Curse Of The Blue Tattoo Part 40

"Now, as to the matter of money, Sir, it's like this. If it was just the apprehendin' of a wayward child, a helpless girl, like, then the price wouldn't be so much, but this is a different case altogether, yes it is, Sir."

I notice that the wind is really whipping up out there.

He's the leader of this bunch, the one called Strunk, I think. He clears his throat and goes on. "But, Sir, it warn't no helpless child, 'cause after we got in a circle around her there on the road and she saw there was no escape, the s.l.u.t come at us with this wicked blade, yes, Sir, she did, and she cut poor d.i.c.k Beadle sore after he killed her dog. The vicious beast laid about very free with its teeth, it did, and then sunk them in poor d.i.c.k's leg, which is when he brained the cur..."

Poor Millie, you was the bravest and best of all of us, you was... Tears roll down over the bridge of my nose and onto the floor of the coach. You stood your ground, Millie, and you tried to save me. And now you're dead for it. I am sorry, Millie, I am. I am so very hard on my friends.

"We would, Sir, have dearly wished that either you or the Colonel had warned us that she was armed with the knife and willing to use it. And it's not like we can bring charges against the female, 'cause we wasn't workin' in an official capacity, like, and we still ain't, so we would like compensation for poor d.i.c.k's wounds, we would, as we got added medical expenses, like. And his pain and sufferin', too, poor devil, only doin' his job like he was. Oh, like a serpent's tooth, Sir, the fury of a woman."

There is the clink of coins. I have been bought and sold.

"Why, that's very handsome of you, Sir. Very handsome, indeed. I hope you'll keep Beadle and Strunk in mind for any future business of this sort. Where do you want her?"

I can't hear the man's reply, but the man Strunk says, "Help me wrap her in this here rug, d.i.c.k, and we'll carry her inside. Here's her bag. Toss it over there." I see Strunk's hateful face for a moment and then the rug floats over me and I feel it tucked around me and then I'm flipped and rolled up in the thing. They ain't too gentle about it, neither. I'm thinkin' they got to sneak me in someplace, someplace where I could be spotted and maybe saved if they didn't cover me up somehow. Then I am lifted and carried inside. I can tell 'cause I hear echoes like it's a big enclosed place.

I'm dropped to a floor and given a kick for good measure.

"That's it, then, Sir. I wish you the joy of her," and there is the sound of the men leaving and the sound of a door closing. And then the sound of a latch being thrown.

Footsteps approach. An edge of the rug is taken and tugged and I am rolled out onto the floor. I see high windows and a high lectern and pews. I roll over and look up into the crazed eyes of Reverend Richard Mather.

"Ah," he says, "the little witch. At last."

"Yes, Grandfather," says the Preacher. "Yes, I have the witch now and..."

He c.o.c.ks his head as if to listen to a voice. "Yes, Grandfather, it will not be long now."

I tuck me legs under me and struggle to a sittin' position so's I can face him. I shake my head back and forth and try to say, "No no I ain't no witch please I'm just a stupid girl now let me please go," but all that comes out past the gag is a strangled mumble. I'm scared beyond clear reason but I keep on grinding me teeth on the gag.

"Yes, and now we have all the evidence we need to kill the witch with a clear and open Christian heart. No Court in the land could ignore the d.a.m.ning proof-the mark of the Devil, the very pitchfork of the fiend, burned on her belly..."

No no you lunatic it's an anchor, not a pitchfork! It's not- "See, Grandfather, come look. You will be amazed..." He takes down a lighted lamp and puts it on the pew next to me and then he reaches for me.

I try to wriggle away but he leans down and grabs my arm and brings me to my feet. He pulls down me skirt and drawers, farther than he needs to to see the tattoo.

I squeal in terror. See? See? It's an anchor! See?

Suddenly, his head snaps up and the color drains from his face. There is a scratching at the door! A scratching like I'd scratched as Janey Porter on his roof all those times! Maybe, oh G.o.d, maybe...

