Thoreau on Wolf Hill

by Oak, B. B.

  Kitty looked scandalized. “That is a mighty long time to make do with the same old décor! If you are ever inclined to change it, I will be happy to assist you, for I do so enjoy decorating.”

  “Let’s do it then,” I said. “This room really could do with a refreshing. It has harbored much sadness.”

  Kitty’s ever-changing countenance became most sympathetic. “Were you very sad here as a girl?”

  “Oh, I cried myself to sleep many a night after my mother died. But in the morning I would leap out of bed and run off to find Adam. We were exceedingly happy together. So there is no reason to feel sorry for me, Kitty. The sadness I referred to has to do with another.”

  “Will you tell me who?” Kitty perched on the edge of the bed and looked at me most expectantly.

  “My great-great-aunt Eugenia. She bore a child in this room, and it died within hours,” I said. “I only learned of this when I came back to nurse my grandfather. He thought the time had come to tell me of my Walker heritage. You see, Eugenia’s baby was most horribly deformed, and she had only herself to blame for it. She had done the most irresponsible thing possible. Not only had she fallen in love with her first cousin, she had married him.”

  “Queen Victoria is married to her first cousin,” Kitty said, sounding rather indignant that I should cast aspersions upon the English monarchy. “And in the last seven years the dear queen and her consort have produced five handsome children who seem perfectly healthy.”

  “I know nothing about royal blood lines, only mine,” I said. “Walker unions of cousins in the past have resulted in babes with similar tragic birth defects. And there is no reason to think it will not happen again if Walker cousins would be so reckless as to mate.”

  Kitty’s eyes widened in sudden understanding. “Such as you and Dr. Walker!”

  “Yes. He deserves a wife who can give him a normal family.”

  Mrs. Swann entered the chamber at that moment without bothering to knock. “Oh, I did not know you had company, Julia,” she said, glancing at Kitty. “I came in to dust.” She brandished a rag.

  As I introduced my newly industrious housekeeper to Kitty, I threw a shawl over my shoulders to cover myself. As comfortable as I had been to be with Kitty in just my shimmy and stays, I did not feel so in front of Mrs. Swann.

  Kitty regarded Mrs. Swann most intently. “I do believe I know you,” she said.

  “Well, my dear, I do not know you.”

  “But surely we must have met before.”

  “I cannot fathom how. I have only recently come to Plumford.”

  “I too am a recent resident,” Kitty said. “I come from England originally.”

  “Never been there,” Mrs. Swann said.

  “What about Boston? I sewed costumes at various theater companies there before I married.”

  “How interesting,” Mrs. Swann said blandly. It was clear that she was not the least bit interested. “I’ll come back later to dust,” she told me.

  “Do not let me interfere with your work, Mrs. Swann,” Kitty said, springing off the bed. “I must be off anyway. Mr. Lyttle is attending a town meeting this evening, and I want to prepare an early supper before he departs. This shall be the first evening we are separated since we wed, and I fear I will be quite lonely. Here’s a jolly idea! Why don’t you both stop by for a visit?”

  “I have promised Justice Phyfe that I will sit with his ill daughter whilst he presides over the meeting,” I said.

  “What is this meeting about?” Mrs. Swann said.

  “Revenants!” Kitty said. “The townsmen are getting together to decide on how to deal with the growing fear of them. A vote shall be taken.”

  “So of course women are excluded,” I put in, “since we cannot vote. That makes no sense to me.”

  “It does to me,” Mrs. Swann said. “Is it not a man’s world?”

  “Indeed it is. But why should it be?”

  “Now, now, Julia.” Mrs. Swann patted my arm. “Let the menfolk do all the hard work of running things, and let us ladies reap all the benefits.”

  “But why should we have to rely on them for our benefits?”

  “My dear, any female who looks like you should not have any trouble benefiting from men.” Mrs. Swann gave me a wink. “And you, Mrs. Lyttle, are a delightful creature yourself. You must have that husband of yours eating out of your little paw.”

