Rose Rita screamed and jerked the wheel violently to the left. With a screech of tires, Bessie swerved off the road and plunged down a steep bank. The car bounced and jounced wildly, and Mrs. Zimmermann's inert body slammed first against the door and then slid over across the seat to bump against Rose Rita. Rose Rita, panic-stricken, clutched the wheel and kept trying to find the brake with her foot, but she kept missing it. Down into darkness they went. Now there was a loud swishing, crackling sound outside the car, and a funny smell. In the fevered whirling of her brain Rose Rita found herself wondering, What is that smell? The crackling and swishing got louder, and finally Rose Rita got her foot on the brake. Her body lurched forward, and her head hit the windshield. She blacked out.
CHAPTER SIX
Rose Rita dreamed that she was clinging to a piece of wood that was floating in the sea. Someone was saying to her, "Are you all right? Are you all right?" That's a dumb thing to be saying, thought Rose Rita. Then she opened her eyes and found that she was sitting at the wheel of Bessie. A policeman was standing next to the car. He reached in the open window and touched her gently.
"Are you okay, miss?"
Rose Rita shook her head groggily. She touched her forehead and felt a swelling lump. "Yeah, I guess so, except for this bump on my head. I... my gosh! What happened?" She looked around, and saw that the car was embedded in a large clump of juniper bushes. Juniper! That was the smell! Daylight was streaming in through the dusty windows of the car. And there, on the seat beside her, lay Mrs. Zimmermann. She was asleep. Or was she...?
Rose Rita reached over and started shaking Mrs. Zimmermann's shoulder. "Wake up, Mrs. Zimmermann!" she sobbed. "Oh, please! Wake up, wake—"
Rose Rita felt the policeman's firm hand on her arm. "Better not do that, miss. You don't know if she's got any broken bones or not. We've got an ambulance coming, and they'll check her over before they try to move her. What happened? Fall asleep at the wheel?"
Rose Rita shook her head. "I was trying to drive Mrs. Zimmermann back to the hospital after she got sick all of a sudden. I got scared and I drove off the road. I'm only thirteen, and I don't have any license. Are you gonna put me in jail?"
The policeman smiled sadly at Rose Rita. "No, ma'am. Not this time, anyway. But I think it wasn't very bright of you to try to drive, even if it was an emergency and all. You might of gotten yourself killed. As a matter of fact, if these bushes hadn't of been here, you would've been killed. And so would your friend there. But she's breathin' okay. I looked at her a minute ago. All we have to do is sit tight till the ambulance gets here."
A little while later a big white ambulance with a red cross on the side pulled up on the road next to the police car. Two men in white uniforms got out and edged their way down the embankment. They had a stretcher with them. By the time they got to the car, Mrs. Zimmermann was just coming to. The two men checked her over, and when they were sure she could be moved, they gently eased her out of the car and made her lie down on the stretcher. Up the hill they went with her, slowly. When they had her safe in the ambulance, they went back for Rose Rita. It turned out that she was a little bruised and shaken up, but otherwise okay. She climbed the hill on her own and got in the back of the ambulance with Mrs. Zimmermann. Off they went, siren screaming, toward Ironwood.
Mrs. Zimmermann spent the next three days in the hospital at Ironwood. The mysterious pains never returned, and the doctors informed her that they had been in the wrong part of the body for appendicitis. Mrs. Zimmermann was puzzled and frightened. Somehow it was worse not to know what had caused the pains, and the thought that they might return at any time was enough to make her very nervous. It was like living with a time bomb that might or might not go off.
So Mrs. Zimmermann, much as she disliked the idea, stayed in bed while the doctors at the hospital ran a series of tests. Nurses stuck needles into her and drew blood. They gave her vile-tasting potions to drink and made marks on charts. She was x-rayed and put in front of, and inside of, all sorts of strange science-fiction machines. Doctors stopped by every now and then to talk with Mrs. Zimmermann, but they never told her anything that she wanted to know.
