‘‘You aren’t well,’’ Zorana said softly.
Miss Joyce stopped smiling, tucked her shriveled lips over her twisted teeth, and mumbled, ‘‘It’s been a long winter.’’ She donned her hat and looked around. ‘‘Now, what about a student?’’
Zorana gestured her toward the yard.
Miss Joyce clung to the rail and took each step on shaking legs.
Zorana didn’t touch her. Didn’t help her. A deep-seated revulsion kept her back. When Miss Joyce had reached the walk and Zorana knew she could not easily regain the house, she called, ‘‘Boys!’’
Jasha, Rurik, and Adrik straightened up from the van and strode toward them.
Miss Joyce adjusted her glasses on her nose and stared at them. ‘‘Yes, yes, it’s your three boys. I can see that. The family resemblance—’’ She stopped, gasped. ‘‘The Wilder demons. All three of you.’’
Adrik stopped before her. ‘‘Yes. It’s true, Miss Joyce. I’m alive.’’
‘‘That’s good.’’ Miss Joyce took a step back. ‘‘Nice.’’
‘‘Nice?’’ With the speed of a hawk, Rurik moved behind her and cut off any escape. ‘‘Is that all you can say about Adrik’s return from the dead?’’
Jasha moved to the other side. ‘‘You’re the one who brought us the news that he’d been killed. Remember? You came to our door with an envelope and told us the post office had delivered it to you by mistake.’’
‘‘How convenient that it was delivered to
you
, of all people,’’ Zorana said.
‘‘You knew us.’’ Rurik silently glided between Miss Joyce and her house. ‘‘You knew just where to deliver the news.’’
‘‘Lucky,’’ Miss Joyce croaked.
‘‘And the envelope was open.’’ Jasha joined Rurik, pacing with the stealth of a wolf.
‘‘Did you laugh when you read the news?’’ Zorana asked.
‘‘No. No! How awful! No, of course not. I wouldn’t laugh about the death of one of my favorite . . . um, one of my students.’’ Miss Joyce looked around at the circle of unfriendly eyes. ‘‘I need to sit down.’’
‘‘Of course. How rude of us not to consider your sickness.’’ Jasha leaped up on her porch, grabbed the wooden chair, and brought it back, placing it behind her. ‘‘Sit.’’
‘‘I’d rather sit inside. Or on the porch.’’ Miss Joyce glanced uneasily at the bright blue sky. ‘‘I have a skin condition.’’
Zorana didn’t believe that for a minute. ‘‘Is that why we’ve never seen you expose yourself to the sun?’’
Adrik leaned in and snatched her wide-brimmed hat away.
Miss Joyce covered her eyes, staggered backward, and, when the chair struck the backs of her legs, she collapsed onto it. Gradually, she took her shaking hands away.
The sunlight revealed what the hat’s shadows had concealed. Her skin was covered with a tracery of pale scars that instantly reddened in the sun.
‘‘So the rumors are true,’’ Zorana said. ‘‘You were attacked by your students.’’
‘‘The little bastards—they cut me with their knives. Broke my bones with a tire iron. Laughed . . .’’ Miss Joyce glared at Zorana’s sons. ‘‘They got away with it, too. They were tried as juveniles, given the minimum sentence because of their deprived backgrounds. I hate . . . I hate . . .’’
‘‘It wasn’t my boys who hurt you,’’ Zorana pointed out.
‘‘They’re all the same. Men . . . vermin . . .’’ Miss Joyce caught herself. She shrank into herself and mewled, ‘‘I mean, I know, but the sunlight hurts my skin and I can’t see very well.’’
A patch of her hair fell out, revealing a shiny pink scalp.
‘‘Is that why you made a deal with
him
?’’ Adrik asked.
‘‘I don’t know who you mean, dear.’’ Miss Joyce’s voice got a little higher, a little thinner.
