Riverwatch

Chapter Twenty-seven: Connections

While Jake was wrestling with the idea that something paranormal was happening around him, Katelynn was pacing her living room, lost in thought.

Blake’s Bane, she kept repeating to herself as she moved about the room.

Blake’s Bane…, Blake’s Bane…, Blake’s…

She tried to sleep, but after lying in bed awake for half an hour she’d given up and gotten to work. The innate curiosity that had led her into a life of research assumed control and pushed her emotions back where they couldn’t interfere with her work. There they could simmer until she was ready to deal with them.

For the time being, Jake was forgotten.

Katelynn had bigger fish to fry.

Blake’s Bane…Blake’s Bane…

Father Castelli’s phrase had rung a bell somewhere in the dark recesses of her mind. Katelynn was positive she had heard it before. It didn’t even occur to her to doubt that the phrase was genuine; she was convinced that they had, indeed, been speaking to the deceased priest.

But when had she heard it? And where?

She had a hunch that if she could find the answer to either of those questions, then she’d also discover the answer to what had been happening to her lately.

Back and forth…

Back and forth…

Blake’s Bane…

With a sharp cry she dashed across the room to her desk and frantically dug through the stacks of books piled haphazardly on the floor, at last pulling forth a small, leather-bound volume that had seen better days. The book’s cover was torn, the corners bent, even the pages had taken on the yellowish-brown hue that belied old age.

She seated herself behind the desk unconsciously and, after turning on the light, began slowly scanning page after page of the small work.

I know it’s here somewhere, she told herself over and over again. I know it is.

Indeed it was.

On page 243, to be exact.

The volume itself was the traveling diary of Edward Beckett, a circuit-riding minister who traveled from settlement to settlement in the country’s early years, bringing the word of the Lord to any and all who would listen. Beckett had passed through Harrington Falls several times in the 1760s and she had been using his first-hand observations of the area as a sourcebook for her thesis. Harrington Falls had been only a fledgling community then, slowly spreading out into the surrounding countryside as the Blake family’s wealth brought more people into the region. Beckett’s observations provided a clear and accurate picture of life on the frontier. He apparently rode several hundreds of miles a year, preaching as often as possible.

A meticulous man, he recorded every little detail in the volumes of travel diaries he prepared along the way.

As chance would have it, he arrived in Harrington Falls on a cold evening in October of 1763, the same evening Sebastian Blake was accused of practicing witchcraft and wizardry.

The townsfolk had held an impromptu trial right then and there and passed judgment on their neighbor.

The sentence: Death.

Beckett had watched the trial and the punishment that followed, and, as always, had recorded his observations in his journal.

He had been the one to coin the odd term, ‘Blake’s Bane’.

Now, reading the words of a man who had long since turned to dust, Katelynn discovered some of the answers she’d been searching for.

And something else, as well.

She discovered that she was more frightened than she’d ever been in her entire life.