“The flames!” she screamed. “I see the flames! And the legions of Satan! Oh, they’re burning me, burning me!”
Great welts and blisters had broken out on her face and arms. She contorted, then slumped back into the pew.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Greg and I stood on the bluff, gazing out over the Christmas landscape. Above us in the midnight sky, the blizzard of stars was transcendent over the bejeweled village where reds, greens, blues, and ambers in the outdoor lighting made rainbows in the snow. To somber, Puritan Salem, Peacehaven would have been a bedizened Jezebel. Windows usually dark at this hour glowed with Christmas trees and candles. Carols flowed from a loudspeaker, and far in the distance a pair of snowmobiles outlined the opposite shorelines of the river with their darting beams. It was a fragile moment, suspended in the night like a spun glass ornament dangling from the tip of a branch—perfect, yet only a tremor away from disaster. I cradled the moment in my mind, hardly daring to breathe. I didn’t want to remember—I wanted only the now, but Caper’s bell against the gate fractured it and brought the horror of Lucy’s seizure, less than an hour before, to mind. Damon had administered a sedative while Lucian ended the service with a hasty benediction. I had expected the scheduled festivities to be canceled, but Elspeth insisted that the party she was giving the girls proceed as planned. Greg, after putting the mid-holiday issue to bed, met me at the church and brought me home. As I stepped out of his VW, the spell of the crystal night momentarily made me forget. Now, seeing Caper had brought it all back.
“I’m going to let this ‘smelly, obscene symbol of the Devil’ out for a frolic,” I said wryly, opening the gate. Caper catapulted through, rolled over, and, leaping high in the air, came up with a hunk of snow on his nose and began to race around the yard like a frustrated impala. “Look at him, Greg—how could Lucian say such things?”
No sooner had I said it than the little goat circled and struck Greg from the rear, pancaking him down into the snow. As I reached to give Greg a hand, my foot slipped and I fell into his arms, our lips brushing through a cloud of snow vapor.
“He may be an imp of Satan,” Greg murmured, “but he maneuvers like an artist.” He wiped the snow from my face. “What’s wrong, Mitti? You’re so quiet all of a sudden.”
“Nothing… Let’s go in. Help me decorate the tree and I will pay you in Tom and Jerries.” I looked back at the little goat, standing alone and dejected in his pen. “Capricorn,” I mused, “a goat could symbolize Christ as well as the Devil.”
“That’s a switch.”
“But if Jesus really was born on December twenty-fifth—” I laid my mitten against his mouth, “Oh, I know scholars dispute that, but what do they know? It would be logical for Christ to be a Capricorn—the scapegoat who takes away our sins.”
“You really mix ’em up—astrology and Christian symbolism,” he said, opening the door for me.
“It’s been done before. Remember the Magi?”
* * * *
“Where’s Cariad?” he asked when I came into the living room with the steaming hot drinks.
“She’s over at Dana’s. Come down and have this while it’s hot.”
As I savored the frothy liquid, he sat stirring his thoughtfully. “I hope Lucy’s fit won’t make people reluctant to go on with the pageant,” he remarked.
The pageant—always his blasted pageant! “I don’t know, Greg, I have reservations about reviving the trauma of 1692. One or two performances—that would be one thing, but day after day, night after night, I wonder what effect it will have on the girls or the others.”
An angry flush crept into his cheeks.
“You didn’t see the whole thing tonight,” I hurried on. “It was as if one of those scenes had come to life. Those were real burns. I saw fluid oozing from those blisters.”
“Stigmata are a form of hysteria,” he protested. “The girls in Salem Village showed similar symptoms. The wounds disappeared as quickly as they came.”
“Even so, I worry about Lucy—she’s such a sensitive, suggestible child.”
He set down his drink and began rummaging in a box of ornaments. “If it’s the pageant, then I suppose I’m guilty, too,” he said, attaching a hook to a red satin ball.
“Perhaps we all are. How about a refill?” I asked.
