by Kathy
"I'll not be leaving this place until you come with me," Frances said. Meg deduced that there was an Irish housekeeper in the current book.
"So sleepy all the time," Gran said peevishly. "I think they are giving me dope, Meg."
"I expect they are, darling." Meg bent to kiss her on the forehead. The lace border of the cap tickled her nose. "You're supposed to rest, you know."
"Mmmm." Her eyelids, crumpled as tissue paper, drooped. "There was something Dan wanted me to tell you. . . ."
"Tell me tomorrow," Meg said. She glanced at Frances, who rolled her eyes and produced her version of a Gaelic shrug.
Amid a chorus of soft good-nights they started toward the door, where the nurse was making gestures. "No, wait." The voice was as faint and chirping as a bird's, but it stopped Meg in her tracks. "I remember," Mary said. "It was about Henrietta. Watch out for Henrietta, he says."
"I'm taking good care of her, Gran. She misses you, but she's fine."
"So irritating." Gran's eyes had closed. "They never tell you things. Even Dan. . . . He means well, but I wish. ..." The sibilant trailed off into an unmistakable snore. Frances shooed the visitors out.
"How are you holding up, Frances?" George asked solicitously. "You don't have to stay here twenty-four hours a day, you know. We'll find someone to relieve you if you like."
Behind Frances's back Cliff made horrible faces at Meg, who tightened the corners of her mouth to keep from laughing. It was a safe offer, though, as George undoubtedly knew. Frances shook her head.
"Sure an' I'll not be leaving the dear soul to the tender mercies of those nurses. They'd be after thinking she's lost her mind if they heard her talking away to Mr. Dan. I have to admit it gives me a bit of a chill, when I wake up in the night and hear that soft little voice of hers; I swear, there are times when it seems as if I can almost hear him answering her."
The brogue had vanished by the time she finished, and she appeared genuinely troubled. George patted her shoulder. "It's a harmless habit, Frances, and it comforts her. But if it really bothers you—"
"Better me than those nurses," Frances said. "I'll be all right, Mr. George." She smiled bravely.
There was little conversation during the drive home. When they reached the house Meg went directly to her room, refusing Cliffs invitation to join him for a drink at the Golden Calf. As she climbed the stairs she heard him make the same offer to his father, who reacted predictably; Cliff laughed, and the two went off together, presumably to George's study. Their relationship was an odd mixture of resentment and deep affection, but, Meg supposed, not much different from most parent-child relationships. She wondered, wistfully, how it would have been for her and her father. Suddenly she missed him so desperately that her whole body ached with emptiness—missed him not as the doting daddy of a young child, but as the loving, supportive friend he might have become. If he had lived. . . .
What would her father have thought of Riley? A skilled designer himself, he would surely have appreciated Riley's talent. Or would he have been jealous of it? Would he have been able to break through the reserve that protected Riley like a crustacean's shell? Silly, irrelevant questions. How could she know? Everything would have been different. . . .
A sound from without jerked her back to wakefulness; she had been drooping over the desk, half asleep. It came again, and Meg swore under her breath. Brooding over insoluble problems, she had ignored one that was immediate and imperative— and after being reminded by Gran only a few hours earlier. Henrietta. She hadn't even noticed the cat's absence. Henrietta came and went as she pleased, and she was not particularly pleased with Meg. Now she was outside.
One firm rule of Mary's was that Henrietta should not be allowed out at night. It was an issue on which the two violently disagreed; despite her effete appearance Henrietta was a mighty hunter, and as all predators know, the best time to hunt is after dark. Mary disapproved of this custom for two reasons: first because no one appreciated the unsavory trophies Henrietta left on the doorstep, and second because at night Henrietta was not only predator but potential prey, to wild dogs, foxes and other larger animals.
A louder, more penetrating yowl brought Meg to her feet. That wasn't Henrietta's cry of triumph; it was a challenge, rippling with rage and frustration. Damn the damn cat, she thought furiously, already on her way to the door. If anything happens to her, Gran will never forgive me.
