The Hawley Book of the Dead

by Chrysler Szarlan

  “Look at this. It was definitely Nan’s. She lived with us, and she never said. In all her stories, she never mentioned she’d lived in Hawley. Even when she knew Jolon and I rode here. Even when I moved to Hawley Five Corners. When she sent me here. Why not tell me?”

  “Well, now you can ask her.”

  3

  Nathan drove us north toward the Vermont border. Falcon Eddy sat in front to talk with him about medieval archery, while I squashed into the back with the girls. Caleigh was half on my lap, getting heavier by the minute. Just as we were crossing the state border, she squirmed and yelled, “Hold it, coz! Pull over!”

  We all looked to where she was pointing. A huge yard sale blanketed the stubbly hay fields around us. It seemed to spread out to the horizon. Junk of all kinds tempted the traveler, piled on tables, spilling over into the vestiges of grass. On display were headboards and cribs, mirrors and luster jugs, mountains of plates and bowls, heaps of children’s clothes, an enormous fiberglass rooster, and three Easy-Bake Ovens, that I could count. I’d never seen anything like it.

  Nathan stopped next to the handwritten sign that let us know we had stopped at

  The Perpetual Tag Sale

  Open 24 Hours, 7 Days a Week

  See a Treasure, Make an Offer

  No Reasonable Offer Refused

  There was no house in sight. The only sign of life was a very old man with a long white beard sitting in a bentwood rocker. A resplendent brass cash register was positioned on a Chippendale table before him.

  “Howdy, folks. Welcome to the Perpetual Tag Sale,” he chirped at us as we piled out of the car. “Look around and find your heart’s desire. No reasonable offer refused, just like the sign says.”

  Caleigh and the girls scattered, while I called after them, “Be quick like bunnies. We only have a few minutes!”

  “Oh, missus,” the old man chuckled, “don’t ya know ya can’t rush the Perpetual Tag Sale? Take your time! But don’t worry, it won’t make ya late for wherever you’re needin’ to be.”

  “So you’re really open all the time?” Nathan asked.

  The man nodded, his snowy beard wagging like Miss May’s. “Ever day, 24/7, including major holidays. Always here, always open. Whenever ya need us, here we are. But look around! Sure you’ll find a treasure!”

  Caleigh was already in raptures over an Easy-Bake Oven, a vintage turquoise one, complete with countless pans and rolling pins. “I always wanted one of these!” she gushed. Grace and Fai were one row over, pulling silky scarves out of a battered trunk. I walked down the first lane, convinced I wouldn’t find anything I needed or wanted among the dizzying array of cuckoo clocks, mixing bowls, and lava lamps. But I was wrong. My eye was drawn to a bejeweled scabbard resting against a massive cabinet television from the 1970s. The scabbard looked tremendously old, like something a Knight of the Round Table might carry. It shone gold, was etched with symbols and designs, and encrusted with what looked like, but couldn’t possibly be, emeralds and diamonds. Not at the Perpetual Tag Sale. All the same, I hefted it. It was weighty, but seemed right in my hands. I pulled out the sword, and its golden surface reflected parabolas of light. It stopped my breath, it was so beautiful.

  “That looks real.”

  I wheeled, swinging the sword before me. Nathan jumped back. “Hey, be careful with that thing!”

  “You startled me.” I sunk the tip of the sword into the earth. The blade had come within an inch of Nathan’s chest.

  I sheathed it in its scabbard. The imitation gemstones on it sparkled like the genuine article. “It can’t be real. Just a good reproduction.”

  Nathan reached for it, examined it closely. He finally shook his head. “It’s real, all right, crazy as that sounds. It could have come right out of the Royal Armouries’ collection, or the Met Museum’s.” He had to be right, with his vast knowledge of old armaments. “They have one like this … but this one’s in even better condition.” He pulled the sword out again, and the sun caught the blade. Dust motes danced around it in lacy patterns. I felt a shifting inside me, as if the world was slowing down around us. “And instead of plain iron or bronze, this one looks like goldplated silver. If you buy it, we can add it to the Bijoux collection. It’s pretty incredible.” We did have a good collection of antique swords of all periods, curated by Nathan, often used in our shows. But I had put magic behind me.

  “Nathan, what’s it doing here?”

