She couldn’t help noticing that there wasn’t another car in sight, and she shivered.
She turned her radio up and stepped harder on the gas.
Suddenly her car began to sputter. She stepped harder on the gas, but the engine quit, and she rolled slowly to a halt. At least she managed to steer the car onto the shoulder first.
Swearing, she looked at the gas gauge. It was on empty. She could have sworn that the tank had been full when she left. Then again, she’d been gone for weeks, so she could have forgotten—just as Ginny had no doubt forgotten to turn on the light. But she didn’t believe it.
“I know I filled that damned gas tank,” she muttered.
No problem. She had AAA. All she had to do was call, and eventually someone would make it out to her.
Swearing, she put through the call. The dispatcher promised that someone would be out within the hour. Then she called Joe, and told him where she was and what had happened. “I’m glad I got started early,” she told him.
“You need to keep a better eye on that gas tank,” Joe said. “Well, thank the good Lord that it’s daytime and you’re not stuck out there in the dark.”
“What could happen to me in a cornfield anyway?” But even as she asked the question, she felt a chill of foreboding settling over her.
“You call me when that AAA guy gets out there with your gas, you hear?”
“Will do,” she promised, and hung up, then glanced at her watch. It was only ten past eleven. She didn’t have to worry about calling Jeremy, since he wasn’t expecting her until two.
She leaned her head back, but that only gave her an all-too-clear view of the surrounding cornfields, so she closed her eyes.
It didn’t matter. She still saw nothing but rows and rows of cornstalks.
Irritated with herself, she opened her eyes, stormed out of the car and stared at the cornfield.
“You’re nothing but a bunch of corn on the freakin’ cob,” she said aloud.
But as she stood on the shoulder and stared at the field stretching out to the horizon, the wind began to whisper.
Looking up, she saw crows.
She started when one landed on the hood of her car.
“Scat, you black rodent!” she yelled, waving her hands at the bird.
It looked at her and cawed accusingly, then flew off.
She followed its path across the sky as it went to join its fellows. A hundred of them—or it seemed like it, anyway. They were circling a spot not all that far from the road, maybe only twenty or so rows back.
She closed her eyes. “No,” she whispered passionately. “I’m not going.”
But then she opened her eyes again and, swearing, started to push her way through the corn.
6
“Jeremy, how nice to see you.”
Eve Llewellyn gave him the same genuine smile she had offered the night before.
“And you, too, Brad,” she added, giving him a warm hug. As she pulled away, she looked at both of them anxiously. “Anything new?”
“We’re hoping you can help us with that,” Jeremy said.
“You don’t think we’ve already told the police everything we know?” Eve asked.
“Everything,” Adam repeated.
“I just thought that maybe, with the three of you here together, you might think of something else,” Jeremy suggested, looking curiously around the shop. Porcelain fairies dangled from delicate wires, and velvet cloaks were displayed on mannequins that were more realistic than many of the wax characters Jeremy had seen in the museums earlier. One rack displayed small bottles of potions, while another featured colored stones, whose labels promised they would bring power and wealth and all kinds of other things, waiting to be packed into small velvet bags. There were wind chimes, kitchen witches, books and more. Celtic music played softly in the background. Several of the displays featured carefully arranged autumn leaves, the real thing, and the candles that burned throughout the store scented the air with the unmistakable fragrance of pumpkin pie. In a nod to the upcoming holiday, Pilgrims adorned the shelves, along with other timely objets d’art.
“Well, let’s see,” Eve said, and looked at Brad. “The two of you—you and your wife—came in, and you were looking at the lithographs over there, right?” She nodded in the direction of several framed pictures.
“Yes,” Brad said. “Mary especially liked the one of the woman sitting in the moonlight, playing the harp, because she said she has the grace of a dancer.”
“Yes, we talked about it, I remember,” Eve said.
“Then we started chatting about Sammhein—what you call Halloween,” Adam said, unwrapping a stick of gum and sticking it in his mouth.
Eve frowned slightly, as if she were remembering the day more clearly. “We talked about how commercial things have become, and what a rip-off some of the new horror houses are. What some of those places charge for a two-minute walk-through, a couple of cheap 3-D effects and a few people in bad masks is just outrageous.”
“And people line up to pay it,” Adam said, shaking his head in amazement.
“We talked about how we’d been through some of them already,” Brad said. “And then we talked about the museums we’d liked.”
“Then we talked about the House of the Seven Gables,” Eve said, “and you said you were going to do that another day, when you’d have more time. And then I read Mary’s palm and saw that she was going to be a success as a dancer. The second I touched her hand, I could feel how talented she was, how full of life—”
Eve broke off abruptly, looking stricken at her choice of words. Life. She had said life.
And for all they knew, Mary was dead.
“I think we suggested that they eat at Red’s,” Adam said awkwardly into the silence.
“Did you also suggest that they go anywhere else for a reading?” Jeremy asked.
Adam’s forehead furrowed in thought. “I think we talked about how there were plenty of readers at the psychic fair set up over on the mall.”
“And we said we were already going over there,” Brad said.
