by Tracy Donley
The wind picked up a bit, and Rosemary felt suddenly cold. She cleared her throat and forced herself to take another step closer to the creature. “I mean it, cat. Be on your way.”
The cat’s green eyes were offset by its long, tortoiseshell hair—a gorgeous creature to one not horrified of cats, Rosemary felt sure.
But while Rosemary was completely discombobulated by the cat, the cat didn’t seem to mind Rosemary’s presence in the least. It suddenly decided to rub contentedly up against the trunk of the tree, probably making that strange rumbling noise cats make, and then finally sauntered off in the other direction, further out into the meadow, until it slipped just inside the far tree line, where Rosemary was sure it was still watching. She could feel the green eyes.
“I can’t believe it. Did you see that?” asked Seth, who’d been completely silent during the whole cat encounter.
“Clearly, I saw it. I told it to go away.”
“No, I mean, it looked like her cat—Hortence’s cat. Why did you shoo it away?”
“I, uh, don’t get along very well with them.”
“With cats? Really?”
“I… Well, okay, I’m scared of them.”
“Of cats? Really?”
“Stop saying that!”
“What?”
“’Cats’ and ‘really.’”
“Oh. Sorry. It’s just that cats are really so—oops. Sorry. These animals are so gentle and smart. I’d think you’d like them. Bad childhood experience or something?”
“No. I just… Okay, if you must know, those Siamese cats in Lady and the Tramp scared me to death, and I’ve never gotten over it.”
“Ah. Well, that was just a kitten. And not evil, like those Siamese cats in the movie.”
“But now that you mention it, that cat did fit Jack’s description of Hortence’s cat—the little imp she supposedly talked to.”
“And today of all days for it to be standing in this particular place, when I’m about to tell you about Hortence’s curse. It’s like magic or fate or . . . How cool is that?”
“Oh, yeah. Really cool,” said Rosemary, even though she could’ve done without the furry visitor.
She stopped for a moment and looked up into the branches of the tree, feeling all at once the weight of the truth that a person had actually once died here—a person who had probably done nothing wrong and yet had paid the price for the sorrows and superstitions of a whole village.
“History, even though I’ve spent my whole adult life and much of my childhood studying it, always takes me by surprise.” Rosemary let out a long sigh. “I can read all about the witch trials of Connecticut, for instance, in books, and feel fascinated by the stories, by the facts and the characters. But every time I actually visit a historical site—see the places where the people from the pages actually lived and fought and died . . . Well, I never fail to be astounded.”
Rosemary looked over at Seth, who was staring at her with a mix of admiration and understanding.
“You’re an anthropologist,” said Rosemary. “You totally get that, right?”
“Yes I do. And you’ve said it perfectly.”
A chill breeze rumpled the fallen leaves around the grand old tree as Rosemary caught sight of the stone marker. She knelt beside it to take a better look. Someone had left a small bouquet of rosemary mixed with dried yellow blooms. It was bound with a length of deep wine-colored twine, and it lay alongside the gray stone. She looked up at Seth, who knelt down beside her, picked up the bouquet, and carefully turned it over in his hands.
“Rosemary for remembrance.”
“Just like your name,” said Seth. “And I wonder what these yellow ones are for.”
“I don’t recognize them,” said Rosemary. “They’re beautiful.”
She turned her attention back to the stone marker, dusted some dried leaves off its surface, and then read aloud: “Here lies Hortence Gallow, age twenty-five, widow of Jonathan Gallow. Accused of witchcraft, but never tried, Hortence was found here, dead, on November 7, 1668. For many years, her burial place was marked only by this tree and her family’s determination to keep her story alive. May humankind learn from its mistakes, lest history repeat itself. ~The Paperwick Historical Society, October 31, 2000.”
Rosemary fumbled with excited hands in her bag for her camera.
“Are you kidding me? Did you and Jack plan it this way? Today is November seventh! We’re here precisely three hundred fifty-one years after Hortence died? To the day? That must be why someone placed the flowers here. I need to hear about the curse,” she said, snapping a few photos of the marker with the bouquet beside it.
