A crash of lightning startled her. “Ooh!” She tittered at herself. “That one got even me!”
She lowered her window a crack and listened to the thunder. “Something strange going on. Somewhere close.”
She scanned the sky until lightning flashed again. “Behind us, wasn’t it? My storm seems to sense a contingency.”
She drew the flask. “Turn us around, and I’ll give you a little sip.”
Chapter 29
Anatomy of Despair
Settlement era
Bennington went to the tiny, wooden-barred window and tried to peer out. It was too high, even for a man of his height, to see much more than the roofs of the main street’s other structures.
Turning to Jonas Cooke, stationed at a chair beside the door, he said “Can’t you let me take her place? Poor Chloris doesn’t deserve such abhorrent treatment.”
“And you do, good sir?” Jonas lit his pipe. “Is that a confession?”
Bennington knew it was pointless to answer. “Tell me then, Jonas. Was Hezekiah’s corpse there in my barn when you first searched? Or did you place it just before ‘finding’ it?”
Jonas approached without hiding his smugness. “Perhaps your false God will arrange your release, hmm?”
“Our God is the same.” Bennington went to the window wall and sat on the floor. “How deeply is your father involved with Conal’s scheme?”
“Don’t speak of my father,” warned Jonas.
“Only you then?”
“Best not to speak at all, perhaps.” Jonas placed the candle lantern closer to the holding cell but well outside of Bennington’s reach and settled in his seat.
* * * *
Chloris couldn’t imagine trying to sleep like this, stooped in the pillory. But some time had passed, perhaps an hour, during which she had not been so aware of her predicament. The air had grown cooler, the blue-gray cast of the moon upon the ground, brighter.
Her agony, deeper.
After a lifetime of labor-caused aches and pains, Chloris had never hurt this much. Her back, wrists, ankles and neck all bore a dull burn she couldn’t have imagined.
Relief was only a call—and a false confession—away. She shook her head violently, and instantly regretted it.
She wondered if she could somehow do herself in. Death seemed not like a terrifying plunge into the unknown but rather a sweet respite from the ever-increasing misery of her circumstances.
God forbade it—or so claimed the church.
Trying to conceive some method of suicide, if only as a distraction for now, Chloris suddenly had a sense that Death was already close. With its proximity came the sudden return of its inherent terror.
She would not betray Master Bennington. But she would call for Jonas and gladly accept his abuse if it forestalled this sudden certainty of imminent doom.
“Jonaaass!” she called, and again, louder.
* * * *
Bennington woke and stood from the floor, his joints crackling. For a moment, he was confused to find himself in this strange…
He was in the town jail, and it was his maid he heard, shouting as if the devil himself was upon her. His horror escalated when he recalled she was in the pillory
“Jonas!” he called. But the Cooke boy, whose father should have known was too deep a sleeper for night-watch duty, had his head back, dozing.
Chloris called again, more stridently than Bennington had ever heard.
He went to the wall of bars and used his own rumbling voice. “Ho!” Jonas popped up as if on a spring. “What is it!?”
“Chloris is calling for you!” said Bennington. “She’s in danger!”
“This best not be some scheme of escape,” warned Jonas, taking up his rifle. “My father and brothers are more vigilant than I.”
* * * *
It was at Sloane’s dry goods store, just behind her and to her right, that Death was, in the dark under the overhang.
“Come nowww, Jonas!” she screamed. Chloris could not see, hear or even smell anything unusual. She felt it. It was familiar, and terrible.
She was relieved to hear Bennington bellowing too. Soon the shopkeepers would rise and come to see. She had considered how much like a guillotine was this infernal device. Now it seemed like that exactly, a brace to hold her head still for removal. Chloris feared the curious would not arrive soon enough.
Sounds of movement from the jail eased her terror only a little. Jonas was coming, but in no hurry.
“Hush, woman!” he called. She did not obey.
