That night, he stayed, and Cora brought supper, a tray for Platt, and one for Ella. Cora brought the trays over to Platt’s desk without missing a beat, though Platt could see her face was graying from the amount of blood on Ella’s hands.
“Thank you, Corie, but I’m not so hungry tonight—and how did you know to bring two trays?”
“That’s fine—eat when you’re ready.” Cora shrugged as she headed for the door. “Word travels fast.”
His wife returned with a bucket full of water, apron soaking inside. She walked up to the cell and motioned to it with her head. “Open the cell. I’ll help her wash so she can eat.”
“Corie, what that woman did makes sure she doesn’t deserve to eat.”
Cora shook her head. “I’m not the one to judge that. She’ll get what she deserves, but for now, she’s in my care, and a meal is in order.”
Platt nodded. Cora would get her way, and the constable opened the cell door.
She took in the bucket and cleaned Ella up, speaking to the woman the way she spoke to a distressed child.
“Miss Ella, I’m washing your hands and face. Get you cleaned up so you can have supper,” Cora said. “Roast chicken and stewed carrots from the garden. Eat with your hands and wipe up with the napkin.”
Ella said nothing to Cora. Platt stood at the door of the cell, just in case.
Once the constable’s wife finished and left Ella her dinner tray, she let her husband lock the cell back up. Her face changed from its soft, pinkish tone to ash. She watched him, standing by the desk, bucket and apron at her feet.
“Now I remember why I married you,” he said, putting the keys back on his belt and walking over to Cora.
“Oh? And why’s that?”
“You’re a kind and tender woman—sweet and gentle as a summer day is long.”
That brought a small smile to the woman’s face. She stopped shaking for the moment. “I’m going back to the house. I’ll see you when you’re done with this.”
Cora left with the bucket and apron.
Platt checked the cell to see that Ella hadn’t eaten, either. She was still sitting in the corner of her cell, whispering things he didn’t understand, rocking back and forth.
He went back to his desk and picked at his tray of food. The roast chicken had a crispy skin and juicy meat reminiscent of last summer’s town barbecue. Carrots were a garden favorite for Platt, and they were less salty this time.
After a long stretch of doing nothing, stomach settling from the meal, Constable Platt decided it was time to coax the woman into a real confession. The whole story.
Platt was not a cruel man, but not one for nonsense, either. He could take things in stride, but anyone who back-talked found their hides in a sling in a hurry. Like that Murray kid he ran out of town—found him stealing from the farm where he’d worked. Platt took a hand to him and Murray split, knowing his choices were a beating and a ride out of the town limits, or stay for worse.
“Ella Mae Smith, it’s time to talk about what you did.”
Ella looked up at the constable and looked at him and past him at the same time. Eyes the color of tobacco smoke bore into him. He swallowed, but held her gaze.
“It’s time, Ella.”
The woman looked at her feet from between her knees and said nothing.
Platt’s tone changed, the way it did when coaxing a child to take his medicine. “Ella, it’s a pus-filled wound. You’ve got to get the pus out so it can heal.”
He didn’t believe the words he spoke. She would never heal from this. She would hang for this if justice prevailed. He would bring her to the courthouse, himself. She would swing—there was little doubt.
Ella’s tear-stained face glistened in the jaundiced, yellow light of the lantern, pale skin absorbing the sick glow from overhead. “You won’t believe me if I told you,” she said. Her voice was scratched, gritty, irritated from the screaming, most likely.
“I don’t care. I want to hear it. What got into your head that made you do such a thing?”
The constable didn’t believe in gods, demons, ghosts, or any of that. Though he didn’t doubt there was a creator, he didn’t think that it involved itself in the minutia of mankind. Those things weren’t logical.
He sat on the bench just outside the cell, running a sepia thumb over his opposite hand. A nervous habit from ages ago.
“They, they got into my head, Timothy,” Ella’s voice croaked, not looking up from her new fixed point, fascinated by her bare toes. “Once they were there, I couldn’t stop. It was me, but it wasn’t me.”
