The Deadly Fields of Autumn

by Dorothy Bodoin

  “Oh, I see someone I know,” she announced and without another word dashed off into the milling crowd.

  “Just look at all these gorgeous costumes!” Julia stepped aside to make way for a clown who was descending on the buffet. “This all reminds me of The Masque of the Red Death.”

  “Poe’s story had a gruesome end, if you’ll recall,” I said.

  “The only one wearing red tonight is Miss Eidt with all those Valentines pinned to her dress, and she certainly isn’t the Red Death.”

  I chose a large gingerbread cookie shaped like a cat and bit into it. “Mm. Delicious.”

  “Let’s mingle,” Julia said. “Meet you back at the buffet in a half hour and we’ll compare notes.”

  A scream pierced through the hum of party conversation, bringing the happy noise to a halt. Several people looked nervously at the dark between the stacks.

  “What now?” Julia asked. “Is murder being committed in the library?”

  Debby, adding cookies to the dessert carousel, overheard us. “It’s Miss Eidt’s CD. I told her that scream was going to scare people. She thinks it’s perfect.”

  “It may be perfect for the party, but not for your guests’ nerves,” I said.

  It seemed I could still hear the scream’s echo.

  ~ * ~

  Brent Fowler, the perennial huntsman, and his medieval lady, Annica, swept through the front door in a flurry of snowflakes. Near the entrance, heads turned. People gave the attractive red-haired couple admiring glances.

  “You’re a fantastic Huntsman, Brent,” I said. “And Annica, you look beautiful. Green really is your color.”

  Brent gave me an outrageous wink and put his arm around Annica. “Look what I caught in my trap.”

  Annica tossed her head. “You wish.”

  I squelched a desire to laugh. Annica sounded flippant, but she was dead serious.

  Dead?

  Wrong word choice.

  “Who screamed a minute ago?” Brent asked. “If there’s trouble…”

  “It’s just one of the sounds on Miss Eidt’s CD.”

  “Oh ho! Canned terror.”

  “It sounds like someone’s being tortured,” Annica said. “Are we going to find a mutilated corpse in a corner?”

  “I doubt it.”

  The CD was giving us music now, a haunting tune that conjured images of isolated graveyards and ghostly shrieks.

  Brent peered through the milling revelers. “What do they have at the buffet?”

  “Lots of good stuff and a Halloween log.”

  “What? They’re serving wood?”

  “It’s a cake shaped like a log,” Annica said. “You’ll love it.”

  “Have you sampled it, Jennet?” he asked, noticing the crumpled napkin in my hand.

  “It’s too rich for me.”

  Brent took Annica’s hand. “Let’s check it out. See you later, Jennet.”

  I glanced at my watch. Only ten minutes had gone by. I had time to visit Lucy in the Gothic Nook. I was eager to see whether she was wearing her signature black with gold chains or a costume.

  Forty-four

  As I crossed the library to the candlelit area where the stacks began, I saw another woman wearing my dress. Of course there were thousands of black mini-dresses in existence, but it seemed that the unknown wearer had deliberately imitated me, even copying my hair color and style with the long bangs. From a distance I could tell her fingernails were painted black.

  Did she fancy herself a sister witch?

  Well, I hadn’t taken pains to put together an original Halloween costume. Obviously neither had she. At least she didn’t have a crystal cat pin.

  I stole a last quick glance at her and the man who stood behind a file cabinet draped in cobwebs. He was watching her intently. The man was a tall and burly pirate, complete with sword. He was masked and his beard was obviously fake. It looked like black yarn that had been left out in the rain.

  The woman didn’t appear to have noticed me or the man. I sailed past them to the Gothic Nook where Lucy presided over a small twig table set with plain white teacups, an electric teapot, and an orange pillar candle.

  Lucy had forsaken her customary black attire in favor of a purple, red, green, and gold skirt with a scarlet blouse. Chains, hoop earrings, and bracelets, all gold, completed her look.

  She pushed back a strand of long black hair. “Am I a credible gypsy?” she asked.

