Orenda: Eternal Vendetta

CHAPTER 11

"I'm too old to lose what little I got!" Bimeler said, handing the key to the church basement to Paul. He didn't like the idea of letting them take the records back to their motel, but he felt indebted to the two. Jenny had not been as happy as she was right now in a long, long time, and the old man knew it was the result of their taking her with them to the old Indian campsite for a picnic.

"Don't worry, Andrew. We'll take good care of them." Paul assured him. "But tomorrow being Sunday, we just want to go over the records in a little more comfort than the church basement."

"I can understan' that," Bimeler said, "But 'member, the state holds me responsible for them."

Quickly they loaded the three pertinent crates into the rear seat of Patty's sedan. She groaned at the cloud of dust which rose inside her car, and reached back and opened a side window to allow it to be drawn out when the car got underway. She drove slowly out of Zoar.

"Strange day, hunh?" Paul asked, as they entered the interstate highway.

"Patty, concentrating on driving, murmured, "Exhausting!"

"This place is loaded with more nutty ghost stories than a fruit cake." Paul said.

"There was something awfully strange about that old Indian. Something scary. He gave me goose bumps when he wouldn't let go of my hand."

"Looked like more than goose bumps to me,” Paul said, then laughed.

"It isn't funny."

"I guess it just shocked him. . .hearing our names. If what he said about his great-grandfather is true."

"It was more than shock,” Patty insisted, shaking her head slowly. Her hair swayed with the movement, flowing back and forth at a slightly slower speed than her head. "It felt like he wanted to tear my hand off. As if he were struggling within to make himself let loose."

"I don’t imagine that old fellow has enough strength left to tear your eyelash off, let alone your hand." Paul scoffed at her fears, and brushed at the side of her head, feeling the silkiness of her hair pass across the backs of his fingers. He caressed her temple, letting his fingers slide over her ear and down the side of her neck. He felt her heartbeat transmitted through his fingers.

The steady cadence reminded him of the time as a boy he had caught a young Blue Jay which had injured its wings. He had felt that same throbbing, trembling beat in his closed hands as he held the delicate life of the bird in his fingers. Softly, he stroked the side of Patty's head, and she leaned into the movement, relaxing with the pleasurable security his touch provided.

"Do you realize that you are the most beautiful and desirable woman I have ever met?" Paul asked softly.

She flashed him a quick, glancing smile, turning her eyes immediately back to the highway. "No, I don't believe you, but thanks."

He felt her heartbeat slowing, the pounding becoming slower, more relaxed. "Well, it's true. You remind me of a delicate bird, and if I don't clasp my arms about you quickly, you might fly away forever."

Again she flashed him a dazzling smile. "I've been accused of many things, but never of being a delicate bird. Does that refer to my weight or my appetite?" She laughed, and realized that the tension had completely left her. "You sure know how to make me feel good." She added.

"I've just begun. Wait until you get to know me even better." His voice insinuated that `better' meant `intimate', and she blushed. Paul was surprised. He had not made a female blush since high school, and here was this obviously mature, sophisticated woman showing red from the line of her lush brunette hair to the neck of her heavy white sweater.

She steered the sedan into the motel parking lot, and parked it in front of Paul's room. While he unlocked the room door, she began lugging one of the heavy boxes from the back seat. He soon came and relieved her, finishing the transport of the heavy crates.

They arranged the boxes in a circle on the floor between the two beds. Patty immediately sat down to one side of them and began pulling the yellowed sheets from their folders. Paul sat on the edge of the bed nearest her, and began to slowly massage her shoulders.

"Ohhhhh, that feels good!" She said, leaning her head back, the folder slipping from her grasp. His hands felt strong, and pulled the remaining vestiges of tension from her.

Paul did not say anything, but kept up his massage, working his fingers deeply into her tensed, twisted muscles. He felt them slowly straighten under his ministrations. She closed her eyes, and when she did, Paul leaned over the top of her head, and kissed her. Her arms slid slowly upward, and wrapped themselves around the back of his neck. She returned his kiss passionately.

