The Hawley Book of the Dead (35 page)

“But weren’t the Tuatha De Danann just, well, fairies?” I said with a laugh. Witches, I could just about believe. Shape-shifters and fairies stretched credulity.

“No. That’s incorrect. Not fairies,” my father insisted. “The Tuatha De Danann were considered an actual historical people until the seventeenth century. They were human, but it was thought that they had supernatural powers. The seventeenth century was a time of witch trials and the war of Protestant and Catholic beliefs. But I think both were really signifiers of the final battle in the war against the goddess cults. The Tuatha De Danann were goddess worshippers. They had blended and intermarried with the Milesians, the first of the modern Irish peoples. Then they were forced further underground, so to speak, to avoid the persecution of those who were different, perhaps those who had powers that seemed superhuman. It’s quite possible that Revelation Cullen left Ireland because of persecution by the Catholic Church. That she’d been an accused witch, or was about to be accused.”

“So she hid with the Puritans? That doesn’t seem very safe, considering.”

“It might have been the lesser of two evils at the time. The facts are that a girl named Cullen left County Meath in 1632 and was accepted as a
member of a Leicester Puritan congregation, where she was known as Revelation Dyer. She later gave birth to a daughter, Mary Dyer, who immigrated to Boston.”

“So you’re saying that we’re not only witches, but have fairy blood, too.”

“Tuatha De Danann blood. They
were
thought of as fairies. But not fairies as we’ve come to portray them, tiny winged people. They were humans with some strange powers. Like witches. It really all came down to the fact that these women had unusual talents. Passed on through the generations. Right down to you both. To Caleigh. And to Grace and Fai.”

“They don’t have their powers yet.”

“We don’t know that.”

It was true. “No. I guess we don’t.” I supposed it was possible, just, that Grace and Fai had come into their powers, whatever they were, then had a hard time controlling them. Whether that was true, or whether Rigel Voss had them, would I ever see them again?

My father continued, “I
know
that you all, descended from Tuatha De Danann as you very well may be, have powers outside the norm. That certain places or situations attract and strengthen those powers, because of your history. The history of your people.”

“Places like Hawley Five Corners.”

“Certainly Hawley Five Corners. Maybe any place where five roads come together. Crossroads have always been considered magical places, and five roads converging the most mystical. Perhaps Revelation Dyer chose Five Corners as a place to settle because of the convergence.”

“Why five? Why not three?”

“Well, three is the number of Christianity. The Holy Trinity. Five has always been considered an especially spiritual number as well. But not in Christian myth. For the Jews there’s the Pentateuch, the five books of Moses, then in many non-Christian faiths the five-pointed star, or pentagram, is significant; the fact that goddess-worshipping cultures had a five-season calendar, the perfect fifth on which all Western harmonies are based is also …”

“Okay, Dad. I get it. So the power might still be here is what you’re saying? To be called upon when needed.”

“It’s a theory. There’s one more thing. The Danann possibility may mean more than you think. You see, it most often seems to kick in when there’s danger. When Nan was … well, wherever she was for those months, there was a real threat. Children were being kidnapped. She returned only after the danger was past. No more children disappeared after her return, did they?”

“No. I don’t think so.”

“Then since the girls haven’t returned, the danger’s still present. Still out there.”

“You mean because Voss is still around?”

“Quite possibly.”

I thought on that for a moment.

“You know Voss means to do them harm, whether he has them now or finds them before we can. And the Book didn’t tell you how far he’s gone.” My father had a point. “Either way, the girls won’t return until the threat is past.”

My mother gasped, and her hand flew to her throat. Her breath was ragged. “If something … if something does happen … remember what your father’s told you. You should remember it, remember
who you are
.”

“You mean the Danann blood?” I was still skeptical. “That didn’t do Mary Dyer much good. She was hanged, after all.”

“She escaped once, went back to England,” Dad told us. “She didn’t have to return. She chose it. To die for her beliefs.”

Mom trembled. She took my face, turned it toward her own. Panic flared in her eyes. “You don’t have to die for this. If something happens. Mary Dyer wasn’t a Revelation.”

“What does that have to do with it?”

“The Revelations have the strongest powers of the Dyers.”

