Before the Devil Fell

by Neil Olson

  “Someone was chasing me,” Will replied.

  “Come on, man.”

  “Just reliving my youth. The old Boy Scout camp is up this hill. Another hundred feet, maybe.”

  “Yeah,” Jimmy agreed. “I was never a Scout.”

  “Me neither. You ever come out here?”

  “In high school. To drink.”

  “Never walked in the woods? There are lots of trails.”

  “Brendan did that,” Jimmy said irritably. “With you.”

  “I thought you were with us once or twice.”

  “Kevin, maybe. Look, what are we doing here?”

  “I didn’t ask you to follow me.”

  “You kind of did,” Jimmy countered. “Acting like that. And now you got me boxed in.”

  “What bad shit happens when I’m around?” Will demanded.

  “You want to talk about this here?” Jimmy dug at the moss with his finger, looking like a little boy. A little boy with a pistol hanging off his belt. “I’m not accusing you of anything. I’m just saying...”

  “Say it.”

  “People have been dying.”

  “Every day. Is it against the law now?”

  “A bunch of things have gone down in the last six, seven years. Starting with Doc Chester getting shot by Eddie Price.”

  “Hunting accident,” Will replied automatically. In fact, there had been some suspicion about the shooting, despite the long friendship between the men. Rumors that the charming Doc and Sally Price had gotten a little too friendly.

  “Maybe,” Jimmy said. “Then Nancy Chester gets hit by a car walking home from the diner. Concussion, broken hip. Nobody saw anything. No one came forward. Louise Brown keels over in her garden. Heart attack. Fifty-three and fit as a horse.”

  “It happens.”

  “Sure it does. Then Marty Branford dies of a gas leak. It happens, right?”

  “It did,” Will said, annoyance creeping into his voice.

  “And every time it happened, every one of those events, you were here.”

  “How do you even know that?” It was the wrong thing to say. Defensive. For all Will knew, he had been around for all those events. The point was that it meant nothing.

  “There were twelve people in your mother’s prayer group.”

  “Spirit circle,” Will corrected. Prayer group! But was that so far off? “There was no fixed number. People came and went.”

  “There were twelve the night Johnny Payson died,” Jimmy persisted.

  “You have witnesses, I guess.”

  “My mother was there,” the cop said. “She told me.”

  Here it was. Will thought of the Duffys as new blood. Working class Boston Irish, nothing to do with old family nonsense. He forgot Jenny Duffy had been Jenny Branford. He was surprised to learn she was there that night; she seemed only a casual member of the circle. But it explained Jimmy’s obsession.

  “Twelve people,” Jimmy said again. “Most of them young. Seven have died since, some violently. A couple others had bad accidents.”

  There had been talk of a curse. Back then. Those first ten years or so after the incident, when three people died and others suffered tragedies. Like Molly Jordan, whose only daughter Christine was killed in an accident. Driving her mother’s car to pick up her boyfriend, Will Conner. The talk went away after a while. If it had been stirred up again the last seven years, Will had not heard about it.

  “What does this have to do with me?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” Jimmy confessed after a pause. “It’s just, like, these coincidences.”

  “Your mother died of lung cancer, right?”

  “She was getting better,” Jimmy mumbled. “Everyone said she was getting better, and then something went wrong.”

  Relapse. It happens, Will wanted to say again, but thought better of it.

  “Jimmy. I was fourteen when she died. I was nine when Doug Payson threw himself out that window.”

  “I know.”

  “Just what is it you think I have to do with this stuff?”

  “I don’t know,” Jimmy snarled, standing quickly and running a hand through his hair. “I’m not saying you did anything.”

  “And you’re not saying I didn’t.”

  “Maybe it’s something connected to you. Some person or some, some...thing. I mean every one of these times, the last seven years.”

  A thought formed suddenly: had he gotten this idea from Sam? Will hated thinking it, but it made sense. It didn’t sound like something Jimmy would dream up on his own. More like something he would seize upon to justify his antipathy for Will.

