Shadow Forest- The Complete Series

by Eliza Grace

  “Rehab at home might be nice.” I picture Hoyt in the farm house, sipping Jen’s tea by the sink, sitting in the living room or on the window seat beside me. Giving us a ‘ring’ isn’t unappealing either. Although I wouldn’t want it to be ‘us’, only me. I shake my head. Hoyt is going to wake up tomorrow and realize that he’d been an idiot telling me that he felt something. He’d remember that I’m too young, too broken, that being with a person like me would just limit his life. I should just put it out of my mind. I shouldn’t even think of him.

  Or the kiss that could make me walk again. I ignore the sharp pain this time when I think about his lips against mine. When I’m thinking about Hoyt as a boy and not a therapist, why do I hurt so much? Love—painful and poignant. I do not think the pho is the problem…

  The Witchfinder

  It is dark outside, storming again. It’s not as violent as it was the other night, but it still unsettles me, keeps me from sleeping soundly.

  That reminds me of my mother’s journal, how the weather was always bad once she refused him, how grandma’s garden died without explanation. But I haven’t even met him—this M.H. my mother loved until love morphed to fear. So, how can he be angry with me? I’ve not refused him. Not yet.

  I only have a few things to go on—a set of initials, my mother dabbling in witchcraft, her maiden name. There’s some piece of my family history that I’m not privy too, a slice of information that I know is set to change my future. Change my future again. As if the alteration I’ve so recently experienced was not enough for one lifetime…

  Jen was really tired tonight and went to bed early; I hear her soft snoring, it carries down the hall from her art studio where she’s passed out tonight. She does that often—curling up on the chaise next to her easel rather than walking the few yards to her bedroom. The settee is a beautiful thing so it’s a shame that she uses it so often for a makeshift bed. It’s upholstered in an Asian-motif with colorful birds and golden thread and she’s all but ruined it with paint smears and drool.

  Getting out of bed and into the wheelchair, I roll myself over to the desk and the computer there. Lovingly, so I don’t damage it like I did the desk, I shift the desk chair out of the way and against the wall. It sits there, slightly cattycornered so the seat is in my direction and I feel a prickling on my neck—that sensation you get when someone is watching you.

  I swivel the chair around as quickly as I can. There’s no one in the room, no footfalls without a body. It is just me, me and my imagination that is running rampant and wild. A boom of thunder outside startles me. I worry that the power will go out at some point. Jen never has batteries for her flashlights and… and I don’t want her to use candles. She hasn’t since I’ve been here. I think she must know how I feel about them.

  Shivering, I turn back to the desk and my waiting laptop.

  Depressing the on button, I wait impatiently, thrumming my fingers on the desk.

  I have no idea what I am looking for, only that there is something to be discovered. As soon as the screen comes to life, I double click on the internet logo. With the browser up, my hands poised above the keyboard, I realize that I have no idea where to start. Start with what you know, stupid. Okay, what do I know?

  I type in the initials M.H. and my family name Clarke. The top results are for a farmer, a lawyer and a 1940 census. M.H. and Clarke and Danvers, MA. A school, Mary Higgins Clark and something that has nothing to do with anything I’ve search for. I groan, leaning forward and cupping my chin with one hand. “Okay, with commas this time.”

  M.H. comma Clarke comma Danvers, MA. Same results as before.

  M.H. comma Clarke comma Danvers, MA comma witches. I hold my breath when I press enter. I don’t know why I’ve not included the word “witch” in the search so far. Perhaps typing it makes my mother’s diary entry too real. The witch of Hartford, New England Families, Salem, MA directory… from 1851. I click on the link, feeling hopeful, but my hope is short-lived.

  A dead end. Lists upon lists of schools and churches and tradesmith. Nothing useful.

  I want to give up, but something makes me type in one last search, something guides my hands in spelling the words.

  M.H. comma Elisabeth Clarke comma witchfinder.

