Gallows Hill

  There was no sense taking a chance when you didn’t have to. Spinning on her heel, Sarah abruptly broke into a run, cutting across the lawn to her left and dashing through the dark space between houses like a rabbit diving into its hole. Emerging into the moonlight, she raced across the sequence of adjoining backyards, grateful that it was winter and there were no sprinklers or lawn chairs to collide with, and within minutes was in the yard behind her own house.

  Standing at the door to the kitchen with her hand on the knob, she waited for her heart to stop racing and her breath to slow down before she went back inside. If she told Ted and Rosemary that she had panicked over something so innocuous, it would appear to be validation of her alleged paranoia. And with pretty good cause. Now that she thought about it, she did recall that there had been a car parked across the street from their house. It had not occurred to her to notice if there were people in it, but she couldn’t say that there hadn’t been. Why should she find it significant that their decision to drive off coincided with her leaving the house to take a walk? Two kids making out in the moonlight—what could be more natural? And now they were leaving, but driving away very slowly, possibly still wrapped in each other’s arms. Why should she be so frightened by something so normal?

  Maybe Rosemary was right, Sarah tried to tell herself. Maybe that sketch was a joke about “hanging loose” or a nasty response from somebody who wanted our reference books.

  But in her heart Sarah knew it wasn’t.

  The occupants of that car had not been cuddling romantically in the moonlight. Maybe they were the ones who had left the gallows message. Maybe they had been stationed there to watch her house.

  Three days later she found a dead crow in her locker.

  Chapter

  THIRTEEN

  I’M NOT GOING TO SCREAM, Sarah told herself. I will not scream.

  She would handle this in an adult way. She would report this atrocity to somebody in authority. But who should that somebody be? Ted’s classroom was right down the hall, and they were between class periods, but by now she had learned the hard way that it was useless to turn to Ted for anything.

  I’ll go over his head, she thought. I’ll go to the principal.

  She had never met Mr. Prue, although she had seen him at assemblies—a short, balding man with wire-rimmed glasses who wore neckties with pictures on them. All she knew about him as a person were the things that Eric had told her, which had not sounded appealing. But whatever his failings, he was, after all, the principal.

  With the thought that the person who had planted the crow might be there in the crowded hall watching her, she was careful to keep her face expressionless as she went to the rest room and brought back a large wad of paper towels. By the time she had wrapped up the feathered corpse, trying her best to avoid physical contact, the third-period bell had rung and the hall had emptied out.

  Carrying the bundle at arm’s length, she went down the hall to the principal’s office.

  “I need to see Mr. Prue,” she told the secretary, whose desk bore a nameplate identifying her as Mrs. Ellis.

  “Do you have an appointment?” the woman asked her.

  “No,” Sarah said. “But it’s very important that I see him.”

  “I’ll see if he’s free,” Mrs. Ellis said, glancing with obvious curiosity at the package in Sarah’s hands. She lifted the receiver and punched in a number. “There’s a student here to see you, Mr. Prue. She seems very upset.” She turned to Sarah. “Your name, dear?”

  “Sarah Zoltanne.”

  “Sarah Zoltanne,” Mrs. Ellis repeated, and then nodded at Sarah and said, “Mr. Prue says he’s busy, but he can spare a couple of minutes if it’s really important.”

  Sarah opened the door to the inner office and went in. The principal was seated behind a wide desk that was covered with piles of papers and a lineup of coffee cups bearing cute slogans such as HAVE YOU HUGGED A TEACHER TODAY? and BE SURE TO UPHOLD FINE PRINCIPALS!

  A photograph of a plump blond woman with a plump blond child on her lap sat to the right of the telephone. To the left of the phone, in a matching frame, there was a hand-embroidered sampler bearing the garbled quotation SUFFER THE LITTLE CHILDREN TO COME UNTO ME, FOR THEIRS IS THE KINDGOM OF HEAVEN.

