Gallows Hill

by Lois Duncan

  “Your mom is church secretary, right?”

  “She doesn’t sit in on counseling sessions. They’re private.”

  “But I imagine she types up the notes?”

  “Yes, probably,” Kyra said.

  “I bet your mom knows things about the residents of Pine Crest that would curl your hair. Who knows, between now and Friday, she might slug down a few glasses of vino and pop out with the answers to questions that were put to her just right by her loving daughter. It’s always a possibility, don’t you think?”

  He leaned across the space between them and brushed his lips against hers.

  “What do you say, babe?”

  “Who knows?” Kyra said, trying to act nonchalant and hoping he couldn’t hear the pounding of her heart. “I guess anything’s possible.”

  Chapter

  TEN

  SARAH KNEW SHE SHOULD get the book read so that she could swap with Charlie, but she couldn’t seem to make herself do it. After all, she told herself, Thanksgiving was still two weeks away, and there were more immediate demands upon her time—other homework to do, and a good deal of housework and cooking, since Rosemary still had only limited use of her arm and Ted insisted that he didn’t “have the touch for women’s work.” There was an algebra test to study for, and even some social activity, as Eric invited her to the movies Wednesday evening. She found it a bit disappointing that he took her straight home afterward instead of stopping at the Burger Barn, where the high-school crowd gathered after dates, but Eric was quick to veto that idea when she suggested it.

  “You can’t afford to get chummy with the same kids whose fortunes you’re telling,” he said. “We don’t want Madam Zoltanne to lose her mystique.”

  On the plus side, he kissed her good night when he brought her home.

  “Did anybody ever tell you that you’re a knockout?” he murmured, holding her close for a moment, his cheek pressed to hers as if he didn’t want to lose contact.

  “Not for a while,” Sarah answered softly. “I mean, never here in Pine Crest.”

  “Then let me be the first,” Eric whispered, giving her a quick, tight squeeze before releasing her. “I bet you’ll look like a movie star in a prom dress.”

  It wasn’t exactly a promise of things to come, but it did suggest that there might be nice times in store for them.

  Two nights later, when she informed Rosemary that Eric was again coming by to pick her up, Rosemary naturally assumed it was another conventional date like the one on Wednesday.

  “Looks like you two are beginning to be a regular item,” she said with a note of teasing in her voice. Ted had taken Kyra out to dinner at a restaurant, and Sarah and Rosemary had had a comfortable, no-frills meal together, which reminded Sarah of the ones they had shared in California.

  “Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s great,” Rosemary added quickly. “Eric seems like a lovely young man, and thank God he was here and knew what to do when I burned myself. I couldn’t be happier that you’re starting to have a real life here.”

  “I wish you had one,” Sarah said, feeling suddenly guilty about deserting her mother for the evening.

  “I could have gone with Ted and Kyra,” Rosemary said. “Ted would have been glad to have me, but I thought it would be good for him to have some private time with his daughter. He was so happy when Kyra called to suggest they spend the evening together that it made me realize how terribly much he misses her.”

  “I didn’t mean with Ted,” Sarah said. “You see plenty of him. I was thinking about your doing things with friends like you did in California. Back there you were always so busy going to lectures and concerts and art shows, and here you don’t have anything, not even a job.”

  “I went over to the school the other day and applied for work as a substitute,” Rosemary said. “They said they’d call me if they need me, but they weren’t too encouraging. They said they’ve already got a long list of substitutes.”

  “A substitute!” Sarah snorted. “The woman who received the Teacher of the Year award at one of the best high schools in California is groveling for work as a substitute? Give me a break!”

  “There aren’t many teaching jobs available in a town with one high school,” Rosemary said. “Besides, Ted likes the idea of being married to a homemaker.”

  “Isn’t that unrealistic for a man paying child support?”

  “I’m not exactly a pauper,” her mother said stiffly.

  “You can’t dip into the investments you made with the money from Dad’s life insurance!” Sarah exclaimed. “You’ve always said you would only do that in an emergency!”

