The person she was trying to remember now had wanted to change the world, to prepare it for a momentous event: a birth; was that it, someone’s birth? But no. She couldn’t remember. She’d come close, that time. Frighteningly close.
Covertly, she cast an uneasy glance at Saul. Something about him had almost resurrected her long-buried memories. Maybe it was merely his long hair or the way he dressed, but she suspected that one of the names he had mentioned had done it. Whatever the reason, the memories were inaccessible now.
The fact remained that she had more in common with Saul than he probably suspected. She felt vaguely ashamed of her expensive car, more ashamed of her ulterior motive: to get a story.
She slowed, but she didn’t stop, at the turn that would have taken her home.
“You—”
He had started to say something, but then he had cut himself short. How odd: did he know where she lived?
“What were you going to say?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
“I’ll take you to Blackwood’s Corners,” she announced. “It’s a good fifteen miles, and you won’t get another lift at this hour.”
“I’m obliged.” He couldn’t be accused of obsequiousness.
It was Nora Curtis, the neighborhood gossip and self-styled astrologer, who had first called attention to all the “hippies” lately to be seen in the township. Marcia had winced at that word, a slur against many members of a misunderstood generation: her own. Whatever validity the word might once have had was gone—a victim of Charles Manson and Altamont. As a teen-ager, Marcia had run away from home, confident that love could solve all problems. She had been wrong.
Catchwords aside, Nora’s observation was true. A lot of eccentric-looking people, many of them young, many of them bedraggled refugees from the Sixties, had drifted into the area. What had drawn them here? She had been toying with the idea of finding out for a story. She had hesitated to mention the idea to Higgins, however, afraid that her motivation was not entirely professional. Maybe she was seeking the answer to the riddle of her own blacked-out past.
Saul was the first one she had questioned, and she was dismayed by her lack of progress. She was further dismayed to notice that her State Police vehicle permit, boldly lettered press, was attached in plain view to the sun visor of her car. His curiosity and his refusal to engage in conversation became understandable. He was just a kid, after all, a kid in a strange part of the country, and she was a member of the local establishment.
Maybe she could relax him by making small talk, but she couldn’t think of any. As the miles rolled by, the only thing that came to her mind was Ron Green’s unpleasant story. Well, it might prove to be a good icebreaker. Most people liked to talk about the occult. It might be just the right subject to open up a religiously oriented young man.
“We had something odd happen in town last night,” she said. “I work there, in Riveredge, as a reporter. They were preparing a body in one of the local funeral homes when it got up and tried to walk out the door. Did you ever hear of—”
She stopped short, shocked by his reaction. His face twisted momentarily into a grimace that might have been anguish. He muttered something aloud.
“Are you all right?” she asked nervously.
Saul had recovered completely. He looked calm.
“I was in Vietnam, and I saw some funny things there,” he said. “But you don’t want to hear about all that.”
She was jolted. Without committing a breach of good manners, he had put her down deftly and firmly.
“I didn’t mean to upset you,” she said. “I was just trying to start a conversation. I’m curious about all the hitchhikers and strangers I’ve seen around lately. I thought you might be able to tell me something.”
He considered her words for a while. Then he said, “I can’t speak for anybody else. I came to town to see some old friends, to have a get-together, that’s all. You can let me off here.”
Marcia awoke to her surroundings. They had arrived at Blackwood’s Corners, a confluence of three country roads marked by a general store, a church, and a few darkened houses. She pulled to a stop near the gas pumps in front of the store.
“As long as I’ve taken you this far—”
“This is fine,” he interrupted, already wrestling his bag from the back seat. Thanks very much.”
She sat and watched as he walked through the glare of the headlights. Long-legged and purposeful, without a backward look, he crossed the main road and strode away down one of the country lanes. He was soon gone from sight.
She thought back to the moment when he had interrupted her obviously ill-chosen story about the reanimated corpse. What had he muttered? Too soon. That’s what it had sounded like. What was that supposed to mean? Nothing, of course. Vietnam had left a lot of scars. Saul was just another casualty of the war.
If she tried to share her story with Ken, he would tell her she was crazy for picking up a hitchhiker. Maybe she was. She would have arrived home late anyway, and now it would be nearly midnight before she got there.
Perhaps they would all have gone to bed, and she could have that quiet drink in solitude after all.
CHAPTER FOUR
Ken had designed their home as an advertisement for his professional ability, to show what kind of house he could build when given a free hand and plenty of money. Glass and redwood predominated. Its canted roofs suggested wings, as if it were an ungainly creature straining to take flight from the hill where it had been bound.
Marcia had never really liked it. It was a California house, designed to take advantage of an environment perpetually bright and sunny. Here, its open, glassy style made the often-dismal weather a more intimate and unavoidable part of their lives. No part of it could be called cozy. In their most bitter argument, Marcia had called it a futuristic henhouse. It had taken Ken a long time to forgive her for that.
Now, surprisingly, light flooded from the glass walls of the living room. As Marcia came up the long drive, she saw that lights were on everywhere. Ken’s car wasn’t in the carport. She felt a chill. Had something happened to one of the children while she’d been dawdling at the office or taking the hitchhiker out of her way?
She ran from her car, not bothering to close the door. Her fears multiplied when Lucifer didn’t appear, barking and dancing in circles to celebrate her homecoming. Something was very wrong.
The front door wasn’t locked, but that wasn’t unusual. She raced up the front stairs and through the brick-walled atrium, another feature inappropriate to the climate: the plastic bubbles that roofed it always leaked when it rained or snowed. She hurried into the immense living room, where Melody sat listening to the stereo.
The spotlights running on two tracks in the high ceiling had been turned to illuminate the Japanese garden outside. One of them was arranged dramatically to spotlight Melody’s gold hair. She looked unperturbed—but then, she always did. Even so, her quiet, relaxed pose had a calming effect on Marcia. She paused to catch her breath.
Analyze Melody feature by feature, and you would have said she was a weird-looking
