by Ellen Datlow
The screen returns to Professor Price, sitting at her desk. From behind the camera, the interviewer (Gillian Bernheimer) asks what happened next. The answer to that question, the professor says, is very interesting. While the police were going about their business, Mrs. Merryweather was on the phone. As you can imagine, the officers were certain they had stumbled onto a case of child abuse. Before they had finished questioning Mr. Merryweather, a black car pulled up in front of the house. Out steps Harrison Law, the archbishop of Newark, with a couple of assistants. The film shifts to a clip of a heavyset man wearing a bishop’s miter and robes and holding a bishop’s crozier, greeting a crowd outside a church. The officers were surprised, the professor says, and even more surprised by what the archbishop said to them: This woman is under the care of the Church. She is suffering from a terrible spiritual affliction, and her parents are working with me to see that she returns to health.
The screen returns to the professor. The interviewer asks how the police reacted. Professor Price says, They were very impressed. This was when the Church still commanded considerable respect. For an archbishop to intervene personally in a situation was unusual. The cops were willing to give him a lot more leeway than they would in a similar situation today. Although, she adds, to his credit, one of the officers still wrote a fairly extensive report on the incident, which is how we know about it.
The interviewer asks if there was any follow-up. The professor shakes her head. She says, The report was filed and forgotten. However, she was able to track down one of the Merryweathers’ former neighbors. This person, who did not want to be identified, said that the morning after the police made their incursion, they watched Agatha Merryweather be led down the front steps of her house by a priest and a nun. She appeared to be wearing a straitjacket. The priest and nun helped her into the backseat of a black car. The black car drove off, and that was the last the neighbor saw of Agatha. Professor Price says she asked the neighbor if they remembered the date of Agatha’s departure. As a matter of fact, the neighbor said, they did. It was Halloween.
What were the priest and nun doing there? the interviewer asks. The professor says she can only guess. She’s been in touch with the archdiocese of Newark, not to mention Harrison Law, who currently holds a position at the Vatican. Neither was any help. The archdiocese claims to have no record of contact between the former archbishop and the Merryweathers. Harrison Law says that the assistance he offers those under his pastoral care comes with a guarantee of utter discretion.
The interviewer says, It sounds like the Church was a dead end. Which leads me to ask, How did you learn about Agatha Merryweather in the first place? And what led you to connect her to the woman who left the train outside Huguenot?
Professor Price says, Bear with me. She holds up a photocopy of a drawing. It shows the face of a young woman with dark eyes and long black hair, and bears a strong resemblance to the photograph of Agatha Merryweather. She says, This was made by a police sketch artist in Wiltwyck, New York, after several of the passengers who were on that train called the police to express their concern. All of their reports agreed that the woman was wearing a straitjacket and was accompanied by a priest and a nun. The professor lowers the piece of paper. She says, The passengers also agreed that Agatha and her companions were met by another pair of men, also priests, outside the entrance to the mine formerly run by the Joppenburgh Cement Company. The police might have passed off the reports as not worth more than a call to Saint John’s in Joppenburgh to ask if their priests had met someone off the Wiltwyck train. However, one of the reports came from a local judge, who insisted on a more thorough investigation. This, Professor Price says, is how they found the bodies.
Bodies? the interviewer asks. The professor is replaced by a series of black-and-white crime-scene photographs. They show a pair of naked men lying side by side next to the wall of a cave. Their legs are together, their arms are at their sides, and their eyes are shut. Their throats have been torn open, down to the bone. There are long scratches on their faces and their arms. The wall beside them is splashed with blood, as is the floor near them. In voice-over, Professor Price says, These two were found by the officers who were sent to check the site. As you can see, their clothes, any jewelry they might have been wearing, whatever might have identified them, has been removed. The evidence was that they were killed after a brief, fierce struggle. Obviously, the cause of death was the wound to each man’s throat. The medical examiner said their throats had been ripped apart by a set of teeth, most likely human, though he noted irregularities in the bite marks upon which he failed to elaborate. After their deaths, the men were stripped and positioned together. Whoever had tended to the corpses had been careful to leave no traces of themselves. As for the assailant: a scattering of bloody hand- and footprints were found near the top of the tunnel wall, nearly twelve feet up. They retreated into the mine for twenty-five feet, and stopped.
