Download Chapters One-Three of Gallows Ascending

Gallows Ascending/Stone Quest Series/Book Two Podgorski

Chapter One

Elongated, looming out of the swirling mist of a crashing sea, a gallows arose. Rhythmic and unmerciful, a drum beat pounded as liquid black shapes swarmed and focused into crowds of people. Hordes of humanity, jostling, shoving, ringing the scaffolding, raised their fists, their mouths open in silent shouts. The drum beat became a steady snare, an intense roll punctuated with the pulsing beat of a heart. A young woman appeared beside the gallows, her hands bound before her, her plain gown of ivory muslin billowing in the mist. Her dark brown hair fell to her waist in a single thick braid. Her face was pallid, drained of color save for the sharp intensity of her light green eyes and the gash of red of her lips. The gash was blood. In her torment, she had bitten through her lips, chewed them in her anguish, that agony now plainly gripping her visage as her light green eyes darted restlessly amongst the faces of the crowd searching hopelessly for one among them who would take pity, seeking out the distant hills for the sign of a horse and a rider who would even now bring reprieve. None showed no matter where her eyes flitted, and her lips bled and her heart pounded. An elderly man with long flowing white hair topped by a formal black hat, dressed severely in black robes, stepped out of the crowd as out of the mist and grasped the young woman’s elbow. Like a frightened doe, she startled, her eyes growing wide with shock and fear. For a moment she stood her ground. Unmercifully he tugged at her, and having no recourse, her slight body swaying, her knees buckling, her resolve collapsed, and bowing her head, her thick braid swinging loose from behind her back, she followed him trembling up the scaffold stairs. On the platform of the gibbet, joining the man in the black robes and the unfortunate young woman was a third man, the sheriff. Holding a decree, he turned toward the townspeople his face set and unforgiving, his voice thunderous, reverberating in the whirring mist. “You have been brought before us to die.” The man dressed in black robes grabbed the noose. The drum beat rose in syncopation with the pulsing beat of the young woman’s heart.

Gallows Ascending/Stone Quest Series/Book Two Podgorski

“For your crimes, to hang by the neck until dead.” On the other side of the platform, a young soldier, his young whiskerless cheeks covered with a swarm of angry red pimples, sweat bathing his brow despite the chill of the morning and the swirling of the mist, raised his rifle. The man in black placed the noose around the young woman’s delicate neck. As the noose was placed around the neck, as one, the crowd sighed and surged forward. In the distance, families that picnicked upon the rolling hills stood, their picnic baskets overturned, their racing children arrested and quieted. A child, a little girl about five years old with golden curls framing a complexion of creamy ivory and eyes the color of cornflowers, was pushed out in front of the crowd to stand directly beneath the gallows, to stand directly before the condemned woman. Seeing the child, the young woman moaned and swayed, nearly collapsing, Tears coursed down her cheeks. She raised her bound arms beseechingly out to the little girl. The twin sound of the snaring drum and the beating heart pounded to a crashing crescendo as the rifle exploded into the swirling morning of fog and mist and horror and the gallows trap sprang grotesquely, its wooden works creaking like a giant plaything in the hands of monsters. A bloodcurdling scream, a name echoing into the fog: “Megan.” The young woman’s body jerked savagely, a rag doll flopping, a marionette whose strings have been suddenly sliced, plummeting through the trap, plummeting through space, plummeting into blackness and the void.

An explosion of violent white blinding light, a whirring incessant popping, a cackling like the confused squawking of chickens pecking each other’s eyes out when the rooster supreme struts into the henhouse, surrounded Dr. Bethany Rutledge an elegant statuesque woman in her late thirties as she was steered through the crowd of squabbling reporters by her attorney Margo Farber a zoftig, no-nonsense black woman in her forties. Cordelia Lysek, Beth Rutledge’s best friend since childhood, followed behind, her striking blue eyes highlighted by her short silver hair. The trio was trying to push their way through the crowd and up the stairs of St. Andrew’s Hospital on Fifth Avenue and Lexington Street in New York City. The reporters, paparazzi, cable news, television, and mainstream, refused to give way, shoving their microphones and their mini-cams relentlessly in Beth’s face, the lights glaringly bright. Even news helicopters circled like gigantic wasps whirling overhead. How had she become such frenzied news? But before the question even finished forming in her mind, the answer tumbled into place. Adrian. Of course. This wasn’t about her; it was about Adrian and the upcoming gubernatorial race. And when he saw this coverage blasted up front and raw on the six o’clock news, when he and that guard dog of his, Foster James his campaign director, saw this spectacle, there would be hell to pay, and that hell would be paid by her. “All right, ladies and gentlemen, let us through,” Margo spoke, her honeyed tones layered generously with the drawl of western Texas from which she had escaped some twenty years before. “What’s the board’s decision going to be, Margo?” A young twenty-something Asian woman asked, propelling herself forward. “Left my crystal ball at home this morning, Jen.” “Is it true proceedings are in place to revoke Dr. Rutledge’s license to practice medicine?” Miguel Javier, an upcoming star from Univision Radio asked.

Gallows Ascending/Stone Quest Series/Book Two Podgorski

“I have no knowledge of any proceedings.” Roger Gentry the pompous white-haired anchor of the local “Live at Five” broadcast pressed his mike into Margo’s face. “I understand the police are looking into Murder One. Any response?” “Just that you understand more than I do. Come on now, people. Let’s go. Let us through. We have a meeting to attend.” With a force of will as much as of muscle, Margo thrust them through the swarming hive. Reporters scattered before them like dry autumn leaves. Jenny Chiang, the young Asian newscaster stepped before a camera. “Well, there you have it, ladies and gentlemen. Dr. Bethany Rutledge, esteemed pediatrician and estranged wife of District Attorney Adrian Mountzaire, about to go before the Hospital Administration Board of St. Andrew’s who are right as we speak in the process of deciding whether or not her hospital privileges will be revoked, and if she will be stripped of her license to practice medicine. A bizarre case, surely, and one with unexpected twists and turns, and certainly dire consequences pending for Dr. Rutledge this morning.” Inside the cool neutral interior of St. Andrew’s, Margo led Beth and Cordelia briskly down the corridor and to the bank of elevators that would take them to the fifth floor where the hospital administration boardroom met. “Remember, Beth, whatever they say, whatever comes out of their collective mouths, you say nothing. Understood?” “Yes.” They rode the elevator to the fifth floor. Here the bland neutral beiges and tans of the admitting floor had been replaced with cool blues and splashes of mauve. Paintings by modern artists, Jasper Johns, Joan Miro, and Willem de Kooning lined the walls, each set off with its own illumination. Cordelia peered closely at an untitled de Kooning. “Is that an original?” “They’re all originals,” Beth replied. “Jeeze Louise. For what they spent on these paintings…” “Don’t get me started, Cordelia. What do you think I’ve been screaming about these past five years?” “Here we are,” Margo announced as they reached the door to the boardroom. ”Mum’s the word, correct-o?” “I haven’t forgotten, Margo.” “Good. From here on out, you speak only through me.” She turned to Cordelia. “Wait here. This shouldn’t take too long.” The inside of the boardroom was hushed and still. Floor to ceiling windows revealed the busy streets of New York and the bustling traffic on the corner of Fifth and Lex, but in this room, the sounds were a world away, muffled and distant. A long cherry table polished to a gleaming sheen stood in the center of the room with chairs for as many as twenty people ringed around it. There were five seated at the table now: three men and two women. The walls here, as in the corridor, were hung with modern paintings. Beth glimpsed a Rothko, a Warhol, and a Matisse. How she had fought this administration for staff, for supplies, for equipment, for medicine. Everyday she had worked here, it had seemed, she had gone to war for her kids. And here they sat surrounded by luxury, crystal decanters holding amber liquids, a silver coffee service, bone china cups, original modern masters on triumphant display.

Gallows Ascending/Stone Quest Series/Book Two Podgorski

At the head of the table sat Dr. Nathan Sturbridge, head of administration, her rival, and about to be in the next very few minutes Beth had no doubt, her executioner. Sturbridge was short and round and as over puffed as a toad. He swept his blonde thinning hair that was turning white back and over in some bizarre comb-over attempt to hide encroaching baldness, as if this poorly executed coif could have fooled a child. His neck was thick and jowly; his mouth a wide pink rubbery gash in his doughy face. With his pudgy hand, each finger adorned with a ring, the flesh pouching out around, he indicated where Margo and Beth should sit. Beth sat at the edge of the chair, her back razor straight not touching the back of the chair. Margo pulled her chair far back from the table, and spread herself into it, taking over the space. “We have carefully considered the evidence placed before us,” Sturbridge was speaking, not daring to even look at Beth, but reading from some carefully prepared statement. This, Beth knew, was not good. “And due to the ongoing criminal investigation into the death of your daughter Megan, as well as the serious nature of the charges brought against you by Dr. Holroyd in regards to that death, we find we have no other option than to temporarily suspend your privileges to practice medicine at this Institution.” Beth felt her body sway as if his words had been arrows that had pierced her. She reached out a hand and grasped the table. “I am sorry, Dr. Rutledge,” the toad was continuing, shuffling his papers, looking about the room, glancing at the others who were looking down; every one of them, her peers, looking anywhere in that room but at her. “You're a fine doctor. Not a one of us in this room believes anything but that.” A protest rose behind her lips. Margo squeezed her hand. Silence! She would have to remain silent for now. Anything you say can and will be used against you. “Please believe me when I tell you that all of us hope for a speedy, satisfactory resolution to this matter.” He was rising. Shuffling his papers into his folder. They were all rising. Even Margo was rising. She needed to plant her feet. She needed to rise. Beth bowed her head. Do not show them weakness! But she could not move. “Dr. Rutledge,” the toad cleared his throat. They were looking at her now. Now, they were all looking at her. “Dr. Rutledge. That is all.” Suddenly, Margo brought the flat of her palm slapping down hard onto that gleaming surface. The force of the strike rang, shattering the stillness and the hush of that sacrosanct room. “That is not all! Not by a long shot!” Margo pointed a perfectly polished finger at each member of the board. “You will be hearing from me.” She linked her arm through Beth’s elbow. “Let’s go Dr. Rutledge. We’re done here. For now.” Margo’s energy pulsed through her. Beth rose, and the two women, linked, walked out the boardroom door. Outside, Cordelia eagerly awaited them. “What happened?” “They suspended her privileges. Let's get out of here.” Margo brusquely led them down the corridor. “Here are the elevators,” Cordelia said as they approached. “No. They’ll be waiting. Back stairs. This way.”

