JOHN SAUL
Lush and deceptively tranquil, the secluded
island basks in splendid isolation off the South
Carolina coast-as does
the Devereaux mansion, a once-great plantation house
now crumbling amid the ancient oaks. Now, for the
first time in two decades, Kevin Devereaux has
returned here with his wife and children to visit Kevin's
hated, frightening mother. She said she was ill-but
is that really why the old woman has summoned the
son
she has not seen in so many years?
Suddenly, horribly, one of the Devereauxs is going
to die.
And now, all the dark secrets of this once-proud
Southern family will emerge to wrap their evil around

unsuspecting children. Until, in the shadowed
corridors and dust-covered rooms of the decaying
old
house, they learn the true terror of..
"SAUL HAS THE INSTINCTS OF A
NATURAL STORYTELLER."
-People
Don't miss any of the chilling novels by
JOHN SAUL
THE GOD PROJECT NATHANIEL
BRAINCHILD
HELLFIRE
THE UNWANTED
THE UNLOVED
CREATURE
SLEEPWALK
SECOND CHILD
DARKNESS
SHADOWS
Available wherever
BANTAMBOOKS
Bantam Books are sold
"There are some things best left alone.
What could Ruby have meant? What could there be
in a nursery that required that it be kept locked
up?
Anne reached for the ring of keys that hung inside the
door. The soft clink as it came free from the hook
seemed to echo loudly through the kitchen, and she quickly
silenced the sound with her hand, then hurried back
toward the stairs.
She could sense something different as soon as she reached
the second floor landing. She paused once more,
listening, but the house was quiet, and outside the
insects had begun softly chirping once again. And
yet, as she started along the corridor toward the
door to the nursery, a sense of unease- stronger
than the vague guilt she had felt
earlier-pervaded her mind.
Perhaps she should give it up, and simply put the
nursery out of her mind. But she knew she couldn't.
Steeling herself for whatever she might find, she walked
quickly to the locked nursery door. The eighth key
fit. She twisted it in the lock, then turned the
knob and pushed the door open a crack.
Inside, the room was pitch black, and Anne
felt along the wall for a light switch. A moment
later the room filled with a brilliant white
light, and Anne pushed the door wide.
And screamed.
By John Saul:
SUFFER THE CHILDREN
PUNISH THE SINNERS
CRY FOR THE STRANGERS
COMES THE BLIND FURY
WHEN THE WIND BLOWS
THE GOD PROJECT
NATHANIEL
BRAINCHILD
HELLFIRE
THE UNWANTED
THE UNLOVED
CREATURE
SECOND CHILD
SLEEPWALK
DARKNESS
SHADOWS
GUARDIAN
THE HOMING
BLACK LIGHTNING
THE BLACKSTONE CHRONICLES:
Part 1-AN EYE FOR AN EYE: THE
DOLL
Part 2-TWIST OF FATE: THE
LOCKET
Part 3-ASHES TO ASHES: THE DRAGON'S
FLAME
Part 4-IN THE SHADOW OF EVIL: THE
HANDKERCHIEF
Part 5-DAY OF RECKONING: THE
STEREOSCOPE
Part 6-ASYLUM
THE PRESENCE
And now available
John Saul's latest tale of terror
THE RIGHT HAND OF EVIL
Published by Bantam Books Published
by Fawcett Books Published by Dell Books
THE
UNLOVED
JOHN SAU-LIKE
BANTAM BOOKS NEW YORK -Toronto
LONDON SYDNEY AUCKLAND
A
Bantam Book July 1988
All rights reserved
Copyright
[*copy]
1988 by John Saul.
Cover art copyright [*copy] 1988 by Lisa
Falkenstem.
No part of this book may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying, recording, or by any
information storage and retrieval system, without
permission in
writing from the publisher. For information address:
Bantam Books
If you purchased this book without a cover you should be
aware that
this book is stolen property. It was reported as
"unsold and
destroyed" to the publisher and neither the author nor the
publisher
has received any payment for this "stripped book."
ISBN 0-553-27261-6
Published simultaneously in the United States
and Canada
Bantam Books are published by Bantam
Books, a division of Random House, Inc Its
trademark, consisting of the words "Bantam Books"
and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in
U.s. Patent and Trademark Office and
in other countries Marca Registrada. Bantam
Books, 1540 Broadway, New York,
New York 10036.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF
AMERICA
For Michael, Jane, and Linda
May the second decade be as wonderful as the first
She was in the darkness somewhere, moving slowly toward
him. Though he couldn't see her-he never saw her,
never until the last minute-he could feel her coming.
It was almost as if he could smell her, but that wasn't
it either, for the smell-the strange musky odor that
filled his nostrils-" his own fear, not the scent of
her.
He wanted to hide from her, but knew that he couldn't.
He'd tried that before and it had never worked. And yet
now, as he felt her presence creeping ever closer,
he tried to remember why he'd never been able
to hide.
Nothing came into his mind. No memories; no
images. Just the certain knowledge that he'd tried to hide
before, and failed.
But maybe this time . . .
He tried to think, tried to remember where he was.
But again there was no memory, no feeling of
place. Only the blackness curling around him,
making him want to shrink into himself and disappear.
Suddenly a streak of light cut through the darkness, and
he shaded his eyes with a hand, trying to shield himself from
the stabbing glare. Then, through the blinding light, he
saw the angry visage, the woman's hate-twisted
face as she stared down at him.
The door was pulled wider, and the light surrounded
him, washing away the shadows that had failed to hide
him. The woman stood before him, and though she didn't
speak, his hands dropped away from his face and he
looked directly up at her.
"Why are you here?" he heard her demand. "You know
I don't want you here!"
He tried to think, tried to remember where he was.
He looked around furtively, hoping the woman
wouldn't see his eyes flickering about as if he might
be searching for a means to escape.
The room around him looked strange-unfinished-the
rough wood of its framing exposed under the tattered
remains of crumbling tarpaper. He'd been in this
place before-he knew that now. Still, he didn't know
where the room was, or what it might be.
But he knew the woman was angry with him again, and in
the deepest recesses of his mind, he knew
what was going to happen next.
The woman was going to kill him.
He wanted to cry out for help, but when he opened his
mouth, no scream emerged. His throat constricted,
cutting off his breath, and he knew if he couldn't
fight the panic growing within him, he would strangle
on his own fear.
The woman took a step toward him, and he cowered,
huddling back against the wall. A slick sheen of
icy sweat chilled his back, then he felt cold
droplets creeping down his arms. A shiver passed
over him, and a small whimper escaped his lips.
His sister.
Maybe his sister would come and rescue him.
But she was gone-something had happened to her, and he was
alone now.
Alone with his mother.
He looked fearfully up.
She seemed to tower above him, her skirt held
back as if she were afraid it might brush against him
and be soiled. Her hands were hidden in the folds of the
skirt, but he knew what they held.
The axe. The axe she would kill him with.
He could see it then-its curved blades glinting in
the light from the doorway, its long wooden
handle clutched in his mother's hands. She wasn't
speaking to him now, only
staring at him. But she didn't need to speak, for he
knew what she wanted, knew what she'd always
wanted.
"Love me," he whispered, his voice so
tremulous that he could hear the words wither away as
quickly as they left his lips. "Please love me.
. . ."
His mother didn't hear. She never heard, no matter
how many times he begged her, no matter how often he
tried to tell her he was sorry for what he'd done.
He would apologize for anything-he knew that. If
only she would hear him, he'd tell her whatever she
wanted to hear. But even as he tried once more, he
knew she wasn't hearing, didn't want to hear.
She only wanted to be rid of him.
The axe began to move now, rising above him,
quivering slightly, as if the blade itself could
anticipate the splitting of his skull, the crushing
of his bones as they gave way beneath the weapon's
weight. He could see the steel begin its slow
descent, and time seemed to stand still.
He had to do something-had to move away, had to ward off
the blow. He tried to raise his arms, but
even the air around him seemed thick and unyielding
now, and the blade was moving much faster than he was.
Then the axe crashed into his skull, and suddenly
nothing made sense anymore. Everything had turned
upside down.
It was his mother who cowered on the floor, gazing
fearfully up at him as he brought the blade slashing
down upon her.
It was he who felt the small jar of resistance as the
axe struck her skull, then moved on, splitting
her head like a melon. A haze of red rose up
before him, and he felt fragments of her brains
splatter against his face.
He opened his mouth and, finally, screamed-
He was sitting straight up in bed, the sheets
tangled around him, his body clammy with the same icy
sweat he'd felt in the dream. Before him the image
of his mother's shattered skull still hung in the darkness,
then was washed away as the room filled with light.
"Kevin?" he heard his wife ask, then felt her
hand on his arm. "Kevin, what is it? Are you all
right?"
Kevin Devereaux shook off the last vestiges of the
dream and got out of bed. Though the mid-July night
was hot, he was shivering. He wrapped himself
in a robe before he answered Anne, his voice
hoarse. "It was a dream. I thought my mother was trying
to kill me, but in the end, I killed her." He
turned to face her. "I killed her," he
repeated, his voice echoing oddly. "I killed my
mother."
"But it was only a dream," Anne replied. She
reached over and fluffed up his crumpled pillow, then
tugged the sheets straight. "Come back to bed and
forget it. We all have strange dreams, but they
don't mean anything. Besides," she added, "the way you
feel about your mother, I'm amazed you don't have that
dream every night."
Kevin tried to force a smile he didn't feel.
"I did, for a while," he said. "When I was a
kid I used to wake up with it all the time. They
finally had to give me a private room at
school, because my roommate said I screamed so loud
he couldn't sleep. But I haven't had it since
I was sixteen or seventeen. I thought it was over
with."
Anne patted the spot next to her on the bed.
"Now, come on. Whatever brought it on, it's all
over with now, and you've got to get some sleep."
But Kevin only shook his head and knotted
the belt of the robe around his waist. "It was different
this time," he said. "When I was little I always dreamed
Mother was trying to kill me, and I always woke up just
before it happened. But this time it all changed. This time,
right at the end, I was killing her, and I didn't
wake up until she was dead."
Anne's eyes met his, and the smile that had been
playing tentatively at the corners of her mouth
disappeared. "You're serious, aren't you?" she asked.
"You really think it means something."
Kevin spread his hands helplessly. "I wish I
knew," he said. "I just have this feeling that maybe
something's happened to her." He glanced at the
clock, wondering if he ought to call his sister, then
dismissed the idea. At three-thirty in the morning
all he would do was give her a good scare.
But he knew he couldn't go back to sleep. Not
yet.
Not until he had thought about the dream, thought about what
it might mean, figured out why, after all these years,
it had come back to him. He leaned down and brushed
Anne's lips with his. "Go back to sleep,
honey. I'm going to go down and raid the
refrigerator."
Anne gazed at him for a moment, her eyes
reflecting her concern. "If you're going to sit down
there and brood, you'd tell me, wouldn't you?"
Kevin chuckled in spite of himself, and kissed her
again. "All right, so maybe I'm going to brood a
little bit. I'm forty years old, and I have a right
to brood, don't I? Now go back to sleep, and
don't worry about me. I'll be fine."
He switched off the lamp on Anne's bed table,
slipped out the door and moved silently down the
hall past his children's rooms, then down the stairs.
But instead of going to the kitchen, he went into the living
room and settled himself into his favorite chair-a
big leather wing chair just like the one in the library, when
he was growing up.
Just like the
one
his mother had never let him sit in.
But he was forty years old now, and his mother was nearly
eighty, and he should have forgotten about that chair-and
everything else-a long time ago.
And he thought he had, until tonight.
Now he realized that he hadn't forgotten anything, and
that the dream had, indeed, meant something.
It meant that he still hated his mother as much as he ever
had. He still wished she were dead.
Lucinda Willoughby jerked awake and
instinctively glanced at the large man's watch on
her wrist. Three-thirty, which meant she'd been
asleep for more than two hours. Not that it mattered,
really, for the old woman in the bed across the room
usually slept straight through the night, and Lucinda
didn't see what difference it could make if she
herself dozed off for a few minutes. And she certainly
had a right to, considering the way Helena Devereaux
treated her. After all, she was a nurse, not a
servant.
Her nap properly rationalized, Lucinda was just
reopening the book that had fallen closed in her lap
when the sound that had roused her from her catnap was
repeated.
"Don't you hear me, missy?" Helena's
querulous voice demanded. "I don't pay you
to sleep all night, you know!"
The book snapped shut, and Lucinda heaved herself
to her feet. "I wasn't sleeping, ma'am," she
began, but then fell silent at the wrath she saw in
Mrs. Devereaux's eyes.
"Don't tell me what you were doing," the old
woman snapped. "I'm not dead yet, and I'm not
blind!" Helena Devereaux was sitting bolt
upright now, and Lucinda could see her reaching for the
glass of water on the table next to the bed. Moving
more quickly than her bulk should have allowed, the nurse
snatched up the glass just before the old woman's
fingers could close around it.
"How dare you?" Helena hissed. "You give me that
this instant, do you hear?"
Taking a deep breath and counting silently to ten,
Lucinda reluctantly handed the water glass to her
patient.
Instantly, Helena hurled the contents of the glass
into the nurse's face, then flung the glass across the
room, where it shattered against the wall. "Now where is
he?" Helena demanded. "Where is Kevin?"
Lucinda gasped, staring in shock at the old
woman. She knew who Kevin was-there wasn't
anyone in Devereaux, South Carolina, who
didn't. But he hadn't been there in years, and how
could Lucinda Willoughby be expected to know where he
was?
"I want him," Helena rasped, her voice
trembling. "I'm dying, and I want to see my
son before it's too late. I want to see him!"
Suddenly Lucinda thought she understood, and reached out
to take the old woman's shriveled hand in
her own. "Now, Miss Helena, you just calm
down," she said in her best professional voice.
"You're not going to die, not while I'm taking care
of you. I've never lost a patient yet, and I
sure don't intend to start with you." As she talked,
she took the old woman's pulse. It was
slightly erratic, but Lucinda knew that was only
a symptom of the old woman's anger, not an
imminent heart attack.
"I won't calm down," Helena snapped, jerking
her hand away. "I'm dying, and you know it! I want
to see Kevin before I die!" Her voice rose to a
high-pitched screech, and her eyes searched the table
for something else to throw. "You get him for me, do you
hear? It's your job, you lazy, good-for-nothing-"
"Mother! Mother, what's wrong?"
Helena's eyes snapped away from the nurse and
fixed on her daughter, who stood at the open door
to the room, clutching a robe to her bosom.
"Kevin!" she said once more. "I want Kevin.
I want to see him, and I want to talk to him!"
Marguerite Devereaux frowned, and glanced
inquiringly at Lucinda, who could only shrug
helplessly. Helena Devereaux did not miss the
silent exchange, and her eyes blazed with
renewed fury. "Don't either of you understand plain
English?" she demanded. "I'm dying, and I want
to see my son!" She fell back against the
pillows, her angry outburst having drained her
energies. Her frail bosom heaved erratically and
her breathing took on the labored raling of
approaching death. Instantly Lucinda Willoughby
grasped her wrist, her strong fingers feeling once
more for the old woman's pulse. A second later
she found it, fluttering wildly as the pumping of her
heart raged out of control.
"A glass of water, Miss Marguerite," she
ordered. "Quickly." Her anger forgotten, she
gently lifted the old lady into a slightly raised
position, plumping up the pillows behind her. By the time
Marguerite returned from the bathroom, Lucinda
had Helena's medicine ready. She deftly slid
the pills between her patient's thin lips, then held
the glass as the old woman sucked in enough water
to wash the pills down. A moment later Helena
Devereaux's breathing returned to normal and her
pulse evened out. Only when Lucinda was certain the
immediate danger had passed did she signal
Marguerite into the hall with her eyes.
"What happened?" Marguerite asked
anxiously when Lucinda had pulled the door shut.
"I don't know. I'd fallen asleep, and when I
woke up, she was screaming at me."
"But why?" Marguerite pressed. Then, remembering
her
mother's words, she reached out to grasp the nurse by the
arm. "Is it true?" she asked, her voice
trembling. "Is she dying?"
Lucinda Willoughby hesitated only a moment,
then nodded. "She could have died just now," she said. She
paused, then decided there was no reason not to go on.
"It's her temper, Miss Marguerite. If
she'd just learn to stay calm, she could go on for years
yet. But she won't. She'll keep flyin" off
the handle at folks, and every time she does, she'll just
make herself worse. Since we all know she isn't
going to change, we better face up to the fact that
she's going to die."
