The Hawley Book of the Dead (24 page)

After I’d fiddled with the script as long as I could bear, I powered down my laptop in frustration. I noticed the book of Hawley history I’d gotten at the fair on the counter where I’d left it. I picked it up, started reading. Maybe I’d discover more about the Five Corners, the Dyer family, clues that might lead me to knowledge about the disappearances, about Nan’s Sears connections, anything at all. But my reading was again as fruitless as my work on the script.

When Mrs. Pike had gone, Nathan came in to tell me that the girls were in the barn showing the horses off to Falcon Eddy.

“You know, I do feel better that he’s here,” I told him. “Fai, at least, is still feeling unsafe.” I told him what she’d said.

“I guess having him around doesn’t hurt. What I want to know is, how did he
get
here?”

“Nan sent for him. Other than that, I couldn’t say. He seems okay. Do you think he’s okay?”

“Your Nan wouldn’t steer you wrong.”

“Ha. I’m not so sure.… Nathan, I just wish I knew what to
do
.”

“You’re already doing everything you can do.”

He always told the truth, Nathan did. But maybe he trusted me too much. I was more like a second mother to him, after all. I searched his face. There were few signs of Jeremy, but they were there in his high forehead, the sweep of his light hair. I felt tears welling, threatening to drown me. “Oh, Nathan. I
miss
him.”

“I know.” He put an arm around me, patted me. “But he wouldn’t be doing anything different,
chère
. And he believed in you.”

“I wish I knew … I don’t know, just
more
. Where the Fetch is. What really happened here, why everyone is worried it will happen again.”

“Did you find anything in this?” He ruffled the pages of the Hawley history. I wiped at my eyes, even though the tears hadn’t come, a preventive measure.

“Nothing interesting. Nothing about what happened in 1924.”

“That guy Hank said it all started in the fall the year before, didn’t he? It seems strange that there wouldn’t be anything in here about Hawley Five Corners. Was it just these few houses?”

“No, a hundred people or so lived here. At the Five Corners and scattered around the hollow. There was a store and a tavern. And there were quite a few farms, judging by the foundations and stone walls.”

“What happened to the houses, then? They didn’t all just fall in on themselves since 1924. These didn’t, after all.”

It was a good question. “Maybe Nan will know. If she
did
live here.”

“Do you really think she might have?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know if this is a wild-goose chase. But …” I hesitated.

“But what?”

“I’m not sure. It’s just a feeling. Maybe of disturbing something.… 
You know, the woman Mom and I met at the historical society said there might be records in the church. Births and deaths, anyway. I’ve been meaning to go over, look around.”

“Hard to believe no one’s found them. Brought them to light, for the historical society. You’d think they’d like to have them in the collection.”

“You’d think. But after the town was abandoned, except for the big auction they had, no one disturbed this place for years. When I rode here as a kid, everything seemed so … untouched. No beer bottles or cigarette butts. We never once saw a soul when we came here, Jolon and I. We went all through the buildings, except this house. We somehow could never break into it. We never found anything in the church. But we weren’t looking.”

“So let’s look now.”

I didn’t need convincing.

The church was dazzling white, its upright spire reaching to a sky so pristine it looked scrubbed. I unlocked the double door with the big brass key labeled “Church” that I’d found on a hook in our kitchen. I’d been in the church as a child, and I’d given it a cursory looking over just after we’d moved, but it still seemed nothing more than a plain, nearly square room. The varnished pews were narrow and carved of oak, the seats covered with split cushions. I ran a hand over the fabric, dull red silk, and my fingers came away smeared with a bloom of dust. I wiped it on my jeans and went to stand at the pulpit with Nathan.

“There’s not much to it. It has a certain grace, though. It’s elegant, with those tall windows and all the whiteness.” I looked up at the arch of ceiling, pressed tin, painted white. There were small white crosses at each corner above our heads.

“Where would any records be kept? There’s not even a vestry.”

I lifted each hinged window seat by the altar and saw only stacks of ancient hymnals. Then I rummaged in the one small cubby of the stained pine pulpit, came up with a chewed Blackwing pencil and a child’s tiny prayer book bound in shredding white leather.
The Little Book of Prayer
was stamped in gold on the cover. I ruffled the pages. Nothing fell out. I opened the book. My throat closed up. The name
Dyer
seemed to leap
from the page.
Hannah Dyer Sears
was written in faded ink on the flyleaf. Hannah Dyer Sears, my grandmother. My Nan.