The door is at the side and there is an aisle leading to it. The Preacher throws me back down to the floor and takes me by my feet and drags me a bit up the center aisle so that I can't be seen by anybody when he opens the door, and the scratches come again and he recoils and puts his hand to his throat in horror.

I wriggle like a worm back up the aisle to get my head to where someone could see me if they looked around the Preacher when he opens the door and I get my head there and I've got my eyes glued on the door when he opens it a crack. He looks out, and it is not a horrid specter coming to haul him down to h.e.l.l but instead a medium-sized black and white dog looking in at me from between the Preacher's legs.

Millie! Oh, Millie, it's you! You didn't die, you wonderful dog you didn't... I try to call to her but I can't. All that comes out is a mumble.

Millie tries to get in to get to me but the Preacher blocks her with his leg and closes the door on her. She yelps and retreats. "Begone, Fiend!" says the Preacher, and he turns his attention to me. And to old dead Grandad. "Her familiar has found her already, Grandfather, and she not here ten minutes. You see what a trial it has been to me. Who knows what other minions she has about her. We must be quick."

Millie's still alive! My mind is churning for a plan. If Amy is next door at the school and she sees Millie, she'll know that I'm nearby 'cause we ran off together, so ... How to alert Amy? Maybe if Millie sets up a huge barking, Amy'll hear and come down. The girls'll be in the dorm now, getting ready for bed. I almost choke on my gag, I want to be there with them so bad. Calm. Calm yourself. Now, I can't shout to Millie, but I can whine, whine like a hurt dog, I can keen.

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee...

Millie sets in to barking, loud and sharp.

"It won't do you any good to cry, now," says the Preacher. "No one will hear you."

Someone has already heard me, murderer. I do it again as high-pitched as I can-Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-and Millie goes into a wolflike howl and she keeps doing it. Good girl.

"What's that?" he says all fearful.

It's the Hound of h.e.l.l come to take you, Preacher, take you down for the murder of Janey Porter and me! That's what it is! I keep grinding on the gag-about halfway through now.

Millie's unearthly howl suddenly stops, followed by a yelp. A s.h.i.+ver runs through me. Was that a yelp of delight upon seeing Amy come down to her, or a yelp from being kicked by someone to just shut her up? I can't tell. I only know my life depends on which one it was.

The Preacher takes the lamp and hangs it on a hook on the stairway wall. He comes back and pulls me to my feet again and we start toward the stairs up the back of the church. I struggle and twist and he hits me and I fall and pretend that he knocked me out so I can play the deadweight to the full without bein' hit again. He drags me to the foot of the staircase. Prolly wants me up in his office, where I'll be hidden for the rest of the time I'll be on this earth.

"And when I tell the Court of her openly practicing witchcraft at that horse race, why, they'll applaud my sending her back to h.e.l.l and wonder why I did not do it sooner," says the Preacher. "Can you believe it, Grandfather? The boldness of the beast, casting spells in front of mult.i.tudes, the fiendish boldness! Oh yes, I had my spies there, too, you may rest a.s.sured, Sir."

Me bein' all limp is provin' a harder bundle to get up the stairs than he would have thought. In floppin' my legs about I manage to stick my feet between the posts of the railing and hook my toes to stick them there. The Preacher curses and tries to free my entangling feet by tuggin' at me ever the harder, but it don't do him no good, so he throws me down and when he lets me go I try to slither headfirst back down the stairs, but he comes after me, and this time he picks me up with one arm under my knees and the other under my back like you'd carry a child, with my feet toward the wall. He's huffin' and puffin' with his labors and I can feel and smell his breath on my face.

