Gallows Hill (14 page)

"Your dad wasn't there?" Jennifer asked her.

"No, of course not," Misty said. "If my father had been there, he'd have taken her to the hospital himself."

"What made her drop the vase?"

"I don't know. She just did. Don't you ever drop things? I mean, everybody drops things."

"It had to have been Sarah," Debbie said. "There was nobody in that kitchen except your mother and the evil spirit of that witch girl. What do you know about her, Kyra? They never come to church. Are she and her mother members of some cult in California?"

"Your guess is as good as mine," Kyra said. "After hearing all this, I'm not going to sleep over at that house anymore. If my dad wants to see me, he can visit me at home."

"We don't want somebody like this in Pine Crest," Debbie said. "Cindy, why don't you tell your father about it? Maybe he could perform an exorcism or something."

"I can't do that," Cindy said. "He'd want to know how I knew, and I'd have to confess that I had my fortune told. My dad would be so furious, he'd disown me. A minister's daughter doesn't go to a fortune-teller."

"What about sending him an anonymous note?" Jennifer suggested. "We could give him the address and time of Sarah's next reading, and he could walk in on her and discover for himself what she's doing."

"That won't work," Kyra said. "She's quitting the business." The minute the words were out, she longed to snatch them back. She was not supposed to know that Sarah was telling fortunes.

To her great relief, her slip went unnoticed.

"Why?" Leanne asked her. "It seemed to be going great guns."

"I'm not sure why. I think..." Kyra groped for an answer. "I think Eric fired her."

"He fired her!" Jennifer exclaimed. "I thought he was going out with her! Danny and I saw the two of them at the movies, and he had his arm around her and everything."

"He took her out once, just to keep her happy," Kyra said. "As class president he kind of felt he owed her something because he thought she was earning all this money for the class." Kyra was in too deep, and she knew it, but there was no turning back, so she mentally crossed herself and plunged ahead with the story. "Then he found out she was actually pocketing it herself. I mean, every penny they brought in, she was sticking in her purse! When Eric discovered that, he totally blew her off. He told her he didn't want anything more to do with her."

"That's just as well," Misty said. "We wouldn't want any of our parents going over there. If we exposed the fortune-telling racket, our names would come out. And so would all the things she said about us in her readings. We wouldn't want that. I mean, some of that stuff was very personal."

"She said stuff about our families too," another girl said nervously. "She told me something about my brother, the one who's away at college, that nobody knows—absolutely nobody—and my parents would be sure to think that I was the one who told her. There would go my driving privileges for the rest of my life!"

"So it's up to us to get rid of her ourselves," Debbie said. "Maybe if we put a little pressure on her, she and her mother will get on their broomsticks and go back where they came from. What would you say to that, Kyra?"

"I can't think of anything that would make me happier," Kyra said. She smiled at her beautiful new friends, wishing she knew them well enough to hug them.

On Wednesday morning, when Sarah Zoltanne went to her locker at the end of third period to get her gym clothes, she found a sheet of paper stuck in the crack under the door. When she pulled it out and unfolded it, she found that it was a hand-drawn sketch of a gallows.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Sarah waited until after dinner to tell them about it, in order to spare Rosemary, who set great store by a pleasant dinner hour. It was as if it had been so long since she had had a man to please that she took what Sarah considered an inappropriate amount of delight in doing everything up perfectly, including a cloth and linen napkins and candles on the table.

Sarah thought this obsession might also have something to do with the fact that her mother had to be bored out of her mind with nothing to do all day but look at the walls. In the beginning, the move and unpacking, the painting of the rooms and arrangement of furniture, had kept her occupied. Now, however, these initial challenges were over. Her busy career and assortment of cultural interests lay behind her, along with all the friends she had left back in Ventura, and she had little to do all day except cook and count the hours until Ted and Sarah got home.

