18 #2
“Nah. This whole place was woods. Is still mostly woods. And every winter, we still get a few locals and hikers who go missing. Nowadays, we’re just better at finding them.
” Mandy set down her empty plate. “I always thought of it as little more than a local ghost story, something to titter about while sitting around a campfire. Or possibly be threatened with by an exasperated parent if you were a naughty kid. In fact, that might be how I first heard the tale. Of course, there’s also the childhood rhyme we recited on the playground.
‘Red witch, blue witch, black or white. One for love, one for fright. One will dance all night long. One will see you dead and gone. Night’s a-coming, she draws near.
Wind’s a-howling, which one’s here!’ I never equated the rhyme with the story, though.
It’s New England, after all. We have plenty of witch lore. ”
Betty took another sip of her whiskey. “There’s another line to that song. From back in my day. The rhyme should begin: ‘Ding dong bell, the witch is in the well. Red witch, blue witch…’” She gave a little nod of her chin. “You know the rest.”
“The witch is in the well? Shit.” Despite herself, Mandy shivered. “I’d never heard that version, but given today’s developments…that seems rather prophetic.”
“Shoving a young girl into a frozen pond versus pushing her into an icy well,” Betty mused. “Those actions don’t feel so different.”
“Especially if you’re the girl.” Mandy had to sit back. “So what we found on the Dixon property—this proves there was a young woman accused of witchcraft, and what the town did to her?”
“Witch hysteria in the colonies peaked in the late seventeenth century,” Betty commented, “but allegations continued for hundreds more years. Especially against women perceived as threats. Possibly due to their beauty, but also power, say, a female business owner, or midwife who oversaw births and deaths.”
“Proving once and for all men have always been sore losers.” Mandy frowned.
“In our real-life crime scene, however, we have one more victim to account for—the baby. How do you explain someone having such a skeleton in their possession? Let alone sticking said remains into a sealed pot along with a medical ledger?”
Betty pursed her lips. “I’ve been thinking about that. If you consider the legend, the whole thing started with children dying. Most likely from some kind of infectious disease. It’s even possible the girl, an outsider, brought it with her. Another Typhoid Mary, so to speak.”
“The townspeople interred the ‘witch’ with one of her victims? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“True. But what if…” Betty leaned forward. “What if the bones were found in the young woman’s possession? That would certainly lead to allegations of witchcraft.”
“Even in this day and age, that would raise some alarms. I’m still stuck on why a young woman would have human bones, especially back in, what, the late seventeen hundreds?”
“Grief? Maybe she lost her own baby. Couldn’t bear to part with it? Especially if it happened in the winter, say when she was wandering in the woods and couldn’t give it a proper burial. So she hid it instead?”
“Macabre. But possible.”
“Or…she happened upon such remains, then kept them to study? For midwifery? God knows there was a brisk trade in fresh bodies back in the day. That’s how even the most respected medical schools got cadavers for educational purposes—they paid grave robbers to dig them up.”
“Also macabre. What are you doing in your retirement?”
“Oh, history is not for the faint of heart, my dear. Just read accounts of drawing and quartering. Not to mention the Vikings’ infamous blood eagle—though there’s some debate if that particular torture is even physically possible.”
“All right, all right.” Mandy held up a hand. “Speaking for myself, I’ve had enough gore for one day.” She sighed heavily. Having finally sat down and eaten, she could feel herself starting to crash. Before she called it a day, she tried to pull her thoughts together one last time.
“Back to what we actually know,” she began, then stopped. “Well, based on this conversation alone, we’re not certain of much.”
“We’ve identified some of the pieces of the puzzle,” Betty countered. “It’s highly possible we discovered a historic grave that, tragically, proves a local legend is more than just a myth.”
“In which case”—Mandy crossed her fingers—“it has nothing to do with the Dixons’ disappearance, being a two-hundred-plus-year-old homicide. Bringing me to my one and always question: What would my father do?”
“He’d do the same as you’re doing, dear. He’d speak up for his town. He’d search tirelessly for the truth. I know you and he had your differences. But maybe, mostly because you’re not so different after all.”
Mandy grimaced, rose to standing. “Thank you for the sandwich, Betty. And the conversation. It helped.”
“Always. There is one more thing, though I don’t have the answer yet.”
“Which is?”
“The handwriting in the register…I swear I’ve seen it before.
Though—don’t tell Mason I said this—many of those old documents look alike.
All that looping script.” The retired postmistress frowned.
“I’ll do some more digging. And of course, I suspect Mason will have us analyzing the photographed pages come crack of dawn. ”
“I have my own inquiries to make,” Mandy reported. “Raquel Collins. An interior decorator with better forensic anthropology skills than most trained professionals. How? Why? I think it’s time to learn a bit more about our new neighbors, don’t you?”
“Always trust your instincts.” Betty smiled kindly. “That’s something else your father would do.”
Mandy bent over and hugged the woman who’d started out as her parents’ friend but had become Mandy’s personal anchor. “Get some rest.”
“Ah, I’ll rest when I’m dead.”
“Which will never happen, because both the town and I need you too much. Good night, Betty.”
“Good night, dear.”
Then Mandy climbed into her car, and after another moment’s contemplation, forced herself to head home, take a long hot shower, then lie in her bed and stare at the ceiling until the new day began.