Dark water swirled around and around a channel at the Fish Pond booth. "Like a sushi bar," Michael said, watching the water come in one side and go out the other. "You know, those kinds where the plates float around."
For a quarter you could dip a line into the water. A claw at the end picked up a number and you got a prize.
"When I was a kid all these prizes seemed like treasure," Jenny said. She lowered the claw into the opaque swirl.
"A bite," Dee said. She raised her rod. At the end, dripping, was a wooden bar with a number on it. The attendant glanced at it, then tossed it back into the water. He handed Dee a plastic change purse. Pink.
"Just what I always wanted."
Jenny felt a pull on her line, a sharp tug, almost as if it were a live fish on the hook. She lifted it--and gasped.
Oh, God! Oh, God...
Beside her, Michael's breath hissed in. He was staring, his chocolate-colored eyes wide and frightened.
There was no wooden bar on the end of Jenny's line. Instead, hanging neatly over one claw of the hook, was a slender, dripping circlet of gold. Jenny didn't need to look at it twice.
It was the ring.
The ring Julian had given her. The one with seven words inscribed on the inside of the band, where they would rest against her skin and bind her with their magical power.
All I refuse & thee I chuse. Meaning that Jenny refused all the world and chose-him. A promise that Julian had tried to hold her to. She was free of it, now-but the reminder was chilling.
She'd been wrong about them being able to enjoy themselves until tonight. Julian was watching her this minute, the way he'd watched her for years. There was no getting away from him, not here, not anywhere.
Nothing to do except go and face him.
"Let's go home," Jenny said, surprised at the steadiness of her own voice. She took the ring off the claw and dropped it into the dark, swirling water.
You-uns want the key?"
"Well, my parents do. They were kind of jet-lagged so they stayed back at the hotel, you know. They just thought they'd look the place over, you know. Gosh, Mrs. Durash, do you remember that old washing machine that belonged to my great-grandma? And the wringer? That was hysterical, huh, a wringer." I'm being winsome, Jenny realized with a jolt. I'm a con artist.
A smile softened Mrs. Durash's thin features. She was a small woman, slight, wearing what Jenny always remembered her wearing: a print dress and a sweater. "I used to use that washing machine," she said warningly. She pronounced it warshing machine.
"I know. That's what's so hysterical!" If I get any cuter, I'm going to throw up, Jenny thought. Oh, Lord-I think I just wrinkled my nose.
But it worked. Mrs. Durash was rummaging in a shiny black purse. "Let me tell you how to turn off the alarm system."
Jenny let out a silent breath of thanksgiving, and listened as intently as she had to the opening instructions of the PSAT. She went down the porch stairs muttering, "Three-six-five-five on the pad, then press Enter, Off, Enter. Three-six-five-five, then Enter ..."
"We've got a time limit," she added to the others who were waiting around the corner. "The last thing she said was to have my parents call her tomorrow, because she didn't even know we were visiting. When they don't call, she's going to know something's wrong."
"But we didn't get any sleep," Michael pointed out. "And it's a mile back to your grandfather's house. At least."
"Let's take a taxi, then," Audrey said impatiently.
"We can't." Dee jingled the fanny pack which contained their pooled funds. "We paid thirteen ninety-five apiece to get into that park, not to mention all the corn dogs Michael ate. We've spent all the money that was supposed to last us for days. We're broke, princess."
"It's my fault," Jenny said after the first horrible moment. "I should have thought. We'll just have to try to get everything done tonight-once we go, we won't need to worry about money. Some of us can sleep while the others look through my grandfather's things-we'll take turns, okay? And we can eat some of the Power Bars from the camping stuff we brought."
"But if we don't find it tonight-?"
"We have to," Jenny said. "We'll do it because we have to, Michael."
The old brick house still had electricity, presumably to fuel the alarm system. It was spooky inside anyway, furniture draped with white sheets, clocks stopped on the walls. Jenny kept having the same lurching feeling: familiarity-unfamiliarity. Back and forth, or sometimes both at once.
By far the worst was the basement. Jenny's legs didn't want to take her down the stairs. She'd seen this place last month in a sort of dream, a hallucination created by Julian-but she hadn't really been here in over ten years. Not since the day neighbors had heard terrible screaming next door and the police had clattered down the stairs to find five-year-old Jenny on the floor, arms scratched, clothes torn, hair a wild yellow tangle. And screaming. Screaming and staring at an open closet door with a strange symbol carved on the front. Screaming in a way that made the biggest policeman run back upstairs to call the paramedics.