MOLLY’S MAIL WAS ON the dresser again when she returned to her room. She was still in the doorway when she spied the long white envelope sticking out from beneath a clothing catalogue.
Her spine tingled. Another photo? No wonder she felt like she was being watched!
She hurried to the dresser and slit the envelope open.
The same crisp, slick page, the same article about four talented freshmen.
Again, a fifth picture had been added. Another Polaroid of her, this one taken just as she entered the Quad, was attached with a paper clip to the top of the page.
But this time, that wasn’t the only thing wrong.
Something else was not right about the page…
Molly backed away from the dresser until her legs bumped against her bed. She sank down on the mattress, the magazine page still in her hand.
She realized then, with a thud of her stomach, that Stacey’s picture in the article wasn’t as it should be. Phoebe’s photo was intact, as was a smiling Tony’s. But Stacey’s …
Stacey, in her leotards, had been photographed leaping through the air, her long legs fully extended, her feet gracefully pointed.
At least, that was how she’d looked in the original photo.
Molly sucked in her breath as she saw what had been done to Stacey Cotter’s photograph in the magazine article.
Stacey’s legs were gone.
They had been lopped off at the knees.
“Oh, God,” Molly whispered, and let her hands go slack.
The page drifted slowly to the floor.
Molly sat there for a long time, until the sun had faded and the room began to darken.
Did it mean anything? Or was it some kind of stupid, harmless prank?
She didn’t know what to do. She should show the mutilated page to someone … the police. But would they take it seriously?
She couldn’t take a chance. She would have to take it to the police.
Tomorrow. First thing. Absolutely.
Molly had seen Norman a couple of times that day, always in the middle of a group of people. Nothing in his expression when he saw her and casually waved had said that he was mailing her strange pictures. Could Norman possibly be that good at hiding his true self?
She thought about calling him at his dorm, asking him straight out if he’d put anything in her mailbox recently, and decided against it. If it was him, he’d never admit it. And if it wasn’t, she’d be making him angrier than he had been when she told him she wasn’t joining the Others.
She’d have to find out if he was behind the pictures some other way.
Just as she had feared, the campus police officer to whom she showed the mutilated photograph the next day shrugged it off as a prank. But he did keep the two pages, telling her that if she received any more, she should bring them to him.
Right, she thought angrily as she left the security office, so you can make paper airplanes out of them?
Sighing with frustration, Molly hurried across campus to the Odyssey office to hand in her article and help with the ongoing cleanup. She hoped Hank would approve the article. She thought she’d done her best.
The Odyssey staff spent all day Friday and Saturday morning pulling the office back together. It was hard work, and everyone complained.
They scrubbed inkstains and sorted pages and filed articles, at the same time struggling to put the finishing touches on the second issue. Hank and Melanie were determined that it would be published on time.
Hank gave Molly the okay on her article. “Nice work,” he said. “A few little rough spots here and there, but what’s a good editor for? It’ll be perfect when it hits the presses.”
When he had gone back to his desk, Dana, who had overheard, said flatly, “That’s high praise, coming from him. You must be good.” She didn’t even try to disguise her envy.
At mid-afternoon on Saturday, they dropped everything and closed the office to attend the Sigma Chi boat party. The only other time Molly had been in the state park was the night of the ceremony. She had to swallow her feelings of uneasiness about returning there. Fortunately the lake was in a different part of the park, nowhere near the clearing where Norman and his friend “Bat” had built the fire that turned faces into jack-o’-lanterns.
Besides, she wasn’t going to be with Norman or the Others. She was going to be with her new friends and coworkers, and with Hank. Especially Hank.
The weather couldn’t have been better. It was a balmy, sunny, Indian summer day. The huge paddlewheel boat, its upper and lower deck railings trailing with streams of red and white, Salem’s colors, was waiting at the dock when they arrived. Phoebe was waiting, too. She was promptly taken over by Tony, who seemed glad to see her. Kayla arrived a few minutes later, with Boomer and Stacey.
Hank, a good friend of both Boomer’s and Stacey’s, waved hello and asked the trio to join them.
Molly, watching them walk up the gangplank, saw again the page of pictures, Boomer’s square, strong face smiling and Stacey leaping through the air … without legs.
But Stacey looked perfectly healthy and whole, hurrying up the gangplank in shorts and a tank top, calling out greetings to those already on deck. There was absolutely nothing wrong with her legs.
A joke, Molly repeated firmly in her head. A sick one, but still, a joke.
When everyone had boarded, the paddlewheel pulled slowly away from the dock. Led by Stacey, they all climbed up the narrow stairs to the upper deck to enjoy the sun. “I’m judging the dance contest later,” Stacey informed them, “but let’s grab some rays while we can.”
The upper deck’s railing had cushioned bench seats where they could sit and look down upon the water. The waters of the lake were quiet, smooth as ice, reflecting the deep-blue sky overhead.
Still, Molly reflected, standing at the railing looking down at the huge paddlewheel churning through the water, spitting up spray, the lake wasn’t called bottomless without reason. She wondered if, after a drowning, a body would be recovered from the lake’s chilly depths. It didn’t seem likely.
