The Secret (2 page)

“We have arrived, Mama,” Jonathan said quietly. He wondered whether she would be glad or sorry.

“Hurrah!” cried three-year-old Rachel, clapping
her hands. She was a chubby angel in a homespun muslin shift with a mop of blond curls peeking out from under her cap.

Jane Fier only nodded. She was fair, with worry lines beside her clear blue eyes. She wore a printed linen dress and a loose white cap.

“I will be so happy to leave this wagon,” said Abigail, a red-haired eight-year-old with mischievous blue eyes. She wore a blue- and white-striped linen dress and a white cap with blue ribbons. She looked up to her brother, Jonathan, who at almost twelve was nearly grown up. “Mama, will we be able to stop for good this time? Will we be able to sleep in a bed tonight?”

“I hope so, Abigail,” Jane said.

“I will ask Papa,” Abigail said.

She started for the front of the wagon, but her mother pulled her back.

“Do not bother Papa about that now,” Jane whispered He has other matters on his mind.”

He al“ways has other matters on his mind, Jonathan thought with some bitterness. Or rather,
one
other matter.

Jonathan faced front again and lowered his black hat over his eyes. He wore his long brown hair tied back. His white linen shirt was dirty from weeks of traveling, and he was growing out of his brown homespun waistcoat and knee breeches.

As soon as we settle down, he thought, Mama will have to make me some new clothes.

No one passed them as they rolled down the leafy lane toward the village—not on horseback or on foot. It seems strangely quiet here, Jonathan thought. It is not the Sabbath. Where is everyone?

At last he saw a carriage up ahead. It was headed toward them on its way out of town.

Jonathan kept his eyes on the carriage as they approached it. It was shiny and black, a fancy carriage for rich people.

But, wait, he thought. The carriage is not moving. And where are the horses?

Something is wrong, he realized.

Something is terribly wrong.

The Fiers' wagon drew closer. Jonathan could now see two horses, but they were lying on the ground. Are they hurt? he wondered, leaning so far forward he nearly fell. Are they
dead?

Closer.

A foul smell invaded Jonathan's nostrils. He nearly gagged.

He could see the horses clearly now. Long dead. Their flesh was rotting, their bones shoving up through the decaying skin.

“Ohhh!”

Jonathan heard his mother utter a cry of shock. He glanced back into the wagon. She had pulled his two sisters close and was covering their eyes.

Ezra slowed the wagon but did not stop.

Why was it left here on the road? Jonathan wondered. Why would people abandon such a fine carriage?

The wagon wheels creaked as they pulled close enough for Jonathon to see inside the carriage.

To his astonishment, the carriage was not empty.

Three women were inside, dressed in gowns of fine silk and white lace caps.

Jonathan stared hard at the women. Their faces.

The faces were purple, nothing but bone and chunks
of decaying flesh, poking out from beneath their fancy caps.

They're dead, Jonathan realized, covering his nose with his hand. And they've been dead a long, long time.

Rotting corpses, going nowhere in a fancy carriage.

J
onathan stifled a cry and covered his face with both hands.

Why have these decaying bodies been left here? he wondered. Why have the villagers not taken them away to be buried?

Was the carriage and its rotting cargo left here as a warning?

Stay away!

Still holding his breath from the stench, Jonathan turned to gaze at his father.

Ezra was staring intently into the carriage window. Was he shocked by the figures inside? Jonathan could not tell. His father's face revealed no emotion.

“Ezra—” Jane pleaded, her voice tight and shrill. “Turn back. We cannot stay here. That carriage. Those women. I have such a bad feeling.”

Ezra turned and silently glared at her in answer. She
kept her eyes leveled on him defiantly. Then, without a word, he snapped the reins and urged the horse forward. They headed into town.

Ezra guided the wagon into the village common and stopped.

Jonathan glanced around.

No sign of life. Not another person in sight.

Jonathan could hold the questions back no longer. “Papa, why are we here? Why are we searching for the Goodes? What did they do to you?”

“Jonathan, hush!” his mother cried. Her eyes were wide with fright and warning.

For a moment no one spoke. Jonathan turned from his mother back to his father. What have I done? he wondered. What will Papa do to me?

Then Ezra spoke. “He is old enough now, Jane. He is right to ask these questions. He must know the truth.”

With a groan Ezra climbed down from the wagon and beckoned to his son. “Come with me, boy.”

“I will come, too!” said Abigail.

Her mother pulled her back inside. “No, Abigail. You will stay here with me.”

Jonathan followed Ezra across the common. He stopped short when he saw a man locked in the stocks, his head and hands thrust through the three holes in the wooden frame. His eyes were open and staring but empty.
Dead
.

Jonathan's stomach lurched. “Papa—” he managed to choke out.

But Ezra strode quickly past the wide-eyed corpse. “Our family once lived here, in Wickham,” Ezra told Jonathan. “My grandfather was the magistrate.
Everyone knew him and his brother to be good and righteous men. But that very righteousness ruined their lives.”

How could that be? Jonathan wondered. But he said nothing.

“Witches were discovered in Wickham. My grandfather had them burned at the stake. Two of them were Susannah and Martha Goode. They were put on trial by my grandfather, found guilty, and burned.”

Now Jonathan swallowed hard. “Your grandfather—he—he burned people at the stake?”

