The Secret Read online

  The Secret

  IT ALL BEGAN WITH THE BETRAYAL.

  When Susannah Goode is falsely accused of being a witch by her true love’s family—the Fiers—she is burned at the stake.

  Her father vows revenge, cursing Benjamin and Matthew Fier with a lifetime of unspeakable horror and bloody destruction.

  Poor Mary—the daughter of Matthew Fier is the first to bear the tragedy of the fatal evil. She learns the hard way that there is no end to the curse.

  Now the next generation—Ezra Fier and his children Jonathan, Abigail and Rachel—must face the Fier family curse and all the horror it brings!

  Books by R. L. Stine

  Fear Street

  THE NEW GIRL

  THE SURPRISE PARTY

  THE OVERNIGHT

  MISSING

  THE WRONG NUMBER

  THE SLEEPWALKER

  HAUNTED

  HALLOWEEN PARTY

  THE STEPSISTER

  SKI WEEKEND

  THE FIRE GAME

  LIGHTS OUT

  THE SECRET BEDROOM

  THE KNIFE

  PROM QUEEN

  FIRST DATE

  THE BEST FRIEND

  THE CHEATER

  SUNBURN

  Fear Street Super Chiller

  PARTY SUMMER

  SILENT NIGHT

  GOODNIGHT KISS

  BROKEN HEARTS

  Fear Street Cheerleaders

  THE FIRST EVIL

  THE SECOND EVIL

  THE THIRD EVIL

  The Fear Street Saga

  THE BETRAYAL

  THE SECRET

  Other Novels

  HOW I BROKE UP WITH ERNIE

  PHONE CALLS

  CURTAINS

  BROKEN DATE

  Available from ARCHWAY Paperbacks

  Most Archway Paperbacks are available at special quantity discounts for bulk purchases for sales promotions, premiums or fund raising. Special books or book excerpts can also be created to fit specific needs.

  For details write the office of the Vice President of Special Markets, Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020.

  The sale of this book without its cover is unauthorized. If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that it was reported to the publisher as “unsold and destroyed.” Neither the author nor the publisher has received payment for the sale of this “stripped book.”

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  AN ARCHWAY PAPERBACK Original

  An Archway Paperback published by

  POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster Inc.

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  Copyright © 1993 by Parachute Press, Inc.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  For information address Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  ISBN: 0-671-86832-2

  ISBN-13: 978-0-671-86832-1

  eISBN-13: 978-1-4424-0741-7

  First Archway Paperback printing September 1993

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  FEAR STREET is a registered trademark of Parachute Press, Inc.

  AN ARCHWAY PAPERBACK and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster Inc.

  Cover art by Bill Schmidt

  Printed in the U.S.A.

  IL 7+

  The Secret

  Village of Shadyside 1900

  Nora’s pen scratched against the paper. Dry again. Wearily she thought of dipping the point into the inkwell, changed her mind and, yawning, set the pen down on the small writing table.

  Just for a minute. Just for one minute’s rest…

  Her back ached and her fingers were cramped. She had been scribbling furiously all night by the light of a single candle.

  Nora knew she had to tell her story. And she had to tell it tonight.

  She touched the silver pendant that hung from a chain around her neck. Her fingers picked out the silver claws, the blue stones. Then fire appeared before her closed eyes, burning in her memory. Fire that burned the innocent Susannah Goode in 1692. Two hundred years of hatred and revenge followed Susannah’s death. And then, at last, the terrible fire that consumed the Fear mansion …

  Nora’s eyes filled with tears. Daniel … my Daniel …

  After so many fires, all was in ashes now.

  Sighing sadly, Nora dipped her pen into the inkwell. No time to rest. The story must be told.

  She heard a noise and stopped writing. She listened.

  Footsteps. Someone was coming!

  Her hands trembling, Nora frantically shoved the paper and ink into the desk drawer. No one must see this, she thought. No one can see it until it is finished. And it is far from finished. There are so many horrors left untold.

  So many horrors …

  She held her breath, listening. The footsteps moved closer, closer …

  PART ONE

  Wickham Village, Massachusetts Colony 1737

  Chapter 1

  VILLAGE OFWICKHAM.

  Jonathan Fier sighed with relief as the wagon rolled past the wooden sign. Their long journey was over at last.

  He glanced at his father sitting beside him on the box of the wagon. Ezra Fier’s face was haggard and drawn, but his black eyes sparked with excitement. He snapped the reins with renewed energy, and the chestnut horse trotted faster down the rutted, tree-lined road.

  “We are here, Jonathan,” Ezra said to his son. “After all those weeks in this wagon, we are finally in Wickham. George Goode is going to wish he had never been born.” Ezra’s voice dipped lower, almost to a whisper. “Revenge at last. It will be so sweet!”

  Jonathan felt a cold chill. Revenge. Revenge for what?

  I still do not understand, Jonathan thought. Who is George Goode? I have never even met anyone named Goode. Goodes have never done me any harm. So why did we have to leave the farm in Pennsylvania? Why have we spent the last six months driving east in this cramped and dirty old wagon?

  Jonathan stole a glance at his father’s gaunt face. We’ve come here to seek revenge against the Goodes, Papa says. Everything he does is for revenge.

