The Hawley Book of the Dead

by Chrysler Szarlan

  “But in 1923, you were there …”

  “In 1923, I was eight years old. I lived in the Sears house at Hawley Five Corners. Your own house, now. I lived with my aunt and uncle. My parents were dead, from what we called the Spanish flu. Influenza. It claimed many lives, the great epidemic of 1918. So I was an orphan, an only child. Went to live with my Sears kin. Then, after they’d disappeared in the church that day with all the others, I stayed with a friend for a time, then went to the relatives here in Bennington. To this house.”

  “They disappeared in the church? How?”

  Nan’s eyes fell to the book she still held in her lap. Her fingers, smooth and strong now, gripped it fiercely, as if she wanted to tear it, rend it. Her voice, when it came, dipped and pitched with emotion. “I was with my friend, Vienna Warriner. She lived in Hawley Village, not at the Five Corners. She used to come to play with her cousins in the Warriner house, and that’s how we met. We were best friends. It was March, and it had been her birthday the day before. March sixth. Her parents, as a treat, took us down to Springfield, to the circus. It was a big trip, even in Vienna’s father’s new Ford car. We stayed overnight, in a hotel. Red velvet and gold tassels everywhere. We were as excited as magpies, Vienna and I.

  “They brought me home the next day, the seventh of March.” Was I imagining it, or did her voice tremble? “But no one was there. Not one person was to be found at any of the houses.” She looked into my eyes, and hers were filled with tears. But her face was smooth and fresh as Caleigh’s. I was stunned, too shocked to exclaim.

  “It was late afternoon.” She spoke again in her new young voice. “But no one was preparing a meal, no children were playing. Not even the newest Sears baby, my cousin Luke, was in his cradle for his afternoon nap. Things had been left half done. In the Warriner house, we found a roast in the oven that Vienna’s aunt Ruth had put in before church. Burnt to a crisp, the cookstove cold as could be. In the church itself, we found hats and coats in the pews, the minister’s Bible open on the pulpit. But no people, none at all. Then we drove to the Pooles’, which was the nearest farmhouse to Hawley Five Corners. No one there, another burnt roast in the oven. All that afternoon we drove, found not one soul in those houses and farms. And no one ever did.”

  Her small supple fingers traced the gold letters that spelled The Hawley Book of the Dead. “You asked how it could have happened. It’s what everyone wanted to know. How a town could just disappear. It was like one of those fairy tales that makes you shiver in your bed at night, thinking and thinking on it.”

  “Nan, I need to know,” I said quietly. “And I think you want to tell me.”

  She stared at me, her eyes bright and her cheeks rosy as a girl’s in the slanted light. Then she nodded.

  “All hope of their return died as the year went on, but no one ever stepped forward and put in a claim for the houses, not one relative. No one wanted those houses. No one even came to take any of the furniture, the tools, the farm equipment, the books, the clothing. Feared it might be enchanted, I suppose. That’s how it all came to me, the only survivor. Years later, I auctioned off the contents of the houses at the Five Corners, and the state took over the surrounding land, knocked down the houses to make the state forest. Then it seemed everyone became skittish even talking about it. It was something children were told not to talk about. Most everyone in Hawley Village had lost family members. My own aunt. Her husband. My cousins. All of them gone. It was a great blow. From that day, very few would go into the forest alone, or near the houses. And it’s continued up to the very present. But it began with the girls disappearing in the fall. First Lucy Bell, then Aggie Green. My cousin, Liza Sears. Maria Hall, then Anna Sewall. That was it. All within a few months. By December it seemed to be over. But it wasn’t.”

  There were holes in her story, and I had to know more.

  “Wait. I need you to tell me the truth. At Pizza by Earl last night some guy named Hank insisted that he knew you then, that you disappeared, too. And you said six children disappeared. Nan, you have to tell me what really happened.”

  “I was getting to that.” Once again she reached for my hand. I looked down and suppressed a gasp. Her hand was smooth, unwrinkled. “Hank was right. I was the sixth.”

