Lightning flashed, the white light visible through chinks in the barn wall. Thunder boomed and the building shook slightly. “Locked in?” Theresa gasped.
Nancy aimed her flashlight at the crevice where the two doors met. “Someone must have bolted it from the outside,” she said. “We’re stuck.”
“Who locked us in?” Theresa asked, pressing her back to the door and searching Nancy’s face.
“I don’t know for sure. I only hope it’s not the guys I ran into last night.” Another terrible thought occurred to her. Maybe Jonathan had followed her here somehow. He’d already tried to hurt her today. Well, she wasn’t going to give him a second chance. Frantically she swept the beam of her flashlight around the barn. “There must be another door or a window somewhere up in the loft. We’ve got to get out of here, Theresa, before whoever did this comes back.”
Theresa held up her lantern while Nancy searched for a way up to the loft. Finally she spied a ladder. It took all of Nancy’s strength to drag it over to the loft.
“Nancy, it barely reaches high enough,” Theresa warned as Nancy mounted the first rung.
“Barely, but it does reach. Here, hold my flashlight while I climb.” Nancy scaled the ladder slowly, the rungs creaking dangerously with every step. At the top she scrambled onto the loft floor. The rain drummed against the tin roof, but the loft was dry. “The light, Theresa,” she called down hoarsely.
Theresa threw the light up to the loft. “There’s a big door up here,” Nancy yelled down to Theresa. “We can get out this way.” The door was latched on the inside. Nancy threw the bolt, and the door swung out over the barnyard. It was a sheer drop—too high to jump.
Disheartened, Nancy tried to pull the heavy door shut, but it had swung out too far. “Forget it,” she grumbled, then yelled down to Theresa. “No luck. It’s too high.”
Theresa’s face fell, then brightened. “But what if we could find some rope? You could climb down and unbolt the door from the outside.”
“Good thinking,” Nancy congratulated her. “I’ll check up here again.”
The wind banged the open door against the side of the barn, and sheets of rain swept in. A sudden flash of light caught Nancy’s eye. It was steady, unlike lightning. A car, she realized. Nancy’s blood ran cold. What if it was whoever locked them in the barn? She edged toward the open door and looked down.
Three figures in slickers were climbing out of a Jeep. Then over the howl of the wind Nancy heard a wonderfully familiar voice ring out over the barnyard.
“Nancy, are you in there?” Bess shouted.
“Yes,” Nancy yelled down, leaning out of the window. “We’re locked in. Unbolt the door, hurry!”
A moment later Nancy was back on the barn floor, hugging Bess and George. “You two are a sight for sore eyes!” Nancy said, relief making her feel weak in the knees. She drew back from the hug and found herself staring at Andrea. “Andrea, what are you doing here?”
“I know, Nancy, we weren’t supposed to tell anyone, but Andrea’s no forger, and we were worried about you,” Bess babbled. “So I asked her to drive us here.”
Andrea was shaking her head sadly. “I knew it” was all she said. She turned to Nancy and handed her a baseball cap. It had a Chicago Cubs logo. “I found this outside, under the eaves.”
Nancy took the cap and noted it was barely wet. “Can’t have lain there long. Whoever locked us in probably dropped it.”
“That’s Danny’s,” Theresa gasped.
“Or Jonathan’s,” Nancy answered.
“Jonathan?” Andrea looked skeptical. “Why would he lock you in a barn?”
“Because of this,” Nancy said, leading Andrea and the other girls to the pewter pitcher.
Andrea sank down on a bale of hay. “Well, if this is a fake, he is the only person around here who could pull off something like this.”
“And I think that explains the mystery of your desk,” Theresa spoke up. “We found that here, too.” Andrea jumped up and grabbed it. “How did this get here?”
“I’m not sure,” Nancy said. “Jonathan could have been lurking inside the house during the fire, waiting to steal it. And it had to be either Danny or Jonathan who locked us in here. They both wear Cubs hats.”
