The Fire Night Ball (13 page)

As more than one citizen reported Mrs. Letty Brown-Hawker had been spreading rumors and claiming Marlena was a dangerous witch, the police investigated the couple at their home. But they appeared to have an air-tight alibi. When the vandalism occurred, they’d been front and center at the WCTU monthly chapter meeting.

Meanwhile, Letty’s repeated predictions of two deaths resulting from Marlena’s taint was spreading like poison through a body after an adder’s bite. Circulars were being secretly stuffed in mailboxes, warning of the dire consequences of citizens' countenancing the face of deadly evil. The message was that whether sin presented itself brazenly or in the guise of beauty and art, it remained a direct defiance of God’s will.

By sunset, the violence at B. L. Zebub’s at high noon had been chewed over and was widely regarded as a fitting comeuppance for the nefarious Drake and his proud, red-headed minion, who was clearly
that woman
reincarnated. More than one claimed to have suspected as much since Marlena's return to her native town seven years before, considering how her stunning appearance was highly unusual for a supposed native.

At the stammtisch table in Bottomly's Cafe, shunning of the pair was advocated, ala Ingrid Bergman. Public nudity, satanic eroticism, and unabashed adultery just weren't done in Alta, and perhaps Drake's sponsorship of his whore's shenanigans was in itself satanic.

Whether her hexing was based on Letty's jealousy or a natural result of the ancestral curse, they couldn't say, but all agreed Marlena Bellum should beat a retreat, purifying the village for Christmas.

A séance was staged that evening, with Letty functioning as medium and channeling an Indian named Red Cloud, who was plenty pissed off at Drake's real estate shenanigans and lax morality.

Letty held her audiences spellbound with whispered tales of special powers Marlena had inherited from
that woman
. There was no saying what evils might be unleashed on an innocent populace, Letty warned, even beyond the two deaths predicted.

One could hope the axe would fall on the sinning couple, but there was no knowing how God might choose to punish this community for harboring Satan’s whore. The continued presence of the witch was not only an affront to morality but also a public danger, and the penalty for those who would attempt to protect her might well be death..

Hunkered down at Mill's Creek and therefore unaware of the poison swirling around her name, Marlena spent the remainder of the afternoon mulling over every detail of what Harry had said to her.

There must be a way to get to him and convince him of her case against Letty. If he continued to balk her, she would prefer to die.

When would she taste his salt again? Brush the curly chest hair with her fingertips? See his eyes glaze over as he surrendered to orgasm?

Initially she considered waiting a day before showing her face again out in public, but she soon decided against a coward’s strategy of fleeing, which was what her enemies hoped for. Nor would she take on the role of martyr, dress in a sack cloth, and beat her breast.

The latter was what she thought Harry was expecting she would do. Harry no doubt blamed her for the burst of his bubble. Many guests had checked out early; no new guests had checked in as word spread. Though her belief was that the ghost story would only enhance the hotel's image in the future, admittedly the bottom line on this holiday season might be adversely affected.

If she wasn’t part of the solution, she must be part of the problem–so Harry’s linear reasoning would go. Therefore, she must figure out a way to pre-empt any further strikes by the fanatics against the hotel.

To that end, she decided she would invite the Brown-Hawkers to the ball. She would draw the enemy from their lair into her territory, Hatter’s Field, for a final showdown. Let Harry see the bigots for what they actually were. She wasn't afraid to face them head on.

That evening, after a glorious sunset, Marlena listened spellbound to Chloe's nine-hour version of her mother's story, which went, briefly, as follows:

On October 28, 1900, Cassandra Vye was hexed in Alta's Methodist church by Goody Brown, Letty Brown-Hawker's ancestor.

Goody was obsessed with the idea that the beautiful outsider possessed a malevolent power. Her evidence was a tall tale told by Cassandra's grandfather and the observation that she had turned the innkeeper, Augustus "Curly" Drake, into a lecherous swine willing to abandon his wife on their wedding night.

But Cassandra gave up her possession of Drake in order to garner the attention of Alta's favorite native son, Nicholas Brighton, in the false hope that he would take her back with him to San Francisco.

Subsequently Cassandra was unfairly blamed for two deaths in the village. The first was that of her widowed mother-in-law. The second was the spectacular demise on Hatter's Field of Harry’s grandfather. Curly Drake's reason for being there was to help her escape, as Cassandra could no longer bear the town's and her husband's low opinion of her; afterward, their adultery was falsely assumed.