Feeling the depth and tempo of her breathing increase, Paul slid his hands from her shoulders, around behind her up stretched arms, and cupped her breasts. He felt the nipples harden and elongate between his fingers. He squeezed gently, insistently. She moaned into his mouth, and increased the movements of her mouth on his, becoming almost frenzied. Paul's hands went to the bottom of her sweater, and began easing it upwards.

He exposed her breasts, and gaped at their beauty. He leaned down farther over her to kiss them. She moved her torso back and forth across his mouth, pushing her taut nipples against his teeth. The moaning gasps she made came louder and more persistently. Paul slid off the bed, and knelt on the floor beside her. He began pulling at her slacks. She raised her buttocks to aid him, leaning back against the bed. When he had her slacks around her ankles, she suddenly, unexpectedly, began to resist.

"Oh no, oh no!" She said, shaking her head in long arcs, as if trying to awaken from deep sleep. Paul paid little attention to her stammered resistance, and again placed his lips over her nipples, abandoning the slacks for the moment.

Suddenly, Patty grabbed his hair, and forced his head backward, away from her swollen nipples. "Stop! Paul, no, stop!" She commanded, her voice growing clearer as she fought off the intoxication of sexual arousal.

"Damn!" He said, grabbing at her hands which were locked in his hair. He felt the sting of many strands giving way. "What's the matter? What is it?" He croaked, his mouth distorted with the pain of her hair pulling. He finally succeeded in prying her rigid fingers loose. Only then did she open her eyes, to stare woodenly at the floor.

"I'm sorry, Paul. I can't!" She did not look up at him. She wanted him more than she had ever wanted a man, but she couldn't risk it. She had felt herself pin wheeling into the abyss of arousal, and it frightened her; for she did not want to see the great paw reach out and smite Paul from her life.

Paul sat back, and massaged his head. A few loose strands of hair fell onto his wrists. "Why not?" He asked. "What's the matter with me?"

She recognized pain in the tremor of his voice. "I don't. . .I can't. Can't tell you right now." She still had not raised her eyes from the worn carpet. She slumped limply back against the bed, her legs slightly spread at the knees, but coming back together at her ankles where her slacks were bunched around them.

"Is it something I did?" Paul asked. "Or didn't do?"

"Oh no." She looked up at him. "It isn’t you. I want you more than I've ever wanted anyone before. "It’s me. I really can't!"

Paul thought that she meant that she was menstruating, and a small smile turned at the corners of his mouth. "How much longer?" He asked, his tone lightening somewhat.

"I. . .I don't know. I don't know if I'll ever be able to again." Tears moistened her eyes, and Paul watched in puzzlement as the water built up, preparing to overflow onto her cheeks.

His facial expression hinted to her that he was confused, and a slow shaking of his head confirmed. it. He had believed that he had finally figured the problem out, but now she was saying `maybe never'?

"I don't understand." He replied, simply.

She sat silently for a long time. She wanted to tell him her horrible secret, but she did not want to face the scathing reaction he might have to more `hocus-pocus' terror stories. Abruptly, she decided.

"Oh, hell, I'll tell you." She looked deep into his eyes, and he saw her fear and uncertainty. "Promise not to interrupt, or make any skeptical remarks." She demanded, but it was more of a question than a demand.

"You got it!" He replied, and stepped over the boxes piled in the middle of the room, and sat on the edge of the bed facing her across the records of Zoar.

Patty stood and pulled her slacks back up, then sat on the edge of the bed facing Paul. She told him all that had happened to over the past five years. Paul kept his promise, and remained silent while she spoke. His only reaction to her story appeared in his eyes. They grew wide when she described the bear attack, and softened understandingly when she told him about Henry, and their deep love. He blinked knowingly she she explained why she did not agree with the diagnoses of the second psychiatrist.

