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Skye's mother, Jessie Dancer, is abducted from her home and held captive by a disturbed killer who calls himself a "prospector" when Skye and her brother were only babies. Her abductor eventually drowns Jessie in the "haunted" Lake Odawa, but keeps her daughter (she was pregnant at the time, though no one knew) Summer in a pit in a cave up on Wolf's Head Mountain. The book covers twenty years in the life of Charlie Crane, his real name, reclusive mountain man and murderer of many as his mind slowly deteriorates. At times, he completely forgets about the girl down in the pit.
Then comes the storm of the century. Skye, Rider (a close friend) and a boy called Snake, after many terrifying experiences, rescue the girl from the rising waters in the pit where she has somehow survived for the past fifteen years. Skye is in for the surprise of her life!
As the platform slowly rises up from the black pit, Skye screams. The girl who crouches there is the exact image of herself.
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Excerpt from SKYE DANCER: "Leave me alone! Get away from me!" Puffing and panting, the young girl scrambled off toward the water's edge. "No, no!" But she covered her mouth with one hand as she ran and giggled silently behind it. "Help! Help me, Somebody!" She had a difficult time muffling the laughter that managed to escape through her fingers at intervals. The gangly teenage boy playfully stumbled after his girlfriend. They always played their little games. It was fun. Kind of a ritual. "Stay away, you beast!" But Beverly tripped over a fallen limb and went down hard, nearly knocking the breath out of herself. She continued crawling toward the shoreline in mock fear. Willy tripped then, too, over a half-buried root in the shifting sand, unseen in the near total darkness. Shuffling after his girlfriend on hands and knees, he grabbed hold of Bev's shoe. She kicked at him and he was left holding one worn clog in his hand. He tossed it aside and, crouching low, warned, "I'll get you! You can't outrun the Beast! I'll catch you- and when I do -just you watch out!" Then came the exaggerated panting like a wild animal. Grinning broadly, Bev slowed down so the Beast could catch up to her. A small tee-hee escaped from between her lips. At the very edge of the rippling water now, the young girl heard a gurgling sound and she swung her head around. It was quickly followed by a low hissing, like air escaping from a tire. Squinting her eyes in the darkness, she could only make out hazy shapes, dark on dark. The shrouded figure hidden behind a scrawny fir with low hanging branches watched the young people in the clearing along the shore, heard the girl begging for help. How she pleaded, but her torturer kept after her, wouldn't let her have her freedom. Just as the boy rose to a crouching position, the shadowy figure covered the distance between them swiftly and silently. The long blade he held made a quick movement below its victim's jawline. The slit through the throat immediately gurgled blood and then air was released in one whooshing sound. The killer dropped to the ground and hunkered behind the still form of Willy Mack, former lover of Beverly Idle. Slowly, warily, still thinking Will was adding a new twist to their game, Bev placed one foot in front of the other back the way she had come. Ouch! Forgot she lost a shoe back there. Ow! Damn. Slowly, she crept forward, her eyes darting everywhere, seeing nothing. Did she hear quiet breathing? Or was it her own shallow panting? Terrified, she wasn't sure of anything. "Willy?" she asked hesitatingly. "Beastie Boy?" Whispering shakily now, she took one more step on the sandy surface. A twig snapped sounding like a gunshot in the hush of night. Don't be scaring me now, Willy Boy, she thought, knowing she was already frightened out of her wits. He wouldn't do this to her....why is it so damn dark! Something grabbed her ankle in a grip so fast and firm, the girl could not utter a sound. A scream lay caught in her throat, paralyzed with a fear so great, it rendered her speechless. The invisible hand held on for what seemed an eternity. She tried yanking herself away, but ceased the futile effort when she felt something tearing, giving way in her ankle and foot. Then she felt herself being dragged toward some unknown terror in the darkness. The butcher finally released his death grip on the girl and she sank down before him, petrified, immobile. As she lay there, making guttural sounds, the giant shadow yanked the boy's limp body up and held it obove the prone girl, where Willy's life blood flowed freely over her quivering form. Then he allowed it to drop like a sack of wet sand atop her. The ghostlike shape of a man disappeared into the night, having accomplished his hellish deed. When the hysterical girl was discovered early the next morning wandering glassy-eyed and covered in dripping blood, she didn't know who she was. She didn't know who the dead boy was. Or who the killer was. Maybe it was Santa Claus, she mumbled as they took her away. He sure must have been Santa Claus.
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