She continued talking, and Platt became more grayish as the story progressed. By the time she finished, he thought he might wind up as white as she was.
“We weren’t a happy family to start. Sure, since Russell died, it got easier without him yelling and beating me, but we struggled. Couldn’t send the oldest to school anymore because he had to work. But at least he could read and write. Yes, sir, he could do that much. Smart child, too, but we needed the money to survive. What we grew in our vegetable patch wasn’t enough to cover our debts.
“I wasn’t sleeping much this summer on account of the heat, and when I slept, I woke up with hands touching me, and inside me. Long, black hands. Slick, deep black, the way ebony wood looks. Real shiny, freezing, and all over me.
“I thought I was just dreaming. Just missing having a husband. Because I had needs. No matter how much he hit me or hollered, he still fed those needs.
“At first, I liked it, I admit. But after a while, the voices spoke, offering me more. Offering me a husband proper, and a good life.
“I never doubted those voices for a moment—never thought they weren’t real. I had no one to talk to so I believed in them. They told me I could be free and revered if only I sacrificed something important to the Timeworn Gods.
“Well, that was when I tried to stop listening. I mean, I didn’t like the kids much, but sacrificing them to the Timeworn wasn’t something I was ready to do. In particular my little Christopher, the youngest. He wasn’t Russell’s. No one knew that, till now, and no, I won’t tell you the father’s name, on account he was a drifter. He’s long gone, and it doesn’t matter anymore.
“Well, maybe Russell suspected it, because the beatings got worse after I gave birth to little Christopher.
“I’m glad that Russell drank himself blind and fell down the stairs. That was one of the best moments of my life when I woke up and saw him through my swollen eyes.
“I fought it for a long time, I admit. But those voices, those touches—they were persuasive. They tormented me with promises of something I always wanted. Night after night, they were relentless.”
As she paused, Platt cleared his throat. His tongue was far too big for his mouth now, and it was dry as sand. He nodded to show he was still listening.
“You know when you’re desperate and want something in your heart, no matter how deep it’s buried, you’ll find a reason to have it. No matter what it is or how much you fight doing something bad, if you want it enough, you’ll make up reasons. Well, this was something I wanted in a way.
“To get where I wanted to be, to be free, I was glad to do it, Constable. I was glad to do it for my freedom and the promise of pleasure, though at first, I wouldn’t admit that. But it’s the truth, even though it wasn’t me, but it WAS me. I—”
“I don’t understand how it could be and couldn’t be you,” Platt said. He grimaced.
Ella ignored him. “Well, as long as the voices were with me, then I was happy to do it. I’m not happy, now. I don’t believe it was I who did it. Somehow, it was and wasn’t me, and I don’t know how to say it otherwise. The voices, they were overwhelming with their promises and their demands. To be with the Father of the Timeworn as a husband? I felt compelled to take that offer.”
Platt sighed.
Ella talked past him. “For a while, I resisted. I knew killing was wrong,
and they weren’t asking to borrow the children. They told me they had to be sacrificed by the flesh, and they told me it was the only way I’d be free to be with them. See, they are the True Gods—they are One God. I guess it’s hard to conceive, but they’re akin to leaves and branches on the trunk of a great tree.
“Those leaves whispered every night, and then all day, during the day. No one else could hear them. I became short-tempered with the children, and they became sullen. They cried more often. They became gray. Docile. I grew to hate them. Not just resent them, but hate them because they stood in my way to happiness. I’d be happy with the Timeworn Gods.
“I gave in when the voices got more forceful. With my permission, they took over my body, and they knew what to do. They led me to the supper table with my stew. They put that rat poison in it, right in the stew pot. I ate none. The children did. Even my youngest. I put them to bed. They didn’t even complain with their stomachaches, Timothy. They were too frightened I’d become cross with them.
“Soon their breathing stopped, and I laid them out in a chain. We laid them out in a chain, and we cut them open.”
Platt’s mouth dried up even more. He tried to swallow, but the only sound was a series of clicks in his throat.
