The Sign of Seven Trilogy

by Nora Roberts

  She admired the benches, and the trees she imagined made shady reading nooks in season as she pulled up to park in the side lot.

  It smelled like a library, she thought. Of books and a little dust, of silence.

  She saw a brightly lettered sign announcing a Story Hour in the Children’s section at ten thirty.

  She wound her way through. Computers, long tables, carts, a few people wandering the stacks, a couple of old men paging through newspapers. She heard the soft hum-chuck of a copier and the muted ringing of a phone from the Information Desk.

  Reminding herself to focus because if she wandered she’d be entranced by the spell she believed all libraries wove, she aimed straight for Information. And in the hushed tone reserved for libraries and churches, addressed the stringy man on duty. “Good morning, I’m looking for books on local history.”

  “That would be on the second floor, west wing. Steps over to the left, elevator straight back. Anything in particular you’re after?”

  “Thanks, but I’m just going to poke. Is Mrs. Abbott in today?”

  “Mrs. Abbott is retired, but she’s in most every day by eleven. In a volunteer capacity.”

  “Thanks again.”

  Quinn used the stairs. They had a nice curve to them, she thought, almost a Gone With the Wind sort of swish. She put on mental blinders so as not to be tempted by stacks and reading areas until she found herself in Local Interest.

  It was more a room—a mini-library—than a section. Nice cozy chairs, tables, amber-shaded lamps, even footrests. And it was larger than she’d expected.

  Then again, she should have accounted for the fact that there had been battles fought in and around the Hollow in both the Revolutionary and Civil Wars.

  Books pertaining to those were arranged in separate areas, as were books on the county, the state, and the town.

  In addition there was a very healthy section for local authors.

  She tried that section first and saw she’d hit a treasure trove. There had to be more than a dozen she hadn’t come across on her own hunt before coming to town. They were self-published, vanity-pressed, small local publishers.

  Titles like Nightmare Hollow and The Hollow, The Truth had her giddy with anticipation. She set up her laptop, her notebook, her recorder, then pulled out five books. It was then she noticed the discreet bronze plaque.

  The Hawkins Hollow Library gratefully acknowledges the generosity of the Franklin and Maybelle Hawkins Family

  Franklin and Maybelle. Very probably Cal’s ancestors. It struck Quinn as both suitable and generous that they would have donated the funds to sponsor this room. This particular room.

  She settled at the table, chose one of the books at random, then began to read.

  She’d covered pages of her notebook with names, locations, dates, reputed incidents, and any number of theories when she scented lavender and baby powder.

  Surfacing, she saw a trim and tidy old woman standing in black, sensible shoes with her hands folded neatly at the waist of her purple suit.

  Her hair was a thinning snowball; her clear framed glasses so thickly lensed Quinn wondered how the tiny nose and ears supported their weight.

  She wore pearls around her neck, a gold wedding band on her finger, and a leather-banded watch with a huge face that looked to be as practical as her thick-soled shoes.

  “I’m Estelle Abbott,” she said in her creaky voice. “Young Dennis said you asked after me.”

  As Quinn had gauged Dennis at Information as tumbling down the back end of his sixties, she imagined the woman who termed him young must have him by a good two decades.

  “Yes.” Quinn got to her feet, crossed over to offer her hand. “I’m Quinn Black, Mrs. Abbott. I’m—”

  “Yes, I know. The writer. I’ve enjoyed your books.”

  “Thank you very much.”

  “No need. If I hadn’t liked them I’d’ve told you straight-out. You’re researching for a book on the Hollow.”

  “Yes, ma’am, I am.”

  “You’ll find quite a bit of information here. Some of it useful.” She peered at the books on the table. “Some of it nonsense.”

  “Then in the interest of separating the wheat from the chaff, maybe you could find some time to talk to me at some point. I’d be happy to take you to lunch or dinner whenever you—”

  “That’s very nice of you, but unnecessary. Why don’t we sit down for a while, and we’ll see how things go?”