“Not now, thank you. Where’s the tinsel?”
“There isn’t any. I don’t like my ornaments to be covered up by ropes of tinsel.”
“No tinsel?” he mused disappointedly. “What’s Christmas without tinsel?”
“You’re a terrible Puritan,” I chided him. “How corrupted you are—wanting tinsel! Though honestly, Greg,” I pursued my thought, “I have reservations about the pageant.”
“You don’t like the script?” he asked quietly.
“No, it’s a great script, but it’s digging up grievances that belong to the past. And it may be releasing things.” I shuddered, remembering the burns crawling across Lucy’s skin.
His finger lifted my chin. “You sound fresh out of Salem.”
Maybe that wasn’t as far out as he thought it was. My mind raced back over the months I’d been in Peacehaven: the phone calls, the poppet, my dreams, Rowan, now Lucy. “I’m beginning to understand those people,” I said. “We may be more advanced in science, but we don’t know any more about what lies beyond. Greed and spite were elements in the Salem tragedy, but honest fear was the catalyst. Frightened people are dangerous people, and I shudder to think what we might do given similar circumstances. That’s why I’m not sure we should continue rehearsals.”
“But you know theater better than any of us. If you pull out there may not be any pageant!” he protested, mounting the ladder.
“Would that be so bad?” I regretted saying this instantly; I was killing his dream.
“If it’s Lucy you’re worrying about, blame her father, not the pageant.”
“Lucian does have a strange effect on people,” I conceded, handing him a tiny drummer boy. “Remember how he suddenly appeared when Rowan had her seizure? And how his prayer did more to inflame than calm when the mob came after Quentin?”
“The talk is you’ve been seeing a lot of him.”
“He comes up here with Lucy. Rowan enjoys them.”
“And you?”
“It’s better than lonesome evenings,” I shot back.
The shaft went home. “I’ve been busy revising the last act,” he explained. “If you desert us now, Mitti, Iris would have to take over.”
That brought me around. “All right, Greg,” I yielded. “Come on, let’s get this tree done before New Year’s Eve.”
“Boy, it’s hot up here!” he complained as he leaned over to put the drummer boy in place.
“Watch out! The ladder’s tipping!”
He pulled back but lost his footing and slid along the teetering ladder to the floor.
“Damn!” He pushed up his shirt sleeve.
“Did you hurt yourself?”
“It’s nothing. Just a sliver from the ladder.”
“Well, I have a degree in splinter removal. Wait here,” I returned with needle and tweezers. The sliver was lodged in his forearm near the inside of his elbow, in quite deep and broken off below the skin. As the sharp point touched him he jerked back. “I’ve a terror of needles.”
“That’s a common male syndrome. I’m going to have to hurt you some, but I’ll be as gentle as possible.”
He lay back against the arm of the sofa, his eyes closed. I slipped the needle in under the top layer of skin and exposed the tip of the splinter. After I’d lifted the end free, I latched onto it with the tweezers.
“There you are!” I held it up for him to see, but he didn’t respond, just sat there rigid, staring at me wildly.
“By my faith,
’tis witchcraft!” through white lips. “Thou has put the mark o’ the Devil upon me—an’ I loved thee, Mary!”
The tweezers dropped from my hand. This time he had slipped through to the other side. At my touch, he sprang away from me. “Get thee gone, harlot! Get thee gone!” Then the glaze over his eyes faded. He looked around, clearly bewildered. “What happened?”
“You—you weren’t yourself just now, Greg.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” he said, fastening his cuff.
“It’s always happened to me before. This is the first time—well—not quite—” I said, remembering the cave, “that it happened to you. You’d better sit down.”
He didn’t believe me and brushed it aside: “You know, Mitti, it’s not the girls we need worry about. You’re the one who’s letting the pageant get to you. Naturally you’d dream about it—I know I do. And dreams never make sense. I’m flattered. I’d no idea my writing was so effective.”
