31
You know,” Betty was saying, “I don’t mind doing the work if you need to take a break.”
Raquel glanced up absently. Both women were seated before the hearth, taking turns holding up pages in front of the fire, while the other hastily scribbled down as many of the faintly appearing letters as they could decipher at a time.
It was a slow, subjective process, with most transcriptions heavy on fill-in-the-blank.
Theo had disappeared upstairs to let them work in peace. The dog couldn’t seem to decide what to do, periodically heading up in search of Theo, only to reappear and crash beside Raquel. She was too preoccupied to notice.
Between the disappearing ink, historic spellings, and just plain poor condition of the diary, nothing about this job was simple. Still, some themes were starting to emerge.
“‘April 11. A rainy cold day,’” Raquel read out loud now.
“‘Roused at dawn by Mr. Sebastian Baird. His wife, Elizabeth, suffers sorely during her third travail. I arrived to find her much distressed. She was delivered of a second daughter. The infant fared poorly and I feared would expire, but revived.’
“Okay, so that’s the official entry,” Raquel continued.
“Now, best I can tell, the entry within the entry: ‘The woman seemed possessed of a fit. Screamed of flickering flames and dancing demons upon a cavern wall, while a stone of night stole away her soul. The fifth such mother to beg me to take away her babe as it was verily a child of Satan. My best ministrations made little difference. None of the infants have lived past their second morn. I am sorely vexed, nay, fearful. Something dark moves among us. I have resolved to speak to Mr. Samuel Dixon. He is a wised and learned man. I pray for the Lord’s guidance during these fearful events.’”
Raquel glanced up. “That’s one of the last entries, and the final unrecorded infant who died shortly after birth.”
“You can see why people started worrying about witchcraft,” Betty mused with a troubled expression. She sighed heavily, then checked her watch. “All right, time to take a break. How about a nice cup of tea?”
“Umm, okay.” Raquel gazed at the few remaining entries with longing. But yes, they’d been at this a couple of hours, and her eyes were starting to burn. A brief respite wouldn’t hurt.
She heaved up off the floor. Betty remained sitting, busily making more notes. Raquel had a moment, looking at the woman, the dry, brittle pages, the built-up fire.
“You know, I have quite an extensive tea collection. Why don’t you come personally select what you want.”
“Oh, whatever you’re having will be fine.”
“I might have coffee.”
“Then I’ll have coffee.”
“You’ve already had two cups.”
Betty stopped writing long enough to look up curiously. “Is everything all right, dear?”
Raquel flushed, made a show of wringing her hands. “Reading all these accounts has been disturbing. I guess I wouldn’t mind some company.”
“Absolutely.” The older woman set down her pencil, then rose to standing with surprising grace.
Raquel led the way to the kitchen. She was increasingly unsettled. Last night’s attempted burglary, the discovery of the cave, the horrible hidden contents of the journal. She couldn’t put her finger on a singular source, but her skin felt too tight, while some internal alarm was buzzing.
The last time she’d felt like this, her mother had been holding out a spoonful of chocolate pudding to her brother and demanding that Charlie Boy eat up. He’d known. She supposed they all had. But this was their mother, their dark, all-powerful mother. So of course he’d swallowed.
“Ooh, mint would be lovely!” Betty declared, inspecting the row of offerings.
Raquel set the kettle to boil, while Betty popped open the tea cannister and inhaled deeply.
“This smells heavenly. Definitely a step up from what I get at the corner market. You’ve done well for yourself, dear. All things considered.”
Raquel eyed the woman warily. Betty was still smiling brightly. Maybe too brightly.
“I know, I know,” the woman declared in a rush. “It’s in poor taste. I promised myself I wouldn’t ask any questions. But I’m such a true crime junkie it’s hard. Bunny Borden. Seriously, you’re her?”
And just like that, Raquel’s stomach dropped while roaring filled her ears.
“Most won’t get the connection, of course,” Betty added.
“And those that do…Well, once the initial fuss settles, that’ll be that.
We have more than our fair share of infamous individuals in these parts.
Did you ever watch the show Northern Exposure?
Probably before your time. But our little village isn’t so different.
People who live off the beaten path have a tendency to be an interesting and eclectic sort. ”
A sharp whistling pierced the air. Water boiling.
Raquel forced herself to focus on the teakettle. She swore Betty was watching her slyly.
“What are you talking about?” Raquel finally managed, carefully pouring out steaming hot liquid.
“The town’s online forum. This morning, someone posted links to an article documenting your former life. You know, before you became Raquel Collins. Can’t blame you for wanting to distance yourself as much as possible. Why, if I’d been through all that, I would’ve changed my name as well.
“Is it true? What they found in your mother’s closet?
The four shoeboxes?” Then, the older woman’s eyes widening.
“Of course! That’s how you recognized those tiny little fragments as infant remains.
I’d wondered at the time; I mean not even Chief Grady had any idea.
But you…” Betty nodded to herself. “You’d seen such things before. ”
Raquel set down the teakettle, picked up a spoon, gave each mug a little stir. So this was it—the moment had arrived. It’d always been inevitable. No one could hide from the past forever. Still, this was not how she’d imagined it would go.
She took a deep breath, then calmly met her neighbor’s eyes. Betty was still grinning excitedly. Probably the best gossip the woman had heard in forever. But now, looking more closely, Raquel saw something else in the woman’s gaze. Something darker, more predatory.
And she felt a cold trickle down her spine again. There was more going on here than idle chitchat. Another agenda completely.
“I don’t like to talk about those days,” Raquel stated. Even she was impressed by the steadiness of her voice.
“Because your siblings died? Such a shame, after everything you did to try to save them. I mean an axe.” Betty shivered slightly. “I must ask—one question, then I swear, I’ll shut up. But why an axe? That just seems so…gruesome. Why not a nice kitchen knife instead?”
