She raced from her hiding spot and ran for the woods. She knew the forest better than any woodsman or hunter. She could reach Esther before them and tell her to hide. The trail would foil them as it had so many others. The forest wasn’t friendly to men either. It was more than superstition to fear the woods after dark. Things moved among the trees. Esther had said malevolent spirits infested the forest long before the white man came. If she hurried, if she was quick, there might still be time.
Margaret raced through the forest without concern for the spirits who lived there. Madness had made her bold and if she was taken by something crawling in the woods while on her way to help Esther, she could count on God to deliver her to heaven where she would be reunited with her mother and brother. Margaret actually laughed at how the world seemed to be aligning to her will.
She plunged through the creek and ran on. Briefly, through the trees, at great distance, she thought she saw men on horseback with torches, but she was already well ahead of them and they were going in the wrong direction. It might take hours for them to find their way in the dark, or they might not find their way at all.
She broke through the forest in the irregularly shaped corn fields around the stone cabin and finally called out to Esther. The old woman, her only friend left in the world, emerged from the cabin as though Margaret was expected at such a late hour. She held in her hand an ancient lantern of stone, burning animal fat with a low light. Margaret ran to her.
“They’re coming to kill you,” Margaret pleaded with her. “They believe you to be a witch!”
“And a witch I am,” Esther said with a dry laugh. “But I am old, and ready to find my end. Worry not my child; this was a long time in the making and something I welcome.”
Margaret took Esther by the arms, touching her in earnest for the first time in their several year friendship. Esther stiffened in her embrace. She set aside the little lantern and touched Margaret’s stomach with her withered claws. “You are with child,” Esther said hoarsely. “A twisted, unnatural child of unclean union, growing for weeks now.”
“My father…” Margaret began, but it was too horrible to admit aloud. She hoped Esther would understand.
“No need for that,” Esther said. “That place is not for you any longer. You will take my home as your own. It will be your sanctuary and your salvation when I am gone.”
Margaret tried to protest, to say the woods would not be safe for her. A torch hurled through the night sky interrupted her, landing amidst the dried corn fields, setting them slowly ablaze. Another torch followed, and then another, until the cabin was thoroughly surrounded by the flames. The smoke and heat became unbearable, but Esther seemed unhurried by the encroaching fire.
“Come,” Esther said, guiding Margaret into the cabin. “My home has survived several attempts at burning. Men don’t seem to understand that stone cannot be moved by flame.” She lifted a massive shale slab from the floor and guided Margaret into a hollow hole in the earth beneath the cabin, helping her to settle in amidst the sacks of cornmeal and root vegetables. “Stay safe, my child. When what must be done is done, eat of me and take my place.”
Margaret didn’t understand. She tried to protest, but Esther just smiled a toothless old grin and shushed her with a gentle finger to the lips. “You will know what I mean when the time comes,” she said. “I knew you were destined to take my place when I saw you and one day, you will know who is meant to take yours.”
The shale slab lowered over the hole. Margaret scooped a rock from the bottom of the dug out crypt she was lying in and popped it into place before the slab could settle entirely, leaving her a crack to peek out through. The fires burned for some time, and Esther simply waited outside the cabin door. Margaret couldn’t see all of her through the crack, but enough to know where she was. The men dared not approach through the fire or dared not approach until daylight—Margaret didn’t know which, but regardless they held their positions outside of the ring of fire. She could hear their horses snorting and stomping with nervous energy as they circled in the dark.
Finally, with the corn fields reduced to black, smoking ashes, and the cool gray light of the autumn morning pushing its way through the gray frozen fog, they came for Esther. They shouted their accusations, angry, violent voices hurling insults and curses at the old woman. They grasped her, beat her with sticks, and hurled her onto the ground in front of the stone cabin. When Esther was thrown prone beneath their violent stomping feet, Margaret could finally see all of her friend. She was so tiny, so meek under the attacks of the men. Margaret pushed at the shale slab, expecting it to move with ease as Esther had held it with one hand while helping Margaret into the tomb, but she found it completely unbothered by her pushing. She wanted to cry out, but something held her tongue, insisting she wait until what must be done was done.
The sun broke free of the clouds and fog for just a moment, shining brightly on the wretched scene in front of the cabin. One of the men grasped at the rags covering Esther’s head and yanked it free. In the light of day, Esther transformed into a demon of terrible monstrousness. Her mouth was that of a fanged bird, eyes black as night, hands clawed with talons unlike anything Margaret had ever seen. She knew what Esther’s face and hands looked like, or at least she thought she did, but whatever this creature was, it wasn’t her friend anymore. The men reacted with fright and anger at once. They came for her again with their sticks and she made short work of the ones who hesitated, tearing off limbs as they approached, slashing with her claws for the meatiest parts of them.