“Nathan,” I whispered. He was examining a long-handled wicker basket leaned up against the altar. It must have been used for collections. He turned and saw my face. “Reve, honey, you’re all pale.”

“Look at this. It was definitely Nan’s. She lived with us, and she never said. In all her stories, she never mentioned she’d
lived
in Hawley. Even when she knew Jolon and I rode here. Even when I moved to Hawley Five Corners. When she
sent
me here. Why not tell me?”

“Well, now you can ask her.”

Nathan drove us north toward the Vermont border. Falcon Eddy sat in front to talk with him about medieval archery, while I squashed into the back with the girls. Caleigh was half on my lap, getting heavier by the minute. Just as we were crossing the state border, she squirmed and yelled, “Hold it, coz! Pull over!”

We all looked to where she was pointing. A huge yard sale blanketed the stubbly hay fields around us. It seemed to spread out to the horizon. Junk of all kinds tempted the traveler, piled on tables, spilling over into the vestiges of grass. On display were headboards and cribs, mirrors and luster jugs, mountains of plates and bowls, heaps of children’s clothes, an enormous fiberglass rooster, and three Easy-Bake Ovens, that I could count. I’d never seen anything like it.

Nathan stopped next to the handwritten sign that let us know we had stopped at

The Perpetual Tag Sale
Open 24 Hours, 7 Days a Week
See a Treasure, Make an Offer
No Reasonable Offer Refused

There was no house in sight. The only sign of life was a very old man with a long white beard sitting in a bentwood rocker. A resplendent brass cash register was positioned on a Chippendale table before him.

“Howdy, folks. Welcome to the Perpetual Tag Sale,” he chirped at us as we piled out of the car. “Look around and find your heart’s desire. No reasonable offer refused, just like the sign says.”

Caleigh and the girls scattered, while I called after them, “Be quick like bunnies. We only have a few minutes!”

“Oh, missus,” the old man chuckled, “don’t ya know ya can’t rush the Perpetual Tag Sale? Take your time! But don’t worry, it won’t make ya late for wherever you’re needin’ to be.”

“So you’re really open all the time?” Nathan asked.

The man nodded, his snowy beard wagging like Miss May’s. “Ever day, 24/7, including major holidays. Always here, always open. Whenever ya need us, here we are. But look around! Sure you’ll find a treasure!”

Caleigh was already in raptures over an Easy-Bake Oven, a vintage turquoise one, complete with countless pans and rolling pins. “I always wanted one of these!” she gushed. Grace and Fai were one row over, pulling silky scarves out of a battered trunk. I walked down the first lane, convinced I wouldn’t find anything I needed or wanted among the dizzying array of cuckoo clocks, mixing bowls, and lava lamps. But I was wrong. My eye was drawn to a bejeweled scabbard resting against a massive cabinet television from the 1970s. The scabbard looked tremendously old, like something a Knight of the Round Table might carry. It shone gold, was etched with symbols and designs, and encrusted with what looked like, but couldn’t possibly be, emeralds and diamonds. Not at the Perpetual Tag Sale. All the same, I hefted it. It was weighty, but seemed right in my hands. I pulled out the sword, and its golden surface reflected parabolas of light. It stopped my breath, it was so beautiful.

“That looks real.”

I wheeled, swinging the sword before me. Nathan jumped back. “Hey, be careful with that thing!”

“You startled me.” I sunk the tip of the sword into the earth. The blade had come within an inch of Nathan’s chest.

I sheathed it in its scabbard. The imitation gemstones on it sparkled like the genuine article. “It can’t be real. Just a good reproduction.”

Nathan reached for it, examined it closely. He finally shook his head. “It’s real, all right, crazy as that sounds. It could have come right out of the Royal Armouries’ collection, or the Met Museum’s.” He had to be right, with his vast knowledge of old armaments. “They have one like this … but this one’s in even better condition.” He pulled the sword out again, and the sun caught the blade. Dust motes danced around it in lacy patterns. I felt a shifting inside me, as if the world was slowing down around us. “And instead of plain iron or bronze, this one looks like goldplated silver. If you buy it, we can add it to the Bijoux collection. It’s pretty incredible.” We did have a good collection of antique swords of all periods, curated by Nathan, often used in our shows. But I had put magic behind me.

“Nathan, what’s it doing here?”

“Who knows? But I say, don’t let it get away.” He squinted at the small white tag fluttering from the sword hilt. “Hmph. Ten dollars. Now that’s a
steal
.”

