Chapter 15

For the next couple of hours, I rattled around the house. I did a little more cleaning, fixed myself dinner, and I even took time to wash the dishes. I had filled a sink earlier and soaked them. The caked-on remains of whatever I had eaten before I left came off with little effort.

At around nine, I called Jackie at home and let the phone ring for half a minute. After I hung up, I punched in the shop number. She answered on the second ring.

"I'm almost through the day’s receipts," she said. "We were busy but not overwhelmed. It runs in cycles."

"Tourist season slacking off?"

"Not yet. We've got a good month and some left."

"I got a call today," I began and told her about George Masters. For a few minutes, I went over our talk about Danielsford, and told her what he said about searching for the town.

"So the preacher's wife found the guy," she said when I finished.

"We're going to meet on Monday in Wenham.”

"That's in the area?"

"It’s one of the towns. He's searched the surrounding territory."

I gave her a full rundown on our plans, or my plans. She listened, making a throaty sound now and then.

"And if you find it?" she asked.

"Then it could get interesting."

"Or a little more interesting," she replied.

"We'll see. We have to find it first."

"Question," she said.

"Shoot."

"If you find the site and if our theories are right, does the funeral service have to be on the site of the church?"

I hadn't given it any thought. "I'm not sure. I imagine so."

"How can you know where the church sat?"

"I can't," I admitted, now wondering if she could have uncovered a new wrinkle to add to my growing list. I shoved it into an unused corner or my mind. There was enough to deal with.

"You're on the right track." Her voice was firm. "My concern is what if you don't find the town? I mean, what if there’s nothing at all left? Three hundred years is a long time."

Her thoughts weren't new. They had crossed my mind only a few hours earlier.

"There won't be much left," I said. "If there was, someone would know about it. The guy I'm meeting says there's nothing in any of the records of the surrounding towns."

"George Masters," she said. "Darn, I wish I could help."

"So do I," I answered.

"I can't leave the shop. Not this time of year."

"Too busy," I said.

"For one person," she agreed. "Sometimes the two of us are run ragged."

We were quiet for a second or two.

"How much more work do you have?" I asked.

"Half an hour, forty-five minutes max. What's on your mind?"

"You," I replied.

"Same here," she said. "You're on my mind every day."

"You're in your office.”

"Yes. Alone."

"What if I were to suddenly walk in?"

We continued teasing each other for a few minutes. Then, it escalated as we began fantasizing. By the time we were done, an hour had passed.

"God, I want you here," she said after a moment.

"I want to be there."

"It's fun doing it this way. It takes the edge off, but I want to be able to touch you, feel you with me."

"Soon." I replied. "I think we're getting to the end."

"I still worry." She hesitated. "The other woman. You haven't seen her?"

"No," I said, "except in those nightmares and I have had none lately."

Not only had I not seen her, but I had also almost forgotten about her. Almost, but not quite. She had been the reason for the search. The nightmares were horrific, but they had subsided, at least for the time being. As long as I lived, though, I would never forget them. They were too real. And I knew they, or she, could return at any time.

"She's involved. I can't imagine how," Jackie said. "I mean, the whole problem is because of her."

"I know, but I can't figure it out either. And I don't understand why she wants to kill me."

“You disobeyed her.”

“It makes little sense,” I said. “I didn't open the coffin, but Mary is out. If I didn't do it, who did?”

“What about this whole thing makes sense? I mean, about any of it.”

We talked for another fifteen minutes. I didn't want the call to end, and I knew she didn't. Finally, though, she had to get her work finished. It would be after midnight before she finished, thanks to me.

"We'll talk tomorrow?" she asked.

"You bet," I said. "I'll try to wait until you're home."

"If you don't get an answer, you're welcome to interrupt me here. You're getting me addicted to phone sex."

"You started it."

"You didn't take much enticing. Anyway, I kind of like doing it on the phone."

"Only with me, I hope," I said.

"So far," She ended with a giggle. "It’s a new experience. I always thought it was just for kids."

"We're kids at heart," I said.

"In the meantime," she sighed, "I have work to finish. As much as I'd love to seduce you again, I need to get it done and get home. Tomorrow is Saturday, and it's usually busy."

***

After a quick shower I went to bed. It was around midnight and about the time Jackie was getting home. I pulled the covers over me, turned off the light and closed my eyes. It seemed as if my eyes just closed when I sensed that I wasn't alone.

