Before the Devil Fell Read online

  Will Connor returns to his hometown, a village north of Boston, to care for his injured mother. He’s kept his distance from the town since high school, but once home he finds himself reexamining a horrific incident that took place during one of his mother’s “spirit circles.” His mother had embraced the hippie generation’s fascination with New Age and the arcane, but the unexpected death of a close friend put an end to the meetings of the modern-day coven.

  Or did it?

  As Will looks deeper into his family’s history he discovers that her practices weren’t so much a passing fad but the latest link in a long tradition of New England witchcraft, which still seems to hold a strange power over the town. Will hopes that unearthing the facts about the death will put his questions to rest, but there are those willing to resort to violence to keep those secrets buried.

  Advance Praise for Before the Devil Fell

  “Neil Olson is an unassumingly subtle writer, and Before the Devil Fell is not the kind of thriller that goes ‘boo’ but the kind that makes you think—about human nature, daemonic nature, and a lot that lies between.”

  —Madison Smartt Bell, author of Behind the Moon

  “Hauntingly atmospheric and relentlessly suspenseful, this dark and compelling mystery reveals a shocking bedrock of buried secrets—and shows what can happen when traditional New England witchcraft meets the light of modern day. Before the Devil Fell will keep you guessing on every unpredictable—and unsettling—page.”

  —Hank Phillippi Ryan, author of The Murder List

  “Before the Devil Fell is a suspenseful, atmospheric and eerie tale of small-town secrets and a dangerous bond that links families through the centuries.”

  —Megan Chance, author of A Drop of Ink

  Praise for The Black Painting

  “A complex tale that is at once a riveting psychological thriller, a serious dissection of a dysfunctional family and an exploration of the power of art to change lives.”

  —Associated Press

  “With its page-turning plot and moody atmospherics, Olson’s tale proves seductive.... Get ready for a thrilling ride through the worlds of the unhappy rich, whose acquisitions can prove very dangerous indeed.”

  —Toronto Star

  “The Black Painting is a fast-paced psychological thriller with a fascinating set of characters caught in a web of family lies, deceits, secrets, mental instability and a possible murder.... A real page-turner.”

  —B.A. Shapiro, author of the New York Times bestseller The Art Forger

  BEFORE

  THE

  DEVIL

  FELL

  A NOVEL

  NEIL OLSON

  Neil Olson is the author of The Black Painting, The Icon and the play Dealers. He lives with his wife in New York City.

  Also by Neil Olson

  The Icon

  The Black Painting

  For my father, Neil Bradford Olson,

  who loved ghost stories.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Acknowledgments

  “Until an hour before the Devil fell, God thought him beautiful in Heaven.”

  —Arthur Miller, The Crucible

  The house is alive as he wakes. A bright flash echoes in his retina and burned metal stings his nose. A presence lurks nearby. Perhaps a specter from the dreamworld, hauled to the surface. He does not hear the screaming until it stops. Panicked voices rise from somewhere, but he cannot focus on them. Only on his dread of the unseen thing. He is in danger; he must get out of the house.

  Cold mud sucks at his feet. Beyond the light of the kitchen windows, there is nothing, just enveloping darkness. He won’t remember later how he got outside. His mother or her friends would have seized him had he passed through the circle, so he must have used the back stairs. The field was a forest of cornstalks days before, but they are all cut down. Stubs now, high enough to trip him, and mud gets on his hands, on his pajama knees. His ankle hurts, and his mother’s voice cuts through the night. Calling his name. That voice should draw him back, but drives him on instead. He has not shaken the presence. He does not dare look behind him.

  A light is in the field, near the tall pines that mark the neighbor’s property. A dim lantern at ground level. He runs toward it until he sees a figure standing beside the light. Blond hair. The girl who lives beyond the trees. His feet slow, he walks quickly now instead of running. He barely knows this girl, and finds her strange. She shows him things that he cannot remember later. Frightening things. So he does not understand the compulsion that guides him. The light, the girl, the lines carved in the dirt at her feet form a place of safety. If he can get inside it, the presence will not harm him. He wants to run, but her stillness instructs him. He must not show fear, and he must not stop. Step after step, with death at his back, he walks swiftly and silently toward the girl.

  CHAPTER

  ONE

  “So, what’s up with the girl?”

  “It was a dream, Beth.”

  The bland university function room was packed with academics. Even in a corner, Will and Beth nearly had to shout at each other. Will took a long pull on his beer and scanned the crowd. The students were all upper class or graduate level, several of them from his seminar. Huddled together and looking nervous, the poor nerds.

  “I don’t think they’ll run out,” Beth said.

  “What?”

  “Of beer. You can slow down.”

  In some mythic past, these student-faculty mixers were boozy affairs, sure to produce at least one tale of a professor embarrassing himself heroically. In this new age, they had become tepid events. Serious types drinking seltzer and lime and gesticulating with bread sticks. At the refreshment table, Will had to specially request the beer, a watery “lite.”