Searching for a flashlight, she resolutely refused to acknowledge the strange coincidence of Gran's warning. A superstitious person might wonder how Mary—or Dan?—had known Henrietta would be in peril that night.
It was later than she had realized. Everyone seemed to be in bed, or out. Cliff must have gone to the Golden Calf; the alarm had not been switched on and the inner bolts were unfastened. Meg opened the front door and ran out, calling.
At first she didn't need the flashlight, the outside lights blazed and the moon was almost full. Finally she heard a response to her calls. It sounded just as furious, and even farther away, somewhere in the garden. Meg started in that direction. Before long she had to use the flashlight. From the sound, Henrietta appeared to be moving, retreating farther back into the grounds. Stumbling over a stone, Meg swore and hopped, nursing a bruised toe. She should have changed to sneakers instead of the sandals she had worn that day. The bright hunters' moon might have told her Henrietta would be in no mood to be tamely captured.
A rustle in the shrubbery to her left caught her attention, but when she shone the flashlight around she saw nothing. It wasn't the first time she had pursued Henrietta through the darkness, and she knew the search was an exercise in frustration; no one can capture a cat, he can only persuade the cat that it wants to come to him. "Henrietta," she called. "Nice kitty, adorable kitty, come to Meg. ..." It was hard to keep her voice sweet and affectionate when what she really wanted to do was scream threats.
Henrietta suffered from no such inhibition. If a cat could be said to swear, Henrietta's next comment was unquestionably profane. It sounded close at hand, however, and it drew Meg onward. It was not until she saw the light ahead that she realized where she was and how far she had come.
The area Cliff and his crew had cut that afternoon gave a clear view, not of the cottage itself but of its immediate surroundings. The light seemed to be that of a torch or lantern, and it was moving, flickering bright and dim as foliage intercepted its rays. Meg stopped short, forgetting Henrietta as she debated her options.
The temptation to go on and catch the intruders red-handed was strong. If she went back for help they might get away. However, there was really no choice; she'd be crazy to confront—whoever it was—alone. She started to turn.
The blow skimmed the side of her head instead of connecting squarely, but it was hard enough to fog her eyes and make her knees buckle. She was dimly aware of sharp-edged stones biting into her arm and hip as she fell; then her vision was blotted out altogether by a stifling, evil-smelling fabric that covered her face. Struggling, not even to free herself, but simply to breathe, she felt rough hands pull the fabric farther down, over shoulders and arms. Pain pierced her skull as her head hit the ground and sent her spiraling into unconsciousness.
The rough hands belonged to Riley. She still couldn't see, but she knew the feel of them, the feel of him. How? He had seldom touched her, and never so violently—pushing her, pulling at her, slapping her face. Never mind how. She knew. Under the impact of his open palm her head rolled to one side and rolled back, and he slapped her again. Meg opened her eyes. That was why she hadn't been able to see anything. Her eyes had been closed. He had removed the sack, or whatever it was. . . . That was nice of him.
"But you better not hit me again," she said clearly. "Because as soon as I feel better I'm going to. ... Oh. Oh, God, my head. . . ."
His face looked like a satanic mask, all dark shadows and flame-red highlights. It blurred and dissolved, like melting wax. Horrible. . . . Far away in the closing dark someone was screaming.
When Meg opened her eyes again she was alone, lying flat on a hard, lumpy surface. The scream had risen to a pitch that pierced her aching head like a needle. It cut off in midshriek, to be replaced by a dull, insistent roaring. Dawn was breaking—a strange, brilliant sunrise, crimson and hot and flickering.
She rolled over onto her side and sneezed violently as a thistle pricked her nose. She lay under a tree, among the uncut weeds, not far from the cottage. The scream had not come from a living throat, but from a siren, and the light was not that of sunrise. The cottage was burning.
She pulled herself to her feet with the help of the tree trunk.
Her aching head and bruised limbs were forgotten in the spectacle before her.
Hoses had been trained onto the fire, but the firemen might as well have been spitting on it; the flames soared toward the sky as if laughing at the feeble efforts of men. It's gone, Meg thought dispassionately. All that rotten wood and dried plaster . . . flammable as kindling. The volunteer fire department had certainly responded quickly, though. It was like Old Home Week, so many familiar faces—Tom, and Rod Applegate, Mike Potter, Cliff and George.
