Chapter 4

The nightmares began a few days later and grew more intense, frightening and real. They started a day or two after I received a phone call telling me about the murder of Walt Arnold. I asked for details but the caller, one of Walt's employees, would only say that Walt's wife found him in his office at the store, the same one I had been in while taking his orders. There were no suspects.

Two nights after, the woman from the Common returned. This time her sharp fingernails raked the flesh from my face, tearing and ripping me to pieces. They were real to the point I felt the pain. I tried fighting back, but it was useless. She was immensely strong.

Awakening with a jolt, I bolted upright in the bed, and ran my hands over my face and body, expecting to find them covered with blood. I was unharmed. No blood covered my hands. There were no scratches or rips in my skin.

It was a nightmare, but it seemed to be much more than that. What happened was more than a dream. It was real. Everything about it was real. I felt the pain. I thought it was a premonition. In the nightmare, I was experiencing my death. What I did not understand was why she wanted me dead.

My mind flipped back to the dream. The woman in it, the one I saw on the Common and after, wanted me to open the coffin, and she demanded the person inside be set free. Then the hag from my nightmares could continue. What did she mean by ‘continue?’

I wanted to ignore her. But, as much as I wished she were a figment of my imagination, I knew she wasn’t. Did she terrorize my dreams for some other reason? I wondered if I became so focused on the town that my subconscious took over and created the worst possible scenario. I sat in bed, bathed in sweat, with the dream still vivid in my mind.

Next, I wondered what happened to the person in the coffin. If it was Mary, the woman from the pharmacy I was told about, did they really hang her? Hanging seemed to be the answer to dealing with a convicted witch in Puritan times, at least as far as I knew and had read. Was she tried, convicted of witchcraft and executed by the people in the town? Did they later discover their error and put her in the church? Finally, was there any way for me to find out and, ultimately, would answering any of those questions matter?

Then, I thought of another question. Was the person in the coffin even Mary Bradbury? I didn't know, and I doubted there would be a way for me to find out. There were a lot of questions I felt sure I'd never be able to answer. But I had to try.

I pushed off the sweat dampened covers, got up and walked into the kitchen. There would be no more sleep for me the rest of the night. After putting on coffee, I dropped into a chair at the table and tried to settle down and go through the internal debate one more time.

I wondered about the nightmares. Coffins were not rare. I have seen a few in my life. Nor were they frightening. I've seen dead people. They didn’t scare me. Was the dream what I suspected? Could it be an omen or premonition of something destined to happen? At the moment the obvious answer was still yes, and the strange woman in the nightmare dream was the one who would kill me.

If it weren't for the nightmares or premonitions, I don't think I'd have connected Walt's death to the town or the woman. Of course, I had no proof she killed him, only a deep sense of knowing I was right.

The woman from the Common killed Walt Arnold. The dreams foretold my death at her hands. She was telling me she was coming. I had the feeling she was daring me to try to stop her and knowing I couldn't. Only I had no intention of giving up without a fight.

I had a hunch the key to winning lay in the church, based on the dream telling me to open the coffin. Something held the person inside the rough wooden coffin. My opening it would release whatever or whoever was inside. It didn't occur to me to wonder what could be left of the occupant after over three hundred years.

Two days later, after three consecutive nights of bad dreams and the resulting loss of sleep, I began calling clergymen. I had run through a mental list beginning with psychiatrists. I included sociologists and psychologists before deciding the clergy seemed the most benign.

Most of the priests and ministers with whom I spoke thought I was playing a prank. Several suggested I get counseling. It never occurred to them counseling was the reason I was calling. A couple of them hung up on me. Then, I found a minister who listened to my entire story.

"What did you say was the name of the town?" he asked.

I told him and described the place.

He cut me off. His voice had an urgent tone. "Can you meet me here?"

The minister, Harold Conant, answered the parsonage door and ushered me into his medium sized office. He appeared to be in his sixties and was tall and lean with sharp, piercing blue eyes.

I took a seat. He stood in front of me, leaning his long, gaunt, frame against the desk. "I asked you here, Mr. Jackson, because I've heard of the town."

"You…" I started, relief flooding over me. The feeling of relief didn't last long.

He held up his hand and stopped me. "Robert Putnam is a minister of the church you described."

"The church doesn't fit the town, Reverend."

"No," he corrected. "It wouldn't. I should think it would look completely out of place. I imagine it's why the church was unused."

When I told him, he didn't understand. He waved me off with a flick of his hand.

"Later, perhaps. There's no need to explain it right now. You were asked to release the spirit of a woman."

“I don't know who is in the coffin, Reverend.”

I blurted the circumstances again, relating them as correctly as I could, just as it all happened.

