Music to Die For Read Free

again without speaking.
    She halted when she reached the path, and Carrie saw a face that was tiny and wrinkled, with a pointed chin. It looked like the woman had few teeth, and she wore no make up, but her black eyes were lively and sharp. This apparition might be a hundred years old, but she walked as quietly as a ghost.
    Carrie felt a chill, wiggled her shoulders to dispel it, and told herself again that it was silly to be afraid.
    “Isn’t it a lovely afternoon?” she said.
    The stranger scowled, and the sparkle faded from eyes that now looked storm dark.
    “Beware,” she said in a whisper that was almost a hiss, “beware the gowerow. The gowerow has stolen the child.”
    Carrie stared. “What? What did you say?”
    “The gowerow has stolen the child,” hissed the woman.
    “What child? What’s a gowerow? What on earth do you mean? Tell me...”
    There was a noise behind Carrie, and the woman looked toward it. Then, silently as she had come, she rushed off, following the path deeper into the woods and ignoring Carrie’s cry of “Wait!”
    As the long dress swirled out of sight, Carrie imagined she heard a whisper floating back to her, light as the breeze that had brought the music: “Beware, beware the gowerow...”
    Carrie stood in stunned silence for a moment before she heard other, more normal, voices. She turned to see two Chamber of Commerce speakers she recognized from the morning session coming toward her along the path.
    “Did you see that woman?” she asked.
    Their quick look around and blank “no” answers left Carrie quite alone in her memory of the woman in black and her words, so she changed the subject and, after making a few polite comments about their presentations that morning, headed back toward her cabin. It was time to shower and change for dinner.
    Well! When she got home she’d ask her neighbors, Roger and Shirley Booth, what on earth a gowerow was. Must be some folk tale character. This was, after all, deep in the Ozarks where such tales were born.
    Roger and Shirley would know. Their families had been in the Ozarks for more than a hundred and fifty years.
    But... a child? Why had this total stranger mentioned a child? It hadn’t sounded like a joke. Carrie shook her head to dislodge the eerie memory. The woman must be what Shirley called “tetched in the head.”
    When Carrie reached the clearing, she saw that people were beginning to come out of the cabins, and they were dressed for dinner. She’d better hurry if she was going to catch up.
     

Chapter II
    Only a few stragglers were still finding seats when Carrie arrived at the convention dining area, and she was glad she’d worn her blue dress instead of the stand-out red.
    She slid between tables and was dropping into a single vacant chair near the back when she heard her name.
    Oh, bother! There was Beth at a front table, waving an arm and pointing to the empty seat next to her.
    Nothing to do but smile and walk past the seated diners to the front of the room. Maybe the ones who didn’t know her would think she was some late-arriving dignitary, though she knew quite well she didn’t look like anyone’s idea of a dignitary.
    Beth was whispering frantically before Carrie’s behind hit the chair bottom.
    “Carrie, Chase and Tracy haven’t shown up yet! We’ve called his mother’s number and no one answered, and that was ages ago! They were supposed to be here early to rehearse.”
    She pointed to four vacant chairs at the head table. “And,” she finished, stating the obvious, “they weren’t. The director asked if I could find out what happened and says if they aren’t here soon we’ll have to begin without them. I hate sitting here doing nothing but worrying, but I’m supposed to stay with the men from the auto club.”
    Carrie looked at the two empty chairs across the table and turned back to Beth, who whispered, “Well, I can’t exactly go with them to the men’s room, now can I? Come on, think of