He took a spun glass bauble shaped like a minaret and hung it on the tree. “See how it catches the firelight!” I exclaimed, feeling an exquisite shiver as his hands suddenly framed my face.
“I prefer the firelight in your eyes,” he said softly. “I almost wish your dreams about Mary Esty and William Stoughton were reality. I’d write it into the pageant for you and me to act out—”
“Why act? Reality is here, Greg.”
“Oh, yes!” he breathed into my hair. “I never dreamed that reality could be perfection. I’m afraid to reach for it, for fear of shattering it. Oh, Mitti, Mitti… We sank down into the cushioned abyss of the sofa…
“Merry Christmas!”
Rowan stood over us accusingly, her eyes gleaming, her mouth drawn down into a thin arc.
“Merry Christmas to you, sweetheart! Was the party fun?”
“No, it was a drag, so Iris took me over to her house to listen to some new records. See what she gave me for Christmas?”
She thrust a pair of levis that were gaudily decorated with silver studs into my hands, and I seethed internally. Iris—always Iris!
“Rowan, you must always let me know where you are.”
“Oh, Mother! She’s an adult, and she didn’t want to give me such a nice gift in front of the other girls. You know what? We went skinny dipping in her basement. The water’s heated.”
I fought to approach this with care—as I would someone standing at the edge of a precipice. “You know how susceptible to colds you are. We’ll discuss this later. Have you heard how Lucy is?”
“Oh, she’s okay. Lucian called and said her burns were gone.”
“See?” Greg said triumphantly. “Sheer hysteria.”
Rowan gave him a Who asked you? look. “Did I interrupt something?” she asked. She knew damn well she had.
“Not at all, sweetheart,” I lied. “I’ll heat up the Tom and Jerries and since this is Christmas Eve you may have one.”
“Okay. Be back in a minute.”
She was standing by the fireplace holding a small, dark book when I returned with the drinks. “Here’s a Christmas present for you,” she said. “I found it up in the tower. Isn’t that my grandmother’s name on it?”
“That must be one of the ones I shipped to Aunt Bo when your grandmother died.”
She opened a page near the beginning of the book. “Here, read this,” she said, handing it to me. “Aloud.”
“‘Widow Judith,’” I began, “‘was a sister of Israel Stoughton, married in England, John Denman, about 1620, and he died; she married a Smead about 1634. After the death of her husband, she came with her son, William, born in England in 1635, to be with her brother in Dorchester. His son, William Stough…’”
“Go on,” she demanded.
“‘…William Stoughton became Lieut. Governor, and then acting Governor of the Colony, and was for years—Chief Justice…’”
“I—I never read this book,” I exclaimed to Greg, who had gone to the window and was standing with his back to us. “I never knew Stoughton was…
Rowan slouched down onto the sofa and put her feet up on the coffee table, her hands behind her head. “You’re descended from his Aunt Judith. I traced it down.”
“Oh well, that’s pretty distant,” I pointed out.
“But you’re still a Stoughton,” Greg muttered, wheeling around. “No wonder you’ve defended Stoughton all along. And you cooked up a tale about him and Mary Esty being lovers, even tried to tell me I was once—”
“Greg, please! I didn’t know what was in that book!”
“Oh, surely your mother would have talked about the ancestor who was,” with sarcasm, “His Excellency, Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts. Genealogy buffs thrive on titles. So you’re a Stoughton! That’s why you’re trying to scuttle the pageant.”
“Have I done something wrong?” Her eyes were sapphire innocence.
“Not at all, Rowan,” he assured her. “It’s time we cleared the decks. Aunt Judith—dear Aunt Judith! Oh, I can tell you about her! She and her first husband were plaintiffs in a famous lawsuit against a family of witches in Devonshire. No doubt she instructed William Stoughton in his bigotry when she lived in his home.”
“And who instructed you in yours?” I flared.
“If only you’d told me at the beginning, I might have understood, but—” with a sudden movement of his arm he dislodged the minaret, which shattered at his feet. He knelt down and started to pick up the fragments. “I’m sorry, Mitti. I shouldn’t have lost my temper. What does all this have to do with us?”
