Gallows Hill (19 page)

"Do you think I have psychic ability?"

"I guess you must," Charlie said matter-of-factly. "It runs in families. Do your parents or grandparents have it?"

"Not that I know of, but it's not impossible," Sarah said. "The paperweight belonged to a grandmother who died before I was born, so I have no idea what she used it for. You said past or future events?"

"It could go either way, I guess, though it's usually precognitive."

"But a person might see a vision of something that's already happened?"

"That's certainly possible."

Sarah drew a long breath of relief. If the image of the girl in the noose was a vision from the past, then the resemblance to her might only have been coincidence.

"How do you know about things like that?" she asked Charlie.

"I read," he told her. "My folks have a lot of books. I told you about that catalog I get from Arizona. I sent away for a home study course on tape, and that got me on their mailing list."

"What kind of home study course?" Sarah asked with interest.

"Weight loss by self-hypnosis," Charlie said with embarrassment. "Needless to say, the tapes didn't do the job. I got pretty good at hypnosis—even got my mom to stop smoking—but I couldn't make it work for myself. I figure I must have brought these extra pounds into the world from a former lifetime, and I won't be able to get rid of them until I complete my karma. I sure hope I get that done before I'm too old to enjoy all the perks of being handsome. I liked that reading you did about my jaunt on the cruise ship."

"You're joking," Sarah said.

"For a change I'm serious."

"I can't believe you actually believe in reincarnation!"

"There's been a lot of research on the subject that's pretty convincing," Charlie said. "Would you like to trade in that witch-hunt book for a reincarnation book?"

"I have to admit you've made me curious," Sarah answered.

"I've got Mom's car. If you like, we can go over to my house and you can take your pick of the books in the German library. That is, if you don't have plans...."

"Not a thing," Sarah said. He had made her feel so much better that it was all she could do to keep from hugging him. His description of scrying had made it sound like a normal, if not exactly commonplace, ability, like wiggling your ears or touching your nose with your tongue. And the thought that the horrible image she had seen in the paperweight might have been a reflection of an event from the past rather than a prediction of something that was destined to happen was extremely comforting.

She went back to Her room to collect the library book and then accompanied Charlie out to the station wagon. Yowler sidled out into the yard behind them and fell into a pantherlike pose at the sight of a row of crows on a telephone wire.

That same sight snapped Sarah back to the question that was yet unanswered.

"What do you think I should do about the crow in my locker?" she asked as she settled herself in the passenger's seat and Charlie started the engine. "If nobody's willing to believe me—"

"You've got to make them believe you," Charlie said. "You can't just let this slide by like it never happened."

"You didn't make an issue of the fish in your locker."

"That wasn't the same. I didn't have to convince people. Mr. Prue could smell it all the way down the hall."

"He told me you laughed it off."

"In my case that seemed like the sensible thing. The fish was a joke, not a threat. And it wasn't an organized effort, it was done on impulse. When the guys didn't get a rise out of me, they gave up. It wasn't an escalating thing like the scaffold and the crow."

"You don't think tripping you and breaking your arm is worth mentioning?"

"That could have been done accidentally."

"Oh, Charlie," Sarah said softly, her heart aching for him.

"No sweat," Charlie said with a shrug. "Those jocks are in the habit of shoving people around. It's what they do on the football field. But the sketch and the crow are something different. You've got to convince your mom and Mr. Thompson to take those seriously. Certainly your mom."

A few minutes later he slowed the car and pulled into a driveway next to a small stucco house very much like the one Rosemary and Sarah were renting, except that instead of front steps this house had a ramp.

"My dad's in a wheelchair," Charlie said, anticipating the question. "I'm glad you're going to get to meet him. He doesn't get out much, and it's a special event when we have company. But I've got to warn you, he's a character, so don't let him throw you."

They got out of the car, and Charlie led the way up the walkway to the house.

As soon as they stepped through the door, the explanation for Charlie's fund of knowledge about unusual subjects became apparent. The people in this house were obviously voracious readers. One whole wall of the living room was lined with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, and another wall held shelves to the level of a window ledge. Even the tables at either end of the sofa had shelves built into them to house tall books that wouldn't fit easily on conventional-sized shelves.

"Mom? Dad?" Charlie called. "We've got company!"

The woman Sarah had met throwing papers on the first day after Charlie's injury emerged from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dish towel.

"Sarah!" she exclaimed. "How nice! I was wondering when Charlie was going to get around to inviting you over!"

"Don't tell me it's Sarah the Marvelous and Magnificent!" a man's voice called from the back of the house. "Am I finally going to get a look at the wondrous young woman who causes our son to whistle arias as he folds his stack of papers?"

Mrs. German exclaimed, "Ed, really!" and Charlie looked as if he wanted to sink through the floor as a bearded man in a motorized wheelchair came zooming out of a hallway that Sarah assumed led back to a den or a bedroom.

"I hope you'll forgive him, Sarah," Mrs. German said apologetically. "My husband's a terrible tease. He's also a maniac driver, so be ready to leap out of the way, or you'll have bruises on your kneecaps."

"I'm sorry, Sarah, I didn't mean to embarrass you," Mr. German said with a good-natured smile that was much like Charlie's. "Is it permissible to say that now that I see you in person, I'm overwhelmed by my son's good taste? And my wife is totally wrong about my skills as a driver. I assure you, you're safe in our home. Just stand close to the walls and suck in your stomach as I whiz by."

"You don't scare me," Sarah said, attempting a smile, but not quite able to pull it off. Not when confronted so suddenly with the sight of two empty trouser legs knotted at the knees to prevent them from becoming tangled in the wheels of the chair.

