The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane

by Katherine Howe

  “And that,” said Liz, “is why I also brought ice.”

  “SO,” LIZ BEGAN, PLACING FORKS ALONGSIDE NAPKINS ON THE DINING table, “fill me in. How’s everything coming?”

  “I’m not sure where to start,” Connie called from inside the kitchen. “Do you want the story of the vanished book-slash-dissertation topic, complete with pissed-off advisor? Or do you want the details on the boy so that you can grill him properly when he gets here?”

  “Um, both, I guess, but I was actually asking about selling the house.”

  Connie appeared holding a steaming colander between two oven mitts, and dumped pasta into a waiting bowl on the table. “Oh. That.”

  “You haven’t done anything, have you,” said Liz, crossing her arms.

  “Not true,” Connie countered, pulling off the oven mitts. “I have put in a telephone.”

  Liz leaned over to adjust the oil lamp on the table, its orange flame flaring up and casting her narrow features in relief, then tamping down into a warmer glow. Outside, the sky was still the pale blue-gray of twilight, but the interior of the house was already cloaked in darkness. “If I have to find another roommate for the fall, you need to tell me,” said Liz seriously.

  “Liz!” exclaimed Connie. “Of course not! It’s only July.”

  “I know, but I’m just saying,” Liz muttered, not looking at Connie.

  “Don’t be silly. Anyway, now that I have no probate record for Prudence Bartlett to tell me where the book went, I will no longer be distracted by all this productive dissertation research. I can finally devote my days to cleaning and fixing and selling, dropping out of grad school, running off to join the Foreign Legion….”

  “And the guy?” asked Liz, ignoring Connie’s sarcasm.

  Connie tucked her lower lip under her front teeth, and then broke into a smile. “He said they set off the fireworks from the causeway. He’s going to drop by later and walk us over to a spot he knows.”

  “‘A spot he knows,” echoed Liz, waving her fingers on either side of her head as Connie, laughing, threw an oven mitt at her friend.

  The two young women huddled at the end of the long dining table in the small pool of light cast by the oil lamp, swirling pasta on their forks. Liz supplied Connie with anecdotes from her summer Latin students (“One of them had this gigantic cellular phone that he kept on his desk! What kind of high schooler has a cellular phone anyway? Aren’t those just for bankers?”), and embroidered her account with stories of her dilatory summertime life in Cambridge.

  Connie watched Liz talk, enjoying the sound of a voice other than her own filling the house’s dour rooms. When circulating in the Marblehead world—buying groceries, visiting archives, picking up a coffee—she engaged in brushes of conversation, her solitude briefly rubbing up against the presence of other people before retreating again to the isolated cavern of Granna’s house. Sometimes she would look down to discover Arlo in her lap, his brown gaze reminding her that she had not spoken in several hours.

  A soft rap sounded at the door, and Liz broke off her story of a particularly awful date from the previous week to look up, bright-eyed, and whisper, “Aren’t you going to get it?”

  Connie grinned and tossed her napkin onto the table. “Coming!” she called.

  On the threshold of the door, the yard behind him a black tangle of shadows and vines, stood Sam, a six-pack of beer in one hand and a heavy-duty flashlight in the other. “Good evening, madam,” he said, with mock solemnity, executing a stiff half-bow with the flashlight beam shining up under his chin. “Your local Sherpa has arrived.”

  Connie noticed that Sam was sporting an ANARCHY IN THE UK T-shirt, presumably in honor of Independence Day, and giggled in spite of herself. “Sam Hartley,” she announced, gesturing into the dining room, “I would like you to meet Liz Dowers. Liz, this is Sam Hartley.”

  “A pleasure,” said Sam, gesturing with his hand, as if doffing a tricorn hat.

  Liz appeared behind Connie in the doorway with a blanket folded over her arm. “Mr. Hartley, I presume,” she said, executing a delicate curtsy, holding the picnic blanket out to one side, as if sweeping up a heavy brocade train.

  “Shouldn’t we be going?” Connie asked. “The fireworks are at nine, right?” Connie noticed Liz cast her eye quickly over Sam, mouthing “nice” at Connie when Sam was distracted with the flashlight, and then assuming an angelic posture when Sam looked up again.

