The Suicide Lake (Book of Shadows 2)

by Michael Penning

  “I have no intention of condemning you.” A mirthless smile crossed the priest’s face.

  “May I ask why not?”

  “Because evidently I need your help—we need your help.” Carnes gave a weary sigh as he took a seat on the pew. “Yesterday morning, Evelyn MacIntyre came to confession for the first time since her arrival in Tahawus. We sat together in this very pew. She told me she was happy here, that she felt as if God had blessed her in her new home. But now, only a day later, she is dead by her own hand.”

  Carnes paused and bowed his head. “Five of my flock are now dead, Ms. Jacobs. In spite of everything that I hold to be true, I cannot help but believe that some evil hand is at work in this village. If there is any truth to what you say—if you can somehow shed some light on whatever malevolent darkness afflicts us—then we are in no position to refuse. Indeed, we would be in your debt.”

  Abigail gave him a mistrustful look. “What of the rest of your congregation? What will they make of your decision to harbor a professed witch among your parishioners?”

  Carnes gave her a sage smile. “They will understand if I ask them to, Ms. Jacobs. From what I hear, Ned Fitch is already under the impression that you were once a nurse. Gossip sometimes has its value in a village such as this. You did save Hannah Gill’s life, and while it may take some time, I’m confident I can reassure the villagers of your, shall we say... scientific intentions. However, while my flock may come to welcome your enlightened wisdom, they would never accept your true methods. While you are here, you must promise me that you will abstain from practicing sorcery of any kind.”

  A moment passed as Abigail considered this unexpected turn of events. She still wasn’t convinced she could trust the priest, but she didn’t see any other alternative—not if she wanted to stop the suicides.

  “You have my promise,” she said at last.

  Carnes turned Abigail’s Book of Shadows over in his lap and gazed down at the pentacle emblazoned on the crimson leather. “In the meantime, I will safeguard this as a guarantee that you keep your vow.”

  Abigail’s eyes narrowed dangerously and her voice went low and deadly serious. “I’m afraid that is quite out of the question.”

  “And I’m afraid it is the price of my trust in you, Ms. Jacobs. You must understand the position into which I am being placed by defending you. Given the display you put on today, it will be hard enough to persuade my congregation that you cured Hannah Gill through the use of modern medicine alone. While your knowledge of the occult may prove valuable in defeating this evil, there are limits to what I am willing to accept in the process. As long as you are among my people—as long as I am expected to defend you against their accusations—you shall not be in possession of a book such as this.” Carnes gazed at her, his cool green eyes meeting hers and absorbing her glare. “Are we agreed?”

  Abigail’s blood simmered with outrage, but she saw there was no flexibility in the priest’s gaze. “We are agreed,” she conceded, barely able to get the words passed her lips. “But know this: if any harm should come to that book, the hurt I will bring upon you will be tenfold.”

  Chapter 19

  Heath MacIntyre uncovered the stones with his bare hands. It took hours of toiling alone deep in the woods, prying the rocks from the forest floor as the rain trickled in cold streams through the boughs. Twilight was looming by the time he had amassed all that he needed to bury his dead wife.

  The darkening sky hung low and oppressive like a heavy curtain as Heath stopped to catch his breath. His hair dangled over his face in long, wet strands and rain dribbled from his thick goatee. His sodden clothes lay plastered against his massive frame. Raindrops ran in rivulets across the alabaster skin of Evelyn’s corpse where it lay on a thicket to Heath’s left. He had cleansed her himself. It was a womanly duty but he wouldn’t tolerate anyone else assuming the responsibility. With nothing to use as a winding sheet, he had stripped his wife of her blood-soaked chemise and dressed her in her only gown before carrying her off into the forest where no one would look for them.

  And yet, as he gazed down at her now, Heath had a fleeting notion that he should simply leave her there for the animals. Evelyn had forsaken her way with God. With her eternal soul was now lost to Him, of what good were her earthly remains?

  “No,” Heath croaked aloud as he hovered over her body in the gathering gloom. After all the suffering his poor wife had been subjected to in her lifetime, she was at least owed a decent burial. Heath wouldn’t let the scavengers ravage her remains, nor would he let Father Carnes burn her body as if she were some heathen.

