The Witch's Grave: A Fever Devilin Mystery

by Phillip DePoy

  I raised the lid; the yellowed paper crackled; the story sat waiting to be read once more. I picked up one stack. There were perhaps a hundred others like it in the trunk, written in my great-grandfather’s arcane hand, all the same story written over and over again, all with the same title.

  “It’s called ‘The Lily.’ May I read it to you?”

  He didn’t understand and he was sleepy, but Andrews nodded, settled back in his chair, and indulged me. “Read away.”

  I turned on the lamp beside me, closed the trunk and sat on it, and began to read aloud:

  “‘I wake from troubled sleep to write these lines. I can find but little rest. To and fro in my dreams I see her walking now, and I cannot keep to my bed. God in Heaven, there must be some release in the telling of my situation, else why would I be compelled to write it down over and over again in ink as black as night?

  “‘There am I, in Ireland, with Mr. Jamison.

  “‘My father had sent me from a lonely, motherless seaside village as apprentice to a man he barely knew. Still, I was glad to go and find my way in this world. Down the sunny path I passed through the garden gate without a care in this world. I had not yet stepped foot into the Jamison household when I first heard her voice.

  “‘She was stirring peat in the fireplace to ready the evening meal, as I could see through the open kitchen window. Her face was white and fragile as the porcelain teacup in her tiny hand. She took no notice of me.

  “‘I’m come from bold stock. I straightway cut a lily from the garden walk and went into the kitchen.

  “‘She turned. I offered her my lily and she took it without a word.

  “‘She locked me eye to eye. “What’s your name, then—and what’s your business here in this house?”

  “‘It’s Conner Briarwood, and I’m expected.”

  “‘Her smile was wider. “It’s a rough name.”

  “‘I come from a wild place, but I’ve manners enough to offer a flower to the finest woman in this world.”

  “‘Now she was teasing. “What if I’m the daughter of this house and you’ve set yourself off on the wrong foot, too bold with the only child of your new master?”

  “‘He’ll find me likewise bold in all manner of things and he may as well learn it now as later.”

  “‘But what if I’m only the serving girl and he thinks me beneath your degree?”

  “‘Then Mr. Jamison will do just as well to learn I have no patience with the notion of high or low degree when it’s God’s made us all. I can’t be other than I am.”

  “‘With my eyes so locked on hers, I had not seen Mr. Jamison himself enter the room by the other door. There he was and spoke up strongly, a twinkle in his eye: “Well said, boy. You’ve got the Devil in you.”

  “‘I was startled out of myself; she dropped the lily on the floor.

  “‘Mr. Jamison smiled, a kindly man. It was in that moment I knew why my father had so trusted him. That smile would win the dead—it won me all the more, being especially full of life that day.

  “‘Back to work now, Molly,” he spoke as gently as if it had been his own daughter. “Master Conner’s been walking all day and he’ll be hungry. Go on clean up, then. Your lodging’s out by the smith house, a fine set of rooms. I’ve often kept myself there when I was late working. Off now, and we’ll catch up over dinner.” He started out of the room, then turned. “But don’t leave without first fetching the lily you’ve cut from my lady wife’s garden walk, give it again to our Molly. Once a lily’s cut, its savor wanes.”

  “‘And he was gone.

  “‘So it was I came into the house of a good man, into my time of apprenticeship. I learned to spin silver into teapots and fine plates and loving rings and ornate buttons. The nights were filled with longing for sweet Molly, a stolen moment in the kitchen or garden before falling to fitful sleep. When the day came at last that Mr. Jamison let me take on a project of my own, I fashioned a silver lily. It took the better part of five nights. The old man could see I’d not slept for working, and he praised the silver lily.

  “‘What’ll it be, son? A pin, an ear piece, a ring?”

  “‘It’s a gift, sir.” I could not look him in the eye. “Useful for nothing else save a token of affection.”

  “‘That night after dinner I found excuse to wander in the garden, moon the color of the little lily folded in my right hand. Molly came out into the moonlight when she was done with chores.

