Monstrous Beauty (21 page)

Which graves?
Hester wondered.
Tell us the names.

The reporter turned to the policeman. “Lieutenant Nicholas Merlino, if you’ll pardon the pun it seems like a
monumental
effort not only to dig up headstones weighing hundreds of pounds each but to flip them over, successfully remounting them upside down. Do you have any idea how someone could have done this without heavy machinery?”

“Yes, sir, it’s exactly that difficulty—how hard it is to lift the stones—that’s making us think that multiple perpetrators are involved. It’s possible that it was a gang of teenagers out drinking.”

“But if you’ll permit some amateur sleuthing, as far as I can see there are no footprints in the dirt, or evidence that shovels were used. There are no telltale beer bottles or cigarette butts.” He let out a laugh. “Given that First Church of Pilgrims has such an infamous history of hauntings, shouldn’t your department look into the possibility that this could be—”

Lieutenant Merlino interrupted him. “Look, this isn’t a séance, it’s a police investigation. And this isn’t a joke. Burial Hill has national historic importance.” He looked directly into the lens. “If your viewers saw any rowdy bands of teenagers out making mischief last night, they can call anonymous tips in to the station. Thank you.” And then he walked off camera.

The reporter wrapped up his piece. “It’s certainly a mystery, what happened here—one that’s not likely to be unraveled soon if paranormal, rather than teenage, forces were at work. Reporting live from Burial Hill in Plymouth…”

“Do you think I can take Nancy’s car to work, Dad?” Hester tried to sound natural.

“I’m working from home today—you can use mine.”

“Great, thanks.” She kissed him on the cheek and put her coffee cup in the sink.

“It’s a little early for work, isn’t it?”

“It’s bread-baking day. I told the foodways manager that I’d help her set up the communal oven.” Damn, it was scary how good she was getting at lying.

“You have to eat breakfast,” he said.

“After my shower!” She hurried out of the kitchen and up the stairs.

*   *   *

She parked on School Street behind three squad cars, threw her messenger bag over her shoulder, and began to run up the flight of stone steps alongside First Church of Pilgrims. She caught sight of Lieutenant Merlino on the second landing of the steps, huddled with another policeman who was consulting a spiral pad of paper.

“You can’t come up here right now,” Lieutenant Merlino said to her.

“I just need to see—”

“Nope.” He moved to block her way.

“Can you at least tell me which headstones were turned upside down? I have relatives buried here.”

The Lieutenant nodded to the officer, who flipped back several pages in his pad.

“Let’s see, Eleanor Ont … ont … tanse,” the officer read. Hester’s heart tumbled. She bit her cheek to keep herself quiet.

“The second one is Bartholomew Crotty, Mar-jin his wife, and Lucy his wife—that’s all one headstone.”

Hester nodded impatiently. “Uh-huh.”

“Third is Adeline P. Angeln—she was just a kid, poor thing. And the last one is right over there.” He pointed with his pen farther up the stairs and to the side, where yellow police tape cordoned off a grave. “E. A. Doyle.”

E. A. Doyle?
Hester felt dizzy. Not enough sleep? Not enough breakfast? She backed down a step.

Angeln,
she thought, her mind racing.

“Did you say Adeline Angeln?” She reached for the railing to steady herself. Peter had mentioned the name Adeline—she was his relative, the one whose doll was on exhibit in Pilgrim Hall. The connections she had missed until now hit her, and she lost her breath: Adeline Angeln was the murdered girl in the
Old Colony
newspaper. Adeline Angeln was Peter’s great-great-something-aunt. Adeline Angeln was
Linnie
.

“That’s right, Adeline P. Angeln. That a family name?” Lieutenant Merlino asked.

“What? Oh … no. Thank you. Sorry … I’m sorry to have bothered you.” She turned and walked down the stairs. Her knees were wobbly.

She glanced at the back door of the church. It was ajar, inviting her. She looked back up at the policemen, who had their backs to her, stepped onto the landing behind the church, and slipped inside. The lights of the crypt were on, and Pastor McKee was waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs.

“Did you see the graves?” he asked, cackling. “I hope you got t’ see ’em. Et was somethen’!”