Slowly he began to comprehend her intense interest in Jenny's drawing; her insistence on hearing Bimeler's ridiculous ghost stories through to the end. He came to realize that her nightmare and Jenny's drawing manifested the same terrible fear. He understood the horror she felt when Giselle's `curse' was reiterated by the old Indian. These things were very real to her, he grasped, and if he wanted a chance for her love, he must take them seriously, also. He must help her cope with these fears.

Her reluctance to chance having sex with him, he realized, was somewhat of a compliment, as she obviously put him on a much higher plane than the other suitors of her post-trauma past. She did not want to strike out at him in hysteria; did not want him to dismount from her in disgust, as others had done. In short, she didn't want to lose him. He was touched, and felt a choking lump of sympathy forming in his throat. He stepped over the records of Zoar, and held her head against his chest. She cried softly.

"We'll get to the bottom of this, together." He said, rocking her gently, much as he had rocked Jenny to sleep on his chest two days before. He held her for a long time, and felt self-recrimination, guilt and empathy for her. He realized that he was deeply in love.

Finally, she lifted her head from his chest, and looked into his eyes. "I love you." She said, simply. She had never felt so in love. Even Henry had not stirred her as much as this gentle, sympathetic, strong man. When she was able to give herself to him, it would be without reservation, and it would be forever.

"Let's get to work," He suggested.

They sorted, collated, and analyzed the deaths of members of the three families until nearly midnight. Most definitely, an unlikely number of them had died violent and untimely deaths. Paul was making a list of the other families of Zoar who had died similarly, to see if there was, in fact, a significantly higher percentage of those of the three `cursed' lines who had died odd or violent deaths, when compared with the other families of the commune. Patty had stretched out on one of the beds to rest her eyes, and Paul could tell from the tempo of her breathing that she had fallen asleep. He carefully removed her shoes, and pulled a blanket over her.

She slept as a baby, her left arm straight out, face cradled in her left shoulder, and her right arm akimbo. He smiled down at her sleeping form. Tiredly, he removed his own shoes, and laid back across the other bed. Within minutes, he too, was asleep.

In the pre-dawn silence of early morning, when darkness has settled so heavily upon the land that the insects do notsing, predators have returned to their lairs, and the birds have not yet risen to pour their morning song across the sleeping world, Paul suddenly awoke. He was frightened, and did not know why. He lay quietly, letting his eyes slowly adjust to the dim moonlight which filtered through the venetian blind covered window which was the front wall of the motel room. On the opposite wall, the moon glow formed a small rectangle, crossed by horizontal bars where the individual slats of the blind blocked the pale light. He saw the blobbish shadows of snowflakes, which also blocked the moonlight, float slowly downward, slightly diagonal to the shadow bars. He still did not move.

Then he heard the sound which had awakened him. A furtive, scrabbling noise, followed each time by a soft scuffling on the cement sidewalk outside the room. A shadow, large and bulky, moved across the rectangle of light on the wall. Still Paul remained frozen, except for his eyes, which tracked the slow movement outside. It passed along the walk way, and Paul's eyes slid to the door, checking that the deadbolt was in place.

The scrabble-scuffle sound grew fainter, and Paul slid silently off the bed. He lifted his legs high, as a cat stalking a mouse might, and carefully navigated through the pile of boxes and folders toward the window. Easing the edge of one tiny slat aside, he peeked out into the moon washed night. He could see only large, moist snow flakes drifting silently to the earth. It had been snowing for quite awhile, he knew, because the ground was covered in white. The scrabbling noise ceased. Paul stood at the window a few more moments, enjoying the first snow of the year, then turned and made his way quietly back towards his bed.

Again, he stepped high to avoid the mass of boxes strewn about between the two beds. He was up on his left leg, off balance, when a horrendous crashing reverberated through the wooden structure. Paul sprawled over the crates and folders, cursing.

Patty sat bolt upright in her bed. "Paul?" She called softly.

