“I’ll bet,” Callie said. How could Rose be the same? How could anyone?
“You were there that night. What happened? What kind of ritual were you performing up there?”
She stared at him. His tone sounded vaguely accusatory. It reminded her of the nuns. “We went there to bless the unconsecrated grave of our ancestors,” Callie replied. “Five accused witches who were executed on July nineteenth, 1692.” She’d recited the story so many times after the murders that it seemed almost like one of the poems she’d memorized as a child.
“Rose had a breakdown,” Rafferty said. “She was in a state hospital for a long time. When she came out, she wasn’t the same woman. She also believed it was a banshee that killed your mother and the others.”
“I just heard that,” Callie admitted. “I’m not quite sure what that means. Especially in relation to Rose.”
“According to Irish folklore, a banshee is a kind of specter who appears to those left behind when a loved one dies. But Rose’s mythology takes things a step further. She believes banshees can kill, if they inhabit a human host who is ‘turning.’ ”
“What does that mean?”
“Rose thinks it was a banshee that killed your mother and the others that night, and, after that happened, the banshee jumped into Rose, who has been holding her captive for all these years in an effort to keep her from killing again.”
“That’s crazy.”
“This is what she believes. I’ve known Rose for a while, but it’s difficult to understand her sometimes.”
The Rose that Callie remembered had never been difficult to understand. Rose was direct, precise. If anything, it had been the other women, Callie’s mother and her friends, who were sometimes confusing.
Callie struggled to recall Rose’s tales about fairies and mythology. A lot of those stories were Irish, probably passed down through Rose’s family, though Rose had grown up here. But all those stories were fairy tales or old myths Rose told her at bedtime. Auntie Rose had been quite the storyteller, but not in a way that was confusing or hard to understand. “She used to talk about fairies sometimes,” Callie offered. “But I don’t remember anything about banshees.”
“I know a little about them,” Rafferty said. “But I’ve never heard anyone but Rose suggest that banshees are killers in any traditional sense. Or human, for that matter.”
Once again, Callie fell silent. Finally she pulled herself back from the dark place her imagination was leading her to. “Can I see her?”
“Of course. I’ll drive you over to the hospital.”
Rafferty parked in a spot marked MEDICAL STAFF ONLY, pulling in too fast and slamming on the brakes, jolting them forward in the seat, then back.
“Sorry,” he said.
Callie looked out her window at Salem Hospital. The place she remembered had been much smaller. She’d stayed in the children’s wing for a few weeks. Long enough for the nuns who had discovered her standing by the edge of the crevasse, with her hand cut and bleeding, to change their opinion of her: She’d gone from sainted to tainted in their eyes. People had kept coming and going: police, newspaper reporters, even clergy, unwrapping her bandage and making her show her wound over and over. She’d answered all their questions and told the truth repeatedly. But now she knew the nuns had lied to her. Those first days had been a bad dream: walking the entire length of the small hospital with the nurse who’d treated her, just trying to understand what had happened, telling the story again and again until it began to sink in that the whole thing was true, that they were all dead: Susan, Cheryl, and her mother, Olivia. They hadn’t told her about Rose right away, hadn’t said she was dead until they had taken her away from Salem, to their group home in Northampton, where nuns of the same order could protect her from the wild speculation and accusations that were to follow.
Today she could see that the hospital was huge, with many new wings and a big sign advertising its association with Mass General.
“Are those more news vans?” Callie asked, pointing.
“They are. Let’s get inside.”
The hospital was built into the side of a hill, with its main entrance at the top on the sixth floor. They took an unmarked stairway up one flight to the psych unit, pausing to be buzzed in at two different locked doors before they finally reached the nurses’ station.
“This is Rose Whelan’s niece,” Rafferty said to the nurse at the desk. “Her closest relation.” He didn’t look at Callie as he repeated the lie.
“You can go in,” the nurse said, “but only for a few minutes. Ten tops. I’m afraid there’s been no change.”
