The Fifth Petal

by Brunonia Barry

  “What’s going on?” he asked when he reached her.

  “Come with me.”

  Instead of turning right toward her house, May turned left toward Back Beach at the far end of the island, taking the shortcut across what had once been a baseball diamond. The grass was higher here, matted in tangles, and they had to walk single file to stay on the path, which made it difficult to talk.

  He could see a group of women standing around the foundation of the old house. They stepped back to make room when they saw him approach.

  A few of the stronger women were standing inside the foundation, wearing hard hats and swinging sledgehammers, hitting the standing structure hard and watching it crumble. May motioned to one of them, who took off her hard hat and handed it to Rafferty. “This is what you want, isn’t it?” May asked.

  He was momentarily speechless. He was relieved that May had finally consented to tear down that wreck of a house. But at the same time, seeing it actually happen brought up some difficult memories of the time he and Towner had separated and she’d moved back into that old house.

  “Out of sight, out of mind.” May handed him a sledgehammer. “Your exact words.”

  “She still won’t come for Christmas.”

  “I know,” May said, turning and heading back toward the other end of the island. “But it will be easier for her to come out sometime. That’s all I care about.”

  Rafferty worked all afternoon, swinging one of the sledgehammers, and the women took turns with the other. They worked without speaking, the way he’d seen them do when they spun flax or made lace. Debris was taken away in the wheelbarrows they used in the gardens. Rafferty couldn’t tell where they were putting the refuse, and he didn’t really care. Out of sight, out of mind. He hoped he was right.

  By the time it was too dark to see, only a small portion of the far wall of the house’s foundation was left standing.

  May set up an early dinner for them in the red schoolhouse: beef stew with vegetables from their gardens, and corn bread made from the heirloom Golden Bantam the women had grown over the summer. He noted the jars of zucchini lined up on the shelves in the back room; they’d been canning at May’s house and storing up for winter.

  After dinner, May accompanied him back to the pier. He was walking like old Tom Dayle, all bent over. “When are you going to forgive her, Rafferty?”

  The question took him by surprise. “What?”

  She held his gaze. “She came back to you. Isn’t that enough?”

  “It’s enough. It always has been. You’re reading it wrong. I don’t have to forgive her, because I never blamed her for anything that happened.”

  “Okay,” she said. She looked at him for a long time. “I’ll rephrase the question. When are you going to forgive yourself?”

  Strange rumors have begun to circulate, including accusations of disease, witchcraft, and even spectral evidence (wives have claimed husbands were receiving nocturnal visits from the Goddesses). “Is this the 1980s, or are we back in 1692?” Eva Whitney posited when asked for comment.

  —The Salem Journal, NOVEMBER 15, 1989

  The Salem Journal article, entitled “A Modern-Day Witch Hunt?,” appeared the same week Rose was released to the Arbor Street shelter. It produced the opposite of Callie’s desired effect; just as Rafferty had warned her, it made things worse. Now people were focusing their fears on Callie, too. And if she’d hoped the article would lead to information about Leah Kormos’s whereabouts, she’d been wrong. Rafferty hadn’t received a single call. The only mention of Leah had been one post on the newspaper’s website suggesting that Rose had probably killed Leah in some kind of Satanic ceremony.

  The details of the Goddesses’ sex lives were luridly described, and Callie’s mother and the others came off badly. There was a sinister undertone, too, as if it had been inevitable that seduction as “competitive sport” would turn deadly.

  Though the reporter didn’t come out and say the Goddesses were witches or Satanists—as some Salemites clearly believed—he revealed that at least one of Rose’s family of girls had visited that black magic shop, the one Rafferty had asked Ann about that had closed down.

  The article detailed Rose’s unwavering belief that she herself was a banshee. “For those of you who have never heard the term,” the reporter elaborated, “the banshee is best known as the Irish herald of death.”

  Along with archived photos of Rose and the Goddesses, The Salem Journal included a photo of Callie—a candid shot someone had taken as she entered the hospital. As a result, she was now recognized everywhere she went. Many people openly gawked and whispered, especially at the tearoom and the shelter. She hadn’t been back to the cemetery at all. When she and Paul bought a Christmas tree for the boathouse from a Cub Scout troop in downtown Beverly, the den mother stared at them during the entire transaction. As soon as she thought they were out of earshot, she said to one of the other parents, “That girl is either in deep denial or she’s one of them.”

  “Jesus,” Paul said when they got back to the car. “That was incredibly rude.”

  Callie shrugged it off. She wasn’t completely sorry she had given the interview. Someone had to speak up on Rose’s behalf. The reporter would have done the story anyway; he had tried to talk to the hospital staff, but they’d protected Rose’s privacy as the law required. The officer who had been posted outside her door, however, had no restrictions beyond the dictates of his own questionable ethics. He was quoted several times in the article, talking about Rose’s “trancelike state” and her sudden outbursts “like she was possessed or something.”

  He had also talked at length about “the unearthly sound” of Callie’s singing bowl and how “the mystical treatment” had revived Rose. “She’s as weird as the old lady, if you ask me.”

  Rafferty told Callie he had suspended the officer. But the damage was done.

