Gallows Hill
pictures to the police?"
     
    "The police weren't interested. There's nothing illegal about mailing a picture."
     
    "Where do you get your tapes if you can't buy them here?" Sarah asked.
     
    "I get a catalog in the mail from a store in Arizona. They sell tapes and books and a lot of other interesting stuff. They even sell crystal balls that look like your paperweight."
     
    "I suppose they advertise them as magic," Sarah said derisively.
     
    "No, just as tools for people to use when they're meditating," He reached over and turned off the tape. "The music must be hypnotizing you. "You missed two houses. We'll have to go around the block and hit them again."
     
    They finished the route in the same silence in which they had begun it. As they pulled up in front of Sarah's house, Charlie said, "You can borrow the tape if you want it."
     
    Thanks, I'd like that," Sarah said. "I listen to mine so much that they're getting pretty old."
     
    "Speaking of borrowing, how are you doing on that witch-hunt book?"
     
    "I'm only partway through it," Sarah admitted. "I'm sorry to be so slow, but the subject gives me nightmares. Last night I woke up screaming, which didn't go over well with... other people in our house."
     
    "I'm not reacting to it any too well myself," Charlie said. "I had a dream..." He let the sentence trail off;
     
    Sarah was intrigued despite herself. "What kind of a dream?"
     
    "I felt like there were weights on my chest and I was suffocating. What did you dream about?"
     
    "Nothing as bad as that," Sarah said, although she wasn't sure that she meant it. Her nightmare had been about as bad as they come.
     
    "Look, before you take off, there's something I need to say to you," Charlie said. "I'm probably going to make you mad like I did the other day, but I feel like I've got to say it anyway."
     
    "Okay, say it," Sarah said.
     
    "I hear you had a run-in with Debbie Rice."
     
    "Word does get around fast!"
     
    "Well, it took place out in the hall, so it wasn't exactly private. Sarah, you can't do that, not with Debbie."
     
    "She's the one who started it."
     
    "It doesn't matter who started it, you just can't do it. Not with one of the cheerleaders. That cheerleader bunch may bicker among themselves, but they're a tight-knit group; actually it's kind of unnatural," like they have a bond of some sort that goes back to another lifetime. And except for Eric Garrett, who's in a league of his own, the cheerleaders and the guys on the football team pretty well run the school. Cindy Morris—"
     
    "She seems nice enough," Sarah broke in. "There's no reason for Cindy not to like me."
     
    "She's the minister's daughter," Charlie said. "And Kyra's mom is church secretary. That's reason enough right there."
     
    "Does that mean it's impossible for me to make a friend in Pine Crest? I'm only here because my mother lost her senses. If anybody's guilty of bewitchment, it's Ted who bewitched my mother!"
     
    "I knew you were going to be mad."
     
    "I'm not mad, I'm just... confused," Sarah said. "What did you mean about Eric being 'in a league of his own'?"
     
    "I just meant he's not a jock, even though he hangs out with them," Charlie said. "His dad doesn't want him to 'waste his time' on athletics, so he's on the edge of that crowd, but not really one of them. He goes to their parties, and a lot of the girls have crushes on him, but he's got his own agenda. I wouldn't trust Eric Garrett as far as I could throw him—which wouldn't be far, even if I didn't have this cast on."
     
    "So what exactly are you trying to tell me?" Sarah asked him.
     
    "Don't do anything to irritate the cheerleaders, and cut out the fortune-telling."
     
    "Anything else while you're handing out advice?"
     
    "I think that's enough for one morning," Charlie said tonelessly.
     
    It was a strange conversation, and Sarah tried her best not to dwell on it, but as the day went on, it kept clawing at the corners of her mind. Charlie's round face

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