Marguerite stood perfectly still for a moment, letting
the nurse's words sink in. She knew, of course,
that it was true-had known it for years now. Her mother
couldn't live forever. But there had always been something about
the old woman that seemed eternal; Marguerite
couldn't quite imagine the house she'd lived in all her
life without her mother's presence. And yet, a
few minutes before, she'd seen mortality in her
mother's face, seen death stroking the old woman's
sunken cheeks.
And her mother had been demanding to see Kevin.
It was the first time Helena Devereaux had spoken her
son's name in more than twenty years.
Marguerite turned away from the nurse and started
slowly along the wide second-floor corridor
toward her own room. Almost unconsciously her right
hand went to her hip, her fingers pressing at the pain.
The sharp stabbing, like a hot knife driven deep
into the bone, had been part of her life for so many years
that she rarely noticed it anymore. Except that
tonight it seemed even sharper than usual, and she could
feel the lameness in her right leg shooting all the
way down into her ankle.
Resolutely she put the pain out of her mind and
tried to straighten her gait. At the door to her
room she felt a touch on her shoulder and turned
to see Ruby, the woman who had been in the house
even before Marguerite was born, looking anxiously
at her, her large, dark eyes reflecting her
worry.
"What is it, Miss Marguerite?" Ruby asked
softly. "Is it Miss Helena?"
Marguerite nodded and managed a sympathetic
smile. "I'm afraid so, Ruby. I think-I
think I'm going to have to call Kevin in the morning and
ask him to come."
A slight gasp escaped Ruby's lips. "She
asked for him? She spoke his name?"
Once again Marguerite nodded. "I wonder," she
breathed, more to herself than to the old housekeeper. "I
wonder if he'll come."
Ruby's lips pursed and her eyes narrowed.
"He'll come," she replied. "And you won't need
to call him, Miss Marguerite. He already knows
Miss Helena's bad off."
Marguerite tipped her head slightly, examining
Ruby's dark face in the soft glow of the tarnished
brass sconces that lined the hallway. What was she
talking about? "But he can't know," she said. "Ruby,
none of us have even talked to Kevin for years."
"Don't matter," Ruby replied, her voice
stolid. "He knows what's happening with his mother.
He's a Devereaux, and that's the end of it. You see
if I'm not right, Miss Marguerite. You see if
he doesn't call himself, come morning." Without
waiting for a reply, Ruby turned away and a moment
later disappeared down the back stairs to her
room, next to the kitchen.
When she was gone, Marguerite retreated into her own
bedroom, closing the door behind her. She took off
the robe and slid back into her bed, pulling only a
sheet over her body. Even the worn cotton
felt heavy in the humid warmth of the summer night,
but she left it where it was, taking a faint
reassurance from its closeness. Outside, the droning
of insects and tree frogs all but screened out the
soft murmuring of the sea a few hundred yards
away, and the sweet perfume of honeysuckle
drifted around her.
She thought about Kevin then. It would be good to see him
again, good to meet his family. He'd been gone far
too long, and though she'd never told her mother, she'd
missed him terribly.
But did it have to be her mother's death that brought him
home?
It wasn't fair. She shouldn't have to lose her mother
to regain her brother.
Still, she had to come to grips with the fact that her mother was
going to die, whether Kevin came home or not.
It was a fact of life, and life was to be dealt with.
And whatever happened, Marguerite had always dealt with
life as best she could, and never complained.
She would not begin complaining now.
She would accept comwhatever happened, and deal with it.
With the perfume of the honeysuckle and the sounds of the night
lulling her senses, she drifted into sleep.
In her own room, Helena Devereaux did not
sleep. Instead, she lay still in her bed, willing her
heart to keep beating smoothly, just as she had willed
most things in her life to happen according to her own
choices. Until the last few months her will had
been sufficient. But she was nearing the end now. She
could feel her strength slipping away from her, feel
her grip on Ruby and Marguerite loosening, just as
her grip on life was loosening too. Now, as she
lay in the darkness of her room, she wondered which she
hated most- the fact of dying, or the fact of losing
her control over events around her. Not that it
mattered, of course, for in the end it added up to the
same thing: death was the ultimate loss of control.
Memories drifted through her mind.
Her first meeting with Rafe Devereaux, when she'd
been only sixteen. Rafe had been ten years
older than she, darkly handsome and dashing, and he'd
promised her the world. But all he'd been able
to give her were the remnants of a worn-out plantation
and a family heritage that had been meaningless
to her. What did she care for Rafe's Huguenot
ancestors and their long-faded antebellum glory?
She'd assumed, during the first months after she'd
married him, that after a year or so he'd take her
to New York and use his influence on behalf of her
career. But it turned out that he had no influence beyond
Charleston, and even there the Devereauxes weren't on
the best social lists. Then Marguerite was born,
followed eight years later by Kevin, and her dreams
had slowly faded
away until all that was left of her dancing was the
lessons she gave to her daughter.
Then, when Kevin was seven, Rafe had given up
on life completely and killed himself. She'd
covered it up, of course, cutting his hanged body
down from the rafters in the barn and shoving it off the edge
of the hayloft herself. The doctor, as she'd intended,
had called his broken neck an accident, and never
even noticed the traces of rope burns on his
throat.
It wasn't until the next week that she'd
discovered that even in death Rafe Devereaux had done
nothing for her. The entire estate was left to her
only in trust. She could keep it until she died,
but then must pass it on, intact.
And so, in the fury that had sustained her from that day
forward, she'd banished her son to boarding school and
devoted her energies to Marguerite.
Marguerite, too, had failed her, and in the end-and
she knew now that the end was very near-she had been left
with nothing. Nothing but a weakening body that kept her
confined to bed most of the time now, and a weakening spirit that was
losing its ability to dominate. She could even see
it in their eyes. They weren't afraid of her
anymore, not really. They were only humoring her in
her last days.
Well, she wasn't through yet.
She might not be able to control Marguerite much
longer, but there was still Kevin.
She chuckled silently to herself as she realized that
now, in the end, her long-dead husband was finally going
to help her. In his own will he'd given her the tool
she needed to maintain her power, even after her body
submitted to its final failure.
The chuckle still echoing in her mind, she at last let
herself give in to sleep.
The first light of dawn was just beginning to turn the
eastern sky a silvery gray when Kevin heard the
creaking of floorboards in the foyer. A moment
later his daughter came into the room, rubbing
the last vestiges of sleep from her eyes. Kevin
watched her for a moment, marveling as he always did at
how much she looked like his sister.
Julie was fifteen now, and her light brown eyes
had taken on the same slant as Marguerite's.
Her dark, slightly wavy hair framed her
heart-shaped face in the same flattering manner that
Marguerite's had, and her body was even molding
into the same lithely muscular proportions that
Marguerite had had at the same age-the result of
endless hours at the ballet. But Marguerite had
practiced her ballet with a deep intensity that
Julie had never felt, and that neither Kevin nor
Anne had ever encouraged. Privately, though,
Kevin thought his daughter was already a better dancer
than his sister had ever been.
He smiled fondly at her in the brightening light.
"Shall I mark this day on the calendar? The day
Julie got up without anybody having to yell at
her?"
Julie grinned self-consciously and plumped herself
onto the sofa. "I had a nightmare," she
admitted, blushing slightly at the confession. "I
know it's dumb, but I was afraid to go back
to sleep."
"Join the club," Kevin offered. "I've been
sitting here since four o'clock, for exactly the same
reason, and I was just thinking of going back to bed."
He winked conspiratorially at his daughter. "On
the other hand, there's the possibility that the two of us
could whip up a truly fabulous breakfast and
surprise your mother and brother."
Julie grinned her reply and followed her father into the
kitchen, where she perched on a stool while he began
expertly preparing eggs Benedict. "How come you
never opened a restaurant? You cook better than
anybody else."
Kevin shrugged. "Economics. The restaurant
business is the fastest way to go broke ever invented
by man, and it always struck me that I'd rather feed you and
your brother off a steady income than wind up
broke feeding a bunch of strangers. Of course,
when you two grow up and your mother and I have thrown you
both out of here, I might change my mind."
Julie took the whisk her father handed her and began
stirring the Hollandaise sauce. "By then you'll be
too old, won't you?" she asked with carefully
studied innocence.
Kevin scowled deeply and did his best to sound
offended.
"I beg your pardon. In ten years I'll be
fifty. Fifty, in case you didn't know it, is
now considered the bare beginnings of middle age, and-"
Julie giggled, her eyes rolling." "And old
age doesn't start until eighty," she finished.
Then her voice suddenly turned serious. "But
don't you get tired of working for someone else?"
Once again Kevin shrugged. "The Shannon is a
good hotel, and I run it pretty well."
"But you wish you owned it," Julie stated flatly,
her eyes meeting his. "Jeff and I hear you and
Mom talking sometimes, you know."
"Children are snoopy creatures, and shouldn't listen
to things they're not supposed to hear," Kevin observed
mildly. "Besides, if the opportunity ever came
up, I'd open a restaurant-or, even better,
an inn-in a minute. But so far the opportunity
hasn't come up."
Julie grinned mischievously. "Maybe Grandma
will die and leave you a lot of money," she suggested,
then her eyes widened as she saw the blood drain from
her father's face.
Kevin turned to her, his voice tight and the muscles
in his jaw knotting. "That's a terrible thing to say."
"I-I'm sorry," Julie stammered.
"I didn't mean it. It was just a joke, Dad."
"Not a funny one," he told her, angry now.
"You should never joke about things like that-"
Suddenly Julie felt herself getting angry too.
"Why not?" she demanded. "You don't even
tike
Grandma! You're always talking about what a mean
person she is and how she makes Aunt
Marguerite take care of her. What's the big
deal if I make a joke about her?" She slid
off the stool and ran out of the kitchen.
For a long moment Kevin stayed where he was. He
should go after Julie and apologize to her, for he
knew what she'd said was the truth. If it hadn't
been for the dream, he wouldn't have reacted to her words as
he had. So the dream was still bothering him. He glanced
at the clock. It was almost six-thirty. Ruby would
be up, fixing breakfast for Marguerite and his mother.
If anything had happened, she would know.
Making up his mind, he reached for the phone. . . .
Ten minutes later he went slowly up the stairs
and woke Anne. As soon as she saw his face,
she knew something was terribly wrong.
"We have to go down there," Kevin said, his voice
flat. "I just talked to Marguerite. She
says Mother is dying and is asking for me. I can't
put it off any longer. I have to go home."
Anne looked at her husband in silence for a moment,
then pushed the covers aside and got out of bed.
So it was finally going to happen.
For the first time in the eighteen years of her marriage,
she was going to meet her husband's family.
"How much farther?" Jeff Devereaux demanded from the
back seat of the Dodge station wagon. Outside,
what seemed to him to be an endless expanse of flat
land dotted with mossy pine trees rolled past.
For the last two hours even looking at the wide sandy
beach between the left side of the road and the sea beyond had
bored him.
"You just asked that five minutes ago," Julie
told him. "So if it was fifteen minutes then, how
long is it now?"
"I wasn't asking you," Jeff retorted. "I was
asking Mom."
"It doesn't matter who you asked. It's still ten
minutes. Why can't you just be quiet and watch the
scenery like everyone else?"
Jeff glared at his older sister, wishing for the
millionth time that it were possible for an
eight-year-old boy to beat up a
fifteen-year-old girl. But whenever he'd tried,
Julie just held him away from her and started laughing,
which only made him madder. Well, maybe he
couldn't pound her, but he didn't have to let her boss
him around. "I don't have to do what you say," he
grumbled. "You don't know everything."
"And you don't know anything!" Julie shot back,
then realized that was probably exactly the
response Jeff had been hoping for. Before she could
say any more, Anne twisted around in the front seat
to give both her children a warning look.
"Ten more minutes," she said. "And we can do without
any quarrels for the rest of the trip. All right?"
"I didn't start it," Jeff piped. "All I
did was ask a question. How am I supposed to learn
anything if I can't ask questions? Dad always says-"
In spite of herself, Anne began laughing. "All
right, all right! I don't care who started it, I just
don't want it to go any further. And if you want
to ask questions, go ahead."
Jeff's response was instantaneous. "How come
we've never been here before?"
Once again Julie answered her brother's question before
her mother had a chance to say anything. "Because Dad
doesn't like Grandmother," she said.
"Why not?" Jeff pressed. "What's wrong with
her?"
Out of the corner of her eye Anne saw Kevin's
jaw tighten, and his knuckles whiten as he
squeezed the steering wheel. "It's not that," she said
quickly, hoping to distract Jeff's attention. "It's
just that it's a long way from Connecticut, and we've
never really had the time."
"But we go on a vacation every year," Jeff argued.
"Why couldn't we have come down here? It's a better
beach than the one on Cape Cod."
"I thought you liked False Harbor," Anne
replied, welcoming the chance to change the subject.
"It's okay," Jeff reluctantly agreed.
Then he spotted a sign as they passed it:
devereaux-10 miles. "Wow," he breathed. "Is
there really a whole town named after Dad?"
For the first time in more than an hour, Kevin spoke.
"It's not named after me," he said, his voice tight
and his words clipped. "It's named after my family,
and it's been there for a couple of hundred years. And
it's not much of a town."
The tone of his father's voice made Jeff glance
uneasily at his sister, but Julie didn't seem
to know what was wrong with their father either. "What's
wrong with it?" he finally ventured.
"In a few minutes you'll see," Kevin
replied. Then he lapsed back into the heavy silence
he had maintained all morning. For the next ten
miles no one in the car spoke.
And then, abruptly, Kevin pulled the car off the
road and stopped. "There it is," he said. "That's
Devereaux. That's where I grew up."
Jeff opened the back door and scrambled out, then
climbed to the top of a low bank that separated the
road from the beach.
Ahead, another half mile down the road, was a
worn
looking collection of buildings, some of them almost
hidden in a tangle of vines. He could see a
church steeple, an Exxon sign, and what looked
like a row of shabby stores. There was also a scattering
of houses, most of them fairly run-down, a few
of them clearly abandoned. He looked up at his
father, who was standing beside him now, Jeff's disappointment
clear on his face. "Is that all there is?" he
asked.
"It goes on for about half a mile," Kevin
told him. "But it all looks pretty much the
same. I suppose there are still a few
nice places, but it just keeps getting worse."
He smiled wryly. "Still want to spend your vacation
here?"
"But what happened to it?" Anne asked. "It
looks like it must have been a nice town once."
"It was," Kevin agreed. "A long time ago,
before I was born. Probably before my father was born.
It used to be cotton plantations, until the land
wore out."
"But which house is yours?" Julie asked. "Where do
Grandmother and Aunt Marguerite live?"
"Out there," Kevin said quietly, turning away from
the town and pointing to a low island two hundred yards
off shore, connected to the mainland by a narrow
causeway built up from the shallow seabed. "That's
Sea Oaks, where I grew up."
Julie's eyes widened as she stared at the immense
white house that dominated the north end of the island.
From where they stood, only the chimneys and a few
gables were visible, for the building was surrounded
by enormous live oak trees, their branches
heavily laden with streamers of Spanish moss.
Dotted among the oaks were a few white-blooming
magnolias and some pines, but it was the wide,
spreading branches of the ancient oaks themselves
that caught Julie's eye. They seemed to cradle
the house, as if trying to protect it from something.
"It-It's a mansion," she breathed. "It's a
white elephant," Kevin replied. "In its day
it served a purpose. Now it's just a huge house
that's outlived its usefulness, and unless something's
changed since last time I was here, it's getting just as
run-down as the rest of the town."
Julie cocked her head and looked up at her father
curiously. "But if Grandmother lives there, she must
be rich, isn't she?"
Kevin's lips twisted into a smile that was both wry
and bitter. "There hasn't been a rich Devereaux in
three generations," he replied. "My grandfather and my
father hung onto the island by selling off the rest of the
property bit by bit. A hundred years ago the
family owned most of the county, and before the Civil
War, a lot more. By now there can't be much left
except the island."
"Grandmother owns the whole island?" Jeff asked, his
voice reflecting his awe. "All of it?"
For the first time that day Kevin grinned, for he suddenly
remembered when he was Jeff's age and spent endless
days exploring the hundred fifty acres of the
island-discovering the ruined remains of the slave
quarters which were all but lost in the overgrown tangle
of vines that had long since been allowed to reclaim
the once cultivated tracts; combing the beaches after
storms, in search of lost treasures that might have
washed up; hunting the marshes and patches of forest for
rabbits, squirrels, and an occasional deer. For the
first time since he had grown up, he saw the island
through the eyes of a boy, and reached down to tousle
Jeff's blond hair. "Every acre of it," he
said. "And if you can't find anything to do out there, then
you're going to be condemned to a life of boredom."
His mood suddenly lighter, he winked at Anne.
"Come on. Let's go see just how bad things have
gotten in the decadent South."
