by Ritter, Todd
“It’s a letter,” she said.
Henry was beside her again, so near that Kat could feel the warmth of his breath when he spoke. “What does it say?”
“I have no idea.”
Again, Kat could barely read it. This time, though, it was because the handwriting had faded so much it was barely visible. Large brown spots, from either water or mildew, dotted the pages, blocking out whole sentences. What she could make out was a cramped script that packed both the front and back of each page. There were twice as many lines as a normal letter, scrawled so close together they practically formed a solid block of text. Words that Kat recognized seemed foreign and unfamiliar. The letter f where an s should have been. Random capitalizations. Some common words had too many letters. Others had too few. It might as well have been written in another language.
“I’m dying to know what this says,” she said. “There has to be a reason Constance hid it inside this book.”
“This should help,” said Randall Stroup as he thumbed through the copy of Witchcraft in America. Several typewritten pages had been tucked into the back. The trooper scanned the first one quickly. “It looks like Constance Bishop tried to decipher it.”
He passed the pages to Kat, who saw it was another letter. The date on this one was October 23, a mere week ago. And it was addressed to Connor Hawthorne.
Mr. Hawthorne,
This is in regard to the letter I told you about in our last correspondence. Because of its age and delicacy, it would be unwise to put it through the rigors of photocopying, scanning, or any other such modern nonsense. Instead, I have tried to transcribe it to the best of my weak abilities. I’ll admit, it was more of a struggle than I first thought it would be. Time has damaged the pages themselves, making some words completely illegible. In the transcript, those areas are indicated by the note “indecipherable.”
The second problem was the words themselves. It’s amazing how much the English language has changed in a short three hundred years. I’ve taken the liberty of smoothing over some of the more archaic passages, settling for something easily understandable. (I shall leave the true translation for the experts, if it should ever come to that. I sincerely hope it does.) I think what follows is a mostly accurate reproduction of the text of the letter. Some of the words may be different, but I think the tone shines through. I’m very curious to find out if you, as I do, think we have cracked a small, but not insignificant, historical mystery.
Warmest regards,
Constance Bishop
Kat set the introductory page aside. “I have a feeling this letter is a copy.”
“You think Constance mailed the original?” Henry asked.
“Yup. That’s why Connor came to Perry Hollow. He and Constance were working together.”
Kat turned her attention to the translated letter. Like the original, it contained the date, followed by the two-word salutation: “Dearest brother.”
You are no doubt surprised to be receiving this letter, having not yet forgotten our quarrel the last time we spoke. I am a foolish man, brother, and my words those many months ago haunt me still. It was not my intention to mock your calling so viciously. I fear that I am the cause of great distress in your life. If that be the truth, then I offer humble apologies. This land needs men of God to lead its multitude of sinners to righteousness. You shall do great things on your chosen path and save the souls of scores of men. It is my devout hope that my own soul may be among them. I seek your prayers, my dear brother, for I am a broken, horrid man.
[Indecipherable] from Philadelphia. How long I shall remain here, I do not know. I arrived quite suddenly, without planning my next course of action. You see, my dearest brother, I have run away.
For the past six months, I have been living in a small village a few days’ journey outside of the city. There wasn’t much there, really. Just a cluster of houses, a blacksmith, and a few farms, all surrounded by hills coated with pine forests. The place is so small and haphazardly organized that the village settlers have yet to come to a consensus regarding its proper name.
Chief among the villagers is a man who made a great sum of money in his youth trading furs. In his later years, he settled here to farm the land and start a family. Weeks earlier, he journeyed to Philadelphia, inquiring about a tutor for his two children, a son and a daughter. An acquaintance of mine told him I was seeking employment and gave him my credentials. The man called on me and persuaded me to return to his village as his family’s new instructor.
