Camilla stepped away from Roger and spoke directly to me without raising her voice. “You are a fool, Lauren. And perhaps as stupid as your grandmother, since you have no idea of the power you are setting loose. Invoking ghosts from the past is a dangerous game—not one I’d recommend to children.”
The look she gave me was disdainful and chilling with its promise of disaster. Then she spoke calmly and coolly to Roger, slipping her hand through the crook of his arm. “I would like to go home, please.”
For a moment, I think he didn’t fully realize what had happened. He covered his wife’s hand with his own and looked at me—a sad, resigned, almost fearful look. He had never really thought I was Victoria, except for a moment, but he was beginning to see what I had done.
They walked the length of the dance floor together and couples stepped out of their way. The bandleader, realizing that the guests of honor were leaving unexpectedly, signaled for a small fanfare. The incongruous sounds accompanied Roger and Camilla as they went out the door. I saw wind catch at the skirt of her gown, whipping it out in billows as they disappeared from view.
Gordon’s arm held me suddenly close. “Are you all right, Lauren?”
I’d felt feverishly hot, but now I was cold, shivering. I was far from all right. My challenge had been given and taken. I had seen Camilla’s horrified look at the first sight of me, but she had recovered quickly—so where did that leave me? She had simply dismissed me as though I’d been a child playing games.
Gordon’s arm guided me toward a chair on the far side of the room. I felt sick and more than a little confused, so it was a relief to sit down. When I spoke, it was with a new conviction, though my voice cracked a little.
“It wasn’t Camilla,” I said. “And it wasn’t Roger. So who?”
Gordon shook his head gravely and I knew he didn’t care about the past—but only about me. “I don’t want you to be hurt. That’s all that matters now.”
I was grateful for his concern, but I knew this wasn’t the time to give up—no matter how weak and shaken I felt. We hadn’t watched for the reaction of anyone but Roger and Camilla at the sight of us. All my sensitivities had been tuned in toward them—yet no sense of guilt had come to me. I knew only one thing about them: They were both frightened people—Camilla no less than Roger. Beneath masks they’d put on so quickly to conceal whatever they felt had been a fright that was very real—fright but not guilt.
Gordon was watching me, increasingly concerned. “I’ll get you some coffee. Stay here, Laurie hon, and I’ll be right back.”
Laurie hon—he’d used to call me that, and the same tenderness was there in his voice. Tears came into my eyes, and I was wiping them away when two people stopped in front of me. I looked up at Justyn and Natalie. Both wore angry faces as they looked down at me.
“I hope you’re pleased with yourself!” Natalie cried. “Hurting two old people like that!”
This was hardly fair, and I stiffened to answer her. “You are the one who suggested that I come as Victoria!”
“That was a joke. I never dreamed that you’d wear that dress. I never thought you’d manage to look like her. That was a cruel thing to do.”
I didn’t think either Roger or Camilla had been innocent of cruelty to my grandmother.
Justyn had no patience with this talk about dresses. “Your husband got what was coming to him, Mrs. Castle. And now you’ve stuck out your own neck. I hope you’ll get out of here before anything else happens.”
Justyn’s hatred of Jim was clear. His daughter had fallen for the charms of a married man, and he could never forgive that. Yet I couldn’t see Justyn as a murderer.
Natalie put a hand on his arm. “None of this matters anymore. She doesn’t matter.” She looked at me scornfully and then away. “Dad, we need to get home to Gran. She’ll need us now.”
I watched them go off and tried to get myself in hand. Gordon was probably standing in line somewhere trying to get me a cup of coffee, but I couldn’t wait here for him. I felt unable to breathe. Fresh air was all I wanted—just to fill my lungs. But before I could move, a man stopped before me.
“Victoria?” he said, and I looked up in alarm, to see that he was smiling at me. I recognized Gerald Osborn in the uniform of an old war.
“Will you dance with me?” he said. “We seem the perfect couple tonight.”