Gallows Ascending/Stone Quest Series/Book Two Podgorski

As Margo hustled Beth and Cordelia further down the corridor, the double doors at the opposite end suddenly opened and Adrian Mountzaire a handsome man, his dark hair salted with distinguished grey in his late forties stepped through. “Beth!” Adrian called out. Beth stopped and turned. Behind Adrian, the door burst open, unleashing a mob of reporters. “Shit!” Adrian swore and rushed toward his wife. “This way! Come on!” “I’ll hold them off!” Margo said walking into the eye of the storm with Cordelia bravely at her side.

Adrian steered Beth through the double doors where Margo had been taking her. They dashed down a couple of flights, then re-entered the hospital. Adrian led her through Byzantine twists of hospital corridors and down three more flights of stairs. “Where the hell are we?” “The basement.” “How do you know how to get around St. Andrew’s?” “I’m a lifetime politician, Beth. I’ve been chased by the press all my life. Come on, this way. Through the kitchen.” Adrian led Beth though the hospital kitchen and out the kitchen door to a back alley. “Foster’s right there.” A black Lincoln Town Car Limousine purred soundlessly at the end of the alley. “Go!” Adrian grabbed Beth’s hand and they made a mad dash for the limo. Adrian yanked the door open, and pushed Beth inside. “Move!” He commanded the driver as he drew himself into the vehicle. At the wheel sat Foster James, a stern man with a sculpted face and jet black hair. Adrian turned to look out the rear window, though the glass was darkly tinted. “You lost ‘em. Good work, Foz.” “That’s what you pay me for, Chief.” The black Lincoln slipped through the streets of Manhattan, up Fifth Avenue, through the Park, then down Columbus to the 70’s where the car stopped at a tidy brownstone. Foster glided the limo beside a fire hydrant and parked. Adrian slid the window down a quarter of an inch, peering out into the street. It was dark and quiet. “They haven’t found you yet.” “Just a matter of time now.” Foster said. “Right.” Beth climbed out of the limousine. “I’ll be right up.” Adrian said to her. Beth nodded and continued up the brownstone steps. Foster slid the passenger window down, leaning across the front seat as Adrian leaned into the car. “You’d better give this everything you’ve got.” “I know what I have to do.” Foster reached across the seat, grabbing his hand. “Do you? Do you really understand what’s riding on this?” “Don’t be an idiot, Foz! I didn’t come all this way to blow it now!” “I should hope not.”

Gallows Ascending/Stone Quest Series/Book Two Podgorski

“You don’t have to worry about me. If you see anything, call me. Instantly.” “Like I don’t know.” “We both know what we have to do then. Good.” Adrian followed Beth up the brownstone steps.

Inside, the brownstone apartment was a large two bedroom with a dining area off the kitchen and a living room separated by an arch. The walls were shades of sage and shale edged with white; the floor a herringbone pattern of oak. It was a beautiful apartment, one of those classic West Side dreams, but was stifling now, crammed to overflowing with half-packed moving boxes of books, notebooks, papers, clothes, cookery items, and bedding. “You’re staying with Cordelia, now?” Adrian asked as he surveyed the wreckage. “Margo thought it best for me not to be at my place.” “Not your place, of course not.” Beth walked into the kitchen. “Would you like something? Maybe some coffee?” “I can make the coffee if you like.” “You?” Beth laughed. “You’ve never made a cup of coffee in your life.” She looked around the kitchen. Here, too, moving boxes were everywhere, packed and half-packed, in chaos and disarray. “There’s a coffee pot around here somewhere.” She rummaged through a few boxes. “Did I pack it? Maybe I packed it already. Though why would I have done that? We’ll want to make coffee tomorrow morning.” “Forget the coffee. I don’t need any coffee.” She looked up at him, wary of the tone creeping around the edges of his voice. She knew that tone. How she had gotten used to that tone. She moved to the refrigerator, opening it. “Empty. Of course it is.” She turned back to him. “I have nothing to offer you. Not even water. Unless of course you drink it from the tap.” “Beth…” “What was that Koch said: the world’s finest right here in New York City.” “Beth…” “It’s true, Adrian. You should know that. Tout it! You’re a New York politician. They did a study! Tested New York City water against all those fancy bottled waters…” “Beth!” It was not a request. “Please. Stop.” His voice softened now. “I don’t need anything. Just come. Let’s sit down.” Beth remained standing by the refrigerator, the door opened as if it were a shield, a guard between her and Adrian. “Please. Close the door, and come sit down.” Finally, she relented. She closed the door to the refrigerator, and sat at the kitchen table across from him. He reached out for her hand, but she drew her fingers back. “We can fight this thing. Together, we can fight anything.” “Can we?” “Oh, Beth. Beth. I love you, Beth. Don’t you know that?” “No.” “I have never stopped loving you.” “You just stopped, what? Believing in me?”

The door to the apartment opened and Cordelia entered.

Gallows Ascending/Stone Quest Series/Book Two Podgorski

“We finally gave those bastards the slip. I don't know how Margo does it...” Cordelia spoke as she strode though the living room and into the kitchen. Now, she noticed Adrian. “Oh. Adrian. That must’ve been your big black behemoth blocking the fireplug out front.” “Cordelia.” Adrian greeted her coolly, but before he could say more, his cell phone rang. “Excuse me.” Adrian spoke into the cell. “Mountzaire.” He shook his Rolex watch free from his sleeve. “Christ. Yes, of course, I had forgotten all about it,” He listened a moment, his face darkening. “No…No, not yet. No…Foz, we’ll talk about it in the car. I’ll be right down.” He flipped the phone closed, then took a moment before he looked at Beth. “I have a dinner meeting.” “You’d better go.” “Beth…” Adrian fixed Cordelia with a cold stare. “Do you mind? Can you give us, please, a moment of privacy?” “Beth?” Cordelia asked her friend. “I’m fine, Cordelia.” Cordelia walked away into the living room. “I was stupid, okay? I said some really stupid things.” “Oh, Adrian, they go so far beyond stupid.” “I know. Beth… I know! Please. Damn it! I just…” He flipped his watch out of his sleeve again. “Don’t have time now…” “You are the most important thing on earth to me.” He grabbed her arms, holding her tightly, squeezing her just slightly, giving her body just one tiny passionate shake, to emphasize the fervor of his emotions. Beneath his grasp, Beth stiffened. She leaned back from him, turning her face away. Suddenly, Adrian’s eyes glistened with a thin sheen of tears. His voice quivered. “Please, Beth. I love you.” Beth placed her small capable hands over his large grasping ones, and gently released herself. She moved away from him. “Don’t give up on us,” Adrian pleaded. “Oh, Adrian,” she told him. “You were the one who did that. Such a very long time ago.”

That night, Beth sat in the middle of what had become her temporary bedroom in Cordelia’s brownstone. Packing boxes, as they did throughout the apartment, tumbled everywhere. Boxes filling with medical journals, manila files, books, notebooks, and papers spread across the room. In one corner, a partially dismantled loom slumped against the wall. Beth sat in the middle of the disarray packing. She picked up a photo album and opened it. The picture of a child, a little girl about five years old with golden curls framing a complexion of creamy ivory and eyes the color of cornflowers, beamed back at her. Beth moaned softly, hugging the open album to her breast.

Gallows Ascending/Stone Quest Series/Book Two Podgorski

Luke Stone walked the dunes high above the sea on the edge of the tiny village of New Camen just north of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. It was early spring, but the sea boiled with the tempestuousness of a midwinter blow, whitecaps breaking like the tips of icebergs, waves rising ferociously like the stubborn will of a tantrum-throwing child, peaking, then crashing, throwing themselves against the sand of the beach, scattering the stones and shells, the sound thunderous and magnificent, thrilling him to the marrow. The sharp salt air snapped and stung, filling his lungs with a coolness, an invigorating freshness he had felt nowhere else, not even in the forests or lakes and streams of Michigan, and certainly never in the stifling heat of the Mojave desert. Luke was just forty, just brushing six feet tall, lean and muscular with blonde hair grown sandy with time, and eyes the color of the slate-blue sea. He had spent a decade in the desert, leaving three years ago after his wife Consuelo passed away from breast cancer, and found himself here, at the edge of the sea in the North East corner of the country. It was Consuelo who had brought him here; Consuelo who so loved this coast and these waters that she was now buried here – her ashes cast into the churning Atlantic Ocean as her final wish. She was from Massachusetts, but not the pretty part, as she often told him. Consuelo was from the industrialized part of the state, Western Massachusetts, not far enough west where the rolling blue Berkshires lay, but from the cradle of the Pioneer Valley, farmland, tobacco fields, factories. As a teenager, as soon as she could drive, she would sneak away to the coast – to Cape Cod, to Misquamicut Beach, to Hampton Beach, to the Maine Coast. During their marriage they would return to the Eastern Coast occasionally, driving the long dusty miles out of the desert, up over the Rocky Mountains and across the Great Plains. She was like a child on these journeys, overcome with joy, overcome with the adventure of travel and exploration. She’d spent the first thirty-five years of her life tied to a factory town without expanse or beauty, bound to obligation. One day she packed up and left Massachusetts forever. On that day, she told him, she had begun her great adventure; the day she went west, the day she started out on the road that eventually led to him. After she died, after he’d scattered her ashes with her children from her first marriage Raymond and Angela in a ceremony attended by over a hundred people, Luke found he could not leave. He did not want to leave. By that time he’d been working as a tracker; finding lost and abducted children. This, too, had come from Consuelo. There’d been a little girl who’d gone missing from her parents’ camp site in Death Valley not far from Eppie Falco’s place—a café deep in the heart of Death Valley where he and Consuelo had met, and the place where they settled. The little girl had gone with her older brother to the rest room and waited outside for him. But when the brother came out, the little sister was nowhere to be found. Police swarmed Death Valley with their search dogs and helicopters that whirly-gigged above the shifting sands. The dogs sniffed out trail after trail, but each one dead-ended, and the helicopters whirred day and night, but all they spotted were rocks and sand and discarded backpacks and tossed blankets or the forgotten jacket or two or three left by the side of a canyon trail. Luke could “see” things; he’d had visions since he was a small child. Later, when he was around twenty-one, he’d met an old Cherokee guide in the forests of upper Michigan who taught him how to track. Consuelo convinced Luke to search for the little girl.