Meanwhile, Rose Rita became a lodger at the hospital. Mrs. Zimmermann explained the situation to the doctors, and she showed them her insurance policy (which she always carried around with her in her purse, just in case), and it clearly stated that she was entitled to a private room. The private room had two beds, and Rose Rita slept in one of them. She played cards and chess with Mrs. Zimmermann and listened to night games with her on the radio. It so happened that the White Sox were playing at Detroit, and Mrs. Zimmermann was a White Sox fan because she had once lived in Chicago. So Rose Rita and she had fun rooting for opposite sides, and they even argued a bit, though not very seriously.
Some of the time, when sitting around in the hospital room got to be dull, Rose Rita went out and wandered around the town of Ironwood. She went to the public library and a Saturday afternoon movie. Some of the time she just explored. She got lost once or twice, but people were very nice to her, and she always managed to find her way back to the hospital.
On the afternoon of Mrs. Zimmermann's third day in the hospital, Rose Rita happened to be passing a vacant lot where some boys were playing move-up. They were getting tired of move-up, but they didn't have enough for teams. When they saw Rose Rita, they asked her if she wanted to play.
"I sure do!" Rose Rita yelled. "But whatever side gets me, they have to let me pitch."
The boys looked at each other for a minute, but after a hurried consultation, they decided that Rose Rita could pitch if she wanted to. Rose Rita loved to play baseball, and she really loved to pitch. She was the only girl in her school who could throw a curve with a softball. She had hesitation pitches, and blooper pitches, and she even had a knuckle ball, though it didn't work very well, because it's hard to hold a softball with your knuckles. Her underhand fast ball was famous—so famous, in fact, that she usually had to be persuaded just to lob it up there to weak hitters so they wouldn't strike out all the time.
So Rose Rita wound up playing softball with a bunch of boys she had never seen before. She got a lot of hits, and she grabbed off some hard line drives with her bare hands. She pitched, and she pitched pretty well until she happened to strike out a big husky kid with a crew cut. He thought he was a pretty good ball player, and he didn't like getting struck out by a girl. So he started getting on Rose Rita. He did all sorts of things: he kept calling her Four Eyes, and whenever her team took the field, he went out of his way to run past her just so he could give her a good hard shove and say "Oops, parm me, lady!" in a nasty sneering tone of voice. Finally, near the end of the game, Rose Rita hit a long drive that looked like it would be good for three bases. But as she dived into third, headfirst, there was the lug with the crew cut, and he had the ball in his hand. He could have tagged her on the shoulder or the arm or the back, but he shoved the ball right square into her mouth. It really hurt. The game stopped while Rose Rita pulled herself together. She checked her front teeth to make sure they weren't loose and cautiously rubbed her swollen upper lip. She felt like crying, but she fought down the urge. After a few minutes, Rose Rita went on playing.
In the ninth inning, when the crew-cut lug was pitching for the other side, Rose Rita hit a bases-loaded home run and won the game for her team. When she crossed home plate, all the boys on her side gathered around her and yelled "Yay, Rose Rita!" three times. It really made her feel great. But then she noticed that the guy who had been calling her names was standing there on the pitcher's mound and glaring straight at her.
"Hey, Four Eyes!" he yelled. "You think you're really somethin', doncha?"
"Yeah, I do," Rose Rita yelled back. "What's it to you?"
"Nothin' much. Hey, Four Eyes. How much do you know about baseball? Huh?"
"A heck of a lot more than you do," Rose Rita snapped.
"Oh yeah? Prove it."
"Whattaya mean, prove it?"
"I mean, let's have a contest to see who knows more about baseball, huh? How about it? You chicken? Chick-chick-chick, chick-chick-chick!" The boy flapped his arms like wings and did a rather poor imitation of a chicken.
Rose Rita grinned. This was too big a chance to miss. It so happened that Rose Rita was a real baseball nut. She knew all sorts of facts about baseball, like Ty Cobb's lifetime average and the number of unassisted triple plays that there were on record. She even knew about Smead Jolley's great record, four errors on a single played ball. So she figured that she would give this wiseacre kid a beating at the baseball fact game and get even with him for the fat lip he had given her.