  “And here we are again,” Jimmy said.

  Here we are again. Will’s tired mind tried to dodge the meaning of that phrase, but the words caught and held him. In a moment he was on his feet, rage surging in his muscles. He rushed at the other man.

  “What are you saying?”

  Jimmy gave ground and put his open hands out, stop signs.

  “Hang on now.”

  “You miserable shit, what are you saying?” He growled more than spoke, in a voice that did not sound like his. “Do you think I pushed my own mother down the stairs?”

  Will swung at his face, just catching the nose as Jimmy ducked away. The next moment the cop’s open hand struck him on the side of the head, unbalancing him. His ear rang, his whole head rang and Will squeezed his eyes shut. Breathed deeply. It did not calm him, but worked like a bellows, adding oxygen to his rage. He was sweating anger out of his pores. When he opened his eyes, the cop appeared diminished somehow.

  “Just calm down,” Jimmy said, his voice shaking.

  Will went at him again, seizing him by the shoulders, squeezing his fingers into muscle and sinew. Jimmy grabbed his forearms and tried to break free, but Will’s grip was iron. Their faces were less than a foot apart, the cop’s screwed up tightly. His eyes found Will’s, and sprang open wide. His mouth let out a little moaning sound, and then his whole body became frantic with the effort of escape.

  Startled, Will released him. Jimmy stumbled back quickly and was gone. Will saw one arm flailing and then no more. A moment later there was a thud on the rock face below, then a softer one in the dead leaves at the base of the ridge. Will stepped forward cautiously and looked down. He could hear movement down there, but could see nothing.

  “Jimmy?”

  He turned himself around and started down. His mind was blank, which was useful. An empty mind aided concentration. It was dangerous work trying this in the dark, especially with all his muscles quivering. He slipped several times, once banging his ribs hard against the rocky face. He heard a groan, and then a slow thrashing around in the leaves as he reached the bottom of the incline.

  “Jimmy,” he said more forcefully to the shadows.

  A hunched figure went crashing through the saplings, bouncing off small trees until it reached the road. Will could see Jimmy clearly then in the patrol car’s headlights. Turned sideways to him, bent over, with one arm hanging uselessly and the other pointed back at Will.

  “You stay away from me.”

  Will couldn’t think how to answer. He barely remembered what had happened, did not know who caused it. Jimmy was hurt and needed help, but moving toward him was not going to help things. After fighting with the handle a moment, Jimmy got the door open and jumped into the cruiser, slamming the door behind him. Will wandered into the road, alongside his mother’s car and in the full glare of the lights.

  The cop leaned forward, squinting. As if trying to make out who or what this being was. Then he jammed the cruiser into Reverse and began to back down the narrow road. Will was certain he would careen into the marsh, but Jimmy shaped the turn expertly and disappeared. His headlights and the rumble of the engine slowly faded. The darkness that followed was profound.
A large bird of prey swept out of a nearby tree and vanished in shadow. It only then occurred to Will that Jimmy had never reached for his gun.

  He could not remember later how he left the woods. Not driving in Reverse to Orchard Road, he was sure of that. So he must have gone forward instead, all the way out to Seaview. God knew what that muddy track had done to the car’s suspension. He drove aimlessly for a while. At one point he pulled up in front of the police station. Looking for what? The whirl of activity that would accompany the manhunt to find him? Will Conner: Cape Ann’s Most Wanted. It was quiet. They knew where to find him. He drove home.

  Quiet there too. His mother had made a vegetable stew with Moroccan spices. He ate some straight from the pot, standing in front of the stove. It was good, but he had little appetite. He opened a beer and went into the living room, where the Boston-Oakland game flickered on the muted television. His mother was asleep on the sofa. He checked her breathing before settling down to watch the game. Will was dead asleep long before the Red Sox pulled out a victory in the bottom of the eleventh inning.