  “Cuiridh mi clach air do charn,” he whispered in ancient Gaelic. I will put a stone on your cairn.

  Sinking to his knees, Heath began to claw at the forest floor with his hands. At first, the soggy earth came away in clumps, but he was soon obliged to use his axe to hack through the dense tangle of tree roots beneath the surface. It was hard work and Heath had plenty of time to contemplate all that had transpired since dawn. Over and over, his mind kept returning to the same, all-possessing thought: the witch.

  Heath would never fathom Father Carnes’ decision to tolerate the Jacobs woman’s presence in the village. It seemed unthinkable. She isn’t a threat to us, Carnes had argued just that afternoon—only hours before Heath had come to claim Evelyn’s corpse. The only magic she wields is that of science. She is here to help us; she can be trusted.

  Heath knew better.

  As long as sinners walked among them in Tahawus, God would punish them all. Gamblers like Hawes and Gill; drinkers like Prue; heretics like Beaulieu and even Heath’s own dear Evelyn—all had fallen under the Almighty’s wrathful eye and had been cleansed of their sins by blood or fire.

  And now there was this Jacobs woman. It was bad enough that the villagers were forced to endure the presence of that heathen savage, Josiah Benedict. Now a witch walked among them, fouling them all by her very presence. She was the reason Evelyn was dead. Heath’s wife had shown the witch kindness and had been damned for it.

  An hour passed and nightfall was close at hand by the time Heath hit the solid mountain bedrock and was forced to stop digging. In that time, he had gotten no further than a knee-deep depression in the earth the length of Evelyn’s body. It wasn’t much, but it would do. Moving to the thicket, Heath gathered his dead wife in his arms. Her limbs fell aside and dangled listlessly as he raised her up and lowered her gently into the shallow grave.

  Heath lit his lantern. With trembling hands, he then removed a heavy stone from the waist-high pile and placed it over Evelyn’s feet. The cold and heavy sensation of the rock in his palms transported him back to the day he had entombed his father beneath a cairn just like this one. There, on the desolate seacoast of Caithness, Evelyn had stood by Heath’s side, even in her grief over the indignities she had suffered at the hands of that hateful man, Patrick Sellar. She had held Heath’s hand as the piper played the coronach dirge. She had wept as Father Magraith delivered the liturgy. She had helped build the cairn for the Rite of Committal.

  One after another, Heath now steadily piled more stones upon Evelyn’s body. From time to time, a sharp clack would ring through the forest as a wet stone slipped across the heap. The memory of Father Magraith stirred something in Heath. The old Highland priest had been wise and pious—nothing like this foolish whelp, Carnes. Magraith had known what the Bible said about witchcraft. He had cautioned his flock to be wary of the devil’s snares. Even in this godless land of America, Heath had not forgotten those admonitions. He could still hear the echoes of Magraith’s gravelly baritone as he preached the words of Deuteronomy: Who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, casts spells, or who consults the dead is detestable to God.

  If sorcery was an abomination to the Lord, then so was Abigail Jacobs.

  Evelyn was all but buried now. Only her blank and ashen face remained. Her skin was almost opalescent in the lambent glow of the lantern. Heath allo
wed himself one final look, one final hope that those beautiful green eyes might somehow flutter open.

  Then he put the final stones into their places and his wife was gone.

  The sounds of the night creatures had arisen around him. At their haunting, lonely song, Heath had a vague recollection of the dreadful rumors sweeping through the village. Something evil dwells in the forest, something that drives people to kill themselves...

  Heath knew he had nothing to fear. Whatever was in these woods wasn’t evil. It was a thing of glory.

  It was God’s fury incarnate.

  Heath was a righteous man. In spite of all he had endured—the loss of home, family, wife, and child—he remained faithful. Even in the face of such afflictions, he would prove he was still God’s devoted servant. If the Lord was angry with the people of Tahawus, then Heath would be the one to make atonement for them all. He alone would put on the armor of God to stand against the devil’s schemes and rid the village of the Lord’s enemies.

