The Glory Hand (25 page)

Miss Grace.

Cassie's eyes darted back to the woods. A cloud of dust hovered where Jake's truck had been.

The old lady was close enough that Cassie could see the harlequin sunglasses that hung crookedly on her beak of a nose. She was swathed in a winding sheet of gauzy scarves, as if to protect her shriveled skin from the fresh air and sunlight.

An awed hush settled over the group as Abigail wheeled Miss Grace's chair closer. It struck Cassie as strange that the women who had gathered here, each so powerful in her own right, should be so humble, so submissive, before this senile invalid. She suspected that it was for this audience with Miss Grace - and not to see their daughters - that they had traveled all this way. And Miss Grace . . . What had compelled her today to leave the shadows where she had taken refuge for so many years, and venture into the harsh noon light?

Abigail turned the wheelchair around at the base of the stairs to the dance pavilion so that Miss Grace faced the women, and sat down on the grass at her feet. Miss Grace's lips parted, as red with lipstick as an open wound, and words crept out, so faint that Cassie held her breath to hear.

'My, how gratifying it is to see so many of my girls here today . . The old woman's voice cracked, as if she longed to shed tears but could only summon their parched memory. 'I call you my "girls" of course, because I don't just see you as daughters of Casmaran. I see you as
my
daughters.' She tried to laugh away her emotion, the strength in her voice building. 'I want to thank all of you for your generous contributions to our construction fund. The new arts and crafts cottage will further nurture the creativity that we so cherish here, and the basketball court that should be completed well before next season, will foster Casmaran's high ideals of sportsmanship . . .'

She cleared her throat, as though her next words would hold momentous importance. 'All of us were campers at Casmaran once. We traveled up the path from the junior cabins through Lakeside, and went through Spinning to join the seniors on Hilltop. We learned what demands the Sisterhood places on us. And we must be especially mindful of them now. For this is the year of years; the generation of which it is written . . .' Puzzled, Cassie studied the women in the audience, hoping to find the meaning of Miss Grace's sermon on their faces. But their look of reverence told her nothing.

Miss Grace's voice was sibilant through her false teeth: 'I have consecrated my life to Casmaran. So have you . . .' With what seemed enormous physical effort, she tilted her head to face the seniors as they moved from their mothers to sit next to Abigail in the grass at her feet. 'This will be your last summer at Casmaran as campers, so this will be our time to say adieu.' Cassie could see that the girls' eyes were wet with tears, as first Abigail, and then the others stood up and walked forward to take Miss Grace's limp hand and press it gently between theirs. And when it was Robin's turn, from where she stood on the stage of the dance pavilion, Cassie saw the glint of something silver under Miss Grace's lace glove.

It looked like
... It was only a wild guess . . . How could she be sure?

You've got to see.

As the last senior returned to her seat, Cassie descended the steps from the dance pavilion and a murmur of disapproval from the audience made her quicken her pace. As she stepped in front of the wheelchair she could see the dark suggestion of eyes beneath the tinted lenses of Miss Grace's sunglasses. Eyes that seemed to be looking at her differently than they had in the cottage. Was it fear Cassie saw in them? She reached out for Miss Grace's hand.

'Don't!' The old lady shook her head and tried to squirm away, but her paralysis made that impossible. Cassie grabbed the cold fingers.

And squeezed.

The sharp silver ring on Miss Grace's hand cut through the lace to pierce Cassie's palm, and the blood that moistened her hand told her that there would be a new scar to intertwine with the two already there, a scar that was proof of what her mind still refused to accept: her mother had worn that ring, and it had been stolen after her murder.

Cassie dropped the old lady's hand into her lap and broke into a run. Over her shoulder, she caught a glimpse of the campers and their mothers in their prim designer clothes. Not one of them moved to stop her, but she could feel their eyes on her. And when she reached the manicured lawn, she kept right on going, past the cabins, past the main lodge, and through the graveyard. Despite her headlong pace towards the forest, she read two words that had been chiseled in granite. '
Choose death.'

Her mother's ring.
Impossible.
Plunging into the shadowy isolation of the trees, Cassie's anxiety mushroomed. The chiffon sash around the waist of her leotard snagged on a holly bush and she tore it off, forcing herself up a steep slope, running to escape the growing awareness. But it clung to her, like the foxtails that pierced the skin on her ankles with their barbs.

Miss Grace? How did she get the ring?

Doubts chattered in her mind like the magpies in the branches overhead. She moved quickly, hoping her speech would somehow accelerate her thoughts.

But mother loved Casmaran . . . she said so in the letter

Miss Grace has her ring.

When at last she stepped from the thicket into the clearing, the slate-gray sky admitted as little sunlight as the forest's web of thorn branches. For a moment it was a relief to be free of the cackling birds high in the treetops, that had followed her here. But the sudden stillness was even more disturbing.

Maybe he's gone home. Back to New York.

The steps groaned loudly in the silence as she climbed onto the porch of the cabin.

'Jake?'

The flapping of wings as a hawk merged with the sky.

'JakeT

She banged on the door. No answer. She tried the rusty door handle, but it was locked, and she stood on tiptoe to peer through the smudged windows. The room was a study in black and white: crude wood furniture, papers crumpled everywhere, the Moog dark and dead. A swarm of flies buzzing over greasy dishes offered the only trace of movement. She strained to see if Jake was stretched out on the mattress on the floor, but the sun suddenly pierced the clouds, turning the grimy window into a mirror.

A mirror that reflected a stranger standing behind her. In one swift second, her eyes took in the sheathed hunting knife, the knee-high boots, the windbreaker camouflaged the same green as the forest. If he was a hunter, she knew who was his prey.

