Diary Entry June 7, 1926
Mrs. Semple is watching me.
I’ve noticed it quite a bit in the full day that I’ve been at New Avalon. She’s never obvious about it. There’s no staring or hovering near me, as far as I can tell. Instead, she simply observes from a respectful distance, watching as I and the others go about our day.
For instance, this morning after breakfast, I took an impromptu walk after finding Jonquil sitting beneath the great oak. It’s a very grand and majestic tree, and I said as much.
“Probably a hundred years old,” Jonquil said, rapping on its trunk. “This place is filled with them. You want to look for more?”
“Certainly,” I said.
As we made our way across the green, Katrina appeared out of nowhere, clearly having been spying on us.
“What are you two doing?” she said in a way that made the question sound more like an accusation.
“None of your beeswax,” Jonquil said.
Since Katrina and I hadn’t started off on the right foot, I chose to be nice and gave an honest answer. “We’re going walking in the woods. You can join us, if you’d like.”
“The woods are awful,” Katrina said, even though she continued to follow behind us as Jonquil and I cut between the big house and Mrs. Minafer’s cottage on our way to the woods.
As we neared the trees, I heard Mrs. Minafer herself call out from her porch. “Yoo-hoo! Are you all going exploring?”
“We are!” I called back. “Please come along.”
Mrs. Minafer appeared momentarily, the hem of her dress making swishing sounds in the grass as she hurried to catch up. “Lovely weather for a walk, isn’t it?”
“Quite,” I said, preferring conversation with her to anything snide and bratty Katrina might say.
Yet as we approached the forest, Katrina continued to pick on me like a fly on pie. “Tell me, Daisy, where are you from?”
“I used to live in Burlington,” I said proudly. “Daddy was a prominent banker and Mommy a well-respected matron of society.”
“If you’re so well respected, why haven’t you married?”
“Why haven’t you?” Jonquil asked her.
“I was speaking to Daisy, if you don’t mind,” Katrina replied with a disdainful sniff.
The reason I haven’t yet married, despite having many suitors, is that Daddy never approved of any of them. When he passed, I hoped some of them would come calling once again, yet none of them did.
But I couldn’t tell any of this to Katrina, out of fear she would mock me. So instead, I used Jonquil as an example and replied, “None of your beeswax.”
That did the trick and silenced Katrina. We continued onward, entering the forest between two trees that bore identical markings on their trunks. They looked to me like six-petal flowers surrounded by a circle.
“I wonder what these are,” I said.
Jonquil went to the next tree over. “There’s another one here.”
“They’re everywhere,” Mrs. Minafer said, pointing out the same markings on all the trees at the edge of the woods. Taken together, they seemed to form a wall of symbols that surrounded the entire top of the island.
Seeing them filled me with a sense of dread that I couldn’t understand then and still don’t now.
The sensation stayed with me as we entered the forest proper.
Although the trees there were unmarked, they became thicker and darker.
Above us, the leaves in their branches knitted together, blocking out the sun, making the woods look more like evening than mid-morning.
The trees grew tightly together, with snakelike vines curling around their trunks.
Long, spindly branches continually snagged my dress, making me feel like the trees themselves were alive and reaching out to grab me.
“Maybe we should turn back,” I said.
“You’re not afraid, are you?” Katrina said as she continued deeper into the thicket with Jonquil and Mrs. Minafer.
“No.”
In truth, I was afraid. More than any other part of New Avalon, this section of forest seemed particularly ominous.
It felt like the kind of woods in which you could get lost and never, ever find your way out, even though it was impossible to get lost on an island this size.
When we emerged into a clearing, I should have been relieved.
Instead, the area only made me more frightened.
There was something creepily strange about the place.
The clearing seemed to be a perfect circle in which nothing grew but a velvety carpet of crimson moss.
Why, it looked like a pool of blood! The trees surrounding it stood rigid and tall, as if they feared to encroach upon the space.
In the center of the circle was a large stone slab about three feet high.
While it could have simply been a rock that had sat there for centuries, it looked to me like it had been placed there on purpose.
“What in the cat’s pajamas is that?” Jonquil said.
“I don’t know,” I replied. “Do you think it’s a grave?”
Katrina stepped out of the woods and into the clearing, the only one of us brave enough to do so. “It’s not the same size as a tombstone.”
I had to grudgingly agree that she was right. It was too big to be a grave marker, and far too flat. More than anything, it resembled a large stone table.
“It’s a remnant from the past,” spoke a voice from somewhere in the woods. Since the four of us had entered the forest alone, I at first thought it was my Gift sparking to life. But when I whirled around, startled, I saw it was only Mrs. Semple.
“Forgive my intrusion,” she told us. “When I saw you disappear into the woods, I was curious about where you were going and decided to follow. I hope you don’t mind.”
In truth, I did mind a little bit, for it confirmed that she was indeed watching.
It worried me slightly. What if she was watching to make sure I fit in with the others?
And if I didn’t, perhaps she’d send me away.
Having no desire to leave New Avalon—and, honestly, no other place to go besides back to the boardinghouse—I decided that I would continue to be on my best behavior.
