Chapter 3

I had several other stops in nearby towns. When I finished them, I could have gone on to Burlington and, in the morning, gotten a head start on my accounts in the northern part of the state. Making the drive would save me an hour and a half the next day.

I debated it as I finished with my clients. The following day promised to be long. The time saved would make it easier for me. Instead, I found a motel on the outskirts of Rutland and stopped for the night.

After getting settled, I flopped on the bed and stared at the ceiling for an hour. I relived for the umpteenth time topping the low hill, seeing the town below and driving in. The sign announcing Danielsford was vivid in my memory, as was the rutted dirt road. It all sat in my mind begging for a rational explanation. I had none to offer.

Later in the evening, I went to a restaurant near the motel. While I ate, I mulled over what I saw, or thought I saw. If nothing else, I decided, I figured I had at least a part of the mystery figured out.

The girl told me the businesswoman, whose name was Mary Bradbury, had been condemned. She also spoke of the trials. I recognized Mary Bradbury's name. The Mary from Danielsford was not the same Mary Bradbury I knew from history.

Rather than concentrate on her fate, I focused on the town. I wasn't familiar with Vermont history but knew the style of homes I saw in the strange town was not Vermont type architecture.

What I saw was a Puritan village. Even not being aware of the history of the state, I did not think the Puritans had ever reached it. I didn't think they ever got far from the coast in Massachusetts, or in Maine which in those days was a part of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. I made a mental note to check. The Puritans ranged quite a distance in a short time after landing.

From all appearances, Danielsford was from the coastal area. I had never heard of it, but there were many towns past and present in Massachusetts and Maine I didn't know. When I returned home, I hoped to find the time to research Danielsford, if for no other reason than to find out if it ever existed. If I discovered there was such a town, or it had once existed, I would deal with the revelation. Somehow.

I finished dinner and returned to the motel. By ten o'clock, I had showered, shaved and was asleep.

Early in the morning, I climbed into my car and aimed it north. I had two stops in Burlington, as well as others in Barre, St. Johnsbury and several more towns, all of which were scattered over the northern part of the state. I took two days to finish the route.

Late in the afternoon on the second day, I headed for home. I made a wide loop, ending up following the same road on which I entered Vermont several days earlier. I had to go back, to see if I could find the strange town. The need to see it was irresistible, as if something beyond curiosity drew me back.

On the hill, I saw the church and once again I could make out some buildings through the trees. Just as happened the first time I drove into Danielsford, there was traffic behind me. When I passed the sign notifying me I was entering the town, I was alone. The cars that were some distance behind me only moments earlier had vanished. I wondered for a moment if I disappeared as fast from in front of them, or if they even bothered to notice.

Knowing they were gone proved just as unsettling as finding the town. Where did they go and why didn't I go with them? I rolled to a stop in front of the white church, looking left, right and behind me for the two cars and a truck following me along the highway, strung out six or eight car lengths to my rear. Shutting off the engine, I listened for a minute. I was greeted with the almost eerie silence I had experienced during my last visit.

Despite the vanishing traffic, I felt little fear. I was in the town again and, again, nothing happened. I don't know what I expected to happen.

For an instant, it occurred to me that I ought to be well into New Hampshire on my way home to Boston. Instead, it was after five o'clock and I was back in the strange town from another era, a town having no right to be where it was.

On the Common a half block away, a small group of people appeared and looked in my direction. I don't know if they were the same several who watched me before. Within a minute, two of them seemed to lose interest and wandered away. I supposed they went back to their crops, animals, or to do whatever people did in a mysterious town that shouldn't exist. The third followed a minute later.

I climbed out of the car and did a slow turn, taking in as much of the village as I could see. It didn't take long to realize I had been right. There were no other cars or trucks. Nor was there even the distant sound of traffic. The modern world did not exist in Danielsford. A part of my brain thought the silence was quite pleasant.

I experienced a momentary twinge of fear at the tranquility of it rather than the all-consuming fright I should have felt. If traffic was bypassing the town on a road I somehow missed, I should be able to hear it.