  “‘Look how fine this night is, Mol.”

  “‘She laid her head upon my shoulder as sweetly as autumn leaf falls to the ground. I could barely breathe.

  “‘She looked up into my eyes. “You’re the dearest man ever I knew, Conner Briarwood—and I love you till the seas go dry.”

  “‘Look here, Molly. I’ve made you a lily that’ll never fade. It’s a token of my regard for you. This silver lily would sooner turn to clay before my affection for you is cold. I love you till the day I die.”

  “‘And then we kissed.

  “‘Straightway I went to Mr. Jamison and told him of my intention to wed Molly. While his gladness seemed a little short, he was happy for me, offered to pay for the church on All Saints’ Day. But his final word was strange. “This world is filled with the bitter as well as the sweet.” He’d say no more.

  “‘The next day was clear and golden; all the leaves were turning. I heard Molly’s laughter down by the brook at the farther field, under the hazel.

  “‘The sight that stabbed my eye when she came into view still cuts my brain.

  “‘Molly was entrapped in another man’s arms. I could see he was a lord by his fine clothes. I could see he was kissing her neck. I could see he would not let her go. She hadn’t been laughing at all but crying for help. I ran to her aid.

  “‘Out came the dagger and rapier to my hand.

  “‘You there!” I shouted. “Leave off with that girl or I’ll break open your breastbone. You’re a dog and I mean to kill you.”

  “‘Molly broke free from his grasp. Her face was flush with fear and she came running for me.

  “‘No, Conner! Don’t fight him!”

  “‘But she need not fear for me. I grew up wild and brawling with tougher men than this rich pastry, and I told her so.

  “‘Quit this place, Molly. I have something to do with your malefactor.”

  “‘Hold, boy,” he said calmly. “You don’t have the understanding of this situation.”

  “‘Will you take out your sword?” I spit back at him.

  “‘Here it is then.” He drew. “But I only mean to relieve you of those weapons and calm you down. You don’t rightly know what’s at work here.”

  “‘There was a rage in me; the Devil had my throat. I threw myself at him and beat down his resistance at once. He fell backward puffing and stumbling and trying to shake off his cape. Molly was screaming, but the rage in my head would allow me nothing save the object of my blade. I took my dagger to his chest without a word, cracked his breastbone, spilled his blood, cleft his heart in twain. He fell to the earth, dead.

  “‘Molly was crying like a madwoman. Others from over fields and houses were running to see. She flung herself on me, beating my chest with her tiny hands.

  “‘What in God’s name have you done? Don’t you know you’ve killed a lord who was going to take care of me with gold and silver and a house of my own? You’ve ruined me, you stupid boy.”

  “‘On her hand was a ring of gold as wide as a beam of sunset.

  “‘What are you saying?” I dropped the rapier, took a step back from her, drenched in rich man’s blood. “You’re to be married to me this week.”

  “‘What girl would marry an apprentice,” she rasped, “when she had a fine lord? There’s to be no wedding; there never was to be no wedding. And now you’ve murdered the only man who could have saved me from a life of serving and fetching. You’ll hang, boyo. You’ll hang!”

  “‘She reached in her bodice and pulle
d out my silver lily, threw it in my face.

  “‘On All Saints’ Day I fed myself on a jailer’s soup in place of wedding cake and watched the sun pass through prison bars.

  “‘The day of my trial was in cold December, when all the birds had fled. Mr. Jamison found me a lawyer from Belfast who assured me there was a flaw in my indictment which could have me free. I had little hope. I’d killed a man of high degree, and my only love was witness against me. What good would freedom do me anyway?

  “‘The trial began with legal talk; lawyers and judges speak a language all their own. The lawyers met up at the judge’s bench and jabbered again in Latin for the space of half an hour.

  “‘I could make out but little: “ … third page of the indictment no mention of the word fiancé … page seven Briarwood misspelled … page eleven a blacksmith, far cry from a silversmith … shoddy work, flaw after flaw …” until at last the judge cried, “Enough. Step back!”