  Their three silhouettes set off through the night, followed by Arlo’s eyes glittering through the leaves in the sitting room window.

  THE LAST SPARKLING TENDRILS RAINED DOWN ON THE INNERMOST CURVE of Marblehead harbor, and a few air horns blew their approval from sailboats moored on the water, their wails mingling with the echo of the explosions overhead and the collective sigh of townsfolk clustered on blankets in parks and on rooftops. The red flares ringing the harborside began to sputter, adding to the cloud of smoke drifting over the causeway after the last fireworks winked into nothingness. Connie heard claps and whistles from the park around her, and for the first time she felt a warm affection for the community where she was accustomed to loitering on the periphery. She enjoyed the anonymity of sitting hidden by the darkness, just one pair of eyes among many, dazzled by the lights overhead. She released a contented sigh and smiled over at her friends, both leaning back on their elbows, necks craned to face the sky.

  “Amazing,” Liz murmured, and Connie heard a soft plunk, the sound of Liz tweaking the pop tab on her empty beer can with one thumb.

  The haze of smoke gradually pulled apart, dissolving by degrees until the night sky once again stretched out clear overhead. Around them families folded up blankets and collected children, beginning the slow trudge toward home. The three of them sat, enjoying the quiet, saying nothing.

  Connie rolled onto her back and yawned, stretching her arms out overhead and feeling her knuckles and bare heels dip into the moist grass that surrounded their blanket.

  As she watched, a bright meteor streaked by overhead, a tiny ball of fire flashing through the atmosphere. Connie smiled, deciding—selfishly—to keep it to herself. She thought she detected an instantaneous flash of blue light on the horizon where the meteor disappeared, but then it was gone.

  “It’s late,” she ventured finally. “We should be getting back.”

  “So what are you guys doing tomorrow?” asked Sam, his voice emerging out of the dark. The park had emptied, and they could hear only the waves in the harbor lapping against the park’s rocky face.

  “Beach, right, Connie?” asked Liz, her voice sleepy.

  “Beach,” Connie confirmed, struggling into a seated position. “C’mon, Liz,” she said, jostling her friend’s leg. “Sam has to get home.” Liz let out a protesting moan but rose, and they drew the blanket up off the grass and started the meandering walk back to Milk Street.

  Sam’s flashlight carved a neat round cone through the massed night, bringing focus to each pebble and leaf that had fallen in the road. “Anyway, Grace thinks I’m just being closed-minded,” Connie was saying. “So I was thinking I should go over my notes again. She pointed out that maybe Prudence would have called it something else….”

  “Connie,” said Liz with authority. “That’s great and everything. But tomorrow, you’re taking the day off. We are going to the beach, we’re going to lie in the sun, we’re going to float in the water, and then we’re going to spend the rest of the night in the diviest bar we can find. Sam, are you with me on this?”

  He laughed, sweeping the flashlight beam over the tips of their feet and then back into a long yellow oval in the road. “Hear, hear,” he said.

  “I knew I liked him,” Liz said.

  The flashlight brushed up against the tangled mass of overgrown hedge that marked Granna’s house, and then spilled over the gate in the underbrush. Connie’s arm reached into the light to withdraw the latch, and they jostled into the garden, picking their way through the tufts of herbs poking through the fla
gstone pathway.

  “You do deserve a day off,” Sam started to say as the bright oval slid up the flagstones onto the waiting front door.

  In an instant all three froze. Liz let out a frightened scream.

  “Oh, my God,” Connie whispered, staring in horror at the door.

  CONNIE PULLED HER SWEATER UP TO HER CHIN, SHIVERING. LIZ HUDDLEDon the stoop next to her, knees pressed to hers, their eyes fixed on the silhouette of Sam in quiet conference with two bulky men. Their hands were gesticulating, cast into sharp relief by the spinning flashes of red and blue light from the police cruiser parked in the street, penetrating through the vine overgrowth and splashing up against the impassive, silent face of the house.

  “I’m sure they’ll figure it out,” Liz murmured, but Connie could tell that Liz was trying to reassure herself as much as she was Connie.

  “I know,” Connie said, folding her arm around Liz’s shoulders and squeezing. But as she clutched her friend, she felt her heartbeat tripping faster. She saw Sam point in her direction, and the two bulky forms moved toward her through the night.

