Fall, page 8
She had three children under the age of seven, born before her husband was killed in the Swamp by a bear who hadn’t been as badly wounded as Mr. Flinders had thought. Most mornings the children were noisy, playing or squabbling in their room, but on this morning not a sound escaped their door, and when Mrs. Flinders went to look inside, a scene of unimaginable carnage greeted her horrified eyes.
Her three young ones were all dead in their beds, throats savagely torn as if by animal claws, blood soaking the bedding and pooling on the wooden floor. The window was wide open and a chill wind blew flurries of snow into the room. A scream caught in Mrs. Flinders’s throat, and it wasn’t until she crossed to the window and looked outside to see the tracks in the snow—animal tracks such as a wolf might make, she believed—that it finally broke free, shattering the early morning stillness.
Neighbors came running, and then the town’s constable and two of its three clergymen. A hunting party was quickly gathered and the tracks followed through the snow that had fallen during the night. But at the Swamp’s boundary the tracks suddenly disappeared, as if, the constable said, the beast had suddenly sprouted wings and taken flight.
The clergymen agreed that there could be only one explanation.
Witchcraft.
The names of Season Howe and Mother Blessing sprang to everyone’s lips. The tracking party split into two, one branch heading for each of the suspected witches’ homes. Mother Blessing was sound asleep beside her husband—my father, Winthrop Blessing—when a determined rapping on the front door roused them. Both grumbled as they opened the door to find Parson Coopersmith—a dour-faced man whose black clothes and ghastly pallor would have made him as suited for undertaker’s work as for the pulpit—standing at the front of a pack of a half-dozen men armed with muskets, axes, and, in one case, a pitchfork.
Mother Blessing knew at a single glance that this could not be good news. The men’s faces were grim, their eyes hard, and of course there were the weapons they bore. “What brings you here?” Mother Blessing asked without preamble. Winthrop Blessing, never a strong man, according to his wife’s stories, stood mute beside her.
“There has been an incident,” Parson Coopersmith declared. “The widow Flinders’s children have been murdered in their beds. Every indication is that witchcraft is behind it.”
“Witchcraft?” Mother Blessing asked him. When she tells the story she says that she was acting like a natural performer, since she had never publicly admitted to witchcraft, though many in town knew her ways and came to her for help from time to time. “Then why come to me?”
“There are tales,” Parson Coopersmith said diplomatically. “You and I have never had any troubles, Mother Blessing. But this … this has gone on too long, and we can no longer turn our backs on this activity.”
“You believe my wife to be a witch?” Winthrop asked angrily, finally rousing himself. “And a murderer?”
“I believe her to be a possible witch,” the parson said, “and therefore suspect in this matter.”
Mother Blessing felt her confidence shake at this point. She well knew that it was not their responsibility to prove that she was a witch; rather, the accusation having been made, it was now her job to prove that she was not—an impossible task.
A couple of contradictory ideas came to her. She could run, though that would certainly mean giving up her home in Slocumb forever. She could fight—and win—but that would demonstrate her witchcraft beyond question, and even though these men would never talk, she wouldn’t be able to keep their deaths a secret. Or she could go along with them and accept the task of proving her own innocence, which could not be done, since anything she said or did would now be suspect. There were, she knew, no good options. Time and circumstance had gone against her, and all the good she had ever done for the townsfolk couldn’t save her now.
“Leave this house at once, Parson,” Winthrop demanded, perhaps recognizing himself the impossible choice that confronted his wife.
But she ignored my father’s outburst. “Allow me to dress properly,” Mother Blessing insisted. “I won’t meet my fate in my nightclothes, and you men should be ashamed for facing me in them.”
There were murmurs of dissent from the group, but Parson Coopersmith quickly and loudly overruled the others. “As you would, Mother Blessing. Make haste, though.”
