Part 18 (1/2)
”What I can't figure out is how you fit in,” Charlie said. ”You must have played an important role in that past time, or they wouldn't all have ganged up on you in this lifetime.”
”I know who I was,” Sarah said. ”In that other lifetime I was one of the *afflicted children.' ”
”What makes you think that?” Charlie asked her.
”I know it from my dreams. The visions I saw in the crystal ball were of the future, but my dreams were memories of the past, and all of those dreams were experienced from the viewpoint of a child. The victims had reason to hate me. I triggered the witch-hunt.!”
”You couldn't have been Ann Putnam,” Charlie said, frowning. ”Ann received her punishment in her own lifetime. She was excommunicated, which was a fate worse than death in Salem Village, and then she became a semi-invalid. Before she died, she was finally granted Communion, but only after she delivered a public confession and begged G.o.d's forgiveness.”
”I know,” Sarah said. ”And it was that way with most of the others. In general the *afflicted children' led miserable lives. All except for Betty Parris. Betty didn't even get a slap on the wrist. Her father sent her to Boston to live with relatives, and she had a happy childhood and a wonderful life. Don't the rules of karma say that what goes around comes around? If we don't pay our debts in one lifetime, we pay them in another?”
”Betty was only nine years old,” Charlie protested.
”That's not too young to take responsibility for your actions. It was Betty who started the witch-hunt, and Betty who could have stopped it. All she had to do was confess to her father.”
”Who may or may not have believed her,” Charlie said. ”We can't second-guess the past, we can only learn from it. How did your mother react to Eric's story about the hazing?”
”She didn't buy it,” Sarah told him. ”She took one look at that gallows and announced, *We're out of here!' Rosemary and I are moving back to Ventura. She's already made arrangements to have our furniture s.h.i.+pped as soon as we find a new apartment. And the great thing is that she's been able to get her old job back! She'll be teaching at a different grade level, but at least it will be at the same school.”
”What about Mr. Thompson?”
”She seems to have lost all interest in him,” Sarah said. ”She says he can follow us if he wants to, but she doesn't seem concerned about it. Just like flicking a switch, she's become the old Rosemary. It's like she just can't wait to take control of her life again.”
”It's the same with my folks,” Charlie said. ”Now that our karma has been satisfied, they're making plans to leave Pine Crest as soon as I graduate. Dad says he wants to open another bookstore, but he isn't sure where yet.”
”I'm going to miss you,” Sarah said.
”When you see me again, I'll be skinny.”
”I don't know that I want you to be skinny. I've gotten kind of used to you.”
She leaned over the bed to plant a goodbye kiss on his cheek. Instead he reached up and cupped her head in his left hand, so that he was in charge of her kiss and it landed on his lips. It was not, as she would have expected, the fumbling kiss of a boy who was unused to dating but the practiced kiss of a man who knew exactly what he was doing.
Charlie released her head and smiled at her astonishment.
”In one of my former lifetimes I was Casanova,” he said. ”I'll tell you about it when I visit you. Or maybe it would be better to save it for the cruise s.h.i.+p?”
”The choice is yours,” Sarah said, trying to keep her voice steady and having a hard time doing it. She drew a long breath to stabilize herself and reached into her purse. ”I brought you a little memento to make sure you don't forget me.”
”Fat chance of that,” Charlie said.
”Stop trying to be funny.”
She took out the crystal paperweight and placed it on the windowsill next to the flowers. Sunlight streamed through it, throwing rainbows on the sheets of Charlie's bed.
It was clear and transparent as window gla.s.s.
A Biography of Lois Duncan.
Lois Duncan is the author of more than fifty books for young adults. Her stories of mystery and suspense have won dozens of awards, and many have been named Best Books for Young Adults by the American Library a.s.sociation. Some of her novels have been adapted for film, including I Know What You Did Last Summer and Hotel for Dogs.
Lois Duncan was born Lois Duncan Steinmetz in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on April 28, 1934. Her parents, Lois and Joseph Janney Steinmetz, were both professional photographers. Since her parents' work required travel, Duncan and her brother often tagged along, and these trips supplied Duncan with ample writing material. Duncan began writing poetry and stories as soon as she could spell. By age ten she was submitting her work to magazines, and she had her first story published nationally when she was only thirteen years old.
That same year the family moved to Sarasota, Florida. Duncan spent many hours daydreaming and writing near the family's house on the beach. Through her teen years her work was frequently published by magazines such as Seventeen and the Sat.u.r.day Evening Post.
Duncan briefly attended Duke University, but left school after one year to marry and start a family. She didn't abandon writing, however, and she published her first book, Debutante Hill (1957), after winning a contest conducted by Dodd, Mead & Company, a major publis.h.i.+ng house that has since ceased operations. Her work helped support her family while her husband attended law school.
Duncan had three children with her first husband. After they divorced, Duncan moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico. There she taught journalism at the University of New Mexico and finished her own college degree. She met and married Don Arquette, with whom she had two more children. Even while producing hundreds of articles for magazines such as Reader's Digest and Ladies Home Journal, Duncan penned dozens of books.