“I can recommend an entire library,” Edward said. “It’s only a hundred yards away.” He pointed in the general direction of the Countway Medical Library. “There comes a time in everybody’s life when they have to cut the umbilical cord. Do a little work on your own!”
Jaya bowed his head and silently exited.
Edward redirected his attention to the tiny crystals he was growing.
“Maybe I should carry the burden with the new alkaloid,” Eleanor suggested hesitantly. “You can look over my shoulder and be the guiding light.”
“And miss all this fun?” Edward said. He was using a binocular microscope to observe crystals forming on the surface of a supersaturated solution in the well of a microscope slide.
“I’m just concerned about your normal responsibilities,” Eleanor said. “A lot of people around here depend on your supervision. I also heard the undergraduate summer students complained about your absence this morning.”
“Ralph knows his material,” Edward said. “His teaching will improve.”
“Ralph doesn’t like to teach,” Eleanor said.
“I appreciate what you are saying,” Edward said, “but I’m not going to let this opportunity slip away. We’ve got something here with this alkaloid. I can feel it in my bones. I mean, how often does a billion-dollar molecule fall into your lap?”
“We have no idea whether this compound is going to be worth anything,” Eleanor said. “At this point it is purely hypothetical.”
“The harder we work, the quicker we’ll know,” Edward said. “The students can do without my hand-holding for the time being. Who knows? Maybe it will do them some good.”
As Kim approached the compound her anxieties increased. She couldn’t forget that she had Elizabeth’s head in her trunk, and the longer she spent in direct proximity to it, the more she experienced a vague, uncomfortable foreboding about the course of recent events. Having stumbled onto Elizabeth’s grave so quickly in the renovation process made it seem as if the witchcraft frenzy of 1692 was casting an ominous shadow over the present.
Passing through the gate, which was ajar, Kim feared that the construction people were still there. As she emerged from the trees her suspicions were confirmed. There were two vehicles parked in front of the cottage. Kim was not happy. By that time she’d expected all of the workmen to have departed.
She parked next to the vehicles and slid out from behind the wheel. Almost simultaneously George Harris and Mark Stevens appeared at the front door. In contrast to her response, they were demonstrably pleased to see her.
“This is a pleasant surprise,” Mark said. “We were hoping to get you on the phone later, but your being here is far better. We have a lot of questions.”
For the next half hour Mark and George took Kim on a working tour of the renovation. The amazing progress that had been made improved her mood dramatically. To her delight Mark had brought granite samples to the site for the kitchen and the baths. With Kim’s interest in interior design and her sense of color, she had no trouble making decisions. Mark and George were impressed. Kim was even impressed with herself. She knew that the ability to make such decisions was a tribute to the progress she’d made over the years with her self-confidence. When she’d first gone to college, she’d not even been able to decide on the color of her bedspread.
When they had finished with the interior, they stepped outside and began a walk around the building. Viewing the structure from the exterior, Kim told them that she wanted the new windows in the lean-to to match the small, diamond-paned windows of the main part of the house.
“They’ll have to be custom,” George said. “They’ll be considerably more expensive.”
“I want them,” Kim said without hesitation.
She also told them she wanted the roof slate repaired, not replaced with a modern material, as the contractor had suggested. Mark agreed it would look far better. Kim even wanted the asphalt shingles removed from the shed and replaced with slate.
Rounding the building, they came to the utility trench. Kim glanced into its depths, where now ran a waste pipe, a water pipe, an electrical service, a phone line, and a TV cable. She was relieved to see the corner of the coffin still protruding from the wall.
“What about this ditch?” she asked.
“It’ll be filled tomorrow,” George said.
Kim felt an unwelcome chill descend her spine as she reluctantly imagined the terrible dilemma she would have faced had she not made the call to George that morning.
“Will all this be done by September first?” Kim asked, forcing her mind away from such disturbing thoughts.
Mark deferred to George.
“Barring any unforeseen problems we should be fine,” George said. “I’ll order the new casement windows tomorrow. If they’re not here in time we can always hang a temporary window.”
After the contractor and the architect had climbed into their respective vehicles and driven out of sight, Kim went back into the house to find a hammer. With it in hand, she opened the trunk of her car and lifted out the cardboard box.
As she followed the trench to where she could climb into it, Kim was quite astonished with her degree of nervousness. She felt like a thief in the night, and she kept stopping to listen for any approaching cars.
Once she was in the trench and had walked back to where the coffin was, a sense of claustrophobia made the ordeal even worse. The walls seemed to tower above her and from her vantage point seemed to curve out over her head, adding to her fear they might cave in at any moment.
With a tremulous hand, Kim set to work on the end of the coffin. Inserting the hammer’s claws, she pried it back. Then she turned to face the box.
Now that the unpleasant task was at hand, Kim revived the debate as to what she should do in relation to the box. But she didn’t debate long: hastily she untied the string. As much as she hated the idea of touching the head, she had to make an effort to restore the grave to a semblance of its original state.
Lifting the cardboard flaps, Kim reluctantly looked inside. The head was facing up, balanced on a mat of dried hair. Elizabeth was staring back at Kim with her dried, sunken eyeballs partially exposed. For an uncomfortable moment, Kim tried vainly to reconcile the gruesome face with the pleasing portrait that she was having restored, relined, and reframed. The images were such stark opposites that it seemed inconceivable they were the same person.
Holding her breath, Kim reached in and lifted the head. Touching it gave her renewed shivers, as if she were touching death itself. Kim also found herself wondering anew about what had really happened three hundred years previously. What could Elizabeth have done to bring on such a cruel fate?
Turning around carefully to avoid tripping over any of the pipes and cables, Kim extended the head into the coffin. Gingerly she set it down. She could feel her hands touch fabric and other firmer objects, but she didn’t try to look in to see what they were. Hastily she bent the end of the coffin back to its original position and hammered it home.
Picking up the empty box and string, Kim hurried back up the trench. She didn’t begin to relax until she’d put the trash back in her trunk. Finally she took a deep breath. At least it was over.
Walking back to the trench, she looked down at the end of the coffin just to make sure she’d not left some telltale evidence behind. She could see her footprints, but she didn’t think that was a problem.
With her hands on her hips, Kim’s eyes left the coffin and looked up at the quiet, cozy cottage. She tried to imagine what life had been like back in those dark days of the witchcraft scare, when poor Elizabeth was unknowingly ingesting the poisonous, mind-altering grain. With all the books Kim had been reading on the witchcraft ordeal, she’d learned quite a lot. For the most part the young women who presumably had been poisoned with the same contaminant as Elizabeth were the “afflicted,” and they were the ones who “called out against” the witches.