  “Who knows? But I say, don’t let it get away.” He squinted at the small white tag fluttering from the sword hilt. “Hmph. Ten dollars. Now that’s a steal.”

  “Ha, ha.”

  Minutes later we were on the road again, the sword stashed in the back alongside a bag of miscellaneous junk that the twins had chosen, and Caleigh’s Easy-Bake Oven.

  4

  Nan’s house was the oldest in Bennington. A low-slung Cape, with tiny windows that lined the upper story, like the windows of a doll’s house. It was not painted the conventional white or barn red of most New England village houses, but instead boasted ancient stained chestnut planks. The roof was shingled with mossy slate. Altogether it had an air of age, and the kind of spookiness one might expect from a dwelling that had housed generations, witnessed any number of births and deaths within its walls. A wooden sign, white with black lettering, hung from a post and proclaimed it THE PHINEAS COBB HOUSE, 1755.

  Nathan parked in the gravel drive. Falcon Eddy went directly to the back of the house, where the mews was. I toted the bag with the basket of fancy teas I’d brought from home. Superstitiously, I felt I could not come empty-handed. The girls raced up the walk.

  Caleigh smacked the brass clapper that hung next to the front door, and it was thrown open almost instantly by a gaunt woman with hair the rusty color of old iron, bound tightly around her head like a crown. Nan’s housekeeper, Willy. “Come in,” she croaked in a sepulchral tone, more suited to a wake than afternoon tea. She wore the same kind of flowered housedress that Mrs. Pike usually donned for her work, with an embroidered apron tied around her thick waist. She stepped aside and indicated a door off the hall, then seemed to melt away. We walked into a long, bright room, a parlor, kitchen, and dining room combined, with an immense fireplace, the bricks blackened with age and use. A fire snapped on the hearth, and Nan rose from a tall-backed chair to greet us. She looked tiny even in this house with its low ceilings and doors, but her presence filled the room.

  Caleigh ran to her. “Hey, Nan, guess what?” In her excitement, she tripped and nearly fell, but Nan caught her, righted her. Caleigh, unfussed, went on with her story. “We stopped at a tag sale, the biggest one ever! Look what I got!” She clutched her twee rolling pins and spatulas. “They came with a toy oven, but Mom wouldn’t let me bring it in!”

  “Well! That’s quite a greeting.” She hugged Caleigh then, kissed her cheek. I suddenly noticed that Caleigh was almost as tall as Nan, now. “And what did my young ladies purchase?” She turned to Grace and Fai, who had puppets on their hands and were jabbing at each other with them, giggling in the doorway.

  “I’m Lamb Chop. A plesh-ah, I’m shoo-ah.” Grace did a passable imitation of the girlie sheep from the Bronx. When she held the puppet up to her face, we could see that her eye makeup and Lamb Chop’s were nearly identical.

  Fai opened her fox’s mouth wide and made it chomp on Lamb Chop’s neck. “Hey!” Grace squealed. “That hurts!”

  Nan’s sudden laughter was like the caw of one of her hawks.

  The twins sidled up to Nan for her kisses like quick bites.

  Nan pecked at my cheek next. “It’s good of you to come, Reve.” She seemed to have forgotten that she’d summoned me. “Jackie doesn’t usually join me for tea, since he’s called away by parish duties.” Jackie was the improbable diminutive that Nan used for the Reverend John Steel. “I would have come to you, except for the bronchitis.”

  I’d suspected the Reverend of exaggerating her symptoms, but her voice was raspy and thin. And
she did seem paler, more fragile than when I’d seen her last, only weeks before. I hated to think that she was failing. In so many ways she was still the same, with her one long silver braid, her flannel shirts, her sharp eyes.

  I sat next to her on a very upright Queen Anne sofa, restless. I wanted to leap right in and pummel information out of her, about the book, about her youth spent in Hawley. But I knew that she always had to be in control of a story. If I rushed her, she might not tell me anything after all. The girls sprawled on the faded Oriental carpet near Nan, continuing to spar with their puppets, while Caleigh perched on the arm of her chair. Nathan chose a rocker by the fire. There were numerous small tables in the room, the wood polished and gleaming, every table set with a vase of flowers: pink carnations and red-edged white roses, deep blue monkshood and huge sprawling yellow chrysanthemums like fireworks. The flowers were reflected in a big sideboard mirror and also in gleaming silver and crystal ornaments. The room was always beautifully kept, in spite of frequent visits by Nan’s birds of prey. That day, a barn owl gazed at us from its perch by a window. It was so still it might have been stuffed, but I knew from experience that it wasn’t.

