HAUNTED BY THE PAST, PART FIVE

"We found Rachel's car out at the airport." she told the family.

"I suppose Joe thinks that proves she left town all by herself!" said Paulina.

"Even Joe would have a hard time explaining why she wiped all the prints first!"

****

The book Rachel had been given to read was The Mysteries of Udolpho by Mrs Anne Radcliffe. She had heard of it - the heroine of Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey reads it and is greatly impressed - but had never seen a copy before. She knew that Mrs Radcliffe had been the Felicia Gallant of her day, a writer of popular fiction of international renown.

Tastes in literature, like tastes in almost everything, change drastically over the course of two centuries. Udolpho concerned the adventures of a girl named Emily, who was badly in need of a personality transplant. In the first chapters, her mother died, and then her father died, and she had to go and live with a mean aunt. Emily's reaction to these events was to write excruciatingly bad poetry.

Things picked up, slightly, when Emily reached the sinister castle of Udolpho, although she had an annoying tendency to faint ( proof of her exquisite sensibility) whenever anything interesting happened.

Rachel considered tossing the book off the balcony. If she really tried, she could probably send it right over the cliff to a watery grave! But at least trying to read it kept her from brooding.

"Are you enjoying the book?" Stark asked when he brought her lunch.

"Not much!" said Rachel, "Although there is one paragraph that really spoke to me."

She opened the book to the page she had marked, and read Emily's words (spoken to a villain who wanted to carry her off): "I am now in your power, but you will observe, that this is not the conduct which can win the esteem you appear so solicitous to obtain. Do you believe your heart to be so hardened that you can look without emotion on the suffering to which you would condemn me?"

Rachel shut the book with a bang, and gave Stark a challenging look.

"I don't want you to suffer, Amalie." said Stark.

"But I am suffering!" said Rachel, "Locked up here - knowing that my family must be frantic with worry! If you won't let me go, or let me call them, please let me write them a letter, so at least they'll know I'm still alive!" She fell to her knees. "I'm begging you!"

"If I do permit you to write," said Stark, taking Rachel's hands and raising her to her feet, "I would have to read the letter before it was sealed."

"Yes! Anything!"

****

"I'm going to put Grandma's picture on the internet." said Allie, "Someone must have seen her! How big a reward should I offer for information?"

"A million dollars!" said Paulina.

"I think a hundred thousand would be enough." said Amanda, "To most people, that's a fortune."

****

Stark wasn't going to make this easy for Rachel. He had given her a fountain pen ( at least it wasn't a quill!) and a single sheet of paper. No rough drafts, then; Rachel was going to have to think very carefully before setting pen to paper. This might be the only chance she would get to send a message to her children.