“John Blanchard? That’s the seventh time in two days.”
“I know. I told him I was going to hang up, but then the wacko said he wanted his lamb back. I asked him what lamb, and he said the two-headed lamb.”
Grim pulled a sour face. “That ugly fucker we put in the archive?”
“He said he wanted to eat the fetus to cleanse him of his sins. He said God had given it to him and that it was his duty to do penance. I said that if his stomach was up to a hefty dose of formaldehyde he could come and get it. He thought I was serious and wanted to make an appointment.”
“Ugh. Primates don’t come any lower than that.”
Despite the clearly visible tightened measures implemented by the HEX staff and the sympathy of many of the townsfolk who offered themselves as volunteers, there were also critical voices, not the least of which was Colton Mathers’s. “You were appointed to prevent such disturbances, but from all appearances it looks like you’ve seriously shirked your responsibility,” the councilman raged over the phone. “I want you to make sure we get some peace and quiet around here, and that the ones responsible do not escape punishment.” Grim, who was summoning up a mental image of Mathers’s pancreas and adorning it with a large tumor, assured him that they would do everything in their power without the help of The Point, and he hung up before Mathers had a chance to respond.
The criticism didn’t only come from above: That same evening the windows of the former Popolopen Visitor Center were smashed with bricks. The perpetrators—some drunk and dissatisfied construction workers—were caught in the act and spent the night in the vaults beneath Crystal Meth Church.
By then, Marty Keller had discovered who had pulled the joke with the peacock: fellow Council member and butcher’s wife Griselda Holst, of all people.
“Her?” Grim exclaimed in shock. “You can’t be serious.”
“I am,” Marty said. He showed Grim what he’d been able to reconstruct from the security cam images. Holst had left the butcher shop the previous Sunday evening at 10:58 p.m. with, sure enough, the big blue shopping bag clutched under her arm. The cameras along Old Miners Road showed her old Dodge leaving town in the direction of Highland Mills. At 12:23 she had returned, parked in her driveway, and sneaked into her house. Sticking out of her shopping bag was a profuse bunch of peacock feathers. It was so blatantly obvious that it made Grim furious: as if the old cow was poking fun at the system. Not much later, the images showed Griselda Holst walking into the woods.
“Grow a fucking brain cell!” Grim shouted with a voice that stuck in his throat.
Marty shrugged. “She probably thought Katherine would disappear before dawn and that the bird would get toasted before anybody found out.”
Warren grinned. “But instead she shows her gratitude to the Holst woman and parades around with it all week long. What a scream!”
“But why? Why a peacock?”
Claire had brought in a Harvard University Press reference work from their library of the occult, and she paraphrased as follows: “For the Persians, the peacock was a symbol of immortality because they believed peacock meat was impervious to decomposition. Which is not true; it’s supposed to be very dry and hardly edible. Let’s see … in the Middle Ages the peacock was a bad omen because its cries were thought to evoke rain—well, they were right about that—and according to Paracelsus, a German astrologist and occultist, the cry of a peacock at unusual times foretold the death of someone from the family to whom the bird belonged. Oh, yes, finding peacock feathers brings luck, but keeping them in the house is very unlucky. Is any of this helpful?”
Grim sniffed. “The butcher woman doesn’t really strike me as the type who gives a fuck about the symbolic value of her offering.”
“Yeah, right,” Warren said, chuckling. “She’s too stupid to find her own ass. Have you ever tasted that pâté of hers? Tastes like she extracted the fat directly from her paunch with a liposuction needle and injected it into the terrine.”
“Warren, you swine!” Claire said. “A little respect, please. She’s had a tragic life, with that husband of hers.”
“That may be true,” Grim said, “but that doesn’t give her the right to pull a stunt like that.”
But that was only the beginning. Marty and Warren dove into the video archive, and by Wednesday evening they had uncovered Griselda Holst’s peculiar habit of calling on the witch beyond the eye of the cameras. The pattern was always the same. Every Thursday, rain or shine, when Katherine was up in the woods, Griselda would sneak out behind a couple of parked cars or along a hedge and disappear into the bushes, clutching a white plastic bag. About an hour later she would return—bag gone. Grim was baffled. How could they have missed this? And what on earth was the woman doing when she was with Katherine?