Chapter 33

1873

S
ARAH’S BODY SEIZED
as she took her first breath. She choked, feeling a sickening bloating in her stomach that she couldn’t identify. She was in the water, on her back. Her eyes opened, and she saw Needa and Weeku hovering above her, illuminated by the moon, showing concern, relief, and pleasure. She felt the sand beneath her; she was in the shallows. They were cradling her head above water. How had she gotten to the beach? Her last memory was of losing consciousness in the crypt—the sarcophagus—the knife.

She reached up to feel her neck. The pastor had slashed it open, and she had known it was a fatal blow, but now the wound was sealed. The last thing she saw before she collapsed was …

“Ezra,” she said. Her voice was raspy. An unease grew in her.

“Where is Ezra?” she said louder. The faces retreated nervously as the hands gently loosed their holds on her.

She lifted herself to a sitting position with her arms. She looked around her. She let out a cry.

Ezra was dead beside her in the water. His chest had been torn open, showing the red raw underside of the skin, splintered ribs, and layers of tissue protruding through the wound. The sight was so unimaginably wrong—they were parts of him that were meant to be protected inside his body, unexposed, for a lifetime. Instinctively, irrationally, she got on her knees and tried to close the wound with her hands, realizing as she did that it was futile. His eyes and mouth were open, his expression empty. His beautiful face had no trace of the feelings and thoughts of the real Ezra.

She took her hands away, and that was when she saw that his heart was missing.

She put her hand to her abdomen. She pressed hard and bent with grief, feeling the bulge in her gut. She was so repulsed she retched, but nothing came up. She knew it was too late.

“What have you done?” She turned on her sister.
“What have you done?”

Needa approached, supplicating. “He did it for you, Syrenka. He was dying…”

Sarah lunged and grabbed her by the hair. “
He
was the one to save, you stupid fool.”

“There was nothing to salvage from you,” she cried, holding her scalp. “You were gone. He would have died anyway!”

“You should have saved him!” Sarah threw her sister aside and went back to Ezra’s body. She closed his eyes and his mouth and flung her arms around him. With his body not yet cool, she could pretend for a fleeting moment that he was alive. Needa laid a tentative hand on her shoulder, stroking her. In that moment of silence, Sarah heard a wail in the distance. She jerked her head up, focusing on the sound. The cry came from the top of Leyden Street, from the direction of the church. It was the vulnerable howling of an infant who had been unattended for too long.

“A baby,” she said. She remembered seeing the Ontstaan woman in town on several occasions with a baby in her arms. Yes, that horrible woman had a child.

She knew what she had to do, and time was running out.

“No, Syrenka,” Weeku said, anticipating her.

“Don’t!” Needa echoed from behind. “Let him go,” she pleaded earnestly. “Leave him in peace.”

Sarah kissed Ezra’s unresponsive mouth. She stood up and pulled him farther into the water.

“Bring his body to the deep and let it wash ashore in three days’ time. The townspeople must not find him dead tonight.”

“Please, don’t…”

“Do not fail me,” she warned. She stormed out of the water.

Needa desperately slithered onto the sand after her, propelling herself awkwardly with her arms, and grabbed Sarah’s ankle.

“This is a mistake that will last for eternity,” she gasped, “long after your mortal body has turned to dust.”

“I will not live without him,” Sarah said. She shook her sister loose and set off up the hill.

*   *   *

The closer Sarah got, the more clearly she heard the baby’s cries. She broke into a run.

When she got to the church she was nearly overwhelmed by the sweeping, swirling remainder of emotions of the people who had died that evening, and through it all she could distill the distinct sensation of Ezra: violence and hatred toward the pastor; wildness; confusion; panic; hopelessness; impatience at the little girl; and strongest of all, love for Sarah—tenderness, devotion, and the ultimate act of generosity. The emotions came in waves, plunging in and out of the church, down the road in the direction he had carried her, ebbing and flowing. She knew they would slowly, inexorably dissipate unless she could trap them and pin them to the earth—pin them into a single, beautiful spirit of Ezra. The sensation of him was dizzying. She lifted her face to the air. If she could have breathed him in and held him inside her, she would have. But there was only one way to keep him.

