Dance with the Devil

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…

CHAPTER 13

When Katherine had first entered the orphanage at the age of eight, she had had a run-in with Mrs. Coleridge on her third day there.

Mrs. Coleridge was a heavy set, severe woman who wore her hair drawn away from her face pinned in a bun on top of her head. Her eyebrows were thick, her lips thin and set. She never smiled at anyone, and she had a long list of dos and don'ts by which every child in the institution had to abide or suffer punishment. One of her rules was that every child should go through a period of mourning after they arrived, before actually entering into any of the activities of their new life. While Katherine had looked forward eagerly to a picnic scheduled for the third day of her stay, Mrs. Coleridge was shocked to find that she had any notion of enjoying herself so soon.

In her large, dimly lighted office on the ground floor of the main residence hall, Mrs. Coleridge took the young Katherine to task. “Your mother and father have only been gone a little more than a week,” she said, looking meaningfully at the child.

Katherine said nothing.

“You know our rules here?”

“Some of them,” Katherine said quietly.

“Maybe you know that we feel that two weeks of mourning are required before you can join right in with the other children.”

Katherine had nothing to say.

“You'll go to chapel, of course, and to Sunday evening prayer, but as for a picnic… ”

“I want to go too,” Katherine said.

The woman looked at her, scowled. “I don't think that I have made myself perfectly clear, child.”

“I'll sneak along, even if you won't let me go,” Katherine said. She was growing bolder now, and she stood up in front of her chair, as if to confront the older woman. She was a small, delicate girl with a wistful look about her that 'made her seem somehow older than she was. She was so delicate, however, that she looked as if a strong wind might crush her.

“You'll do just what you're told to do,” Mrs. Coleridge replied. She was more than ready to be the crushing wind in this case, for she actually enjoyed disciplining the children, enjoyed it more than anyone but Mrs. Coleridge herself could know. She stood up too, fingering the handle of the desk drawer where she kept the switch she used on unruly children.

“I'll go,” Katherine insisted.

Screwing up her face, Mrs. Coleridge said, “Don't you have any respect for the dead, child? Don't you miss and love your parents?”

Tears had come into Katherine's eyes then, and she said, quietly, “I loved them a lot, a whole lot.”

“Then—”

“I have to go on the picnic,” Katherine cried. “You have to let me! If I'm not happy, I'll be sad. And when you're sad, awful things happen. If you're happy, if you stay happy, nothing can go wrong!”

Mrs. Coleridge took the switch from her drawer. “Don't yell at me, young lady.”

“Daddy was always looking out for bad things, expecting bad things,” she went on. “He said the flood would ruin the farm if it came, ruin everything for us. He was sad all the time. And then — then it came and was even worse than he expected.”

Mrs. Coleridge tested the switch against her palm, and she said, “Be quiet, Katherine.”

“No! You have to understand, Mrs. Coleridge! Don't be so sad, don't always think that bad things will happen, because — then they will!” It was not easy for a child, almost eight years old, to frame the essence of such a philosophy, and she was frustrated with herself for not being able to reach the older woman with the truth of what she thought.

“Come here,” Mrs. Coleridge said, frowning. Her face was full of ugly lines when she frowned.

Katherine got her spanking shortly thereafter.

But the next day, she sneaked away on the picnic with the others. The house parents chaperoning the affair never reported her disobedience to Mrs. Coleridge, for they sympathized with her desperate search for happiness.

From that moment on, Katherine's life had been shaped by the principle of optimism.

Until Owlsden.

Owlsden had bled away her positive outlook over the period of only a few days until now, alone in her room, she could summon forth only one optimistic image: Michael Harrison. He represented hope to her — not only hope