We go past the lit lamp on the wall and I kick out with my feet and I hit the lamp and it comes off its hook and falls to the stairs behind us. The Preacher don't notice 'cause he's wheezin' away with the effort of gettin' me up to his lair and 'cause the lamp hit the carpet on the stairway, which m.u.f.fled its fall, but I notice 'cause I can see over his shoulder and I see that the lamp has spilled out all its oil onto the stairs and the wick flickers in the middle of the mess like it's gonna go out but it don't, it lights the spilled oil on the wooden floor and it flares up with a whoosh, but he don't notice, no he don't notice 'cause he's still mumblin' with his gramps. He just pushes us through the doorway at the top and, with his foot, slams the door shut behind us.

He lurches forth and we go into a room, but it ain't his office like I'm expectin', no, it's a plain room with a single bed with high bedposts and a bedstand with a pitcher and a basin. There's a window, but the curtains are pulled. There is a chest of drawers and one of the drawers is half open and I can see some things inside. Girl things. There is a neatly folded handkerchief on the top.

It is Janey Porter's room. The one she died in. And the one I'm going to die in, too.

He throws me down on the bed.

"You recognize your old chamber, do you?" He leans over my face and peers into my eyes. "Yes, I have quite figured it out, you see. I did not punish you enough last time and so you came back to haunt me. To tempt me again into sin. To make me do it again. I did not kill you enough then. I did not punish you enough then. I shall not make the same mistake this time. Oh no, I shan't."

Great plan, Jacky. Oh, this worked out just fine, Jacky, you fool!

He reaches into one of the deep outside pockets of his coat and pulls out me own s.h.i.+v. Oh, to be killed with me own s.h.i.+v!

I can smell smoke.

He takes my knife and very carefully cuts the cords from my ankle. I wait a moment and then lash out my foot to kick him and I connect, but not hard enough 'cause he just goes ooof! and sits down on me and takes a piece of the cord and ties my right ankle to one bedpost and then pulls me legs apart and ties the other ankle to the other bedpost. He does the same thing with my wrists and I can't do a thing to stop him. He don't notice the smoke curling under the door, but I do.

He puts me s.h.i.+v on me breastbone and I thinks, This is it, I'm sorry Lord for everything I done, and it's at this moment that I finally chew through the gag and the slimy pieces fall to either side of my mouth and I gathers all the fear and terror in me and I opens my mouth and I lets out the longest, most bloodcurdling shriek I got in me, "G.o.d help me I don't want to burn!"

It ain't G.o.d who comes smas.h.i.+n' through the door in a shower of splinters-it is Ephraim Fyffe, but he looks d.a.m.ned good to me! The door falls off its hinges and Ephraim stands there lookin' like the very Avenger of the Lord, with his fists clenched, his s.h.i.+rt torn, and rivulets of blood coursin' down his face.

The Preacher gazes at him as if at Beelzebub himself. Ephraim brings his fist around, and the Preacher's mouth falls in on itself and blood and teeth spatter against the wall as he sinks to his knees and moans.

"Ephraim! Get the knife!"

Ephraim bends down and picks up my s.h.i.+v and starts cutting me loose. There's loud crackling now and the smoke what's comin' in is thick and black and-Hurry, Ephraim- and he's done with my hands and he flips me the blade and I catches it and saws through the ropes on my ankles while he goes after the Preacher, who's staggered to his feet and out into the hall.

I'm on me feet and I stick me s.h.i.+v back in me vest and grabs Janey's hanky and puts it over my mouth and nose 'cause the smoke is chokin' me and me eyes are runnin' from the sting of it and I gets to the hall and see that the flames are roarin' up the staircase and I follows Ephraim's white s.h.i.+rt in the black smoke and he shouts, "Jacky! In here!" and we fall into a side room where the smoke ain't so bad yet. I see it's the Preacher's office and Ephraim goes to the window what's been busted in and what has jagged gla.s.s pointin' in all around the inside edges, which is how he got all cut and b.l.o.o.d.y, coming through that window. He kicks at the gla.s.s from the bottom edge and looks out.

"Look out, she's comin'!" The flames are at the door behind us and the floor is hot.