Ella took this as a signal to keep talking. “The strangest thing happened then. That blackness I was telling you about? Well, it flowed out of me. Not a trickle, but lightning. Slick and fast, kind of the way a person vomits when they’re real sick. It formed a tall person who didn’t have a face—just an ebony wood man.
“I sliced the children open, it cut out their hearts and intestines and ate. Ate, ate, and ate. Oh, it was joyous for the things, and I remember clapping my hands in delight, and even bathing in the blood. We would be together, the Timeworn and me. Together.”
Platt stared and felt something slither through his stomach and wrap around his heart. Beads of sweat broke out over his forehead, and he licked his rough lips with a dry tongue.
“But then, it left, and the voices left with it.” Ella brought her hands up to her face to mime the action, splaying out her fingers near her ears and wiggling them, then spreading her arms out and upward. “Oh, how I cried. Not just for what I had done to my children, but because the Timeworn deceived me. Near as I can think, they’ll be back for me, but not the way I thought.
“I don’t expect you to understand that. Now it’s quiet and I’m not sure I understand it. But they were there, they were real, and I did what I had to do for the Timeworn! They’ll be back for me, you’ll see. Maybe even greater than I imagined—I did what they wanted.”
Ella’s face bloomed with a fervor that Platt associated with the madness of religious people when they think gods are speaking to them. She moved toward the bars, and Platt took an involuntary step back. The woman reeked of blood from her clothing, piss, shit, and something else he didn’t recognize. Akin to rot, but too sweet, too sickly smelling. Not as sharp as death, but dying. He supposed that was how madness smelled.
Platt was quiet, beads of sweat standing out on his brow, his heart pumping into his ears. She was mad and deserved what she got for what she had done. He turned away and went back to his desk, writing up everything she had told him, without personal commentary.
By the time the pen ran out of ink, the constable regretted eating his supper. Stomach a tight ball, the constable stood up and retrieved Ella’s tray, putting it outside for the hounds. The fresh air on his face kept him from losing supper.
***
Dumfries wasn’t a smart man, and he wasn’t a kind man. He was a man who loved trouble.
This, too, was trouble. News of the Smith woman traveled fast among the residents of Silver Hollow, and a fever poured over them, which Dumfries loved. He knew there’d be trouble, and that’s where he wanted to be—right in the center of it.
Twenty-two people showed up to his little emergency meeting at the Church of The Benevolent Alastor, and that was enough. That put a smile on his rugged, pale face. Well, an internal smile, because he couldn’t present such grim news with a huge grin on his pate. No, this had to be done with somber but commanding tones and mien. He could only use his chiseled jaw and bright green eyes to charm people. The rest was pure substance.
Bloodthirsty trouble was always the best kind.
“We’re concerned, here, that justice will not be served because Ella Mae Smith is a woman. There’s always a chance the judge will feel sorry for her and let her go,” he said to the crowd. He was a loud, barrel-chested man who towered over the tallest person there by a good foot. He used his height to his advantage, and his stentorian voice echoed in the church halls as the weeping God Alastor watched them from the altar.
The crowd murmured their agreement, and someone—either Aggie or Maggie Grimshaw (they were twins so hard to tell which one)—spoke. “Think of the children! Who will bring justice to the children?” She cried out, wiping at her forehead as though she were to faint. The other brought her hands to her heart.
Dumfries, not wanting to be overshadowed by the pearl-clutching hysterics, spoke up over her, slamming his fist into the pulpit for emphasis, hard enough to rock it forward and bring his greased, bottle-black hair into his field of vision. “We will. We will bring justice to Silver Hollow!”
The crowd got more feverish with their murmurs and cries, and Dumfries roused them further.
“I say we go to Platt and demand she be released to us, so we can serve up justice.”
“Justice!” The crowd’s noise reverberated off the walls.
It was Eugene Bayless who gathered the rope and swung it around as if it were a lasso to round up a calf. Others brought their shotguns, and still others brought clubs and lanterns with them.