“Did either of you know the guy the police can’t find? Name of Damien? Didn’t have a permit…”
“I saw him outside his tent one time,” Eve said, then hesitated, looking troubled, before she went on. “He had a…smirk on his face. I didn’t like the look of him.”
“Can you describe him?” Jeremy asked.
“Tall,” Eve said. “Thin. And kind of exotic-looking, not just because he was wearing a turban, of all things. And I think he was wearing eye makeup, and maybe some kind of bronzer, too.”
“What I wish I understood was how he created the effects in that crystal ball of his,” Brad said. “He really freaked Mary out. We saw different things, which was weird. I saw the first Thanksgiving, and it seemed so real that I swear I could smell the turkey. And…then it got ugly, with people pulling out knives, like they were ready to kill someone. To tell you the truth, I thought it was scary, and I don’t scare easily. Jeremy, you know that.”
“Yes, I know,” Jeremy assured him.
“There was something really creepy about this guy, I’m telling you,” Brad insisted.
“Maybe that’s why he’s so hard to locate, because he’s avoiding the police,” Jeremy said, and looked back at the Llewellyns. “What time did you two leave the store? Do you stay open late on Halloween, till midnight or anything?”
“Of course not,” Eve said.
“Why not?” Jeremy asked. “I mean, wouldn’t you get tons of business?”
“We’re not entirely about money,” Eve said, indignant.
“I wasn’t suggesting that you were,” Jeremy said. “Everyone has to make a living.”
“We closed a little early that day, actually, because we were joining the rest of the wiccan community for the march to Gallows Hill. It’s a Sammhein tradition. I think we closed at about four, right, Adam?” she asked, turning toward her husband.
Jere
my thought there was some message in the way she was looking at Adam. Wouldn’t she have known when they closed without asking him?
Unless she’d been somewhere else at the time…?
As he looked at the two of them, he wondered if theirs was a marriage made in heaven, or if the two wiccans, just like everyone else, had encountered a few bumps in their relationship.
“We closed at four, yes,” Adam said.
“And then?” Jeremy asked politely.
“And then?” Eve repeated. “Then we went to meet up with the others. Like I said, it was Sammhein. A big night for us.”
“A lot of people wearing cloaks, I imagine,” Jeremy said.
“Of course,” Eve agreed. “Oh!” she exclaimed. “You think that whoever kidnapped Mary—whether it was that fortune-teller or someone else—just put on a cloak and blended in with everyone else.”
“And maybe he could have hidden Mary under a cloak and forced her along with him,” Brad said.
Jeremy was startled just then when his phone rang. He excused himself to answer it and was surprised to discover that Detective Joe Brentwood was on the other end.
“I hear you’re retracing Mary Johnstone’s steps on the day she disappeared,” Joe said.
“You have to start somewhere,” Jeremy said. “How do you know what I’m doing, anyway?”
Not that it was any great secret. Nor did it surprise him that either Joe had been asking about him or the locals had told Joe about the fact that he was asking questions.
“Little birds, all over the city, just like you’d figure,” Joe said.
“So you’re keeping tabs on me?”
Joe laughed. “No, I’m not dogging you. People around here just trust me, and they’re not sure about you yet. Anyway, call me an old worrywart if you want to, but Rowenna was going to meet me for a cup of coffee, but she ran out of gas on her way in to town.”
“She ran out of gas?” Jeremy said, incredulous. Rowenna didn’t seem like the kind of woman to let her tank run down to fumes.
Jeremy felt as if a slew of icebergs were cascading down his spine.
And Joe thought he was being a worrywart?
“You didn’t go after her?”
“Can’t—I’m on duty. That’s why I’m calling you. She’s got AAA, but I’d feel better if you’d head out after her.” Brentwood’s tone was gruff. Joe could tell it cost the man to ask him for help, especially where Rowenna was concerned. “I’d have sent out a car, but she’d just be mad at me. In fact, I’d appreciate it if you don’t mention the fact that I called you. She doesn’t like folks thinking she can’t handle herself, you know?”
“Yeah, thanks. Consider me on my way,” Jeremy said.
He shut his phone, ending the call, and returned to the others. “I’ve got to go,” he said briefly. “Brad?”
“Hey, buddy, I’m with you,” Brad told him.
“Is something wrong?” Eve asked anxiously.
Adam, at her side, watched him speculatively.
“No, no, nothing. We’ll see you again soon. Thanks for your help. Brad, you can just wait for me here if you want.”
“Hell, no. I feel like all I do is wait,” Brad said.
He wasn’t sure why he didn’t want to take Brad with him. He wasn’t sure why Joe had been so concerned, or why he was feeling the grip of anxiety himself.
There wasn’t any time to argue with Brad, though. They would probably just ride out there and end up keeping Rowenna company while she waited for the service guy to get there with the gas. Of course, he could have stopped to fill a gas can himself.
Except that he couldn’t get to his car fast enough.
Rowenna felt her feet sink into the dirt as she left the pavement and headed into the cornfield.
She stopped.
She could see the scarecrows in the distance, rising above the rows of ripening corn. The stalks rose high, but the scarecrows rose higher.