  “I see you admire my room, young man,” Nan told Nathan, and I remembered he’d gone to run errands in town the last time we’d visited. He hadn’t yet seen her in her natural environment. “We eat our meals in here as well. The other rooms are so poky, and I like space around me. I apologize for the heat. The fire is necessary for my old bones. We have a fire most days. These old houses are always on the cool side. Ah, here’s our tea.”

  Willy returned, triumphantly bearing a huge silver tea tray. She set the laden tray on a table near Nan, who hefted the big silver teapot with practiced ease and poured out. Nathan leapt up to help her, but she waved him away. “I’m a strong old bird, never fear, young man.” The owl puffed up and chipped at her. Nathan twitched, and his eyes widened with surprise, but otherwise he kept his composure. “Caleigh, I will ask you to hand the tea, and the cake.”

  “Okay!” Caleigh carefully ferried the fragrant steaming cups, and the plates bearing slices of poppy-seed cake. We all concentrated on our tea, until Nan broke the silence.

  “I’m pleased you’re here, Nathan,” Nan told him. “It must be comforting for our Revelation to have you with her.”

  I cut her a look. “Yes, I’m grateful Nathan’s here. I need my family around me now.” I placed the emphasis on the word family. “So I don’t know if sending Falcon Eddy was really—”

  “Are you girls finished?” Nan interrupted me. They had wolfed their tea and cake, and were busy with their hand puppet fights again, while Caleigh slapped at them with a tiny spatula. “Why don’t you all run out to the mews?”

  Fai jumped up, nearly upsetting Nan’s big tray. “Can we take Gillie out?” Gillie was the Swainson’s hawk Nan used to start falconers.

  “Sure, now,” her great-grandmother told her. “But use the gloves. And don’t forget her jesses!”

  They were gone in a flash, headed for the mews, a long, barred enclosure surrounded by wire fencing where the hawks sunned themselves.

  “Nathan, why don’t you go along with them?” Nan asked. Finally ready to talk, it was clear she wanted a tête-à-tête. But I wanted a witness.

  “I’d like Nathan to stay. He knows … well, almost everything.”

  Nan’s gaze flickered over me. Then she nodded. “Of course, you can’t be too careful.” Nan went on. “Not with a Fetch after you. After all, the evils of this world are great. But you need to be concerned with the worlds beyond, as well. I don’t think young Nathan knows as much about our … history?

  “He knows enough,” I told her. He knew about the powers of the Dyer women. He’d grown up with my vanish, and Caleigh’s string magic.

  Nan huffed. “More tea, I think, though. Nathan, would you be a love and pour us another cup?” He did. I took a sip, looked up, and Nathan was no longer sitting across from me. His fragile porcelain cup was balanced on the arm of his chair, but he was gone. I choked on my tea. Nan rose from her chair to pound me on the back.

  “Wh … wh … what did you do with him?” I managed to stammer out.

  “He’s perfectly safe. He’s just out back by the mews with the girls and Falcon Eddy, having a look at the hawks. He’ll come in after we’ve done, won’t remember how he got out there.” Nan seemed taller and more vibrant, more like herself.

  I looked toward the mews, and Nathan was there. “What the hell is going on? How did you do that?”

  “I think you know how, my dear.” Nan sat next to me on the sofa and put her arm around me. Her sharp lemon scent enveloped us. “Let’s slow down, shall we. Now. You found the Book, or it found you.” Could she be right? Could the book have found me with more deep magic? When she spoke of it, it was in the same way the Reverend had spoken of it, as if she thought it was the only book in the world.

  “Yes,” I told her. “I found this.” I lifted The Hawley Book of the Dead out of my Petroglyph bag, and the meadowy wildflower fragrance swirled around us, competing with Nan’s bitter lemon scent. “I also found your prayer book in the Hawley Five Corners church. I never knew you lived in Hawley. Why didn’t you tell me? Did this book belong to you, too? The Reverend said so.”

