The Hawley Book of the Dead (26 page)

I struggled to take this in.

“I wanted to tell you before you even thought to move here,” she went on. “When I wrote you that note. But you needed to come to this … knowledge … in your own way. I wanted you to be able to draw on the magic of the forest, but …” She took a breath, went on. “You found the Book. I knew I couldn’t wait any longer to tell you.”

“Then what happened? After you came back?”

She rose to drop a small log on the fire. “When I came out of the woods after being gone so long, not even knowing where I’d been, I was afraid. Not of the forest. I was afraid of the townspeople. Of my own Sears relations. Their Liza had been taken, after all. When I returned after those two months gone, they began to treat me differently. When it seemed clear none of the others from Five Corners would be found, none of them would reappear as I did, I was shunned. My aunt made me sleep in an outbuilding, away from my cousins.”

Her childish voice brimmed with loneliness so deep my heart ached for her. “They believed I had something to do with it. Even though it was irrational, they thought it. I felt safer in Hawley Village, with my friend Vienna. None of their children went missing. When the townspeople were spirited away, and I went to stay with Vienna and her family, I was relieved. Then I was happiest of all to leave Hawley altogether, go to Vermont to live with my relatives here.”

“What about the kidnapped children?” I asked, gentler than I had been with her before. “And all the townspeople? What
happened
in the church that day?”

“That’s what I’ve never told anyone.” She stroked the book’s cover then, as if it were one of her hawks. She watched the flames curl greedily around the log, then went on. “It was because of me that those children were kidnapped. Because of me that they died. Whoever that man was, he was looking for me, looking for this Book. He was a Fetch, seeking me. As surely as your Fetch is seeking you now. For some reason, my Fetch gave up hunting me that December, and I returned. But when people in the town—my own relatives—turned on me, began to call me a witch, well … when the town disappeared that day, I did it.”

“What do you mean?”

“I took this Book with me when I left Five Corners and went to the circus with Vienna’s family. I pretended that it was just another book I was reading. I didn’t want to risk anyone finding it, for sure then they’d think it was evidence I
was
a witch. But the Book … Well, that Sunday morning, I woke in Springfield, in different surroundings, and I wished never to have to go back to live among the people of Hawley Five Corners. I wished with all my might. Then I opened the Book. On its pages I saw the church, the people I knew. I heard the hymns being sung. Then I saw every person, each and every one, break up and scatter. It was as if they were made of paper that was being torn to pieces. All the people of Hawley Five Corners, scattered on the wind.” A tear glittered on her cheek. I stroked her hand again, smoother even than it had been, and smaller. A young hand, the hand of an eight-year-old girl.

“I felt horrible, for years. I still do, when I think of it. That I could make a whole town just … vanish. I’ve never told anyone before this. I wanted to forget all about it. My great sin.”

“Nan, it wasn’t your fault! I had a vision when I opened the book, and I know
I
had nothing to do with that.”

“Oh, it was my fault, girl. When I went into that empty church the very day we returned, there was my prayer book, right there on the lectern. All the Revelation passages looked as if they were written in fire. They
blazed
.”

“Someone must have marked the passages—”

She shook her head. “No. It was a sign that I’d used my power, even without completely knowing it, to wish them all away, every last one of them, all the people who had hurt me. I left the prayer book in the church. I buried
The Hawley Book of the Dead
. I never used my power on any living being again until I learned how to control it completely.”

I knew the answer, but asked anyway. “Your real power isn’t taming animals, then?”

She shook her head. “That? Just a skill I cultivated. No. My ‘real’ power is my ability to transport objects to other places.”

“Objects, and also people.”

“Anything. Or anyone.”

“And
The Hawley Book of the Dead
? Why did you have it? You said it could only be used by the Revelations.”

“I
was
a Revelation. Long ago. When my parents died, and I was taken in by my Sears relatives, they changed my name to Hannah. They thought
Revelation
was too odd a name. My aunt had always feared my mother’s power, shunned her. And she was right. Certainly it was
my
power that destroyed her family. For no matter what I was called, I still had the power that went with my original name. As you do now.”

I remembered something. “You said you buried this book?”

“Behind the church. In consecrated ground. I hoped that might make a difference. That was why I was surprised you found it. That you would dig it up, that you would know where to find it.”

“But, Nan, I didn’t dig it up. I didn’t even find it in the churchyard, or the church. It was behind a panel in the wall of my office. There’s a painting there, of a woman I think might have been a Revelation. Mom and I thought it might be your grandmother. Her finger is pointing toward the panel.”

Nan nodded. “My grandmother. There was a portrait, painted just after her husband died. But I have no idea how the Book got there. I know
I
buried it. But it found you somehow.”

Could I ignore this as fancy? Could I ignore it all? Not when my Nan had changed to a child before my eyes. “So how do I use the book?” I gestured at the red volume, its gold title glimmering in the shadows of her lap. “Can I find the Fetch with it? Keep him away?”

“No! That’s what you need to know, most of all. Never use the Book! Don’t use it, ever, for any reason! My mother gave it to me when she was on her deathbed. All she had time to say to me was that the Book would tell me what I most needed to know. It’s all the guidance I ever had, and all I can pass on to you. That and some old stories. My mother got sick so suddenly, and was taken so quickly, before she could teach me how to properly use the Book. I was only four years old. I was afraid of it, never even opened it until … well. I’ve told you enough about that. But when it has been in your charge, you’ll feel its influence. That’s how I knew you had found it, or it had found you. It’s yours, now.” She held out the book to me. I almost refused to touch it. But I did, and when I did, I felt a wave of something powerful, a storm assaulting my body.

