Hand of Evil Read Free Page A

silver as well as an amazing collection of tiny, crustless sandwiches and sweets.
    “So,” the old woman said, peering across the table at Ali through a pair of bejeweled spectacles. “I’m Mrs. Ashcroft and this is my daughter, Arabella. You must be Alison Larson. Let’s have a look at you.”
    Feeling like a hapless worm being examined by some sharp-eyed, hungry robin, Ali had no choice but to endure the woman’s silent scrutiny. At last she nodded as if satisfied with Ali’s appearance. “I suppose you’ll do,” she said.
    Do for what? Ali wondered.
    “Your teachers all speak very highly of you,” Anna Lee said.
    Ali should have been delighted to hear that, but she couldn’t help wondering why Anna Lee Ashcroft had been gossiping about her with Ali’s teachers at Mingus Mountain High. As it was, all Ali could do was nod stupidly. “Thank you,” she murmured.
    “I understand you want to study journalism,” Anna Lee continued.
    Ali had discussed her long-held secret ambition once or twice with Mrs. Casey, her journalism teacher, but since going to college seemed like an impossible dream at the moment, Ali was trying to think about the future in somewhat more realistic terms—like maybe going to work for the phone company.
    “I may have mentioned it,” Ali managed.
    “You’ve changed your mind then?” Anna Lee demanded sharply. “You’re no longer interested in journalism?”
    “It’s not that,” Ali said forlornly, “it’s just…”
    “Just what?”
    “I still want to study journalism,” Ali said at last, “but I’ll probably have to work a couple of years to earn money before I can think about going to college.” It was a painful admission. “My parents really can’t help out very much right now. I’ll have to earn my own way.”
    “You’re telling me you’re poor then?” Anna Lee wanted to know.
    Ali looked around the room. Even out on this screened patio, the elegant furnishings were far beyond anything Ali had ever seen in her own home or even in her friend Reenie Bernard’s far more upscale surroundings. Ali had never thought of herself or of her family as poor, but now with something for comparison she realized they probably were.
    “I suppose so,” Ali said.
    Without another word, Anna Lee Ashcroft grasped the handle of a small china bell and gave it a sharp ring. Almost immediately a man appeared bearing a tray—a silver tray with a silver tea service on it. Remembering the scene now, Ali couldn’t help but wonder if that man and the sprite who had delivered that morning’s envelope weren’t one and the same—albeit a few decades older.
    The man had carefully placed the tea service on the table in front of Anna Lee. She had leaned forward and picked up a cup. “Sugar?” she asked, filling the cup to the brim and handing it over with a surprisingly steady hand.
    Ali nodded.
    “One lump or two?”
    “Two, please.”
    “Milk?”
    “No, thank you.”
    Arabella moved silently to the foreground and began deftly placing finger sandwiches and what Ali would later recognize as petit fours onto delicately patterned china plates. Mrs. Ashcroft said nothing more until the butler—at least that’s what Ali assumed he was—had retreated back the way he had come, disappearing behind a pair of swinging doors into what Ali assumed must lead to a hallway or maybe the kitchen.
    Ali juggled cup, saucer, napkin, and plate and hoped she wasn’t doing something terribly gauche while Anna Lee Ashcroft poured two additional cups—one for her daughter and one for herself.
    “I don’t have a college education, either,” Anna Lee said at last. “In my day young women of my social standing weren’t encouraged to go off to college. When Arabella came along, her father sent her off to finishing school in Switzerland, but that was it. Furthering her education beyond that would have been unseemly.”
    No comment from Ali seemed called for, so she kept quiet and concentrated on not