So he went to the camp site and he went to where the boy had last seen his little sister and he talked to the parents because you never knew about the parents and you had to be sure and he

Gallows Ascending/Stone Quest Series/Book Two Podgorski studied the ground and he studied the rocks and he did what he had spent seven years in the woods of Michigan training with Shadow Wolf to do and he harnessed what had been dropped down upon him from out of the sky and he found her. He found her when no one else could. Not the police and not the dogs and not the whirly-gigs and not the National Guard. She had wandered away in the gloaming of the evening when the desert sky bursts with rose and magenta and the finger of God (if you believe in that kind of thing) paints the sands, and the clouds puff and stretch to infinity blooming with colors so mellow and rare it hurts to look at them. She had come to the edge of a rock canyon, and then she had slid. She was small, barely three years old, and the tumble nearly broke her. She was battered and bruised; both her arms were broken. She was hungry and nearly dead of thirst, but she was alive. Luke didn’t want publicity and he wouldn’t take any money. He just wanted to slip away back into the desert, back to the safety and anonymity of Eppie Falco’s Desert Wolf Café. But there were too many lost children and too many hurt children, and if he could bring a child out of the hurt, if he could use his training and this thing that had without his asking nor his wanting been visited upon him to bring a child out of a desperate situation then perhaps he could in the end have his life make some kind of sense. Over the years he had built a network, or rather, a network had built up around him, and so he could go anywhere, live anywhere, and so he chose to live here at the edge of the sea, though his step-daughter Angela chided him that what he was really doing was burying himself at sea along with her mother’s ashes. He didn’t mind. He liked the quiet. He liked the solitude. He had had his great adventure. He thought that here beside the roaring sea close to his wife, far away from the blistering desert perhaps here he might at last find the peace that had eluded him all his life.

As Luke Stone gazed out towards a churning sea, Druscylla Shirley, a woman in her late seventies with a spine twisted so severely her shape was malformed, the left shoulder riding high above the right causing her to walk with a swinging rolling gait, stood still as a statue of cold marble upon her front porch. The shrill wind, that same gale that jostled the sea, whistled through the tall Eastern White Pines and stocky Spruces and Bristlecone that stood guard at the edge of the sloping wide lawn. The Eastern Whites bent in the wind, their branches swooping low, almost sweeping the ground. The Shirley property abutted a pond in the front, wide and deep enough for a swimming hole once upon a time, not used now for anything but to gaze upon. On the other side of the pond another expanse of wide graceful lawn sloped up to a house, property also owned by the Shirleys. The house was empty, dark and still. On either side of the Shirley house and extending out behind was forest filled with more pine and birch and oak and maple, bursting with color in fall and budding with fuzzy new green growth in spring, which was now. In the distance, echoing from the forest behind the house, a lone owl hooted, its cry ominous, a sound not of warmth but of warning. On the horizon, a bloated moon rose above the hoary surface of the pond, its mirror image distorted, elongated, crooked, reflecting more red than orange in the silvery surface, reminiscent more of blood than of moon. As Druscylla Shirley remained frozen, the front screen door squeaked open and Amalthea Shirley, also in her late seventies, stepped out onto the porch. Amalthea stood as tall as Druscylla lilted crooked; her hair white as frost, her eyes sparking tips of blue flame. The skin of her face

Gallows Ascending/Stone Quest Series/Book Two Podgorski was carved rather than wrinkled, carved as if by the winds that molded the mountains. She held her head high as she walked, her gait steady and smooth. She approached her sister with care so as not to startle her. “Druscylla. What are you doing out here?” “Look how rough the pond’s got. And the pines. Their branches are near bent almost double.” “The wind’s kicked up.” “There's no wind, Amalthea. I can’t feel any wind.” Druscylla nodded to the dark house across the pond, its shape barely discernible in the moonlight. “I can feel Joshua. I can feel him everywhere tonight.” “Come inside. It's cold.” “I can feel all of ‘em. They’re out there, Amalthea. Jus' waitin'.” The screen door screeched open again and Downing Packer a young, darkly handsome youth in his early twenties joined Amalthea and Druscylla on the porch. “Hey, Auntie,” Downing spoke to Druscylla, “What’cha doin’?” “You can feel them, can’t you, Downing? Gatherin’ before the wind. Fingernails, like cat's claws, like the claws of the beast, tearin’ at the earth, tearin’ to get out!” “That's enough, Scylla. Come to bed.” Druscylla spun sharply on the porch to face Amalthea, whipping herself around with amazing speed for one so deformed. “The murder's got to be avenged! Elizabeth knew! You know it, too! And now she's come.” She stalked to the edge of the porch, her gait rolling and lopsided with her deformity. “They're gonna use her Amalthea. Just like they used Elizabeth. They’re gonna work through her now until every last one of us is dead.” “Jesus, Auntie!” “Go to bed!” Amalthea cried out to her sister. “Just go off to bed, now!”

In front of Cordelia’s brownstone, Cordelia and Beth loaded the myriad packing boxes, closed up tightly now, neatly bound with clear plastic tape, each box labeled precisely into a Renegade Jeep, its top rolled down. As they worked, a vintage VW Bug pulled up beside the Jeep, tires squealing, double parking. Margo waved excitedly from behind the wheel, then jumped out carrying a sheaf of papers. “Look!” She called out, rounded the VW’s front end and rushed toward them. “Signatures! Petitions! Pages and pages! I have over five hundred verified and I ain’t even started yet, Mama!” She handed one of the petitions to Beth who read aloud: “...This action represents an unconscionable misuse of his position and authority. Although Dr. Holroyd was the attending physician, Dr. Rutledge is not only an imminently qualified pediatrician, she is the child's mother ...” “You should have seen ‘em! They were lining up to sign! Doctors, nurses, cafeteria staff. Take that, fifth freakin’ floor. A big FU, if I’ve ever seen one! And I haven't even hit your private patients yet. Give me a coupla weeks, month tops, and this nightmare is history.” “What about the criminal investigation?” Cordelia asked.

Gallows Ascending/Stone Quest Series/Book Two Podgorski

“Look, they got this gung-ho rookie lookin' for his shot at Real TV. I'm gonna bury him. They don't got jack. Zippo. Nada. Go on up to where you can hear the birdies sing. Write your book, Cordelia. And you,” She pointed that perfectly polished finger at Beth, “You chill. Do something you have wanted to do for the last five years but haven’t been able to do because all you have had time to do is heal sick kids.” “And take care of Megan.” Cordelia added. “And take excellent care of Megan.” Margo echoed. Beth glanced quickly down, her eyes flooded suddenly with tears. Cordelia hooked her elbow through Beth’s. “Let’s go.” She spoke softly to her friend. “I can drive.” “No. I want to.” Beth said, climbing behind the wheel of the Jeep. She turned the engine over. It started with a satisfying rumble. Beth smiled. “One of my best friends in college drove a Renegade. I always wanted one.” “Now you got it.” “Now, I do.” Beth slipped the Jeep into gear. “Hey, Margo.” “Yeah?” “Thanks. Thanks for everything.” “Don’t be thanking me, yet, girlfriend. But you will. Yes, indeedy, you will. You got my IOU on that.” Margo raised her fist and Beth and Margo fist-pumped. Beth let out the clutch, and slid away from the curb, Margo waving until the Jeep turned the corner at 71st. “I’ll be in touch!” She shouted.

Gallows Ascending/Stone Quest Series/Book Two Podgorski

Chapter Two

The Renegade rolled along the Massachusetts Turnpike towards Boston, then exited for the 495 North towards Maine. Beth’s long chestnut hair streaked with tones of auburn and gold was tied at the nape of her neck with a silk multi-colored scarf. The edges of the scarf whipped in the wind tangling with the strands of her hair, flying out behind her with a freedom, a blitheness Beth had not felt in weeks, in years. Beside her, Cordelia’s short silver hair stood straight up from the lashing, her azure eyes sparkling with a fresh sheen of wind-induced tears, her wide full lips open as she and Beth laughed together at the wind and the Jeep and the speed and the Mozart blaring and this stolen precious moment of freedom. As they drove north on 495 toward Portsmouth and Route 1, Beth saw a sign which read: Junction Route 2A. Suddenly, she veered, changing course, wheeling the jeep onto the exit which led to the alternate route. “Whoa! Whoa! Hold onto your hats!” Cordelia shouted. “What’re you doing? This isn’t the way!” “It’s a back road to Route 1. This way you don’t have to stay on that dreadful highway with all those sixteen wheelers and diesel exhaust.” “How do you know that?” The exit led off the Interstate onto a quaint, curving two lane highway. Rolling hills bursting with new spring green spread out before them. “Oh! Cordelia, look! Look how beautiful it is.” Beth continued along the winding road. A stream tumbled beside the road. “Look! Portsmouth, New Hampshire 17 miles. See.” “What I don’t see is how you knew about this road.” “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Cordelia. How many maps did you have? There were maps spread all over the place.” But Beth hadn’t been the one looking at maps. Of that Cordelia was sure. Beth had been looking at manila files and legal filings and case records and in conference calls with Margo. Cordelia had been the one studying all those maps spread all over the place.

Gallows Ascending/Stone Quest Series/Book Two Podgorski

The Renegade rolled along State Street to the corner of Congress at the edge of the Piscataqua River and stopped in front of a red brick building with a discreet white sign that read: Henniker Muir Real Estate. A tall skeletal man peered out from behind lace curtains, watching their approach, emerging from the white front door before they parked. Beth and Cordelia disembarked from the jeep, stretching their legs and arms after their long ride. “Mr. Muir?” Beth asked as the man approached. “Yes. Dr. Rutledge, I presume.” Beth stuck out her hand. “Yes. And this is Cordelia Lysek.” “Charmed.” “If you care to follow me, I can take you to the Shirley place.”

Beth followed Henniker’s Land Rover (it seemed everybody in Portsmouth drove some sort of jeep or four-wheel drive vehicle) out of town south on Route 1 to the intersection of the scenic splendor of 1A down to the tiny coastal village of New Camen. The Town Square was picturesque New England: white clapboard two-story buildings built around a square of wide green lawn luminous in the late spring sunshine, the square dominated by the Grange Hall. Beth found herself helplessly grinning. Henniker Muir led them to a quiet back lane where a white two story farm house sat peacefully, its wide wrap around porch hugging it securely as if holding it firmly in place. Muir guided his Land Rover up the gravel driveway, parking beside the house. Beth followed. They exited their cars. “I do hope it’s to your liking,” Henniker said as he handed Beth the key. “You didn’t give me much time.” Beth stared at the house, the grin she couldn’t erase spreading into a wide open smile. “It’s absolutely perfect.” “Well, now, isn’t that nice. Satisfied customers. Well, we aim to please.” Henniker turned, pointing across the large expanse of lawn. “The Shirley sisters, those’d be your landladies, they live right over there, that house, there, across the pond.” Cordelia and Beth took in the pond, glimmering in the fading sunlight, the wide expanse of lawn sloping up, and the Shirley house rising above the lawn, still and silent in the coming gloaming. “However, please, any problems, any requests, any needs what-so-ever, please, direct them to me. You have my numbers, yes? The ladies are elderly, quite genteel, and very private.” From the back of the Shirley house, a young man suddenly appeared. Henniker raised his arm in a salute, waggling his fingers. “Downing! Yoo-hoo! Downing! I’ve brought your new neighbors!” Downing flashed a rakish grin; then, bowed expansively from the waist. Cordelia and Beth smiled at the young man, charmed.

