Authors: Christina Leigh Pritchard
“Come see the tombstones.” He grabbed my hand and guided me through tall grass. We stood in front of a rusted, iron fence with great detail. Whoever built this must’ve spent years designing it. The artwork was original and twisted in various animal shapes. It ran about two yards out and one yard forward. “This way.” Michael opened the gate. It squeaked letting us know its age. Pig scurried inside after us.
We walked over to three tombstones that sat together.
One said:
Obadaya Mood 1614 – 1649
Blue Puritan widower & father of Jane & Joseph
A man of great faith & devotion to his town,
The second:
Jane Mood 1643 – 1661
A lady of faith & family, remember ye always
Died of Small Pox
And the other,
Joseph Mood 1640 – unknown
“They don’t know when Joseph died?” I asked, scratching my head. I thought you said it was Mathew who was struck by lightning.”
“Come over here,” Michael motioned for me to go to a lone tomb that had been cracked down the middle.
It said:
Mathew Mood 1665 – 1692
“He was only twenty-seven when he died?”
“Keep reading.”
I squinted to see the faded writing. The tomb had cracked and the light from the moon was fading behind me.
Burned for Sorcery
I couldn’t have read that right. I peered closer. What did they mean? That he was practicing dark magic of some sorts? Michael tapped me on the shoulder and I jumped.
“Don’t do that!” I smacked him. He shoved me and then leaned in close. His breath was warm against my cheek.
“It was during the Salem witch hunts. Some men from the town of Salem came to report about what had happened to a few of their young girls. That someone had bewitched them and trials were underway. They described how the girls went into fits and saw hallucinations. At the time, Mathew’s sister, Jane, was having fits. She said she saw things, too.” Michael took a deep breath. “She was about sixteen at the time. Her father, Joseph Mood, argued with the townsfolk, told them that she’d just eaten bad rye bread. He was a teacher and knew the affects ergot had on you; he’d read the letters from Denis Dodart to the French Royal Academy of Sciences concerning ergot. It was a relatively new idea brought into existence in 1676.”
“What did they do? Think Mathew was a witch?” Would the people of Lynn feel the same about me? Were they still suspicious? Is that why the reporter asked me if I was a mutant?
“Yes, they thought he was a witch, but, now we know that he wasn’t doing anything to her. He wasn’t possessed at all. Ergot, which is found in rye bread, has the same effect as LSD which is a hallucinogen. We even put it in some of our medications like
methylergometrine
,
ergotamine
and
ergotoxine
. Her father diagnosed her right from the start. After her brother’s death, she got better and admitted to enjoying the high. Jane said she purposely ate bad grains so that she could catch Saint Anthony’s fire or as we call it today ergotism. She was the first drug addict ever recorded!” He laughed. “Right here, in the city of sin.”
“That’s horrible.” I stared at the young man’s grave. He’d died so young.
“Want to know the only eerie thing about it all?” Michael motioned for me to follow him around to the back of the house. “Jane, his sister, was never buried. She never had a tomb. She was supposedly burned in this very house when she was seventeen. It was after school. She came home and someone from Mr. Holyoke’s’ railroad witnessed little Jane screaming from that window right there—with her hands poking out the window. There is a little wooden plank of wood that her friends from school made for her. It is just around the corner here.”
“Okay, now you
are
giving me the creeps.” I shivered. He pulled me in close.
Michael and I turned the corner and sitting right underneath a pine tree was Ally. She knelt over a large wooden plank as if she were crying. “What is she doing here?”
Michael put his cheek against mine. “She comes here all the time. I have asked Ally a million times why she cries over Jane’s tomb but she never answers me.”
I wanted to run over to Ally and place my hand on her shoulder. I wanted to tell her it was okay and to stop crying. There wasn’t a reason for it. That what happened to Jane was an accident and that sometimes terrible things occur to good families like the Moods.
But, I didn’t get a chance to say any of those things.
“What happened to my flashlight?” Alex appeared behind us. I jumped, startled. Michael didn’t budge. It was as if he’d known he’d been there all along.
“I broke it by accident. I’m sorry.” I turned to look him in the eyes. They glowed in the moonlight and his lips trembled. Tears brimmed in his eyes. Was he upset? Did the flashlight hold special meaning that I wasn’t aware of? “I’m truly sorry, Alex.”
“Its okay, Lisa, he does that whenever he comes over here.” Michael told me. He took my hand and we watched Alex walk towards his sister.
Alex placed his hand on her back and Ally burst into worse tears. Finally, the tears subsided and she collapsed into his arms. “We better go.”
“Okay,” I agreed, taking his hand. I looked back, motioning for my dog to follow. He didn’t listen or notice our departure.
Pig stayed right there by Mathew Mood’s grave with his eyes focused on Alex and Ally.
Thirteen
Ally Makes Some Changes
“Time to feed the chickens,” Aunt Millie pounded on my bedroom door. I’d almost forgotten about the hens. I rubbed my eyes and looked on the shelf for Pig. He was not there. Bipolar wasn’t under the bed, either.