Part Three

THE GLORY HAND

Chapter 21

For a moment, Cassie could not tear her eyes from him.

His face was sallow, an oddly emaciated face for so muscular a body, she thought, as if the arteries above his neck had atrophied so that blood didn't pump into his head at all. Slicked-down black hair molded his skull like feathers. He lunged towards her.

She sidestepped him and jumped off the porch, running towards the back of the cabin. But in a blur of movement another hunter's-green jacket rounded the corner, another set of arms reached out to grab her. She bolted towards the lake. .

It was a dozen yards to the shore. She waded into the stand of cattails that thrust from the mud, heading towards a sandbar that extended into the water. A mistake. She stood out in silhouette against the water, and they spotted her. As the men ran towards her, Cassie scanned the shore: a dilapidated tin-roofed shack twenty yards to the left tilted up from the mud, like the rotting hull of a boat that had run aground. She tripped over a rock beneath the surface and fell, then crawled . . . splashed . . . towards it.

There was no door on the side of the shack that faced her, only a rusted metal flap, some kind of trapdoor - large enough for a dog, or a child, perhaps. But not a man. It resisted shrilly as she wrenched it open. Heavy footsteps crunched onto the pebbles of the beach. She hoisted herself up and squeezed into the opening.

The door clanked shut behind her, shutting off all light, and she teetered, groping in the darkness for a handhold. She reached out. . . clutched at thin air.

She was falling into a void, hurtling down a chute of corrugated tin in a bruising, battering descent.

She landed on her back, hard, the impact knocking the breath out of her, and when she opened her eyes it was as dark as if her lids were still closed.

Ami deadl

No, she was still breathing. She pressed a hand to her pounding heart.

The interior of the shack seemed enormous in the dark -it had been dug out to extend far beneath the water level of the lake, she realized. Her fall had been cushioned by the damp, spongy floor, and she raked her fingers across it: sawdust, impregnated with rot. Its smell was enough to turn her stomach, but it had saved her life.

She tried to pull herself to her feet, but pain shot through her leg from her ankle to her thigh. Her fingers moved down to touch the rusty cutting edge of... a scythe? A saw? The heavy blade pressd down on her right ankle, clamping it as tightly as a bear trap. She tried to lift the blade off, but it had been imbedded by the years into the floor, and there was no way to pull her leg out from beneath it.

A scream of hinges and the door to the chute above yawned wide. A face blocked the opening, backlit by the gray sky.

She tried to scramble out of the sudden square of light it threw on the sawdust, but the blade bit into her ankle, holding her prisoner.

'CassieT
The gruff voice echoed hollowly down the metal chute.

How does he know my name?

'CassieT
The echo, breathless and angry from the chase.

'Is the little bitch in thereT
Another head forced the first out of the way, blocking out the patch of sky and plunging her back into shadow.

'No way:

'ShitV
The silhouettes bobbed in the opening for a moment, and then were gone, leaving a square of sky.

In the dusty shaft of light, Cassie could see more clearly-The walls of the shack were sheathed in metal that glowed dully, like the walls of a crypt. The moldy sawdust, the metal chute, the floor far below the water level of the lake . . . this had to be one of the abandoned sheds that Sarah had mentioned, where the ice cutters had stored blocks of ice until spring. No wonder she was shivering. She wondered whether the morgue at Woods Hole where they had taken her mother's body had been as cold as this.

And then she heard something stirring in the sawdust, the sound of claws scratching, teeth gnawing. Rats, scurrying in the shadows, bloated rats with thick healthy coats of fur. She stretched until her leg ached, straining to see what had brought them here.

The fragments that the rodents gnawed were too decayed to be recognizable. Time had swathed them with layer upon layer of cobwebs, but the rats had ripped at the transluscent shrouds to reveal yellowed manuscripts and wooden carvings, and what looked like paintings in murky oils. Cassie wondered if these things had once been precious - even sacred.

I've got to get out of here.

Sweat drenched her face, stung her lips. She strained against the metal blade until she felt tfye filmy moistness of blood. The rats stopped gnawing on the artifacts. They must have smelled the blood, she thought, for they began to skitter closer to her.

'Help me!' she screamed as she struggled to lift the metal blade. Again and again she called out, until her voice was hoarse, but the rats began scratching at her legs with their claws, pricking her skin with their needle-sharp teeth. She struggled to squirm away, but the pain from her ankle held her prisoner. When she threw a handful of sawdust at them, the moldy wood particles invaded her nose and mouth, and she began to cough. The noise lured more rats out of the shadows.

Until another sharp sound from the far side of the shack made them freeze.

A scimitar of light slashed up to the ceiling as a door behind her creaked open on rusty hinges, blinding her with daylight.

'HeyV
A man's voice.

They waited for me. They knew I was here all along.

She flattened into the sawdust.

Too late. The man had seen her.

' What the hell are you doing down here?'

'Jake

'I was recording . . . Jesus, I heard screams . . .' He clattered down a wooden ramp, sending the rats darting back into the shadows. Then he set down the tape recorder slung over his shoulder and strained to lift the blade. When she was able to roll free, they both saw the blood thai stained the sawdust.

'Are you okay?'

'I ... I don't know . . .'Cassie grabbed his arm anc pulled herself up, setting her weight cautiously on the wounded ankle.

'You could have killed yourself in here. What the hel were you trying to prove?' He wiped the blood from her leg with a handkerchief, and she didn't flinch. 'You're lucky it's not broken.'

Cassie took one deep breath, then broke down in sobs. 'These men . . . they were chasing me. Jake, they were going to
get
me . . .' She wanted to stop, to control the hysteria in her voice, but the words poured out against her will: 'There were two of them . . . They knew my name. They were going to
kill
me!'