  The very first result sends my pulse into hyperdrive—Witchcraft persecution—Pete Jennings www.gippeswic.demon.co.uk/persecution.html. MH indicates the book Matthew Hopkins: Witchfinder General (Deacon Richard) It… Elisabeth, Clarke, Mistley, Essex, 1644…

  The words keep going, but I find I’ve only half-read them, because my mind is laser-focused on one name. Matthew Hopkins.

  The Vision Painting

  Outside, dawn is approaching and the storm has cleared. I wonder if that will be the pattern from now on: sundown beckons the rain clouds and wind; sunup, they retreat—almost as if they only have the power to be a controlling force of nature when darkness rules the landscape.

  I stayed up all night reading everything that I could find about the Witchfinder General Matthew Hopkins and Elisabeth Clarke—the first woman that he accused of witchcraft and ultimately hanged.

  My mother’s ancestor. I’m named after her… my middle name, Elisabeth. And… a Matthew Hopkins… that can’t just be a coincidence. My eyes, bleary behind the thin frames of my dark purple glasses, are desperate to focus on one more line of text. But, after trying to read the words several times with no success, I finally push the screen of my laptop downwards and lean back so that my body is slumped against the wheelchair.

  “You’re either waking up really early again or you didn’t go to sleep.” Jen strolls into my room, a teacup in her hand. Steam makes a whirling pattern, arising from hot amber liquid.

  “Please say that’s for me?” I reach out my hands, pleading with her to give it to me even if it is her own morning beverage and not intended for me.

  “Yep. I’ve already had two cups. I woke up about an hour ago and had to start painting again. I don’t know what it is, maybe the storm, but this latest piece has come to life so quickly.”

  “Is it finished? You usually take weeks on one canvas.” I inhale the scents of the black tea first; it’s strong, spiced with star anise and ginger. “This smells amazing!” I breathe out appreciatively before taking a long draught.

  “I picked it up at the farmer’s market the other day. Isn’t it dreamy? The woman makes all her own blends and packages them by the quarter pound.” Jen plods over to my bed and sits on it cross-legged. I hope all the paint on her clothing is dry. I love my comforter. “And I know! Normally, it takes me eons to get what’s in my head onto the canvas, but this has been amazing! Easy as breathing.”

  I take another drink of tea and I feel my entire body relaxing; simultaneously, my brain is becoming alert again. I hadn’t realized how exhausted I was. I used to be able to stay up all night without a hitch—cramming for exams, traveling for cheer and dance competitions, but now I tired more easily. “So, it’s finished then?” I ask for the second time.

  “Yes! I mean, I might want to do a few touch-ups and, honestly, I’m not sure it really fits with the other pieces for Saturday’s show, which I suppose doesn’t matter since I have plenty of pieces ready, but I love it. I really don’t think I’ve ever been so in love with a piece before.”

  Jen’s entire body exudes elation. I love seeing her so happy and I crave that feeling for myself. “I can’t wait to see it.” My smile is wide; her delight is infectious; I feel it bubble within me much like the tea is still bubbling with heat.

  “Well, come on then.” My aunt hops up, with the energy of a woman half her age, and as she does, mom’s journal falls from between the mattress and box spring, clunking against the floor audibly. I hadn’t stuffed it in far enough. Holding my breath, I will Jen not to have heard, not to turn around and see the maroon book. But she does turn. The book is mine, my piece of my mom. I don’t want to share it; the text inside is only for my eyes and heart. “Weird, what fell? I know I heard som
ething.” Jen walks around the bed to look on the other side on the floor and then she comes back to the side I am on.

  The way her head is tilted down, I know she is looking right at the journal. “Oh, well. Old houses and strange noises, I guess.” She skips over to me so that she can grab the wheelchair handles and move me away from the desk.

  She hadn’t seen the book on the floor. It had been right there, plain as day, and she hadn’t seen it. For so long, the journal had been invisible, taped to the back of the desk. Had it only revealed itself to me? Was it really, in truth, for my eyes only?