“I thought you’d never ask,” joked Seth, and they both sat down under the tree. He offered his jacket to Rosemary, who was starting to shiver a little bit as the breeze blew the dried leaves around in gentle swirls.
“As you already know—because I know Jack told you—Hortence was accused of witchcraft and taken to the jail house. There she was left overnight, in the cold, to await her trial the next morning.”
“Right. And Mercy was coming to sit and pray with her sister, but the story goes that when she got there, Hortence was not in her cell, but the cell was locked up tight.”
“So, you’ve seen Jack’s find from the old barn—the riddle Mercy left behind.”
Rosemary nodded.
“The story goes that just after Mercy arrived that night,” Seth continued, “another witness had come to offer comfort and friendship to Hortence: the sisters’ friend Elizabeth Graves, from the farm next door.”
“Elizabeth was the wife of Matthew Graves, the judge who’d accused Hortence.”
“Correct. Small towns—am I right? Anyway, Elizabeth would later go on record saying that she’d seen Hortence, outside the jail house, running away from the prison that night. Elizabeth claimed she had gone to the jail, taking some food and a blanket along to offer to the prisoner through the cell’s outer window. But when she called out to Hortence and didn’t get an answer, she peered into the window, and saw that the cell was empty. She said she heard a wild shriek and turned to see Hortence running through the dark amid thunder and lightning, wearing no shoes, speaking gibberish and calling evil spirits down on the village itself.”
“Ooh. Spooky.”
“Matthew Graves writes all about this in his journal. He sent Elizabeth home, thinking that Hortence would eventually return to the Clark farm and perhaps Elizabeth could talk some reason into her. He also wrote that ‘the witch’ had cursed him that night. That he had attempted to speak to her, to pray for her soul, and that she pointed at him and spat out a curse, saying that she knew she was marked for death, but that her death would be avenged many times over.”
At this, Seth dug around in his satchel and took out a folder stuffed with papers. He shuffled through them and pulled out a photocopy of what appeared to be a very old document.
“What’s this?” asked Rosemary.
“The page from Matthew Graves’ journal,” said Seth. “Read this passage here.”
Rosemary looked at the lines Seth was pointing to.
“The witch hath spoken and in a whisper did sayeth, ‘Justice will be served its own death sentence, on a night like this as black as ink, for many ages hence. My spirit will come again and again and destroy the one who ruined me until the truth is revealed. Until that day, his line may never again sit in the judgement seat.’” Rosemary’s eyes widened. “So, she was cursing the judge?”
“Yes. And any of his descendants who would sit in judgement, it would appear.”
“But did anything happen to him? I mean, I know he got his hands on Hortence and Mercy’s farmland.”
“He did. And he got to enjoy that land for about a year. But then, Matthew Graves met with an untimely death. He was found dead, right here, at the foot of this tree, the year after Hortence died.”
“On a night as black as ink?”
“You guessed it. Judge Graves had started going a b
it crazy with worry about the curse by then. He wrote in his journal that he’d seen Hortence’s cat a few days before he died.”
“Her, um, cat, you say?” Rosemary glanced toward the trees where the green-eyed monster was probably still lurking.
“But wait, there’s more. If you read a little further, Hortence had specified that her victims would all bear ‘the hateful mark’ that had led to her own condemnation.”
“The witch’s mark? The goat’s horn thingy?”
“Yep. It’s all in the judge’s journal.”
“So, when he died, Matthew Graves had the mark?”
“By the time he died, you see, his wife Elizabeth had taken over as village nurse. And so, she had taken up Mercy’s record book and she kept it current. In it, she wrote about her husband’s death, and she says he bore a mark which she’d never seen before.”
“Did Elizabeth blame Hortence for her husband’s death, then?”
“Not directly. But Elizabeth Graves was careful with her words. An intelligent woman. She knew what she was writing. She said only that Matthew was cursed, and that his curse had led to his demise.”
