The Hand of Catherine May

It started off as an innocent skipping rhyme. 'CATHERINE MAY CASTS SPELLS ALL DAY, AND SHE HAUNTS YOUR DREAMS AT NIGHT, DON'T YOU PLAY WITH CATHERINE MAY, OR, YOU MAY DIE OF FRIGHT. CATHERINE MAY, THE COLD WIND CALLS, AS YOU'RE LYING IN YOUR BED, SHE'S THE WITCH OF JOHNSON FALLS, AND, IN THE MORNING YOU'LL BE DEAD'. The story begins in the late 18th Century, when Jacob Johnson and his family sail to America. He hopes to buy some land. He is cheated by a crooked Land Agent, and ends up finding work as a stagecoach driver. He discovers a beautiful valley, and establishes, and runs, a successful new Stagecoach stop. Then, the Blackwood family arrive, they are welcomed into the community. Their daughter Catherine May is, viewed with suspicion. Some people feel a strange tingling sensation whenever she is around, and then two of her classmates are killed, in very strange circumstances. Although Catherine May is present at the events, reliable witnesses agree, that she was always too far away to have caused the tragedies. Then the children begin singing the skipping rhyme during playtimes, and Catherine is angry. Catherine loses part of an index finger after jamming it in a door, but she is grateful for the time off school. She begins to wonder if the children are right, is she a witch? Can she really move things just by thinking about them? Can she transfer her thoughts into other people's heads? More deaths occur, and Catherine May haunts Jacob's dreams, and he fears she knows about his terrible secrets. He begins to persuade everyone to believe the witch stories. A group of monks arrive, and inform Jacob that Luke Blackwood and his wife Rachel, were novices in a Draconian Order, and had run away from the church, ten years ago. Luke and Rachel Blackwood are sadly shot by two lawmen, after being tipped off by Jacob, as they were trying to leave town. Jacob discovers an old County law concerning witches that has not been repealed, and sees this as a solution to the problem of Catherine. He persuades the Town Council to put Catherine on trial as a witch. She is found guilty, and burned at the stake, but something strange happens during the burning, and her soul has not been 'cleansed'. Catherine is buried beside her parents, in secret, at a desolate place outside the town. The unexplainable killings continue, and Jacob's nightmares get worse, he is convinced Catherine is a lost soul, in limbo, who is wandering around the town, seeking revenge. Then Jacob is killed when his own statue that he had erected in Main Street, falls on him. When his widow visits his grave, she is shocked to find the imprint of a child's hand on the headstone. The imprint has part of a finger missing. It begins to appear on all the victims' graves. It's the Hand of Catherine May. The Reverend Thomas Day believes the handprint is Catherine's ultimate revenge, and that it's a curse put on the headstones to stop the deceased's souls leaving the grave. He tries out a theory, and the killings stop. The town, in time, begins to forget about the trouble and returns to some kind of normality. The story moves to present day Johnson Falls, and it is still a thriving town, but the grisly killings start again, has Catherine may returned to exact her reve