Aunt Dimity and the Village Witch (14 page)

If Alfred cycled for miles when he was young, he must have become disabled later in life.

“The poor guy,” I said, shaking my head. “Amelia makes him sound like an ideal big brother, Dimity. He introduced her to all sorts of cool stuff—Japanese films, Thai food, Indian music.”

He must have spent a lot of time with her. Didn’t he have any friends?

“He probably spent time with them, too,” I said. “I think it’s great that Alfred and Amelia got along so well. I can see why she was willing to turn her life upside down to complete his quest. If I’d had a brother like Alfred, I would have done the same thing.”

She must have been pleased to find the memoir’s second page so rapidly. I thought it would take weeks, perhaps months, to locate it.

“Teamwork,” I said, nodding decisively. “That’s the secret.”

There was a pause, as though Aunt Dimity were contemplating her next comment, and when the handwriting continued, it flowed in carefully measured loops and curls.

I’ve never thought of William as a team player.

“Nor have I,” I admitted. “He does like puzzles, though, and Gamaliel has provided him with a whole raftload of puzzles to solve.”

Even so, William’s willingness to join Amelia’s team, to shelter her beneath his umbrella, and to drive her the ludicrously short distance from the vicarage to Pussywillows suggest to me that he may be under the spell of something other than the secret memoir.

“He’s not under Mae Bowen’s spell,” I asserted, “because he still doesn’t know that Amelia Thistle
is
Mae Bowen. I promised Bill I’d introduce them, but the right moment didn’t present itself.”

I strongly advise you to rescind your promise to Bill. I’m shocked that you made it in the first place. Amelia’s secret isn’t yours to share, Lori, nor is it Bill’s. She must be allowed to reveal herself as Mae Bowen in her own good time. I doubt that it will make any difference whatsoever to William. If he’s smitten by Amelia Thistle, he won’t be put off by her alter ego.

“Smitten?” I said doubtfully. “William seems to like Amelia well enough, but I wouldn’t describe him as smitten. He’s not a love-at-first-sight kind of guy, Dimity. He thinks things through and through before he acts on them.”

When the heart is engaged, the brain is frequently disengaged.

“Amelia hasn’t given him the slightest encouragement,” I pointed
out. “She sort of patted him on the head when he deciphered the glyphs, but she paid more attention to Bree than she did to him.”

William is accustomed to being hunted. He may prefer being the hunter.

A slow smile spread across my face and I gave a satisfied nod.

“As a matter of fact,” I said smugly, “the same thought had occurred to me. I kept it to myself because I was afraid you’d accuse me of jumping to conclusions.”

I’ve drawn no conclusions, Lori. I simply feel that the situation merits monitoring.

“Don’t worry,” I said, laughing. “Experience tells me that the entire village will monitor this particular situation.” I glanced up as the mantel clock chimed eleven. “Time for me to hit the sack, Dimity. I want to be wide-awake among the headstones tomorrow.”

An unusual aspiration, but an appropriate one, given the circumstances. Sleep well, my dear. Good luck finding the olive branch!

“Thanks,” I said. “We’ll need it.”

As the curving lines of royal-blue ink faded from the page, I gazed contentedly into the fire. Distressed though I was by distant thoughts of Gamaliel’s treachery and Mistress Meg’s gruesome demise, I simply could not keep myself from jumping to a few gleeful conclusions about Amelia and my father-in-law.

Amelia emerged from Pussywillows the following morning dressed for the great outdoors—a chunky blue turtleneck beneath a much-used rain parka, a pair of brown corduroy trousers tucked into mud-stained Wellington boots, and a tweed fishing hat into which she had tucked her flyaway hair.

“It’s my tramping gear,” she explained, noting my admiring glance. She looked over her shoulders, as if she were checking for eavesdroppers—a wise precaution in Finch—then said quietly, “A botanical artist can’t do fieldwork wearing stilettos and a frock. Not
that I ever wear stilettos—ridiculous things, designed by sadists for masochists—but I’m sure you take my meaning.”

She hoisted her carpet bag onto her shoulder and we set out for the churchyard. Our attire was almost identical—hence, my admiring glance—except that I carried my necessities in a small day pack instead of a carpet bag and wore a hand-knitted woolen cap instead of a tweed hat.