  The online gossip was the most incendiary. Protected by anonymity, the commenters on The Salem Journal page took the speculation to a new low:

  The devil has once again been raised in Salem.

  —GOODCHRISTIAN101

  Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.

  —LIKESTOSAIL

  “That’s not even an accurate translation,” Paul said, looking over Callie’s shoulder at his laptop screen once they were back at his place. “I mean, that last comment.”

  “Really?” Callie’s hands were shaking slightly. The sheer number of posters was frightening enough.

  “King James was obsessed with witches. He even attended the first major witch trial in Scotland. As you know, people are terrified of anything they don’t understand. That Bible translation, while beautifully poetic, wasn’t the best. Many scholars believe that the original word wasn’t witch but poisoner. Poisoning was actually feared more than witches. Until that translation.”

  “So a mistranslated biblical quote ignited the interest in witch hunting?”

  “Yes. That and another bad translation from the original text to German. In the original, nouns didn’t have masculine or feminine modifiers, so the word witch was considered both. But when it was translated to German, the translator chose the feminine, and witches came to be seen as women. The King James Bible was a product of the Reformation and was based on Martin Luther’s version of the text. When the German was translated to English, the association with the feminine carried over. Which led to all sorts of atrocities against women, as you can imagine.”

  “I don’t have to imagine.”

  Paul nodded. “Sorry.” Then he said, “The 1486 bestseller called Malleus Maleficarum, which loosely translates to The Witch Hammer, added the methodology needed to root out these so-called witches. That book justified horrible persecutions in the Old World and then, much later, in the New. Fear, once again, ran rampant.”

  “It’s still running rampant in Salem,” Callie said. “Look at these comments.”

  “Salem is usually a haven for all sorts of New Age and Paga
n practices not accepted elsewhere in this country,” Paul said. “People here tend to be pretty open-minded. Which is why this is all so surprising to me. I’m sure it’s really only a few people stirring the witch’s cauldron, so to speak.”

  “Helen Barnes and company?”

  “Probably.” Paul reached over and closed the laptop. He began to massage Callie’s neck.

  Her muscles were tighter than she realized; she held all her tension in her shoulders. The weight of the world.

  “I’d like to kick Helen Barnes right in her bony Brahmin ass.”

  “I’d pay to see that,” Paul admitted, moving his hands over her neck and shoulders. “You have knots,” he said, surprised.

  “Always,” she said, leaning into him as his grip tightened. His hands were strong.

  “Okay?” he asked, squeezing harder.

  “Good.”

  He targeted the worst spots without being directed, moving from place to place, following the tightness until each muscle began to release. His touch got lighter then, until at last he skimmed his fingers lightly over her neck and shoulders.

  “You know what I still don’t understand?” Callie said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Every time I hear the word banshee, it comes with a different definition. Rafferty said the banshee was a specter sent to predict the death of a loved one to those left behind. Archbishop McCauley said banshees were paid mourners banned by the Catholic Church. Rose says the banshee is human and was once a shrunken goddess trapped in an oak tree, then freed by a lightning strike to wreak havoc on the world…So which is it?”

  “All of the above,” Paul said. “Or none of them.”

  “That’s helpful.”

  He laughed. “No, seriously, it’s all oral tradition. Handed down through the generations. It happens often, many different versions of the same story. That’s how most myths are passed along and why the corresponding gods and goddesses of the different pantheons are at the same time remarkably similar and wildly varying in their legends.”

  He finished rubbing her shoulders. “Better?”

  “Much.” She sighed, allowing herself to lean back against him for just a moment before standing.

  They stood looking at each other for a long minute.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “Anytime,” he answered, not breaking her gaze. She was close enough to feel his breath as he spoke. She knew what he was thinking. She was thinking the same thing.

  “Not a good idea,” she said.

  “No?” he asked, not believing her.

  “No. Please, I’d like to just stay friends. Okay?”

  “Friends then,” Paul said, stepping back and heading toward the kitchen. Even as he did, she wished he hadn’t.

  But they were friends.

  And now that the article had come out, it felt even more important to her that they stay that way. Some of the details about her mother and the others had been tough to read, not only because of the murders but because they bore an uncanny resemblance to Callie’s own past. There were several young men she’d hurt. They’d followed her, the same way the men in Salem had followed the Goddesses.

  And there was something else. Every erotic dream she’d had about Paul—and she’d been having them nightly—ended the same way. She’d wake up sweating, the blankets torn away and tossed on the floor, still feeling him inside her, trying to erase the final image that lingered: Paul dead on the cold stone floor, blood pooling around him. Recently, a woman’s voice, one she didn’t recognize, had sounded in the dreams. Was it one of the nuns? Whoever it was recited the phrase her foster father had pinned to her: “Her feet go down to death…” And sometimes added the one that troubled her even more: “God will give you blood to drink.”

  “Friends,” Paul toasted as he returned, spiking the eggnog he handed her with Napoleon brandy lifted from his father’s wine cellar. “Kind of a waste of amazing brandy, but, hey, it will make trimming the tree more interesting.”

  “It’s time to trim already?”