The next morning they wired Marty with a mic and sent him over to Griselda’s Butchery & Delicacies, while Grim, Warren, Claire, and the others intently watched the live images from the butcher shop’s surveillance cam on the big screen.
“What’ll it be?” came the brash voice of Griselda through the speakers.
“A pound of peacock pâté, please,” Marty said. Warren burst out laughing and Grim gestured for him to keep quiet.
Griselda, instantly tense, hesitated. “Holst pâté, you mean?”
“No, peacock pâté,” Marty said, straight-faced.
“I … don’t carry that.”
“How about peacock pie, then?”
“I don’t sell any peacock meat.”
“Aw, bummer,” Marty said. “No peacock filet, either?” On-screen, it was easy to see that Griselda didn’t know how to handle the situation. “I thought I might give it a try, since Katherine is such a big fan.”
Griselda relaxed a little and smiled. “Ain’t that right,” she said. Wasn’t that just a hint of pride in her voice? “She must be. Why else would she hang on to it so long?”
“Yeah, no matter what they say, the person who gave her that peacock really knows how to avert a crisis. That’s why we wanted a peacock, too.” Griselda blushed and Marty made eager use of the opportunity. “You know, my partner and I always organize these Katherine theme nights where we act out whatever the witch is doing. Over the weekend we tied Gaudi, our Chihuahua, to the branch of a tree. We laughed so hard we thought we’d piss our pants! Wait, wanna see a selfie?”
Griselda’s smile disappeared instantly and her embarrassment evaporated. Beneath it was a layer of petrified rage. “You dirty little whippersnapper!” she roared. “Mocking my Katherine! Get the hell out of here, you!” She yanked an enormous salami off the shelf and stormed around the counter, right up to the awestruck Marty, who just about flew out the door, its little bell jingling maniacally. “You deserve Doodletown, mister man!” Griselda shrieked after him. “Be careful, or I’m gonna report you to the Council! You’re Grim’s whiz kid, aren’t you? I’ll find out what your name is!”
She marched back inside with all the grace of a Ukrainian warship and slammed the door behind her. Back in the control center Warren howled like a wolf and roared, “Give that woman an Oscar!”
Grim still couldn’t connect Griselda’s activities with the death of the dog or the bleeding of the creek, but meddling with the witch was strictly forbidden because the risks were simply impossible to foresee. Grim had no choice but to inform Colton Mathers. The councilman met with him in his country house, which was enclosed by a rusty old fence on the top of the Hill of Pines as if it were the Frankenstein mansion itself. With an increasingly deeper frown, the old relic listened to the facts, and finally he amazed Grim by saying, “Let it go, Robert. Mrs. Holst is an upright woman and she’s been under intense strain lately. Besides, we have to wait and see what the consequences of her actions are. Maybe it won’t be all that bad.”
Grim couldn’t believe his ears. “But she—”
“I’m glad you brought this up,” Mathers continued as if Grim were nothing but smoke, “and we certainly have to keep our eye o
n Mrs. Holst, but for now my advice is: Let sleeping dogs lie.”
Robert Grim, who had wanted to scream in his face that the sleeping dogs had been awake for ages, that in fact they were stalking the town streets with foaming mouths and menacing teeth, turned homeward empty-handed and thought, He’s covering up for her because of the Roth business. How long is he going to keep up this dirty game?
The answer came right away: Until you grow some balls and stand up to him.
But Grim was attached to his job and he kept his mouth shut. And that evening, after the storm had subsided and the witch had finally given up her weird predilection for the dead peacock, he thought maybe it was better this way. Against protocol, even hypocritical, but so be it. Everything seemed to be back to normal. No one wanted to talk about what had dominated every conversation up until then; people wanted to forget their anxiety and erase all memory of it. And so did Robert Grim. He began to believe that a small miracle had occurred: Black Spring had gotten through Katherine’s miseries relatively unscathed.
That was his frame of mind until early Saturday evening, when bad news came knocking at the door.