  Bumping along the hallway towards the art studio, I try to keep the remnants of my tea inside the cup. “Jen, I’m holding hot tea here!” I try to bring the thin lip of china to my mouth, but the instant my lips meet cool porcelain, Jen turns into her studio and the cup clinks against my teeth, jolts back, and the lovely ochre fluid dumps all over my lap.

  Great. Just dandy.

  But at least it isn’t sticky ice cream…

  “Oh, crap!” Jen has just seen that my pajama bottoms are wet. “I totally forgot you were holding tea.” The wheelchair is sitting in the doorway and Jen squeezes around me to grab one of her painting cloths.

  “Um… thanks.” I mumble, gripping the color-stained cloth between two fingers. “This is all dry, right?”

  Jen scrutinizes the thin white towel for a moment and then nods. “Yeah, definitely.”

  Dabbing at the wet stains on my lap, I sigh. “I feel like I’m always spilling something, or falling, or being a general nuisance, Jen. I don’t know why you signed up for this.”

  “Family obligation. I’d be a pretty crappy person if I let my sister’s kid go into the foster system or live on the streets. I know people would talk about me and I can’t have that. I have to keep up a good reputation if I want to sell my pieces.”

  I know she’s poking fun at me, but her words also sting, because they’re how I think she truly feels—beneath her happy-go-lucky exterior and kindness. Looking at her, I search her face for a moment, thinking I might see a glimmer of the truth. But there’s nothing there except kindness. When she sees how I am looking at her, however, she grows serious. “Matilda Elisabeth—I. Love. You. Plain and simple. When I get old and can’t walk, are you going to kick me to the curb?”

  Shrugging, I try to appear devil-may-care. “Yeah, probably.”

  Jen soft-punches my upper arm. “You better not! I’m making an investment here. I help you now and when you can walk later and I’m an old fuddy-duddy, you help me.”

  “So not so much family obligation, but future guilt-tripping?”

  “Definitely.” Jen laughs and we smile at one another. I still feel a nugget of doubt in my stomach that contains the phrases: she doesn’t want me here and I’m a burden to her, but I ignore the little lump of blackness.

  “Okay, get out of my way so I can roll in and see this magical piece that practically painted itself.” I put my hand on her hip and shove her playfully to my left side.

  When I see the painting, I gasp in utter disbelief. Jen takes it as praise; I don’t correct her.

  The monochromatic painting of blacks and grays and whites has become layers upon layers of trees masked in different ominous shadows. And she has added color, only a small section that is maroon. It is a book, lying flat on the ground beneath the trees. Above the book—the journal, because it is my mother’s journal, without a doubt—is a man wearing a floor-length black cloak. He is bearded with long and disheveled hair that looks as though it has never been combed; the strands seem to float about his face with some strange energy; it is a lion’s mane, wild and untamed. I cannot see his face in detail; it is eerily darkened beneath a pilgrim-style hat.

  Then the hat is blowing away, caught upon some unexpected breeze. The painting is moving… really moving.

  And, when the hat is gone, what I see strikes me in the gut like a battering ram.

  Because I know his face.

  I have stared at his face all night beside rows of text.

  He is handsome… and frightening.

  Wheeling closer to the canvas, I look deeper into the expanse of forest behind M.H. There, barely seeable between two thick trunks, is a boy. There are no details at first; he is just a product of carefully laid paint, but then, right before my eyes, he becomes more. His face enters into focus—a strong jaw, widely-set eyes—which are not blue in the monochrome, but gray, yet I am certain that they should be the shade of the sky after a storm—and then that smile. It needs no color, not even the faintest hint of pink, for me to recognize the lips.

  It is our Matthew set behind the imposing figure of the witchfinder.

  And I know what it means, with the same certainty that I seem to know so many things here in this house. They are the same. Matthew Hopkins, the boy that wasn’t, the boy that burned before my eyes and disappeared into nothingness, is Matthew Hopkins the persecutor of my ancestor, Elisabeth.

  “Jen… is the boy in the background supposed to be Matthew?”