The last three stood close together. George had both arms around his son, as if restraining or supporting him. She could see every detail, the fire made it bright as day. But—she realized, as her head slowly cleared—they probably hadn't seen her. She had been hidden by the weeds earlier, and now the fire held all their attention.
She started walking toward them, and still they didn't seem to see her. An odd, sick fancy struck her: maybe they couldn't see her. Maybe she was dead. She actually stopped and turned to see if her body was lying there on the flattened weeds.
No body. Stop it, Meg told herself. When you pass to the Other Side the first person you'll see won't be Riley, it will be Dan Mignot, and he'll be cussing you out for being damned fool enough to ignore his warning. He told you to watch out for the cat, didn't he? A pity that sentence could be interpreted in two different ways. Not that you'd have paid any attention to it anyhow.
I must be slightly concussed, she thought in mild surprise. Such crazy ideas. And it doesn't feel as if I'm moving, but they're getting closer and closer, as if they were gliding toward me. How very strange. She was close enough to reach out and touch George. She was afraid to do it. What if her hand went right through his arm?
"Hello," she said. "Hi, everybody."
For one long, unendurable second she thought they had not heard her. What if.... Cliff was the first to turn, then George and finally, slowly, Mike. They looked—what was the phrase? They looked as if they had seen a ghost. Cliff made a weird gurgling sound, deep in his throat, and collapsed onto the ground at her feet.
Everybody was drinking brandy, even George. An hour later, after the fire had subsided into smoldering ruin and the volunteer firemen had gone, his hands were still unsteady. He said very little but his eyes kept moving restlessly from Meg to Cliff, as if he couldn't believe they were both there.
Cliff was furious—at himself, for passing out. "What was I supposed to think?" he demanded. "When I got home the front door was open and you were nowhere to be found, in or out of the house. While I was foraging around in the shrubbery yelling for you, I saw the glow of the fire. I got there just as the porch roof fell in, but before it fell I saw ... I saw a little ... a woman's shoe, on the steps."
Meg looked at her bare foot. She hadn't noticed one of her sandals was missing until they started back to the house.
"He tried to go in the cottage," George said, in a dull monotone. "I had to wrestle with him to hold him back."
Meg couldn't think of anything to say except "Were you the one who called the fire department, Cliff?"
"No. I was too busy trying to immolate myself."
Mike cleared his throat. At Meg's insistence he had come back to the house with them. He had left his boots and the rest of the uniform in the hall, but Mary would have had a fit if she had seen him, overalls pulled over his pajamas, smeared with soot and dripping with water. But then none of them was looking his or her best, Meg thought.
"The call came in at eleven-ten," Mike said in his slow drawl. "Didn't give a name."
Meg looked at her uncle. He shook his head wearily. "I was in bed reading when Cliff burst in asking why the front door was open. We searched . . . after that everything happened so fast. . . ."
Cliff stopped pacing and went to his father, resting one hand on his bowed shoulder. "What the hell were you doing outside, Meg? Did you see the flames? And if so, why didn't you call the fire department?"
"I was looking for Henrietta." Meg glanced at the cat, curled up next to her and purring with insufferable satisfaction.
"She was in the hall when I came in," Cliff said. "Yelling her fool head off."
"I can't help that, she was outside earlier—yelling her fool head off. She must have sneaked back in while I was. . . ." She wasn't sure how to finish the sentence—or how much to tell them. A painful lump on the side of her head indicated that her memory of falling was accurate, but it wasn't severe enough to account for such a long period of unconsciousness. The bag or gunnysack that had half-smothered her had had a peculiar smell, something more pungent than mold and dirt. Chloroform? Dan used to keep a bottle of the stuff around, to use on fatally injured animals. . . .
"What happened, honey?" Mike asked.
"I heard Henrietta outside and went to look for her," Meg began. "She kept retreating—you know how she is—and I followed her all the way back through the gardens. Then I saw a light near the cottage. It wasn't fire. More like a flashlight or an electric lantern."