  Sometimes I think Papa is crazy.

  Jonathan immediately wished he could take back that thought. How could I think such a thing? he scolded himself. He is my father. He cannot be crazy. There must be a reason for all the misery we have suffered. There must be.

  “I have searched for the Goodes through five colonies,” Ezra muttered. “And found no one. But now—” He paused to lift his hat and run a bony hand through his straight black hair. “Now I feel sure. I know they are here. I know I have found them at last.”

  “Ezra!” Jonathan’s mother called from the back of the wagon. “Please slow down. The girls are being tossed all around!”

  Ezra scowled and pulled on the reins. Jonathan turned on the box and looked back into the covered wagon.

  His mother, Jane, and his two sisters, Abigail and Rachel, were huddled back there, along with all the family’s possessions: pots and pans, dishes, utensils, clothes, blankets, the Fier family Bible, and the little food they had left.

  “We have arrived, Mama,” Jonathan said quietly. He wondered whether she would be glad or sorry.

  “Hurrah!” cried three-year-old Rachel, clapping her hands. She was a chubby angel in a homespun muslin shift with a mop of blond curls peeking out from under her cap.

  Jane Fier only nodded. She was fair, with worry lines beside her clear
blue eyes. She wore a printed linen dress and a loose white cap.

  “I will be so happy to leave this wagon,” said Abigail, a red-haired eight-year-old with mischievous blue eyes. She wore a blue- and white-striped linen dress and a white cap with blue ribbons. She looked up to her brother, Jonathan, who at almost twelve was nearly grown up. “Mama, will we be able to stop for good this time? Will we be able to sleep in a bed tonight?”

  “I hope so, Abigail,” Jane said.

  “I will ask Papa,” Abigail said.

  She started for the front of the wagon, but her mother pulled her back.

  “Do not bother Papa about that now,” Jane whispered He has other matters on his mind.”

  He al“ways has other matters on his mind, Jonathan thought with some bitterness. Or rather, one other matter.

  Jonathan faced front again and lowered his black hat over his eyes. He wore his long brown hair tied back. His white linen shirt was dirty from weeks of traveling, and he was growing out of his brown homespun waistcoat and knee breeches.

  As soon as we settle down, he thought, Mama will have to make me some new clothes.

  No one passed them as they rolled down the leafy lane toward the village—not on horseback or on foot. It seems strangely quiet here, Jonathan thought. It is not the Sabbath. Where is everyone?

  At last he saw a carriage up ahead. It was headed toward them on its way out of town.

  Jonathan kept his eyes on the carriage as they approached it. It was shiny and black, a fancy carriage for rich people.

  But, wait, he thought. The carriage is not moving. And where are the horses?

  Something is wrong, he realized.

  Something is terribly wrong.

  The Fiers’ wagon drew closer. Jonathan could now see two horses, but they were lying on the ground. Are they hurt? he wondered, leaning so far forward he nearly fell. Are they dead?

  Closer.

  A foul smell invaded Jonathan’s nostrils. He nearly gagged.

  He could see the horses clearly now. Long dead. Their flesh was rotting, their bones shoving up through the decaying skin.

  “Ohhh!”

  Jonathan heard his mother utter a cry of shock. He glanced back into the wagon. She had pulled his two sisters close and was covering their eyes.

  Ezra slowed the wagon but did not stop.

  Why was it left here on the road? Jonathan wondered. Why would people abandon such a fine carriage?

  The wagon wheels creaked as they pulled close enough for Jonathon to see inside the carriage.

  To his astonishment, the carriage was not empty.

  Three women were inside, dressed in gowns of fine silk and white lace caps.

  Jonathan stared hard at the women. Their faces.

  The faces were purple, nothing but bone and chunks of decaying flesh, poking out from beneath their fancy caps.

  They’re dead, Jonathan realized, covering his nose with his hand. And they’ve been dead a long, long time.

  Rotting corpses, going nowhere in a fancy carriage.

  Chapter 2

  Jonathan stifled a cry and covered his face with both hands.

  Why have these decaying bodies been left here? he wondered. Why have the villagers not taken them away to be buried?

  Was the carriage and its rotting cargo left here as a warning?

  Stay away!

  Still holding his breath from the stench, Jonathan turned to gaze at his father.

  Ezra was staring intently into the carriage window. Was he shocked by the figures inside? Jonathan could not tell. His father’s face revealed no emotion.

  “Ezra—” Jane pleaded, her voice tight and shrill. “Turn back. We cannot stay here. That carriage. Those women. I have such a bad feeling.”

  Ezra turned and silently glared at her in answer. She kept her eyes leveled on him defiantly. Then, without a word, he snapped the reins and urged the horse forward. They headed into town.

  Ezra guided the wagon into the village common and stopped.

  Jonathan glanced around.

  No sign of life. Not another person in sight.

  Jonathan could hold the questions back no longer. “Papa, why are we here? Why are we searching for the Goodes? What did they do to you?”

  “Jonathan, hush!” his mother cried. Her eyes were wide with fright and warning.