With the help of the Scattergood men, Cassandra made it to San Francisco and as time passed, became a highly successful film writer and actress. On the brink of WWI, she conceived a child by a soldier. The soldier died before reaching the front. Despite excellent parentage of her daughter Chloe and her many anonymous good works, Cassandra remained in Alta a legend associated with evil. She herself believed in the curse laid upon her by Goody Brown, fearing its impact on her female descendants and their lovers.

December 22, 1977

By morning, Marlena saw her world from a radically adjusted angle.

For the first time, being slavishly devoted to a powerful man and defying all convention seemed unwise and immature to her.

Her eyes were opened as well to the possibility she had been behaving like an automaton in a world of connection, so enthralled with being a love slave that nothing else held any reality; her obsession covered her like a shield.

Only one person might pierce that armor.

Ron, my friend, might you be my future lover? Dare I seek passion in the arms of a good man and true?

Many questions remained unanswered, but for the first time, Marlena was beginning to sense what she must do.

Her old brown notebooks had been banded together and put at the bottom of her suitcase when she left the hotel. In the dark of night, she had lifted them out. These journals were about the first seven years of her life, composed when she was ten. They had been a labor of love, a blessing bestowed by her special gift of perfect recall.

By the crack of dawn, she had read them through, cover to cover. Then she opened up a blank composition book and at the top of the page wrote two words:
Home Schooling
.

As she raced from Mill's Creek to the Alta Hotel through steadily falling snow, late for a noon appointment at the hotel with Sally Honeywell, she was still endlessly sorting out in her brain the implications of the ancestral story.

On the car radio, "Wasting Away in Margaritaville" was blaring, the song holding steady in 1977's top ten charts. The country couldn't get enough of Jimmy Buffet's tasty cocktail and shaker of salt.

With every syllable, the song lyrics seemed to be urging her toward the geographical cure as a temporary solution for her problems.

In light of her own relationships now resembling a pileup in a stock car crash, Cassandra's choice to flee held great appeal.

"Escape,” counseled the wind, “escape to Key West. Waste away in Margaritaville.”

As if Harry's abrupt dismissal of her wasn’t enough to convince her that hopes of a happily-ever-after with him were ill-founded, Cassandra’s story had cast a heavy funereal pall over her long cherished hopes and dreams. If she were to grant any credence to the tendency of history to repeat itself in a small town, their affair was pre-destined to crash and burn rather than reaching the social and romantic pinnacle she'd fondly envisioned.

What were the chances of a man leaving his wife for his mistress? Slim. What were the chances of an I.U.D. malfunctioning? She'd looked it up--about the same as getting hit by lightning.

At this juncture, carrying Harry’s child seemed cataclysmic enough to qualify as an event masterminded by invisible forces.

The Curse?

Loving her husband and her mother though she did, Marlena fervently wished that neither of them was so close at hand. If she truly had magic powers, she would have banished them both from this highly disturbed field. It seemed the harder she tried to move straight ahead to her goals, the more mired she got in the past.

As her tires spun on the ice and the BMW pulled sideways, she honked her horn in sheer exasperation.

When she pulled up to the hotel and got out, her eyes were misted over and her shoulders were sagging.

Old Joe shambled forward and gave her a big hug. She could have kissed his boots, she was so grateful for his unswerving courtesy.

At the same moment Marlena honked her horn, Faith Bellum was arriving at Mill’s Creek by cab.

The window shades were drawn, and there was no sign of anyone, neither out in the field nor visible near the barn, the garage, or the house.

However, it had been anything but silent in the car.

The cabbie had introduced himself as Fred Fairwell. Fairwell never stopped talking as he drove Faith up the mountain. He seemed to feel duty-bound to tell her everything ever said in this town about Mill Creek's current and former mistresses.

The heater was on full blast, and the temperature inside the cab verged on tropical, but he wore an old red woolen hat with the flaps tied down. As he was deaf, Fairwell spoke at the top of his lungs.

His roots in Alta went back to the cobbler and Sunday barber, who'd inhabited in 1900 a house on West Street that later became John Bellum's residence on West Third. Faith didn’t mention she was planning to sell it.

In olden days, he shouted, Mill’s Creek was a Sodom and Gomorrah--but he pronounced it “soddit and gonorrhea.”

“They say
that woman
was Satan's spawn, the town’s only witch. Goody Brown warned everyone ag’in her, but no one listened. She worked her black magic on the young studs in town and killed the Widder Brighton too. So, watch yerself, is all I got to say. Them’s that knows, says there’s still evil lurking hereabouts.
That woman
flew into the sky durin’ a lightnin’ storm on Hatter’s Field and disappeared, never was heard of ag'in. Now there's a story you don't git on the Huntley-Brinkley Report.”

