Book of Shadows (6 page)

For Nat’s wife, Ellie, the trip was to be time spent with her husband. Normally his days were divided between the antique shop and the horse farm in New Jersey, with little left over for his private life. That too was divided. There was Ellie and there were Nat’s beautiful boys, his “adventures.” He’d brought the latest one along and while outwardly it didn’t appear to bother Ellie, in truth she wished Larry Oregon, née Ornstein, had stayed in New York.

Larry was Jew Number Two, one of a pair of beautiful Jewish boys Nat had been “sponsoring” before deciding to concentrate entirely on Larry. The trip to England was Nat’s birthday present to Larry, a twenty-two-year-old gorgeous failure. Gorgeous Larry, gorgeous in face and body, was a type frequently found on the fringes of New York’s busy artistic world. He had looks and he loved the arts, two traits he felt qualified him for an artistic existence.

Sadly, he lacked talent, and had failed as an actor, painter, model, dancer. He was, however, attractive and vulnerable, a combination Nat had never been able to resist.

Nat Shields, successful and charming, possessed the grace which allowed him to deal with his personal life as easily as he bargained for antiques. He was a decent man who treated Ellie with respect; she was kind, patient, loving. Despite Larry and the Larrys who had preceded him, Nat and Ellie were comfortable with each other and would never end their marriage.

“Ellie,” Nat had told Marisa, “is home, which Robert Frost said is a place you go and they have to take you in. Larry is a barefoot walk in the rain. An impulse but never a habit.”

Shortly after noon Jack Lyle untied the lines, leaped aboard the steel-hulled forty-two-foot diesel cruiser and started the engine. Seconds later the dock was behind them and sixty-five-year-old Lyle, a tough little Englishman with sparse white hair and a small face burnt brown by sun and wind, steered with one hand, brought a bottle of stout to his mouth with the other, and began his commentary.

His voice came from a throat roughened by years of drink, cigarettes, and shouting. His manner was blunt and his pale blue eyes had a permanent squint from constantly looking into sun shining brightly off the water. He spoke without looking at his passengers.

“I’d like to welcome you all aboard
The Drake,
named after the great British admiral Sir Francis Drake, what defeated the Spanish Armada in 1588. I’m the owner and captain and I treat me ship better than most men treat their wives and I’d like you to do the same. I
expects
you to do the same.”

He shot them a quick look over his shoulder then turned forward.

“Below you’ll find fairly civilized livin’ conditions. There’s a shower, fridge, water heater, and a gas stove, all in good workin’ order and let’s keep ’em that way. You’ll find a chemical toilet for when you’ve got to do the natural and there’s cabinets to hang your belongin’s in. About our toilet: bigger boats have summer houses. Summer his, summer hers but
The Drake
ain’t no ocean liner so we’re blessed with only one such convenience. I’m askin’ everyone on board to treat it with care and reverence. In the past there’s been a few people on me boat who’ve conducted themselves like baboons and I’ll have none of it this trip.”

He pointed to his right. “If you look over there you can see one of the women’s colleges. That’s Saint Hilda’s.”

Robert shaded his eyes against the sun. “How many women’s colleges are there?”

“Seven, I should think.”

Robert shook his head. “Each named after a virgin, probably.”

“Thirty-four colleges altogether,” said Lyle, ignoring Robert. “City’s over twelve hundred years old and it’s turned out a few right smart fellas in its time. Them that don’t end up cleanin’ up after the elephants in the circus have the misfortune to go on to write books.”

Robert stage whispered to Marisa out of the corner of his mouth. “It’s his sense of public relations that impresses me the most.”

She said, “I think he fights dirty. Keep your legs crossed.”

The sun was warm on her face and there was beauty and history all around her. On either side of the dark green river were the towers and turrets of churches, cathedrals, and the many colleges comprising Oxford University. Willow trees covered the river banks and here and there old men fished and smoked pipes.
The Drake
passed several college rowing eights, the knife-thin boats containing eight rowers, all of whom dipped their oars into the water as one man.

Larry, using a new camera Nat had bought him, was taking a picture of Nat and Ellie arm in arm and Robert was poised at the top of the small stairway leading below when Jack Lyle swallowed the last of his stout and raised his voice.