The officer they’d posted outside of Rose’s door jolted awake as they approached and threw them a guilty glance. Rafferty nodded without acknowledging the slip. He hesitated, turning to Callie. “We are required by law to have a guard outside a murder suspect’s room,” he said. Then, as if to redeem himself, he added, “I called a lawyer for her this time. Before we even tried to talk to her. A good one who’s defending her pro bono.” He opened the door.
Callie had seen Rose’s photo on the news, but she wasn’t prepared for the scene before her: Rose was in four-point restraints. Her empty eyes stared at the ceiling, unblinking.
“She’s been this way since last night,” Rafferty explained.
If she was aware they had entered the room, Rose showed no sign. Rafferty saw the look of devastation on Callie’s face and realized she needed a moment. “I have to make a phone call,” he said. “I’ll leave you two alone.”
Callie didn’t know what she’d been expecting; still, this was worse than anything she could have anticipated. Rose isn’t here was the thought that came to mind. She felt her throat closing with the effort it took to hold back tears. In the last few hours, all she’d wanted was to have Rose back in her life. She chastised herself for such a stupid hope. She approached the bed. “It’s me, Auntie Rose. It’s Callie. I’m here.”
She leaned down, trying to penetrate the empty stare, to see past the blankness of Rose’s eyes to something behind them. Rose’s eyes had always been so clear, so focused. Her mother and the other Goddesses had nicknamed her Old Eagle Eyes, because nothing got by her. Not ever, much to their chagrin.
“What happened to you?” Callie whispered. And then she sobbed in a way that erased all of the years she had put between herself and the worst moment of her life.
The lesser of two evils. Rafferty couldn’t get the phrase out of his head.
In all the commotion, he’d never called Towner back. He dialed her number on his cell.
“Sorry,” he said.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I saw the news.” Then she continued. “So the little girl who witnessed the murders is back in town?”
“Was that on the news?” Rafferty sounded horrified.
“No.”
“Then how do you know she’s here?”
“I just know,” she said.
He shook his head. He’d seen Towner do this many times—know about things before being told—but it still surprised him every time it happened.
Most of what Rafferty knew about the 1989 case, he’d learned from his wife. Towner hadn’t lived in Salem at the time of the murders, but her grandmother Eva, who had been a friend of Rose’s, had told her the story.
On the way back down the stairs, Callie stopped and turned to Rafferty. “Why would they lie to me? Why would they tell me Rose was dead? She was like my mother. I’ve missed her for so long, and she’s been right here? Why would they do that?”
Rafferty had no idea what to say. It was clear from what he’d heard about the case that Callie had been traumatized. But that anyone would lie like that to a child seemed cruel. Especially since Rose would have been the only person Callie had left. He reached into his coat pocket, pulled out a half-empty packet of tissues, and handed them to her. “It’s good for Rose that you’re here now.”
Neither of them spoke as they rode back to the station; Callie kept he
r face turned toward her side window, and Rafferty noticed her taking in everything as they passed.
“Where are you parked?” he asked as they pulled into the lot at the station. Callie pointed. Her face and neck were blotchy, her eyes bloodshot.
“Is that hotel down on the common still open?”
“You’re staying?”
“If I can find a room.” She pointed to the back lot. “My car’s over there.”
He nodded. Then, changing his mind, he U-turned and pulled out of the lot. “We’ll get your car later. There’s someone I want you to meet first.”
Rafferty drove them away from the police station and across town to Salem Common, passing the elegant old Hawthorne Hotel and pulling instead into the long driveway of a massive brick house.
Callie read a sign posted on the side door: EVA’S LACE READER TEAROOM.
“That’s the place,” said Rafferty.
At the end of the driveway, they stopped in front of a smaller coach house. A lean woman with strawberry blond hair stood on a stepladder next to a huge oak tree at the entrance to the courtyard, scrubbing at graffiti that had been spray-painted on its bark.