Later after a satisfying dinner of a simple salad with fresh spring greens from the local farmer’s stand and turkey sandwiches from a shop in the village, as evening settled in and the sea air brought a chill, Cordelia built a fire in the living room. The hickory wood crackled spreading warmth and a soft yellow glow. Beth, her long chestnut hair wound up in a scarf, sighed

Gallows Ascending/Stone Quest Series/Book Two Podgorski contentedly. Never would she have thought, in the midst of all this turmoil, in the midst of all her sorrow that she would be able to feel even a modicum of relief, even a modicum of something that approached if not joy—then a feeling of well-being, of even hope. Yet, here she was, in the bosom of her youth, back in New England, where she had longed to return for so many years, and here, now, at this moment, she could feel, even if it were for just this moment, that welcome sense of respite. Cordelia unpacked her books in the far corner, placing the volumes on the shelves that had stood empty. After a moment, Beth yawned, rising from the striped armchair reluctantly. “I think I’d better get to bed.” “Me, too.” Cordelia responded, resting back on her haunches. “My mind is beginning to fray about the edges.” Beth laughed. “I know what you mean. I think I might have snoozed a moment or two in that lovely chair.” Beth stretched luxuriously; then, made her way over to Cordelia. She bent down, looking over the books Cordelia had shelved. “Witches of New England. Hobgoblins, Ghosts and Nightmares of Maine. Hmmm. Very interesting. Just what kind of book are you writing?” “When in Rome…” Cordelia reached for one of the books, riffling through the pages. “I always loved to listen to you talk about New England. I’m a city kid, right? Born and raised on the West Side. I always thought I was so… cosmopolitan. But here I was, five hours from some of the greatest history, the greatest stories you can find anywhere, and I never even bothered to look. That’s what I’m supposed to do… look.” “There are great stories in New York City. A million of them.” “Yeah. I was weaned on them. These are… something completely different.” She showed Beth a photograph. “Look at that. Look at those hats!” Beth laughed. “They wore hats like that in New York City, too, in the 1600’s. I’m going to bed. Good night.” “Good night.”

Beth went up to her bedroom, a beautifully appointed room with a four poster cheery wood bed with a canopy and a matching highboy and chest of drawers. She had begun to unpack in the afternoon, but only managed to put away a few things in the dresser and hang a few coats and dresses in the closet. The afternoon was too inviting with the fading light and the wide spread of spring green lawn, the shimmering pond and the forest beckoning all around. Her bedroom windows adorned with white lace curtains looked out onto the pond. She had assembled her loom and sat at it now working on the blanket she had begun in New York before she and Cordelia had left. As spring gave way to summer there wouldn’t be much use for a blanket with as thick a weave as she was using; come winter she would be back in New York where the heat would steam so ferociously she would be opening windows to let in gasps of crisp air, not covering with thick blankets for cozy warmth. Still, the act of weaving itself was a calming labor, an ancient art that rooted her, connected her to something greater, wider, deeper than this particular moment in time, that gave her a sense of infinity, of continuity, of women stretching through time from one era to the next connected through skeins of yarn, balls of tightly rolled brightly colored strings, tying them together eternally. Suddenly, there was a dull thud against her window pane.

Gallows Ascending/Stone Quest Series/Book Two Podgorski

Beth started. She released the loom pedal and rose, walking to the windows. Lifting the lace curtain, she peeled it back to look out upon the night. There was nothing there save her own faint reflection rising in the glass to greet her like one of the ghosts inhabiting the pages of Cordelia’s many books. Roughly, she pushed the curtains aside and lifting the window open, peered down onto the dark lawn and across the pond that lay like a grey oblong disc tossed down by some giant child scattered with white stones in the pale light of a just cresting moon. On the other side of the pond, fleeing, Beth glimpsed a figure with a cape billowing about it. She leaned further out the window, calling loudly, “Hey!” The figure moved more quickly. “Hey! You! Stop!” Beth turned from the window, running from the bedroom. She burst into the living room, where startled, Cordelia looked up. “Somebody’s outside!” Beth yelled to her as she opened the front door and ran out of the house. “Wait for me!” Cordelia called, running after her. Cordelia followed Beth onto the porch and down to the pond. “He was running this way.” Beth panted. Suddenly, she stopped. “Look.” Across the pond, on the other side of the sloping lawn, Druscylla Shirley stood on her porch, her crooked body as rigid, as still as a corpse, staring openly across the water at Beth and Cordelia. After a moment, the Shirley screen door screeched open, and Downing Packer stepped out onto the porch. Beth and Cordelia could see him approach his aunt, bending to her, speaking tenderly to her, placing his arm about her shoulders. Druscylla Shirley, as if in a trance, turned toward him. Downing led her back inside the house. Beth turned toward Cordelia. “Was she looking at us?” “I don’t know. Why would she have been?” They began walking back to the house. As they went, something caught Beth's eye in the shrubbery. She bent down and picked up a bright orange tennis ball. She showed the ball to Cordelia. “Aha! Your hobgoblins.” “Kids.” Beth tossed the ball straight up in the air, and moving with an athletic ease, snatched it in mid-flight expertly.

The next morning just after the sun rose, Beth finished her breakfast of freshly baked sweet rolls care of Cordelia in the large comfortable kitchen of the farmhouse before she headed downtown in search of Crinwinkle’s Flower and Seed Shop. She wheeled the Renegade through the sleepy streets and onto Main Street, passing Packer Drugs and the Shirley Emporium, the Bank of New England and Packer Dry Goods and pulled up in front of the flower and seed shop. As she slammed the door to the Renegade, she noted wryly that the flower shop was one of the few establishments besides the bank that did not bear the name Packer or Shirley in its title. Beth entered the store, the door hinges creaking and a rusting bell tingling, to find Herman Crinwinkle, the proprietor, a round man with a wreath of white hair and gold-framed bi- focals perched at the tip of his nose, standing behind the counter.

Gallows Ascending/Stone Quest Series/Book Two Podgorski

“May I help you?” “I’d like to build the Garden of Eden.” “Well, now,” he replied, his eyelids blinking rapidly behind his bi-focals, “T’is spring. If you’re planning to plant a… er… garden… I suppose…now would be the time to do it… er... Miss, err…” “Doctor. Dr. Beth Rutledge.” “Oh, yes… Dr… Rutledge. You’re up there at the Shirley place, aren’t you?” “Why, yes.” Beth replied, taken slightly aback. Talk about the coconut telegraph. But this would be, what? The maple leaf telegraph? She’d forgotten what life in a small town was like. Blessedly, forgotten. Even so, did everybody in New Camen know who she was already? Before she’d even stepped foot in the village? “Now… er… what were you thinking for your …er … garden?” “Well, that’s why I’ve come to you, Mr. Crinwinkle. You see, I’m from New York City. I haven’t planted a garden since I helped my mother with her mums twenty years ago in a little town in Western Massachusetts.” Beth leaned in to him, planting one elbow on the counter, and resting her chin on it. “I heard you were the best.” Herman Crinwinkle blushed. From the ring of his wreath to the tip of his squashed flat nose he blushed a most vibrant color of shrimp pink. “I’ll take you ‘round the shop.” Herman Crinwinkle said. ”I don’t likely recall what’s out there on that property now. Oh, the Shirley sisters. Magnificent gardeners, you know…” “I didn’t.” “Perennials, annuals, fruit tress, ground cover, blooms gracing every inch, everything expertly planted, stretching as far as the eye could see from the edge of Elizabeth’s property, their grandmother, Elizabeth, that’s the house you’re in now all down that lawn ringing that adorable little pond and up and across Druscylla and Amalthea’s to the other side and sweeping around to the back right to the edge of the forest. Biggest clan in these parts. Built this town.” He reached the far corner of his shop. “Here’s where we keep the daffodil, tulips and hyacinths. I suppose some’d say you’re a tad late to go planting bulbs now, but Elizabeth had all of these in the ground, so you might could coax some from there. Force these here to bud.” Beth reached for the daffodils “Daffodils.” “Those are my favorites, if the truth be told.” “Mine, too.” “Well, take a dozen or so. I can help get you started. And there’s always Downing, too.” “Downing?” “The nephew. He’s learned everything at his Aunties’ knees. He’d help you, I’m sure.” Herman walked to another corner of the store. “Over here are the dahlias. No one has bigger- headed dahlias than I do. And right next there, the gladiolas. Elizabeth always planted those.” He turned towards her, and smiled. “T’will be nice to have a garden at Elizabeth’s place again. It’s been so dark there ever since that awful tragedy.” “What tragedy?” “You don’t know?” “I’m afraid I don’t know anything about my landladies, Mr. Crinwinkle. My lawyer arranged everything. I just picked up the key.” “She killed herself, Dr. Rutledge. Right there in that house you’re renting. In the upstairs bedroom. Thought it was going to be the end of Druscylla, too. But Miss Amalthea pulled her sister through.”

Gallows Ascending/Stone Quest Series/Book Two Podgorski

“Why did she kill herself?” “I don’t recall if I ever got the full story on that one.” He walked to another niche. “You’re going to need some loam, fertilizer, and woodchips. I’m afraid I won’t be able to help you load those things into your jeep, though. My back is just not up to carry that kind of load and my boy isn’t here yet.” “That’s okay, Mr. Crinwinkle. I’ve had to handle many a child pushing 15, and off the charts. I can handle a few sacks of loam.”

Her Renegade loaded with bulbs and seeds, seedlings and young saplings, ground cover and sacks of loam, fertilizer, and woodchips, Beth rolled her jeep along a satisfyingly twisty two- lane black-top through the New Hampshire countryside burgeoning with spring growth, strains of Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 surrounding her. Her hand tapped against the wheel as her body responded to the magnificent music when suddenly a white stallion like a physical manifestation of the music itself burst from the lush light green forest and charged onto the black-top directly in front of her. Beth slammed on the breaks, the vehicle screeching to a halt just inches from the horse. The horse reared, his forelegs clawing the air, his brown eyes wide with terror and looked straight at her. Beth, the air knocked from her, grasped the jeep’s roll bar and rose. The stallion pawed the air wildly again, then with a shake of his head, his silver mane flying and spittle framing his splendid head, lowered his forelegs and stood, frozen, gazing evenly at her. Beth dared not move; she dared not breathe. It was as if they were locked together, her light green eyes locked onto his magnificent great oval deep brown ones. Suddenly, he whinnied. Beth started. He pawed the ground, snorted softly, and tossed that beautiful shimmering silver mane. With a deep rumbling whinny and another toss of his gigantic head, he galloped across the deserted roadway. Without a thought, Beth threw the jeep into gear, and followed. The stallion raced up ahead, his silver mane streaming behind him like a flag, like a gauntlet waving her on, along a rutted dirt path, a fire road through the thick woods. The Mozart CD had switched to Mass in C Minor K 427 1 Kyrie as Beth gave chase to the marvelous hypnotic creature, the jeep zigzagging and bucking wildly along the rough and rutted road deep within the New Hampshire countryside.

