The Sign of Seven Trilogy (9 page)

Quinn packed up her laptop, added a spare notebook and extra pencils in case she got lucky. Digging out her phone, she set it on vibrate. Little was more annoying, to her mind, than ringing cell phones in libraries and theaters.

She slipped a county map into her case in the event she decided to explore.

Armed, she headed down for the drive to the other end of town and the Hawkins Hollow Library.

From her own research, Quinn knew that the original stone building tucked on Main Street now housed the community center, and the gym she intended to make use of. At the turn of the current century the new library had been built on a pretty rise of land on the south end of town. It, too, was stone, though Quinn was pretty sure it was the facing used on concrete and such rather than quarried. It was two levels with short wings on either side and a portico-style entrance. The style, she thought, was attractively old-fashioned. One, she guessed, the local historic society had likely fought a war to win.

She admired the benches, and the trees she imagined made shady reading nooks in season as she pulled up to park in the side lot.

It smelled like a library, she thought. Of books and a little dust, of silence.

She saw a brightly lettered sign announcing a Story Hour in the Children's section at ten thirty.

She wound her way through. Computers, long tables, carts, a few people wandering the stacks, a couple of old men paging through newspapers. She heard the soft
hum-chuck
of a copier and the muted ringing of a phone from the Information Desk.

Reminding herself to focus because if she wandered she'd be entranced by the spell she believed all libraries wove, she aimed straight for Information. And in the hushed tone reserved for libraries and churches, addressed the stringy man on duty. “Good morning, I'm looking for books on local history.”

“That would be on the second floor, west wing. Steps over to the left, elevator straight back. Anything in particular you're after?”

“Thanks, but I'm just going to poke. Is Mrs. Abbott in today?”

“Mrs. Abbott is retired, but she's in most every day by eleven. In a volunteer capacity.”

“Thanks again.”

Quinn used the stairs. They had a nice curve to them, she thought, almost a
Gone With the Wind
sort of swish. She put on mental blinders so as not to be tempted by stacks and reading areas until she found herself in Local Interest.

It was more a room—a mini-library—than a section. Nice cozy chairs, tables, amber-shaded lamps, even footrests. And it was larger than she'd expected.

Then again, she should have accounted for the fact that there had been battles fought in and around the Hollow in both the Revolutionary and Civil Wars.

Books pertaining to those were arranged in separate areas, as were books on the county, the state, and the town.

In addition there was a very healthy section for local authors.

She tried that section first and saw she'd hit a treasure trove. There had to be more than a dozen she hadn't come across on her own hunt before coming to town. They were self-published, vanity-pressed, small local publishers.

Titles like
Nightmare Hollow
and
The Hollow, The Truth
had her giddy with anticipation. She set up her laptop, her notebook, her recorder, then pulled out five books. It was then she noticed the discreet bronze plaque.

 

The Hawkins Hollow Library gratefully acknowledges the generosity of the Franklin and Maybelle Hawkins Family

 

Franklin and Maybelle. Very probably Cal's ancestors. It struck Quinn as both suitable and generous that they would have donated the funds to sponsor this room. This particular room.

She settled at the table, chose one of the books at random, then began to read.

She'd covered pages of her notebook with names, locations, dates, reputed incidents, and any number of theories when she scented lavender and baby powder.

Surfacing, she saw a trim and tidy old woman standing in black, sensible shoes with her hands folded neatly at the waist of her purple suit.

Her hair was a thinning snowball; her clear framed glasses so thickly lensed Quinn wondered how the tiny nose and ears supported their weight.

She wore pearls around her neck, a gold wedding band on her finger, and a leather-banded watch with a huge face that looked to be as practical as her thick-soled shoes.

“I'm Estelle Abbott,” she said in her creaky voice. “Young Dennis said you asked after me.”

As Quinn had gauged Dennis at Information as tumbling down the back end of his sixties, she imagined the woman who termed him young must have him by a good two decades.