"Charlie didn't tell you?" Mr. German asked, his voice going suddenly gentle. "Son, I just wish you'd learn that it's a kindness to totally prepare people instead of doing a halfway job of it. When you do that, they expect to find me in a leg cast. Sarah, please, don't be upset. It was just an accident at work. I assure you the condition isn't catching."

"Have you kids had lunch yet?" Mrs. German asked, stepping in with practiced efficiency to redirect the conversation to a happier topic. "I have a pot of soup on the stove, and I was just getting ready to dish it up. Please, stay and join us, Sarah. Charlie tells us you're from California, but that's a massive state. Whereabouts did you live? Were you lucky enough to be by the water?"

A few minutes later Sarah found herself at the table in the Germans' cheery blue and yellow kitchen, swallowing homemade vegetable soup and telling them all about a place called Ventura where the air smelled of salt and sea foam and the winter was heralded by orange blossoms.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

"Why didn't you tell me?" Sarah asked when they were back in the station wagon headed for her house. "That bookstore that was burned down—your parents were the owners! It was your father who was burned so badly that his legs were amputated!"

"At the time it didn't seem necessary to tell you," Charlie said. "It isn't something you talk about to somebody you hardly know."

"But since then we've gotten to be friends!"

"We've had other things to talk about. And the truth is, Sarah, it's a subject that's hard for me to handle. My dad wasn't an unathletic klutz like I am; he used to play tournament tennis. And he loved to dance. He and my mom used to roll up the rugs—we had rugs back then, when we didn't have to keep the floors clear for the wheelchair—and they'd dance at night after dinner. And they wouldn't pull the shades. I sometimes think that's what made people madder than anything. Not only were my folks 'evil' because they sold unconventional books, they were 'evil' because they had unconventional fun together."

"How can they stand to keep living here?" Sarah asked him. "Your father can't work—"

"He does better than you'd think," Charlie said. "He writes book reviews for some pretty prestigious magazines. And Mom works as a bookkeeper. We manage."

"What made you suddenly decide that you wanted me to meet them?"

"It just seemed important. I wanted you to see for yourself what can happen when small-town fanatics go crazy."

"Because of the crow in my locker?"

"I want you to take that seriously."

"You don't mean that you think somebody's actually going to burn down our house!"

"We can't know what might happen," Charlie said. There's something creepy about this town. It's like there's a boil beneath the surface, always ready to erupt. I've felt that ever since we came here."

"You mean you weren't born here?"

"I was born in Arizona," Charlie told her. "My folks had a New Age bookstore in Sedona, a town that's supposed to be a hub of psychic vibrations. Everything was going great there, when suddenly about five years ago they got this feeling that we had to come here. By 'here,' I mean exactly here—to this one particular town, this dot on the map that they'd never even heard of until they flipped through an atlas and found it. They were drawn here by some karmic force, the same way your mother was."

"Rosemary wasn't drawn here by anything but Ted," Sarah said.

"I'm sure that's what she believes."

"Why else would she have come here?"

"I just told you, my parents think they were led here by karma. That's why they didn't move away from here after the arson. They feel that one of us made a commitment before birth to perform some duty in Pine Crest, to complete some business that was left unfinished in a former lifetime."

"Your parents believe in reincarnation that strongly?" Sarah asked incredulously.

"They believe in it so strongly that my dad has forgiven the arsonists," Charlie said. "He figures that in a former lifetime he probably harmed them, and now the score's even. That's the reason he's able to joke around like he does. He doesn't feel bitter or hold grudges."

"If we've lived before, why can't we remember it?" Sarah asked him.

"Mahatma Gandhi called that nature's kindness," Charlie explained. "His theory was that everyday life would be impossible if we carried such a tremendous load of memories around with us. I'm not asking you to buy this, just don't close your mind to it. Read those books and then see how you feel about it. Once you've done that, I've got a scenario I want to run past you."

"I don't know that I want to hear it," Sarah said nervously.

"You can decide that later," Charlie said, bringing the station wagon to a stop in front of her house. "For now, though, read those books. I think you'll find them interesting."

"I will," Sarah assured him. "Thanks for lending them to me. And, please, thank your mother again for me for the great lunch."

Ted and Rosemary had returned from their own lunch while she was at the Gormans' and were out in the yard with Brian. Ted was busily raking the last of the oak leaves into piles, and Brian was rolling around in them like a demented puppy. Rosemary was standing on the sidelines, watching but not participating. To Sarah her mother looked a little bit lonely.

"So, there you are!" Rosemary called to her as Charlie drove off and Sarah started toward them across the yard. "We couldn't imagine where you'd gone. From the looks of that armload, you must have been to the library. Are those for your witch-hunt report?"

"I decided to switch to another subject," Sarah said. "I borrowed these books from Charlie. His dad writes book reviews, so they've got a huge library."

She saw no reason to add that the books she had borrowed from the Gormans had nothing to do with her history paper.

Ted paused to lean on his rake, seemingly undecided as to which part of her statement to attack first. It didn't take him long, though, to make up his mind. "You've been over to the Gormans'? Frankly, Sarah, I don't think that's an appropriate place for you. Charlie's a nice enough kid, despite his weight problem, but his parents are—how shall I say it?—a little bit odd."

"I liked them," Sarah said. "I think Rosemary would too." She turned to her mother. "Mrs. German said she'd love to meet you. She works during the week, but she thought some weekend morning you might like to come over and have coffee. She's going to call you."