Gallows Hill Part 13

"I am no more a witch than you are, Reverend!" the woman screamed at him.

There followed a moment of silence in which it seemed that n.o.body breathed, a moment in which all motion appeared to be suspended, as if a projector had frozen on a single frame of a movie too horrible to continue. Then the projector abruptly sprang back into action as the hangman shoved the woman from the ladder and the hysterical cheers of the crowd blasted Sarah awake.

Those sounds continued as she lay there, shuddering in the darkness, wondering if she had brought back the sound track from the dream and would continue to hear it ringing in her ears for all eternity. Then, with relief, she realized that she was hearing Yowler, who was making the distinctive demands for attention that had earned him his name.

Still shaken and sick from the nightmare, Sarah got out of bed and stumbled across the dark bedroom to the door and down the hall to let the cat out into the front yard. Then she returned to bed, and again felt sleep overwhelming her, but this time she gratefully sank into dreamless oblivion. She slept the rest of the night as heavily as if she had been drugged with sleeping pills, waking again at last to a rap on her door.

When she didn't respond, the door opened and Rosemary came in.

"Sarah," she asked softly, "are you all right?"

"I'm fine," Sarah said in a voice m.u.f.fled with sleep.

"You normally don't sleep in like this. It's after eleven."

"I didn't sleep well last night," Sarah said. "I'm catching up."

"Ted and I are getting ready to take his kids out to lunch. Are you sure you don't want to come with us?"

"After last night?" Sarah asked incredulously.

"I just thought-oh, honey, I'm sorry that things got out of hand that way. There has to be some explanation. ..."

"There is," Sarah said. "It's that everybody else is lying, and I'm telling the truth. The truth right now is that I want to go back to sleep." She flipped over onto her side with her back to her mother, and after a long period of silence she heard the door click closed.

She tried to burrow back into sleep, but this time it was impossible. She finally gave up the effort and simply lay there with her eyes closed, listening for sounds of Ted and Rosemary's departure. It was only after she heard Ted's car go crunching out of the driveway that she got up and opened the blinds. The broad light of day revealed nothing fearsome, either outside or inside the bedroom. There was no mysterious vehicle stationed at the curb. The nightmare had been only a replay of a chapter from a book that she planned never to open again. The paperweight lay on the desk where she had dropped it the night before, an innocent globe of clear crystal, converting the sunbeams that streamed through the window into rainbows.

Sarah pulled on jeans and a sweatshirt and went out to the kitchen. A box of doughnuts sat open on the table, and Rosemary had left a pot of coffee on the warmer. Yowler appeared out of nowhere, demanding his own brunch. She poured herself a cup of coffee and sipped it as she opened a can of cat food.

Everything seemed so normal. The tick of the wall clock that had been in their kitchen in California. The aroma of Rosemary's overly strong coffee, enhanced with a dash of vanilla. The purr of the tattered-eared cat, reacting to the buzz of the electric can opener. Was it possible that last night had been as terrifying as she remembered?

"It was all in my head," Sarah told herself, knowing that it wasn't.

A friendly ding-dong shattered the silence of the house.

Sarah jumped at the unexpected sound. In the three months they had lived there, the only time she had heard the sound of the doorbell was when Eric had come by to pick her up. Aside from that, there had been n.o.body who called on them, not even a cosmetics salesman or a door-to-door missionary. For all practical purposes, she and her mother were pariahs.

Setting the coffee cup down, she went into the entrance hall and peered out through the peephole. The face she saw there, distorted as if seen through the wrong end of a telescope, was nevertheless familiar and nonthreatening.

She quickly unlocked the door and opened it.

"Whatever you're selling, we don't want any," she said to Charlie, trying not to reveal how glad she was to see him.

"Oh, I think you do," he said easily. "I got my paycheck this morning, and I'm here to fill your wallet with beautiful green stuff. Besides, I couldn't wait until Monday to hear what happened when you told your folks about the crow."

"Come on in," Sarah said. "I've got the house to myself for a change." She led him back to the kitchen and motioned him into a chair. "Help yourself to a doughnut. I'm really glad you came by. But-number one, you don't have to fill my wallet; let's split the money. And-number two-Ted didn't believe a thing I told him. Not about the crow, and not even about the fortune-telling. As for my mother, she didn't stick up for me. I couldn't prove anything. Eric and Kyra denied everything."

"I'll back you up," Charlie said.

"That wouldn't do any good. You didn't see the crow, I just told you about it, and you never went to Ted's apartment. For all you know, I was making everything up. The worst of it is, I think Ted's convinced my mother that I'm crazy. No, actually, that's not the worst of it." She forced herself to speak the words that had been lurking like monsters in a hidden closet of her mind. "The worst of it is that I'm starting to believe that he's right."

"That's stupid," Charlie said. "You're anything but crazy."

