CHAPTER XIX
UP where the lilacs grew, Miss Sylvia Selmore, attired in shimmering white, was acting as the high-priestess of a fanciful woodland cult that was the product of her own deluded brain. Surrounding Sylvia were cult members who included fanatics like herself, plus a few who weren’t.
Margo Lane belonged to the normal contingent as did Arlene Forster. Perhaps that was why they studied each other so askance. In fact their mutual suspicion was so great that neither noticed another girl, who wore a long dark cape as black as her glossy hair. Thara Lamoyne was very capable at making herself inconspicuous when she wanted.
From far away, tiny twinkles of light appeared through the lilacs above the gray rock which formed the stepping off place to the pool below. The cult members were here, in the little glen that sloped gently down behind the rock.
A happy shriek escaped Sylvia:
“Canhywllah Cyrth! Canhywllah Cyrth!”
Everybody crowded forward, especially some portly mediums who wanted to claim a share in the uncanny manifestation. Margo and Arlene were both elbowed well apart. Thara however expected the forward shove. She was already edging away, stooping as she started a circuit through the trees.
Thara was clever. As she neared the last low shrub that flanked the moonlit rock, she lowered her head and gave her hair a forward sweep that sent it in a shaggy mass across her face. A downward motion of her hands slipped the cape from her shoulders; then, as the cape hooked the shrubbery, Thara’s hands rose to sweep her hair into a temporary fluff. Drawing the cloak like a curtain, Thara let it fly back with the branches that gripped it, as she made a pirouette upon the rock above the pool.
“Gwrach y Rhibyn! Gwrach y Rhibyn!”
Miss Sylvia shrilled the happy news while others stood amazed. So cleverly had Thara worked her arrival, it seemed that she had really sprung up out of the rock, or had materialized herself from among the floating moonbeams.