A moment later the family was back in the car,
moving slowly toward Devereaux. As they came into the
town, it was apparent to Kevin that nothing had changed.
The main street was just as he remembered it, slowly
rotting away in the heat and humidity. There was a
somnolence about the place; even the people seemed to move
in slow motion. A dog slept in the middle of the
road, flies buzzing around its head, but even when
Kevin tooted the horn, the animal refused
to bestir itself, and finally Kevin had to maneuver the station
wagon around it.
It didn't occur to him until he had passed the
animal that it might be dead.
Just like the town, he reflected silently to himself. The
whole place is dead, but nobody's noticed.
The scratchy sounds of the final moments of
Swan Lake
emerged from the speaker of the old phonograph in the
corner of the ballroom on the third floor of Sea
Oaks, and Marguerite Devereaux glanced quickly at
the clock. For the first time in her memory, the
hour-long ballet class seemed to drag on
interminably and she was actually looking forward to her
girls going home. Of course, she'd had to leave
them twice already, going down to the second floor
to explain to her mother that they couldn't expect Kevin
to arrive much before eleven, and she knew that in letting
her excitement about Kevin's arrival distract her
from the lesson, she wasn't being fair to the girls.
The girls-only five of them this year-were the center
of Marguerite's life. Only when she was with them,
carefully passing on to them all the dancing
technique she herself had learned in her youth, was she
able to forget the pain in her hip. Indeed, sometimes when
she was teaching her girls, she would forget her ruined
hip completely and once more find herself
dancing as she had when she was young. Of course, it
wasn't the same-her movements weren't nearly as
smooth as they once had been-but the girls always
watched her carefully, seeing what she was trying to show
them, rather than what she was actually doing. And somehow,
despite the clumsiness her lame leg inflicted
upon her, they were able to understand what she wanted from them.
Often, after the class was over, the girls would stay
at Sea Oaks for a while, listening as Marguerite
talked to them about what a career in ballet could offer
them.
"It can be the key to the world," she would often say. "The
dance can take you anywhere you want to go. It can open a
world of music and art and beauty that no one else ever
sees."
And it was true, even for Marguerite, whose life as
a dancer had been cut short before it truly began.
For even here, in the faded elegance of the ballroom,
where no ball had been held for more than thirty
years, Marguerite could still escape into the music,
transporting herself to the great theatres of the world.
Sometimes she would imagine herself in the Royal
Ballet of Copenhagen, whirling across the stage of
that small jewel box of a theatre in the heart of a
city she had never seen but could clearly
imagine. And it was her dreams, as well as her knowledge,
that she was passing on to her students. They didn't have
to stay in Devereaux, didn't have to give up their
futures to the enervating torpor of the dying town.
And some of them hadn't. Three of her students had
gone on from her tiny classes on the third floor
of the ancient plantation house to study in New
York, Paris, and London. One of her girls
was a prima ballerina now, and in her room, hidden
away in the bottom drawer of her bureau,
Marguerite kept a scrapbook full of
clippings.
Once in a while, when she found a girl of
particular promise, she would take the scrapbook
out and share the treasured clippings. "This can be you,"
she would say. "All it takes is work, my dear,
and you can have everything."
With the work, Marguerite offered the girls endless
patience, giving them as many hours of her time as they
wanted, never too busy-or too tired-to
rehearse them one more time, until every movement of every
step was as perfect as she could make it.
Except today.
Today Kevin was coming, and though she was doing her best not
to let her impatience show, she knew the
girls could sense that something was taking her concentration from
their lesson. And so, as the last notes of
Swan Lake
faded away, she smiled, and clapped her hands
once in the gesture she always used to gain their
attention. "I think that will be all for today," she said.
"And I want to apologize to you. I know I
haven't been quite myself this morning, and I know it
hasn't been fair to you. But my brother is coming
today, and
I haven't seen him for nearly twenty years.
I'm afraid I'm a little excited.
The
harsh sound of the buzzer over the door sliced through her
words, the buzzer her mother could use to summon her in
an emergency. She smiled apologetically once
again. "I guess I'm talking too much, aren't
I? Well, thank you all for coming, and I'll try
to be better focused next week. All right?"
She started toward the door, pausing to speak to each
of the girls as they said good-bye to her. Jenny
Mayhew- Marguerite's favorite, though she
tried never to show it- hung back, pacing herself
automatically to match her teacher's slow step as they
made their way down the stairs.
"Does your brother have children?" Jenny asked when they
were halfway down.
Marguerite smiled at the girl. "As a matter of
fact, he does. A girl just your age, and an
eight-year-old boy." A hint of a smile played
around the corners of her mouth. "I suppose you were
hoping it might be a boy about your age, weren't you?"
Jenny flushed, but Marguerite chuckled softly.
"Don't try to fool me, Jenny. It wasn't
all that long ago that I was your age, and I can tell
you I'd a lot rather have had a new boy coming to town
than a new girl. It always seemed we had
entirely too many girls, and not enough boys to go
around."
Jenny's flush gave way to a grin. "I bet you
could have had any boy you wanted, Miss
Marguerite."
"Well, I won't say I didn't,"
Marguerite replied. "Of course, after my hip
went, so did the boys. It's amazing how
unpopular a limp can make you."
Jenny gasped in embarrassment, but Marguerite
only laughed again. "Oh, come on, it wasn't the
end of the world, even if it seemed like it at the time. And
if I hadn't had the accident, I wouldn't
be teaching, would I? And then I never would have gotten
to know all of you."
"But you would have had a career- " Jenny started
to protest, but Marguerite shook her head.
"It doesn't matter. I haven't had a bad
life, and whatever I
might have done couldn't have been as much fun as having you
girls around."
They were on the second floor now. A thin,
high-pitched voice pierced through the door at the far
end. "Marguerite? "Where are you? I want
juice!"
"Oh, dear," Marguerite whispered. "Now I'm
in trouble, aren't I? Well, you run along,
Jenny, and I'll see you on Thursday." Giving
the girl's hand an affectionate squeeze,
Marguerite waited until Jenny had started down
toward the first floor, then hurried up the hall
to try to calm her mother once more.
She found Helena sitting up in bed, glaring
angrily at Lucinda Willoughby, whose face was
a mask of controlled indignation. On the floor at
the nurse's feet were the remains of the breakfast the
old woman hadn't touched all morning.
"She's fired," Helena snapped as soon as
Marguerite came into the room. "I won't have her
in my house another moment!"
"Now, Mother," Marguerite began, but Helena cut
her off.
"Don't you patronize me, Marguerite! This is
my house, and I will have what I want."
Marguerite opened her mouth, but for a moment no words
came out. Finally she turned to Lucinda. "What
happened?" she asked, though she was almost certain she
already knew.
"I came in to ask her if her breakfast was all
right, and found it on the floor."
Helena's eyes sparkled with anger, and she drew
herself up in the bed. "I told her it was cold, and
she took it upon herself to tell me I should have eaten it
when it was hot! I won't have a-"
"All right, Mother," Marguerite broke in,
struggling to control her own voice. "I'll have
Ruby take care of the mess, and we'll start
looking for someone else this afternoon." With her eyes she
signaled Lucinda into the hallway, then joined her
a moment later, after listening to Helena's demands as
to the sort of person who must replace "the
incompetent trash you hired."
"I'm sorry, Lucinda," she said as she
accompanied the
nurse down the main stairs. "I know it wasn't
your fault, but I don't see what I can do-"
"It's all right, Marguerite," Lucinda
replied. "If she hadn't fired me, I would have
quit anyway. And not for the reasons you're thinking,"
she added quickly, seeing the concern in Marguerite's
eyes. "I've dealt with a lot of patients and been
called a lot of names. It doesn't bother
me-sick people get that way, and I don't blame
them. It's tiring being ill, and you have to make
allowances for that. But for her, having me around isn't
going to help." Lucinda sighed, and shook her head
sadly. "She's just been getting madder and madder, and
that's not good for her. With some people a little good, honest
temper can help. But not for someone like her, with a heart
that could go any minute. I'll think on it and see
if I can come up with someone who can deal with her."
They were on the wide veranda that ran the length of the
front of the house now, and Lucinda started down the
front steps. Marguerite watched her as she got
into her car, and waved to her as she began driving
away. She was just about to go back into the house when she
saw the station wagon coming along the road from the
causeway, and knew immediately who it was.
She hurried down the steps, unwilling to wait even
an extra few seconds to greet her brother.
"Well, I hope you're proud of yourself, Miss
Helena," Ruby said as she carefully picked the
last scraps of the ruined breakfast out of the threadbare
carpet that covered the oak floor of the bedroom.
"Now you got rid of Lucinda, so me and Miss
Marguerite can do even more than we's doing already."
"Which is little enough," the old woman observed, lowering
herself back onto her pillows. "And Lucinda
isn't the only person who can be fired."
Ruby carefully got to her feet and glanced
scornfully at the woman for whom she had worked for more
than fifty years.
"Don't rightly see how you can fire Miss
Marguerite, and there ain't anybody else left in
the place."
"There's you, Ruby," Helena snapped. "I'll
thank you to keep a civil tongue in your head when you
speak to me."
"And I'll thank you for the same courtesy, though I
know perfectly well I won't get it," Ruby
replied. "Only thing that keeps me from quitting is
that there ain't no other jobs around here. And
I don't see how I can leave Miss
Marguerite alone with the likes of you."
A vein in Helena's forehead began throbbing, and she
pushed herself once more into a sitting position.
"Don't you dare speak to me that way," she raged.
"Don't you forget your place in this house-
"And don't you either," the old servant snapped, her
own eyes glinting with anger now. "You can't fire
me, and you know it. And since I ain't going to quit,
the best thing you can do is relax and try to enjoy
whatever life you got left in you!" She moved
closer to the bed, and Helena shrank back, pressing
herself into the pillows. "Now, I'm willing to go on
about my business and go on taking care of you and Miss
Marguerite just like I've always done, but I won't
have you throwing no more food around and driving no more
nurses away! You think you're such a high and
mighty aristocrat, seems to me you better start
acting like one!"
She was about to say more when a car horn honked
outside, and then the sound of voices floated in through
the open window. Ruby smiled thinly. "Sounds like
Mr. Kevin's finally come home," she said softly,
her eyes fixing once more on the old woman in the
bed.
Her words seemed to galvanize Helena Devereaux.
She threw back the bed covers and swung herself around
so her legs hung over the bed, though her feet
didn't quite touch the floor. "Help me," she
demanded. "Help me get dressed!"
Ruby's eyes widened. "Get dressed? Miss
Helena, you ain't been dressed in five years!
What are you thinking of?"
"He's my son," Helena insisted, her eyes
burning feverishly now. "I am not going to greet
my son wrapped in this rag and sitting in this bed.
Help me!"
She tried to get to her feet but staggered, nearly
falling,
until Ruby moved forward and grasped her under the
arms. Moving slowly, the old housekeeper guided
Helena across the room and lowered her to the chair in
front of the vanity. Immediately Helena's hands began
searching the top drawer for her comb and brush and the box
of makeup she hadn't touched for years. A minute
later she began brushing the thin wisps of hair that
only partially concealed her pink scalp. "The black
dress," she said. "Find the black silk, and the
shoes that go with it. And my jet beads. I'll wear
them, with the garnet brooch." She glanced into the
mirror and saw Ruby still standing behind her. "Do as I
say!" she commanded, her voice rising shrilly.
"Now, damn you!"
As she began applying her makeup, Ruby went
to the closet and searched for the dress.
Fifteen minutes later Helena examined herself in
the mirror. "Nothing's really changed, has it?"
she asked, her voice so soft that Ruby wasn't
certain she meant to speak aloud at all. "I
haven't changed, and the house hasn't changed. It will
be almost as if he never left. We'll all go on
again, just as if he'd never been gone!"
"But he's only here for a visit," the old servant
replied. "He ain't going to stay."
Helena's eyes flickered in the mirror, then
fixed on the servant. "Yes, he will," she
whispered darkly. "He's a Devereaux, and no
Devereaux has ever left Sea Oaks."
"Mr. Kevin did," Ruby reminded her. "And you
can believe he'll leave again."
"He won't," Helena insisted. "I want him
to stay here, and I'll see to it he stays." She
turned and struggled to her feet. "How do I
look?"
Ruby stared at her mistress, wondering
what to say. Helena's hair-once luxurious, but
now thin and limp-hung down around her shoulders,
framing a face that had been turned into a garish
parody of the beauty she had once been. The skin that
years ago had glowed with a deep clarity was now
covered with a mask of white powder. Thick blotches
of rouge were dabbed on each cheek and a bright red slash
of lipstick was smeared across the thin line of her mouth.
Whatever remnants of dignified beauty might have
remained to her
had been completely lost in her vain attempt
to turn back the ravages of time.
"Fine," Ruby breathed at last, knowing that what
Helena saw in the mirror bore no resemblance
to reality. "You look just fine."
Helena smiled at her. "Then I'm ready to go
downstairs, aren't I?"
Once again Ruby's mouth opened in surprise.
"Downstairs?" she repeated. "But Miss
Helena-"
"Don't argue with me," Helena commanded. "If I
wish to greet my son downstairs, I shall. Now
give me your arm."
Almost against her own will, Ruby allowed the old
woman to grasp her arm, then walked her
slowly out of the bedroom and down the hall to the main
stairs. Supporting Helena as best she could, she
helped her into the seat of the ancient chair lift that
had been installed in the house years earlier. She
fastened the safety strap around the old woman's
waist and waited as Helena arranged the flowing
skirt of the old black silk dress. Finally, when
Helena nodded her readiness, Ruby pushed the
brass button at the top of the stairs.
Instantly the machinery rattled to life and the chair
began its slow descent, carrying the frail body of
Helena Devereaux down from the second floor of her
house for the first time in nearly a decade.
At the bottom of the stairs Kevin and Anne
Devereaux and their two children watched the slow approach
of the strange apparition.
We should never have come here.
The thought flashed unbidden through Anne's mind, and she
took an involuntary step backward before she
caught herself. She forced a smile onto her face,
feeling its falseness even as she made herself step
forward once more to greet the mother-in-law she'd never
met. At her side she felt Jeffs hand tighten
in her own, and then, a second later, Julie
took her other hand. Though neither of the children
spoke a word,
Anne knew that both of them were feeling exactly the
same thing she was.
Fear.
And yet despite this sense of fear Helena immediately
induced in Anne, the old woman was tiny. She
seemed almost to disappear within the folds of the rusty
black dress she wore, and her face, all but
obscured by the layers and layers of makeup, was
strangely expressionless. But her eyes- two
brightly glowing embers-seemed to reach out to Anne,
grasping her in their grip, drawing her forward. She
reached the bottom of the stairs just as the chair lift
clanged to a stop, but said nothing. Whatever was to be
said, she instinctively knew, would be initiated
by Helena Devereaux.
The silence seemed to drag into eternity.
"So you are the woman my son married," Helena
rasped at last, her eyes narrowing to appraising
slits as her nostrils flared slightly. "Well,
I suppose there's nothing to be done about that, is
there?" Then her eyes flicked away from Anne,
taking in each of the children in turn. Her head bobbed in
a barely perceptible nod. "The girl is a
Devereaux," she pronounced. "As for the boy,
I don't-"
"His name is Jeff," Anne said, her voice
emerging from her throat in a strangled squeak, forced
out only to prevent her son from hearing whatever his
grandmother had been about to say. "And he's every bit as
much a Devereaux as Julie."
Helena's eyes-cold as a snake's now-fixed
on Anne again, and once more Anne felt the
strange power of the old woman. No wonder Kevin
has nightmares about her, she thought. And no wonder
he never wanted to come back.
And then, once again, another unbidden thought formed in
her mind.
She doesn't intend for us to leave. Not ever.
Helena's eyes abruptly released Anne and
moved to her son. "Kevin," she said, her tongue
caressing his name. And then, though his mother said nothing
else, Kevin stepped forward and offered the old
woman his arm. Taking it, Helena struggled to her
feet and started across the entry hall
toward the open doors to the living room, her son on
one side of her, her daughter on the other.
It's not just the island she owns, Anne reflected as
she reluctantly followed the three Devereauxes
into the gloomy depths of the parlor beyond the double
doors. She owns Marguerite, and now she owns
Kevin again too. And she wants to own my children.
As Anne settled herself on the sofa a moment
later, her children flanking her and sitting unnaturally
close as they warily watched their grandmother, Anne
wondered if there was anything she-or anyone else-could
do to thwart Helena Devereaux's wishes.
