She Walks in Shadows(14)
“Wonders of the Invisible World by Cotton Mather,” she read, realizing too late how badly she’d chosen.
The cousins shouted with laughter. “Oh, priceless! Witch Whatley, indeed!”
Pale cheeks burning all the brighter, Lavinia dropped the volume and pushed past Putnam. She tried for the front rooms, where the elders guaranteed safety from teasing, but the youths blocked her path — all but Rist — and herded her to the back door, sitting ajar and leading onto the wide rear porch. Lavinia didn’t care. If she could get out, then she could leave.
The bucket balanced above the door tipped as Lavinia pushed through. It was only water, not piss like Wilmot had suggested, but it was cold and drenching, and the pail itself hit her head, so she saw stars. She stumbled, caught in damp-heavy skirts.
“That’ll wash the sulphur stink off you!” Putman, George and Wilmot held each other momentarily before collapsing in a heap of snorting, farting hilarity. Rist stood frozen, face twisted; she thought he might cry. Beyond him, crowding around the doorframe were the girls, expressions horrified.
Rist knelt to help her. As soon as she was upright, she shook him off and glared at him, at them all.
“Lavinny,” began Rist, mistakenly using the back-country nickname her father did.
She hiked her skirts and ran down the stairs, stopping only to turn and lift one hand, folding the two middle fingers under the thumb, leaving pointer and pinky free. She shook the gesture at them, stopping even Putnam’s laughter. Satisfied, she spun away towards the tree line, towards where the woods closed in, brambles and vines grew wild, where animals darted and hid, where she knew her way better than anyone. Surefooted, she bolted, retreating to where the hills shivered and shuddered, and where whip-poor-wills perched and sang, waiting for souls to come within reach.
Lavinia wondered if the books might not be better off on shelves.
She thought about how orderly those in the bright, neat Whatley parlor had looked a few days ago. It would make a difference here, though she was not overly given to considerations of housework and such. She could charm Otis Bishop into building a few cases, surely. But then he’d have to be invited in to measure; then he’d go home and tattle to his mother about what he’d seen, heard, smelled. And then Mercy Bishop would blow her stack to learn he’d been near Lavinia, trying to find a way between her legs, which would never happen, though hope of it kept him compliant just as fear of it kept his dam in a simmering stew of rage.
And her father would be equally put out, to discover everything tidied away. He’d never find anything. As things were now, he could locate a particular volume mostly within seconds, pick out which teetering stack it inhabited, in which corner of which room. Their spaces were designated purely by what they called them, rather than by specialized function or furniture. There were chairs and there were books and there were tables everywhere, even in the kitchen. Though she had her own chamber equipped with a bed, said bed was crowded around by more tables and chairs covered with more monographs, octavos, and ledgers. The purpose of the house, Lavinia sometimes thought, was less habitation and more storage. She lived in a library.
She didn’t complain, though, because she loved the books, too, maybe even more than her father did; he saw them merely as containers of knowledge. She adored them in their entirety; embraced the dusty, musty covers, the brown-flecked folios, the pages with the ragged edges they’d cut themselves.
And she loved the promises they made.
They whispered to her of a power she might take, of an escape that could be hers. They vowed she could leave, leave home, leave Sentinel Hill, Dunwich and its surrounds. The tarot cards spread in front of her — colors faded, dog-eared, stained with the touch of many hands — told her the same thing: that he would make himself known by his actions. That he would reach out and take her from this mundane existence, from her father’s howling madness, from the taunts and torments, from the men who thought that, as a Whatley, she was fair game, an easy woods girl.
Lavinia had grown tired of waiting, she admitted. But her faith had been rewarded at last. Freedom was in sight.
She thought about Rist. He’d been kind, the only one to ever be so, to not demand something of her, though she knew he wanted what they all did. But he didn’t threaten, didn’t pester, didn’t press.
She wondered when he would come.
Rist had got himself lost.
It had seemed the simplest thing, to set off from his parents’ big house, carrying a basket of food as if visiting a sick relative rather than just a dirt-poor one. He knew the turning to take, too, the one leading into the village of Dunwich, small though neat, respectable in its economic embarrassment. There were some larger homes there, some of stone that weren’t strangled by weeds, windows uncovered and shiny bright. Others were borderline hovels if their owners but knew it, though the tiny gardens out front were carefully tended, both flowers and vegetables sprouting.
The loungers were outside Osborne’s General Store, nodding suspiciously-but-politely, watching as he passed. They recognized him, yes, and he was grateful he didn’t bear any resemblance to Cousin Putnam. That individual never made any effort to get folk to like him — indeed, went out of his way to torment and offend. One day, Putnam Whatley would get his comeuppance and Rist did not wish to be mistaken for him.
You couldn’t, he thought, treat people as if they were less than you — even if they were — it just didn’t do, wasn’t right. Behind him, one of the loafers said something he didn’t catch, but the group laughed, so he was glad. He hefted the basket higher, increased his pace, and looked out for the crooked tree he knew would put him on the path to Old Wizard Whatley’s house.