We Hear the Dead (14 page)

Maggie

The autumn foliage was brilliant and vibrant, and the air was crisp. I bade farewell to the elderly couple who had shared my train compartment during the trip, people known to my mother from church who had agreed to chaperone me. They continued to their destination farther along the rail line, and I disembarked at the Troy station, where I was met enthusiastically by all three of my hosts.

The Boutons were a childless couple, cheery and sociable. Mr. Bouton's sister Annabel was a sweet-tempered beauty with a heart-shaped face and masses of chestnut curls. They enfolded me at once into their family, and despite the grime and weariness from the trip, I was excited to be traveling like a young woman with friends of her own rather than as a child carried along as extra baggage.

My first days in Troy were pleasantly busy, and I found my spirit circles quite easy to manage. It was amazing how expansively people could talk about themselves and still be surprised to find that you knew so much about them. Leah said it was because they never expected you to be listening, and perhaps this was true. Most people only politely waited their turn to change the subject to themselves, and if you kept silent during a lengthy conversation, you would learn many things about your companions.

My fourth day in Troy was marred by something that seemed minor at the time but from which we should have taken warning. A letter arrived by post addressed to me in care of the Boutons. I did not recognize the handwriting, and acting as a responsible guardian of a girl in her care, Mrs. Bouton opened it for me and read it herself. I watched her face drain of color, and unable to contain myself, I darted forward and snatched it from her hand before she could protest. “Is it about Calvin?” I cried.

But it was no letter at all, merely one line scratched out upon the page in scarcely legible, ill-formed letters:
Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.

At first the meaning did not register, and I turned to the back of the page, then the front again, trying to figure out what I held in my hand. It was only when Mrs. Bouton gently removed it and crumpled it into a ball that I realized I was looking at a threat.

And I was the witch.

“People are ignorant and sometimes spiteful,” Mrs. Bouton said in the face of my shock. “Cowards who are too craven to express their beliefs openly resort to nasty letters. Do not let it disturb you, Maggie. Whoever wrote this is sitting at home hoping it has upset you, and the best satisfaction you can have is pretending you never saw it.”

She was wrong, as it turns out, but I followed her advice at the time.

The next evening, the Boutons and I took a carriage into the city to attend a performance of sonnets from Shakespeare. I vaguely remember it as an entertaining evening, although it was much overshadowed by the events that came after, and I could never recall it later without breaking out into shivers.

Annabel and I were chattering gaily on the ride home, with Mrs. Bouton smiling fondly at our girlish vivacity, when we noticed that the carriage had been at a standstill for several minutes. We felt the slight give of the carriage as Mr. Bouton evidently jumped down from his seat at the reins. With a frown, Mrs. Bouton opened the door and leaned out. “Is there a problem, dear?” she called.

Past Mrs. Bouton's shoulder, I could see her husband engaged in conversation with someone. Beyond them, the waters of the Hudson River sparkled in the moonlight. After a moment, Mr. Bouton turned and walked back to the carriage. It was difficult to make out his features precisely, but I thought at the time that he looked rather perplexed.

“The ferry is not here,” he told his wife. “And I don't see any sign of it on the river at all, which is strange. This fellow—” he looked back over his shoulder with that same puzzled expression “—suggests we take the East Street Bridge.”

“Then I guess we had better do that,” replied Mrs. Bouton. “The hour is late already, and it would be very vexing to wait here and find that the ferry isn't going to return.”

Mr. Bouton nodded, but his expression did not seem to indicate agreement. For one moment, he looked past his wife and directly at me. Then he closed the carriage door. We felt his weight climbing up onto the driver's seat, and in a moment we were under way again.

We continued for a time, jostled slightly by the roughness of the road. Annabel resumed her chatter, but I felt a little apprehensive. Having learned to read emotions in my role as spirit medium, I had heard the fear in her brother's voice when he spoke to us.