An hour later, when Helena finally returned to her
room, Anne felt exhausted, as if from the old
woman's very presence-her piercing eyes smoldering
with the power of an indomitable spirit, belying the obvious
weaknesses of her body. It wasn't until then that
Anne realized the meaning of the makeup Helena had
used to cover the ravages of age.
It was theatrical makeup, intended to cover up the
person behind it, exposing only a carefully
constructed facade to the world. Though the facade
Helena Devereaux had created was truly frightening,
Anne had the certain feeling that the terrifying mask,
and the woman behind it, were one and the same.
It was nearly two o'clock when Jeff and Julie
finally escaped the cavernous gloom of their grandmother's
house, emerging out into the brightness of the summer afternoon
only to have the oppressively tropical heat
close around them like shrouds of wet sheets.
They stayed in the protective shade of the oaks for a
while, gazing out at the shimmering air that lay over the
island.
"It's weird, isn't it?" Jeff finally
ventured. "Aunt Marguerite hardly said a word,
and Grandmother looks like she already died."
Almost against her will, Julie snickered at the
remembered image of the strangely painted old
lady who had sat perched on a wing chair by the
fireplace, ignoring the peeling wallpaper and
mildewed plaster of the ceiling while she rambled on
about how privileged the children should feel to be there.
"It's like she doesn't even know the place is
falling down around her," she said finally. "And she
hardly even spoke to Mom."
Jeff rolled his eyes scornfully in a vain
attempt to rid himself of the strange fear he had
felt in the presence of his grandmother. "And did you hear
her talking about how I look exactly like Mom?
Everybody knows I look just like Dad."
Julie giggled. "I bet she tells Aunt
Marguerite that Mom's just a carpetbagger and they should
just pretend she doesn't exist."
"What's a carpetbagger?" Jeff asked.
Instead of answering his question, Julie got
to her feet and started down the gentle slope that led
to a group of ram
shackle outbuildings a hundred yards from the house.
"Let's go see what's here," she suggested.
A moment later Jeff had darted ahead of her,
disappearing through the half-open door of a vine-covered
barn whose roof was almost barren of shingles. A few
minutes later she stepped through the door herself. The
barn had apparently once housed a stable of
horses, but most of the stalls had long since
collapsed. Sunshine filtered down through the slats
of the roof, providing a soft, cool light which was tinged
with green by the profusion of foliage that had
penetrated the siding over the years. Perched on a
loft at the rear, Jeff was grinning down at her.
"Isn't this neat?" he called. "If there were any
hay, I could jump down into it!"
"You be careful," Julie warned. "It looks like the
whole place could fall down any minute."
Jeff's grin only widened. "The stairs already have.
Is there a ladder in here?"
Julie searched the barn, finally finding a splintery
wooden ladder in the tack room at the rear. She
propped it up against the loft, and Jeff scrambled
down. "What were you going to do if I hadn't
been here?" Julie asked.
"Jump," Jeff replied with the self-assurance of
his eight years. "I've jumped from the roof at
home, and it's a lot higher than that."
"And if Mom had caught you, she'd have cut you off
TV for a week."
"But she didn't," Jeff reminded her. "Come
on."
They left the barn and made their way farther down the
slope to the row of collapsing cabins that had once
served as slave quarters. Pushing his way through the
tangled vines, Jeff found himself in a tiny room
with only a single window and door. There was a
rickety shelf on one wall and a couple of pegs
still hanging precariously from the doorframe. Most
of the floor space was taken up by four rusty iron
beds, long since stripped of springs or
mattresses. Just looking at it made him shudder,
and he looked up at his sister in awe. "Did they
really make people live here?" he asked, his voice
dropping to a whisper.
Julie shrugged. "I guess so," she ventured.
"Sometimes whole families had to live in rooms like
this."
Jeffs brows furrowed seriously. "How come
Dad never told us about this?"
"Because he's probably ashamed of it," Julie
replied. "I mean, I certainly wouldn't want
anyone to know my family had made people live like this."
"M-Maybe they didn't," Jeff suggested.
"Maybe these were just storerooms or something."
"And maybe elephants can fly," Julie shot
back. "Let's go-this place gives me the
creeps."
They pushed through the vines once more, glanced into a
garage that contained an aging Buick and a rusty hulk
that neither of them could identify, then started toward what
had once been cultivated fields. As they
approached a marshy area, a figure suddenly
stepped out of a patch of bushes and stood in the path,
staring at them curiously.
It was a boy, about Jeff's age, with an unruly
mop of tangled black hair curling over his
forehead. He was wearing a pair of torn blue
jeans and a T-shirt that must once have been white but
was now a dingy gray.
"Who are you?" he demanded, his brown eyes fixing
belligerently on Jeff.
Jeff stared back at the boy. "Jeff
Devereaux," he replied. "Who are you?"
The boy took an uncertain step backward.
"Toby Martin. How come I never saw you before?"
was "Cause I just got here," Jeff replied.
"How come you're here? Nobody but my grandmother and my
aunt's 'sposed to live here."
Toby glanced furtively at the house. "I just
come out here sometimes. I don't hurt nothin". I
just look around. You won't tell, will you? The old
lady doesn't want anybody here."
Jeff glanced at Julie, who was studying Toby
carefully. Finally she smiled conspiratorially at
the worried little boy. "We won't tell anybody
you were here, if you'll show us around. Okay?"
The look of uncertainty disappeared from Toby's
eyes and he grinned crookedly, exposing a gap in
his upper teeth. "I'll show you everything," he
promised. "It's neat-there's
marshes and ponds, and a neat beach. But you have to watch
out, "cause there's all kinds of snakes and stuff
too."
"Snakes?" Julie repeated, her voice
trembling slightly. "Poisonous ones?"
Toby nodded solemnly. "Water moccasins, and
rattlers, and all kinds of other ones. But if you
watch out, they won't hurt you."
"Maybe we better not," Julie said
uncertainly. "Maybe we better go back to the
house."
"What's the matter, you scared?" Jeff taunted his
sister.
Julie glared at her brother. "Why shouldn't I
be?" she demanded. "If you had any brains, you'd
be scared too!"
"Toby comes out here all the time," Jeff countered,
and turned to the boy. "Nothing's happened to you, has
it?"
Toby shook his head vigorously. "All's you have
to do is watch out," he said. "My daddy says the
snakes are more scared of you than you are of them." As
if the issue had been decided, he turned and
began picking his way along the path, Jeff
instantly following him. A moment later, deciding
she'd better watch out for Jeff rather than leave him
alone, Julie followed.
They worked their way slowly toward the far side of the
island, skirting the marshy areas and giving a wide
berth to a pond in which an alligator lay basking,
only his snout and eyes showing above the surface of the
water. "Are-Are there a lot of them?" Julie
asked, unable to keep her voice from
trembling as she stared at the malevolent-looking
reptile.
"Some," Toby replied. "You don't want
to mess with 'em, but they won't hurt you. Unless
they're hungry," he added, glancing at Jeff out
of the corner of his eye and giggling at the sudden
paleness of Julie's face. "Come on, let's go
to the beach."
A hundred yards farther, the thick vegetation gave
way to a wide expanse of glitteringly white
powdery sand. Line after line of low surf swept in
from the shallow sea beyond.
Julie stared at it in wonder, dropping down to sit
on the sand in the shade of a small grove of smoky
pines. It was by far the most beautiful beach she'd ever
seen.
It was completely deserted.
"But-But where is everybody?" she asked. "You'd
think everyone would be out here!"
"It's the old lady," Toby replied, his small
face scowling deeply. "She's so mean she won't
let anybody use it, even though it's the best beach
around here. She makes everybody swim in the
channel. We all hate her!" Then, suddenly
abashed as he realized he'd been talking
about Jeffs and Julie's grandmother, he tried
to apologize.
"We don't care what you say about Grandmother,"
Jeff told Toby. "We think she's weird
too. And our dad hates her!"
"Jeff!" Marguerite Devereaux's voice cut
through the brightness of the day, and all three youngsters jumped
slightly as she stepped out of the grove of trees and
onto the beach. "Even if that were true, which I hope
it isn't, it's not a nice thing to say. Keep in
mind that although you grew up in Connecticut, you're still
a southern gentleman."
Jeffs eyes widened and he swallowed nervously as
his aunt turned her attention to Toby Martin. Her
eyes fixed on him sternly.
"And as for you, young man, just what do you think you're
doing out here?"
Julie glanced at Toby, fully expecting him
to be on the verge of terrified tears. Instead, he
was grinning up at Marguerite, his eyes dancing
merrily.
"I was fixin" to steal a swim, Miss
Marguerite," he said. "You won't tell on me,
will you?"
The sternness left Marguerite's eyes, and
she reached down to run her fingers through Toby's
hair. "If I got you in as much trouble with your mother
as you get me into with mine, you'd never speak to me again,
would you?" Toby shook his head wildly, looking for
all the world like a happy puppy. "Well, you got
off lucky this time," Marguerite went on. "She's
taking a nap, and she didn't see you. So scoot
along home, but next time you come, you march right up
to the door and knock. If Jeff invites you, she
can't tell me to order you off the island, can she?"
Toby looked eagerly at Jeff. "Will you?" he
asked. "I mean, invite me?"
"Okay," Jeff agreed. "But you have to invite me
to your house too."
The eagerness faded from Toby's eyes and he looked
uncertainly up at Marguerite. "We'll see,"
she promised him. "But as long as Jeff's here, you
come out here any time you want to."
A few minutes later, as Toby started threading his
way back along the path across the island and toward the
causeway, Marguerite led Julie and Jeff up
the beach toward the old mansion. They walked in
silence for a few minutes, then Julie spoke
shyly.
"Aunt Marguerite? Why won't Grandmother
let anyone use the beach? It's so beautiful, it
seems like everybody should get to use it."
Marguerite said nothing for a while, then put her arm
around Julie's shoulders. "It's just the way Mother
is," she said at last. "There isn't any reason,
really. It's just that it's
our
beach, and Mother always worries about what's
ours."
She fell silent for a moment, then: "But it won't
always be that way."
Jeff looked up curiously. "Why not?"
Marguerite smiled sadly. "Because she's dying,
Jeff. And when she dies, things will be different."
For several minutes the trio walked in silence, then
Julie spoke again. "Aunt Marguerite, don't
you care if Grandmother dies? I mean, she's your
mother."
Marguerite stopped walking and stared up at the
weathered mansion surrounded by its protective grove
of oaks, then her gaze drifted out to scan the sea.
Finally her eyes came to rest on Julie. "Oh,
yes," she said. "I care that Mother is going to die.
I care very much." Taking Julie by the hand, she
turned and started up the slope toward the great
house.
That evening five people gathered around the huge table in the
dining room of Sea Oaks. Kevin sat at the
head of the table, with Anne and Marguerite to his right.
Opposite their mother and aunt sat Julie and
Jeff, and far down the table,
empty and somehow removed from the group while still
dominating it, sat the chair that Helena Devereaux
would have occupied had she been well enough to come
downstairs. But she had not come down. Instead, upon
waking from her nap she had summoned Marguerite and
told her that she would take dinner, as usual, in her
room.
Five minutes after Ruby served the soup, the
angry sound of the buzzer rent the conversation. Without a
word Marguerite folded her linen napkin and moved
stiffly out of the dining room. The family listened to her
limping up the stairs. A few minutes later she
was back. Slipping into her chair, she resumed
eating her soup as if nothing had happened.
The buzzer sounded again as Ruby was serving the entree,
and yet again before Marguerite had finished her salad.
When the buzzer sounded once more as Ruby was putting
bowls of ice cream on the table, Marguerite again
folded her napkin, but before she could leave the
table, Anne spoke, smiling uncertainly at her
sister-in-law. "Why don't you eat your ice
cream before it melts? Whatever it is this time,
surely it can wait a few minutes?"
Marguerite shook her head apologetically. "She
hates to be kept waiting, and I don't mind,
really. I've been doing it so long, I don't
think I'd know what to do if I got through a meal
without her calling me." Setting her napkin down,
she hurried once more out of the dining room
to laboriously climb the stairs.
Only when she was certain that Marguerite was out of
earshot did Anne face her husband, no longer
attempting to keep the anger out of her eyes or her
voice. "Why didn't you say something, Kevin?
Your mother treats her like a slave! Shouldn't she at
least be allowed to finish her dinner?"
"You heard her," Kevin said mildly. "I really
don't think she minds. And she's used to it."
"But her leg!" Anne exclaimed. "You can see that
it hurts her. And for that awful old woman to make
her run up and down the stairs all the time-well,
frankly, I don't see why she puts up with it!
If I were Marguerite, I'd have put her in a
home years ago!" And yet, despite her
brave words, Anne wondered if she were speaking the
truth. Wasn't it more
likely, given the strength she'd seen in Helena
earlier, that she, too, would have given in to the woman's
demands rather than face her wrath? She suspected
she would have.
Kevin shrugged. "I don't disagree with you. In
fact, I think you're right-I wouldn't tolerate it,
and I wouldn't expect anyone else to either. That's
why I got out-x was either that or knuckle under to her.
But Marguerite's not like me-she deals with things, and
she doesn't complain. She never even complained about
her leg."
Julie put down her spoon and faced her father.
"What happened to her?" she asked.
"An accident," Kevin replied. "I was just a little
boy, and she was in her teens. I don't remember
much about it, really, but she fell down the stairs and
broke her hip. She was in the hospital for a
while, and in a cast for a long time. But it never healed
properly, and she's had that limp ever since." His
lips tightened into a grim line. "She was going to be
a dancer, and I guess she was damned good at it.
The accident put an end to that, but I can't ever
remember hearing her complain about that either. In
a lot of ways," he added, "your aunt is a
remarkable woman." He smiled. "And in a lot of
ways, you're very much like her. You look like her, and you
dance like her, and sometimes when I hear you talk, I'd
swear I was listening to Marguerite when she was your
age."
Julie's brows arched. "Well, I like her, but if
Mom ever treated me the way Grandmother treats
Aunt Marguerite, I sure wouldn't be around very
long."
Kevin chuckled. "All right, so you're not exactly
like her. Which is fine with me. I like you just the way you
are." Then his voice turned serious again. "And as for
your mother treating you the way my mother treats
Marguerite, you needn't worry about it. If your
mother were anything like mine, you can believe I wouldn't have
married her."
Anne drew herself up in mock indignation. "That,
Kevin, has to be the weakest compliment I've ever
received. From what I've seen today, nobody in the world
is like-
But before she could finish, there was a sudden shrieking from
upstairs, followed by a loud thump. Instantly
Kevin and Anne rose to their feet and hurried up
the stairs, followed by
Julie and Jeff. Behind them, moving her bulk more
slowly, Ruby, too, started up the stairs.
Kevin opened the door to his mother's bedroom to find
the old woman propped against her pillows, her
eyes fixed furiously on Marguerite, who was
sprawled on the floor by the bed, her lame leg
twisted beneath her, her face contorted into a grimace
of pain.
Kevin glanced quickly at his mother, then dropped to the
floor to help Marguerite. "What happened?" he
asked.
Marguerite looked at him ruefully. "She said
I didn't get her dinner up quickly enough, and it was
cold."
Kevin's jaw dropped as he stared at the plate of
untouched food on his mother's tray. "But-for
Christ's sake! You brought it up an hour ago,
before we even started. Didn't she eat it?"
Marguerite shook her head quickly, but said nothing.
Kevin stood up, glaring at his mother and the heavy cane
still clutched in her hand. Suddenly he understood. "So
you hit her, Mother? You sat there while it got
cold, then called Marguerite up here so you could
hit her with your cane?"
Helena's eyes narrowed dangerously, and
when she spoke, her voice was a malevolent
hiss. "Watch what you say, Kevin. You don't
know her as I do. You haven't been here! You went
away and left us alone! Don't you start
criticizing now, young-
"Oh, for Heaven's sake, Mother," Kevin
snapped. "Stop behaving like a child. Marguerite, come
on. Ruby can reheat it, or I'll do it myself.
But you come back down and finish your dinner."
Marguerite started to get up from the floor, but before
she had regained her feet, Helena's voice
lashed out like a whip.
"No! I want her to do it, Kevin! If she's
going to spend her life acting like a servant, who are
you to stop her?"
Stunned, Kevin looked down at his sister.
Though her eyes had filled with tears,-Marguerite
said nothing. Instead, she simply pulled herself
unsteadily to her feet, and picked up her mother's
tray.
It was long after midnight when Kevin slid out of
bed, careful not to disturb Anne, whose breathing had
slipped into the regular rhythms of sleep hours
before. Kevin himself had lain awake, feeling the house
around him, his nostrils filled with the familiar
scents of his childhood, the summer night heavy with the
shrill sounds of tropical insects. All of it
seemed so far in the past and yet was still so familiar.
