by Devon Monk
“Now, don’t be so cruel to the girl, Mabel,” Mrs. Dunken said. “I’m sure Miss Small will settle down and behave properly soon enough. She just needs a man with a strong hand to rein her in. A man like my boy Henry.”
Rose rolled her eyes and went back to dusting. Henry thought he was the strongest, prettiest man in town because that was what his mama was always telling him. Even though his parents had sent him off to school in New York more to be rid of him than to get him some real learning, he’d come back only a year later, saying he’d decided politics were his future. He’d set his eyes on taking the mayor’s place.
“That’s kind of you to think so,” Rose said to Mrs. Dunken. “But I’m sure Henry has his sights set on a girl of much higher standing than I, what with his political aspirations and all.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, dear,” Mrs. Haverty said.
Rose stopped dusting out of shock. She’d never heard the banker’s wife say a kind thing to her in all her days.
“You may be of low standing,” Mrs. Haverty continued, “but you do have land to your name. A good parcel of land can make even the most plain of girls pretty enough to marry.”
A slow, creeping dread came along with those words. Mrs. Haverty sounded like she was certain about that. Rose glanced over at Mrs. Dunken. Still the same smug look.
Oh no. They’d done something, made some plans to marry her off.
A shadow crossed the doorway and Rose knew who it was before she even glanced that way. Henry Dunken.
“Good evening, ladies,” he said, striding into the room and taking up too much space. “I understand you need a hand with the wedding preparations?”
Rose tucked the cloth away in one of the pockets of her apron and picked up the tin of wax. She crossed the room to take it back to the storage cupboard, and to get herself out from beneath their notice.
“Henry, yes, I’m so glad you’re here,” Mrs. Haverty said. “You can help Rose fetch down the candleholders from the attic.”
Rose froze halfway across the room. She most certainly would not go into the attic with that man. She’d known him nearly all her life. He was mean when they were young and was meaner now. His smiles and polite manners fit him like a bad suit, and fooled no one, least of all her.
“I’ll have to beg your apologies,” Rose said. “I promised my mother I’d help her close down the shop. And it’s already late.”
“Nonsense,” Mrs. Haverty said. “I was just at the shop, and your mother said she’s coming this way any minute now. I’m sure the store is already closed.”
Rose’s mind tumbled and spun, looking for a new escape route. “I have chores at home, waiting for me.”
Mrs. Dunken swished her way over and took Rose’s arm. Firmly. She tugged her off toward the stairs to the attic in the back corner of the room. “My old knees just won’t do those stair steps any longer. Be a dear, for us, Miss Small. I’m sure your mother is in full agreement with you minding as you’re told.”
She gave Rose a shove, and Rose took the first two steps, just to keep from falling.
And then Henry Dunken was right behind her, smelling of booze and blocking her retreat. He leaned in far too close for a man who should know his place and his manners in front of his mother and other women of the town.
Rose took another step, just to fit some air between her and him, and the candle he carried in one hand.
“Go on up, Miss Small,” he said quiet and nice. “Won’t take long to bring the women their fancy candles; then I’ll be on my way.”
She didn’t believe him. But unless she wanted to shove him down the stairs and stir the wrath of all the old biddies, it’d be best to get this done and over with.
Rose clomped up the stairs, Henry just a step behind her, breathing hard enough she could smell the alcohol on each exhalation.
The attic was dark, the posts and beams and rafters dancing side to side in the light thrown by Henry’s candle. The window at the end of the attic was dark too, the moon not yet off the horizon.
“If I recall, the candlesticks are back there near the window.” Rose pointed. She had no intention of going into the dark corner with Henry in the room. She was staying at the top of the stairs, where she could retreat, if needed.
“I’ll need a hand gathering them,” he said, still too quiet and still too nice. “I’d be right obliged if you held the candle for me, Miss Small.”
He stepped up close to her, too close, and offered her the candle he held. He smelled of booze and smoke and sweat. She didn’t know where he’d spent his day, but she’d guess it was in the saloon.
Rose took the candleholder, but Henry did not let go. He smiled, and nice Henry, quiet Henry, melted away, leaving that cruel boy she’d known all her life.