Nan bent forward and gripped my hand, stared into my eyes. I could see hers turning, clouding. Her face had again assumed the wrinkles and furrows of the old. “Reve, be
careful
. I never would have told you any of this, had the Book not come to you. I wanted you to be safe here, as I was safe. I prayed the Book would remain hidden. No one anymore knows its secrets. It is not something to use lightly. It’s like our powers. They can save our lives, when we cultivate them in the right ways. But the Book … I can’t teach or tell you how to use it. I myself never learned. Remember this, remember all I have told you. The Book is powerful. It is also … dangerous. And your Fetch? I had a Fetch after me, too. Someone found me all those years ago in Hawley, as he’s now trying to find
you
. It’s the Book he wants, and your ability to use it. He’s looking for you because you are the Keeper. He wants to control you, and the Book through you.”

“Then Jeremy
did
die because of me.”

“You can’t think of it that way. Some things it’s best to ascribe to fate. It was only fate that my mother died before she could teach me, and I could pass the knowledge to you. How to hide the Book, and how to use it to your advantage. Not to have it control you. If you know how to use it, it can be a tool of unimaginable power. If you don’t, well … we can only hope to keep it from someone who might use it for harm. Beyond that, there’s nothing I can tell you.”

“Isn’t there anyone who might help me? If not, why can’t I just burn the thing?”

“Don’t you think I tried that? The Book can’t be destroyed. And there’s no one who knows enough to use it properly. Not anymore. I wish to God you weren’t alone with this, but the fact is that you are. All I can do is provide you with someone to guard you, keep you safe.”

“You mean Falcon Eddy?”

She nodded. Her hair was pure silver again, shining in the firelight.

“I knew you needed someone to protect your family. It couldn’t be an outsider, so I sent for him. He’s been a friend to me for a very long time, and a fine protector in times of need. And remember, Hawley Forest is not negligible. It protected
me
.” I heard Nathan’s step in the hall and dropped the book hastily into the Petroglyph bag.

Nathan walked in. “Your birds are beautiful, Mrs. Dyer. I was transfixed by your hawks. For some reason, I kept thinking of the seraphim around the throne of Christ. It was almost like some kind of waking dream.” The girls trooped in after him, threw themselves on chairs and sofas, breaking any spell there might have been.

Maybe my whole conversation with Nan had been some kind of dream. She had shrunk into her old lady self again. Her skin was thin and powdery, her hair wisping silver around her head.

“As the Bard says, there are more things in heaven and under earth than are dreamt of,” she said, so softly I had to lean forward to hear her. “I’m quite tired, though. I tire easily in the afternoons now. I am sorely in need of my nap.”

“We’ll let you rest, then. Thank you, Nan.” Although I wasn’t sure thanks were in order. I wasn’t sure of much. I squeezed her hand and felt the frail bones beneath the papery skin.

“You must come again when I’m over this wretched cold. It was so good to see you girls, with all your spirit, and that Danann hair.” Her eyes closed. I took a flowered afghan from a chair, and covered her gently. Nathan stirred the fire so it blazed, put another log on, and made certain the screen was secure. Then we left Nan to her dreams.

“She misquoted Shakespeare, you know,” Fai remarked as were walking toward the car. Falcon Eddy leaned against it. He was smoking a pipe. The smoke from it tanged the air.

Nathan nodded. “ ‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’
Hamlet
, somewhere in the first act.”

“She said
under
earth. I wonder if she meant to misquote it.”

“She’s one sharp old lady.”

“Hey, what did she mean about our hair?” Fai asked, her bright tangled hair glowing in the sunset. “Dannon, she called it. Like the yogurt?”

“That’s just gross!” Grace exclaimed.

“I wish I knew half of what she meant.” But I felt something dredged up from the past, something I’d heard once, or seen. Like a bottle washed up from the bottom of the sea floor. A bottle with an urgent message in it.

We rode through the stunning light of late afternoon, the shadows stark and the white painted houses luminous, my head full of story. The disappeared children, the disappeared town, my grandmother all those years ago, the townspeople’s conviction she was a witch. A dangerous belief in New England. I felt alive, as if I were getting close to something, something large and immensely powerful. A fairy tale like a rushing train. Would it somehow carry my girls to safety?

As we were passing into Massachusetts, Caleigh cried, “Hey! Stop! It’s gone!”

“What’s gone?” Fai looked up from her book. Grace was curled in the corner, asleep.

“The Perpetual Tag Sale!”

The field just on the border where the Perpetual Tag Sale had been was thick with tall, dried cornstalks. There were no tables, no piles of junk, no sign, no old man. Only rows and rows of corn waiting to be mown down for silage.

“Are you sure it was here?”

We sat in silence for a moment before Falcon Eddy said, “It was here.”

“Then where did it go? There was so much junk, that old guy couldn’t have moved it all,” Fai observed.

“As old as the mist, and older by two,” Falcon Eddy told her.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’ll never plow a field by turning it over in your mind, missy.”

“Falcon Eddy, do you ever talk plain English?” Caleigh wanted to know.

I could see him smile through his beard in the rearview mirror. “When it’s warranted, I do.”

We stared out into the cornfield, where the Perpetual Tag Sale had been just a few hours before.

“Was it real?” Grace asked softly.

Then Caleigh hit me in the eye with her elbow, climbing over the seat to the back. “My Easy-Bake Oven’s still here!
It’s
real. Every piece. And the sword’s here, too, Mom!”

Falcon Eddy was right. We couldn’t go trying to plow this field with our minds. All we could do was chalk it up to more magic in this strange place we found ourselves in.