  “I’m not sure what a real gypsy looks like,” I said. “I’ve never seen one, but your setup here looks authentic enough.”

  “I had a large crowd for my readings from Devilwish,” she said. “As soon as I finished, it all evaporated.”

  “They’ll be back for your next act.”

  “I’m sure they will. The night is young. In the meantime, you can be the first.”

  She poured my tea quickly, and I drank it as fast as I could as it was still quite hot. When I was through, I let the excess liquid drain into the saucer and turned the cup slowly toward myself three times, letting the patterns form.

  “I’ll have to tell people how to do that over and over tonight,” she said as I handed her my cup.

  I wasn’t prepared for her frown. She set the cup down and picked it up again, perusing the formations thoughtfully. Then she looked at me.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure, but something is brewing.”

  “Something? What? You’re scaring me.”

  “I wish I could be more specific. I can’t.” She reached across the table and laid her hand on mine. Her touch was warm. I imagined her transferring a modicum of energy to me.

  “I only mean to warn you,” she said. “It’s coming. It’ll be here soon.”

  It?

  I took a deep breath. “I hope you don’t say something like this to your other customers. You’ll have people running out of the library.”

  “This message is for you only, Jennet. Beware. What’s that saying you like so well? Forewarned is…”

  “Forearmed,” I said.

  I heard a tapping of heels behind me on the hardwood floor. Lucy had another customer, and I didn’t want to hear any more gloom and doom.

  I would never let Lucy know that her reading had upset me. I’d been expecting a familiar fortune: a snake near my home, an initial V, three little dots indicating that my wish would be granted. What I’d received instead was this ambiguous warning.

  You don’t have to believe everything Lucy tells you.

  I ordered my heart to stop pounding and my voice not to tremble. “Thank you for the reading, Lucy,” I said. “I’ll stop by a little later.”

  With a smile at the next in line, a plump lady dressed as an ear of corn, and the person waiting behind her, I left the Gothic Nook to Lucy and her dark visions.

  ~ * ~

  Brent held a sugar cookie witch with orange sprinkles in his hand. “Hey, Jennet, that log was good. Do you know how to make one?”

  “It’s hard,” I said. “I could try—if Annica will help me.”

  Annica cast a flirtatious look at Brent. “Sure thing.”

  “I went back for another slice, and it was all gone,” Brent said.

  “Annica and I will get together in the next day or so and bake one for you,” I promised.

  And, as an afterthought, we’d better bake another one for Crane because Brent would probably demolish the entire log.

  Good grief, was my beloved husband now an afterthought?

  “Annica wants Lucy to read our tea leaves,” Brent said. “It’s okay for her, but not me. I think it’s all poppycock.”

  “You’d better hurry then. There’s a line.”

  They headed to the Gothic Nook, and I started walking toward the buffet. Miss Eidt had borrowed one of her decoration ideas for the main desk—a large faux clock, its hand frozen at twelve o’clock.

  I consulted my watch. It was about time to meet Julia. Not quite, though, and I wasn’t hungry enough
to visit the buffet again.

  I looked through the window that gave the best view of the library’s fountain. Like the trees, it wore a garland of fairy lights that turned the snow to a sparkling blanket. The statue cradled a faux bat in her arms. At least I hoped the bat wasn’t alive.

  How inviting the yard looked, and how lovely the brightly clad revelers were, their images reflected in the glass.

  A pair of steely hands gripped my arms and turned me around into a rough embrace. The next instant a hard mouth smashed down on my lips. A rough cloth pressed on my face and throat.

  Cloth? No, yarn. A fake beard made of yarn. The pirate who had been watching the other woman in black.

  How dare he!

  I tried to break loose, to cry out, but he held me in a death grip, keeping his mouth pressed against mine, his face mashed to mine. I couldn’t breathe.

  The handle of the sword cut into my ribs. I tried again to free myself. It was futile, and the CD was throwing wind gusts and cawings and screams around the library.

