The Hawley Book of the Dead (45 page)

He was right. The magic I would always remember, when all was said and done, was the magic of our hearts beating together. Dark, and deep.

Then the next line of the elusive Robert Frost poem reminded me:
but I have promises to keep
.

I dragged the cold, stiffening body of Rigel Voss to the barn. When I finally dropped him near Falcon Eddy, I looked for signs that one was good, the other evil, but I found none. I grabbed a tarp and spread it over their bodies. I went to the church, found the sword. It glistened with Rigel Voss’s blood. I brought it to the house. Cleaned the blade, and sheathed it. I had a hunch where it belonged. I went up to the third floor, to my office. To the portrait of my ancestor, the Revelation I now knew had fought in the Civil War. I looked for the thin crack in the wall below the portrait, slid the sheathed sword in. The wall absorbed blade, scabbard, and hilt, then closed as if the breach had never been. I knew it would be there for me if ever I had need of it again.

Bits of ash float onto surfaces, like snow that will never melt. I’d gone to Caleigh’s room in the night, found the old school notebook she’d written her visions in, then to the twins’ rooms for their phones. I inscribed all our experiences onto the thick pages of
The Hawley Book of the Dead
, as Nan had done after the deaths she’d caused decades ago. Then I deleted the texts, burned Caleigh’s notebook. There will be only this record in the Book, for the next Keeper, the next Revelation.

When I wake, I am cold. Colder than I’ve ever been. Frozen inside. I don’t want to move, just let my aching head stay welded to the floor, looking at the snowy field of burned pages. The white expanse of ash covering the rug by the hearth, my jean-clad legs. I think it’s the ash-snow that makes me cold, and for a moment I wonder how it has fallen in the house. I think how strange a house it is. A house and town of wonders and spirits, not exactly evil, not exactly good. I hear the furnace kick in, and even though I feel the blast of heat from the floor register near me, I’m still freezing. I can see the sun shine, weak but with promise for the coming day, when the morning mist lifts.

I sit up, finally, pull a shawl from a chair and arrange it around my shoulders. My knees pop as I rise stiffly and survey the wreckage from my battle with Voss. Chairs are knocked over, candle wax drips from tables, glass shards are strewn over the floor.

I have no idea what to do, but only wander across the room, stare out the window, down the drive. I can see no tracks in the fresh dusting of snow that must have fallen after I’d killed Voss. I step outside, and more cold finds me, but not the relentless cold of November. It’s as if the turn toward spring has begun, rather than the trudge toward the winter solstice. Warm currents of air puff at me. From where? I hear the whine of a chain saw in the distance. Then I hear my cell phone chime out the tone that tells me I have messages. I run to find it.

There are two messages. The first is from Nan. It is brief, but it makes
my knees weak with relief, makes me smile: “Caleigh is herself again. The web is broken.”

The second message is from Henry. “You’re not going to believe this, Reve, but Setekh fell out of his web tonight. They say he was struggling in the ropes, then it looked like the ropes broke, and he fell. The whole audience saw him hit the floor. But then something really strange happened. Every single person who saw it says his body kind of … disintegrated. Into motes of dust, that flew away. And now he’s gone. None of his personal effects are at the theater, his house is empty. Like he never existed. Some trick, huh? It’s causing a sensation. Wish I represented that guy! But nobody can find him. Anyway, call me.”

I stand and stare down the drive, still expecting, not hoping, certain some shift has occurred. Either the night-cracking thunder, or Caleigh and Nan cutting Simon Magus’s web, must have cracked something else. The wall between worlds.

Two riders come through the mist, knee-deep in it, so I can’t see their horses’ legs. But they are not ghost horses. I can see their breath, hear muffled hoofbeats. One black horse, one gray. On their backs are Grace and Fai, turning to each other, laughing.

I run. The shawl falls from my shoulders, plumes into air. I run into the mist, and my own feet disappear. I am up to my waist in mist and snow when I stumble into Brio, bounce off his chest, reel between him and Rikka. I grab at Fai’s boot and Grace’s knee. The horses, startled, pull away and I fall to the ground.

“Mom!”

“What are you doing?”

They both dismount in a flash, and Rikka and Brio tear to the paddock for a reunion with Zar over the fence. I look up at my daughters’ alarmed faces, and thank God they are the same, the same round cheeks and freckles, their wild red hair shining, not tangled with leaves and burrs, clean and bright as new copper. I clasp their ankles, booted and chap covered. I breathe in their good, horsey smell and weep.

Then a hand is on my shoulder and through my tears I see Fai’s still-tanned face, looking concerned.

“Mom? Is something wrong? Is Caleigh okay?”

They help me to my feet, and I grasp twinned hands and arms, touch cheeks, soft hair, then hold them as tightly as I can and sob into their necks. My girls, returned to me. They just stare at my hugging, patting, crying self.

Grace says, “What is
up
with you?”

My throat is so full I can’t get one word out, but I let them go, the better to gaze at them.

Fai scans the yard, the barn, the rime of snow clinging to everything. “Where did this snow come from? The trails were fine. No trees down, no snow, no ice. Until we got in the gate. Did you all have some freaky storm or something?”

How can I explain enchantment, theirs or mine? How can I explain the storm, or their weeklong hiatus with their ancestors, which they clearly don’t remember? Or the search for them that had lasted one hundred and sixty-one hours?

But Grace doesn’t wait for my answer. “Hey, I’m really hungry,” she tells us. “Let’s go untack. I feel like I haven’t eaten in
days
.”

“Umm, I’ll take care of the horses.” I can’t explain the deaths, not yet. Poor Falcon Eddy, whom they never knew. And Rigel Voss, whom for years no one knew. “Go in and get a snack.” Then I remember I have to account for Caleigh’s absence. “Oh, and your sister’s fine. She’s at Nan’s.”