They marched on to the small constable’s office where the jail was, and as they gathered, more joined the twenty-three. Some out of curiosity, and still others who just wanted a show. They weren’t as feverish as the original set, but Dumfries didn’t care. As long as they didn’t get in his way, they could enjoy watching the old bitch swing.
The constable was outside with empty dinner trays when they approached, Dumfries leading them—a shepherd of strange, rabid sheep. Every step, crunching the packed, dry dirt beneath his boots excited the leader of the mob, increasing as he approached. His mouth was near slobbering with fervor.
“Hold on here, Dumfries,” Platt said, holding up his palms toward the crowd. Dumfries halted, but he had no intention of leaving without getting what he wanted, and that was a swinging Ella Mae Smith. He wouldn’t be happy till he saw her hang, tongue lolling, with her neck rope-burned so deep it about took her head off.
Now, that was intoxicating. Better than any spirits he’d ever had.
“We don’t want to hold on, Platt,” Dumfries’s voice was full of reproach—a stern father figure, even though he and Platt were close to the same age. The townspeople respected Platt, so the man was careful at first. Best to put Platt in an enemy position—an obstacle to be removed. “We want justice, and we don’t think a judge in Cartston or any of the towns nearby is gonna do it.”
Platt shook his head. “That’s not your call, Dumfries. That’s not anyone’s call here.”
The constable was calm and lowered his hands. Dumfries watched with wary eyes while he spoke.
“It is our call, Constable,” he said, and the crowd voiced their assent. “We’re the residents here who let that—that—witch into our township, and we are the ones who will see that justice is served. Step aside, Platt.”
Dumfries tried to push past the constable. Platt might not have been as big, but he was just as strong. He dug in his heels and refused to move.
“Now, calm down, everyone,” Platt said. “Everyone go home.”
Dumfries could tell by the look on Platt’s face that the constable was unconvinced the crowd would disperse. The bigger man tried again to push past him, and that’s when Platt reacted. Platt reached out to take Dumfries by
the neck and then to the ground.
Dumfries moved faster, and whacked the constable with the club he’d been carrying. It connected to the other man’s head with a dull thump, and Platt fell, prone.
“Sorry to do that to you, Constable,” the man said, kneeling and patting him on the back as if he meant it. He moved to Platt’s belt and hoisted the cell key off him.
“We had to do it,” he said to the transfixed crowd. They gaped for the moment on the constable’s limp body. “Platt will be fine. Bayless, you’re with me. Carmont, you make sure Platt’s all right. Take him to that bench.”
He wasn’t a complete barbarian. Dumfries would not kill the man if it wasn’t necessary. Kill the witch. That was necessary.
With force enough to make the bars clang, Dumfries opened the cell door, and a look of utter, bitter hate crossed Ella’s face. “Don’t you get near me,” she screamed, backing away and scratching at him. It was all the leader of the lynch mob could do not to burst out laughing at her.
“Oh, see, everyone? She’s not so brave now she’s here alone,” he said, crossing his arms. “I see you can kill children with ease—now let’s see you try to stop us.”
He reached out and tried to grab her, but she scratched him hard in return, drawing blood from his arm. Then she laughed and chanted.
For just a moment, Dumfries thought he saw her eyes go from that strange, icy blue to black. He wouldn’t have admitted it, but for just a moment, he thought his heart would stop with fear.
“The TIMEWORN GODS are on my side!” She finished her strange chant and barreled through the crowd.
She only got so far, however, before Dumfries snapped out of the trance that took over his body. Now burning with ire, he leapt on her. Hands grabbed at her, holding her down. Whispers of witch, vile woman and whore escaped the voices of the crowd.
They kept pulling until her struggles ceased to matter, and they dragged her to the back of the church.
There, an old willow tree stood, its branches thick and huge. Bayless and Krueger brought up the rope and made sure the noose was secure. Ella was babbling now, and thrashing against those who held her. They struggled to tie her wrists tight and took time securing the noose around her neck.
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