There had to be a rational explanation, but I couldn't find one. Was this a living history museum and somehow, inexplicably, did I veer from the paved road into it without realizing my error? I couldn't understand how or where. I saw no bypass. Then, there were the vehicles behind me. They followed me to the edge of town before disappearing.

I turned to the church. Close up, it showed a measure of neglect not noticeable from the Common. The massive front doors stood slightly ajar, and the steps had a thick layer of decomposing leaves covering them.

I walked up the three steps to the thick, heavy front doors. It was plain the church wasn't being used and hadn't been in use for quite some time. I eyed the decomposed and decomposing leaves and twigs, grabbed the door handle and pulled. The door barely moved.

I yanked hard. It grudgingly gave and opened a few inches. The hinges squealed in protest. Glancing around, I noticed someone watching me. On the Common a half block away stood a woman.

She was alone, with arms folded across her chest, and she stared in my direction. Given the distance, I couldn't tell a lot about her. Her hair was long and dark, and she wore a drab, brown, loose dress that hung straight to the ground.

My first impression, given her style of clothing, was of her being a witch. The woman fit my impression of how witches looked.

She made no move to approach me, never called to me or indicated whether she thought I was doing anything improper. She only stared and watched.

The church gave me every indication of being abandoned. The doors were unlocked. Churches are usually open and available to those who need them. Yet, I felt uncomfortable entering the building, but I had to. There was an overpowering need to go in.

I slid through the narrow space into the building. Passing through the small entryway, I opened a set of inner doors and went into the church. There, I froze.

The worship area was of medium size. I was looking at a dozen or fifteen rows of pews on either side of a central aisle stretching from the back to the altar. On the left of the altar was a dais. To its left I saw a long table which I assumed served as the altar. In front of the table altar, sitting on a low bench, was a coffin.

The box looked handmade of rough-hewn wide boards. Even from my distance, I could see whoever built it did the job in a hasty manner. How long had it been there?

It was dim in the church. Little light penetrated the narrow, stained-glass windows. Still, I could see a layer of dust on the pews and on the floor in front of me. I couldn't tell, from where I stood, how much dust lay over the coffin.

Slowly, I backed out, closing the door behind me. I went through the outer doors and stopped on the steps. Modern man or not I didn't like being around the dead, especially alone in a mysterious town.

The woman still stood on the Common, arms folded and watching. Nobody else was around. I wondered if her appearance drove the others away.

While she watched me, I stood on the church steps and stared back at her for a few seconds. As I gazed at her, I wondered who lay in the coffin and thought of Mary Bradbury.

I'm not sure why her name popped into my head except it was one I already knew from history. I recalled again the young woman I met days earlier said somebody by the name of Mary Bradbury paid the ultimate price for sorcery. If I remembered my history a convicted witch could not lie in a church, nor could she lie in sacred ground.

I walked down the steps to my car. For a moment I stood, letting my eyes travel one last time over the old town. The woman remained, arms now hanging at her sides.

With the sun now low on the horizon, I got in my car and started the engine. The woman just stared. A momentary thought flashed through my mind that, if the people of Danielsford were as old as they looked and talked, they also seemed to be familiar with cars. I'm sure the original Puritans would think a motor vehicle a magical or evil device. I found the idea significant but wasn't sure why.

Part of me wanted to make a quick tour of the antique village. Time, the coming night and the young woman’s warning decided against the idea. I put the car in gear, turned around and drove away.

In my rear-view mirror, the woman continued to stand and stare. Except for her having dropped her arms, she seemed not to have moved a muscle from the time I first saw her.

A couple of hundred yards of rutted dirt wagon road brought me to the pavement. Once on it, I realized I had not veered from the highway. It met flush with the wagon road. Just a few yards beyond, I pulled to the side and parked. A car passed me, going the speed limit. It sailed into Danielsford without slowing. By the time I glanced in the rear-view mirror, it was gone.