Luke Stone walked the dunes high above the churning sea outside the village of New Camen that he now called home. The small cottage he owned sat on a bluff above the sea at the edge of the woods. It was very private here. Quiet. He had made sure of that before he settled, before he bought the cottage. The woods at his back, the bluff and the sea expanding to infinity before him. He walked these dunes daily, the dunes and the wide thick forest that spread out behind, protecting him, offering him solitude. Suddenly, breaking into his solitude, breaking through the resonance of the crashing sea, Luke heard a wild high-pitched whinny followed by the squeal of tires and the dull muted slam of a car door. He glanced south to see a white stallion leap from the top of a bluff to the beach below, stumble slightly, regain his balance, and gallop furiously north. A split second later, the stallion was followed by a woman, dark auburn hair flying, who not hesitating a moment, leapt full bore after the stallion from the bluff to the rocky beach below. She tumbled ungracefully,

Gallows Ascending/Stone Quest Series/Book Two Podgorski landing awkwardly. She tried furiously to regain her feet, but staggered and fell back to the ground with a groan. Luke raced down the bluff, knowing better himself than to attempt to jump from that height to that rocky unforgiving shore below. “Are you all right?” He asked approaching the woman cautiously. The woman had sat up, hugging a knee to her chest, and was rubbing her right ankle. Her chest was heaving with the effort she had just expanded, her color high, splashing her cheekbones with bright spots of pink in a complexion that was creamy white. Her gaze was towards the disappearing stallion, his tail now switching, as vibrantly silver as his mane. “Did you see him? He’s wild, I think.” “I don’t think so. We don’t have any wild horses around here.” Beth turned to look at Luke. Her eyes were the most vivid green he had ever seen, a light, pale green, the color of sea glass, the color of the ocean in the shallows. “He wanted to race me. You should have seen him. It was… uncanny.” “He must have broken out.” “From where do you think?” “There are a lot of folks here who own horses.” “I’ve been around horses all my life. I’ve never seen anything as magnificent as him.” Luke looked down at the ankle that Beth was still rubbing. “Are you okay?” “Oh, yes. I’m fine.” He knelt down beside her. “May I take a look?” “Are you a doctor?” “Survival training.” “Survivalist?” “That’s not what I said.” “Boy scout?” Luke grinned. “Something like that.” “Well, I am a doctor. Rutlegde.” She stuck out her hand. “Dr. Beth Rutledge.” He took her hand. “Luke. Stone. Not a survivalist.” “Maybe a boy scout. It’s not broken.” Luke put his hands on her ankle. His hands began to warm. This is where it always started, in the palm of his hands. “You still have to make it back up that bluff. I was going to offer to wrap it for you.” “With your survival training knowledge.” “You can get a lot of winged and broken limbs out in the wild.” Beth unwound the scarf from her neck. “Here. Use this.” Luke took the scarf. He reached for her ankle, his palms now on fire, the warmth spreading in shooting rays up his arms and to the center of his body, filling him. He could “see” the delicate bones of her ankle. She was right; she had not broken anything. But the tendons were twisted and stretched. Already, the bruising and swelling had begun. It was going to be painful. And he could stop it. Right now. With a touch of his hand, he could heal her. He could save her from the pain and the bruising and the swelling. But he didn’t heal. Not anymore. Not since that night in the desert thirteen years ago, that night with him, whose name he no longer spoke, whose name he had buried after he had battled him that long endless night,

Gallows Ascending/Stone Quest Series/Book Two Podgorski battled him and won, that one who had slashed his wrist to the bone and compelled him to perform his greatest act of healing, to bring his own self back from the brink of most certain death. Not even when he found them, kids broken and maimed and wounded, when his palms heated and the power began its slow relentless surge through his veins heated and pulsing. Not even when they cried and moaned and twisted, as he once had before he ran, before he’d escaped, not even then did he call upon the mysterious source. Only once after that night had he summoned his gift. Only once, as Consuelo lay dying. And then, he could not save her. Of what use, then, was this mysterious power, cloaked in secrecy, bestowed upon him from where, by whom, for what purpose? After that surreal interminable night, the night he had touched not the face of God, but the face of evil, the night he had soared so close not to the face of the sun but to the eternal mouth of darkness inhaling its dank sour breath, he turned forever away from the invisible world he had been so well-schooled in by the two powers of light and dark that had been his masters. Grandfather was light with his rich full laughter and evocative scent of cherry wood tobacco tinged with pine and sage. The vision of him in the desert the next morning had salved his battered soul, yet still, now, he wanted nothing of either world. He had never asked for it. He did not want it. He built his life with Consuelo in the desert. An ordinary life. He liked to track. In real time on the real earth following tangible clues left by human and animal living in the here and now, some of whom, the humans, had done unspeakable things to young innocents who needed to be found, who needed to be rescued. He had even learned to a certain extent how to control the visions. They would still come, unbidden, fly at him, unsought, dropped down upon him from a world he knew not of, striking at him with their unwavering force, knocking him back, pressing him to his knees. But he was learning, slowly, how to navigate, how to use them to seek the lost, how to stretch his psychic muscles, throw up his psychic arms to protect himself when necessary from an onslaught of invasion that would only harm and not help. And so he was carving a simple life without magic or conjuring or visions, without dancing on the razor’s edge of the invisible, the intangible, the gateway, as he only too well knew, to iniquity. Carefully, expertly, Luke wrapped Beth’s ankle. “Not bad for a civilian.” “You should get it checked out.” “I told you it’s not broken.” “No, it’s not broken. But it is severely strained and already starting to swell. Your scarf isn’t going to be enough to secure it.” He sat back on his haunches, and gazed at her, startled again by the green of her eyes. “I’d be happy to run you over to the hospital in Portsmouth.” “Ach!” Beth pounded the rocky sand. “I suppose you’re right. It’s exactly what I’d say to one of my patients.” Luke stood, bending down, offering his arm. “Here, wrap your arms around my neck.” With Luke’s help, Beth staggered to her feet. “He was worth it, you know. Every bit of it.” Luke smiled, and with Beth leaning heavily upon him, they awkwardly climbed the bluff to Beth’s jeep.

Gallows Ascending/Stone Quest Series/Book Two Podgorski

The Renegade spun up in front of the neat two story frame house, jolting to a stop, horn honking. Cordelia, wiping her hands on a gingham apron stepped onto the wide porch as Beth descended from the driver’s seat, one arm laced about Luke’s neck, her other grasping a set of metal crutches. “They’re only for show,” she called to Cordelia. “Come help us unload. “I have the Garden of Eden back here.” Cordelia bounded down the steps. “Anytime you want to catch me up…” “Cordelia, Luke. Stone. Luke, my best friend in all the world, Cordelia Lysek.” “Ms. Lysek.” “Cordelia. What the hell happened to her?” “She was chasing a horse.” “I was chasing a horse.” Luke and Beth spoke in unison, then glanced at each other and laughed. “I saw this amazing stallion, Cordelia. Pure white. Like marble. Like Michelangelo in motion. He flew out of nowhere and froze right in front of me. I had to follow him.” “And so she did. Right off a cliff.” Luke added. “He galloped to the edge of the bluff, then like a god, like Pegasus, he leapt off the bluff to the raging sea below.” “And you leapt right after him.” “Without hesitation!” “But she has no wings.” “Hence,” Beth pointed,” the ankle.” “Is it broken?” “Just badly sprained. And the crutches are really just in case, and for when I get really tired, etc. Come on! Let’s get unloaded. Luke says he’ll help us plant.” Suddenly, Cordelia’s eyes focused on a movement across the pond. “Thar she blows. The Countess of Creep.” “That’s Druscylla Shirley,” Luke offered. “You know her?” Beth asked.

Druscylla Shirley stood in her front yard, holding a chicken. She cooed to it sweetly, lovingly, nuzzling her nose against the bird's white-feathered head. She lifted her eyes, gazing at the three of them across the pond. Then with a sudden vicious twist, she snapped the chicken's neck. “Oh!” Beth gasped. Druscylla, with a self-satisfied smirk, rolled with her awkward gait around to the back of the house. “Jesus,” Beth whispered, shaken by the odd encounter. She looked at Luke. “What do you know about her?” “Not that much. I know she’s Almathea’s sister. They own half the town. Family goes back to the beginning.” “Founders.” “Have you been researching them?” Beth asked Cordelia.

Gallows Ascending/Stone Quest Series/Book Two Podgorski

“She had an accident. It’s why she’s all twisted up like that. Their grandmother, Elizabeth, was the family historian.” “She killed herself.” Beth mused almost to herself. “How do you know that?” “Herman Crinwinkle told me this morning.” “The local library has all of Elizabeth's journals. I brought the first five volumes home.” “Of all the vacation paradises in all of New England I had to choose the one with two whack-job sisters and a suicidal grandma.” “Stay tuned.”

That evening, Beth and Cordelia sat at the kitchen table, eating from cartons of Deli food from the Shirley Grocery. The afternoon had passed pleasantly engaged in stress-relieving manual labor: shovelfuls of earth dug and tilled and turned into tidy rows, seeds and seedlings and bulbs hopefully interred, shaggy overgrown, overrun grass and trees and shrubs snipped and edged and trimmed. Beth gamely hobbled alongside Cordelia and Luke; nothing could dissuade her, no amount of pleadings could convince her to take it easy, she’d just injured that ankle. Even so, the idiosyncratic Shirley sisters, and the especially ominous behavior of Druscylla was never far from anyone’s mind. Luke had told them that though he knew of the sisters, everyone in town knew of them, he had kept a rather low profile since moving to New Camen three years before and did not know them well or anything of their story. He had spoken a few times with Amalthea who seemed kind and weathered as if she had endured a long and painful reckoning. Druscylla seemed more shadow than substance, always lurking, hovering behind doors and around corners the few times Luke had been to the Shirleys to speak to Amalthea. Cordelia, her feet propped up comfortably on the chair beside her read from one of the many journals and notebooks spread across the kitchen table colliding messily with the cartons of deli take out, "Of course our Druscylla could not attend the festivities. A child so young, so broken. I pray constantly for the light of healing goodness. For, oh sweet Lord, such brutality in our midst... I know but one act of grace shall be able to beat the beast back screaming to the gates of hell..." “Good Lord …screaming to the gates of hell…” “Yeah, well. Hail Victoria.” She continued reading. “But are any of us any longer, I wonder, capable of such a labor of righteousness...” Suddenly a loud thud coming from the back porch arrested her reading. Beth startled, and both women rose simultaneously, moving with swiftness to the back door. Without hesitation, Beth flipped the screen door open. There, shielding her eyes from the sudden brightness, scrambling to rise like a spider scurrying for shelter when exposed, was Druscylla Shirley. Her mouth gaped open in a twisted “O” shape, a guttural moan escaping. Redoubling her efforts, she regained her footing, and hunched over and twisted, loped slithering away. Knocked speechless by the sight, Beth quickly regained her senses and shouted after the woman, “Hey! Wait!” But Druscylla was gone, moving away with surprising rapidity for all her deformity. “Well, what the hell!”