Mother Blessing closed the door on them. She could hear them arguing, some afraid that she would grow wings and fly out a window so they wouldn’t be able to stop her. If she could do that, of course, she could have done so at the door just as easily. But they were frightened and superstitious, and she supposed that she was lucky no one with a musket had fired upon her as soon as she showed herself. She dressed as rapidly as she could, doing her best to ignore their fearful comments, while reassuring her anxious husband that she would be fine.
Of course, she knew that if witchcraft had indeed figured into the murders, like as not Season Howe was behind it. But one witch didn’t talk about another, even in such a dire circumstance.
As it turned out, she didn’t need to bring up Season’s name. Another group of men had gone to Season’s home, and her response had not been as calm and reasoned as Mother Blessing’s had been. Instead, she had answered their accusation with the proof they sought, a powerful demonstration of witchcraft that killed them all where they stood.
Her assault was witnessed, however, and even before Parson Coopersmith and his group returned to the town center with Mother Blessing, an alarm had been sounded. From every corner of Slocumb men ran toward Season’s home, only to find themselves beaten back by her magical blasts. Parson Coopersmith and his men heard the commotion and charged forward, dragging Mother Blessing along with them. Winthrop armed himself with a musket and joined the group.
Mother Blessing tells me that as they neared Season’s the very quality of the air changed. There was so much magic in the air the color of the sky was affected, purpling over Slocumb even though it was early morning, and a smell like burning skunks filled the town. Her guess was that Season had lost control of herself—that in her rage or terror she had unleashed so much magic that it was feeding her own extreme emotions, which then spurred her on to greater efforts in an ever escalating cycle of destruction. Those who had first approached her were all dead now, as were any others who had been nearby.
And still it continued. Parson Coopersmith raised a cross toward Season and advanced on her, shouting out a prayer with every step. But Season uttered words in the ancient tongue and gestured toward him, and a moment later his head was ripped from his body and sent flying, rolling to a stop near Mother Blessing’s shoes. The body stood a moment longer, and then dropped the cross to the dirt and collapsed.
Panic spread through Slocumb at that point, and those who had given thought to attacking Season changed their minds. Instead of going after the witch, they ran for cover. Season didn’t care, though. Mother Blessing saw her standing in front of her home, her pretty face twisted in unreasoning fury, unleashing wave after wave of incredibly powerful magics. Dust swirled away from Season, choking the streets, and a ferocious hurricane-force wind picked up, bending trees and tearing shingles from houses.
Mother Blessing tried then to stop her. Except for Winthrop Blessing, who proved to have some backbone after all, the men surrounding her had all run away, leaving her exposed in the road. She had left the house empty-handed, though, not anticipating a challenge like this. She tried a few spells, but they were blown back from Season by the furious power of the other witch’s magic.
Mother Blessing realized at that moment that even she was powerless to rein in Season’s wrath. Season Howe had lost all sanity, all the rationality that normally kept her in check. There was no stopping her now, not unless she could somehow calm herself down. And that didn’t seem to be happening. Finally, even Winthrop was caught in her attack: he picked up a fallen musket and fired a ball at her, but Season simply reversed its course, driving it through his skull with enough force to shatter it, blowing bits of brain almost all the way into the Swamp.
Lashed by wind, stung by flying dust, pummeled by chunks of wood and debris, and agonizing over the death of her husband, Mother Blessing had no choice but to retreat. She escaped into the depths of the Swamp, from which she could still hear the screams and cries of dying villagers, could smell the smoke as one building after another caught fire in an inferno that burned in the Swamp for more than a month.
By the time Season’s preternatural tantrum quieted, two days and nights had passed. Mother Blessing dared to venture from her safe haven only to find the town leveled, the swamp ablaze, and every last soul in Slocumb dead. Except her, and the two unborn in her belly: my brother Abraham and myself. Season, who had caused the destruction, whose rage had destroyed a town, was gone.
And Mother Blessing dedicated her life, and those of her sons, to hunting her down. That task continues.
