Chapter 1

Seeing the little town when I topped the hill on the twisting two-lane road gave me a sense of relief. In the almost fifteen years I traveled the highway, twice a week, the town of Sherburne Center had become something of a milestone. It sat at the bottom of the hill only a few miles from Rutland, Vermont and was the last town before my destination.

You can find a typical scene repeated in other small towns and villages throughout much of New England. The tall, white steeple of the church reached above the green maple and oak trees surrounding it. Here and there, hidden by the trees, I could see a rooftop or the side of a building. In autumn the trees were in their splendor, dazzling a person with the color of their foliage.

For some reason, the town didn't look the same as I remembered, but I dismissed the thought. I saw many similar sights in my travels, and I was tired, having driven all the way from Boston.

The road wound down the mountain into the village. At the edge of Sherburne Center, I was surprised when it turned into a dirt trail. Were they repaving the highway? I slowed and prepared to stop for road construction.

A short distance later, a sign appeared proclaiming my entry into Danielsford, founded in 1693. I had never heard of Danielsford, and seeing the sign confused me. Slowing to a crawl, I pulled to the side and stopped. I spent a minute looking around before opening the car door.

There was no roadwork. I neither saw nor heard any construction. In fact, I heard nothing. I climbed out of the car only to be greeted with silence. There were no traffic sounds. The several vehicles I knew were behind me had disappeared. They hadn't passed me, and I knew there was nowhere for them to turn off the road. I had glanced in my rearview mirror as I began to slow down. They were all there. As I rolled to a stop, they were gone.

“What the hell?” I said aloud.

I wondered if I could have been sidetracked, but there was no explanation for the cars behind me disappearing. A knot of fear formed in my stomach as I looked at a town that wasn't supposed to be there. While I wanted to leave, something else kept me from climbing back in the car and getting out of there. I couldn't explain the feeling then and I don’t understand it now, except to say that I felt a need to be there. Though I wanted to turn around and leave, I had to remain.

The houses, and what I assumed to be businesses, were large and drab looking affairs painted in dull browns or lifeless reds. They were an old design, yet I could tell they were of a rather new construction. Given the size of the homes, the windows were strangely small and few.

Similar houses and buildings exist, but not in Vermont. The structures were reminiscent of any of several Massachusetts coastal communities. The whole feeling was one of having driven into the past.

Such a feeling, or impression, isn't unusual in Vermont, or anywhere in northern New England where time seems to have stood still in some smaller towns and villages. The feeling seemed to be more intense in Danielsford. Everything spoke of age while not being centuries old.

On my left sat the sparkling white church whose steeple I saw from the hill. The church building was in stark contrast to the other places. The shining white paint was as out of place as the church.

Mine seemed to be the only vehicle in town. Since entering Danielsford I hadn't seen a car or truck of any kind. I shrugged off the thought. Since seeing the town I hadn't been looking for cars or trucks. Danielsford itself had me transfixed. As I stood there something, a sixth sense or whatever, once again urged me to leave. Yet I couldn't.

I didn't feel in danger, nor was I being threatened by anyone. Up to that moment I had seen no one else. I think the impression came from my being in a town that wasn't supposed to be where it was. Not only did it not belong there, from all appearances, it didn't belong in our century. Those two facts combined should have been enough to make me leave. They didn't.

With my sixth sense shouting warnings and the odd sense of needing to remain, I listened again to the deafening silence. It was almost palpable. The pings and pops of my car's engine as it cooled broke the unnatural stillness and seemed oddly out of place.

From the Common, or park, in the middle of the town came soft, muffled ripping sounds as half a dozen cows tore loose mouthfuls of the tall grass. All else was a quiet that soon weighed on my nerves.

The Common was a large untended area, only being a moderate size field in the center of town, with high grass and four or five large maple trees shading it. The half dozen cows and an equal number of sheep grazed placidly over it. No herdsman tended the animals. They fed on the thick grass and didn't seem inclined to leave.

Clustered around it were homes and what I assumed were the businesses. The buildings seemed to squat dark and plain on their foundations but were also, in their archaic way, interesting.

As I watched the livestock, people appeared here and there. They eyed me with what I took from their body language to be a combination of suspicion and curiosity. Two men watched me from the corner of the Common and another stood by himself near a building. I guessed not many travelers stopped in Danielsford and, frankly, as yet I saw no reason anyone should. There was nothing to cause anybody to stop.

None of the three people approached me. I sensed from their stance they weren't very welcoming, but it could have been an incorrect impression created by the shock of coming into the mysterious town.

While they were watching me, I looked at them with puzzlement and a growing sense of confusion. Their clothing was as antique as the town. The three men dressed in clothes that matched the homes. It was an old-fashioned style not seen in centuries. The men wore wide-brimmed dark hats, the brims bent or slouching. Pants were tucked into knee-high stockings, and all wore light shirts with billowing sleeves.

