The May Queen Murders (13 page)

marker upon landing, and pain shot through my jaw. Yet I felt the

slip of blades of grass between my fingers, and I heaved myself for-

ward, half tumbling as my feet snagged on my skirt. Fabric ripped,

and again I hit the ground, falling like a baby trying to run before it

could walk.

Closer and closer, a shape hulked between the graves. It held

something long and snarled, a wig of some kind with stringy hair. It

lifted the wig to place it on its head. Then the shape wiped its fore-

head with its fingers. Maybe it was the tears in my eyes or moonlight

that caught the shine of wetness on its hand, but the shape brought

its hand to its nose and sniffed.

It licked its fingers.

Move, Ivy. If you don’t move, you’re dead.

Mamie’s voice spurred me up from the ground. The shape

growled, reached inside its cloak, and withdrew a knife, primitive,

with a rusted blade.

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I ran. My hands wound into my skirt, pulling the torn fabric high

so I wouldn’t trip. The shape would come and gut me as if I were the

mutilated body of a deer after field dressing. Step by burning step,

my muscles pried me up the cove until I reached Promise Bridge. It

wasn’t until I was halfway across that I heard myself scream.

A lantern glimmered in the field. One lantern, then two.

“
Ivy!
” Violet yelled.

I rushed to the glowing stars, wiping tears on my cheeks and the

spit collecting between my lips. “Oh, God. V-V-Violet —”

The lanterns came closer, and in the darkness, Violet’s shadowed

face emerged first and then her sister Dahlia’s. Around Dahlia’s neck

was a scarf like she always wore since being jumped by rollers, but

still visible snaking up her jaw were deep pockets of flesh so thin her

teeth and tongue shone through her cheek. Her attackers had cor-

nered her in the chemistry lab. Chemicals left horrible scars.

“Shhh.” Dahlia wrapped her arms around me. “You’re okay.”

Violet slid out of her coat and nestled it around my shoulders.

“Everyone’s been looking for you. Heather said she couldn’t find

you.”

“She lied!” I shouted. “S-she was with me and left! Someone was

there, and it was horrible!”

I glanced back to the bridge, to the graveyard of unclaimed dead

beyond.

No shape.

No blood smel .

Nothing.

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Whimsy was grazing not far from the bridge. Violet walked to-

ward the horse and tugged her mane so she’d follow. My horse nib-

bled at my shoulder, and exhausted, I patted her flank.

“Come on,” Dahlia murmured. She reached for my hand, stopped

when she noticed the dirt under my nails. “We’l get you cleaned

up.”

We made our way through the field toward a path. The farther

from Potter’s Field I got, the more I wondered if perhaps I had imag-

ined the shape hoisting that awful wig high, licking its fingers. My

hand in Dahlia’s, the dirt ground into my skin, it was real.

Heather had left me there.

My bones hollowed. How could she? How could we be fighting

like we never had before? This needed to stop, but how?

I didn’t want to forgive. As terrible as it made me feel inside, my

fury wanted to abandon her and see how she liked it.

A warning bell rang out across the fields. Throughout the vil age,

old iron bel s were mounted on posts. It was an archaic though effec-

tive warning system. One bell tolled, and the entire trail lined with

bel s followed. Violet looked back at her sister and me, the flame in

the lantern dancing inside the glass.

“Something’s happened,” she whispered.

We were close to the horse pasture, and the warning bel s chimed

all around us. Across the field, hillmen ran with their lanterns. They

ran to the horses.

I jerked my hand from Dahlia’s and sprinted to the pasture, push-

ing past the dozen men surrounding the fence. A horse’s scream

ripped at my ears. Behind the fence, Journey lay on his side in

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the dirt. Patches of blood painted his blue-gray coat, and his legs

scrambled to run, but he had no strength. His mane was gone. In its

place was a slick, bloody track. The horse was scalped. His hooves

thrashed, unable to get their bearings to hoist him, and he writhed,

eyes so wide the whites shone.

The shape in Potter’s Field had carried stringy, dark hair.

“Somebody shoot him!”

I didn’t know who’d yelled, but others echoed the shout. I twisted

round and scanned the faces. Each was a blur, a look of revulsion,

and a whispered prayer. Sheriff parted the hillfolk, and I spotted

Rook a few paces behind him before I blocked him.

“Thank God you’re safe,” he said and held my wrists.

“Don’t go any closer,” I begged.

“What is it?”

I winced as Journey let out a pained whinny. Rook’s jaw slackened.

“No.”

Gunfire silenced everything, or maybe the ringing in my ears

deafened me. Some folks backed off to reveal the pasture. The pro-

tective wall of hillmen was gone. Journey was an unmoving mass.

Sheriff stood over the still horse, rifle in hand, and stared at where I

stood with Rook.

“I’m sorry, son. There wasn’t anything we could do.”

For a while, Rook sat with his knees tucked to his chest. He buried

his face, but every few moments, he sucked in a deep breath. Some-

one found my father. He’d been searching for me along with Marsh.

I answered Sheriff’s questions while my father crossed his arms and

paced.

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“This is more than some pervert killing animals, Jay,” my father

blurted out. “My daughter was attacked. She could’ve been killed!”

Sheriff nodded. “I know, Timothy.”

“Oh, shut it, Jay!” Marsh yelled. “We’ve heard Markle screamin’

for years, and you ain’t cared to do anything ’bout it till the dogs

turned up dead.”