  And he would begin with Abigail Jacobs.

  Chapter 20

  The door to Josiah Benedict’s cabin creaked inward and his slender silhouette appeared in the frame.

  “Good evening, Mr. Benedict,” said Abigail from where she stood in the rain, illuminated by the orange glow that spilled out from the open door. “May I enter?”

  The precipitation had intensified since nightfall and the inky blackness of the forest was alive with the trickle and patter of water penetrating the boughs. Distant peals of thunder reverberated across the high peaks. Another hour and the worst of the storm would roll over the sleeping village.

  Josiah’s face was obscured by shadows but Abigail could see glints of candlelight glittering off his black eyes as he studied her in silence. He was barefoot and dressed in a flannel undershirt and buckskin breeches. He remained there a moment with his hand resting on the latch. Then his shape receded and the door swung shut in her face.

  “Mr. Benedict, I will not leave your doorstep until I have spoken to you!” Abigail rapped her knuckles against the hard wood. From the other side there was only silence. She was about to knock even more forcibly when there came the hushed sounds of footfalls. The door swung open.

  “It is not right for a woman to be here,” Josiah muttered. These were the first words Abigail had ever heard the man speak. He uttered them with the gruff and halting inflection of his native tongue. His voice was deep and held the slightest hint of a rasp. “You must go now.”

  Abigail’s hand shot out and caught the door as it came swinging toward her once again. “Mr. Benedict, I appreciate your apprehension at my presence here in the middle of the night, but you have my word that no one else need know about my visit.”

  “Your word,” Josiah humphed derisively.

  “Mr. Benedict, by now you have no doubt heard what I am capable of?”

  Josiah nodded once, his long topknot swaying like a horsetail. “You are Medicine Lady.”

  Abigail gave a thin smile. “Yes, that is a very kind way of putting it. Tell me, do you know why I have come to Tahawus?”

  Josiah’s eyes narrowed to black points. “You are here to stop the dying.”

  “Precisely. And I will need your help to do it.”

  Even through the shadows and rain, Abigail could see the intrigue gathering on Josiah’s leathery face. He hesitated a moment longer, eyeing her suspiciously before finally stepping aside to let her enter.

  The interior of the cabin was nearly as spartan as Abigail’s own. A beeswax candle burned on the nightstand. Next to it sat a clay tobacco pipe, a pair of cheap glass tumblers, and half a bottle of what looked to be whiskey. There were two mismatched chairs in the room. Abigail presumed the second was reserved for Josiah’s only known associate, Glenn Colvin. Josiah’s red soldier’s jacket hung from a peg, as did his leather satchel and the blue sash he always wore. His Baker rifle was propped next to the door. The rest of his weapons—his knives and tomahawk—were arranged on a crude birchwood shelf along with his iron jewelry and eagle feathers. A small fire burned in the woodstove and the sweet smell of tobacco smoke hung thick in the air.

  Abigail shrugged out of her wet cloak, draped it over a seatback, and sat, her gaze gravitating to the whiskey bottle on the nightstand. “May I help myself, Mr. Benedict? I find myself with a chill in my bones.”

  Ignoring the bewilderment that bloomed on Josiah’s face, Abigail uncorked the bottle and poured two fingers of whiskey in each tumbler. She took a gulp, the burn of the liquor feeling good as it spread within her.

  “As you can see, I’ve no use for trivial notions of decorum,” she admitted. “And you’ve no reason to be ill at ease in my presence. Please...” She motioned to the other chair. “Make yourself comfortable. We have many things to discuss and our conversation may take some time.”

  Josiah remained standing, scrutinizing her as if sniffing out a trap. A deep rumbling of thunder sent a vibration through the cabin while Abigail waited for his curiosity to get the best of him. At last, he relented and sat, his bowlegs slightly apart and his spine straight and rigid. Abigail offered him the second tumbler and he took it with a circumspect frown.

  “Josiah Benedict is your Christian name, is it not?” Abigail asked between sips of her drink.

  Josiah nodded. The whiskey sat untasted in his hand.

  “May I ask what your name is in your own language?”