His dirty boots appeared in her periphery, but reassurance did not accompany his appearance.
“Something’s there!” She tried pointing to it.
“If you want release, you may start confessing.” His voice carried groggy disdain. “Do you?”
“Yes. I will tell all.”
“And all means what?”
A scraping of wood from Sloane’s store sent her heart plunging into terror.
Jonas heard it too and spun fast. “Who’s there?”
“Halloween in you?” asked the shadow in a raspy voice.
Jonas’s rifle clashed with something heavy and fell away. Twisting her head to the point of near-unbearable pain, Chloris made out a silhouette against the dark blue sky.
An axe.
A fleshy thunk-crunch hinted to Chloris what had just happened. The two cloven halves of Jonas Cooke, falling messily to either side of her eye line, told her more.
“Yes!” said Everett Geelens. “There’s Halloween!”
Voices rose from nearby. The townsfolk, finally starting to rouse.
The familiar, burlap-clad face nearly touched Chloris’s. A groan of dismay came from behind it.
The axe rose again, then the sound of metal striking metal. A split second later, the chains closing the pillory fell to the ground.
Chloris pushed up the top board and fell to her knees, keeping her hands smashed against her eyes, certain the axe would fall on her next.
“Chloris!” called Bennington from his cell, the only other sound besides that of something heavy being dragged.
The moment of silence before shopkeeper John-David Sloane himself arrived seemed to Chloris longer than the hours she had spent in the pillory.
“Who’s making the disturbance h—?” Sloane’s complaint was cut short by his stunned shout.
Chloris finally opened her eyes.
His lamp held high, Sloane backed away from the corpse. But before the dark settled where the lamp had withdrawn, the dim candlelight revealed Everett’s handiwork: the two halves of Jonas Cooke, propped opposite each other on the bench, holding hands in some demented fraternal display.
Chapter 30
Cover My Eyes
Ten minutes later, anyone within earshot had thrown on a coat and made their way to the town square. Bennington continued to call out and demand to be freed. Given that the key to his cell was somewhere on one of the halves of Jonas Cooke, no one was making his release a priority.
John-David Sloane had covered Jonas’s body halves with a horse blanket. It was instantly soaked through with blood.
The townsfolk gathered in a three-quarter circle around the pillory, staying well clear of the bloody, blanketed lump in front of Sloane’s store. Someone had ridden hard to the Cooke house a mile away. Now they were riding back just as hard, with the Cooke men well in front.
“Someone come here and release me now!” Bennington called. Chloris felt guilty to be glad her master was going ignored by the muttering crowd. His integrity would dig graves for both of them.
Luckily, the clamor of Adonijah’s horses drew their attention. The people crowded together to make room for the remaining Cookes, who rode their horses right up to Sloan’s shop, hopping off the instant they stopped.
“What is that?” asked Adonijah, already teary-eyed.
“Jonas.” Sloane gestured grimly toward his bench. When Adonijah lunged to pull the blanket away, Sloane seized him in a tight embrace. “It’s better you don’t, Adoni.”
The patriarch pushed Sloane away and snatched hold of the blood-glossed horse blanket. He stopped himself from yanking it away at the last instant, instead drawing it carefully.
Cries of shock and horror emerged from everyone—except Adonijah. He stood as if frozen, holding the edge of the blanket in fingers going bone-white.
Conal O’Herlihy pushed through the cowering bystanders. “What is th…?”
With Conal suddenly shocked silent, clever Chloris saw her moment. She screamed, pointing at Conal’s feet. “I saw them!”
Their silence was promising. “Those feet! Those are the shoes of the man who killed Jonas!” She pointed at where Conal had stood to threaten her, where his footprints remained.
Adonijah knelt to examine Conal’s shoes.
“No! She’s…” Conal didn’t finish.
Elias lowered his lamp to the shoe print. “Have him to stand here, Father!”
Phineas and Rufus grabbed Conal’s arms and dragged him to the print.
