Her mother tried again. "But you've never enjoyed traveling alone.
Wouldn't it be better to have someone with you? If I didn't have the
charity luncheon on Wednesday, I'd go with you myself. You need company,
Anne."
Anne hated worrying her parents. They had suffered nearly as much as she
had, having to stand by and watch helplessly as their elder daughter's
life fell apart. When they looked at her, Anne knew what they saw. She
saw it in the mirror each morning, the pallor in an oval face framed by
pitch-black hair.
Still, she said, "I really have no choice, have I, Mother? I've been
more fortunate than others, always having someone to be with. When it
wasn't you and Dad, it was Peggy, then my roommates at college, then
Jeff." Her voice caught on his name. She had long-since cried herself
out, but that little break in her breath remained.
Marjorie Faulke grasped at straws. "Call Peggy. She won't be starting
classes for another few weeks. She'll make the trip with you."
But Anne shook her head. "No, Mom. Peggy's terrific. For a sister, I
couldn't ask for finer. But she has her own life, her own friends. It's
not her job to baby-sit me. And I'd really prefer to be alone." Her
voice hardened. "I'd better get used to it, don't you think?" Oh, yes,
there was anger. Its only cure was through the courts, but it would be
months more before things were resolved there.
A silence had hung over the intimate round table, its elegant place
settings and fine food for otten. This had become a pattern, this family
gathering turned wake, but it had to be broken. Anne had to start to
live again. The trip to Vermont was a first step.
As the full blaze in the fireplace settled to a more sedate crackle, the
patter of raindrops broke through Anne's reverie. Stretching her legs,
she stood, smoothed out her jeans, and padded barefoot to the front
window. The darkness was dense. Staring out through rain-spattered
panes, she was grateful that she had shut the car windows and locked the
door. The idea of going outside to do it now didn't appeal to her. As
she stood, hands by her sides, eyes straight ahead, she could see
nothing but the black of night and her own grim reflection.
She didn't need friends to tell her that she looked gaunt and spectral.
Her cheeks were pale, hollowed by a weight loss that had cut into gentle
curves all over her body. Her mouth was more often drawn thin and
straight now, rather than curved in a smile. Dark eyes that had once
danced with happiness, now spoke of loneliness, and her hair didn't
swing. It fit her mood, which was restrained. Even now she had it tied
back with a thin strip of black velvet whose ends were lost in the
ribbing of her black turtleneck sweater.
This, too-this ghostly appearance-would have to change if she planned to
start a new life.
She had been paralyzed for weeks after the previous January's debacle.
The thought of a future without Jeff was still alien. They had been
married for seven years, though it had seemed forever. Anne was a
sophomore in college, a language major, when she had met him during a
summer of study in France. He was one of the few Americans she had seen
during her three month stay with a family in a small village west of
Limoges. His means of transportation had been a bicycle, his means of
communication a brilliant smile, until he discovered she spoke English.
From then on they were inseparable. He revised his touring plans to
accommodate her, and when they returned to the States at the end of
August, friendship became courtship. He was also from New York, his
family home an hour's drive from her own. By January she had transferred
to his midwestern university; they were married the following summer.
Only two years apart in age, they grew up together, passing through the
college years of flux and idealism with hours of carefree camaraderie
and first love. Both had come from hard-working, upwardly mobile
families that helped them financially until they were on their own feet.
But money hadn't mattered, even when Jeff became a successful investment
consultant. What mattered had always been Jeff and Anne, Anne and Jeff.
Then, abruptly, it was Anne, alone.
When the stupor finally began to wear off, she took stock of her assets.
She had a home-a spacious, well-furnished, stylishly decorated condo.
She had money enough to live in it comfortably, with leftover to invest.
She had friends. She had family. She had her own car, one not as sporty
as Jeff's Audi, but small, reliable, and gas efficient. And she had her
work.
