Scarecrow (17 page)

With shaking fingers I let the quilt drop to the floor. I was wet and freezing, and my nightgown clung to me like an outgrown skin. I pulled it over my head and straightened my damp clothes, and heard a rustling in the shadows.

“Micah?” I spun around, weak with relief.

“He’s not coming.”

And as the smile froze horribly on my lips, Seth stepped out into the lamplight.

“What did he tell you? That he’d help you escape?” His face was expressionless, his voice hard. I wanted to run, to scream, but my body felt like rubber. Seth regarded me silently for several minutes then slowly shook his head. “No need for all the drama. You can go anytime you want.”

I gaped at him, my mind in a whirl, nothing making sense.

“How…” I began, but all I could do was stammer. “How…did you—”

The light played eerily across his cheekbones. “Just be glad I got here first. And just don’t say anything about it.”

“I…I don’t know what—”

“No. You wouldn’t know about things like that, would you?” His tone was mocking and he tapped a forefinger to his temple. “The boy’s not right. Never has been and never will be. Not safe for himself or anyone else.”

“You mean…” Thoughts scrambled in my head, fighting for reason. “You mean…he’s disturbed or something?”

“Disturbed!” Seth snorted, coldly amused. “Yeah, I guess you could say he’s disturbed. So disturbed about things, he just gets rid of them if he doesn’t want them around anymore.”

“I don’t understand.”

“A house disturbed him once,” Seth went on, eyes boring into mine. “So Micah burned it down. With everybody inside.” He gave a sardonic smile; his shadow slithered up the wall, black liquid. “And my folks disturbed him once. So he waited till they were asleep and held a pillow over their faces. Do you understand that?”

I can’t talk about Micah…can’t talk about Micah…

“My God,” I murmured, and I sank down onto a bale of hay, the awful truth beginning to dawn at last.

“He would have killed you, too,” Seth said.

I looked at him, shocked. “No…no, you must be mistaken, Micah liked me…he wanted to help me…”

“With this.”

And as I looked on in horror, Seth pulled something from the shadows…a long, slender something…and held it into the light, so that a thousand sparkling reflections danced across the ten-inch blade.

“No…” I shook my head. “Oh, no…”

“Strangers disturb him,” Seth said quietly. “A change in routine disturbs him. Can you see now why I try so hard to keep the world away?”

“I…I never thought…I never dreamed…” Helplessly I watched him as he flung the knife at the wall, as the blade caught and held and quivered there, alive.

“Sometimes…” Seth drew a deep breath, his gaze riveted on the knife—“sometimes I have to put him away. For his own good. For his
own
safety as much as ours.”

The cellar…the chains…the scars…I tasted something vile in my throat; I choked it down.

“Afterward he never remembers. He can’t help himself. And after he does those things…It would kill him if he knew. He’d never be able to forgive himself.”

I nodded, dazed, my head in my hands.

“And don’t ever say anything about tonight. About Micah. About any of this. It’s something nobody wants to talk about.”

“Where…is Micah now?”

Seth shrugged, his eyes sweeping casually across the floor where the trapdoor lay hidden beneath a carpet of fresh straw. “Where he can’t hurt anybody.” He glanced at me, then added, “Oh, you don’t have to worry about him. He’ll be calm now. He won’t jump out at you from the dark. Micah doesn’t work that way. He always picks the time and place and lets you know ahead of time, if you’re smart enough to figure it out.”

I watched him go over to the wall and twist the knife free, the blade gleaming in his fist.

“You said always,” I whispered.

For a moment there was silence and then his voice came back to me, strangely hollow. “Did I?”

“You said always. Are you trying to tell me there have been other people like me? People stranded here?”

Seth stared at me for so long that he seemed caught up in a trance. The knife turned slowly in his hands, gleam and shadow, gleam and shadow, and then he held it up in front of his face. Even in the dim light his eyes shone sad.

“Come with me tomorrow,” he said softly. “I’ll show you.”

“But…wait—” I plucked at his sleeve as he went past me, but he didn’t turn, only pushed open the door and stood there, lantern held high, bracing himself against the onslaught of rain. “Seth—”

“I don’t know if I can stop it now.” His voice sounded eerie, part of the night and its wind-tossed secrets. A chill crept up my back.