A vein in Sheriff’s forehead throbbed. “You think I like knowin’

he’s out there? I was the last person to see him before he ran off, and

we tried catching him then. My daddy put down the old laws to keep

us inside at night even when folks laughed at him. Maybe I should’ve

kept his laws when I became sheriff. But as of now, I’m puttin’ patrols

on the roads and layin’ down an official curfew. No one goes out after

dark.”

Rook sniffed and lifted his face from his knees. “I heard the sto-

ries, but I never believed he was still out there.”

“You don’t mess with a madman like Birch Markle,” Marsh said.

Sheriff nodded his head in agreement. “I’ll send more men. Before

he follows his old killin’ path. He started with animals, and I don’t

need him movin’ to some pretty girl. Not with May Day a-comin’.”

“No,” Papa barked. “We ain’t doing any May Day.”

“Iris took it to council, and I can’t argue it or I’m outta my job.”

Sheriff glanced in the direction of the woods. “Even if I ain’t found

Birch yet, I know what happened with him and Terra better than

anybody in the Glen. You trust anybody else?”

Papa kicked a fence post. “No.”

“All right, then. If keeping my head down when the council says

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they want a May Day is what I gotta do, so be it. May Day’s happen-

ing, and we’ll pray hard Birch Markle stays away.”

Papa approached where I sat with Rook and offered me his hand.

I waited, not wanting to go but not wanting to linger outside while

the death smell worsened, and after a moment, Rook waved me off.

Papa hugged me, his broad hand spread across the back of my head.

“I’m takin’ Ivy home,” he said to Sheriff. “My daughter’s not gonna

be another victim, and you better do something about this before

someone else is.”

Before Papa ushered me away, I stopped beside Sheriff to ask, “If

you find Birch, what’ll you do with him?”

His lips pursed. “We’ll do what we should’ve done twenty-five

years ago. We’ll put an end to his madness.”

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Chapter Eight

His sister did what she had to — had Birch hauled down to

the storm cellar by some of the young men. Seemed like

he was gone, but we was just prayin’ he’d never get out.

Except he did.

Two days after Journey’s death, I sat in a pew in the Glen’s church.

My family never sat too near the front, always by a window so Papa

could look outside during Pastor Galloway’s sermon. Pastor wore a

troubled expression. Nothing in the church was real ornate like I’d

seen in art books — just a plain table and cross on the wal . Dried

wheat in some milk cans were all the decoration. Sometimes in fal ,

when we prayed the harvest would keep us through winter, there

were cornstalks bound together, and Heather and I taught the little

ones to make crosses from the husks to hang above their beds.

To have faith in the Glen was to know the old ways. Superstition

and harvest rituals went back in our blood longer than the body of

Christ. Mamie said any pastor preaching to us accepted that we had

ways that were unwritten in the Good Book but nevertheless kept us

close to nature. If God created nature, then reverence for nature was

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reverence for God. Townies didn’t get it, not with their trips to the

city to attend the mega church. For all that I distrusted rollers, they

understood what it was like to be somewhere in the middle, the gray.

Mama reached forward to the pew ahead of ours where Aunt Rue

sat with Marsh.

“Where’s Heather?” Mama whispered.

Aunt Rue looked over her right shoulder. “She has a stomachache

and stayed home.”

I didn’t believe Heather was sick. At supper last night, we didn’t

speak, avoiding each other, but she was fine. Distracted and pacing

and going between the living room and the door off the kitchen. She

wanted out.

She was out now, I was certain. She could fool everyone. But not

me.

I glanced across the aisle to the Meriweathers. Rook twirled his

glasses around by one of the earpieces. So pale, a gauntness about his

jaw, he looked as if he hadn’t slept since Journey was killed. At the

end of a prayer, Sheriff nudged him to remember to say “amen.”

I was transfixed by his sorrow and, guiltily, the memory of his

arms around me and his lips warm on my neck. Part of me knew

it was wrong to think of such a thing during church, but it was a

comfort through the string of bleak days. Rook peered my way, and

I couldn’t deny that seeing his fingers uncurl in a gentle wave made

my pulse kick higher.

We prayed for the animals. We prayed for Glen kind and folks

outside. We prayed for understanding. They were words we prayed

each week, yet the resonance chilled me.

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Pastor Galloway stepped over to the pulpit. He was older than

Sheriff and Papa, but not nearly as old as Mamie or Rose Connel y

or the other granny-women who imprinted upon his spirit a love of

land and God as a child.

“Death is part of living,” he began. “What’s unacceptable is killin’

not for sustenance but perversion. The occurrences in recent days

corrupt our land.”

“So what do you suggest?” Dale Crenshaw piped up from the con-

gregation.

A hum of voices bristled in the church as families turned to one

another to ask and offer suggestions of what to do with the madman

in the woods.

“I say we bring the county officers,” Dale spoke again. “We need

peace ’round here!”

Sheriff remained seated. His wife, Briar, moved to stand, but he

stayed her and cleared his throat. “If you follow the curfew, you

oughta be safe. Now, Dale, you know as well as everyone else that

I’ve been to the woods myself, searching for Birch Markle.”

Flint Denial stood and pointed at Sheriff. “But you ain’t found

him! You’re as bad as your daddy was! Step aside and let in the coun-

ty cops!”

Some clapping and affirmations went up. Papa rose from his seat

and ducked out of the church. Sheriff squeezed past Rook and hur-

ried after Papa. I bunched my hands in my skirt. Violet shot me a

sympathetic look as people patted her father’s shoulder.

“We can hunt down Birch ourselves! We got rifles!”

“Set out some bear traps and catch ’im that way!”