Gallows Ascending/Stone Quest Series/Book Two Podgorski

Cordelia pointed to something on the porch. “She left a calling card.” Set on the corner of the porch, beautifully arranged and bursting with fresh fruits and vegetables was a basket. Beth knelt beside the basket, searching through it. “Carrots, cucumbers, lettuce. Peaches.” “Perhaps we could bake a pie?” She dug her hand deeper within the basket and suddenly started back as if she’d been jolted with an electric current. “What is it?” Cordelia asked her. Beth grimaced and pulled out a chicken, the neck grotesquely twisted and covered with blood. Gently, Beth placed the twisted body across the basket. She rose slowly and crossed away. “Can you, please, get rid of that thing?” She looked down at her hands, her fingers splayed. “My hands are covered with blood.”

The next morning dawned as bright and clear as a heart washed clean of all sin. Amalthea Shirley tended her garden, tilling newly laid loam and manure, the rich aroma filling the spring air charging the early morning with anticipation and hope, gathering herbs, roots, and medicinals she would use in her healings. Downing worked beside her, yawning heavily and often, his deep set droopy almond shaped eyes sweeping across the forest that stood next to the garden as if searching for some escape. “Downing! Mind the thyme, child!” Startled by the suddenness of his Auntie’s command, Downing jumped, wind-milling clumsily and landing awkwardly atop a bed of wild thyme. “Aaachhh! Look what you’ve done! You've stepped right on it.” “Oh, shit! Shoot! Sorry, auntie.” Downing lifted his size eleven thinsulated boot and attempted to jump clear of the thyme, but Amalthea whipped out a sinewy arm, surprising in its strength and clasped his wrist like a vise. “Breathe! Deep! Breathe, deep, child.” Downing took several noisy deep inhales. “Mmm. Thyme. She is very powerful. Used to conjure sprites. The helpers.” She looked into Downing’s basket, examining the contents. “What've you got, now? Sweet-briar, sweet-mary, ah, rosemary, too. I need sage and wormwood, yet. Over there -- the sage, remember? And wormwood. Here.” From the front of the house, Almathea and Downing heard a voice call: “Miss Shirley? Miss Shirley?” “I think that’s that doctor who lives across the pond,” Downing said. Beth and Cordelia rounded the side of the Shirley home. “Oh! Dr. Rutledge and Miss Lysek. Good morning!” “Good morning,” Beth answered moving swiftly towards the garden. “We’d like to talk to you, if you wouldn’t mind…”

Gallows Ascending/Stone Quest Series/Book Two Podgorski

“You know, I am going to have to beg your pardon. I have been meaning to go on over and make my acquaintance, and now look, you’ve beat me to it. Come on up to the porch. Just spring and already getting hot. What will the summer be like!” “Actually, we came to see your sister.” “Is she here?” Cordelia asked. “Probably already in hiding to the back.” “No, Auntie,” Downing said. “Auntie Druscylla left early this morning. She said she was going to see Miss Goody Spencer.” Amalthea raised a hand to her forehead. “Miss Goody Spencer.” Gently she brushed her nephew’s shoulder. “Downing, go fetch the lemonade and set it on the back porch.” She turned to the two women. “I am afraid I will have to do in my sister’s stead. I’ll fetch some glasses. Come, the back porch is shady and cool.” Beth and Cordelia followed Amalthea to the back porch and sat in wide comfortable chairs, gazing out on the flowing burgeoning garden. “Some garden.” “It’s an herbal garden. The fruits and vegetables must be around the back.” “Where the elusive Druscylla hides.” “Perhaps with the chickens.” Aamlthea returned carrying a tray with glasses, Downing beside her carrying the lemonade. “Come summertime, always keep a pitcher of nice cold lemonade in the icebox. Squeeze it myself.” She poured the liquid into frosty glasses. “I'd grow the lemons myself, too, if I could. That's all Druscylla and I eat --- what we can grow or raise fresh ourselves right here on our property. Drink up. It's tasty, I assure you. Drink up and tell me what havoc Druscylla has wrought this time.” “Miss Shirley.” Beth began, “last night, your sister, came to our home ...” “Slunk to our home…” “... and left a basket. It was filled with fruits and vegetables, but buried inside was a chicken, its neck twisted and covered with blood.” Amalthea sighed deeply. “Oh.” “Miss Shirley, we saw her, she made certain we saw her, twist that chicken's neck.” “As hard as I try ... as hard as I work, I cannot help her.” With sudden force, she slammed her glass onto the table. “One more innocent caught in this unspeakable chain! The evil! That damnable act! Flowing free!” Downing jumped at his aunt’s sudden rage. “Auntie...!” “She was sixteen years old when it caught her in its deadly trap.” Amalthea continued, not responding to Downing. “That fiendish accident! And since then, she has lived life gripped in fear. And now since you've come...” “Since I've come?” Beth asked shocked. “Well, of course. Surely you can understand why.” “Understand...” Beth interrupted, her voice rising. “Miss Shirley, “Cordelia interjected, “we understand nothing except that for some reason your sister....” “You have no idea, truly, of why Druscylla would be so terrified of you?” “No!”

Gallows Ascending/Stone Quest Series/Book Two Podgorski

Amalthea astounded, looked back and forth between them. After a long moment, she spoke. “I'm so sorry. I beg your pardon. That's wondrous, truly. You see, naturally, I had assumed...” She glanced at Downing. “We all had assumed that was the reason you'd come to New Camen.” She looked directly at Beth. “You know nothing, then, of Ruth Blay?” Cordelia could barely keep her patience. “We know nothing of anything, and we would appreciate it greatly if someone here, anyone would ….” With enormous grace and elegance, Amalthea held up a hand. “I beg your pardon and your indulgence. Dr. Rutledge. Miss Lysek. Please bear with me but a moment longer. Please, Come.” Cordelia looked as if she was about to explode. “Miss Shirley…” But Beth had grown strangely calm. She reached out a hand to her excitable friend. “Sssshhh.” She waved Amalthea on. “Please.” Amalthea rose. Beth and Cordelia followed her inside the Shirley home.

The inside of the Shirley home was immaculate and pristine, looking very much as it must have when the sisters were born, while they were growing up, when later, their grandmother Elizabeth took her own life. On close inspection, one could see the fraying wallpaper, the fading paint, the stained ceilings, the water stains spreading faintly like blood seeping inexorably through time. But the rooms were swept and dusted and polished and shined and the clocks were wound and time was kept perfectly still. “The home you're renting there across the pond was built in 1653 by the Elridge- Smythfields. My family helped them build it. That's the way it was done then. Neighbors helping neighbors. My family built this town. Been here since...” “Sixteen-forty-five.” Cordelia chimed in. “William Downing Packer headed a colony of thirteen men, their wives and children, who came up from Portsmouth. With Packer as their leader, New Camen was founded and settled.” “Very good, Miss Lysek.” They’d reached a small room off the main hallway in the back of the house. “This is our library.” Amalthea explained. “Of course it isn’t a proper library, as those goes. Not as once was. But we make do.” She opened the door to the room. There was a stale smell, a musty odor as comes with old books and leather casings and little ventilation. The room was dark; there was only one window and this had a dark night shade tightly drawn against any light. “To preserve the manuscripts and volumes as much as possible. It isn’t a perfect system.” Amalthea said in way of explanation. The walls of the room were covered with framed drawings, etchings, photographs, and old news clippings. Bookshelves lined the remaining available space from floor to ceiling, bulging with worn and cracked leather volumes, journals, and diaries. In one corner, an oak desk sat squatly, the top spread with more documents. Downing skipped towards a black and white ink sketch on the far wall. “This is Packer. William Downing Packer. I was named after him.” He moved to another ink sketch, pointing to it with a grubby soil-stained thumb. “That’s his grandson, Thomas.” He turned to Beth. “Come take a look. You gotta see his eyes.” Beth stepped in closer to the photograph. “Meanest son of a bitch to ever walk the valley.” An image swirled before Beth’s eyes: The face of Thomas dissolved into a face in a severe black hat. The two images melded as behind them a scaffold rose as out of a mist.

Gallows Ascending/Stone Quest Series/Book Two Podgorski

“Our little settlement thrived and prospered. We lived well and happily....” Amalthea said. “Until 1768.” “Right again, Miss Lysek.” “That was the year a lot of people left New Camen.” “The year of the curse.” Downing said with eager emphasis. “The curse?” Beth asked. “The curse of Ruth Blay.” Downing responded. “In the spring of 1768 a hired hand found in the barn of Ruth Blay, wrapped in sheepskin ...” “Frozen harder'n a brickbat...” Downing helpfully added. Amalthea continued with a sharp look at her wayward nephew. “A child. Ruth Blay was unmarried. The child was illegitimate. Ruth Blay was accused and found guilty of the murder of her daughter, and sentenced to death by hanging. Beth suddenly went pale. She swayed Images swam before her: A gallows rising through the mist of a raging sea. A woman, Beth, with hands bound, led to the scaffold. A crowd, jostling, shoving, surrounding the gibbet. Amalthea's voice continued as if trying to push its way through a foggy sea, coming at times from the fog, at other times from the mouth of the sheriff, Sheriff Thomas Packer, who stood upon the platform beside her, condemning her to death by hanging. “On December thirtieth of that same year, after countless reprieves, at ten o'clock in the morning, the final order was issued...” The rifle raised. The Sheriff’s mouth moved but it was Amalthea’s voice that spoke, “That Ruth Blay shall hang by the neck until dead...” The rifle fired. Swimming in and out of focus, in and out of time, in and out of a deep sea fog, Amalthea and Packer speaking together “... and Ruth Blay flew howling to her tortuous end…” The gallows trap sprung: Ruth Blay plummeted violently downward, her body contorting, flopping like a marionette whose strings have been viciously slashed. Beth, ghostly pale, swayed and moaned softly. Amalthea continued. “The man who issued that fateful order, Sheriff Thomas Packer, was my forebear.” She turned to Beth. “The woman who was hanged so ignobly, Ruth Blay of Southampton, was yours.