I did not take to my new employer, a rather crude man of dubious morality. Nor did I enjoy schooling his son, aged ten, who is already quite like his father, demanding and cruel. But the daughter, aged eleven, is a handsome girl of good humor and keen [Indecipherable]
[Indecipherable] within weeks of my arrival, illness overtook the girl. Her condition grew so grave that many in the household, myself included, feared she would not survive. Because there is no physician in the village and summoning one from Philadelphia would have taken days, her father brought in a young widow named Rebecca who resided in a ramshackle cottage outside the village, beside a lovely lake. She lived there with her young son and several of her husband’s sisters. Wild women, they were. Big-boned and unruly, with dirty faces and unkempt hair. Rebecca was the only beautiful one among them, which made her stand out, in my opinion. Many men in the village—and jealous women as well—took note of her beauty.
Rebecca and her sisters got by harvesting flowers and herbs in their garden. As such, she had acquired a reputation for being knowledgeable about unusual and potent plants. There were whispers that her gift arose only after the passing of her husband and that she acquired them through dark forces. Yet my master, a desperate man not content with God’s plan for his daughter, brought this woman to his household. She spent several days there, attending to the sickly child and spooning foul-odored broth between her lips.
On more than one occasion, I overhead the master of the house conferring with the woman in darkened corners. On the second day of her stay, I entered the basement to retrieve a sack of flour for the elderly cook. Surprise overtook me when I discovered my employer and the woman alone together beneath the stairs. My master had placed one of his rough hands on the woman’s arms, which she swatted away with visible force. When I inquired if all was well, I was told [Indecipherable]
Later that evening, the admonishment of my master echoing in my dreams, I was awakened by the sound of voices in the garden, which my bedroom window overlooked. I saw my master and the woman standing in the shadows. A struggle appeared to be taking place. My master was close to her, pushing against her and forcing his lips upon hers. It was clear to me that Rebecca was not encouraging his advances and that I needed to intervene. Yet before I could leave the window, she lashed out, striking my employer across the cheek with an open hand. My master held her wrist, admonishing her with surly harsh words that I could not hear. He departed quickly after that, leaving Rebecca alone to weep in the shadows.
In the morning, the girl’s condition improved miraculously. Her recovery was so swift and sudden it left even her parents in much disbelief. Others in the village crowded the household to see the child’s progress for themselves. Swiftly, there were murmurs about the woman who had nursed her back to health. No sickly youth could recover with such haste, some proclaimed. Others suggested the nursemaid had somehow enlisted the aid of dark magic to save the child’s life. Soon the accusations became repeated as though they were fact. The village in its entirety was convinced this woman who claimed to walk with the Lord was secretly the Devil’s mistress.
Within days, an official query was demanded by my employer, who claimed the woman had practiced witchcraft on his innocent and ailing daughter. A trial was ordered and a judge was summoned. He dismissed the allegations outright, not for lack of evidence but by citing the very laws upon which the colony was founded.
Rebecca and her kin kept to themselves after that. No one saw her in the villa
ge; nor did anyone venture out to their lonely residence in the woods to trade or purchase her herbs. I suppose, brother, there wasn’t much to trade with. The weather had seen to that.
It was a cruel summer, you see. It was as if Heaven and Hell had exchanged places, with the infernal heat of the underworld bearing down on us from above. Crops withered and died within days. Animals became mere piles of bones and fur before they, too, succumbed. A few villagers went mad from the heat, begging for relief, even though there was none to be had. One man, who [Indecipherable]
After several months of these unbearable conditions, some in the village began to whisper that it was the work of Rebecca and her sisters. They had cursed the village, some said, as revenge for accusing her of witchcraft. Soon the whispers got louder until everyone in the village was discussing it outright. Soon, it appeared to me that everyone was convinced that the heat and drought were not the work of our Lord but of one woman and her wretched kin.
My employer took it upon himself to travel to the home of the women. He returned with tales so horrifying that [Indecipherable] ripped off their clothing next to the lake and danced naked in the moonlight, chanting foreign words to the sky and cursing his very name. Outraged and frightened, the men of the village cursed the judge who came to the village and did nothing [Indecipherable] vowed that justice would prevail.