Fluent in French and Spanish, Anne worked as a freelance interpreter
through most of her marriage. At first they had needed the money, later
not so, but she enjoyed her work, and with nothing to keep her at home,
it filled the hours when Jeff was at the office. When they planned a
trip, she took on less work. When Jeff had a business trip, she took on
more and was busy until he returned.
More than once during those long, morbid months, she had wondered what
would have been if she had been with him on that last, fateful trip.
They might have been together still.
But they weren't. She was alone.
Gradually she took on more work, branching off into textbook translation
for local universities. As opposed to interpreting, where she had to be
personally on the spot at a given time on a given day, there was more
flexibility in translation. Once the material had been picked up, she
could tackle the job on her own schedule, in the comfort and privacy of
her apartment.
The work was plentiful. She could pick and choose. Between her
availability, her competence, and her promptness, she was in demand.
On occasion, she met overeager professors, even some young and
attractive ones who were aware of her situation. She remained courteous
and professionally efficient, but she refused to date them. It disturbed
her, even angered her, that men thought she would want to date so soon.
Memories of Jeff were too near, too vivid, too dear. Those memories
would eventually settle in, she knew, and she might date then. For now,
though, she'd had enough of love and pain.
This trip was good in that sense, too. It gave her excuses to avoid
dating. Between getting ready to leave with a million errands to do,
being physically out of state for the week, and eventually returning to
a huge pile of work, she was safe. She didn't have to worry about men in
the backwoods of Vermont. She was hoping she wouldn't see anyone in the
week she was here.
Pretty reclusive for a former socializer, she mused without a hint of
remorse.
From the hearth, the sudden crumbling of an ash-split log startled her.
She whirled from the window, eyes wide in alarm. When she realized what
the sound was, she took a breath and uncurled fingers from fists. After
months of being bitten to the quick, her nails had grown into nicely
tapered tips. And there was her wedding band, wide and gold, gleaming
with deceptive brightness, on the third finger of her left hand.
When the fire spoke again, cackling for a feeding, she knelt before the
warm stone. Taking a piece of dried birch from the large wood basket,
she laid it over the broken embers. The log heated, then burst into
flame. It was an omen, she vowed, as she picked up her book from the
floor by her chair. Slipping large tortoiseshell glasses over the bridge
of her nose, she settled back between the chair's wide wings. They were
a comfort, these wings, serving to keep her sights on the fire before
her, rather than on the darkness behind.
Her ticket to freedom lay in her lap. Ever an avid reader, Anne had
escaped into books in recent months, when all else failed to calm her.
As a friend, a book had advantages over the human variety. It was there
whenever she needed it, it vanished as easily, and it never asked
questions, expected witty replies, made awkward suggestions, or
otherwise overcompensated for its own inability to right the wrongs of
the world. She had packed a friend-a-day supply for this trip. That was
all the company she needed.
The hardcover in her hand was a biography. She opened it now, and was
suddenly caught up in the same world she was trying to flee. On the
inside cover of the volume was an inscription that she hadn't noticed
earlier. It brought back a storm of memories.
"To my favorite sister-in-law. Have a marvelous vacation and be sure to
spend a week with us when you get back. Maryellen."
From the first, Jeff's family had adored her. They had always insisted
that they would hold Jeff personally to blame if the marriage ended. In
that spirit, they had stayed so close to Anne's side that she had to
finally beg them for space. They had eased off, but with reluctance.
Anne's parents had persisted, urging her to give up the apartment and
move back home, but she refused. She knew that as crammed with reminders
of Jeff as the apartment was, it was better than the Westchester home
where she had grown up. To return there would be an admission of
failure-failure to make the kind of happy life her parents had.
A ghost of a smile lifted the corners of her lips. Her childhood had
been happy indeed, even those awkward adolescent years when she was an
ugly duckling, by modest accounts. Oh, her parents denied it, but the
mirror didn't lie, and, anyway, the ugly duckling became a swan well
before the Senior Prom. By that time she was quiet and graceful,
thriving academically, socially, and emotionally. Nothing in her rosy
first twenty-seven years had even remotely begun to prepare her for the
heartbreak at the start of her twenty-eighth.