“You grew up real pretty, Rose. Got yourself curves that keep a man awake at night. If it weren’t for that smart mouth of yours, and all those wild contraptions you busy yourself with, you’d be married off, softened up, and have six babies tugging at your skirts by now.”
Rose tucked her left hand in her apron pocket, but did not let go of the candle that Henry still held.
“Henry Dunken, if you don’t have the decency to treat me like a lady, I will leave this attic and tell your mother what a hog you are.”
That got a smile out of him. Not a nice smile. “You’re gonna run and tell my mama? That didn’t work when you were ten. That ain’t gonna work today.” He stepped tight up into her. “And there ain’t no Mr. Gregor to run to here.”
Rose got her fingers around the gun she kept in her pocket. She jabbed the barrel of it below Henry’s belt. His eyes went wide.
“You feel that, Mr. Dunken? That’s one of those wild contraptions I busy myself with. It shoots a man clean through. Then the powder and oil I devised eats away at flesh and bone until there’s a hole left behind wide enough to stick two fists through.”
Rose smiled. She reckoned it was not a nice smile either. “You step away from me, Henry Dunken, or I’m going to blow your manhood to kingdom come.”
Henry’s eyes narrowed, and a bead of sweat trickled down his temple to catch in his sideburns and beard. She could tell he didn’t believe her. Maybe didn’t believe she had made such a thing. Maybe didn’t believe she would use such a thing.
But she had. And she would.
Rose cocked the hammer, and the click of gears sounded like knuckles breaking.
Henry Dunken let go of the candle and took a step back. His hands were in fists. Rose remembered how much those fists had hurt when she was nine. She vowed then she’d never let a man hurt her so again.
“You’re a hell-spawn woman. Made of the devil’s rib. No wonder your mama squatted you out in the dirt on the Smalls’ doorstep. You’re nothing but evil.”
Rose nodded. “So it appears I am, Mr. Dunken. And now that we agree to my nature, I’d say it’s best to your advantage to gather up those candlesticks and carry them down these stairs.”
“Man doesn’t turn his back on a rattlesnake,” he said.
“Might be he should, if the snake’s pointing a gun.” Just to make sure he believed her, Rose took the gun out of her apron pocket. Plenty enough candlelight to show the bulky weapon—not the little derringer she carried. This was a modified Remington revolver. Warmed her heart to see the shock in his eyes.
“Candlesticks,” she said.
Henry got busy piling up the carved, polished candlesticks like rough kindling into his arms. When he walked across the room again, he glared at her. “I’ll be mayor of this town, Rose Small. And I will make your life more miserable than even your mad mind can imagine. If you live that long. After all, I know where you walk at night. And where you sleep.”
He stormed down the stairs, bootheels hard and heavy with his anger.
Rose stayed at the top of the stairs for a few moments. Her heart was beating so hard, she could feel it in her throat, hear it in her ears. That man meant to kill her for his bruised pride. An
d if he caught her alone again, he’d do just that.
She tucked the gun back in her apron, but kept one hand on it. She didn’t want to shoot a man in front of his mother, but if he tried to hurt her, she wasn’t above it either.
Rose was halfway down the stairs when the steam clock whistled. Three short blasts and one long. There was an emergency. Something was wrong. That whistle would call all the townsfolk from miles around to the church, to find out what the trouble was and what they needed to do about it.
Rose stayed on the stairs a minute or so more, waiting to see where, exactly, Henry Dunken would position himself in this emergency.
He dropped the fancy candlesticks in a pile along the wall and rushed outside, the women aflutter behind him. If Rose wanted to leave the building, now was her chance, out the back door. Easy to slip out unnoticed when an emergency was rising. Course she might just run off into the very emergency the town was rallying against if she wasn’t careful. But if choosing between an unknown danger and Henry Dunken, she’d take the unknown.
She blew out the candle, ready to leave
Then it struck her. Maybe it was little Elbert. Maybe Mr. Hunt had found the child alive and brought him home. Maybe he had discovered the bogeyman that took him and all the town was being gathered up to go hunt it down.