The professor returns to the screen. The interviewer asks her what exactly she’s saying. Professor Price says she doesn’t know. For eight days, the police conducted a substantial investigation. The murders were front-page news in papers up and down the Hudson Valley. They were the lead story on all the local TV news broadcasts. There was a lot of concern that a homicidal maniac or maniacs was on the loose. One of the local papers speculated that the killings might be the work of a Manson-style cult. Huguenot was quite the counterculture mecca at this time. After a few days, the story moved from the front page to page two or three, but it was still very much news. A couple of the passengers on the train thought the dead men were the priests who had helped Agatha Merryweather off the train, but none of the local clergy admitted to knowing them. The sketch I showed you was published in the paper, shown on TV. This was how Agatha Merryweather was identified as the woman on the train. A couple of her former neighbors saw the sketch and called the local police to say they recognized her. The police went to the Merryweathers’ house, but it was empty, the couple nowhere to be found. None of the neighbors had seen them leave. Apparently, the police did some kind of follow-up with the Church, but they don’t appear to have had any more success than I did.
The professor says, In Huguenot, the police searched for Agatha in surrounding homes and buildings and turned up nothing. They brought in dogs in hopes they might discover something. Two of the dogs pissed themselves, then started fighting with such ferocity, their handlers needed help separating them. A third dog went into the mine a hundred yards, sat, and started to howl. The police had dismissed the bloody hand- and footprints on the wall as some kind of red herring; although they hadn’t been able to explain why the false lead had been placed in such an outlandish place. Now they decided to search the mine. They broke out the flashlights and set off into its tunnels in pairs.
The interviewer asks if they found anything. Professor Price says, They did. In one of the mine’s side passages, the police came across what was left of a straitjacket. It was stiff with dried blood and had been ripped open by its wearer. More officers were brought in to assist in the effort. Several reported hearing sounds ahead of or behind them, footsteps, mostly, though one pair of officers described something growling close to them. The police said they were concentrating their efforts on the mine, which was where they were reasonably certain their suspect was hiding. And then…nothing. The search was called off.
Called off? the interviewer asks. The professor nods. Why? the interviewer asks. The professor says, No one knows. The mine remained the best lead. There was no trace of Agatha Merryweather anywhere else. When they heard about it, the local papers tried to get to the bottom of what had happened, but the police stonewalled them. It didn’t take the papers long to move on to other stories. Since that time, no more has been done to determine Agatha Merryweather’s fate.
Really? the interviewer asks. The professor says, I’ve made a pretty thorough search. There are stories the local kids tell, legends, but nothing in the way of formal investigation. Oh, Prof
essor Price says, but I did learn one more odd fact in the course of my research. The bodies of the murdered men that were left at the mine’s entrance? Three days after they arrived at the county morgue, they were claimed, by a John Smith, of Manhattan. The interviewer says, An alias? Professor Price nods. She says, I haven’t talked to every John Smith who was living in the city at that time, but I’m pretty confident whoever came for those corpses did so under a fairly blatant pseudonym. Why? the interviewer asks. The professor says, That question comes up a great deal, doesn’t it? If we’re going to answer it, then I think we need to start with the place where Agatha Merryweather was last seen. We have to go to the mine.
