Iris went straight into her locked, empty shop, ignoring the blood beading on her neck. Broken glass crunched under her feet as she moved through the aisles, pulling supplies off the broken shelves. Without thinking too hard about what she was doing, she lined the place with salt and prepared everything she would need in order to do this. Vivien’s corpse flashed through her mind again and again, coming and going with the phantom smell of smoke as Iris worked. But she needed Rosalind. And Samuel needed Rosalind. No matter how angry Rosalind was, her son needed her and she needed him. And Iris was going to reunite them, end the curse, and let them rest. It had to be time.

“Rosalind,” she said out loud as she sat in the protective circle and gazed into the little yellow candle that hopefully wasn’t about to incinerate her. “Rosalind Alderidge, I need you. I know you’re hurting. You went through something so terrible. Those men killed your son, but Samuel needs you, Rosalind. We all need you to tell us what happened and to come help Samuel before it’s too late and this all goes too far.”

The flame seemed to grow bigger in her vision, racing toward her as she slipped into a trance. “Please,” Iris repeated in a whisper, her heart pounding despite her efforts to stay calm.

The heat didn’t come. Instead, she looked past the flame and saw Rosalind Alderidge sitting on the other side of the circle, just within the salt with Iris. Rosalind was beautiful, tall and imposing even seated with her legs elegantly tucked aside under her skirt. Her hair was more gray than brown, swept into an updo that suited the green dress she wore. She looked at Iris cautiously.

My son, the words appeared in Iris’s mind.

“Samuel,” Iris said. “You remember your son, Samuel?”

There were tears in Rosalind’s eyes as she nodded. Then she reached a hand toward Iris over the candle. Putting aside all thoughts of her own impending death, Iris took it.

———-

“You should go, I’ll stay here.”

Rosalind looked at Samuel as he paced furiously in their foyer, his shoes drawing tracks in the worn carpet. He was so tall now, a fully grown man finished with divinity school and ready to start a family and a life of his own. He had just accepted a position as junior pastor at New Winslow’s First Congregational Church and she knew he was waiting to ask Sarah to marry him. But he was about to risk all of that for her.

“No!” Rosalind exclaimed, putting an exhausted hand on his arm. “Samuel, it isn’t worth it, not if you’re in danger.”

“Of course it is,” Samuel snapped. “Ma, these men have been tormenting you for months now. We leave the house empty, even for a night, they’ll get their hooks in it. And I’m not going to let them win just so they can build some hotel that might not even survive the coming of the reservoir. They don’t get to push everyone around like this any longer. I’m sick of it, there needs to be justice!”

“You need to come with me,” Rosalind insisted. “Please, son, I need you. It’s just a house.”

The words hurt as she said them. This was so much more than a house. It was the home she’d made with Roland, Samuel’s father. It was where Samuel was born and where Roland had died during the influenza pandemic. It was the only thing she had left and a combination of adoration and stubborn pride had kept her refusing offers for it, offers that swelled at first, and then dwindled down as the buyers got eager and stubborn. At first, Samuel had thought that maybe they would get desperate and offer more money again, but Rosalind had dealt with men like this before. Men like Harrison Barlow only showed their falsely sweet masks once. Once that slid away, there was nothing that could bring it back into place. And he had discarded his a long time ago.

“It’s not just a house, Ma,” Samuel said softly. “I know that too. And they don’t get to have this power over you. It’s not right. I want you to go with Auntie Charlotte and I’ll see you in the morning, alright? But I’m not going to leave this house unguarded.”

No matter how much she argued with Samuel, he wasn’t going to relent. Despite his love of the Gospels and goals of pastorhood, he had a stubborn streak even wider than her own. And it was deadly when combined with his fiery insistence on justice. He’d changed over the years, she knew something had broken in him when Billy McBride drowned, and it had never healed. And the combination of all these things scared her.

Before Rosalind could argue again, there was a knock at the door. Samuel and Rosalind looked at each other and Rosalind went and opened it. As always, there was Gerald Costello, the sniveling assistant to Harrison Barlow. 

“Ms. Alderidge,” he said, his cap in his hand as he bowed deeply, clearly mocking her. “May I come in?”

“No,” Rosalind replied. “Whatever you need to say to me can be said on the steps.”

“Very well,” Costello said. “Elmwood Financial is ready to make one final offer before we move on.”

Move on? That didn’t sound like something they’d intended to do, and the insinuations gave Rosalind a chill. He handed her an envelope and she tore it open, not caring too much as the paper inside ripped slightly. 

It was a check, made out to her and containing more money than she’d seen in a long time. Not as much as their earlier offers, but money all the same. It was tempting for a second. Not only would this money help set Samuel and Sarah up for a new home with their eventual children, it would also end the vicious campaign of harassment Rosalind had been dealing with since the Commonwealth announced its plans to build a reservoir for Boston, and flood some of the towns out this way in order to do so.

But their money wasn’t worth losing the house. Even if she lost it in the flooding, if and when it came, then at least she would lose it on her terms. And her own stubborn need to see Barlow fail would win.

“No,” she said, handing the check back. “I’m not interested.”

“This is your last chance,” Costello said. “Once I walk away from here, the offer is gone and this check goes into the fire.”

“So be it,” Rosalind said.

The man shook his head at her and walked away. As he did, Samuel came over to the doorway, watching him leave. “Go see Auntie Charlotte,” he said. “She needs you. I’ll stay here and keep watch over the house. They’re not going to try anything tonight, I’ll be fine. Send her my love, I’ll be praying for her recovery.”

