The missing piece in the puzzle slipped into place.
Subconsciously I must have known all along that this was the way it would be. Dana’s father had stopped up the opening to the lower level of the cave with rocks and rubble after carefully replacing the jewelry, baskets, and pottery he’d taken out to show the old man.
In spite of his load, Dr. Brun reached the entrance to the cave first and had dumped his equipment on the ground before we arrived. He pointed to a broad wooden plank spanning the drop-off between the opening and the chambers beyond.
“I must be getting forgetful,” he scolded himself. “I didn’t intend to leave that plank there.”
“I’ve been here since, and you had put it away,” Dana assured him. “And I’m positive I hid it in the bushes when I left. We don’t want children getting lost or hurt in there.”
“Perhaps Damon and his group have been snooping around,” I suggested.
“Then you must be all the more careful, Mitti,” she warned.
After driving in the pitons, Dr. Brun rappelled down the sheer sides of the crevice, fastened the rope, and then guided Dana down. The far wall was undercut so that once they had gone a few feet they completely disappeared. I wasn’t particularly entranced with my role of sentry. I listened wistfully to the sound of Dr. Brun’s pickaxe striking against rock in the black void until the muffled echo of their voices became nearly inaudible. Then I seated myself on a rock just outside the cave mouth and got out my sketchbook and pencils. Across a deep cleft lay Bishop’s Bluff, like a gigantic thunderbird sunning itself beneath the blazing blue sky. Scarlet and gold and russet filigrees were interspersed with occasional hot pinks against the dark black-green of evergreens.
A flock of geese came honking out of the north, veered from its course to swing over my head, then circled back and resumed its southward migration. Gray fox squirrels leaped from tree to tree, pausing every once in awhile to nibble acorns and butternuts. I began blocking out a landscape, but my finger was too painful and I soon put my sketchbook aside.
Even though the sun was warm, there was a sharp chill in the wind, so, risking court martial, I abandoned my sentry post temporarily and moved into the shelter of the cave. I crossed the plank, slipped through a narrow opening, and stepped into the large chamber beyond. Jagged stalagmites rose to meet the stalactites hanging from the vaulted ceiling overhead. The beam of my flashlight bounced off the rock formations, casting shadows on the walls that resembled witches and shocks of corn reflected in a pond. A lone bat circled my head, making weird, high-pitched squeaks, then reported back to base somewhere in the hidden reaches of the cavern.
This was only the antechamber of the cave. As children, Gareth and Ward and I had penetrated much farther. The chamber beyond, I remembered, was even more vast. We had called it the “theater” because the floor at the rear was raised like a stage. Beyond that a spiral-shaped room reamed out by some primeval whirlpool led to a confluence of passages into which we had never dared venture. Someone had cleared away the pillars in the center of the first chamber to provide a broad aisle leading to the next room. Their remains lay on either side in great, disorderly heaps—works of nature that had taken aeons to form and moments to destroy.
Here and there water dripped from the ceiling as the cavern patiently set about forming new stalactites. Although there was no wind here I still felt a chill. My light routed the shadows behind the formations as I pressed forward. Something whisked by me. I stopped, holding my breath. Only the drip-drip of water and faint scuttlings in the gloom. Mice, bats, and my imagination! As I flashed my light over a rippled, varicolored limestone pillar, I became aware of a shadow that stood its ground in the murk. I moved toward the open area, turning my light this way and that, pretending I hadn’t seen. As the beam fell on the column again the figure retreated behind it. I spun around and headed back toward the entrance, but it kept up with me, moving silently from pillar to pillar, pressing so close I lost my bearings and unwittingly turned toward the narrow aperture leading to the chamber beyond. In my confusion and terror I mistook it for the mouth of the cave and made a dash for it. Too late I saw my error. I whipped around in time to see someone standing behind me with arm raised. My flashlight shattered on the floor and I plunged through darkness into…
* * * *
…daylight. What were those men doing back of Granny Peabody’s house? And she only three days dead! One of them was hoisting something on a rope slung over a heavy tree branch. Why, they were hanging Granny’s old black bitch! By law sheep killers must be hanged, but Tibby was no sheep killer. She was gagging, her tongue lolling out of her mouth, her eyes bulging white, her hind paws pawing at the air. There had been no snap to break her neck and she would swing a long time afore dying.