I was still in my clothes from last night and I had an empty bowl on the floor. The soup Michael’s mom had made was delicious and I’d eaten it all late last night when I’d gotten home.
Home
; it was funny that I called this place that.
Wonder what my mom would say if she heard me call Lynn home?
I walked out to the back and found Alex already in the hen house. I frowned. I’d never make any money if he did all my chores everyday. Millie was going to think I wasn’t pulling my weight. I’d thought by now my mom would’ve caved in and at least called and told me her latest plan on how she was contriving to get us back together. Maybe she really had gone for help. I sure missed her.
“Let me do my chores, Alex,” I ordered, grabbing a basket. “I want to go to the mall with Donna and I have no money. How can I make money if I don’t work?”
Alex stared at me with a blank expression on his face. He continued gathering eggs. He moved fast. His hair lay around his face as if he were hiding his eyes from me. “I prefer to do it,” Alex replied. “Feed the hens.” He pointed to a metal bucket full of seeds.
I took the bucket and a hundred hens were at my feet. “Alex!” I screamed, racing out into the center of the coop. He stopped gathering eggs and watched as I dodged hungry chickens. His face lit up and he chuckled softly.
“Try dropping the feed, genius,” Alex hollered from inside the henhouse. I dumped the bucket and the hens gathered around it like a herd of miniature buffalo.
Alex came out with a basket of eggs. “Here, bring this to Aunt Millie,” he instructed. I obeyed.
Rat and Pig were inside Millie’s house, waiting for breakfast. When Pig saw me, he leaped high in the air, excited to see me. “Hello, my little dog,” I giggled. He pranced back over to Millie who filled his bowl with scrambled eggs.
“Alex got the eggs again today and asked me to bring them in,” I told Aunt Millie. She motioned for me to place them on the counter in the kitchen.
“How do you feel?” Aunt Millie questioned, touching my forehead. “That was such a scare.”
I sat down at my usual café table and placed my arms on the top. Millie made grits, oatmeal and cured ham. She was a great cook, which surprised me because I always thought of boarding school deans as unmarried shrews who hated children.
“Why don’t you like hospitals, Aunt Millie?” I queried. “Did something happen to you? Were you ever in one?”
“I had cancer and almost died,” she replied, placing the ham and grits down. “Would you like oatmeal?”
“Sure,” I grinned. “Everything is so good.” I mumbled through mouthfuls of grits.
Cancer;
no wonder she looked scared when she had to pick me up at the hospital. Millie spent a lot of time there. “You’re okay now, though, right Aunt Millie?”
“I’m fine.” She sighed. “Please, let’s talk about something else. My cancer battle is kind of a difficult subject to talk about.”
“Okay, Aunt Millie. I won’t ask you anything else about it.”
“Good.” She forced herself to smile. I could see tears brimming in her eyes. I didn’t want to see her cry.
The front door burst open. Millie and I turned abruptly. Alex stood in the doorway with a pained expression on his face. He stomped inside and took a seat at his usual table. He snatched the grits right out of my hands.
“Hey!” I protested. He jerked away so that I could not reach him. “Those are mine.”
“Millie will give you more,” Alex said. He scraped his fork against the bowl. I cringed.
“You’re unbearable.” I took his clean fork that lay on a neatly folded napkin and used it to try my oatmeal.
Alex looked out the window. “Unbearable, huh, that is interesting.”
I nodded my head and smiled. Was he calming down? Was Alex finally used to my presence? Did that mean I could touch him? Would he freak out like he did the other day in the henhouse and in the woods?
I decided to not take the chance of upsetting him. Even though I’d seen him hold his sister so lovingly out in the graveyard the night before. He hadn’t seemed afraid to touch her. Why did he hate to touch me? Maybe it was okay to touch Ally because she was his sister.
Alex had looked sad last night, too.
Why was I thinking so much about him, anyway?
Was Jane one of their relatives? Their last names were very similar, Ally and Alex Moody. Mood could’ve been the original last name… I wanted to ask him why he and Ally were out there, why they were crying and I wanted to ask if there was anything I could do. But instead I ate my oatmeal. He wouldn’t answer me. Hadn’t Michael said Ally never answered him? It was a lost cause. But, that didn’t mean I couldn’t look for clues.
“I’m so tired,” Ally exclaimed, creeping up behind me. She stretched her arms high above her head and let out a long sigh. “When do I get to sleep in my own bed again?”
“When school starts,” Alex answered. “Lisa will board with the rest of the students.”
“You guys don’t stay at the school?” I questioned. Wow, did they follow any rules?
“No, we live across the lake. Why would we?” Alex said. He grabbed my plate and cut off a piece of ham for himself.
“Millie would give you your own,” I grumbled, crossing my arms. He shrugged, hanging the meat above his mouth. He plopped it in his mouth as if it were a sardine.
“Lisa, I’d rather take yours.”
“Well, I’d rather you not.”
“I like eating your food.”
“For someone who doesn’t like being touched, you’d think you would be more concerned about germs and disease.”
Alex blinked, almost uncertain of what I meant. “I don’t ever have to worry about disease.”
“What are you, like superman or something?”
