The Blackstone Chronicles (32 page)

Poor Rebecca
.

Hasn’t been quite right since the accident
.

Afraid it left her just a little bit touched in the head
.

What would they say if she pounded on their doors in the middle of the night, saying her aunt was going to burn her house down?

Oliver!

Oliver would listen to her! He was her friend, and he didn’t think she was crazy!

Instead of heading for the front of the house, Rebecca ran across the backyard to the edge of the woods, where a narrow trail edged the Hartwicks’, then hooked up with the path that led to the Asylum. Though there were still a few clouds in the sky, there was enough moonlight so Rebecca was able to run all but the few yards where the path was so soggy and muddy that she had to slow almost to a stop and pick her way through. By the time she arrived at Oliver’s front door and began pounding and shouting to him, her sneakers were sodden and heavy
with mud, and her legs were streaked with it as well. The cold night air had long since penetrated the thin material of her bathrobe, and though she was panting from running, she was shivering from the cold as well.

When there was no immediate response to her pounding on the door, Rebecca pressed her finger on the bell, banged once more, then stepped back to shout up toward the second floor. “Oliver! Oliver, wake up! It’s Rebecca!”

It seemed like forever before the porch light came on, the front door was thrown open, and Oliver peered out. “Rebecca? What is it? What—”

Rebecca, finally overcome by the cold, the darkness, and the terror she’d only barely been able to control long enough to get there, began sobbing. “She locked me in,” she began. “She tried … I mean she wants …” She paused, forced herself to take a deep breath, then lost control again.

Oliver pulled her into the house and closed the door, shutting out the cold. “It’s all right, Rebecca,” he soothed. “You’re safe now. Just try to tell me what happened.”

“It’s Aunt Martha,” Rebecca finally managed to say. “She’s … oh, Oliver, I think she’s gone crazy!”

A
ll was ready.

Save for her beloved Gregorian chants, the only music that had ever been able to soothe her soul, Martha Ward’s house was silent.

Though she harbored a vague memory of Rebecca calling out to her a while ago, her niece’s voice had quickly fallen silent.

God’s hand, Martha was certain, had muted the sinful girl.

She gazed at herself in the mirror one last time—chiding herself for her vanity, but secure in the knowledge that she would be forgiven, as she would be forgiven all her sins in a few more minutes—and smiled, recognizing how beautiful she looked.

The image in the mirror perfectly reflected Martha’s vision of herself: her youth restored, her cheeks rosy and her lips full, her eyes wide and filled with childlike innocence. Though her dress had been worn once before—the day she’d married Fred Ward—in the mirror it appeared as pristinely new as the day she’d bought it, and indeed, as she gazed at the seed pearls scattered across its bosom, and the perfect virtue expressed in its flowing expanse of pure white, its long sleeves and high neck, she had no memory of ever having seen it before.

A tiara of pearls held a veil to her head, and as she pulled the thin layer of tulle down over her face, Martha’s image took on an ethereal, almost saintly
quality. Satisfied that all was in order, she turned at last away from the mirror and from vanity itself, knowing she would never look at her reflection again. Picking up the single object she would carry to the ceremony awaiting her, she left her bedroom, gently closing the door behind her.

Downstairs she paused outside the chapel, composed herself, then opened the door and let herself inside. The room was dark but for a single perfect light shining on the face of Christ, which seemed to float in the darkness above the altar. Genuflecting deeply, Martha moved slowly toward the altar, her eyes never leaving the face that hovered above her. Finally, when she was very close to the altar, she squeezed the object in her hands with trembling fingers.

A tongue of fire leaped from the dragon’s mouth.

Holding tight to the gilded beast, she began to light the candles on the altar, moving steadily from one to another, uttering a silent prayer over each.

She prayed for her mother and her father.

For her elder sister, Marilyn, whose sins had taken her to an early death.

For Tommy Gardner, whom Satan had sent to tempt Marilyn.

For Margaret and Mick Morrison, the fruit of whose sin Martha herself had taken into her home.

The dragon’s tongue touched candle after candle, for Martha knew well that Blackstone was filled with sinners, and on this night above all others, redemption must be begged for each of them.

When all the candles on the altar were glowing brightly, Martha turned to the saints in their alcoves, lighting a candle for each of them, that they might bear witness to the glory of this night.

Martha lit the candles in front of the Blessed Virgin, kneeling in front of the statue and praying that she might be found worthy of the saint’s only son.

When all the prayers were said, Martha rose to her feet once more. She started once again toward the altar, hesitated, then realized there was one more thing she must do.

Going first to one of the windows, then the other, she drew back the heavy draperies, securing them carefully with the velvet ties that had hung unused for more than two decades. She opened the sheers as well, and though the rotted material tore to shreds in her fingers, she was unaware of anything but the glory of her surroundings, open at last to the world outside so that anyone who wished might watch and bear witness to her final salvation. As she returned to face the altar and her Savior this ultimate time, she was utterly unaware of the siren that had started to wail outside and the lights that were going on in her neighbors’ homes as they rose from their beds to see what new tragedy might have befallen their town.

Dropping to her knees, Martha silently began the vows that would tie her to her Savior for all eternity.

Oliver Metcalf’s Volvo pulled up to the curb in front of Martha Ward’s house only seconds after the police car whose siren had already awakened the neighbors. As Rebecca tried to explain her aunt’s strange behavior to Steve Driver, the occupants of the neighboring houses began to appear, some of them still clad in their night-clothes, others having pulled on overcoats, still others having hastily dressed. They clustered around Rebecca, whispering to each other as first one, then another, picked up a fragment of the peculiar tale she was relating. But even before she had finished, someone noticed the two windows that were glowing brightly in the otherwise darkened house.

