Chapter One

 

Passing an abandoned old brick mill, slowing at the four-way, and then taking the left fork towards the oddly-shaped hill, Tyra Dove was suddenly struck by an uneasy intuition that she should turn back right now. She took her foot off the gas and looked around at the stark countryside. On both sides of the road, the trees seemed to be leaning in towards her and rattling their branches.

This forbidding sensation had struck her as soon as the hill had loomed into view, and now, engine idling, Tyra gazed at it with a sense of apprehension. As its name suggested, Saddle Hill was flat-topped, with a slight dip in the middle, its slopes covered with thick woodlands, and wispy sheets of mist hanging eerily around its base.

Get a grip!

Tyra was not a woman who scared easily, and whenever danger threatened she had trained herself to bite back the fear. She had known true terror only once in her life-and she was determined that she would never experience it again. That fateful night six years earlier when Tyra had been a naïve young coed, had left her with a constant, simmering anger which she could drag up to the surface at will. All she had to do was think of the many subjects she now wrote about for The New England Crucible-rape, human trafficking, domestic violence, sexual objectification, discrimination in the workplace-and if she dwelled upon them long enough, she would soon be spitting proverbial fire. Her passionate feminist views were almost an obsession, and combined with her unerring nose for a good story, had also helped her to become one of the Crucible's most popular investigative journalists, as well as one of Boston's most prominent activists.

Now, as Tyra advanced once more along the empty country road, she thought back to the lunch date with her old college friend Susan Arquette, which had resulted in her being out here in rural Massachusetts on this chilly Friday afternoon.

Susan had contacted Tyra because her younger sister Paige, a smart and attractive girl who was embarking on a promising career in television, had gone missing whilst on route to visit their parents' house in the Berkshires.

"We have a traditional family Sunday lunch once a month," Susan had explained. "I was already there when Paige called in to say she was running a little late and that she was on I-90, just west of Springfield. Then her signal started to break up and she didn't call back. Since then, we've tried calling her several times a day, but her cell is off the grid. It's been four days now Tyra, and I'm really worried. Paige isn't the sort of person to just drop everything and run off. She loves her job and has a good circle of friends. I'm afraid something has happened to her."

"What about the police?" Tyra had asked.

"We filed a report and they said they would circulate her picture, but they also told us that as Paige is an adult, there is a standard waiting period before they will conduct a more widespread search."

Tyra had nodded thoughtfully. "And you think I might be able to trace her when the authorities can't?"

"I read your columns, Tyra," Susan had replied. "I know how you love to get your teeth into this type of thing."

Tyra had to admit that she was intrigued, and Susan was right-Tyra had successfully managed to track down an abducted girl once before. In this case though, there wasn't much to go on, and apart from Susan's concerns, no evidence of foul play.

After promising Susan she would do what she could to help, she had called her good friend Laurie Bass, a postgraduate student at Boston College, and in Tyra's view, the most efficient and resourceful researcher in the city.

Based on the scant information provided by Susan, Laurie had checked with the Department of Telecommunications and had quickly identified a cellular black spot located at a place called Saddle Hill, which was situated just off Interstate 90-in the same area where Paige had last made contact with her family.

Laurie had then set about digging up as much background information about Saddle Hill as possible. She had learned that in the late nineteenth century, after seams of copper had been discovered within the hill, a mine had been established not far from the small hilltop village of Foley. For a short while the mine had flourished, but then something strange and macabre had happened. According to local records, the woods on Saddle Hill had historically been regarded as 'sacred ground' by a series of witches covens dating back to the seventeenth century. There was nothing going on up there when the mine was founded, but a few years later a new coven took up residence. Shortly after, two local girls went missing, and coincidence or not, in a frenzy of mass hysteria the good folk of Foley took it upon themselves to hang six alleged witches in the woods. Not long after, resources had dwindled and the mine had closed. Most of the villagers had then left, believing that the sudden downturn in luck was due to a curse put on it by the witches before they were put to death.

