“The ritual?” my father asked, horrified.
“Amos, you’re my best friend in all the world, else I wouldn’t ask it. But I need someone there-someone who hasn’t lost his mind in all this vampire madness. Otherwise, God knows what is to become of me! I need your strength!”
His strength is failing! I wanted to protest, but my father was already agreeing to help his old friend.
Father would not let us go with him on the day the ritual was performed. When he came home, his pallor frightened me. I gave him soup and warm bread, but he did not eat. He would not speak of what happened, but late that night, I heard him weeping.
Jane Gardner died two days later.
If we had thought this would put an end to Winston’s cause, we were mistaken. A town meeting was held the next week. I sat next to Father, near the front of the room, when Winston presented his case. Father had told Noah that Winston could not hurt him with his words, but how wrong he had been!
“The future of our community is at risk!” Winston declared, fingering his gold watch chain. “Many of our dearest friends and family members have died from consumption. We’ve taken action against the vampires, with one notable exception.” He stared hard at my father. “Those in the Arden family!”
There was a low murmur, a mixture of protest and agreement.
Winston held his hands out flat, making a calming motion. “Now,” he said silkily, “I have great sympathy for my neighbor, Amos Arden. The death of his wife and three children is a terrible loss for him. But in consumption, the living are food for the dead, and we must think of the living! The graves must be opened, and the bodies examined! If none of their hearts is found to hold blood, we may all be at peace, knowing that none are vampires. But if there is a vampire coming to us from the Arden graves, the ritual must be performed! This is our only recourse.” The room fell silent. No one rose to speak, but many heads nodded in agreement.
Father stood slowly, grasping the chair beside me. “The thought of disturbing the peace of my wife and children sickens me. I do not believe in this superstition, but I see no other way.” He glanced toward Winston, then said, “If I refuse, I have no doubt that some other will take the task upon himself. He takes a great deal upon himself, but the thought of his hands on my wife’s remains-” He broke off, and I saw that he was trembling, not in fear, but in anger. He looked around the room, but many of our neighbors would not meet his gaze. “I will agree to the ritual,” he said at last, “but no one else will touch my wife.”
The exhumation was set for two days hence, and under other circumstances, would have occupied all my thoughts. Instead, all my energies were taken up with the care of Nathan, whose condition suddenly worsened. He bore it bravely, worrying more about his father than himself. “Papa is troubled,” he said, and pleaded again and again with me to tell him what had so disturbed our parent.
On the night before the exhumation, I told my father that Nathan’s condition terrified me. “He needs a doctor! He has night sweats now, and the coughing is ceaseless. He has so little strength and-”
“I know, John. I know.”
I was silent.
“With all that has befallen us,” my father said, “I’m sorry, John, I cannot afford to bring Ashford here again, even if he would come.”
“What do you mean, ‘if he would come’? Of course he would!”
My father shook his head. “I have not wanted to tell you this, son, but-the last time Dr. Ashford saw him, three weeks ago, he told me Nathan’s case is hopeless. Your brother is dying.”
I had known it, of course, without being told, but still it was a blow. Childishly, I struck back. “So you resort to Winston’s witchcraft!”
He looked into my eyes and said, “Do you think I would hesitate for a moment to save any of your lives by any means I could? By God, I’d offer my own life if it would save his!”
“Papa-I’m sorry! I just can’t understand why you’ve agreed to this ritual. It didn’t work for Jane Gardner. I’ve heard of other unsuccessful cases-”
“I don’t do this because I believe it will cure consumption. But it is a cure for mistrust. A bitter remedy, but a necessary one.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You will go back to school soon, and perhaps you will never return to Carrick Hollow. No, don’t protest-whether you do or not, Noah and I will continue to live here. We who live in the countryside depend upon our friends and neighbors. My neighbors are depending on me now, to do something which they have come to believe will keep them safe and well. No matter how repulsive I find it, John, I must do this to keep their trust.”
That night, my sleep was fitful. Nathan’s cough was horrible, and nothing I did could bring him any relief. My brief dreams were filled with images of decaying flesh and bones, of coffins unearthed, of Winston’s thick hands reaching into my mother’s grave.
The morning broke bright and warm, unusual for an early spring day in New England. We had agreed that Noah would stay with Nathan; a suggestion that he met with both relief and some guilt. But my father knew that Noah’s anger toward Winston had already nearly led to blows, and asked him to stay home.
A group of ten men, including poor Isaac Gardner, gathered in the village. Winston tried to lead the way to the cemetery, but Isaac shouldered him aside, and let my father go ahead of them. I saw my father hesitate. I took his hand, and together we walked to the familiar section of the churchyard, the one I knew so well from that winter of funerals. As we stood at the foot of the four newest Arden graves, Winston’s voice interrupted my silent prayers.
“Dig up all four coffins,” he directed.
“All four!” my father protested.
“We must be certain!” Winston said. “We’ll place them under that tree. Once they are all exhumed, we’ll open them one at a time. Start with the children.”
Father, Isaac and I stood away from the group. At a nod from Winston, their picks and shovels struck the earth. They began to dig, never looking up at us. My father swayed a little on his feet, and Isaac moved nearer, placing a firm hand on his shoulder. Together we stood listening to the rhythm of the digging, the downward scrape and lift, the thudding fall of the soil as they attacked my sister’s grave. Soon, the top of the Rebecca’s coffin was struck. How small that coffin looked! The earth was moved from around its sides, and ropes were placed under the ends. The coffin was lifted from the grave and placed under a nearby tree. In two more hours, two other coffins were taken from the earth-the larger coffins of my brothers, Robert, who had been but eighteen, and Daniel, a year younger-the age I was now. As each coffin was brought up, my prayers became more urgent and the fact of the exhumations more real.
The group moved to Mother’s grave. Again, shovels broke into the soil. The digging slowed now-the first frenzy long past, the men grew tired. At last, they pulled her coffin from the earth and set it with the others, beneath the tree. I moved toward it, and placed my hand on the lid of her box. I felt the cool, damp wood, and the small indentations made by each nail. I broke out in a cold sweat, and my hand shook. I turned when I heard the creak of the nails being pried from the other coffins.
Father’s hand gently touched my arm. I moved away.
When they had finished loosening all the nails on the top of each of the coffins, Winston directed the men to remove the lid of Rebecca’s. With horror, I gazed at the unrecognizable form that-had it not been for her dress and the color of her hair-I would not have known as my sister. This child’s face, impish and smiling not so very long ago, was now nothing more than a skull, covered with sunken, leathery skin; her small, white hands now nothing more than thin bones covered with dark, dried sinew. My throat constricted-I could not swallow, could not breathe. Rebecca! Little Rebecca! My memories of her could not be reconciled with what I saw. I had taught her how to write her name, I thought wildly-I had heard her laughter. This could not be my sister…