She screamed louder, fought more wildly, desperate now not just to save her life, but to still the cackling sounds that seemed to enter her very soul, wrapping around it, crushing the life from it, as the hands upon her seemed to be doing with flesh.

She kicked, tried so hard to keep screaming, but she had no breath, no sound could come, no air could come...

Only the pulse, the thunder of her heart.

Fight, fight... even as a darkness deeper than night fell before her eyes. Kick, scratch, fight... claw at the hands...

Previous Top NextThe hands... that slipped as she dug her nails hard...

Screaming, still, the sound of screaming...

"Megan! Jesus, stop! Megan!"

Hands, again, on her shoulders, shaking her. She struck out, hard, desperately.

"Megan! d.a.m.n! Megan, wake up!"

She awoke, stunned, still hearing distant screams, but they were coming from her.

"Megan!"

Finn straddled over her then. His right hand was vised around her wrists; he was rubbing his jaw with his left. He stared down at her, his eyes as brilliant as twin knife blades, his face ashen.

"Megan! What the h.e.l.l is the matter with you?"

Abruptly, her screaming stopped.

She was drawn from the incredible reality of the world she had entered in her sleep to the true reality of life. And in real life, she was in a quiet bed and breakfast in a quiet, historical town that only went a bit crazy during the month of October.

"Finn! Oh, my G.o.d, Finn!"

She tried to pull her arms free.

"Are you going to sock me in the jaw again?"

"I didn't!"

"You did."

"I'm so sorry... please!"

He eased his hold. She reached up, curled her arms around his neck, shaking, nearly sobbing.

A dream. It had been nothing but a dream.

He didn't push her away, but his shoulders were as stiff as boards. When she drew back, the look in his narrowed green eyes was wary, distant, and accusing.

"Megan, Jesus Christ, what the h.e.l.l was that all about?"

"I had the most awful nightmare."

"A nightmare-and you had to scream like a thousand hounds were after you, here, now!"

He was interrupted by a hard banging on the door.

She bit her lower lip, wincing. Finn jumped up and reached for the terry bathrobe she had discarded before bed that lay upon the floor by their side.

He opened the door. From the darkness of the room, Megan could see the dimly lit hallway. Mr. Fallon, the groundskeeper and jack-of-all-trades at Huntington House, stood grimly in the doorway.

"What goes on here, Mr. Douglas?" he demanded sternly.

"I'm so sorry. It seems that Megan has had a nightmare," Finn explained.

Mr. Fallon gave Finn an up and down glare that implied he didn't believe a word of it. In fact, it looked as if he were about to call the police, and see that Finn was charged with some form of domestic violence.

"Sounded like a b.l.o.o.d.y murder!" Fallon said.

Megan couldn't just hop up and explain herself. She was naked. She called out weakly from the bed. "I'm fine, Mr. Fallon, really. I just had a horrible nightmare. I'm so, so sorry!"

"Well, then, it's a good thing you're in this wing of the house," Fallon said brusquely. "You'd be waking up the whole household, with such caterwaulin'! Do you have these nightmares often, young lady?"

"No, no... of course, not!" Megan called.

"As you can see," Finn told Fallon irritably, "everything is perfectly all right in here."

"Actually, young man, there's not all that much I can see-since it's so darned dark and all. But we don't take kindly to folks fighting around here-not in Huntington House. We're a fine establishment with a good reputation."

"Of course," Finn said.

"The Merrills have a reputation in these parts, too," he said, referring to Megan's family.

She wasn't sure if the reputation her family had garnered was good or bad.

"I'm honestly sorry, Mr. Fallon. There were too many tales filling my head when I fell asleep, I believe."

"Humph!"

"I had a nightmare," Megan said, her tone quiet but firm. She thought she resented Mr. Fallon. She was suddenly certain he didn't think much of the Merrill family at all.

"See that you keep it down," Fallon said. "There can be no more such outbursts-sir!" He had started speaking to Megan; he ended with a word of warning for Finn.

"Good night," Finn said.

Fallon nodded, and moved off. Reluctantly, so it seemed.

Finn closed the door. Darkness descended with the night-lights gone from the hall. But a second later the room was flooded with light as Finn hit the switch at the side of the door. He leaned against the door, crossing his arms over his chest, staring at Megan.

"He thinks I was beating you."

"Oh, Finn, surely not-"

"Everyone knows we've just gotten back together."

"Don't be ridiculous. Fallon doesn't know a thing about us.""Well, he seems to know all about your family, and therefore, he probably knows we've just gotten back together, and he surely thinks you made a major mistake and that I was about to slit your throat before he arrived."

"Finn, stop it. Surely, somewhere in his life, sometime before, someone has woken up from a nightmare, screaming."

"You think? I've never woken up before next to a woman screaming loudly enough to burst my eardrums."

