I’d dropped a bombshell at that table and now someone felt threatened.
I eased toward the trap as if sidling up to a coiled snake. Using the sharp end of the limb, I poked at the spring until the metal jaws snapped shut with a clatter that shook me to my core. The sound reverberated through the woods like the shock of an unexpected thunderclap, startling roosting birds from the treetops. I didn’t glance skyward. Instead, I peeled my gaze on the clearing and the surrounding woods. Was the perpetrator nearby, waiting to hear that sound?
I felt vulnerable and exposed, armed with only that can of mace. The thought crossed my mind that I should take cover and wait to see who came out of the woods. But I had to get to Angus, and besides, whoever had set the trap might be long gone. For all I knew, the intent was to leave me until morning, giving wild animals a chance to pick up the scent of my blood.
Taking a deep breath, I aimed the light across the clearing where the path resumed to Tilly Pattershaw’s house. Nothing stirred on the trail, so I shifted the light, only to jerk my hand back, fixing the beam on a telltale mound of leaves and pine needles where another trap had been concealed. I stepped into the clearing and turned in a slow circle with the flashlight. The traps were all around us.
It hit me then. I wasn’t the quarry. Angus was being used as bait to lure something out of the woods. Something that could come from any direction.
I felt it in the wind then, that terrible dankness. The bone chill of an ancient evil. All around me, the leaves began to whisper and sigh, like the release of a pent-up breath.
Everything went deathly still except for that whisper and the roar of rushing blood in my ears. And then the breeze gusted, swirling dead leaves across the clearing, and somehow I was released from the grip of my paralysis. I rushed to Angus and dropped to the ground beside him. He didn’t appear to be hurt, but when he pushed his nose against me, I smelled an odd chemical scent on his breath and wondered if he’d been drugged. That would explain how he’d been taken without rousing me.
But…no time to worry about that now. The wind brought a fresh terror. A howling from deep inside the woods. I saw the hair rise up on Angus’s back as he turned to growl at the darkness.
“It’s okay,” I whispered over and over as I worked to free him. The rope around his neck had been tied with multiple knots, none of which I could loosen. The wind was cold, but sweat trickled down my back from fear and tension, and I cursed myself for not having had the foresight to grab the utility knife from the pocket of my discarded cargoes. “Come on, come on.” I worked until my fingernails were in shreds, but I still couldn’t budge those knots.
Behind me, one of the traps sprang shut, and as I jerked around in shock, I lost my balance and went sprawling to the ground. I watched in terror as a shadow detached from the deeper darkness of the woods and rushed into the clearing. Angus whirled and crouched, but he didn’t try to attack.
As the shape took form, I thought the wraithlike creature before me must surely be a ghost. But as she moved into the moonlight, I glimpsed an aged face framed by a mane of unkempt gray hair and somehow I knew who she was. Tilly Pattershaw.
Like me, she wore boots and a white nightgown topped with a heavy wool sweater. She was slight—frail, I thought at first—but in her gloved hand she wielded a knife, some long, fearsome thing that she swung over her head as she simultaneously grabbed the tether and pulled it taut. The knife slashed, cutting clean through the rope. I was so astonished by her sudden appearance and behavior, I hadn’t moved or uttered a sound. But now I scrambled to my feet as the howling grew louder.
Her gaze went past me to the trees, and I thought I saw her shudder. “Get out of the woods, girl!” The wind whipped at her long, wiry hair and tore at the hem of her gown.
“What about you?”
Her eyes were luminous in the moonlight, her face like the wizened visage of an ancient shaman. But her speech was pure mountain folk. “It don’t come for me.”
I turned to follow her gaze, my eyes scanning the woods. Even the trees were shivering, and the air hummed with the oddest vibration.
“Go!” she screamed.
“Angus, come!”
He was right at my heels as I tore across the clearing.
“Keep to the path!” I heard her call after us, but the sound died away quickly in the wind.
I bolted blindly down the trail, tripping over a root that almost took me down. A nauseating fire shot up my leg, but I wouldn’t let a twisted ankle slow me. Not with that howling thing at our backs. Gritting my teeth against the pain, I raced along the path with Angus now at my side.
Something swooped across the trail in front of us—a bat, I thought—and then I heard what sounded like the flap of bird wings, hundreds of them, but I didn’t dare look up even as a cloud passed over the moon.
As we neared the edge of the woods, I grabbed the rope that still dangled from Angus’s neck, preparing for that final dash across the open yard. Instead, I drew up short and gazed in horror out over the water.
Whatever had been lured down from the mountains had stirred the restless souls at the bottom of the lake. I could hear the bells—that hair-raising chorus of the dead—tolling from those murky depths. The discordant peals were muffled by water and a thick, writhing miasma that crept shoreward, up the stepping-stones and into the yard where Angus and I stood trembling.
And from that wall of mist, diaphanous arms reached out for me. Exactly like the recurring nightmare of my childhood. Hands thrusting through walls to grab me. I knew in my dream, as I knew now, not to let them touch me. They would draw me into that mist, drag me underwater, pull me down, down, down to that sunken graveyard… .
The howls were getting closer. Over the frantic batter of my heart, I swore I could hear the ragged breath of some fierce creature racing up the path behind us.
Entwining the rope around my hand, I gave it a tug. “Run!”
I didn’t have to tell him twice. Spurred by fear and instinct, Angus leaped forward with so much power, the momentum nearly wrenched me off my feet. I found my balance and kept going. I didn’t glance back at the mist, but I could feel the abnormal chill as we sprinted across the yard, up the porch steps and into the house. Slamming the door, I slid to the floor and wrapped my arms around Angus, pulling him close as I waited for the cold to seep in through the cracks. But the house protected us. The hallowed ground on which it had been built gave us sanctuary. After a while, I got up to peek out the window. The mist had receded, and the trees were silent now that the wind had died away. The sparkle of moonlight on water was as lovely as I’d ever seen it.
Fetching the utility knife, I hacked through the rope around Angus’s neck and tossed it in the trash. Then I checked again for wounds, but aside from that odd scent on his breath, he appeared no worse for the wear. I gave him some fresh water but decided to wait until morning to feed him in case of an upset stomach.
“You’re sleeping inside tonight,” I told him.
He whimpered gratefully and followed me down the hallway where I grabbed a blanket from the closet and spread it on the floor at the end of my bed. He lay down facing the door. I kicked off my boots and climbed under the covers, but even with Angus keeping watch, I didn’t sleep until daylight.
Except for a sore ankle and the slit in the screen door, last night’s drama might never have happened. I slept in and arose to sunshine. Angus was already awake and prowling through the house. When he heard me stir, he started to whine to let me know he needed to go out.
I took a closer look at the damaged screen as we exited the porch, wondering how on earth I’d slept so soundly through the break-in. Angus must have been sedated or otherwise subdued because he surely would have alerted me to a prowler. I remembered now the way he’d sniffed the ground when I let him out after dinner and wondered if someone might have tossed a chunk of drugged meat into the yard. Still recovering from near- starvation, the poor dog likely would have gobbled it up despite a strange smell or taste.
I checked the area for clues but found nothing other than a heel print in the dirt that I thought might be my
