The Night Strangers - Chris Bohjalian [123]
You want to reassure him that you are no stranger to the notion of guilt driving a person mad. You feel that pain in your side and know instantly that Ashley is present. You are imagining her in the den with her dolls—no, that’s not right; those are your daughters’ dolls—when you see her standing in the doorway to the dining room, the sunflowers towering over her. She is listening intently. You nod at her. You have to restrain yourself from waving.
“Their potions are an inexact science at best,” Hewitt continues. “The women think they have more control over them than they do. They all seem to have more confidence than they should in what they steep and stew.”
“Why would they want to kill one of my girls?”
“Most of their potions and tinctures come from plants. You’ve seen their greenhouses. But not all. Some potions demand animal parts, too. Or blood. Sometimes it’s animal blood and sometimes it’s human blood. And sometimes it’s a heart. I know of one tincture that demands a deer heart. I know of another where they use the hearts of bluebirds. Yup, bluebirds. I don’t know what they did to Sawyer the night he died, but I presume they did not cut out his heart. Even in a part of New England as rural as this, I think someone in the medical examiner’s office or the funeral home would have noticed. But they did need his blood.”
“And my girls?”
“They’re twins. That was what was so important about Sawyer. Could have been me, you know. But the recipe, it seems, only needs one twin: And for some reason they picked him and not me. Maybe”—and here he waved one of his arms dismissively—“they liked his blood more than mine. Or maybe they thought he wasn’t as far along as I was.”
“Far along?”
“Puberty. The twin is supposed to be prepubescent.” He turns around abruptly and glances out the window. Churning up a trail of dust on the gravel and dirt driveway is Anise’s old pickup. When he looks back at you, his face has become ashen. He shakes his head ever so slightly, and you rise to go and greet Anise. You watch her gaze curiously at Hewitt’s automobile as she exits her truck, and then welcome her into your house. She has brought a casserole dish and a plate of brownies.
“You have company,” she says in the doorway. “I hope I’m not intruding.”
“Not at all.”
“I’ve brought you a cassoulet—vegan, of course.”
“Of course.”
“It begins with dried haricot beans. But you’ll recognize lots of other vegetables. And the thyme and rosemary and bay leaf are from my greenhouse.”
“That was sweet of you. Thank you.”
She bustles past you into the kitchen without asking. “Hewitt Dunmore,” she says when she sees him, her voice flat and unreadable, her lips curling up into a withering smile. She places the brownies and the cassoulet on the counter. “It has been aeons. How are you? How is life in the big city?”
“I wouldn’t call St. Johnsbury a big city.”
“Oh, but it dwarfs Bethel. You must love it there. You never, ever seem to come back here.”
He remains silent.
“So, tell me: What has brought you back today? Old home week? Leave something behind in the house?” she asks, her face hard, and she rolls her eyes toward the door to the basement.
“I happened to be driving this way and thought I would see the old place,” he says, his voice a little shaky.
“That’s all? Really?”
He looks down at the tabletop, a small child being chastised. “Really,” he mumbles.
“First time back?”
“First time.”
“Well, I know the captain appreciates visitors enormously.”
“Actually, Anise, I was just leaving.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry.”
“Errands,” he says vaguely.
“Well, I hope you two had a nice visit.”
“No complaints,