“Damn it,” Rafferty muttered.
It took Callie a minute to realize that the defaced area looked like a rose. Not like the stylized, five-petaled rose on her palm, but a more realistic one, complete with thorns and an inscription: Kill the banshee!
“Don’t worry. I’ll try painting over it if I can find a color that matches the bark,” the woman said to Rafferty as he got out of the car. She climbed down from the ladder, handing Rafferty the bucket. She kissed him hello, then turned to look at Callie.
“Callie, this is my wife, Towner Whitney. Towner, this is Callie.” Seeing some girls from the tearoom, he stopped short of saying her last name. Towner saw his look and picked up the cue.
Towner extended her hand. “How nice to meet you, Callie. I only wish the circumstances were better.”
“Me, too,” said Callie.
“I thought I’d help Callie book a hotel room,” Rafferty said.
“Oh, that’s not necessary,” Towner said. “You don’t have to pay for a hotel. You can use Rose’s room.”
“I thought you might say that.” Rafferty smiled.
“Rose lives here?” Callie asked, pressing her palms together as she spoke. “On the news they said she was homeless.”
“Well…usually, she sleeps in our courtyard under her tree.” Towner pointed to the huge oak. “That oak actually belongs to Rose. But that’s a story for another day.” She smiled, gesturing to the door. “We set aside a room for her in the house. She sleeps there sometimes. When I can convince her to. Please, come on inside.”
Rafferty and Callie followed Towner up the front steps and into the foyer, where a spiral staircase wound three flights upward, seemingly suspended in the air surrounding it. On either side of the foyer were two matching parlors the size of ballrooms with a black marble fireplace at each end.
“I’ve been here before,” Callie murmured.
“You have, actually.” Towner nodded. “My grandmother once told me that you and your mother stayed in this house for a little while, before you moved in with Rose.”
“I don’t remember that,” Callie said. “But I know I’ve seen that staircase.”
“Rose’s room is two flights up.”
“I’ll leave you two ladies to it,” said Rafferty, excusing himself.
The women took the stairs to a large room with a comfortable-looking bed and a sink in the corner. Lining the walls were framed black-and-white photos of oak trees.
“Did Rose take these?”
Towner shook her head. “I took them. I was trying to lure Rose indoors. It didn’t do much good, I’m afraid. She only comes up here when it’s raining so hard it floods the parks.”
“Strange,” Callie said, unaware she had said the word aloud until she heard her voice echo in the huge room.
“Rose has a mission.”
“What kind of mission?”
“She believes she can find the remains of the hanging tree that was used to execute the victims of the witch trials in 1692. The one that either died or was chopped down—back in, well, no one knows when. She had a vision that the tree was intentionally moved, and she’s set her heart on finding it. She thinks it will lead her to the missing remains of those executed in 1692.”
Callie looked surprised. “How would that work?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. Rose believes the oak trees of Salem hold some clue.” Towner looked at Callie before continuing. “She says the trees speak to her.”
“Oh,” Callie said.
“She’s had a tough time of it in the last few years.”
“So I’ve heard.” Callie’s trembling voice belied her calm words. “Still, talking trees…”
“I know,” Towner said. “Sometimes I almost believe her. I think my grandmother Eva did.”
“Really?” Callie said.
“Eva and Rose had a special connection.”
Callie waited for Towner to explain, but she didn’t.
“Rose considers finding the hanging tree her life’s work. The way she once felt about proving the real site of the executions, something she actually managed to do. I can’t figure out how finding the remains of missing victims of the Salem witch trials relates to modern-day oak trees. Or to banshees, for that matter, but I know it must. Or at least it does in Rose’s mind. Maybe you’ll have better luck finding a connection. If you can get her to start talking again.”
