The Weeping Books of Blinney Lane

by Drea Damara

  “Hi, Sarah!” A thin, blue-eyed teenager with dirty-blonde hair waved with one hand, the other gripping an embroidered backpack. The ruffle on the bottom of her jean skirt swayed above bright horizontally striped knee socks, complimenting her cute boho appearance.

  “Good morning, Shelby.” Sarah smiled in relief at the distraction. Shelby was her undeclared helper around the store.

  The slim girl walked with a bounce in her step over to the accent chairs by the front window, which served as a reading nook, and tossed her backpack down with familiarity. Shelby dropped into a chair and let her stripe-clad legs bounce up in the air with the motion. Her Converse sneakers tapped back to the floor with a thud.

  Henry looked from Shelby back to Sarah. “Okay, scratch the Playboys. Good luck.”

  “Ha! That girl’s sixteen going on PhD. I doubt she’ll even notice him.”

  BLINNEY COUNCIL JOURNAL ENTRY

  OF BALDWIN ALLISTER

  5 JUNE 1692

  LET IT be known to all who read these pages that this marks the first journal entry of the Blinney Council. Upon first council proceedings, the street formerly known as Hammond Lane, shall from this day forward be named Blinney Lane by unanimous vote of its residents.

  One fortnight has passed since the residents of Blinney Lane undertook with their own hands the execution of Agatha Blinney. It is clear now that the details of that horrific event, when my fellow neighbors and friends condemned this poor soul, must be recorded for posterity. The young Miss Blinney, aged eighteen years, was accused of witchcraft by Iris Chandler, the cartographer’s wife, and subsequently by other women who resided on Blinney Lane proper. Such charges were laid claim on the grounds of seductiveness and immoralities unnatural to a life of piety.

  It was later attested by Miss Blinney that she had become ensconced in an affair with Nathan Nurscher, the local cobbler, to which now Mister Nurscher has conceded such information to be truthful. Had he admitted such previously, the following events may well have been prevented.

  The madness that has swept over Salem Village found its way to Blinney Lane. The accusations against Miss Blinney likely fueled the hatred of our residents toward this woman. Enraged by weeks of suspicion and the growing stories of Miss Blinney’s evil workings, a group of villagers pulled Miss Blinney from her home and bound her by the hands and feet. Thereafter, they dragged her down Blinney Lane like a captive animal, all the while shouting a storm of unchristian slurs. When I heard the commotion, the crowd that gathered around the procession had already amassed in such a size that I could not say all who took part, aside from all of the shop owners who reside on Blinney Lane.

  My ears will never forget the screams of anguish as she was dragged to the oak tree at the end of the lane outside of Nurscher’s cobbler shop. The procession participants flogged her and wielded stones as she was pulled toward her place of execution. They were deaf to her cries and appeared to become more incensed the more she pleaded. As though God himself were watching the cruelty of the people I have known as friends and neighbors, the sky cracked with thunder and rain began to descend on the scene, which caused the street to flood.

  Gregory Freedhof, the baker and my neighbor for many years, slung a noose around the neck of Miss Blinney, whilst another I could not see slung its rope over a high limb of the tree. Someone called without any affection for Miss Blinney to speak last words.

  From the back of the crowd, my vantage point was limited, yet I could see the crimson of blood streaming from her temple where she had been struck. Her clothing had become tattered and muddy. The flesh at her wrists seeped red through her bindings. She shivered, as did I, but her countenance was somber. Through the unnatural wind and thunder, I recall her statement as the following: “My only crime was to have given my love to a man who now refuses to claim it. You may take from me my soul, but I leave you my heartache.”

  The stool upon which she stood was then knocked away, and Miss Blinney sagged to her death, her head slumping to the side after a sickening crack resounded, and it was only then that the crowd fell silent. A magistrate arrived, but upon seeing that judge and jury had decided in his absence, he simply commanded everyone home. What followed the next morning still finds me heartsick and holds the reason why this council journal has been created.