"I can-," I shouts over the roar.

"No time!" says he. "Keep your arms to your sides till you're clear of the window!" and he lifts me up, one hand on the scruff of my neck and the other in the clothing bunched up around my crotch, and holding me level-like, he pitches me out the window like a sack of grain, clear of the cruel gla.s.s.

I hit the blessed cool air and expects to kiss the hard ground but instead land on something soft that gives beneath me and I look up and see all around me people holdin' the edges of the blanket they held there to break my fall. There's Henry and Annie and Dolley and Betsey and Sylvie and st.u.r.dy Peg on a corner, and there's men and women I don't know but can only gawk at in wonder, and there's more people pouring up the hill with buckets and axes, and there's water wagons and men in helmets, and the people holding the blanket let it down to the ground and I roll off it and I find, wonder of wonders, that I have rolled up next to my seabag. It's here by the door where my kidnappers had thrown it.

They pull the blanket up taut again for Ephraim, who's now standing in the window. The flames are right behind him now. All the windows below have melted out and thick tongues of fire lick out at the wooden sides of the church. It is going up fast.

"Jump, Ephraim," cries Betsey, tears pourin' down her cheeks. "Oh, please! Jump!"

He does. He lands feet first on the stretched blanket and it serves to break his fall enough so he is not hurt. He still hits the ground hard, though, the upper windows bein' real high and him bein' real big. As soon as he's upright, Betsey's arms are around him and cryin' about the b.l.o.o.d.y cuts on his face and arms.

"Nay, it's nothin', Betsey, they ain't deep. See, they're stoppin' already."

"Reverend Mather," sobs Betsey, still clinging to him, "did you...?"

Ephraim shakes his head. "Kill him? Nay. He ran up to the steeple. Let his G.o.d kill him."

And then it's Millie's lovin' tongue I feel on my face and I starts into blubberin' from all the shock and terror and the chokin' smoke and I don't make much sense just, "Millie you sweet sweet dog you saved my life you did you did you did." And then my friends are pullin' me to my feet and kissing my cheeks and pullin' me away from the heat of the doomed church and the sparks that are dartin' about everywhere like fireflies in the wild wind that's swirlin' about. I see Sylvie's sleeve next to my face and there's little burn holes in it from the embers floatin' down and about. Poor Sylvie, your s.h.i.+rt, I think crazily, as if that was important now in all this. My mind is churnin' around and I got the mad urge to run-run!-'cause I'm the one what started this fire and everybody's gonna be mad at me and oh, G.o.d, there's Wiggins and I know he's lookin' to arrest someone for all this and I know who it's gonna be and I pick up my seabag and start weavin' away.

There's the rest of the upstairs girls in their white nightgowns blowin' about them in the crazy wind, wringin' their hands and wailin', and there's Amy runnin' toward me and Millie loping out to meet her...

Then all eyes go to the church steeple, 'cause it's now completely engulfed in flame and from inside it comes this high awful shriek, a long scream of a soul in terrible pain and in utter desolation. Then there's this rending sound of something giving way and the great bell comes loose from its belfry and falls seemingly slowly through the burning timbers to the ground, and when it hits the cobblestones, there's this deep, sad bonggggg. I wouldn't have thought that something that heavy could bounce, but it does and it turns over slowly in the air and comes down again and bonggg still softer and then one more faint bongg and then it rolls over and comes to rest.

Finally, Janey, the bell has tolled for thee.

But the screaming continues. It can't still be him ... No, no, it's not. It's horribly not. The roof of the stable has caught fire from the sparks and the horses trapped inside are screaming in terror.

Amy is runnin' to me but I yell at her, "Amy! The horses! Let the horses out!" and I point at the stable, its roof ablaze. She stops and turns, confused, and then runs for the stable, followed closely by Henry and Herr Hoffman.

"Look!" shouts one of the girls. "The school!"