"Yes, yes," he said, stopping me one more time. "The woman demanded you open the casket in the dream or vision."

I shook my head and tried to apologize. "I know. It sounds nuts, except you've heard of the village.”

"Yes," he said. "But there's no guarantee that even if you obey it would end your problem. What is happening may still happen." He hesitated. “How can you obey?”

“I guess I’d have to go back to the town and open the thing,” I said. I ended with a half shrug.

Conant stood upright and paced back and forth, hands folded behind him.

"Reverend Putnam is still the pastor in the same town, in the western part of the state."

He went to an address book, flipped through it, and picked up the phone.

"I don't have the details of his situation. He mentioned it, but he wouldn't speak in depth about what happened. The church you saw came from Massachusetts. I can tell you that much. Understand, Mr. Jackson, if I weren't acquainted with Reverend Putnam, I wouldn't believe a word of your story."

"From Massachusetts? The town was in Vermont," I said. Now I was more puzzled than before.

"So you said."

He dialed the number, and I listened to the Reverend's half of the conversation. It wasn't encouraging. Conant gently placed the receiver in its cradle and frowned.

"What is it?" I asked. My immediate thought was that Reverend Putnam suffered the same fate as Walt.

Conant said nothing. He walked around the desk and folded himself into his chair before speaking. "Reverend Putnam is not available. He is on an extended mission for the next year."

I closed my eyes and felt myself slump deeper into the chair. "What do I do?"

His eyes dropped to the desktop before focusing on the wall behind me. "I don't know if there's anything you can do. Assuming your suspicions to be correct, whatever is happening is beyond our ability to comprehend."

"Reverend Putnam—”

Conant made a noncommittal gesture with his right hand. "The coffin was in his church at the time the town arrived. The village in which he lived vanished for three days. I don't know why he or his church remained, nor can I explain how the building became a part of the town."

"Wait. What? What do you mean, vanished?” I stared at him.

He explained what he knew. It wasn't much. By the time he finished, I was more confused than before. If I understood him, Danielsford appeared every three years somewhere in New England. The town remained for three days and then vanished until three more years passed.

“That is correct,” he said. “The town was cursed. We, of course, don't believe in such things today. This lends credence to the fact that perhaps our modern world is a bit naïve about such things.”

“So, the town is gone now?” I asked.

"If Reverend Putnam's experience is an indication, the town will have vanished some days ago. I tend to agree with you. The key to your problem lies within the town." He hesitated for a couple of seconds. His eyes dropped to the desktop. "Mr. Jackson, I know of no one in today's world who can help."

"Surely the authorities know about it," I said. “Somebody else has to have seen it and called the police.”

"I've never read or seen anything about this town."

"What can I do?" I asked.

"I'm aware of nothing you can do." He shrugged his narrow shoulders. “Additionally, what could the police or any authorities do?”

I stared at the floor, thinking. "When the town showed up, he and his wife were a part of it."

"Yes, but he has spoken little as to what happened." The Reverend shrugged again. "He is a minister, a respected member of his community. Talking about such an event would have jeopardized his standing in the town, and perhaps his career."

"Why would it? Weren’t the other people in the town involved?” I asked. “Reverend Conant. What can I do?”

He slowly shook his head, focusing on the wall behind me. "At the moment, I have no answer. I'm sorry."

We talked for a few more minutes. He promised he would attempt to find a resolution. I realized neither he nor any member of the clergy could help me. I asked for Putnam's phone number. After a moment's hesitation, he wrote it down on a small yellow pad and handed me the piece of paper.

The Reverend’s wife was there when it happened. She saw and experienced the same phenomenon. I hoped to convince her to talk to me. There were a lot of questions and I felt they all needed an answer.

Danielsford appeared in western Massachusetts three years before. It remained for three days, taking over the current town, and then vanished. When it left, it took Reverend Putnam's church, or a mirror of it, along.

Where else could it have shown up in the last three hundred and twenty plus years? If an appearance every three years was the norm which I didn't know, the town had manifested at least fifteen times during my life alone. Yet I never heard, nor had I read, anything about it. Neither had I seen on TV any rumors relating to the occurrence, and I traveled over much of New England in my job.

Somebody must have heard a story about a strange town appearing and then disappearing, especially now when social media reports on everything minutes after it happens. In my two decades of traveling over various parts of New England, not a soul ever said a word about the town. I'm sure I'd have remembered being told about a mysterious town appearing from nowhere only to disappear in three days.

I thanked Reverend Conant and stood to go. He escorted me to the door, and we shook hands. He stood in the doorway and watched me climb into my car. I saw him still standing there as I drove away.