The Invited(2)

By the time Jane ran down the path, the dogs were coming from the east, from the road that led into the center of town. Old hound dogs, trained to tree bears and coons, but now it was her scent they were after.

Don’t be afraid, Hattie told herself now. She concentrated on pushing the fear to the back of her mind. She picked up her ax and stood tall.

“Witch!” the men who ran after the dogs cried. “Get the witch!”

“Murderer!” some cried.

“The devil’s bride,” others said.

Ax clenched in her hands, Hattie started off across the bog, knowing the safest path. There were parts that dropped down, went deep; places where springs bubbled up, bringing icy-cold water from deep underground. Healing water. Water that knew things; water that could change you if you’d let it.

    The peat was spongy beneath her feet, but she moved quickly, surely, leaping like a yearling deer.

“There she is!” a man shouted from up ahead of her. And this was not good. She hadn’t expected them to come from that direction. In fact, they were coming from all directions. And there were so many more of them than she’d expected. She froze, panicked, as she looked at the circle forming around her, searching for an opening, a way out.

She was surrounded by men from the sawmill, men who stood around the potbelly stove at the general store, men who worked for the railroad, men who farmed. And there were women, too. This she should have expected, should have seen coming, but somehow hadn’t.

When a child’s life is lost, it’s the mother who bears the most grief, the most fury. The women, Hattie knew, might be more dangerous than the men.

These were people she’d known all her life. Many of them had come to her in times of need, had asked for guidance, had asked her to look into the future; paid her to give a reading or to deliver a message from a loved one who had passed. She knew things about the people of this town; she knew their deepest secrets and fears; she knew the questions they were afraid to ask anyone else.

Her eye caught on Candace Bishkoff, who was walking into the bog with her husband’s rifle trained on Hattie.

“Stay right there, Hattie!” Candace ordered. “Drop the ax!” Candace’s wild eyes bulged, the cords of her neck stood out.

Hattie dropped the ax, felt it slip out of her fingers and land softly on the peat below.

Candace and Hattie had played together as children. They were neighbors and friends. They’d made dolls from twigs, bark, and wildflowers: stick-figure bodies and bright daisies for heads. They’d played in this very bog, climbed the trees at the edge of it, had parties with bullfrogs and salamanders, sung songs about their own bright futures.

And Jane had played with Candace’s daughter, Lucy, for a time. Then that had ended, as well it should have. Some things are for the best.

“In God’s name, you better tell me the truth, Hattie Breckenridge,” Candace called to her. “Where is Jane?”

    Hattie followed the barrel of the rifle to Candace’s eyes and looked right at her. “Gone,” Hattie said. “I sent her away last night. She’s miles and miles from town now.”

Others were moving in on her, forming a tight circle around the edge of the bog and stepping closer, feet sinking and squishing, good dress shoes being ruined.

“If she were here, I would kill her,” Candace said.

The words twisted into Hattie’s chest, drove out the breath there.

“I would kill her right in front of you,” Candace snarled. “Take your daughter away from you as you took mine from me.”

“I did no such thing,” Hattie said.

“Lucy was in the schoolhouse!” Candace wailed, her body swaying, being pushed down by the weight of the words she spoke. “They just pulled her body out not an hour ago!” Her voice cracked. “Her and Ben and Lawrence. All dead!” She began to sob.

A part of Hattie, the little-girl part who looked over and saw her once-upon-a-time best friend in such pain, longed to go to her, to put her arms around her, to sing a soothing song, weave flowers into her hair, bathe her in the healing waters of the bog.

“Candace, I am truly sorry for this tragedy and for your pain, but it was not my doing. I told you—I told everyone in town—that I foresaw this disaster. That the schoolhouse would burn. That lives would be lost. But no one would listen. I only see glimpses of what will happen. I can’t control it. Can’t stop it.”

She never got used to it—the shock of something she’d seen in a vision actually happening; a tragedy unfolding that she had no way to stop.

“I need you to stop speaking,” Candace said, gripping the gun so tightly her hands turned white. “Stop speaking and put your hands up above your head.”

Gun trained on her, Hattie did as she was told.

Men came from behind, bound her wrists with rope.

“Bring her to the tree,” Candace said.

What should I do? Hattie asked the voices, the trees, the bog itself. How will you help me out of this?

And for once in her life, for the one time she could recall in her thirty-two years here on earth, the voices were silent.

And Hattie was afraid. Deeply, truly afraid.

    She knew in that moment that it was over. Her time had come. But Jane, Jane would be all right. They would not find her. She was sure.