His green eyes were shining with a queer mixture of triumph and grim determination, and he spoke in a clipped and rapid voice. They were all on the ragged edge, Bonnie thought, as if they'd been gulping uppers all night. Their nerves were frayed so thin that anything could happen.
She had a sense, too, of impending cataclysm. As if everything were coming to a head, all the events since Meredith's birthday party gathering to a conclusion.
Tonight, she thought. Tonight it all happens. It seemed strangely appropriate that it should be the eve of the solstice.
"The eve of what?" Matt said.
She hadn't even realized she'd spoken aloud. "The eve of the solstice," she said. "That's what today is. The day before the summer solstice."
"Don't tell me. Druids, right?"
"They celebrated it," Bonnie confirmed. "It's a day for magic, for marking the change of the seasons. And..." she hesitated. "Well, it's like all other feast days, like Halloween or the winter solstice. A day when the line between the visible world and the invisible world is thin. When you can see ghosts, they used to say. When things happen."
"Things," Stefan said, turning onto the main highway that headed back toward Fell's Church, "are going to happen."
None of them realized how soon.
Mrs. Flowers was in the back garden. They had driven straight to the boarding house to look for her. She was pruning rosebushes, and the smell of summer surrounded her.
"Slow down, slow down now," she said, peering at them from under the brim of her straw hat. "What is it you want? White ash? There's one just down beyond those oak trees in back. Now, wait a minute-" she added as they all scrambled off again.
Stefan ringed a branch of the tree with a jack-knife Matt produced from his pocket. I wonder when he started carrying that? Bonnie thought. She also wondered what Mrs. Flowers thought of them as they came back, the two boys carrying the leafy six-foot bough between them on their shoulders.
But Mrs. Flowers just looked without saying anything. As they neared the house, though, she called after them, "A package came for you, boy."
Stefan turned his head, the branch still on his shoulder. "For me?"
"It had your name on it. A package and a letter. I found them on the front porch this afternoon. I put them upstairs in your room."
Bonnie looked at Meredith, then at Matt and Stefan, meeting their bewildered, suspicious gazes in turn. The anticipation in the air heightened suddenly, almost unbearably.
"But who could it be from? Who could even know you're here-" she began as they climbed the stairs to the attic. And then she stopped, dread fluttering between her ribs. Premonition was buzzing around inside her like a nagging fly, but she pushed it away. Not now, she thought, not now.
But there was no way to keep from seeing the package on Stefan's desk. The boys propped the white ash branch against the wall and went to look at it, a longish, flattish parcel wrapped in brown paper, with a creamy envelope on top.
On the front, in familiar crazy handwriting, was scrawled Stefan.
The handwriting from the mirror.
They all stood staring down at the package as if it were a scorpion.
"Watch out," Meredith said as Stefan slowly reached for it. Bonnie knew what she meant. She felt as if the whole thing might explode or belch poisonous gas or turn into something with teeth and claws.
The envelope Stefan picked up was square and sturdy, made of good paper with a fine finish. Like a prince's invitation to the ball, Bonnie thought. But incongruously, there were several dirty fingerprints on the surface and the edges were grimy. Well- Klaus hadn't looked any too clean in the dream.
Stefan glanced at front and back and then tore the envelope open. He pulled out a single piece of heavy stationery. The other three crowded around, looking over his shoulder as he unfolded it. Then Matt gave an exclamation.
"What the... it's blank!"
It was. On both sides. Stefan turned it over and examined each. His face was tense, shuttered. Everyone else relaxed, though, making noises of disgust. A stupid practical joke. Meredith had reached for the package, which looked flat enough to be empty as well, when Stefan suddenly stiffened, his breath hissing in. Bonnie glanced quickly over and jumped. Meredith's hand froze on the package, and Matt swore.
Stefan-
Shall we try to solve this like gentlemen? I have the girl. Come to the old farmhouse in the woods after dark and we'll talk, just the two of us. Come alone and I'll let her go. Bring anyone else and she dies.
There was no signature, but at the bottom the words appeared This is between you and me.
"What girl?" Matt was demanding, looking from Bonnie to Meredith as if to make sure they were still there. "What girl?"
With a sharp motion, Meredith's elegant fingers tore the package open and pulled out what was inside. A pale green scarf with a pattern of vines and leaves. Bonnie remembered it perfectly, and a vision came to her in a rush. Confetti and birthday presents, orchids and chocolate.
"Caroline," she whispered, and shut her eyes.
These last two weeks had been so strange, so different from ordinary high school life, that she had almost forgotten Caroline existed. Caroline had gone off to an apartment in another town to escape, to be safe-but Meredith had said it to her in the beginning. He can follow you to Heron, I'm sure.
"He was just playing with us again," Bonnie murmured. "He let us get this far, even going to see your grandfather, Meredith, and then..."
"He must have known," Meredith agreed. "He must have known all along we were looking for a victim. And now he's checkmated us. Unless-" Her dark eyes lit with sudden hope. "Bonnie, you don't think Caroline could have dropped this scarf the night of the party? And that he just picked it up?"