If Thine Eye Offend Thee

In the snowy woods of Northern Ontario, two stories are fusing into one. One is contemporary; the other as old it seems as time itself. In the first, twelve students are rehearsing Shakespeare's Macbeth during a freak snowstorm which has them trapped in their school and worrying about "the curse of the Scottish play" as it affects not only their production but their lives. Their fears are hardly allayed by their teachers who both have their private problems-one with a fear of accepting responsibility, the other with an irrational terror of blizzards. One student in particular has the greatest cause to fear, for she knows that a vicious avenger known as the Storm Gatherer is stalking her. Her family long ago sinned against the rules of their ancient clan and she, as the last survivor, must now pay the price. The blizzard can only mean that the avenger has found her and the bloody end is near. Thus the words--"Pine Hollow District High School has been deserted since that first Friday in December. Perhaps--some residents of nearby North Ridge say--for a day or two longer than that. No one alive knows for sure. And the dead may walk, but they aren't talking"--may serve equally as both an appropriate prologue and epilogue to If Thine Eye...