"If I'm not, then that's even worse." Sarah's voice was shaking. "That would mean I'm a witch, just like Debbie and Misty and the rest of them seem to think I am. When I stare into that crystal ball, I see things! It's not a pretense, Charlie! I mean, some of it is, but not all of it. I see future events, and they happen!

"I know," Charlie said.

"You know? But how-?"

"When you told my fortune at the carnival, you looked into that ball and saw somebody trip me. It startled you so much that you couldn't even finish the reading."

"But I was wrong," Sarah said. "You told me you stumbled on the stairs."

"I lied," Charlie said.

"You lied!" Sarah exclaimed. "But why? Were you trying to protect somebody?"

"Myself." Charlie couldn't meet her eyes. "Even fat people have their pride. It's embarra.s.sing to admit to a pretty girl that you're the school goat that the kids play tricks on."

"Then I am a witch," Sarah whispered, beginning to tremble. No wonder her cla.s.smates were drawing back from her in horror! No wonder they wanted to drive her out of their town!

"That's ridiculous," Charlie said. "You're no more a witch than those people who were hanged in Salem. The people who convicted them were victims of ma.s.s hysteria. When they came to their senses, they realized the *afflicted children' were liars. In the next set of trials everybody was found innocent, and Governor Phips released all the people who were in prison."

"But if this thing that I'm doing isn't witchcraft, then what is it?"

"It's called scrying," Charlie said. "Like I told you once, the crystal ball has no magical powers. It's just a tool for meditation."

"I don't understand," Sarah said, feeling slightly less terrified. "What's *scrying'? I've never even heard of it."

"Lots of people see visions when they stare into shiny surfaces like crystals, or mirrors, or bodies of water," Charlie explained. "Remember how the West Indian servant taught Betty Parris and her cousin how to break an egg into a gla.s.s of water to see visions of their future husbands? They were using the white of an egg in a clear container as a subst.i.tute for a crystal ball. When people stare into something intently like that, they're more than likely to see images. For people with psychic ability, those images may sometimes reflect past or future events. There's nothing supernatural about it, it's just what happens."

"Do you think I have psychic ability?"

"I guess you must," Charlie said matter-of-factly. "It runs in families. Do your parents or grandparents have it?"

"Not that I know of, but it's not impossible," Sarah said. "The paperweight belonged to a grandmother who died before I was born, so I have no idea what she used it for. You said past or future events?"

"It could go either way, I guess, though it's usually precognitive."

"But a person might see a vision of something that's already happened?"

"That's certainly possible."

Sarah drew a long breath of relief. If the image of the girl in the noose was a vision from the past, then the resemblance to her might only have been coincidence.

"How do you know about things like that?" she asked Charlie.

"I read," he told her. "My folks have a lot of books. I told you about that catalog I get from Arizona. I sent away for a home study course on audiobook, and that got me on their mailing list."

"What kind of home study course?" Sarah asked with interest.

"Weight loss by self-hypnosis," Charlie said with embarra.s.sment. "Needless to say, the CDs didn't do the job. I got pretty good at hypnosis-even got my mom to stop smoking-but I couldn't make it work for myself. I figure I must have brought these extra pounds into the world from a former lifetime, and I won't be able to get rid of them until I complete my karma. I sure hope I get that done before I'm too old to enjoy all the perks of being handsome. I liked that reading you did about my jaunt on the cruise ship."

"You're joking," Sarah said.

"For a change I'm serious."

"I can't believe you actually believe in reincarnation!"

"There's been a lot of research on the subject that's pretty convincing," Charlie said. "Would you like to trade in that witch-hunt book for a reincarnation book?"

"I have to admit you've made me curious," Sarah answered.

"I've got Mom's car. If you like, we can go over to my house and you can take your pick of the books in the Gorman library. That is, if you don't have plans. ..."

"Not a thing," Sarah said. He had made her feel so much better that it was all she could do to keep from hugging him. His description of scrying had made it sound like a normal, if not exactly commonplace, ability, like wiggling your ears or touching your nose with your tongue. And the thought that the horrible image she had seen in the paperweight might have been a reflection of an event from the past rather than a prediction of something that was destined to happen was extremely comforting.

She went back to her room to collect the library book and then accompanied Charlie out to the station wagon. Yowler sidled out into the yard behind them and fell into a pantherlike pose at the sight of a row of crows on a telephone wire.

That same sight snapped Sarah back to the question that was yet unanswered.

"What do you think I should do about the crow in my locker?" she asked as she settled herself in the pa.s.senger's seat and Charlie started the engine. "If n.o.body's willing to believe me-"

"You've got to make them believe you," Charlie said. "You can't just let this slide by like it never happened."

"You didn't make an issue of the fish in your locker."

"That wasn't the same. I didn't have to convince people. Mr. Prue could smell it all the way down the hall."

"He told me you laughed it off."

"In my case that seemed like the sensible thing. The fish was a joke, not a threat. And it wasn't an organized effort, it was done on impulse. When the guys didn't get a rise out of me, they gave up. It wasn't an escalating thing like the scaffold and the crow."

