Turns out it wasn’t the crazy homeless woman, it was the rich bitch all along. No big surprise there.

—LIKESTOSAIL

The bones started to surface after Marta’s death. The root hole was uncovered so the grounds crew could complete their job, and when the tide went out the bones clung to the dark earth. A skeletal hand appeared, and the Beverly Police were called. They, in turn, called Rafferty.

The discovery caused a sensation. The Goddesses had been found. And so had the partial skeleton of Leah Kormos, her bones miraculously preserved, the result, according to forensic speculation, of high levels of calcium carbonate in the seawater. The cliffs around Pride’s Heart evidently contained large deposits of limestone that had leached into the sea well as the cliffs eroded every year.

Rafferty speculated that Finn and Marta had relocated the bodies from the graves to the sea well sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas. The dinner conversation about DNA and how easily it could be transmitted must have scared Finn, who had been intimate with at least one if not more of the victims the night of the murders. Callie subsequently had a vision that Marta had talked Finn into having the bodies moved to avoid being implicated in the murders he didn’t commit. In all likelihood, Finn never suspected Marta was the murderer. He had likely paid off Patch Willis, the caretaker of Greenlawn Cemetery. Willis had recently retired from his position and left town, leaving no forwarding address.

Leah’s remains had been in the sea well for much longer.

It was Callie’s vision in the sea well that filled in the details of Marta’s terrible history, but it had been Ann and Mickey’s call the night of the reception that had made Rafferty realize she was the Goddess murderer. On Ann’s vision alone he would have gone to Pride’s Heart, just to assure himself that everyone was all right. But it was what Mickey said that had chilled him to his core. After the celebration, Mickey had been working on his belated wedding present for Finn and Marta, a merging of their family trees. When he traced Marta’s back, he discovered her connection to Sarah Good.

Still, many questions remained unanswered. “The truth is we’ll never know it all,” Rafferty told Callie.

“For me, it’s enough to know that Marta killed the Goddesses,” Callie said. “And to know that my mother and the others are truly laid to rest. And I’m happy to see that not only was Rose vindicated but she was right all along.”

“How so?”

“She was right about the oak. She was right that remains were hidden on the Whitings’ property, though they belonged to the Goddesses, not to the original accused.”

Callie told Rafferty about Rose’s vision of the hanging tree, cut and floating down the North River to the Whitings’ property. She didn’t mention her own visions, ones that had become clearer since that night in the well: the Whitings’ oak, the one Rose claimed talked to her, had spread its roots so wide it had become entangled with the far older oak body. And as the tidal water rose and fell in one it was mirrored by the other, creating a waterway that had moved back and forth for generations.

All this was only speculation, something she’d never share for fear of being perceived as every bit as crazy as Rose. But, in Callie’s mind, Rose was right. The trees had communicated their centuries-old message. They had done their job.

They gathered around the oak tree that Eva Whitney had willed to Rose. Archbishop McCauley was performing a blessing to consecrate the ground. It was just as Rose would have wanted, Rafferty thought.

September 27, 2015. Ann had told Rafferty that tonight marked the end of the tetrad lunar eclipses. It was a supermoon as well as the blood moon, and people around here were expecting weird energy and odd behavior; both the ER and the police force had put on extra staff. But, according to Ann, tonight marked the end of the weird energy that had begun last year with the first of the eclipses. He hoped she was right. Still, Halloween was right around the corner, and weird energy was a given. He’d have to reserve judgment until he saw what October brought this year.

Callie looked different to him; she had aged in the last few months. Maybe not aged, exactly. More likely he could see that something had shifted. While Paul was recuperating in the hospital, she’d taken charge, arranging Finn’s and Marta’s burials, dealing with Paul’s doctors, and meeting with the Whiting Foundation to make sure their work continued.

Towner had confided in him that Callie and Paul were planning their wedding for next summer, after Paul had fully recovered. Rafferty said a prayer that this would indeed happen, and that they would have happiness in their life together. They both deserved it.

As if in answer, the oak moved in the sea breeze, and through its leaves he heard the words:

Sometimes the only healing is death.

It wasn’t Rose’s voice he heard. Nor had he heard the statement before. It was a sound that seemed to come from the rustling leaves and the ocean breeze. Still, it made him shiver. Or was it simply the wind that had chilled him? Rafferty told himself he was being ridiculous. Rose was the only person who heard trees speak.

He forced himself to concentrate on the words of the archbishop until he saw Callie look upward, as if she, too, were listening to the tree. Then she nodded, stepped forward, and began lowering the urn containing Rose’s ashes into the hole he had dug himself earlier this morning.

One by one, they all stepped forward, each grabbing a handful of earth and filling in the hole, as, together, they recited the Lord’s Prayer.

There was no gathering after the ceremony. Callie needed to get to the hospital to see Paul, and the archbishop had to get back to Boston.

Rafferty tried to shake off the words the tree had whispered. As everyone said their hasty good-byes, he got a call from the Beverly Police. Marta’s autopsy report had come back.

“The cause of death?” he asked, by rote. Everyone speculated that she had drowned; the autopsy was only a formality.

The voice on the line spoke two words Rafferty had prayed he wouldn’t hear but feared he might: “Cerebral hemorrhage.”