Even the "romantic" evenings appeared deadly to Sarah, as Ted seemed perfectly content to spend the after-dinner hours reading, grading student papers, or watching football on television.

So because of its importance to her mother, Sarah had honored the sanctity of the dinner hour. Now, however, as Ted settled himself on the sofa and reached for the TV section of the paper, she said, "Before you flick on the boob tube, Ted, I have something to show you."

She handed him the sketch of the gallows.

"What's this?" Ted asked, glancing at it without much interest.

"What does it look like to you?"

"A gallows."

"That's what it looks like to me too," Sarah said. "Do you know where I found it? Stuck in the crack of my locker."

"Who put it there?" Rosemary asked, coming to stand where she could look over Ted's shoulder.

"Who do you think?"

"You're getting into a very annoying habit of answering a question with a question, Sarah," Ted said. "If you know who put it there, say so. If you don't, say you don't. Which is it?"

"I don't know for a fact," Sarah admitted, "but I think it's ninety-nine to one that it's a message from your darling daughter that she and her mother wish Rosemary and I were dead."

"What a terrible thing to say!" her mother exclaimed.

"I'm saying it because it's true."

"Kyra is not that kind of person," Ted said, struggling to control his anger. "Admittedly she is having some problems adjusting to my relationship with Rosemary, but you at least should understand that. You've made it very clear that you would like to see our relationship fail so that you and your mother can regress to the interdependent life the two of you led before I came on the scene. And Kyra is worried about her own mother's feelings, which is admirable, under the circumstances, since Sheik appears to be hurting. But Kyra would never send anybody a mean-spirited cartoon."

"You have no idea what Kyra would do," Sarah said.

"I know my daughter," Ted said tersely. "Kyra's not the type to play practical jokes on people."

"You consider this a joke?"

"Of course it's a joke," Ted said. "High-school kids are always playing pranks on each other. You're far too thin-skinned, Sarah. There are plenty of interpretations you could have put on this, and you picked the worst possible one."

"What other interpretations could there be?" Sarah demanded.

"Hang loose?" her mother suggested.

"What?"

"A play on words. Hang loose. Be cool. That kind of thing. Or—I know!" She laughed, and Sarah could have sworn there was a note of relief in the laughter. Her mother had been more worried than she had let on. "The subject you chose for your history-class paper was the Salem witch-hunt. You told us yourself that you and Charlie German pounced on that subject and that Charlie stripped the library of reference books. This drawing is a not very subtle message from some very irritated classmate who also wanted the chance to write a paper on that subject."

"T-That's ridiculous," Sarah sputtered.

"Actually it wasn't a very nice thing for Charlie to do," Rosemary continued. "To take out all those books so that other students wouldn't have an opportunity to use them."

"'All those books' means three," Sarah said. "The high-school library in this dinky little town is the pits."

"That's why it's important to get materials read and returned as quickly as possible," Ted said. "The librarian told me there was a tremendous demand for those books from students who wanted to write on the subject the teacher highlighted."

"It wasn't highlighted," Sarah said.

"Don't talk back to me," Ted said. "How are you coming with the research? Are you finished with the books yet?"

"This sketch is not by somebody who's mad about the history assignment!" Sarah exclaimed, furious at herself for having allowed the subject to be redirected. "The person who drew this sketch was not being cute! This person is vicious!"

"Oh, come on, Sarah," Ted said in exasperation. "You can't be implying that this is a death threat. Do you really think some student at Pine Crest is out to kill you?"

Sarah found herself experiencing an unexplainable pressure at her throat, as if the neck of her sweatshirt had suddenly tightened.

"Not exactly that," she said shakily. "I mean, no, of course not. Normal people don't kill each other just because they don't like each other."

"Well, I'm glad you' don't believe that, because if you did it would be a sign of true paranoia," Ted said. "Rosemary, this brings me to something I've been meaning to suggest for some days now, I just haven't known how to raise the subject without upsetting you. I realize it hasn't been easy for Sarah to switch high schools at the start of her senior year. I think the adjustment might be easier if she had a few sessions with the school counselor."