"You don't think tripping you and breaking your arm is worth mentioning?"

"That could have been done accidentally."

"Oh, Charlie," Sarah said softly, her heart aching for him.

"No sweat," Charlie said with a shrug. "Those jocks are in the habit of shoving people around. It's what they do on the football field. But the sketch and the crow are something different. You've got to convince your mom and Mr. Thompson to take those seriously. Certainly your mom."

A few minutes later he slowed the car and pulled into a driveway next to a small stucco house very much like the one Rosemary and Sarah were renting, except that instead of front steps this house had a ramp.

"My dad's in a wheelchair," Charlie said, antic.i.p.ating the question. "I'm glad you're going to get to meet him. He doesn't get out much, and it's a special event when we have company. But I've got to warn you, he's a character, so don't let him throw you."

They got out of the car, and Charlie led the way up the walkway to the house.

As soon as they stepped through the door, the explanation for Charlie's fund of knowledge about unusual subjects became apparent. The people in this house were obviously voracious readers. One whole wall of the living room was lined with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, and another wall held shelves to the level of a window ledge. Even the tables at either end of the sofa had shelves built into them to house tall books that wouldn't fit easily on conventional-sized shelves.

"Mom? Dad?" Charlie called. "We've got company!"

The woman Sarah had met throwing papers on the first day after Charlie's injury emerged from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dish towel.

"Sarah!" she exclaimed. "How nice! I was wondering when Charlie was going to get around to inviting you over!"

"Don't tell me it's Sarah the Marvelous and Magnificent!" a man's voice called from the back of the house. "Am I finally going to get a look at the wondrous young woman who causes our son to whistle arias as he folds his stack of papers?"

Mrs. Gorman exclaimed, "Ed, really!" and Charlie looked as if he wanted to sink through the floor as a bearded man in a motorized wheelchair came zooming out of a hallway that Sarah a.s.sumed led back to a den or a bedroom.

"I hope you'll forgive him, Sarah," Mrs. Gorman said apologetically. "My husband's a terrible tease. He's also a maniac driver, so be ready to leap out of the way, or you'll have bruises on your kneecaps."

"I'm sorry, Sarah, I didn't mean to embarra.s.s you," Mr. Gorman said with a good-natured smile that was much like Charlie's. "Is it permissible to say that now that I see you in person, I'm overwhelmed by my son's good taste? And my wife is totally wrong about my skills as a driver. I a.s.sure you, you're safe in our home. Just stand close to the walls and suck in your stomach as I whiz by."

"You don't scare me," Sarah said, attempting a smile, but not quite able to pull it off. Not when confronted so suddenly with the sight of two empty trouser legs knotted at the knees to prevent them from becoming tangled in the wheels of the chair.

"Charlie didn't tell you?" Mr. Gorman asked, his voice going suddenly gentle. "Son, I just wish you'd learn that it's a kindness to totally prepare people instead of doing a halfway job of it. When you do that, they expect to find me in a leg cast. Sarah, please, don't be upset. It was just an accident at work. I a.s.sure you the condition isn't catching."

"Have you kids had lunch yet?" Mrs. Gorman asked, stepping in with practiced efficiency to redirect the conversation to a happier topic. I have a pot of soup on the stove, and I was just getting ready to dish it up. Please, stay and join us, Sarah. Charlie tells us you're from California, but that's a ma.s.sive state. Whereabouts did you live? Were you lucky enough to be by the water?"

A few minutes later Sarah found herself at the table in the Gormans' cheery blue and yellow kitchen, swallowing homemade vegetable soup and telling them all about a place called Ventura where the air smelled of salt and sea foam and the winter was heralded by orange blossoms.

CHAPTER.

SIXTEEN.

"WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL me?" Sarah asked when they were back in the station wagon headed for her house. "That bookstore that was burned down-your parents were the owners! It was your father who was burned so badly that his legs were amputated!"

"At the time it didn't seem necessary to tell you," Charlie said. "It isn't something you talk about to somebody you hardly know."

"But since then we've gotten to be friends!"

"We've had other things to talk about. And the truth is, Sarah, it's a subject that's hard for me to handle. My dad wasn't an unathletic klutz like I am; he used to play tournament tennis. And he loved to dance. He and my mom used to roll up the rugs-we had rugs back then, when we didn't have to keep the floors clear for the wheelchair-and they'd dance at night after dinner. And they wouldn't pull the shades. I sometimes think that's what made people madder than anything. Not only were my folks *evil' because they sold unconventional books, they were *evil' because they had unconventional fun together."

"How can they stand to keep living here?" Sarah asked him. "Your father can't work-"

"He does better than you'd think," Charlie said. "He writes book reviews for some pretty prestigious magazines. And Mom works as a bookkeeper. We manage."

"What made you suddenly decide that you wanted me to meet them?"

"It just seemed important. I wanted you to see for yourself what can happen when small-town fanatics go crazy."