"Shit!" He uttered, clambering clumsily to his feet. "What in the name of hell was that?" He stumbled to the light switch.

Doors opened all along the front of the building. Startled tenants stuck their heads out into the falling snow to see what had awakened them. From a few rooms away, there was a scream. Patty pulled the blanket up around her chin, sitting up against the headboard of her bed.

Paul went to the door, and slid the deadbolt back. He eased the door open, and a blast of snow flakes and cold air swirled around him. He shivered, but poked his head outside. Movement caught his eye at the far end of the floodlit parking lot. The bulky figure was entering the woods at the edge, and had just passed beyond the halo of yellowish light of the paved area. Paul saw the faint reflection off the back of the figure as it leaped the low decorative fence which outlined, and separated, the motel's property from the dense brush and woods surrounding it.

It was only a momentary flash, and the distance was too great to make out much detail, but Paul was sure that he had seen two arms flail upward as the figure cleared the fence. He was sure it was the silhouette of a running man. Paul noticed that the man moved with a strange gait, as if injured. He stepped out onto the sidewalk which circumnavigated the row of rooms.

To his right, a few rooms down the line, a small crowd of oddly clad people were gathering. Some wore pajamas, some robes, and some were fully dressed. He walked towards them. As he approached the crowd, he could see myriad reflections in the snow, and finally realized they were shards of safety glass. It looked as if someone had dumped a jig-saw puzzle made of diamonds into the snow. With a start, he realized that the glass belonged to the room which Patty should have been sleeping in. A numbing chill, which had nothing to do with the frigid blasts of air buffeting him, shook his body.

A small, portly man came running, the flashlight in his hand bobbing in tiny arcs as he approached. He was dressed only in a pair of slacks, and his heavily haired belly protruded and lapped over the top of them. He jostled Paul as he pushed through the crowd.

"What's going on here? I'm the manager." He said, excitedly.

The crowd murmured, separating and allowing the newcomer passage to the scattered shards of glass. "Looks like someone broke in. . .or out!" One of the bystanders said as the manager got to the site.

"Holy Christ!" He exclaimed, surveying the broken picture window with his flashlight. "Anyone in there?" He called through the gaping hole in the wall. He leaned into the black cavity. There was no answer.

Patty caught up to Paul, and grasped his left forearm. Her eyes were wide, and grew more fearful when she realized that it was her room that had been vandalized.

"That's my room," She said softly, gripping his arm tighter.

"I know. You have the key to it?"

"I'll get my purse." She let go of his arm, and walked hurriedly back to Paul's room.

"Did anybody see the young lady that was in this room?" The manager called anxiously above the humming crowd.

Patty returned, and grasping Paul's arm again, made her way to the entrance. With trembling hands, she inserted the key, and swung the door inward. Paul reached over her head and flipped the light switch on. Patty gasped.

She stared in horror at her clothes bag. She had laid the heavy bag, a fold-over type, across the bed she was not using, extending it all the way so that her clothing would not wrinkle. It had been ripped in two, and the lower half of it had slid part way off the bed. It hung, tethered to the rest of the bag by only a thin strip of fabric. In a flash, she realized that whoever had smashed the window and entered the room had mistaken the extended clothing bag for her sleeping body. Her knees buckled, and only Paul's quick reflexes kept her from falling to the floor. He placed her on the undisturbed bed.

The manager had followed her through the door, and now looked from Paul to the torn clothing bag, to Patty's inert form. His eyes demanded an explanation. Patty was unconscious, however, and Paul could only shrug his shoulders. After a long pause, the manager asked, "Not a jealous husband, I hope?"

"No, she's not married." Paul's voice was subdued.

Patty stirred on the bed, then sat up, groggily. "Paul?"

"Yes, Patty, I'm here." He moved to her side.

"Som. . .someone tried to kill me, Paul. Look at that bag. . .torn in half!" Her voice was weak, frightened, and she seemed short of breath. "He thought it was me lying there. Look at it!"