Ally stood between us. “Lisa, let’s go. We have some things to take care of today.”
“We?” I rolled my eyes. “We have nothing to do together. After what you did to my face and the things you’ve said to me – why would I ever go anywhere with you again?”
Ally laughed. “You are so silly!” She slapped her knees. “Lisa, you said you needed to go to the mall, didn’t you? I’m going to take you shopping. There’re a few shops down the road. It’s not the mall but its close enough to one.”
Shopping, without money. How was that going to benefit me? Was this some kind of joke? “I don’t have money, plus, Alex does all my chores so I won’t be making any money anytime soon, either. I’m not going.”
“Lisa Brown, please give me a chance, okay? I’m trying to make amends. Would you please let me do that?” Ally frowned. Her eyes watered. Was she serious?
“Why do you want to be nice now, all of a sudden; because last time I checked I’m just a mole that won’t go away.”
Alex covered his mouth and chortled. I rolled my eyes and ignored him.
Ally took the chair and scooted in close to my face. She peered into my eyes closely. They were pale blue, just like her brothers’, and her red highlights had faded to just three thin streaks of red. Where did they go? Was it washable hair dye?
“We’re going to be together for a very long time, Lisa Brown. I would like for us to get along. I haven’t had any friends for many years and now that I’ve gotten used to you being around, I would like to try and be nice. I promise no more games,” Ally whispered.
I leaned back in my chair. How long did she think we’d be together? I was going to be a senior. It wasn’t like I’d go off to college with her and be her roommate. Ha! That would be the day.
“What do you say, Lisa Brown?” Ally tapped her foot nervously. “Will you give me one more chance to change?”
I was a fool. “Sure, Ally.”
She clapped her hands and grinned at Alex. He narrowed his eyes at his sister and shoved himself away from the table. “I’ll see you guys later,” he grumbled.
“Oh, stop being a sourpuss,” Ally ordered, smacking her brother in the backside. He turned abruptly and grabbed her by the wrist. They glared into each other’s eyes for a moment before he released his grip on her; almost as if they were having a secret conversation. “I won’t,” Ally said, jerking away. “Let’s go, Lisa.” What did she mean by “I won’t”?
We walked outside and past the lake. We went into town. I hadn’t been there since I first arrived in Lynn. It was dirty and the streets smelled like fish. There were fish stands set up all over seeing as fishing was one of their main staples besides the factories for GE. Ally had a little skip in her step. She seemed happy. Would now be a bad time to ask her about Jane? Maybe after we finished shopping... Yes, I’d ask her then.
“I used to love shopping!” Ally exclaimed. I stared at her. It wasn’t like she was eighty sitting in a wheel chair. It couldn’t have been that long ago that she’d gone on a shopping spree. We were seventeen! “My favorite store is gone, though. The seamstress made everything you order to fit your body and she was the absolute best. No one makes clothes like her anymore.”
“Ally, you sound old.”
“I am.”
“Seventeen is not old.” I rolled my eyes and stomped ahead of her. She made little sense. No wonder she didn’t have any friends. She was mean, played practical jokes and exaggerated.
“Here is a Ross. Their prices are reasonable, I suppose,” Ally told me. She pointed at a small shopping center. There were two men sitting on the curb just outside the store. One had a paper bag wrapped around a bottle—probably whiskey, and the other stood, leaning forward as if he were too weak to stand straight.
“That’s Bill and Poppy,” Ally explained. “They don’t have homes. They lost them a few months ago. Poppy used to work for the GE factory but he was laid off and Bill had his own little convenience store but it closed down. I give them money whenever I see them.”
Ally did something nice for someone? I stopped in the middle of the road and grasped my chest. I groaned, twitching, slowly dropping down into the grass.
“Lisa, what’s wrong with you?” She shouted, bending over me. “Is something wrong with your heart?”
I continued to twitch and convulse. “Al-ly,” I breathed, reaching out my hand forward. Her eyes widened and tears brimmed in her eyes. “Al-ly-wa-as nice.”
I laughed.
She stared at me absently for a second before smacking me in the shoulder. “You were playing?”
“Duh! I thought I was going to have a heart attack when you said you gave those guys money. That is so out of character. Besides you owed me one for the magic marker.” I continued to laugh. I laughed so hard that I couldn’t get up off the ground. Ally lay back and laughed, too.
“I guess I deserved that one,” she whispered. “I
am
sorry for the things I said and did. It’s just hard for me, sometimes, to be nice.”
“I guess, we are even—for now.”
“H-hi, Ally,” Bill stuttered. He lowered his head. Was he ashamed?
“Hello, Bill,” Ally sat up. “How are you and Poppy doing?”
“G-good, yourself?”
“We were going to go shopping. This is Lisa. She’s new in town. Hey, I think we have a few extra dollars here. Would you mind going over to McDonald’s and getting me a cheeseburger? If you get me one then you can keep the change as a tip.”
Bill nodded his head and took the twenty that Ally handed him. “T-thank you, A-al-ly.”
“No problem, Bill.” She frowned. She turned to look at me. “Sometimes I want to help them. But, they probably wouldn’t understand or be able to keep our secret.”