Movement behind her. Raquel didn’t have to turn to know Theo was now standing in the doorway, listening attentively.
For a moment, she was tempted to shock them both, to burst out the simple, coldhearted truth: Because I wanted to get it right.
A knife might’ve slipped or not gone deep enough.
But chop off a monster’s head, and they definitely never come back again.
Those four battered gray shoeboxes. The kind other people might use to hold old photos or family keepsakes.
Or in her mother’s case, the remains of the infants she hadn’t wanted.
Wrapped up, tucked away, completely forgotten.
Until the day Raquel had gone searching for an extra blanket in the back of her mom’s closet and made the gruesome find instead.
Looking down at the tiny bodies and nearly translucent bones hadn’t even been the worst of it.
Immediately wondering, if her mother could dispose of her own children so easily, why had she let Raquel and her siblings, Lilly and Charlie Boy, survive?
Then reconsidering Charlie Boy’s gaunt features and constant cough that required frequent trips to the hospital, followed by an impressive number of local fundraisers.
Lilly’s own health now starting to fail.
Black mold, her mother told everyone, voice hushed.
Why, if they could just get out of that damn leaky mobile home and into a new house, imagine the difference for the children.
“Come on, Charlie Boy, eat up!”
Betty took a step closer, invading Raquel’s space. “Did you go to prison? I’ve never met anyone who did time in the big house before. What was it like?”
“Educational,” Raquel clipped out. “Before then, I had no idea how many things you could turn into a shiv.”
The older woman quickly hopped back, blinking rapidly.
Raquel squared her shoulders. Fuck sweet old ladies and neighborly concern.
There was nothing kind about this conversation, and like hell Raquel was going to be pushed around by the town busybody.
Betty thought she was manipulative? Raquel had grown up with a parent capable of poisoning her own son to score better real estate.
She peered intently at the woman, then, keeping her voice totally devoid of emotion: “My mother murdered five of her own children. Six if you consider my sister never recovered from the trauma and OD’d a matter of years later.
When I realized what my mom had done to four infants, and was now doing to my little brother, I took action to protect myself and my siblings.
The legal system agreed with my assessment. ”
“Then sent you to a locked-down mental ward anyway?”
“I spent time in a therapeutic environment. Needless to say, I had a few things to unpack. Upon completing the program, I moved on, built a life.” Raquel’s voice grew brittle, despite her best intentions.
“None of my siblings ever got that chance. Four of them never made it to their first birthday. And Charlie Boy…he died aspirating on his own vomit; rat poison isn’t kind to the human body.
So you can fake-gasp and pretend shock while poring over salacious newspaper stories all you want.
I know better than anyone what my mother did, and I know better than anyone what my mother deserved. I don’t look back.”
Betty placed her hand over her heart, as if to steady herself. Raquel didn’t believe her little act for a second. The older woman had brought this up deliberately, pushed deliberately. True crime junkie, my ass. The woman was up to something. But what?
Movement, Theo coming to stand behind her, squeezing her shoulder gently.
There was more she should tell him. About a tiny plot of land in Pennsylvania where her siblings were interred, four of them nameless.
That she didn’t talk about those days because she didn’t talk about those days.
That she’d genuinely thought she’d left the past behind, until the day she’d sat in a doctor’s office hearing all about her incompetent cervix and realizing the universe was having the last laugh, after all.
Her mother, labeled Baby Killer across so many torrid headlines. Raquel, going three for three herself.
“Now you’re just like me.”
A sudden clatter of nails on hardwood as Mr. Man bolted upright, followed a second later by a sharp rap on the front door.
Thank God.
“I’ll get it.” Raquel bolted out of the kitchen, grateful to discover Chief Grady standing on the front porch, hat in hand.
“Hey, I need to talk to you about—” The chief’s voice broke off as Theo and Betty emerged into the great room.
“What are you doing here?” the chief demanded, her gaze homing in on Betty.
“Whatever do you mean, dear?”
“Why are you here?”
“Just being neighborly—”
“The chief already knows I have the historical society’s journal,” Raquel interjected bluntly. “No need to be coy about it.”
But the disclosure didn’t seem to matter. If anything, the tension in the room ratcheted up a notch. Even the dog sensed the mood, whining uneasily.
“How did you know Raquel had the journal?” Chief Grady asked Betty.
“When Mason informed me that Raquel claimed I’d mis-shelved it…that seemed a hint.”
“Why do you care?”
“About a historic document? A first-person account from a young woman who might have been killed as a witch in this very town? How could I not care?”
“We discovered hidden information interspersed in the entries,” Raquel provided, trying to move the discussion along.
“Invisible ink!” Theo exclaimed.
“At first blush”—Raquel gestured toward the various chunks of fraying paper now dotting the coffee table—“what you see are straightforward daily accounts. But, if you hold that same page up to heat, another story emerges. Emotionally distraught women relaying accounts of monsters and demons, rejecting their own babies as devil’s spawn.
Whatever was going on, it was shrouded in so much fear, the midwife—Rita Louise Light—took steps to disguise her notes on the subject. ”
“Unfortunately, the real perpetrators accused Rita of witchcraft, sealing her up in the well with the incriminating birth entries as well as the remains of a poor infant.” Betty sighed. “Horrible, horrible business.”
Chief Grady, staring at Betty stonily. Then: “Bullshit.”
Even Raquel recoiled at the harshness of her tone.
The town cop stalked closer until she was mere inches from Betty’s now shocked features. “Cut the crap. You’re lying. To me. To my father? Jesus, Betty. Once and for all, tell me what the hell happened with the Dixons thirty years ago.”