They were so many and their hatred of her was so strong. Eventually, she fell under their clubs and torches, burning with an inhuman scream at the edge of where Margaret could see. What remained of the men returned to their horses, packed their dead and wounded on the newly rider-less steeds, and took their leave of the woods as though they couldn’t quit the place fast enough.
Margaret waited until she was certain they were gone, coiled her legs beneath her, and attempted to push the shale slab again. It inched upward, but not nearly enough for her to escape. Esther wouldn’t have left her in the hiding place to die. Margaret flopped back into the tomb and began searching the crumbling earthen walls until she found it near her feet—a tiny tunnel, big enough for an old woman or a slender girl like herself. She pushed aside the sacks that had concealed the exit and slithered out through the hole, pushing her way through roots, turning and twisting in a belly crawl as the tunnel seemed to stretch on forever. Finally, she spotted a faint light at the end, and emerged, cleansed by earth on the side of the hill the Hessian homestead sat upon, well away from the cabin.
Margaret walked painfully back up to the cabin to find the smoking body of the Esther creature left for the ravens where the men had burned her. Margaret glanced to the sky and treetops around the clearing. No carrion birds had set upon her yet though. Margaret was certain the smell would reach for miles and she’d taken so long in escaping the cabin, surely they should have come for her by now.
Margaret knelt by the burned body, took one of the barely identifiable limbs between her hands, bowed her head to it, and bit. She twisted her jaw and head until the bite finally tore free. She chewed and swallowed. When this only made her feel stronger, she took a bite, and another bite, and another until she was ravenously consuming her former friend, feeling unearthly changes taking place in her as she fed. Yes, Margaret thought, this is what Esther meant. It had to be.
When she was certain she had taken what she needed, Margaret scooped the remains of her friend and took her into the cabin. She lifted the shale slab as effortlessly as Esther had, and slid the burned and gnawed corpse into the tunnel at the back of the tomb. She easily pulled the earthen roof and walls of the tunnel in around Esther’s body, collapsing the tube that was her salvation around the remains until a proper, if hasty, burial had been effected.
Margaret stood in the middle of the tiny stone cabin, sensing the world in entirely new ways. She could feel th
ings she’d never felt before, hear things she shouldn’t have been able to, and understood reality with such completeness and clarity that she supposed herself divine. More than that, she could feel the child in her that Esther had mentioned. It was dead, as was she, although its soul had not been returned to its body as hers had. It was within her to stay, never to grow larger, never to leave her, always to act as a painful reminder, both emotionally and physically, of the wickedness forced on her.
This pain gnawed at her stomach as she stood, driving her back into the hole beneath the cabin to wait until nightfall. She needed to find the remaining men who had survived the fight with Esther. She needed to find them and punish them for her pain.
Part 9: Peace for the Fallen
Autumn 2010 – Debbie, Annabelle, and Daphne
1.
Annabelle and Debbie finished reading the journal at roughly the same time. The handwriting, which had started so beautiful and precise, slowly descended into wobbles and wavers, barely readable at the end when the clearly undead Margaret had finished her massacre of the remaining men who had killed Esther. The last few pages, penned in her insane hand, spoke of her plans to continue Esther’s work until the day she found the person she knew would replace her.
“This town’s history is thoroughly fucked up,” Annabelle muttered.
“And you say that after knowing only the things that were written down,” Ms. Jensen’s voice startled them from the doorway. She crossed the room and sat on the other side of the table from them, gently sliding the aged, leather-bound journal to face toward her. “This was left within the old blacksmith’s house. It was boxed and stored along with the other books found within until someone actually read it in the 1920s and decided it was a work of fiction written by someone dying of syphilis or lead poisoning. I found it in the back of the old library before the renovation when I was a child. I always loved historic fiction. When I showed it to my sister, she believed it was historic, but certainly not fiction.” Ms. Jensen closed the journal with careful, reverent hands and slid it back across the table to Debbie. “After you saved me, I thought it would be me you would choose. I was so certain for so many years.”
“I didn’t know this part,” Debbie said. “She never told me any of this.”
“Wait, you two know each other?” Annabelle asked, looking disbelievingly from Ms. Jensen to Debbie.
“The little redheaded girl who fell in the creek,” Debbie said.
“I thought you were an angel,” Ms. Jensen confirmed with a nod.
“A lot of people thought that,” Debbie said.
“I’m sorry it wasn’t me,” Ms. Jensen said. She took Annabelle’s hand a smiled to her. “But I’m glad it was you.”
None of them needed to say what was to come next. They’d all read the same words. Only Annabelle saw the change that must be done to break the cycle though, and she wasn’t going to share it until the other task was complete.
2.
The trio marched into the woods on a frigid November night of no great importance. Debbie and Annabelle, who could see perfectly well in the darkness, did their best to guide Ms. Jensen who insisted they call her by her first name, Daphne.