Swept along with the gathering of neighbors, Rebecca and Oliver moved closer to the Hartwicks’ driveway, their gazes following those of everyone else. Through the uncurtained windows they could clearly see Martha
Ward standing in her wedding dress in front of her altar, her veiled face tilted upward, her entire figure bathed in the golden glow of the flickering candles.

“What’s she doing?” someone asked.

No one answered.

Her vows completed, Martha Ward knelt one last time. Her eyes still fixed on the face of the figure above the altar, her fingers tightened on the dragon’s neck.

For the last time the dragon’s flame came alive.

Martha Ward reached down and touched the reptile’s tongue to the turpentine-soaked carpet. As the flames spread quickly around her, she cast the dragon from her hand and rose once more to her full height. Lifting the veil from her face, she felt herself filled with a rapturous exaltation. As the fire consumed her sins, she felt her spirit being uplifted, and she raised her arms in unutterable joy.

As the medieval voices of her beloved chants gave way to the crackling of the spreading flames, Martha Ward’s soul rose to meet the destiny for which she had always prayed.

“Don’t watch it,” Oliver said. He drew Rebecca to him, pressing her face into his shoulder to shield her from the horror unfolding within the house.

A silence descended upon the crowd as they watched Martha Ward’s last moments, a silence now broken by a gasp as flames suddenly rose around her. As the fire grew, some of the women began to sob and some of the men swore softly, but no one made any move to stop the fire, to put an end to the conflagration that was already spreading through the house, destroying everything in its path.

More sirens tore apart the night, but even when the volunteer engines arrived, their crews did nothing to
quench the flames, but only stood by to protect the homes next door.

Within minutes the entire structure was engulfed, the heat enough to drive even the bravest to the opposite side of the street. Finally the entire structure collapsed in upon itself, and a tower of sparks rose into the night sky as if in some strange and macabre celebration.

A pile of smoldering rubble was all that remained of Martha Ward’s house.

As dawn broke, Oliver watched in fascination while the crowd that had gathered in the night to watch the fire quickly dispersed, as if they felt exposed by the morning light and were embarrassed to have the morbidness of their curiosity further revealed.

The firemen were circling the wreckage of the house like a band of hunters warily inspecting fallen prey, knowing it was mortally wounded, but all too aware that it was still capable of inflicting damage upon anyone who ventured too close.

“Do you have anyplace to go?” Oliver finally asked Rebecca. She was next to him, her hand holding on to his arm, but her eyes still fixed on the blackened ruin that had been her home. For a long time she said nothing, and he was about to repeat the question when he heard a voice behind him.

“She’ll come to live with me. It’s what her aunt would have wanted.”

Turning, Oliver saw Germaine Wagner standing a few feet away, a gray woolen overcoat buttoned up to her neck, a grayer scarf wrapped around her head.

Oliver turned back to Rebecca, whose wide, frightened eyes made it clear she had no idea what to do. “You can stay with me if you’d like,” he said softly. “I have an extra room.”

Rebecca glanced uncertainly at Germaine Wagner, then back to Oliver, but before she could say anything, the librarian spoke again.

“That’s not a good idea, Oliver. You know as well as I do that it would cause talk.” Her lips pursed disapprovingly. “The very idea—you and Rebecca? It’s—” She hesitated, and Oliver wondered if she was going to finish her thought. But then her eyes fixed on his. “Well, you know what I mean, don’t you? Surely I don’t have to spell it out for you.”

Just as they had in the library on the December day when he’d gone in to research the Asylum’s history under Germaine’s stern stare, the old memories now rushed back at him once again, memories of the people who used to glance at him out of the corner of their eye and whisper about him behind his back. If Rebecca came to live with him, would it all start up again?

Of course it would.

The only difference would be that this time the whispers would be about Rebecca instead of his sister.

For himself, it didn’t really matter. But for Rebecca?

He wouldn’t put her through it.

“No,” he said at last, “you don’t have to spell it out for me.”

He watched in silence as Germaine Wagner led Rebecca toward her car, and wondered if she was also walking away from him forever. Sighing heavily, he realized that if Germaine had anything to do with it, she might very well be.

A few minutes later, as he too drove away from the wreckage of Martha Ward’s house, Oliver realized that his head was starting to ache again.

This time, though, he was fairly sure he knew the reason why.

*  *  *

Enough rain had fallen on Blackstone in the weeks since Martha Ward had turned the tongue of the dragon upon herself that the smell of the fire had finally begun to be washed away, its acrid stench slowly replaced with the sweet aroma of the first flowers of spring. Behind the thick stone walls of the Asylum, though, the same stale, musty odor of mildew and mold that had permeated every hidden corner of the building for the last several decades still hung heavily in the air.

The dankness was of no concern to the dark figure that moved through the shadowed rooms, as oblivious to the still and moldering atmosphere within the walls as he was to the freshly vibrant breezes beyond.

He was in his museum once more, carefully—almost lovingly—pasting Oliver Metcalf’s account of Martha Ward’s last moments into the leather-bound ledger he had found two months ago. Satisfied with his work only when his latex-covered fingers had perfectly trimmed every edge and smoothed out every wrinkle, he read the story one more time, then put the cherished book aside.

Now, before the full moon began to fade, it was time to decide which of his treasures next to give away. His fingers moved over them slowly and sensuously, feeling the details his eyes could not discern in the dim light, until at last he came to the one he knew should next be sent to work its evil.