Paul looked at the clothing bag, and saw that it could, indeed, easily be mistaken for a reclining human form in the dark. He looked into the eyes of the manager, who shook his head, a doubtful expression on his face.

"Is there a nut case running around loose in this area?" Paul asked.

"Never had anything like this happen before. . .ever!" The portly man replied. Paul noticed his belly quivering. "He just smashed through the window!"

Through the broken window, the flashing red lights of a state patrol car shown. The red light reflecting off the torn clothing bag gave grisly credence to Patty's claim that someone had attempted to murder her. In the distance, a siren wailed, as the local sheriff also responded to the call.

"Lucky thing the lady was visiting you." The manager said, and turned to the tall highway patrolman who was entering the room.

"You the manager?" The trooper asked, looking at the portly, shirtless man.

The manager nodded, and took the patrolman into a corner of the room. They talked in low tones for a few moments. Then the officer approached Patty, and knelt down at the foot of the bed on which she was sitting.

"Are these your belongings?" He asked, indicating the rent bag on the other bed.

"Yes, they are."

"Got any idea who might have done this? Any reason why someone would do this?" He asked, extracting a small, worn notebook from his breast pocket. He projected an air of total confidence; nice but firm.

"No, I don't even know anyone here. Except Paul, and we were, uh, together, down the way." Patty replied.

"So I understand," the officer stated. "No husband, jealous boyfriend?" He asked, his manner professional, not hinting at any moral condemnation. He was just going after the answers to the puzzle in a methodical way.

"No. . .I have no one. The only people who even knew I was coming here were some friends in Roanoke, and my mother." She tried to brush at a strand of hair which had fallen across her eyes, but her hands shook so badly that she ended up brushing ineffectually at her forehead instead. The officer noted her nervousness in his notebook, but made no mention of it orally. Outside, the small crowd had begun to disperse back to their rooms.

"I'll just need some information, then, for my report." The officer said. "Name, home address, telephone number." He looked from Patty to Paul. "Of both of you."

The local sheriff entered the motel room, stamping the snow from his shiny black boots. "Looks like we got a little problem, huh, Doug?" He spoke to the state trooper. He looked at Paul, holding the hand of the terrified woman on the bed. He reached up and tipped his hat at her. "Ma'am."

"Yeah, looks like it. Any sign of the fella did this?" He looked up from his notebook.

"Folks outside said he ran off into the woods over there." He pointed in the direction that Paul had seen the figure disappear. "I followed his sign a little ways, but the fella knows what he's doin'. After he got into the woods, not a sign." The sheriff shook his grizzled head.

"Better get a hold of Colson, and have him keep an eye on the highway. He'll have to cross it sooner or later." The trooper said.

"I'll see if I can raise him on the radio," replied the sheriff, leaving the room.

"You folks planning to be around here for long?" The state trooper asked.

"A few more days. We're doing some research on Zoar village." Paul answered for both of them.

"Well, I don't have any idea who did this, or why, but I suggest you two keep your eyes open. There's more here than meets the eye. Anymore incidents like this and I want to know about it immediately. Understand?" He looked from Paul to Patty, and closed his notebook.

"Could we get a copy of the report you file?" Patty asked.

"Sure, I'll drop one by Monday afternoon sometime. If you're not in, I'll leave it at the front desk." He turned to leave, then looked back over his shoulder. "I don't pretend to know what's going on here, but like I said, there's something strange. . .something more than meets the eye. You two be damn careful, hear?"

The couple nodded in agreement, and followed the officer out the door. They walked in silence back to Paul's room. A pink haze was perceptible to the East, and the snowfall had stopped. Paul was grateful for the coming light.

Safely locked in Paul's room, Patty slumped in a chair, and seemed to crumple into a tiny ball. "Paul, why would anyone want to kill me?" She asked. Her voice seemed subdued by an overwhelming sadness.