They parked on what was lover’s lane, beneath the old air raid siren, and descended into the forest to find the field of bones where Maggie had enshrined so many of her kills before finally joining them. Her body was still where Debbie and Annabelle had left it. No scavengers would touch it, but the weeks exposed to the elements had left it withered and small. Debbie couldn’t look upon Maggie with anything but a deep melancholy after knowing what fires had forged her.
Debbie carefully, delicately, and even a little lovingly removed Maggie’s frail body from the wood that impaled it and began carrying it through the woods, leading their procession to the old stone cabin. The orphans came out to watch, keeping a respectful distance, although Annabelle could tell by the way Daphne clung to her that the shades were visible to more than just vampires.
Within the cabin that Annabelle said she never would set foot in, they laid Maggie to rest within the tomb beneath the shale slab. In slow work, they dug handfuls of earth from outside and walked it into the cabin until they’d filled in the hole entirely before replacing the slab.
Debbie felt the presence of Maggie fading until it was finally gone. The tether that had held them together severed as quietly as the one holding Maggie to her former body and the woods itself. Debbie and Daphne turned to leave, but Annabelle stopped them before they could start back down the hill.
“It can’t be here anymore,” Annabelle said. To illustrate what she meant, she began pulling rocks out from the cabin, and hurling them down the hill into the trees. “There can’t be a haven here anymore or someone else will use it the same way.” She didn’t care that Debbie and Daphne weren’t helping her; she would rip the cabin down by herself if needs be and she felt strong enough to do just that with every rock she pulled from the structure. “It housed all the shame and wrongness of this fucked up town and it can’t be here anymore!” With enough of the structure weakened by her removal of stones, and a fury building in her from what she knew the cabin to represent, Annabelle pushed the stonewall until the entire cabin came off its base and slid down the back of the hill in a cascade of tumbling rocks.
She walked back down the hill to the stunned Debbie and Daphne. She took her former teacher’s hands to regain her attention from the abrupt destruction of possibly the oldest standing structure in the state of Vermont. Annabelle looked her directly in the eyes and spoke with cold clarity, “Call the police tomorrow, take them to the field of bones, and have them dig up what’s there.”
Daphne nodded her understanding.
As they walked back toward the bluff that held what was formerly make out point, the orphans around them began to fade. Debbie watched as the shadows became fewer and fewer, drifting off in different directions, speaking to her no more.
“They thought I was going to be the one to save them,” Debbie murmured. She turned to Annabelle and took her by the hand. “But it was you.”
Annabelle seemed unmoved by the words. A severe edge grew in her after reading Maggie’s journal; Debbie worried about it. “I need to be free of this place,” Annabelle whispered. “We need to get out of here and never come back. Whatever makes us what we are is capable of starting this all over again.”
The sensation of hope that was held in her acceptance to college, the possibility of New York City, which was torn away by her parents and Pastor Gunderson, returned to Debbie. It was the same hope she’d had when Grace offered her New Haven, but tarnished then by disbelief. Finally, Annabelle needed it as much as Debbie did, and Debbie swore to herself she would move heaven and earth if that’s what it took for them to be free. She gave Annabelle’s hand a squeeze and smiled to her.
“Bright illuminations, dolly,” Debbie whispered to her. “I’ll cut out of here with you wherever you want to go.”
3.
Every day the police, forensic specialists, and even some cultural archaeologists removed bodies from the forest around the area known as the bone field. Every corresponding night, Annabelle and Debbie would walk the woods, feeling less and less of the old scars and seeing fewer and fewer of the spirits. They suspected the forest would never quite be clean of the damage done within it, although the more of the world Annabelle saw, the more she suspected that was true of many places.
Once Annabelle had made the decision to leave Vigil’s Rest, the world she saw was expansive and growing almost hourly. They went to New Haven to see if they would like to move there. They went to New York, Boston, Portland Maine, and Providence Rhode Island. They were methodical in their search for where they might fit in as they no longer had something to run from—rather, for the first time for either Debbie or Annabelle, they were running toward life.
The lone, minor catch in their plans occurred right after returning from a weekend trip to New York. After months of slowly unra
veling the concentrated graveyard, the authorities found Grace’s body. The forensic specialists identified her through mitochondrial DNA linking back to the Corkers who had settled in Rhode Island. The newspaper printed a story about the long lost daughter of Vigil’s Rest finally being found after more than fifty years. A week after that, they found Phil’s body as well—the newspaper speculated they would find Deborah Poole any day. The public interest in dredging of the past reached a fevered pitch, stayed that way for a week, and then, by the end of the second week, nobody cared when Debbie’s body wasn’t found. Annabelle told Debbie that was the way things were now—nobody had an attention span anymore.
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