Dance with the Devil

CHAPTER 12

The following day, Owlsden was suffused with a morbid air of death, a deep mood of brooding expectancy that ruled out any quick resumption of the routines of daily life. Outside, the snow still fell hard, with nearly twelve inches of new snow draped across the old, softening the land and the house like a burial shroud softens the harsh realities beneath it. Inside, Lydia remained in her room, uninterested in conversation or in going about the details of correspondence. She seemed to have been stricken more brutally by Yuri's sudden death than she had evidenced the night before. Patricia and Mason Keene kept to the kitchen, drinking coffee and talking in low voices — conversations which they ceased immediately when anyone entered their private domain. They were not bothering to produce any culinary masterpieces, for everyone had made it clear that food was not of much interest after the bloody events of the last several hours. Alex Boland went into town, using the ski slope, around ten o'clock and looked to be gone until evening, though Katherine had no idea what he was doing down there. It seemed to her that his time might be better spent in finding some way to secure the doors to Owlsden before nightfall brought a new period of anxiety to all of them.

Katherine remained in her room, like Lydia, and tried to read. When she grew hungry enough to force food into her stomach and keep it there, she nibbled at the things in the refrigerator in her closet. She spent long periods of time at the window, staring out at the clean landscape, the sharp, relentless, white glare of the untouched snow. She found herself methodically adding up the credits and the debits of life at Owlsden, as she had done once before, but she had different results than the first time. The list of debits now far outweighed the credits. It seemed wiser to pack and leave, to go through the unsettling process of locating a new job, than to stay here.

Of course, she would have to stay a while yet. The hard, snapping wind and the huge snowfall dictated a period of isolation before she could make her break for freedom. Even if she could somehow get her luggage down the ski slope, tote it to her Ford where it was still parked in that picnic area and get the car started after it had set several days in the snow, she could not drive out of the valley. She remembered the perilous descent into the valley her first day on the job, and she had no wish to try to make it back up that insanely steep roadway in even worse weather.

And so the day passed.

More wind.

More snow.

She watched them both, watched the woods, thought about the bonfire she had seen from this window, the dancing figures, the wolflike tracks in the snow…

She washed her nylons in the sink, hung them on the shower rail to dry, painted her nails, nibbled at an apple.

She found herself at the window again, attracted like a moth to a flame, staring at the site of the bonfire which was now covered with snow and as unremarkable as the rest of the land.

She remembered Yuri saying that they had singled her out as the next convert to the beliefs which the cult held dear, that certain spells would be cast and that she would not be able to resist, that she might very well become as they…

More wind.

More snow.

In the evening, when darkness had dropped across the snowscape without diminishing the speed of the falling flakes, she went downstairs to the library to choose a book from its richly stuffed shelves. The downstairs was as quiet and chilled as the second floor corridor had been, as if there were no one else in Owlsden but Katherine — or, even more exactly, as if this were not a house at all, but some ancient monument, a burial vault of pyramidal splendor. After twenty minutes of choosing one volume only to replace it when she leafed through it, she found a light romance which seemed just the thing to take her mind off the events in Owlsden. She was stepping out of the library into the downstairs corridor when the telephone rang, crying like a wounded bird in the dead silence.

It rang twice before she picked it up from the table only a few steps to her right. “Hello?”

“May I speak to Miss Sellers, please?” It was Michael Harrison.

“This is me, Mike,” she said.

“Katherine?”

“Yes.”

He sighed, relieved. “I was afraid that you'd be outside — or that they might not put you on the line.”

She laughed softly. Just hearing his voice had done wonders for her, had recalled his warmth, the friendliness of his companions at the cafe — and had recalled, not least of all, the way he looked at her and the way he had kissed her only the night before.

She said, “Why shouldn't they let me talk to you? Do you think they're all conspiring against me or something?”

He paused too long for comfort and said, “Not Lydia, anyway.”

“And what's that supposed to mean?”

“I'm afraid to tell you,” he said, “for fear you won't believe me, that you'll get angry with me.”

“Never,” she said, surprised at the boldness in her tone.

Again he paused, considering his choice of words. “If I were to have the Rover up there at eleven this evening, do you think you could have your luggage outside, waiting for me — without letting anyone know what you are up to?”

“Michael, this is hardly a time for jokes that—”

“No jokes.”

She thought a moment, said, “What is the matter?”

“You know how Alex is prejudiced against me,” he said.

“Only too well.”

“I hope you also understand that I would never talk against him just to ruin his character or for spite. I would not behave the way he does.”

“I know you well enough to understand that,” she said.

“Then understand that I fully believe what I'm about to tell you is the truth.”

“Tell me, then, for heaven's sake!”

