Four Rubbings

Chapter 19: Josie Reads the Parchment

I WAKE TO A FIERCE PULSE of pain across my jaw. Where am I? Yellow walls, soft couch, blue blanket, the crackle of a fire and whispers.

I squint and see Grace and my father on the couch opposite me, heads down, talking in quiet tones over a crinkled piece of paper as if they have known each other for years. Imaginary question marks hang above my aching head. The fire in the hearth pops and spits.

The twosome turns toward me and notices I am awake. Grace rolls up the paper, ties a tidy red bow across the middle, and sets it on the coffee table.

"Hey, honey. How're you feeling?" Dad brushes a hand across my forehead.

Pain pulses across my face as I answer. "All right, I guess. My head hurts a little. Why are you here? How did I get to Grace's?"

"She called from your cell phone and said a crow attacked you. At first I thought it was a joke, but then she started hollering. Grace said you were knocked out and there was blood. So, I raced over."

His hair is a mess of wild curls. He has no doubt been running his hand through it over and over out of worry. "Josie, I told you I didn't want you coming here today. Maybe next time you'll listen."

Grace enters the room and sets two glasses of lemonade onto the coffee table.

"Drink up! Grant, you too. This'll help."

Grace lifts the ice pack from my jaw and replaces it with a fresh one. She tucks the blanket around my feet and studies my face. Worry crackles her forehead. She bends over me, looking tired and worn, not like the spunky forty-something woman I've come to know. Her eyes dart to the roll of paper on the coffee table.

It is out of my reach. "What did it say? You read it, didn't you?"

I sit up too fast and white stars shoot behind my eyes. As soon as my sight clears, I reach for the lemonade, and the stone heart that was tucked inside my hand falls to the floor and bounces out of sight.

"What's this?" My dad grabs the strange object from under the couch and holds the heart, turning it over in his hand.

"It was stuffed behind the papers in the secret compartment. I don't know what it is," I answer.

"It's a heart carved out of stone. Maybe basalt? Or blue stone? I'm not sure." Dad gives it back to me and I hand it to Grace, whose eyes are bright with curiosity.

"Is this what you pulled out when the crow smacked your face?" Grace scowls down at the object. "Why's it warm?"

"I had it in my hand the whole time, I guess. It's weird, isn't it? What'd the paper say?" I ask again.

My dad sets his empty glass on the coffee table. He sits up so his elbows rest on his knees, looking like a granite sculpture in the park. "There were two documents in there, Josie. Strange things, really. And this heart makes it seem all the more mysterious. Read them. One says that the woman buried at that site was found guilty of witchcraft and put to death in 1851.

"The other is a letter from the mayor of New Market, Washington from a long time ago. In it he asks that the woman be reinterred somewhere far away, as she was, 'even in death,' bringing bad luck to his town. Very melodramatic."

Dad hands the roll of parchment to me. I slide off the red ribbon, uncurl the document, and a small yellow letter flutters to the ground:

29th of October, 1851

Dear Sirs,

Herein lay the remains of Mrs. Bain McLaren. As Mayor of New Market Township, I presided over the trial that led to the sentencing of Mrs. McLaren. Tried by a jury of her peers, she was found guilty of practicing witchcraft against citizens of our Godly town. She was sentenced to death by way of public stoning one month's time after the trial's completion.