Then there were frequent, secret meetings with Conal O’Herlihy and a growing group of men. That was a matter that was none of Glory’s business, and just as well.
Glory’s ordained purpose was to keep Allard’s one-room domicile as tidy as she had their rented flat back in England.
Tending this home and the land around it was more than enough work for a woman, especially one belonging to such a busy and important man like Allard.
Allard’s frequent vague promises of a bigger and better home, like Bennington’s, were as certain to bear fruit as God’s promise to Moses of a land filled with milk and honey. For now, there was only a bed, a dining table, and the fireplace, which took up nearly a quarter of the house.
Still, Glory was grateful for a new life in a new world. This poor street girl, who had bitterly considered prostitution before the miracle of meeting Allard, then becoming his bride and helpmate in Wilcott Bennington’s wilderness settlement across the sea, would forever offer thanks in work and in song.
An oddly cadenced knock at the door severed her psalm.
Whenever Allard returned from a hunting excursion or a barn raising, he always knocked and gaily called out so he wouldn’t frighten her.
But this was not his knock, and he did not call or enter afterward.
Glory stared at the door, finding small comfort behind the barrier of the big oaken table. She sought to sense something familiar in the shadow that broke the light between cracks in the wood of the door.
Burly Hezekiah Hardison came to mind. Whenever he tipped his hat at her in the town commons or at gatherings, it accompanied a penetrating, lustful stare upon her bosom.
And Hezekiah would surely know Allard was out hunting. Thinking of Glory all alone, he might have got himself a head full of carnal mischief and corn-liquor courage.
“Who’s there!?” she called.
The answer was the kind of stifled snickering that came from a shy child. But its timbre, and the size of the shape filling the cracks—these were far from childlike.
Glory found herself wishing, then praying, that it was Hezekiah. She had rebuffed him before, and she could again.
In the early days, the Indians had visited on occasion, but they had since been driven away, somehow, by Conal O’Herlihy. All that aside, something about the knock and laugh told Glory this was no Indian.
Other than the giggle, there was nothing to suggest it was even human.
“Answer me!” she called. “I’ll have no foolishness!”
The response came as a curved blade, sliding between the cracks and slowly scraping down till it met the cross plank.
Then, the blade softly, teasingly, pecked against the plank. As with the initial knock, there was no rhythm to it.
“Go away!” Glory dashed to the matchlock resting in the corner, grateful Allard had insisted on leaving his secondary weapon loaded and in easy reach for her. “I will shoot you!”
The blade halted, resting atop the cross plank of the door like a giant talon pointing straight to hell.
“I’ll shoot you right through the door!” she yelled. “I do mean it!”
The blade withdrew.
From this viewpoint, Glory could not see whether the blackness between the cracks had gone as well. With her back pressed against the dry mud wall, she began to sidestep to her left until she could see through the cracks again.
They were still filled with black.
Yet there was no sign of movement. Glory relived the last few minutes, wondering if she had imagined…
“Triiick…” came a raspy call. Glory reflexively pulled the trigger before she could even aim, punching a hole through the thatch roof. A dusty ray shone onto her chopped carrots.
She screamed, even before the door was splintered to kindling by the boot of a bloody scarecrow.
Glory convulsed as she fell back against the wall, aiming the matchlock across the dining table, repeatedly squeezing an unmoving trigger on a weapon that wasn’t even cocked, much less loaded.
The scarecrow raised the hand sickle and pointed it at her. “…or treeeat!”
Both stood frozen for so long that Glory’s knees began to shake. She hurled the gun at the invader and lunged for the paring knife that lay amid the carrot slices, snatching it as Everett swatted the rifle aside. He flipped the table toward the fireplace as if it was a branch of dried poplar. She lunged at him with the blade. Everett yelped like a suckling pig as the point entered between his ribs.
Glory took a split second to decide whether to run away or stab him again. Choosing the latter, she despaired to find the blade held firm in his flesh.
Her hopes for survival plunged as she recalled that inner suction often took hold of Allard’s skinning knives when he dressed out a deer.
She yanked and yanked. But the ragged demon just stared at her with a mix of disappointment, dejection and what could only be madness.
Everett raised his sickle in a swift upward arc. It entered just below Glory’s belly, sliced cleanly through her breastbone and exited just under her chin.
The only treat she had to offer was the sharp pain in his ribs and this splashing scarlet mess at his feet.
* * * *
Modern Day
“They’re heeere.” Only after she had spoken did Leticia Lott realize she had just echoed a line, complete with childish inflection, from Poltergeist, her son DeShaun’s third-favorite movie on the annotated list he maintained and frequently updated with utmost gravitas.
“You mean…here?” asked Stella Riesling as she sidled through the door carrying four-year-old Emera in one arm, a bursting bag of groceries in the other. She brought a puff of crisp fall air in her wake that gave Leticia a quick thrill of dread.
“At the Blue Moon Inn,” clarified Leticia. “Maisie called when they arrived. They’ll be here within the hour.”
Leticia closed the door and took one of Stella’s burdens—Emera, of course. “Hi, Emmie!” she cooed.
The little girl, adorable in a Scooby-Doo top and leggings, gave