  “We should have snuck in a flask.”

  “So you could breathe whiskey over Dean Wagner?” laughed Beth. Will’s teaching assistant was tall and dark eyed, with a low laugh and a sharp wit. And tonight, a probing manner. “The dream. It’s based on something,” she pressed. “You told me once. There was a storm and the house got hit by lightning and—”

  “Someone died. Yes.”

  “But the girl is only in the dream?”

  “No,” Will replied. He had forgotten until now that he had told her of his troubled youth. Trying to make the stories funny, though they were anything but to him. They had spoken of it one time, over drinks, but she was not the type to forget. Why did he mention the dream tonight? Because he felt a need to share with someone, and knew Beth would keep it to herself. And because after a long reprieve, he was under siege again. First once a week, then twice, now nearly every night. “She was there, in the field. I’m n
ot sure of the details. I was only five.”

  “She was your neighbor.”

  “Yes.”

  “Were her parents hippies too?”

  “She lived with her grandfather. Dartmouth professor. The house was filled with books, wall to wall. Anyway, why are you focused on the girl?”

  “That’s who you’re running to, in the dream. Seems like she’s the key.”

  “To what?”

  “Understanding it.”

  “What’s to understand?” said Will, annoyed. The beer bottle was empty, and he had promised himself to stop at two. “Dreams are just mental garbage.”

  “Okay.” Beth sipped her soda. “So why were you telling me?”

  “I don’t know,” he mumbled. “It was on my mind.”

  “It must have been. Because that wasn’t even the girl I was asking about.”

  At first he thought she meant Asa, the pierced and pink-haired ghoul from his Myth and Folklore seminar, who was slithering across the room in a serpentine fashion. Headed their way.

  “You mean Helen?”

  “Is there someone else?”

  Not for years, thought Will sadly. And not for a long time to come.

  “I haven’t spoken to her in weeks.”

  “Wow.” Beth seemed genuinely surprised. “So this is for real, this...”

  Breakup? Such a weak word, something that happened to high school sweethearts. He and Helen were in their thirties, had been together four years, lived together for two. He had visited her family far more times than he had seen his own mother in that span. Anxiety rose up, and Will squeezed his eyes shut. The darkness, the burned smell, his mother screaming into the night as he ran. From what?

  “They weren’t hippies,” he said, forcing down the panic. “My parents.”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

  “No, no, I realize I paint them that way. Not my dad, but my mother’s crowd. The flared denims and long hair and mystical chanting. But I mean, it was nineteen seventy-five. Could you still be a hippie then?”

  “Sure,” Beth maintained. “It’s a state of mind. They’re out there now, with gray ponytails and tie-dyes yanked over their guts. Starting internet companies.”

  “The Revolution,” said Will.

  “What did she call it? That séance thing your mom did?”

  “Spirit circle,” Will replied uneasily, trying to share Beth’s enthusiasm.

  “Spirit circle,” she echoed with delight. “Who were they trying to contact?”

  “Darned if I know,” he said, wishing desperately for a real drink. “God? Aliens? The Great Spirit?”

  “Professor Fairy Tale,” shouted a voice so close that Will jumped. Asa was beside him. Green peasant skirt low on her hips, a skull ring dangling from her long nose. Her hair was more purple than pink tonight, and her bulging eyes drilled into him. “You’re hiding from us.”

  “I’m doing no such thing,” Will lied.

  Asa was flanked by her reliable wingman, Viktor, and plaid-shirted... Pete? Will’s wandering mind created nicknames for students, and this kid was always just Plaid.

  “Professor Fairy Tale?” Beth repeated, both defensive and amused. “That’s not very nice.”

  “Who are you?” Asa demanded, getting into Beth’s space, which is what she did.

  “Beth Gonzales. And you are?”

  “Asa Waite.” They shook hands like boxers at the weigh-in. “You’re the TA for Prof’s American Lit survey, yeah?”

  “That’s right,” Beth said. And you’re that wacko Will told me about, she did not say.

  “Professor Fairy Tale is what he called himself the first day of class,” Viktor explained, a bright smile nicely set off by his black beard.

  “Which was so great,” Asa said, her lips red from whatever she was drinking. Or perhaps from feeding on an underclassman before coming here. “Like, this is who I am and what we do, and you can like it or get out.”

  “It wasn’t a challenge,” Will corrected, disturbed by her misreading. “Just a little self-deprecation.”

  “You’re all enjoying the seminar?” Beth asked, in her den mother voice. She seemed so much older than these kids, though she was only twenty-four.

  “Very much,” Viktor said. “Fascinating stuff.”

  “I never thought I’d find an actual class like this,” Asa declared. “I’m going to do a paper on incubi.”

  “Wait,” Beth said, “that’s the thing that comes in the night and...”

  “Screws you in your sleep,” Plaid filled in.