“Yes.” Quinn got to her feet, crossed over to offer her hand. “I'm Quinn Black, Mrs. Abbott. I'm—”

“Yes, I know. The writer. I've enjoyed your books.”

“Thank you very much.”

“No need. If I hadn't liked them I'd've told you straight-out. You're researching for a book on the Hollow.”

“Yes, ma'am, I am.”

“You'll find quite a bit of information here. Some of it useful.” She peered at the books on the table. “Some of it nonsense.”

“Then in the interest of separating the wheat from the chaff, maybe you could find some time to talk to me at some point. I'd be happy to take you to lunch or dinner whenever you—”

“That's very nice of you, but unnecessary. Why don't we sit down for a while, and we'll see how things go?”

“That would be great.”

Estelle crossed to a chair, sat, then with her back ruler-straight and her knees glued together, folded her hands in her lap. “I was born in the Hollow,” she began, “lived here all of my ninety-seven years.”

“Ninety-seven?” Quinn didn't have to feign the surprise. “I'm usually pretty good at gauging age, and I'd put you a solid decade under that.”

“Good bones,” Estelle said with an easy smile. “I lost my husband, John, also born and raised here, eight years back come the fifth of next month. We were married seventy-one years.”

“What was your secret?”

That brought on another smile. “Learn to laugh, otherwise, you'll beat them to death with a hammer first chance.”

“Just let me write that down.”

“We had six children—four boys, two girls—and all of them living still and not in jail, thank the Lord. Out of them, we had ourselves nineteen grandchildren, and out of them got ourselves twenty-eight greats—last count, and five of the next generation with two on the way.”

Quinn simply goggled. “Christmas must be insane in a good way.”

“We're scattered all over, but we've managed to get most everybody in one place at one time a few times.”

“Dennis said you were retired. You were a librarian?”

“I started working in the library when my youngest started school. That would be the old library on Main Street. I worked there more than fifty years. Went back to school myself and got my degree. Johnnie and I traveled, saw a lot of the world together. For a time we thought about moving on down to Florida. But our roots here were too deep for that. I went to part-time work, then I retired when my Johnnie got sick. When he passed, I came back—still the old one while this was being built—as a volunteer or as an artifact, however you look at it. I tell you this so you'll have some idea about me.”

“You love your husband and your children, and the children who've come from them. You love books, and you're proud of the work you've done. You love this town, and respect the life you've lived here.”

Estelle gave her a look of approval. “You have an efficient and insightful way of summing up. You didn't say I loved my husband, but used the present tense. That tells me you're an observant and sensitive young woman. I sensed from your books that you have an open and seeking mind. Tell me, Miss Black, do you also have courage?”

Quinn thought of the thing outside the window, the way its tongue had flicked over its teeth. She'd been afraid, but she hadn't run. “I like to think so. Please call me Quinn.”

“Quinn. A family name.”

“Yes, my mother's maiden.”

“Irish Gaelic. I believe it means ‘counselor.'”

“It does, yes.”

“I have a well of trivial information,” Estelle said with a tap of her finger to her temple. “But I wonder if your name isn't relevant. You'll need to have the objectivity, and the sensitivity of a counselor to write the book that should be written on Hawkins Hollow.”

“Why haven't you written it?”

“Not everyone who loves music can play the tune. Let me tell you a few things, some of which you may already know. There is a place in the woods that borders the west of this town, and that place was sacred ground, sacred and volatile ground long before Lazarus Twisse sought it out.”

“Lazarus Twisse, the leader of the Puritan sect—the radical sect—which broke off or, more accurately, was cut off, from the godly in Massachusetts.”

“According to the history of the time, yes. The Native Americans held that ground as sacred. And before them, it's said, powers battled for that circle of ground, both—the dark and the light, good and evil, whatever terms you prefer—left some seeds of that power there. They lay dormant, century by century, with only the stone to mark what had passed there. Over time the memories of the battle were forgotten or bastardized in folklore, and only the sense many felt that this ground and its stone were not ordinary dirt and rock remained.”