I turned toward the fire. “I think it has a very great deal to do with us,” I said. “You think I’m a liar. I find I’m very tired, Greg. Don’t bother to pick up the pieces. You’ve broken it and you can’t put it back together again. I’m going to bed. Goodnight, Greg.”
Rowan smiled in the shadows as the door closed behind him.
“And you can wipe that smirk off your face,” I snapped. “If I’m descended from him, you are, too.”
“No, I’m a Llewellyn, not a Stoughton. I want no part of your family, Mother.”
An anguished cry sounded from the backyard. As I switched on the yardlights, I saw Dana and Greg crouching over something in Caper’s pen. I ran toward them, heedless that I wore no coat and snow was crunching into my shoes. Dana turned an agonized face toward me. “I heard a sound—a scream,” she quavered. “Almost human it was—then feet running and a car driving off.” She was cradling Caper’s head in her arms. Someone had driven a pointed stake through his body and his blood was making dark angels in the snow.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The ancients, who began the New Year in March, showed more perception than we, for the Old Year is still in its death throes in January and February, while the New Year is locked in the earth’s womb until the spring equinox. I was never more conscious of this than in my first year in Peacehaven; January and February were to me a time of loneliness and disintegration. Greg abruptly suspended publication during that time and left town—whether on vacation or business no one seemed to know. Most disturbing to me was the fact that Iris, too, had departed for parts unknown, and rumor had it they’d gone off together.
Dana was busier than ever and I worried about the drain on her. She had become drawn and distant. My offers to help were declined and I knew Dana better than to insist, but I missed our old, easy companionship.
Alison began to fail again after the New Year. She developed a chronic cough and tired easily. Although she swore she’d merely caught cold, the rest of us were skeptical, especially Ward, who’d grayed visibly.
On one of my visits I caught Dana kneeling at Alison’s side, her hands uplifted over the motionless woman, from whom waves of scarlet were drawn into her own chest. Hearing my gasp, Dana whirled around and faced me
with eyes black and forbidding. “You should not have come now,” she mumbled.
“What are you doing?”
“I do what I must and you have no part in this.”
Alison stirred slightly, but didn’t wake, if sleep it was. I stumbled out, puzzled and not a little hurt. In the ensuing weeks neither she nor Dana ever mentioned the incident.
Dr. Brun was busy charting and codifying his finds. He no longer visited the cave now that snow would betray his tracks. One day he showed me an oval wicker frame with fragments of desiccated skin still clinging to it, which he had found, partly covered with rubble, in a deep recess. “This could be a frame for either a Welsh coracle or a Mandan bullboat,” he explained excitedly. “They may have used boats like this to come up the river.” He sighed. “This, alas, is not proof. The material and structure will have to be analyzed and dated with reasonable accuracy and that’s not going to be easy.”
I asked him if this time the Carbon 14 test could be used.
“You’ll remember that Radiocarbon 14 works only on organic materials—things that once lived. I’m going to send skin and bone samples to the University laboratory, but they may have been contaminated by bacteria. In any case, it’ll be a long time before I get an answer.” Seeing my disappointment, he laid his hand on my shoulder. “Patience, my dear Mitti, is a most necessary attribute for an archaeologist—something our friends seldom develop. And now, please excuse me—I must get back to my book.”
And so it went. All those I loved were drifting away from me. I was so lonely I felt a stir of pleasure when I opened the door one day to see Lucian there. Then I remembered Christmas Eve and let him stand outside with the wind and snow whipping at him until he apologized so abjectly that I relented and invited him in.
“I don’t know what got into me that night,” he said over a cup of steaming hot tea. “I was trying to illustrate how we are beset with a growing paganism all around us. Before I knew it I burst out about Dana’s goat. To me, Caper was merely a symbol. I never dreamed anyone would take me literally.”
The Witch and Warlock MEGAPACK ®: 25 Tales of Magic-Users Page 30
