Fortunately, by the time Dr. Floyd brought out the lemonade and the cucumber sandwiches, my heart had quit banging around and I was ready to resume the composure that I’d promised myself I would present in the first place. I didn’t do a wonderful job of it. I settled for (what I hope came across as) road weary but optimistic. Cheerful, if somewhat . . . minimally refined.
At first our chatter was the light sort, the kind made as part of introductions. She asked about my trip, and I told her about the train ride and my exhausted reading supply. She asked after my favorite authors, and I asked after hers. I complimented her fare and her beautiful home.
“This house? Yes, it’s not really to my taste; I’m still rather proud of how it came together. My brother, Andrew, had it built, you see. We’d intended to live here together, but he fell ill last year and passed to the spirit world. That said, we still speak regularly. I often ask his advice with regards to the church and the camp meetings.”
“The work must keep you busy.”
“Mostly it’s research, and education, and healing. Though often there’s the added task of reassuring our neighbors that we neither ride brooms nor capture children.” Her wry smile suggested she was only halfway joking. She took the last bite of the last sandwich and chewed it quietly. She swallowed. “Sometimes, I think they might believe me.”
I took a sip of lemonade. “There was nothing in your letter about brooms or babies, so I’m prepared to believe that all children and domestic supplies are safe and secure. But I want you to understand, I’m intrigued by the idea of this place. It’s so forward thinking, and it offers me so much hope.” I was being too earnest again; the dam was cracking but there was nothing mere lemonade could do about it, so I babbled onward. “Over the years, my family has picked up house and moved a number of times to escape unwanted attention; I’m sure you know what I mean. I lost two great-aunts to the flames—over accusations of things so minor that it makes my skin crawl. They interpreted dreams? They foretold the weather, or the births of babies? Good heavens, if I’d been born a hundred years ago, I’d be a pile of ashes myself by now.”
If I was annoying the woman, she was too sweet to say so. “More like two hundred years, I should think. If that’s any assurance to you.”
I nodded as if it were. “Two hundred, then. But even with all that time and distance between my tragic aunts and me, the fears are still too close for comfort. I’ve come here to learn how to use my gifts to help others. Preferably without the stares and complaints of neighbors, or threats wrapped around bricks and tossed through windows.”
Her eyebrows made the most perfect V, turned upside down. “Did that actually happen?”
“Only the once.” A few years back, and I knew good and well who’d written the note and who had thrown it. Both of the bastards were boys I’d known since grade school. We were never friends, but until the brick came, I did not know we were enemies.
“What did the threat say?”
I already wished I hadn’t brought it up. I didn’t like thinking about it. “Only that they knew what I was, and God would see me in hell. That’s just what a girl wants to hear at fifteen, let me tell you.”
“I can imagine. Furthermore, I can sympathize. You should see the contents of our general delivery box: a number of letters from people like yourself, and plenty more from those like your neighbors. I wonder if Lily Dale sees half so many notes—or twice so many, if it goes the other way,” she mused. “They’re better established and respected, but also better known outside the community. I suppose it evens out, in some awful way.”
I hoped I hadn’t dampened the mood too badly. Awkwardly, I fear, I attempted to steer it another way. “On the bright side, the hateful doubters drive away at top speed—and the hopeful learners like myself arrive to stay!”
She nodded approvingly, but something about the set of her face told me I might not like whatever she had to say next. I could feel it all the way down to my toes: I’d assumed too much. I’d said too much, and now she would be forced to disappoint me.
Unless I was being a worrywart, like Daddy always says. Well, when you see things coming, you worry about them. And I was worried about what Dr. Floyd was about to tell me.
“My dear,” she began, those cool blue eyes crinkling with reassurance, but not nearly enough to steady my pulse. “It’s a good thing you’ve come here, for we have much to teach you. However, you should understand . . . we are approached each year by far more people than we could reasonably accommodate—and among those visitors we find many keen occult enthusiasts, but few real talents who can make a contribution to the community. Mind you,” she added with a somewhat darker tone, “we also find a few charlatans, and a few overzealous puritans who wish to expose us as frauds. Not that I suspect you of any such thing,” she added just barely fast enough to keep me from bursting into tears. “But we have procedures in place, and we must apply them uniformly, to all interested parties.”
“Procedures?”
“Tests, if you like that better.”
“You can test me if you like—I’m good at tests! Please, ma’am . . . I’m really very good at doing . . . whatever it is I do.” I said it desperately, and I hated myself for it. “Ask me anything. Give me cards, or ask me about a dream. I can do anything my aunts could do, and probably better than they ever did. Not that I would know, really, since they kept all that to themselves and carried it to their graves. Or to wherever their ashes went.”
She held out her hands to stop me and then took one of mine in hers. She pressed it warmly, but it only served to squeeze the first damp tears up into my eyes. “Your family connection is promising, Miss Dartle, and please, I did not mean to upset you; I only wished to explain, so you understand why we must witness your abilities.”
“I do.” I sniffled. “I understand.”
“Excellent.” She released my hand. “Then I’ll see you back to the hotel, for you need your rest. Tomorrow I’ll round up the council, and we’ll get to work.”