  “Where did you go? Were you kidnapped?”

  “I don’t know, truly. I didn’t remember, even then. I disappeared in October. It was December when I returned.”

  “Where did you think you’d been?” I didn’t believe her. It probably showed.

  She shook her head, bemused. “It had been a warm fall. No, it was more than that—hot, unnatural. So warm we were still in our cotton dresses. But the day I came out of the woods was frigid. I was wearing the same blue cotton dress. Not a stain on it. And the berries in my basket were still fresh and warm. I went home to the Sears house, dragging my feet, afraid I’d be scolded. After Lucy’s disappearance, we were supposed to stay close to home. I didn’t understand the fuss made over me, or why my aunt refused to make a pie with those berries. I hadn’t the slightest suspicion I’d been gone for two months. As far as I knew, I’d just been picking berries all afternoon.”

  I struggled to take this in.

  “I wanted to tell you before you even thought to move here,” she went on. “When I wrote you that note. But you needed to come to this … knowledge … in your own way. I wanted you to be able to draw on the magic of the forest, but …” She took a breath, went on. “You found the Book. I knew I couldn’t wait any longer to tell you.”

  “Then what happened? After you came back?”

  She rose to drop a small log on the fire. “When I came out of the woods after being gone so long, not even knowing where I’d been, I was afraid. Not of the forest. I was afraid of the townspeople. Of my own Sears relations. Their Liza had been taken, after all. When I returned after those two months gone, they began to treat me differently. When it seemed clear none of the others from Five Corners would be found, none of them would reappear as I did, I was shunned. My aunt made me sleep in an outbuilding, away from my cousins.”

  Her childish voice brimmed with loneliness so deep my heart ached for her. “They believed I had something to do with it. Even though it was irrational, they thought it. I felt safer in Hawley Village, with my friend Vienna. None of their children went missing. When the townspeople were spirited away, and I went to stay with Vienna and her family, I was relieved. Then I was happiest of all to leave Hawley altogether, go to Vermont to live with my relatives here.”

  “What about the kidnapped children?” I asked, gentler than I had been with her before. “And all the townspeople? What happened in the church that day?”

  “That’s what I’ve never told anyone.” She stroked the book’s cover then, as if it were one of her hawks. She watched the flames curl greedily around the log, then went on. “It was because of me that those children were kidnapped. Because of me that they died. Whoever that man was, he was looking for me, looking for this Book. He was a Fetch, seeking me. As surely as your Fetch is seeking you now. For some reason, my Fetch gave up hunting me that December, and I returned. But when people in the town—my own relatives—turned on me, began to call me a witch, well … when the town disappeared that day, I did it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I took this Book with me when I left Five Corners and went to the circus with Vienna’s family. I pretended that it was just another book I was reading. I didn’t want to risk anyone finding it, for sure then they’d think it was evidence I was a witch. But the Book … Well, that Sunday morning, I woke in Springfield, in different surroundings, and I wished never to have to go back to live among the people of Hawley Five Corners. I wished with all my might. Then I opened the Book. On its pages I saw the church, the people I knew. I heard the hymns being sung. Then I saw every person, each and every one, break up and scatter. It was as if they were made of paper that was being torn to pieces. All the people of Hawley Five Corners, scattered on the
wind.” A tear glittered on her cheek. I stroked her hand again, smoother even than it had been, and smaller. A young hand, the hand of an eight-year-old girl.

  “I felt horrible, for years. I still do, when I think of it. That I could make a whole town just … vanish. I’ve never told anyone before this. I wanted to forget all about it. My great sin.”

  “Nan, it wasn’t your fault! I had a vision when I opened the book, and I know I had nothing to do with that.”

  “Oh, it was my fault, girl. When I went into that empty church the very day we returned, there was my prayer book, right there on the lectern. All the Revelation passages looked as if they were written in fire. They blazed.”

  “Someone must have marked the passages—”

  She shook her head. “No. It was a sign that I’d used my power, even without completely knowing it, to wish them all away, every last one of them, all the people who had hurt me. I left the prayer book in the church. I buried The Hawley Book of the Dead. I never used my power on any living being again until I learned how to control it completely.”

