Chapter Forty-Nine Ashley
FORTY-NINE ASHLEY
Oh, thank goodness you came!” Josephine exclaimed. “You’ll be safe here.”
The three of them stood in her living room, the faces of hundreds of clothespin dolls—the dead of Boone’s Ferry—looking at them. Ashley glanced at the shelf where the tiny figures of their great-grandparents, Thomas and Margaret, stood watching, the Frankie doll beside them.
What are you going to do now? they seemed to say.
“We need to use your phone,” Ashley said, practically pushing past the old woman and going for the phone on the wall.
She would have expected an ancient rotary dial like the one Gram had, but Josephine had a modern cordless phone.
She picked up the receiver, clicked the call button, and nothing happened.
No dial tone, no faint buzz of static. It was dead.
“Phones are out, dear,” Josephine said matter-of-factly. “Happens all the time, I’m afraid. Usually gets fixed within a few hours, though we aren’t the phone company’s top priority, that’s for certain.”
“Do you have a car?” Malcolm asked the old woman.
Josephine laughed, exposing her large, blocky, horselike dentures. “Oh my goodness, no! I haven’t driven in years. And a good thing too, with my eyesight the way it is.”
“Well, surely you know someone with a car?” Ashley said. “Someone who can help us?”
Josephine took in a deep breath and let it out.
“I’ve lived here in Boone’s Ferry my whole life.
Can’t imagine living anywhere else. Wouldn’t want to.
I feel like I belong here just as much as that big old oak in the backyard belongs.
I’ve got my roots down deep too. But there are things about living here, things that are hard for outsiders to understand.
Your grandmother, she knew what those things were.
What was expected of her. And there came a time when she’d had enough.
I never understood what enough meant. Not until now.
Now—now I’ve had enough too. But I’m afraid it might be too late. ”
“What are you talking about?” Malcolm asked.
“I don’t understand,” Ashley admitted.
“Once you get the mark, he hunts you down. Everyone in the village will help him.”
“Why? Why do they help him?” Ashley asked in disbelief.
“Are we talking a cult here? Some kind of mass delusion?” Malcolm said.
“Delusion?” Josephine repeated, as if she was considering it.
“No, dear. They know what will happen if they don’t help him.
If they go against his wishes, the whole town will suffer.
Crops will fail. Cows will dry up. Animals will die.
And there will be sickness, perhaps terrible sickness; a sickness as bad as what happened all those years ago. ”
“But surely you see that that’s all superstition, Josephine,” Ashley said.
Josephine smiled ruefully. “I can see why you’d think that, truly I can.
But the curse is very real. He holds it over us each and every day.
So far, we’ve been safe. There’ve been a few deaths.
A few bad years, some… difficulties. But we’ve never done anything to cause him to unleash his true fury. Not yet.”
There was a knock at the front door.
They all jumped, then looked at each other, frozen.
“Quick,” whispered Josephine. “Into the basement. Both of you.”
Before Ash had time to ask any more questions, Josephine was hurrying them down the hall toward the kitchen and stopped at a narrow door just before it.
She unlatched a heavy metal sliding bolt at the top and opened the door, turned on the lights with an old-fashioned push-button switch.
A single lightbulb lit up at the bottom of a set of worn wooden stairs. A damp, musty smell drifted up.
There was more knocking at the front door. Louder. More insistent.
Josephine urged Malcolm through the open door into the basement. “Hurry! Get down there and hide! Don’t make a peep.” Heeding her advice, Malcolm trotted down the steps.
Ashley went next, willing herself not to rush on the rickety wooden stairs.
There was no handrail, so she pressed her palm against the cool stones of the wall as she descended.
In a hushed tone, Josephine promised, “You’ll be safe down here,” and then slammed the door shut and slid the bolt into place on the other side.
Reaching the bottom of the stairs, Ash could see Mal’s confusion and panic rising, and she gave his hand a squeeze.
Whatever was happening, they were in this together.
They scanned the room. There were shelves lining the wall on one side of the steps, crammed with old paint cans and thinner, rags, boxes of lightbulbs, spare fuses, a flashlight.
Tucked behind an old mop head was something she recognized immediately.
Ashley froze, dropping Mal’s hand. He followed her gaze as she stared in disbelief, unable to make a sound, to even breathe.
All the air left her lungs. Even her heart seemed to stop beating.
A leather bag, embossed with a sunflower and three letters.
Ashley reached for it in what felt like slow motion, her arm heavy, her hand feeling disconnected from her body.
Even Malcolm looked like he was going to be sick.
The leather was soft, familiar, as she ran her fingers over her mother’s initials: LEF.
She pulled the bag out, clutched it tight against her chest.