  Was no one looking our way? Would a casual observer assume we were a pair of lovers overcome with passion?

  Dear God, this couldn’t be happening to me with over a hundred guests in the library.

  I had to break away from this madman who had trapped me and rendered me incapable of speech.

  My chance came when he removed one hand to open the library’s side door. I wrenched away from him and freed my mouth.

  “Help,” I shouted. “Somebody, help me…”

  The CD screamer drowned out my cry for help. A rush of cold air flew past me, and the next moment we were outside. I slipped on the snow-covered ground, and my abductor yanked me upright.

  He spoke. “Go ahead and scream. No one will hear you.”

  I knew that voice. Knew the man. The hit-and-run driver had found me in the unlikeliest of places—a crowded Halloween party in the library.

  “Let me go!” I demanded. “You don’t know who you’re dealing with. My husband is a deputy sheriff. You won’t get away with this.”

  “Shut up.” He dragged me through the garden, past the fountain out of the gate that was purely ornamental and never locked, into a Jeep, and shoved me inside. The next moment he was behind the wheel, starting the vehicle.

  This is your chance! Get out now!

  I couldn’t. He’d locked the door, somehow made it impossible to open.

  A tall policeman accompanied by another woman in black—a witch?—crossed behind us, so close the Jeep might have backed into him. I pounded on the window as hard as I could, but they never looked our way.

  It was too late. We skidded in the library lot, slid into Park Street, and were off into the night.

  Forty-five

  He wouldn’t talk to me. He wouldn’t tell me why he had spirited me out of the library or where he was taking me.

  I told him again about my deputy sheriff husband who would be on his trail and about Lieutenant Mac Dalby of the Foxglove Corners Police Department, a personal friend of mine. What I didn’t mention was the girl whose death he had caused, and I thought it was prudent not to remind him of the Halt! incident.

  He drove on and didn’t speak. Before long I could no longer estimate the time that had elapsed since we left the library. I couldn’t figure out how far we had traveled or what direction he had taken. North, I assumed.

  The only sound in the car was the swish of the windshield wipers, clearing away snow that looked and sounded like freezing rain.

  He was a careless driver, traveling too fast for roads that were rapidly acquiring a thin veneer of ice. Every time the Jeep slid, I felt certain we were going to crash into a tree, but the Jeep managed to hold the road.

  The trees seemed endless. We were driving through dark woods, away from civilization and the people I knew—and Crane.

  My arms burned where he’d held me, and I thought my lips must be cut. I reached for my compact…

  My purse was gone!

  All evening I had carried it over my shoulder on a long gold chain. I had it when I’d stood at the window gazing at the fountain, had up it to the moment the madman had grabbed me and held me in a vise like grip.

  And after that?

  After that I didn’t remember having it. I must have dropped it.

  I felt a brief surge of hope. Someone would find the purse on the library floor and know I’d been forcibly separated from it. I would never leave behind my keys, a twenty dollar bill…

  My cell phone!

  My link to the outside world, the only way to let Crane know what had happened to me. It was in my purse, wherever that was.

  What if it had fallen off my shoulder into the snow-blanketed garden? Who would find it then?

  I could have made a quick call while the man was distracted. Wouldn’t he have to stop for a bathroom break or a sandwich or even a cup of coffee?

  It depended on how far he intended to drive.

  I halted this runaway train of thought. I couldn’t do this without my cell phone.

  My head began to ache. It started as it usually did, with a pinprick of pain above my right eye. Again I lamented the loss of my purse with two pain pills in plastic wrap inside.

  I needed my purse!

  I tried to make the pirate talk. “Aren’t you ever going to stop?”

  That inspired the longest sentence he’d uttered. “Not till we get to where we’re going.”

  “Where’s that?” I asked.

  He didn’t answer.

  I closed my eyes and touched my temple. The pain seemed to be increasing.

  Kidnapped by a pirate, I thought. What a cliché. What an incredible, outrageous turn of events.