  “That would be great.”

  Estelle crossed to a chair, sat, then with her back ruler-straight and her knees glued together, folded her hands in her lap. “I was born in the Hollow,” she began, “lived here all of my ninety-seven years.”

  “Ninety-seven?” Quinn didn’t have to feign the surprise. “I’m usually pretty good at gauging age, and I’d put you a solid decade under that.”

  “Good bones,” Estelle said with an easy smile. “I lost my husband, John, also born and raised here, eight years back come the fifth of next month. We were married seventy-one years.”

  “What was your secret?”

  That brought on another smile. “Learn to laugh, otherwise, you’ll beat them to death with a hammer first chance.”

  “Just let me write that down.”

  “We had six children—four boys, two girls—and all of them living still and not in jail, thank the Lord. Out of them, we had ourselves nineteen grandchildren, and out of them got ourselves twenty-eight greats—last count, and five of the next generation with two on the way.”

  Quinn simply goggled. “Christmas must be insane in a good way.”

  “We’re scattered all over, but we’ve managed to get most everybody in one place at one time a few times.”

  “Dennis said you were retired. You were a librarian?”

  “I started working in the library when my youngest started school. That would be the old library on Main Street. I worked there more than fifty years. Went back to school myself and got my degree. Johnnie and I traveled, saw a lot of the world together. For a time we thought about moving on down to Florida. But our roots here were too deep for that. I went to part-time work, then I retired when my Johnnie got sick. When he passed, I came back—still the old one while this was being built—as a volunteer or as an artifact, however you look at it. I tell you this so you’ll have some idea about me.”

  “You love your husband and your children, and the children who’ve come from them. You love books, and you’re proud of the work you’ve done. You love this town, and respect the life you’ve lived here.”

  Estelle gave her a look of approval. “You have an efficient and insightful way of summing up. You didn’t say I loved my husband, but used the present tense. That tells me you’re an observant and sensitive young woman. I sensed from your books that you have an open and seeking mind. Tell me, Miss Black, do you also have courage?”

  Quinn thought of the thing outside the window, the way its tongue had flicked over its teeth. She’d been afraid, but she hadn’t run. “I like to think so. Please call me Quinn.”

  “Quinn. A family name.”

  “Yes, my mother’s maiden.”

  “Irish Gaelic. I believe it means ‘counselor.’”

  “It does, yes.”

  “I have a well of trivial information,” Estelle said with a tap of her finger to her temple. “But I wonder if your name isn’t relevant. You’ll need to have the objectivity, and the sensitivity of a counselor to write the book that should be written on Hawkins Hollow.”

  “Why haven’t you written it?”

  “Not everyone who loves music can play the tune. Let me tell you a few things, some of which you may already know. There is a place in the woods that borders the west of this town, and that place was sacred ground, sacred and volatile ground long before Lazarus Twisse sought it out.”

  “Lazarus Twisse, the leader of the Puritan sect—the radical sect—which broke off or, more accurately, was cut off, from the godly in Massachu
setts.”

  “According to the history of the time, yes. The Native Americans held that ground as sacred. And before them, it’s said, powers battled for that circle of ground, both—the dark and the light, good and evil, whatever terms you prefer—left some seeds of that power there. They lay dormant, century by century, with only the stone to mark what had passed there. Over time the memories of the battle were forgotten or bastardized in folklore, and only the sense many felt that this ground and its stone were not ordinary dirt and rock remained.”

  Estelle paused, fell into silence so that Quinn heard the click and hum of the heater, and the light slap of leather shoes on the floor as someone passed by the room toward other business.

  “Twisse came to the Hollow, already named for Richard Hawkins, who, with his wife and children, had carved a small settlement in 1648. You should remark that Richard’s eldest daughter was Ann. When Twisse came, Hawkins, his family, and a handful of others—some who’d fled Europe as criminals, political or otherwise—had made their life here. As had a man calling himself Giles Dent. And Dent built a cabin in the woods where the stone rose out of the ground.”

