The Mask

already been touched by the artful hand of autumn, and most—all but the evergreens—would change the color of their leaves during the next few weeks. Today, however, the predominant shade was still green, with a smattering of gold here and there, an occasional touch of red. The edge of the forest—wherever the meadow or the roadway met the trees—was decorated with a few end-of-the-season wildflowers, blue and white and purple.
    “It’s beautiful up here,” Jane said as they followed the two-lane county road around a curve. The right-hand bank, which sloped down to the macadam, was covered with vividly green clusters of rhododendron shrubs.
    “I love the Pennsylvania mountains,” Carol said. She felt more relaxed now than she had in weeks. “It’s so peaceful here. Wait till you’ve been at the cabin a day or two. You’ll forget the rest of the world exists.”
    They came out of the curve onto an ascending straightaway, where the interlocking branches of the trees formed a tunnel over portions of the lane. At those points where the trees parted sufficiently to provide a glimpse of the sky, there was nothing to be seen but massive, gray-black clouds clotted together in surging, ugly, threatening formations.
    “I sure hope it doesn’t rain and spoil our first day here,” Jane said.
    “Rain won’t spoil anything,” Carol assured her. “If we’re forced to stay inside, we’ll just throw a whole bunch of logs in the big stone fireplace and roast some hot dogs indoors. And we have a closetful of games to help us pass rainy days. Monopoly, Scrabble, Clue, Risk, Battleship, and at least a dozen others. I think we’ll be able to avoid cabin fever.”
    “It’s going to be fun,” Jane said enthusiastically.
    The canopy of trees parted overhead, and the September sky churned darkly.

11
    GRACE sat on the edge of the bed, holding the .22 pistol, considering her options. She didn’t have many.
    In fact, the more she thought about it, the more it seemed to her that the cat had a better chance of winning this duel than she did.
    If she attempted to leave the house by way of the bedroom window, she would surely break a leg and probably her neck as well. If she had been only twenty years younger, she might have tried it. But at seventy, with her swollen joints and brittle bones, jumping from a second-floor window onto a concrete patio could only end in misery. Anyway, the point wasn’t just to get out of the house, but to get out in one piece, so she could make it across town to Carol’s and Paul’s place.
    She could open the window and start screaming for help. But she was afraid that Aristophanes—or the thing using Aristophanes' body—would attack anyone who showed up and tried to assist her, and she didn’t want a neighbor’s death on her conscience.
    This was her battle. No one else’s. She would have to fight it alone.
    She considered all the routes by which she might possibly leave the house once she had reached the bottom floor—if she reached the bottom floor—but no particular route seemed less dangerous than any other. The cat could be anywhere. Everywhere. The bedroom was the only safe place in the house. If she ventured out of this sanctuary, the cat would be waiting for her and would attack her, regardless of whether she tried to exit the house by the front door, the kitchen door, or one of the ground-floor windows. It would be crouched in one shadow or another, perhaps perched atop a bookcase or cupboard or hutch, tensed and ready to launch itself down onto her startled, upturned face.
    She had the gun, of course. But the cat, stealthy by nature, would always have the advantage of surprise. If it got just a two- or three-second lead on her, if she was only that little bit slower to react than was the cat, it would have ample time to fasten onto her face, tear open her throat, or gouge her eyes out with its quick, stiletto claws.
    Strangely, though she had accepted the doctrine of reincarnation, though she now knew beyond doubt that there was some kind of life after death, she nevertheless feared dying. The certainty of eternal life in no way diminished the value of this life. Indeed, now that she could discern godlike machinery just below the visible surface of the world, her life seemed to have more meaning and purpose than ever before.
    She didn’t want to die.
    However, although the odds of her leaving the house alive were, at best, only fifty-fifty, she couldn’t stay in the bedroom indefinitely. She had no water, no