  There was a chair across from the desk, but Sarah didn’t sit down.

  “So, Sarah, you have a problem?” the principal asked pleasantly.

  “I think you could say that,” Sarah said. She plunked the towel-wrapped carcass down in front of him. “I found this in my locker. It’s a dead bird.”

  “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t place it on my desk,” Mr. Prue said, shoving his chair back slightly and making no move to touch the package.

  “It was in my locker,” Sarah repeated, obligingly picking up the bundle. “Somebody got into my locker and put it there.”

  “Do you know who it was?” Mr. Prue asked her.

  “Not specifically, no. It could have been any one of a lot of people.”

  “Does anybody know your locker combination?”

  “Not that I know of, but I have a lower locker, so I guess somebody could have stood behind me without my realizing it and watched me while I dialed the combination.”

  “I can see why you’re upset,” Mr. Prue said. “Nobody would want to be greeted by something like that. If you knew who did it, I’d call them in and talk to them. But since you don’t, there’s not much I can do.” He paused and then said, “You’re a new student, aren’t you? The one who just moved here recently from California? Your mother submitted an application to teach here.”

  “Yes,” Sarah said.

  “You were in the Halloween carnival. You had a Gypsy act, didn’t you? A fortune-telling booth?”

  “Yes,” Sarah said again.

  “I almost called you in to talk to you about that, Sarah,” Mr. Prue said solemnly. “We have a very strict policy that our carnival not contain anything that involves the occult. That was one of the specifications agreed upon between the school board and the senior class when they first applied for permission to put on this annual fund-raiser. Eric Garrett explained to me that when you asked him if you could have a booth, he didn’t realize what you were planning to do in it.”

  “What!” Sarah exclaimed, unable to believe what she was hearing. “I didn’t approach Eric about it, it was Eric who approached me! He and Kyra Thompson—”

  “As president of the class, Eric felt it was his duty to encourage a new student to participate in school events,” Mr. Prue continued as if he had not heard her. “He thought you were going to be running an Apple on the String game. By the time he realized what you were actually doing, it was too late for him to stop you. The carnival was already in progress, and he didn’t want to embarrass you in front of all your classmates.

  “I considered calling you in to discuss the matter, but it was water under the bridge, so I decided to let it go. But since you’ve now come in to see me of your own accord, I feel I should take this opportunity to clarify our standards. I realize people are different out in California. They have a whole different mind-set out there—crime and violence, nude beaches, unusual religious sects, same-sex marriages, I don’t know what all. But here in Pine Crest we are—I suppose some would call it—conservative in our attitudes and our practices. I call it moral. This is a Christian community with a Christian value system.”

  “There’s nothing very Christian about this,” Sarah said shakily, gesturing with the wad of towels, through which blood was now beginning to seep.

  “A lot of high jinks go on among high-school students,” Mr. Prue told her. “They’re always playing pranks on each other. Just a matter of weeks ago somebody left a fish in another student’s locker. He was a good sport about it and accepted it as a joke.”

  “This wasn’t a joke,” Sarah said. “Somebody killed a bird in order to do this. They did it out of hatred, not as a joke.”

  “Perhaps you should ask yourself what you migh
t have done to arouse that sort of feeling in people,” Mr. Prue said. “Did you arrive here in Pine Crest with a superior attitude that offends your new classmates? Have you hurt people’s feelings by making them feel inferior? Have you wronged anyone, either intentionally or unintentionally? If this isn’t a joke, then it’s obviously the reaction of somebody who feels he or she has a strong and legitimate grievance. Could it be related to the fortune-telling? Something that you said to someone that hurt his or her feelings?”

  “I don’t know,” Sarah said, averting her eyes. His off-the-cuff guess had jabbed her in a spot where she was vulnerable; she could not deny that she had told fortunes that had upset people.

  “Don’t look away when I ask you a question,” Mr. Prue said sharply. “It makes it appear as if you have something to be ashamed of.”