Estelle paused, fell into silence so that Quinn heard the click and hum of the heater, and the light slap of leather shoes on the floor as someone passed by the room toward other business.

“Twisse came to the Hollow, already named for Richard Hawkins, who, with his wife and children, had carved a small settlement in 1648. You should remark that Richard's eldest daughter was Ann. When Twisse came, Hawkins, his family, and a handful of others—some who'd fled Europe as criminals, political or otherwise—had made their life here. As had a man calling himself Giles Dent. And Dent built a cabin in the woods where the stone rose out of the ground.”

“What's called the Pagan Stone.”

“Yes. He troubled no one, and as he had some skill and knowledge of healing, was often sought out for sickness or injury. There are some accounts that claim he was known as the Pagan, and that this was the basis of the name the Pagan Stone.”

“You're not convinced those accounts are accurate.”

“It may be that the term stuck, entered the language and the lexicon at that time. But it was the Pagan Stone long before the arrival of Giles Dent or Lazarus Twisse. There are other accounts that claim Dent dabbled in witchcraft, that he enspelled Ann Hawkins, seduced and impregnated her. Others state that Ann and Dent were indeed lovers, but that she went to his bed of her own free will, and left her family home to live with him in the little cabin with the Pagan Stone.”

“It would've been difficult for her—for Ann Hawkins—either way,” Quinn speculated. “Enspelled or free will, to live with a man, unmarried. If it was free will, if it was love, she must have been very strong.”

“The Hawkinses have always been strong. Ann had to be strong to go to Dent, to stay with him. Then she had to be strong enough to leave him.”

“There are a lot of conflicting stories,” Quinn began. “Why do you believe Ann Hawkins left Giles Dent?”

“I believe she left to protect the lives growing inside her.”

“From?”

“Lazarus Twisse. Twisse and those who followed him came to Hawkins Hollow in sixteen fifty-one. He was a powerful force, and soon the settlement was under his rule. His rule decreed there would be no dancing, no singing, no music, no books but the Bible. No church but his church, no god but his god.”

“So much for freedom of religion.”

“Freedom was never Twisse's goal. In the way of those thirsty for power above all else, he intimidated, terrorized, punished, banished, and used as his visible weapon, the wrath of his chosen god. As Twisse's power grew, so did his punishments and penalties. Stocks, lashings, the shearing of a woman's hair if she was deemed ungodly, the branding of a man should he be accused of a crime. And finally, the burning of those he judged to be witches. On the night of July the seventh, sixteen fifty-two, on the accusation of a young woman, Hester Deale, Twisse led a mob from the settlement to the Pagan Stone, and to Giles Dent. What happened there…”

Quinn leaned forward. But Estelle sighed and shook her head. “Well, there are many accounts. As there were many deaths. Seeds planted long before stirred in the ground. Some may have sprouted, only to die in the blaze that scorched the clearing.

“There are…fewer reports of what immediately followed, or followed over the next days and weeks. But in time, Ann Hawkins returned to the settlement with her three sons. And Hester Deale gave birth to a daughter eight months after the killing blaze at the Pagan Stone. Shortly, very shortly after her child, whom she claimed was sired by the devil, was born, Hester drowned herself in a small pond in Hawkins Wood.”

Loading her pockets with stones, Quinn thought with a suppressed shudder. “Do you know what happened to her child? Or the children of Ann Hawkins?”

“There are some letters, some journals, family Bibles. But most concrete information has been lost, or has never come to light. It will take considerable time and effort to dig out the truth. I can tell you this, those seeds stayed dormant until a night twenty-one years ago this July. They were awakened, and what sowed them awakened. They bloom for seven nights every seven years, and they strangle Hawkins Hollow. I'm sorry, I tire so quickly these days. It's irritating.”

“Can I get you something? Or drive you home?”

“You're a good girl. My grandson will be coming along to pick me up. You'll have spoken, I imagine, to his son by now. To Caleb.”