Brought back to the present by a pang of hunger, she closed the
untouched book and went to the kitchen. She flipped on a single light,
mixed tuna into a salad, put a pot of coffee on to perk, and toasted rye
bread. With the sandwich plate in one hand and a coffee mug in the
other, she retraced her steps, flipping the light off with a nudge of
the elbow.
Her hunger surprised her. Unusual for her, she finished the sandwich.
Revived, she sat back in the chair, the mug warming her hands as the
fire warmed her feet, and it suddenly struck her that she was beginning
to feel. It had been months since she had smelled coffee brewing or felt
the barefoot plushness of a carpet. But the coffee did smell good. Same
with the burning logs and the pines outside, and her feet did feel,
albeit smooth sanded oak planks rather than the thick carpeting of home.
Pushing the glasses up on her nose, she stared at the biography, but it
wasn't a biography kind of night. Jumping up, she returned to her room
for a replacement. Mystery or romance-the choice was easy. A romance
might appeal to her later in the week, when she was feeling stronger.
She took the mystery and set off.
The addition of several logs brightened the blaze in the hearth. Edging
her chair closer, she read from its light, and the book drew her in.
Within a chapter, she was the heroine. She was only marginally aware
that the rain was coming harder, beating with increased force against
rooftop, windowpane, and clapboard. It was a fitting backdrop for the
story of a young woman stranded in the deep woods in a cabin not unlike
her own. Anne felt a quick qualm at the comparison, debated switching to
the romance after all, but was inexorably drawn back to the tightly
written piece. Burrowing deeper into the chair, she gave herself up to
the plot.
She read for two hours, pausing only for more coffee. The gold watch on
her wrist read eleven, but she was wide awake, stimulated by caffeine,
her new surroundings, and the riveting edge of the story. As Chapter
Four became Five and then Six, the mystery deepened. Accidents were
neither accident nor coincidence. Someone was after the heroine. No,
something was after her, or so it appeared from the bizarre markings
left by footprints, paw prints, or whatever in the winter snow. Terror
slowly mounted. The woman was trapped, hunted, doomed. As Chapter Seven
ended and Eight began, she hatched her escape plan against seemingly
insurmountable odds. Then, complicating an already desperate situation,
came the blizzard. Gale force winds, blinding snows, chilling
temperatures conspired to keep her at the mercy of the wild beast that
stalked her.
With a thud, Anne put the book facedown onto her lap, heart pounding in
vicarious fright. Mystery, my foot, she mused with regret, this book is
sheer horror! It wouldn't have been so bad if she'd picked it up last
night or last week in New York. Here, though, she was alone, isolated
from the familiar, a good three miles from a shred of civilization.
Spooked, it took her a minute to realize that what she'd assumed to be
the thundering of her pulse was the thunder outside. Lightning followed
quickly, brightening the dark side of the room for a shocking instant,
its blue-white gleam icy in comparison to the warm orange glow of the
fire.
Hastily she added several more logs, desperately needing to put the book
down, desperately needing to read on, knowing that she wouldn't be able
to sleep until the last page had been turned and the mystery solved. She
raised the book again to another deafening clap of thunder. It vibrated
through the house along with tongued bolts of lightening.
Anne's nerves prickled then, because, in the thunder's wake came another
noise. This one was more human and threatening. A car was approaching,
coming nearer, loud enough to be heard above the storm. It reached her
front door and stopped.
Huddled in the chair, she held her breath. It was twelve thirty-five,
well past normal calling hours even in the city. Perhaps one of the
villagers wanted to warn her about the storm. Perhaps someone was lost.
Perhaps ... perhaps ... A furious pounding came at the door. Had it
been a gentle knock, Anne might have dared answer it. But this knock was
angry, clearly no neighbor expressing concern. At least the door was