“What do ye?” I cried and shoved in between the men to lift up the suffering animal and prevent her from strangling.
“Leave off, woman,” one of the men growled.
“But why?” Blood from a gash in her neck was trickling down my mantle. “Poor old Tibby never killed a sheep.”
“Nay, worse!” The rope slackened as the man holding it gave a roar and clapped one hand to his buttocks. “She bit me! The bitch bit me, I’ll swear she did!”
“How could she when I’ve been holding her?” I scoffed.
“Because she was Granny’s familiar, given her by the Devil hisself.”
“Tibby? A devil dog? Granny Peabody were no witch, only a poor, lonely old woman who pleasured in the company of a dog,” I lashed out. This Roger Toothaker was a self-styled leech and Cunning Man, with neither the education of a physician nor the wit of the other. He gloried in bloodletting and applying some of the more repulsive remedies of the Cunning Man. “Belike your wenching has sent the pox to your brain!” I added.
He flushed at the insult, but his tongue rattled on. “Granny afflicted Ezekiel Conant with the boils, so Meg and I stopped up his urine in an earthen pot and baked it. Blowed up the oven, but Granny was dead the next morning—sure proof she’d set a spell on Ezekiel.”
“If such a thing were possible, then you and your daughter ’ud be murderers. Have you thought about that, Roger Toothaker? Dare you accuse poor Granny o’ bein’ a witch when you use remedies out o’ the Black Book itself? Bray Wilkins,” I addressed an older man standing to one side, “surely you don’t believe this nonsense. Make them let her down!” He backed away. “She’s sore hurt and she was ever a good doggie. I’ll warrant none o’ ye thought to feed this poor beast after its mistress died.”
No one stirred, but then a deep voice boomed from the outer edge of the circle. “Aye, let the animal down! Do ye explain yourselves!” A short, square-set, powerfully built man, his dark face suffused with anger, came forward. ’Twas George Burroughs, the parson of Salem Village, though not for long, I feared, if the Putnams had anything to say about it. Twas rumored he’d antagonized them and some other members of the church with his heretical ideas. Worse, he was known to have a sense of humor, an unseemly trait in a man o’ the cloth. To me he seemed more Christian than most of his ilk. “If God’s eye is on the sparrow,” he was saying with pastoral dignity, “how much more is it on a faithful dog?”
Toothaker let the rope go so that the full weight of the animal descended upon me. I laid her down gently, removed the rope from her neck and began to tend to her wounds. Tibby lifted her head feebly and licked my hand. Now the men were all talking at once. Granny’s spirit, they claimed, had entered the dog’s body! Else how could such a weak old bitch kill George Corwin’s pit bull that never lost a fight? I looked up in startled surprise. Just outside the circle lay the huge dog, its throat torn out.
“Attacked my dog without warning,” Corwin whined, “my dog wot was trained for the London bear pits before I bought him and brung him here.”
“’Tis more likely you baited them into a fight
,” Burroughs accused him. “I’ve seen you do it before, George Corwin, and I trow there were wagers amongst all of ye, though that were a sin. ’Twas unseemly pride you took in your dog and many a good beast died from his fangs. Tell the truth now, man, lest your immortal soul be damned.”
Corwin reddened and averted his eyes. “This hound o’ hell here came runnin’ across the road wi’ five black imps followin’ her and they all vanished into the foundation o’ the house. Ripper, here, he fair went mad.”
“Forsooth, you saw a chance for a fight and summoned a crowd,” Burroughs said severely.
“Not a crowd, Reverend—witnesses, ye might say. So then I let Ripper go in after her—he growling all the time and his hair on end like he seed a ghost.”
“You mean you sicced him on her,” the pastor corrected him.
The others stirred uneasily.
“’Tis true, isn’t it?” he asked.