I knew he would be dancing again with Victoria—an old man reliving moments from the past. At least I could give him this, and perhaps help my own discomfort. I rose gladly.
The band was playing an old fox-trot, and he was still a beautiful dancer. I followed him easily, but once more I began to feel disoriented and queasy. When we neared the door, I stopped.
“I’m sorry, Gerald, but I don’t feel very well. I’d like to step outside for a breath of air. I’ll be all right—really. Gordon’s bringing me coffee. Will you tell him where I am, please?”
He reluctantly let me go and I went out into the whipping wind and held on to the railing of the landing. The storm was closer now—down near the far end of Lake Lure—and I raised my face to cold, reviving wind. The bands of Victoria’s turban seemed to have tightened about my head, so that I could hardly bear the pressure. I wanted to unwind those folds and cast away from me everything that had ever belonged to Victoria Frazer. When Gordon came, I would ask him if we could leave immediately.
Lightning stabbed above Rumbling Bald and thunder boomed soon afterward. At least the rain held off. I should never have worn these clothes; I should never have opened so direct a door to the past. I had hurt people who didn’t deserve to be hurt by me. I wished that Gordon would come quickly. I didn’t want to be alone, but neither did I want to go back into that hot swirl of color and sound inside.
Someone started up the steps from the ground, and I was glad to have my uneasy mood interrupted. It was the man in the monk’s costume whom I’d seen inside. His brown robe whipped in the wind and he clutched the hood tightly over his head. I waited for him to pass me and go into the ballroom. Instead, a strong hand reached from one brown sleeve and grasped me rudely by the arm.
Even as I pulled back in surprise, something was pressed over my face—something with an odor that brought back the terrors of a hospital stay from my childhood.
That time, too, I had dreamed wildly and vividly, with visions that took me into a fantasy world. Memory was gone. Time had no meaning. Yet out of the void around me, a voice spoke my name insistently, calling me back.
16
I felt sick and dizzy, and only half-aware of what was happening around me.
“You must walk,” a voice said. “I can’t carry you.”
It was more like stumbling than walking, but I managed to move my feet. In a moment, I was pushed roughly into the backseat of a car and forced to lie down. The cloth came over my face again and stayed there, but after a while, with the bumping of the car, it slipped off. There was fresh air blowing in from a window in front and I lapsed into a half-conscious state. It was then that I discovered that my wrists and ankles had been tied.
The monk appeared to be driving, but time fell away and it was hard to keep my eyes open. The storm had worsened, and when we stopped, I could hear the thrashing of wind high in the trees.
“You’ll have to walk again!” the voice said. “I’ll untie your feet.”
When the monk bent over me, I could smell a strong, familiar odor, but I was too muddled to place it. I was hauled from the car, and immediately I fell to my knees. Headlights illuminated the clearing ahead and outlined the ghostly shapes of longhouses where light touched them. Suddenly, my eyes fell on the pale shape of the stake that Natalie had celebrated in her painting and I bent forward on my knees and became deathly sick.
Strangely, the hand that had pushed me around now held my head and a voice murmured encouragingly.
“That’s right—get it all out of your system. Then you’ll be fine again. I want you to have a clear head, Victoria, so you’ll under
stand exactly what is happening. That’s only fair, you know, considering all you did to hurt Ty and me.”
Gretchen! I caught again the scent of those poultices and ointments she dealt with.
Recognition brought shock and a powerful new wave of fear. Gretchen thought she was talking to Victoria! Those I had meant to startle hadn’t believed for a moment—but Gretchen, whom I had never suspected, thought I was her sister! When the dizziness lessened, she pulled me to my feet, supporting me as she urged me into the clearing. The headlights cut a path, so that darkness was pushed back on either side into the high, thrashing trees. As I stumbled along, trying to clear my mind, a strong gust of wind almost blew me down. Lightning slashed the sky above Hickory Nut Gorge and thunder crashed around us. Without Gretchen’s arm thrusting me along, I might have fallen, far too weak and sick to move alone.