The school, too, is on fire. The embers blew into the bushes around the foundation and they flared up and the first floor is already in flames. "Is everybody out?" I shout and Peg says, "All mine are!" and the upstairs girls look at each other and can find no one missing. There's more men streamin' up the hill with buckets and axes to help ... there's John Thomas in that bunch filling buckets at the pump and pa.s.sin' 'em along a line to throw the water on the base of the fire but it ain't gonna do 'em no good, it's too far gone, it's- "Oh, my G.o.d!" says someone, pointing up. "It's Mistress!"

I look up and sure enough, there she is, standin' at an upper window, lit from the light from the burning church. She is in her nightgown and her long gray hair is loose and flying out wildly from her head. The big entrance doors are a sheet of flame. There's no way out that way and if the first floor is gone, then she can't come down through the kitchen. She's trapped.

"What's she doing?" asks a girl on the edge of hysterics.

"Jesus," says I, "she's takin' her precious needlework off the walls, that's what she's doin." d.a.m.n!

I start runnin' to the side of the school and I bellows out the sailors' call for help "John Thomas! To me! To me!" He jerks up his head and hands his bucket to another man and follows me.

"Get a ladder! There, on that shed!" I order as we round the corner. "Put it up there by those rungs!" He does it and I'm up to my old window in an instant. I throw it open. Thank G.o.d they didn't lock it when I was gone. "Follow me up! I may need you to carry her!" and with that I'm through the window and in my old room.

Good. No smoke yet. I race across and open the door and head down the stairs to the hall. I can smell smoke now. I can see tendrils of it comin' up between the cracks in the shrinkin' floorboards.

There she is, calmly taking down the framed examples of fine embroideries, samplers, and needlework from the hallway wall and tucking them under her arm.

"Mistress! Come on! You've got to leave!"

She calmly turns and faces me. "Why?" she asks. "The British are coming?"

"Only one, Mistress," I say.

She looks me in the eye. "You. Of course. You."

"Even so, Mistress," I reply. "And now we must go. The school is on fire."

"You were the worst of my girls, you know..."

"I know, Mistress, and I'm sorry, but we've-"

"And here you are at the end of things. How appropriate. How utterly appropriate."

The smoke is getting serious now and I can see the flames below through the cracks. The floor is hot, the varnish on it curling in the heat.

"Where are my girls?"

"They are safe, Mistress. Now you must go join them."

"No, I can't leave my school."

"You must take care of your girls, Mistress. They are outside and they need you. There will be another school. You must go, now." John Thomas, where the h.e.l.l are you?

"Now, look at this one," she says, conversationally. "This was done by one of the Cabot girls. Now, that was a girl! And that one was done by a Lowell and..."

And, finally, I hear John Thomas's boots on the stairs.

"Take her!" I shout, and he scoops her up and heads back up the stairs. The framed things fall from her hands and crash to the floor, their gla.s.s shattering. I pick up the Cabot one and follow them up. The far end of the hallway floor gives way as I make it back into my room.

John Thomas and his load, which is protesting vigorously, are disappearing out the window when I spot the Lady Lenore hanging on the wall where I left her weeks ago. I put the strap over my shoulder and bid farewell to my sea chest and I, too, go out the window.

When I hit the ground, I sling on my seabag and go around to the back of the school. The girls are enfolding Mistress into their midst, their hands fluttering about her like little white birds. The stable doors are open and horses stream out, screaming, their eyes wild and rolling with fear, and in the middle of them is Amy.

And there's Wiggins with his rod, again, and the vile Dobbs is with him and he's pointin' at me and Wiggins is comin' at me and I got to go.

My mind is reeling and bent on escape and I see dear Gretchen and I call to her and when she goes by me I grab her mane and swing up onto her back and away we pound, away, away from Boston burning behind me, 'cause sure as h.e.l.l they're gonna blame this on me, and it warn't all my fault.

Epilogue.

Jacky Faber.