Ben Murden may have had the distinction of being the oldest living man in Meadowton, but one other resident may have soon claimed bragging rights to such a title. Unlike Murden, Miss Palmer, the township’s lone librarian, had an unblemished reputation with the older folks. At the age of seventy-three, the retired schoolteacher still awoke at 6:00 every morning to assume her responsibilities at the library. To most people, she was recognized as a stern disciplinarian who dedicated her life to the process of education. It was rumored that she never bothered to marry or entertain any social connections outside of work. Few could deny her commitment to the profession, and almost everybody over the age of twenty appreciated her knowledge and the way she elected to dispense it to others.
Since Kyle and Robby frequented the library only on rare occasions, it would seem only natural that an older woman might have trouble remembering their names. But Miss Palmer’s memory was impeccable and she insisted on addressing people by their names as often as possible. After noticing the boys entering the library, she sensed an opportunity to interject some good-natured sarcasm.
“My eyesight must be ailing me,” Miss Palmer exclaimed loudly enough to catch the boys’ ears. “Robby Taylor and Kyle McCann in the library on a summer morning,” she gasped, “I suppose stranger things have happened in recent days.”
The boys knew better than to try to ignore Miss Palmer. She had reduced a fair share of insubordinates to tears for lesser infractions. Robby immediately recognized the mocking edge to the woman’s voice. He recalled her bone-white hair and ankle-length black dresses, too. Although he hadn’t seen her in a few years, not much had changed in regard to her appearance. Even the sickly scent of her perfume, which smelled similar to burnt lilacs, wafted between the bookcases as she moved toward them.
Miss Palmer didn’t easily accept the notion of change. This old-school mentality rendered her technologically handicapped until recently. Approximately one year ago, the Meadowton library still hadn’t utilized computers to their fullest capacity. Miss Palmer had no intention of tampering with a system that had worked flawlessly for over forty-five years. The obstinate woman eventually had to concede to fact that the advent of computers made her way of thinking a bit primitive. She begrudgingly purchased six computers for reference purposes and was in the process of convincing herself that change isn’t necessarily a compromise on one’s intellect.
Kyle had no experience with dealing with Miss Palmer, but Robby had the misfortune of having her as a substitute teacher several years ago. As Miss Palmer marched across the blue-carpeted library toward the boys, Robby rolled his eyes at the thought of encountering her again.
“Oh, great,” Robby whispered in Kyle’s ear. “It’s Miss Palmer—the librarian from hell.”
In the world of schoolyard gossip, any teacher who dared to expect his or her students to work and think independently acquired such a label. Miss Palmer of course realized that many of her former students had a hankering to see her succumb to some hideous disease, but this kind of rationalization only reinforced her belief that the best teachers were least likely to be invited to a slew of parties by semester’s end. It would only be in hindsight that those few students learned to appreciate the sacrifices such teachers made so that they had a better chance to succeed long after the final school bell tolled.
Miss Palmer, who was commonly prone to skepticism, peered at the boys suspiciously. “I’m inclined to believe that you two boys have lost your sense of direction. Have you forgotten that this is the public library, Robby Taylor?”
Robby appeared slightly embarrassed before attempting to respond to Miss Palmer’s sardonic words with a few of his own. “Hello, Miss Palmer. You’re looking very attractive this morning.”
Miss Palmer grumbled something beneath her breath before crossing her arms in front of her body and crinkling her nose as if she had an itch that she was too proud to scratch.
“Assuming that you boys are not truly lost, why are you here?” she inquired with an iciness that rarely seemed contrived.
“We’re here to find some information, Miss Palmer,” Kyle answered sprightly.
Miss Palmer leaned closer to the boys so that all of the oil-colored liver spots on her nose and forehead were visible. Robby once joked that one of the spots on the left side of her forehead looked like the shape of South America. He tried not to snicker as she directed her next question at Kyle.
“You’re Kyle McCann,” she said matter-of-factly. “I know your father is planning the new development project in town. Isn’t that right?”
“I guess so,” Kyle answered with disinterest. “To tell you the truth, I don’t really know what my father does.”
Miss Palmer smiled impishly and replied, “Of course you don’t.” Her gaze then immediately shifted back to Robby before she said, “Well, Robby, please don’t keep me in suspense any longer. What kind of information are you boys searching for?”
“Ask him,” Robby said, pointing back to Kyle.
Kyle wasn’t quite sure where or how to obtain the information he sought, but he noticed the computers when entering the library and thought that would be a logical place to start.
“We need to find out about this town’s history,” Kyle declared. “Actually, we’re searching for facts on a specific story.”