  Sarah glanced up into eyes that, magnified by the lenses of his glasses, seemed suddenly horribly familiar.

  “I don’t know,” she repeated nervously. “I guess it’s possible.”

  “You must also realize, there has been talk—not gossip exactly, but some speculation—about the reason your mother chose to relocate to Pine Crest,” Mr. Prue continued. “Not for exactly the best of motives, shall we say? Those kinds of things have a way of catching up with people. Not that you were responsible, of course. You’re an innocent victim of the fallout, as children often are. In the case of the student who was gifted with a fish in his locker, there was an issue over which his parents had aroused the ire of the community. Not that this excused retaliation against the student, but children are bound to mirror the emotions of their parents. It might not be a bad idea to discuss this unfortunate episode with your mother. Most loving parents—and I am sure your mother is loving, as all mothers are—do not want their beloved children to suffer the consequences of their own ill-advised actions.

  “I’ve known Ted Thompson and his lovely family all my life. Ted is one of our most respected teachers, and Sheila is the pillar of our church. All marriages go through times of shakiness, particularly when the husband goes through what is often termed middle-age crisis and becomes vulnerable to outside influences. But if left alone, most couples manage to work their way through those problem times and become even closer for having done so. I think you understand what I’m getting at.”

  “No,” Sarah said. “Exactly what are you getting at?”

  “Only that if you should make your mother aware of the problems she is causing for you, she might weigh her actions more carefully. Now, go on with your normal day and keep a smile on your face. Try to act as if they haven’t gotten to you, and when they don’t get a reaction, this kind of teasing usually stops in a jiffy. The boy who found the fish in his locker just laughed about it. The fact that he was so good-natured stopped things right there. There hasn’t been another such incident.”

  As Sarah turned to leave, he added, “You’d better dispose of that thing promptly. Dead birds carry all kinds of diseases.”

  “What should I do with it?” Sarah asked him. “Drop it in a wastebasket?”

  “Certainly not. We don’t want it here in the school building. Put it in the garbage bin behind the cafeteria. Oh, and on your way out, ask Mrs. Ellis to write you a tardy excuse for your next class.”

  Stunned by the finality of his response, Sarah did as directed, stopping at the secretary’s desk to collect a tardy excuse. Then, moving like a zombie, she went out to the bin behind the lunchroom and opened the lid. The stench of rotting food rose to fill her nostrils, and bile surged into the back of her throat, threatening to strangle her. Struggling to keep from vomiting, she dropped the soggy bundle on top of a pile of moldy pasta and slammed the lid closed.

  “May God have mercy on your soul,” she whispered to the crow.

  The thought of going to class, presenting her excuse, and turning to face her fellow students, most of whom probably knew why she was late and were eagerly anticipating her reaction, was intolerable. But so was going home to face Rosemary, who would assume that she was sick and insist on dosing her with orange juice and aspirin.

  It was all too much. Leaning against the garbage bin, she buried her face in her hands and let the tears come.

  “Sarah?” a voice asked softly. “Are you okay?”

  “What are you doing out here?” Sarah choked out the question without uncovering her face. “You’re supposed to be in history class.”

  “I got to school late,” Charlie said. “My dad had a doctor’s appointment. We only have one car, so I had to drop Mom off at work and take Dad to the doctor and then take him home after. When I got to school, I saw you down at the end of the hall headed out the back door. What’s going on?”

  “Somebody left a dead crow in my locker,” Sarah said bluntly.

  “A crow? You mean like a bird? They put a dead bird in your locker?”

  “It’s no worse than a fish,” Sarah snapped, lowering her hands and glaring at him through her tears. She felt immediately ashamed of herself when she saw his round face flush crimson. “I’m sorry, that was horrid of me. Let’s face it, I’m a horrid person. Mr. Prue said this is all my fault. If I was nicer, people would like me better and this wouldn’t have happened.”

  “You’re the nicest person I know,” Charlie said gently.

