Scarecrow (11 page)

The lamp went out.

Silence fell again, as thick and heavy as the darkness. From some panicky corner of my mind came the idea that maybe, just maybe, if I didn’t move, didn’t even breathe, whoever it was would think the barn deserted and just turn and go. I could feel my teeth biting into my lip, could taste the salty mixture of soap and blood, feel my heart slamming so fiercely against my ribs that I knew I’d have to scream or be violently sick. I couldn’t see anything—no glimmer of light anywhere—and the thought of being trapped and helpless terrified me more than anything I’d ever known, even more than the two deaths I’d already faced and survived. For I was certain that someone was there, watching me, that he
had
been watching me for a long time, and now, even with the impenetrable shroud of darkness between us, I knew he saw me still, how I looked, how paralyzed I was with fear…

He made an invisible movement, a whisper that came from nowhere and everywhere—each corner was alive with him, the silent air stirring around me, as I tried to lower myself noiselessly, futilely, beneath the water.

“Who is it?” The words burst out in uncontrollable terror.
“Who’s there!”
—and he was close to me—
close
—and I could
feel
him—so near that the hairs rose along the nape of my neck.

“Please,” I begged, my voice breaking, “please—who’s there?”

A ripple of cold air caressed my arms, the skin of my back; I huddled there, shaking, desperate to cover myself, the sense of his touch slow upon me, deliberate, exploring, like something real, though I knew it couldn’t be…it was impossible…

“Please…” I tried to speak, but what came out was more a whimper. “Whoever you are, just go away—don’t make me scream…”

Yet I knew I wouldn’t. I couldn’t. I cowered there beneath his relentless eyes that saw through the dark, saw
me
through the dark…and I tried to get away from them…to hide…

Oh, God!

The water rippled around my body, lapping my breasts, softly…gently…as if someone had disturbed it with the slightest touch…

At my side a floorboard creaked.

“Pamela! Are you still in here? What happened to the light?”

“Oh, Rachel,
help me!”

The barn door flew open, letting in pale light and icy wind, and as I sobbed and struggled to my feet, something pulled away from me—shrank back into the blackness, back beyond the feeble reach of Rachel’s lamp.

“Pamela, are you all right? Mercy, what happened?”

I heard Rachel’s voice, felt her strong arms go around me, but still, still, I couldn’t stop shaking. Not even when Rachel relit the lantern and closed the barn door…not even when she added the fresh hot rinse water, pushing me gently into the tub…not even when Rachel stayed right there, so calm, so totally unaware…

“Oh, it’s all my fault—you’re frozen through! This drafty old place, the wind blows through here like a corncrib. I should have come sooner.” Rachel fretted on and on, handing me heated towels and a nightgown and a blanket, but still I couldn’t stop the awful chill that gripped me from head to foot, shaking me unmercifully. Was he still in here? Watching me? He couldn’t have gotten out the way Rachel came in—where could he be hiding? I remembered seeing another door in the rear of the barn that day I’d met Micah, but I hadn’t heard anything opening or closing.
So that means he must still be here…somewhere…
Was he seeing me now, as I dried my naked body in the lamplight, pulling the gown down over my head? Did he see how I trembled? How I jumped at the slightest sound…

“I’m so sorry,” Rachel said. She held the lamp high, and shadows slithered back into silent corners. “You must have been scared to death when that lamp went out—imagined all kinds of things.”

But I didn’t imagine him, I couldn’t have
—and how long had the unseen terror been “him” anyway…

“Pamela?” Rachel asked softly, and I followed her out, welcoming the wind that stung life back into me.

“Yes, Rachel, I’m really all right.”

But as I stumbled unexpectedly and Rachel’s lantern lowered toward the ground, I saw the clear impression pressed into the mud that surrounded my foot…and then I noticed another…and another…all fading in a purposeful line away from the lantern light and into the darkness of the barn.

They looked as if they’d been made recently.

By someone wearing boots.

Later as I tossed and turned in bed, my thoughts kept going back to that darkness, to that fear. I wondered if he was still there watching, if he had seen me leave…As wakefulness dragged on, I went to the window, peering out across sallow hills, hugging myself tightly against the cold. Something
had
been in the barn with me tonight—no imagining could have been that terrifying. And whoever he was had been there deliberately—I
knew
that—and I had to get away from this place where something was terribly, terribly wrong, where someone was stalking me, and Micah was afraid for me…

I jumped, hearing a soft tap at the door, then sagged in relief as Franny slipped into the room and shut us softly in.