  I knew the answer, but asked anyway. “Your real power isn’t taming animals, then?”

  She shook her head. “That? Just a skill I cultivated. No. My ‘real’ power is my ability to transport objects to other places.”

  “Objects, and also people.”

  “Anything. Or anyone.”

  “And The Hawley Book of the Dead? Why did you have it? You said it could only be used by the Revelations.”

  “I was a Revelation. Long ago. When my parents died, and I was taken in by my Sears relatives, they changed my name to Hannah. They thought Revelation was too odd a name. My aunt had always feared my mother’s power, shunned her. And she was right. Certainly it was my power that destroyed her family. For no matter what I was called, I still had the power that went with my original name. As you do now.”

  I remembered something. “You said you buried this book?”

  “Behind the church. In consecrated ground. I hoped that might make a difference. That was why I was surprised you found it. That you would dig it up, that you would know where to find it.”

  “But, Nan, I didn’t dig it up. I didn’t even find it in the churchyard, or the church. It was behind a panel in the wall of my office. There’s a painting there, of a woman I think might have been a Revelation. Mom and I thought it might be your grandmother. Her finger is pointing toward the panel.”

  Nan nodded. “My grandmother. There was a portrait, painted just after her husband died. But I have no idea how the Book got there. I know I buried it. But it found you somehow.”

  Could I ignore this as fancy? Could I ignore it all? Not when my Nan had changed to a child before my eyes. “So how do I use the book?” I gestured at the red volume, its gold title glimmering in the shadows of her lap. “Can I find the Fetch with it? Keep him away?”

  “No! That’s what you need to know, most of all. Never use the Book! Don’t use it, ever, for any reason! My mother gave it to me when she was on her deathbed. All she had time to say to me was that the Book would tell me what I most needed to know. It’s all the guidance I ever had, and all I can pass on to you. That and some old stories. My mother got sick so suddenly, and was taken so quickly, before she could teach me how to properly use the Book. I was only four years old. I was afraid of it, never even opened it until … well. I’ve told you enough about that. But when it has been in your charge, you’ll feel its influence. That’s how I knew you had found it, or it had found you. It’s yours, now.” She held out the book to me. I almost refused to touch it. But I did, and when I did, I felt a wave of something powerful, a storm assaulting my body.

  Nan bent forward and gripped my hand, stared into my eyes. I could see hers turning, clouding. Her face had again assumed the wrinkles and furrows of the old. “Reve, be careful. I never would have told you any of this, had the Book not come to you. I wanted you to be safe here, as I was safe. I prayed the Book would remain hidden. No one anymore knows its secrets. It is not something to use lightly. It’s like our powers. They can save our lives, when we cultivate them in the right ways. But the Book … I can’t teach or tell you how to use it. I myself never learned. Remember this, remember all I have told you. The Book is powerful. It is also … dangerous. And your Fetch? I had a Fetch after me, too. Someone found me all those years ago in Hawley, as he’s now trying to find you. It’s the Book he wants, and your ability to use it. He’s looking for you because you are the Keeper. He wants to control you, and the Book through you.”

  “Then Jeremy did die because of me.”

  “You can’t think of it that way. Some things it’s best to ascribe to fate. It was only fate that my mother died before she could teach me, and I could pass the knowledge to you. How to hide the Book, and how to use it to your advantage. Not to have it control you. If you know how to use it, it can be a tool of unimaginable power. If you don’t, well … we can only hope to keep it from someone who might use it for harm. Beyond that, there’s nothing I can tell you.”

  “Isn’t there anyone who might help me? If not, why can’t I just burn the thing?”

  “Don’t you think I tried that? The Book can’t be destroyed. And there’s no one who knows enough to use it properly. Not anymore. I wish to God you weren’t alone with this, but the fact is that you are. All I can do is provide you with someone to guard you, keep you safe.”

  “You mean Falcon Eddy?”

  She nodded. Her hair was pure silver again, shining in the firelight.

