Perhaps there was an unequaled tranquility unveiled within the reflections cast upon Shade Tree Pond just prior to the sunlight dissolving beneath summer’s greenery. In the minutes before twilight, the pond’s surface glistened as if ornamented by a gilded sheath. Beneath the willow trees, one might’ve imagined that this realm was entirely shrouded with emerald ribbons. The lights of fireflies had already begun to flicker in the encompassing grasslands, and no disturbance foreign to the wood’s natural habitat existed within.
On a summer day enriched by sunlight, it was not uncommon to find children and adults frolicking in the delights of nature around Shade Tree Pond. But this particular day was different. A pending rainstorm had chased most of the residents indoors. Only those truly in search of solitude cared to traverse the trails on this occasion. One such person was a pretty twelve-year-old girl named Sylvia Fletcher.
Though Sylvia frequented these woods often by herself, she rarely paused to practice her craft in the meadow near Shade Tree Pond. But the lure of nature was too potent to ignore today. A gentle zephyr stirred the willow trees’ branches, and upon her return from a more secluded section in the forest, she settled on the velvety grass bordering the pond’s edge. Dressed only in a white frock with no shoes, she knelt to the cool grass and stared across the still water.
Sylvia developed a fondness toward these woods that few her age shared. Her thoughts were more lucid when she sensed the earth next to her skin. In her hands, she carried a soft black bag. Within this bag contained all of the materials required for her to engage in a ritual taught to her by her mother. She emptied the bags contents in a pile on the grass. A collection of smooth round stones, all gray in color and similar in size, spread before her hands. To the casual observer the stones may have not appeared dissimilar from one another, but she appreciated each one for its uniqueness. For her, the placement of every stone had relevance in the aura of energy she attempted to manufacture.
Sylvia arranged the stones on the soil symmetrically, allowing equal distance between them to establish a foundation. Then, while muttering a chant softly, she began to pile the stones on top of one another, creating a makeshift pyramid. Once the structure was completed, she circled her fingertips over the stones’ surfaces as if an invisible barrier prevented her from making direct contact. She then whispered the words of a chant in succession.
“Hear me spirits of this time
Gathered by my ancient rhyme.
In the glen I absorb your power
Upon the twilight of this hour
Where shades of dark and day both glide
Beyond the meadow where souls reside
To offer Earth a subtle sign
Of our presence so sublime.”
Typically, she would recite this chant four times before proceeding with the ceremony that permitted her to experience nature in ways only known by the practitioners of her craft. But on this twilight her chant was fractured by the sound of approaching footsteps. The girl’s senses were keen enough for her to hear twigs crackling in the thicket beyond Shade Tree Pond. Once the intruder emerged from the woods, she immediately recognized him as a boy she knew from school.
Sylvia offered him an agitated stare before yelling, “Go away from here, Andrew. I’m busy.”
Andrew McCann wasn’t the kind of boy who took orders from a girl with any intentions of following them. To those who knew him best, he was unruly and selfish, but in recent weeks he had become particularly curious about the time that Sylvia spent in the woods. On many occasions before this day, he watched her enter the woods off Adler Lane, sometimes with her mother, too. On a dare from some of his less intrepid friends, Andrew decided to follow her alone today.
As he bounded closer to the bluff where Sylvia sat, she became clearly uncomfortable in his presence. She however made no effort to conceal the nature of her business at this time. Andrew glared at the dark-haired child with a glint in his eye that sometimes revealed his dominant personality. As with most who possess this trait, he espied vulnerability in her expression with relative ease. Of all the children in school, Sylvia was the most resilient in terms of how she reacted to Andrew’s obtrusiveness. Because she never backed down from him, he became more determined than ever to expose her as a witch.
“I’ve heard stories about you coming out here and doing weird things,” Andrew remarked as he motioned toward the stones. After Sylvia realized that Andrew had taken an interest in her center of worship, she concealed the stones with her palms.
“Go away,” she demanded. As her hands rested over the stones’ surfaces she sensed the energy had momentarily ceased. The spell was broken. “You’ve ruined everything now,” she complained to Andrew. “I just wanted to be left alone.”
Andrew ignored the girl’s gripe and bent onto one knee in the grass beside her. His eyes fixated on the stones as she attempted to hide them. “What are you doing with all those rocks?” he asked, only moderately suspicious.
“You wouldn’t understand if I told you,” she replied.
Andrew teasingly gestured at the stones, pretending that he was going to knock the pile over in a heap. Sylvia defended her property by brushing away the boy’s hands and saying, “Don’t touch. You’ll contaminate the energy.”