“Are you awake? I just wanted to tell you what I did.” She perched on the foot of the bed, tucking her feet beneath her, her voice a conspiratorial whisper.

“What’s that?”

“Well, I been thinking about the things you told me—about how you were always so scared and everything, about taking chances?” She paused dramatically, and I tried to show an interest I didn’t really feel at the moment. “Well, I decided it wasn’t right, Seth making me give up something I wanted to keep. It’s none of his business what I do. I have a life, too, right?”

A little light was beginning to dawn in the back of my mind and I frowned. “Franny…what did you do?”

She leaned back, a triumphant grin spreading over her face. “I hid him.”

“You hid who? Seth?”

“My
prince.
Seth’ll never find him. He’ll never know! Only I’ll know. And you. And you won’t tell on me, will you?”

“But what about the fire and—”

“I told Seth I burned my scarecrow. But I didn’t. I hid him instead.”

“I see.” I nodded, frowning. “You lied.”

“It wasn’t really a lie,” Franny said defensively. “Rachel always says that sometimes you have to hold back the truth a little to keep from hurting people—and I’m keeping my Prince Charming from being hurt.” When I didn’t respond right away, she looked almost worried. “You’re proud of me, aren’t you? I just did what I was scared to do.”

I cringed at that. I had a feeling that when the infraction of tradition was eventually discovered, as I was sure it would be, all the blame would go straight to me. I frowned again, already feeling Seth’s wrath.

“Yes,” I said slowly, “I’m proud of you.”

“I knew you would be! See you in the morning, okay?”

Alone once more I curled myself around my pillow, pondering Franny’s words, feeling curiously let down.
Good for you, Franny, good for you, don’t ever be like me, empty and
a
fraid.
Afraid of being alone. Of being alive. Afraid of the strange things happening around me in this house…

Afraid of Seth.

For it had started that very first moment I’d seen him, framed there in the bedroom doorway.

Watch her. Watch her close.

And it was the worst kind of being afraid, for it was something I couldn’t quite pinpoint or understand.

I only knew that something was very wrong.

That something was very evil.

And that whenever Seth was around, that feeling clamped around my heart with an inescapable doom.

I
WONDERED WHEN DEWEY
would come.

As the days slipped by with no word from him, that scene in the barn came back to me on fresh waves of terror, making me more and more frightened and confused. Part of me felt trapped and desperate to leave, while another part reminded me of everyone’s kindness and made me feel guilty for being so afraid. Part of me found immense comfort in the insularity of family, and yet I was haunted by my helplessness, by the knowledge that once again my survival was dependent on someone else.

But there was something more. There was that ever-present, unnerving thought that something wasn’t quite as it should be.
But what?
The longer Dewey didn’t show up, the more anxious I felt. And even if I
could
get up the courage to leave, how would I ever find my way back to civilization on my own?

On this particular morning I squinted against the chill and gazed out across the front yard, past the trees, the fields, up, up, all the way to the crooked skyline. Nothing had changed. There still wasn’t a trace of humanity to give me any feeling of hope.
But I came here by some route, and if people can come here, they can leave again, and there must be a way to get out.

Nobody ever leaves here…they never have and they never will…

Glancing back over my shoulder, I checked the empty front porch, the windows, upstairs and down. Seth and Micah were supposed to be working in the smokehouse today, and Rachel and Franny had taken Girlie to gather black walnuts. I’d begged off with a headache, which hadn’t aroused suspicion, but I had no intention of staying in bed while everyone was gone. Who knew when I’d have another chance to explore?

Convinced that no one was around, I took off across the yard and began to follow the narrow dirt road that wound off through the woods. Eventually it
had
to lead to Cranston, didn’t it?—and to Dewey and his supplies and maybe, please God, a telephone? I knew I couldn’t try to leave now. It was too risky without being better prepared. Later—once I had a better sense of the lay of the land—I could gather up some food for the trip. But right now all I wanted to do was chart things out, get some idea of what I’d be facing.