“Stop what? What are you talking about?”

“The scarecrow,” he murmured. “Franny knows better. It should have been burned with the others.”

In spite of my uneasiness I gave a nervous laugh. “You talk as if something awful’s going to happen because it wasn’t.”

Seth turned and looked at me, his face streaked with rain, oddly distorted in the lamplight. “Something almost did,” he said flatly.

And I watched the lantern fade to nothingness as he left me to find my own way back in the dark.

I
’M NOT SURE
how I ever got through that night. My mind raged with horrible dreams and more than once I woke myself up wondering if my fantasy screams had actually been heard by anyone else in the house. When no one came to check on me, however, I drifted back off again, only to be plagued by a new set of phantoms—Micah wielding a rusty knife—Seth watching impassively from the shadows—Franny screaming and going up in flames—and through it all, the grotesque face of a scarecrow coming at me with a horrible painted grin and blood seeping from its empty eye sockets.

Long before dawn I finally got dressed and went down to the kitchen. Rachel was surprised to find me there when she came in, and I pitched in eagerly to help her fix breakfast, painfully aware of the empty chairs where Micah and Franny normally would have sat. I didn’t know how much Rachel knew, whether Seth had told her anything at all about last night, and so I decided not to bring anything up unless I was specifically asked. As we chatted, I was glad I’d kept quiet—it was obvious to me the longer Rachel and I talked that she was innocent of the night before. And when Seth appeared for breakfast, Rachel dished up his eggs and asked again if he was taking me with him to the bottom acre.

“She can do what she wants,” Seth replied, without so much as a look my way. “It’s no concern of mine.”

“Oh, Seth, talk her into going,” Rachel urged him gently. “I know she’d love it.” Her calm hand descended to my shoulder. “What is it, Pamela? You look upset. Is there some reason you don’t want to go?”

“I…just wouldn’t want to miss Dewey,” I said now. “I really have to get home—”

“Well, bless your heart, when Dewey gets here, I’ll send Girlie to fetch you, and that’s a promise. No need to wait around here all day.”

“Well, all right then,” I finally conceded, forcing a thin smile. “If you’ll be sure and let me know.”

“Good!” Rachel looked extremely pleased, but Seth left the table without a backward glance. I pushed back my chair and saw Girlie staring at me thoughtfully.

“Wouldn’t anybody else like to come?” I asked hopefully.

“Mercy, no, we have all this ironing to get done.” Rachel wiped a damp rag over Girlie’s chin. “And I’d like to keep an eye on Franny.”

“She’s feeling better then?”

“Yes, thanks to Girlie. She’s just tired, is all. All that working herself up.” Rachel shook her head with a tolerant smile.

“And where’s Micah this morning?” It came out before I could stop myself, but Rachel looked into my eyes smoothly.

“I reckon he just wasn’t hungry this morning. He’ll probably be a bear by dinnertime.”

What did you expect anyway, a true confession?
I felt ashamed of myself, trying to trap her that way. “Will I be able to see Franny later?”

“Course you can,” Rachel beamed. “I’m sure that would cheer her up.”

“Well…good-bye.”

I went out the back and saw Seth swinging a huge sack and a shotgun up onto his shoulder, then he took off through the treeline as if he didn’t care whether I followed or not. I kept a safe distance behind him the whole way, which seemed more than agreeable to him. He never looked back or spoke, and I took my time walking, being careful just to keep him in view up ahead.

Rachel had been right—it was beautiful out here—but my mind was too shaken, too preoccupied to enjoy it. I couldn’t forget the near-tragedy of last night, and my memory reeled with unasked questions. How could they go from day to day, pretending that everything was so normal? Raising Girlie in the same house with a murderer? Keeping Micah hidden from the authorities? I felt more terrified than ever—how could they all act like nothing was wrong?

As I trudged after Seth through the stubbled fields, we finally entered the rain-drenched forest, an unending maze of russet and brown and gold. Between the webwork of overhead branches the pale-washed sky was swirled with clouds. Every footfall brought a squelched echo of wet leaves, the snap of nuts bursting from their shells, the sodden crunch of damp earth and fallen twigs and the tangled aftermath of lost summer. Once or twice I saw a flash of scarlet among the trees, heard the quick piercing call of a cardinal. A fat brown rabbit froze upon a log, quivered at us, then sped off again into the underbrush.

