demons are battling over Liberty's soul. 

And she has no idea.

 

All she knows is that something is calling her to the tiny town of Commack. She can't wait to get there and find out who she's supposed to be. 

But when she arrives, she finds something impossible: a message from a woman who died a century ago. A message specifically left for Liberty.

Forces pull Liberty in opposite directions, and she has to choose—or they will tear her apart. 

 

If you enjoy Peretti-style Christian fiction, you should visit Commack.

• Language: English
• Publisher: New Creation Publishing
• Release date: Jan 15, 2016
• ISBN: 9798201297091

Book preview

Commack

R. MERRILL

COMMACK. Copyright © 2018 by R. Merrill. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Previously published as The Witches of Commack, Maine by Robin Merrill and Commack by Robin Merrill.

This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Cover design by: Blue Valley Author Services

For Amanda Mikkelsen.

Without you, this story would still be trapped in my head.

Thank you.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

One

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Two

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Three

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Epilogue

One

Chapter 1

S houldn’t we talk to her parents first?

Liberty rolled her eyes at her mother through the closed door. Liberty was hiding in the bathroom again. She tried to spend as much time as possible in the bathroom. Not because she loved the mirror—that was hardly the case—but because the bathroom was the only room in the house with a lock on the door.

A year before, she’d nailed a piece of wood to her bedroom door frame, so she could lock people out from inside the room. It didn’t last twelve hours. Her father removed the lock without so much as a discussion. Liberty decided then that this was a metaphor for her life.

No, Mom. I’m an adult now. I don’t need you calling my friends’ parents.

But, honey, she isn’t even your friend yet. You don’t even know this person, and you’re going to go sleep under her roof?

"Exactly. Adult. That means I make my own decisions." Liberty realized the bathroom door wasn’t doing its job, so she opened it. Then, while her mother was still talking, Liberty left the house. She climbed into her fifteen-year-old Subaru and drove away. She had nowhere to go exactly, but she would rather go sit in a parking lot somewhere than listen to her mother for one more second.

It’s not that she didn’t love her mother. She did. But she was also embarrassed by her. Her mother, who cowered to her father at every turn. Her mother, who had no personality of her own, save that of a whipped puppy. Her mother, who had done nothing with her life except serve her husband and three children. Liberty loved her mother, but she also wanted to get far, far away from her. Because where Mom was, Dad was also. Because Liberty’s parents didn’t believe in divorce.

Liberty ended up at the library. She had no books to return. She had already done that. And she didn’t want to check out any more books, as she was leaving in the morning. But she figured the library was as good a place to hide as any. And it had air conditioning. Her house was the only house in the greater Falmouth area with no air conditioning. Her father said they didn’t need it, that it never got that hot in Maine, but Liberty still noticed that every other building in Maine seemed to have air conditioning.

Liberty’s feet carried her along the familiar route to the religion section. She surveyed a dusty row of books. The book she chose bore no dust. She had checked it out several times in the last year. Now she carried it to a comfy chair and flipped it open. The symbols on the pages offered her some comfort. As she ran her fingertips over the images, they reminded her of who she so desperately wanted to be.

She had almost read the book cover to cover when she realized she was hungry. She checked her phone and saw that it was nearly six. Her mother would be upset with her, especially since it was her last night home. Her father, if he noticed, would be mad. And he would take it out on her mother. Liberty figured she had better hurry. She returned the book to its spot on the shelf, revisiting her annoyance at how the Wiccan books were grouped with the Christian ones.  

LIBERTY WOKE THE NEXT day to the sun shining through her window. She felt a pang of sadness that this would be the last morning waking up in her own bed. But the pang passed quickly as she grew excited. Today was the day. She was leaving. She was going to become herself. And she couldn’t wait.

She tiptoed to the bathroom and then crept back to bed. She could hear her father’s voice in the kitchen. He should be gone soon. Then she would get up. She waited about ten minutes—it felt much longer—and then she heard his car start. She flung the covers off.

She had just turned the shower on when she heard her mom through the door, What do you want for breakfast, honey?

Nothing, Mom, just coffee, thanks. I don’t eat breakfast, remember?

I know, sweetie, but I can’t send you off to your new roommate’s house on an empty stomach! Her parents will think I don’t love you!

Liberty rolled her eyes. Her mother thought she was driving north to Bangor, to meet her college roommate. But she wasn’t. The truth was that Liberty hadn’t even spoken to the girl yet. The truth was that Liberty wasn’t even sure she was going to college. She didn’t want to. She certainly didn’t want to go to UMO. That would be a lot like staying in high school as far as she was concerned. Half of her classmates were going to be Black Bears.