  Kitty smiled and blushed and gave Mrs. Swann another close look. “I am certain I have met you before. Sooner or later it will come to me where, for I never forget a face. Perhaps if you call on me this evening we can sort out where our paths might have crossed. I live just across the Green in the yellow house with blue shutters.”

  “I would very much like to call on you, Mrs. Lyttle, but I too am engaged this evening,” Mrs. Swann said. “I have promised the dear boy who resides here that I will read to him out of The Last of the Mohicans. And I would be loath to disappoint him.”

  How delighted I was to hear that Mrs. Swann and Noah have at last become friends! And that reminds me. I must go hunt up a book to read to Arabel this evening when I visit. Something lighthearted and romantic. Emma perhaps. Miss Austen may be out of fashion, but she delights all the same. I am sure there is a copy around here somewhere, for I recall Grandmother Walker reading it to Mother as she lay in her sickbed.

  ADAM’S JOURNAL

  Tuesday, December 14

  Reason reigned in Plumford earlier this evening, but after the horror that shortly followed, I doubt it will continue to hold sway.

  Our Selectmen had called a special meeting to decide what to do about the growing vampyre terror in our town, and both Henry and I attended to recount what we had witnessed at the Wiley farm. Our description of Solomon Wiley’s callous, brutal treatment of his own niece’s corpse brought gasps and groans from all the sane men present and did much to influence the vote that followed two hours later, after everyone had said his piece. How Wiley did glare at me when I testified against him, and how I did glare back at him. But I reckon he had as much a right to be there as any man. He was even allowed to speak in his own defense, which he did most effectively. His voice is deep and persuasive, and he can sway a crowd like a revivalist tent preacher. But ’tis common sense that usually wins out with us Yankees, and it did so at the meeting. After Justice Phyfe expressed how injurious to businesses of every sort it would be if Plumford got the reputation of being a vampyre-crazed town that condoned the barbaric desecration of the dead, a law was passed banning the disinterment of corpses. The penalty for breaking it shall be arrest, a heavy fine, and immediate expulsion. Wiley thundered out of the Meetinghouse and headed for the tavern. The rest of us departed with more decorum and less speed, lingering on the steps of the Meetinghouse to chat about less disturbing matters for a while, our confab centering on the going market price for milk and the possibility of a gunpowder factory’s being built on the Assabet.

  As Henry and I crossed the Green a few minutes later, the tailor Micah Lyttle came running toward us from his house. He too had attended the meeting but had not stayed as long to palaver.

  “You must come help my wife, doctor!” he cried. We hurried back to his house and entered through the front door. “In there!” he said, pointing toward the kitchen.

  The coppery scent of blood immediately hit my nostrils, and we found Mrs. Lyttle lying facedown on the floor by the back door. Henry picked up the lamp on the table and held it over her immobile figure. Blood pooled beneath her head and upper torso, spreading over the floor boards. I knelt and lowered my head close to hers. She was not breathing, and the eye visible to me was open and unblinking, the pupil dilated.

  “Please save her,” Mr. Lyttle implored, hovering in the shadows.

  I stood and went to him. “I am sorry, but there is nothing I can do. She is already gone.”

  “Nooooo!” Mr. Lyttle wailed and covered his face with his hands.

  Led him to the parlor and sat him down on the sofa, where I
left him staring blindly ahead, too stunned to feel anything yet. Shock offers a brief reprieve from pain.

  Returned to the kitchen, and Henry and I studied Mrs. Lyttle’s procumbent body. One arm was folded beneath her torso and the other extended out and to the side, fingertips touching the whitewashed stucco wall, which was lightly daubed with blood. We carefully turned her over. Blood soaked her fair hair and the side of her face that had lain in the pool. The cause of death was clearly evident. Her jugular vein had been slashed. She was wearing only a velvet dressing gown, and the belt had come undone. Henry looked away as I covered her nakedness and retied the belt.

  “That she fell facedown tells me that her throat was cut from behind,” Henry said.

  “Her heart kept pumping until she bled to death,” I said. “Thankfully, that was in a matter of minutes. Three at the most.”

  “How long ago did she die?” he said.

