The Last Days of Dogtown

“She did hear voices,” Tammy nodded at the fire.

“They got louder in winter, telling her which paths to take and which to let alone. Lucy said the voices told her how to charm animals and how to sour milk, how to frighten men into leaving her be.” Tammy laughed about that. “Lucy was ugly as a flounder. Uglier! And no smile ever crossed that face, neither. Not that I saw. And why should it, eh? She ate no meat and drank nothing stronger than water. Why smile, indeed.”

Lucy had little use for human company. She hated men most and children only a little less. When the constable knocked on Lucy’s door with Tammy—orphaned by smallpox—Lucy thought long and hard about dropping

the toddling girl into the millpond and having done with the bother. That’s what Lucy used to say any time little Tammy asked for a bite to eat or a blanket or anything at all.

“I should’ve drowned you then,” said Lucy. “I’ll throw you down there, yet.”

Tammy soon discovered that Lucy wasn’t going to

drown her, or lock her in the root cellar, or hang her by her thumbs for taking an apple from the barrel. The girl took her share of beatings before she figured out how to sneak what she needed without getting caught, but after that, weeks could pass without Lucy saying a word to her.

Eventually

her aunt’s threats were the only way that Tammy was sure Lucy remembered she was still there.

There was no mention of school, so Tammy never did learn to read or figure on paper, though she knew how to count what was hers. She studied the way Lucy took care of herself, and no one ever cheated Tammy Younger on a trade, either.

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A N I T A D I A M A N T

In those days, the main road from Gloucester to

Riverview and Annisquam crossed over a bridge on Lucy’s property. Her house was so close to the crossing, passersby could count the hairs on Lucy’s chin through the window she’d cut into the wall so she could keep a watch over the traffic. Whenever she heard footsteps, she’d fling the shutter open so hard, it made a sound as loud as gunshot, startling the animals and rattling the men. If she spied a loaded wagon, she’d jump right through the window, quick as a fox. Crossing her arms, she’d stand with her chin out staring down the horse or ox, face-to-face, till she got what she wanted.

“Once, I watched her put a hex on old man Babcock’s prize ox team,” Tammy slurred one night, when she was deep into her cups. “They stood there, tongues hanging out like they might up and die. Babcock nearly shit himself, I tell you. Then he commenced to begging like a little girl.

‘Oh please, oh please, Miss Lucy, let me go and I’ll keep you in firewood all winter.’

“I once saw her jinx a whole load of pumpkins,”

Tammy said. “Fell right off a wagon and rolled against the house in a line, neat as you please. That farmer lit out of there fast as a bat.

“But the real truth is that Lucy didn’t need magic to get her way.” Tammy drew her shawl around her. “She would swear the dirtiest oaths and shame the men into giving her what she wanted. And for the women, well, she knew the stories that no one wanted told, like who was having a six-month baby and who was seen walking with a married man in the dark of the moon. Everyone knew to bring a few apples or a twist of tobacco if they wanted speedy passage and their secrets kept close.”

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The L A S T D AY S of D O G TOW N

When Lucy died in her sleep, peaceful as a parson, Tammy took over the spot at the window and let it be known that there was still a price to pay for crossing the bridge. And while no one ever saw Tammy charm a

pumpkin or hex an ox, she inherited her aunt’s foul mouth and taste for blackmail, and nobody cared to test her powers.

By the time Oliver came along, the shore road had opened.

There were few travelers over the bridge and Tammy found it much more difficult to extort enough to live on and rarely got the chance to scare little girls, whom she liked to grab by the wrist and invite inside “for tea.”

Tammy was bred to be a mean old woman, but unlike Lucy, she did have one passion: she lived for her meals, and sweets most of all. Maple sugar or molasses, she licked the spoon, the bowl, her fingers, gurgling like a baby. A cup of chocolate sent Tammy’s heart racing, and she would hold the mug upside down and lick the dregs, tears of happiness at the corners of her small, round, bluebonnet eyes.

The nights when she was in the worst agonies from her toothaches, she’d swallow four glasses of rum and talk about the first time she had sugar in her mouth. Anne Wharf had set a cup on her table, getting ready to make a pie, when Tammy walked in, grabbed it, and ran for the woods. She’d stuck her finger into the white powder and then into her mouth, again and again, until it was gone. It was her first memory of any sort of happiness. Even when her teeth were rotting and sugar caused them to throb, she would not stop.

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