“Why did you name
me
Revelation?”

“Nan knew,” Mom told me. “She said we should give you the name. It means you have more ability than most to tap into your powers. Powers you may not even know you have until they’re needed. Just remember that.
Remember
if ever you … well, if you’re in trouble. Use whatever gifts you have to protect yourself.” Her voice was urgent.

“Okay, okay. I’ll remember.” How could I forget? She was still inspecting my eyes, as if she was trying to read my future in them.

One thing still puzzled me. “Why can
you
tell me all this, Dad? Why didn’t Nan put a … a spell on you?”

“That I couldn’t say. Maybe she needed a repository of knowledge. For this day.”

Mom clutched my hand until it hurt. The golden depths of her eyes held an old terror. “Reve, please,
please
be careful.” Her voice was wrought, uneven. “When you first started … disappearing … you were only two years old. I’d be playing with you, or bathing you, and you would just suddenly be gone. We were frantic, searching everywhere. We knew what it was, knew that it was your power. But we didn’t know where you were, or how to find you. We couldn’t exactly call the police.” She laughed, a throttled sound. “We could do nothing but keep looking, hoping you’d return. Our greatest fear was that you’d be trapped there somehow, never come back to us. Then we would find you. In a closet or curled under your bed.

“You came back in terrible shape. With raging fevers, infected wounds. Sometimes you had been … beaten. You were just a baby!” My mother broke down then, clasping me to her so tightly my breath came in little gasps. “If I hadn’t been able to heal you, you would have died. I thought
I’d
die, from panic and grief, and
not knowing
, every time. We began teaching you to curb your power then, but … oh, Reve, we came so close to losing you!” She sobbed quietly then, and I held her. It was strangely like comforting myself.

I just wanted my daughters back. I wanted them with me. I wanted their high clear laughter, their quick litheness on horseback, even the maddening teenage slumping they reverted to as soon as their feet hit the ground. I wanted to yell at them for their bad posture, threaten them with yoga classes, as much as I wanted to hold them close. I just wanted another normal day with them.

I tried to stay focused, to keep despair from overtaking me, but when my thoughts turned to ancient races with godlike powers in a land under the ground, that made me feel hopeless, too. Why we no longer want to believe in magic in our real lives is a puzzle, but we don’t. The possibility frightens us, makes us retreat into the turtle shells that our rational minds are. We don’t like to be spooked, except perhaps on Halloween, which was fast approaching. The night all the evils beyond the rational world are given full reign.

I half-expected Jolon wouldn’t be there that morning, after my stupid behavior in the nettles the previous day. But I found him in the barn giving Zar an apple.

“Mea culpa,” I told him.

“That’s what the Brothers used to say. I always thought it was a slippery way of apologizing. You know, saying it in Latin was almost like absolving themselves. It made the original wrong less real, somehow.”

“I’m sorry, then.”

“Ah, I didn’t mean you. You don’t have anything to be sorry for. It was my fault. I pushed you, and I had no right.”

“Well, let’s just say we’re both sorry.” I stood next to him, leaning against Zar’s stall door. “I guess you’d have told me right off, but is there any news?”

“Not much. We’re still in Savoy.” Jolon hoisted the full bucket, started carrying it to Zar’s stall. I tried to grab it from him, but he calmly lifted the bucket to its hook.

“I can do that,” I sniped at him. I made myself take a deep breath. “Okay, I’ll try to be civil. Why are you still searching Savoy forest? Do you really think the horse they found might have been Brio?” I held my breath, waiting for his answer.

“It’s unlikely, but not all the DNA tests are in. And it’s possible the girls rode through to Savoy. It’s not far, after all. We’ll be searching again in Hawley tomorrow. There are other factors, though.” He didn’t volunteer what they were.

I could feel my temper flare again. “Oh? Is that so?” I grabbed Zar’s halter, led him to the cross ties, and started currying him.

“Yes, it’s so,” Jolon said. He was weary. Or exasperated. “Reve, you’re welcome to bring in a private detective, another tracker. Hell, bring in a damn psychic if you want. But the way the search is being conducted is not the problem.”