  Bent down and gently moved her head from side to side. “At the longest, three hours ago. Her eyes have not yet filmed over, and the muscles around her jaw have not begun to stiffen.”

  “Well, ’tis certain the husband didn’t do it,” Henry said.

  I had never for a moment thought that Lyttle had! But I could not help but ask Henry how he could be so certain.

  “We know Mr. Lyttle came home from the town meeting no more than ten minutes ago,” Henry said. “Although that would have given him sufficient time to kill his wife, it is not enough time for the blood that poured out of her wound and formed a pool around her to have congealed around the edges the way it has. And if he had killed her before he went to the meeting, the blood would have dried up far more. It appears to be still moist, however.”

  I dipped my forefinger into the dark red puddle and rubbed it against my thumb. “It has thickened some,” I said. “It would take about an hour for this amount of blood to coagulate to this consistency, I estimate.”

  Henry directed his attention to the back door. “The bolt has been slid back. It appears that Mrs. Lyttle willingly opened the door to her murderer.”

  “Then it must have been someone she knew,” I said. “A lady wearing only her dressing gown would not likely open her door to a stranger.”

  “Nor to any man she knew other than her own husband,” Henry said.

  “Or her lover.”

  Henry gave me a sharp look, but said nothing.

  “Well, I very much doubt a woman killed her,” I said. “It would have taken a great deal of strength to hold her from behind with one hand and cut her throat with the other.”

  Henry directed his attention to blood streaks staining the wall in the area where Mrs. Lyttle’s hand had been positioned before we turned her over. “That looks to be writing.” He lowered the lamp to shine on the markings. “R E V,” he read out. “The poor woman spent her last bit of life force scrawling those characters with her own blood. They could be her killer’s initials or the first letters of his name.”

  We went to the parlor to see if Mr. Lyttle could tell us what the letters stood for. He had not moved a muscle since I had left him there. I addressed him, but he did not turn toward my voice. He was in another realm, no doubt as far away from reality as his mind could take him.

  Henry sat down beside him. “Mr. Lyttle,” he said in a soothing voice, “you must help us find your wife’s murderer.”

  Lyttle roused himself. “Kitty was murdered?”

  “Her throat was cut, and she bled to death.”

  Lyttle began slapping at his own face. “Awake! Awake from this nightmare!” he bade himself. And then he slid back into an unreachable reverie.

  There was a knocking on the front door, and I opened it to Constable Beers. He had not been at the town meeting, and from the fumes emanating from him, I surmised he had spent yet another evening at the tavern.

  “Good Evening, doctor,” he said, holding onto the porch railing to steady himself. “I trust you are here on a social rather than a patient call.”

  “Neither,” I replied curtly. Beers was the last person I wished to see at the moment.

  “Well, I am here on official business myself,” he said. “I have been calling house to house round the Green to inquire about a stranger seen in the vicinity earlier this evening. Indeed, Widow Jasper went so far as to hunt me down at the Sun to report that this suspicious individual looked right into her kitchen window and ogled her. She is sure it was the Plumford Night Stalker.”

  “I am afraid there is something far worse than an old lady’s imaginings that you must deal with tonight, constable,” I reluctantly informed him. And with that I beckoned Beers in and led him to the kitchen.

  “God save us!” he bellowed, shrinking back from the sight of Mrs. Lyttle’s body. “Another throat clawed open!”

  “The tool used to cut this poor lady’s throat was not the same as the one that ripped open Bidwell’s throat, as you can plainly see,” Henry said in a reasonable tone.

  But Constable Beers would not look at the body again. Instead, his eyes darted everywhere else around the small kitchen. “Are those devil symbols?” he said, pointing to the bottom of the wall. He has amazingly sharp eyes for a drunken dolt.

  “They are simply letters of the alphabet. Mrs. Lyttle wrote them out in her own blood before she expired,” Henry informed him.

  Beers leaned toward them for a closer look. “R E V,” he said aloud, as slowly as a child reciting from his hornbook. He straightened abruptly. “Revenant! Her murderer was a revenant!”

