The Seeker A Novel (R. B. Chesterton) (26 page)

The Cahills suffered. Tragic things happened in our family. Hardship moved up and down the family tree. Even relatives who set out to leave the family behind suffered terrible events. Once the word got out, my male cousins had poor luck courting local girls. No one wanted to taste the acrimony of the Cahill legacy. No one wanted to marry into our family. My mother was from Lexington, and even though she was warned, she ignored the Cahill reputation. And she lost her son and her life.

Sins of the father or just a streak of insanity in the family, I didn’t know. But addiction, suicide, and loneliness were the trinity of the Cahill Curse. No matter how hard I focused on “the good future” Granny wanted for me, I found myself at the edge of the pit. Education could not rid me of these spirits. Distance could not save me from my dark gift.

Perhaps Bonnie could.

The page the journal opened to was dated Winter 1845.

Henry came to the woods because he wished to live deliberately. He wanted to learn what life had to teach. He feared that lying on his deathbed, he would discover he had not truly lived at all. Noble ambitions for a man who never suffered tragedy until his brother died. My tragedy is that I know he will never know the pain of losing a child or even his parents. He will die young.

I’ve dreamt his death many times, the filling of his lungs with blood. Consumption. His contamination likely from the pencil factory his family operates. It is indeed bitter when those who love us sow the seeds of our destruction. This has also been the lesson of my life.

I have tried to warn Henry that his health is fragile. He will not listen to me. Over time, he has grown to fear my dreams and portents of death. He sees darkness in me that I cannot erase from his vision. When I visit with the child in the woods, he pretends he cannot see her. Whether he sees her or not, he fears her. How can a man fear something he cannot see? How can he claim to know that she is not the spirit of a dead child? She offers me wise counsel when the Sluagh come pecking at the cabin windows. They wait for Henry, and I will not give him up so readily.

My heart pounded so loudly in my ears, I couldn’t think for a moment. I’d never seen this passage. Never. I would have remembered this. My first impulse was to throw the journal in the fire, but I didn’t. Mischa had said there were secrets in the journal I was now ready to understand. If I could gain an insight into Mischa and what she intended, perhaps I could stop her. I bent over the journal and continued reading.

I came to Walden Pond for Henry. My love for him has been my greatest joy and my most painful journey. Though it is a contrary thing, I have learned that it is possible to both love and despise the same person. It is one thing to embrace the eccentricities of a man when you are not beholden to him for warmth and food, and it is another matter when the winter wind howls and there is no firewood split for warmth because his thoughts have sent him on another mission.

When I think of leaving him, I know I can’t. I fear what she will do if I am not here. Then I despair that she is here because of me, that somehow I have called her to me. God save me if that is the truth, because I have called up a monster.

I closed the journal, unable to read more. From the moment the journal arrived in my hands, I had been Mischa’s pawn. How much of this journal was from my aunt, and how much from Mischa? I couldn’t tell anymore. But the dread that wedged heavy in my breast belied my fears.

Heavy footsteps and a voice on the porch finally galvanized me to action. I stuffed the journal under the bed and went to open the door for Joe.

35

Flames leaped up the chimney after Joe stoked the fire to the point I feared he might burn the cabin down. He worked not for warmth, but to erase from his mind the cruel death of a young man. I sat on the bed and watched, unable to help him. Unable to help myself. At times, the wind moaned outside the cabin and my heart clutched. She was out there, and I wondered if she might be tormenting me, howling at the windows, wailing under the house. Having her fun at my expense.

I had to find out more about her. If my aunt’s journal spoke any truth, the child had wandered these woods for a long time. I’d named her Mischa, and I would call her that because I had no better name for her. But she was older than Mischa. Older than Bonnie. Older than time.

Joe left the fire and came to me. “I’m so sorry,” he said. He picked up my hands where they curled uselessly on either side of me on the bed and held them in his large, warm ones. He touched my battered face. “What happened to you?”

“I fell.”

“I looked for you at the inn. When I realized you’d gone home in this freezing weather without a jacket, I came after you.”

“I couldn’t stay at the inn any longer.”

He eased down beside me, his arm going around my shoulders to pull me close. “My god, I don’t know what Dorothea will do. She feels responsible.”