  “‘The silence of the tomb was on the courthouse that day. The judge cast his eye about the place, slowly took in every face. At last he spoke.

  “‘This indictment is riddled with flaws; I must release the prisoner until a new one may be filed.”

  “‘He banged the gavel down; the room exploded. I scarcely heard a sound of it. I watched as Molly rose and departed the place with never one look back at me at all. Not one. I soon left Ireland the same way.

  “‘My name is Conner Devilin now, and I live in America. I’ve a fine wife and grown children and still more money in the banks than I know what to do with.

  “‘It might have been that my fate would be to write these lines from a prison cell after killing a man in wild anger. But God devises various prisons—some are not made of stone and bars. For I wake from troubled sleep nearly every night of my life, can find but little rest. In my dreams I see her walking, setting fire to my heart, and cannot keep to my bed.

  “‘So I write it down again in ink as black as night, but it is no use. The ending is always the same: I love her still, her voice like an angel, her tiny hands.

  “‘There’s the proof on my table: the lily—still silver, not clay—bright as the moon, the only true pain, and the only real light, I will ever know.’”

  I looked up. Andrews snored softly in his chair; I had no way of knowing how much of the story he’d heard. I put it back in the trunk.

  I suppose I had always considered the story, my obsession with it, an influential factor in my becoming a folklorist. It was not only the fact that its story explained derivation of the Devilin name or that it was impossible to tell what of it was truth and what fiction. There was something more emotional and immediate for me. In stacks and stacks of curling paper there were a hundred versions or more of my great-grandfather’s story, varying only slightly in length and dialogue. His obsession with the past is what spoke to me most.

  Although I searched the trunk quite thoroughly in my younger years, there was no trace of the silver lily. I asked my father about it. All he could remember was something odd about the funeral, some trouble with the widow, my great-grandmother Adele. She didn’t like the fact that the old man had insisted on being buried with a little silver lily in his right hand. He was, they say, laid to rest with his right hand closed at his heart. No one at the time knew why, except perhaps my great-grandmother. She wandered off from her nurse less than a year later and was never found, died alone somewhere in the mountains. Her body was never recovered.

  Her ghost sat beside me, staring silently at the pages I held, brushing gray hair with bone-white fingertips, resting her head on my shoulder. Some ghosts, so cold, cannot be dispelled by smoldering sage; they need a blazing fire.

  Six

  The next morning I awoke downstairs on the sofa with no memory of getting there or falling asleep. Andrews was slouched in his chair. Sun shouted through the windows. To make matters worse, the phone would not stop ringing no matter how hard I stared at it.

  Somehow I got to a standing position but failed to move any closer to the phone. Andrews shot up angrily, scowled, stomped over, and grabbed it.

  “Devilin residence,” he said calmly. “Oh, Skidmore, we were just going to call you.”

  He held out the receiver in my direction.

  I took a deep breath, came to the phone. “Skid. We had an adventure last night.”

  I told him the story. He got angry; we argued; he told me not to touch the thread from the gravestone, he’d be over in twenty minutes. I hung up.

  “Okay, you were right.” I gave Andrews a glance. “We should have called him last night.”

  “Sometimes I don’t know what’s the matter with you,” he growled.

  I saw no point in going over the long list of things the matter with me, including why I’d slept on the sofa. Instead, I made breakfast: omelets with fresh basil from the spice garden and the last of the tomatoes on the leggy vines outside the door. I was making the second round of espresso when Skidmore knocked.

  “Come in.” I didn’t turn around.

  He entered silently; I knew he was glaring at my back.

  “Damn it.” He stood just inside the doorway.

  “Here’s the envelope,” Andrews offered from his seat at the kitchen table, pointing to the countertop.

  “We’re having a little espresso before we head up to the Deveroe place,” I said, my back still to him. “Want some?”

  Skid and I had found over the years that ignoring a problem, in combination with the right amount of humor, could make the problem go away. Or at least it went unspoken, which was as good in my book. That would be the oft-mentioned Book of Not Saying, perfected in Blue Mountain generations before I was born.