“Not people—
witches!”
Ezra boomed. “Vile and evil creatures of the devil!” Ezra paused, breathing hard. “My grandfather and his brother did their duty.”

Jonathan shuddered at the thought of women being burned alive. But he said nothing.

“Our family moved from Wickham to Pennsylvania,” Ezra continued, calmer now. “But William Goode, the father of Susannah, the husband of Martha, followed them. He believed his wife and daughter to be innocent. Driven by revenge, William used dark powers against my grandfather and his family.

“William disguised himself as a young man. He took advantage of my aunt Mary's innocence and—” Ezra paused again, searching for words.

“And what, Papa?”

“William Goode destroyed our family. He killed my grandfather and my mother. The rest he drove insane. I found my great-uncle and his wife buried behind a brick wall—nothing left of them but bones.”

Jonathan gasped.
This
was his family history! And it was the reason behind his father's obsession. It
explained why his father hated the Goodes with such passion.

Still, something did not make sense to Jonathan. In his almost twelve years, Jonathan had never seen a sign of this William Goode or his black magic.

No member of the Goode family had ever appeared during Jonathan's life to seek revenge against the Fiers. So why was Ezra keeping the evil feud alive? Why was Ezra determined to spend his life searching for Goodes?

“Papa,” Jonathan asked hesitantly, “is William Goode still alive?”

“I do not know,” Ezra replied bitterly. “He would be very old. I do know he had a son, George. George lived in Wickham once. I am hoping—”

He did not finish the sentence, but Jonathan knew what he was hoping. He hoped to find this George Goode, or other Goodes, and bring them misery.

And that is why we have come to Wickham, Jonathan realized.

But so far we have not seen a living soul. Only corpses.

This town
must
be cursed.

“Come,” Ezra said. “We will go to the tavern and ask after the Goodes.” Ezra led Jonathan up the tavern steps.

The innkeeper will tell us what has happened, Jonathan thought. Innkeepers always know the news.

Ezra opened the tavern door. They stepped inside.

The room was empty. The fireplace stood cold and dark, the tables covered with dust and cobwebs. Plates of food had rotted on one of the tables. It may have been a meal of roast lamb and a pudding. Rats
scurried around the table, gnawing at the mold-covered meal.

Ezra grunted unhappily, his features set in disappointment. Jonathan saw a pile of dust-covered letters on the bar, probably left there for the villagers to pick up. The letters had been delivered a long time ago.

The floorboards creaked under Ezra's boots as he walked over to the bar to sort through the letters. About halfway through the pile, he stopped. He rubbed the dust from the front of the envelope and carefully studied the address.

“Papa?” said Jonathan.

Ezra looked up at his son. “Go find the village magistrate's house,” he ordered. “Ask if the magistrate will see me. I will be along in a minute.”

“Yes, sir,” Jonathan replied meekly and walked quickly from the tavern. Outside he hesitated.

Where could he find the magistrate? The street was empty. There was no one to ask.

Then he spotted a large house on the other side of the common. It was the grandest house in the village, sided with clapboards weathered brown, and enclosed by an unpainted picket fence. It stood two stories tall, with glass windows and two chimneys.

This
must
be the magistrate's house, Jonathan told himself, making his way across the common, half-walking, half-running. It felt good to run after his long journey.

Jonathan lifted the heavy brass door knocker and let it drop. No answer. How strange that such a fine house should have a broken parlor window, he thought.

He cupped his hand around his eyes and peered
through the window beside the door. The parlor was dark.

He turned the doorknob and uttered a soft cry of surprise when the door opened easily at his touch.

“Hello?” he called. His voice echoed through the house.

Jonathan quietly stepped inside. “Hello?” he repeated in a trembling voice. “I am here to see the magistrate.”

The house remained silent. Jonathan made his way into the parlor. The heavy thud of his boots on the floorboards was the only sound. “Hello?”

No one was in the parlor, which led to a smaller room. Some kind of office, perhaps? “Hello? Is the magistrate at home?” Jonathan stepped into this second doorway.

Squinting into the dim light, Jonathan saw an old man at a desk with his back to the door. Jonathan could make out long gray hair falling onto the collar of a brown coat.

Jonathan knocked lightly on the frame of the open door and said, “Sir? May I come in? Sir?”

The old man did not move.

Jonathan took a deep breath and stepped into the room. He made his way up to the high-backed chair and gently tapped on the man's shoulder. “Sir? Sir?”

The man moved—and Jonathan started to scream.

J
onathan's scream echoed off the walls of the tiny room.

The man toppled and slid to the floor.

Panting loudly, struggling to keep from screaming again, Jonathan gazed wide-eyed at the hideous face.

The man's long gray hair rested on nothing but bone. The grinning skull stared up at Jonathan, its teeth yellow and rotting. As Jonathan gaped down, frozen in horror, a spider crawled out from the deep, empty eye socket.

Jonathan shrieked out his horror. He wanted to run, but his feet seemed to be nailed to the floor. He couldn't take his eyes from the white-haired, grinning skeleton.

He screamed again.

“Jonathan! Jonathan! What is wrong?” Ezra shouted, bursting into the room. Ezra stopped and
stared down at the corpse. “Come. We must go,” he said softly. Placing his hands on Jonathan's shoulders, he guided the boy from the room.