  For a moment no one spoke. Jonathan turned from his mother back to his father. What have I done? he wondered. What will Papa do to me?

  Then Ezra spoke. “He is old enough now, Jane. He is right to ask these questions. He must know the truth.”

  With a groan Ezra climbed down from the wagon and beckoned to his son. “Come with me, boy.”

  “I will come, too!” said Abigail.

  Her mother pulled her back inside. “No, Abigail. You will stay here with me.”

  Jonathan followed Ezra across the common. He stopped short when he saw a man locked in the stocks, his head and hands thrust through the three holes in the wooden frame. His eyes were open and staring but empty. Dead.

  Jonathan’s stomach lurched. “Papa—” he managed to choke out.

  But Ezra strode quickly past the wide-eyed corpse. “Our family once lived here, in Wickham,” Ezra told Jonathan. “My grandfather was the magistrate. Everyone knew him and his brother to be good and righteous men. But that very righteousness ruined their lives.”

  How could that be? Jonathan wondered. But he said nothing.

  “Witches were discovered in Wickham. My grandfather had them burned at the stake. Two of them were Susannah and Martha Goode. They were put on trial by my grandfather, found guilty, and burned.”

  Now Jonathan swallowed hard. “Your grandfather—he—he burned people at the stake?”

  “Not people—witches!” Ezra boomed. “Vile and evil creatures of the devil!” Ezra paused, breathing hard. “My grandfather and his brother did their duty.”

  Jonathan shuddered at the thought of women being burned alive. But he said nothing.

  “Our family moved from Wickham to Pennsylvania,” Ezra continued, calmer now. “But William Goode, the father of Susannah, the husband of Martha, followed them. He believed his wife and daughter to be innocent. Driven by revenge, William used dark powers against my grandfather and his family.

  “William disguised himself as a young man. He took advantage of my aunt Mary’s innocence and—” Ezra paused again, searching for words.

  “And what, Papa?”

  “William Goode destroyed our family. He killed my grandfather and my mother. The rest he drove insane. I found my great-uncle and his wife buried behind a brick wall—nothing left of them but bones.”

  Jonathan gasped. This was his family history! And it was the reason behind his father’s obsession. Itexplained why his father hated the Goodes with such passion.

  Still, something did not make sense to Jonathan. In his almost twelve years, Jonathan had never seen a sign of this William Goode or his black magic.

  No member of the Goode family had ever appeared during Jonathan’s life to seek revenge against the Fiers. So why was Ezra keeping the evil feud alive? Why was Ezra determined to spend his life searching for Goodes?

  “Papa,” Jonathan asked hesitantly, “is William Goode still alive?”

  “I do not know,” Ezra replied bitterly. “He would be very old. I do know he had a son, George. George lived in Wickham once. I am hoping—”

  He did not finish the sentence, but Jonathan knew what he was hoping. He hoped to find this George Goode, or other Goodes, and bring them misery.

  And that is why we have come to Wickham, Jonathan realized.

  But so far we have not seen a living soul. Only corpses.

  This town must be cursed.

  “Come,” Ezra said. “We will go to the tavern and ask after the Goodes.” Ezra led Jonathan up the tavern steps.

  The innkeeper will tell us what has happened, Jonathan thought. Innkeepers always know the news.

  Ezra opened the taver
n door. They stepped inside.

  The room was empty. The fireplace stood cold and dark, the tables covered with dust and cobwebs. Plates of food had rotted on one of the tables. It may have been a meal of roast lamb and a pudding. Rats scurried around the table, gnawing at the mold-covered meal.

  Ezra grunted unhappily, his features set in disappointment. Jonathan saw a pile of dust-covered letters on the bar, probably left there for the villagers to pick up. The letters had been delivered a long time ago.

  The floorboards creaked under Ezra’s boots as he walked over to the bar to sort through the letters. About halfway through the pile, he stopped. He rubbed the dust from the front of the envelope and carefully studied the address.

  “Papa?” said Jonathan.

  Ezra looked up at his son. “Go find the village magistrate’s house,” he ordered. “Ask if the magistrate will see me. I will be along in a minute.”

  “Yes, sir,” Jonathan replied meekly and walked quickly from the tavern. Outside he hesitated.

  Where could he find the magistrate? The street was empty. There was no one to ask.

  Then he spotted a large house on the other side of the common. It was the grandest house in the village, sided with clapboards weathered brown, and enclosed by an unpainted picket fence. It stood two stories tall, with glass windows and two chimneys.

  This must be the magistrate’s house, Jonathan told himself, making his way across the common, half-walking, half-running. It felt good to run after his long journey.

  Jonathan lifted the heavy brass door knocker and let it drop. No answer. How strange that such a fine house should have a broken parlor window, he thought.

  He cupped his hand around his eyes and peered through the window beside the door. The parlor was dark.

  He turned the doorknob and uttered a soft cry of surprise when the door opened easily at his touch.

  “Hello?” he called. His voice echoed through the house.

  Jonathan quietly stepped inside. “Hello?” he repeated in a trembling voice. “I am here to see the magistrate.”

  The house remained silent. Jonathan made his way into the parlor. The heavy thud of his boots on the floorboards was the only sound. “Hello?”