  “It is indeed.” He took a swig of eggnog.

  It was a big tree, and to compensate for the low ceiling where they’d positioned it, he’d had to saw off both the top and the bottom. It looked as if it were growing through the roof.

  “We should have put it over there,” she said, pointing to the cathedral ceiling in the study.

  “It’s always been here,” he said. “Tradition dictates.”

  She rolled her eyes. “That’s the mantra in these parts.”

  It really was a ridiculous tree. Paul strung the bubble lights, and Callie plugged them in. As soon as they began their colorful roil, the room felt festive. “I take it these lights are tradition as well?”

  “Of course,” he said.

  He rummaged through some boxes and showed her wooden ornaments carved by his father and grandfather. Then he dug out a seagull figure he’d made when he was a boy. “I have all the family ornaments.”

  The eggnog was heating her from the inside, and the fire Paul had built was reddening her cheeks. She almost made a racy joke about his possession of the family jewels but stopped herself. “Then what about your parents?” she asked instead. “What do they use to decorate their tree?”

  “Interior decorators,” he said.

  “Of course they do,” she said, saluting him with her eggnog. “I would expect nothing less.”

  “Actually, they hire flower designers. They pick a different one every year for the Holiday House Tour.”

  “I forgot about the charity tour.” She’d seen a poster advertising it just this morning when she stopped by the post office to pick up some stamps. She put down her glass and selected a mercury glass ornament. As she stretched to place it on a high branch, she slipped on her stockinged feet and almost dropped the thing, lunging to retrieve it before it hit the floor. She caught the ornament, and Paul caught her.

  “Careful there,” he said. “You almost took the whole tree with you.”

  She saw it wobbling. “I didn’t do that—you didn’t put the stand on correctly.”

  “I most certainly did!”

  “Paul. The tree is clearly listing to the right, with almost the same slant—”

  “The slant was intentional,” he insisted, “to match the sixteen-hundreds floors.”

  “Of course you would say that,” she said with false exasperation, taking a seat on the couch.

  Paul started to pour them another eggnog, then thought better of it and sat down next to her.

  They both stayed silent, watching the bubble lights color the room. He was so close she could feel the warmth of his leg on hers and smell the scent of his skin. She honestly wasn’t sure how much longer she could hold out. The brandy was lowering her resistance. She could feel her pulse racing in her chest, her blood flowing, and the faint throbbing that was a gateway to pleasure. If he flashed his killer grin, she was a goner.

  Mercifully, Paul stood and moved toward the tree, tilting his head to the side to better assess the angle.

  “That’s one weird tree,” he finally said.

  “It sure is,” she managed, tilting her head to the same angle to gain his perspective. “I like it.”

  “I found her in a neighbor’s yard this morning,” the social worker told Callie the next day when she entered the Arbor Street shelter. “Sleeping under a tree.”

  “That’s not good,” Callie said.

  The social worker shook her head. “No, it’s not. And that’s not the worst of it. Come with me.”

  The social worker opened a door leading into her office, the only room with accessible windows. Several of them had been smashed. Splinters of broken glass were everywhere.

  “Rose did this?”

  “No,” the social worker said. “But whoever did it knows she’s here. There were notes wrapped around the rocks they threw, condemning her. The police took them as evidence.”

  “Do they have any suspects?”


  “They said it could be anyone. It’s bad enough that people know she’s here. But we can’t have her sleeping outside anymore. I’m afraid of what might happen to her. We don’t think she should be going outside at all, but our policy allows it. If we can’t protect her, though, she can’t stay here. She’ll have to go back or go to one of the other shelters.”

  “I’m not staying inside. You can’t hear the trees inside this place.” Rose shrugged. “You can’t see them from my window, either.”

  “You don’t understand,” Callie said. “They won’t keep you here if you’re not safe.”

  Rose was adamant. “I can take care of myself.”

  “They’ll send you back to the hospital, Rose. Or worse.”

  Callie wasn’t sure what she meant by “or worse,” but it seemed to profoundly affect Rose. She quieted, her bravado vanishing.

  “You have to at least sleep inside.”

  “Okay,” Rose said.

  Though her meds appeared to be working fairly well—the staff said she’d had no outbursts—Rose confided to Callie that the trees were talking to her more and more. She admitted that she felt compelled to sketch them during the day, and was carrying her Book of Trees and her pencils everywhere, drawing as quickly as possible, as each oak on this side of town imparted a new message that took her closer to “solving the puzzle.”

  “I see you’ve been sketching,” Callie said, trying for something more pleasant to talk about. Something to bring Rose back from the dark place Callie’s warning had sent her to. The journal in Rose’s hands was almost overflowing. “Can you show me what you’re working on?”

  She didn’t tell Rose that she’d peeked once before, at the hospital. Rose handed over the journal easily. “I’ve been waiting for you to ask.”

  Callie flipped through the book. The ripped-out pages had been taped back in place. Rose’s new drawings were more intricate, showing every bit of light on bark, every striation of bare branches. In one sketch, she had depicted a torn limb and the pulp beneath, revealing what looked oddly like a human circulatory system, the sap flowing like blood.