But the image that hung in his mind was that of
Marguerite, crouched painfully on the floor,
betraying nothing of her pain and humiliation, quietly
suffering her mother's fury. How long had it been like
this? he wondered. And why had Marguerite never
called him, never told him what was happening and what
her life had come to?
Or did she even realize that her existence didn't
have to be tied to a bitter woman who was living in the
past?
Knowing he wasn't going to drift into sleep, he
put on a light robe and went out into the broad
corridor, closing the door behind him. He needed
no lights-every inch of the house seemed familiar to him,
and as he moved along the hall toward the main
staircase, he remembered each of the rooms as he
passed them.
Even when he was a child, the many guest rooms of the
mansion had already begun to deteriorate, for the wide
circle of wealthy friends his grandparents had once
entertained had long since disappeared, along with the
large staff of servants necessary to keep up the
house in the manner for which it was designed. Though he
hadn't yet looked at them, he was certain they were just
as he remembered them, although no doubt more faded-the
Blue Room, the Emerald Room, the Rose
Room-all of them with their damask wallpaper, their
matching carpets, their marble fireplaces.
He moved down the stairs, through the small reception
room and into the main salon, instinctively
sidestepping the bench of the grand piano. He switched
on the crystal lamp on the table behind the Louis
XVI sofa, and the room was suffused with a soft glow that
couldn't quite wash the shadows away from the far corners.
He crossed toward the double doors that led through a
small solarium to the dining room,
pausing for a moment to gaze up at the portrait of his
mother above the fireplace.
Done in France by a society painter who had been
the rage among touring Americans, his mother was posed
in the formal costume of a danseuse of her day, her
hair drawn back from her face, her high
cheekbones needing no makeup to accentuate them.
One hand was lifted gracefully, and her left leg
was oddly bent, as if she were about to loft herself to her
toes. Kevin stared at the picture for several
minutes, trying to see in that youthful face
any faint hints of the haggard and bitter harridan the
portrait's subject had become.
There were none.
He moved on, then, pausing in the solarium, but
passing quickly through the dining room and the butler's
pantry to the enormous old-fashioned kitchen. Little
here had changed since he was a boy. The ancient
range still stood against the far wall, opposite the
immense built-in iceboxes that had been
electrified long before he was born. An array of
enormous pots and pans, their copper still kept
immaculate by Ruby, hung on the rack above the
long counter, but he was certain they weren't used
anymore, for next to the sink, stacked neatly in a
draining rack, was the cook ware Ruby had used for
that evening's dinner-small pans, of a size to serve
six instead of sixteen or twenty-six.
At last he opened the refrigerator, pulled out the
remains of the roast, found some bread, and made himself
a sandwich. He sat down at the table next to the
window and listened for a while to the sounds of the house.
A light breeze had come up, and limbs brushed
against the house's siding. Everywhere there were faint
creaks as the old wood adjusted to the slightly
cooler temperature of the night.
And then, slowly, he began to feel a creeping
sensation on the back of his neck. The hairs stood
on end and a faint chill passed over him.
A plank of the floor creaked loudly, and he
started, turning quickly, not certain what to expect.
Ruby stood at the door to her room, her old
eyes fixed on him, her expression strangely
blank. She smiled faintly and moved toward him.
"Can't sleep, can you, Mr. Kevin," she said
softly. "Just like when you were a boy. Well, I
reckon you're gonna have to get used to more nights like
that, now that you've come home."
Kevin frowned and shook his head. "Not many,
Ruby," he replied. "And I haven't come
home. My home is in Connecticut. I'm just
here for a couple of weeks' vacation." Ruby
settled her weight into the chair opposite him,
grunting slightly with the effort. "Not a couple of
weeks," she said. "You're back, and you'll stay
back. No Devereaux has ever left Sea Oaks
yet."
Kevin cocked his head, his brows rising. "I did.
I've been gone a long time, Ruby. I'm not coming
back."
"That's not what Miz Helena says,"
Ruby countered. "She says you done come back and you
going to stay. And you ask me, if that's what she
says, that's what she mean. You'll stay."
Kevin's voice hardened slightly. "I didn't
ask you, Ruby," he said. "But since you've taken
it upon yourself to tell me, let me answer you. I
don't give a damn what my mother wants, and
haven't since I was eight years old. No more
than she's given a damn what I want. So why
would I stay? I love my family, and I love
my life, and I have no intention of changing it.
Certainly," he added, glancing meaningfully around the
ancient kitchen, "not to live in this relic and try
to pretend there's anything left in Devereaux for any
of us. The town's dead, Ruby, and so is the house.
When Mother's gone-if Mother's gone-I'll be gone
too. But even if she lives awhile longer, I
won't be staying."
Ruby said nothing, only watching him with her nearly
black eyes. At last she heaved herself slowly
to her feet and started back toward her room. She
had nearly reached the door when she stopped and turned
back.
"I understand what you're saying, Mr. Kevin," she
said. "But I know what Miz Helena
means. You
are
a Devereaux, Mr. Kevin, and you
will
stay at Sea Oaks. That's just the way things are.
Don't try to fight it, Mr. Kevin. It won't
do you no good at all. None." Before he could
reply, she
disappeared into her own room and silently closed the
door behind her.
Kevin sat alone for a long time after Ruby left,
then finally bit into his sandwich. It tasted dry, and the
bread seemed to stick in his throat. Throwing the rest
of it into the trash basket beneath the sink, he switched
off the lights and went back upstairs.
But even after he was back in bed and had heard the
clock in the hall softly strike the hour of two
A.m., he was still awake.
Ruby's words had driven the last possibility of
sleep from him, and now the tiredness in his body was
accentuated by something else.
A cold knot of fear had begun forming deep
inside him as he wondered if perhaps Ruby wasn't
right.
Perhaps, indeed, his mother had determined that he
should not be allowed to escape from Sea Oaks again.
Perhaps she intended to imprison him, just as she had
imprisoned Marguerite.
Perhaps she intended to imprison them all.
By Thursday morning Anne was beginning to grow used
to the strange daily rhythm of Devereaux Island.
Breakfast, she had learned, was served at exactly
seven in the morning, and, like all meals, was constantly
interrupted by the harsh buzzing that signaled Helena
Devereaux's insistent demands for her daughter's
attentions. After breakfast Ruby would go about her
cleaning, moving heavily about the house. Anne was
certain that each year fewer of the rooms were used.
Most of them, indeed, were closed off, their furnishings
draped with muslin dust covers, their heavy
draperies drawn against the brilliant burning of the
sun. Ruby would go slowly through the rooms still in
use, dust cloth in her hand, but her ministrations had
little effect-the house, though occupied by seven people now,
was still imbued with the stultifying atmosphere of a
museum. Even Julie and Jeff found themselves
unconsciously lowering their voices when they were
inside.
After breakfast Marguerite disappeared into her mother's
room, where she would sit in a chair whose
upholstery had grown shiny from constant use, reading
quietly to Helena, who lay in her bed, snoring
softly.
Unless Marguerite stopped reading.
Then the querulous tones of the old woman's voice
would sound through the house as she berated her daughter.
"I don't ask much," were the words she repeated most
often. "I've taken care of you all your life-the
least you can do is read to me a little now and then!"
Once, Anne listened outside Helena's door,
but all she heard after the old woman's furious
outburst was the calm melody of Marguerite's
sweetly modulated voice.
Before lunch Marguerite would change clothes, always
appearing on the veranda as if she were prepared to greet
twenty guests, though there was never anyone but the
family in attendance. Somehow, even when Anne
herself felt her clothes clinging damply to her skin,
Marguerite always managed to look cool and fresh,
her dark hair coiled up in a French twist held
in place by a large tortoise-shell comb. On
anyone else the ornament might have looked
ridiculous, but the comb only accentuated
Marguerite's graceful figure, and if she felt
self-conscious about her pronounced limp,
she never showed it. Yet, even on the veranda, there was
no escape from the buzzer's demands. Indeed,
Anne had quickly realized that the buzzer was only
silent during the long hot afternoons when an even
deeper somnolence fell over the house. Then
Helena would drift into a fitful nap while
Marguerite disappeared into the sewing room, where she
would spend an hour or two at the ancient Singer.
Already, she had produced a sea-green shift for
Julie, its waist loosely belted in white, which
not only fit Julie perfectly, but set off her
skin in a manner that lent her the same exotic
beauty as her aunt's.
Each of the evenings was a repeat of the first one they had
spent at Sea Oaks-a simple meal, ruined
by Helena's continued demands for attention.
For Anne, unused to the southern heat, the days were
turning into endless damp hells of boredom, which she
spent searching for shelter from the oppressive heat.
Once, on the third day of their visit, she'd
driven across the causeway into the village, but quickly
returned. The stark poverty of its dusty streets
and failing businesses had only depressed her more,
and by the time she returned to Sea Oaks she understood
well why Marguerite seldom left the
island and sent Ruby to do what little shopping was necessary.
And so, on Thursday morning, she wasn't
surprised when Julie, her expression almost
guilty, asked her how much longer they would be staying.
Anne smiled sympathetically at her teenage
daughter, knowing full well how she herself would have
reacted to being stuck in such a place when she was
fifteen. "It seems like
weeks already, doesn't it?" she asked. When
Julie nodded, but said nothing, Anne sighed. "I
don't know what to tell you, darling. Your father keeps
saying it'll just be another day or two, but knowing how
your grandmother is . . ." Her voice trailed off,
and she could read the disappointment in Julie's eyes.
"It's just that there's nothing to do," Julie said
softly. "Dad keeps finding things around here
to fix-"
"Which could certainly take a year or so," Anne
observed archly, but Julie didn't seem
to notice her mother's attempt at a joke.
"comand Jeff has Toby to play with, but I haven't
met anybody yet."
Her aunt's voice interrupted her. "I intend
to fix that this very morning," Marguerite said, stepping out
onto the veranda. Julie flushed in
embarrassment, but Marguerite tossed her niece's
discomfort away with an airy gesture. "My girls
are coming this morning, and I thought you might like to join the
class."
Julie looked at her aunt uncertainly.
"I-I don't know. I've been taking ballet for
three years, but-"
Understanding immediately, Marguerite squeezed Julie's
hand. "If you're worried that you might not be good
enough, you can stop," she said. "Every now and then I get
a really good student, but most of them are ..." She
hesitated, searching for just the right words. "Well,
let's just say they aren't all quite as motivated as
they might be, shall we?" She turned to Anne,
winking. "Still, whatever I can teach them, I'm happy
to do. And even if you don't want to join the
class," she finished, turning back to Julie,
"at least you can meet the girls."
"I'd love it," Julie replied. "And I'm
sorry about what I said before. I didn't really
mean for you to hear it. It isn't that I don't like it
here-"
"Enough!" Marguerite commanded, holding up her hand
to stem Julie's words. "You're not the only one who
doesn't have anything to do around here, you know.
That's one of the reasons I keep teaching-it gives
all the girls something to do. Besides-" But once again
her words were interrupted by
the sharp sound of Helena's buzzer, and almost
automatically she turned and disappeared back into the
stifling darkness of the house.
"I feel so sorry for her," Julie said, her
eyes filling with tears. "Aunt Marguerite's so
nice, and Grandmother's so mean to her. Why doesn't
she just-" And then, before she spoke the word, Julie
bit it back.
"Why doesn't she just die?" Anne finished
quietly, and Julie turned to face her mother,
nodding unhappily.
"I wish I didn't think that, but-"
"But you do," Anne finished for her. "And so do I,
if it's any help. Of course, it would be nice
if your grandmother was a sweet old lady we could all
love, but the fact of the matter is that she's not. So
you mustn't worry about what you might think of her."
"I don't even see why we came," Julie
said, releasing the anger that had slowly built inside
her over the last few days. "Grandmother won't talk
to Jeff or me, and she hardly speaks to you. I
don't even think she cares that Dad's
here!"
"I know," Anne sighed. "But we're not just here for
her. We have to think of your father too. If this visit
will make him feel better about staying away so long,
then it will be worth it. All right?"
Julie nodded, and Anne gave her a reassuring
hug. "Now let's go up and find you something to wear
to Marguerite's class. I think I have a running
suit that'll fit you, if you don't mind dying of
heat."
"Shoes!" Julie exclaimed. "I didn't bring
any toe shoes!"
Anne smiled triumphantly. "Which is exactly
what mothers are for. At the last minute I stuck in
a pair. I couldn't believe you wouldn't be dancing
at all." Together, they went into the house and started up
the stairs, just missing being bowled over by Jeff, who
was pounding down from the second floor, two steps at
a time.
"Hey!" Anne cried out, swinging him off his feet.
"Where are you going in such a hurry? Didn't I
tell you not to run in the house?"
"But it's Toby," Jeff protested, squirming in
his mother's grasp. "He's coming across the causeway,
and he's got a fishing pole!"
"A fishing pole!" Anne repeated. "Well, I
guess we can't get in the way of fishing!" She
set Jeff back on his feet, then she and Julie
went on upstairs.
As they passed the closed door to Helena's room,
they could hear the old woman's voice, railing
once more at Marguerite.
Self-consciously they quickened their steps, neither of them
wishing to witness Marguerite's humiliation.
When Marguerite came up, Ruby had been
waiting at the top of the stairs, her eyes stormy and
her jaw set stubbornly. "She's refusing to eat
her breakfast again, Miz Marguerite. I swear,
I don't know what to do with her anymore. It's like
she wants to starve herself to death or somethin'."
"It's all right, Ruby," Marguerite had told
her. "Go on back to whatever you were doing, and I'll
talk to her."
Ruby regarded Marguerite doubtfully. "Seems
like every time you talk to her lately, she just starts
callin' you names and treatin' you like dirt!"
Marguerite sighed tiredly. "I'm all right. And
it can't go on forever, can it?" She opened the door and
stepped into her mother's room.
"Where have you been?" Helena demanded
instantly. "When I call you, I expect you
to come, not dawdle around like a useless child!"
"I'm sorry, Mother," Marguerite said evenly.
"I had to speak to Ruby for a moment-"
"Ruby!" Helena spat the word distastefully. "I
don't see why we keep her around here! She's as
useless as you are!"
Marguerite's eyes shifted away from her mother to the
untouched breakfast that still sat on the tray bridging
Helena's thin legs. "Was there something wrong with
your breakfast?"
Helena's eyes raked Marguerite scornfully.
"Was there something wrong with your breakfast?" she
mimicked acidly. "How am I supposed to eat,
with the house filled with strangers? That miserable little
boy runs up and down the stairs as if this were a
reform school-which is exactly where
he belongs-and that wife of Kevin's keeps prowling
around as if she owns the house! I won't have it! Do
you hear me?"
"I'm sure everyone in the house heard you." Though
she had intended only to think the words, Marguerite was
shocked to hear them tumble from her lips.
Helena fairly quivered with rage. "How dare you
speak to me like that?" she demanded. "I've
taken care of you your entire life! And what do I
get in return? Ingratitude and impertinence! You
apologize to me, Marguerite! This instant!"
Marguerite choked back the sob that rose in her
throat, and stared miserably at the floor. "I'm
sorry, Mother," she said softly. "I meant no
disrespect!"
"Didn't you," Helena sneered. "You chatter those
words like a parrot, child. Do you think I believe them?
I'm not a fool, you know, even though you've always
thought I was!"
"I told you I'm sorry, Mother," Marguerite
whispered miserably. "I don't know what else
I can do. But they're Kevin's family, and I'm
sure they don't mean to disturb you-"
'They're not Kevin's family," Helena hissed.
"You
are Kevin's family. You and I! I don't know
why he brought them here! And I won't have that woman
poking around my house!"
"I'm sure Anne wasn't-"
But the old woman cut her off once more. "You
don't know! I want you to go and make sure the
nursery is locked. She was trying to get in there this
morning. I heard her!"
Marguerite hesitated a second too long.
"Do it!" Helena demanded.
Swallowing hard, her heart pounding with frustration and
barely contained anger, Marguerite hurried out of the
bedroom and down the hall to a door near her own.
She was just trying the handle when the door to the room
Kevin and Anne shared opened and Anne looked out.
"That room's locked," Anne said, and was
surprised to see Marguerite's back stiffen and her
hand drop away from the doorknob as if it had
burned her. Frowning, she stepped into the hallway
itself. "What is it, Marguerite? Is something
wrong?"
Marguerite, her back still toward Anne, shook her
head, then finally turned around. Her face was pale
and her hands were trembling. "Marguerite, what is
it?" Anne asked. "Something
is
wrong."
"H-How did you know this room was locked?"
Marguerite asked.