Rose moved up the steps just enough the shadows from the attic hid her from a casual glance. She wanted to know what the trouble was, but didn’t want to be volunteered just yet in the fixing of it.
“Bring him in here, Mr. LeFel.” Sheriff Wilke’s voice filled the hall. “Mr. and Mrs. Gregor will be here any minute now.”
Sheriff Wilke strode into the room; then Mr. Shard LeFel, resplendent in his velvet long coat and silk ruffles, strolled in behind him. He held an unconscious child in his arms. Little Elbert Gregor.
The rest of the people, and there was a crowd of them gathered behind him, stayed well back from Mr. LeFel and his man Mr. Shunt, who followed, as he always did, on Mr. LeFel’s heels. Mr. LeFel walked across that floor like a king, his head high, his eyes filled with a sorrow Rose did not believe. He placed the child gently upon a pew at the front of the room, and Doc Hatcher went to one knee, his hands on the child’s stomach, chest, then face, where he gently drew back the child’s eyelids.
The sheriff had taken the stage behind the pulpit. Mr. LeFel and Mr. Shunt stood to the sides and behind him.
“Come in and have a seat, everyone,” Sheriff Wilke called out. The whole town, and then some, seemed to be trying to wedge themselves into the building.
“Mr. LeFel has some information we all should know,” he continued. “First, though, I’ll tell you the Gregor boy is breathing.” He looked over at the doctor.
“He’s in bad shape,” Doc Hatcher said, and if Rose hadn’t been looking right at his face, she wouldn’t have heard him over the chatter of the crowd. “He needs rest.”
“Sit down,” Sheriff Wilke hollered over the crowd. “Take a seat. Make room for your neighbor.”
“Out of the way,” Mr. Gregor bellowed from the door. Rose knew the blacksmith’s voice, though she had never heard that mix of anger and panic in his tone. And just like snowmelt before the fire, the crowd receded, leaving a clear path between the pews for Mr. Gregor and his wife. Little Mrs. Gregor bobbed down that aisle, one hand pressed over her mouth, holding back the sound of her sobs, the other clutching up the hem of her skirt to keep from tripping.
Mr. Gregor stormed down the aisle behind her, his hands curled as if he wished the weight of a hammer and vise lay within them.
“Where is my son?” he demanded.
“He’s here, right here.” Sheriff Wilke pointed to the pew. Mrs. Gregor was already pulling Elbert up into her arms and sobbing over him.
Elbert fussed and then cried softly, clinging to the fabric of his mother’s dress.
Mr. Gregor glared at the men on the stage, the sheriff, the rich dandy, and his servant, Mr. Shunt. “Who found him? Who had him? Where was he?”
Shard LeFel stepped forward and it was like every candle in the room leaned his way, every eye locked on him, every head bowed to hear his words.
“I found him, Mr. Gregor.” Shard LeFel’s voice was like hot wine, and there were folk in the pews who sighed at the sound of it. “And not a moment too soon.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“He’ll be telling us all now, Mr. Gregor,” the sheriff said. “Take your family home, if you want—get that poor boy in bed. We’ll take care of matters here on out.”
“I’ll stand and stay,” Mr. Gregor said.
The blacksmith glanced down at his son, who looked up at him with tearful eyes before burying his face once again in the crook of his mother’s neck. Mr. Gregor placed his hand gently on his child’s head, and the boy turned his face away. Elbert’s eyes were dazed, and Rose shook her head, her heart catching when she thought of what he must have been through.
Then the little boy looked at her. Saw her there, in the shadows. And smiled.
Rose pressed her hand over her chest, as if the boy’s eyes had shot an arrow. A cold and fearful sensation crawled over her skin. That little boy was not Elbert. He might look like Elbert; he might cry like Elbert. But that boy had more of the Strange to him than Rose had ever seen in a child.
She pressed herself up against the stairwell wall, wishing there were more than just shadows between them.
The sheriff took a few steps away from Mr. Gregor so he could catch everyone’s attention. “Listen up, folks. Mr. LeFel has something to tell us all.”