Andrew snickered spitefully and said, “What energy? It’s just a pile of rocks.”
“To you, maybe that’s true,” Sylvia countered. “But they’re more than that to me.”
“I bet this is all part of that witchcraft you and your crazy mother do.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Andrew McCann. All you understand are the lies that people say.”
“I know that what you’re doing is evil. The Bible says so.”
Sylvia was not in the mood to challenge the boy’s beliefs or defend her own. She just wanted him to leave. “I would like to be alone now,” she reaffirmed. “Is there something that you want?”
Andrew had little desire to oblige the girl’s request now. He assumed a defensive posture by folding his arms in front of himself. “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what you’re doing with those rocks.”
Sylvia seemed somewhat frustrated by the boy’s defiance, but the remedy to this situation didn’t strike her as too compromising. “If I tell you what I’m doing, will you promise to leave?”
“Of course,” Andrew lied. “Now tell me.” Andrew settled onto both his knees beside the girl and motioned toward the pile of stones again. “Is this supposed to be some kind of magic?
Sylvia removed her hands from the stones and let the boy inspect the pyramid shape she had formed. Her fingertips circled in small patterns in front of the stones again. “This is called a cairn,” she explained. Her fingers were now moving in a counter clockwise pattern. She presumed that Andrew would be thoroughly perplexed by her words. “It’s kind of like a temple that connects the physical world to the spiritual,” she tried to clarify. Afterwards, she removed the top stone fro the pile and held it up against the orange-tinted sky.
“What are you doing?”
“Once the cairn is in place, the energy is channeled through the stones. You’ll be able to feel them vibrate.”
Without asking, Andrew snatched two stones from the pile and squeezed them in his hands for several seconds. He didn’t look convinced. “I don’t feel anything. Do you think I’m stupid or something?” He then tossed the stones back into the others, causing the entire pyramid structure to collapse in front of Sylvia’s hands.
“The energy won’t work now,” Sylvia sighed, gathering the stones as quickly as she could manage. “I hadn’t finished channeling the energy when you arrived.”
Andrew now sensed the girl’s anxiousness and seized several of the stones from the ground as she began to collect them in her bag. After securing three stones in his possession, Andrew stood up and cocked his arm with the stones in hand. He then faced the pond and simpered at his next idea.
“These stones might be good for something after
all,” he giggled. Sylvia reached up and grabbed his forearm in an effort to prevent him from tossing the stones into the water. But he easily pushed the smaller girl aside and side-armed the stones in sequence across the pond’s surface. When his hands emptied, he rated his skimming performance with a sense of accomplishment. “I got six bounces on that last one,” he exclaimed.
Obviously disappointed, Sylvia stood up and shoved Andrew away from her, but he grabbed hold of her wrists and immediately detected something more alluring to his eyes than the scattered rocks. Sylvia wore a silver bracelet latched around her left wrist. It contained four gems that flashed before his eyes. Rather than ask the girl to remove the jewelry, Andrew twisted her wrist and wrenched it over her hand.
Sylvia had no more patience with the boy now. She showed her outrage by trying to scratch at her tormentor with her right hand, but he only seemed amused by her defense. Once the bracelet was freed from her wrist, he held it up and admired the multicolored stones.
“Now this may have some real value,” Andrew declared while studying the oval gems closely.
“Give that back to me, Andrew McCann,” Sylvia demanded. Andrew playfully dangled the bracelet in front of the girl’s vexed eyes. She continued to lunge for the jewelry, but her reflexes proved to be too slow to snatch it away from him.
“All this witchcraft hasn’t made you very smart,” Andrew joked, still waving the bracelet in front of her.
“That’s a gift from my mother,” Sylvia said, pausing to take a breath. “It’s not a toy. Now please give it back to me.”
“Not just yet,” Andrew sneered. “What is this bracelet used for?”
“It’s just a bracelet,” Sylvia attempted to lie, but the stones began to glow slightly. “It helps me stay in touch with the natural forces,” she said quickly. “It wouldn’t mean anything to you.”
“More hocus-pocus garbage,” Andrew grumbled with dissatisfaction.
“It’s not what you think,” Sylvia said, her voice almost pleading the boy to return her possession. “Each stone represents a different source of energy. The bracelet has no use to you. It only helps those who believe in its magic.”
“That the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Then why not just return the bracelet to me?” Sylvia asked politely, reaching for it once again.
“Not so fast,” Andrew denied her. He glanced casually at the bracelet’s gems and traced his fingers over each colored stone. He watched the girl become increasingly nervous during these seconds.
“Why do you look so nervous?” Andrew asked her suspiciously.
