“When are you going to do all this? Right away?” Adam asked.
“No. It will have to be just before the start of Beltane. Right now Reverend Thoreson and all the elders are over in the Place of Worship with Becky. They’ll be there until about an hour before the festival.”
“Why are they all with Becky?” Hallie asked uneasily.
“It’s kind of an all-night pray-in to The Goddess, to soften her up for the big one tomorrow.”
And they’re probably killing a couple of chickens for good measure, Hallie thought with a shudder, remembering the bloodstained marble font.
“Okay, so you drug the guard and then what?” Adam asked. “We can’t go out on the street. Someone’s sure to recognize us.”
“Not if you wear a costume,” replied Simon. “Everyone wears medieval costumes with masks for the festival. I can get my hands on a couple of masks, but finding the costumes is going to take some doing.”
Hallie and Adam exchanged excited glances.
“We brought our costumes for the Shakespeare Festival with us,” Hallie said. “They’ll be perfect. With masks on, we’ll fit right in.”
“I can’t believe this!” Simon said. “It’s almost too good to be true.”
“Wait a minute,” Adam put in. “Maybe it is too good to be true. Won’t our costumes stick out like sore thumbs? I mean, isn’t everybody used to seeing everybody else in the same old getups, year after year?”
“No, as a matter of fact, we aren’t,” Simon told him. “People make their own costumes. Everyone wears a different one each year. That’s the big thing around here. People keep their costumes secret, so their neighbors will have to guess who’s who.”
“Okay,” Hallie said, glancing up at the sky, which was growing lighter every minute. “So what happens next? The guard’s out cold in the kitchen, and Adam and I run upstairs and put on our costumes. Then what? How are we going to get out of town?”
“And what about Becky?” Adam asked. “I’m not leaving here without her.”
“Me neither,” Hallie agreed. “It’s got to be all three of us or none.”
“That’s the hard part,” Simon said, “and we’re going to have to improvise a little as we go. But for starters, we’ll need a getaway car.”
“Whose?” Adam asked. “There aren’t many cars of any kind in this town. And I bet even your Aunt Phoebe could outrun Brother William’s Model T.”
“I was thinking of Norman’s truck,” Simon said. “Most of the cars are kept under lock and key in Holyoake. Reverend Thoreson holds the keys. You have to go to him for permission to leave town.”
“I guess that keeps runaway attempts to a minimum,” Adam put in.
“That’s the general idea,” Simon agreed. “The only person who’s allowed to keep his own key is Norman, since he owns the only truck in the village and needs to use it all the time.”
“Won’t it be locked up, too, because of the festival?” Hallie asked.
“No. It will be outside. Parked on the Green. Maybe even in front of the Place of Worship. You see—” he paused for a moment, as if unsure whether or not he should continue “—you see, after the burning, they plan to load all the ashes from the bonfire into the truck. Then they’ll take them out and scatter them over the fields at the edge of town. To fertilize the crops. It’s a part of the ceremony.”
“And Becky’s ashes are supposed to be mixed in with them. She’s supposed to make the fields more fertile,” Hallie whispered. “That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it?
Simon nodded.
“Well, it’s not going to happen,” Adam vowed. “She’ll ride in that truck all right. But she’ll be alive when she does it.”
“Right!” said Hallie. “But what about the key to the truck? How do we get hold of it?”
“It will be in the ignition,” Simon said. “Norman always does that.”
“So we have Norm’s truck parked on the Green with the keys in the ignition. But how will we kidnap Becky?” Adam said.
“She’ll be in the Place of Worship with Aunt Phoebe. They’ll know she’s drugged, and they’ll think you two are safely locked up, so they won’t feel it’s necessary to have any guards watching her,” Simon said. “The three of us can sneak in, overpower Aunt Phoebe, and drive off with Becky.”
“What if they follow us?” Hallie said.
“They’ll have to get the keys to their cars first, and then get them out of the barns where they’re kept locked up. We’ll be miles away before they’re even ready to start out after us.”