I remain,
Daniel Blessing, March 23, 1797
10
Rebecca Levine walked away from campus toward her shared Victorian, her loose, flowing batik skirt fluttering against her legs in the gentle breeze, her soft peasant top open at the neck. She caught glimpses from time to time of the Pacific shimmering in the distance. She had always loved the ocean, loved the natural beauty that surrounded Santa Cruz. But the ocean now reminded her of La Jolla, and that reminded her of Season Howe and Daniel Blessing. Rebecca had never seen anyone killed before—didn’t even like violent movies and TV shows—and the sight had been utterly horrifying. She wanted to surround herself with grace and beauty, to forget the vision that would not be forgotten.
She found herself thinking about it at odd moments. When she was sitting in class, listening to even the most stirring lecturer, she would suddenly realize that her mind had drifted, that she was back on that street in San Diego, watching Season cut Daniel Blessing down with her mystical attacks. Or else she would remember the séance at which Shiai had turned, momentarily, into Season—though she had persuaded herself that she had been carried away by the moment, that it had just been an awful hallucination. Sweat would pour down Rebecca’s sides, her fingernails digging into her palms, her heart pounding. She knew her grades were suffering because of the stress, knew that she needed to pay better attention in class, but she couldn’t force her mind to comply.
When things had been tough during her childhood, Rebecca’s mother had had an odd habit of reminding her that her great-grandparents had survived the concentration camp at Buchenwald. “If you think your life is really so hard, think about theirs for a while,” she would say. “Then maybe you’ll understand that your problems aren’t as big as you think.”
It had worked, most of the time, when she was a kid. But then she’d been part of a big family—mother, father, and three brothers—and there was always noise and activity going on that she could use to bring herself out of her occasional funks. Now she didn’t have that, her problems seemed far worse than they had ever been, and even thinking of the great-grandparents she had never met didn’t quite do the trick.
When she reached the house, she was covered with a thin sheen of perspiration; Indian summer had brought a heat wave to northern California and the walk home had been hot and dry. The house was dark, it was cool inside, and she was almost to the refrigerator for an Odwalla when the phone rang. There was an extension mounted on the wall in the kitchen, so Rebecca reached it almost immediately.
“Hello?”
“Rebecca?” The voice sounded familiar, but strange.
“Kerry, is that you?”
“Yeah,” Kerry responded. “It’s me.”
“Where are you?” Rebecca asked anxiously. She hadn’t heard from Kerry since that cryptic e-mail—hadn’t even had a chance to tell her about the séance. Now that they were actually speaking, though, it seemed unimportant. “You sound so weird.”
“It’s a little hard to explain,” Kerry said. “And I don’t know how much time I have. I’m calling via the built-in microphone on my laptop, since there’s no phone here. Or phone line, for that matter.”
Rebecca didn’t understand. “So then what are you on? Cable? Satellite?”
“I don’t really know myself,” Kerry said. “But if I had to guess, I’d say magic.”
Rebecca felt herself blanch. “Kerry, you’re not …”
“I’m fine, Beck. Really. Don’t worry about me. You know I can take care of myself.”
“But why are you messing around with magic?” Rebecca asked.
“Someone’s got to stop Season,” Kerry said flatly.
“But … you?”
“I don’t know if I can,” Kerry admitted. “But I know that if I don’t prepare myself and try to do it, I’ll never succeed.”
“I guess that’s true,” Rebecca said. She felt like there had to be something she could say to her friend to change her course, to make her realize what she was doing. Kerry was brave and capable, and she’d seen for herself what Season could do—had felt it more than the rest of them, Rebecca was sure, because she and Daniel had been in love. Even so, she thought, maybe Kerry underestimated what she might be getting herself into.
“Listen, Beck, I’m being way careful. I’m learning witchcraft—Daniel’s mother is starting to teach me. I’m not going to do anything rash. I just wanted to let you know how you could get hold of me—assuming this connection keeps working. Like I said, I’m not really sure how it’s working now, since there aren’t any lines connecting the computer to anything.”