“Before you leave us, Mr. Robert, a word to all of you. We’ll be leaving the river soon and enterin’ the Oxford Canal. This means we pass from one water level to another. Fact is, we do this all the way along the canal, which means a bit of manual labor for us all. We open and close locks, which fills and empties certain chambers, which lifts us up or lets us down as required. We use a key, that is to say a large metal handle and I’ll point that out to you later on. The entire process only takes a minute or two and you may end up with a little blister and an ache here and there, but you’ll come to love it. Aye, that you will.”

Robert said, “How did you manage until we came along?”

Jack Lyle smirked and scratched his stomach. “I don’t know, Mr. Robert. But the Lord has answered me prayers and sent you to me and I’m truly grateful. Shows you how bein’ a Christian has its rewards.”

Robert rolled his eyes up into his head and disappeared below.

Marisa winked at Jack Lyle, who winked and smiled back, showing stumps of yellow and blackened teeth.

That first night was spent moored in the canal miles from any town. Lyle tied two lines securely from the boat to nearby trees, using an intricate knot he called a “Turk’s head” because of its resemblance to a turban. Ellie cooked a light supper of omelettes, salad, toast, and wine and Marisa and Larry cleaned up afterwards. Later they all put on sweaters and came up on deck to stare at the stars and listen to Jack Lyle, who smoked a black briar pipe and drank from what appeared to be an inexhaustible and hidden supply of stout and whiskey.

“Witch country over there,” said Lyle pointing with the wet stem of his pipe. “I’m talkin’ further east. Essex, Cambridge, Suffolk, and the like. Happened a few hundred years ago when Matthew Hopkins had his witchery trials. Them what survived Hopkins or had somethin’ to hide, they come west, closer to us, and they just disappeared. Went to ground in caves, forest, and some towns what ain’t even on the map. Lots of witchery stories in this country. Tourists seem to like ’em.”

Larry shivered. “I love being scared. Like, it’s not real, you know? But you get into it just the same.”

“Oh, it’s real enough,” said Jack Lyle. “You can hop into a car and you drive a few miles in any direction or you can even walk, and you’ll come across things that were once real enough and still are downright terrifyin’.”

He cleaned his pipe by tapping it on the hull of
The Drake.
“Fer instance, there’s a town not too far from ’ere where a woman once ate the flesh of babies to prevent her from dyin’. Didn’t work. They hung ’er when they found out what she’d done. I’ve talked with people who say they’ve seen Viking warriors walkin’ towards them out of the mist. The Vikings are supposed to be lookin’ fer a ship to take ’em back ’ome.”

Robert, standing behind Marisa with his arms around her, said, “Sounds as though some of these tales came out of a bottle.”

Marisa stepped on his foot.

Jack Lyle snorted. “You must be one of them fellas possessed of a modern education. I suppose you only believe in reason and hard cold facts.”

Robert shrugged.

Lyle said, “The modern world’s full of such fellas. When they’re not rushin’ after a headshrinker to make ‘em well, they’re takin’ all sorts of pills, but I don’t suppose you’d call that superstition, would ya?”

“Don’t mind him, Mr. Lyle,” said Marisa. “Go on, we’re listening.”

The little boat captain looked down at the bottle of stout in his hands. “Them stories is real enough to the folks in these parts, missy. There’s a tale about the ghosts of children who can be seen in those very woods behind you. They were given to an uncle by their dyin’ father and the uncle he wanted their inheritance, so he hires a couple of men to kill the tots. One man ’e ’as a conscience so ’e murders ’is friend and leaves the little uns in the woods to die. Their ghosts still wander about.”

“Far out,” whispered Larry.

“There’s women ghosts,” said Lyle. “More ’n a score of ’em got raped and killed by various monks and it’s their ghosts you can see in some dark places.”

“Got to watch those country vicars,” said Robert.

Lyle said, “A little further up we come to a town where a lady was murdered by her lover, who then lied to her parents and claimed to have married the girl in another town. Her mother she dreams of the murder and someone starts searchin’ and they find the girl’s body. They hung the gentleman in question and used is skin to bind a copy of the court proceeding.”

“I think my supper’s coming up,” said Ellie. “Bedtime for me, children.”

Nat said, “Think I’ll join you. Nightie-night, one and all.”

