Four and Twenty Blackbirds

I stood still and thought about it for a second. He knew how to get a girl's attention, that's for sure. "What do you mean?" I asked, not wanting the answer but probably needing it, regardless.



He waved the gun towards the top of the stairs. "Bring her up and let's get her secured. I'll explain while we start hunting."



Eliza's eyes were a dare, but I met them anyway. "You heard the man," I said. "Let's go. Get those little legs moving."



"And if I refuse? I don't think he'll shoot me, and I don't think you'll hit me, either."



"If you refuse, then you'll look mighty strange slung over my shoulder like a gunnysack. And don't think for a second that I won't do it. For that matter, don't be so sure I wouldn't hit you. If I were you, that's not a bet I'd take."



She sniffed, then stuck her nose in the air and started up the stairs once more.



Harry was waiting for us at the top.



III



Harry affixed Eliza to one of the dining room chairs with an extension cord. I watched from the other side of the room, still uncertain what I should make of this shift in alliances. He did not speak until he had her wrists and ankles tied, and then it was to offer her one last chance to be helpful.



"Tell us where the book is."



"No. I don't know what you're talking about."



He wadded up one of the cloth napkins and held it up to the side of her face. "Is that your final word on the subject?"



"Yes."



"Fine." He stuffed the napkin into her mouth and strapped one of the curtain ties around her jaw to hold it there. "Then you'll at least be out of the way."



"Harry, I don't know . . . we've got to let her go sometime, and she's going to run straight to the police. I don't need that, Harry. I really don't."



"She isn't going to the police," he assured me. "She can't tell them anything about us without her harboring Malachi coming into it. And she has been harboring him, you can bet on that. Furthermore, you can bet she'll continue to do so once we're gone. He's gone off to lick his wounds, but he'll come back. He's got nowhere else to go."



"But he's hurt. Maybe badly. Didn't you see him when you came downstairs? He's bleeding like a stuck pig."



"I'm sure his God will take care of him," Harry said with a sneer. "Malachi always comes back. Surely you know that better than anyone. You're probably right, and he probably didn't go far, but that doesn't mean they'll catch him—even if we called the cops ourselves, right this second. They hunted around this place all today and all yesterday and couldn't turn him up. He'll hide as long as he has to, and then he'll be back for more trouble."



"He does seem to have a knack for it," I admitted, shuffling my feet and trying to ignore Eliza's evil, beady eyes.



"He's getting some kind of help," Harry admitted, "but I'm pretty sure it's not God who's feeding him information."



"Then who? Or what?"



He put his hands on his hips and stared up and down around the dining room. "Couldn't say. But right now, believe it or not, Malachi is not the worst of our worries. We've got to find that book."



"Yeah—about that book—you said my life depends on us finding it. I don't suppose you'd mind elaborating on that point, would you?"



Harry quit scanning the walls and floor and met my eyes with what appeared to be genuine concern. "It's very hard to explain. And I don't want to frighten you."



"Oh, good grief. Try me. You'd be surprised what I understand, and besides, when you mentioned my life was on the line you officially entitled me to an explanation."



"Yes, you do deserve one," he agreed, but he wasn't ready to fill me in yet, so he didn't. "I've checked the servants' rooms quite thoroughly, and I'm almost certain she hasn't hidden anything in there. She'd be more likely to keep it closer to herself anyway, and the places that I haven't been able to search have been those she spends the most time in. Let's start in her bedroom, shall we?" He finally paused to acknowledge my narrowed eyes and firmly set lips, and then sighed. "And I promise, I'll tell you everything I can while we look. But the most important thing of all is that we find it, and quickly."



I agreed to his terms and followed him up a flight of stairs into a hall. We passed several bedrooms that were furnished, but clearly unoccupied; and at the end of the row was Eliza's room. It looked much like I would have pictured it, had I bothered to give the subject any thought. Her bed was a giant four-poster canopy, and the vanity and dressers were made to match it. Old-style oil lamps were mounted on the walls, casting a flickering warmth across the maroon-and-ivory furnishings. Across the room on the far wall there was a window, but I couldn't imagine that it had been opened any time recently. The room was stuffy, smelling of medicine, dust, and dried flowers.