“How fast does Norm’s truck go?” Adam asked. “It was moving pretty slowly when he brought us here. Don’t we need something speedy if we’re going to make a quick getaway?”
“Norman likes to tinker with engines—you know that,” Simon told him. “When he wants to, he can make that thing go pretty fast, not that the vicar ever lets him.”
Hallie looked at him doubtfully.
“Look, Hallie,” Simon said. “It’s going to be okay. We’re going to get out of this town alive. All of us.”
“Does that mean you’re coming, too?”
“Yes. The guard will know what I did to him when he recovers from his tea. But in the meantime I’ll tie him up and drag him down here, so there’s no chance he can come to and spoil things for us.”
“What time does the festival start?” Adam asked.
“Around ten o’clock. Everyone will be out on the Green at least an hour before that, though, and Aunt Phoebe will be alone with Becky, so that’s when we should make our move.”
The sky behind Simon was beginning to show streaks of pink.
“I’ve got to go,” he said hurriedly. “Here.” He shoved a flashlight through the bars of the window. “Take this. You might need it.”
Then he smiled at Hallie and said, “Come closer to the window.”
She did, pressing her face against the bars. And then, to her surprise, he kissed her through the grids.
“For luck,” he said.
Hallie smiled up at him. “We’re going to make it, Simon.”
“Absolutely,” Simon said, and disappeared as suddenly as he’d come.
Adam was prowling the cellar, shining the flashlight into all the dark corners. Suddenly he stopped, his light on a section of the wall by the door.
“What is it?” Hallie asked. “What are you looking at?”
“Nothing,” he said, quickly switching off the light.
She went over to him. “Show me what you saw, Adam. You’re only making me imagine the worst.”
He trained the light on the wall. “No wonder Simon’s parents decided to run away. The village must have locked up the Fire Maidens—or at least the unwilling ones—down here. Maybe Aunt Phoebe hadn’t gotten clever with her herbs yet.”
His hand suddenly began to tremble, and Hallie had to hold it steady in order to see what was on the wall.
A name—and something else—was scratched unevenly into one of the flat stones:
DEBORAH EVANS
MAY 1, 1985
FORGET ME NOT
Chapter TWENTY-ONE
It was nearly ten o’clock when Hallie and Adam heard Simon slide back the bolt and open the cellar door.
They’d been pacing the cell for what seemed hours, their nerves on edge, listening to the voices of the people gathering on the Green. Wondering with growing fear what had happened to Simon. Worrying that their plans had been discovered and that he’d been taken prisoner.
Simon’s face was white and tense. He breathlessly explained the reasons for his delay as he hustled Hallie and Adam up the inner stairway that led to the kitchen.
“Aunt Phoebe came home. I didn’t expect her, but she said she’d left her Beltane costume here and that Becky was out cold so . . . It took her forever to change. . . . She finally left, and then I had trouble getting Jem Woodley, the guard, to drink his tea. . . . He kept saying he wanted coffee instead. I nearly had to hit him over the head
to get the tea into him.”
He pushed open the heavy, creaking door that led into the kitchen. A large, inert body lay on the floor, bound hand and foot.
“You’re going to have to help me drag him downstairs, Adam,” Simon said. “He weighs a ton.”
“I’ll go change into my costume,” Hallie said. “And I’ll lay yours out on your bed, Adam. We don’t have much time.”
She could hear them thumping down the cellar stairs, carrying Jem between them, as she ran up to her room.
With shaking hands, she rummaged in the closet for her costume, yanking it off its hanger. Then she stripped off her jeans and sweater and pulled the dress over her head, thankful as she did that the dressmaker had sewn a long polyester zipper down the back instead of little hooks or buttons. Kicking off her sneakers, she slipped into the flimsy, black kid slippers that went with the dress. It would be a problem to have to run in these things, she knew, but the sneakers would be a dead giveaway if anyone looked at her feet.