‘‘With the devil. Is that why you made a deal with him?’’ Adrik’s green-and-gold eyes rested on Miss Joyce without sympathy. ‘‘For revenge?’’
‘‘No!’’ Miss Joyce jerked as if surprised by her own admission.
‘‘Then why?’’ Rurik asked.
She looked around at the trap they had set for her. Looked around and saw their implacability, and she wailed like a child. ‘‘Because of the
pain
. You don’t know what it’s like to have all your joints broken, to be burned and cut. I was a good-looking woman, strong and dedicated. I turned them in because their gang was evil, pure evil, stealing, raping, killing, and what did I get as a reward? I was almost killed. Mutilated. The doctors told me I would never walk again. Told me I’d be on medication for the rest of my life. And when I wanted to die, they told me no, I would live a long life. Would you want that? Would you?’’
‘‘So when the devil came to you, you agreed to his deal. He would take the pain away, and you would move here and do his bidding.’’ Adrik seemed to understand all too well how the devil worked.
‘‘Yes,’’ Miss Joyce hissed. She was visibly shriveling.
‘‘Why didn’t the devil destroy us himself?’’ Jasha asked.
Miss Joyce wrung her hands over and over, and each time she did, the bones inside the gloves seemed to warp a little more. ‘‘It doesn’t work that way.
He
can’t interfere directly. He can only give a little push and prod and hire people to work for him. He’s not in charge, you know. Please. Rurik. You’ve said very little. Obviously you don’t approve of persecuting your favorite old schoolteacher. Give me my hat.’’
‘‘You misunderstand, Miss Joyce,’’ Rurik said smoothly. ‘‘We’re not persecuting you. We’re asking for the truth. Is that too much to expect?’’
All three boys circled her now, while Zorana stood still in front of her, arms crossed.
‘‘Zorana . . .’’ Miss Joyce faltered. ‘‘I’ve always been your friend. . . .’’
‘‘You delivered my baby.’’
‘‘Yes. When that stupid doctor passed out and couldn’t do it.’’ But Miss Joyce couldn’t look Zorana in the eyes.
‘‘I think back and I remember—he was drunk when he got there. He gave me drugs I didn’t want. And after he fell over, I heard a thump. Did you knock him out?’’
‘‘Why would I do that?’’
‘‘So you could trade my son for a girl.’’
Miss Joyce’s ample, sagging bosom heaved up and down, up and down. ‘‘Why would you think such a thing?’’
‘‘We don’t think. We know.’’ Zorana stepped forward, through the circle her sons had formed, and knelt before Miss Joyce. She stared into her eyes. ‘‘Can you imagine what I felt when I realized my son had been stolen from me? No, of course you can’t. You never think of someone else. You think only of yourself.’’
Miss Joyce laughed, long and loud, and before their eyes, she discarded her pretense of caring and kindness. ‘‘Poor Zorana! Poor little immigrant with her handsome husband and her strong sons and her special gifts, always surrounded by love and support. I’m supposed to feel sorry because I took one of your kids? So what? I left you one in its place. And you were so proud of her. Acted like she was the second coming, when all she was was one of the abandoned ones. He found her and brought her to me and told me what to do. Maybe I wasn’t happy about doing it, but he reminded me what I owed him. You didn’t lose anything by what I did.’’ She smirked, transfixed by her own confession. ‘‘Except you can never break the pact, because you don’t have four sons.’’
‘‘You know about the pact?
He
knows about the prophecy?’’
‘‘He
knows everything.
He
watches everything.’’
Adrik snorted derisively. ‘‘Is that what he told you?’’
‘‘He’s the devil. He wouldn’t—’’
‘‘Lie to you?’’ Zorana finished softly.
