Page 51 of You'll Be Sorry

The children scattered. One second trespassing on my property, the next long gone. I straightened up but felt no satisfaction. Nothing had changed. Not the past. Not the present.

And most likely, not the future.

Blood. I saw it then. I see it now.

Forever and always.

And then, because it’s my legacy, too, I listened to the sound of her screams carrying across the winds and echoing through the trees.

Do you remember?

Is it all coming back to you? Or do you still need another shot of bourbon, internet video, late-night comedy show to continue dulling the pain?

The end is coming. For both you and me.

A distinct punctuation point. No more additional chapters.

Ding dong bell, the witch is in the well.

Night’s a-comin’.

She draws near.

Wind’s a-howlin’

Which one’s here?

18

Mandy already knew she wouldn’t sleep so didn’t bother. She oversaw the careful collection of the infant bones by the ADME, as the forensic anthropologist, Debs, was still busy at the first scene. Using a pair of tweezers, Schwartz delicately lifted each tiny piece from the old pottery, placing them in a glass jar roughly the size of a baby food container. The irony was not lost on any of them.

“I have no idea if these are eighteenth- or twentieth-century remains,” Schwartz stated. “But even I can tell you these bones were sealed in the crockery already devoid of soft tissue. Otherwise, we’d see evidence of decomp and the contents would be a much messier affair, especially for the, uh, ledger.”

“Someone interred the bones of an infant—”

“Orinfants,” Schwartz corrected. “Can’t tell you that, either.”

“Infants, sealed up with a historic register,” Mandy revised. “Then dropped it with a probably-still-living female into a well, which was then, in turn, boarded up. Did I get that right?”

“That scenario would be consistent with what we know thus far. Though…” The ADME’s professional veneer cracked. “How totally completely fucking horrible. And sadistic. Not to mention twisted.”

“Kind of like burning someone alive at the stake,” Mandy murmured. But she wasn’t ready to discuss it further just yet. She needed time to think. And, in all honesty, to talk to Betty, who’d clearlywondered about it herself. Sometimes, local legends were simply legends. But sometimes they were based on something more.

Given the extraordinary developments, they were well beyond the official handbook for jurisdictional procedure. After a bit of discussion, Mandy and Schwartz agreed all human remains would head to the ME’s office, while all collected evidence would go to the state lab under the auspices of Major Crimes.

As town police chief, Mandy wouldn’t be left out in the cold, per se, but next steps would happen nearly a hundred miles away in Concord. Given the geographic disconnect, not to mention Mason’s nearly primal moan of suffering upon being forced to hand over the register, Mandy snapped extensive photos of the ledger pages. That would give the historical society plenty of content to research, while the original volume was entered into evidence.

She sent Betty and Mason on their way with the photographed pages and instructions for strict radio silence. Bad enough the media was already salivating over human remains found on the old Dixon property; they might be able to pass that off as a historic relic/coincidence, which would lose traction soon enough. But baby bones sealed in colonial-era crockery? No way that wasn’t a viral story in the making.

Like all small towns, Shereford wasn’t that fond of outsiders. And Mandy could already tell, neither were Theo and Raquel Collins. Which was another thing giving her a headache. How had Raquel known? Not even Mandy or the ADME had encountered anything like this.

Mandy had been up for nearly thirty-six hours. Her town was in crisis. Her thoughts were in chaos. She needed to stop, think, and strategize. She also needed a hot shower and a solid meal.

She did as she’d been doing since she was a teenager trapped in a claustrophobic town where her father was sheriff and she felt likea bug stuck beneath a microscope; she climbed into her vehicle of choice and got the hell out of there.

Night driving in the mountains involved caution. Wildlife, not to mention drunk tourists, could appear without warning. Mandy wanted to say she was a consummate professional with not just a badge but hours of training behind her. Honestly, she felt sixteen again, taking corners too hot, hitting straightaways like a rocket, then roaring her way up the next incline. She drove not for the destination, but for the journey. Not to see but to know. And maybe, not to remember, but to forget.

And as always, the single thread throughout all of her years, she ended up right back where she started. The tiny, inescapable village of her youth. The home her parents chose because they thought it would be a great place to raise a child, without ever considering someday that child might be a teen, then an adult.