The sun was low, fading through the trees, as I pulled up to the entrance of the Sacred Grove Cemetery. The gates were wide open; it closed at 8:30, and the clock in my Prius said 6:17.
I parked in front of a small office with a Welcome sign hanging over the door. Inside, a man in a gray jacket set his phone down on his desk. “Yes? How may I help you?” A nameplate in front of him said REG SCHLEMMER.
I showed him the picture of Marcy. “I think she may have come in here with a group of people about an hour ago. Do you remember?”
Schlemmer peered at the screen. “I remember a couple of people. Didn’t look a family, but who knows? There was a tall girl who looked like her.”
“Do you know where they went?” I was getting close at last. Maybe I could get home before Rachel’s class was over.
“I think so.” He swung his chair over to a computer. “Let me see. Last search. Yeah, right here. Lester DeWald.”
“Who?”
“The resting place they were looking for.” He opened a desk drawer. “Let me find it here for you.”
Schlemmer unfolded a paper map and spread it out on his desk. He checked his computer, then circled a spot. “Right there. You part of them?”
“Sort of. I’m running late. Thanks for the map.”
“No drinking or partying.” The man pointed to a list of rules behind his desk. “No picnics. It’s all there on the map, too.”
“I’ll remind them.” I headed out the door.
So who the hell was Lester DeWald? I didn’t have time to search the internet for him. Maybe I’d find out in a few minutes.
My tires slid on the gravel road as I headed up the main route into Sacred Grove. The cemetery was a maze of trees, tombstones, and memorial statues, and one wrong turn would send me to Mordor or Narnia without any idea of how to find my way back. With the sky getting darker, I was going to have enough trouble finding Marcy and their friends without getting lost.
I found two cars parked next to a grassy lawn halfway through the cemetery. I checked the map—this should be the right spot—and grabbed a flashlight from the glove compartment.
Tombstones rose from the ground, three or four feet tall or taller. Grave markers, flat in the earth, gaze up at the cloudy sky. Some had flowerpots on either side. Some were almost covered by grass and weeds.
Heading up the grass, I swung the flashlight beam left and right across the ground, trying not to make any noise. After a few minutes I heard voices through the shadows, and spotted a yellow light glowing up ahead.
Then the voices turned into a single voice, and the talking became chanting, deliberate and rhythmical. The light came from a lantern sitting on top of a tombstone, a candle flickering in the night.
Five people stood in a circle, holding hands. A young, tall woman in a long coat stood in the center, holding a thick book in her trembling fingers, rocking back and forth on her heels as she read out loud. Chanting.
“Marcy!” I waved my arm. “Marcy!”
She looked up from her book, over the heads of the people gathered around her. Mostly Marcy’s age, one older woman, all in jackets or hoodies. Some turned their heads to glance towards me, but Marcy lowered her eyes and went back to reading, ignoring me.
I couldn’t make out what she was saying, or even be sure she was speaking English. The others turned back to face her, continuing their chant with Marcy. Something, something Pythiaxe, something, something something Pythiaxe . . .
“Marcy!” I reached the circle, and pointed my flashlight into her eyes. “Marcy Pratt! I need to talk to you! Your parents are—”
Marcy blinked into the light, then slammed the book shut with a smile on her lips. She tossed it to the ground and held her arms wide, turning to the tombstone in front of them.
“Pythiaxe!” she screamed.
For a moment the cemetery was silent as the moon.
Then a white light erupted from the ground. I dropped the flashlight, staggering back, shielding my eyes with my hand. Marcy—or someone—screamed again, and a blast of wind knocked me down. I felt the others fall, grunting, and then someone laughed. A loud laugh, joyful but sharp. Then the silence fell again.
I jerked up. I was sitting in the grass. Did I pass out? I searched the ground for my flashlight, patted my pockets to make sure I still had my phone and my keys, then scrambled to my feet.
The others lay on the grass, some unconscious, some just blinking at the dark cloudy sky.
Marcy was gone.
Damn it.
I swung my flashlight all around, looking for some trace of her, but the beam touched only the shadows of the tombstones surrounding us.
I stepped over a woman’s leg to the center of the circle. Marcy’s long coat lay on the ground, the book beneath it. I snatched it up and opened it, flipping through the pages in the lantern’s flickering light.
It looked like the same book I’d found in her apartment. Maybe a little different—the pages were thinner and delicate, like parchment. The leather cover was thicker and heavier. No page numbers, but a folded Post-It marked what looked like the page Marcy had been copying in her apartment.
The older woman rolled over and groaned. I dropped the book on Marcy’s coat and walked over. “Are you Juana Norris?”
“Huh?” She rubbed her eyes. “Who are you?”
“Tom Jurgen. Marcy’s parents hired me to find her. What are you people doing out here?”
Juana Norris sat up, looked around, then took a deep breath. “Did it happen?”
“Did what happen? What’s going on?”
A man next to her rose to his knees. He was in his 30s, with an earring and a slanted nose. “It must have happened.”
I sighed. I reached out a hand and helped the man to his feet. “What’s your name?”
“Terry. Just—Terry, okay?” He looked me over, puzzled. “Who are you?”