In the dead of night, they summoned every able-bodied male and marched to the woman’s cottage to confront her. The widow, wearing only her nightclothes, was roused from her sleep [Indecipherable] took the son back to the village, where he would be tended to by the womenfolk. As the men pulled Rebecca from her house, her sisters tried to fight them off, to no avail. The door was pulled shut and barricaded, preventing them from leaving. Outside, Rebecca was thrust onto her knees and told to admit that she was doing the Devil’s work. One of the men gathered there demanded that she prove her loyalty to the Lord by saying a prayer. If she refused, they warned, they would burn down her house with her sisters still inside. All the cursed woman needed to do was say a prayer, but she refused, claiming she was a follower of the rules of nature, as dictated by our Creator.
[Indecipherable] set fire to the nearby house, which was still occupied by Rebecca’s sisters. The women screamed as the flames grew. I have never known such terrified cries, dear brother. I hear them still, resounding in my nightmares—an endless echo that cannot be silenced. As the house burned, the screams died away one by one, until there was nothing but silence as the dwelling was only smoke and ash.
While the fire raged, my employer dragged Rebecca to a thin birch tree. He pressed her writhing body against it while throwing a loop of rope at me. He then ordered me, as his humble servant, to bind her wrists behind her back. The difficulty was great. She struggled so, thrashing and biting with all the force of a deranged animal. My hands trembled while I fashioned the knots that held her in place. I was frightened, brother, not only of her power but of the prospect that what was transpiring was somehow against the will of the Lord.
Others scoured the forest floor for sticks for kindling, which were placed at the pitiful woman’s feet and set ablaze. Rebecca stayed mostly quiet through her ordeal, even as she watched the fate of her sisters and the flames engulfed her legs. She spoke only when the pain became too much to bear.
“Curse you!” she screamed to those of us still assembled there. “May the fires of Hell rise up to consume this place.”
A good many of my compatriots interpreted her words as final proof that she danced with dark spirits. They were pleased to be rid of her and felt none of the creeping guilt that tortures me now. How I wish I could be similarly certain of my actions. Yet, dear brother, my doubts linger. It is my [Indecipherable]
[Indecipherable] put their remains into cloth sacks and buried them next to the smoldering house. Rebecca’s bones were kept separate and deposited into a sack that had only the day before carried oats for my master’s horses. The sack was placed in a wooden box lined with lead by the blacksmith. There was great fear among some of the men that without the lead, her evil spirit could escape her burying place and further torment the village. We buried her remains next to the lake. She lies there now, inside a lead-lined box instead of a proper casket.
It is my darkest fear, dear brother, that I have assisted in the execution of five innocent women. The only strength I can summon comes from knowing that Rebecca’s young son was spared the piteous view of his mother’s demise. The boy was shunted off to a distant relative in Philadelphia. Before his departure, the villagers informed him of his mother’s passing, filling him with tales of how there was a terrible fire that consumed his entire family. It was scandalous how good Christian folk could cast untruths with such ease and cunning. These lies, I fear, will come back to haunt them one day. As for myself, dearest, dearest brother, I left the wretched village within the week. My hope is to find Rebecca’s son and confess our sins to him. Once I do, perhaps I will be rid of the heaviness my actions have created in my heart. You shall receive word from me again soon, brother. Until that time, I beseech you, pray for my soul.
When she was finished reading the letter, Kat remained silent. What could she say in the face of such brutality? The fact that five innocent women—one a mother, no less—had been killed in such a cruel manner made her sick to her stomach. She felt even worse knowing it all had happened in her town. Yes, she was well aware that the events occurred before Perry Hollow ever really existed. But the land was the same. Folks in her town walked the same ground those ignorant villagers had walked. And that land, she now knew, was stained with blood.
“Well,” she finally said, “it looks like Constance found Rebecca Bradford.”
