Free Castleview by Gene Wolfe Page A

given way for an inch or so; burning fingers found the spot and crept through.
    “Stop that!” Mercedes hissed. The low laugh and fevered exploration continued as before. She groped for Ms. Morgan’s wrist to force her hand away; but there was no wrist or so it seemed, no wrist and no arm—only five burning fingertips and the pinching, tweaking thumb.
    Long slowed the old sedan and wrenched its wheel, swerving off the pavement and onto a narrow dirt road that wound among a thousand trees. “Too good!” Seth exclaimed. “I never noticed this. Where’s it go?”
    “Goes where you’re goin’,” Long told him. “It ain’t very far.”
    Seth nodded, trying to mark mentally the exact place where the dirt road turned off. Long’s girlfriend was giggling about something with Mercedes in the back seat. She had a nice laugh, Seth thought.

9
    THE STOWAWAY
    ANN HIT the brakes as hard as she could, nearly catapulting the girl in the back seat into the front. “Who are you!”
    “One who has hurt her poor nose, madame. You must be more careful how you drive.”
    Ann shoved the transmission into Park and stared into the rearview mirror, which showed nothing at all. “Damn it! You just about scared me into a heart attack.” Turning the knob of the headlight switch lit the dome light; she loosened her seat belt and twisted around to look back at the girl huddled on the floor. “I’ve seen you before someplace.”
    “We have been introduced, madame,” the girl said. “Now, again, I think. Sang! I bleed!”
    “Here.” Ann fumbled in her purse for her handkerchief. “Back there. At that camp. You’re one of the foreign girls. Here, take this.”
    “Merci. My name, it is Lucie. You are Madame Schindler. You are German, I think. At least you have a German name, no?”
    “My grandparents. What are you doing in the back of my car, Lucie?”
    “Begging that you will please take me to the town with you, Madame Schindler. That is all. It is so very important that I go, and that woman, that Lisa at the camp, would not permit it.
Because of the rain and the many things that have occurred—such terrible things, madame, they did not tell you the worst—and I should have to ride a horse.”
    “I don’t blame her,” Ann declared. “I’ll have to take you back.”
    “Oh, madame …” As agilely as a monkey, Lucie was over the back of the front seat and seated beside her. “You must not try to turn your large auto about here. You will be mired, madame, truly you will. The road, it is so very narrow and the ground now a paste.” She had wide, dark eyes, which were fixed upon Ann’s own in a disconcerting stare.
    “I suppose you’re right, but I can turn around when we get to the gate.” Ann pushed the Buick into Drive. The road itself was getting soft; she could sense its give beneath the tires.
    “That is wise, madame. That is very wise indeed. Let us go far from this terrible place. But I must find someone. It is so urgent, and he is in the town.”
    Ann nodded, keeping her eyes on the gray strip of road. “A boy?”
    “No, madame. A man. A gentleman, un homme comme il faut. You think him my lover? No, no! Only a man who does not know me, or only a little, though I must speak with him.”
    “All right. If Lisa Solomon says you can go, I’ll take you with me.”
    “But she will not, madame!” Lucie’s soft voice rose to an agonized whine. “She will say, how shall you return? No! You may not go.”
    “I doubt that you should go myself, if you haven’t any way to get back.”
    “You might drive me, madame, in this auto. Or perhaps your husband? Then all should be well. Do you not have to meet your husband? So you said as you left the barn. I was there behind, and overheard you.”
    Ann glanced at the dashboard clock; it was seven-fifteen. “I can’t do that,” she said. “I’d like to—I’m going to be late as it
is—but I really can’t. We’re just going to have to turn around and go back when