Everybody gathered around to watch the contest. One of the other boys, a watery-eyed blond kid who talked through his nose, was chosen to think up questions. At first it was a pretty tough battle. The lug turned out to be pretty good at baseball facts. He knew the strikeout kings, and who the last thirty-game winner had been, and a lot of other stuff. But Rose Rita knew the stuff that the lug knew, so it turned into a tense nasty grudge fight that went on for some time, with neither one able to gain an inch on the other. In the end Rose Rita won, because she knew that Bill Wambsganss of the Cleveland Indians had pulled the only unassisted triple play ever to be pulled during a World Series game. The lug had a chance at the question first, but he didn't know the answer. Then it was Rose Rita's turn, and she knew it right away. Several of the boys yelled "Yay, Rose Rita!" and one even ran up to shake her hand.
The lug just got red in the face. He glowered at Rose Rita. If he had been mad before, he was furious now. "You think you're pretty damn smart, doncha?" he snarled.
"Yeah," said Rose Rita happily.
The lug put his hands on his hips and looked her straight in the eye. "Well, you wanna know what I think? I think you're a pretty funny kind of girl, that's what I think. A pret-ty damn funny kind of a girl."
It was a stupid remark, but it stung Rose Rita. It stung like a slap in the face. To the amazement of everyone, she burst into tears and ran off the field. You're a pretty funny kind of a girl. Rose Rita had heard people say this about her before, and what was worse, she had thought it about herself. She had often wondered if there was really something wrong with her. She acted like a boy, but she was a girl. Her best friend was a boy, but most of the girls she knew had girls for best friends. She didn't want to go on dates, even though some of the girls she knew had already started to date and had told her how much fun it was. A funny kind of a girl—Rose Rita couldn't get the phrase out of her head.
Rose Rita stopped on a street corner. She took out her hanky and dabbed at her eyes, and then she blew her nose. From the way people were looking at her as they passed by, she figured she must really be a mess. Her face felt hot and flushed. Now she was mad at herself, mad because she had let that dumb guy get her goat that way. As she walked along, she told herself that she had a lot to feel good about: she had practically won the game single-handed for her team, and she had won the baseball facts contest, in spite of what happened later. She started to whistle, and after two or three blocks of whistling, she felt better. She decided to go back to the hospital, just to see what was going on.
When Rose Rita walked into Mrs. Zimmermann's room, she walked in on an argument. Mrs. Zimmermann was sitting up in bed, and she was having it out with a worried-looking young doctor.
"But Mrs. Zimmermann," the doctor pleaded, "you're taking an awful chance with your health! If we had another day or so, we might be able to figure out—"
Mrs. Zimmermann cut him off contemptuously. "Oh, sure! If I were to stay here for a year, and if I were to lie very, very still, I'd get bedsores, and you'd know what to do about them, wouldn't you? Well, I'm sorry. I've wasted too much time as it is. Tomorrow morning, Rose Rita and I are hitting the road. You're just a bunch of quacks here, like most doctors."
"Now, Mrs. Zimmermann, I resent that. We've tried very hard to be nice to you, and we've also tried to find out about your pains. Just because all our tests have come out negative is no reason to..."
The doctor went on, and then Mrs. Zimmermann started in again. Rose Rita sat down in an armchair and hid behind a copy of Ladies Home Journal. She hoped that they wouldn't notice her. The argument went on for some time, and the doctor pleaded, and Mrs. Zimmermann was about as nasty and insulting as Rose Rita had ever seen her be. In the end Mrs. Zimmermann won. The doctor agreed that she could leave tomorrow morning if she wanted to.
Mrs. Zimmermann watched as the doctor gathered up his clip board, his stethoscope, and his medicine bag. When the door had closed behind him, she raised her hand and motioned for Rose Rita to come over to the bed.
"Rose Rita," she said. "We're in trouble."
"Huh?"
"I said, we're in trouble. I sent my dress out to be dry-cleaned. You know the one—the dress I was wearing when those pains hit me. The same dress that was draped over the chair by my bed, the night you thought you saw someone in my room. Remember?"
Rose Rita nodded.