“Seriously spooky.” Rosemary pulled the jacket Seth had given her tighter around her shoulders.
“And Matthew wasn’t the only Graves to pay the price. He and Elizabeth had five children—all of whom Hortence had delivered, by the way. One of those sons, John, had a son, Thomas, who was also a judge in the later 1700s. Records show that Thomas died at only twenty-five, of a heart attack.”
“Did he bear the mark?”
“We’re not sure. The medical records say nothing of it, but there were rumors, of course.”
“Anyone else?”
“A few generations later, another Graves man was on the town council. He died in a freak carriage accident.”
“And the mark?”
“Again, not in the official records, but there were rumors that he was marked.”
“These deaths were probably all coincidental.”
“And then there was Frederick Graves, an attorney, died 1834 during his run for senator.”
“Hmm.”
“And DeWitt Graves, died around the turn of the century, 1901, on his way to the courthouse to turn in a convicted thief.”
“Wow.”
“Of course, we’re standing way back and looking at a long period of history—1668 until now—so in hindsight, there aren’t all that many deaths that could be attributed to the curse, and of course they could all just be coincidental. Probably are, in fact. But the thought of the curse coming to pass is way more fun. These deaths were all in that family line—all men who had something to do with the business of judging others. And who knows? Maybe Hortence really was more pagan than Puritan at heart. That’s why her story is so interesting. In her last moments on this earth, she issued a deadly curse. Was that a sort of admission of guilt? I mean, if she wasn’t a witch—"
“Then why level a curse? And how did she know she was about to be murdered—'marked for death’?” Rosemary wondered. “After all, she was very much alive when she said her death would be avenged and laid down this curse. But she was running away, presumably, with the hope of escaping death. And many ages hence? What does that mean? How many deaths would there need to be for Hortence to call it even?”
“I guess she’s on the rampage until the truth comes out about who murdered her,” said Seth with a grin. He glanced at his watch. “Oops. It’s eleven-twenty. I actually have a class to teach in ten minutes,” he said, hurriedly getting up. “Can I give you a lift over to the college?”
“Thanks, but Jack is meeting me here for lunch in an hour. I’ll poke around until then.”
“Have fun.”
“Oh. Don’t forget your jacket,” Rosemary said, taking the warm fleecy garment off and holding it out.
“Why don’t you hold onto that. It’s nippy out, and you can return it to me tonight.”
“Oh, that’s right. You’re coming out to the farm for dinner, right?”
“Yep. Looking forward to it.” He started off back in the direction they’d come.
“Thank you, Seth. And thanks for telling me about the curse!”
“See you tonight!”
Rosemary watched him disappear into the trees. Then her gaze wandered back to the stone marking Hortence Gallow’s final resting place, and she felt a chill run up and down her spine.
“Was that you, Hortence?” she whispered with a smile, and put Seth’s jacket back on.
10
It would be exciting to have the actor playing Hortence on the night of the festival act out the curse as part of her presentation. What a perfectly haunting finale for the cemetery crawl!
After jotting down a few notes summarizing her visit with Seth, Rosemary took out her camera again. If she and Jack did decide to write a book—or even a scholarly article—about Hortence Gallow, they’d need plenty of photographs to go along with it.
She decided to photograph the whole meadow, then move back over to the graveyard and take some shots of Jonathan Gallow’s grave marker. No one was around, which was ideal, since, in Rosemary’s experience, people usually didn’t appreciate having their picture taken by a complete stranger.
There were several scenic trails leading off from the meadow into the woods in different directions. Rosemary heard distant voices and caught a glimpse of the mayor and another man, walking through the trees, the mayor pointing this way and that. Rosemary smiled. They must be talking about the security cameras in the trees. Now that she had seen the pristine beauty of this place, she hoped that whatever “improvements” they made would be respectful and unobtrusive.
When they’d disappeared back into the woods, Rosemary decided it would be a good time to take one panoramic shot of the whole Witches’ Meadow, and then follow that up with shots of the maple tree and the stone marker. She set her camera on panoramic mode, and then slowly began her scan of the tree-lined grounds.