“Well, it wasn’t Danny,” Andrea declared. “He did take Theresa’s sketchbook. Don’t look so shocked, Theresa. He was sure you were involved in something shady from the get-go. He showed it to me and Ellie May earlier this evening. Ellie May took the sketchbook as evidence. If I know her, the police are probably on their way to the Junction now.”
Theresa paled. “Andrea, it’s not me. I didn’t forge anything, ever. I explained to Nancy about those drawings.”
“Sure, and I bet your good friend here actually fell for your lies.”
“Stop it, Andrea,” Nancy said, intervening. “You have it all wrong. I’m pretty sure I know who’s behind all this.”
“Forget it, Nancy,” Theresa cried hotly. “I told you no one would believe I was innocent. I’ll just have to prove it myself.” With that Theresa burst into tears and ran out of the barn.
“Come back here!” Nancy and Andrea both yelled. Nancy raced out of the barn into the storm. The lightning and thunder were moving off to the east, but the rain continued to fall in sheets. “Theresa!” Nancy yelled into the storm. She couldn’t see a thing.
After a minute Nancy ducked back into the barn.
She turned to Andrea. “You’re wrong about Theresa. I’m sure of that now. I’m heading back to the village to see if I can find her. Whoever locked us in this barn knows she’s onto them. Her life might be in danger.”
Then she pulled George aside. “George, keep Andrea away from Ellie May.”
“But what about the police?” George asked.
Nancy let out a tight laugh. “Oh, I don’t think they’ll be turning up anytime soon.”
The studio radio was tuned to a late-night jazz station. Some women were throwing pots on wheels toward the back of the room. Nancy ambled in and walked up and down the aisles of shelves. One of the women spotted Nancy and lifted a clay-covered hand in greeting. Nancy waved back. “Nice pot!” she said, admiring the tall cylinder. “Oh, by the way, have you seen Theresa?” The woman shook her head. Nancy crossed the floor and saw that there were people in the glaze room. She poked her head in.
Michael looked up. Beneath a dusty apron he was wearing cutoffs and a T-shirt with the sleeves rolled up. “Oh,” he said. Was it her imagination, or did he sound surprised?
Just then David sauntered in, a large, beautiful jug in his hand. It was buff colored, only bisque fired and unglazed, but Nancy could see it was a twin to one of the anagama fired pots Theresa had just discovered back at the barn. “Wow,” she said, moving closer. “That’s really beautiful. Is that yours?” Nancy looked up at David from under her eyelashes.
“Don’t I wish!” David rolled his eyes but looked flattered. “I’m just glazing it. This is by a real pro and—”
“David,” Michael called out. “No time to gab, D. We’ve got to load that kiln tomorrow.” Michael flashed Nancy a fake smile.
She smiled back broadly. “Oh, sorry. Didn’t mean to bother you,” she murmured. Then with a little wave she ambled out of the glaze room.
Next stop, Nancy told herself, the anagama kiln. It was only a short walk down the road from the main studio. Nancy stopped at her car and grabbed her flashlight. She walked down the gravel drive leading back toward the road.
Suddenly Nancy got a prickly sensation at the back of her neck. She slowed down, then stopped. Behind her she heard the distinctive crunch of gravel. She flicked on her flashlight and spun around. Animal eyes glittered behind her. “A raccoon!” She laughed out loud, then continued on her way.
Nancy reached the anagama kiln a few minutes later to the din of peepers and the croak of frogs. Fireflies flickered everywhere, and a barrage of moths and other insects frantically mobbed a single outdoor light tacked to one wall of a three-sided shed. Nancy flicked off her flashlight and looked around. Several cords of wood were stacked near the kiln. The woodpile was covered with a blue plastic tarp, weighted down with large, heavy stones. Puddles of rainwater glistened on top of the tarp.
The kiln loomed large in the dark. Nancy remembered Melinda’s explaining that it had four arch-roofed chambers. Where pots were placed in the kiln determined how they would look after firing was finished. Nancy hadn’t paid much attention to the technical details, but she did remember that the kiln held lots of pots and loading it took a long time.