"Well, the dress came back today, and look what came with it." Mrs. Zimmermann opened a drawer in the table that stood by the side of her bed. She took out a small brown Manila envelope and shook the contents out into Rose Rita's hand. Rose Rita looked down and saw a small golden safety pin and a little strip of paper.
There was writing in red ink on the paper, but she couldn't read it. "What's this?"
"It's a charm. The cleaners found it pinned to the inside of my dress. Don't worry—it can't hurt you. Those things can only be rigged up to work on one person at a time."
"You... you mean..."
"Yes, my dear. That little strip of paper caused the pains I had the other night." Mrs. Zimmermann laughed grimly. "I wonder what Doc Smartypants there would say if I told him about that! I'm sorry, by the way, that I was so mean to him, but I had to be, so he'd let us go."
Rose Rita was frightened. She put the strip of paper and the pin on the table and backed away. "Mrs. Zimmermann," she said, "what are we gonna do?"
"I don't know, Rose Rita, I just don't know. Somebody is after me—that much is clear. But who it is or why they're doing it, I just don't know. I have some ideas, but I'd rather not share them with you right now, if you don't mind. I've told you all this because I don't want you to feel guilty about driving off the road that night. You had every right to be scared. The thing you saw in the back seat, it... well, it wasn't in your head. It was real."
Rose Rita shuddered. "What... what was it?"
"I'd rather not say anything more right now," said Mrs. Zimmermann. "But I will tell you this. We've got to get home, and we've got to get home fast. I've got to get hold of my copy of the Malleus Maleficarum."
"The what?"
"The Malleus Maleficarum. It's a book that was written a long time ago by a monk. The title means The Hammer of Witches. That is, the book is a weapon to use in fighting off the attacks of those who fool around with black magic. It has a number of spells in it that will be of use to me. I should have memorized them long ago, but I didn't. So I need the book, and it's not the sort of thing you'd find at your friendly public library. We're going home the first thing in the morning, and I thought I ought to tell you why. I don't want to frighten you, but I figured you'd be frightened more if I went on being mysterious."
Rose Rita pointed at the strip of paper. "What're you gonna do with that?"
"Watch." Mrs. Zimmermann took a book of matches out of the drawer in the bedside table. She put the paper in an ashtray and lit it. While it burned, she made the sign of the cross over the ashtray and muttered a strange-sounding prayer. Rose Rita watched, fascinated. She felt scared, but she felt excited too, as if she had been suddenly swept out of her normal life and into an adventure.
That evening Rose Rita helped Mrs. Zimmermann pack. She got her own things together too. Mrs. Zimmermann informed her that Bessie was in the parking lot behind the hospital. A tow truck had pulled her up out of the juniper bushes, and the mecha
nics at a local garage had gone over her. She was all gassed and oiled and greased up, and ready to roll. A nurse came in with some papers for Mrs. Zimmermann to sign. The doctor paid one more visit, and said (rather coldly) that he hoped Mrs. Zimmermann had a good trip back. Everything was ready. Rose Rita and Mrs. Zimmermann crawled into bed and tried to get some sleep.
At first Rose Rita was too excited to sleep, but around midnight, she drifted off. Then, before she knew what was happening, she was awake again. Mrs. Zimmermann was standing by her bed. She was shaking her and shining a flashlight in her eyes.
"Come on, Rose Rita! Wake up!" Mrs. Zimmermann hissed. "We've got to go! Now!"
Rose Rita shook her head and rubbed her eyes. She fumbled for her glasses and put them on. "Wha... wha's the matter?"
"Wake up, I said! We're going to the farm. Now. We've got to!"
Rose Rita felt totally confused. "The farm? But thought you said..."
"Never mind what I said. Get dressed and follow me. We're going back to the farm to... to get something I left there. Come on, you! Get a move on!" She shook Rose Rita again roughly, and flashed the light in her eyes. Rose Rita had never seen Mrs. Zimmermann act this way before. Her voice was harsh, and her actions were rough and almost brutal. It was almost as if someone else had gotten inside of Mrs. Zimmermann's skin. And this business about going to the farm, instead of going straight home the way they had planned. What did it mean?
The Letter, the Witch, and the Ring Page 5