“Why? She had nothing to do with his death.”

“He was poisoned. I’m pretty sure of it. Patrick was at the inn all afternoon. He must have been poisoned there. Dorothea told me that she had no idea how he could have eaten anything contaminated, but she believes that’s what happened.” He turned my face to his with a gentle touch. “What do you think?”

Because I couldn’t lie while looking at him, I closed my eyes. “I don’t know. It doesn’t make any sense. Patrick was just a kid.”

Joe’s fingers stroked my jaw. His thumb whispered over my bruised and swollen lips. “Patrick made no secret that he … enjoyed flirtations with quite a few of the ladies who stayed at the inn. Do you think a jealous husband, or maybe a jealous woman, might have harmed him?”

I didn’t answer.

“He meant no harm, and, from what Dorothea said, the ladies enjoyed his attention.” Joe sighed. “Chief McKinney will have to question everyone in the inn. And the guests for the Christmas party.”

“Let’s talk about something else.” I couldn’t stand it. I wanted to tell the chief and Joe who had poisoned Patrick and also beaten Karla to death, but they wouldn’t believe me. No one would believe me. This was the last twist of the knife from Mischa. She couldn’t be accused of any crime she committed, because sane people didn’t believe she existed.

This time I’d come back to the cabin and foiled her. I’d found the wine and glasses and I would destroy them. Had Joe and I come back together and discovered that open wine and two used glasses, he might have gotten suspicious. Or he might have drunk the wine. He would be dead, too.

Was that her ultimate game? To kill everyone I showed any affection for? I simply couldn’t grasp her motivation.

“Hey, you’re a million miles away, and from the looks of it, the place you’re visiting isn’t so nice.”

“This is just so incredible. I can’t believe Patrick is dead. That he was poisoned.”

“We won’t know for sure until the autopsy, but I’m willing to bet it’s strychnine. Twenty years ago, people used it to kill raccoons and stray dogs. It’s a terrible death, and now it’s illegal. But there was a time a person could buy it at the drugstore by simply signing a register. It isn’t that hard to come by.”

I knew that from personal experience, but there was no point in saying so. “Let’s go to bed.”

“I should go home.”

I clutched his shirtsleeve. “No. Please don’t!”

A frown crossed his face and then was gone. “Are you afraid, Aine?”

“Yes. Afraid of being alone now. I can’t bear it. Please don’t go. Spend the night. Please.”

His answer was a tender kiss. He slowly unbuttoned the tattered dress I was still wearing and slipped it from my shoulders. My hose were ground into my knees. From the bathroom, he brought a pan of warm water and a cloth. “Lie back,” he said.

He soaked the hose out of my wounded knees and removed then, giving my feet attention for their cuts and bruises. He assessed the damage. “It’s superficial, and some antibiotic salve will help.”

“In the medicine cabinet.”

In a moment he returned and smoothed the ointment into my battered flesh. It hurt, but I was strangely distanced from the responses of my own body.

“Are you hurt anywhere else?” he asked as he pulled the covers over me.

“My heart is damaged.”

He didn’t laugh or mock me, but kissed my forehead. “How about some whiskey?”

“Yes.”

He fetched the bottle of good bourbon and two glasses. He gave it to me neat. “Drink up.”

I wanted to drink until I forgot everything that had happened. I tossed back the bourbon and felt the burn travel from the back of my throat to my stomach. A momentary churn made me fear I’d vomit, but it settled and I was left with the spreading warmth of the liquor.

Joe eased into bed beside me and we curled together. Before too much time passed, I heard his regular breathing and knew he’d drifted to sleep. The desire to follow him was great, but I couldn’t.

No matter that Mischa was not in the cabin. She was in my head, and I had no clue how to exorcise her. Tomorrow, though, I would explore that option. There were plenty of Catholic churches in Concord, and though I’d left the pomp and ritual of the church far behind me, I knew where to find a priest.

I drifted into sleep, and found myself floating in warm brine. Beneath me a huge white body coursed by. The water pulsed with the passing of the mammoth creature. My body got caught in the backwash, and I was pulled deeper out to sea. The creature passed again and again, never touching me, but inexorably dragging me away from land and safety. Struggle as I might, I couldn’t break the thrall of the whale.

