90

“Sorry, chief,” Adam told him, hanging up the phone.

“The county has none of its largest plows to spare. They said they’ll get down here as soon as they can, but that might be days. The storm has completely immobilized everyone.”

“This is crazy,” Richard grumbled. “When this is over, I’m demanding bigger plows at the town meeting. The selectmen better go along with it. I don’t want to hear any noise about money. Winters are just going to keep getting worse around here, and we need to be prepared.”

“Hey, chief,” Betty called. “Were you expecting a fax from the town library?”

“No,” he said, barely hearing her.

“Well,” the secretary said, approaching him with a thick stack of papers, “they just sent you over twenty-seven pages of town history.”

“Just put it in my in-box,” Richard told her.

Betty complied.

Richard was trying to think of an excuse to convince state officials to send them one of the massive snowplows they kept up at Great Barrington. But even if he said somebody up at the Blue Boy had some major health issue and needed help right away, they’d no doubt insist there were people all over western Massachusetts in the same position. If only he could—

Twenty-seven pages of town history.

All of a sudden he remembered his conversation with Agnes Daley.

But there’s no denying, chief, that ever since, lots of people have died or disappeared up there.

Richard reached over and grabbed hold of the stack of papers Betty had placed in his in-box. Sure enough, they were from Agnes Daley.

Making use of being snowbound here in the library, Agnes had written in her careful penmanship on the cover sheet. So glad the board of directors installed a generator. You were asking about the history of the Blue Boy the other day. You seemed dismissive of what I told you. Here’s some newspaper coverage from back in the day, chief. Give it a read. A.D.

Richard glanced over what Agnes had sent. They were microfilm printouts of old newspaper pages. The date on the first was from 1869.

REV. FALL HANGED FOR MURDER, the headline read.

There was an illustration of a man dressed all in black dangling from the end of a noose.

Richard looked at the next page. It was from a year later.

 

WOMAN FOUND DEAD, DISMEMBERED

NEAR FALL’S CHURCH

The murders up at that place really did stretch back a long time.

Another headline:

 

FORMER CONGREGANTS CLAIM
REV. FALL PRACTICED
BLACK ARTS, SATANIC RITUALS

 

The piece seemed like bad gothic horror fiction to Richard, but he read it anyway.

Former congregants of the late Rev. John Fall, hanged here three years ago for murder, now claim that the disgraced pastor forced them to participate in the black arts. Fall’s goal, these congregants insist, was to cast a spell that would open a portal into the netherworld, where he could harness the daemonic beings within to do his bidding. He possessed books filled with spells and incantations for such a nefarious purpose.

“Ridiculous,” Richard murmured.

The rest of the pages were more recent—coverage of the deaths of the various people at the Blue Boy Inn, including the reports of Jack Devlin’s missing sister.

But at the very end of the pile was another piece, dated December 26, 1915. It was one of those humorous little items newspaper editors often used as fillers. Agnes’s neat, precise handwriting ran across the top of it.

This little item wasn’t about Rev. Fall or any mysterious death, but the headline jumped out at me. What do you think?

Richard looked down at the article.

 

CHILD CLAIMS TO HAVE SEEN BLUE ELVES

 

Richard read the piece.

Little Millicent Collins of Bangor, Maine, five years old, visiting the Blue Boy Inn in Woodfield with her parents, claimed to have seen “three little elves with blue faces” poking their heads out of the parlor fireplace. Could Santa have left behind some of his helpers on Christmas Eve?

Somehow the image of those three blue faces looking out of the fireplace unnerved him even more than tales of opening portals to the netherworld. All of this talk of witchcraft and spells and demonic rituals was absurd, of course. But, nonetheless, Richard was even more disturbed and anxious after reading it.

“I’ve got to get over to the Blue Boy,” Richard said, banging his fist on his desk. “There’s got to be a way!”

“I’ve got a pair of snowshoes,” Adam said, shrugging.

“I’d give it a try,” Richard said, “but I doubt I’d get very far.”

“What you need,” Betty said, poking her head around the corner from her outer office, “is a snowmobile.”

“Of course!” Richard said. “Where can I get one?”

“Well, my son has one, but it’s at our house.”

Richard jumped to his feet. “Have him ride it over here!”

“In this storm?” the secretary asked.

“Betty, that’s what snowmobiles are for!”

She scowled. “Maybe the kind the Navy uses in the Arctic, but Richard, my kid uses his just for fun.”

“Then find me a better one,” the chief barked. “Why doesn’t the department have snowmobiles for our regular use anyway? We’re living in the goddamn Berkshire mountains, aren’t we?”

“I’ll make some calls,” Betty said.

“You, too,” Richard ordered Adam.

“Yes, sir!” his deputy said, picking up his phone.

Richard looked out the window. It was becoming increasingly difficult to see outside. The snow had nearly walled them in. Only at the very top of the window could Richard see a bit of sky, and that was just a furious flurry of white.

I have to get over there. He had never felt so sure about anything. His gut was telling him something terrible was taking place. I’ve got to get over there or Annabel is going to die.

He couldn’t get the image of those three little blue elves in the fireplace out of his head.