“Ha, ha.”

Minutes later we were on the road again, the sword stashed in the back alongside a bag of miscellaneous junk that the twins had chosen, and Caleigh’s Easy-Bake Oven.

Nan’s house was the oldest in Bennington. A low-slung Cape, with tiny windows that lined the upper story, like the windows of a doll’s house. It was not painted the conventional white or barn red of most New England village houses, but instead boasted ancient stained chestnut planks. The roof was shingled with mossy slate. Altogether it had an air of age, and the kind of spookiness one might expect from a dwelling that had housed
generations, witnessed any number of births and deaths within its walls. A wooden sign, white with black lettering, hung from a post and proclaimed it
THE PHINEAS COBB HOUSE, 1755
.

Nathan parked in the gravel drive. Falcon Eddy went directly to the back of the house, where the mews was. I toted the bag with the basket of fancy teas I’d brought from home. Superstitiously, I felt I could not come empty-handed. The girls raced up the walk.

Caleigh smacked the brass clapper that hung next to the front door, and it was thrown open almost instantly by a gaunt woman with hair the rusty color of old iron, bound tightly around her head like a crown. Nan’s housekeeper, Willy. “Come in,” she croaked in a sepulchral tone, more suited to a wake than afternoon tea. She wore the same kind of flowered housedress that Mrs. Pike usually donned for her work, with an embroidered apron tied around her thick waist. She stepped aside and indicated a door off the hall, then seemed to melt away. We walked into a long, bright room, a parlor, kitchen, and dining room combined, with an immense fireplace, the bricks blackened with age and use. A fire snapped on the hearth, and Nan rose from a tall-backed chair to greet us. She looked tiny even in this house with its low ceilings and doors, but her presence filled the room.

Caleigh ran to her. “Hey, Nan, guess what?” In her excitement, she tripped and nearly fell, but Nan caught her, righted her. Caleigh, unfussed, went on with her story. “We stopped at a tag sale, the biggest one ever! Look what I got!” She clutched her twee rolling pins and spatulas. “They came with a toy oven, but Mom wouldn’t let me bring it in!”

“Well! That’s quite a greeting.” She hugged Caleigh then, kissed her cheek. I suddenly noticed that Caleigh was almost as tall as Nan, now. “And what did my young ladies purchase?” She turned to Grace and Fai, who had puppets on their hands and were jabbing at each other with them, giggling in the doorway.

“I’m Lamb Chop. A plesh-ah, I’m shoo-ah.” Grace did a passable imitation of the girlie sheep from the Bronx. When she held the puppet up to her face, we could see that her eye makeup and Lamb Chop’s were nearly identical.

Fai opened her fox’s mouth wide and made it chomp on Lamb Chop’s neck. “Hey!” Grace squealed. “That hurts!”

Nan’s sudden laughter was like the caw of one of her hawks.

The twins sidled up to Nan for her kisses like quick bites.

Nan pecked at my cheek next. “It’s good of you to come, Reve.” She seemed to have forgotten that she’d summoned me. “Jackie doesn’t usually join me for tea, since he’s called away by parish duties.”
Jackie
was the improbable diminutive that Nan used for the Reverend John Steel. “I would have come to you, except for the bronchitis.”

I’d suspected the Reverend of exaggerating her symptoms, but her voice
was
raspy and thin. And she did seem paler, more fragile than when I’d seen her last, only weeks before. I hated to think that she was failing. In so many ways she was still the same, with her one long silver braid, her flannel shirts, her sharp eyes.

I sat next to her on a very upright Queen Anne sofa, restless. I wanted to leap right in and pummel information out of her, about the book, about her youth spent in Hawley. But I knew that she always had to be in control of a story. If I rushed her, she might not tell me anything after all. The girls sprawled on the faded Oriental carpet near Nan, continuing to spar with their puppets, while Caleigh perched on the arm of her chair. Nathan chose a rocker by the fire. There were numerous small tables in the room, the wood polished and gleaming, every table set with a vase of flowers: pink carnations and red-edged white roses, deep blue monkshood and huge sprawling yellow chrysanthemums like fireworks. The flowers were reflected in a big sideboard mirror and also in gleaming silver and crystal ornaments. The room was always beautifully kept, in spite of frequent visits by Nan’s birds of prey. That day, a barn owl gazed at us from its perch by a window. It was so still it might have been stuffed, but I knew from experience that it wasn’t.