Miss Palmer suddenly appeared satisfied, for she guessed that Kyle’s interest in the town was somehow linked to the reports in the morning newspaper. Being a historian herself, the old librarian felt confident that she could accurately answer the boys’ questions. She directed them across the room and took her position behind an oak counter with a computer mounted in the center.
After typing a sequence of letters on the computer’s keyboard, Miss Palmer inspected the monitor. “You boys will find what you’re looking for in our town’s archives,” she insisted.
“What’s that?” Robby and Kyle chimed in unison.
“It’s a place where we file local newspapers and assorted legal documents that are intended for public reference.”
“Maybe you can help us, Miss Palmer,” Kyle suggested, appeasing the woman’s need to assist in such matters. “We really don’t know what we’re doing.”
A confession of ignorance always seemed to soften Miss Palmer’s callous demeanor. She still hesitated before answering the boys only because she wasn’t sure what the boys’ truly wanted. Although Robby’s face was as blank as a sheet of paper, she clearly discerned the eagerness flashing in Kyle’s eyes.
“Tell me precisely what you’re looking for and perhaps I’ll be able to guide you,” Miss Palmer answered Kyle.
“Well,” Kyle said somewhat reluctantly, “stuff in old newspapers mostly.”
“You’ll need to be more precise. How old?”
“Thirty years or so,” Kyle answered the librarian.
“Hmmm, still not specific enough, Kyle McCann,” Miss Palmer replied. “I’ll need a date or a name you can identify.”
Kyle’s eyes suddenly brightened, but he wasn’t certain if he wanted to divulge the secrets of his quest to this lady or not. After becoming impatient with his friend’s procrastination, Robby blurted out the name that would clarify their intentions.
“He wants to find out some information on Sylvia Fletcher—you know, that girl who was found murdered in Ben Murden’s peach grove a long time ago.”
Miss Palmer jerked her hands away from the computer’s keyboard as if the surface had become unbearably hot. She then peered at the boys with her mouth agape, obviously taken aback by Robby’s statement. After a moment, she directed her stare at Kyle and asked, “Is that the information you’ve come here for this morning?”
Kyle shrugged his shoulders innocently before he spoke, but his voice sounded as though he was guilty of some infraction. “Is it wrong for me to look into the history of that story?”
The librarian cleared her throat and found it necessary to slouch into the security of a wooden chair positioned next to the counter. Her already pale ski
n seemed to relinquish another shade during these seconds. Both of the boys noticed that she had suddenly become ill.
“Is there something wrong, Miss Palmer?” Robby asked more earnestly than he originally thought possible.
The old woman rubbed at her temples with her palms before saying, “Please, give me a moment, boys.” She composed herself rather quickly and stood up from the chair. Then, in a voice that sounded much firmer than before, she said, “Sylvia Fletcher—now that’s a name I haven’t heard uttered around here in quite a few years.”
Sensing that Miss Palmer had lived long enough to remember the details of the event, Kyle leaned across the counter and asked, “Did you know the girl?”
Miss Palmer’s silence indicated that she remembered more about the child than she would have preferred. “I imagine that you boys have been preoccupied by the rumors connected to that child’s death.”
“That’s why we’re here,” Kyle expelled in one breath. “But we don’t believe all those stories. I guess we’ve come to find out the truth.”
The librarian sighed with a certain degree of wariness, but she didn’t wish to purposely hide the facts from anyone prepared to know them. Her voice was strangely subdued when she said, “Follow me, boys.”
As instructed, the boys walked to the back table in the library, where Miss Palmer had stationed the computers away from the majority of books. Six monitors were set in a row across tabletops. Since the boys were currently the only two in the library besides the librarian, she assisted them in finding the township’s archives.
Kyle and Robby both had knowledge of computers, but it was easier to let Miss Palmer go through the necessary sequence in order to find the information. It only took her a few minutes to do so. She positioned the monitor so that both boys could see a series of listed columns showing the months and dates of local newspaper articles from the last thirty years.
“I believe the incident in question occurred in the month of June, almost precisely thirty years ago,” Miss Palmer mused while calling up a screen showing several headlines from the newspaper of that year. As she scrolled down the page, Kyle’s eyes busily scanned the information. After a few seconds, an article of significance appeared boldly on the monitor’s screen. It read: Local Girl’s Body Found in Peach Grove.
“Right there,” Kyle exclaimed, while jabbing his finger at the computer’s screen. “That’s what we’re looking for.”