  CHAPTER

  ELEVEN

  “Old families?” Margaret Price wore her usual self-satisfied expression, and poured tea from a chipped Blue Willow pot into matching cups. Will was pleased to note it was ordinary tea. “No. Winthrop, Larcom, Endicott. Those are the old families around here.”

  “I guess I mean the seven families,” Will corrected himself.

  “I guess you do,” she replied. He wanted to wipe that smug look off her face. Reading his tension, Samantha squeezed his shoulder gently. Margaret did not fail to note the intimate gesture.

  Coming here had not been his idea. It had not really been Sam’s either. It was the elder Mrs. Price, Evelyn, whom she had telephoned. Hoping for some guidance on Will’s “condition.” Will had been against the whole thing and was surprised to learn the old woman—who must be in her nineties—was still living. Evelyn Price didn’t have an answering machine, so Sam could not leave a message. Nevertheless, daughter Margaret called Sam the next day, insisting she and Will come for tea.

  “The seven families haven’t been here more than six or seven generations,” Margaret continued. “Which isn’t old at all for this part of the country.”

  “They were up in Maine before,” Sam prompted.

  “The Camden-Warren area. Ship captains, lawyers. Many of the Prices were soldiers.”

  “Halls too,” replied Sam. “And back to England before that?”

  “Yes. West Midlands.”

  “Price is a Welsh name, isn’t it?”

  Margaret paused, studying Samantha’s face.

  “I’ve heard it said that Price comes from the Welsh ap Rhys. The sons of Rhys. I don’t really know about that.”

  “And the Chesters take their name from that town, on the Welsh border?”

  “So they say. Your Halls are from the area around Coventry. Branfords also.”

  “Wales to England,” said Sam, retracing the steps forward in time. “England to Maine, Maine to here.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Never staying anywhere more than six or seven generations.”

  Margaret nodded deliberately.

  “You want to know about the curse.”

  “Curse?” Will sat up as if prodded. His ribs still hurt from slamming the rock face on his rapid descent. And there was a bruise on his left cheek that Margaret had stared at but not asked about.

  “Careful of the tea, dear,” she warned, handing him a napkin. “Am I wrong?”

  “No, you’re not wrong,” Samantha replied. “That’s just what we want to know.”

  In fact, she had not been at all clear why they had come. Sam did not have the same faith in Margaret Price that she did in Margaret’s mother, but she was sure the invitation was no coincidence. Will pointed out that Evelyn could not even know they had called, but Sam was unmoved. You did not ignore signs. Now she was tossing out random details to see what stuck. If Margaret thought they had come to learn of a curse, well then, that’s why they had come.

  “The curse is legend,” Margaret said casually. “Not really history.”

  “Of course,” Sam agreed.

  “And there are many people better versed in the telling than me.”

  “But they haven’t invited us to tea,” Sam answered. “And you have.”

  Margaret set her cup down on the cherrywood coffee table and leaned back against worn sofa cushions. Late-day sun through sheer curtains gave her hair a silver sheen.

  “Back in England, or Wales perhaps, in medieval times, a demon was ravaging the countryside. Killing cattle, stealing children. Beguiling young women and poisoning crops. Doing what demons do.”

  “Where did the demon come from?” Will asked. Both women looked at him in surprise. You did not interrupt the telling of a tale. He should know better.

  “That isn’t part of the story,” Margaret said, regathering herself. “Several brave men went to confront the demon. To slay it or drive it off, but each one came to grief. The people of the region called on their most trusted leaders to save them. Seven of them. Sages, holy men, warriors. One from each of the prestigious families gathered to hunt down the enemy. The fiend feared their strength and fled, but eventually they caught and bound it. Of course, you cannot kill a demon. But working together, they conjured a spell by which to banish it from the world once more. Back to the abyss.”

  She paused for a sip of milky tea. Despite her false modesty, Will noted the stylized language and dramatic pauses of a seasoned storyteller. She might find the tale nonsense, but she had clearly told it more than a few times before, and on some level was enjoying this.