Nancy paused at the entrance. It resembled the mouth of a cave or the entrance to a shrine. In the dim light, looking back into the belly of the kiln, Nancy saw the arch-roofed chambers stretching back into the hill. As they receded they grew smaller, until the last chamber was almost just a shadowy crawl space. A cool draft wafted out toward Nancy, filling her nostrils with an earthy, smoky smell. Nancy looked around for some kind of door. She recalled Ellie May’s talk that morning: wood kilns were generally bricked shut after loading, first by using a large preformed slab to partially seal the entrance, then finishing with individual bricks. There! She saw propped against one side of the opening a large preformed slab of firebricks. Its shape matched the mouth of the kiln, though it was a bit shorter and wouldn’t reach more than two-thirds to the top. After that big section was in place, the remaining opening would be sealed with individual bricks and wads of clay.
Nancy poked her head inside the kiln and felt a strange premonition that she wasn’t alone. She turned to look over her shoulder, but no one was there. She stood still, held her breath, and listened. The only noises were from the frogs and peepers. Still, the place felt spooky. Nancy forced herself to shake off the feeling. She gathered her courage and stepped inside the first chamber. The roof grazed the top of her head, but she could stand up straight.
The small floodlight on the shed cast a dim light into the mouth of the kiln. At first glance Nancy didn’t see any pots. Had Theresa been wrong? Then she flicked on her flashlight and shined it around the chamber. Several large bowls and pots were heaped against one wall of the kiln.
Nancy took a few more steps into the kiln, being careful not to knock against any pots. Sweeping the chamber with her flashlight, she noticed that holes were cut in the sides of the kiln. She remembered these were called stoke holes. When the kiln was fired, the crew would fuel the fire by shoving wood through those holes. Since little light seeped through the holes, Nancy figured they were somehow closed up. Beneath each hole now was a small pile of kindling and straw.
Nancy held her flashlight low to illuminate the pots. Suddenly the light dimmed. Just then she heard a step behind her. Before she could turn, someone punched her in the back, sending her flying. Nancy’s head hit something hard. She tried to get up, but her vision began to blur. She heard footsteps, then the sound of something being dragged against the ground, before she passed out.
Nancy came to slowly. Where was she? For a moment she had no idea. She was lying facedown somewhere. The scent in the air was familiar: weenie roast. Nancy felt beneath her hands. Why was the dirt so hard? For a second she had no idea where she was.
Then everything came back to her with a rush. She was inside the anagama kiln. She’d been checking out pots when someone knocked her over from behind. Nancy sat up slowly, fighting back a wave of nausea. The kiln was dark. Something was blocking most of the light from outside. Nancy turned toward the front of the chamber. Someone had blocked the entrance. Rays of light filtered over the top of the door.
Nancy’s chest tightened. Get a grip, she told herself. Panic wouldn’t help a thing. She told herself firebricks were light. She should be able to open that door. To calm herself, Nancy took a couple of deep breaths and gagged.
Smoke! That cookout smell she had noticed before. Where was it coming from? Nancy struggled to her feet, but as she stood she realized the smoke was thicker toward the ceiling of the kiln. Where was it coming from, she wondered as she dropped back down to her knees. Her hand brushed against something metallic. “My flashlight!”
The sound of her own voice bolstered her courage almost as much as finding the light. Still kneeling, she aimed it at the back chambers of the kiln. The smoke was so thick she could barely make out the flicker of fire.
Horrified, Nancy scrambled to her feet. She staggered backward toward the door, choking and coughing. With every ounce of her strength she threw her weight against the bricks, but the door refused to budge. Nancy redoubled her efforts. The bricks were light. She should have been able to force the door open, but it didn’t give.
Nancy’s stomach went hollow as she realized what had happened. Whoever had pushed her into the kiln, wedged the door shut to lock her in. They’d started a fire in one of the back stoke holes, then left. Nancy was trapped inside a virtual tinderbox, with no way out.