After a time, the long East Street Bridge came into view outside the carriage window, but our vehicle showed no signs of slowing down or turning onto its shadowy length. Mrs. Bouton's smooth brow furrowed when she realized we were passing it by, and standing up, she leaned out the window and called to her husband. We heard him reply, but I could not make out his words. Mrs. Bouton heard him, however, and we saw her start and suddenly turn her head to look behind the carriage. Chatty Annabel was only beginning to notice the strangeness of the situation, and her conversation died out as her sister-in-law drew her head back into the carriage and regained her seat, looking as worried and tense as her husband.

“He is taking the long way around to the other bridge,” she said. “East Street isn't safe.”

“We rode the carriage across that bridge just last week,” protested Annabel. Mrs. Bouton did not reply but pursed her lips together and twisted her hands nervously.

The ride back to the Bouton house was considerably longer than the one that had taken us into the city earlier. By now I knew that something very wrong had detained the ferry and deterred Mr. Bouton from using the bridge that would have taken us directly home. Eventually we crossed the Hudson on another bridge, and I was not comforted at seeing Mrs. Bouton close her eyes and move her lips in what seemed to be prayer as we clattered across the structure at an alarmingly high rate of speed. It was almost midnight when we finally turned into the lane that led to the Boutons' house. The carriage rolled to a stop, and we again felt Mr. Bouton's weight leave his seat as he jumped down at once.

“Hurry! Hurry!” he called urgently, throwing open the door.

Mrs. Bouton grasped me by the arm and thrust me out the door toward her husband, who unceremoniously took me about the waist and swung me to the ground. “Run for the house!” he urged, turning back to deliver his young sister in the same manner.

I did as I was told. Flinging open the door, I stumbled inside and retreated into the dark safety of their front room. Annabel and Mrs. Bouton followed swiftly upon my heels, and Mr. Bouton came after, leaving his horse hitched to the carriage and bolting the door behind him.

“Are they there?” gasped Mrs. Bouton.

“They were behind us the entire way, until the very end,” he said. “I don't see them now.”

“Perhaps they're gone.”

Mr. Bouton looked doubtful, and he turned to the window, approaching cautiously and peering around the curtain without pushing it aside in a normal manner.

“Who?” demanded Annabel. “Who was behind us? What is happening?”

“The men at the river, the ones who said the ferry was gone,” her brother replied. “They were up to no good, I fear, and they followed us in their own wagon when we left. Girls,” he said, turning from the window to face us, “I want you to go to your room and stay there. Do not leave for any reason. I'm sure we'll be safe enough inside.”

“Are they out there? What do they want?” Annabel cried.

Mr. Bouton tried to control his features, but his eyes went to me almost against his will. I felt suddenly cold in my hands and my feet, as if the blood had left my extremities. “I don't see them,” he said. “Perhaps they have gone.”

“Are they robbers?” my friend persisted. “Do they want money?”

“We don't know, Annabel,” Mrs. Bouton said in her low, reassuring voice. “Please go to your room and try not to be afraid. Robert has everything well in hand.”

It was useless to tell us not to be afraid after they had shown themselves to be so frightened. But we went to our room like obedient girls and lit the lamp and sat upon the bed together, holding hands. We could hear the indistinct voices of Annabel's brother and his wife, although we could not make out their words.

“I wish John were here,” Annabel sighed after a time. I nodded my understanding, but I rather wished myself wherever John was now, instead of him here with us in this house. My heart was beating so hard it felt as if my whole body were shaking. Suddenly this place seemed intolerably strange to me, and I wanted desperately to be back in Rochester with my family. What had possessed Leah to send me here, where strange men waylaid us in the street and followed us home with unknown intent?

An unexpected thump outside the walls of the house made us flinch. “What was that?” gasped Annabel. She stood and took up the lamp, moving over to the window.

“No, Annabel!” I cried with sudden premonition, reaching out a hand to her.

The window exploded with a horrific blast, showering us with flying glass. Our screams were lost in the roar of shotgun fire. I flung myself to the floor on the far side of the bed, covered my ears with my hands, and pressed my face to the floor. The gas lamp fell to the floor and rolled, and it was a wonder that it did not break open or catch the bedclothes on fire. A series of loud crashes followed the gunfire, as rocks and bricks hurtled through the broken window to smash the objects on Annabel's chiffonier

I don't know how long the barrage lasted. I heard Mr. Bouton shouting, and the door to the room flung open. “Annabel! Maggie!” he cried.