Anne stepped back in surprise. "I-why, I
tried the door earlier. That room is right next
to Julie's, and I thought Jeff might like to be in
it. He's so far down the hall, all
by himself-I just thought he might like to be closer to the rest
of the family, that's all." Her puzzled frown
deepened. "Why? What's in that room?"
Marguerite's eyes suddenly took on a haunted
look. "It- It's nothing, really. It's just that mother
has some things in here she likes to keep locked up.
She just wanted me to check it, that's all."
Anne's lips tightened. "Well, you can tell her
that neither I nor my children have any intention of stealing
anything," she said, then, seeing the hurt in
Marguerite's eyes, wished she could take the words
back. She crossed the hall and put her arms around
her sister-in-law. "I'm sorry," she said
quietly. "That was unkind of me, and unfair.
It's just-well, maybe it's just the heat."
But Marguerite shook her head. "No, it's not,
Anne. Let's not try to pretend we don't both
know what Mother's like. And, of course, that's exactly
what she was thinking, and she made me come down here
to check the door." She forced a small smile.
"Well, at least I can tell her it's still locked,
can't I?" Giving Anne a quick embrace, she
stepped away, then brushed a strand of hair away from
her forehead.
Anne stayed where she was for a moment, watching
Marguerite walk heavily back to her mother's
room, her limp more pronounced than Anne had
yet seen it. Then she turned back to stare
speculatively at the locked door.
There was something else behind the door; she was sure of
it. It wasn't just a collection of valuable
furniture.
No, there was more to it than that. But what?
Julie stepped shyly through the enormous double doors
that opened from the third-floor landing into the ballroom.
It was the first time she'd been up here, and her eyes
widened in awe.
Forty feet by sixty, the room covered most of the
third floor. The ceiling rose fourteen feet
above the floor, its plaster heavily molded into a
series of garlands and rosettes. A massive
chandelier hung from the center of-each rosette, but the
brass was heavily tarnished, and the crystals-many of
them chipped, others missing entirely-were covered
with a thick layer of grease and dust. Opposite the
main doors from the landing a long wall was broken
by four sets of French doors opening onto a
balcony above the veranda at the front of the house, and
heavy draperies hung limply at the sides of the
doors. At either end of the room large
windows provided panoramic views of the island and the
sea.
The floor was smoothly fitted parquet in a
pattern of rhombuses so intricate it made
Julie dizzy, but the finish on the floor had long
ago worn away, and no trace of its former polish
remained. A thick carpet was rolled up against one
wall, and Julie was certain that it hadn't been
moved from its position in years.
In the far corner there was a grand piano, next to which
stood an old phonograph console, the wood over
its single speaker carved in the form of a treble clef.
A short barre had been bolted to the wall between the
windows at that end of the room, backed by a mirror
whose silvering had flaked away in places, leaving a
web of dark veins, and large, smudgy expanses
in which a reflection was barely visible. A dozen
chairs, their gilt frames badly marred and their red
velvet seats all but worn through, were scattered near
the piano.
Marguerite sat on the piano bench, softly
playing a passage from Stravinsky's
Firebird,
and on the floor five girls moved haltingly through
the difficult choreography their teacher had
devised. When she glanced up and saw Julie,
Marguerite abruptly stopped playing, stood up,
and came across the room to draw Julie inside.
Her hand still holding Julie's, she turned to face
her students.
"Girls, this is my niece, Julie."
Quickly, she introduced Julie to each of the girls,
but by the time she was done, Julie realized she only
remembered the names of two of them.
Jennifer Mayhew, whose smile had been
particularly friendly, and Mary-Beth Fletcher, who
hadn't smiled at all.
"Why don't we finish what we were doing while
Julie warms up, then we can all go to the barre and
run through a few of the basics," Marguerite
suggested.
"I warmed up downstairs, Aunt Marguerite,"
Julie replied. "I didn't want to take up
any extra time."
Marguerite nodded appreciatively. "Then why
don't you take the position nearest the piano, where
I can see you clearly."
The five other girls glanced uncertainly at each
other, but started toward the barre, Jenny Mayhew
falling in next to Julie and leaning over
to whisper in her ear. "She wants to see what you can
do, but doesn't want to make you do it by yourself."
"And if there's any more whispering," Marguerite
observed from her place at the piano, winking at
Jenny, "the whisperer can do a solo for all of us."
Jenny giggled, and winked back at Marguerite,
then took her place next to Julie.
"First position, girls," Marguerite directed,
striking a chord, then beginning to play a simple
tempo. "Second position . . . third . . disand
turn!"
Julie began going through the movements, passing from one
position to the next effortlessly, her arms moving
gracefully as her feet fell naturally into the
poses her aunt directed. The music seemed, as
always, to flow directly from the piano into her
fingertips, and then through her body until she felt it
absorbed within her and her movements seemed to come
directly out of the notes themselves. She closed her
eyes and let her mind drift, enjoying the feel of the
dance, the stretching of her muscles, even the pain in
her feet as she rose up onto her toes. And
then, abruptly, the music stopped, and she opened
her
eyes to see all the other girls staring at
her. Her aunt was on her feet.
"Did-Did I do something wrong?" she asked, her
voice anxious.
"Wrong?" Marguerite asked. "Hardly. You did
everything nearly perfectly!" She turned to the other
girls. "Why don't all of you sit down for a few
minutes? I think we'd all enjoy watching
Julie, and certainly we can all learn something from
her." Her attention went back to Julie. "You've
only been studying for three years?"
Julie flushed in embarrassment. "I've only
been studying seriously for three years," she
admitted. "But I've been taking lessons since
I was six."
Marguerite's brows rose appreciatively.
"Nine years! Then you must have a solo, don't you?"
Julie shrugged dismissively. "Just some things
I've done in recital."
"Would you do one for us?" Marguerite asked.
Julie's eyes immediately scanned the other girls.
Mary-Beth Fletcher's eyes had narrowed
slightly, and Julie saw her glance at the girl
next to her, then whisper quickly into her ear. But
Jennifer Mayhew was smiling encouragingly, as was
one other girl, whose name suddenly came
back to Julie: Tammy-Jo Aaronson.
"I-I guess I could," she said finally. "I have
something my teacher at home choreographed. Do you have
the music from
West Side StoryThat'
"I do, indeed," Marguerite replied. She put
on a record, and a moment later the opening strains of
"The Dance at the Gym" filled the ballroom,
the vibrant rhythms strangely out of place in the
faded nineteenth century grandeur of the ballroom.
Then Julie was alone on the floor, once more lost
in the music, dancing with her eyes closed, swaying
fluidly to the rhythms, her body moving
effortlessly. Marguerite watched her niece with
undisguised pride, seeing in Julie's every
movement the heritage that had come to Julie direct
from her aunt and grandmother. And as she watched, her
eyes drifted over the other girls in her class.
Jennifer Mayhew and Mary-Beth Fletcher were her
most promising students, but compared to Julie, it was
obvious even to Marguerite's biased eye that neither
of them had any real future as professional
dancers. As for the otherseaTammy-Jo Aaronson, a
slightly overweight girl who never seemed
to worry about anything at all, was at least
willing to try.
Allison Carter-blond, and thinly pretty-"
really only in the class because of her mother's social
hopes for her daughter. But Allison didn't
really care, either about her mother's ambitions or
Marguerite's lessons. The fifth girl,
Charlene Phillips, was present, Marguerite
knew, simply because she was Mary-Beth Fletcher's
best friend and did whatever Mary-Beth did.
And after this class, there would be no more. Marguerite
had decided years ago that this group of girls would be
her last. She would enjoy them while she could, and
hadn't thought too much about what she would do when they
grew up.
But it didn't matter, really, for she had them now,
and she loved each of them for what she was. And now,
for a while at least, there was Julie. In Julie
she could see all the dreams of her youth, still
vibrant and alive.
The music built to a crescendo, and Julie
spun across the floor, her legs moving
instinctively, her arms a graceful counterpoint.
Then it was over, and after a moment she heard Jennifer
and Tammy-Jo begin clapping. A moment later the
other girls joined in.
Only Mary-Beth Fletcher sat still, her hands
folded in her lap.
Marguerite rose from her chair and hurried across the
floor to hug Julie.
"It was beautiful," she whispered. "I couldn't have
done it better myself when I was your age." Then she
turned back to the girls once more, and gestured
Julie to take a bow. Julie performed a deep
curtsey, then deliberately let herself collapse
to the floor in a perfect parody of having lost her
footing.
Mary-Beth Fletcher again refrained from joining in the
response as the girls laughed. Instead she leaned
over to
whisper to her friend, who immediately cut short her own
laughter.
Julie scrambled to her feet and grinned happily
at her aunt. "Was I really all right?"
"Of course you were," Marguerite replied. "You
were more than all right-everything about what you just did shows
your talent. Except your eyes. Never close your
eyes when you dance, Julie. Remember, you aren't
doing it for yourself. You're doing it for an audience, and
they want to see your eyes."
"But I always dance with my eyes closed,"
Julie protested. "At least, if it's a solo.
I can feel the music so much better-"
"But you mustn't!" Marguerite proclaimed. "You
must always be aware of the audience. Always!"
Slowly, the class resumed, but as Julie danced
with the others, she felt her aunt's eyes on her;
indeed, she could even feel the pride her aunt was
taking in her, and when the hour was over, she wished she
could go on for another hour. Even the heat in the
ballroom didn't seem to affect her anymore.
But at last Marguerite ended the lesson and the
girls began drifting downstairs. As she had
earlier, Jennifer Mayhew fell in beside Julie.
"You're really good," she said, her voice frankly
admiring.
"You're not exactly bad yourself," Julie
replied.
Jenny shrugged. "I try, but when I watch you, I
feel like I might as well forget it. Trying just
isn't enough-you have to have talent too. And I guess
we all know where you got yours."
Julie nodded. "I wish I could have seen Aunt
Marguerite dance. Dad says she was really good."
Jenny nodded. "She still is. There's a lot she
can't do, I guess, but she never stops
trying to show us how."
Julie cocked her head, looking at Jenny
carefully. "You really like my aunt, don't you?"
"Are you kidding?" Jenny asked. "Everybody
likes Miss Marguerite. She always has time for
us, and she's never mad at us, and she always seems
to know just how we feel." Her voice dropped lower.
"That's why most of us come-we all
know we aren't ever going to be dancers, but it gives us
an excuse to be with Miss Marguerite, and she
always makes it fun."
Suddenly Mary-Beth Retcher, who was a few
steps ahead, turned around and fixed her eyes on
Julie.
"And she's never had favorites either," she said.
"At least she hasn't until now!"
Before Julie could say anything, Mary-Beth turned
away and hurried down the stairs. When she was gone,
Julie looked at Jenny, the pain of
Mary-Beth's words burning her eyes.
"Don't worry about it," Jenny told her.
"Until you came along, Mary-Beth always thought
I was Marguerite's favorite. And if it
wasn't me, it would have been somebody else.
Besides," she added, her grin suddenly
flashing, "why shouldn't you be her favorite? You're
her niece, and you're the best dancer." Then, without
missing a beat, she changed the subject
completely. "Hey, you want to go to the beach this afternoon?
I'll introduce you to the rest of the kids."
Julie hesitated only a split-second, then
nodded eagerly. "I'd love it. You don't know
how bored I've been."
"I do too," Jennifer shot back. "Don't
forget, I've lived here all my life. And it can
get booooooring!"
By the time Jennifer left a few minutes later,
Julie was feeling much better about Devereaux.
Perhaps, after all, the trip wasn't going to be a
total waste of time.
"Kevin, what on earth are you doing?" Anne
demanded. After searching the house, she'd finally found
him behind the west wing, his shirt stripped off and his chest
gleaming with sweat. A mound of tangled vines
surrounded him, and when she spoke to him, he turned
to face her with a triumphant grin spread over his
dirt-streaked face.
"I can't believe it," he replied, dropping the
big pair of hedge shears to the ground and planting his
hands on his hips. "You know, when they
built this place, they knew what they were doing."
Anne's brows arched skeptically. "If they knew
what they were doing," she countered, "why is it falling
apart?"
"That's just it," Kevin told her, his grin widening.
"It isn't falling apart. Underneath the siding, the
brick is as solid as ever, and even most of the siding
just needs repainting and new nails. I thought this
wall would come down when I went after the vines, but
look!" He gestured toward the expanse of wall
he'd stripped naked of twenty-five years of
growth, and Anne's eyes reluctantly followed
his gesture.
"I see buckled siding with no paint on it at
all, two shutters that are about to fall on your head,
and a rain gutter that's missing a whole section," she
said. "And that drain pipe's coming down, those windows
on the second floor are cracked, and if that's not
dry rot down there by the foundation, then I've gone
blind."
Kevin chuckled ruefully. "All right, so it's not
pretty," he agreed. "But that isn't dry
rot-I checked the basement, and the timbers are fine.
Besides, the whole foundation's concrete, and it doesn't
get dry rot."
Anne made a sour face. "Right. All it does
is decompose," she pointed out.
"Except that it hasn't. And all the rest of what
you see is just cosmetic. Every time I do something around
here, I'm amazed. It's as though the house has
been taking care of itself all these years, just waiting for
someone to come along and give it a new coat of
paint."
At his words a faint alarm sounded in Anne's
head, and her eyes darkened as she looked at her
husband. "Is that what you're thinking of doing next?"
she asked. "Painting it?"
Kevin's grin faded slightly. "What if I
am? It needs it, and-"
"And you only have another ten days of vacation,"
Anne reminded him. "It's one thing for you to fix a
few things, but I hope you're not planning to spend the
whole time working on this place."
"I wasn't, really, but why shouldn't I?" Kevin
asked, his manner suddenly defensive. "My mother and
sister live here, Anne. What am I supposed
to do, just let everything go?"
Anne struggled with her conflicting emotions. In a
way, of course, he was right-there was a lot that needed
to be done to the house, and most of it was work
Marguerite certainly couldn't do. And, obviously,
there wasn't any money to hire people. But what about
herself and the children? Weren't they entitled to have some fun with
Kevin sometime during these two weeks? " 'It just
seems a little strange to me that someone who didn't
want to come down here at all is starting to act like he
doesn't ever plan to leave," she said finally, then
her heart skipped a beat as she saw a veil
drop behind Kevin's eyes.
"You know that's not true," he said, but his voice
seemed to Anne to lack conviction, and she suddenly
had a feeling she didn't want to pursue the
subject any further.
"Well, I didn't come out here to give you grief,
anyway," she told him. "But something's bothering
me, and I wanted to talk to you about it."
Kevin looked at her quizzically. "And you wanted
to talk to me alone," he said, reading her mind.
Anne nodded briefly, then told him what had
happened in
the upstairs hall that morning. "Do you know what's in
that room?" she asked when she was finished. "There was
something about the way Marguerite was acting that gave me
the strangest feeling. Like there was something she didn't
want me to see."
Kevin's grin returned, and his eyes glinted with
humor. "So you think you've detected a mystery in
the mansion?" he teased. "Well, I hate to burst
your bubble, but if it's the room I'm thinking of, it
was the nursery."
"The nursery?" Anne repeated.
"Your
nursery?"
"First Marguerite's, then mine," Kevin agreed.
"And there's no mystery about it. If you want to see
it, ask Ruby to unlock it for you."
But Ruby, who was slicing okra when Anne came
into the kitchen a few minutes later, refused.
"There's some things best left alone," she said, her
eyes avoiding Anne's.
For a moment Anne considered demanding the keys, but then
changed her mind. It was not, after all, her house,
nor was Ruby her own employee. But for the rest of the
day she found herself pausing repeatedly in front of the
locked door, staring speculatively at it. And
once, late in the afternoon, she felt eyes watching
her as she stood in the hallway. But when she
turned, the long corridor was empty.
Helena Devereaux's eyes blinked open in the
darkness and she twisted her head
automatically to look at the fluorescent hands of the
clock by her bedside.
A little after midnight.
Usually she didn't waken until two-thirty in
the morning, and then her wakefulness only lasted a
few minutes. But tonight, as the sound of insects
droned in the darkness outside her open window, she was
certain that something was wrong.
The creatures of the night suddenly fell silent.
A floorboard creaked softly somewhere beyond the closed
door to her room.
She listened intently for several seconds that seemed
to stretch out forever, each of them marked by the abnormally
loud ticking of the clock on the nightstand.
The creak came again.
For an instant she thought it must be Marguerite, but
then knew it was not. Whoever was in the hall had stopped
when the first floorboard creaked, and Marguerite would
not have done that. So it was someone else.
Helena's eyes narrowed in the darkness as she
remembered Anne standing in the corridor that afternoon,
gazing at the door to the nursery. Her heart began
to flutter as she understood what was happening. That
woman was going to go into the nursery.
