The Taking Read Free Page B

but these seemed lost, unsure of their purpose, almost pitiable.
    Molly crossed to the head of the porch steps and stared after them. Although irrational and disturbing, the urge to follow was difficult to resist.
    As the coyotes descended through the night, the forest, and the queerly luminescent rain, they frequently glanced back, past the house and toward the top of the ridge. Suddenly seeming to catch the scent of a pursuer, they whidded among the pines, as swift and silent as gray spirits. And were gone.
    Chilled, hugging herself, Molly let out a pent-up breath that she’d not been aware of holding.
    She waited, tense and wary, but nothing followed the pack.
    In these mountains, coyotes had no natural enemies capable of challenging them. The few remaining bears foraged on wild fruits, tubers, and tender roots; they stalked nothing bigger than fish. Although bobcats had survived human encroachment in greater numbers than had the bears, they fed on rabbits and rodents; they would not chase down another predator for food and certainly not for sport.
    The musky scent of the coyotes hung on the air after they departed. Indeed, the odor didn’t diminish but seemed to ripen.
    Standing at the head of the steps, Molly held a hand out past the protection of the roof. In this cool autumn night, the glimmering rain slipping through her fingers proved to be unexpectedly warm.
    The phosphoric water limned the wrinkles of her knuckles.
    She looked at her palm. Head line, heart line, and lifeline shone brighter than the rest of her hand, suddenly scintillating with mysterious meaning, as if some previously unknown Gypsy heritage had manifested in her, complete with the ability to foretell the future from creases in her skin.
    When she withdrew her hand from the rushing rain and sniffed it, she detected even more strongly than before the scent that she had attributed to the coyotes. Although not appealing enough to be called a fragrance, it was not unpleasant, either, and was as rich with subtleties as the air in a spice market.
    She had never before experienced such a scent. Yet within the intricate matrix of this unique smell, she detected a tantalizingly familiar substance, simple in its nature. The more determinedly she strove to identify this core odor, the more its slippery name eluded her.
    Although it smelled like a complex mélange of essences and exotic oils, the rain had the character and consistency of ordinary water. She rubbed it between thumb and fingertips, feeling nothing unusual.
    Gradually Molly realized that she was lingering on the porch in the hope that the coyotes would return. Standing among them, like a lamb among lions, trembling on the brink of some revelation, had been such an awesome experience that she longed to repeat it.
    When the coyotes did not reappear, an ineffable sense of loss overcame her. With it arose anew the feeling of being watched that earlier had stirred the fine hairs on the back of her neck.
    Sometimes the forest appeared to her as a green cathedral. The massive pine trunks were columns in a vast nave, and the spreading boughs formed groin vaults and fan vaults high overhead.
    Now, with the reverential hush of the woods replaced by the din of the downpour, the gloom coiling among the trees seemed to be of a different character from that on any previous night. The god of
this
cathedral was the lord of darkness.
    Disquieted again, Molly backed across the porch, retreating from the steps. She did not for one moment look away from the encircling forest, half convinced that something would fly at her from out of the pines, something that would be all teeth and temper.
    Inside, she closed the door. Engaged the deadbolt. Stood there for a moment, trembling.
    She continued to be surprised and disturbed by her emotionalism. Driven by a kind of instinct, less of the mind than of the heart, she felt reduced from womanhood to the overwrought reactions of a girl—and she didn’t like it.
    Eager to