Miss Palmer stopped scrolling with the mouse and enlarged the text with a single click on the control. Her expression slipped into a mode of sadness as she reacquainted herself with the story’s details. Kyle was reading over her shoulder at the same time. He continued to do so until the screen revealed a black and white photograph of the murdered child. In this particular photo, the child with black hair wore an ivory-colored frock. She offered no smile to the camera, but even through the grainy image on screen, Sylvia’s beauty seemed unchallenged by time.
“That’s her,” Robby gulped, trying not to be consumed by the same emotions as his friend. Kyle experienced too much shock to utter anything at the moment. He continued to stare at the girl’s photograph, almost as if transfixed by the image and what she represented in his mind at this moment.
Miss Palmer was reading aloud when she spoke again. “It says here that she was found murdered on June 26—that’s almost exactly thirty years to date.” The librarian momentarily reflected on her own life before uttering, “I can’t believe how quickly the years have passed.” She then recalled the memories of a town that was far less tolerant than it was at present day. Although no one would have fathomed it thirty years ago, Sylvia Fletcher’s death had impacted the residents in ways many of them didn’t even understand.
The librarian resumed scrolling through the related articles until a second photograph appeared on screen. This photo revealed an older woman, perhaps in her mid-thirties at the time it was taken. She had the identical raven-black hair and jade-colored eyes as Sylvia. Kyle was immediately drawn to the image, if only because the woman struck up a memory in his own mind.
“Hold on a minute,” Kyle announced to Miss Palmer. He then pointed his finger at the woman’s photo and declared, “There’s something very odd about that lady’s photo.”
Robby squinted his eyes to peer at the same image before asking, “What’s so odd about it? She looks rather plain to me.”
Miss Palmer stooped forward in her chair so that her nose nearly touched the monitor’s screen. The photo’s poor quality made it difficult for her to see, but after closer inspection of the image she was able to clarify her initial thought.
“That woman in this photograph is Sylvia Fletcher’s mother,” Miss Palmer announced in a ponderous tone. “We knew her as Elizabeth Fletcher.”
“Did she die, too?” Robby asked.
For a moment Miss Palmer appeared to be petrified by her own statement. A series of lurid thoughts flashed through her head as she considered Robby’s words. Her voice softened considerably before she answered Robby.
“Shortly after her daughter’s death, Elizabeth Fletcher left our town. As best as I can recall, she claimed the body from the coroner and then disappeared. No one has seen or heard from her since.”
Robby suddenly had an original thought, or at least one that Miss Palmer didn’t yet have time to vocalize. “Maybe Sylvia’s mother killed her,” he suggested.
“I don’t think so,” Miss Palmer immediately countered. “I remember Elizabeth as a woman who loved her daughter very much. But I also recall many people thinking just as you do, Robby Taylor. They were much too quick to demonize her.”
“What does demonize mean?” Kyle asked, somewhat embarrassed by his display of ignorance.
“Well,” Miss Palmer stated reluctantly, “it’s fair to say that Elizabeth Fletcher was not accepted by the members of this community. She was said to be different than the rest of us. And I’m almost ashamed to admit that she was treated very unfairly.”
After a few more minutes of perusing the articles, it became evident to Kyle that he probably could learn more about Sylvia’s death from Miss Palmer than a truckload of newspapers could provide. Rather than waste any more time mulling over the online information, Kyle decided to pick the brain of the second oldest resident in town.
“How well did you know Elizabeth Fletcher?” Kyle asked her.
The librarian’s tone was a bit remorseful when she finally replied. “Maybe it’s more appropriate to say that I knew of her. We never actually had a personal relationship.” Judging by Miss Palmer’s sullen expression, Kyle and Robby suspected that a nerve was jangled in the recesses of her memory. She remained obviously reluctant in her posture, but Kyle’s persistence soon paid off.
“I really need to know anything about Sylvia that you can remember,” Kyle implored the librarian. “Maybe if I knew more about her mother…”
“Listen to me, young man,” Miss Palmer interrupted. “This is not a subject that I’d prefer to speak to you about.”
“But I think that you know the truth about Elizabeth Fletcher,” Kyle surmised. “You might be the only person left in this town who can help me.”
Although Miss Palmer was not typically receptive to such tactics, she detected sincerity in the boy’s voice that peaked her own curiosity. “Why is information regarding this little girl’s death so vital to you, Kyle McCann?”
“I don’t know if I can answer that right now. But it’s important that I know the truth.”
Miss Palmer ultimately planned to resume the routines of her day, but before she could do so she needed to rid herself of the presence of the two boys. The quickest way to achieve that goal involved appeasing Kyle’s rather bold inquiry. She firmly took him by his hand and escorted him to a table in the rear of the library. Robby followed them, but he sensed that the librarian was no longer addressing him as she spoke to Kyle directly.