Fairwell glanced at Faith in the mirror, but his passenger remained stonily silent. He switched on the radio. "I’m dreaming of a white Christmas..."

Faith knew from personal experience what it was to be the focus of suspicion by the Alta natives. After she arrived as a newlywed, her pregnancy had become quickly apparent, and the old women at church were visibly counting the days.

Luckily, Marlena dallied long enough
in utero
so that Faith's pregnancy squeaked into a tenth month. No one suspected the baby’s father was a man from the East with startling blue-green eyes, who was Faith's lost love Gordon.

If there was gossip about Marlena, then the bankers, all solid pillars of the historic Methodist church, would turn a deaf ear to her request for a loan. Her high-paying job at PAD might be sacrificed, as a divorced couple wouldn’t be permitted to work in the same office. Her final move would be to throw herself on the mercy of her lover.

What if Drake rejected her?

Faith wrung her hands inside her thick cotton gloves. At the same time, she was very angry. How could a smart Catholic girl who’d always been gifted and forward-thinking have put herself into such a position?

She’d said she was desperately in love, and for the first time.

If she loved Drake, Faith thought, then she was snake bit.

The bottom line was the divorce must be stopped before the affair became common knowledge. Marlena must be made to see the wisdom of returning to her husband, no matter how she felt about Drake.

“That’ll be five and a quarter, ma’am, gas prices bein' up. Will you be needin’ a ride back into town?”

“I’ll call if I do,” she said curtly.

Into the man’s gloved hand that was missing two fingers--"LOST AT A SAW MILL," he'd shouted--she pressed a five dollar bill and a fifty cent piece. Then she opened the door, got out of the cab, and marched off while Fairwell glared at her back.

The frigid air stung her lungs. She gasped for breath as she made her way toward the silent house, her plastic boots crunching in the drifted snow along the terraced walkway.

Why would Chloe, who could live anywhere in the world, stick in this one-horse town? When Faith reached the door, she found it unlocked. There was a folded note tacked to it and "Welcome Faith!" marked with a red glitter pen on the outside.

“Annie is running errands and I’m at the office. We’ll be back by 4 p.m. Make yourself at home. Herself is asleep on the living room couch. Shhhh. XO Chloe. ”

Faith had to smile despite her dislike of Chloe. In the old days, they’d all referred to baby Lena as “Herself,” fussing over the Bellums’ only grandchild as though she were royalty.

When they were both young girls, Faith had been jealous of Chloe's many accomplishments, jealous enough to have said “yes” to Austin Bellum's impulsive marriage proposal on the eve of his deployment overseas, only hours after they met. When she said yes, initially it was to impress Chloe, who had introduced them.

As a young and very nervous mother, Faith had felt a disconnection from Austin's family, her cousin Chloe, and even her child. It was partly because she knew her pregnancy had cost her a last chance at winning Gordon back, partly because she feared what would happen if any family member ever found out about Marlena’s real paternity.

Yet she must admit that over the years, Chloe had been consistently loyal, kind, and helpful to her.

Faith shook her head over the foibles of youth
. She'd cut off her nose to spite her face.
Gordon eventually might have married her in the Church, if she'd held out. But he wouldn't marry her in haste, which she needed him to do to hide their terrible mortal sin.

And so, after a lot of prayer, she’d made her choice. Austin had never known Marlena wasn’t his. It was a secret she’d always intended to carry to her grave.
Was God punishing her now, through Marlena?

Maybe Chloe could use hypnosis on the kid and make her forget Harry Drake. Folks quit smoking and drinking that way, went into a trance and lost their taste for sinning. She'd seen it done on the Johnny Carson show.

She put down her battered suitcase in the entranceway, took off the plastic boots and her shoes, and placed all her belongings next to the door.

She was hoping Chloe didn't have expect her to sleep on one of those newfangled waterbeds she'd been reading about in
Good Housekeeping
. She wouldn't get a wink of sleep on a mattress that bounced her around. What a nutty idea!

Moving quietly, she entered the reception hall to the right of the winding staircase. Here Chloe would receive her throng of guests on Christmas night. Coming back to the foyer, Faith went to the left and tiptoed into the formal parlor, expecting to see Marlena stretched out, sleeping on the couch.

Marlena wasn't there, however, only an indentation of where she'd been. Freed from the restraint of not awakening her daughter, Faith put on her shoes and resumed her wanderings through the stone house.

Truth be told, she thought, ever since Marlena had uttered the word "Gordon," she had not felt like herself.

Of course she'd never believed paranormal powers resided in her daughter, as the Zanellis had feared when she grew up looking so much like Cassandra.

Could her utterance of her real father's name be God's way of telling His loyal servant Faith it was time to come clean?