Michael took a deep breath as if to fortify himself for the explanation, or as if he still was afraid she might not believe him. “I have some fairly convincing evidence that Alex Boland is a member of that Satanic cult which has been causing so much trouble lately.”

“Alex?” she asked, stunned at the possibility. She had been willing to consider his friends — but not the son of her employer himself. Those who did awful things were always strangers, not people you knew. People you knew were better than that, unable to commit crimes. Or was that nothing more than her optimism working against her again?

“Alex,” he confirmed. “And not only does it seem that he's a member of the cult, but that he's the head of it, the chief priest.”

“I can hardly see why—”

“These people don't need reasons that normal people would understand,” Michael said. “They operate in another dimension altogether, on a plane of lesser sanity.”

“Still—”

“Think, Katherine!” he demanded. He sounded desperately concerned for her. She remembered the kiss, the way he had been so protective about her in the cafe… “Think of all that's happened in Owlsden since you've come there — including Yuri's murder. Doesn't it seem likely that someone in the house is a cultist?”

“You mean — Alex might have—”

“Killed Yuri.”

She did not reply.

She could not reply.

All that she could think of was Alex Boland's unpleasantly negative outlook on life and the strange, pessimistic conversation of his closest friends…

“Are you there, Katherine?”

“Yes.”

“Will you be ready by eleven?”

“It won't be easy. Couldn't we wait until morning… ” Even though she was frightened badly, she did not want to admit that what Michael had told her might be true.

“Then leave your bags,” he said. “Just come along with me and look at the evidence. If you don't think it incriminates Alex, I'll take you right back to Owlsden. But I don't believe you'll want to go back, not after you see what I've seen.”

“Can't you tell me on the phone?” she asked.

“It loses its dramatic impact that way. I'm not taking any chances on under-selling this to you. I want you to see it, to be as frightened as I was — as I am.”

“I'll be outside at eleven,” she said.

“Not in front of the house.”

“Where, then?”

“At the top of the ski slope,” he said.

“You can bring the Rover up that way?”

“As easy as the road,” he said. “Maybe easier.”

“I'll be there.”

“Take care.”

“I will.”

“Eleven.”

“Sharp,” she said.

She hung up and turned around to go upstairs, the book in her hand forgotten now, and she confronted Alex who stood only a dozen feet away, as if he had been listening.

“Going out?” he asked.

His eyes seemed darker and more intense than ever.

“In the morning,” she said, thinking fast. She tried desperately to remember how much she had said, what details he might have learned from hearing one side of the conversation. “If Lydia doesn't have anything for me to do.”

“Going with Michael Harrison?” he asked.

“Yes, as a matter of fact.”

How long had he been standing there? How much did he know, and how much was he guessing at? Had he heard her mention his name…?

“I wish you wouldn't, Katherine.”

“You've got an obsession about him, haven't you?”

“No. I just know him better than you do.”

“Your mother thinks he is—”

“I know him better than she does.”

“Well, I like him.”

“Katherine, I honestly believe that he is capable of almost anything.” He stepped into the center of the hall, his arms spread slightly at his sides, as if he were pleading with her. Or as if he were blocking the way so that she could not get past him unless he permitted it.

“Must you always think the worst of everyone and everything?” she asked, a bit too harshly. She was goaded on by fear as well as by anger. “You never look at the positive side, the bright side of anything, Alex. Sometimes, you're absolutely morbid.”

He seemed shocked by the evaluation, but he recovered quickly as she took a step toward him, his hands still slightly open at his sides. “Are you going skiing with him?”

She hesitated, realized that he must have overheard something to do with the rendezvous point. It would be better to admit to this much so as not to make him doubt her word that the meeting was not until the following morning. “Yes, skiing,” she said.

“Maybe I could go along, make it a threesome,” he said, though it was surely the last thing in the world he would enjoy.

“Maybe you could,” she said, rather than antagonize him. Since she wouldn't be going skiing with Michael in the morning, what harm did it do to agree with Alex now?

“What time?” he asked.

“Eleven.”

“At the slope?”

“Yes.”

He stepped out of her way and smiled at her. “I'll be there just to prove that I don't always look on the gloomy side of things — and to show you I can get along with anyone, even Michael Harrison.”

“Good!” Katherine said, smiling cheerily. The smile was utterly false. She wondered if he could see that, and she looked at him as she passed him on her way to the stairs. His eyes were black, hard and very intense, but it was impossible to tell what he was thinking.

Upstairs, she locked her door.

It was twenty minutes of eight. More than three hours to wait until she could get out of Owlsden. She knew, now, that she would be greatly relieved to get out, even if Michael's “proof against Alex did not convince her. She had a premonition, however, that she would be thoroughly convinced…