Samuel Braybrook hunched his shoulders defiantly. “’Tisn’t often one gets to see a dogfight.”
“’Twere no fight,” Corwin continued. “The bitch ran into the hole and Ripper after her, but while he was squeezin’ through she caught him by the throat. E’en then, only the old Nick himself coulda given that old bitch the strength to tear out my dog’s throat.”
“Or puppies!” I burst out. “Look at her tits. I’ll warrant she has pups under the house and those are the imps you saw.”
Burroughs was on his knees by the hole and now he brought out a squirming black pup. Four others followed. They ran to Tibby and despite her wounds began to nurse.
“Pups! Well, I’ll be switched!” Samuel Braybrook began to guffaw. Soon all the rest were laughing except Corwin, who muttered a curse, slung his dead beast over his shoulder and strode away.
He’d no sooner left than a well-dressed man carrying a tiny girl no older than three, and accompanied by a thin, sour-faced woman wearing a gray mantle with a silken hood and a cap of Colbertine lace joined the group.
“Have ye been about stirring up more trouble, Reverend Burroughs?” Mistress Ann Putnam confronted him.
“Nay, mistress,” I defended him. “He spared us a deal o’ pudder.”
The child was staring at me with big blue eyes, a fragile thing, like a tiny china doll.
“Is this the baby Anne?” I asked. “What a bonny lass!” The child held her arms out to me and I would have taken her in mine, but her father pulled her back roughly.
“We’ll have naught o’ you, Goody Esty,” Thomas Putnam growled, “not when your menfolk steal our rightful lands.”
“Lands awarded us by the court,” I replied quietly. The little girl leaned toward me again, her tiny hands reaching out for the buckle on my cloak.
Her mother slapped her hands. “Have naught to do with her, Anne. ’Tis said her mother was a witch.”
The child seemed to understand and began to shriek with terror.
“Let us pass,” they bade me, but they weren’t the Putnams, they were Damon and Charity, while the shrieking child was Rowan—and they were twisting and turning and fragmenting into nothing and I was floating up out of daylight into…
* * * *
…darkness again and a realization of throbbing in my head. How long I’d been lying on the cave floor I didn’t know. Gradually my mind began to sort things out. I raised my hand to my head and felt a warm, sticky liquid matting my hair. Slowly my eyes focused enough to make out the thin veil of light seeping into the chamber from the entrance. My assailant must have fled—I hoped. Painfully I began inching my way over the jagged floor. My hand closed over my broken flashlight—for a weapon if I should need it. Then something cut off the faint light from the entrance. Cautious footsteps and a swift pattering! I flattened myself to the floor and waited, my heart banging against the hard stone. But a warm tongue swiped my forehead, then yips and whines and excited barks as needle-like puppy teeth tugged at my arm. Macduff! And now strong arms were lifting me.
“Mitti! My God, what’s happened to you?” Greg touched my hair. “You’re bleeding!”
“Oh, Greg, thank God! I thought he’d come back and was going to kill me.”
“Who was it?”
“I don’t know. I just know someone attacked me. How did you and Macduff find me?”
“I dropped by your house. Darcy was outside looking for her cat.”
“Hasn’t she found Jupiter yet? Poor Darcy!”
“She said she’d seen you and Dr. Brun and Dana going off in this direction, looking as if you were about to make an assault on Mt. Everest. I told Macduff to make like a bloodhound. As you see, he shows great promise, although I wasn’t sure if he was after a rabbit or you. Where are the others?”
I couldn’t answer for shaking and laughing and crying all at the same time. His arms tightened around me and I could feel his heart beating against my cheek. It seemed so natural just to lean into him, letting my body melt into his. His lips brushed my neck, then followed hungrily up the curve of my chin until they found my mouth. My bruises and my injured finger were forgotten. Desire flamed within me, pleasure rippling up my spine and into my throat. After Owen I hadn’t thought it possible ever to feel like this again, but a new love had been born in me here in the darkness—new? No, this had happened before. I ran my fingers over his face as though it were braille—I had known these lips, the long narrow nose, the deep-set eyes, slightly curved brows, the cleft in his chin and the hair waving softly over his collar…
His hand tugged at a hairpin, unloosing the coil at the back of my head and the whole mass came cascading down around my shoulders. “Ah, Mary, I love thy hair—‘tis silken soft.”
