“I was told to come here. To buy a crystal from you.”
“By whom?” He looked directly at Jennifer.
“By a channeler,” Jennifer said carefully, not sure if she should give out the name.
“Who?”
“Kathy Dart,” she lied.
The store owner flinched at the mention of Dart’s name. “I must ask you to leave,” he said.
“Why?”
“I don’t want anything to do with that woman.”
“She’s a nationally known channeler. She has made video tapes and records.”
“Please leave.” The owner came out from behind his counter.
Jennifer began to back away from him. “Please,” she said quickly, “I really need my own crystal.”
“Out!” He was angry. “Kathy Dart is a charlatan, not a shaman.”
“You may be right,” Jennifer answered, noting the antique words he used.
“I am right.”
He opened the front door. Snow was blowing into the store, but he stood there, grimly, waiting for her to leave. What has Kathy Dart done to this man? Jennifer wondered.
She stepped outside, thankful at least that she hadn’t turned her rage on him.
“Would you tell me something else?” Jennifer asked, standing on the snowy sidewalk. “Do you know Phoebe Fisher?” He nodded. “Is she who she says she is?”
The question seemed to surprise him. He stared at her for a moment, as if deciding how to respond, and then he said simply, “Yes,” and closed the door.
Jennifer turned and walked toward the subway. She had gone nearly a whole block before she realized her right hand was still clutched around the small, clear, single-terminated quartz crystal. It was small and warm in her hand, as if it were a tiny bird, lovely and alive. With her fingers nestled around it gently, she tucked it into the safety of her deep coat pocket. She should return it, she knew. She should walk back and give the man money for it, but she didn’t. She continued on her way toward the subway. Later, she would send a check to the Crystal Connection. Now the crystal belonged to her. It felt warm and snug in her pocket, and for the first time in days, she felt secure.
As she walked the several snowy blocks to the station, lost in her own thoughts, she never saw the solitary hunter limping along behind her, never heard the steel-tipped cane digging deep into the snow as she was followed from the Crystal Connection.
This hunter had spotted her first in front of the Ice Age hut built of mammoth bones and tusks twenty thousand years ago.
The hunter rode the subway out to Brooklyn Heights, got off with Jennifer, and moving ahead when she stopped to buy a small bouquet of flowers, limped off into the gathering darkness of early evening to await her arrival home.
Jennifer never bought flowers at the small subway shop, but seeing the cluster of fresh bright bouquets near the newspaper stand, she had acted on impulse and paid an exorbitant five dollars and forty cents for a half-dozen carnations. It was something, she thought, to brighten up her spirits on a dreary day.
Out on the street, she thought briefly about buying some groceries before going home, but she was suddenly afraid again of being spotted, of somehow being recognized as the “ape killer,” so instead, she buried her head in the deep collar of her fur coat and hurried home.
Also, Tom was coming over later, and she had so much to think about. He had come to accept her knowledge of David Engle’s guilt as an instinct on her part; while he still didn’t buy her story of seeing Margit, he was willing to believe that in some vaguely spiritual way, her close friendship with Margit had given her some special insight. But Jennifer wondered what he would do if she told him about Dance.
She was too tired to think about it. The fresh air was making her feel better, though. She was glad to be back in Brooklyn, and the thought of being safely inside her apartment made her smile in anticipation. She was away from the busy streets, going downhill toward the water, where the streets were darker and less congested.
She stepped between two parked cars and dug deep into her pockets, hunting with her fingers for her apartment keys, and then she stopped and stared ahead at the empty sidewalk. There was no one approaching. The dark sidewalk was shadowy but deserted. She heard nothing but the cold wind. A car passed, its tires crunching in the new snow.
Something was wrong, but she did not know what. The feeling she had was vague and unfocused, like a tiny nag at her subconscious. She was being paranoid, she told herself.
She stepped ahead, forced herself to continue down the street, still wary from her premonitions.
She walked slowly, edging away from the buildings, keeping some distance between herself and the dark front steps of the brownstones, with their small gated stoops. She kept away from the garbage cans, glanced to see that no one was crouched behind them, hiding until she got within reach.
She felt her fear. It pumped through her body, making her sweat under her layers of clothes. She loosened her fur collar and took a deep breath. She was damp under her arms, between her legs.
Then she smelled the hunter. She caught a scent in the swirling wind, and she raised her head and sniffed the air. Someone was here, somewhere in the darkness, behind a car perhaps, hidden in the shadows next to a building.
She spun around. Her primal rage swept through her, pumped rage and fear into her veins. In the gathering darkness, she dropped her fresh flowers and crouched down, growling and baring her teeth. She backed away from where she sensed the hunter was, hiding behind a cluster of metal garbage cans. She would not attack unless she was attacked. She kept moving backward, watching the dark corners of the buildings, the hidden doorways of basement apartments, the shadowy hedges. There were now, she knew by instinct, dozens of places where a person might hide from sight until ready to strike.
Snow blew against her face and blurred her vision, but she could see better now in the darkness, and she cocked her head, listening for sounds, the deep steady breathing of some animal waiting to pounce, the sudden motion of a hunter as he got her within range.
She heard the cane before it struck. She heard the thin walnut stick slice the winter air, caught a glimpse of the silver knob, and she tried to duck, but the hunter had surprised her, leaped down from the low branches of a sidewalk sycamore, and struck her in the back of the head. Jennifer was dead before her knees buckled and hit the ground.
When Amenhotep returned from Abu Simbel, Roudidit had already crossed to the other side. Amenhotep went immediately into mourning for his wife, spending the long days as custom required, in idleness, waiting for her body to be prepared for the tomb. He kept himself from thinking what the embalmers were doing to her beautiful body, how they were cutting out her brains and organs, wrapping them up in jars for burial, then filling the body with spices. It took all of three months before Roudidit was properly wrapped in bandages for burial and the funerary furniture was ready.
Amenhotep insisted on adorning her, though the first sight of her terrified him as nothing had ever frightened him in battle. Her beautiful face had shriveled and sunk, and her lips were wizened.
He stood looking down at his dear wife, wrapped in linen, with beeswax covering her eyes and ears, and whispered his farewell.
“I was a young man when I married you, and I spent my life with you. I rose to the highest rank but I never deserted you. I never caused you unhappiness. I never deserted you, from my youth to the time when I was holding all manner of important posts for Pharaoh. Nay, rather, I always said to myself, ‘She has always been my companion.’ Tell me now, what do I do?”
Amenhotep stood a moment longer, and then slowly, gently, he adorned the mummy. He covered the incision where they had removed her organs with a thick gold sheet inlaid with the oudja, the sacred eye with the power to heal wounds. Then he placed a copy of the Book of