A quick glance in the mirror told her she looked great, in spite of her hurried dressing. But her hair! That long black hair hanging down her back would make her stick out like a sore thumb in this pale-haired community.
She couldn’t find her comb, so she raked her hair back from her face with her fingers, twisted it into a thick rope and coiled it high on her head, securing it with a handful of hairpins. Then, after a quick search in the bureau drawer, she found a large, plain-colored scarf, which she tied around her head peasant style, making sure her hair was completely covered.
She was in Adam’s room, laying his costume on the bed, when she heard him on the stairs—taking them two at a time by the sound of it. She’d just found the shoes for his costume when he burst into the room.
“The festival’s going to be starting soon,” he panted. “I’ll never get into those pantyhose things in time.”
“Tights are easier to get into than your diving wet suit,” she told him as he flung off his sweatshirt and pulled on his shirt and tunic. “Just put them on one leg at a time and make sure both toes are pointing forward.”
He was grunting and cursing as she ran downstairs to the kitchen where Simon waited, shifting impatiently from one foot to the other.
Simon, she noticed, looked pretty cute in his tights.
Their masks were laid out on the table. Hallie was relieved to see that they covered the face completely. That would help conceal their identities. She tied hers on and, in a muffled voice, asked, “How do I look?”
“Medieval. It’s hard to believe a beautiful girl is under all that.”
Beautiful? Under her all-concealing mask, Hallie felt a warm blush travel up her face.
Now was definitely not the time to think about things like that.
Adam thundered down the stairs and into the kitchen. His face was red. His hair ruffled. His hose were sagging and twisted around his legs and snagged in several places where, it appeared, his fingernails had gone right through them.
Wordlessly Simon clapped a mask on Adam’s face and tied it behind him before putting on his own.
“Are we ready?” he asked, pulling his hood over his head and gesturing for Adam to do the same.
Hallie drew a trembling breath. “Ready.”
They had to slip out the back door and come onto the Green separately so no one would recognize them. It was hard not to break into a run. The Beltane festival was slated to start soon, and they had so much to do before that.
A crowd had gathered on the Green. There was a sort of frenzied merriment in the air. Laughs were too loud. People were too animated.
Hallie, Adam, and Simon met, outwardly casual, inwardly churning with nerves, in front of the Place of Worship.
“Where’s Norman’s truck?” Hallie hissed from beneath her mask. “I’ve looked all over and it’s not here!”
“Maybe he’s late,” Adam suggested hopefully. “Maybe the ceremony’s been delayed.”
“I’ll ask around,” Simon told them. “Someone here must know where he is. In the meantime, you guys walk around. Look like everybody else.” He loped off across the Green.
Hallie squeezed Adam’s arm as they walked. “It’s going to work, Adam. We just have to keep our cool. But once we’re out of this place, I’m going to have the granddaddy of all nervous breakdowns!”
“I don’t know, Hallie. I have this strange feeling something’s going to go wrong.”
Hallie didn’t answer. Maybe Adam was right. There were so many things that could go wrong. Starting with Norman’s truck.
Where was Norman’s truck?
And if he didn’t show up, how were they going to escape with Becky?
Hallie saw Reverend Thoreson and the elders meeting in the center of the Green. They were in costume for the ceremony. The elders all wore scarlet robes and hoods.
Red for burning! Hallie thought with a sick feeling.
The reverend was in a trailing white robe with long, wide sleeves, and he wore a wreath of leaves on his head. It was plain to see he was the leader of this disgusting festival.
And in just a little while he and the elders would enter the church and escort Becky to the flames. . . .
Hallie looked around. The villagers were milling about the Green. A couple of booths, draped in garlands and spring flowers, had been set up, and people were selling what looked like little pies and cakes. Several games of chance were going on at tables set up on the other end of the Green, accompanied by wild shouts of laughter.
The feeling of expectation and excitement ran like an electric current through the crowd. Hallie wondered if it had been like this the last time, ten years ago, when they’d burned poor Deborah Evans.