Robert, Marisa, and Larry stayed to listen to Lyle, who drank and talked and never seemed to get drunk or become incoherent. He spoke of the mass hanging of witches, of huge demon dogs that haunted the night, of ghosts who walked and dead smugglers and dead soldiers who sometimes laid a cold hand on the living. He told them of headless drummer boys, of the ghost of Anne Boleyn said to be seen in dozens of places throughout England, of corpses riveted at the knees and elbows with iron at burial to prevent them from walking around after death. And there were phantoms who could drive one to suicide by whispering in one’s ear.

The actress in Marisa was drawn to the drama of Lyle’s tales. The child in Larry was entertained by them. The ambitious writer in Robert was suddenly attentive. Robert, Marisa knew, was searching for that one idea to put him over, the one book that would give him the money and recognition he craved. While she was sympathetic she’d often kidded him about his intense desire for fame. She’d seen what ambition like Robert’s had done to men and women in her business. Robert, however, wasn’t interested in consequences. He wanted results.

In the cool night, with Robert at her side, she suddenly sensed that he wasn’t on vacation. He was on a hunt. As always.

She saw his eyes stay on Lyle’s face as the boatman told a particular story.

According to Lyle, in three days they would sail past the town where the story took place. He told them that in 1901 a woman named Maureen Clannon disappeared from her home. A week later her corpse was found barely covered by earth and leaves in a shallow grave deep in a forest. She had been burned to death and the news was shocking to the small village, for Maureen had no known enemies.

An investigation revealed her husband John had come to believe that Maureen had been spirited away by witches and a changeling—a witch who resembled her—left in her place. For several days John Clannon, Maureen’s parents, and some of John Clannon’s friends had secretly tortured Maureen in an attempt to get her to admit she was a witch.

Maureen denied the accusation, insisting that she was John’s wife and meant him no harm. She begged him and her parents to release her, to recognize her as someone they had known and loved for years. Clannon, however, continued the torture over a period of days, demanding that the “witch” return his beloved wife or die. Maureen clung to her story and finally the exasperated John Clannon threw a pot of lamp oil on her, grabbed a brand from the fireplace, and touched it to the oil on her body.

Maureen Clannon’s remains were placed in a sack and taken to the forest.

A trial revealed that John Clannon was insane.

When Jack Lyle finished his tale, Marisa, Robert, and Larry were silent. Then Robert said, “You mentioned that the Clannons’ village was on our route. I’d like to see it.”

Lyle stood up and stretched. “I think we can arrange that, Mr. Seldes Robert. I suggest you all turn in. I’d like to get an early start tomorrow.”

Larry smiled at him. “I really enjoyed tonight, Mr. Lyle. Thank you, thank you very much.”

Robert watched Lyle move forward on the boat and disappear into darkness. “Yes,” said Robert under his breath. “Thank you, Mr. Lyle.”

He looked at Marisa. He was breathing faster.

She said, “Is that passion or asthma?”

He kissed her lips absentmindedly, his mind elsewhere. “Mr. Lyle spins a fast paced yarn—a good read, as we say in the trade.”

“Four star all the way.”

“I want to make a few notes before we go to sleep.”

“With five people sleeping within inches of each other down there in that cramped little space there isn’t much else we can do. Lyle’s sleeping on deck alone. Wonder what he’s doing up front in the darkness by himself?”

Robert grinned: “Peeing.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Listen.”

Marisa did. “My God, do you think he’s shy?”

“Mr. Lyle is old-fashioned, my dear, a man from a bygone era and not too friendly at that.”

“He’s probably seen too many rich bitch tourists and I guess every now and then he has to put someone in their place. Can’t blame him for that.”

Drawing Marisa closer to him, Robert stuck his tongue in her ear and slipped his hand under her sweater, squeezing her breast. “This is it, kid,” he whispered. “It’s going to have to last you until we reach land.”

Marisa laughed against his chest and whispered, “I used to do better than that in the hallway when I was a teenager. Your date brought you home and it was twenty seconds of feelsies against the wall before your parents opened the front door and demanded to know what you were up to.”

“What were you up to?”

“Ask my date. He was more up than I.”

Marisa would always remember the first three days of the trip as the happiest.

Morning. The narrow canal and the lush green land on either side of the boat were hidden in a soft white mist, as though boat and passengers were totally surrounded by white cotton. Somewhere in the mist geese honked, and Marisa looked overboard to see several long-necked swans idling at
The Drake’s
waterline waiting to be fed. When the mist began to clear, Jack Lyle pointed to other birds: mallards, kingfishers, herons, swallows, coots.