The crows were circling, eerie silhouettes against the autumn sky, their cawing like a forewarning.
She didn’t want to move forward, but she also felt that she had no choice, that she couldn’t be ridiculous and let irrational fear control her. She felt compelled, as if beckoned by the crows themselves, which scared her. But in the far back of her mind, a kernel of reason was telling her irritably that if she didn’t make herself get over the absurdity of the nightmare—no doubt some messed-up, Freudian reaction to the scarecrow contests of her youth—she would spend the rest of her life being afraid. She needed to march right in and dispel all the nonsense haunting her mind.
Because the mind played tricks.
She paused just inside the first row, breathing in the redolence of the earth. This was real. She felt the ground beneath her feet, felt the nip in the air, saw the sky, autumn’s hint of blue fighting against the growing sweep of thunderous gray, a warning of the winter to come.
The cornstalks grew high, in their neat rows, seeming to stretch out forever and ever.
And then, like sentinels, rising in a line above the tall stalks that bent and waved in the cool breeze, the scarecrows.
Mist swept across her vision, and suddenly what was real was lost in the dream.
She felt as if she were drifting through the corn, borne on the breeze as the mist settled over the cornfield, strangely dark against the clear light of the autumn day. She found herself looking down from above, and she fought the vision, terrified to let it win.
This wasn’t a dream, this was real. She wasn’t floating above the cornfield, she was walking into it. Her car was just behind her, steps away. Any minute, someone from AAA would show up to fill her gas tank, and then she would resume driving into town to see Joe, and then she would meet Jeremy and his friend Brad for lunch.
She had to walk into the cornfield and kill the fear.
No, she had to walk into the cornfield because the crows were calling her, because one of the scarecrows was close, and if she didn’t go and look it in the face…
The day suddenly grew darker as a cloud passed over the sun, and she shivered.
Idiot, she chided herself.
On the other hand…
She despised it in movies when the stupid heroine—who always seemed to be young and gorgeous and barely dressed—walked alone into what appeared to be certain danger.
She stopped and smiled. When the AAA guy arrived, then she would check out what was going on in the cornfield.
Not while she was alone.
She turned back to her car. A crow was sitting on the hood again.
It stared at her and cawed, then flapped its wings furiously as it arose, soared into the sky and landed atop a scarecrow that was just visible over the cornstalks where its fellows were still circling and shrieking.
She stood by her car, refusing to be controlled by either a dream or the haunting presence of the crows. She looked toward the end of the road, where she could see the end of the fields, and the beginning of brush and trees and homes. Anything other than the cornfields seemed very far away, but it was good to know that the fields did end, that people lived out there, that there were homes and trees and no scarecrows.
Golds, oranges, deep crimsons and softer yellows all dazzled from the distant trees. That was her home in autumn, the best of the seasons, the most beautiful, and she wasn’t going to let anything ruin that for her. She closed her eyes and thought of the nearby shoreline, of the way the granite rose above the windswept sea.
The road remained empty. Not a single car passed.
She hugged her arms across her chest. She could hear the wind shifting, and, just standing there, she could feel an edge to the weather. Soon enough, winter would come. But for now, she basked in the ethereal beauty of autumn. To take her mind off her disturbing visions, she forced herself to think of the warmth of a harvest bonfire. Of people laughing and hot cider. Pumpkin pie. Turkey, dressing, cranberry sauce, whipped potatoes, green been casserole…
Where the hell was the AAA man
?
When her phone rang, she was so startled that she actually dropped it. She picked it up quickly, answering a little breathlessly.
It was Jeremy.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey, yourself. Are you all right?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Where are you?”
She winced. She didn’t really feel like telling him that she had run out of gas. That she hadn’t even checked the gauge when she started out—not that she could have done anything other than call AAA even if she’d noticed the needle hovering on E.
“On the road,” she said. That was true, at least as far as it went.
He was silent for a moment. As if he knew. Maybe he did know. She would bet anything that Joe had said something to him.
“I ran out of gas,” she said flatly.
It wouldn’t be good to be caught in a lie, she reasoned.
“We’re on our way, and we’re almost there. Just stay where you are, huh? Maybe you should lock yourself in your car.”
“Jeremy, there isn’t another soul around as far as the eye can see,” she told him dryly. “Certainly not the AAA guy,” she added with a laugh.
“Still…”
One of the crows suddenly came closer, almost dive-bombing her.
“What the hell was that?” Jeremy asked.
“Crow,” she said, and she couldn’t stop a shiver.
“I saw this. I saw…this!” Brad exclaimed, turning in the passenger seat to face Jeremy.
Jeremy was startled by his friend’s outburst. Every time it seemed as if Brad had started to pull himself together, he would go off on some crazy tangent as if he’d really lost his mind.
“In the crystal ball,” Brad said, and Jeremy could tell by his friend’s clenched fists and tense posture that he wasn’t feigning his distress.
“You saw cornfields in a crystal ball?” Jeremy asked.
Brad, staring out the window, nodded.
“Cornfields…and scarecrows. Only in the crystal ball, it was like I was flying, coming closer and closer to the scarecrows…. And then one scarecrow…it was a corpse.”