  “Lays upon you,” Asa enunciated, aiming death rays at Plaid, “and saps your life energy. But there’s more to it than that. Incubus is male, succubus is female.”

  “And which are you?” Beth asked. They all stared at her. “Which are you writing about? Isn’t that what I said?”

  “Both kinds,” Asa replied, leaning in confidentially. “It’s partly research, but mostly based on my own experience.”

  “Right,” Beth said brightly, turning to Plaid. “What about you?”

  “I guess I wasn’t expecting it to be so serious,” he said, with a nervous smirk.

  “He thought we’d be reading Harry Potter,” snarked Viktor.

  “I did not think that. Maybe Tolkien?”

  They all laughed.

  “We’ll get there,” said Will. “Celtic mythology is dense, but it lays the groundwork for a lot of later stuff. Hey, be grateful. I used to put Carl Jung right in the first week’s reading.”

  “Psychology,” Asa huffed dismissively.

  “There’s more to Jung than that,” said Will. “But ultimately, what else are we talking about?”

  “Come on, Prof,” the young woman said. “It’s a new millennium. No one has to be ashamed of what they believe. The spiritually tuned-in will lead the way.”

  “To where?” Plaid asked.

  “My aunt was goth before that was cool,” said Asa. “Got abused in school, cut herself, that kind of thing. She leads a Wiccan circle now, and she’s never been so happy. Fulfilled. It’s everywhere. I’m not saying that’s my thing, but—”

  “It’s bullshit,” Plaid said. “Wicca, come on.”

  “Okay,” Will intervened, “let’s not be contemptuous, Pla—uh, Pete.”

  “You don’t believe that stuff, Mr. Conner, do you?”

  Now they all stared at him. Even Beth.

  “What interests me, the reason I created the seminar, is to better understand the myth-making impulse. Why do we all do it? Why do all cultures have versions of the same stories? What do we seek in the otherworldly that our reason can’t supply?”

  “But it’s not real,” Pete insisted. “That seeking happens in the mind. Right?”

  “Yes,” said Will. “Or is shared between minds. Which doesn’t make it less interesting.”

  Asa stared into her cup. Purse-lipped and profoundly disappointed, Will could tell.

  “I’m going to find food,” she said, starting to move away, but stopping short. “There’s a book I saw. At Argosy. It was behind glass, they wouldn’t let me look at it closely. I’m ninety percent sure it’s a grimoire. I’m going to get that sucker and bring it class. And blow all your tiny minds.”

  “You do that,” Will said. “That would be very cool, in fact. Just don’t steal it.”

  She smiled and sauntered off. Viktor and Pete followed, waving quick goodbyes.

  “Well,” Beth exhaled. “She’s everything you said.”

  “She keeps me on my toes.”

  “You realize she’s nuts?”

  “Let’s not be judgmental,” he counseled. “She’d fit right in where I come from.”

  “Grimoire?”

  “Book of magic,” Will clarified.

  “They have th
ose at Argosy?”

  “I doubt it, but they exist. I mean, books purporting to give magical instruction.” Will hesitated. “Our neighbor the professor was supposed to own one.”

  “Dream girl’s grandfather? No way. Did you read it?”

  “No. Come on—don’t try to make something out of it.”

  “I’m not making anything,” she protested. “You just had one freaky childhood.”

  “Yeah, and look how sane and boring I turned out.”

  “You’re trying to understand them,” Beth said, eyeing him curiously. “Your mother. All the loonies you grew up with and ran away from. You’re studying this stuff to figure them out.”

  “That’s insultingly reductive, Ms. Gonzales. I expect more from you.”

  “Well, I’ll try to broaden my mind. Maybe I’ll leave my window open tonight and see what crawls in to visit.”

  * * *

  In the taxi home, Beth’s words pursued him. He was aware, in a general way, that the untamed atmosphere of his youth, the eagerness of adults to retell old tales and believe in unseen things, fed his creativity. He would not have spent the hours studying and teaching folklore without that early shaping. That was one thing. It was quite another to say he was trying to decode his mother. Whatever genuine knowledge of the arcane existed in those old families in that little town north of Boston had died out generations ago. Abigail and her crew were pot-smoking, wine-slugging losers, shouting songs from Hair and wishing they had been at Woodstock. There was nothing Will needed to understand, except the one thing nobody would tell him. Which had led to his latest argument with his mother.

  Abigail called three weeks before, just as the semester was starting. She was having dreams about the night Johnny died and wanted to talk to Will. In person. It was infuriating. For years he had asked for details about the incident, and she always refused. Now, suddenly, it couldn’t wait? He told her he could not possibly get there in September, which was true. It was also true that somewhere in the last decade a scar had formed over that fearful recollection. Without deciding, Will had simply stopped wanting to know. And, simultaneously, had stopped having bad dreams. Since her phone call, the dreams were back. And the unwanted questions.