  “You Connie Goodwin?” asked one of them. The other moved gingerly through the yard to play his flashlight over the windows at the front of the house. The officer looming over Connie had a head shaved nearly bald, and his nose had the bruised-looking quality of the heavy drinker. The harsh, spinning lights cast a diabolical sheen on his face that he probably did not deserve. She got to her feet, Liz rising with her.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “This yoah house?” he asked.

  “Yes. Well, no, actually. It was my grandmother’s. Sophia Goodwin. She died.” Connie crossed her arms over her chest, not looking at the front door.

  “Pretty hahd to find, yoah house. Even Officah Litchman and I had trouble, and we live in Mahblehead,” he said, unfolding a small notebook to a fresh page.

  “No sign of fawced entry, Len,” called the other one—Officer Litchman, she supposed—from near the dining room window. He was peering through the windowpanes with his flashlight.

  “Okay,” said the first one, jotting down notes. He turned back to Connie. “Anybody know yoah staying heah?”

  “I don’t think so,” Connie said, frowning. “My mother, who asked me to come for the summer. My friends, of course. I guess my advisor.”

  “Advisah?” the policeman asked.

  “I’m in grad school. My advisor’s the professor I work with,” she explained.

  “Gotcha,” he said, making more notes. From behind them they heard a sudden torrent of fierce barking, followed by Officer Litchman crying out “Jesus Christ!” and then the thump of his flashlight tumbling to the ground.

  “You got a dog?” the first police officer—Len?—asked Connie.

  “Yeah. Arlo. He’s inside. Sorry about that!” she called to Officer Litchman, who was cursing under his breath, hunting for his flashlight in the weeds.

  “Pretty weahd he wouldn’ta scared ’em off,” remarked the policeman, still jotting.

  “Yeah,” Connie said, perturbed. Sam had joined them by now, wrapping a protective arm around her waist.

  “Officer…Cardullo,” Liz began, reading the name plate on their interviewer’s uniform. “Do you have any idea who could have done this? Why would anybody want to scare Connie? She doesn’t even know anyone here!” Her voice rose, becoming almost shrill, and Connie placed a gentle hand on Liz’s arm.

  The group all turned to face the front door again, and they paused to stare at it.

  On the door, about two feet in diameter, appeared a circle freshly burned into the wood. It held a smaller circle inside it, like a target, bisected along both axes by lines. In the top half sat the word Alpha, written in an uneven, almost archaic, hand, with two crosses or hatch marks above it. In the upper-left quadrant, on the outer rim, was the word Meus with crossed hatch marks on either end. In the same position on the upper-right quadrant of the circle appeared the word Adjutor, also framed by crossed hatch marks. Echoing the pattern, in the lower half of the circle, were the words Omega in the center, Agla in the lower-left quadrant, and Dominus in the lower right, each bracketed by crossed hatch marks.

  “Hahd to say,” said Officer Cardullo, resting a hand on his heavy equipment belt. “Sometimes ya get some weahdos up from Salem. Goth kids ’n’ the like. Sometimes ya get stuff like this spray-painted on walls. Pentagrams ’n’ whatnot. Usually not this complex, though.”

  “Could be they thought the house was abandoned, what with all the vines and everything, and no lights,” Officer Litchman mused, joining them. “Just kids looking for trouble. Maybe yoah dog did scare ’em, else they woulda gone inside. You find anything missing in the house?”

  “Nothing,” said Connie, bringing a fingernail up to her mouth and ripping the tip of it off with her teeth, thoughtlessly. “There’s nothing worth stealing in there, anyway.” She felt her control starting to slip, her outward shell of calm becoming shot through with cracks.

  “Any idea what the wuhds mean?” asked Cardullo, eyeing Connie.

  “No,” she whispered. The symbol sat there, inscrutable, the acrid smell of burned wood clinging to the nighttime air. The smoke still smelled fresh, as if the burn on the door had fizzled out only moments before they returned. Little heaps of ash were collected on the stoop. A hot tear squeezed out of the corner of one of her eyes and started to snake its way down her cheek.

  “Alpha and omega are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet,” said Sam. Connie felt his grip around her tighten.