Cliff was pacing again. He stopped and pointed an accusing finger. "So you thought you'd play hero and catch the intruders red-handed?"
"I'm not that stupid," Meg snapped. "I was about to go back and call the police when someone pulled a sack over my head. I fell and . . . and that's all I remember, until I woke up and found myself lying in the weeds, and saw the cottage ablaze."
Three pairs of eyes focused on her with varying degrees of concern and skepticism. "What do you mean, that's all you remember?" Cliff demanded. "What do you mean, someone? You must have seen him. Who was it?"
"Now, Clifford, just calm down," Mike said. "If she knew who it was she would have said so. It was dark, and I expect he was taking considerable pains not to be seen. You sure that's all you can remember, honey?"
Meg nodded. She had made her decision. That brief, vivid vision of Riley might have been a dream, or a hallucination. Her hand went to her cheek, where his palm had struck with stinging force. It still stung. Some hallucination. . . .
Her uncle's face had regained its color. "Bad as this is, it's not as bad as I feared. He—they—didn't mean to harm Meg; she was only an innocent bystander who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time."
"Looks that way," Mike agreed. "Kids, fooling around in an empty house, accidentally starting a fire. Don't they cook that dope of theirs?"
"Some of it—some combinations of it," Cliff answered vaguely. He threw himself onto the sofa. "That's not the point, there are a number of ways in which carelessness could start a blaze in an abandoned house. Hell, they could have been holding a wienie roast. The point is, was it carelessness or was it deliberate?"
"They'll be investigating the cause of the fire tomorrow," Mike said. "If it was arson, the experts will find traces. But arson doesn't make sense. Why would anyone want to burn the place down?" He paused, his mild gaze moving from one to another, inviting a reply. The silence echoed with answers no one wanted to voice aloud. Mike shook his head. "It doesn't make sense neither that the purpose was to hurt Meg. First, nobody could have known she'd leave the house. Second, she wasn't in the cottage, she was outside, at a safe distance from the fire. One way to figure it is, she accidentally interrupted a little private pot party. One of 'em saw her nosing around, lost his head and grabbed her. He carried her into the cottage—that would explain why her shoe was on the
porch—and then, when the fire started, dragged her out to safety before they all ran for it. Well? Anybody got any smarter ideas?"
George let out a long, sighing breath. "I'd like to believe it, Mike. If it weren't for the other things that have happened. . . ."
"This is just like the others," Cliff interrupted. "The same ambiguity, the same apparent lack of motive—the same impossibility of proving anything one way or the other. If they left any evidence in the house, it's ashes now, and the fire engines will have obliterated tire tracks or footprints. It's like trying to grab a handful of fog!"
"We'll have a look around tomorrow, in daylight," Mike said. "They must've been pretty scared, and in a hurry. Maybe one of them dropped something."
"Or scratched his name on a tree, for our convenience," Cliff said sarcastically.
"Well, there was sure as heck somebody there," Mike said. "Meg didn't walk up to the cottage, toss her shoe on the porch, light a match and then go lay down in the grass."
Cliff sat up with a jerk. "Yes, by God, there was somebody! I saw him—I saw something, anyhow. It didn't register at the time, I was focusing on that little shoe, and the flames reaching out for it. ... Dad, you were right behind me. Did you. . . ."
"Among the trees at the back of the lot?" George nodded. "I had only a glimpse before you distracted my attention by bolting toward the fire. If I hadn't tackled you. . . ."
"It's all over and done with, George," Mike said quietly. "I can see why you might not have paid close attention at the time, but this could be important. Try to remember. Anything at all that could help identify him?"
"I can't even be sure it was a man," George answered. "Though I had the impression of someone tall, moving slowly and stealthily." His eyes went to Meg's face. She realized she was sitting bolt upright, her hands clasped tightly in her lap as she waited for her uncle's reply. He let her wait, it seemed, interminably. Then he shook his head. "I'm afraid that's it. A shadow, tall and dark, gliding through the grass. I couldn't identify anyone."