The Girl in the Maze Read Free Page A

our town torn into pieces. They’ve already taken so much of our coastline and turned it into hotels and subdivisions and golf resorts—Disneylands for the plaid-pants crowd. But not Shell Heap. No, they won’t get it. Not as long as I’ve still got blood stirring in my veins.”
    Lydia took a deep breath and exhaled. “I apologize. To think about those vultures, pecking over the remnants of our beautiful coast…” She began to roll up the map. “Questions?”
    Martha shook her head.
    “All right then. Stacey will help you with your paperwork, and she’ll also tell you where to go for Wednesday night’s meeting.”
    Stacey brought over a note card with handwritten instructions. “Here you go, Martha. Be sure to get to the meeting early, if you want to find a seat.” She grinned ruefully. “And you might want to bring a football helmet.”

Chapter 2
    Vince handed Martha a tissue-wrapped package.
    “Thank you,” Martha said. She held her elbows pinned against her sides to keep herself from unraveling.
    “Don’t worry, Martha. It’s actually kind of goofy. Go ahead and open it. Please.”
    Martha sat back in her chair, grateful to extend their time together for a few extra moments. She broke the cellophane tape and pulled the tissue apart, revealing an exquisite silken box. She turned it slowly in the palm of her hand. The cover was red, an Oriental design. Flowers and dragons.
    “It’s beautiful.”
    Vince smiled, scratched the side of his beard. “It’s called a good fortune box. A little something to help you face your dragons. Open the lid.”
    Martha lifted the flat loop of ribbon attached to the lid. Inside, a plastic tray with eight individual compartments, each labeled with a different day of the week, and one extra. The tray fit inside the silken box perfectly. It burned her deep inside to think how long Vince must have searched to find one that would fit.
    “It’s a pill-minder,” Vince said. “I thought it would make your daily regime a little more pleasant.”
    “Thank you.” Martha felt her eyes stinging.
    Then Martha stood. She looked at the box, not at Vince. He came around the desk to embrace her.
    —
    The walk back to the Pritchett House took Martha along Tobias Avenue, a residential street lined with massive live oaks. Their limbs laced together like fingers over the center of the street, creating the effect of a sun-dappled tunnel. The air smelled of marsh.
    She had made it through the first day. Everything had gone fine, except for that brief dizzy spell—that nightmarish vision, the thing in the squirming sack. Other than that…
    She had even started transcribing the first tape. It was an elderly woman speaking in a thick patois. The woman spoke of the use of certain charms to ward off evil spirits.
    “What are the charms made of?” the interviewer asked.
    “Haiah,” the woman said, voice crackling like an old limb breaking in two. “Haiah, from duh cloze.”
    Hair from the clothes,
Martha typed, after rewinding and listening several times. The woman’s ancient, musical voice mesmerized her. She tinkered with the transcript, took out the unnecessary pauses, picked away the verbal flotsam, decided where to insert the paragraph breaks, until the whole interview began to flow. She looked forward to returning to the project the next morning. Working with words was a sublime pleasure she could still claim, something the illness had been unable to touch.
    She turned onto the gravel driveway of the Pritchett House and walked along a row of moss-draped trees. There was a buzz of cicadas in the grass. Beyond the two-story clapboard she could see a glint of river in the waning sunlight.
    As she entered the front door she could smell Rice-A-Roni. She heard a clatter from the kitchen.
    “Hello?”
    “Who is it?” Eileen Pritchett’s voice sounded muffled in the kitchen, and vaguely annoyed.
    “It’s Martha. Just saying hi.” She heard Eileen mutter something