Miss Palmer’s voice was pinched to an uncomfortable whisper as she spoke. “Perhaps you??
?re too young to understand what I’m about to tell you, but you strike me as an honest young man, and that’s not so commonly found these days.”
Kyle nodded his head accordingly. He didn’t want to say anything that might’ve disrupted the librarian’s flow of thought. “As I mentioned to you earlier,” she continued, “Elizabeth Fletcher was not like the rest of us. She had a peculiar lifestyle that the majority of us were afraid to identify. For example, it was not uncommon to find her roaming through the woods at odd hours of the evening, chanting some indiscernible songs. We weren’t sure what she was doing, but we concluded that her journeys into the woods were part of a ritual. As a result, we made her an outcast.”
Neither Kyle nor Robby could make any sense out of the librarian’s statement. Miss Palmer didn’t purposely try to confuse the boys, but she found it difficult to achieve a level of comfort when contemplating the details of this topic.
“Perhaps it’s best if I explain the spiritual history of our town,” Miss Palmer mused. “Elizabeth Fletcher arrived in Meadowton in the late 1950’s. At that point, this town was primarily a Christian community. Unlike today, there was only one place of worship and most folks had a strong connection to the church.”
Robby rolled his eyes at the thought of listening to a bunch of useless information. His exaggerated expression prompted Miss Palmer to condense her original thought. “I suppose it’s easiest to say that Christianity and our way of life was very close to our hearts and we had no real knowledge of the way other people prayed. So when Elizabeth came to town, we didn’t understand her motivations. We soon learned that the woman had no intention of adopting our beliefs. We didn’t know it at the time, but she loved her religion just as fervently as we did our own.”
“What religion?” Kyle asked, leaning closer to the counter to discern a trace of fear or worry blooming in Miss Palmer’s eyes.
“Well,” Miss Palmer paused and swallowed as if her throat had suddenly become parched. “Her beliefs were tied directly to the natural world. In her religion God wasn’t represented as we know Him in The Bible.”
“So she didn’t believe in God,” Robby interjected.
“Not as we do,” Miss Palmer quickly clarified. “As best as I understand it now, she prayed to both a god and goddess. It was through the notion of these multiple gods that she found her strength. Today we refer to such people as practitioners of Wicca, which is an ancient Pagan religion.”
“I never heard of that before,” Kyle muttered. “Do you have any books available on the subject?”
“No,” Miss Palmer answered, slightly embarrassed by the inadequate range of content at her library. “But it’s not surprising that you have a limited understanding of this religion. Back fifty years ago, you can imagine how ignorant the people of this town were when confronted with such a topic.”
“I still don’t know what Wicca means,” Robby stated. “Why were people so unwilling to accept it?”
“Because, Robby, Wicca is more commonly known as the religion of the witches, and as a result of our Puritanical background, the idea of a witch living among us was truly frightening.”
Robby’s eyes sizzled like two firecrackers when he yelped, “Are you telling us that Elizabeth Fletcher was a witch? I thought that kind of stuff was just made up for Halloween.”
It was pointless for Miss Palmer to attempt to educate Robby in the short amount of time she was prepared to spend with him. But his ignorance in regard to this point was not entirely his fault. She could remember a similar level of unawareness on her own part just thirty years ago.
“We were all once equally confused by the concept of witchcraft,” Miss Palmer confessed. “The Bible taught us that witches were to be shunned and exposed as cohorts to the devil. As a result, all of the images of witches handed down to us over the years mainly depicted them as old, ugly women fashioned in black hats and gowns. They’d conjure spells, cackled at the moon, and kept black cats as pets.”
“Don’t forget about their warts and broomsticks,” Robby added in jest.
Kyle suspected a hint of reservation in the librarian’s voice. It was as though she almost felt guilty for divulging the facts. Kyle presented his next question as innocently as a child learning a new skill. “Miss Palmer, isn’t being a witch almost like devil worshipping?”
Miss Palmer was much more adamant when she spoke again. She placed her narrow fingers across Kyle’s hand and grasped him tightly around his wrist. He didn’t attempt to pull away from her as she spoke. “Sadly, if you were to ask that same question to ten people on the street outside today, no less than eight of them would concede that witchcraft is in some way linked to worship of Satan. This is simply not true, Kyle McCann. We’ve been misinformed for so many years that it’s difficult for us to believe otherwise.”
“Hold on, Miss Palmer,” Robby said with a bit of bravado. “If these Wicca people don’t pray to God or the devil, who the heck are they praying to?”
