The children had been out last night, prowling through the swamp, guarding their master as the Dark Man went about his punishment of George Coulton. And Clarey, though she’d never left her house, had been there, too, her mind reaching out, sensing their wanderings, tracking their movements. Last night, though, she had felt a new presence in the swamp, felt the vibrations of someone seeking her out.
Her, and the children.
And the Dark Man.
Clarey had been aware of such a presence before, and always known who it was.
Michael Sheffield.
She’d followed Michael for years. She’d sensed him often, feeling his way through the swamp, unconsciously searching for something of which he had no understanding. And for years she’d kept him away, refusing to reach out to him, unwilling to guide him to the tiny island at the far edge of the swamp, where the Circle gathered.
Perhaps if he knew nothing of who he was, if he took no part in the rituals of the Circle, he would be able to escape.
Escape unscathed, from the evil into which he had been born.
But last night Clarey had felt another presence, a new presence. It wasn’t nearby, nowhere near close enough to be sensed by anyone but herself, but much closer than she’d ever felt it before.
“It’s a girl,” Quint said now, and Clarey closed her eyes for a moment, hearing the words she’d been expecting.
“She’s come back,” she breathed, barely aware she was speaking aloud. “He promised me she wouldn’t. He promised me he’d leave her alone.”
She stopped speaking, feeling Quint Millard’s eyes upon her.
“But she’s one of us,” Quint said. “Soon’s I seed her, I knowed.”
“Did she see you?” Clarey asked.
Quint hesitated, then nodded, knowing he couldn’t lie to Clarey. “She tried to follow me. But she couldn’t, ‘cause she don’t know how. I kept close to her and didn’t let nothin’ happen to her.”
A heavy sigh escaped Clarey’s throat. “You done right, Quint. But I reckon the police’ll be snoopin’ around, and I don’t see no good in them talkin’ to either one of you two. So you just lay low, hear?”
Quint nodded, but Jonas’s empty eyes narrowed. “If’n they find me, what’ll I tell ’em?”
Clarey’s lips tightened bitterly. “You don’t tell nobody nothin’. Ain’t nobody’s business what goes on out here. An’ if ’n you say anything, I cain’t help you anymore’n I could help George Coulton. So you just lay low an’ keep quiet, just like always.”
Jonas was silent, staring sullenly at his lap. “It ain’t right,” he finally said.
A great wave of pity washed over Clarey. No, it wasn’t right. None of it was right. But that it wasn’t right made no difference. It was the way things were. “Go on, Jonas,” she told him softly. “Go on and find somewheres to hide. And don’t you fret yourself none. Ain’t none of it your fault.”
Jonas Cox frowned slightly, as if uncertain whether to believe her words or not. But at last he nodded as Quint Millard dipped the oars back in the water and leaned into them. Once again the little boat turned, and a moment later was swallowed up by the dense foliage.
Clarey waited until Jonas and Quint were gone, then went back into her house. The kettle of water was boiling on the stove, and she threw a handful of coffee grounds into the pot, then poured water over them. The grounds floated to the surface, and Clarey added a pinch of salt. In five minutes or so the grounds would sink to the bottom and the coffee would be ready, just the way she liked it.
In the meantime, she had some thinking to do.
She knew who the girl Jonas had seen was, and had prayed that this day would never come. But the girl had come back, and now the last of the children was in the village.
The boy and the girl would find each other, recognize each other the minute they met.
And when they did, they would begin to understand what they were.
They would come looking for her.
Her, and their brothers and sisters.
And the Dark Man.
They would be taken into the Circle, no matter the promises the Dark Man had made.
The evil she had been able to contain for so long would finally begin to spread.
The boundaries of the swamp would no longer restrain it, and once it was loose …
She put the dark thought out of her mind. It had begun here in the swamp, and it would end here, too.
For there were things Clarey understood that even the Dark Man did not.
• • •
Tim Kitteridge pulled into the parking lot outside the clinic at a few minutes after eight that morning. He lingered in the car, putting off the moment he would have to go inside and look at the body in the back room that served as a morgue.
This was the part of the job he hated most, and it didn’t seem fair that it had cropped up only a couple of months after he’d come to Villejeune. In fact, it was one of the reasons he’d taken the job as police chief of the little town in the first place. He’d considered it carefully, checking out the town thoroughly before making his decision. And he’d liked what he’d seen — a sleepy Florida backwater. Growing, but growing with retired people, a notoriously peaceful group. Not like San Bernardino at all, where the city was booming and the problems were growing even faster. The southern California city had changed in the years he’d been there, from a quiet farming town into yet another Los Angeles suburb. But with San Bernardino’s growth had come drug problems, and with drugs had come gangs. A year ago Tim Kitteridge had finally decided he’d had it, and begun looking for another job. He’d had two basic requirements: warm weather and little crime. The second condition had eliminated all the major cities of the South. Villejeune, though, had been perfect. Though he supposed there might be a little drug traffic in the swamp, it was just that. Little. With no good landing strips in the area, and the nearest metropolitan center fifty miles away, Villejeune held little attraction for drug lords.
Indeed, after looking over the records, he had concluded that there was little crime of any sort in Villejeune. That was fine with Tim Kitteridge.
Now, only two months later, a body had been pulled out of the swamp.
Kitteridge worked himself out from behind the wheel and wondered, not for the first time, if he should have just retired. Still, at fifty-five he had another ten years in him, and though he could have lived on his retirement pay, it would have been tight. On the other hand, retirement would have definitely precluded having to look at corpses, which was something he truly hated.
He slammed the car door shut, crossed the parking lot, and nodded a greeting to Jolene Mayhew, but said nothing else, knowing that if he spoke to the nurse at all, he would proceed to stall even further. Better just to get it over with. He passed through the emergency room, then went down the long corridor. At the end lay the small room that was the morgue. Orrin Hatfield, the coroner, was already there, waiting for him. To his relief, the body was covered, and he made no move to remove the shroud. Instead, he picked up the clipboard on which Hatfield had made his notes and scanned it quickly.
The first space, where the victim’s name should have been filled in, was blank. He glanced questioningly at Hatfield.
The coroner, whom Kitteridge judged to be in his mid-forties, shrugged helplessly. “No identification at all.”
“And neither of the boys recognized him?”
Kitteridge shook his head. “Seems like nobody here’s ever seen him before.”
Just then the door opened and Warren Phillips walked in. “Chief,” he said, nodding to Kitteridge. “Orrin. Jolene tells me we have an unidentified body.”
“Duval and Templar brought it in aground midnight. No ID, and nobody recognizes him.”