My ears still ringing from the shotgun blast, I crawled out from behind the bed, seeking safety with Mr. Bouton.

My first sight was Annabel, stretched out across the floor, feebly trying to lift her head. Blood was running in long streaks down her face. I screamed and screamed and screamed until Mrs. Bouton came and shook me into silence.

***

I passed the next three days in blind terror. We were virtually prisoners inside the house. People could come to us, like the doctor who stitched up Annabel's head and the chief of police, but any time members of the Bouton family stepped outside they were met with flying rocks and pieces of brick. I was locked into a small storage area for my own safety, because it was the only room with no windows. Annabel stayed with me as much as possible, but the resemblance to a prison cell was unmistakable.

The chief of police, a sly-looking individual with a perpetual sneer, was outwardly sympathetic but useless. He claimed to have thoroughly searched the neighboring lumberyard and the surrounding area for the men who were stalking and spying upon us but to have found no one. He was unmoved by Mr. Bouton's insistence that we were under siege, because he himself was unable to find any perpetrators. The best he could do, he offered with his slick smirk, was to place some of his men in the Bouton house to provide us a live-in guard.

The Boutons refused immediately, and once the policeman was gone, Mr. Bouton took action to procure his own source of protection. Soon the house was guarded night and day by a group of men who were friends and associates of the Boutons. Annabel's young man was among them, but I never saw him.

I did not leave my room. I shivered, wrapped in blankets that could not warm me; I wept until I vomited; and I slept when exhaustion overwhelmed me.

“Why?” I cried to Annabel. “Why would anyone want to kill me?”

“I don't know.” Poor, devoted Annabel tried to soothe me, although she was the one who had been scarred by the incident.

“Why can't the police find them?” It astounded me that such madmen could act freely in a modern city such as Troy. “Who are they, even?” I wailed. “I do not know my enemies! How many are out there?”

She tried to answer honestly. She never insulted my intelligence by trying to deceive me. “Robert says there were two men who followed our carriage in a wagon. And he saw two more upon the East Street Bridge, which is why he chose not to cross there. So that makes four, Maggie, that we know of.”

“How could I have made four mortal enemies?” I sobbed. “I am just a girl. Don't they know I am only a girl?”

Annabel put her arms about me, and we held each other close in fear and dread. “We invited you into danger,” she whispered, “but I swear we knew it not. We did not foresee that anyone could find such offense with spiritualism—when there are so many graver sins in our nation.”

On the third day, the door to my little prison opened and Leah swept in, looking as fierce as a mother bear. Breaking into fresh sobs, I hurled myself to my feet and into her arms.

Leah turned on Mr. Bouton, her voice tight with outrage. “Why is she shut up in this room?”

“It is the only room without a window,” he replied wearily. “We didn't want any more shots taken at her.”

Perhaps Leah took note of his worried face, or perhaps she saw for the first time how Annabel's lovely features were red and swollen around the stitches in her forehead. For whatever reason, she modified her tone when she said, “I am grateful to you for keeping her safe.”

“We need to get both of you out of town as soon as possible,” Mr. Bouton said. “No one accosted you coming in, because they don't know who you are, but if we try to take Maggie out, shots will be fired.”

“Men with arms escorted me here from the train station,” Leah said.

“Those are associates of mine, but they cannot guarantee protection from sharpshooters. Even the rocks can do substantial damage,” he added ruefully, rubbing his head where he had apparently been struck.

“The police?” ventured Leah.

“Are no help,” Mr. Bouton finished. “The less contact we have with them, the better. We shall have to smuggle you out.”

“The wagon,” whispered Mrs. Bouton. At this, there was a long moment of silence while Mr. Bouton and his wife regarded each other. Then they looked at Mr. Bouton's young sister.