  “What’s called the Pagan Stone.”

  “Yes. He troubled no one, and as he had some skill and knowledge of healing, was often sought out for sickness or injury. There are some accounts that claim he was known as the Pagan, and that this was the basis of the name the Pagan Stone.”

  “You’re not convinced those accounts are accurate.”

  “It may be that the term stuck, entered the language and the lexicon at that time. But it was the Pagan Stone long before the arrival of Giles Dent or Lazarus Twisse. There are other accounts that claim Dent dabbled in witchcraft, that he enspelled Ann Hawkins, seduced and impregnated her. Others state that Ann and Dent were indeed lovers, but that she went to his bed of her own free will, and left her family home to live with him in the little cabin with the Pagan Stone.”

  “It would’ve been difficult for her—for Ann Hawkins—either way,” Quinn speculated. “Enspelled or free will, to live with a man, unmarried. If it was free will, if it was love, she must have been very strong.”

  “The Hawkinses have always been strong. Ann had to be strong to go to Dent, to stay with him. Then she had to be strong enough to leave him.”

  “There are a lot of conflicting stories,” Quinn began. “Why do you believe Ann Hawkins left Giles Dent?”

  “I believe she left to protect the lives growing inside her.”

  “From?”

  “Lazarus Twisse. Twisse and those who followed him came to Hawkins Hollow in sixteen fifty-one. He was a powerful force, and soon the settlement was under his rule. His rule decreed there would be no dancing, no singing, no music, no books but the Bible. No church but his church, no god but his god.”

  “So much for freedom of religion.”

  “Freedom was never Twisse’s goal. In the way of those thirsty for power above all else, he intimidated, terrorized, punished, banished, and used as his visible weapon, the wrath of his chosen god. As Twisse’s power grew, so did his punishments and penalties. Stocks, lashings, the shearing of a woman’s hair if she was deemed ungodly, the branding of a man should he be accused of a crime. And finally, the burning of those he judged to be witches. On the night of July the seventh, sixteen fifty-two, on the accusation of a young woman, Hester Deale, Twisse led a mob from the settlement to the Pagan Stone, and to Giles Dent. What happened there…”

  Quinn leaned forward. But Estelle sighed and shook her head. “Well, there are many accounts. As there were many deaths. Seeds planted long before stirred in the ground. Some may have sprouted, only to die in the blaze that scorched the clearing.

  “There are…fewer reports of what immediately followed, or followed over the next days and weeks. But in time, Ann Hawkins returned to the settlement with her three sons. And Hester Deale gave birth to a daughter eight months after the killing blaze at the Pagan Stone. Shortly, very shortly after her child, whom she claimed was sired by the devil, was born, Hester drowned herself in a small pond in Hawkins Wood.”

  Loading her pockets with stones, Quinn thought with a suppressed shudder. “Do you know what happened to her child? Or the children of Ann Hawkins?”

  “There are some letters, some journals, family Bibles. But most concrete information has been lost, or has never come to light. It will take considerable time and effort to dig out the truth. I can tell you this, those seeds stayed dormant until a night twenty-one years ago this July. They were awakened, and what sowed them awakened. They bloom for seven nights every seven years, and they strangle Hawkins Hollow. I’m sorry, I tire so quickly these days. It’s irritating.”

  “Can I get you something? Or drive you home?”

  “You’re a good girl. My grandson will be coming along to pick me up. You’ll have spoken, I imagine, to his son by now. To Caleb.”

  Something in the smile turned a switch in Quinn’s brain. “Caleb would be your—”

  “Great-grandson. Honorary, you could say. My brother Franklin and his wife, my dearest friend, Maybelle, were killed in an accident just before Jim—Caleb’s father was born. My Johnnie and I stood as grandparents to my brother’s grandchildren. I’d have counted them and theirs in that long list of progeny before.”

  “You’re a Hawkins by birth then.”