“Careful!” Chloris cried. “He has a knife!”
Phineas made a quick search of the folds of Conal’s coat and found the bone knife Conal had taken from Schroeder—the one with which Conal had stabbed the corpse of Hezekiah Hardison. Rufus forced Conal’s feet into the footprints.
“Conal came and threatened me to make me say my master was guilty!” Chloris continued. “When Jonas came to confront him, they fought. Conal took up the axe, and…” Her sobbing was both calculated and genuine.
Adonijah had glowered at Conal since her first exclamation. Now, satisfied by the paltry evidence, the elder Cooke snarled as he charged Conal. “I’ll kill you here and now, bastard!”
The Cooke sons held the Irishman still to allow their father whatever vengeful act he wished.
“Adonijah Cooke, you listen to me!” From the jail, Bennington’s thundering voice finally cut through the rising discord.
“Say your piece later, Bennington!” Adonijah took the bone knife from Phineas.
Conal’s panicked pleading was silenced by Rufus’s meaty hand, as he yanked the Celt’s head back to expose his throat.
“Are we no longer men of law, Adoni?” Bennington shouted. “How will you serve this community and your Lord if you murder the man?”
Adonijah shook with rage. Everyone was silent for a terrible time. Then he released Conal. “Get Bennington out of that cell and put this filth in his stead.”
As the boys shoved him toward the jail, Conal caught the eyes of a handful of his followers and gave a subtle nod. They all slipped away, as the citizens remained to share their shock.
* * * *
Modern day
The rains increased, the scarlet lightning flashed longer and brighter, the animalistic growl of thunder sounded deeper and louder as the vigil for Ysabella progressed.
Though there was some flinching among the chanters, no one broke contact or concentration. Bernard squeezed the hands of his wife and daughter as if they might float away, articulating the strange words with the same intent he applied to complex chemistry problems, remembering what he had learned—and said to McGlazer—about the power of ceremony and focus.
“Okkala Boro-Tah Cam-Ura Taaaaaahn!” Brinke’s incantation was now a shout trumpeted to the heavens on the voice of one of its own warrior angels, insistent to the point of godliness.
“Okkala Boro-Tah Cam-Ura Tahn!” the chorus of well-witchers enjoined.
The sentience of Violina’s storm grew as well, the thunder becoming angrier, more disturbingly alive in response to every repetition. The roars funneled to every ear as if from mere inches away—yet all eyes remained closed, all hands remained joined, all voices continued in perfect rhythm.
“I pass this piece of my life into you, Ysabella!” cried Brinke. “This piece of my essence!”
The others were unsure whether to repeat these words. They continued with the earlier words, their insistence, if not the same elements Brinke gave, moving and passing into the crone.
“I pass THIS PIECE of my BEING into Ysabella Escher! My queen mother! My Self!”
The storm’s thunderous protest was wasted.
Ysabella rose from the bed and floated into the air on wings of Will, eyes, mouth and hands opening to unleash orbs of pure white light that warmed the faces of her attendants.
Brinke had anticipated the sudden power surge. As she was tossed from Ysabella, she grabbed Emera in a protective shell. The child giggled against her breast as they rolled onto the floor and away from the shaking bed, its sheets billowing as if from hurricane winds.
As the expulsion of light dimmed, Ysabella floated down to stand on the mattress, smiling at everyone around with joy and gratitude. Her eyes fell on Brinke and Emera.
“Oh, my beautiful girls!” she called “Thank you!”
* * * *
“Whoo!” said Violina. “’Tis a night not fit for man nor beast, aye, Kenny Killmore?”
Her use of Dennis’s stage name was as infuriating as the kisses she kept giving his cheeks.
“We should see my little pumpkin pets soon. The ones that are going to eat your friends and family, I mean. Including your petite little punker girl.”
She whirled toward him in a sudden flourish, with mock-imploring eyes. “Oh, Dennis! Could you? Would you…have me as your bride then?”