Miss Joyce realized how stupid she sounded. How stupid she’d been. At once her shoulders slumped with an audible crack. She flinched, caught her breath, and struggled to speak. ‘‘You’re right. He did lie to me. He told me he would take my pain away and let me live as long as I did his bidding. But when your children were grown and you spouted your damned prophecy, he didn’t need me anymore.’’ She gave a sudden wail. ‘‘I’m in pain. All the time in pain, and no matter what I do, he won’t come back to me. I sacrifice to him, but my body’s rotting. Rotting while I live.’’
‘‘It looks as if the sun is accelerating the process.’’ Rurik watched as the scar on her cheek opened to the bone.
Miss Joyce cast him a glance of such venom, he stepped back.
‘‘What did you do with my baby?’’ Zorana stood up over her. ‘‘What did you do with my son?’’
Miss Joyce turned coy. ‘‘What will you do for me if I tell you?’’
‘‘How desperate are you to stay alive?’’ Zorana asked softly.
Miss Joyce lifted her misshapen hand to shade her eyes, and stared at Zorana. ‘‘You’d have your sons kill me?’’
‘‘I’d kill you myself.’’
Miss Joyce stared into Zorana’s eyes and saw the truth. Zorana not only
could
kill her—she
would
.
‘‘I put it in the car and drove it to
Nevada
. It screamed the whole last eight hours.’’ In a tone of pride, she said, ‘‘I put it out in the night, in the desert, and drove away. But I didn’t murder it. That would have made me like the boys who attacked me.’’ Spittle foamed at the corners of her mouth. The old woman had succumbed to madness.
Zorana slowly backed away from her. ‘‘My baby wasn’t an
it
. He was a
boy.’’
‘‘All the better reason to kill it before it could grow up like
them
.’’ Miss Joyce waved her deformed hand at Zorana’s sons.
Zorana clenched her fists and took a step forward.
Miss Joyce cowered, her arms above her head.
Rurik caught Zorana’s arm. ‘‘No, Mama,’’ he whispered.
‘‘I’m a pathetic old woman who has been abandoned by her master and left to die in anguish,’’ Miss Joyce whispered hoarsely. ‘‘Surely that’s punishment enough.’’
The boys glanced at one another, revulsion writ plain on their faces.
Rurik handed Miss Joyce her hat.
As she put it on her head, Zorana caught the glint of triumph sparkling in her eyes.
Snatching the hat away, Zorana glared at her sons. ‘‘No. No, no, no!’’
‘‘Mama, are you sure?’’ Adrik put his arm around her. ‘‘Don’t do something you’ll later regret.’’
‘‘She took the job of a schoolteacher, a protector and teacher of young children, and taught us to trust her while she did everything in her power to destroy us. Adrik, she told us you were dead. Firebird ran away because of this woman’s treachery.’’ Taking a sobbing breath, Zorana whispered, ‘‘Most of all, she tore my son from my arms. She deprived you of your brother. Because of her, we can never break the pact, and your father will burn in hell for all eternity. She left my baby to die of starvation and dehydration, or freeze to death under the indifferent stars, or be eaten alive by animals.’’ She crushed the straw brim between her fists. ‘‘She can’t stand the sun because she made a deal with the devil. If she can make it back to the house, she’ll live.’’
‘‘That’s not fair!’’ Miss Joyce said.
Zorana glanced one last time at the evil, leprous hulk that was Miss Joyce. ‘‘It will be as God wills. That’s a better chance than you gave my baby.’’
‘‘You’re right, Mama.’’ Taking the hat, Adrik tossed it into the high branches of a tall pine.
Zorana walked toward the van. ‘‘Come on, my sons. Let’s go home.’’
Chapter Nine
Doug Black was the first responder on the scene, and all he knew was that a mother and her two kids had missed the curve passing
Shoalwater
State Park
and rolled their SUV.
As he drove up, he caught a glimpse of the late-model GMC Denali half-hidden a good two hundred feet down a slope and in the woods. Branches and moss were tossed everywhere, the rhododendrons had been ripped to shreds, and the forest floor was plowed down past the needles to the dirt.