Page 85 of Wildwood

“I’m worried about her,” I say. “If I get too worried, I might need to call the police.” The decision to threaten him is impulsive. And I have a bad feeling that I need to be more careful with this one.

“Is that a threat?” he asks.

“Nope. Just a statement.” I force myself to look in his eyes.

“Stay away from Joan,” says Julian, moving to shut the door. “If not, you’ll regret it.”

“Is that a threat?”

“Nope, just a statement.” He smiles. “I’ll tell your husband that you’ve cheated on him. That you came on to me. I’ll tell him about that little black slip you like so much.” Then he flashes me a wicked grin and closes the door.

Making it home is a nightmare. I’m slipping and sliding all over the place. The Brooks hadn’t plowed. And I know that if I fall and break a bone, no one is coming out to help me. What a perfect excuse they’ll have. Another Bishop lost in the storm. Wandered up a steep drive in the middle of a blizzard. Never stood a chance.

With great pains, though, I make it to the bottom. I cross the street and make my way carefully across the driveway and up the front porch, and through my door. I set the security system. And then I scream. I scream and scream and scream.

Then, I know what I have to do. I march upstairs and into my bathroom. I take the bottle down from the medicine cabinet. It’s nearly full; I’d only taken a pill a handful of times since moving up here. I didn’t want to use it too much while pregnant. I laugh now at that thought. I’m taking weird mushrooms, and wandering through snowstorms, and hunting murderers while pregnant. But I didn’t want to take a Unisom.

I take out a pill and pop it in my mouth, swallowing it down dry. And then I lie down in The Forest of the Dead, surrounded by trees that reach for me, beckon to me. And I’m ready for them. I need to see it all. I need to finally know exactly what happened in Newfield Village.

Chapter 75

I open my eyes. I expect to be at the old foundation. But we are somewhere else. I hear the rushing of water and know that we are by the river. Lydia stands beside me. I cannot look directly at her, but I can feel her beside me. She seems to tremble in place, but it doesn’t make her seem frail. On the contrary, it makes her fearsome, like some ancient God awakening. Part of me wants to touch her, but I’m certain that if I reached out and took her hand, our bodies would meld together and I’m not sure I’d ever be the same. I can feel her eyes on me. Here’s where we died, she says.

Lydia

David and I were held in a makeshift cell in William’s forge. We were there for weeks, as the village debated our sentences. I think it was weeks, it blurs together with all the time that has passed. But the smell I’ll remember for an eternity. A smell like no other. Coal and hot metal. Sulfur. Black soot in the air, coating our bodies.

I thought endlessly of James and our infant son, Elias, how he must have been crying for me. James never doubted me for a moment. He shouted into the crowd that it wasn’t true, but he might as well have been shouting into an abyss. David thought endlessly of his wife, Rachel, and unborn child. He would cry at night. We both did.

David died in the cell one night. He’d contracted a sickness that took him swiftly. I called for William, and he came and dragged David’s body out, cursing the whole time. William left the door unlocked behind him. Through the crack, I could see the pale light of the moon in a dark sky. He didn’t know that my hands were broken and bleeding, the result of me slowly, and agonizingly, pulling them through the heavy metal cuffs that chained me to the wall.

And so, I ran. I ran out the door, through the field, and into the woods. The trees would hide me. I made my way straight toward my house, plotting all the way. I would have to wake them quietly. We’d grab just a few items to help us start anew. My grandmother’s ring, an old silver cup. We’d make our escape, before William realized I was gone. But as I neared my house, I noticed a scent in the air. It was smoke. But not like the blacksmith’s smoke. Not like hot metal and coal and sulfur. It smelled like a wood fire.

I knew it before I got there. But I crawled and staggered, half suffocated with smoke, to my destination. I must have moved like some creature from the dead. Oblivious to physical pain, unrelenting in my mission. And when I got to the clearing, to the beginning of my property, I saw what I knew already in my heart. My home, my life, reduced to smoldering ash.

William got to me first. Yelling for the preacher and Levi to run. But they didn’t need to run. I wasn’t going anywhere. He grabbed me roughly by the arm, tried to pull me up though I collapsed on the ground. When he bent over to pull me up, I clawed at him, shouting profanities and curses. The three men dragged me back to the cell. I asked them where my family was.

“Secure,” the preacher said. It was the first time I’d been so close to him. His skin was sallow, and his hair hung limply around his thin face. My nostrils stung with the foul scent of his breath.

“Why?” I demanded, looking at William and Levi. I knew the answer, but I wanted them to say it. They knew I had committed no crime. They knew what they were after.

William and Levi wouldn’t look at me. For a fleeting moment, I wondered if they’d change their minds.

“Say it.”

But then they shuffled toward the door.

“Say it!” I screamed after them. “Say it!”

They were gone. I howled like a madwoman. If it was a witch they wanted, I’d give them a witch. Say it! Say it! Say it! Fists rattling my prison. Just bloody say it!! Say it, or I’ll curse you all!

When my body was depleted, I clung to the metal bars, panting. Then I felt dark, watchful eyes on me. The preacher had lingered in the corner. He walked toward me now. His eyes cast down his thin face. I wondered briefly, desperately, if perhaps he was a man of God after all. Would he save me?

But all he said was, “May God forgive you.” And before he left, the corner of his lip curled.

The next day was my execution. It was a cool April morning. They walked me on a path through the woods that ran from Bishop’s forge down to the river. There was a good tree there for hanging, apparently. I remember taking in the buds on the trees, the first signs of new life poking through. Strange to be dying at a time like this.

When we got to the river, I realized the whole village was there. It was our first execution and quite the spectacle. I searched my neighbors’ faces for their eyes but could find none. It was as if the ground held great fascination. I looked around for James. He’d be there, I was sure of it. I’d hold his face in my mind as I took my last breaths. I couldn’t find him. I did not see David’s pregnant widow either.