“I’m not nervous. That bracelet is very important to me, that’s all.”
Andrew appeared unemotional as he pointed to the dark blue gem and asked, “This one is glowing blue. What does it mean?”
“It’s a sapphire,” Sylvia replied, edging closer to the boy’s hand with her own. “It reflects the power of our Earth’s oceans.” Sylvia motioned to the next stone set in silver and said, “The green one is an emerald. It represents the Earth’s soil.”
“What about the other two?”
“They are the most important,” Sylvia explained. “The amber stone is a medium to the moon’s power, and the red garnet channels its energy from the Sun.”
Andrew chuckled to himself and offered a sarcastic remark. “I think you’ve been out in these woods too long. He then started to pivot away from Sylvia. She recognized his refusal to return the bracelet, so she lunged for it again. She only came up with a handful of air.
“I asked you nicely, Andrew,” she said through clenched teeth. “I want my bracelet back right now.” She quickly darted at the boy with both arms outstretched. He simply brushed her aside and her momentum carried her forward, where she fell alongside the pond’s edge. Her bare feet slipped on the slick rocks and she plopped forward into the mud near the grassy bluff.
Andrew laughed deliberately at the girl, who had now muddied her white dress. She winced in pain momentarily. Apparently, the girl’s right knee collided with a jagged rock when she lost her footing. The impact caused a quarter-sized gash on her left leg. Andrew was completely unsympathetic to her agony and embarrassment during these moments.
“It serves you right for playing around with this junk,” he remarked. “Nobody likes a witch.”
Sylvia’s eyes revealed her sorrow. She remained silent for a few seconds before saying, “Why are you doing this to me? I just wanted to be left alone.”
Andrew did not acknowledge Sylvia’s anguish. He simply directed his eyes on the pond again and said, “If you want this piece of garbage so badly, then go and fish it out.” With that statement, he hurled the bracelet out over the water. The gems reflected in the fading traces of sunlight slipping between the willow trees. The jewelry then plopped in the miry depths of Shade Tree Pond, disappearing in an instant.
Sylvia could do nothing to prevent the loss of her personal treasure. Andrew laughed freely as she scuttled toward the water on her hands and knees.
“Who ever taught you to be so cruel?” she sobbed, while watching the pond’s surface become still again.
“I’m doing you a favor,” Andrew told her. “Maybe this will stop you and your mother from hexing our town.”
Sylvia no longer listened to the boy. She was eyeing the water as if trying to figure a way to gauge the distance she would have to wade into the pond in order to retrieve her bracelet. “I must have that back,” she told herself. She then inched closer to the pond, allowing the cool murky water to spill over her ankles.
“Hey,” Andrew warned her. “I wouldn’t go in that pond if I were you—it’s not safe.”
Sylvia ignored the boy’s words. She was too intent on reclaiming her jewelry, even if it meant risking her own life to do it. Upon entering the pond at the depth of her knees, she immediately sensed her feet sinking in the sediment.
By the time the greenish-brown water inched itself past her knees, Andrew realized that she was entirely committed to her pursuit in finding the bracelet. Although he didn’t particularly care for the girl, he still didn’t want her to jeopardize her life.
“You better get out of that water,” Andrew admonished her again. His voice had more of a tremble in it now. “It’s just a stupid bracelet.”
“Leave me alone! This is your fault, and I have no other choice!”
Andrew moved closer to the water and extended his hand toward the girl, but she refused to take his grasp. Instead, she ventured deeper into the water without considering the fact that she had no swimming ability whatsoever. Andrew now sensed that she was truly putting her life in danger. His requests for her to retreat from the pond became more urgent.
“It’s not worth drowning over, Sylvia. Get out of the water!”
Even as Andrew uttered these words he suspected that the jewelry was far more precious to her than he originally imagined possible. Had he known that she would’ve taken such extreme measures to hold onto the bracelet, he might’ve been less callous in his actions. But hindsight provided little comfort to his conscience, and Sylvia revealed no trace of cowardice until she stepped into a section of the pond that submerged her instantly to the level of her chest.
After realizing the danger too late, Sylvia began to thrash her arms and legs as if she was resisting a suction that pulled her farther than she actually intended to go. Andrew immediately recognized the girl’s plight, but he could not muster the courage to plunge into the pond beside her. In the meantime, Sylvia attempted to turn back toward shallower water, but the muck had hold of her legs and she slowly began to sink. Her frantic movements only worked against her in the ensuing seconds.
“Don’t move!” Andrew shouted to her. Genuine fear spread into the boy’s expression as he frantically searched the pond’s environs for something to help the girl.
