| Gallows Hill | |
|---|---|
| Author(s) | Lois Duncan |
| Cover artist | Roy Volkmann |
| Country | USA |
| Language | English |
| Subject(s) | Salem Witch Trials |
| Genre(s) | Supernatural Thriller |
| Publisher | Bantam Doubleday Dell |
| Publication date | 1998 |
| Media type | Paperback |
| Pages | 227 |
Gallows Hill (1997) is a supernatural thriller novel for young adults by Lois Duncan. It was her first and so far only young adult novel written after the death of her daughter. It was written eight years after her previous young adult novel, Don't Look Behind You. It is about a girl who moves to a small town with a secret.
Sarah Zoltanne is an extra ordinary girl. Her mother, Rosemary, decides to move to Pinecrest because of Ted Thompson. When Sarah starts school as the new pupil, she makes no friends.
Eric Garrett convinces Sarah to play a fortune teller at the fortune telling booth. He says it is to benefit the prom and she would be perfect because she is new and almost no one knows her. Sarah accidentally agrees while having a strange vision at home. At the carnival, Kyra feeds her information on the customers coming in. Sarah uses an old paperweight that belonged to her grandmother as her crystal ball.
The night is going well until Sarah does a reading for a boy named Charlie Gorman. When reading for him, she sees a vision in the paperweight of Charlie falling down a flight of stairs. Sarah quickly closes down the booth and leaves.
She becomes friends with Charlie, and discovers that he believes in reincarnation and past lives. Sarah starts writing a history paper about the Salem Witch Trials, and begins having dreams and visions in which she is participating in the trials. Charlie tells her he thinks that everyone in the town participated in the trials, and they are back together to finish something.
Meanwhile, Eric convinces her to start doing readings as a business, but things start going down hill when Sarah makes the popular cheerleaders angry and keeps seeing visions about people. The cheerleaders become convinced that Sarah is a witch. Sarah receives threats, such as a sketch of a gallows and a dead crow in her locker. In desperation, she goes to the principal, and then Ted and her mother. Neither party does anything to help her.
Later, Ted forces Sarah to go to a party with Kyra. Eric comes by to pick up Sarah for the party, but she has changed her mind about it. Eric persuades her to come out and apologize to Kyra, but she is forced into the car and brought to the party. Eric and the others take Sarah to Garrote Hill, in the middle of Pine Crest, where many drunk students are waiting. The students begin acting strangely and calling the place Gallows Hill, the place in Salem, Massachusetts where the witches of the trials were hanged. They try to hang Sarah, but Charlie intervenes, and the students suddenly relive their past lives in Salem before attacking Charlie. Sarah almost ends up getting hanged until Ted saves her.
Sarah and Rosemary decide to move back to California, and Sarah realizes that in a past life, she was Betty Parris, the young girl who brought about the Salem Witch Trials. She leaves Charlie with a night of passion, and gives him the paperweight. It was once cloudy, but now it is 'clear and transparent as window glass'.
A TV-movie called I've Been Waiting For You (1998), loosely based on the novel, was made. It was an NBC Movie of the Week and starred Sarah Chalke, Markie Post, Ben Foster, and Soleil Moon Frye.