As we reached the dusty path that branched among the longhouses, I heard a sound so clear and strong that it struck its own signal beneath the clamor of the storm.
For a moment, hope leapt in me. It was Ty’s dram! I tried to shout, to call out to him, but my voice was weak.
“Don’t do that,” Gretchen warned. “It’s no use. He can’t hear you. Anyway, he knows you’re here. I asked him to come to witness what’s going to happen. This is our revenge, Victoria—Ty’s and mine. We thought you were dead, but you fooled us. You always did like to fool us, make us feel like oafs and simpletons. You should have been a better girl, Victoria!”
My grandmother’s name, spoken with such venom, wiped away my grogginess and I realized my danger. I had no idea what Gretchen intended, but I had to convince her that I was not Victoria. Even though she was obviously demented, I must try to pull her back to my reality.
“Listen to me!” I cried, only to have my words blown away as the night exploded around us. Somewhere a tree went down. Nevertheless, she had heard me and I could hear her laughing close by. The wind died suddenly and she spoke into my ear.
“No, Victoria—now it’s your time to listen! This is your trial, you know—just as witches were tried long ago. It’s your turn now—because you always were a witch.” Gretchen’s voice had a singsong quality to it that I found terrifying.
She was leading me toward a circle of stones where upright wooden poles had been placed. Not a real stake, of course, but one that had been used for a make-believe burning.
“I’ll show you how it was done in the picture,” she told me cheerfully. The very change in her was alarming. It meant that she was altogether confident, sure of Victoria’s punishment. My own weakness held me captive.
“I was here, you know, when they filmed that scene.” She suddenly grew angry when I stumbled. “Pick up your feet, Victoria! Step over the stones.”
Somehow I managed to stop my forward motion and stand against her. “NO! I’m not going any farther! I’m not Victoria. Look at me! Please, I’m Lauren!”
“I wish you could see your face. That’s almost reward enough—the way you look. You’re frightened, aren’t you? Do you think I’m really going to burn you at the stake? It might be fun, I admit, but you needn’t worry. I just want you to stand over there and listen to me and be afraid. In case I should change my mind.…”
The sound of Ty’s drum grew louder because of a lull in the storm. Gretchen forced me on, prodding me from behind, and I stepped over the circling stones. My own movements took on a dream quality—totally unreal. In a moment, I would wake up from this nightmare. She pushed me against the upright poles of the stake and untied my wrists. I tried to use my hands to fight her off, but the ropes had cut my circulation and they were numb. She pulled one arm high over my head to secure it to a crossbar. And as she did so, I heard the bells on the bracelet I was wearing. Gretchen heard them, too. She reached up to pull it from my wrist and then flung it away into the rain.
“I never want to hear that again!” she cried, and I understood why she’d been upset that time when she’d left me with Ty.
If only I could throw off the nausea and weakness that came in waves, but my knees sagged and I could feel the pull of my own weight on that one arm. I tried to calm down by telling myself that when she’d played her wild scenario through, some semblance of sanity would return and she’d once again become the Gretchen whom I knew.
If only Ty would stop beating the drum so that he could hear me. I even thought helplessly of Gordon, who would have no idea what had happened to me, even if Gerald Osborn had managed to deliver my message.
Something had apparently distracted Gretchen, for she hadn’t secured my other arm to the overhead pole. One hand was free and the feeling had returned to my fingers. I reached up and frantically tore the bands of the turban from my head.
“Gretchen—look! I’m Lauren Castle. I’m not Victoria Frazer! I’m Lauren!”
She saw my dark hair whipped by the wind, but only laughed again. “Don’t try to fool me. Of course you’re inside Lauren’s body. I know that. I’ve seen you look out of her eyes, Victoria. I’ve known you were there all along. So now are you ready to listen?”