  The morning after Miss Blinney’s execution, I awoke to the sound of my beloved Mildred screaming sounds of horror. I ran toward her cries and found her next to the bed of our youngest child, Clarie. Clarie’s face was as pale as cotton and stricken in horror where she lay lifeless in her bed. It became clear to me that she had gone to the Lord, as I witnessed my wife, my son, and my eldest daughter bereft with tears at her side. Aged twelve years and four months, Clarie had been in perfect health just the day prior. My shock and grief were disrupted when I heard similar sounds of agony from beyond the walls of our home.

  I went out the door to find that the rain had pooled at my doorstep, its water still bloodied by Miss Blinney’s wounds that the storm had washed over. As I walked down the lane, weeping and wailing from many a home on Blinney Lane met my ears. We had not been the only family to lose a loved one in the night for reasons inexplicable.

  On that same day, many of the residents were marred with what appeared to be scars that have not yet subsided. When they attempted to bury their loved ones past the perimeters of Blinney Lane, they were afflicted with severe bouts of pain in these scars, forcing them to retreat homeward to find solace. It was deduced by Eunice Doltman that the afflictions bear the resemblance of the wounds Agatha Blinney received from where she was bound, flogged, stoned, and subsequently hung. My own son, Edward, now bears what resemble whip marks on the flesh of his back although he has never been subjected to injury there.

  Within the weeks that have followed that day, an immeasurable amount of other peculiarities have occurred. Books have opened and slammed shut in my print shop; several have emitted voices, as though the pages are narrating themselves. The apothecary claims that salves and elixirs have caused unusual effects. Gregory Freedhof suffered a tightness of the jaw so confining he could not speak for three days after sampling some of his freshly baked bread.

  The villagers agreed that while their claims of Miss Blinney’s seduction of Nathan Nurscher may not have been witchcraft, the promise of bestowing her heartache is certain evidence of some type of curse under which we now all suffer. A statue has been planned in Miss Blinney’s honor to replace the tree where she was executed in the hopes it may assuage her angered spirit. I myself will undertake to pen accurate accounts of her life and untimely death as a meager homage to what my fellow neighbors and I allowed to befall this poor soul.

  For now, Eunice Doltman, Gregory Freedhof, and myself have been elected to serve as the Blinney Council. Our mission is to document any forthcoming strange happenings that occur as a result of this unfortunate event, in the hope of determining how we may alleviate future suffering and misfortune for our families and the residents who are now confined to Blinney Lane by this unholy curse.

  SARAH WAS elated to see Mary Millville and Franci arrive from across the street after they had closed up their shops. Hopefully, they would have suggestions on how to keep Ricky safe from the curse. She locked the store’s door behind them and turned off the main lights.

  The visiting women settled into the olive-colored sofa in the reading nook. Sarah pulled the front window shades down and then took a place in one of the accent chairs across from her guests. Mary sat straight-backed and chin up, clutching a basket in her hands.

  “Thanks for coming, Mary. I see you’ve come armed,” teased Sarah, who motioned to the basket full of products from Scents and Suds. Mary didn’t crack a smile just as she’d anticipated, but it was worth the try.

  Mary Millville was a former blonde, going gray in spite of the age-defying concoctions she created in her shop. Mary had once confided to Sarah that she had neither the face nor the figure a fifty-something woman would need to still look g
ood as a blonde. She said that gray hair was indicative of wisdom, and so her customers were more likely to trust her products if she let the signs of aging show in her curls.

  There was little warmth to Mary’s outward appearance, especially with her permanently unamused facial expression. However, Sarah knew it was only a hard candy shell. Mary was crunchy on the outside but soft on the inside.

  Mary was in a colonial-style dress, adorned with a sheer neck scarf, which Sarah and probably only twenty other people knew was called a bouffant. Tucked in her bodice, it covered the top of her bulky bosom. Like Franci, Mary opted for an old-fashioned mode of dress to bolster the historical theme of Blinney Lane. It suited her dignified speech and complimented her gracefully aging appearance. Her ensemble was complete with a traditional linen scarf draped across the back of her shoulders and crossed about the waist. The scarf was held in place by a white linen apron she wore over her smoky gray dress, its wide bow tied in the back above the curve of her rump. Sarah glanced at Mary’s lace-up black boots that peeked out from under the hem of her dress, along with her underskirts. That had to be hot as hell in the summer.

