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"The meeting will come to order." Fran Schneider raised the small wooden gavel and brought it down upon the tabletop with a sharp click. She nodded toward the partially open door. "Will somebody pull that closed, please? Thank you, Tammy. Now, let us all join hands and repeat the club pledge."
Hands reached out on all sides around the art room table and closed upon other hands, and a chorus of solemn voices rose softly to recite the words:
"I pledge myself to the spirit of sisterhood--and to warmth of friendship. I promise to do my best--as a member of the Daughters of Eve-- to follow the code of loyalty, love and service--laid out for womankind since time's beginning--and to divulge to no one words spoken in confidence--within this sacred circle."
There was a moment of silence. Then the hands released each other, and there was a shuffle of bodies shifting position to sit back more comfortably in the hard, straight-backed chairs.
Something is wrong.
Wrong, how?
I don't know. I can't put my finger on it.
Then it can't be anything very important, can it?
It was a habit of Tammy Carncross's to have discussions with herself within her head. Sometimes she felt there must really be two parts of her, two distinct personalities, one the thinking part, one going strictly on emotions. As she sat now, silent, watching the initiation take place, the two voices within her head picked back and forth at each other like bickering children, and Tammy longed to tell them, "Hush. Be quiet. I'm trying to enjoy the ceremony."
The shades at the art-room windows had been drawn, and three white candles had been lighted. Before them, Fran had placed an open Bible from which she read aloud:
"And Ruth said, 'Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God."
It was a moving ceremony. The three new members stood with bent heads, and the light from the candles flickered softly upon their faces and threw leaping shadows on the far wall.
"Such is the spirit of sisterhood--"
Something is wrong.
You have no reason for thinking that.
I have this feeling--
What could it be--?
And then she saw it, thick and dark, dripping from one of the candles like melted wax. The word flashed through her mind like a high-pitched scream--BLOOD!
Could nobody else see it? Evidently not. Or perhaps they simply did not want to see.