She climbed out of the shower, wrapped a towel around herself and held it with one hand as she wiped the steam off the mirror with the other. Then she shuddered. She couldn’t stand the sight of herself. For what could well have been the millionth time since seventh grade, Liberty thought, Why do I have to be so tall? She surveyed her thin, long, dull brown hair and crooked teeth and felt like crying. It doesn’t matter that I graduated with a 96.2 GPA. My parents still didn’t love me enough to get me braces. Even as she thought the thought, she reminded herself that it had really been her father’s decision, not her mother’s. But she was still mad at her mother, who never had the courage to stand up to her father, or to stand up for her kids. Not that the two oldest needed much standing up for. They were both boys. That was totally different.

As she got dressed, she could smell bacon. She understood that her mother was trying. But it was a foolish way to try. Liberty had been a vegetarian for over a year. Though her father told her it was stupid. Though her father said, You will eat what we put on the table, or you won’t eat. There were nights when she had gone without. And now here her mother was. Frying bacon. My mother doesn’t even know who I am.

She didn’t have to pack. She had been packed for a week, ever since the day she had devised this plan. She couldn’t bear the thought of spending another summer in Falmouth. But she also didn’t want to bear the wrath that would come if her father knew where she was really going. So she had come up with a scheme that made her quite proud of herself. She would pretend she was going to Bangor. She would pretend she gave two hoots about this stranger she was supposed to go live with in two months. She would take her graduation money (which she’d gotten from distant relatives and friends, not her parents) and her ugly old car and she would just leave.

She passed by the bacon. Her mother forced a hug on her. Her mother was crying. You can’t even imagine how much I love you, she said.

Liberty stopped. She felt something turn deep in her gut. It didn’t feel good. She stared at her mother, willing her anger to take control again. I know, Mom, she said, I love you too.

Her mother smiled, but it looked fake. She nodded, and then wiped away some tears with the back of a hand.

Liberty forced a smile, and then turned to go.

Then her mother said something that made Liberty wonder if her mother knew more than she was letting on: No matter what happens, Libbie, you can always come home.

LIBERTY DID HEAD TOWARD Bangor—at first.

With the windows down (her car didn’t have A/C either) and the music loud, she drove. With her hair whipping in the wind, and her hands drumming on the wheel, she drove. And she sang. All alone in the car, her smile stretched from ear to ear. This is it, she thought. I am finally free. I am finally an adult. Woo-hoo! she shouted and didn’t even feel silly. She was giddy with freedom. She was so happy.

You need to stop, a man’s voice said, scaring the snot right out of her. Instinctively, she stepped on the brake, but then realized the voice had come from the radio. She stared at it, but it just read 106.3, same as always.

Who’s there? Liberty asked, tentatively, knowing, of course, that no one was there.

You need to stop, the voice said. You know better.

Legitimately frightened, Liberty reached out and stabbed at the off button. And the radio went off. She held her breath a long time, waiting to hear the voice again, but she didn’t. When she realized she wasn’t breathing, she sucked in enough air to make herself dizzy. She shook her head and focused her eyes on the road ahead, figuring that she must have heard some ham radio nut job pirating the airwaves.

She stayed on Interstate 95—the only highway in this whole pathetic state—until Augusta, when she took an exit into the unknown. She had never been so excited. She could feel her future calling.

Liberty was bound for Commack, Maine, a tiny town in the middle of the woods. Most people had never heard of it. But those in the know had coined Commack the Witchcraft Capital of Maine or Salem of the North.

Liberty hadn’t exactly decided to be a witch. But over the last several years, she had become completely fascinated with women. In fact, if she did go to UMO, that’s what she wanted to major in: women’s studies. She had found she had no use for boys but was drawn to women. She wanted to know as much as she could about them so that she could help them overcome the oppression they’d been suffering for centuries. And time after time her explorations had led her to Wicca, the belief system that celebrated women and their power.

It’s not that Liberty hadn’t tried to fill the shoes her father had fashioned for her. She’d tried for pretty much her whole life. She had gone to church every Sunday. She had worn the hideous dresses. She had sung the hymns. She had played with dolls and imagined her wedding day and the cute little kids who would follow. But the more she got to know herself, the more she knew that just couldn’t happen for her.

It wasn’t that Liberty didn’t like boys. It was just that they never liked her back. Never. Not

Reviews for Commack

[Jessica Klarheden · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I love all of Robin Merrills books because she writes about real genuine people in the real world. People that struggles with the duplexity of being both new person in Christ and our own weaknesses getting in the way.