When no land was visible on the horizon, the whale surfaced. One blurry eye pinned me, and a rush of red blood shot from its blowhole. “You’ve met your destiny, Aine Cahill.” It spoke to me telepathically.

“Do you know the child?” I asked.

A gout of blood blew into the air and fell over both of us. “I do. And so do you.”

The whale dove, and I was left alone a thousand miles from land.

When I woke up sweating, I eased away from Joe’s body and slipped from the bed. I staggered and nearly fell when I saw the doll sitting on the fireplace hearth. I looked around the dark cabin, but Mischa was gone. She didn’t linger when Joe was around.

Beside the doll was Bonnie’s journal, open to a page near the end of my aunt’s tenure at Walden Pond. Bending forward to hold the journal to the firelight, I read.

Henry has gone into town. He’ll lunch with his parents, and I am left here alone, sick and scared. She left me a present today. The doll has a beautiful face, but the four little teeth are somehow disconcerting. The toy of a child should not have teeth. But I know this is not a doll for a child. This is meant for me. I have found the use for my hair she stole. The doll has my hair. She wears a tiny replica of my very own dress. The doll is me. I think she means to take my soul and put it into the doll for her pleasure.

And then I think that I am truly going mad that such terrible thoughts come to me.

At last I knew Mischa’s ultimate motive. She had written it in the journal while I slept beside Joe. I feared for my soul.

The journal entry ended. I braced against the stone fireplace, lightheaded with terror. Poor Bonnie. I knew exactly how she felt.

The doll leaned against the hearth, her little hands perfectly formed at her sides. She wore cloth, button-up shoes patterned after the style of the mid-1800s. I touched the hair. My aunt’s dark auburn locks had not faded with time. It was still soft and lush. Like my own.

“Bonnie, are you in there?” I whispered.

The doll’s blue eyes opened. The tiny teeth pressed into her lip. For a moment I imagined her mouth moved as if she meant to talk, but no words issued from the doll.

“Bonnie?” I whispered as I glanced at Joe. He was still sound asleep, unaware that something dark and cruel had entered his life. “Bonnie?” I shook the doll lightly but stopped when Joe shifted to his back in the bed. He looked so vulnerable asleep.

My impulse was to chuck the doll into the flames. To be rid of it even at the cost of destroying my aunt’s image. Yet I couldn’t bring myself to burn it. What if Bonnie’s soul was trapped inside? Would she burn too?

I held the doll as I sat motionless in the rocker until the peachy glow of sunrise tinted the cabin window. Another day had begun. The night had passed, and I had much to do.

36

The morning sun couldn’t penetrate the gray clouds that clotted the sky like huge curds. Snow or rain was imminent. The weather reflected my mood perfectly.

Joe helped me cook breakfast at the inn. He was handy in the kitchen, and he brought in firewood for the dining room fireplaces. A snapping fire helped alleviate the gloom, but the smell of the sausage Joe fried was almost more than I could take. Empty and grieving, I attended the chore that confronted me.

Dorothea tried, but she burst into tears without warning, so I sent her to her quarters. The guests knew about Patrick’s death, and several were crying when they showed up in the dining room. The atmosphere was somber. Joe and I did our best, but food was not the solution for what ailed any of us.

By eight-thirty, a half-dozen guests had checked out and the rest were packing. Joe loaded the cars, while I figured bills, ran credit cards, and tried without success to work as efficiently as Dorothea. When the morning rush was over, Joe went to work and I went to talk to my friend and landlady.

She was huddled in her bathrobe staring out her bedroom window at the gray winter morning. Christmas Day. I’d forgotten all about the holiday.

“The kitchen is clean and the guests have gone,” I said. “Can I bring you some breakfast?”

“No.” She cleared her throat. “Thank you, Aine. I couldn’t face people this morning, but I must pull myself together. Patrick’s family needs me. It’s the least I can do, considering he was poisoned here.”

“We don’t know that, Dorothea. No one else got sick.”

“I have to understand how this happened.” She spoke to herself more than me.