“Oh?” Brad said, frowning. “What are we doing?”
“Going to the cemetery,” Eve replied, then apparently realized how painful that might be for him and hurried to add, “Ro’s going to do her magic trance thing to try to figure out what happened to Mary.”
A series of emotions flashed through his eyes. He hated the cemetery, but at the same time, he was eager to revisit it if doing so could provide any shred of hope. Rowenna could tell that he was even worried about her. He probably thought she and Eve were heading over the edge. Crazy. Of course, he hadn’t sounded so sane himself recently, ranting about visions in crystal balls and the Devil out drinking alongside the locals.
“All right, let’s go,” he agreed. “I’m willing to try anything,” he added under his breath.
The cemetery looked bleak. The trees there were almost leafless, as if they had shed their brilliant beauty overnight.
Rowenna realized that she really didn’t want to go in. “Come on,” Eve urged her. “You promised. And Mary might still be alive,” Eve said.
“She is alive,” Brad said. “You said so,” he insisted to Rowenna.
“We’ll go back to Halloween,” Eve said. “Brad can talk you through it.”
As they walked in, Rowenna, forcing herself every step of the way, found herself remembering the night before and where the shadow had stood. Staring unwillingly at the tomb where her name had been written in dark, dripping blood. She felt almost as if she were entering her nightmare again, and she was terrified.
“Okay, concentrate,” Eve said. “It’s Halloween. Crowds are everywhere.”
“There are vendors set up out there in the street,” Brad said, taking over. “But it’s getting near dusk. I’m in the cemetery. Alone with Mary. She had a book about what the symbols on the tombstones meant and she was telling me about them, but I was getting tired, so I walked over there—to that aboveground tomb.” He pointed to show her the one he meant. “And then I lay down on it and closed my eyes.”
Rowenna half closed her own eyes, letting her lashes shield her vision from the present reality. She imagined the crowds, the laughter, the little kids running here and there. Costumes. Everyone in costume…
And Mary. Exploring, and then…
Rowenna felt the breeze and had the overwhelming sense that, if she were to open her eyes wide, she would be standing on a hill. Mary had stood above a grave, and somehow Rowenna knew that Mary had seen her own name on it. Etched cleanly, as if the letters had just been chipped into the stone that morning.
Then he had come, powerful and somehow unseen, and he had kept Mary from crying out, even though she had been terrified. He had taken her from just feet away from where she herself had stood last night, paralyzed in terror. And Mary had known him, had recognized him, from earlier that day, but he was a master not just of effects but of hypnotism, and he had kept her mesmerized so she never cried out. Then he had silenced her with a drug-drenched rag. And with the entire city around them in costume, he had spirited her away. She had been in a cemetery, and then she was on a hill.
Looking down on the cornfields.
“Ro!” Eve gripped her arm, shaking her.
Rowenna opened her eyes. Eve and Brad were both staring at her anxiously.
Rowenna looked at Brad. “Her book—did you find her book? The one you were just talking about?”
“No. Only her purse and cell phone were on the grave. That one.” He pointed. “You can just read the initials on the stone. Her initials,” he added emphatically.
“Ro, what did you see? It was like you were somewhere else,” Eve told her.
“I just imagined it, imagined the way it must have been,” Rowenna said. She looked at Brad. “I’m sure you’re right. That fortune-teller, Damien, is the one who took her.” She kept her eyes on Brad. She didn’t want to add, And he’s one of us, someone who knows how everything here works, people’s habits and schedules, and how to slip through a crowd in costume, dragging a drugged woman, and make it all look like some sort of macabre show, so no one would even notice with everything else that was going on.
Brad stared at her, nodding. They all jumped when his cell phone went off. “Jeremy,” he said apologetically when he looked at the number.
A tour guide, dressed as a Pilgrim, was leading a group through the cemetery. Suddenly it was a normal place again, sad, but not evil.
“Let’s get out of here, huh?” Eve suggested.
“Absolutely,” Rowenna agreed. “Don’t tell Jeremy where we are,” she whispered to Brad.
He glanced at her curiously, but he nodded. “Yeah, she’s right here. We’re having coffee. We’ll see you in a bit…. No? Okay, well…Sure. Where do you want to meet?”