Instead of the automobile, I saw the raggedly dressed woman. Now she was beside the sign announcing Danielsford, and she seemed to be looking at me. I gathered she could see the world beyond the old town.

She was closer than before, now maybe ten yards from me. The dress hanging to her ankles was barely more than a tattered rag. Her hair, long and unkempt, hung in matted strands at least a foot below her shoulders. I put her age to be around thirty, but it was hard to tell. If history was correct, she would be considered middle-aged in a day when disease, injury and other causes reduced the average lifespan to forty.

I sat and watched her in my mirror for a minute. During that time, several more cars roared past me into Danielsford, and an equal number appeared out of the town. None of the cars going in slowed, and all disappeared from view when they passed the sign.

“What the hell is going on?” I wondered to myself.

I was experiencing something impossible, at least by any standard with which I was familiar. In truth, I was more baffled than anything. Maybe it was being out of the town, if only just, although I never felt frightened in Danielsford even after the warning.

I don't think I’m an especially brave man. Not that I'm a coward, but I don't make a habit of putting myself in dangerous situations. If this was dangerous, I couldn't say. The entire experience impressed me as being something out of a science fiction novel or movie.

When I found the town, I had not known there could be anything dangerous. Sitting just beyond the town limit, I still didn't know. Nobody threatened me when I entered. If the people except for the girl weren't friendly, neither were they antagonistic.

At the moment, my impression was that none of the other travelers saw the antique village. They drove in and came out as if it wasn't there. I based my observation on their speed. None slowed down. Neither did those coming from the town seem to accelerate. They were passing through as if it wasn't there. If my feeling was correct, why was I seeing it and nobody else?

It was getting dark, and I had a long drive ahead of me if I wanted to get home that day. The mystery would remain a mystery for the moment. I slid the shift lever into Drive, pulled onto the comforting macadam of the modern highway and drove away.

In my rear-view mirror, the strange woman still stood and stared. A minute later, she was out of sight, and I was climbing the shallow grade.

I spent most of the ride home trying to make sense of what happened. When I pulled into my driveway at one o'clock in the morning, I was tired and worn from the trip. I had still not resolved anything and knew I probably wouldn't. There was a saying about a mystery wrapped in a conundrum or something. Whatever it was, I felt I could qualify to be its poster child.

As tired as I was, I couldn't get to sleep. I tossed, turned, and tried sleeping on one side and then the other without success. My mind kept returning to the town, the young girl who told me about Mary Bradbury, the woman on the Common and the coffin sitting in the church.

I relived finding the town, the other vehicles all of which seemed to evaporate into nothingness and why I was the one chosen to see Danielsford. An answer didn't exist, or I couldn't find it. If there had been one, I was sure I would have thought of it either in the town or during my long ride home.

Part way through a toss or turn, the image of the woman from the Common appeared. She stood or floated somewhere near the ceiling in my bedroom and watched me, standing just as she did in the town. I knew she wasn't real. The apparition was a figment of my imagination, brought on by being overtired.

“Thou will open the box and release the witch,” I heard her say, not aloud but in my mind. “When she be free, I may continue.”

I stared up at the visage. I lay in my bed wondering if I was awake or in the grip of a nightmare. The woman glared down at me for another minute, as if waiting for my reply. Then, she slowly faded from view.

“I'm asleep,” I decided. “It's a bad dream.”

Halfway through what remained of the night, I got up and put on a pot of coffee. Whenever I couldn't sleep, coffee seemed to be the one thing guaranteed to help me doze. Before it finished making, I was asleep sitting at my kitchen table.

I awoke at ten in the morning tired from the short night but doubtless in better condition than if I had not slept at all. A quick shower helped, along with several cups of coffee. I went to the office and dropped off the orders I had collected along my route and tried to get back into the routine of life.

The town, Mary Bradbury, and the woman from the Common wouldn't leave me alone. Try as I might, the phenomenon I experienced wouldn't fade. In fact, it grew stronger as the days passed.