  “I knew you needed someone to protect your family. It couldn’t be an outsider, so I sent for him. He’s been a friend to me for a very long time, and a fine protector in times of need. And remember, Hawley Forest is not negligible. It protected me.” I heard Nathan’s step in the hall and dropped the book hastily into the Petroglyph bag.

  Nathan walked in. “Your birds are beautiful, Mrs. Dyer. I was transfixed by your hawks. For some reason, I kept thinking of the seraphim around the throne of Christ. It was almost like some kind of waking dream.” The girls trooped in after him, threw themselves on chairs and sofas, breaking any spell there might have been.

  Maybe my whole conversation with Nan had been some kind of dream. She had shrunk into her old lady self again. Her skin was thin and powdery, her hair wisping silver around her head.

  “As the Bard says, there are more things in heaven and under earth than are dreamt of,” she said, so softly I had to lean forward to hear her. “I’m quite tired, though. I tire easily in the afternoons now. I am sorely in need of my nap.”

  “We’ll let you rest, then. Thank you, Nan.” Although I wasn’t sure thanks were in order. I wasn’t sure of much. I squeezed her hand and felt the frail bones beneath the papery skin.

  “You must come again when I’m over this wretched cold. It was so good to see you girls, with all your spirit, and that Danann hair.” Her eyes closed. I took a flowered afghan from a chair, and covered her gently. Nathan stirred the fire so it blazed, put another log on, and made certain the screen was secure. Then we left Nan to her dreams.

  “She misquoted Shakespeare, you know,” Fai remarked as were walking toward the car. Falcon Eddy leaned against it. He was smoking a pipe. The smoke from it tanged the air.

  Nathan nodded. “ ‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’ Hamlet, somewhere in the first act.”

  “She said under earth. I wonder if she meant to misquote it.”

  “She’s one sharp old lady.”

  “Hey, what did she mean about our hair?” Fai asked, her bright tangled hair glowing in the sunset. “Dannon, she called it. Like the yogurt?”

  “That’s just gross!” Grace exclaimed.

  “I wish I knew half of what she meant.” But I felt something dredged up from the past, something I’d heard once, or seen. Like a bottle washed up from the bottom of the sea floor. A bottle with an urgent message in it.

  We rode through th
e stunning light of late afternoon, the shadows stark and the white painted houses luminous, my head full of story. The disappeared children, the disappeared town, my grandmother all those years ago, the townspeople’s conviction she was a witch. A dangerous belief in New England. I felt alive, as if I were getting close to something, something large and immensely powerful. A fairy tale like a rushing train. Would it somehow carry my girls to safety?

  As we were passing into Massachusetts, Caleigh cried, “Hey! Stop! It’s gone!”

  “What’s gone?” Fai looked up from her book. Grace was curled in the corner, asleep.

  “The Perpetual Tag Sale!”

  The field just on the border where the Perpetual Tag Sale had been was thick with tall, dried cornstalks. There were no tables, no piles of junk, no sign, no old man. Only rows and rows of corn waiting to be mown down for silage.

  “Are you sure it was here?”

  We sat in silence for a moment before Falcon Eddy said, “It was here.”

  “Then where did it go? There was so much junk, that old guy couldn’t have moved it all,” Fai observed.

  “As old as the mist, and older by two,” Falcon Eddy told her.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You’ll never plow a field by turning it over in your mind, missy.”

  “Falcon Eddy, do you ever talk plain English?” Caleigh wanted to know.

  I could see him smile through his beard in the rearview mirror. “When it’s warranted, I do.”

  We stared out into the cornfield, where the Perpetual Tag Sale had been just a few hours before.

  “Was it real?” Grace asked softly.

  Then Caleigh hit me in the eye with her elbow, climbing over the seat to the back. “My Easy-Bake Oven’s still here! It’s real. Every piece. And the sword’s here, too, Mom!”

  Falcon Eddy was right. We couldn’t go trying to plow this field with our minds. All we could do was chalk it up to more magic in this strange place we found ourselves in.