20
Vince emerged from the U-Store-Em, slightly disheveled. He'd been through box after box of papers in Reverend Driscoll's locker, with no success.
Hannah emerged from the next locker, along with Penny Glendower, her mother she'd been reunited with.
She threw her hands up in disgust, dusty and dirty. She saw Vince looking at her, and she smiled slightly.
"No luck either, eh?" she asked.
"No," Vince said, dejected. "Have you been in here recently?"
"No, not since I put Dad's things in here," Penny replied, puzzled. "Why?"
"It was done very neatly, but someone's been in these boxes," Vince pointed out.
"Mr. Teagues?" came a muffled voice from the back of the storage bin, and Bobby, Hannah's adopted son, emerged, one last box in his arms.
"I found this inside a box of my old stuff from my science project," he told Vince. "That's not mine," he indicated the wooden box.
"Yours, Hannah?" Vince questioned.
Hannah shook her head. "No, that used to be in Dad's office," she said. "You know, Selectman Knoll had asked me about this box, he said Dad had promised it to him," she went on. "He said it was an antique."
"Just looks like a wood box to me," Penny put in.
Vince's ears pricked up. Aha, he thought.
"It is rather old. Look, I have to go back into town," Vince replied. "I would be glad to drop it by the selectman's office later. I know you and he aren't on the best of terms," he finished in a lower voice.
"I don't like him either," Penny answered. "Never did."
"He can be-abrasive," Vince agreed. He didn't like the selectman any more than Penny and Hannah either. And he would give the selectman the box-once he and Dave had finished going through it.
He thanked the ladies for allowing him into the locker, and carefully set the box in the passenger seat before he drove back to he and Dave's house, where Dave was anxiously awaiting him, along with Dwight.
"Vince, I'm glad you're back," Dwight began as soon as he came in the door. "We-" he paused, seeing the box in Vince's hands. "What's that?"
"I think it's what we've been looking for," Vince said. "Hannah says the selectman was asking about this box after the Rev's death. Said he 'promised' it to him."
"Which makes me think that there's something in here that neither of them wanted anyone to find," Dave finished for him, his eyes gleaming behind his glasses.
Vince set it on the table, and the three peered closer at it.
"It's old," Dave said. "Really old."
"Now, what were you going to say, Dwight?" Vince asked.
"Audrey called me earlier this morning. As you know, Prudence was starting the cures today."
"Did it work?"
"Oh, yeah, she fixed Marjorie Dane," Dwight said, seeing relief in Vince's face. "And then Audrey called, told me to take Prudence and Duke down to Haven PD into protective custody. William has found his way back to Haven. She also said to not let Prue and Duke be together. Prudence can take Troubles-and use them, apparently."
"Oh dear," Dave paled.
"Yeah. Anyway, before we could get to Duke, William got him. Nathan and Audrey said they were going to check the Rouge to see if Prudence was there."
"Why wasn't she with you?" Vince questioned.
Dwight frowned. He hadn't expected Prue to jump him like she did.
"Prue got the drop on me," he admitted. "When she heard that William had abducted Duke, she hit me with some old sleeping Trouble she'd taken before she got put into the box. When I came to, she was gone, and now I can't get hold of anyone on the phone, not Audrey, Nathan, Prue or Charlotte."
"What's she here for?" Dave burst out.
"She knew Prudence, back then," Dwight told them. "Audrey thought that maybe a familiar face from way back when might help to convince Prue that Audrey's not Mara anymore. But what we didn't know is that Prue is apparently really a witch," he continued. "What's the term they used-hedgeitch?"
"Hedgewitch," Vince corrected. "As Prudence told us, she was a healer and a herbalist, intimately connected with the Mik-Maq. Most hedgewitches are not bad, they're practitioners of nature-magic. But if William is involved also, this is bad, Dwight. We must try to find them."
"Duke told me something about Prudence said. She claims there is a very big thinny in the North Woods. Only she knew where it was, or how to open it. Mara and William wanted to know where it was too. When she wouldn't tell them-they accused her of witchcraft."
"And gave her an Eternity Trouble as proof of their claim," Vince said grimly. "Poor dear. Well, my advice would be to take some of your fellow Guardsman to search the North Woods to look for them. That is most likely where they will be."
"You and Dave coming?" Dwight asked.
"Not just now. We're going to examine this, and we'll join you after. Keep me informed if you find them?" he asked, peering over his glasses at Dwight, the request sounding more like an order.
Dwight nodded. "Yeah. Same there, huh?" he gestured at the box.
"Of course."
"Right," Dwight finished, and ducked back out of the door.
"Well, now that we're rid of him," Dave muttered, turning his attention back to the box. "Let's see what the Rev and the selectman didn't want us to find."
Audrey pretended to still be fuming at William, but secretly keeping an eye on Duke, Nathan and Charlotte in the cage.
Prudence had gone off into the woods, and was currently circling the Axiom, directing William, who instructed his aether-men to do as she asked, moving a stone here, clearing brush there, until the entire area had been freed of debris.
