I’ve been too intent on easy answers to pay Anneliese’s journal entries much mind. Now, I go back to them, because if I have to outsmart Bellflower, I need to learn about the past and why he keeps coming back to plague Tin Mountain and my family.
INTERLUDE
ANNELIESE’S GRIMOIRE
June 1, 1831
Morning. I have discovered what Nathaniel is—his true nature. The last time we lay together, the things he forced me to do . . . I cannot speak of them. I will not. And his eyes. The darkness behind them! How had I never noticed it before? I must have been under a glamour. A wicked spell. I must do what I can to protect myself and Jakob.
June 3, 1831
Eventide. Nathaniel tried to come to me once more, last night. Though my powers are diminished, I warded the cabin door and all the windows as best I could with blessed asafetida and oil of cloves. He paced about the porch and begged me to open to him. His footsteps were as loud as ten men. I held Jakob on my lap, shushing him until Nathaniel departed. I’ve no doubt he will be back. I am sore afraid.
June 9, 1831
Zenith of night. As I suspected, Nathaniel returned. I did not open to him. When I was sure he had departed, I found a parcel on the porch, wrapped in brown paper. I had a suspicion it might be charmed, so I doused my hands in oil and opened it out of doors. It was a length of fine white silk—enough to make a bridal gown, and a letter. A proposal of marriage. I stoked a fire in the yard and burned both.
June 13, 1831
Reddest dawn. Nathaniel returned for my answer last night, howling for me at some unholy hour—three or four in the morning, by my reckoning. Through the door, I shouted, “I will not marry you, Nathaniel Walker! Not in this life nor any other.” As soon as I spoke the words aloud, a ragged scrabbling began in the walls, as if a thousand rats had been let loose in the timbers. I clapped my hands over my ears to drown out the sound, to no avail. Nathaniel roared such foul, disgusting things I shudder to remember them. Jakob woke, and ran to me, terrified. I soothed him as best I could and prayed to any god who might hear for Nathaniel to depart and leave us be. I must try to reclaim my power, though I fear it may be too late. He has taken almost all of it.
June 23, 1831
Overnight. My worst suspicions were confirmed. I am with child. Nathaniel’s child. Already, I can feel what little power I had left draining from me. This fiendish creature, this cambion growing in my womb, will take all that I am for sustenance.
July 7, 1831
Today, I am rid of my pregnancy. My usual methods did not work, so I had to employ . . . other means. I am weak. Tired. Conflicted in feeling. There can be no doubt the child was wrong in a way that could not be overcome. Still yet . . . I grieve. If it were not for Jakob, I would not have had the courage to follow things through. I must protect him.
July 17, 1831
Half past midnight. He knows. Nathaniel knows.
August 2, 1831
Elizabeth came to me today, bringing milk and cheese. The mercantile will no longer sell to me. The women have stopped coming to my door. If it weren’t for dear Elizabeth’s true Christian charity and my little hens, we would feel the bitter bite of hunger once more.
Elizabeth told me the rumors have grown fierce. A wasting disease has claimed the lives of some of the village children. Nathaniel is blaming the plague on me from his pulpit.
“He’s saying Jakob is the child of the devil, Anna,” Elizabeth said with a shake of her head. I laughed at this. If only I could tell her the truth!
“It is no laughing matter. I fear what he might do. You should take the boy and leave.”
But I cannot. I will never leave my home. This land is a part of me. I will remain—even if death comes to claim me.
August 17, 1831
I have had another vision. Nathaniel will come for me soon, with his cold demon heart. He will have his vengeance for my refusal to bear his unholy child. The townsfolk are his willing hands—the very same people I helped and healed are now my accusers. The scent of excrement and offal assails me each time I go out of doors and their wicked, common words are etched in my memory. All the power I have left is in my blood and in the land. For Jakob’s sake and for my progeny’s sake, I will sacrifice. I have seen the far-off future. I have seen my daughters—my legacy. They will bring a reckoning to Tin Mountain and purge the land of this oppression. This is not the end.
TWENTY
DEIRDRE
1881
Deirdre stood on tiptoe, grasped the banister for balance, and swiped at the stairwell’s corners with her flannel-wrapped broom handle. There. Finally. No more cobwebs. A satisfied smile curved her lips. It was the day before Miss Munro’s summer ball. While Deirdre’s chore list had grown longer by the week, the added work kept her from worrying about things at home and kept her eyes from the shadows.
He was there, now, his specter hovering on the second-floor landing, watching her go about her work. Deirdre frowned up at him. Willed him to go. He was ever toying with her, like a cat with a mouse. She shut her eyes as his sinuous voice wound through her head, promising foul, decadent things.
She thought of Esme’s lips.
Esme’s hands.
Esme’s whispered words in the night, driving away her fear.
Phoebe Darrow came stomping down the stairs, a mop bucket in her hands. She passed right through Gentry’s specter, none the wiser, and set the bucket in front of Deirdre. Water sloshed over the edge, soaking the floor. “It’s your turn to mop the landings, Miss Werner. And be sure to get the corners.”
Deirdre propped her broom against the wall and began dusting the trim work above the stairs. “Miss Caruthers told me to dust. Mopping the landings is your task this week.”
Phoebe drew herself up, crossing her arms. “You’ll need to do both today. I have a carbuncle on my knee.”
Deirdre knew Phoebe was lying. She always had an excuse for not doing the harder chores when they came on rotation.
“I’ll get to it, if I have time. It’s better to mop after you dust, anyhow.”
Phoebe looked Deirdre up and down, and leaned close, her voice low. “I heard you,” she rasped. “Last night. And the night before that, too.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You and Esme.”
Blood rushed to Deirdre’s face. They had tried to be quiet with their lovemaking, but the plaster walls were thin, and their beds squeaked terribly. “You don’t know a thing about me and Esme.”
Constance chimed in from three steps below. “I heard you, too.” She doused her cloth with lemon oil and began polishing the freshly dusted balustrade. “We know the real reason Esme was sent here, after all.”
“It was Miss Munro’s or the asylum for her,” Phoebe said, tsk-tsking. “That’s what they do to girls like you. They put them in asylums and give them ice-cold baths. Whip them until they’re right in the head. It’s worse than prison, they say.”
Deirdre had heard of such things. She thought of Tessa Ray and wondered if her screaming had ended within the walls of that asylum or only gotten worse.
“Don’t worry,” Phoebe said, her voice wistful. “I won’t tell Miss Munro about you and Esme. If you’ll take on my chores. But out of concern for your soul, you should know the thing you’re doing with Esme, it’ll send you straight to hell if you don’t repent and turn away from your sin. My daddy’s a preacher. He’s taught me all about it.”