“Aye, Will, I love thee—all of thee.”
“Will!” He pushed me away. “Why did you call me that?”
“I don’t know,” I murmured fuzzily. “You called me Mary.”
“I did what?” He was incredulous. “That was a nasty blow you had, Mitti.”
I tensed. “I’m not wandering in the head, if that’s what you’re thinking. What is it about you, Greg? When I’m with you I feel we’re two other people and it terrifies me.”
“You’re imagining things, Mitti. Anyone would after a blow like that. We’d better call the sheriff.”
I sat up. “No!”
“Why not?” My vehemence surprised him.
“Because it would—” I stopped. “I—I don’t like police investigations,” I said, letting myself lean against him again.
“All right,” he whispered, running his lips over my nose, “but we’ll have to have Damon check you out.”
“Not Damon—Dr. Brun.” I was getting sleepy. “Besides, I’m feeling fine now—just fine.”
“Don’t go to sleep on me, Mitti! You mustn’t!” His voice was sharp with concern.
“Don’t worry! I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”
“Nor I,” he breathed into my neck. “Oh, Mitti, ever since you came here I’ve been wanting to—what’s that?”
He broke off abruptly as a distant ring of metal on stone reverberated through the rock. “Where’s it coming from? Another level? Is that where Dr. Brun and Dana are?”
“Y-yes,” I faltered.
“Then this is—the cave?”
How could I answer without betraying Dana? “I don’t know,” I said. “We came out here today because of a—a deal Damon proposed last night. That’s why I don’t want him to look at my head. I don’t want anyone to know about this.”
Reporters are lousy lovers. “But, Mitti, this is terrific! If this is the cave, it’s a scoop! A worldwide scoop! I’ll bet the National Geographic will want to do a big spread on this!”
“Oh, you’re jumping to conclusions, Greg,” I protested. “You mustn’t…
“It’s all right, Mitti. W
e can trust him.”
Dana stood beside us, her lantern enveloping us in its circle of light. Immediately she was on her knees beside me. “You’ve been hurt! What happened?
“It’s not a deep cut,” she said, examining it while I was explaining. “Must have been a glancing blow, but you’re going to have a terrific headache. Did you see anyone leaving the cave, Greg?”
“No, I must’ve been just too late. Is it true—is this the cave?”
“Yes, but I beg you to keep our secret for the time being. No one must know about it—particularly Dr. Carrier.”
“You ask a lot of a newspaperman,” he sighed. “One condition though when you’re ready—I get first crack at the story!”
“Word of honor.”
“What did you find down there?” My curiosity was an excellent analgesic.
“Bones—pottery—bits of baskets—and this.” She held up a tiny blue glass bead. “The Mandans love the blue glass trade beads brought over by the early settlers. This is similar, but cruder. If it should match up with the beads the Welsh used to make on the Isle of Lundy, then we’d have a real clue. But it’s going to take time to do a scientific study. A part of the roof has caved in—”
“Weren’t you ever down there before?” I asked.
“No, my father wouldn’t take me into the lower chambers. He said they were too sacred to be seen by one whose hair had not grayed,” she explained. As she lifted her lantern she noticed the toppled formations for the first time.
“Someone’s been working here!” she hissed.
“Damon?” I suggested.
“I think we should notify the sheriff—or Jim Willard,” Greg said. “This would, after all, constitute trespass.”
“No, you mustn’t!” Dana was emphatic. “It’s not just Damon’s project—it’s something else—I don’t know what, but I feel it. I don’t like intruders here,” she added, swinging her lantern around and making the witches and corn shocks sway in a macabre dance. Macduff was sniffing out a scent that led him toward the inner chamber. “This is—a holy place to me,” she continued. We followed her to a remote corner of the cave, where her light flickered over a mortared wall.
The Witch and Warlock MEGAPACK ®: 25 Tales of Magic-Users Page 25