Then Laurie had hit upon an intriguing news article. Booker Hall, a country house up on the hill, had recently been purchased by a mysterious occultist who called himself Valentine Vang. The report had been sensationalistic in nature, suggesting the possibility of a modern-day coven existing on Saddle Hill.

From here however, Laurie's trail had gone a bit dry. Skilled researcher though she was, Laurie was unable to unearth any further details about this man. He clearly valued his privacy because try as she might, Laurie could not find one single picture of him.

Tyra wasn't sure if Vang was actually doing anything wrong, but she did have her journalistic intuition and it rarely let her down. She fully intended to find out what was happening up on that hill-and hopefully find Paige Arquette as well.

So here she was, easing her Buick Enclave along a winding country road towards the ominous shape of Saddle Hill.

Her cell flashed on the dashboard and Tyra touched the receive icon.

"Hi Tyra, just checking to see if I could reach you," came the voice of Laurie Bass.

"Almost there. What's going on?" Tyra said.

"I've been surfing the net for hours and still nothing else out there about Saddle Hill or the enigmatic Valentine Vang. I've been cross-checking for links with Satanists, Wiccans, Gnostics, Neo-pagans and any other cults I can find, but no dice. This guy's independent and extremely reclusive. So I started working on a different tack and began looking at missing persons cases related to the Foley area, and guess what? I found a report describing the case of a young woman called Sadie Finch. About two years ago-the same year Vang moved into Booker Hall-Sadie was reported missing by her husband-he had last heard from her while she was driving west on I-90."

"In the same area that Paige Arquette made her last phone call?"

"Uh-huh. Missing posters were put up, the usual, but after a while the case went cold. A year later, Sadie's husband spotted a picture of her on the internet. She had been photographed at a country fair in Lattingdon-which is the nearest town to Foley-and she was with another man."

"So she ran away with somebody. It happens."

"Yes it does. Anyway, the husband hired a private detective to track her down, and it turned out she was now living in Foley village. When the husband went there to confront her, Sadie told him that she was devoted to the new man in her life-a farmer called Everett Gamble-and that she wanted a divorce. Still nothing unusual there except for a few points. When Sadie went missing, she had only been married three months and according to the husband, they were happily in love. She was also a lively and talkative woman but this time her husband had found her to be subdued and quiet. Another thing that shocked him was her appearance. She usually wore fashionable hairstyles and the latest clothes, but now she was wearing a frumpy frock and her now-blonde hair was in plaits. But the part that the husband found hardest to swallow was the age difference between Sadie and Gamble-she was twenty-three and he was sixty-four."

"Again, not unheard of," Tyra said.

"True, but apparently she wasn't in it for the money. Gamble had a modest farmstead on Saddle Hill and was not a wealthy man. Anyway, the husband was convinced that she has been 'influenced' in some way. He went to the police in Lattingdon and they went to see Sadie, but she was adamant that she wanted to continue with her new life. Still unconvinced, the husband asked the private detective to investigate further, and he uncovered some pretty weird stuff. It seems that Gamble ran quite a strict household-and had some unusual methods for maintaining discipline, some of which the detective managed to get on film."

Tyra frowned. "What kind of methods?"

"Well," Laurie cleared her throat. "For example, he once whipped her with a belt in the open air while she was dressed only in her underwear-in the presence of a male neighbor."

Tyra felt a familiar stab of indignation as Laurie continued. "On another occasion he left her tied to a tree in the woods for a whole night, and on another, the detective secretly photographed her hanging out the laundry-stark naked. One can only guess at what went on behind closed doors."

"And yet she told the police she was happy?"

"Yup. The husband didn't buy it either, so he went back to Foley and forcibly took Sadie back with him. Two days later however, Sadie returned to Gamble who then had a restraining order placed on the husband."

"And you think a similar thing may have happened to Paige Arquette?" Tyra asked.

"It's circumstantial, I admit, but both Paige and Sadie were happy, independent career women before they both disappeared in the same area-and one of them has apparently been mysteriously transformed into an abused, subservient housewife."

"And?"

"And maybe there's a witches coven up on Saddle Hill."

Tyra chuckled. "It's a stretch, Laurie."

"Might make one heck of a story though."