“The council?”
“I use the term loosely. Our organizational structure is informal, to say the least—but there are a handful of elders, ministers, and healers who make decisions for the camp’s well-being. Technically Oscar Fine is the camp’s president, but he’s in Orlando on business; so Mr. Colby will be present instead. Together, we assess potential residents in a private, controlled setting. I will tell you the truth, Miss Dartle: I expect that you will perform admirably.”
I swallowed hard but didn’t manage to retract any of those tears. Two or three had already escaped down my cheeks, and my nose was stuffed up beyond all decency. “You do? You aren’t merely saying that to make me feel better?”
“I do, and also, yes—I am trying to make you feel better. Is it working?” she asked, one of those pointed eyebrows lifted again, as if pulled by a thread.
“Yes?”
“Good enough. Please don’t worry, dear. If you were a hopeless case or a nasty fraud, I would surely know it. The whole town would know it,” she said with a slight toss of her head toward the community beyond her doors. “Please do not worry. Tomorrow around lunchtime, I’ll come get you—and we can walk together to the trials.”
The phrase “witch trials” sprang to mind, but I kept myself from blurting it out. “I’d like that,” I agreed instead, lying and telling the truth all in one sentence. “I would appreciate the support, but I don’t wish to be any trouble.”
“Oh, it’s no trouble at all. And this is no trial by fire.” Her left eye sparked—I saw the bright little pop in a glimpse, and wasn’t sure I’d seen anything at all. But I did. I know I did. “And it’s certainly no witch trial, so you can put those fears to rest right now.”
“I . . . all right. I will.”
She let go of my hand and gave it a pat. Then she stood up—two or three seconds before a telephone rang. “That will be
Mr. Rowe. He wants to know if you’ve taken supper or if he ought to bring you some.”
“You have a telephone? Here in your house?” It was a stupid question, and I wanted to kick myself. The machine rang like hell’s own bells in the very next room.
“It’s one of three in town. The other two are in the hotel and in Harmony Hall, respectively. Times are changing, Miss Dartle. We must change with them if we are to survive.” She stopped and put her hands on the back of her chair. She changed her mind and gestured with one hand toward the phone—which immediately silenced itself.
I swallowed my next round of questions. They stuck in my throat like a lump of butter.
Thoughtfully and slowly, she paced behind the table, dragging her finger along a selection of books as she did so. Some titles I could read from where I was sitting. The Burning Times. On the Persecution of Women by God and His Ministers. There was one in Latin, something with too many “M’s.” Another one declared itself a treatise on Heinrich Kramer’s War on Evil.
She asked me, “Do you know why witches burn? Why they’re so often hanged?”
I had an answer for that one. I dredged it up from the bottom of my heart. “Because people are afraid of them.”
“Yes, that’s the root of it. But people have feared tyrants and kings for thousands of years, and precious few of them have ever been murdered by the masses. They haven’t died in the tens of thousands. Not like we have, because we are mostly poor old women, orphaned children, the disabled, the disfigured. We are easy targets. Innocent targets, as often as not, but with no one to defend us, who would give a damn about our innocence?”
“No one?” I squeaked.
“No one who could help us,” she said grimly. “No one with the resources to mount a proper response. So here at Cassadaga, we recruit and train the young, the modern, the educated . . . the monied and the wise—or even the poor and silly if their powers are valuable enough. That’s how we arm ourselves against ignorance and fear. It’s the only way,” she added for emphasis, “and I hope that you can join us.”
I bobbed my head too fast to agree with any dignity. “Yes, ma’am, me, too. Tomorrow, you’ll see. Tomorrow, I will show you that I can help.”
“I believe you,” she said brightly. “Now, let me return that phone call before dear Mr. Rowe wonders what on earth has become of us.”
4
TOMÁS CORDERO
Ybor City, Florida
1920
I LIT A lantern, for we do not have any streetlights yet. The city makes promises, but the military also made promises, and I made promises, too. The point is, we do not have any streetlights.
I took my lantern outside to survey the damage created by the burning bush—or flaming palmetto, if I want to sound less biblical. Down the back stairs I stepped, and each one creaked beneath my foot. A cool breeze blew in from the gulf, cooler than anything I’d felt so far this winter.
It was either refreshing or ominous. I’m not sure which.
The late palmetto, now a charred stump of ashes, sat up against the rear of the house, flanked by several others of its kind. I didn’t plant any of them, and neither did Evelyn; they were here when I bought the house in 1913.
When I held the lantern aloft, the light it offered was far more white and intense than the pinkish stuff that still rippled along the far west horizon. It gave me a better look at what I’d only glimpsed before, upon arriving home to the scene of minor mayhem.
Now, in the aftermath of the firemen, and Emilio, and the palmetto fire, I found fully a third of the wall covered in thick black soot. I swept a fingertip through the enormous stain, and in its wake I saw the butter-colored stucco beneath. Evelyn had preferred it that way, bright and sunny, but I was never so fond of it. If it’d been up to me alone, I might’ve chosen something darker and softer—something that contrasted less sharply with the red clay tiles on the roof. A light gray, perhaps.