“I can’t believe we’re actually taking a day off,” Tommie cried happily, tilting her face toward the sun. “Half a day, anyway. So, oh, fearless leader,” she asked Hank, “you think we’ll get this issue out on time?”
“Barring additional emergencies, yes, I do,” he said. “And it’s going to be a great issue. Fantastic material.” He draped a casual arm around Molly’s shoulders. “Thanks, in part, to our new writer.”
Molly pulled her eyes away from the circling paddlewheel and as she did so, met Dana’s eyes. Dark with … something … jealousy? The “hatred” that Hank had talked about jokingly?
But Dana shrugged, and the moment passed.
They all relaxed then, ready to party after a hectic, distressing week.
The big boat was crowded. The scheduled run included a leisurely tour of the lake and then a return to its center, where the boat would drop anchor and the party would begin in earnest. There was to be a dance contest and other games before the boat returned to the dock late in the evening.
Molly made a quick check of the crowd assembled on the upper deck and saw no sign of Norman. He wouldn’t be interested in anything as “rah-rah” as a fraternity boat party, anyway.
Why was she spoiling this lovely, fun afternoon, the best she’d had since she arrived at Salem, thinking about Norman. No! Not today. It was beautiful out, she was with friends, on a gorgeous, smooth-as-silk lake, and she was going to have a good time.
“Dancing and food on the lower deck,” Hank said, coming up behind her. “Interested?”
She could hear the music. “Yes. Very.” She turned and followed him down the narrow stairs.
They danced, ate, danced some more while the paddlewheel slowly churned across the sun-streaked lake. Molly was having such a good time, she almost forgot about the events of the past few days.
Almost. Only once, when Donovan cut in and said, “My turn to dance with Odyssey’s newest writer,” and she thought she heard a note of envy in his voice, did she remember that there was someone out there who hated her.
Then she promptly made herself forget it again.
She hadn’t had so much fun in a long time. She really liked Stacey, who was friendly and enthusiastic. It was easy to see why she was a friend of Hank’s—and practically everyone else on campus. Norman had been wrong about her. But then, Norman had been wrong about a lot of things, hadn’t he?
An hour or so later, as the sun began to sink below the horizon, the boat returned to the center of the lake and dropped anchor. As twilight deepened and the sky darkened, strings of tiny white lights fastened to the railings of both decks came on, twinkling like stars. More lights hung from the ceiling over the lower deck, where the dance contest was to be held.
Stacey was planning to judge the contest, from above, watching from the upper deck through a large, rectangular opening that looked directly down on the dance floor.
At the last minute, she complained, “I don’t want to sit up there all by myself. Molly, come with me.”
Startled, Molly said, “Me?”
“I’ll come.” Dana said. “I’m a crummy dancer. I’d rather be up there.”
“I want Molly,” Stacey stated matter-of-factly.
Molly hesitated. The last thing in the world she needed was another reason for Dana to be mad at her.
“Go ahead,” Hank urged. “I wasn’t planning on being a contestant, anyway.”
So Molly went, trying to ignore the angry look on Dana’s face.
It was much cooler on the upper deck. They both donned sweaters and then sat, legs dangling into space, on the edge of the white wooden-framed opening cut into the floor of the upper deck. They could see most of the dance floor from their precarious perch. Only the outside edges, nearest the railings, were out of their view.
“Is this safe?” Molly asked nervously as Stacey leaned forward to signal the start of the contest. “I mean, we’re up awfully high. Do me a big favor and don’t lean forward like that again, okay?”
Stacey smiled. “I guess you’ve never walked around any of the higher balconies on the campus tower, right? I did it for sorority. It’s a hoot. I like high places. I think they’re exhilarating, don’t you? Almost makes me think I could fly.”
“Well, you can’t. So sit back and sit still, okay?”
But Stacey wasn’t good at sitting still. She continually bobbed and weaved to the music, ducking her head forward to scrutinize a couple dancing almost out of her view.
“Just remember,” Molly said edgily, “it’s a long way down.”
Stacey shrugged and laughed.
Molly knew she wouldn’t have been nearly so nervous if it hadn’t been for that nasty picture of Stacey she’d received. Every time Stacey carelessly swung her legs forward, in time to the music blasting from below, Molly wanted to reach out and grab them, to fasten them somehow to the upper deck and keep them safe.
She began to wish fervently that she’d let Dana have the honor of sitting up here with Stacey.
When Stacey thought a couple should be eliminated, she called out their number according to the white cardboard pinned to their shirts and they were forced to leave the dance floor.
When only six couples left, Molly began feeling impatient to join the others downstairs. The moon had drifted behind a thick cloud overhead, cloaking the upper deck in darkness broken only by the tiny lights twinkling on the railings. The soft, sweet strains of a slow dance drifted up from the lower deck, and she leaned forward, ever so slightly, to see if she could find Hank in the crowd below.
She never knew what hit them.
It came from behind … a blow that sailed out of nowhere and caught them both across the shoulders, slamming them off their perches and out into space.