“We can’t be certain those bones in the museum belonged to the woman in that letter,” Henry said. “It could have been anywhere in Pennsylvania. You said so yourself.”
“The bones had been burned, Henry. Before last night. Years before.”
Three hundred years, in fact. That’s what Lucy Meade had told her just before she learned the bad news about Nick. Then there was the fact that Constance Bishop had been seen leaving her house with a metal detector. When she had first heard about it, Kat thought it strange that she would use such a device to search for bones. Now it all made sense, considering poor Rebecca Bradford’s lead-lined resting place.
“Those bones are what’s left of Rebecca,” Kat said. “And Constance found them.”
She assumed that Constance had also tried but failed to uncover the remains of the rest of the Bradford clan. They were still out there, waiting to be found. And Constance certainly wanted them to be. It was why, as she was dying, she had written that message on her hand. That once cryptic phrase that now made complete, dreadful sense.
THIS IS JUST THE FIRST.
Constance hadn’t meant murders. Or fires. She had meant skeletons, buried somewhere beneath Perry Hollow.
Kat left the conference room and charged down the hallway, propelled by a newfound sense of energy. Henry followed, remaining close behind her as she pushed through the museum’s back door. The small patch of yard behind the building looked different in the daylight. Far prettier than Kat had realized. A cluster of light blue asters sat beside the wooden fence at the rear of the property. The gate was still ajar, creaking gently back and forth among the blooms. Next to the fence, a sprawling sycamore rained yellow leaves onto a bench beneath it.
The only thing keeping the spot from looking picture-perfect were the two state troopers standing close to the museum. Their backs were turned to the yard as they studied a patch of the exterior wall next to the door. One of them was the female trooper who hadn’t hesitated to speak up in Kat’s kitchen an hour earlier. Seeing Kat, she spoke up again, calling out, “Chief, you might want to take a look at this.”
“What did you find?”
“Vandalism,” the trooper said. “We missed it during the night. Only noticed it this morning when the sun came up.”
The troo
pers parted, giving Kat an unobstructed view of the wall. The vandalism, rendered in black spray paint that scarred the whitewashed siding, consisted of a series of connected lines surrounded by a circle. The lines formed a rough five-pointed star, just like the ones children draw in their first bursts of artistic creativity. Each point touched the circle, as if straining to break free of its borders.
“Is it just me,” Henry said, “or is this day getting weirder as it goes along?”
Kat had no choice but to agree. There were fires and corpses and skeletons hidden beneath the floor. And now, just when she thought it couldn’t get any stranger, she found herself staring at a spray-painted pentagram on the wall of the place where all this trouble started.
Just below the pentagram was a small brass plaque embedded into the wall. The sign proclaimed that the museum had been designated a state historic landmark. Perry Hollow was so old that such plaques weren’t uncommon. Kat saw them here and there, yet rarely paid attention to them. The fact that a pentagram had been painted next to one finally got her attention.
“Do you remember seeing one of these at the bed-and-breakfast?” she asked Henry.
“I hope you’re asking about the plaque,” he said with a wry lift of his brow.
“I am.”
“I didn’t notice. Why?”
Kat hurried around the side of the museum, picking up speed as she crossed the wide lawn and leaving Henry far behind her. She burst into a jog once she hit the street, not slowing until she reached what was left of the Sleepy Hollow Inn.
That block was closed to both cars and pedestrians, thanks to the rubble that had spilled into the street when the hotel collapsed. Kat ducked beneath the police tape stretched from tree to tree around the scene and surveyed the damage.
Debris was everywhere—a jumbled pile of wood, bricks, and shattered glass. Shingles from the roof littered the street, and tufts of blackened insulation rolled like tumbleweed across the lawn. Kat moved cautiously, stepping around the rubble until she reached a small set of concrete steps. It was the hotel’s front stoop, one of the few things still standing. At the top, instead of a front door, was a view of the smoldering pit that had once been the Sleepy Hollow Inn.