"I suppose that's something we ought to consider," Rosemary said slowly. She turned to Sarah. "Don't look so horrified, honey. The counseling sessions I had after your father died were all that kept me sane during that terrible time. Sometimes it takes a little professional steering to help us put things into perspective."

"I don't need—" Sarah started to respond angrily, and then forced herself to calm down and consider the suggestion. Much as she hated the thought of accepting any proposal that came from Ted, the truth was that the idea of talking to a counselor was not such a bad one. She couldn't deny that her life in Pine Crest was miserable. She knew her attitude was terrible. She had no friends, and she now realized that the boy she had halfway fallen in love with had only been using her. And the situation with her mother and Ted was so upsetting to her that she couldn't even bear to think about it. Rosemary, who was her best friend as well as her mother, had become Ted's puppet. Sarah had never felt so alone in her life. Perhaps an understanding counselor with a sympathetic ear and some wisdom to share might make her problems more tolerable.

"I guess, maybe," she said uncertainly.

"Terrific!" Ted exclaimed, obviously both surprised and pleased by this response. "I can set it up for you tomorrow. I know you'll like Mr. Lamb. Everybody does. The lads all say he's very good at helping them with their problems."

"You don't mean Misty Lamb's father!" Sarah exclaimed incredulously.

"That's right," Ted said. "I'm glad to find out you know Misty. She's the kind of girl who would make a very nice friend for you."

"Misty maybe sweet, but her father's a monster," Sarah said. "You may not know it, but Misty's mother is in the hospital with a concussion because Mr. Lamb knocked her across the room."

"That's absurd!" Ted said. "The Lambs are a devoted family. Bert Lamb's wife accompanies him to faculty social functions,' and I've never seen a more affectionate couple. Yes, the poor woman's in the hospital. She fell in the kitchen. But Bert had nothing to do with it. He wasn't even there. Kitchens can be hazardous places, right, Rosie?"

"So I've discovered," Rosemary said, glancing down ruefully at her bandaged arm.

"You've both of you got your heads in the sand!" Sarah told them. "This isn't the sweet little town you want to pretend it is! Terrible things are going on here! Rosemary, do you know about the bookstore that was burned down by religious fanatics?"

"I've never heard of any arson in Pine Crest," Ted said, stepping in quickly before Rosemary could answer. "There once was a bookstore that caught fire, but from everything I've heard, that was caused by a problem with the electrical system."

"I've been told that somebody deliberately set that fire," Sarah said. "The owner was sent a picture of a burning cross. That picture was a threat, not just a joke, and this picture of a gallows may be one also!"

"Forgive me, Rosemary, but I have to say this," Ted said. "Your daughter needs professional help. Listen to her ranting like a crazy person about a fine town filled with salt-of-the-earth people whom she hasn't made the slightest effort to get to know!"

"Don't you dare call me crazy!" Sarah exploded. "I' know exactly what I'm saying!"

"Sarah, please, don't talk that way to Ted," Rosemary begged her. "This is his hometown and he loves it! You're hurting him deeply!"

"Aren't you taking this in?" Sarah whirled upon her mother, blinking back tears of frustration. "Rosemary, don't you get it? This is a picture of a gallows, a gallows that hangs people! Somebody drew this ghastly thing and stuck it in my locker!"

"I wouldn't be surprised if you drew it yourself," Ted said with ice in his voice. "You've been trying to sabotage my relationship with your mother from the moment we met. This is obviously a bizarre attempt to upset her so much that she'll call things off with me and take you back to California. Well, I have news for you, Sarah, your plan is not going to work. Your mother and I are in love, and whether you like it or not, we're going to make a life together. If our situation were different, I'd suggest that all three of us get family counseling from Reverend Morris, but given the circumstances that's out of the question. So Bert Lamb seems the only viable option."