* * *
PETRIFIED AND NUMB, the members of the HEX staff who were present at the time—Claire, Warren, and Grim—listened to Steve Grant and Pete VanderMeer tell their story. It was mainly Steve who did the talking. This was where they were at: Jaydon Holst—son of the intrepid butcher’s wife, for God’s sake—had systematically terrorized the witch and stabbed her with a box cutter, then sicced the Grants’ dog on her. As revenge for Fletcher’s death, Jaydon, Justin Walker, and Burak Şayer had reported to HEX as volunteers to gain free access to Katherine, and Grim had fallen for it. The shocking, horrible results of that blunder were revealed in the footage that Grant’s son had shot.
After the clip finished playing no one said anything for a long time. The cramped lounge area in the control center seemed too small, as if all the air had been sucked out of it and they were slowly being asphyxiated. Grim felt his heart make a number of unexpected, prancing leaps before resuming its normal rhythm.
The stoning. Oh, sweet Jesus, those few frames where you could see them hurling rocks in her face.
Suddenly a thought as vivid as a heap of burning phosphorus struck him. They could easily have snapped the stitches on her eyes.
Claire’s mouth fell open and she was the first to speak. “When was this? Thursday afternoon, you said?”
Steve nodded. “It must have been before four, because that’s when Matt and I came home.”
Her eyes grew bigger and bigger, and Grim didn’t like the expression in them at all. “Can you be more precise?”
Steve turned to the MacBook, tapped the video file with two fingers, and opened the properties menu. “Look, there it is. Content created: Thursday, November 8, 2012, 3:37 p.m.”
“Oh my God.” Claire slapped her hands over her mouth. “That’s when that old lady died.”
Grim didn’t know what she was talking about. “Who?”
“Rita Marmell. She was a patient at Roseburgh. She had a stroke Thursday afternoon while she was playing cards. Her doctor said it was completely unexpected because she was in relatively good health, but these things happen at her age, so I didn’t think anything of it. It said on the death certificate that she was declared dead at a quarter to four, after CPR failed.”
Pete VanderMeer and Steve exchanged shocked glances. “Isn’t that exactly what she did back in ’67?” Pete said. “When those doctors were trying to cut her mouth open. Three elderly people in town dropped dead of strokes.”
Warren understood what he was getting at. “Years go by and she’s just standing there, like a chained hibernating bear. But get too close and…” He clapped his hands and everyone jumped at the hollow sound.
Like a chained hibernating bear, Grim thought with a sudden shiver. Waiting for … what?
“Apparently she sends out this freak energy when she’s under great physical or emotional stress,” Warren said. “And it makes the weakest among us just … snap.”
“If that’s true, then these kids killed that woman,” Grim said, his voice flat. Under the harsh, unforgiving striplights, the group looked pale and gutted, but at the same time restrained. What if this were to leak out in town, God forbid? If you want to know what restraint looks like, take a good look around you, he thought, because this is the last you’re going to see of it for a long time.
“Good.” Grim took off his glasses and began polishing the lenses. “We’ve got to bring those jerks in as quietly as possible. If this leaks out before they’re safely locked up, all hell will break loose.”
“And you think that won’t happen if people find out afterward?” Pete remarked.
“It probably will, but at least these boys won’t get lynched.”
“I hope not.”
Grim stared at him. “You don’t really think…”
“What do you think the Council will decide if word gets out that the boys are responsible not only for last week’s panic and the death of Steve’s dog, but also for the death of an elderly woman? Master Mathers will insist that it’s one of his town matters and he’ll get everybody to vote on it under the guise of democracy. But if this isn’t handled with delicacy there’ll be total anarchy. Haven’t you noticed how frightened people are out there? They’ll be capable of just about anything when they find out who caused it.”
Warren brightened up. “And that’s why we’re going to be one step ahead of them. We’ll pick ’em up quietly and try them under the laws of the Emergency Decree.”
“Right, and what does that say about willfully causing a ‘serious threat to the municipal public order,’ which I’m pretty damn sure covers stoning as well?”
“Come on, Pete, that’s just a stupid old law from the eighteenth century,” Grim snapped.
“The Emergency Decree is the law here. Don’t be so sure about that.”
“Listen, this is bullshit. We still live in America, for fuck’s sake. I don’t know how long it’s been since any incident occurred that fell under that particular law, so the statutes have never been adapted to contemporary criminal legislation. We’ll figure it out in the Council.”
