the labels with their bright illustrations of summer succulence. Labels lie, he thought. There is no comparison between that can of orange cubes and a carrot pulled fresh and sweet from warm soil. He stood there without reaching for a single item, his thoughts drifting instead to the summer vegetables he had grown and now missed so much.
He counted the months until spring, added on the months needed for a new crop to mature. His whole life, it seemed, was spent waiting for winter to pass, or preparing for winter to come. He thought: Enough is enough. I’ve lived too many winters already. I cannot bear to live through another one.
He left his cart where it was standing, and he walked past the eternally unsmiling cashier and out the door.
He stood on the sidewalk outside Cobb and Morong’s and gazed across the road, at the newly frozen lake. Its surface was as bright as a polished mirror, flawlessly silvered, unmarred by even a wisp of snow. Skating ice, he thought, remembering the winters of his childhood, his feet gliding, the delicious scrape, scrape of his blades. Soon there would be children skating out there with their hockey sticks and their bright winter jackets, like confetti blowing across the ice.
But I have had enough of winter I want no more of it.
He breathed in and felt, deep in his lungs, the sting of cold air. Sharp.
Punishing.
The cat was back in the window of the five-and-dime on Elm Street. He was cleaning himself, his fur glossy and raven-black in the sunshine. As Claire walked past, he paused from his self-administered bath and stared at her in disdain.
She glanced up at the sky. It was a hard blue, the kind of sky that precedes a wretchedly cold night. Since Scotty Braxton’s death four days ago, winter had asserted itself with cruel finality. A dull sheen of ice now covered the entire lake, and in the newspaper obituaries this morning, the announcements of funeral arrangements had all concluded with the same phrase: “Burial will be in the spring.” When the ground has thawed. When the earth reawakens.
Will I still be here in the spring?
She turned into Tannery Alley Over a doorway hung a sign, swaying like a tavern placard in the wind:
Police, Town of Tranquility She walked straight into Lincoln’s office, and placed the latest issue of the Weekly Informer on his desk.
He looked over his glasses at her. “Problem, Claire?”
“I just came from Monaghan’s Diner, where everyone was talking about that.
Damaris Horne’s latest piece of trash.”
He glanced down at the headline: SMALL TOWN GRIPPED BY EVIL. “It’s just a Boston tabloid,' he said. “No one takes that stuff seriously.”
“Have you read it?”
“No.”
“Everyone at Monaghan’s has. And they’re so scared, they’re talking about keeping loaded guns handy, just in case some devil-possessed teenager tries to steal their precious truck or something.”
Lincoln groaned and pulled off his glasses. “Oh, hell. This is the last thing I need.”
“I sewed up three patients with lacerations yesterday. One of them was a nine-year-old who punched his fist through a window. We’re having enough trouble with the kids in this town. Now the adults have gone crazy, too.” She planted both hands on his desk. “Lincoln, you can’t wait until the town meeting to talk to these people. You have to head off the hysteria now. Those Dinosaurs have declared open season on children.”
“Even imbeciles have a right to free speech.”
“Then at least gag your own men! Who’s this cop Damaris quotes from your department?” She pointed to the tabloid. “Read it.”
He looked down at the section she’d indicated.
What is behind this small town’s epidemic of violence?
Many here think they know the reason for it, but their explanations are so disturbing to local authorities that few will speak on the record. One local policeman (who wishes to remain unidentified) privately confirmed the harrowing claims made by local citizens: that Satanists have taken hold of Tranquility.
“We’re well aware there are witches living here,” he said. “Sure, they call themselves ‘wiccans’ and claim they’re innocently worshiping earth spirits or some such. But witchcraft has been linked to devil worship through the ages, and you can’t help but wonder what these so-called earth worshipers are really doing out there in the woods at night.” When asked to elaborate, he said, “We’ve had a number of complaints from citizens who’ve heard drumming in the woods. Some people have seen lights flickering up on Beech Hill, which is uninhabited forest.”
Late-night drumming and weird lights in the woods aren’t the only alarming signs that something is amiss in this isolated village. Rumors of Satanic rituals have long been part of local lore. One woman recalls hearing whispered stories from her childhood of secret ceremonies and infants vanishing soon after birth.
Others in town recount horrifying childhood tales of ceremonies in which small animals or even children have been offered up in the name of Satan…
“Which one of your officers is talking to this reporter?” Claire demanded.
His face suddenly dark with anger, Lincoln shot to his feet and stalked to the doorway. “Floyd! Floyd! Who the hell talked to that Damaris Horne woman?”
Floyd’s response was slightly tremulous. “Uh… you did, Lincoln. Last week.”
“Someone else in this department has too. Who was it?”
“It wasn’t me.” Floyd paused, and added confidentially, “She kinda scares me, that Damaris lady. Gives you the impression she’d like to eat y’up alive.”
Lincoln returned to his desk and sat down, his anger still evident. “We’ve got six men in this department,” he said to Claire. “I’ll do my best to track it down. But anonymous leaks are next to impossible to trace.”
“Could she have made up the quotes?”
“She might. Knowing Damaris.”
“How well do you know her?”
“Better than I care to.”
“What does that mean?”
“Well, we’re not running off to Rio together,” he snapped back. “She’s a goddamn persistent woman, and she seems to get whatever she goes after.”
“Including the local police.”
She saw fresh anger flare up in his eyes. Their gazes held for a moment, and she felt an unexpected spark of attraction. It surprised her, coming as it did at that instant. This morning he was not looking his best. His hair was ruffled, as though he’d been running his hands through it in frustration, and he was more rumpled than usual, his shirt wrinkled, his eyes bleary from lack of sleep. All the stress of his job, of his personal life, was written right there on his face.
In the next room, the phone rang. Floyd reappeared in Lincoln’s doorway. “The cashier from Cobb and Morong’s just called. Dr. Elliot, you might want to head over there.”
“Why?” asked Claire. “What happened?”
“Oh, it’s that old Warren Emerson again. He’s having another seizure.”
A crowd of bystanders had gathered on the sidewalk. At their center lay an old man dressed in frayed clothes, his limbs jerking in a grand mal seizure. A scalp wound was oozing blood, and in the bitter wind, an alarming splash of red had flash-frozen on the sidewalk. None of the bystanders had attempted to help the man; instead they were all standing back, as though afraid to touch him, afraid even to approach him.
Claire knelt down, and her first concern was to prevent him from injuring himself or aspirating secretions into his lungs. She rolled the man onto his side, loosened his scarf, and wedged it under his cheek to protect it from the icy sidewalk. His skin was florid from the cold, not cyanotic; his pulse was rapid but strong.
