The Truth of All Things (25 page)

“Peculiar,” said Grey after turning to examine the area. He knelt down and ran his finger along the edge of a small and shallow but perfectly round hole in the mortar joining two of the flat stones.

“There’s more,” noted Lean. “There and there. Five of them around in a circle.”

“A pentagram,” said Grey.

Lean’s mind flashed back to the image of Maggie Keene, her body splayed out to make five points.

Grey stepped back over to the shelf and returned with a thin candle, which he fitted into one of the holes. “I imagine this is where she put on her displays. Candles at her feet, but otherwise in darkness, with a fire behind her. Tossing in her magic powders. Sleights of hand while the flashes of color distracted the customers. Pulling who knows what from hidden pockets in her skirts.”

Lean knelt down on the hearth and craned his neck to look up the chimney. He stuck his hand up and ran it around, feeling for any secret hiding spots. The reward was nothing but a palmful of slick soot.

“A show like that would have been a sight more interesting than what she’s left behind—which is nothing.” Lean placed his hands on the hearth to steady himself as he rose. The fingers of his left hand poked into a seam of grime between two of the stones, and he quickly pulled out his handkerchief to wipe at the ooze. He was about to stuff the handkerchief back into his pocket when the thought hit him.

“There’s no mortar around this one stone. Just wet mud.”

Lean found a broad-bladed knife in an old washbasin and used it to pry the stone up enough to get a fingerhold and lift it out of the way. On top of the soil lay the flattened remains of a small animal. It was not yet completely decomposed, and though worm-eaten, its skeletal wing frames, pointed beak, and some matted feathers revealed that it had been a bird. Lean flicked it aside with the tip of the knife. The dirt beneath proved to be more loosely packed than it should have been under the pressure of the hearth. He used the knife to dig away the soil, and within a minute the blade made contact, scraping on some still-hidden object. Abandoning the knife, Lean scooped away the dirt with his hands.

“Glass. Some type of jar.”

He locked a finger around the small handle and freed the wine jug from its grave. Lean brushed off the damp earth that clung to the outside and sloshed the two inches of dirty liquid at the bottom of the glass jug. There came a faint metallic rattling from inside the jar. After a series of tugs, the stopper came loose. Lean peered in at the yellowish brown liquid before the stench hit him.

“Ugh!” His wide eyes shot from the bottle to Grey and back again. “It’s piss!”

With the jar at arm’s length, Lean hurried outside, stooped closer to the ground to minimize splashing, and poured the contents onto a flat patch of earth. Several long, rusted nails and pins landed amid the foul froth pooling in the dirt.

“Well?” Grey stepped outside and nodded toward the puddle of fermented urine. “Aren’t you going to collect the evidence?”

Lean smiled, glanced at the bits of metal on the ground, then moved on into the small clearing that surrounded the shack. He glanced around at the murky setting once more. They were only a hundred feet or so from Back Cove. The mudflats were exposed at low tide, and a gentle southerly wind was wafting up the potent scent of tidal decay.

“This Stitch woman certainly had an eye for locales,” Lean said.

“I suppose you don’t attract much business if you’re a witch living
in a well-kept home on the West End. Customers have expectations, after all. With these types of services, they’re paying for what they want to believe in.”

“Still, the thought that she actually raised children here …” Lean returned his attention to the shack and kicked around the perimeter. His eyes wandered over the ground once more, making sure there was nothing else to see there in that dismal spot. He noticed a black seam running along the base of the wall, maybe a foot off the ground. He knelt for a closer inspection and saw that the wood was charred.

“The bottom wood’s still blackened from when it was burned down. She built it back up again after.”

Grey approached and studied the wood. He crumbled some of the charred fibers between his finger and thumb.

“I’m beginning to think that this has been a fool’s errand,” Lean said.

“Perhaps,” answered Grey in a distant voice, “or maybe the things that were seen here years ago, the things that matter, simply remain hidden from us.”

“I
t’s protection, a countercharm.” Helen’s voice was tinny coming through the telephone receiver. “Boiling a bewitched person’s urine in a pot with iron nails would not only break the spell but cause it to return and injure its creator. In fact, there was even an instance at Salem involving Dr. Roger Toothaker. Women with medical knowledge were definitely open to suspicion; he was the only male medical practitioner to be named. Toothaker was accused mostly because he told people that his daughter had killed a witch using such a technique that he’d shown her—baking an afflicted person’s urine in a clay pot overnight.”

Lean made sure Emma was still sitting in the kitchen. Then, in a hushed voice, he asked, “And what about burying a jug of urine like that?”

“I’ve read of burying these pots outside a doorway to keep a witch from entering a house.”

“Ever hear of burying one on the spot where someone died?” Lean asked.

“Bury one with a witch and it was said to keep her from rising again after her death.”