But the others avoided each other’s glances and looked at the floor with visible discomfort. Warren was the only one who dared to open his mouth. “People have been sent to Doodletown for far less serious offenses.”
“Guys, come on!” Grim shouted with disbelief. He felt cornered, and that fed his anger. “You don’t really believe that, do you? I don’t want to jump the gun on the sentence, because that’s up to the entire Council, but don’t worry, we’ll come up with something trendy. I’m sorry, but I can’t keep this quiet. What they did is criminal, make no mistake. Who knows what those fuckers will cook up the next time? Maybe burn her, because that’s what we do to witches, after all. Do you want to wait for that to happen? If things had turned out just a little bit differently we’d all be dead by now.”
“I’m well aware of that,” Pete said softly.
Then Steve spoke up. “Tyler and Lawrence are terrified of these guys, especially Jaydon. Also of what’s going to happen after they’re released.”
“Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it,” Grim said. “I’m assuming they won’t be seeing the light of day for a while.”
“Say, you have the authority to call in The Point if you think it’s a good idea, right?” Pete asked, suddenly hopeful. “Now would be a good time. If Mathers wants to keep it internal, like the Roth case, the town will be under even greater strain. Releasing some of the pressure might not be a bad idea, with a little outside supervision.”
Grim laughed bitterly. “Listen, my friend, if that was at all possible I’d be on the phone with them right now. The Council has forbidden me from alerting them about what happened last week.”
“What?”
“Because of Roth. If I don’t obey the order I’ll lose my job.”
T
hat was true, but this new development was shocking enough to justify acting on his own initiative. Robert Grim couldn’t exactly nail down why, but VanderMeer’s words had upset him in some indefinable way. People were slowly losing their minds, and if this persisted, nothing would ever be as it had been before. He knew it would probably be wisest to neutralize the situation and stay one step ahead of Mathers, but Mathers wouldn’t stand for it. Grim guessed that the councilman wouldn’t go so far as to fire him—after all, who could replace him?—but he couldn’t exactly be sure. Colton Mathers was a life-form who had a lot in common with a marshy swamp: immune from evolution and sucking up every little mishap in its stinking depths, where it would never be forgotten.
“I don’t think you should go that far,” Steve said suddenly. Pete was surprised, but Steve shrugged. “I know there’s no way to justify this, but if you go to The Point, the Council will be on your ass. I think you’d be better off keeping everyone calm and trying to get the Council to use their heads.”
“Exactly,” said Grim, who swept his doubts aside, and in so doing made a terrible miscalculation. “I’ll inform the Council tonight and we’ll get that scum off the street. It’ll be all right. We may be Black Spring, but we’re not animals.”
NINETEEN
GRISELDA HOLST CAME to the conclusion that her sacrifice had been a supreme achievement. For the first time since the birth of her son she felt something that was both spine-chilling and blissful: unsurpassed happiness, the way other people were made happy by a sultry summer breeze or the smell of lilac bushes growing against the wall of a garden house. Tragically, Griselda’s happiness only lasted for four days, until it was permanently cut short on Saturday evening with the arrest of her son.
At first she had felt offended—put on the spot, even. She had prepared such a lovely offering, but Katherine, instead of disappearing, had refused to vanish, so the sacrifice was never completed. Not only that, but now there was a fairly good chance that Griselda would be unmasked. After closing the shop on Monday, she had had the urge to go and ask what the deal here was, but she didn’t dare, fully aware she ought to be careful. The next day, however, when it began to look as if she might have gotten away with it, she began to see things differently. Katherine had held on to the peacock because she wanted to show everyone how grateful she was to her friend, Griselda! And, lo and behold, the creek stopped bleeding. It began to dawn on Griselda that what she had done was nothing short of an act of heroism. Silently, she took intense pleasure in her achievement and engaged in frivolous fantasies. If only the people knew, they’d carry her through the streets on their shoulders. There’d be a great party with dancing and singing, and everyone would want to eat her pâté. Still, Griselda didn’t long for recognition or fame. All she wanted was the good favor of her beloved Katherine.
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