“Aren’t you going to yell at us for riding when you told us not to?” Grace taunts me.

I should, but I feel my love for them pumping through my veins. “No. I’m not.”

They don’t argue. I watch them walk to the house together, their arms around each other, laughing and teasing. I hate to let them out of my sight. But there will be time for telling it all later, and time for just contemplating my girls, full of life and vigor.

I start toward the barn, to the tasks I must still perform. I startle at a resounding crack behind me. Branches fall away, and Jolon steps out of them, drops his chain saw, and runs to me through the wet snow and mist. He grabs me up in a fierce embrace. “You’re all right, you’re okay!” He is
shaking with cold or relief, I don’t know which. His hands grip me as if he’ll never let me go. He looks haunted, sleepless, an extreme version of himself.

I realize in all the furor of the night I’d felt a heavy ache, and that was the way I missed him. “Where were you? Why didn’t you come last night? I thought …” I can’t go on. My throat is filled with sudden tears again, for everything we’d gone through.

“There’s a forest of trees down from here to Hunt Road. I had to chainsaw my way in. It took me all night, with the ice and snow. But I saw the tracks of two horses by the gate … the twins?”

I nod. I can’t speak about the twins. Not yet. “Thank God,” Jolon whispers into my hair, his sweat and cut-pine scent clean on the air. “All I could think, the whole night long, was if I lost you, you’d never know. You’d never know how I thought of you. For years I tried, but I never forgot you. It may be too soon to tell you this. Or you may never want to hear it.” He looks in my eyes then, asking. I open my lips to speak, but I can’t.

He is tender, his bruised, scratched hands move softly on my shoulders, my face. “Ah, Reve, I have to tell it.” And he whispers his secret, that is no secret to me: “I’ve never loved anyone but you.”

I remember the last lines of the poem that has been circling in my head.

I take Jolon’s hand, close my eyes. I feel his arms encircle me. I breathe in his warmth, his good woodsy smell, feel how real and solid he is.

I don’t know what the future might hold. We may indeed have promises to keep, and miles to go before we sleep. But at this moment, we have all the time in the world.

No book is written in isolation. Thanks are due to many who have helped me, who have accompanied me for hours or days or years on the road to
Hawley
.

Thanks first and foremost to Aimee Swift, co-founder of the Valley4Writers and my most constant companion on the write road: the best friend, critical reader, and writing buddy a person could hope for. May your books be as well loved and well tended as
Hawley
was by you.

To Kate Miciak, my brilliant editor, who has the truest feel for the shape of a story, and incredible patience to cultivate it. Also many thanks to Libby McGuire, Jennifer Hershey, Kim Hovey, Maggie Oberrender, Jennifer Garza, Julia Maguire, Marietta Anastassatos, Vincent La Scala, and Kathleen Lynch.

To my amazing agent, Alexandra Machinist, who pulled this book out of the slush pile and got it where it is today—in the hands of readers. You are a true superhero. And at Janklow & Nesbit, to Stephanie Koven and Michael Steger.

To my UK editor, Selina Walker, and her wonderful team at Cornerstone, especially Glenn O’Neill.

To Rick Reiken, from whom I learned that it is possible to make a living as a writer.

To the Splinter Group: Janice Sorenson, Dori Ostermiller, Michael Hoberman, and David Lovelace, who welcomed me into their homes and writing lives.

To the other co-founders of the Valley4Writers: Stephanie Greene and Elizabeth Macalester. Scribblitas rule!

Thanks to Carol Cassella and the many members of the Seattle7Writers, for inspiration and coolness. Hope we can bring your spirit to the East Coast.

To Save Your Life Writers: Karen Amerman, Carleen Fischer Hoffman, Eva Kealey, Donna Liese, Missy Haddad, and Susan Staples.

To Joy Harjo, for early encouragement, and grace. To Maribeth Fischer, for the Seaglass conference. To Carolyn Parkhurst, for being the first to tell me I could sell this book. To Jacquelyn Mitchard, for lucky #119 earrings.

Thanks to the people of the western Mass hill towns, especially to Jay McMahon, for the history of magic and the Hawley Forest. And to Jim Martin, Cummington police chief (retired), for search and rescue information.

At the Odyssey Bookshop, thanks to everyone who has worked with me, past and present: for your patience, and your insights into the book world I wouldn’t have found elsewise, particularly Joan Grenier, owner of the Odyssey, and Emily Crowe, manager extraordinaire.

I am very grateful to friends who helped me along the way: to Carlotta Hoffman, for her spectacular visual sensibility, and to Leon Caragulian, for helping me negotiate weird Las Vegas. To Tracey Eller, for great photographs. To Nancy Grossman, for keeping my chi moving. To Diane Vincent, Elisabeth Brook, Anne Chamberlain, Jeanne Russo, Peter Vanamee, and Toni Lake, for friendship, cabins, stalls, and suppers.

Many thanks to my mother, Jennie Karpinski, for always having my back. Also to my aunts, Yvonne Szarlan and Stephanie Kuc, for love and cakes.

And finally, to my husband, George E. Browne III: thank you for feeding mutts, cooking dinners, and most of all for your belief in me. You’re last on this list, but first in my heart.

CHRYSLER SZARLAN lives in western Massachusetts with her family, works part-time as a bookseller at the Odyssey Bookshop, and rides her horse in the Hawley Forest whenever possible. An alumna of Marlboro College, she jogged racehorses and worked as a magician’s assistant before graduating from law school, after which she worked as a managing attorney with Connecticut Legal Rights project. She is deep into her next novel of the Revelation Quartet.

www.​chrysler​szarlan.​com