I don’t know how far we walked that morning—it seemed like forever. By the time the sun had climbed midway in the sky, I was getting hungry, and spying a creek off through a little clearing, I went over and knelt down to take a drink. Seth, striding far ahead of me, looked back over his shoulder and slowed down at last.

“You needn’t stop,” I said wearily. “I can catch up with you later.”

When I didn’t hear an answer, I looked up to see him watching me, his body poised, every bit as stalwart and sturdy as the trees closing us in. I avoided his eyes and scooped another handful of water, patting it over my face, gasping at the chill of it.

“The fence is just over the next ridge,” Seth said. “I’ll be over that way.”

“Fine.”

I watched him walk off, wondering why I had even bothered to come. Last night we had been on the same side for a change, and now, not even twenty-four hours later, we were strangers again. Maybe he really didn’t intend to tell me anything, I realized now; maybe he felt embarrassed about last night, about letting his guard down and being halfway civil; maybe he’d agreed to my coming along just to please Rachel.

Wiping my face on my shawl, I pushed through the last of the trees and came out immediately onto a small flat ledge that sloped steeply to a wide field below. There was a shack down there, nestled in a clump of trees, and Seth was just coming out, dragging a roll of fencing wire and some tools. I descended carefully, slipping over rocks and patches of mud, and when Seth saw me coming he straightened up and wiped his hands on the legs of his jeans.

“You hungry?” he asked me.

I looked at him in surprise. “Yes, a little.”

“Sit down then. I brought us some dinner.”

He waved one hand vaguely in the direction of the shack, and I eased myself down onto the ground with my back against one of the rough-hewn walls.

“Did you build this?” I scanned the neatly notched logs, the dried mud in the crevices, the door that stood open revealing a planked floor inside. I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“Too far to have to haul stuff when things need fixing.” Seth passed me a sandwich. “I’ve got…oh…about six others around the place.”

“I’ve always loved log cabins,” I said lamely. I inched the bread apart, finding thick slabs of cold meat. “Brad and I were always going to—” My words froze, sticking to the roof of my mouth, and I gazed down at my sandwich. “I…”

Raising my eyes I saw Seth watching me, emotionless. “Brad…your husband?”

There was a lengthening silence. From somewhere deep inside me the words struggled out, falling cold and lifeless on the chilly air. “Yes. My husband.”

Everything blurred for a second. When it shimmered back into focus, Seth was finishing his sandwich, reaching for another. “No wonder you want to get home. He must be worried about you.”

“He’s dead.”

An unpleasant tingling sensation went through my fingers. I dropped my food and put a trembling hand to my throat. “He’s dead, you see,” I whispered, tears stinging my eyes, and still they wouldn’t flow, still they wouldn’t release me. “My little boy, too. They were killed in a car accident nearly a year ago.”
But how many more days than just nearly a year ago, for Christ’s sake, I don’t even know what day it is
—“Both of them are dead,” I finished stupidly, and a sob started up from my chest, strangling me before I could get it out,

“Here,” Seth said quietly, “drink this.”

I felt his arm around my shoulders, the other tipping a cup to my lips, and then a trail of fire scorching its way to my stomach. I coughed, my body jerking convulsively, and I pulled away, making a face.

“What is that?”

“Whiskey.”

I shook my head violently to get the taste out of my mouth, and when I finally looked up, Seth was leaning back on his elbows, watching me, again. I picked up my sandwich and held it uselessly in my hands.

“I’m sorry,” Seth said.

“I’m just not used to alcohol, I guess,” I mumbled.

“No, I meant about your husband. And your little boy.”

“Oh. Well…” I took a deep breath, not wanting to talk about it anymore, wishing I had never said anything at all, and my next words burst out before I could stop them. “How can you stand it, living this way? With Micah? Why haven’t you turned him in to the police? They’re bound to find out, sooner or later.”

“How?” Seth turned away, matter-of-fact. “No one could find anyone here. You’ve heard of people disappearing into thin air?”

“Yes.”

“Well…this is it.”

“Please don’t talk like that…like I’m never going to get home again!”

“I told you before, you can leave anytime you want. You’re not a prisoner here.”