As I’d said to Emilio, I might take this opportunity to pick something else.
The ruined plant at my feet no longer smoldered. It’d been soaked to mush by the firemen with their buckets, and then soaked again with the rubber hose for good measure—or perhaps to justify the elaborate trouble of unspooling it.
I tapped at the wet ashes with the toe of my shoe, and they crumbled, though the stump held together, more or less. Its fibrous, swordlike leaves had been reduced to blackened strips as frail as old paper. No, I did not love the palmettos that lined the back wall of my house, but this was not how I would have chosen to remove them.
I sighed and wiped my shoe on the grass, then returned my attention to the ominous shadow painted in streaked, smudged ash.
As I stood there, staring at my house and pondering the possibilities, I detected a strange smell. It was not the odor of burned vegetation. It was not the tang of ashes or the cracked-pepper notes of cooked stucco. I sniffed deeply and detected the same odd note I’d caught at the first two fires: a faint hint of sulfur. Yes, that’s what it was.
Mind you, sulfur is a common enough stink. At times the Florida water reeks of it, and you can scarcely make coffee or lemonade that’s good enough to drink. But this was . . . different. It had an element of sharpness, of darkness to it. A nasty bite, with a faint taste of metal that lingered in the back of my throat. I’d suspected its presence in the wastebin, I was fairly sure of it in the washroom, and I now was confident of it outside—as I looked at a broad black stain on the side of my otherwise yellow wall. Burning sulfur, and charcoal, and the dusty tickle of ashes. All of it stirred together in a tin can. It smelled like hell.
The soot stain sprawled and crept beneath the eaves to darken the underside of the roof’s edge. It left its mark on the nearest storm shutters, rendering the red paint muted and cloudy. When I stepped back, still holding the lantern high—no, it was not my imagination: There was a pattern to this terrible shadow. It appeared to be the rough shape and broadly drawn angles of a face.
It was not a demonic face, for all that I prattle of sulfur and hell. It was softer and more feminine, if evil is not allowed that saving grace of loveliness. It appeared almost in profile, at a three-quarters turn, so I could see the smudged line of a cheekbone, a jaw, and a nose. Where the eyes should be there was only a shadow, but lower—down toward the ruined palmetto stump—I detected the suggestion of a shoulder and a hint of collarbone.
This was no mere stain. This was a mural.
“The fire made quite a mess, didn’t it?” That was how Mrs. Vasquez announced she was watching me.
She leaned over the bottom half of a blue Dutch door. She leaves it closed to keep her small white dog from running loose and assaulting the neighborhood cats—or more likely, being vanquished by them, one by one, in turn. It is not an impressive little beast, but it has a great deal of idiotic spirit.
“Yes, Mrs. Vasquez. Thank you for bringing the firemen around. If you had not been so alert, it could have been much worse.”
She nodded, folding her arms on the ledge. I heard a scrape and a scuffle by her feet; our houses are not more than a few yards apart. Sound travels as easily as smoke. “Felipe sounded the alarm before I ever saw the flames.” The dog’s name is Felipe, because (as Mrs. Vasquez told me once) he likes to eat horseshit.
“I must bring him a treat from the grocery next time I go.”
“He’s not so useless now, is he?” she did not ask so much as declare.
“I never said he was useless.” Certainly not aloud, and not to his proud mama.
“No, not you,” she granted. “But others. And Javier always said so, God rest his soul.” She crossed herself. Her husband was lost neither to the flu nor to the war. He’d been too old to serve. He’d dropped dead of something else instead.
So Mrs. Vasquez and I are both alone in this world, except that she has her small companion, Felipe. I try to be kind. “Not everyone ca
n appreciate such a fine and steadfast companion.”
“You should take a dog for yourself. I know a man with puppies . . . you could buy one for the shop, to keep you company while you work.”
I shuddered to think of the damage a dog might do, running loose among the bolts of cloth. I knew from watching Felipe how much piss a single small thing could hold, and I have silk to consider, linen to preserve. “A pet in the shop would be too much distraction, and a dog would be lonely during the day—should I leave him here at home.”
“Then a kitten,” she pressed. “Something to chase mice.” When I only stared at the wall without responding, she sighed at me. “Tomás, you are alone too much. You should have some other heartbeat around the house, to keep you company.”
“But imagine if the fire had spread. What if I should suffer another blaze, and the place should burn while I’m away? Any poor creature of mine could meet its end, all because you thought I was lonely.”
“You are lonely.”
My lantern fizzed and popped. It sputtered; then the light held steady again. “Yes, but that’s not the end of the world. Now, tell me,” I said quickly, to divert her from any further talk of pets. “The stain here, left by the fire . . . does it look odd to you?”
She shrugged. “It looks like smoke and ash. It looks like your house was almost destroyed, but the saints smiled upon you.”
“Don’t you think it looks . . . like a drawing?”
She squinted back and forth, from me to the wall. “From a certain angle, I suppose it might. But it surely isn’t art. If anything, it looks like the scribbles of that mad Spaniard, with his paintings that make no sense.” She flapped her hand disdainfully. I supposed she meant Picasso, because she is terribly traditional. She probably does not care for the moderns.