The townspeople had filled the church to the brim, every pew taken, and every wall with people standing along it, right up to stuffing up the aisles. Rose saw more people gathered than she’d seen at the last county fair. Must be nearly three hundred tucked up tight in the room that wasn’t built to hold more than a hundred, most.
“Mr. LeFel?” Sheriff Wilke gave the rail man the floor.
LeFel glided up to take his place behind the podium. When he smiled, it looked like an apology.
“Good people of Hallelujah, I bring you most distressing news.”
Before he could continue, the church doors opened, and a fresh breeze sliced through the thick air, drawing the candle flames straight up on their wicks again.
“Hear there’s been a ruckus,” Alun Madder said as he sauntered in, his brothers, Bryn and Cadoc, shoulder to shoulder with him.
They all clapped their gloved hands together and rubbed them like they were scrubbing warmth up out of a campfire.
“What seems to be the trouble?” Alun asked.
Everyone in the church turned at the brothers’ entrance. Except Rose. She watched LeFel’s face screw into a dark visage of hatred. The kind of hatred that made a man carve another man’s heart out and spit in the hole left behind.
Rose unconsciously clutched the locket beneath the thin cloth of her dress.
At that small movement, Mr. LeFel looked up away from the Madders, his eyes searching the shadows where she stood until he spotted her there. He was startled to find her watching him; that was clear. And the smile he gave her was no comfort. It was a warning.
“Settle in, and quiet down, Mr. Madder,” Sheriff Wilke said. “All of you. Mr. LeFel has the podium.”
Alun’s eyebrows rose. “Didn’t see you there, Mr. LeFel,” he said without a hint of apology in his voice. “Must be the rising moonlight so bright it struck me blind. Carry on. Carry on. And do take your time.” He and his brothers folded thick arms over their wide chests and simultaneously leaned against the church doors, blocking the way out.
Mr. LeFel licked his lips and glared at them. “As I was saying, I have dire news for us all.”
He glanced out over the people gathered. There was that aristocratic air about him. It hooked up each and every eye and mind, and not a soul seemed able to lean away. When he flicked that gaze at Rose, she put her hand back on the gun in her pocket and glared at him.
He
scowled, looked back at the Madders, then once again looked at her. But this time there was surprise, and some kind of new understanding, in his expression.
“Mr. LeFel?” the sheriff prompted.
LeFel finally turned his attention back to his breathless audience.
Rose’s heart thumped hard. In LeFel’s look was the same cold creeping she’d sensed in the boy. But she felt the sure pressure of someone else looking at her. She glanced down the stairs. Alun Madder was indeed watching her. He smiled . . . and nodded.
She didn’t know that it should, but it seemed a reassuring gesture. She didn’t know if he saw the hatred in Shard LeFel. She didn’t know if he saw the Strangeness of him and his man. But all the same, she was glad to see there was at least one—no, three other people in the room who weren’t caught under Mr. LeFel’s thrall.
“I was out,” Shard LeFel crooned, “taking an evening constitutional, and by and by I wandered past the widow Lindson’s property. I heard a terrible crying—a child wailing—and beyond that, I heard a woman singing. But not any church song. It was a witch’s tune.” He paused a moment, letting his words steep.
“I didn’t want to believe it myself.” He shook his head, and more than one head shook along with him. “But when I stepped up close to look in the window, I saw Mrs. Jeb Lindson, working her magic—the devil’s magic—on this poor boy.”
He nodded again, and this time all the folk nodded with him.
“Nonsense.” Alun’s voice cut across the silence like a fire across the plain. “Do you have any proof at all? Anything that would cast that poor woman as a witch?”
Shard LeFel’s head snapped up and Rose saw the devil himself behind those eyes. No, worse than the devil; she saw the Strange. “Of course,” Shard LeFel growled. Then, regaining his composure, “Of course I have proof. Mrs. Gregor, if you would just pull up your son’s shirt, you’ll see the mark, the cursed spell, she left there on his back.”
Rose couldn’t see Mrs. Gregor’s face from her place on the stairs, but she heard her gasp as she drew up Elbert’s shirt.
Rose instead watched Sheriff Wilke’s reaction, since he could easily see the boy’s back. He frowned and shook his head.
