Seth watched as it slashed to the ground over by the old cemetery. As the thunderclap exploded around him, he dashed across the street, ducking his head against the pouring rain. By the time he reached the corner of Black Creek Road, he was already soaked to the skin, but he didn’t care. He was away from the school, and away from Chad, Zack, and all the rest of them.
For now, at least, he was safe.
It had taken him almost fifteen minutes to get out to the head of the trail that would lead him to the cabin, and by then he was shivering with the cold and the slashing downpour nearly blinded him. He had to step off the road twice to avoid oncoming cars; both times, he was about to duck into the woods to avoid someone stopping to ask him what he was doing out in the raging storm, but the cars didn’t even slow down. Apparently the drivers were having as much difficulty seeing through the storm as he was.
At the trailhead, he turned off the road and began slogging through the squishy mire the path had already become. Finally, he gave up on the path and edged his way alongside it, weaving through the trees and pushing through the thickets, but never moving so far from the path that he lost sight of it. Soon his shoes were as soggy as his clothes and heavy with mud.
Still, the canopy of the forest gave him a little protection from the rain, and the flashes of lightning came often enough so that even under the blackness of the sky and the even deeper darkness of the forest, he was able to keep track of where he was.
At last he came to the clearing on the far side of which he saw the berm of shattered granite. He searched for any sign of smoke coming from the chimney of the tiny cabin, but the darkness of the day and the fury of the storm made it impossible to see anything.
He climbed to the top of the berm and looked down to the spot where the cabin was hidden.
And saw nothing at all.
It was as if the weathered wall of the cabin had vanished into the rock.
But that was impossible! He’d already been to the cabin three times. And this was the right spot — he was sure of it!
As another flash of lightning slashed across the sky, and the roar of thunder echoed off the sheer granite face of the cliff, Seth began scrambling down the mound of rubble.
His left foot caught between two rocks, and he choked back a yelp of pain as his ankle twisted. A moment later he worked his foot loose, twisted it experimentally a couple of times, then continued on down.
And found that the cabin was still there.
Indeed, he could see a faint glimmer of yellowish light flickering in the crack under the door.
He moved forward, hesitated, then pushed the door open.
For a moment he saw nothing in the dim light inside, but then his eyes adjusted to the gloom.
A fire was burning on the hearth, and above it the ancient kettle was already steaming.
Houdini was sitting near the hearth, his tail wrapped around him. As his eyes met Seth’s, the cat rose and moved toward him.
Angel was sitting at the table, the red leather-bound book open before her. As Seth stepped inside, she looked up.
She smiled.
“I knew you’d come,” she said.
In the warmth of the cabin, the pain in Seth’s ankle melted away, and so did the shivering that had seized his body.
He was safe.
At least for a while…
Phil Lambert glowered at the storm raging outside. When he woke that morning to see a cloudless sky with no trace of the sudden squalls that had been cropping up during the last week, he’d decided to get in a couple of hours of fly-fishing on the creek after school. He even put his rod and creel — along with his waders and his favorite fishing hat — in the car so he could get out as soon after the last bell as possible. And all day, the weather had held — a perfect fall day with a brilliant sun hanging in an utterly cloudless sky. And then, barely an hour before the day would be over, the sky suddenly turned black, a flash of lightning startling him so badly that he slopped coffee all over the report he was preparing for the superintendent. And then the whole school trembled under the thunderclap that struck before the lightning even faded fully away. Which meant that instead of spending two quiet hours trying to tease the trout in Black Creek into snapping at one of his hand-tied flies, he would instead spend those same two hours in his office, working on the endless mass of reports that his job seemed to have devolved down to.
Maybe he should have kept teaching, he thought, and never become the principal at all.
Or maybe this storm would blow through faster than the ones that struck last week and then again yesterday, and in another half hour the sky would once again be clear. The odds of that, he thought as he turned away from the window to gaze at the four people ranged in front of his desk, were about the same as being able to finish five hours of reports in only two or three, even without the sudden arrival of a priest and three upset parents, at least one of whom — Seth Baker’s father — was even more unpleasant than usual. After listening to Baker for ten minutes, he decided it would be easier to simply bring the three kids involved to his office now, rather than try to convince all of them to wait for the bell to ring in half an hour, especially since he was clinging to a faint ray of hope that by the time school let out for the day, the storm would have passed and he could still go fishing.
There was a tap at the door, and his assistant, Stacy Moore, stuck her head in. “Zack Fletcher is here,” she said, “but neither Angel Sullivan nor Seth Baker are in their classrooms.” One of Phil Lambert’s eyebrows lifted questioningly. “Apparently no one’s seen Angel since lunch, but Seth was in his next to last class.”
“You mean she’s not here at all?” Myra Sullivan asked.
“So it would appear,” Phil Lambert observed dryly. “Give us a minute, please, Stacy? I’ll buzz you when we’re ready to see Zack.”
As Stacy Moore backed out and pulled the door closed, Lambert leaned back in his chair, tented his fingers under his chin, and surveyed the three parents. Myra Sullivan looked worried and Ed Fletcher looked perplexed. And Blake Baker appeared to be growing angrier every second. “Here’s the situation as I see it,” Lambert said. “Obviously we’re not going to be talking to either Angel or Seth this afternoon, but I can assure you that tomorrow morning I’ll personally be speaking to both of them. When kids start skipping out of school in the middle of the day, I want to know why. Although,” he went on, turning to Ed Fletcher, “I suspect I know exactly why Seth is gone. At the end of the lunch hour today, I happened to find Zack and his two closest friends in the hall upstairs. I didn’t get there in time to see anything directly, but from what I saw, they were either hazing Seth Baker or getting ready to.” He held up a restraining hand as Blake Baker started to say something. “Now, given what happened last night, and what I saw today, my guess is that Seth decided to cut his last class today rather than risk running into Zack and his pals after school.”
“Who were the other two?” Blake Baker demanded. “Were they Chad Jackson and Jared Woods?”
“Since I didn’t actually see them doing anything, I’m not sure there’s any real point in naming them,” Lambert said mildly. Another flash of lightning flared across the sky, and once again the building trembled under the thunderclap that instantly followed. “Now, I suppose we could have Zack come in here and try to explain what happened last night one more time, but I’m not sure what that would accomplish. Frankly,” he said, standing up and coming around the end of the desk, “it seems to me that the best thing is to do what Seth apparently did — simply go home. By tomorrow I suspect that most of whatever went on between Seth and Zack last night will have blown over, and in any case, I can assure you I’ll be keeping a careful eye on both of them.”
“But what about Angel?” Myra Sullivan fretted. “If she’s been gone since noon…” Her voice trailed off.
“We take attendance in the homerooms in the morning, Mrs. Sullivan,” Lambert explained. “If someone doesn’t show up in a class later in the day, the teachers assume the absence was reported in the morning. The only other way we’d know about it is if one of the other students reported it.” He uttered a hollow chuckle. “Needless to say, the incidence of one student reporting that another is cutting classes isn’t very high. In fact, most of them cover for each other.” He moved toward the door. “So why don’t we all call it a day, and see what happens tomorrow, all right?” He offered Blake Baker a reassuring smile. “I wouldn’t worry too much about Seth — these things usually blow over pretty fast.” He pulled the door to his office open and stepped out into the