  “You’re not going to find many people agreeing with you,” Sarah said. “The crow is just a part of it. A couple of days ago somebody put a picture in my locker. It was a sketch of a gallows. Yes, a gallows,” she repeated when she saw his startled expression, “like they used to hang witches. And now they’re giving me the same sick message with the crow. Birds, like cats, were supposed to have been witches’ familiars—evil, satanic creatures in league with the devil. I can’t believe I chose that topic to write about! It’s reached a point where it makes me feel queasy just to think about it.”

  “I know what you mean,” Charlie said. “I can’t deal with it either. It was bad enough reading that over two hundred people were imprisoned, but when I got to the part about Giles Corey being pressed to death with stones, I suddenly found I couldn’t breathe. I mean that literally—I thought I was going to pass out. I realize now that I never should have chosen that topic. The only reason I was drawn to it was because it was highlighted.”

  “It wasn’t highlighted,” Sarah said.

  “It was printed in boldface.”

  “No, it wasn’t. I saw it that way too at first, but I was mistaken.”

  “That’s not what the librarian says,” Charlie said. “She stopped me the other day when I was passing in the hall and asked me to get those books back as soon as possible, because almost everybody wants to write papers on the witch trials. They said that topic was printed in boldface on the handout sheet.”

  “Ted said that too,” Sarah said. “I don’t understand it. It’s just another weird thing on top of all of the rest of them. I hate this school, and I hate this mean little town! I know it’s unfair, but I can’t forgive Rosemary for bringing me here.”

  “Did you ever wonder why she did that?” Charlie asked her.

  “It’s because she fell head-over-heels crazy in love with Ted Thompson.”

  “And why did she do that? What’s so irresistible about Mr. Thompson?”

  “Nothing that I can see. He’s a tyrant.”

  “Does your mother have a history of doing this sort of thing? Going off the deep end over married tyrants?”

  “Absolutely not! This was totally out of character. My mother has always been independent and self-confident. When she’s gone out with men, it’s been on her own terms; she’s never let anybody dominate her. I don’t get it.”

  “Which makes you wonder what’s really behind this,” Charlie said. “Maybe, in her subconscious, she knew that she was meant to bring you to Pine Crest, because you had karma to fulfill here.”

  “Karma?” Sarah said. “That’s one of those reincarnation terms.”

  “Do you know much about reincarnation?” Charlie a
sked her.

  “Just that the theory is that people live more than once.”

  “There’s more to it than that,” Charlie said. “The concept is that this earth is a kind of schoolhouse, and our lesson plans are laid out for us before birth. We know what they are, but that knowledge is buried in our subconscious. Sometimes it emerges during therapy. Psychologists sometimes use hypnosis to bring it to the surface so their patients will understand their compulsions. Now, hear me out, don’t close your mind to this too quickly. Maybe, subconsciously, your mother knew it was part of her prebirth game plan to bring you to Pine Crest because you have karma here that you have to deal with. Mr. Thompson just punched the buttons to put her into action.”

  “Are you trying to tell me I’m here to be punished?” Sarah asked in horror.

  “Not at all,” Charlie said. “Karma isn’t a punishment, it’s a teaching aid. The idea behind reincarnation is that for most of us one lifetime isn’t enough to learn all the spiritual lessons we’re signed up for. Karma gives us a chance to retake the classes we flunk. If we mess things up in one lifetime, we’re allowed to come back and experience a similar situation—maybe from another angle—so we can learn the lessons we didn’t get the first time.”

  “That’s an interesting idea,” Sarah said, “but it’s pretty far out.”

  “It’s the basis of all Eastern religions, and most early Christians believed it. The Gnostic scriptures quote Jesus as saying, ‘Souls are poured from one into another of different bodies of the world.’ ”

  “What does that have to do with the crow?”

  “Maybe something, maybe nothing,” Charlie said. “What did Mr. Prue suggest that you do about it?”

  “Consider it a practical joke.”