Even on the darkest of nights, my bedroom isn't pitch black. Light from a nearby streetlamp gets in through the window shades. Near the doorway, I saw the now familiar form. Mary stood as motionless as ever, facing the bed and me.

I turned on the light and sat up. Her eyes flicked to the bedside lamp for a moment before returning to me. Again, I could see her mouth moving, forming unheard words.

"I can't hear you," I said, feeling a strange mix of curiosity and fear.

I wanted to know what she was trying to tell me. And I was scared, but not terrified to the point of paralysis anymore. My heart thumped wildly in my chest. I wished I were anywhere but where I was at that moment. In addition to it all, I was curious what she was trying to tell me.

She continued to stare at me for a few seconds and then spoke again. I shook my head.

"I can see you saying something, but I can't hear you."

Then I remembered the tape recorder. I had put it in the bedside table's drawer. I motioned her to wait and fished through the drawer. It had new batteries, and I had tested it to be sure it still worked. I aimed the device at her and turned it on, grateful I was familiar enough with it to remember how to operate the buttons in the near darkness.

"Try saying it again." I realized as I spoke how surreal and insane the entire past couple of minutes were, and I wondered whether she could hear me.

She looked at the recorder, raised her eyes to mine and spoke. The needle on the small meter moved, signifying her voice was being picked up by the machine; I hoped what it was picking up were her words and they were going onto the tape.

When she finished, I rewound the tape and played it. Her voice was soft, gentle and nonthreatening which helped me to relax just a little more. She spoke in an old dialect with a heavy accent. The quality, to my surprise, was crisp with none of the metallic tinny sound the cheap speaker on the recorder usually exhibited.

"Sir," the voice said, "you were chosen to release me into this world. I adjure you good sir to now give me to my rest."

For a second I didn’t know what to say. She said I had been chosen to release her, but I didn’t. It was something to consider later.

"I want to," I told her. It felt a bit unsettling to be talking to a ghost. "But I don't know where to find Danielsford?"

She looked down at the machine and I saw her speaking again.

I motioned her to wait and hit record. She spoke, looking at the recorder.

"At the shallow ford. There will it be found."

"At a shallow ford," I repeated.

It was something, but not much. I'm sure she knew where the ford was, and she might even recognize it today. I didn't and wouldn't know it if I waded across it unless remnants of the village remained.

The woman at the Archives had mentioned the fact Danielsford could mean Daniel's Ford, a place at a stream or river shallow enough to cross. When I met George Masters, we would check his maps to try to find them. I was sure there would be more than one ford. If we were lucky, maybe we could locate them once we were in the field. Map reading, other than highway maps, was not my strong suit.

"Where is the shallow ford?" I asked.

She raised her arm and pointed at the recorder. I turned it on and aimed it at her. I watched as she talked into the machine. When she finished, I wound it back and pressed the play button.

"I cannot long protect ye. She who took the other does come soon. Make haste in doing this and you will be saved."

"When you are at rest, she will be gone?" I asked.

She looked at me a moment longer and dissolved into nothing.

As Jackie and I suspected, Mary had not killed Walt. It was the other one, and she was out there somewhere. I knew Mary was referring to the woman on the Common. She killed Walt and was somewhere near, trying to get me.

I puzzled over the motive. If the evil one was the woman from the Common, it made no sense. At the moment, it seemed to be as irrelevant as who she was. She wanted to kill me. As I saw it, that was enough. Going to the police was even more irrelevant. Even if they got involved, they couldn't protect me, assuming they even believed me, which I knew they would not.

I rewound the tape and listened again, and then one more time. She said I had been chosen to release her. I assumed she meant from the coffin, or was it from the curse she had inflicted upon the town and herself? Regardless, I hadn’t released her from the coffin. I didn’t think how she became free of the box mattered any longer. The bigger problem, releasing the curse, depended on our finding the town.

What did the other woman have to do with the situation? I still wasn't sure I would ever know.

"I'll do my best," I said more to myself, wishing I had made her understand it would be a big help to know where along the river the ford lay.

Though I had felt no fear after the initial jolt when she appeared, I was now wide-awake. If I wasn't as frightened as before, the event still left me decidedly unsettled. I crawled from the bed and sat on the edge, waiting for my pulse to abate. My brow was damp with perspiration.

After a minute or two, I stood and left the room for the kitchen, where I more often than not ended up when I couldn't sleep. I made a fresh pot of coffee. At the kitchen table, I sat and listened to the Mr. Coffee perk merrily away without a care in the world. Of course, Mr. Coffee was ignorant of what had just happened less than twenty feet away.