“We don’t mind one bit,” I said, just as Jonquil replied, “It’s your island.”
Mrs. Semple moved past us into the clearing, stopping by Katrina’s side.
Since she showed no fear of the place, I decided to follow her lead and stepped into the crimson circle.
The moss-covered ground beneath my feet was soft, like a thick carpet.
At the stone slab, I placed the flat of my hand against its surface.
The rock felt cold beneath my palm. Unnaturally so.
“Do you know what it is?” I asked Mrs. Semple.
“Not with any certainty, although I do have a general idea,” she said. “My father was not the first to settle on this island. There were people here long before it came into my family’s possession. A group of women.”
“Like those on Avalon?” I said.
Mrs. Semple smiled, pleased that I remembered the inspiration for the name she had given the island. But the smile quickly faded as she said, “Not quite. These women were rumored to have dabbled in dark forces.”
“Witches?” Jonquil said, still on the outskirts of the clearing.
Beside her, Mrs. Minafer shook her head. “This,” she intoned, “is an unholy space.”
“I have no idea if they were indeed communing with the Devil,” Mrs. Semple continued. “But if they were, I suspect this was an altar of some sort, where the women left gifts for whatever deity it was they worshipped.”
“Why would they do that?” I said.
“Likely because they feared him. Or her.” Mrs. Semple’s face brightened. “Not all deities are men, remember. There are women ones, too.”
I looked beyond her to Mrs. Minafer, who gave another disapproving shake of her head. “Lord forgive her for this wicked notion,” she muttered.
“In any case,” Mrs. Semple said, “it was common back then to appease them or seek favors by leaving gifts. According to legend, the same was done to the women who lived here before my family. My father used to speak about people on the mainland rowing out here to leave articles of clothing belonging to loved ones who were ill. They assumed the women of the island had caused the sickness, and so they left clothes on the shore in the hopes it would convince them to heal instead of harm. I believe his stories to be true, because when I was very young, I would sometimes find bits of fabric strewn along the shore.”
She began to leave the clearing, so Katrina and I followed. Joining Jonquil and Mrs. Minafer at the trees, we started off back toward the house. Despite its thick darkness, I was relieved to be back in the woods. Witches or not, the clearing had unsettled me.
“What happened to those women?” I asked.
“Oh, I have no idea,” Mrs. Semple said. “I don’t think anyone does. They vanished from this island a long, long time ago. Long before my father bought it.”
“You must be filthy rich to own an island,” Katrina said, which I thought was very rude. Ladies shouldn’t speak of money. If they are curious, there are more subtle, not to mention more polite, ways of learning someone’s worth.
“What did your father do?” I asked.
Despite my great tact, Mrs. Semple frowned at the question. “He manufactured weapons. Cannons, mostly. Plus the cannonballs required to use them. During the war, he amassed quite a fortune.”
“How lucky for you and your family,” I said.
“Lucky?” Mrs. Semple said, practically spitting out the word.
“Cursed is more like it. All that money made at the expense of human lives. It weighs on you. It certainly did on my father. During the last few years of his life, he became convinced that all the men killed by his cannons were haunting him. He said he saw them. Men with mangled bodies, some missing limbs, some without their heads. He swore they were trying to grab him from the great beyond and drag him to his grave. I would have given away all the money in the world to rid him of such madness.”
I thought of Daddy then, and how different his passing had been. A quick, sudden end. Nothing like what poor Mrs. Semple had to endure. “I’m sorry both of you suffered like that.”
Her expression softened again as she said, “That’s very kind of you, my child.”
We had reached the village by then, Mrs. Semple having guided us effortlessly to the top of the island. As we passed the main house, I noticed the same symbol on the trees was etched into the foundation near the porch steps.
“What is that?” I asked. “They’re all over the island.”
“It’s called a hexafoil,” Mrs. Semple said. “Although my father had a different name for it. He used to call it a daisy wheel.”
“Daisy?” I said. “Just like my name?”
A strange smile crossed Mrs. Semple’s face, although it didn’t strike me as a happy one. It seemed strained, as if she was trying to mask deep distress.
“Yes, my child,” she said. “Just like your name. Most people, though, refer to it as a witch mark.”
I stared at the symbol, feeling just as unsettled as I had in the clearing. “Was it created by a witch?”
“No, this was the work of my father,” Mrs. Semple said. “Witch marks were believed to ward off evil, so he made sure to put them all around the island during the dark days of his insanity. He thought they would protect him from the vengeful spirits of cannon victims.”
“A wise idea, even though evil isn’t so easily deterred,” Mrs. Minafer said as she hurried away.
Jonquil also began to walk back to her cottage. “I don’t need to hear any more of this hoodoo. My grandma was a believer, so I know enough already.”
Katrina, too, drifted away, returning to her cottage across the green from mine. Soon enough, Mrs. Semple said, “I better start preparing our lunch.”
Left alone, I continued to study the daisy wheel, which I thought was a far better name than “hexafoil” or “witch mark.” How it worked, though, I have no idea.
Mrs. Semple disappeared into the house, having never told us what happened to her father and leaving me to wonder if the daisy wheel offered any protection at all.