“I’m sinking,” Sylvia cried, now quite fearful of what was happening. “Help me, Andrew—please.” Her arms flailed above her head. Andrew rushed fro
m the thicket with a long branch from a felled tree. He proceeded out into the water and extended the branch in Sylvia’s direction.
“Take hold of the branch,” Andrew directed her. “I’ll pull you in.”
Sylvia reached desperately for the tree limb, but her fingers barely managed to scratch at its wet leaves. She was close enough to Andrew to see the fear rising in her eyes, and he screams soon followed. Andrew needed to step further into the pond; she couldn’t reach the branch. He wanted to move, but his legs froze as if they had been fastened into the pond’s muck. It was only his own fear that held him back.
By now the murky water lurched above Sylvia’s chin. It was a mindless reflex for her to squirm in place. Such actions only hastened the inevitability of this situation. “I—I can’t swim!” she cried. “Please help me!”
In a last bid to save the girl, Andrew edged deeper into the water, putting him nearly at the same risk as the girl. Although he could swim, he didn’t know if that would’ve prevented him from sinking in the sediment at the pond’s bottom. He still stretched the branch toward Sylvia, but she no longer possessed the presence of mind to snatch it in her hand. Panic had altered all rationale thought. She was drowning, and the very notion of this terrible death caused her to convulse.
“Grab it now!” Andrew shouted beseechingly. “You can do it, Sylvia!”
“I—I can’t reach it…”
“Try! Don’t give up!”
Before Andrew uttered another word, Sylvia’s face submerged in the water. When she opened her mouth to forward a final cry for help, the pond water spilled into her mouth. Andrew dashed deeper into the pond, but he had now lost sight of the girl. He began to kick and swing his legs and arms, calling out the girl’s name. She did not answer. The struggle was over.
Sylvia sank without forcing another sound from her lips. The slimy water swallowed her almost as quickly as it had the bracelet. Within seconds, the water became calm around the child. Andrew stood silent in the pond, dreading the consequences that lead him to this point.
“It was an accident,” he murmured aloud. “I…I didn’t mean to do it…”
He listened as the meadow crickets began to sound in the thicket, but the pond had become eerily quiet. Andrew’s heartbeat quickened as he wondered how he would explain this tragedy to the police. Instead of rushing away to get assistance, he remained petrified alongside the pond for nearly thirty minutes. During this critical time, he did nothing to extract the girl’s body from its watery grave. But eventually, just as nightfall darkened the woods, her lifeless body resurfaced. Andrew latched onto the girl’s clothing with a tree limb and slowly pulled her toward the shallow water.
Up until this point in his life, Andrew had never seen a dead body, particularly that of a child as old as himself. The vision of Sylvia’s petrified face, and her skin’s uncanny coldness was more horrific than he dared to fathom. The skin on her exposed limbs was bloodlessly pale; only her lips held a bluish tint. Her mouth was slightly parted, and her eyes appeared like to dark saucers, completely extinguished of their vibrancy.
“You can’t die out here,” he sobbed to her. “You can’t die like this.”
Andrew stared at the child’s body for a long time, hoping that she might take a breath and have another chance at life. This was all a terrible mistake, he thought. How could he have let something like this happen? She was just a little girl. A dreadful thought then entered the boy’s head. He knew that he could never walk away from this without being blamed. The sheriff would never believe that he wasn’t somehow involved in her death.
While Andrew plotted his next course of action, storm clouds gathered in the western sky. Soon a silver shield of clouds would smother the moon’s light and render him in near total darkness. The rain commenced soon thereafter, and he never remembered feeling a colder water falling from the sky. He knew that he couldn’t simply leave the child’s body unattended. People might’ve watched him entering the woods. Surely his friends might’ve connected him with the crime. There had to be another way out, and after several minutes of contemplation, he devised a rather simple solution to his problem. The body had to be buried—and quickly.
One problem remained. Where could he possibly dispose of the body and make it look as though someone else was responsible for this horrible deed? The solution came to him as he gazed upon a line of trees on a nearby hillside. On the opposite side of Shade Tree Pond, he remembered Ben Murden’s peach grove. The grove seemed like a perfect place to hide Sylvia’s body. Surely no one would expect a boy his age to be so resourceful in the aftermath of such a travesty, Andrew assumed. And even if Sylvia’s body was unearthed at a later time, the authorities weren’t likely to blame a twelve-year-old boy for her murder? But an old man living by himself in the woods would not be offered the same consideration.
Chapter 22
Summer: Present Day
Songs of a Peach Tree Page 22