"Maybe nobody does." He answered, sitting beside her. "It could have just been a drunk that fell through your window, then got scared and ran away." His voice was soothing, attempting to calm her.

"Did you see my bag?" She asked. Her eyes were red rimmed, and the large purplish welts so recently faded, were now reappearing.

"Maybe the drunk just tore it with his shoes or something, trying to get away." Paul said, reasonably.

"Tore it with his shoes?" She cried. "That's a heavy bag. . .it wasn't torn, it was cut!" Her lower lip trembled as she spoke.

"Just try to relax. I'll go over and get the rest of your things, and we'll share this room until we're done here." Paul strode to the door and went outside. The glimmer of an orange ball, rising behind a heavy line of clouds, was beginning to brighten the sky. As Paul made his way back with Patty's torn clothing bag, the lights in the parking lot began to wink out, heralding the end of night.

After the harrowing incident of the pre-dawn hours, Paul and Patty had not been able to return to sleep. They ordered a pot of coffee from the motel restaurant, and began working through the files of Zoar village. They worked steadily until after noon.

"That's it for the Schoenbrunn clan," Paul said. "Walter Schoenbrunn sold out his holdings and left the state. Went to North Carolina, it says." Paul's hair was mussed, and a reddish stubble had begun to sprout on his chin. His eyes looked haggard, but he did not feel tired.

"Of the original Schoenbrunn's eight children, four died as infants, most of diseases. Three of the children left the commune, and traveled west. One, the grandfather of the last, Walter, stayed and worked the family farm." Patty said, reading her summation. "Of his four children, three died in somewhat mysterious or violent circumstances. Two were killed by wild beasts, one drowned, and one simply disappeared into the woods one day. That left only Walter's grandfather." She sipped at her coffee, long cold, and looked steadily at Paul. "Sounds mighty suspicious to me! All three children getting eaten or killed by wild beasts, and one of them disappearing!"

"Not enough to go on yet." Paul said, curtly. "Go on."

Patty looked back to her notes, and shrugged her shoulders. "There was only one son fathered by this Schoenbrunn - Walter's grandfather - and that was Sidney, Walter's father. There were three daughters, of which two married and left the commune, ending the record of them, and Priscilla, who was killed by a bear while ice skating one night. Her body was recovered; dismembered but not eaten." Patty visibly shuddered, as her mind went back to what the park rangers who had found her and Henry had told her. Bears either eat a kill immediately, or cover it up for future use; they don't simply dismember it.

Paul reached over and took the paper from her shaking hands, and continued reading. "There were three sons, no daughters fathered by Sidney Schoenbrunn. Walter, whom we are familiar with, then John and Sidney, Jr. John and Sidney both died in adolescence, on the same day. It seems they were off hunting, and whatever they were hunting ended up bagging them instead." Paul shook his head. "This certainly was more rugged country than I realized!"

"That left Walter the only heir, and just a few weeks after his father passed away - of natural causes -" Paul looked at Patty and smiled. "Walter sold out and left."

"At least one of them died of natural causes!" Patty commented.

After reading through all the records concerning the three families mentioned in Giselle's Bible, and Bimeler's tale, it was apparent that the only people surviving from these lines, that had remained in this area, were old Bimeler and his granddaughter, Jenny.

They had no way of finding out about the Schoenbrunns right away, but it was apparent that Patty and her mother were the last direct descendants of John Sullivan, and Paul knew that his parents and himself were the last remnants of the once large Neiderhaus clan.

"It's scary, isn't it?" Patty asked, her voice subdued. "It's as if Giselle's curse was coming true."

"I still don't buy hocus-pocus curses," Paul answered. "Those were violent times, and this area was loaded with wild animals."

"What about your elder brother?" She asked. "If you entered his name and how he died in these records, don't you think it would seem to fit into a pattern?" She insisted.

"That was hundreds of miles from here!" Paul said, becoming exasperated.

"From what you told me about it, it was an awfully strange bear attack. As strange as the one on Henry and me, and the one on Priscilla Schoenbrunn!" Her lower lip began to tremble.