She giggled like a coyote and patted his groin. “Of course you would. But first, the inn. To see my old friend Ysabella. Should be fun, no?”
She drew the flask and raised it to Dennis’s mouth. “Take a sip, lover.”
He did, hating and loving the taste of alcohol spreading across his tongue.
“There we are.” She lidded it and tucked it back in her cleavage. “If you need more, just reach right in and take it.”
Dennis remained silent, knowing any threat would be meaningless without a physical will to enforce it. But he did not give up hope, even as he felt his arms turn the wheel to take the hearse into the Blue Moon Inn’s parking lot.
“I want you to go up there to Ysabella’s room and kill her,” Violina said, thinking. “But I can’t decide how…Any suggestions?”
Dennis could not resist. “I bet if you had me tear you limb from limb, she would just be heartbroken.”
“That is good,” Violina began. “But only half of it, really. Hey! What if I had you kill all of her little friends right in front of her!?”
Dennis now regretted his satisfying burst of sarcasm.
“Let’s do that!” She opened the door and donned a raincoat over her robe, then popped up her umbrella. “Use this!” She handed him Matilda Saxon’s athame.
Dennis didn’t bother trying to swallow the rainwater this time, feeling more than a little foolish for ever thinking such a desperately contrived scheme would work in the first place.
Something told him Jill was up in that room, with Ysabella.
He tried to drop the knife, then to raise it to stab himself anywhere he could, preferably a vital organ or artery.
Violina sashayed into the lobby and rang the desk bell for service. “Should I do the talking, or…?”
Inn proprietor Lonnie Duckworth eventually appeared from the room behind the desk, his pristine blue oxford-cloth shirt wildly contrasting with his rumpled and stained, ill-fitting khakis.
“Hi, Lon,” charmed Violina. “We’re here to check on poor Ysabella.”
“She’s pretty sick, I think,” Lonnie said. “You sure you want to risk catching it?”
“I’m just afraid she might not be around much longer,” said Violina. “I…want to make sure I get my good
byes out.”
“Oh, yeah,” Lonnie said. “Go on up.”
“Call the sheriff,” Dennis said.
“Huh?”
“Dennis has the worst sense of humor,” Violina explained. “Now, Dennis, don’t say another word to our host, naughty boy.”
He didn’t, because he couldn’t. But he stared pure intention at Lonnie, who stared back in confusion.
“Come along, Dennis,” Violina sang.
Dennis issued a strange grunt as he followed her to the elevator, further confusing the innkeeper.
Once inside, Ysabella raised a rebuking finger to his face. “You are testing the very limits of my patience, punk boy.”
She glowered at him like a cruel mother, and he was helpless to fire back with his Johnny Rotten–style sneer.
“You just take that little knife out of your pocket, mister.”
He did.
“Now. Let’s see you get all emo. Jab yourself right in the tummy with it,” she mocked. “Slowly.”
Dennis pressed the point against his stomach, hoping the elevator would open before he could pierce his leather jacket, that someone would be there when it did, so she would be forced to make him stop.
Better yet, if only he could trick her into making him stab her.
Alas, the elevator opened onto an empty hallway gently washed with ambient lighting.
“You can speak now,” she allowed. “Or cry. Whatever.”
She said he “could,” not “must.” He stoically resisted doing either. The point of Matilda’s athame finally pushed through the leather and pierced his lower stomach a half inch deep.
“All right, stop and pull it out, little boy.” She waved him forward as she stepped from the elevator. “Save the real stabbing for…”
A door opened at the end of the carpeted hall…and out stepped his mother. “Dennis?”
“Ma!”
“Your mother? Oh, my dark gods, this simply could not be better!” Violina clasped her hands together like an excited child preparing to blow out a birthday candle. “Run down there and stab her in the heart. Be sure and look her in the eyes until she stops moving.”
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