"Dammit, Finn, I've said I'm sorry! I didn't do it on purpose! I had a dream, a really terrible nightmare. Someone was going to kill me!" she said, surprised to feel a hint of the fear rising within her again, as if it would choke off her speech. "In fact, a little sympathy would be in order."

He stood, still distant, staring at her for a long moment. Even the way he looked now, far too tall for the terry bathrobe, legs seeming impossibly long and honed beneath the white hem, she loved him so much. From his tousled dark hair to his bare feet.

Things were so tenuous between them, now. Before... once, before, she would have flown from the bed and into his arms. But only a month had pa.s.sed since they'd been back together, a month since he'd driven up the East Coast to Maine, come to her folks'

house, and laid everything on the line.

"Finn!" she said, still shaky, and growing angry herself.

"Excuse me, you nearly dislocated my jaw, Megan."

"Why can't you understand? I was deeply sleeping. I had a nightmare. A really terrifying nightmare."

A muscle twitched in his cheek. Hair wild, arms folded over his chest, wearing the ridiculous robe, he was both imposing and appealing. He had a great face. Not too pretty. Cla.s.sical, masculine structure, strong chin line, solid, defined cheekbones, fine, full mouth, dead straight, aristocratic nose. Not small, not too prominent. Deep green eyes set beneath a broad brow, rich dark hair.

He was a natural athlete, thus in good shape no matter what his situation in life. Now, though, they were in the cool autumn of October in Ma.s.sachusetts, they had just come from a week in the Florida Keys, and he was solidly bronzed and sleek, and ever more appealing.

She turned, lying back on her pillow, facing away from him.

A moment later, he was at her side.

She felt his fingers feather down her back. "All right, Megan, I'm sorry."

"I imagine it was the fireside tales," she murmured, still resentful, but not wanting the argument to go on.

Wrong thing to say. "You're from here!" he said with something that sounded like a snort. "You're the one with family around here.

And you were frightened by stories about Salem?"

"They were different stories, not really about Salem, and certainly not in the historical sense," she said.

"Oh, right, let's see, All Hallow's Eve is coming, and evil is something that grows, that feeds on the atmosphere, and clings to the places where man's cruelty to man has been strong? Get serious, Megan, consider history, and that would be almost anyplace on earth."

"Of course, you're right," she said stiffly.

"Ah, but then, a full moon will be rising. And the fog and the mist will swirl, and there are those living today who believe in the dark powers, who mean to raise the dead from their unhallowed graves, and set dark winds of evil free to haunt the world."

She sat up, suddenly feeling defensive. "Finn, contemporary Salem is a lovely place peopled by those who scoff at witchcraft, and those who believe in their pursuit of Wicca as a real religion, those who have darling shops and make a nice income off history, and those who run great restaurants and couldn't really care less. And yes, sadly, the victims of the persecution here were surely innocent of the crimes attributed to them, but do you know what? There always were-and perhaps still are-those who believed in witchcraft, or not witchcraft, Satanism, or whatever you want to call it, and they do bad things in their belief. d.a.m.n, Finn-think about it! Are there still bad people out there? Wow. Yeah, I think so. So I listened to stories about the evil in men's hearts, in their beliefs in the powers of darkness and things that go b.u.mp in the night, and I had a bad dream. That's not so bizarre, or unforgivable."

He laid back down, fingers laced behind his head. "And you have a cousin who operates a witchcraft shop."

"There's nothing evil about Morwenna."

"I didn't say there was."

"It isn't illegal to be a Wiccan now. It was illegal to practice any form of witchcraft in the sixteen hundreds."

"Right."

"Morwenna believes in earth and nature, and in doing good things to and for people, especially because any evil thought or deed is supposed to come back at a Wiccan threefold."

"And her freaking tall, dark, and eerie palm-reading husband, Joseph, is a f.u.c.king pillar of the community?" he said sarcastically.

"Why are we fighting about my cousin and her husband?" she asked a little desperately.

"Because I'm starting to think it was a major mistake to come here," he said.

"You wanted to come," she reminded him curtly. "This was a good move for your career."

"I didn't think you'd come home and turn into a screaming harpy."

She turned her back on him once again, hurt more than she could begin to say. A mistake? Had it all been a mistake?

From the moment she had first seen Finn, her first day of college, she had begun falling for him. She'd never wanted someone so badly in her life. She had just about chased him shamelessly, but it had been all right, because he had returned her mad obsession.

In a matter of days, she'd just about lost all thought of her cla.s.ses, eager, anxious, desperate, to be with him at any given time.