The back door of the church hung open, throwing light onto the gravestone where Adeline had fallen. The baby had rolled onto the ground, facedown, caught in its blankets, and was now screaming with discomfort. Sarah scooped the baby up.

She unwrapped the swaddling layers, and the baby’s cries slowed. She looked at the perfect little body in her arms without regret, but clinically, urgently. It was the wretched widow’s baby, and it was only right that the Ontstaans should pay for destroying Ezra. Time was running out. Ezra’s remnants would soon disperse permanently, reunite with his soul, and be irretrievable.

She hastily rewrapped the baby and held it tight as she moved back and forth in the graveyard—toward the church, away from the church, alongside the church—searching for the spot that captured the strongest sensation of Ezra. The movement soothed the baby, who quieted and began sucking a knuckle. Sarah sensed that the emotions peaked in three locations, and found a spot in the middle that captured as much of each as possible. She laid the baby down on the spot and put her hands on it.

She closed her eyes and reached out to Noo’kas in her mind.

Use this child’s soul as the anchor,
she drilled her thoughts toward the ocean.
Gather what is left of Ezra and pin his spirit to the earth where he died. I beg you.

The wind whipped up. Fat drops of ocean rain fell, one by one. The baby blinked in surprise as each drop hit its face. The drops pattered into a real rain, and then a downpour. The baby squirmed and whimpered, but Sarah did not shield it. There was a sudden, whooshing gust that threatened to knock Sarah over. She steadied herself and held the child in place as the wind swirled and then formed a massive downdraft of air, pressing suddenly, crushingly on top of them. The baby’s eyes opened wide in shock as the breath was knocked out of it.

Sarah fell onto the baby. She heard its muffled cry beneath her, already quavering as its life ebbed away, and she knew the magic had been done.

Chapter 34

“
W
HAT THE …
HECK
,
McKee,” Hester blurted, hurrying down the crypt stairs toward him. “All of those graves have a connection with
me
. What’s going on?”

“I told you, lass, everything es entertwined.”

“Why is Linnie doing this? Is it out of spite? Is it because I don’t visit her anymore? How did she know about Eleanor and Marijn?”

“Et does seem t’ be a message die-rected a’ you. Paerhaps ef you untangle the threads, all well be clear.”

“Listen, I have time before I have to be at work.” She walked over to the two chairs and put her hands on the back of one. “Sit here with me. Help
me
, if you want me to help her.”

“I cannae tell you wha’ t’ do, Hester,” he protested as he shuffled over to the chair. “The decesions you make are yours alone.”

“You’re getting way ahead of me. I just want information.” She held his elbow as he eased himself into the chair. She lowered her bag onto the floor beside her chair, but she remained standing, thinking.

“First of all, how could Linnie be that strong?”

“Adeline es no’ a lit’le gaerl anymore, remember. She’s inhabiting a
vaersion
of her human body tha’s no’ real. Och, et feels real to haer, of course.”

“And to me,” Hester insisted. “I’ve touched her.”

“Aye, you have. But try to remember et’s an
earthly fegment
—one that only you and she share.”

“Those flipped headstones aren’t a
figment
out there! The whole town has seen them on the news. Some real live human being is going to have to get equipment to turn them back over.”

“I didnae say she doesnae exest, lamb. Et takes a powerful force to create a spirit like tha’. But she’s no’ a paerson with a soul. She’s a bundle of emotions, pinned to one spot on the earth. She exests without food and water, without feelin’ chelled or damp or uncomfortable, without needin’ to breathe, even. She’s limited to dwellin’ where she died, and no human being can see haer or respond to haer. Et’s a half exestence—of etaernal isolation—an’ she’s just a child.”

“Oh my God,” Hester said.

“What es et?”

“You tried to tell me this before, and I didn’t internalize it. I’ve grown up these ten years—I’ve lived, and learned, and slept, and eaten—but she hasn’t. She has been all alone, always outside, even in the dead of winter, while I’ve had a home and Sam and my parents.”

The pastor sat quietly, looking up at her with narrowed eyes.

“Why did she uproot her own headstone?” Hester whispered to herself with wonder. She finally sat down in the chair opposite him. “Poor thing, she must have been brutally killed.” She shook her head to clear it. “It’s horrifying to even think about it. No wonder she’s a ghost! But what does she want with me?”