The Invited(28)

“Oh, I don’t know for sure. Back in my grandmother’s time. Early 1900s, I think? Mary Ann at the historical society would know.”

“Do you think there are any photos? Of the cabin or Hattie?”

“Could be,” the librarian said. “You talk to Mary Ann. If there are any, she’ll know.”

“What happened to Hattie?” Helen asked.

    The librarian got quiet, looked down at the papers on her desk.

“There are all kinds of stories…,” she said, moving papers around. “Some folks even believe that before she died, she buried treasure on her land—her family’s fortune. Me, I doubt there ever was a fortune. If there was, why didn’t she leave? Or build a nicer house for herself? It’s crazy, the stories some people tell.”

Helen nodded. She knew how folklore worked, how stories were embellished over the years, and a true historian had to do a lot of legwork and research to sift through those stories for the grains of truth inside them.

“One thing in the stories is always the same, though,” the librarian continued, a little gleam in her eye. “People say her spirit haunts that bog. They see her ghost out there, walking around the water, out in the middle of it, too. If you look on some early-summer days, you can see pink flowers have sprung up where she put her feet. Lady’s slippers.”

Helen got another chill, remembered the scatterings of pale pink orchids she and Nate had seen while walking to the bog.

Hattie’s footsteps.

The woman smiled at her, and Helen couldn’t tell if she actually believed any of this (and was perhaps the sort who attended the Hartsboro Spirit Circle) or if she was just passing stories along.

Then the woman said something that answered Helen’s questions. “You stay out there long enough, and who knows, maybe you’ll see her, too. Go to the bog at sunset and wait. When the darkness is settling in, that’s when Hattie comes out.” She smiled vaguely again and winked. “Just, you know. Be careful.”



* * *



. . .

“What’s all this?” Nate asked. He’d just walked in from the downpour outside. He’d peeled off his raincoat but was still soaked from head to toe. His bird-watching binoculars were strung around his neck.

“I’ve been to the library,” Helen said.

“So I see.” He came closer, leaving soggy footprints on the old linoleum floor.

“It’s small but has a lot more than I imagined it would. I signed us both up for cards,” Helen said. “But they don’t actually give cards. They just keep the patrons’ names in a card catalog–looking thing. Very cute.”

    “I guess.” He picked up one of the books piled on the kitchen table and read the title out loud. “Witchcraft in New England?” He glanced at the other titles, all books on witchcraft, ghosts, and the occult. “You’re not planning to cast a spell on me or anything, are you?”

She smiled. “Only if you tease me about my research. Then I just might turn you into a toad.”

“I’d prefer some sort of bird,” Nate said. He picked up another book and glanced at the title: Communicating with the Spirit World. He frowned in disapproval but said nothing.

Mr. Science had never approved of anything otherworldly or unexplained.

She frowned back at him. “Those who are the victim of spells don’t get to decide. And watch out, Nature Boy, you’re getting my library books all wet.”

Nate put the book down, took a step back. “And what, exactly, is the goal of this research?”

“Remember what the realtor told us? About the bog being haunted? And remember the little foundation we found?”

Nate nodded. “Did you find out anything at the town clerk’s office?”

“Uh-uh. They were closed. But I asked at the library and it turns out this woman, Hattie Breckenridge, lived in a little house at the edge of the bog back in the early 1900s. That foundation we found is all that’s left. And get this—people said she was a witch!”

“A witch?” Nate raised his eyebrows. “Like Glinda? Or like the Wicked Witch of the West?”

She rolled her eyes. “Hearing about Hattie got me curious. I didn’t realize witchcraft was a thing in New England in the 1900s. The Salem trials were back 1692. As I understand it, the witch craze was all over with by 1700.”

“Your point is…”

“I don’t have a point. I’m just curious. It’s an area I don’t know much about.”

He nodded. This he understood. The need to learn whatever you could about the things you didn’t know, to fill in the gaps, to be constantly supplying your brain with new information and facts.

    “And this is our new home,” she added. “Her land, it’s ours now. Don’t you think we should learn Hattie’s story?”

Nate smiled. “Of course.” Then he laughed.

“What?”

“I was just thinking about Jenny—wait until we tell her our land comes with its very own witch ghost!”

“We’ll tell her no such thing!” She waggled her finger at him warningly, laughing herself. “Not until I’ve done my research and found out who Hattie really was, what her true story is. She was probably just an eccentric woman, you know? Think about it—a woman on her own building a little house out by the bog all by herself, in that time. Of course she was shunned, called a witch.”