  “I’m not going to do anything hasty,” her mother assured her. “I do have other savings. And I’m sure I can find a part-time job doing something that will get me out of the house and bring in a little money. And as for friends, I’m sure that Ted and I will make plenty of friends as a couple—after we’re married.”

  The sound of the doorbell saved Sarah from having to respond.

  Ted’s apartment was exactly as they had left it. The sofa cushions were plumped and undented, the kitchen appeared not to have been used, and when Sarah went into the bathroom to put on makeup, the hair shavings still decorated the sink and the towels on the racks were draped in the exact same way they had been the previous week.

  “He hasn’t been here once,” she commented to Eric as she exited the bathroom to find him arranging candles on the bureau top. He had already moved in the end table and set up the paperweight.

  “Where’s your costume?” he asked in surprise. “I thought you were getting changed!”

  “I decided not to wear it,” Sarah said. “It was too small. Where’s my cheat sheet? I’d better get busy cramming.”

  “Here,” Eric said, digging a sheaf of papers out of his back pocket. “You’d do best to read them one at a time so that you won’t get the stuff mixed up. You’ve got enough time between readings to prep yourself on each person.”

  Sarah began to skim the first paper.

  “Cindy Morris? But I’ve already done her! I told her fortune at the carnival.”

  “I told you people would be coming back for more,” Eric said. “She told me what she wants to ask you. She wants to know what happened to her doll, Dorcas. It disappeared one day and she could never find it. God knows why, but she’s been brooding about it ever since.”

  “Kyra can’t possibly know what happened to Cindy’s old doll.”

  “Maybe not, but her mom does,” Eric said. “Mrs. Thompson is good friends with Cindy’s mother. She was there when poor Dorcas bit the dust, or maybe I should say ‘went up in smoke.’ ”

  “You mean Kyra is getting information from her mother? Sarah exclaimed. “I just can’t use that, Eric. I can’t take information from her! It’s bad enough to have Kyra involved, but her mother … ?”

  “What difference does it make where the info comes from?” Eric asked reasonably. “You’re giving your clients what they want, and nobody’s getting hurt. And Mrs. Thompson is benefiting her own daughter. Kyra goes home with the same amount of money we do.”

  The doorbell chimed.

  “That’s Cindy now,” Eric said. “It’s time to get going, Madam Zoltanne. Do the same great job you did last week, and with four clients at ten bucks apiece, we’ll each be over twelve bucks richer.”

  Before she could respond, he was gone from the room, and because there was no alternative, Sarah quickly skimmed the notes Kyra had made about Cindy Morris. Her stomach gave a lurch as she saw what they contained. Then she slipped them under the draped black cloth that shrouded the table and sat there stiffly waiting for Cindy to enter. After all, she told herself, it was only a doll. Most little girls lost their dolls in one way or another. She didn’t have any of the dolls she had owned as a child, and if somebody had asked her what had happened to them, she couldn’t have told them. It didn’t matter enough to her even to wonder about it.

  The door swung open, and
Eric ushered Cindy in.

  “Here I am again,” the pretty blond girl said self-consciously as the door closed behind her and she took her seat at the table. She drew a deep breath and let it out slowly like a sigh. “I wouldn’t be telling you this, except I think you know it already. After all, that’s what you do—you look in that ball and see things.”

  “The crystal ball doesn’t always give answers,” Sarah said. “Sometimes the visions are cloudy.”

  “But all the things you told me last time were correct,” Cindy said. “I didn’t want to admit it, but you were right about everything. You said I once had another name, and I did. My parents adopted me when they were overseas doing missionary work, but nobody knows I’m adopted except their closest friends. And, like you implied, I do touch up my hair, and I did once wear braces. And I did have a doll named Dorcas.” She paused, and when Sarah didn’t respond, she asked, “What happened to her? What happened to Dorcas? I have to know what happened to Dorcas.”