  You couldn’t pay Sarah to wear that many layers. She was content with the Marlene Dietrich-esque look she preferred. Most of her outfits consisted of suspenders or vests, long-sleeved blouses, and slacks. She assumed it gave her the look of a clerk, while still holding somewhat true to the historical fashion of her profession. Allister’s had originally been a printshop, and her ancestors were bookbinders. The sad thing about how they all dressed was that it was an excuse to hide their scars from the curse of Agatha Blinney.

  Mary cleared her throat. “Sarah, I must say—and without any disrespect to you, of course—my dear, but your brother is being most irresponsible with his son.”

  Sarah watched Mary shake her head. Her plump cheeks and the sag of her jowls made her look like a bulldog. It fit her personality. Mary was the thoughtful voice of reason and wisdom on Blinney Lane. She knew the history better than the other residents, with the exception of maybe Franci. When she spoke everyone listened, even if they’d heard it before. The dignity with which Mary carried herself was a way of the old, and her propriety commanded an audience. As much as Sarah wanted to entertain her musings on Mary’s appearance when she was upset, she kept her mouth shut and listened.

  “To come and put this on you and the community is simply inconsiderate to the very fabric of…” Mary paused, looking at Franci as though she could finish her flustered sentence. Franci nodded in anticipation, her mouth half-open, dumbfounded for the answer. “It’s inconsiderate to the very fabric of our society here!”

  “I know that Mary,” Sarah said delicately.

  “And I know you know, Sarah, which is why I would never consider that you had anything to do with this…unfortunate arrangement.”

  It was flattering that Mary treated her with the utmost respect. She assumed it was because she carried herself well; she was responsible, reliable, and calm no matter what befell Blinney Lane. Although, part of it may have been attributed to Mary’s respect for the part the Allister family had played in the history of Blinney Lane. Like her ancestor, Baldwin Allister, Sarah was now a Blinney council member, as were Mary and Franci. She was grateful the women hadn’t called a full council meeting. How embarrassing that would have been.

  As Mary fretted on about the impending arrival of Ricky, she sat patiently and forced an understanding smile. She soon found herself tuning out Mary’s words and reminiscing on the story of their ancestors.

  She had read the historical council journals enough to know the tale by heart. The young and beautiful Agatha Blinney had become the lover of the local cobbler, Nathan Nurscher. It was shameful to think the relatives of people she knew and loved had concluded that the only reason a married man with four children would behave so sinfully was that Agatha must have lured him under a spell of witchcraft. It hadn’t helped that several other wives in the village had claimed that their husbands had also been tempted by the young woman’s charms. Today, they would just call someone like Nathan Nurscher an asshole and Agatha a fallen woman. Eventually, the villagers cut down the tree where they had hanged Agatha. They erected a statue in its place, which still stood at the end of the street.

  Sarah shuddered at the thought of having to live during those early days of the curse. How had the residents endured unexplainable deaths, books and boots that suddenly came to life, and all the other occurrences that had been documented? She was grateful that their ancestors had figured out many of the “rules” for them.

  The rules. She’d always followed the rules of the curse. Having another Allister show up on Blinney Lane didn’t seem like safely playing by the rules. Having another descendent of the original villagers stay on Blinney Lane for so long could shift the curse off-balance. She certainly couldn’t begrudge how Mary vocalized her shared concerns now.

  “In order to respect the…history of Blinney Lane, we want to avoid any blundering that an uneducated outsider might unintentionally bring.” Mary raised her voice on the penultimate word.

  Whenever something went haywire, Mary spoke as if the curse was a fly on the wall, listening to their conversations. She knew Mary was attempting to warn the curse that if Ricky did something wrong it wouldn’t be a deliberate attempt to invoke Agatha’s wrath. It was absurd; Sarah wanted to laugh but didn’t have the heart to disrespect Mary.

  “Which is why, Sarah, I’ve brought you something as Francis has requested of me.”