Rosalind relented, kissing her son on the cheek. Then she went to pack her clothes.

———–

Charlotte’s house was only a few streets away from Rosalind’s. So when the fire alarms began to go off and Rosalind saw the smoke rising in the direction of her home, she ran. Still in her nightgown and barefoot in the cold night, her long hair trailing behind her, she ran down the empty streets, knowing exactly what she was going to see.

Her home was engulfed in flames, fire shooting out the broken windows and destroying the entire frame, making it appear skeletal against the darkness of the surrounding trees. A single firetruck, shared among the neighboring towns, was outside. That wasn’t going to be enough, even as the volunteer force tried their best. 

Samuel was in there, he’d spent the night in case something like this were to happen. Her baby was trapped. Rosalind ran for the house, but two police officers stopped her, blocking her from getting any closer than the edge of the road. “You can’t go in there, ma’am,” one, a boy she recognized from Samuel’s school days, said.

“My son!” she screamed. “My son was in there!”

“Maybe he’s alright,” the boy continued as he and his colleague continued to hold her back. “Sammy’s clever, he probably got out the back and-”

But Rosalind knew. Deep inside herself, where that connection had never been severed, she knew her Samuel was gone. And it was only seconds later that two firefighters were wheeling a tarpaulin-covered stretcher from around the side of the house. And nobody had to tell her it was her baby, Samuel Roland, underneath it.

Rosalind tried to run, but the two boys still had a firm grip on her as she screamed. And as the old hearse – also shared among the towns – pulled away from the house moments later, she dropped to her knees in the mud, still screaming. By now most of the population of New Winslow was out here and she wanted them to just leave her alone. None of them cared, not really. Not about her, or Samuel, or any of the horrors that had been visited on them by the authorities in this town. And when she caught sight of Harrison Barlow and Gerald Costello, talking importantly with the fire chief, she couldn’t contain her rage.

As she stood, Rosalind felt different. Like everything inside of her had been replaced by fire, the same fire that had just killed her baby boy. She walked over to Barlow, power crackling behind her eyes, rage boiling inside of her, burning away her peace, her love, everything that was and had ever been Rosalind Alderidge.

“You want it so badly?” she demanded as Harrison Barlow turned to her, false pity already securely on his face. “TAKE IT!”

She screamed the last words, the sound vibrating through her, power pouring out in a way that would have terrified her any other day. Her body was burning, the building was burning, and through the flames she could see Barlow and Costello were now burning as well, their fine clothes eaten by the flames as the men joined her in screaming. They could have it, they could have this whole damned town forever. The power pulled from her life force, tearing through her and spreading over this entire town, even as it stopped her heart.

As Rosalind Alderidge died, she was furious.

She was fury and hatred and then she was gone. But just as quickly, she was back, flickerings of recognition coming through the murderous, all-consuming rage. She saw it in flashes, coming into focus gradually as something, something she loved, pulled her back toward this town where she’d lost everything. A connection, the connection was there. Faces, windows, snow, forests, none of it made sense. But it was all slowly coming back.

———-

“Iris.”

The hand on her shoulder was firm, anchoring her back in her body as a kind voice called her name. Iris blinked, sitting up. She was in the salt circle still, the candle gone out and the shop dark around her. Rosalind was gone and her memories echoed in Iris’s skull.

Andrew knelt beside her, his concern evident as he helped her to her feet. “I saw it,” she said, holding onto him as she tried to stop shaking. “Rosalind showed me what happened. The power, it wasn’t something she had control over. It was latent and when Samuel was killed, it exploded out of her and cursed the town.”

He listened carefully, but she could tell there was something on his mind too. “What is it?” she asked, her throat parched like she was the one who had burned.

“Baxter,” Andrew said. “He’s dying.”

She swallowed the bitter response. “He’s trapped, Iris,” he continued as she went for a half-finished water bottle she’d left on her counter hours ago. “There wasn’t time for an ambulance to get into town, he’s in the back of Isabel Rivera’s truck. Dr. Degas is down there with him, and she’s doing what she can, but he’s stuck. I think this is it. The others are on their way, but I think this is it.”

“He tried to kill me.”

“I know,” Andrew said, and she looked down at the shiny burn on his palm from the coin, identical to the one on her own. She thought of him in his burning apartment and how afraid he must have been as the flames came closer, just like Samuel. “And if you don’t want to help him, I truly can’t blame you.”

“Rosalind can get him out,” Iris said, the world slightly off-kilter around her. “She cast the curse with her rage, and she was only that rage for so long. But she’s herself again. I saw her.”

She grabbed Andrew’s arm, where he was reaching out to support her. “She’s who we felt watching us,” she said. “I saw her. I saw it through her eyes, just flashes. But you, me, Roman, Noah. Probably others. She’s seen all of us, at least a little. If I can get her to work through me, maybe the two of us together can lift the curse and help Samuel.”

Andrew looked like he was about to correct her, but then it sank in what she was saying. “His mother,” he said. “That’s what he wants. He keeps telling us he needs his mother.”

“And she needs him. She just wants him to be safe, Andrew.”

She wobbled again as Andrew darted in to steady her. “Let’s go to the town line,” she said. “I’ll call them both, she can use me and be with him. And help Baxter get out.”

She hated the man, he’d tried to kill her, but she wasn’t going to leave him to die. Now she knew for sure that she was better than that.

———-

CONTINUE TO EPISODE 47

———-