Her first instinct was to reach for the button by her
bed and summon Marguerite, but even as she
stretched, she changed her mind.
She would deal with this herself.
She swung her legs off the bed and reached for the limp
silk wrapper that Ruby had dropped on the chair
on the other side of the night table. Why couldn't the
stupid woman leave it on the bed, where she could reach
it?
Helena struggled to her feet, supporting herself against
the bed table as she reached for the wrapper, then sat down
on the edge of the bed while she put the garment on.
Finally, tying the belt around her waist and taking a
single key from the drawer of her nightstand, she began
making her way toward the door, edging along the wall
to steady herself, her breathing growing harsher with every step.
But the rasping in her lungs didn't matter.
What mattered was keeping that woman out of the nursery!
She leaned against the wall for a moment while she
caught her breath, then pulled the door open. The
soft glow of a nightlight cast long shadows down the
corridor, but there was no sign of Anne.
And then, from downstairs, Helena heard another
floorboard creak, and instantly understood what
Anne was doing. Slowly she started down the hall,
her knees wobbling beneath her and her heart
throbbing in her chest. When she finally came to the head
of the stairs, she had to brace herself against the banister
to keep from falling.
For a moment Anne was forgotten as Helena's eyes
fell on the hated chair lift that had been her
only means of getting
from one floor to another for the last decade. She'd
never intended it for her own use at all-indeed, she
should have had it torn out after she'd finally forbidden
Marguerite to keep using it so many years ago. But
tearing it out hadn't been necessary, for once she'd told
Marguerite that the chair was nothing but a crutch, her
daughter had never tried to use it again.
So she hadn't torn it out, and when her own body
began to fail her, she'd found she needed the lift
herself. But not tonight. Tonight she only had to get to the
nursery.
Get there before Anne did.
She started once more down the long hall, ignoring the
sudden sharp flashes of pain shooting through her left
arm.
Anne groped through the darkness of the first floor, still
feeling guilty about what she was doing. But she
hadn't been able to fall asleep that night, and long
after Kevin had begun to snore softly beside
her, she'd lain awake, the image of the locked
door across the hall still hanging in front of her
eyes.
"There's some things best left alone."
What could Ruby have meant?
What could there be in a nursery that required being
locked up?
At last she'd left her bed, slipped out into the
dimness of the hall and started toward the stairs. But
each time a floorboard had creaked, she stopped
short, afraid of being caught. But it was
ridiculous! Caught doing what? She wasn't
doing anything wrong!
And yet even when she had reached the bottom of the
stairs, she hadn't turned on any lights, and now
she found herself hesitating outside the kitchen door,
listening for any signs that Ruby might still be
awake.
At last satisfied, she pushed the door open and
reached for the ring of keys that hung from a hook just
inside the door.
The soft clink as it came free from the hook seemed
to echo loudly through the kitchen, and she quickly silenced
the sound with her hand, then hurried back toward the
stairs.
She could sense something different as soon as she reached
the second-floor landing. She paused once more,
listening, but the house was quiet, and the insects
outside had begun softly chirping once again. And
yet, as she started along the corridor toward the
nursery door, a sense of unease-stronger than the
vague guilt she had felt earlier-pervaded her
mind. Perhaps she should give it up, and simply put
the nursery out of her mind. But she knew she
couldn't.
Steeling herself for whatever she might find, she walked
quickly to the locked door and began trying the keys.
The eighth one fit.
She twisted it in the lock, then turned the knob and
pushed the door open a crack.
Inside, the room was pitch black, and Anne
felt along the wall for a light switch. A moment
later the room filled with a brilliant white
light, and Anne pushed the door wide. And
screamed.
A shattered crib stood brokenly propped against
one wall, the remains of what had apparently once
been a bassinet standing next to it. In one corner was
a tiny rocking chair, with a full-sized duplicate
of it only a few feet away.
Both chairs had had their upholstery slashed, and
wads of cotton batting bulged from the rents in the
fabric.
The remains of a heavy braided rug covered the
floor, and a few pictures-hanging crookedly in
broken frames behind shattered glass-decorated the
walls.
And in the middle of the room Helena Devereaux
stood, her eyes blazing, her body quivering with
rage.
As quickly as it had come, the scream died on
Anne's lips. Her eyes darted around the chaos
of the all bat destroyed room for a moment, then came
to rest on the old woman. "I-I don't understand,"
she whispered, half to herself.
"Nobody
asked
you to understand," Helena's voice hissed. She took
a step toward Anne, her hands, almost like claws,
reaching out toward the younger woman. "Nobody asked you
to come here and start poking around my house! You have no
business in here, woman! Don't you think this room
is kept locked for a reason? Or don't you
care?"
"But what is it, Mrs. Devereaux?"
Anne asked. "What happened to it? Why is it
kept locked?"
"To keep people like you out!" Helena shrieked. She
lurched toward Anne once again, tottering forward on
her shaking legs, her finger pointing accusingly at
Anne. "How dareddyou come in here? How dare you
poke your nose into our affairs!"
Suddenly her eyes widened and she stepped back as
if she had been stricken by a blow. Her face,
already red, turned a deep scarlet, and then her hands
clamped against her chest. She gasped-a horrible,
rattling sound that seemed to jerk her whole body-then
her legs crumbled beneath her and she dropped to the
floor.
Her own eyes widening with shock, Anne stared
mutely at the fallen woman for a moment, then
dropped to her knees next to her mother-in-law and
took her hand. Helena, her eyes glowering
malevolently despite the pain that wracked her
body, snatched her hand away. "Don't touch
me!" she rasped.
Panic rising out of the depths of her belly, Anne
rose to her feet and turned toward the door, only
to find Kevin, his eyes still clouded with sleep, staring
at her uncertainly.
"Kevin!" Anne cried. "It's your mother!
Something's happened to her! Hurry!"
"Her medicine," Kevin said, brushing past Anne
and dropping to the floor beside Helena. "It's on the
table by her bed. Get it!"
Her own heart pounding now, Anne rushed from the room
and ran down the hall to Helena's suite, pushing
open the door so hard it slammed noisily against the
wall. She rummaged in the clutter on the night
table for a moment, then found the small bottle of
pills. She was just about to start back to the nursery when
Marguerite, a robe wrapped tightly around her,
appeared in the doorway.
"What is it?" Marguerite asked.
"What's-Then, for the first time, she saw the empty
bed. "Anne? Where's Mother? What's happening?"
"The nursery," Anne said quickly. "I think-I
don't know-it looks like a heart attack." She
pushed past
marguerite, the bottle clutched in her hand.
"Call an ambulance, Marguerite. Quick!" She
raced back to the nursery, fumbling with the cap of the
bottle as she ran.
"Water!" Kevin demanded.
Anne froze for a moment, staring down at
Helena's face. Her complexion had gone dead
white now and the fingers of one of her hands were twitching
spasmodically, as if trying to grasp at some
unseen object. Then, seizing control of herself
once more, Anne hurried into her bathroom and
returned with a glass of water just as Kevin was shaking
three of the pills out of the small vial. He
cradled his mother's head in his lap and tried to put the
pills into her mouth, but Helena shoved his hand roughly
away.
"No-" she gasped, her words barely audible through the
labored raling of her strangled breath. "It's too
late." Then her eyes opened wide and she stared up
into her son's face. "Kevin . . dis8she began, and
her voice trailed away.
"I'm here, Mother," Kevin said. "Don't
worry-you're going to be all right."
Helena's eyes fixed on his. "Promise
me-" she whispered. "Promise me- " Then her
body jerked reflexively as another spasm
struck her heart.
"What, Mother?" Kevin asked. "What is it?"
Suddenly there was a small shriek from the doorway,
and Anne looked up to see Marguerite, her face
ashen, her knuckles white as she clutched
at the door. "Is she-"
Anne shook her head. "Where's the doctor?"
"C-Coming," Marguerite stammered. She lurched
into the room, her lame leg threatening to give way
beneath her, and Anne hurried to her side, supporting
her as she moved toward her stricken mother.
"No!" Helena gasped, her eyes lighting
venomously on Marguerite. "Not her! Get her
out! Out!"
Her eyes widening with shock, Marguerite stepped
back, covering her mouth with her hand. "Mama," she
cried. "Don't die, Mama. You can't ..."
Once more Helena seemed to rally.
"I am
dying," she gasped. "Don't you want to watch me,
Marguerite? Isn't that what you've been waiting for
all these years?" Then her body
contracted once more and her hands flew again to her
breast. Writhing in pain now, she clutched at
Kevin, her breathing reduced to short rasping
gasps. "Promise me . . dis8she managed once
again.
Kevin drew a sharp breath as he heard his mother's
words, but as her hands closed like twin vises on
his, he could do nothing but nod.
"Marguerite," the old woman gasped. "Watch out
for Marguerite. ..."
Her eyes met his, and for the last time in his life
Kevin felt the strange power of his mother's will reach out
to close around him.
Even as she lay dying, he wanted to pull away from
her, wanted to escape from her influence. But he
couldn't. He couldn't escape her as a child, and he
couldn't escape her now.
The last mighty stroke of the seizure took
Helena then, and she screamed out loud as a searing
pain exploded from her chest into every extremity of her
body. A vein exploded in her forehead and an
angry purplish stain spread beneath the skin. And then,
as the scream died on her lips, her grasp on
Kevin's hands relaxed, her hands fell away, her
mouth dropped open, and her head lolled back on
Kevin's lap. The anger drained from her eyes, and
she stared sightlessly upward until her son gently
closed their lids.
Marguerite, whimpering softly against the wall by the
door, seemed to sense the change.
"M-Mama?" she asked, her voice uncertain
now, and almost childlike. "Mama?"
Kevin looked helplessly up at his older
sister. "She's gone, Marguerite."
"Noooo . . ."
The word was wrenched from Marguerite's lips in an
anguished wail, and she pulled herself away from
Anne's supporting grip to lurch across the room.
Her lame leg twisted oddly sideways, she
dropped to the floor and gathered her mother into her arms.
"No, Mama," she whispered. "You can't leave
me. You can't- You can never leave me, Mama. I
won't let you! I won't let you!" Sobbing
brokenly, she
buried her face in Helena's still chest, then hugged
her body tighter, as if trying to lend her own warmth
to Helena's corpse.
Kevin started to reach out to her, but suddenly Ruby
appeared at the door. She stepped forward quickly,
her hand stopping his own. Their eyes met, and Kevin
found his gaze held by the deep dark eyes of the old
servant. "Leave her be, Mr. Kevin," Ruby
said quietly. "She's got to deal with this in her own
way. And she will, Mr. Kevin. She will."
Kevin tried to protest, but Ruby shook her head.
"I know her, Mr. Kevin. I know her a lot
better than you do. I been here all her life and
know how she is. We got to leave her
be."
Sighing heavily, she shifted to look down at the still,
frail body that was all that was left of her
mistress. "It'll be all right," she said almost
to herself. "I'll make sure it is, Miz
Helena. I'll make sure." Then, taking
Kevin by the hand, she led him out of the ruined nursery.
Anne, who had stood stunned near the door through it
all, stared numbly at Marguerite and Helena for a
moment, then turned to go. But before she was quite out of the
room, Marguerite spoke, her voice bleak and
empty.
"She's left me, Anne," she said quietly.
Anne turned back then, and found Marguerite
looking at her, her eyes unblinking and filled with a
pain Anne had never seen before.
"How could she do that?" Marguerite asked then. "How
could she leave me? I needed her, Anne. I
needed
her."
Anne had watched in amazement as the cars streamed
across the causeway on the afternoon of Helena
Devereaux's funeral, but upon reflection, decided
she really shouldn't have been surprised at the
turnout. After all, even in the face of the
obvious depression of the area, the Devereauxes had still
been the first family of the county for nearly two
centuries, and certainly the death of the matriarch would
be considered an event of some note. And, she also
realized, most of the people who came over to the island for the
service hadn't actually seen Helena in better
than a decade, and in all likelihood had no
idea of what an evil-tempered harridan she had
become. Certainly Marguerite would never have
complained, and unless Anne had thoroughly misjudged
Ruby, the old servant would have been just as discreet
as Marguerite herself.
Now, standing in the suffocating heat of the July afternoon,
Anne let her attention wander as the local parish
priest droned on in what she considered to be an
entirely fictional eulogizing of Helena's soul.
Certainly the Helena Devereaux the priest was
talking about bore no resemblance to the woman
Anne had known during the last week. Finally, she
tuned the priest out altogether, letting her eyes wander
over the faces of the people whose own fortunes had been tied
to those of the Devereauxes over so many generations. The
group gathered in the small family graveyard a
hundred yards below the house was nearly evenly
divided between whites and blacks, and there were
many faces that showed features of both the races.
Nor, so far as Anne could see, were there
any strains between them as white and black stood side
by side at the grave.
To Anne's further surprise, the villagers
didn't look nearly as poor as she had
expected. Though a few of the men's faces
reflected the deep lines of worry endemic to the very
poor, for whom old age begins to show early in
life, most of them seemed to be middle-class people
who had fallen on hard times but expected their
condition to be temporary. They were dressed in their
best suits, and though the clothing was not expensive
nor quite up to the latest styles, neither was it ragged or
shining with age. Most of the village men wore dark
suits similar to the one Kevin himself was wearing.
The women, for the most part, were reflections of their
husbands. Their faces, too, had the weathered look
of those for whom life had not been particularly easy,
but she saw none of the hopeless bitterness created by the
stark poverty of the hill country of West
Virginia, through which she and Kevin had driven on their
way to New Orleans ten years before. Indeed, as
Anne felt the sun beating down, it occurred to her
that in this part of the country anyone who spent
much time outdoors was going to take on a weathered
look.
There was also, she noticed, an odd similarity
among the faces she was looking at. That, too, was
understandable, for over the years these families must have
intermarried to the point where most of the people at the funeral
were cousins of one degree or another. She
suppressed a small smile as she silently
speculated on how many of them actually had
Devereaux blood running somewhere in their veins, and
suspected it was a far higher percentage than
anyone in town ever admitted.
The priest fell silent, and Anne refocused her
attention on the ornate coffin that rested on a
small catafalque before the open door in the large
marble crypt holding the remains of four generations of
Devereauxes. Anne had studied the crypt earlier,
reading the names of Devereauxes long gone. The
earliest of them all had French names, but over the
years some Scottish and Irish names had begun
to creep in. Anne had been unable to read some of the
inscriptions, for the marble mausoleum was deeply
pitted by its exposure to the
elements. But Helena's name was crisply clear,
chiseled only the day before by a monument
carver who had driven up from Charleston
specifically to match Helena's epitaph to that of
her husband Rafe, already entombed in the crypt.
The crowd murmured in whispered prayer as the
pallbearers lifted the coffin from the catafalque and
slid it into the dark recess of marble. Then
Marguerite stepped forward, her slim figure
swathed in a cascade of black chiffon, and placed
a single rose on her mother's coffin. She stood still
a moment, then reached out, touched the coffin with the tips of
her fingers, and stepped back.
Kevin repeated the ritual, then; one by one, the
mourners filed past the open crypt, speaking a soft
word of encouragement to Marguerite, then moving on,
drifting out of the cemetery and up the low rise to the
mansion itself, where a cold buffet was already spread on
the veranda. Anne, with Julie and Jeff flanking
her, hung back until the last of the villagers had
paid their respects, then stepped forward. First she,
then each of the children, placed a flower on the coffin
inside the crypt, amidst the other flowers. When they
were done, Marguerite reached out to the crypt's heavy
door, then hesitated. Her eyes damp, she
turned to Kevin. "I can't," she said quietly.
"I just can't do it, Kevin."
Understanding, Kevin moved to his sister's side,
swung the door closed, and locked it with a silver
key. Putting his arm around Marguerite, he led her
toward the house.
"Is it all over?" Jeff asked in a loud
whisper as Anne and the children, too, left the
cemetery.
"It's all over," Anne assured her son, who
somehow had managed to stand relatively still through the
half hour of the service. "And I'll bet if you can
find Toby, the two of you can get at that food before
it's all gone." His face lighting up, Jeff
raced ahead and disappeared into the crowd, then
reappeared a second later with Toby Martin in
tow. The two of them flew up the steps to the veranda and
began piling food onto their plates. Anne
grinned ruefully at Julie. "I have a feeling
we might have trouble convincing Jeff to go home," she
remarked. "Did you ever see anyone make such a
close friend so fast?"
"Toby's nice," Julie replied. "In
fact, most of the kids here are nice. They're not like
the people we know in Connecticut."
Anne gazed at her daughter with mild surprise.
"I thought you liked your friends."