  “I am, and our line goes back, in the Hollow, to Richard Hawkins, the founder—and through him to Ann.” She paused a moment as if to let Quinn absorb, analyze. “He’s a good boy, my Caleb, and he carries more than his share of weight on his shoulders.”

  “From what I’ve seen, he carries it well.”

  “He’s a good boy,” Estelle repeated, then rose. “We’ll talk again, soon.”

  “I’ll walk you downstairs.”

  “Don’t trouble. They’ll have tea and cookies for me in the staff lounge. I’m a pet here—in the nicest sense of the word. Tell Caleb we spoke, and that I’d like to speak with you again. Don’t spend all this pretty day inside a book. As much as I love them, there’s life to be lived.”

  “Mrs. Abbott?”

  “Yes?”

  “Who do you think planted the seeds at the Pagan Stone?”

  “Gods and demons.” Estelle’s eyes were tired, but clear. “Gods and demons, and there’s such a thin line between the two, isn’t there?”

  Alone, Quinn sat again. Gods and demons. Those were a big, giant step up from ghosts and spirits, and other bump-in-the-night residents. But didn’t it fit, didn’t it click right together with the words she remembered from her dreams?

  Words she’d looked up that morning.

  Bestia, Latin for beast.

  Beatus, Latin for blessed.

  Devoveo, Latin for sacrifice.

  Okay, okay, she thought, if we’re heading down that track, it might be a good time to call in the reserves.

  She pulled out her phone. When she was greeted by voice mail, Quinn pushed down impatience and waited for her cue to leave a message.

  “Cyb, it’s Q. I’m in Hawkins Hollow, Maryland. And, wow, I’ve hooked a big one. Can you come? Let me know if you can come. Let me know if you can’t come so I can talk you into it.”

  She closed the phone, and for the moment she ignored the stack of books she’d selected. Instead, she began to busily type up notes from Estelle Hawkins Abbott’s recitation.

  Seven

  CAL DID WHAT HE THOUGHT OF AS THE PASS-OFF to his father. Since the meetings and the morning and afternoon league games were over and there was no party or event scheduled, the lanes were empty but for a couple of old-timers having a practice game on lane one.

  The arcade was buzzing, as it tended to between the last school bell and the dinner hour. But Cy Hudson was running herd there, and Holly Lappins manned the front desk. Jake and Sara worked the grill and fountain, which would start hopping in another hour.

  Everything, everyone was in its place, so Cal could sit with his father at the end of the coun
ter over a cup of coffee before he headed for home, and his dad took over the center for the night.

  They could sit quietly for a while, too. Quiet was his father’s way. Not that Jim Hawkins didn’t like to socialize. He seemed to like crowds as much as his alone time, remembered names, faces, and could and would converse on any subject, including politics and religion. The fact that he could do so without pissing anyone off was, in Cal’s opinion, one of his finest skills.

  His sandy-colored hair had gone a pure and bright silver over the last few years, and was trimmed every two weeks at the local barbershop. He rarely altered his uniform of khakis, Rockports, and oxford shirts on workdays.

  Some would have called Jim Hawkins habitual, even boring. Cal called him reliable.

  “Having a good month so far,” Jim said in his take-your-time drawl. He took his coffee sweet and light, and by his wife’s decree, cut off the caffeine at six p.m. sharp. “Kind of weather we’ve been having, you never know if people are going to burrow in, or get cabin fever so bad they want to be anywhere but home.”

  “It was a good idea, running the three-game special for February.”

  “I get one now and again.” Jim smiled, lines fanning out and deepening around his eyes. “So do you. Your mom’s wishing you’d come by, have dinner some night soon.”

  “Sure. I’ll give her a call.”

  “Heard from Jen yesterday.”

  “How’s she doing?”

  “Fine enough to flaunt that it was seventy-four in San Diego. Rosie’s learning to write her letters, and the baby’s getting another tooth. Jen said she’d send us pictures.”