  “Demons are ancient beings,” she continued, “and clever. No man alone is a match for one. But now I’m telling the professor his own subject.”

  “That’s okay,” said Will, hesitantly. He neither wanted to intrude nor fall into some trap. “Every tradition has its own rules. This isn’t my story.”

  “Of course it is,” she countered, gazing steadily at him once more. “I mean, all of us. We’re all the heirs to this tradition, as you call it.”

  “Go on. Please.”

  “The demon tried to bargain. It would give them riches, long life, knowledge. Whatever they wanted. I don’t know if demons have the power to give those things, but I suppose we’ll all say anything to save ourselves. Yes? Some of the men were tempted, but in the end they stayed the course. They performed the rituals and enacted the spell that banished the fiend. However, before its parting from this world, it hurled a curse on the seven men. A curse on them and their children, and grandchildren, and all their ancestors down the generations.”

  She looked at them expectantly, as if awaiting their verdict.

  “What was the curse?” Will finally asked.

  “Ah, yes.” Margaret bent forward for more tea. He wondered if he could drown her in that little cup. “Versions vary with the telling,” she finally said. “What do you imagine it was?”

  Plague? Insanity? Bad skin?

  “Restlessness,” said Sam.

  “I had a feeling you’d heard the tale before,” Margaret answered, settling back against the tired blue cushions.

  “Long ago,” Sam replied. “And not told like that.”

  “Wait,” said Will in dismay. “That’s the curse? Restlessness?”

  “Restlessness is too gentle a word,” answered the older woman. “More like a profound unease. A constant sense of struggle, of searching. With no hope of fulfillment.”

  “Sounds like the human condition,” Will said. She smiled at him. Whether in agreement or in pity at his ignorance, he could not say. “So what happened after that?”

  “After, yes. The community dissolved. Mistrust and strife took hold in that place.” Her tone had grown darker; her eyes gazed at the floor now.
“The old learned to live with the sense of loss. The young moved on to new lands. The same people who had turned to the seven to save them, now turned on them. Blamed them for their unhappiness. Drove them out.”

  It seemed to Will she was taking this awfully hard for a mere legend.

  “And the same thing kept happening,” Sam said. They both looked at her. “I mean the unease. It kept happening wherever they went. That’s why they kept moving from place to place, isn’t it?”

  Margaret sighed. Looking sorry that she had started talking of this.

  “One generation would find a new home. A land that held some echo of the richness and mystery of their old home. The next few generations would build up their place there. It was in their natures to prosper. To become leaders. And then another generation would ruin all they had achieved. And the young people would scatter again.”

  “How would they ruin it?” Sam asked.

  Later, Will would understand that this was the most important question of all, though Margaret appeared to have no answer. At the moment, in that following silence, he only sought to shake off the unsettling enchantment of the tale.

  “You’re trying to say that these seven families traveled as a pack? Between continents, over centuries?”

  “Now we move from legend to history,” Margaret replied, unconcerned with his doubt. “And history is not so tidy. Every generation, children grow and move on. It’s like that for all families. We can’t even be sure of the number. We say seven, but maybe it’s six, or eight. Probably some died out, and others come into the story later.”

  “Yeah?” mused Will. “Which?”

  “Well, for instance, the Browns. They claim Brown derives from Bronwyn, which is an old name in Wales. But some say they didn’t become one of the families until Maine. Always been working people, you know. The Paysons are another question mark, if you ask me.”

  “You’re telling me there isn’t even agreement on who the seven families are?”

  “Oh dear,” laughed Margaret. “There’s very little agreement about anything.”

  Then why the hell should we take any of this seriously, he wanted to say. Except that she had not asked him to. She had all but dismissed it as a fairy tale, even if her tone said differently. He had nothing for which to chastise her. He had walked into this room with that gnawing unease already inside him.