lay before me, a barren stretch of weeds and gnarled roots. I kept moving, ignoring the pebbles that had lodged themselves in my shoes and were cutting into my feet with every step. I checked my watch again: 8:14. I started running. Almost there. I briefly stumbled over some thing—a blown-out tire? a rusted steel sprocket? a dead rat? But I caught my balance, sighing in relief when I saw the lights of the Vicarage parking lot just ahead.
Then I heard the dead leaves rustling behind me.
C HAPTER 1 8
gatha gazed outside her window. The Hydropathic’s elderly gardener was raking the dead leaves. There were three boys playing nearby, biding their time until the poor man turned his back and they could dive headfirst into the pile, spoiling his hard work.
The thing about people was that they were always testing you. They wanted to know how far they could push you. But the gar dener was too smart. He was watching the boys out of the corner of his eye. And he was the one holding the rake.
Agatha opened the window. The air was cold, but sweet. She closed her eyes for a moment, then turned over the sheet of paper in front of her and began writing.
The words came easily. But then they always had, even that first time, ten years ago now, when she’d holed up for two weeks at the Moorland Hotel at Hay Tor, on Dartmoor. That time, it had been her sister, Madge, who had tested her.
“I bet you can’t write one in which I can’t guess the ending,” Madge had taunted. Oh, but Agatha knew she could. She would write all morning, until her hand ached from the strain. Then she’d have lunch, read a book, go out for a walk on the moor. She’d learned to love the moor in those days—the tors, the heather, the wild part of it away from the roads. As she walked she’d talk to herself, enacting the chapter she was next going to write.
The moor was haunted. There was the place where the Coffin Stone lay, cleft in two by a thunderbolt, forming the sign of a cross. Dartmoor was often struck by lightning. Unusual terrestrial mag netism, so science explained it. But legend explained better than science why clocks and watches ran backward on arriving there.
Her favorite spot was in the highlands, at the foot of Mount Tor, where a ridge of stones, the granite hounds, could be heard baying at twilight, warning that the shadow of death was hanging over some moorland dweller. Conan Doyle had surely had that spot in mind when he wrote The Hound of the Baskervilles: “The longer one stays here the more does the spirit of the moor sink into one’s soul, its vastness, and also its grim charm.”
Conan Doyle was such a brilliant man. But she’d come up with something all her own.
The broken coffee cup.
The stain on the carpet.
The candle grease on the floor.
The burned pieces of paper in the fireplace.
A lost key.
The homely details.
The family squabbles.
And a Belgian detective whose head was shaped like an egg.
Madge had dared Agatha to write a detective story and she’d done it. The book had been accepted and would appear in print. There, as far as she’d been concerned, the matter had ended. At that moment, she hadn’t envisaged writing anything ever again.
But life steers its own course.
The boys outside were whooping and shouting now.
Agatha watched with satisfaction as the gardener escorted them back inside, his pile of leaves untouched.
Archie had tested her, too.
Poor man hadn’t understood she could be pushed only so far.
C HAPTER 1 9
stopped in my tracks—not moving, not breathing.
The wind howled. An owl hooted.
“Who’s there?” I called, the words catching in my throat.
Silence hung on the trees like a lead weight.
I turned around slowly. “Is anyone out there?”
There was no answer. It was so dark, so cold. My legs were shaking, my heart pounding, my palms sweating. This is crazy, I thought. Just my overactive imagination.
But then I heard it again.
Someone was out here. Someone was following
Then I heard the dead leaves rustling behind me.
C HAPTER 1 8
gatha gazed outside her window. The Hydropathic’s elderly gardener was raking the dead leaves. There were three boys playing nearby, biding their time until the poor man turned his back and they could dive headfirst into the pile, spoiling his hard work.
The thing about people was that they were always testing you. They wanted to know how far they could push you. But the gar dener was too smart. He was watching the boys out of the corner of his eye. And he was the one holding the rake.
Agatha opened the window. The air was cold, but sweet. She closed her eyes for a moment, then turned over the sheet of paper in front of her and began writing.
The words came easily. But then they always had, even that first time, ten years ago now, when she’d holed up for two weeks at the Moorland Hotel at Hay Tor, on Dartmoor. That time, it had been her sister, Madge, who had tested her.
“I bet you can’t write one in which I can’t guess the ending,” Madge had taunted. Oh, but Agatha knew she could. She would write all morning, until her hand ached from the strain. Then she’d have lunch, read a book, go out for a walk on the moor. She’d learned to love the moor in those days—the tors, the heather, the wild part of it away from the roads. As she walked she’d talk to herself, enacting the chapter she was next going to write.
The moor was haunted. There was the place where the Coffin Stone lay, cleft in two by a thunderbolt, forming the sign of a cross. Dartmoor was often struck by lightning. Unusual terrestrial mag netism, so science explained it. But legend explained better than science why clocks and watches ran backward on arriving there.
Her favorite spot was in the highlands, at the foot of Mount Tor, where a ridge of stones, the granite hounds, could be heard baying at twilight, warning that the shadow of death was hanging over some moorland dweller. Conan Doyle had surely had that spot in mind when he wrote The Hound of the Baskervilles: “The longer one stays here the more does the spirit of the moor sink into one’s soul, its vastness, and also its grim charm.”
Conan Doyle was such a brilliant man. But she’d come up with something all her own.
The broken coffee cup.
The stain on the carpet.
The candle grease on the floor.
The burned pieces of paper in the fireplace.
A lost key.
The homely details.
The family squabbles.
And a Belgian detective whose head was shaped like an egg.
Madge had dared Agatha to write a detective story and she’d done it. The book had been accepted and would appear in print. There, as far as she’d been concerned, the matter had ended. At that moment, she hadn’t envisaged writing anything ever again.
But life steers its own course.
The boys outside were whooping and shouting now.
Agatha watched with satisfaction as the gardener escorted them back inside, his pile of leaves untouched.
Archie had tested her, too.
Poor man hadn’t understood she could be pushed only so far.
C HAPTER 1 9
stopped in my tracks—not moving, not breathing.
The wind howled. An owl hooted.
“Who’s there?” I called, the words catching in my throat.
Silence hung on the trees like a lead weight.
I turned around slowly. “Is anyone out there?”
There was no answer. It was so dark, so cold. My legs were shaking, my heart pounding, my palms sweating. This is crazy, I thought. Just my overactive imagination.
But then I heard it again.
Someone was out here. Someone was following
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