They'd eluded their friends time and time again to spend their precious hours together. At first, there had been no arguments-in truth, they hadn't talked enough to argue, they'd wanted nothing more than to touch, to be in one another's arms, naked, making love. The unfailing flame of simple chemistry had been so strong that they'd defied all advice and married one weekend, standing before friends and the priest in a small town in southern Georgia. For a few years, they had lived in the bliss of the young and innocent. Finn had graduated, and scholarships and student work programs had ended. Megan had another two years to go.

Finances grew tight and music equipment was expensive. They'd begun to struggle. There were arguments about what made money, what didn't, what was good, what wasn't. The differences between them which had at first seemed so charming became points of friction. She had hunches and intuitions; he was entirely pragmatic. She was from Ma.s.sachusetts, and other than her initial, abandoned adoration for him, she tended to a New Englander's reserve. Finn was from the Deep South, ready to plow into any situation and offer anything they had to anyone. She'd always been a good daughter and student, he'd been a bad boy at times, suspended for fighting now and then in high school, barely squeaking into college with a music scholarship just because he'd had such a natural talent. She was close to her parents; his were divorced and remarried. He made dutiful calls once a month, and sent cards and presents to his little half siblings, but they seldom visited either of his parents. Finn loathed his stepfather, barely tolerated his stepmother, and had been on his own from the day he had graduated from high school. Then his father died of a heart attack, and he was torn between resentment that he hadn't even been remembered in the will, and guilt that he hadn't made more of an effort to communicate despite his unease about his stepmother. He'd started spending long hours out when Megan thought he should have needed her most. He took more and more out of town work. Jealousy, doubt, mistrust... the little enemies that form together to tear down a relationship began to flourish and grow. Then, slowly, little shadows of doubt and anger began, and then, for Megan, the final, agonizing, hateful straw, the flutist Finn brought into the band they had formed when they weren't working together as a duo. She didn't leave right away; she was still too desperately in love. And arguments were too easily solved because anger was such a vivid emotion, and fights too easily solved by giving into the heat and adrenaline of the moment, falling back into bed, and rising later to discover that nothing had been solved. At last, the doubts moved in too deeply, and she had no intention of losing all self-respect for herself, or letting her own hopes for a fulfilling career become crushed by standing in the background, giving way completely. They'd had a fight in which she'd gotten mad and hit him in the head with a loaf of bread. They'd fought on the balcony; neighbors had seen them. The bread had become a wine bottle in the retelling, and in some stories, she'd beaten Finn, in others, he'd beaten her. Rumors had spread. He'd been furious with the things said about him, more concerned with rumor than with her, and so, she had left.

But there was really no way to leave Finn behind completely. She had always loved the look of him, the feel of him, the deep quality of his voice, the sound of his laughter. The scent of him. Her folks had been living in Maine at the time, and she'd gone home, and taken work with an old friend who was a guitarist, singing light rock and folk music at a coffee shop. The pay hadn't been great, but the hours and perks had been wonderful-great coffee, good food, and time to work on the songwriting that was her true love and pa.s.sion in life-as far as her career went. Living with her parents wasn't difficult, their home in Maine was huge, and she had an entire wing of the place to herself-a carriage house that had been beautifully remodeled into an apartment.

She had been away for six months, wondering whether or not to sign the divorce papers, when he had shown up. And when they had come together then, he had been pa.s.sionate, and honest, forgetting pride completely. There had never been anything between him and the flutist, any other musician, or any other woman, period. He couldn't live without her, and he wanted her back.

She could have melted on the spot, and in her way, she did, throwing herself into his arms, practically sobbing, ready to strip him then and there. And since then, they had talked, about everything, and she felt both secure and cherished. They'd gone back to New Orleans, and she had never been more certain about a decision in her life. She loved Finn; she would forever.

Still, she wished she hadn't screamed here, in Salem. Despite their deep commitment, the bread episode was still there, back burner. Forgiven by both of them, and yet, a memory that was not comfortable.

It was amazing that a rumor had come so far, all the way to Ma.s.sachusetts. Here, where she was known, as well as her family.

She hadn't actually grown up in Salem, but in close-by Marblehead. And though she was able to see many members of her extended family, they hadn't come for that reason. Finn had come home one day to tell her he'd received a really top quality financial offer to entertain at a hotel in Salem for the entire week before Halloween. A man named Sam Tartan, head of entertainment and community relations for the new hotel, had read an article about them, and had thought they'd be perfect. Finn had been a little skeptical at first, wanting to make sure they hadn't received the offer because Megan's family had pulled strings.

They hadn't. Neither of her parents had ever heard of Sam Tartan. When she'd made an anonymous phone call, she'd learned that the hotel entertainment exec hailed from somewhere in the Midwest.

The money was truly impressive; the prestige of being offered such a solo gig was equally persuasive. With a fair amount of excitement, they had accepted the offer.

First, they were going on a vacation, taking the honeymoon they'd never had before, and spending time in Florida. Sunny Florida, and then spooky old Salem.