"What we have to do, is go through the rest of the village's records, and see if the other families had the same general percentage of members killed in violent, strange circumstances." Paul said, controlling his anger at her absurd insistence on believing in curses. "If they’re about the same, then we know we can discount Giselle’s supposed curse, and get down to some serious research about this place."

Patty was put off by his outburst. "I thought we were doing serious research!" She said. "If you can't see that something is out of kilter in these family records, then you aren't looking very hard!" Patty was getting angry, but more than anger, she felt afraid. She feared that Paul believed her insane, or close to it. But even more than that, she feared that he might be right.

"I'm going to do some telephoning and see what I can find out about some of those that left this area. I want to see if their bad luck has continued to hound them through the decades." Her voice lightened a bit from its earlier angry tone, for she felt increasingly confident that she would find the evidence she expected.

Paul did not answer her. He fought to control his temper. Perhaps it was her mentioning Carl, his elder brother, that had upset him, or perhaps it was merely the stress of the situation, coupled with a lack of adequate sleep. Quietly, he picked up the phone and ordered sandwiches from room service, then began listing the deaths of a violent nature that had occurred among the other families of the village.

He went through nearly half of the records before he found another death that seemed to fit the pattern of unexpected violence. An infant girl had been carried off from the yard where she was playing. Reluctantly, Paul had to admit that the Neiderhaus, Bimeler, and Schoenbrunn families had had more than their share of violently tragic deaths.

He looked up, and waited until she replaced the telephone in its cradle before speaking. "Patty, I don't believe it one hundred per cent yet, but there is definitely a lot more members of the `three families' getting themselves done in in strange ways than there should be."

She looked at him, but had not seemed to have heard his words.

"Patty?" He said, a little louder.

"There are no more Schoenbrunns." She said, as if she had not heard him at all. "Remember Walter? The last of the line?"

Paul nodded his head.

"He was murdered ten years after he left here. He had bought a plantation in North Carolina. A tobacco plantation, and was out chasing a run-away slave. According to the records there, the slave murdered him; but even on the gallows, the black maintained his innocence, claiming that Schoenbrunn was killed by a 'monster - part man, part beast'. Of course, nobody believed him, and they hung him for Walter's murder. I wonder. . ." Her voice trailed off, then came back up. "Jenny's picture!" She exclaimed. "Half man, half beast!" She looked wide-eyed at Paul, searching for his agreement with her insight. And then, her voice lowering, "And my dream!"

Paul rolled his eyes ceiling ward. Alienation or not, he had had enough of her superstitious nonsense. There was a logical answer here somewhere. He knew it! And they would find it. But he held his tongue again, for he could see that for some inexplicable reason, she believed that the esoteric chain of events would lead ultimately to a meta-physical conclusion. She seemed to need to believe it. Was the half-man, half-beast the same horror she saw in her nightmares? Did she link her nightmare to Jenny's drawing? If he could accept that premise, then there was a link hidden in all this. It was an occult link which his practical mind found difficult to give any credence to; for the concept of `curses' was alien to his entire epistemology. But he held his thoughts, in the interest of Patty's well being, he kept his silence.

"Patty, I'm exhausted. Let's continue this tomorrow. It's late, and I see it's snowing again. How about some sleep?"

She did not argue. She realized that his plea for sleep was a ruse to keep from confronting her with his true thoughts about the situation. She was confident of her sanity now, though, and knew that sooner or later she would be able to convince him of the terrible truth of her suspicions. Together with the evidence they had dug out of the files, her personal experience and intuition, and Jenny's drawing, she was certain that the man-beast that had killed Henry was no juxtaposition17 x 2000 of guilt feelings in her mind. It was real! It had happened!

Just as Giselle had written two centuries before, there was a horror hunting her. It was hunting them all. She would sleep well tonight, for she knew the danger to be real. Sleep well, but lightly. Ever so lightly.