“My Love,
Meet me tomorrow night in our secret place, and I will show you an ecstasy you have never known. Our bodies will be as the god and goddess. I will touch you as the Morrigan touches Dagda, our heavenly tryst unleashing all the powers of the universe, such orgasmic pleasure as only a god and goddess may know. We have waited long enough, my love…”
Callie tripped over some of the words, pronouncing them carefully, syllable by syllable: “Dag-da, or-gas-mic. Mor-ri-gan.” The Goddesses’ laughter never materialized.
“I told you she was a hypocrite!” Cheryl hissed.
Susan was outraged. “She tells Rose we are immoral and indecent, and that she should kick us out of her house, and she’s doing the same damned thing?”
But Olivia was laughing. “I can see the old witch humping and panting,” she said. “Oh, Dag!” She made a twisted expression. “Don’t stop, Dag!” She pumped her pelvis into the air. “I can show you the pleasures of the universe, Dag!”
Susan covered her eyes and said, “I won’t be able to unsee that!”
“She calls herself a goddess?” Cheryl snorted. “We’re the Goddesses.”
Olivia turned to Cheryl. “Let me see that letter.” She took it and read silently. Slowly. Finally she looked up, grinning widely. “I know what we can do.”
“What?” Susan said.
“You want revenge?” Olivia asked.
“Yes!” Cheryl shouted.
“Do you know his address?” she asked Cheryl.
“Please. I even know their secret trysting place.”
“Mail it.”
“What for?”
“You want to get her back, right?” Olivia asked.
“Absolutely,” Susan said.
“Then we have to take him,” Olivia said.
“Oh my God,” Susan whispered, understanding. “Yes!”
“We’ll do it,” Cheryl agreed. “To show her who’s boss. To show her not to mess with us.”
“And to show him the true power of the Goddesses. Now there’s an orgasmic pleasure he’s never known!”
“Yes!” Susan echoed.
Olivia held the envelope to her lips and imprinted a scarlet kiss.
“I can’t mail a letter addressed to Dagda from Morrigan. With lipstick all over it,” Cheryl said.
Olivia sighed and removed the letter from the envelope, which fluttered to the floor. Then she walked to Rose’s desk in the hall, returning with another envelope and a pen. She handed them to Cheryl.
“All right!” Cheryl said. “Let’s do this!”
It was fear that diminished the goddess, turning her from maiden to banshee.
—ROSE’S Book of Trees
“The man on the bed? I think they were calling him Dag, not Dad,” Callie said.
The cell connection was fuzzy. Rafferty repeated the name. “Dag?”
“Right,” she said.
“Short for Dagda, I’m guessing.”
“That’s what I think. I had another dream memory last night. I e-mailed you the contents of the letter that was once in the envelope we found. The envelope under the floorboards,” she clarified. “I remember now. They had me recite the whole thing to them.”
Callie waited on the phone while Rafferty pulled up the e-mail. He didn’t comment as he was reading. “That’s quite a missive,” he finally said.
“That’s why I e-mailed it.”
“Is this something that really happened?”
“God, I hope so…I’d hate to think my subconscious could come up with something so cheesy.”
He laughed.
“It might not be true,” she said. “But it feels like an accurate memory.”
“You’ve been pretty accurate so far,” he said.
Rafferty had stayed home the previous morning, using the Internet to locate every Kormos he could find in the state of New Hampshire, Becky’s last known place of residence. He checked not just the southern towns but all the way to the Canadian border. He tried Manchester first, then Portsmouth. Then he started on the smaller towns. After he ended his call with Callie, he was ready to punch in the next number on his list when he heard Towner slam down the house phone. “You finally picked up, huh?” Rafferty asked her. “Did you tell her we’re spending Christmas with my daughter?” May had left three messages before Towner had finally answered.
“As we do every year,” she replied.
“And yet she persists,” Rafferty said to himself. May was adamant that they come out to the island for all the holidays, no matter what plans they had, and Towner was stubborn. He wasn’t certain whom he’d give odds to in this battle.
At noon he had to give up on the hunt and headed into the station. A call had come from Yellow Dog Island to his private office line. He wanted to ignore it, but when May had problems she usually called him, not 911. Especially when she was moving women. Rafferty was the only one she trusted to respect their confidentiality.
“What’s going on out there?” he asked when May picked up.
“I’ve got some trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?” he asked.
“I’ll tell you when you get here,” she said.
He picked up his gun. Then his jacket. Going to Yellow Dog today was the last thing he wanted to do.
It was cold on the water; the grey ocean matched the color of the clouds. There was a whole lot more chop than he’d expected, which made it difficult to tie up. May was waiting at the top of the dock, hydraulically lowering the ramp, the float swaying crazily below it until it finally landed and Rafferty was able to secure it to the cleats. He walked up to join May. At least she wasn’t holding the rifle, he thought. Things couldn’t be that bad.
“What’s going on?” he asked when he reached her.
“Come with me.”
Instead of turning right toward her house, May turned left toward Back Beach at the far end of the island, taking the shortcut across what had once been a baseball diamond. The grass was higher here, matted in tangles, and they had to walk single file to stay on the path, which made it difficult to talk.
He could see a group of women standing around the foundation of the old house. They stepped back to make room when they saw him approach.
A few of the stronger women were standing inside the foundation, wearing hard hats and swinging sledgehammers, hitting the standing structure hard and watching it crumble. May motioned to one of them, who took off her hard hat and handed it to Rafferty. “This is what you want, isn’t it?” May asked.
He was momentarily speechless. He was relieved that May had finally consented to tear down that wreck of a house. But at the same time, seeing it actually happen brought up some difficult memories of the time he and Towner had separated and she’d moved back into that old house.
“Out of sight, out of mind.” May handed him a sledgehammer. “Your exact words.”
“She still won’t come for Christmas.”