Seeing them all occupied, Audrey crept toward the root-cage where her friends and her mother were being held.
"What's going on out there?" Nathan whispered.
"They're clearing the area around the stone," she answered sotto voce.
"So she's really going through with it," Nathan said flatly. "She's going to open that thinny."
"What happens when she does?" Duke asked Charlotte. "Are we all going to die?"
"I don't know if we will actually die," Charlotte spoke. "Haven will be pulled into the thinny. We just won't-" she grappled for the word. "We just won't-exist anymore," she got out. "All the rules of time and space will no longer apply."
"Basically, we're going to turn into an Escher drawing," Duke replied.
"No. It'll be more like washing a blackboard-we just won't exist anymore," Charlotte told him.
"That's what William wants," Audrey gasped. "He wants a clean slate. To start he and Mara's 'work' all over again."
"With an unlimited supply of aether to do it," Nathan finished grimly. He saw William come out of the woods.
"He's coming," he hissed to Audrey. "You and he are crazy, lady," he yelled at her. "You're gonna kill everybody here in Haven!"
"Not kill. You just won't be here anymore, that's all," Audrey covered quickly.
William grinned at them.
"I see Mara's been filling you in," he answered cheerfully. "Yep, I think this little experiment of ours has failed. So we're going to start all over again."
"Does Prudence know what you plan to do?" Nathan asked.
"She thinks she's getting rid of us," he grinned, gesturing back towards Prudence, who was walking around the stone. "And even if she does know, it's not like she's got a hell of a lot of choice. Got you three as insurance."
His eyes, cold and blue, landed on Charlotte.
"And then we'll go back to our world," he went on in a grimmer tone. "I'm going to show the Council that aether can be used to be beneficial."
"You're going to open the Axiom from the other side," Charlotte gasped. "William, you can't! People will die."
"Change is always ugly, at first," William told her. "But it will all be for the greater good. Isn't that what you're always going around saying about Mara and me?" he went on, his voice gaining a razor's edge. "Put her in the Barn, for the 'greater good? Throw him off into the Void for the greater good?" he screamed at her.
"I wanted to help her," Charlotte argued. "She had aether poisoning!"
Duke caught his breath and then held it, hoping William hadn't heard her slip and use the past tense.
But he did.
"She had aether poisoning?" he asked. "Are you better now, Mara?" he asked unctuously. "Or has Mommy succeeded in curing you?" he snarled, grabbing Audrey's arm.
"Let her go!" Nathan yelled, he and Duke grabbing at William through the bars.
"Aha!" Dave said triumphantly, finding the small pin that concealed the hidden compartment. He pulled the pin out, and the side of the box popped open.
Just as Duke had found the list of people that had died from the Troubles a few years ago, Vince and Dave found a small square of folded up paper, yellowed with age, and they carefully unfolded it.
"Set here by my hand on this date, the First of October, in the Year of Our Lord Fifteen Hundred and Fifteen do hereby witness this Pact that all Parties listed herein do hereby agree that all will affirm in a court of Law that Prudence Rebecca Crocker-Stillwater to be guilty of the crime of Practicing Witchcraft," Dave read aloud. "In return, all shall be pardoned of Perjured testimonies, Signed, Emmett Driscomb, Ezra Halleck (and spouse), Moses Knoll, the Right Reverend Amos Flagg, and-Ephraim Stillwater," he finished, looking at Vince. "That's what they wanted to keep hidden-they all lied on the stand. Including Reverend Flagg!"
"The paper," Vince breathed. "Betsy was right-Prudence was railroaded!"
"Ephraim Stillwater," Dave read again. "Didn't Prudence say her father-in-law didn't approve of her marrying his son?"
"She did," Vince conceded. "What do you want to bet his name was Ephraim?"
"That's pretty extreme to break up your kid's marriage," Dave remarked.
"We don't really know his reasons, but they can't have been good," Vince said. "What do you think we should do with this?"
"I think we need to run an extra edition of The Herald with this," Dave replied.
"The selectman won't like that," Vince said slyly.
"Who cares what he won't like," Dave grinned.
Out in the North Woods, the struggle continued between Duke, Nathan and William.
Audrey had managed to wrest herself free, and picked up a tree branch, clobbering William over the back of the head with it.
He grunted, staggering and Nathan and Duke succeeded in handcuffing him to the branches of the cage.
William roared his rage, and Duke stuffed his bandanna into his mouth, William's muffled grunts and curses now down to a more manageable level.
The aether-men advanced menacingly.
Charlotte put her hand up at them, and they paused, still glaring angrily, but lingering.
"Can you stop them?" Nathan asked.
"I can hold them back," Charlotte said. "But Audrey, you have to do it. You should still be able to control them."
"I'm scared to," Audrey whispered, and Nathan understood.
"She's not there anymore," he assured her. "I got faith in you, Parker. You can do it."
Audrey looked from Nathan to Duke, who nodded, and smiled.
"You got this," he told her.
"I can't hold them back anymore," Charlotte said, and Audrey turned around to face them.