She also told them she wanted the roof slate repaired, not replaced with a modern material, as the contractor had suggested. Mark agreed it would look far better. Kim even wanted the asphalt shingles removed from the shed and replaced with slate.
Rounding the building, they came to the utility trench. Kim glanced into its depths, where now ran a waste pipe, a water pipe, an electrical service, a phone line, and a TV cable. She was relieved to see the corner of the coffin still protruding from the wall.
“What about this ditch?” she asked.
“It’ll be filled tomorrow,” George said.
Kim felt an unwelcome chill descend her spine as she reluctantly imagined the terrible dilemma she would have faced had she not made the call to George that morning.
“Will all this be done by September first?” Kim asked, forcing her mind away from such disturbing thoughts.
Mark deferred to George.
“Barring any unforeseen problems we should be fine,” George said. “I’ll order the new casement windows tomorrow. If they’re not here in time we can always hang a temporary window.”
After the contractor and the architect had climbed into their respective vehicles and driven out of sight, Kim went back into the house to find a hammer. With it in hand, she opened the trunk of her car and lifted out the cardboard box.
As she followed the trench to where she could climb into it, Kim was quite astonished with her degree of nervousness. She felt like a thief in the night, and she kept stopping to listen for any approaching cars.
Once she was in the trench and had walked back to where the coffin was, a sense of claustrophobia made the ordeal even worse. The walls seemed to tower above her and from her vantage point seemed to curve out over her head, adding to her fear they might cave in at any moment.
With a tremulous hand, Kim set to work on the end of the coffin. Inserting the hammer’s claws, she pried it back. Then she turned to face the box.
Now that the unpleasant task was at hand, Kim revived the debate as to what she should do in relation to the box. But she didn’t debate long: hastily she untied the string. As much as she hated the idea of touching the head, she had to make an effort to restore the grave to a semblance of its original state.
Lifting the cardboard flaps, Kim reluctantly looked inside. The head was facing up, balanced on a mat of dried hair. Elizabeth was staring back at Kim with her dried, sunken eyeballs partially exposed. For an uncomfortable moment, Kim tried vainly to reconcile the gruesome face with the pleasing portrait that she was having restored, relined, and reframed. The images were such stark opposites that it seemed inconceivable they were the same person.
Holding her breath, Kim reached in and lifted the head. Touching it gave her renewed shivers, as if she were touching death itself. Kim also found herself wondering anew about what had really happened three hundred years previously. What could Elizabeth have done to bring on such a cruel fate?
Turning around carefully to avoid tripping over any of the pipes and cables, Kim extended the head into the coffin. Gingerly she set it down. She could feel her hands touch fabric and other firmer objects, but she didn’t try to look in to see what they were. Hastily she bent the end of the coffin back to its original position and hammered it home.
Picking up the empty box and string, Kim hurried back up the trench. She didn’t begin to relax until she’d put the trash back in her trunk. Finally she took a deep breath. At least it was over.
Walking back to the trench, she looked down at the end of the coffin just to make sure she’d not left some telltale evidence behind. She could see her footprints, but she didn’t think that was a problem.
With her hands on her hips, Kim’s eyes left the coffin and looked up at the quiet, cozy cottage. She tried to imagine what life had been like back in those dark days of the witchcraft scare, when poor Elizabeth was unknowingly ingesting the poisonous, mind-altering grain. With all the books Kim had been reading on the witchcraft ordeal, she’d learned quite a lot. For the most part the young women who presumably had been poisoned with the same contaminant as Elizabeth were the “afflicted,” and they were the ones who “called out against” the witches.