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Tessa was overcome by the desire to stand on the beach froht swiraveyard, the saed corpse days later She turned from theand switched on a bedside laer in the closet, pulled it on, slung her purse over her shoulder, and left the roo the door behind her She was certain--irrationally so--thatwhere Janice supposedly had stood, she would uncover a clue to the true story, through an aht or flicker of intuition
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As the hammered-silverthe tree line, looking for a way into the woods before her strange pursuers found her She quickly arrived at Pyramid Rock, thus named because the formation, twice as tall as she was, had three sides and caer, she had fantasized that it had been constructed ages ago by a geographically displaced tribe of inch-high Egyptians Having played in this meadow and forest for years, she was as familiar with the terrain as with the rooms of her own house, certainly more at hoave her an advantage She slipped past Pyraloom beneath the trees, onto a narrow deer trail that led south
She heard no one behind her and did not waste ti back into the darkness But she suspected that, as predators, her parents and Tucker would be silent stalkers, revealing themselves only when they pounced
The coastal woodlands were coh a feeet gums flourished, too, their leaves a scarlet blaze of autuht but now as black as bits of funeral shrouds Chrissie followed the winding trail as the land began to slope into a canyon In h apart to allow the cold glow of the partial moon to penetrate to the underbrush and lay an icy crust of light upon the trail The inco was still too thin to filter outbranches blocked the lunar light
Even where ht revealed the way, Chrissie dared not run, for she would surely be tripped by the surface roots of the trees, which spread across the deer-beaten path Here and there low-hanging branches presented another danger to a runner, but she hurried along
As if reading from a book of her own adventures, a book like one of those she soChrissie was as surefooted as she was resourceful and quick-thinking, no ht of her irl she was!
Soon she would reach the bottom of the slope, where she could turn west toward the sea or east toward the county rout, which bridged the canyon Few people lived in that area, ht Cove; fewer still lived by the sea, since portions of the coastline were protected by state law and were closed to construction Though she had little chance of finding help toward the Pacific, her prospects to the east were not noticeably better, because the county road was lightly traveled and few houses were built along it; besides, Tuckerher to head that way and flag down the first passing car she saw
Frantically wondering where to go, she descended the last hundred feet The trees flanking the trail gave way to low, iles of bristly scrub oaks called chaparral A few is, overgrew the path, and Chrissie shivered as she pushed through the at her
A broad but shallow streah the bottom of the canyon, and she paused by its bank to catch her breath Most of the stream bed was dry At this time of year, only a couple of inches of waterdarkly in theherself, she realized how cold it was In jeans and a blue-plaid flannel shirt, she was adequately dressed for a crisp October day, but not for the cold, daht
She was chilled, breathless, scared, and unsure of what her next ry with herself for those weaknesses of mind and body Ms Andre Norton’s wonderful adventure stories were filled with dauntless young heroines who could endure far longer chases--and far greater cold and other hardships--than this, and alits intact, able to ht ones
Spurred by coirl, Chrissie stepped off the bank of the stream She crossed ten feet of loamy soil eroded from the hills by last season’s heavy rains and tried to ju band of water She splashed down a few inches short of the other side, soaking her tennis shoes Nevertheless she went on through more loam, which clumped to her wet shoes, ascended the far bank, and headed neither east nor west but south, up the other canyon wall toward the next ar new territory now, at the extreround for years, she was not afraid of getting lost She could tell east fro and by the position of the ns she could stay on a reliably southward course She believed that within agrounds of New Wave Microtechnology, which lay between Foster Stables and the town of Moonlight Cove There she would be able to find help
Then, of course, her real problein She would have to convince soer her parents, that they had changed or been possessed or been somehow taken over by some spirit or … force And that they wanted to turn her into one of theht, articulate, responsible, but she was also just an eleven-year-old kid She would have a hard ti anyone believe her She had no illusions about that They would I listen and nod their heads and smile, and then they would call her parents, and her parents would sound ot to try, she told herself, as she began to ascend the sloped southern wall of the canyon If I don’t try to convince someone, what else can I do? Just surrender? No chance
Behind her, a couple of hundred yards away, froh on the far canyon wall dohich she had recently descended, so shrieked It was not an entirely human cry--not that of any animal, either The first shrill call was answered by a second a third, and each shriek was clearly that of a different creature, for each was in a noticeably variant voice
Chrissie halted on the steep trail, one hand against the deeply fissured bark of a pine, under a canopy of sweet-scented boughs She looked back and listened as her pursuers sian to wail, an ululant cry reer,The sound was so cold, it penetrated her flesh and pierced like a needle to her n of their confidence They were certain they would catch her, so they no longer needed to be quiet
"What are you?" she whispered
She suspected they could see as well as cats in the dark