I stood close to him. “Okay, Terry.” I did my best tough guy snarl. “I want to know what you guys are doing here, where Marcy Pratt is, and what happened to Herman Weiss. Or I’m going to be your worst nightmare. Me, Tom Jurgen.”
Rachel would have laughed. But these people didn’t know me.
Terry pushed me away. “Hey, hey! It’s just a ritual. We do this stuff—”
“What kind of ritual?”
“The calling of Pythiaxe,” Juana Norris said. She was standing now.
I turned to her. “So who’s Pythiaxe?”
She fixed her eyes on me, her teeth clenched. “The spirit of will, free of the old rules, embracing the power in all of us.” Then she laughed. “Really, it’s just a lot of mumbo-jumbo about freedom and free will. Almost Libertarian stuff. No shame, no Puritan morality, no obsolete rules. It’s a goof.”
“A goof? Someone attacked Herman Weiss. He’s in the hospital.” At least I hoped he was. Not in the morgue.
“Wha . . .” Her eyes opened wide. “Herman? I don’t—” She looked around. “Wait, is that why he didn’t show up?”
The others were waking and standing. Terry, two other men younger than me, and a young woman. Elise Maimon, probably. They all seemed confused.
“Someone bashed in Herman’s head,” I said, hoping to get through to at least one of them. “Probably to get this book.” I held it up.
“Hey, where’s Marcy?” That came from Elise, a woman around Marcy’s age, in a furry jacket, with blond hair tied back in a ponytail.
“I don’t feel so good.” A man sat down on the ground abruptly, as if his legs had given out. College age, Black, he looked as if he was about to hyperventilate himself into unconsciousness until Terry knelt next to him. “You okay, Dante?”
“What the hell is going on?” My frustration was growing, along with my worries about Marcy. “What are you doing here? Why—” I turned to the tombstone with the lantern in front of it, illuminating its carved letters.
Lester DeWald
1917-1999
Free of the bonds
“Who’s Lester DeWald?” I pointed at the lettering. “Why are you at his tombstone?”
A man stepped toward the tombstone. He was close to my age—mid-40s, maybe—with graying hair in a baseball cap. “Lester was the last one to raise Pythiaxe.” He ran his fingers across the stone. “Pythiaxe is in there. Was in there. That’s why we had to be here.”
“Is that what Marcy was reading? A spell to raise Pythiaxe from the grave?”
“Oh, God, Marcy.” Elise swung around. “Marcy? Marcy! Where are you?”
The others turned, looking around. I looked at Juana. She took a step away from me, wary.
“What was supposed to happen?” I asked. “After you summoned Pythiaxe?”
The man at the tomb stalked toward me. “This is none of your business.” He jabbed a finger at me. “Get out of here.”
“Finding Marcy Pratt literally is my business.” I ignored his finger. “Who are you?”
He dropped his arm, glaring at me. “I’m Kurt. Kurt DeWald. That’s my grandfather.”
“Okay.” Veteran reporters always say good questions don’t produce answers, just more questions. But this was getting ridiculous. “Are you trying to resurrect him? Or—you know what, never mind. I just want to know where Marcy is.”
“Marcy!” Elisa called again. “Marcy?”
Then Kurt DeWald hit me in the gut. Hard. I doubled over, and my foot slipped on the grass. I fell over, gasping for air and hoping not to revisit what I’d eaten for breakfast hours before. I saw his feet pound the grass, running away.
To their credit, the rest of them didn’t join in on beating me, or follow him into the night. Terry said, “What the hell?” and Elise shouted after him, and Juana leaned over me, her eyes wide. “You okay?”
“Peachy.” I let her and Terry help me to my feet. I planted my hands on my hips, looking from one to another. “Okay, you guys are going to tell me what’s going on. In painful detail. Right now.”
“What about Marcy?” Elise’s eyes darted around. “Shouldn’t we look for her?”
I sighed. Yeah, that was the point of all this. “Five minutes. Spread out. Then come back. I’ve got a lot of questions.”
“Why the hell should we do what you tell us?” Terry was scared, maybe scared enough to run. I didn’t blame him.
“Because someone attacked Herman Weiss, and it’s connected to what happened here, and the police aren’t going to be as nice as me when they ask you questions.” I pointed to where Marcy’s coat on the ground. “All I care about is finding her. Help me with that, and maybe the police don’t have to write down all your names for their files.”
That seemed to get through to them. They separated, and I took a quick walk in the growing darkness too, but Marcy wasn’t nearby. Neither was Kurt.
“Who did Marcy come with?” I asked, back at the tombstone.
“Me.” Elise bit her lip. “It was me, Marcy, and Terry.”
“So where was Marcy for the last three days?”
“I don’t know. She just showed up at my apartment and said we had to come out here. I called Terry, and—”
I turned to Juana. “What about you and Dante? And Kurt?”
“Me,” Juana said. “Marcy called me, and I called Dante and Kurt, and then I picked Kurt up from Herman’s house. Kurt said Herman was coming on his own. I thought that was weird, but—oh, God . . .” Her face went pale.
I had lots more questions, but we couldn’t stand around and talk in the middle of a cemetery. After a few minutes of arguing everyone finally agreed to follow me to someplace where we could talk. Mostly because Elise insisted.
“I’m really worried about Marcy,” she said over and over again, until they gave in and got into their cars.
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