Gallows Ascending/Stone Quest Series/Book Two Podgorski

Chapter Three

Beth's knees buckled. She slumped to the floor. Cordelia cried out and rushed to her side. “Oh, my! Oh, my!” Downing said. “Let me help you to a chair.” Downing, his face creased with concern, helped Beth to a chair. As he bent over her, a heavy metal medallion, embossed with the outline of a Satyr, swung free from his shirt. “Get her a glass of water, Downing.” Amalthea ordered him. “Yes, of course, Auntie.” Downing sprinted from the room. Amalthea went to Beth, taking her hand, feeling her pulse. “Are you all right, Dr. Rutledge?” “It’s just so warm.” “We have to keep this room so closed up. We need to install air conditioning. We haven’t yet. We need to.” “Here’s the water!” Downing called out, thrusting a glass of water in a frosted glass at Beth. “Oh. Thank you.” “Sip slowly, now.” Downing said. “I have all the records you would need. Miss Lysek, I understand you are a historian. I have everything. You are welcome to all that I have.” “Thank you.” “Her grave is in the churchyard. The bluff above the sea. She’s buried on the same site where she was hanged.”

That evening, Beth sat at her loom, its rhythmic hum resonating, dominating all other sounds, even the sound of the relentless sea crashing just steps outside her window and down the wooden staircase from where she worked.

Gallows Ascending/Stone Quest Series/Book Two Podgorski

Cordelia sat at the kitchen table, her back straight and angled forward, like an arrow aimed at its target, the target being the mounds of cracked leather encased books, dusty gilt- edged ledgers, mold-encrusted documents, and spidery, ink splotched diaries Amalthea had sent over with Downing after their visit this morning. Cordelia read the documents spread out before her like broken icebergs upon a frozen sea as Beth wove. Her loom hummed, the rhythm resounding like a beating heart. Cordelia read; she searched; she jotted down notes; she bit her pencil; she bounced it upon the table sharpened end to eraser. She wished Beth would stop, but the sound of the loom only grew stronger in ferocity. The weaving was frantic as if she could plait together the strands of time. Suddenly, Cordelia stopped arrested. At the same moment, the rhythmic whipping sound ceased.

Beth pushed back from the stool at the loom. She rose and strode to the window. Hastily, she jerked the curtain back. Downstairs, Cordelia called out, “Beth?”

Beth yanked the curtain back across the window, and lunged toward her bureau, wrenching open the drawer and pulling out her family Bible. She sat at the edge of the bed electricity thrumming through her and flipped through the book until she reached the center where a pull out section containing a family tree fell open. With a trembling finger, Beth underlined the section stopping when she came to: 1860. ELLEN ANASTASIA CROWTHER BORN TO SAMUEL ADAM CROWTHER AND LOUISA TAYLOR BLAY CROWTHER. “Cordelia!” Beth shouted. Cordelia entered the room on a dead run. Beth held out the book to her. Wordlessly, Cordelia took the Bible, reading the entry, where Beth’s quivering finger still pointed.

The single pounding of a heartbeat. A gallows rising from the mist. A drumbeat working in eerie synchronization with the beat of the heart. Beth, heavily pregnant appeared in the mist, hands tied before her, a man in severe black dress standing behind her, pressing her forward, up the scaffold stairs. The heartbeat and drum built, intensified, and added in was another sound, the forceful pounding of galloping hoof beats. The man in black grasped the noose, fitting it firmly around Beth's neck. A rifle rose. In the crowd before her, a child, a little girl about five years old, stared. The woman raised her bound arms toward the child, a shot rang out, the trap was sprung, Beth's body jerked and flew. A scream …

Cordelia sat bolt upright up in bed. The blood-curdling scream filled the night once more. “Beth!” Cordelia called, and flew from her room.

Across the pond, Druscylla Shirley, her long, thin grey hair falling in wisps down her shoulder and across her back stepped out onto her porch, dressed in flowing white, a shawl draped about her. Beth sat up, wild-eyed in bed, Cordelia perched edgily beside her. “I know where it is.”

Gallows Ascending/Stone Quest Series/Book Two Podgorski

“You know where what is?” “The place where I'm hanged.” Beth rose, flinging back the covers, jerking on the robe that lay at the foot of her bed.

Druscylla stood like a marble carving, her smallish head cocked girlishly to one side, her eyes wide, one hand coquettishly extended as if waiting for an invitation to dance. Suddenly her lips parted in an explosion of giggles. “Sssshhh. We have to be quiet.”

Across the pond, Beth and Cordelia burst through their front door, Beth in the lead. From this side of the house, they could not see Druscylla. Cordelia pulled on a worn leather aviator jacket over her pajamas as she followed Beth. “Where are we going?” “To the graveyard.”

Druscylla smiled coyly. Her lover was arriving! She bowed gracefully to him, holding both hands out to him in eager anticipation. Mist swirled above the pond and snaked through the lawn slithering on tendrils towards where Druscylla stood awaiting her love. The young man rose, as if out of the mist itself, and walked smiling towards her. He wore a suit of all white, the shoulders squared and the sleeves tapered elegantly to the wrist. The lapels were peaked, enhancing the breadth of his chest. His legs were long and lean, and moving towards her with confidence, with command, with possession. A white silk scarf was wound about his neck trailing in the late night breeze, its edges mingling with the fog. He was leading a magnificent stallion of silver as silver as his suit was white. Into the darkness and fog, into the soft night, the stallion whinnied, and the young man smiled, his teeth brilliant, as brilliant as his suit, as brilliant as the silver of the stallion.

Beth and Cordelia got into the jeep. “She’s on the bluff. Overlooking the sea.” “Okay. But we’re going to need some light.” “I have an emergency kit in here. I have a flashlight.” “I was thinking maybe a lantern?” In the darkness of the jeep, Beth turned to Cordelia, and fleetingly smiled. She turned the engine over. “Maybe some garlic? Have you thought about garlic?” The jeep roared away into the night.

Still several paces from Druscylla, the young man, in one fluid flawless motion mounted the steed and galloped. At full gallop, the horse swept past Druscylla. Extending his hand, the young man bent down and pulled her astride. In that moment, in the swirl of mist and madness, her deformity dissolved, Druscylla mounted the stallion with the nimbleness and agility of a young girl.

Gallows Ascending/Stone Quest Series/Book Two Podgorski

She tossed her hair to the wind. “Ride! Joshua, ride!” They galloped across the fog enshrouded countryside, Druscylla's hair streaming out behind her, and as they rode, the fog, as did Druscylla’s deformity, began to lift, and the moon fat and orange pierced the clouds. “Hello, Mr. Moon. All fat and orange.” Druscylla threw her arms tightly around the young man, resting her cheek against his back. “Feel the wind! Joshua! Feel it blowing through our hair! That's the taste of freedom!” But in the distance a sound broke through the wind and her ecstatic cries, a sound as if of thunder that started low but rose in frenzy and frequency. “Dogs?” The sound intensified to a deep thrumming growling that erupted into vicious howls. Over the ridge, a pack of baying snarling hounds exploded across the field. “Joshua! Dogs!” The horse reared, clawing the sky. Druscylla clung desperately to the young man, her cries of joy turned to shouts of terror. The hounds surrounded them, teeth bared, snapping, their growls deep-throated, their eyes wild. A high thin whistle pierced the air. The hounds froze. Then, as one, they turned and fled. The young man turned to Druscylla. His face loomed before her in the moonlight. But it was not the handsome dark face with the gleaming white smile she saw. It was a death mask. A mask of death and it was covered with blood. Druscylla screamed, her body going limp, drooping against the horse’s splendid back, her poor twisted face coming to rest against the magnificent silver mane of the beautiful silver beast.

Beth and Cordelia walked among the gravestones high on the bluff, the single beam of the flashlight leading them, its light a weak imitation of the moon that now hung far above the earth in the sky. Below, the sea threw herself against the rocks with an unrelenting insistence, sending up mists of foam that swirled and converged with stubborn wisps of fog that circled them on their journey. “Over there.” Beth spoke with a single-minded sense of purpose. She pointed with the flashlight, and following its arc, they move deeper into the churchyard. “This rise,” Beth continued, “was covered with people. As far as you could see. A circus. A spectacle that people took their family to. That they took their children to witness. And spread out their picnic lunches while doing so.” Beth climbed the rise, Cordelia scrambling after her. “Here. Right here. This is where the gallows stood.” “You saw this in your dream?” “This is where it happened.” Beth moved the flashlight, the beam an eerie arc in that eerie place. “There are no markings.” Cordelia said. “Look. There.” Beth moved in closer. A funeral wreath had been laid atop a slight mound. On the ribbon of black was gold lettering. Beth gasped. “Beth?” Cordelia asked, stepping in closer. “Ruth Blay.”

Gallows Ascending/Stone Quest Series/Book Two Podgorski

“Hang on a second, Esther, let me see if I’ve got anything on that.” Luke spoke into his cell phone, cradling the tiny device awkwardly between his neck and his shoulder as he searched his email. Ten years in the desert with nothing but Eppie’s landline and nary a computer in site. Technology discomforted him, yet he saw what a useful tool it had become and how much the swift ever rapid changes aided him in his work. And so he had made his uneasy peace with modern machinery. Still, it couldn’t even begin to approach the machinery of the mind when well-applied. “Manuel Vasquez, right?” “Correct.” Esther Rinaldi, newly appointed Chief of Police of tiny New Camen responded. Esther hailed from New York City, had spent the last twenty years as a detective on that city’s most elite force, Robbery-Homicide. But she wanted escape from the traffic and the unending noise and the escalating crime and so had made her way to peaceful New England and bucolic New Camen, just as Luke had. “Nothing on the wires. They’re thinking this kid made his way from New York City up here?” “He’s got some family in Portsmouth. An uncle. They don’t know if this is the non- custodial, a runaway, or a stranger abduction. The kid’s been missing for over a week.” “Jesus. And someone just figured that out now?” “Roger that. I’ll email ya all the info I’ve got. Pix. Etcetera. ” “I’ll keep an eye out.” “I know you will. That’s why I rang ya.” Luke rang off. Fifteen. Disappeared. One week later somebody realizes Manuel Vazquez is not where he is supposed to be. He pushed back his chair and walked out to his porch gazing out to the sea. Sometimes he wondered if he’d chosen the wrong line of work. For all the good he did, for all the lost he found, there were so many that were found too late. A corpse recovered instead of a live child to be nursed back to health. And cases like Manuel Vasquez… these cases were too close; they reminded him too much of a past he kept trying to forget. The sea, though, the rhythmic pounding of the magnificent waves, as always soothed him, evened out those jangled edges, quieting the piercing memories that still held such power to pierce and stab his heart, that still after all these years refused to lie quietly buried. A late spring morning and the sun was rising hot and yellow over the crashing sea, burning the morning fog, crackling against his skin. Yet the sea air was crisp, invigorating, restoring. He drank it in, swallowed deep greedy mouthfuls deep into his lungs surprised that Manuel’s story, that that story still held such power over him. He would track him and he would find him, dead or alive, brutalized or simply running free, he would find him because that is what Luke did and he never failed. And between his contacts and Esther’s, he had the entire NYPD at his disposal. From his perch on his porch high on a bluff above the sea he could see down below and along the shore a figure hobbling across the pebbled sand. Her auburn hair whipped out behind her in strands caught on fire by the rising sun. She wore a long emerald green sweater tightly belted at the waist against the wind. As Luke watched, he saw her stumble, then right herself awkwardly, then proceed along the coast, her steps purposeful. She stopped, bent, and picked up a handful of stones. Turning toward the sea, she hurled the stones one after the other into the raging waters. Her throw was powerful, forceful. She