The sky was gray, the air crisp, the cobbled lane plastered with rain-soaked leaves. The only villager in sight was Millicent Scroggins, who was making her way to Taxman’s Emporium, a wicker shopping basket hooked over one arm. When Amelia called a friendly greeting to her, she responded with a glacial nod and entered the Emporium without a backward glance. Millicent’s aloofness puzzled me until Amelia dropped her first bombshell of the morning.

“If you’d come to Pussywillows ten minutes ago, you would have bumped into your father-in-law,” she said. “Mr. Willis knocked on my door before I’d finished breakfast.”

The matchmaker in me snapped to attention.

“Did he?” I asked, trying very hard to sound nonchalant.

“Yes,” she replied. “He was on his way to deliver a lecture in Oxford—something to do with Anglo-Saxon law, I believe—but he dropped by to present me with a guide to local walking trails. He thought I might find it useful.”

“He’s a thoughtful man,” I said.

“He is,” she agreed. “He invited me to explore his property as well. He was especially keen to show me a rare orchid he discovered on his estate.” She came to a halt and gave me a searching look. “You haven’t told him about Mae Bowen, have you?”

“Not a word,” I said, relieved that I hadn’t kept my promise to Bill.

“I just wondered…” She gazed at me a moment longer, then
walked on. “He seemed to be aware of my passion for nature, you see, so I thought, perhaps, you might have let the cat out of the bag.”

“I didn’t,” I stated firmly. “I had nothing to do with William’s gift or his invitation. He thought them up all on his own.” I glanced at Amelia’s mud-stained boots and continued craftily, “A trail guide might seem like an odd gift, but William adores long walks through the countryside, so he assumes everyone does. And he’s batty about orchids—his greenhouse is filled with them—so it would be natural for him to tell you about the ones he found in the woods at Fairworth.”

“A greenhouse filled with orchids…” Amelia murmured. She lapsed into a short but dreamy silence, then heaved a sigh and peered at me contritely. “Forgive me, Lori. I’ve been betrayed so often that I’ve learned to mistrust people, but I shouldn’t have doubted you.”

“Why not?” I said. “You hardly know me. A little caution never hurt anyone, Amelia. But you don’t need to be cautious with William,” I added, spurred on by my inner matchmaker. “He’s a retired attorney, you know. He used to be the head of his family’s law firm. He’s an expert secret keeper.”

“Even so,” said Amelia, “I can’t afford to take Will—Mr. Willis— into my confidence. The fewer people who know my secret, the greater my chances are for a quiet life. And I crave a quiet life.”

We arrived at the churchyard to find Bree Pym placing two identical bunches of bronze chrysanthemums on her great-grandaunts’ graves. She was once again draped in her camouflage poncho, her spiky hair exposed to the elements.

“Aunties,” she said as we approached, “here’s the woman I was telling you about, the one who bought Pussywillows. Amelia? Allow me to introduce you to Auntie Ruth and Auntie Louise. They died the day after I met them, but they made a big impression. You would have liked them.”

“I’m sure I would have.” Amelia inclined her head toward the
Pym sisters’ headstone. “I’m very pleased to meet you, Auntie Ruth and Auntie Louise. Your niece is a perfect treasure.”

“Great-grandniece,” Bree corrected her, “but who’s counting? And thank you for the kind words.”

“It’s nothing but the truth.” Amelia smiled back at Bree, then turned to survey our surroundings. “I wonder if Mistress Meg is buried here?”

“I’m pretty familiar with the churchyard,” I said, “and I can’t recall seeing Margaret Redfearn’s name in it. Of course, if she was hanged as a witch,” I continued, recalling Aunt Dimity’s gloomy comments, “she wouldn’t have been buried here. It was against the rules to bury witches in consecrated ground.”

“Let’s say she died of old age,” Bree proposed.

“I prefer your version,” I murmured.

“If Mistress Meg died of natural causes,” Bree went on, “she might still be buried here. The inscriptions on seven headstones are too weathered to read. They’re the ones Mrs. Bunting and I remembered, the ones that might be decorated with olive branches. Don’t get your hopes up, though. I’ve taken another look at them and they’re pretty far gone.”

“We may be able to bring them back,” said Amelia. She reached into her carpet bag and pulled out several large sheets of white paper and a handful of fat black crayons. “Have either of you ever done any brass rubbing?”

“I’ve read about it,” said Bree. “It’s a way of copying brass plaques onto paper, isn’t it?”