  “Dominus adjutor meus is Latin,” Liz added, her voice wavering. She took the flashlight from Sam and trained it more closely on the symbols on the front door. “Of course, the j in adjutor should probably be an i, if we are talking about ancient spelling. Roughly translated, it means ‘God my helper,’ or possibly ‘the Lord my deputy.’ Helper is the more likely use.” She gazed at the inscription, frowning. “I don’t know about ‘Agla.’ ‘Aglaia’ is a name for one of the Graces, but I don’t think that’s what they mean.”

  “Hey, that’s pretty good,” Officer Litchman said, elbowing Officer Cardullo. “I was an altah boy ’n’ I couldn’ta told you that.”

  “But who is ‘they’?” asked Sam.

  They turned to face the two policemen, who exchanged a quick look.

  “Listen,” said Cardullo after an uncomfortable pause, sliding his notebook into his back pocket. “We’ve taken down yoah statement. I’ll have a cruisah drive by a coupla times ovah the next week, but it looks like just a case of yah gahden-variety vandalism. Just kids makin’ trouble.”

  “Garden-variety vandalism?” Sam echoed, incredulous. “Are you serious? Don’t you think regular vandals would just use spray paint? Or markers?” Connie heard the anger in his voice and caught his blazing eyes with hers. She moved her head in a barely perceptible shake. Antagonizing the policemen would do nothing to get them to take this more seriously.

  “Sorry, kids, I don’t know what to tell yeh. It’s a remote kinda house, no lights on. Yeh were off watchin’ the fiahworks, so theh was plenty of noise and nobody watching. Looks to me like a case of bad kids and bad luck,” said Cardullo, Litchman nodding his agreement. “Heah’s my cahd. You have any moah trouble, you call us up, okay?”

  “Well, thanks,” Connie murmured, accepting the card, and the policemen withdrew into the night.

  “Need some lights out heah!” one of them called out, and Connie smiled weakly. The rotating red and blue lights vanished, replaced by the blazing red of taillights.

  Connie stood fixed in her place as a chill night wind circled around her rooted legs and blew the fine gray ashes away.

  Interlude

  Marblehead, Massachusetts

  Late April

  1760

  A loud crashing sound emanated from within the tavern, followed by riotous laughter and cheering. Above it all, Joseph Hubbard’s voice bellowed out indistinct directions, and whoops and cries drew nearer the d
oor until it exploded open, ejecting a young man in a tattered overcoat several sizes too large for him, with blurry face and bloodshot eyes.

  “I war goin’ to pay,” he slurred, staggering onto his hands and knees. Prudence Bartlett’s jaw clenched, the chill in her eyes growing a few perceptible degrees cooler as she stooped to hook one hand under the young man’s arm. With some effort she helped him to his feet, her strong, wiry hands gripping his shoulders and holding him vertical until the worst of the swaying stopped. He was just a little thing, not much older than her Patty. His hair was clotted with sand, dirty hanks having pulled out of his pigtail and standing out in several directions. He had a faint down of whiskers scattered around his mouth, and nothing more. Prudence sighed.

  “I war,” the boy said again, his exhaled breath a corrosive cloud of Barbadoes rum, and Prudence closed her throat against the smell.

  “Steeped in vice, you are,” she said to him. The boy’s nose flushed red, and his eyes and cheeks started to crumple in a sob.

  She placed her hands on the boy’s hot cheeks and looked him full in the face. Her eyes glowed white with concentration as she sent strict instructions through the palms of her hands, and she felt the boy’s body absorb her intent, diffusing it into his suffering bloodstream. Under her fingertips the boy’s skin flushed deep crimson, and he let out a tiny whimper. She whispered a short string of words under her breath, and then released him.

  “Get you home,” she said, “and with no need for strong drink neither.”

  The boy slowly reached up to touch his face where the bright red welts were already receding into nothingness, and he blinked, eyes clear. He swallowed, looking at Prudence with some alarm, and then without a word turned and fled along the alleyway toward the wharves. She snorted without mirth.

  At the end of the alley, where the boy disappeared around a corner, an unseen voice called out, “Down buck-et!” as a wet pot of ordure rained down from one of the windows into the street.