  ~ * ~

  I must have fallen asleep because it seemed that I was sailing on turbulent waters toward a fearsome destination. The ship flew a black flag emblazoned with a leering white skull and crossbones.

  My dress was strange, made of a heavy material like brocade and emerald green in color. I was a lady kidnapped by the notorious Elizabethan pirate, Captain Blackbeard.

  The wind shrieked. Men shouted. The ship tilted. It was going to sink in the roiling sea. The skull fell off the flag and landed at my feet. Surely this was a dire omen.

  Then motion ceased. I was in a vehicle, not a ship. My dress was long and silky, and I wasn’t wearing my coat. My head was pounding.

  The pirate had brought the Jeep to a stop. He turned off the lights. It had stopped snowing, but icy traces remained on the windshield. By moonlight I saw our destination, a cabin as small as one of those tiny houses that are so popular today. It had two windows, one on either side of the door, and the view beyond them was dark.

  The cabin was built in the middle of a rolling field. If there were trees, I couldn’t see them.

  It reminded me of a sepulcher.

  If the man intended to leave me here, I had reached the end of the line.

  ~ * ~

  He opened the passenger’s side door. “Get out!”

  I didn’t move.

  He grabbed my wrist and pulled me out of the Jeep, which had suddenly become my safe haven. I stood unsteadily on the ground, my shoes sinking down into at least three inches of snow. Immediately a cold wetness engulfed the hem of my dress.

  The man released my arm and stood at the cabin door, struggling with the lock. He didn’t have to worry about my trying to escape. There was nowhere to run.

  As he pushed the door open, a tremulous voice called out, “Who’s there? Whoever you are, help me. Please.”

  “Get inside,” the pirate said to me. He felt along the wall. I heard a faint click, and pale light flooded the interior.

  The woman on the cot shrank back to the wall. It was Charlotte—found at last.

  ~ * ~

  He left the light on and went back outside, slamming the door.

  “He’s gone,” Charlotte whispered. “We’re safe for a while.”

  I walked over to her. “Thank God you’re alive,” I said
. “Have you been here all this time?”

  “Yes, all these weeks. Did Bronwyn find you?”

  “In a way.”

  “I told her to find Jennet. I kept repeating it, but I didn’t think she understood me. I didn’t think she could do it.”

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “He followed me when I left my house. I was afraid he’d hurt Bronwyn when she growled at him, but he just shoved her into the car with me.”

  I could see the picture clearly in my mind. Bronwyn growling, grabbed by the scruff of her neck and hurled into a strange vehicle by a rough hand. But they were together, Charlotte and her collie.

  “How did she get free?” I asked.

  “She’s so fast. One day when he opened the door, she slipped out and ran across the field. He went after her with a gun. I didn’t know till I saw you that she got away from him and found you.”

  It hadn’t happened like that, but I didn’t tell her.

  “Bronwyn is safe with Sue Appleton,” I said. “Now, how are we going to escape?”

  Her hand dropped to her left thigh. “I can’t go anywhere. I hurt my leg. I thought it was broken, but I can walk, a little. I don’t know where we are,” she added. “It’s all one big endless field outside.”

  If only my headache would go away so I could think, so I could force my thoughts into order and make a plan. I sat on the edge of the cot and surveyed our prison. We must be in a hunter’s cabin, roughhewn and filled with only utilitarian furniture.

  Five other cots with drab old blankets were shoved close together against one wall. A retro kitchen table and four chairs occupied the other. On the table were a loaf of bread and a twelve pack of bottled water. I could see part of another room at the back, separated from the rest by a crude wood partition.

  Seeing the direction of my gaze, Charlotte said, “He brings food. That is, a loaf of bread. There’s a bathroom in back, a bar of soap, and a roll of toilet paper.”

  I absorbed this discouraging information. “I can guess why he wants us out of the way, but why didn’t he just kill us?”

  Not that I wanted that to happen. Even as I stared at the stark interior of the cabin, I was calculating our chances for escape. They were grim to non-existent, hampered by the fact that Charlotte couldn’t walk well.