Forget me not, Deborah had carved into the wall of her cell. Forget me not. Like something from a sixth-grade autograph book. She must have known she’d be memorialized as a Fire Maiden. But obviously Deborah, frightened and alone, had wanted to be remembered for herself—a young girl forced to die before her time.
A number of couples had taken their places at the Maypole, streamers in their right hands. The fiddler nodded at them and began to play. They danced, sedately at first, weaving in and out, neatly braiding the streamers that hung from the top of the pole. Then the fiddler’s music grew bolder and wilder, and the dancers moved faster and faster in response.
Hallie had gone to a rock concert once where the loudness of the music and the gyrations of the musicians had caused a kind of mob hysteria, and the police had had to rush in and restore order.
The Maypole dance reminded her of that. It wasn’t anywhere as loud or as raucous as the rock concert. As a matter of fact, it was almost sedate in comparison. But there was something about it, something she couldn’t put her finger on, that was even more threatening, more sensual, than that concert.
Hallie was frightened. Something evil was loose in the air. She could sense it.
Oh, where is Simon?
“Look over at the oak tree,” Adam said. “What are those people doing?”
The ancient oak was heavily festooned with floral garlands, its withered branches drooping under their weight. Some young women were clinging to the tree and embracing it, kissing it, taking wreaths from their hair and adding them to the garlands already there. Others, watching them, clapped and cheered, joining hands and dancing around the tree.
“They’re all nuts,” Adam said. “Every last one of them. Do you think they’re tanked up on one of Mrs. Grigsby’s brews?”
Simon came toward them over the grass, not obviously hurrying, but rapidly closing the distance between them.
“We’re in trouble,” he said in a low voice. “Norman’s not here.”
“Where is he?” Adam asked. “Where’s his truck?”
“Someone just told me he’s gone off to the fields, to get things ready for later, when they scatter the ashes.”
“But he’s supposed to be here now!” Hallie hissed through clenched teeth. “You said he’s supposed to be here
now!”
“I know.” Simon’s words came out ragged, breathless. “But he’s going to wait, they said, until just after the ceremony.”
“We’ve got to have wheels if we’re going to rescue Becky,” Adam said frantically.
Suddenly the sky darkened as a cloud drifted in front of the sun.
It had been threatening rain all morning, with black clouds on the horizon and the occasional rumble of far-off thunder.
“Maybe it will rain,” Hallie said. “Maybe they’ll cancel the bonfire.”
“No,” Simon said. “Look over there. I think they’re planning to speed up the ceremony.”
Two men, dressed in multicolored tights and tunics, appeared on the edge of the Green, just in front of the church. They were carrying long-stemmed trumpets of some sort. The men raised the trumpets to their lips in unison and blew several ear-shattering blasts.
The crowd looked over toward the trumpeters and began to chatter excitedly. This was what they’d come for.
“Oh, God, Hallie,” Adam said in her ear. “It’s starting. We’ll need a tank to get Becky out of here now!”
Hallie spun around and stared at him through the eyeholes in her mask. “A tank?”
She pulled Simon closer to her and Adam.
“Listen, you two,” she whispered excitedly. “I’ve got a plan!”
Chapter TWENTY-TWO
The tricky part, she told them, would be the timing. A couple of minutes too soon or too late and they’d fail in their attempt to save Becky.
“We’ll have to wait until they bring Becky out,” she’d told them in a voice that was barely audible amid the surrounding hubbub. “We can’t leave the Green until then, when all eyes are on her, or we’ll be noticed.”
Simon squeezed her arm. “You’re wonderful, Hallie.”
Adam was looking over their heads to the spot on the Green where Reverend Thoreson and the elders had been. “They’re going into the church now.” His voice was calm.
Hallie, pressed up close to him as she was, could see that his eyes had narrowed and that he’d squared his shoulders and clenched his fists. She’d seen Adam in basketball games many times, and this is how he always looked when the score was close and he was determined to win.
Class Trip II Page 11
