AN EERIE TWIN-TOWERED CASTLE of white stone on an ice-bound island on a frozen winter lake, a nearby English manor house haunted by a flute playing ghost who roams the halls at night accompanied by a wolf, and a mysterious kidnapped girl from the p...
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Chatchaat the wolf jumped up to all fours and barked excitedly at the platform of the burial cache above him. He could hear his mistress and the other two girls screaming inside, and his senses told him that something was very much amiss. He whined, feeling helpless. He knew better than to move from his current position in the raging storm, and his barking soon turned into a high-pitched frustrated howling.
It was the howling of the wolf that brought Louise back to her senses. Like her sister Jean and the girl Lorraine, she had been screaming uncontrollably at the horrible living thing in the anaktwa with them. But the sudden fright was now wearing off and she reached across Lorraine's cringing form to grab the wavering flashlight from Jean's gloved hand. She aimed the beam at the thing. It was wrapped in a gray fur hide. The face, which was framed in red, was now exposed, with its dark beady eyes and red gash of a mouth that stretched entirely across it. The thing was bouncing, thrashing, and moaning in a hideous guttural manner.
Then suddenly, reality seemed to shift before Louise's very eyes. The thing became a person, a person bound and gagged. And, even more shocking, a person whom Jean knew.
"Lettie! Oh my goodness! Lettie Briggs!"
Louise grabbed Jean and shook her. "Stop it! Stop screaming! It is Lettie Briggs!"
Jean, pressed close to Lorraine, heard her sister as if in a dream. She clamped her mouth shut and stared at the thing almost on top of her as it thrashed and moaned. Then, within a matter of seconds, her hysteria seemed to wash away as her eyes refocused on the sight they beheld and she could see for the first time what it really was.
"Great guns!" the girl blurted out. "It is Lettie! And she's all tied up!"
Frantically, Jean grabbed at the bouncing form. "For goodness sake, Lettie, stay still. And stop that moaning. You scared us just as much as we scared you."
As Louise aided her with the flashlight beam, Jean pulled at the fur hide and pulled it down from around their schoolmate's head. The hood of Lettie's red jacket was fully exposed and tendrils of her mousy brown hair tumbled out. A moment later, Jean had pulled off her gloves and reached behind the Briggs girl's neck to untie the red cloth gag that was wrapped around her face.
Louise squeezed Lorraine's shoulder comfortingly. The girl had stopped screaming and was now whimpering in a child-like manner.
"It's okay, Lorraine. Don't be afraid. It is not a monster. It's someone we know."
"Humphh!" Jean snorted, pulling the gag free. "Someone we know who just happens to very often be a monster!"
"Jean Dana," Lettie Briggs blurted out. "How dare you say such a thing? You ... you scared me to death! I thought I was in this awful thing alone. I must have fallen asleep. And then ... ugh! Suddenly there were others in here!"