  Her eyes were fixed on the book. Some emotion I couldn’t read flickered in them. “It did, once. Now it belongs to you.”

  I felt my anger building, and my confusion. “You don’t seem happy about it. If you wanted to keep it, why didn’t you? And why didn’t you tell me all this before?”

  “It’s not that simple. I didn’t want to keep it, but I never meant for you to find it. I wanted to hide it so completely it would never be found again. But I should have known it would turn up, come to you, eventually.” She reached for my hand.

  I pulled away from her. “Nan, why did you want us to come to Hawley? I need to know anything that might help us. You need to tell me what’s going on!”

  Nan got up, poked the fire, took the book from me, stroked its soft cover. She sat across from me again, with the book in her lap. “Now this has happened, now you’ve found the Book, it is time for you to know. I wish you could have avoided it, passed through your life without this knowledge.”

  “Nan, you’re scaring me.”

  She nodded slowly. “You should be scared.” Her gaze fell to The Hawley Book of the Dead. She gripped it tightly now, and the blue veins in her weathered hands looked as if they’d burst through the skin. “It’s a Book of instruction in magical powers. It also possesses magical powers itself. Very compelling magical powers. It decides when, and how, its owner may use it.”

  “But how can it belong to me? I didn’t even know it existed!”

  “It can only be possessed by a Revelation. And you’re the next.”

  “But you said it was yours. You’re not a Revelation.”

  Could I be imagining that her silver hair had darkened to pewter, that her hands, holding the book, were no longer clenched with arthritis?

  “It’s a long story. One that I hoped never to have to tell. I wished to forget all about it. What do you know about Hawley?”

  “The only thing I know is that the first Revelation is supposed to have lived there. You lived there, too, but in all the stories, all my life, you never mentioned it. I had to be told by some old farmer. And I find out that children disappeared from the Five Corners. Young girls! Everyone’s saying that they hope ‘it’ hasn’t started again! What the hell does that mean? The locals are convinced the town is haunted. You insisted we move there because it was safe. Sorry, but it doesn’t seem very safe, after all.”

  “And you need to seek safety, after your encounters with the Fetch.”

  “How did you know about him?”

  “That hardly matters.”

  “But it does, Nan. Everything matters now! The Fetch sent me an e-mail. He killed my friend Maggie. And I had …” I hesitated over my dream or vision of the Fetch in the desert.
“Anyway, he’s looking for us. He won’t give up. He’ll find us here, too! And what the hell does he want anyway?”

  “Don’t get overwrought now, that won’t help.”

  “You sent the Reverend for me, so I assumed you knew the most about that book, about everything. That you’d just for once tell me!” I glared at her.

  She reached for me then. She touched my cheek, while keeping one hand on the book. She seemed different. More like the Nan I remembered, the powerful, frustratingly independent yet kind woman I grew up with. And her hair was darker, dark red mixed with gray, as it had been when I was a child. Is that why I felt like a child again?

  “Nan, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now. You should know, if anyone does. What am I supposed to do? How can I keep my girls safe? You have to tell me …” I felt the sting of tears building again.

  She looked at me penetratingly, with eyes that now shone bright. “I understand your torment, more than you think, my dear.” She glanced down at the book, then went on. “It is because of Hawley Forest that I’m alive to tell you this, Revelation. Once, like you, I loved nothing better than being in the woods. We’d play out there, my friends and I, the day long. Childhood was good then. Until young girls began disappearing.” Nan’s hair had darkened more in the late afternoon light, a pure auburn, not a thread of silver. I wasn’t imagining it. She was getting younger.

  “It began in Pudding Hollow, at the Bell farm. Lucy—Lucy Bell—disappeared. Just after she’d turned twelve, in September. We’d had a rain and Lucy’s mother sent her out to the woods to look for mushrooms. She never returned. Her family searched through the night, her father and mother and brothers. By dawn, they sent for the police. They brought in searchers from as far as Worcester. But Lucy Bell was never found. In the strange and blistering heat of that fall, every few weeks another girl went missing. All from Hawley Five Corners, and the farms around. Until there were six gone. Then, it just stopped. No more children disappeared. The town was scarred, though. It still is.” An ember leapt from the crackling fire, but she didn’t move.