Chapter Three Frankie
THREE FRANKIE
I slipped through the woods, hands shoved deep into the pockets of my coarse wool coat.
I was practically running, hoping that the sweet smell of death on my clothing had worn off.
After leaving Luther’s farm, my uncle and I had quietly made our morning rounds, visiting Esther Gallagher, who had been suffering from gout, and Hazel Beaudry, who had just given birth the day before.
Uncle Thomas and I were still too stunned to speak of what had transpired in the barn.
I tried to push the images from my mind, but over and over, I saw that mare bursting through the wood of her stall, teeth bared, bloody froth dripping from her mouth.
Something bad is around the corner. The bones told me so.
It was a cold and cheerless day, and my breath came out in moist clouds as my feet slipped through the thin layer of snow and mud.
March and April were always the cruelest months in our valley.
There were periods of warmth, promises of spring with snowdrops and crocuses peeking through the dead grass, trees starting to bud—and then the temperature would plummet and snow would cover the land once more, crushing the new growth.
Each morning a cold fog covered everything, and when the temperature dropped, it left the trees and bushes needled with ice, turning the familiar landscape sharp and dangerous-looking.
I expertly moved between the trees, crossed fields, passed the back side of the Duttons’ farm, where the smoke billowed in great plumes from their sugarhouse.
I stopped for a moment, relieved to see the pigs, as usual, in their pen eating slop and the nearby cows munching on a pile of hay.
My heart sank, though, when I realized not one family horse was in the pasture.
I quickly turned and picked up the pace as I made my way along the edge of a still-frozen Pigeon Pond.
I caught movement on the other side, a shadow coming out of the stand of cattails, rustling through the dry stalks, gracefully moving through the flora.
I realized it was a coyote. We are supposed to loathe coyotes, to shoot them on sight before they have the chance to come into town and steal eggs, kill chickens, calves, and lambs.
But the beauty of this one took my breath away—a delicate thing, her fur light gray tinged with red and black, her narrow face and chest pale.
The creature froze when she saw me, and we stood there, silently watching each other across the ice.
I’m not sure who was hypnotizing whom, but as we held still like that for a moment a chill ran up my spine.
Can the animal smell the ruin and death on me?
Know the horror of what I’ve seen? And with that she turned and slipped soundlessly into the woods.
At last the back of the old Ayers house came into view, and I stopped to make sure there was no one out walking or hunting; no one who might spot me and wonder what on earth I was doing.
Or worse, follow me to come see. Satisfied that I was once again alone, I darted across the overgrown field, which was once a carefully kept backyard with a neat garden.
A small cluster of apple trees stood unpruned and overgrown, hunched like forgotten old women guarding the dooryard.
The two-story house was waiting for me, dark and gray, a broken-backed and forgotten thing.
People said it was haunted. That old Mrs. Ayers walked through the rooms at night, banging on walls, moaning and calling a name no one could recognize.
Charlotte Albone and some of the women from town had come and encircled the house in salt and herbs, driven iron spikes into the corners of the property to bind her spirit and keep her from roaming through the village.
“A ghost with unfinished business is a troublesome thing,” was what Charlotte Albone said.
Over the years, there had been talk of burning the place down.
People said it was a danger, a blight on the landscape.
Mothers worried that a child might wander over to play and fall through the rotten floorboards into the cellar, or be bitten by one of the bats who’d taken up residence in the old lady’s bedroom upstairs.
But no children went to play there. They knew better.
I checked my pocket watch—one of my greatest treasures, passed down by my uncle when he received a new watch from Aunt Margaret at Christmas.
The watch he’d given to me was gold and had his initials etched into the front: TEC, Thomas Christopher Endicott.
The etching was done in lovely swirling cursive, the E the largest letter in the center.
It was half past noon already.
I was late.
I got to the back kitchen door, a rusted horseshoe nailed above it, meant to keep evil out.
I pushed the old door open, the hinges letting out a scream. “Hello?” I called. “Are you still here?”
I was greeted with silence.
Only ghosts at home.
And here I was, another ghost stepping in to join them.
A late ghost. Too late, it seemed.
“Damn,” I muttered, hating how loud and shrill my voice sounded in the silent house.
I bit my lip as I crept through the kitchen.
The house had stood empty since Mrs. Ayers died twenty years ago—before I was even born.
There were holes in the roof and shattered windows lined the perimeter.
The place smelled of dampness and mice, of all things abandoned.
The cookstove sat cold and rusty, a stack of rotten wood and kindling beside it, but the cupboards were full of dishes, pots and pans, jars of preserves no longer fit to eat.
I glanced into the last cabinet, to see a jar of whole tomatoes floating like bloody organs, still untouched.
The seal was ruined; liquid had bubbled up and was seeping out, adding to the smell of ferment and rot.
I stepped into the small, dark parlor with its moth-eaten furniture, spongy floors, and heavy curtains spotted with mildew.
I began to pull one of the curtains open, to let some light into the room, when a shape flew out of the darkness in the back left corner, hitting me with such terrible force, I was instantly knocked to the ground, which received my head with a cracking thud.
All the breath left me at once and dazzling bright-colored stars lit up the ceiling. My mouth tasted of iron-y blood.
I blinked, let my eyes refocus, sure I’d see the crazed mare with its yellow eyes looking down at me.
But this was no equine specter.
It was Pearl.
She was on top of me, pinning me down and smiling. She reminded me of a fox when she smiled—all teeth, mischievous. Or perhaps she was more like the coyote I had just seen. Beautiful, cunning, and dangerous.
“Are you trying to kill me?” I asked.
“I thought you weren’t coming.” Pearl’s eyes scrutinized mine, voice wicked and scolding. “I thought you’d forgotten me.”
I am taller, stronger, but Pearl is all energy and has more weight on her than I do—she teasingly calls me the scarecrow girl.
Pearl tightly clasped my wrists, keeping my arms up above my head.
“I could never forget you,” I vowed. “We were out at the St. James place first thing this morning. It was terrible. There was—”
Pearl leaned down, pressed her lips against mine. She tasted like cherry pie and I let her envelop me. “I don’t want to hear anything terrible, Frankie,” she whispered when she pulled her mouth away from mine. “The only sickness or injury I want to speak of is the trouble with my heart.”
I looked up at her, frowning. “Your heart?”
Pearl took my hand, placed it on her chest over the lace trim of her dress, the shiny buttons that ran down the middle. “Do you feel it? How hard it beats?”
I nodded.
Pearl guided my hand to the left so that it was over her breast, the nipple erect beneath the fabric. I took in a shuddering breath.
“Do you know how it ached when I thought you weren’t coming?” Pearl asked, grinding her hips into mine, moaning softly.
“I’m sorry,” I said, all clear thoughts leaving me, drifting up with the dust. “I couldn’t—”
“Shh…” Pearl said, kissing me again, long and deep. “You’re here now, my love. You’re home.”
I laughed, feeling myself melting into Pearl. “Some home,” I said, looking around at the filthy floor, the furniture chewed through by moths and mice, rotted by time itself.
“That’s how I think of this place, you know,” Pearl said, shifting her weight, but still keeping me pinned. “This is our house. I imagine it sometimes, all fixed up—don’t you?”
The truth was, I did. Sometimes, when we met here, I let myself believe it was our home, a place for us and us alone. A secret house cut off from the rest of the world.
We’d been meeting at the Ayers place for almost a year. It was Pearl’s idea. Before that, we’d sneak off to dark corners of the woods, haylofts, root cellars, the middle of a cornfield—places where only birds, mice, and spiders might catch us.