I was worried about my grief over the loss of Regan affecting my relationship with Marin, but was encouraged when she and our neighbour Charly seemed to hit it off as friends
I was hoping my life would return to some semblance of mormality and Charly and Mar could be friends and close int he same way Reagan and Charly were.
But I couldn’t help feeling something was wrong when I got back from horeseback riding and Mar still hadn’t returned from her visit with Charly.
I decided to ride over to Charly’s house to check on he girls but Charly’s uncle said they went to visit the local ruins but hadn't returned.
Now I was really concerned.
I headed in the direction of the ruins and then on impulse, changed my mind and spurred my horse toward the ridge— the place where Reagan suffered her fatal fall.
I tied up my mount at the base of the cliff and began the steep climb to the summit.
The wind picked up and I saw the first red streak of lightning. I pressed on and when I got to about twenty feet from the top I heard a terrified scream. It sounded like Marin.
I scrambled up the loose rock of the path, slipping and falling twice in my haste and made it to the top in time to see the two women struggling in the wind, grappling as if wrestling.
“Mar!” I cried out.
The two women froze and turned toward me. Charly had a wild look on her face as if her features had distorted.
“Help me, Jess,” Mar cried, backing away from the crazed Charly.
‘It’s over now,” Charly shouted against the wind, “you’ve ruined everything.”
She picked up a heavy tree limb that was lying on the ground and came at Mar swinging it like a baseball bat. Mar slipped as she fell backwards just as Charly swung the limb with all her might.
The blow missed Mar but threw Charly off balance. She stumbled forward onto her hands and knees, as I watched in horror, frozen to my spot.
Charly was deranged—blind with anger. She reached for the limb again and stumbled to her feet, but as she righted herself to swing a fatal blow, she lost her balance and stumbled backwards, falling over the edge.
I hear a long wail I thought was from Charly, but realized it was Mar, pitched forward into a crouch as if she had been kicked in the stomach. By the time I got to her she was moaning and incoherent.
I half-carried her back from the verge of the ledge, and tried to calm her, but all she could do was groan and repeat Regan’s name over and over as if she were lost in a nightmare—which no doubt was.
It took hours before the medics had calmed her enough to be coherent. A policewoman began to question her and try to piece together the fragments of her story.
Mar insisted I sit beside her while she gave her statement.
“When I got to Charly’s I was expecting coffee, but Charly insisted we drink wine. We drank enough that Charly got drunk and said too much.”
“What do you mean by that?” the policewoman asked.
“I mean she started telling me how she worshipped Regan and tried to be like her. I saw her room—all the pictures of Regan—it was spooky. It made me feel sick inside. I told her we should go for a hike—I just had to get out of there, Jess.”
I patted her hand. “It’s all right, Mar—just tell the policewoman what happened.”
“She took me on a hike, but we didn’t go to the ruins—we ended up at the cliff. She asked me if you told me what happened there and I said yes, and she began to laugh.”
“Go on, Mar,” I encouraged her.
“It was the weirdest thing, Jess—her face changed—I mean she sort of shape-shifted into the likeness of Regan I saw in those photographs. That’s when she began talking really crazy.”
“What did she say exactly?” the policewoman asked.
“She said Regan was no good—that she cheated on you, Jess. Charly told me that she had always loved you, and that she was meant to be with you. That’s why she became Regan, because she knew Regan pleased you.”
Became Regan? I mused inwardly as the horror overcame me and I started to feel nauseous.
There was something more than jealousy here—a suffocating sense of evil and danger…
My whole world seemed to fall apart in that instant and nothing made sense any more.
I felt as if Regan had returned from the dead determined to possess me for herself.
I felt as if everything around me was swimming as I crouched forward trying to clear my head, fighting horror and a suffocating sense of despair..