I walked quickly, sliding over rocks and mud in my clumsy shoes, nearly falling as the road took a sudden downward turn that flung me into wild brush and stickers. How strange, I thought, picking my way clear—it was as if the forest had overtaken the road, crushing in from either side to claim the land back again. As if it were determined not to let anyone in.
Or out…
I pushed the unpleasantry from my mind, but as I continued on, there really
did
seem to be some conspiracy of nature, and with growing uneasiness, I looked about me at the dense foliage and thick vines all straggling together onto the path, meeting and locking in an impossibly twisted impasse. I stopped, baffled. Where only seconds before there had been two vague tire-ruts in the road, they had now disappeared completely, swallowed up in a tangle of weeds and hunchbacked trees. Shivering a little I pulled my shawl tight around me and glanced up, searching for the sun, but branches had woven overhead, so that only a thin stream of tepid light filtered down beside me. I was closed in, and it wasn’t my imagination that the road had narrowed even more—if I craned my neck and looked hard through the greenish-black shadows up ahead, I could make out the rugged angles of the hills pressing uncomfortably close. There was nothing peaceful or lovely about them now—they were pocked with holes and furrows, jagged rocks and dwarfed stumps.

I realized I couldn’t go any farther in this direction, yet I couldn’t believe that this was the only way out of here. No one could possibly get through this jungle; there
had
to be another path.
But where?

I stood there looking helplessly at the roadblock, then turned away with a resigned sigh. I’d have to be careful if I did any more exploring—it wasn’t going to be easy getting off by myself. As I shuffled back through the leaves, I fought down a wave of despair. I wasn’t even sure anymore just how long I’d really been here; time had a peculiar way of existing in whole different dimensions of fear and strangeness and uncertainties.

My sleeve snagged on a branch, and as I stopped to unsnarl it, I saw something I hadn’t noticed before. Off to my left lay a fallen tree, its heavy, gnarled limbs splayed out over the ground and nearly concealing a pathway that led off in another direction. So well was it hidden that I’d never have discovered it if I hadn’t been forced to backtrack. It went for perhaps five feet before vanishing again beneath a low canopy of trees. I hesitated only a moment, casting an anxious look in the direction of the house—then I stepped carefully over the log, determined to see where this discovery led.

Almost immediately I sensed I was in luck. The pathway continued on and on, winding its way through silent woods, burying itself beneath layers of fallen leaves, surfacing again only to weave an endless thread between the hills. I had the distinct feeling that I was descending somehow, leaving the house far above me, just going round and round on a spiral staircase with no bottom. The sky reeled above me, shards of blue and white and spangled sunshine, pinwheeling through the webbed branches overhead like a kaleidoscope. I began to feel a bit dizzy and slowed down to catch my breath. Surely it couldn’t go on much longer—there had to be a breakthrough somewhere.

My foot came down on muddy rocks. As I fell to my knees and angrily righted myself again, I saw something off in the distance which made me stare.

It was sitting well back from the trail, and though there were no fences or gates to mark it, the trees had kept an eerie and respectful distance away, encircling the small clearing with bowed heads and limbs that brushed the earth liked tired old hands.

It was a graveyard.

I approached it slowly, casting a wary glance over my shoulder. It would be so easy for someone to hide in these woods and never be seen—there were dozens of camouflages. It was so quiet…unnaturally so, I realized with a start. And for the first time it dawned on me that I hadn’t heard a single bird since entering the clearing.

Inhaling deeply, I let my eyes roam in a wide radius. Nothing. Not a sound, not a movement anywhere. My breath echoed in my ears like wind down a hollow cave. I reached the edge of the clearing and stopped.

There were no headstones—only five wooden crosses staggering across the windswept ground. I knelt beside the first, brushing away drifts of leaves and dead grass, hoping to find something—a name, an inscription—some clue as to who these people were, resting deep in the earth so near the house. Family, perhaps? Neighbors? Generations of settlers from long ago? Children who had never survived the traumas of birth, the harshness of Ozark winters? The thoughts saddened me, and as my fingers worked at the vines twisted about the cross, I felt an indentation in the wood and ripped the last of the foliage away. To my horror the cross came apart in my hands—the wood so old and rotted that the vines had literally been holding it together. Snatching up the pieces I held them close, mouthing the letters silently as I tried to read the worn, weathered carving on the wood.