Chapelwood (The Borden Dispatches #2)(22)

Two hundred years ago someone would’ve found a stake and burned me by now, for the cats alone.

? ? ?

Speaking of witchcraft, the awful boys, and the cats . . . there’s a new kitten in the mix: a scruffy little gray fellow with eyes the color of sunflower petals. I acquired him down by the grocery. Two lads whose faces I know, but whose names I don’t . . . they’d put him in a bucket and were rolling it down the street, kicking it into a spin every time he tried to climb out.

I stopped the bucket with my foot.

The boys ran toward me as if to reclaim it; then one of them grabbed the other’s arm; he drew up his friend in a sudden stop, a halt of panic. He’d recognized me, and in doing so, he nearly scrambled backward to get away. You’d think I carried the axe around still, waving it willy-nilly to show my displeasure.

I retrieved the dizzy, dazed kitten and held him up against my bosom, where he silently quivered, ducking his head beneath my shawl.

The boys whispered fiercely back and forth, until the bolder of the two said loudly to the other, “I know who she is—who cares? What’s she going to do, cut our heads off?”

“No.” I held perfectly still, because I’ve learned that it unsettles people, and makes me seem more solid, more strong than I really am. I’ve become keenly fond of illusion, in my old age.

The street was quiet now. There were a few onlookers, their interest piqued by the commotion the boys had made, and their interest held by realizing who it was the children had trifled with. The ordinary background patter of voices and cars, bells on shop doors, cartwheels squeaking . . . it had evaporated.

I couldn’t do much, but I could hold their attention. I could hold that small cat, trembling against me. And I could hold still while the boys worked each other up, to either threaten me or flee from me.

“What do you care about that cat? Is it yours? Witches have cats, don’t they—are you a witch?”

“You’d better hope not.” I let my voice sink low, and kept it steady. Not raising it at all. I might’ve been teaching them their multiplication tables when I said, “You’d better hope I’m not a witch, and here’s another thing for you to hope: You’d better hope this animal is unscathed entirely, because whatever you’ve done to him, will be done to you doubly in return. And not just this one kitten, I promise you,” I continued, eyeing them hard, trying to keep down the anger that rose in my chest as the tiny heartbeat fluttered in my hands. “But any cat or dog, squirrel or bird . . . any living thing you have ever tormented for the sake of torment. It will come back to you double, you little monsters. Any tooth you’ve broken, two of yours will be smashed from your mouths. Any head you’ve cracked, yours will be cracked twice as hard. Any damage you’ve ever done, pain you’ve ever caused—any fear, any sorrow, any misery . . . rest assured, it will be yours again. Twofold.”

Behind me, and rather nearby, someone gasped. I didn’t look around to see who it was. I didn’t care. “And that, my boys, is why you’d better hope and pray that I’m not counted among the witches. Their words have power, you know.”

I left without my groceries; I’ll send the neighbor boy, Thomas, after a few tomorrow. I took the kitten home, bathed it, fed it, and left it in the sunroom to nap its fear away. There’s a great ginger queen who comes around every night, a lean, powerful cat who I think must be too old to have her own kittens anymore—but she’s been known to take others under her wing.

I’ll see what she makes of this one.

? ? ?

I really do like curses.

They can’t fail, that’s the beauty of them. Any bad thing that happens to either boy, from now until Kingdom Come, they’ll attribute it to my curse. Should the devils survive to adulthood, they’ll tell their children and grandchildren about it. They’ll blame me for everything from their ingrown nails to a fall in stock prices. They’ll swear my name at every paper cut, every death of a child.

It’s more power than I have, and more power than anyone deserves. But they’re the ones who give it away, so to hell with them.

? ? ?

But Birmingham, Alabama.

My attention wanders so much these days. I must be getting old, or maybe I’ve only lived alone too long. You’ve been gone for twenty years, Emma, dear—and you must remember how strange we old folks can become, when we have no one left to answer to, no one left to talk to. Who knows how strange I’ve become without even noticing—since there’s no one here to offer me an outside opinion on the matter.

Well, the postman probably thinks I’m batty, but he’s too much a professional to say anything about it.

Over these last few weeks he’s brought me two dozen newspapers and magazines from Alabama, and I’m fascinated by every tidbit I encounter about the axe murders there. The local politics are likewise fascinating, but in another way—or maybe not another way at all, because it’s the same dread I feel on behalf of the population.

An axe murderer runs amok in their midst. The Ku Klux Klan buys their elections. Is there anywhere on earth more bereft of hope than that small city?

I feel for them, I really do.

Here are some of the more pertinent clippings I trimmed out from the paper:


HAS HARRY THE HACKER STRUCK AGAIN?

Birmingham Daily News September 6, 1921