Under the fury of the newly rising wind, she came very close to my ear, and I could hear her clearly as she told me all that Victoria had done to her and to Ty. Or what she thought Victoria had done—the older, beautiful, successful sister who had ignored the small, plain Gretchen when she was young. Victoria had been intent only on the fulfillment of her own ambition. She had destroyed lives, turned brother against sister; everything that had caused Gretchen pain throughout her life was Victoria’s fault.
“You destroyed our lives!” Gretchen cried. “You cared only about yourself. Camilla Brandt hated you, too—because of the way you bewitched Roger. If Camilla’d had the guts, she’d have killed you long ago.”
I listened and I shivered in cold and fear.
“I only wanted you to love me. Our parents were gone, and there was no one else. Only you and me and Ty. And you were so beautiful.…”
I heard the pain of a long-ago child in her voice. Perhaps she would talk herself out soon and this nightmare would end.
However, deep down I knew Gretchen had brought me to this place for a purpose I dared not think about. If she’d only wanted me to listen, then anywhere at all would have served.
Again the wind died down and took on a waiting quality. The rain still hadn’t come. I heard her clearly, though her voice was low.
“Afterward—after you were gone—I had to atone for what I’d done. To take a life is a wicked act. No matter how evil you were, I had no right. That was when the power came into my hands and I found I could heal those who were suffering. I could save lives. That is why I’ve been allowed to live. In payment for one life, I have helped hundreds. God forgave me and granted me a gift that I have used faithfully and gratefully. That gift must be preserved. It’s all I have. Then you came back, and you were about to show Lauren everything—just as you showed Jim Castle. They would have destroyed me and ruined my gift. I couldn’t let that happen. They had to be stopped and you had to be stopped all over again. And for good, this time.”
She stared up into the darkness of rolling black clouds laced with lightning and did not flinch when a tremendous clap of thunder sounded close by.
“Jim should have known that what I can do is more important than anything you’ll ever do. I didn’t want to kill him, but by stopping him I’ve saved the lives of those who will need me. Now I must stop you. I see that more clearly than ever.”
She stepped back from the circle of stones surrounding the stake. I watched as she ran to a smaller circle where wood had been piled for burning. She picked up a branch with dead leaves on the end and set it afire with the lighter she’d brought. Then she touched the burning end to the pile of dry wood and kindling, so that it burst into flames, whipped to life by the wind. But that circle of stones was not where I stood.
My left hand was still free and I began to struggle frantically with the rope that tied the other hand high over my head. The oily
-feeling rope was stiff and tightly knotted.
I hadn’t made much progress when she came running back to me, her face alive with a terrible excitement. Ty’s drum sounded louder now and more ominous. He was helping his sister, after all.
“This is how they did it in the picture,” she cried. “They built a fire like that in the smaller circle and then shot the scene through those flames to where the actor was tied to the stake. If I had a camera and shot this scene from over there, it would look as though you were burning. But I’m not making a movie.”
Gretchen ran to pull a second torch from the blaze she’d started, then came back to me.
“We can make this much more realistic. I have only to touch this to the sticks at your feet. Then it will feel real.”
I must not faint. Somehow I must hold on to my own reason—when hers had gone completely. I tore at the rope that held me and at last it began to give.
“Wait, Gretchen! This isn’t the way—you’re not finished. Show me the cave! Show me where you left Victoria.” If I could distract her, I might have time.…
But she only laughed and lowered the torch to the wood piled at my feet. The flames caught, smoldered, and smoke curled upward, making me cough as I lurched away, straining against the loosened rope and holding my long white skirt as far from the smoldering branches as I could.
Ty’s voice came suddenly out of the darkness beyond headlights and fire. “You don’t want to do that, Gretchen.”
She paid no attention, her interest fixed on the small spreading flames. I could already feel a pulsing of heat near my legs.
“Help me, Ty!” I shouted.
Star Flight Page 24