Houses of Stone by KATHY (booksvooks .TXT) 📕

The low-hanging clouds parted momentarily, and the dying sun sent a last ray of lurid crimson light into the clearing, flushing the faces of the men and casting dark, distorted shadows across the uneven ground. When it died the darkness seemed even deeper. A distant rumble of thunder rolled and faded.

"I've had it," one of the spectators muttered. "Let's get the hell out of here."

"Five more minutes," Bobby said softly. He started toward Karen.

She stood her ground. It was not courage that kept her from retreating or screaming for help; it was a queer, cool sense of anticipation.

Cameron thought, as he later admitted, that she was too paralyzed with fear to move. With a sudden, violent movement he twisted away from the grasping hands, but one of the men stuck out a foot and he went sprawling.

It came then, as Karen had known it would, rising instantly from a distant wail to a ghastly shriek that assaulted the ears and pierced the heart. It filled the clearing like dark water and shook the branches. When it died away, she and Cameron were alone.

Karen had dropped to the ground and covered her ears with her hands. It was that bad, even for someone who had heard it before and who had anticipated . . . something.

She rolled over and sat up. Cameron had raised himself to his knees. The fall must have knocked the wind out of him; he was whooping for breath, but he managed to gasp, "Christ Almighty! What in God's name was that?"

Karen crawled across the few feet of ground that separated them. Rising to her knees, she threw her arms around him. "Are you all right?"

"Yes, fine." The strain in his voice and the tremors that ran through his body made him a liar. She was trembling too, now that it was over. They clung to one another, shaking and panting.

"What was it?" Cameron repeated.

"A guardian angel, maybe."

"Didn't sound like an angel. We'd better get out of here."

He got shakily to his feet, raising her with him.

"Just a minute." She moved out of his hold, toward the tunnel.

"For God's sake, Karen!"

"I'm coming." Carefully she wrapped the broken shaft of bone in Peggy's jacket. As they started down the path toward the house, the first drops of rain began to fall.

"So you were right," Peggy said. "It's another Edwin Drood. We'll never know how it ended."

Karen gathered up the last pages of the manuscript. They had finished breakfast; Peggy leaned back, her bandaged foot on a chair, a cigarette in her hand. The windows streamed with rain.

"We can make an educated guess, can't we?" Karen said. "Someone is following her as she steals through the night-darkened garden, her bundle over her arm. The reader knows that, if Ismene doesn't. The doctor is waiting for her at the gate, so the follower has to be Edmund. There will be a confrontation between the two men, a final admission of guilt by one of them, and Ismene will fly into the arms of the other."

"But which one? You don't know how many pages are missing. The confrontation could result in an entirely new plot twist. Even if the doctor is telling the truth, Ismene has to go back to the house with the proof he's promised her, to free her poor crazy mother and convince Clara that she'd better stop making eyes at Edmund. I must say," Peggy went on, reaching for her cup of coffee, "you were right about Ismene's feelings for her sister. That scene where she tries to warn Clara makes the latter look like a vindictive bitch."

"A lot of people will be speculating," Karen said. "There's another possibility, though. Ismene may not have finished the book."

Peggy had been trying not to look at the cotton-lined box and its grisly contents. They made an incongruous addition to the breakfast dishes. "It could be a woman's," she said. "Men were shorter back then, though. With only one bone—"

"It's hers," Karen said quietly. "I saw a few other bones before the light went out. Some are probably gone, smashed or carried off by animals. But there will be enough left to prove I'm right."

"I'm surprised you aren't heading back there, rain and all," Peggy said, shifting position with a grimace of pain.

"I've found what I had to find. The bones are just . . . left-over pieces. Anyhow, they shouldn't be moved by amateurs. There are people at Williamsburg or William and Mary who will know how to deal with them." Karen stood up and stretched. "We'd better start packing. I don't know how we're going to cram all that stuff you bought into your car."

"Oh, come on, it's not that bad." Peggy squirmed. "Damn this foot. Suppose we sort through the loot and see what can be discarded. We should be able to squeeze some more into the trunk."

Karen dragged the boxes and bundles nearer to the invalid. They made a discouragingly large pile. "What do you want with this petticoat?" she demanded, lifting a mass of white fabric and shaking it out. "It must have ten yards of material in it. It's way too long for you, and the waist ..."

"Look at the tucks and the handmade lace," Peggy protested. "I have to keep that."

"Oh, all right." Karen raised the lid of the trunk and crammed the petticoat in. "How about this?"

After some heated debate Peggy consented to discard two pairs of knee-length split drawers and a bundle of long underwear. "See," she said with satisfaction, "the rest fits in the trunk."

Karen sat on the lid and managed to close it. "That finishes that box, except for these papers. You said they weren't—"

"Let me have another look." Peggy sorted through the bundle, accompanying the search with a muttered commentary. "I suppose I could dispense with the newspaper clippings, they're all about turn-of-the-century social activities. The recipe book . . . no, I can't part with that, it's too delicious. 'Take fourteen eggs and a pint of