  And that was that. No matter that the inquest that followed was conducted without one mention of revenants, and the only conclusion reached was that Mrs. Lyttle had been murdered most heinously. The eyes of the jury members and the coroner kept skidding back to the letters on the wall. And even though Constable Beers held his tongue at the inquest, it is doubtful he will do so at the tavern.

  Mr. Lyttle, meanwhile, speaks not at all. Beers brought him to stay the night at the Widow Jasper’s house next door. Tomorrow I shall endeavor to get more information from him.

  JULIA’S NOTEBOOK

  Wednesday, 15 December

  Kitty Lyttle is dead. Clever, cheerful, charming Kitty. Who could be so vile as to have murdered her? Half the town believes she was slain by the Plumford Night Stalker. And I confess that I half believe it myself after talking with the Widow Jasper today.

  ’Twas last evening that I learned of Kitty’s murder, whilst still at the Phyfe house. Justice Phyfe had just come home from the town meeting and was thanking me for watching over Arabel when Constable Beers pounded on the door to relate the horrific news. He declared that a revenant had done the deed. Justice Phyfe enjoined Beers to keep his foolish theories to himself, but since when has Beers ever done that?

  The two men walked me home and went on to inform Mr. Daggett that he must once again gather together a Coroner’s Jury to convene over a body. I went inside and found my two housemates sound asleep in the parlor—Noah sprawled on the sofa and Mrs. Swann in Grandfather’s rocker, The Last of the Mohicans lying facedown upon her lap. I was sorry to disturb their innocent peace, but awake them I did. After sending Noah up to his bed, I told Mrs. Swann what had happened to Kitty. She took me in her arms, and we wept together. I was most appreciative to have another woman’s sympathetic company.

  This afternoon Adam asked me to accompany him to Widow Jasper’s house, where Micah Lyttle is staying until he recovers his wits. Adam hoped that, because of my friendship with Kitty, I might be able to get Micah to talk about last night’s events. Mrs. Jasper led us into her parlor, informing us that Micah had spent the night seated in a straight-back chair, barely moving a muscle, never forming a word.

  “Tried to spoon-feed him some porridge this morn,” she said, “but he would not even open his mouth to take nourishment. So I am in doubt he will do so to talk to you.”

  I took off my bonnet and cape and pulled up a chair beside Micah. He did not acknowledge my presence, and I do not think he even recognized
me. He was numb to the world around him, and I could think of no way to get through to him. I blathered some inanities about how Kitty was in a better place now and patted his arm. He gazed down at my hand, or rather at the cuff of my sleeve. It was decorated with an embroidered daisy, and he began stroking the raised stitching. ’Twas one of the blouses Kitty had so recently sewn up for me, and he must have recognized her work.

  “She thought the garment too plain and charged me not a penny extra for the decorative embroidery,” I told him.

  “How like her,” he said. “How very like her.”

  And then he commenced to cry with abandon, his face pressed against my shoulder. His tears were so copious they soaked through the muslin fabric of my blouse. Adam, seated across from me, looked on silently, patiently, compassionately. I remember how he had let me cry like this on his shoulder after my mother died fifteen years ago. Oh, what a friend he was to me then!

  As suddenly as Micah had started weeping, he stopped. He straightened himself up, adjusted his rumpled cravat, and cleared his throat. “Whoever killed my Kitty must be made to pay for it,” he said.

  “Then tell us all you can to help make that happen,” I urged him. “Did Kitty have any enemies?”

  “Does an angel have enemies? Everyone she encountered loved her. Little children would run after her in the Boston Garden. Even the vain actors she sewed costumes for at the theater adored her.”

  “What theater was this?” Adam said.

  “The Howard. I induced her to come away with me to Plumford, where I thought she would be happy and safe.” He pressed his fists against his head. “How stupid I am! We should have gone back to Boston after that young man was found murdered on Wolf Hill!”

  “Perhaps the murders are connected,” Adam said.

  “How could they be?” Micah asked hoarsely. “Did I not just tell you that my Kitty had no enemies?”