She told Rebecca she couldn’t be telephoned. Or if she could, she wasn’t sure how, but that she could check e-mail again at her existing e-mail address, and probably could call if necessary. When Kerry disconnected, Rebecca was confused all over again. How could she get email without being connected to the Internet? But they had spoken, somehow, so clearly the physical laws that she had once believed in didn’t apply here.
Having promised that she’d let the others know how they could reach Kerry, Rebecca booted up her own computer and sat down to write one of the oddest e-mails she could remember.
Mother Blessing had emerged from the kitchen while Kerry sat in the living room trying to fathom what it must have been like to be the last living person in Slocumb, with the homes smoldering pits of ash and coal, the bodies of her husband and friends and neighbors strewn everywhere, acrid smoke painting the air, and a layer of ash overlaying everything. “Are y’all ready?” Mother Blessing asked before Kerry even knew she was in the room.
Kerry started, closing the journal she still had open on her lap. Is it time for dinner? she wondered. She knew time had passed while she’d been reading, but she had no idea how much. “Ready for what?”
“Your first lesson,” Mother Blessing said.
“Really? Do you mean it?” Kerry asked excitedly. This was why she’d come, what she’d been waiting for. But instead of teaching her a spell or mixing a potion, Mother Blessing sent her into the Great Dismal Swamp to look for a particular type of plant.
Slogging across the wet, uneven ground, Kerry felt more like a lackey than a student. Mother Blessing had shown her a picture of the plant she was looking for—a white, five-petaled flower with broad green leaves—given her a bag, and instructed her to bring back a sack full of its roots.
“The craft is as much about knowin’ the natural world around us as anything else,” she informed Kerry. “Our swamp here is a bounty of blessings, but y’all have to know what to ask of it, and how, and it’ll help you when it can. Ain’t a better place on Earth for a witch to find what she needs, or if there is I’d like to know about it. And there ain’t a better way to get to know it than on your hands and knees.”
The task took Kerry the rest of the afternoon, and by the time she returned to the house—still ramshackle ruin from the outside, suburban spotless on the inside—she was soaked, cold, scratched, bug-eaten, and miserable. But she had her bag of roots. And that’s when Mother Blessing surprised her with the laptop setup, which she promised would be able to communicate with the Internet, even though she wouldn’t explain just how. Kerry tried it out for a few minutes, retrieving e-mails sent to her account over the past many days, then using her built-in microphone to try calling her friends. The first one she was able to reach was Rebecca. She knew Rebecca would contact the others and talk to them, and she felt more comfortable spreading the word that way than sending out e-mails she wasn’t sure would get through, or that might be magically intercepted somehow. Kerry didn’t know if Season Howe kept track of Mother Blessing, but just in case, she didn’t want to do anything that might bring Season’s wrath down upon them.
At least, not until she was ready.
After a hot shower and a filling meal, Kerry followed Mother Blessing into the kitchen. Mother Blessing set two cutting boards out on the table with two sharp knives and the bag of roots. When Kerry sat down across from her, Mother Blessing took up one of the knives and one of the roots and, with skillful, precise movements, skinned the outer surface of the root, revealing a moist, white interior, which she tossed into a ceramic bowl. “This is the part we need,” she said. “The outside’s nothin’, might as well be bark. The power’s in here, where the root takes in nutrients from the soil, takes in water, and transmits it all up into the body of the plant. A plant’s just like a person, has to eat and drink in order to live and grow, doesn’t it?”
Kerry almost laughed, thinking of the fried foods and soft: drinks and sweetened tea that Mother Blessing seemed to live on, wondering how long a plant would survive on a diet like hers. She was the last person Kerry would expect to give lessons on nutrition—even plant nutrition. But Kerry knew better than to give voice to such a comment. Mother Blessing seemed to be beginning her lessons, and Kerry didn’t want to interrupt her, especially with something that might be considered insulting.