“That’s right,” said Amelia. “Engraved plaques were sometimes used as memorials or tomb markers. They were usually inlaid in a church’s floor. Some are life-size and many are quite elaborate—engraved images of knights in armor, for instance, or ladies in wimples.”

“Bill and I took the boys to a brass-rubbing center once,” I put in,
“but we didn’t rub much brass. Will and Rob enjoyed it for about ten minutes, then started drawing great big pictures of their ponies.”

“A true artist sticks to what he loves,” Bree said, laughing.

Amelia flushed slightly and avoided Bree’s eyes as she continued, “We can use the same technique to bring out the faded images on the grave markers. Take me to them and I’ll demonstrate.”

Bree led the way to a row of stumpy, lichen-dappled stone slabs that retained barely a trace of their original carvings. Amelia placed a sheet of paper flat against the face of the first slab, then rubbed a crayon gently across the paper in short, swift strokes. In seconds, an image began to appear.

“It’s a cherub!” Bree exclaimed, as the little angel’s chubby face came into view. “And the olive branch isn’t an olive branch.”

“It’s an angel’s wing,” I said with a sigh. “Ah, well. One down, six to go.”

“Don’t stop,” Bree urged Amelia, who’d paused to take stock of her work. “I want to know if the cherub is hovering over Mistress Meg’s name.”

“As do I,” said Amelia. “You and Lori can get to work on the other headstones while I finish this one.”

In just over an hour, we had created legible images of everything carved on the weather-beaten grave markers of the Tolliver family—Hannah Tolliver, Josiah Tolliver, and their five children—all of whom had departed this earth in the year of our Lord 1653. Each child’s headstone bore a winged cherub. The adults’ featured winged skulls.

“Lots of feathers,” I said, “but no olive branches.”

“And no Mistress Meg,” said Bree.

“Death’s heads,” said Amelia, pointing from one skull to the other. “Reminders of our mortality.”

“Or reminders of human stupidity,” I said. “If you hang the local doctor because you believe she’s in league with the devil, sick people are a lot more likely to die.”

“A whole family wiped out in one year,” Bree said soberly. “It’s a high price to pay for superstition.”

Amelia rolled up our stone rubbings and deposited them carefully in her capacious carpet bag.

“We may not have found Gamaliel’s olive branch,” she said, closing her bag, “but I’m sure Mr. and Mrs. Bunting will be pleased to know about the Tollivers.”

“Lilian may want to display our rubbings in the chu—” I broke off, startled, as Amelia gave a high-pitched yelp and flung herself to the ground.

“Amelia?” said Bree.

“Don’t say my name,” Amelia whispered. “And don’t look at me.”

“Okay,” said Bree, turning her face to the sky.

Amelia crawled frantically to a wool merchant’s rectangular tomb and huddled behind it, clutching her carpet bag to her chest and trying to make herself as small as possible.

“Is something wrong?” I asked, fastening my gaze on the lych-gate.

“No,” Amelia replied acidly. “I
like
flopping in wet grass.
Of course something’s wrong!
”

“Sorry,” I muttered, reddening. “Can you be more specific?”

“It’s
him
,” she said in an urgent undertone. “He’s
here
! I just
saw
him!”

“Who’s here?” I asked, bewildered.

“Myron Brocklehurst,”
Amelia answered venomously.

The morning’s second bombshell burst on my brain like a thunderclap. I stiffened in alarm and scanned the churchyard alertly.

“I don’t see him,” I said.

“He’s not
here
,” she said impatiently.

“But you just said—” I began, but Amelia cut me off.

“He’s in
Finch
,” she whispered hoarsely. “He’s at
Crabtree Cottage
. The men who live there
know who I am
.”

Crabtree Cottage stood a little ways away from St. George’s, on the opposite side of the green from the schoolhouse, but I could see its front door plainly from the churchyard.

“The men who live there won’t give you away,” I said quickly. “Grant and Charles can’t stand the guy. They’ll flick him off like a piece of lint.”

“He fancies himself a spiritual leader,” Amelia reminded me. “What if he visits the church?”

“You’ll be gone by then,” Bree said brightly. The girl couldn’t possibly know who Myron Brocklehurst was or why Amelia Thistle wished to hide from him, but she could always be relied upon in a pinch. “I’ll distract Mr. What’s-It. You two hop the churchyard wall, sneak around to the back of the vicarage, and go through the French doors into the vicar’s study. The doors are never locked.”