“Then what
is
the problem?” I snapped, and immediately regretted it. He looked pained, and exhausted, and older. The case of my missing girls was aging him. He sat on a stack of hay bales, ran a hand through his hair and pulled at it, as if he could coax answers out of his head that way.

“Ah, what do I know? I’ve been in the woods most of my life. I know this part of the world better than anywhere. I’ve led searches all over New England. But this … it’s different.”

I put the curry comb down on the tack box and went to sit on the bales with him. “So, where does that leave us?” I took another deep breath, forced myself to heave it out. My lungs felt like I’d been holding my breath for days. “Look, I know you’re doing the best you can. But you think what? That they’ve been abducted by aliens?”

He gave me a look, and there was weariness in it, but also a kind of letting go. “To tell you the truth, I’m not sure what I think.”

“Jolon, I know the stories about this place. And I’m hearing more, whether I want to or not. Although mostly, no one tells much. I’d forgotten what a closemouthed set you Yankees are.”

“You’re one. You grew up here, after all.”

“And I used to ride in the forest, too, don’t forget. There was a strange feeling to it then. You of all people know that. And my family … Look, do you want some coffee? Mrs. Pike won’t be here for a while.”

He checked his watch, nodded. “I ought to be in Savoy soon, but it can wait a little.”

I put Zar back in his stall, to Miss May’s delight, and Jolon followed me to the house. My mom was still asleep upstairs. My father and Caleigh were consulting the Ouija board in the parlor.

I poured coffee for Jolon and myself. I sat across from him, watched him spoon sugar, stir his coffee, all the time listening as if what I was saying was already known to him, was perfectly normal. “You know some of the stories. My family came here to Hawley early on. Were the first settlers, actually.”

“I remember Nan’s tales, yeah.”

“And now I find out there were … disappearances in the fall of 1923. Children in the town. Then in 1924, the whole congregation of Hawley Five Corners, just gone. You know about that, right?”

Jolon nodded slowly. He paused to sip his coffee, then told me, “Most people think the church disappearances didn’t really happen. That it was exaggerated over the years, that everyone just moved out.”

“Not at Pizza Earl’s they don’t.”

“I wouldn’t put too much stock in what Earl and them say. The search for your girls, well, it’s got some people stirred up. They’re afraid that it maybe could lead to … trouble. Stupid, but you know what small towns are like. Mostly people just like to hear themselves talk.”

“Not about this,” I insisted. “No, everyone has been strangely quiet about the disappearances in the ’20s. I wouldn’t know anything about it, only something Carl Streeter let slip. Then an old guy named Hank told
me about it at Earl’s. He also told me a girl named Hannah Sears disappeared, then came back, months later.”

“Well, he was around then. He’s in his nineties now.”

“But, Jolon, my
Nan’s
name was Hannah Sears.”

“Have you asked her about it?”

“Yes. She says it’s true, all of it. And more. But she wouldn’t have told me, except for …” I wouldn’t say anything about the Book, not if I didn’t have to. “And Hank.” I went on. “It was as if he was telling me something he oughtn’t. Carl Streeter tried to pass it off as just some kind of mass migration, everyone moving west all at once. But I know now that’s just the story told to strangers, like me.”

“Yeah, well.”

I waited for some time while he looked down at his boots. This wasn’t something that came easily to him, skirting the edge of the supernatural. He finally said, “I didn’t know about any of this when we were kids, and I guess you didn’t either. It was just an old story then. Lately, though, folks have been dredging it up again. The real story is that children were kidnapped … and killed, more than likely. The killer was probably around for a few months, was never caught, then moved on. No bodies were ever found. Then maybe everyone in town did just pack it up and move out, they were so traumatized by what happened.”

“Then you don’t believe that the forest is haunted? That it’s a place that can swallow people up, never to be seen again?”

“I won’t say it’s not a strange place. But it’s a touchy subject. It’s still part of the culture here, thinking the forest is haunted. People believe it. So what? People believe a lot of crazy things. The Hawley ghost town is just another story they like to scare themselves with. But at the bottom of it is a real fear. Fear that it could happen again. Almost everyone in town was affected by those murders, then had some relative, some great-grandfather, or great-aunt or -uncle, go off in 1924. It stays in the families. Most people are still a little spooked by it.”