Divine Evil

on one side, the cornfield on the other. She'd stopped at the light, munching on chocolate and humming along with Chopin. The light had changed. She'd turned. Her brow furrowed in concentration. Lisa's mental block between right and left was the joke of the dance company. When she danced, she wore a rubber band on her right wrist.
    Oh, yeah, she thought now. She'd turned left, all right.
    The trouble was she'd been born left-handed, and her father had insisted she use her right. Twenty years later, she was still confused.
    It was hard to blame dear old dad for the fact that she was sitting in a broken-down car in the middle of nowhere. But it helped.
    So, she'd made a wrong turn. Lisa combed long, delicate fingers through her hair. That wasn't a big deal. All she had to do was figure out whether to walk up the road or down it.
    She wasn't the kind of woman who panicked, but one who thoroughly, often stubbornly, worked her way through a situation. She did so now, backtracking on the map, pinpointing the area of her mistake, then moving forward toward the nearest town.
    Emmitsboro, she decided. Unless she was completely brain damaged, she should be able to follow the road about two miles. She would come to the town, or with luck, to a house along the way where she could call Roy and confess to being stupid, inept, and irresponsible. At the moment, confession seemed better than spending the night in the car.
    Lisa stuck her keys in the pocket of her sweats, grabbed her purse, and set off.
    It wasn't exactly how she'd planned to spend the evening. She'd pictured herself landing on Roy's doorstep a good twelve hours before he'd be expecting her. She'd wanted to surprise him, then to open the bottle of champagne she'd brought with her.
    It wasn't every day she could announce she'd just been handed the plum role of Dulcinea in the company's production of
Don Quixote.
Though she was the kind of woman who made friends easily and kept them, there was no one she wanted to share her news with more than her brother.
    She could imagine his face lighting up when she told him, the way he would laugh and grab her and swing her around. It had been her mother who had dutifully taken her to dance classes, day after day. But it had been Roywho had understood her need, who had encouraged, who had believed.
    Something rustled in the bushes. Being a city girl through and through, Lisa jolted, squealed, then swore. Where were the frigging streetlights? she wondered and was doubly grateful for the flashlight gripped in her hand.
    To comfort herself, she started to imagine how much worse it could be. It could have been raining. It could have been cold. An owl hooted, making her quicken her steps. She could be attacked by a gang of mad rapists. She could have broken a leg. She shuddered. A broken leg was much worse than mad rapists.
    She'd be going into rehearsals in a week. Lisa imagined herself flicking open the frilly black fan, spinning gracefully into a dozen
fouette$$
turns.
    She could see the lights, hear the music, feel the wonder. There was nothing, nothing more important than dance in her life. For sixteen years she had been waiting, working, praying for the chance to prove herself as a principal dancer.
    Now she had it, she thought, and hugged herself before turning three pirouettes in the middle of the dark road. And every cramp, every bead of sweat, and every tear would have been worth it.
    She was smiling when she spotted the car pulled off the shoulder of the road and heading into the woods. Her first thought was, salvation. Maybe there was a nice, clever man-she hated to be sexist, but now wasn't the time for sensitivity-who could fiddle with her car.
    But she stopped on the side of the road, wondering why the car was pulled into the bush, half hidden from view. Uncertain, she took a few steps closer before she called, “Hello? Is anyone there?” She glanced up the road, that endless dark tunnel, and took another step, carefullyavoiding a gully. “Hello? I could use some help.” She shined the light at her feet, watching out for any ankle twisters as she started down the gentle slope. “Is anyone here?” She glanced up at the sound of rustling brush. “My car-” she began, then stopped.
    They seemed to melt out of the trees. Two shadowy figures, draped in black. They were faceless, formless. The fear that rose up in her was instinctive and sharp. The beam of light shook as she aimed it at them. She took a step back,