  There was a flicker of amusement in Josiah’s otherwise stoic expression. “I fear you would not pronounce it correctly.”

  “Surely there is an English translation?”

  Josiah went quiet for a moment, then said, “River Stone.”

  “River Stone. A very beautiful name. May I ask how you earned it?”

  “My village stood on the shores of Penobscot, a great river in the land you now call Maine. I spent many hours standing in the water, hunting fish. I could not move for fear of scaring my catch. I stood like a stone in the river. And so, that is what my people called me.”

  “May I call you that?”

  Josiah shifted in his seat and inclined his head slightly.

  “Splendid. River Stone, I want to ask you some questions about the mountains to the north.” Abigail noticed Josiah still had not tasted his whiskey. His eyes remained unreadable as he gazed at her. “Duncan Emmons has told me you call those lands empty. Why is that?”

  “Because nothing lives there.”

  “Nothing at all?”

  “So says Mohawk legend,” Josiah replied simply.

  “Is that why you use the Mohawk word for that place?”

  He nodded. “Anachaju.”

  “Were there any Mohawk settlements in this area before the white people came?”

  “Never. For a time, Mohawk from the eastern valleys came to these lands for hunting grounds, but they soon believed the land was ruled by Tawiskaron and never returned.”

  “Who is Tawiskaron?”

  “The Dark Twin Spirit who delights in destroying the creations of his brother, Tharonhiawakon.”

  Abigail felt a thrill of promise. “Tell me more about this dark spirit.”

  Josiah gave her a mistrustful look.

  “Please, River Stone,” Abigail coaxed. “You do want to help me end the suicides, don’t you?”

  After another moment’s hesitation, Josiah said, “It is an ancient Mohawk story. When Tharonhiawakon, the Light Twin, created gentle animals like deer, his evil brother, Tawiskaron, created the wolf to devour it. When Tharonhiawakon created the rose, Tawiskaron gave it thorns. When Tharonhiawakon created fields that were wide and flat and easy to sow, Tawiskaron brought tall mountains to stand among them. When Tharonhiawakon created rivers that were long and calm and easy to paddle, Tawiskaron gave them turns and rapids to make them treacherous. And when Tharonhiawakon created man... Tawiskaron created monsters to walk among him.”

  Abigail’s chair creaked as she leaned back again and murmured, “For every good there is an equivalent evil.” />
  Josiah nodded. “As you say. What one brother creates, the other seeks to undo.”

  There was a brief pause as Abigail drained her glass. A sudden, booming crack of thunder rattled the room as she reached for the bottle and poured herself another. “What can you tell me about these monsters that Tawiskaron created?”

  The sound of the rain drumming on the roof filled the silence until Josiah spoke again. “They are to man as wolf is to deer: they hunt and they feed.”

  “Are they still among us?”

  Josiah shrugged. “When Tharonhiawakon saw what his evil brother had done, he swept Tawiskaron’s monsters up into Sky World where they could do no more harm. But whenever Tharonhiawakon is not looking, Tawiskaron tries to steal back his evil beasts, to turn them loose on his most beloved lands where they feast on mortals, away from the eyes of his brother.”

  “How exactly do these creatures feast?”

  “Tawiskaron’s monsters began as man and it is through man that they feed. When they hunt, it is as men... and when they feast, it is from within.”

  Abigail took a moment to consider his words. “River Stone, what you are describing very much resembles what I call possession. Once brought into this world, the monster inhabits the body of a man and compels him to destruction, essentially feasting on him from the inside.”

  Josiah shrugged indifferently. “As you say.”

  “Can they be killed? These monsters?”

  This time, Josiah shook his head. “No. But they can be banished back to Sky World.”

  “How?”

  “By killing the man who is hosting it.”

  The room went quiet as Abigail contemplated Josiah’s story, looking for connections to the suicides. With the steady sound of the rain filling the silence, she felt a growing impatience, like the constant ticking of a clock in her ear. How much longer did she have before another villager committed suicide? And what if Father Carnes failed to persuade his followers to accept her help? How long did she have before they eventually turned on her? How long until she found herself hanged by the very people she was trying to save?