  Sarah was swept by guilt at the intensity in Cindy’s voice. There was nothing playful about this. It wasn’t fun. She was hearing the deepest secrets straight out of the heart of a girl she barely knew, and she had no right to do that.

  “I can’t tell you,” she said. “I don’t know. This isn’t what you think it is.”

  “I don’t care what it is,” Cindy said, her voice shaking. “I need to know what happened to Dorcas. I’ve worried about it for years. I’m afraid I left her somewhere, like out in the rain or in somebody’s yard. I need to know what I did with her. She disappeared out of my life, and it was all my fault!”

  Sarah shivered. This desperation was so unnatural that it gave her the creeps. Nobody should care this much about the fate of a plaything.

  “Just look in the ball,” Cindy pleaded. “Look and tell me what I did with her. I’ve felt so guilty for so long!”

  There’s no choice, Sarah thought. I have to tell her what happened. But I’m never going to do this again, not ever!

  “You didn’t do anything,” she said, pretending to gaze into the ball but actually referring mentally to Kyra’s notes. “Your mother burned the doll in a trash can in the alley behind your house.”

  “She burned her?” Cindy gasped in horror. “Why would she do that?”

  “You’d had chicken pox, and you insisted on keeping the doll in the bed with you. The sores oozed pus all over her, and your mother was worried that she might be covered with germs. So she took her one night when you were sleeping, and went out and burned her. Mrs. Thompson was with her at the time. And she never told you because she knew how upset you’d be, but she expected you to forget all about the doll. She got you another one right away, a much prettier doll with a china face and real hair.”

  “I never forgot her,” Cindy said in a strangled voice.

  “Then maybe you should,” Sarah said. “You’re a senior in high school. How many years has it been? At least ten or twelve.”

  “The length of time doesn’t matter when you lose somebody you love,” Cindy whispered, struggling to hold back tears. She got up from her chair and stumbled blindly out of the room.

  The next two readings, though not as bizarre as that first one, were far from lighthearted. Both clients were cheerleaders, and the information that Kyra had dredged up about them was totally inappropriate. Sarah’s problem was that she had no other material to work with, as Kyra had not included anything benign. So, against her will, she found herself telling one girl that the crystal ball portrayed her as having a secret eating disorder and the other that her brother was not away at college as everyone believed, but was in reality at a drug rehab center. Both girls left looking stunned and very upset, and Sarah couldn’t blame them.

  Her final client, Misty Lamb, was also a cheerleader, and when Sarah saw what Kyra had written about her, she immediately decided there was no way she could give this reading.

  “I’m sorry,” she told Misty when she took her seat at the table. “I seem to have lost my abilities at the moment. That sometimes happens when I overuse my psychic powers. Ask Eric to refund your money.”

  “I don’t want a refund,” Misty said. “You’ve only done three readings tonight. I know because I’ve been waiting in the living room since eight. You did a lot more than that at the carnival. You’ve got to look in the glass and tell me what you see there.” She paused. “You do see something. Don’t pretend that you don’t. You just don’t want to tell me. Do you see a woman crying?”

  “I told you, I’ve lost my abilities. …”

  “Are there bruises on her arms?”

  “I can’t see her arms,” Sarah said. “Misty, please—this isn’t going to work.”

  “She pretends to people that she falls down,” Misty said. “She says she’s clumsy, but my mom isn’t clumsy. What I came here to find out from you is, is she ever going to leave him?”

  “The glass has grown dim,” Sarah told her in a desperate effort to extricate herself from what was fast becoming an unbearable situation. “I saw a woman crying, but nothing beyond that. It is not for me to know what the future will bring for her.”

  “You knew Debbie’s sister was going to elope with Buzz Tyson,” Misty said. “That means you must have some sort of legitimate power. If you could see Grace Rice’s future, why can’t you see my mother’s?”

  “I didn’t actually see that couple eloping,” Sarah said honestly. “What I saw was two people in a bus station kissing each other. I didn’t know who they were or what they were doing there.”

