The Witch of Tin Mountain(34)

May 2, 1831

All my hens are dead. Torn to little more than feathers. They were beyond my powers to restore. I suspect a fox.

May 3, 1831

I had a visitor today. A minister. He sat with me and read verses from his Bible. We talked for a good long while. He is from out east—Massachusetts or Maryland, although I cannot recollect which. He has promised to come again. Entertaining him demanded only a cup of tea and a listening ear, although I have little use for his teachings. He is called Nathaniel Walker.

May 7, 1831

Mr. Walker came again, as promised. This time, he brought sweets for Jakob and two red hens for me, as I had spoken to him of our unfortunate massacre. It was a disarming gift. He helped me build a sturdy slat rail fence around the henhouse—one high enough that a fox would have little chance of breaching it. After, we sat by the fire and talked long into the evening. He showed an interest in my work, asking me about the bundled herbs hanging from the rafters and their various uses.

He is congenial and kind, with blue eyes that sparkle when he laughs. I find myself wondering what could be possible between us. I have been lonely, I suppose.

May 25, 1831

Nathaniel and I have become lovers. We first came together late one night when another storm raged outside the cabin. After we had enjoyed a warming draft of cider, I was of no mind to send him out into the weather. It has been the coldest spring I can remember. I suppose it is only natural we craved one another’s warmth and closeness.

Nathaniel has been with me every night since.

May 27, 1831

Something strange and unsettling has happened.

Last night, Nathaniel drifted to sleep beside me. He usually leaves well before dawn crosses the windowsill, but as the morning light touched his fine features, his sleeping countenance briefly flickered and changed. I sprang from the bed in horror. Where my handsome lover had been, a demonic creature had taken his place, with clawed hands and fanged teeth. And then, just as suddenly, his beauty was renewed, his dark hair falling across the pillow, his eyes opening wide.

Fear roiled through my body as Nathaniel reached for me. Horrified, my mind at war with the wanting in my body, I bade him go, pleading an excess of work. He rose, stretching luxuriantly.

I quelled my distemper and allowed him to kiss me.

Was his transformation merely a trick of the light, or something more? Even as the comforting noonday warmth floods through my windows, a dark chill settles in my marrow. I know not what it means, but I am troubled all the same.





TWELVE

DEIRDRE





1881




Deirdre closed the grimoire, her mind clouded with warring thoughts. Outside the train car, the trees rushed by in a haze, blinking gold and green.

She thought of the glinting shine in Ambrose Gentry’s eyes, his gleeful, hungry grin reflected in her mirror. His words in her head, promising to pursue her like prey. Had it merely been her imagination? Was Gentry only a lustful man driven by covetousness . . . or something far worse?

Deirdre gathered her cloak around her shoulders. A chill ran through the train car. She took a drink of tea to warm herself and opened the grimoire again. The scent of dried geraniums wafted out. Each time she opened the book, the scent changed slightly. Sometimes it smelled like dirt or fresh-mown hay. Other times it smelled like ashes and fire. And the words themselves shifted and moved. Things were never in the same order. The book seemed to know her thoughts and reflect them back to her.

She’d opened the book three times since she’d left Tin Mountain. But each time, the feeling of dread grew stronger. As much as her curiosity drew her to read on, to learn more of Anneliese’s story, she feared the knowledge within. Ever since her vision of Anneliese in Sutter’s holler, vague imaginings had haunted her. The surge of knowing that had come over her that night had diminished, but she had the sense that if she chose to call up that knowing—that greater power—it might consume her.

She feared that giving herself over to this strange new knowledge would be like turning on a tap that she wouldn’t be able to shut off again.

A rustle of sound caught her ears. Deirdre startled. No one else was in the compartment she was traveling in. Pa had used his standing as an engineer to secure a first-class ticket, and the only other passengers, an elderly couple who had boarded with her, had gotten off at Cape Girardeau. She slowly turned, her heartbeat thrumming in her ears.

There was no one there. Just the swaying gimbal lanterns and row upon row of scarlet banquettes.

She went back to her reading, hurriedly skimming over Anneliese’s journaling and concentrating on the innocent recipes at the back of the book. As the train curved on its route eastward, the steady clatter of the tracks and the rhythm of the train soon made Deirdre drowsy, and in the plush comfort of her seat, she drifted off to sleep. Her dreams were troubled. In them, she was trapped in a never-ending forest of looming trees, pursued by an unseen creature, who snarled and snapped. She awoke sometime later, her stomach knotted with fear.

“Miss? Are you all right?”

Someone grasped her shoulder. Deirdre flinched and let out a shaky breath. It was only the railway steward. She nodded. Her head swam with the motion, and she closed her eyes to stop the spinning. A high-pitched whine started up, somewhere deep inside her ears.

“Are you sure you’re well? You’re a bit peaked.” The young man’s voice rang hollow and distant, as if he were at the end of a long tunnel. “I can escort you to a sleeping car if you’d like.”