The Woman Beneath the Bells

By noon, everyone in Hollowmere had come to see whether Marta Bell was truly dead.

They arrived in black coats and polished boots, carrying lilies and candles. The church stood at the top of the hill, narrow and grey against the winter sky, its bell tower leaning slightly to the east. Inside, the air smelled of old incense and the bitter herbs Marta had once hung from the rafters to keep sickness from entering.

Her coffin rested before the altar, closed by request of the priest, though everyone knew the request had not come from him. Marta had left instructions for everything: The dress she was to be buried in, the hymn to be sung, the exact position of the candles. And above all, the rule that no one, under any circumstances, was to open the lid.

This, more than her actual death, frightened them.

Elian Bell sat in the front pew with his hands folded so tightly his knuckles turned white. He was the only family Marta had left, meaning he could feel their eyes pressing against the back of his neck.

Poor boy, some thought. Lucky boy, thought others.

Elian sought a sorrow he simply did not possess. In the secret ledger of hollowmere’s sins, the truth of Marta lay bare. There were small kindnesses, sure, like Marta’s hands guiding his when he first learned to write his name. He remembered the wool blanket she wrapped around him the winter his fever almost took him. But those memories were entirely choked by what followed. There was the heavy iron key turning in the pantry door whenever he asked where his mother had gone. There was the stark red of blood being scrubbed from a linen sleeve, and Marta's flat command never to speak of it. And finally, there was her shadow across his blanket on the night before she died, her face pale as old wax in the candlelight.

“When I am gone,” she had whispered, “do not believe the first person who weeps.”

Marta Bell had possessed a way of looking through a person until they felt entirely transparent.

“We are gathered here,” Orvik began, his voice thin and dry, “to return Marta Bell to the earth from whence she came.”

In the third row, Clara Higgins adjusted her mourning veil, offering the room a flawless mask of grief. But the heart beneath her black bodice beat with a frantic, joyous lightness. For seven years, Marta had held the deed to the Higgins orchard, a debt Clara’s husband had foolishly signed away on a rainy autumn night. With Marta safely in the pine box, Clara spent the opening prayer calculating exactly how long decency required her to wait before she could demand the paperwork from Elian. Her only prick of guilt wasn’t for wishing the old woman dead, but for the vanity of the new silk bonnet she had bought to celebrate the occasion.

Behind her, Miller Vance sat with his massive shoulders hunched, entirely indifferent to deeds or gold. He stared at the closed lid of the coffin with genuine terror. It had been Miller who found her. He had gone to Marta’s cottage before dawn, sent by his wife to fetch a remedy for their youngest girl’s cough. The cottage door stood open, creaking softly in the wind. He found her in the kitchen, seated upright at the table, one hand resting on the oilcloth and the other clenched so tightly that he had to pry her fingers open to make certain she was dead. And in her fist, pressed deep enough to leave its pattern in her palm, clutched a scrap of black lace.

Miller now looked at the women in the church, at their veils and collars and gloves, at all the mourning cloth gathered like a flock of crows beneath the rafters. Any one of them might have worn it. Any one of them might have torn it. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat and the pew groaned beneath him.

Father Orvik continued speaking, though no one was listening very closely.

“Her hands brought many of us into this world,” he said. “Her wisdom comforted the sick, guided the uncertain, and protected this village in times of hardship.”

A quiet bitter ripple, passed through the congregation. Runa Vale lowered her head before anyone could see her mouth twist.

Marta had brought Runa’s son into the world on the worst night of winter, when the road vanished under snow and the river froze black and hard as iron. Runa had screamed until her throat tore. Her husband Tomas had begged Marta to save them both. Marta had worked for six hours by candlelight, calm as stone, and when the child finally cried, small and furious and alive, Tomas had fallen to his knees and kissed the hem of her skirt.

Three weeks later, Tomas disappeared.

Beside Runa sat her twelve-year-old son, possessing his missing father’s dark eyes and Marta Bell’s tarnished silver charm tied around his neck. Runa had carried that charm to the deep woods and thrown it into the brambles twice. Each time, the silver trinket had been found resting on her windowsill by morning, catching the early light.

“Blessed are those who serve,” Father Orvik said.

Elian looked at the coffin.

…The first person who weeps…

He turned his head slowly, scanning the rows behind him. Clara Higgins had dry eyes. Miller Vance looked as though he might be sick. Runa sat very still, one hand clamped over the charm at her son’s throat.

Then, from the back of the church, someone began to sob.

It was a loud, broken, beautiful sound.

Lenora Pike stood near the door, a black handkerchief pressed to her mouth, her thin shoulders trembling. She was the gravedigger’s sister and had spent most of her life moving through Hollowmere unnoticed, a woman of small means and smaller voice. Yet now she wept as if Marta had been her dearest friend.

Elian had never seen Lenora speak to his grandmother except once. It had been three nights ago, outside Marta’s cottage. Elian had been returning from the well when he heard raised voices through the yew hedge.

“You promised,” Lenora had hissed.

“And you believed me,” Marta had replied.

Then the door had flown open, and Lenora had stumbled out with one hand gripping her throat. She had seen Elian standing there and smiled at him with the warmth of a cold blade.

In the back of the nave, Lenora’s sobbing grew harder.

Elian’s skin prickled. His hand drifted into his coat pocket, his fingers closing around the cold, heavy iron key to Marta’s cottage. The jagged teeth of the iron bit sharply into his palm as his grandmother's final riddle solved itself against the chill of the nave. Do not believe the first person who weeps.

Father Orvik trailed off mid-sentence, his mouth hanging slightly open. The congregation sat frozen, and even the old brass bells hanging in the leaning tower above them seemed to hold their breath.

Lenora lowered the handkerchief from her face. Her eyes were red, but her cheeks were dry.

Across the frozen rows of pews, her gaze locked directly onto Elian. The grief vanished from her features, replaced by the slow return of that razor-thin smile.