“This is… this is all so insane.”
The old woman smiled at that, as if she understood the feeling all too well. “You said you were going east… do you know where it was you were really going?”
“The siren,” Ramona said. “I was seeking the siren.”
Mrs. McGuiness nodded. “Smart girl or maybe not so smart at all. The siren sounds and those things out there wake up, don’t they? Like wooden puppets deciding they are no longer wooden, eh? Well, listen. The siren is the shift whistle that puts them to work and it is Mother Crow who sounds that whistle as she’s always sounded it as generations of Crows sounded it before her.”
“Shift whistle for what?”
“The factory, child, the factory. The place where the dolls were made… at least, where they were made. Now other things go on there that would chill your blood to know of them.” She dismissed that with a wave of her hand. “Now listen. Before the fire of 1960—and I can see by your face that the fire is known to you—the Crow factory on the hill was the lifeblood of Stokes. Nearly the entire town worked there and it was a good town with good people who lived a good life and were respectful of one another. Not like the vermin in the big city. These were good folks and this was their town and the Crow family provided so that all might flourish. You’re far too young to know about this town or the factory, but once upon a time when the factory went nonstop and was the blood of this town, dolls were made up there. Dolls for children. Puppets, marionettes, even dime-store dummies of particular artistry. Crow figures were world-famous and the orders just rolled in and people were fat and happy and the town thrived. And watching, always watching, over the town and the factory, was Mother Crow, good Mother Crow like the old woman who lived in the shoe, loving each of her children more than she loved herself.”
Ramona lifted an eyebrow at that. She did not seem to remember the Old Woman in the Shoe being a loving mother, but that was neither here nor there. “So let me guess. The factory went belly-up, closed, people moved away to where the grass was greener, and Mother Crow took it personally.”
“That tongue,” Mrs. McGuiness said, shaking her head. “That awful tongue.”
“I got something wrong?”
“Yes, dear, you did. When they needed her, she was there for them. But when she needed them, they abandoned her. They took the good name of Crow in vain and paid no homage to who she was and what her fine family had done for them.”
Ramona nodded. “People need to eat, ma’am. I’m sure they hated leaving, but they had to go where there were jobs so they could feed their kids. I hardly think that’s a crime. What the hell did she want from them? Their firstborn?”
A darkness passed over the old lady’s face and Ramona figured she had gone too far. There was a time and place to speak your mind and mouth off and maybe this was not it. But she couldn’t help herself. She had been through too much, seen and experienced things that left her nerves not only on edge but humming like telephone lines. Proper conduct and etiquette seemed to have no place now. Her back was up and she was ready for a fight and she didn’t have the patience for trifling bullshit.
The darkness shadowing the old lady’s face remained a moment too long and Ramona wondered what horrors were hiding beneath, sharpening their teeth.
“Maybe she did want that,” Mrs. McGuiness said, her breath coming fast now. “Maybe she deserved that. She and her family had given blood and they wanted some in return and maybe all she really wanted was the simplest of things: loyalty.”
Ramona nodded. Yes, the Old Woman in the Shoe who whipped her children soundly and put them to bed. “Maybe. But maybe she asked for too much. Loyalty is great but it won’t put food on the table. Was Mother Crow willing to support everyone out of her own pockets?”
“Her pockets were as empty as theirs!”
“So they had no choice. They left.”
Mrs. McGuiness nodded. “Not all of them, not right away. But family by family they hightailed it out and left a graveyard in their passing. That’s what Stokes was, a big old graveyard and when the wind blew on dark nights, you could hear the emptiness of it and feel the sorrow and sense the desertion. Those are things you can feel in your soul, missy, and the soul of the town was blighted like a summer field, diseased black to its roots, and that’s when it began to bleed. I don’t expect you to believe it, but those that were still around—I was one of their number—we all saw it. Blood began to seep from the earth, bubbling up like crude oil but it was no oil—it was blood. You could smell it and taste it in the air. It came up through cracks in the street and filled yards and ran in the gutters. It terrified some and others were in rapture over the mysticism of the whole thing. These were the ones that would bow down before it and offer prayers to God above and lower things that crawled below.”
Ramona sighed. “And Mother Crow? What did she say about the blood?”
“Nobody knew. She was hidden away up in that silent old factory like a spider in a crevice and she wasn’t coming out for no one.”
Spider was right, Ramona figured, because that crazy old woman in her own way had webbed up the town and she wasn’t too happy about the townsfolk—her people—slipping out of her grasp like flies sneaking out of a spider’s web. But the blood? How did you explain that? Either Mrs. McGuiness was confused and deluded by the years or exaggerating to make a point or something very weird had happened and with all Ramona had seen, she would not have doubted that things could happen in Stokes that could not happen elsewhere.
“How do you explain the blood?”
Mrs. McGuiness rattled her cup again. “The seed of that is belief, missy. That’s what lies at the core of it. This town was dying fast. It was gasping its last breath. And like anything that lies wounded and worn on its deathbed, it was bleeding out. A malignancy had seeped into this town and as its flesh went to rot so did its bones and blood as the body decayed. And we saw it. Yes, we all saw it. Houses were falling apart, trees standing and leafless. The water in the creek went bad and the sky boiled black and there was a graveyard stench to the wind. Impossible, you say? You think I’m talking symbolically, don’t you? I am not. I am talking literally. This town was diseased. We didn’t know it then but there was a good reason for it. You see, up in the factory, Mother Crow was dying, too. The collapse of her family business, which created the collapse of Stokes, was like a knife stuck into her. The malignancy that blighted the town started in her and spread down from the factory into the town. I told you the blood of this town was the Crows’ blood and so it was. As she sickened and died, so did the town. By then, there weren’t too many left. Maybe twenty families, no more. But they witnessed it.”
She went on to say that Mother Crow might have physically died, but something in her refused to lie quiet. Whatever it was—stubborn pride, anger, or dark witchery—it lived. It grew stronger up there and it seized hold of the town and decided to make those that were planning on getting out pay an awful price.
“It wanted sacrifice?” Ramona said.