Lean thanked Helen and hung the receiver back on its stand. He grabbed a bottle of whiskey that he kept stashed at the back of the top shelf in the kitchen. He poured a drink tall enough that it would fall in that thin strip of ground between setting his mind at ease and making him just not care at all about witches and murders for the rest of the night. Half the whiskey went down to fulfill its destiny while Lean wandered over and stopped in his son’s bedroom doorway. The light from the hall slanted across the dark room to reveal the boy curled up in his bed.

Emma came up beside him and slid her arm around his waist. Lean rested his hand on her far shoulder and gave her a peck on the forehead. Her familiar mix of scented powders and creams made him smile.

“Do you hear that?” he asked. There was a pause followed by a harsh clicking noise. Owen was grinding his teeth.

“He’s a worrier. Like his father.”

“What’s a five-year-old boy got to worry about these days?”

“Well, his wooden soldiers had a rough go of it today. Heavy losses suffered on the march across the kitchen. I think the burden of command is beginning to weigh on him.”

“He’ll be bitter and toothless, but at least it was for a good cause. God and country. Once more into the breach.” Lean pulled the door nearly closed, then went and sat down at the kitchen table. Emma went to the sink and started in on the dishes.

“And what’s weighing on you?” she asked.

“Nothing.” Lean took a drink. “Not a single thing that I can find.”

“Still with the Portland Company murder?”

“The man who did it might have been visiting mediums. He’s got some serious interest in hocus-pocus. But as soon as they see what I’m after, they start coming up with everything under the sun. Hoping to guess right and earn a couple dollars.”

“They’ve told you nothing at all?”

“Well, I wouldn’t say nothing. The last one was in contact with Uncle Michael. Says he forgives my dad for not coming to see him on his deathbed.”

“Michael? You never had an Uncle Michael.”

Lean stroked his chin, as if contemplating a new twist. “Well, that explains why Dad was so callous toward him at the end.”

Emma laughed. “Now see, you learned something today after all.”

“I’m beginning to think Grey’s right. The whole lot of them are nothing but charlatans.”

“I have a confession.”

“Finally.” Lean sat back and folded his hands across his midsection. “You’re secretly the daughter of royalty, and you’ve just come into a massive inheritance?”

“Well, yes, there’s that. But I’m talking about something else. About ten years ago, shortly after Father passed. Mother had an idea.”

Lean raised an eyebrow at her.

“Fine. It was my idea. Mother and I went to see a woman. She didn’t advertise for it. It was just known that she had the talent. She told us some things that day that no one else could ever have known. Things Father had said to each of us alone. Years earlier. Some things I barely remembered myself until she said them. It was like he was there in the room with us. I know you think we heard what we wanted.” She leaned in and rested her hand on top of his. “But I swear it was real. I still see her on the street once in a while.”

“I don’t need a genuine medium, Emma. I need to find one that this man has been to and who’s honest enough to tell me what she remembers about him, instead of what she thinks I want to hear.”

“Her name is Amelia Porter. You should go see her.”

It took two days and a trip to an old friend at the post office before Lean was able to track down Amelia Porter. She had moved several times in the decade since Emma’s visit, never leaving word of her next address. Her last neighbors knew her by sight but had never spoken to the woman and were unaware of any supposed powers to speak with the spirits of the dead. Her current address on Mayo Street was a nondescript apartment house. There was no sign advertising any sort of business, and the name on the mailbox read “Mr. T. Porter.”

She appeared on her front steps in a plain dress and bonnet, looking every bit the part of a seamstress or music teacher. There was nothing about her mannerisms that gave any hint of the powers Emma had described. His interest piqued, Lean followed the woman as she strolled toward the waterfront, stopping at a few shops along the way. He trailed her across Commercial Street to a fish market at the top of the Custom House Wharf. He let her complete her purchase of cod and move away from the din of the fishmongers’ calls before he finally addressed the woman.

“Amelia Porter?”

She turned, her package clutched to her chest like a threatened child. “Yes?”

“My name is Archie Lean. I was wondering if I could have a moment of your time?” From the look on her face, Lean knew she’d played out this scene countless times over the years.

“I’m sorry, I no longer— I can’t help you.”

She started past Lean, and he instinctively reached out for her free hand. Mrs. Porter lurched backward, her hand still in Lean’s. He stared into her eyes. There was an emptiness there, something deep and vague he couldn’t focus on. The color drained from Mrs. Porter’s face, leaving her with a blank look. Her hand turned cold, and Lean released his grasp, taken aback at the thought that he had so alarmed her as to induce some sort of malady.

Mrs. Porter continued to regard him with her frozen stare for a
moment longer. When she finally opened her mouth to speak, Lean half expected to see the vapor of her breath, despite the warmth of the summer morning.

“Come at four tomorrow, Mr. Lean.” She started to move past him, then, with her voice in a sharp whisper, said, “And bring the others.”