There was a long silence as Callie remembered how different Rose had been the last time they’d seen each other, before today. She had taught Callie and her mother so much, telling them stories, and Rose had instructed them all in the history of their ancestors, a history that, even now, Callie could recite the same way she could recite the Pledge of Allegiance. Or the Lord’s Prayer. Rose, not the nuns who ended up raising her, had taught her that prayer. To think of Rose as she’d seen her today made Callie almost unbearably sad.
“I recognize that,” Callie said, fighting tears and gesturing to the opposite side of the room. Framed on the wall was a map depicting Salem as it was in the 1600s, before landfill wiped out most of the North River. “I was raised on that map. Rose used it when she taught us lessons about our ancestors.”
“Sidney Perley’s map? Rose gave it to me,” Towner said. “She said she knew every inch of it by heart.”
“I wouldn’t doubt that at all,” Callie said, looking at the spot Rose had circled in red and labeled “Proctor’s Ledge,” the same location they had gone to the night of the murders, near where the map depicted Town Bridge. A snippet of poetry came back to her. Something written by Sidney Perley. Poetry! the gem that gilds / The world of letters, and gives / Expression to soul beauty. It was one of the first poems Rose had ever made her memorize. She could see the book in her memory, its fraying leather cover and broken spine: The Poets of Essex County.
She touched the circle on the map and remembered Rose sitting her down for her lessons. Teaching her to read before she attended school by memorizing poems and then reciting them, something her mother and her friends had found very amusing. When Rose wasn’t home, her mother’s friends had asked her to recite for them—sometimes in front of guests, sometimes for their own amusement. Rose had also taught her history, the real history of what happened in Salem.
“As I’m sure you remember, Rose was once an important scholar of the witch trials,” Towner said, as if reading her young guest. “She uncovered so many discrepancies between the historical records and their accepted interpretations. When she was a professor at BU, she was awarded research grants from the Massachusetts Historical Society and honors from the Smithsonian, for God’s sake. People forget just how important she was.”
Callie remembered a few of the things Rose had told her about her research. How Puritan Salem had kept detailed expense records. And that none of those records mentioned
any gallows being built, which had led her to conclude that it was far more likely the Puritans used a sturdy hardwood, possibly an oak, to hang the accused. How written accounts claimed one could see the bodies hanging all the way over from North Street. This public spectacle had been required by law, a warning to others of the consequences that befell those who signed the Devil’s book. “Those bodies would not have been visible from Gallows Hill,” Rose had always said. Since the accused would have been transported by cart, and since such transportation had been difficult, Rose had believed the condemned would have been taken to the first place beyond city limits with a hill visible from town, not Gallows Hill, but the actual hanging spot, one far more accessible by horse and cart back in 1692.
“Sorry. Let me climb down from my soapbox and show you where the bathroom is,” Towner said, reading Callie’s agitation at recalling this much information. She walked Callie down the hall. A woman was coming out as they approached. She nodded to Towner but looked at Callie with suspicion before moving on. “It’s a shared space,” Towner said. “I hope that’s okay.”
“It’s okay with me if it’s okay with her,” Callie said. Towner opened the linen closet. “Clean towels and sheets are in here, though your bed was changed this morning.” She paused, considering before she spoke again. “Most of the women who live here are from Yellow Dog Island.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s a shelter for abused women that my family runs. The ones who are ready to come back to the world sometimes live here and work in the tearoom. It’s a reentry program of sorts. So don’t take it personally if they seem skittish. It’s not you. I’ll introduce you tomorrow—but only by first names. Most of them are part of the Domestic Violence Victims Protection Program. Their identities are kept secret in case their abusers are trying to locate them. So it won’t be odd that I don’t use your last name.”
Callie was familiar with the program and with this type of abuse victim; she’d once volunteered as a music therapist at a shelter in Northampton.
Towner looked at her, then, keeping her voice lowered, she added, “You might not want to tell people your last name anyway. There are a lot of people in town who still remember what happened.”
The Fifth Petal Page 6