  “Boy?” She moves around me to get closer to the canvas. “I didn’t paint a boy… maybe you’re just seeing something in the shadows?” Jen gets so close to the piece that she almost brushes the still-wet paint with her nose. Then she backs up so far that she has to stand atop the chaise lounge. “No, I still don’t see a boy. You should really see the piece from this perspective. It’s dynamite.”

  “Sure, let me just walk over and jump up there with you.”

  “Don’t be such a sourpuss. I just forgot for a second.” Jen hops down and strolls back over to me.

  “What made you think of this guy?” I point at M.H. in the foreground hovering over the journal.

  “I have no idea. He looks like a pilgrim, right?”

  “Do you have any idea what the piece means?” I am looking for the boy in the woods again, but he has disappeared, strode off the canvas or walked away from sight. It’s a painting, stupid. He didn’t walk anywhere. He wasn’t there to begin with. Nothing’s moved. Look, even the hat is back atop the man’s head.

  But as I watch, my attempts to disbelieve what I have seen are ruined. A new figure appears. She is tall, dressed in an ethereal gown of white, and her hair is shorn sharply at chin-level. She reminds me of my mother. Elegant and attention-commanding. I feel tears building—I’m always crying it seems—but then she too disappears and I feel alone. Yet the threatening tears dry, as if a comforting hand has reached out and wiped them away.

  “I’ve no bloody clue. But I rarely know what my art “means.” I tend to leave that up to the viewer. And I hope they “get it” enough to buy it.” She laughs.

  But I cannot laugh.

  Because, as the viewer, this masterpiece speaks to me in inexplicable, innumerable ways.

  “So, do you like it?” Jen is perched on the windowsill to the right of her canvas. This room has an entire wall of windows facing the forest and it gets the best evening light. I use to think it was an amazing space, perfect for creativity, but now I find that I do not like the panoramic view of the woods beyond the glass. It makes the forest’s presence too large, too scary.

  Not knowing how to respond, I say what I think she wants to hear. “I like it a lot.”

  “You like it a lot.” She repeats. “Well, that makes me want to whitewash it and toss it into the pasture next door with the cows.”

  Startled, I look at her like she’s crazy. “Why the heck would you do that?”

  “You aren’t supposed to just “like” a painting. Even liking it “a lot” isn’t a good response. It’s supposed to make you feel something, Tilda.”

  “You asked me if I liked it,” I protest, “and I told you that I liked it!”

  “But how does it make you feel?” Jen presses.

  I look at the painting again. The boy is gone; the woman that looked like Mom is gone. Only the witchfinder remains, the forest, the journal. “It makes me feel… scared… alone… and sad.”

  My aunt n
ods and then she bounces up off the windowsill toward me with a grin. “Perfect!” Hugging my neck and kissing my cheek, she heads out the studio door. “Now, come on! Let’s have some cereal and then I need to walk out and see how much repair work the fence is going to need. Last night’s storm was worse than the other one and it knocked part of it down.”

  “The fence is down?” I roll my wheelchair backwards and perform a three-point-style turn to get out of the studio without knocking over open paints and magazine piles. The rest of the house is always in fair shape organization-wise, but Jen keeps the studio in slob-tastic order.

  “Yeah, a big part of it looks damaged, but I haven’t gone out there yet.” As I approach her, she grabs the teacup that I’ve forgotten is resting in my lap against the paint cloth. “Want another cup?”

  “Would I be able to finish drinking it this time or will I end up wearing it again?”

  “I promise to not take you Indy-racing in your wheelchair until you’ve finished every little drop.”

  “Okay then. Another cup would be great.”

  “Cereal?”

  “Not hungry actually.” I shiver, a draft blowing in from the window over the sink. “Can you close that? It’s chilly in here.”

  Jen’s at the sink refilling the kettle. “Hmm. I don’t remember opening it?”

  “Last night when the rice was burning, remember?”

  “Oh, right!” With one hand, Jen pushes down the narrow window until it makes a soft impact noise against the sill and then she is headed to the stove to heat the water. “So, you know the new show opens Saturday.”

  “Yeah, I remember.”

  “Want to come?”