"This is where she lives?"



"Yes," Harry said. "And the book must be here someplace."



But I heard the doubt in his voice. "You aren't certain?"



He rubbed at his forehead, then at his eyes. He was not old, not in comparison to Eliza, but he was older than the folks who'd raised me. I might have guessed he was a well-preserved sixty, and those decades showed, but he was not at all fragile. He'd handled himself as well as a younger man when Malachi had posed a threat. I wondered who he'd been and what he'd done before coming into Eliza's service.



I would have asked him directly, but in the course of the explanation that finally followed, he answered everything well enough.



"You're right. I'm not certain the book is here—or more accurately, I'm quite terrified that it's not. If it isn't, then I've come all this way and spent all this time for nothing. And it may have cost . . . a great deal."



"How so?"



Harry reached for a corner of the bedspread and gave it a yank. Once the covers were off, he began to root around between the mattresses. I took his cue and started opening drawers, sifting through cream-colored girdles and stockings.



"I'm not sure how to begin," he said.



I insisted on the cliché. "Try the beginning."



"Which one?" He threw up his hands. "Or whose? You already know of John Gray, it would seem, and that is the very beginning. Sort of. You know how he died?"



I shut one drawer and opened another. "I know he was hanged for witchcraft."



"Yes, that's brief, but it's correct. On September twenty-nine, 1840, four priests from St. Augustine's church went out under cover of darkness. They carried with them rope, pistols, and the Word of God. John Gray had been waging a war against the clergymen, testing his powers even to the point of killing two of them, though it would have been impossible to prove."



"Why?"



"Because he was using black magic. He'd first practiced on ordinary people—on people who'd angered or offended members of his community. But as he grew stronger he began to play games with the Church as well, sending his ghosts and his devils to haunt, to torment, and even to commit murder. It could not be tolerated, but it could not be stopped without putting a permanent end to Gray himself; so four brave men took on the danger and went after him. Two went into the camp and dragged him out, and the two others were waiting with a coach to spirit them away. They took him to the town square and hanged him before his followers had a chance to retrieve him.



"But then came another beginning. Gray's wife cut off his hand before he was buried, intending to raise him from the dead."



"Juanita," I said.



"Yes, Juanita. She was a Spanish colonial woman who had fled her family to marry him a few years before. She took his hand and then they buried him, leaving his body to await the promised resurrection. When the priests learned of this, they dug him up and burned the rest of his remains, just to be on the safe side.



"I think they can hardly be blamed for their caution, for even once Gray was gone, his cult lived on. His followers became a pestilence to the community and were routinely run off or hung. Thankfully, none of them were so strong as their first martyr had been. At least, not at the time."



He retrieved a bundle of papers from between the mattresses and paused, hoping he'd found something of import. But upon a quick examination, he dropped them onto the nightstand and continued his quest and his story. "Now, Eden, tell me—what do you know of Avery Dufresne?"



Ah, here was the connection. "I know he was Eliza's half brother, and that he was considerably older than she is. He had a child who was a great-grandparent of mine—or some such. The relationships confuse me. I'm not sure how it all fits together."



"The relationships are convoluted, that much is true. Avery married Mae Jones and they had at least one legitimate child together, but Avery packed up his wife and her two sisters and headed south with the whole crew, and they were never seen or heard from again. However, the middle sister, Willa, had given birth to a child some years before that was believed to have been Avery's as well. This child remained with relatives when Avery and his harem took off. That was James, who was your mother and aunt's grandfather. But Avery also had another child by another woman, back before he met your grandmother. From that came a line of cousins I suppose you are unaware of."



"You're right—I thought we were pretty much it. You seem to know an awful lot about my family. Did you know who my father was?"



"Yes, but it was hardly my business to tell you, now was it? And it has become something of my job to know. That's where another beginning comes in—and don't worry, it works its way back around to Avery. I'm not going as far off topic as you think."



"Okay."