—
The second scene occurs two-thirds of the way through the movie. By this point, we’re well into the mine. In addition to Isabelle Price, we’ve met Carmen Meloy, the director; Kristi Fairbairn, the cameraperson; George Slatsky, the sound person; and Ben Rios and Megan Hwang, the interns. We’ve passed the entrance, with its remnants of parties past, its scattered garbage, beer cans, and bottles, random articles of clothing, and graffiti, including the warning about “Bad Agatha,” a name everyone in the film crew, with the exception of Isabelle, picks up. Following the old map of the mine Isabelle has folded into her knapsack, we’ve descended the main tunnels, running across strange, rusted pieces of machinery, shovels and other tools, a dusty copy of Playboy that’s been a source of temporary amusement. Along the way, we’ve had snippets of Isabelle recounting the story of Agatha Merryweather, as well as moments of the crew reacting to the tale. We’ve encountered the portrait of Agatha’s face, split between a normal right and a cadaverous left half; we’ve flinched when Ben touches it and jumped in our seats when he starts screaming, only to laugh with nervous relief as his outburst dissolves into laughter, and Megan calls him an asshat.
We’ve worked out some of the relationships among the crew, as well. Ben and Megan are involved; she’s worried about how her parents will react to her dating someone who isn’t Korean. We catch the tail end of a couple of heated, whispered exchanges between them. George is short-tempered, preoccupied with his ten-year-old daughter, for full custody of whom he’s locked in legal combat with his ex-wife. Kristi is unhappy from the start with this project, a sentiment exacerbated by a mild case of claustrophobia. Carmen spends much of her time checking in with the others, consulting on technical matters, touching base on personal ones. Isabelle is focused on searching the mine with an intensity that’s unnerving; she gives the strong impression of being in possession of additional information she has not shared with her companions.
(A pause here to say that Isabelle Router deserves credit for a remarkable job of acting. Granted, her part is based to a large extent on her actual background; she nonetheless delivers an exceptional portrait of a woman struggling to maintain her composure in the face of pressures external and internal.)
On the soundtrack, sounds that started as background noise, barely distinguishable from the clamor of the crew proceeding, have increased in volume substantially. Some are identifiable: a low, weak sobbing, the kind that comes at the end of hours’ crying; the rattle and click of a small rock being knocked across the floor into another rock. Some are harder to place: a metallic ping and a sudden, deafening roar that sends the film crew into wide-eyed panic, racing headlong through the tunnels as the sound goes on and on.
This is what brings them to a low opening on their left, into a small cave where they spend a solid minute shouting, cursing, and screaming, until the noise drains away and we’re left with their mingled panting. Only now do they notice the chamber they’ve entered. Overhead, the ceiling slopes down into darkness. To either side, walls that are marked with rows of unfamiliar symbols stretch to join it. Directly in front of the crew, a narrow trench bisects the floor, running away into blackness. The bottom of the trench is streaked with blackish-red liquid. Despite the warnings of the others, Ben Rios kneels and extends a hand to the substance. When he raises his fingertips to his nostrils, he pulls his head back, lips wrinkling in disgust. “Blood,” he says, as we knew he would.
While the others digest this news, Isabelle Price is on the move, sweeping her flashlight over the weird figures on the walls. Geometric shapes—mostly circles within circles—punctuate long lines of characters that appear almost hieroglyphic. She directs her light to the floor and picks out something scratched on the rock, a rectangle the size of a dinner tray. YES is incised in its upper left-hand corner, NO in its upper right-hand corner. The letters of the alphabet line the inside of the rectangle, beginning with A below the YES and Z under the NO. A series of lines, some more recent than others, loop from letter to letter to the flat stone positioned at the rectangle’s center. The lines seem to have been drawn in blood. Isabelle lifts the flat stone and turns it over, revealing its underside smeared with shades of red. Rock in hand, she crosses to the trench, where she kneels to dip the rock in the blood there. As the crew members exclaim and ask her what she’s doing, Isabelle returns to the primitive Ouija board and replaces the stone within it. She beckons Ben and Megan to join her, but Ben refuses. After a brief debate, George says he’ll take part in the professor’s little séance. Passing his equipment to Ben, he lowers to his knees to Isabelle’s right; Megan is on the left. There’s a whispered exchange off camera, Kristi asking Carmen what the fuck is going on, Carmen telling her to keep shooting.