Suddenly, a flash of movement and bright color caught her eye. She put down her camera and squinted into the distance. Was it a person? Yes, sure enough, there was someone, lurking in the trees, watching in the direction the mayor and his companion had gone. The person was wearing very odd clothing, and appeared to be following the mayor at a safe distance, dodging behind trees and brush.
Rosemary didn’t exactly know what to do. Technically, the person wasn’t doing anything wrong, but this was certainly suspicious behavior. Should Rosemary call someone? Should she approach the stranger? Call out to the mayor? She moved closer to the trunk of the maple tree and subtly used her camera to zoom in on the lurker for a better look.
It was a woman—a crazy looking woman, with bright, silver hair cut short and sticking out in all directions. She was wearing a billowy purple top over pink and black striped leggings with lime green boots. As Rosemary tried to focus in on the woman’s face, her head turned suddenly, as if she had felt she was being watched. She looked right at Rosemary. With a sinking feeling, Rosemary knew she’d been caught red-handed. She felt her cheeks burning as the woman emerged from the trees and stalked across the meadow in her direction.
There was no way to avoid the confrontation, and the woman looked angry, so Rosemary pasted on her most innocent smile.
“What do you think you are doing, young lady?” the woman asked in a sharp tone.
Rosemary chided herself for her own split second of vanity that someone still thought she looked like a young lady.
“Oh, hello. Sorry about that,” she stuttered, feeling like a kid fessing up to a teacher who’d just caught her cheating. “I was photographing the meadow for a book I’m writing—well, thinking of writing. I didn’t mean to get you in the shot. It must’ve appeared that I was taking your picture. But I assure you, I was not.” Rosemary cleared her throat and looked at her feet.
“You’re writing a book? About what?”
Rosemary was surprised by the woman’s response. She looked up and was shock
ed by the bright green eyes that met hers, clearly examining her with intelligent scrutiny. A ridiculous notion crossed Rosemary’s mind, that the cat she had seen earlier had somehow transformed itself into this woman.
“Hortence Gallow,” Rosemary said, tilting her head toward the stone marker.
The woman paused for a moment, perking up her ears as the sound of raised voices came from the direction of the woods. Rosemary couldn’t tell whose voices they were, but someone was either yelling across a distance, in order to be heard, or else yelling in an angry way.
The strange woman rolled her eyes as though she knew exactly what was going on back in the trees. She seemed to shake off that thought and turned her attention back to Rosemary. “Why would you do that? Why would you write a book about her?” The question sounded grumpy, but no longer angry.
“Because I think Hortence’s story is fascinating. And she deserves to have it told. She was a midwife—you probably know that if you’re from around here. She took care of people. She didn’t deserve to come to such a horrible end.”
The woman nodded, still scowling.
“She died right here, you know,” said Rosemary. “On this very day—”
“Three hundred fifty-one years ago,” the woman finished.
“Exactly,” said Rosemary, surprised. “I’m Rosemary Grey, by the way.” She extended a hand, which the woman looked at but didn’t shake.
“Ingrid Clark,” was the curt reply.
“Ingrid Clark? Are you? I mean, you’re Hortence’s . . .”
“Great, great, great—well, eleven-times great descendent. You get the picture.” Ingrid looked back toward the woods, then down at Hortence’s stone marker.
“You left the rosemary here, didn’t you?” asked Rosemary softly. “Rosemary for remembrance, right?”
This was met with a look of surprise followed by a brief nod of admission.
“And what’s this yellow flower?”
“I don’t know,” said Ingrid. “I do this every year on this day. As did my mother and her mother before her. I was trying to have a quiet moment here, and then that idiot mayor and his imbecile sidekick showed up and started yakking about putting a camera in this tree and that tree, and all their other stupid plans for the meadow. Can you believe they have the audacity to come here and do that today of all days? I’d wager they don’t even know what day it is—that’s how little they really care. They only care about Hortence as far as they can capitalize on her memory.”