  “Thank you, Mary. I appreciate that.” She waited patiently, hands between her knees, watching to see what Mary would retrieve from the old wicker basket on her lap.

  Mary pulled out a large glass jar and handed it to her. It was filled with a dark, creamy liquid. Sarah shifted the jar back and forth delicately; its contents slumped from one side to the other. She’d seen jars in Mary’s shop explode if they weren’t handled carefully. Luckily, effects like that usually only occurred in the presence of Blinney Lane residents and not the unsuspecting public.

  “Have Ricky wash his hair with that. He can use it like body soap, as well. You can funnel it into a less conspicuous bottle when he’s not looking,” Mary said, digging in her basket.

  Sarah curled her lip up. “Mary, is there any way you can make it not so dark brown looking?”

  Mary frowned. “No, dear. Believe me. I’ve tried. Just tell him it’s some new, expensive exotic thing from Calvin Clean or something.”

  “Klein,” Franci said, appearing happy to finally contribute to the conversation.

  “What?”

  “Klein. It’s Calvin Klein.”

  “Yes. Yes, that’s what I said.” Mary waved Franci off with her hand and squinted at the label on a small tube of salve she pulled from her basket. “It’ll protect him from harm as best we can hope. Now this is for his teeth.” Mary handed her the salve. “Being a teenager and foreign to our ways here, we can assume he’ll probably say something that might be unpleasant to say in such a place as this.”

  “I understand.” Sarah started to open the cap. “May I?” She knew little of potions and pastes or their power, but that some could be harmful if they weren’t used by those for which they were intended.

  “Yes, you can open it. These are both safe for you, Sarah. I made sure of that.”

  Sarah unscrewed the cap. The paste was yellow and had a waxy consistency. She held the tube below her nose and sniffed. “Ugh! It smells like citronella.”

  Franci giggled but stopped immediately when Mary shot her a look. The older woman turned an arched brow on Sarah. “Well, it won’t keep the mosquitoes away if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  Sarah grazed her index finger across the top of the tube to catch a small dab of the paste. She dabbed it on her tongue and grimaced. “Ugh! Mary, it tastes like citronella.”

  “Oh? You know what citronella tastes like?” Mary asked.

  “I do!” Franci exclaimed.

  Mary ro
lled her eyes. “Don’t you have something to offer, Miss Know-It-All?”

  You wouldn’t know the two women were dear friends from the look of it. Franci reached into her pocket and pulled out a cellophane baggie of gray powder. She tossed it onto Sarah’s lap.

  “Sarah, you just mix that up like an Arab or Greek coffee. You remember how I showed you to make those? It’ll make him feel a little warm, which is the downside since it’s getting hotter out, but the heat means it’s working because it’s giving off protection.”

  Sarah opened the baggie and sniffed the powder. Her eyes began to burn, her nose twitched, and she sneezed. Good lord. It was worse than cayenne pepper!

  “Got a bit of a kick, doesn’t it?” Franci grinned and swung her arm in front of her.

  If this was her rescue squad, she was doomed. Be nice, Sarah. Be nice.

  “Mary. Franci. I’m so grateful to the both of you for doing this, but what if I can’t get him to use any of this stuff? He’s a teenager. I’m not his mother, and he hasn’t seen me in four years. I can’t make him use poop-brown shampoo or citronella toothpaste and drink jalapeño tea.”

  Mary’s features softened, and she stood, smoothing the wrinkles in her dress. She smiled and lovingly cupped Sarah’s chin in her soft hand. Sarah didn’t know what she was going to say but felt comforted immediately. In spite of Mary’s strict mannerisms, she was all heart. The woman was like a protective old aunt and had been ever since her mother died ten years ago.

  “Sarah, you’re absolutely right. He is a teenager, which means you’re the adult. Remind him that you’re the boss.”

  Sarah forced a smile, squeezed Mary’s hand, and looked into her dark brown eyes. That was easy for Mary to say. Mary had a daughter, Valerie. The two argued like alley cats, but Valerie always inevitably complied. Valerie was twenty-six, so Mary had years of practice. Sarah had never commanded children in her life, only playfully entertained the children of customers who came into her shop.