“It has more to do with what they pray to rather than who,” Miss Palmer noted. “I think a simple explanation would be to say that Wiccans pray to the water, the moon, the trees, and the sun. It’s a connection within the natural world.”
Although Robby didn’t deny that Miss Palmer shared some fascinating information, he wasn’t entirely convinced that Elizabeth’s motives were so benign. Even Kyle, who sought to take Miss Palmer’s words as gospel, didn’t understand why Elizabeth was ostracized by the townspeople.
“I still don’t get why the people in town were afraid of her,” Kyle thought aloud. “Did she do something wrong?”
Miss Palmer shook her head from side to side. The guilt in her eyes was now more evident than before. “It’s more accurate to say that we were wrong, Kyle. We couldn’t accept something different from what we learned and embraced. None of us wished harm on Elizabeth or to her daughter, but we were not ready to acknowledge her religion as anything more than a cult. I’m afraid our intolerance caused quite a bit of pain for her and ultimately—to us.”
Kyle’s next inquiry had more to do with the present than the past. He asked, “Knowing what you know, Miss Palmer, why does everyone in this town blame Ben Murden for Sylvia’s death? The way I see it, they’re doing the same thing to him as they did to Elizabeth Fletcher.”
Miss Palmer offered no response to justify the actions of those she lived among. She had numerous opinions about Murden that she wished not to share with Kyle today, for she sensed that the boy was already overly anxious by the information she revealed. She could’ve spent the rest of the morning explaining the details of the past, but she elected to let the boys pursue the knowledge on their own.
Giving the choice, the boys were content to leave the library at this point. Although Kyle was thankful for the insight that Miss Palmer provided, he felt that more needed to be done. The boys exited the library and found a bench to rest upon near the street. Kyle’s mother wasn’t due to pick him up for another thirty minutes. This gave Kyle plenty of time to plot his next course of action.
“At least we now got an idea on why Sylvia was murdered,” Kyle thought aloud. “Now all we have left to do is figure out who did it.”
Robby had a spontaneous urge to slap his friend in the back of his head, if for no other reason than to alleviate his own frustration. “Why can’t you just forget about all of this, Kyle?” he groaned. “You don’t have anything to gain by finding out about who killed that girl. It happened thirty years ago. Let it go.”
“It’s more than that, Robby, and you know it.”
“Okay,” Robby reluctantly conceded, “let’s just say that there really is a ghost in Murden’s peach grove. There’s nothin’ you can do to change it, so why risk your neck?”
Kyle thought pensively for a moment before uttering, “But there might be something I can do. If that grove is truly cursed, then there must be a way to end it. Ben Murden told me that the ghost would disappear if it found peace. I don’t think it’s possible for
Sylvia to have that peace until the real murderer is found.”
“Well,” Robby declared sarcastically, “if you ask me, I say that you’re a lot dumber than Sylvia Fletcher must’ve been. After all, she had someone dig her grave and then throw her in it. You, on the other hand, are digging your own grave and jumping in head first.”
By now the day’s heat had affected both boys’ moods. Their faces flashed red as the sun continued to beat on the top of their scalps. With their body temperatures heightened, irritability flared more easily and arguments among the best of friends ensued.
Robby couldn’t help but to sound more like his father when he complained. “I don’t even want to know what you’ve got planned next. But I think you better stop and listen to what your parents are telling you. Stay away from Ben Murden, Kyle. He’s not as innocent as you think he is.”
“I can’t stay away,” Kyle responded almost guiltlessly. “I’ve got to go back up there and see him. I’m going to tell Ben what I know and hope that he’ll be able to figure out who the killer really is.”
“You’ve never been so stubborn about anything before,” Robby peered into his friend’s eyes as he said these words. He detected a determination simmering that almost caused him to shiver in the heat. “My god,” Robby thought to himself. “Maybe he really is under some kind of a spell.”
As far as Robby could rationalize, there was no sense in prolonging the conversation to the brink of bickering. Kyle made it perfectly clear that his intentions were to return to Murden’s farmhouse on that same evening. With each new day, the urgency of Kyle’s quest intensified. He could no longer recognize the practical from the impractical, and experienced little reservation for the lies he told in the process.
Before the day was done, Robby realized that his friend had undergone a transformation that was far more damaging than he initially anticipated. What first started as a prank to test the level of the boy’s courage had progressed into an obsession that jeopardized everyone whom he came in contact with. If a remedy existed for Kyle’s compulsion, no one but the boy dared to fathom its source.
Chapter 19