  “Okay then.” He moved to pick up the envelope, sighed. “I reckon I could use a little of that engine sludge.”

  “You insult it,” I said, facing him, handing him a cup, “but you drink it.”

  “I tolerate it for the sake of our friendship,” he answered pointedly. “What’s left of it.”

  “I told him to call you last night.” Andrews shifted in his seat. His hair was a blond squirrel’s nest, and his sweatshirt looked as if he’d slept in it.

  “Maybe it should just be you and me working on this thing,” Skid said to Andrews. “Leave out the middleman.”

  “Factory-direct crime solving.” Andrews nodded. “We pass the savings on to you.”

  “You get what you pay for,” I said, pouring.

  “No kidding, Dev,” Skidmore said softly, “I need you to tell me when something like that happens. Not sit on it all night. What if them boys had found Able again? And now all that trail’s nine hours cold. I mean, damn.”

  “I told him all that,” Andrews put in.

  “Now you’re just getting annoying,” I informed Andrews. “I’ve changed my mind about taking you with me up to the Deveroe house.”

  “I didn’t want to go in the first place.” He leaned back. “I’m on vacation.”

  “There you go,” Skid said, sipping.

  “Fine,” I told them both. “I’ll take care of our little problem myself, then, shall I?”

  “Which problem would that be?” Skidmore said, casting a sidelong glance at Andrews.

  “I’d be leaving the murder to you, of course,” I answered innocently. “I’m simply trying to do your wife a favor and find her brother.” I finished my espresso in one gulp. “And since the Deveroe brothers were the last to see him, I think I’ll head up to their place.”

  I turned, set my cup in the sink, and bounded upstairs.

  I could hear Skidmore and Dr. Andrews discussing matters, most notably yours truly. Odd hearing my best friend from the mountains and my closest university chum talking without me: country mouse, city mouse conspiring. Most of what they said was lost when I got in the shower, but I was certain I heard Skidmore tell Andrews to meet him in an hour. What they were planning was anyone’s guess.

  I was back downstairs, khakis and dark green sweater on, within m
inutes. Skid had gone.

  “What were you two talking about?” I asked Andrews.

  “You mostly.”

  “He left?”

  “Without saying good-bye,” he said, mocking.

  “Are you going with me or not?” I pulled my keys out of my pocket.

  “Not,” he said firmly. “I’m taking a nice shower, a stroll through the grandeurs of nature, then a run at some cheap paperback that has nothing to do with Shakespeare, because, I may have forgotten to mention, I’m on vacation.”

  “Well, there you are,” I said, heading for the door.

  No need to confront him with the fact that I knew he was lying.

  The Deveroe cabin sat on a harsh slant near the top of a craggy rise, the dark side of Blue Mountain. Many generations had called the place home. What caught the eye in the morning’s light was a lush verdance that seemed to grow from the house itself. Cardinal climber, purple hyacinth bean, morning glory, pumpkin vines all twined as one around six front porch columns. The roof was covered with sod and growing moss, a green roof that cooled in summer and warmed in winter. The wood was gray with age, unpainted but looked solid. Windows were spotless and hung with white lace. The front yard rivaled Monet’s: nasturtiums, mums, cleome, begonias mixed in with butternut squash, chard with purple stalks, and the perfume of giant rosemary guarded the steps. It was easy to see why people might think more than simple agriculture was at work in such abundance—nature had been aided by the supernatural.

  I honked the truck horn as a formality: the boys knew I was there; the curtains at the window shivered.

  Donny appeared in the doorway grinning. He hadn’t changed clothes since the previous night, and his hair was wilder. He waved, stepped off the porch. I kept my eye on the windows, hoping for a glimpse inside, but the house was dark, impossible to see anything past the lace.

  “Hey, Doc!” he called.

  “Morning,” I answered, suspicious of his tone, his grin.

  “Sorry to make you pull up and honk like that,” he went on, coming slowly toward me, his voice too loud. “Like I said, place is a mess.”