  “So tell me what you see about my parents,” Misty demanded stubbornly. “Is my mother going to leave my father? She keeps promising me that she will, but she never does. Everybody thinks Dad is so wonderful and that he and Mom are so happy, and nobody knows the hell that goes on at home. If I ever told anybody, my dad would lose his job, and he’d take it out on Mom and probably kill her. Please, try to see what will happen. You did it for Debbie!”

  Sarah sighed. She felt terribly sorry for this girl. Personally she couldn’t imagine any woman staying with a man who abused her, but she had read about people who did. Sometimes, however, they did break away from their abusers, and she supposed there would be no harm in giving Misty a little reassurance that things might get better, if not immediately, then possibly in the future.

  “All right,” she said. I’ll try, but with no guarantees.”

  She leaned forward and stared intently into the ball.

  “I do believe I see the woman you ask about,” she said finally. “There are no bruises on this woman. She seems strong and self-confident and healthy. She is alone in her home. She is making a flower arrangement. There is no danger. Whatever once happened is behind her—she is beyond it now.” At Misty’s audible sigh of relief she continued, “Now the glass grows dim. …”

  Except that it was not growing dim; instead it was glowing with a strange silvery light. And bathed in this light stood a woman like the one Sarah had just been describing, except that she didn’t look “strong and self-confident and healthy.” As Misty had said, her arms were covered with bruises and her face had the haunted look of an animal in a trap. She was making an arrangement of autumn leaves in a vase. And she did seem to be alone—except that suddenly she wasn’t. A man strode into the room gesturing wildly, his face contorted with fury. The woman turned, startled, as if she had not been expecting him, and let the vase drop as she instinctively raised her arms to shield her face. The man’s muscular arm rose high and started to descend—

  “He’s hitting her!” Sarah gasped, so shocked by the vision that the words came tumbling out at their own volition. “She was arranging branches in a vase, and without any warning, this man rushed in and started shouting at her! She dropped the vase, and there’s water all over the floor. She’s backing away from him—the floor is yellow linoleum—”

  “That’s our kitchen!” Misty exclaimed. “We have yellow linoleum in our kitchen! What’s happening now?”

&nb
sp; “I don’t know,” Sarah said. “I can’t see.”

  “Why not?” Misty demanded frantically. “Why can’t you see?”

  “I don’t know,” Sarah said again. “It just disappeared on me. Look, Misty, don’t let this upset you. I can’t really do this. It’s all just a scam, just a game. What I just described … I’m sure it was all in my mind. I knew your father was a wife beater because somebody told me.”

  “That can’t be true!” Misty cried. “Nobody knows about it! I’ve never told a single soul, not even my best friends! And Mom wouldn’t tell—not anybody—except maybe our minister. She’s been getting counseling at the church, but Dad won’t go with her. Dad is a counselor himself, so he feels like he’s beyond all that. He thinks this is all Mom’s fault for making him angry.”

  “I hope things get better,” Sarah said. “I truly do, Misty. I’m sorry I said things that upset you. I was making them up.”

  “No, you weren’t!” Misty cried. “I’ve got to get home to her!”

  She jumped up in a state of near panic and rushed out of the room. Sarah could hear Eric’s voice as he attempted to intercept her, Misty’s own brief hysterical response, and the slam of the front door.

  The crash of that door was like a period at the end of a sentence. Sarah snatched up the crystal ball and dropped it into her tote bag. Then she yanked the cord of her CD player out of the wall socket and carried the machine out into the living room.

  “Never again!” she told Eric. “Tonight was the end of this!”

  “What do you mean?” Eric asked in apparent surprise. “You’re getting better and better. The bombshells you dropped tonight nearly blew the roof off.”

  “This is wrong,” Sarah said impatiently. Why couldn’t he see something so obvious? “Didn’t you see the effect this had on Misty, not to mention what it did to poor Cindy? This started out as a game, but it isn’t one now. Kyra’s giving me terrible stuff to tell people, things that I have no business knowing. It’s destructive! We’re hurting people!”