It was as if I had driven into an early American village or an outdoor, living history museum. I placed the look, based on the homes and clothing style to be late 17th or early 18th Century. If anyone was out of place, it was me in my slacks, wearing a light blue shirt, and wearing my loafers.

I stared at the large untended Common, the white church sitting nearby, and the antiquity of the town. Any moment I expected one of them to come and tell me to move my car.

Based on what I saw, Danielsford looked like a Puritan village. As far as I knew the sect never got to Vermont, but I was no more familiar with Vermont history than was anyone who didn't live there.

A few signs hung over the doors of the businesses. The signs were of wood and the names either painted on or carved into the wooden boards. Most of the buildings along the street, those I assumed to be businesses, had no markings of any kind.

One of them stood out from the rest. Like the church, it had been white at one time. It was now a dirtier white with a yellowish tint. Still, the bright color clashed with the muted hues of the rest. I walked across the road, peered in the window and discovered the white building appeared to be a drugstore.

I tried the door. It rattled back and forth but seemed to be locked. I stepped back, almost bumping into a young woman who appeared as if from nowhere.

“Pardon me,” I said, quickly stepping aside.

"Good morrow, sir. The store be closed since Mary Bradbury were condemned," the young lady said. I had not seen her on the street and guessed she came from one of the other shops nearby.

She wore a long green dress that almost touched the ground and a bonnet of the same color. The dress buttoned up the front. It was cinched at the waist, but loose and flowing from her hips down. It looked similar to clothing worn by our pioneer women, functional while not being fancy.

"Condemned?" I asked. Her heavy English accent and the archaic style of pronouncing some of the words surprised me.

The girl moved a couple of steps away and turned. She eyed me from head to toe.

“Aye, condemned, and she were hanged from that tree there, on the Common,” she said. She pointed to a large maple tree standing near the center of the Common, and then turned back. “You be from the outside.”

“I’m from Boston,” I replied, glancing at the tree.

“How strangely do they dress there,” she said. Her eyes lifted to mine. “She were accused of sorcery and witchcraft. I thinkest she did bear no guilt.”

“Where am I?” I asked. Hanging? Sorcery and Witchcraft? It was beginning to sound like a bad ‘B’ grade movie.

She glanced across the street at the Common. Everyone had disappeared. Her expression, once pleasant, turned to one of concern. She took a step toward me.

“It would be most wise good sir if you did hasten to go. Outsiders seldom have come here. A most horrible curse do possess us.” Turning her head to look across the street, she said, “Evil does possess us of a most frightful fashion, good sir. You did come; thus, you be able to leave. Would that I could. Truly, you ought leave lest you be trapped as are we.”

She shot me a quick look, spun on her heel and hurried away. I stood, baffled by her words and warning as I watched her disappear around a corner.

Her style of speech was as archaic as the town. The way the woman pronounced 'closed' was strange. She spoke every vowel, so it sounded like ‘close’ and ‘ed.’

I stood and stared at the corner, wondering what she meant. The town had a strange feeling, but I attributed it to the shock of driving into a place that shouldn't be where it was. The sensation wasn't one of danger. I wondered what she meant by being cursed, and what she meant by her not being able to leave.

I turned and peered in the shop window. Mary Bradbury sold herbs, pharmaceuticals and elixirs, none of which I expected to see in a modern pharmacy. I studied the jars and bottles, all with names handwritten on each of them. The writing style was odd, and the spelling lax even by today's lax standards.

Turning from Mary’s store, I slowly scanned the street for a grocery. If one existed, I didn't see it. Nor did I see a bank, a clothing store, a restaurant or any business one expects to find in a town.

The young woman’s warning came back, echoing in my mind. I shook my head and returned to the car. Now, other than what she said, I neither felt nor saw anything I could consider a danger. Yet the girl was serious when she warned me to leave.

I climbed into my car, started the engine and drove unhurriedly away, negotiating the rutted trail until I reached the edge of town, where the road again became pavement. Before I had gone a quarter of a mile, I saw several cars in front of me. Where were they while I sat in Danielsford? None of them had come through the town.

I glanced in my rear-view mirror and saw a pickup truck a short distance behind me. I wondered if I had stopped in a strange town that no one else seemed to see, or did I imagine the entire event.

The rest of the short trip to Rutland was routine. I met heavier traffic as I neared the city, which told me I was back in civilization, or what passed for modern civilization. By the time I was in Rutland proper, I felt an odd longing for the quiet and silence of the old town, though the idea of a woman being hanged for witchcraft in this day and age in the United States was a bit unnerving.