Here’s how the IMDb entry describes what happens next:
Professor Price says, Rest your fingers on the stone lightly, like this. She places the tips of her fingers on the stone. Megan and George do the same. The professor says, Good. Now clear your minds.
Megan asks, How are we supposed to do that? Have you seen where we are?
Just do the best you can, Professor Price says. You can close your eyes, if it helps.
Megan shakes her head no, but George shuts his eyes. He says, All right, what next?
The professor closes her eyes. She asks, Is anyone there?
Nothing happens.
Professor Price says, Is anyone there?
Slowly, the stone scrapes across the floor. Megan screams, but keeps her fingers on it. George says, What the hell? The professor says, Easy. Stay calm. Keep your hands on the planchette.
Megan says, The what?
George says, The stone.
Right, Professor Price says, the stone. Her eyes are open. The stone settles on YES. The professor nods. She asks, Who is there?
The stone slides from YES to the letter A beneath it. Then to G, back to A, to T, to H, and back to A. Professor Price says, Agatha.
Kristi’s voice says, Holy shit. Ben Rios crosses himself.
The professor asks, What happened to you, Agatha?
The stone spells out T-R-A-P-P-E-D.
Professor Price says, Trapped? You were trapped here, in the mine?
The stone moves to YES.
The professor asks, Why?
The stone spells B-A-D.
Professor Price says, You were bad.
The stone spells B-A-D.
The professor frowns. She asks, How were you bad?
The stone does not move.
Professor Price says, How were you bad, Agatha?
The stone spells out B-L-O-O-D.
The professor says, I don’t understand. How were you bad, Agatha?
George says, Seems pretty obvious to me. She was doing something with blood. Ben says, Maybe she was drinking it.
The stone slides to YES.
Professor Price says, Please, let me do the talking. What were you doing with blood, Agatha?
The stone moves to NO.
The professor says, All right. Who trapped you here, in the mine?
The stone spells K-L-E-R-O-S.
Megan asks, Who is Kleros? George shakes his head. Professor Price says nothing. Ben says, I think it’s Greek. Carmen asks, Greek? Ben says, Yeah. It’s like the root of clergy.
The professor asks, Where are you from, Agatha?
The stone moves to NO.
Professor Price repeats the question.
The stone does not move.
The professor exhales. She asks, Can we help you, Agatha?
The stone does not move.
Professor Price waits for an answer. None comes. She asks, Are you still there, Agatha?
The stone does not move.
Megan asks, What happened? George says, We lost her. He sits back, lifting his hands from the stone. Megan does the same. The professor maintains contact for a few seconds more, then she sits back, too.
Kristi says, What the fuck was that? Carmen says, Yeah, Isabelle, what’s going on?
Isabelle Price starts to speak, but her answer is interrupted by George shouting, Shit! and scrambling backward. Megan screams and stumbles to her feet. The professor raises her hands, startled.
The planchette stone is bleeding. All over its surface drops of blood appear, swell, and collapse into streams that trickle to the edges of the stone and spill onto the floor. Kristi shouts, Fuck! Megan turns and collides with Ben. Blood pools around the planchette stone. Professor Price stares at it. Carmen says, Isabelle, what the fuck is happening? Blood spreads over the words and letters of the Ouija board. Ben mumbles something. George is praying, Our Father, Who art in Heaven. Blood flows to the edges of the trench in the center of the cave and slides into it. Kristi says, What is this? What is this? What are we seeing? What? Carmen tells everyone to move away from the blood, to come over beside her. The crew does, except for the professor. Carmen says, Isabelle. Come here, Isabelle.
Professor Price turns around. Her face is blank. Her left eye is red, blood pouring from it down her cheek.