Gallows Ascending/Stone Quest Series/Book Two Podgorski continued along the beach, and though her steps were purposeful, her gait remained awkward, hobbling, her left ankle wobbling terribly. Now, as the figure drew closer, Luke recognized Beth Rutledge. He cupped his hands around his mouth calling to her. “Beth! Hello! Beth!” She glanced up. Seeing him, her face, which had been drawn and as stormy as the sea, broke into a wide smile. “Hello, Luke!” She called back. Luke sprinted down the wooden porch stairs that led to the beach and across the rocky sand to where Beth stood. “Hey.” Beth greeted him. “Is that yours?” “Yes.” “Nice.” “No crutches?” “I only need them when I really really need them…” “Like perhaps now?” “Hmmm. I’m afraid I might have overdone it a smidgen.” “Put your arm around my neck…” “Oh, now honestly, it doesn’t call for all that.” “Then hobble freely, if you wish, but I am offering you respite and tea.” “Respite! And tea!” “And a shoulder to lean on if you’d take it.” “Oh, what the hell. You’re right, you know.” Beth threw her arm happily around Luke’s shoulder. “I’m exhausted. I have no idea what in hell I thought I was doing.” With Beth leaning heavily and not at all unpleasantly against him, Luke guided her back to his cottage.

Inside the cottage, Luke built a fire. Though the day promised to be unseasonably warm, the sea breeze was gloriously fresh and chilling, and having been out in the brisk air, Beth was cold. Sitting before the fire, her hands wrapped around a mug of steaming Orange Spice she warmed quickly and untied her sweater, placing it behind her on the chair. “How’s the ankle.” “Positively throbbing.” Beth put down her cup of tea and stood. “I am supposed to walk on it, you know. To strengthen the muscle.” She walked to the wall beside the fireplace that held a small gallery of photographs. “These are quite captivating. Who took these?” “My wife. Consuelo.” Luke rose to stand beside Beth. “That’s Consuelo. That’s the Desert Wolf Café where we met. That’s Eppie Falco. She was the owner. These were all shot in Death Valley.” “And these two lovely young people.” “My wife’s children.” “Oh. Not yours?” “From her first marriage.” Luke smiled, his eyes softening when he spoke the children’s names. “That’s Raymond. And that one’s Angela.” He looked at Beth. “I wasn’t that much older than they were when Consuelo and I were married. She was very young when she married the first time. Not even out of high school.” He touched Angela’s photograph. “They’re my family.” “And Consuelo…” “She died, Beth. Three years ago.”

Gallows Ascending/Stone Quest Series/Book Two Podgorski

“Oh. I’m so sorry.” “Cancer. It’s why I left. Why I’m here.” “I didn’t mean to pry.” “No, no, of course not. You weren’t.” “These photographs are so extraordinary. Look at that light!” “Consuelo was an artist. People came from all over the country, from all over the world, really, to see her work.” “I can imagine.” Beth reached out to him, grasping his fingertips. “I’m so sorry, Luke. It is difficult, beyond measure to lose the ones we love.” A shadow flitted across her face. Her sea green eyes lost their light. “I should get back. Poor Cordelia. I left before dawn and she will be mad with worry.” “Did you drive down to the beach?” “Yes. To the public beach.” “Let me run you back there. Can’t have you hobbling back across the pebbles.” “No. No. That would never do.” Luke ushered Beth out his side door and into his car, a jeep similar to the jeep Beth drove.

The late spring sun was shining fiercely now, having burned all the coastal fog clear from his path as well as any clouds that dare challenge him in the heavens. The rolling hills of New Camen burst with spring green growth and the pond between the Rutledge and Shirley homes rippled softly with the quiet breeze shimmering silver in the glinting sunshine. Downing Packer, surrounded by a pack of hounds yapping playfully darted up over the rise of a rolling hill tossing a bright orange tennis ball into the air and catching it on the fly, driving the pack mad with desire before he finally fired the ball across the field for the dogs to give chase. Downing watched their scramble, laughing, then suddenly dropped one shoulder, and limped broadly, his laugh turning to a cackle. “Step on thyme, release its fragrance. In the light of the full, full moon. Turtles and toads’ and chickens’ blood, and deadly nightshade, too. My lover died in the light of the full, full moon. Horses running, and dogs baying, and flesh ripped into teeny, tiny pieces. Joshua Sherebourn! Joshua Sherebourn! Joshua Sherebourn!” Amalthea Shirley stepped out on her porch, watching his antics. “Downing!” She called. And then again, more loudly. “Downing!” “Oh, hello, Auntie!” Downing answered waving and sprinting to her side. “Glorious morning, isn't it?” “What were you doing?” One of the dogs finally snagged the ball away from the rest of the pack. As one, the pack galloped tails wagging back to Downing. “I had to get the dogs. Did you hear them last night? Must've busted loose again.” “Where's your Aunt Druscylla?” “Haven't the foggiest, Auntie. Isn't she still in bed?” Amalthea studied him very closely. “No.” “Well, can't have gone far, can she.” He turned, signaling the dogs, and ran with them back out into the field.

Gallows Ascending/Stone Quest Series/Book Two Podgorski

Beth’s Renegade pulled up the drive spitting gravel. Cordelia slammed the screen door open and strode onto the porch. “Where have you been?” “I just needed some air, Cordelia.” “Jesus Christ, Beth.” “I’m sorry, Cordelia. I should have at least left a note.” “Ya think?” Beth reached over, kissing her friend’s check. “Come on, I’ll make us coffee.” “I already made coffee. My back teeth are singing anchors aweigh for Christ sakes. I’ve been doing nothing but drinking coffee and calling your goddamn cell phone since six a.m.” “Then I’ll make you breakfast. You didn’t have any breakfast, right? Come on.”

After breakfast, Cordelia and Beth settled on the back porch, Cordelia spreading out her notebooks and journals, diaries and volumes on the low table before them “I found out about her.”

Across the pond, Druscylla scurried furtively from behind the corner of her house. She still wore the flowing white gown of the night before, but the dress was disheveled, torn, and muddy, patches of it stained with blood. Druscylla limped heavily, any remnant of agility, of the nubile freshness of youth from the dream of last night erased with the rising of a cruel unforgiving sun. “Cordelia!” Beth gasped, seeing Druscylla. “Look!” “Oh! What’s happened to her?” Suddenly, Downing, with the pack of dogs nipping playfully at his heels, burst from behind the house. “Yo, Auntie! There you are!” On seeing Druscylla, the dogs bayed wildly, snarling and yelping. “Hey! Hey! Nix!” Downing commanded them as Druscylla shrunk from them, moaning. On the porch Beth and Cordelia stood watching captivated. Druscylla turned from the pack, her voice rising to cacophony. “Get them away!” Downing whistled shrilly. The dogs stopped frozen, their arrest almost comical in its completeness. Downing whistled again, a different pattern of sound, and as one, the pack turned and harmlessly trotted away. Druscylla, weeping, folded herself into Downing’s arms. Cooing, comforting her, he enveloped her, patting her long grey hair as if she were a child.

Beth turned away, discomfort rising, unease flooding her. “What did you find out about her?” She asked her friend. “I found out all about the accident.” “Let’s go inside,” Beth said as she was already opening the porch door.

Cordelia leaned against the stove as Beth sat at the kitchen table.

Gallows Ascending/Stone Quest Series/Book Two Podgorski

“She was eloping,” Cordelia was narrating. “With a young man named Joshua Sherebourn. Her father, Zachariah Shirley, didn't approve. They were going to run away on horseback…” “A silver stallion...” Beth said. “What?” “The horse was a silver stallion.” “How did you know that?” “She was dressed all in white, and he came for her on a stallion of silver.” “Did you read that somewhere?” “I must have. Your books are everywhere.” “Okay. So the night they were planning to elope, Zachariah had his own plan…” Beth suddenly felt feverish. Flashes she couldn’t control exploded in her mind: A dark, towering figure, his mouth cruel and hard, a hat pulled down low shadowing his features, waited, his hand holding onto several hounds that leapt frenetically, straining to be free, howling, baying, snarling. The figure spoke, his voice low, rumbling, filled with a hatred so vile it burned: “Easy. Easy, now. You'll get your chance.” Across the moonlit field a silver stallion, his flowing mane sparkling like stardust galloped wildly. Astride sat Druscylla dressed all in white, her gown as flowing as the stallion’s mane, and in front of her, holding the reins high with exuberance and supreme confidence a young man, dark of countenance, Josuha, also dressed in white. Druscylla’s hair was long and dark, streaming out behind her, the only darkness in the white tableau, the strands streaming, whipping about her young exuberant face. She held Joshua tightly about his trim waist, laying her rosy cheek against his muscled back, crying with happiness into the wind. But suddenly, there was a howling, as if of wolves, a tremendous frightening yowling, and the dogs were released. Dogs, hounds, a pack, a wild pack of feral treacherous beasts flying as one, attacking as one. They surrounded the galloping stallion, their teeth bared, their growling deep and fierce. The horse bucked, his hooves pawing the air in terror and in rage. Joshua fought savagely for control, but the dogs bit and tore and nipped and ripped and the horse bucked and jumped and wove until Joshua was tossed aside like a doll, and Druscylla went tumbling after. She lay upon the ground lifeless, unable to move as the dogs, her dogs, attacked her love. A shrill piercing whistle broke the resounding unholy yowling of the pack. The dogs backed away. Joshua's flesh was ripped and torn beyond recognition Beth rose from the table. She was so pale her skin tinged greenish. Her hand trembled. “He set dogs on them.” “Yes.”. “They ripped that boy apart.” “Yes.” “They ripped that boy apart in front of her!” “Beth…” Cordelia moved towards Beth. “What else did you find out?” “There’s so much material…” “Am I a descendant of Ruth Blay?” “Beth, I’ve only just begun…” “Cordelia, answer me! Am I a descendant of Ruth Blay?” “Yes.”

Gallows Ascending/Stone Quest Series/Book Two Podgorski

Beth turned from her. “There's a lot more research I need to do…” “I chose this town.” “The name is in your family Bible.” “I wanted to come here.” “A story like that, that kind of... of legacy, someone, sometime must have mentioned it to you.” Beth turned back to face her. “She murdered her baby.” “She was accused of murdering her baby.” “And found guilty. And hanged by the neck until dead.” “That has nothing to do with you.” “Seventeen sixty-eight. And right after, yes, right after that, the blackness came.”