"I do," Julie said quickly, flushing. "But
everyone's different down here. They don't worry
about who has the nicest house, or the most money,
or any of that stuff."
"It's hard to worry about money if you don't have
any," Anne pointedly observed.
"They're not that poor," Julie said. "Jennifer's
father works in Charleston, and most of her friends' fathers do
too."
Anne's expression turned uncertain. "But if
they're all working, why don't they do something about their
homes? The whole town looks like it's falling
apart." When Julie's eyes clouded and she looked
away from her mother, Anne's uncertainty deepened.
"Julie? What is it? Is something wrong?"
Julie shrugged elaborately, then saw Jenny
Mayhew, who was standing with another girl and three
boys. "There's Jenny," she said, waving. "I'd
better go say hello to her." She started away, but
Anne stopped her.
"Julie, what's wrong? What is it?"
Julie hesitated once more, then her eyes,
darkened by anger, met her mother's. "Maybe you'd
better ask Daddy," she said. "Ask him why the
town looks the way it does!" Before
Anne could reply, Julie hurried up the slope
and was swallowed up by the group of teenagers.
Anne stayed where she was for a moment, wondering what
Julie could have been talking about. Still pondering the
question, she, too, started walking up the gentle hill.
But that afternoon she was not to find out what Julie's
strange words had meant, for as she moved among the
crowd of mourners clustering in the shade of the trees
on the front lawn, she increasingly felt like an
outsider. And, of course, she was.
All the people here-even her husband-shared a common
heritage of which she knew nothing. And as she spoke
to them, or tried to speak to them, she felt the chasm
between herself and the people of Devereaux widening.
Not that anyone was rude to her. Indeed, she felt that
most of them were going out of their way to be kind to her.
But it was the kindness a native shows to an alien, not
the kindness one friend shows to another.
Within thirty minutes Anne was certain that no
matter how long a time she spent in Devereaux-even
if it was the rest of her life-she would never fit in.
Long before the first of the mourners had gone home, she
had slipped away to the shelter of the room she shared with
Kevin.
And that, she decided as she stretched out on
the bed, was the crux of the matter. This wasn't her
room, and never would be. It was only the room she
shared with Kevin, who, unlike herself, was a real
Devereaux.
That was the way it was, and always would be.
But it doesn't matter, she told herself, closing
her eyes against the afternoon sun. It doesn't matter,
because in a few more days we'll be going home. . . .
"Did you ever see a dead person before?" Toby
asked, staring mournfully at the plate of potato
salad for which he suddenly had no appetite.
Jeff shook his head silently.
"It kind of made me feel funny," Toby
admitted.
"Me too," Jeff agreed. But it had done more
to him than just make him feel funny. He'd stood
as quietly as he could all through the service,
wondering what would happen when it was all over.
He'd been glad they hadn't opened the coffin again
before they put it into the crypt-it had been bad enough
having it sitting in the library for three days, while
everyone in town came by to peer down at the strange
white mask that didn't quite look like his grandmother.
He'd looked at the body a lot-whenever nobody
came along to chase him out of the
library-trying to figure out why his grandmother looked so
much different now that she was dead. But even now that
they'd buried her-if that was what you called it when you
put the body in a stone box above the ground-he
still wasn't quite sure. But he knew that looking at the
body had been scary.
Even scarier was the way his Aunt Marguerite had
looked at him when she'd found him in the library
yesterday., Her face had been white and her hair
messed up, and for just a second she had looked
to Jeff exactly like his grandmother.
But it was when she looked right at him that he felt
goosebumps all over his body. It was just the way
his grandmother had looked at him when she was coming down the
stairs in the chair the first day he had been at Sea
Oaks.
Like she wasn't sure who he was, and didn't
care.
And she didn't care, Jeff had known instantly,
because for some reason-even though she didn't even know
him-his grandmother hated him.
And yesterday, for just a split second, that was how his
Aunt Marguerite had looked at him.
Just like she hated him.
He felt a chill run down his back, and
quickly looked around, as if his aunt had been able
to read his mind just now. But she was nowhere to be seen, so
he nudged Toby with his elbow. "Come on," he
said. "Let's go down to the beach." With Toby right
behind him, he began threading his way through the crowd
once more, relieved that he didn't run into his
aunt.
Marguerite stood under the largest of the oak trees,
the faces of the people she had known all her life melding
together until she found herself uncertain of exactly
whom she was talking to. And then a tall figure
emerged from the throng, and suddenly Will Hempstead
stood before her. Looming nearly a foot taller
than Marguerite, he smiled gently down at her,
his eyes filled with concern. "Is there anything I can
do?" he asked, his voice dropping so that no one but
Marguerite could hear him. "If there's anything,
Marguerite, anything at all, you just tell me."
Marguerite smiled wanly and shook her head. "But
it's sweet of you to offer, W. After all these years,
and after
what happened, well ..." Her voice trailed
up in embarrassment.
"It's all right," Will assured her. "I'm a lot
older now, and so are you, but nothing's
changed, Marguerite. I hope you know that."
Marguerite tipped her head up and met Will's
eyes. "But it
has
changed, W. Everything's changed, and nothing can ever be
the way it was again." She could see that Will was about to say
something else-something she wasn't sure she wanted
to hear-and then she saw her brother a few yards
away. "Kevin?" she called. "Kevin, come and
say hello to Will Hempstead. You remember Will,
don't you?"
Kevin excused himself from the group he was chatting withand
strode over, his hand extended. "More likely that Will
doesn't remember me. I don't think I've
seen you since I was eight or ten years old."
He grasped Will's hand firmly in his own.
"What're you up to these days?"
"Law," Will announced. "As in capturing, not
prosecuting."
"Will's the police chief," Marguerite explained,
and Kevin thought her voice was suddenly a little too
bright. "Everybody says he's got the right
personality for the job, but I think they appointed him
because he's so big nobody would dare to fight him."
"And I think you tease just as much as you did
when you were a girl," Will Hempstead replied, but
beamed at her words nonetheless. Then he turned his
attention to Kevin. "Heard you were here. Lots of people
are glad you're back."
Kevin shrugged. "Well, it's nice to feel
welcome, but I'm afraid I won't be staying
long. In fact, I think about three more days and we
have to head back north."
Hempstead looked surprised. "Not staying?" he
asked. "Well, now, that's not the way I heard it.
Folks are saying you're bringing the wife and kids and
moving down here to stay. And if you're not," he added,
"I've got to say I'm sorry." He gave
Kevin a broad wink. "I've seen that daughter of
yours-prettiest girl we've had around here since
Marguerite grew up. "Course, she looks just
like Marguerite, so I suppose you might say
I'm a bit prejudiced."
"Will!" Marguerite exclaimed.
"Well, it's true, isn't it?" Will demanded.
"Even if it is, this isn't the time or the place
to be saying such things," Marguerite protested.
Leaving Kevin and Hempstead alone together, she made
her way across the lawn, her right hand pressed against
her hip, her limp more pronounced than
usual. Will Hempstead watched her go, his eyes
taking on a faraway look.
"Still carrying a torch for her?" Kevin finally asked,
and the police chief flushed deeply, but nodded.
"Guess I always will," he said. "And now that Miss
Helena's gone- He cut off his words abruptly,
clearly embarrassed.
"Now that Mother's dead, you can come around again?" Kevin
finished. Before Will could say anything, Kevin went
on. "I wonder what she'll do now? Living with mother
all these years-I have a feeling things might be rough
for her for a while."
Hempstead shook his head. "She'll be all right.
There isn't a soul in town who isn't crazy about
Marguerite, even in spite of the old lady. All
she has to do is ask, and folks'll flock around."
Then his eyes pointedly met Kevin's. was
'Course it would help if her brother flocked around
a bit, too, if you know what I mean. You're
all the family she's got left, and she's going
to need you. In fact," he added, "the whole town's
going to need you. Or at least know what your intentions
are."
Kevin shifted uncomfortably. "I know what you're
saying, W. And I intend to get Mother's
affairs straightened out. But that shouldn't take too
long, and once it's done, I'll be gone."
A third man joined the group. It was Sam
Waterman, a white-haired lawyer who had looked
after Helena Devereaux's affairs for nearly half
a century. Kevin was not surprised to see that even
today, despite the occasion, Waterman was dressed in
his habitual white suit. "Did I hear you say
you're leaving?" he asked Kevin, his voice sharp.
Kevin repeated what he'd told Will Hempstead,
and the old lawyer listened in silence. But when Kevin
was done, he shook his head.
"I wouldn't count on that," he said softly.
Kevin frowned. What could the lawyer be talking about?
"I beg your pardon?" he asked.
"I wouldn't count on leaving," the lawyer repeated.
"In fact, I wouldn't even think about it until
tomorrow, when I'll be bringing the will out. And after that, you
might just be changing your mind." Then, smiling
genially, he turned and stepped into another conversation a
few yards away.
Kevin stared after him for a moment, wondering what on
earth the lawyer could have been talking about. Unbidden,
the words Ruby had spoken the first night he was back
at Sea Oaks came back to his mind.
"You
are
a Devereaux, Mr. Kevin, and you
will
stay at Sea Oaks."
Despite the shimmering heat of the afternoon, a chill
passed through him.
Kevin was unable to sleep that night. Not only had
Sam Waterman's words stayed in his mind, but after
dinner Anne had told him of her cryptic
conversation with Julie after the funeral. When she was
done, he'd nodded. "It's the leases," he'd said,
helping himself to a bourbon and water from the bar in the
small library in the east wing. "No one in
Devereaux owns the land his house or business is
on."
Anne had blinked. "I beg your pardon?"
"Leases," Kevin had explained. "My family
have always been fanatics about land. So when things got
real bad at the end of the last century, they didn't
sell land, they leased it-ninety-nine-year leases,
which start running out in the next few years. Which
means, legally, that every building in Devereaux, along
with the land, reverts to us. That's why," he'd added, as
shock began to register on Anne's
face, "the town looks the way it does. Who's
going to waste money fixing up a bunch of buildings
that don't belong to them?
Nobody in town's broke, Anne. They just
don't know what's going to happen next."
Anne's eyes had narrowed. "So that's what they
all meant when they wanted to know what you were going
to do?"
Kevin had nodded tiredly. "Will Hempstead as much
as asked me today, but I put him off."
"And what are you going to do?" Anne had asked.
Kevin shook his head. "Sleep on it, I
suppose. And see what Sam Waterman has
to say. Then you and I and Marguerite can decide
what's the right thing to do."
Anne had held up her hands in protest. "Not
me," she'd said. "It's all up to you and
Marguerite. I've never been here before, I don't
know any of the people involved, and, to be frank, I'm not
too crazy about the place." When Kevin had given
her a quizzical look, she'd added only half
apologetically, "What can I say? I watched the
way everyone treated you and Marguerite this afternoon, and
I felt the way they treated me. To them, you're part
of Devereaux, and it doesn't matter that you
don't live here anymore. You're part of
them.
But I'm not." When Kevin had tried to argue with
her, she'd cut him off. "Oh, they were polite
enough. It's not that-it's just a feeling. I got the
idea that deep down they feel that I'm an
outsider, and they're right. So you and Marguerite
decide what has to be done, and don't worry about
me. I'm not a part of Sea Oaks, or
Devereaux, and I never will be."
They'd left it at that, and now Anne was sleeping
peacefully beside him. But Kevin was still awake, his
mind churning. Finally, knowing sleep was hours away,
he got up and left the room. At the other end of the
hall a streak of light glowed beneath Marguerite's
door, and Kevin walked down and tapped softly.
A moment later his sister told him to come in.
Marguerite was sitting up in bed, a pair of reading
glasses perched on her nose. She took them off
as he came in, then patted the bed for him to sit
next to her.
"How are you holding up?" Kevin asked.
"All right, I guess," Marguerite replied.
"Still numb, I suppose. But that will pass, and
I'll get through it."
"You always do," he said softly. "Sometimes you amaze
me. How did you tolerate her all those years?"
Marguerite's eyes clouded slightly. "I loved
her, Kevin," she said. Then, as he started to speak,
she put her fingers to his lips. "I know how you
felt, but I didn't. She took care of me,
too, Kevin. After the-" She hesitated a
second, then forced herself to go on. "After my accident
she took care of me, you know."
"How could I forget?" Kevin asked, his bitterness
suddenly clear in his voice. "She sent me off
to military school so she could spend all her time with
you."
Marguerite's eyes filled with tears. "Is that
what you think?"
"Why shouldn't I? It's true, isn't it?"
Marguerite was silent for a long time, but at last,
tiredly, she nodded. "I suppose it is," she
agreed. "And I suppose it wasn't fair. But
it was a bad time for me, too, Kevin. And in the end
you got away from here. I never did."
Kevin reached out and took her hand. "Well, it's not
too late. I suspect you can now do pretty much
anything you want. If we sell Sea Oaks-
Marguerite snatched her hand away.
"Sell Sea Oaks?" she echoed. "Kevin,
you're not thinking of doing that, are you? Where would I
live? What would I do?"
Instantly, Kevin regretted his words. "I just said
'if," " he assured her. "We certainly
won't do anything you don't want to do?"
"Well, I know I don't want to leave here,"
Marguerite told him. "I've lived here all my
life. I won't say it's always been perfect, but
it's my home, and I don't know if I could live
anywhere else." Her voice took on a frightened
edge. "I don't need much money-"
"Hey!" Kevin protested. "Take it easy.
If it's what you want, and we can find a way, of
course you'll stay here. And we shouldn't even be
talking about it now. Let's wait until tomorrow and
see what Sam's got to say. Okay?"
Marguerite looked at him for a moment, then smiled.
"Okay." Then she glanced at the clock. "And I
think you
should be in bed. You're still my baby brother, and I can
send you to bed if I want to, right?"
"Right," Kevin agreed, getting to his feet and
leaning over to kiss his sister's cheek. "And keep the
faith, sis, okay?"
"Don't I always?" Marguerite replied.
As Kevin left the room, she put her glasses
back on and tried to concentrate on the book she'd
been attempting to read. But it did no good. Without
her mother, something was missing in the house.
Finally she reached over and switched off the light, then
lay flat on the bed. In her right hip-the hip that
had been so badly broken so many years ago-a
burning pain began to radiate.
She tried to ignore the pain, tried to tell herself it
didn't exist.
But, of course, it did exist. It was always there,
lurking
just beneath her consciousness, and on days like today, when something
was upsetting her, the pain broke through, overtaking her
entire body.
It had been going on like this for three days now, ever
since her mother had died.
Every day the pain was becoming worse. . . .
It was the dream that woke Jeff up. He'd seen his
grandmother, her cold eyes glaring at him, her bony
finger pointing accusingly at him. But he didn't know
why she was angry at him.
All he knew was that she wanted to hurt him.
Wanted to kill him.
Just as she reached out for him, her fingers circling his
throat, he woke up.
He lay still in the bed for a few minutes, his heart
pounding, and listened to the sounds of the house.
One by one he identified each of them.
The strange scratching sound-the one that sounded like
someone was trying to get in at the window-" just a
branch brushing up against the screen.
The hollow thunking-the sound that on the first night had
seemed ominous, like a ghost knocking at the
door-" a loose shutter on the third floor,
right above his room.
The creakings and groanings were just the house shifting, and
he'd never been afraid of sounds like that-the house in
Connecticut had them too.
But something had wakened him, and after he'd finally
identified all the night noises, he crept out of
his bed and went to the door. He pressed his ear up
against the wood and listened carefully.
Nothing.
He went to the window and peered anxiously out into the
darkness. There was a half-moon shimmering above the
sea, and he watched the silvery streak that spread
over the rippling waters, and the surf shining brightly in
the moonlight.
Then he saw the movement.
He wasn't sure it was there for a second, because when
he shifted his eyes to the place where he thought he'd
seen it, it disappeared.
He shifted his gaze slightly, and he saw it again.
He closed his eyes for a moment, waiting for them
to get used to the darkness, then opened them again.
And gasped, and his heart began to pound.
A hundred yards behind the house, in the cemetery, a
pale white form seemed to be moving amid the
tombstones.
A ghost.
His grandmother's ghost.
But that was dumb, he told himself. There were no such
things as ghosts, except in movies.
Except that it was there, as clearly visible as his
grandmother had been in his dream. He couldn't see it
perfectly, for the branches of the oak tree kept
swaying in the breeze, but every few seconds he could
catch a glimpse of it, moving through the graveyard,
circling slowly around the crypt.
His heart beat even faster, and he felt the cold
knot of fear left over from the dream begin to harden in
his belly.
What should he do?
Should he crawl back in bed and pull the covers up
over his head? But what if the ghost had seen him, and
came for him?
Julie.
Julie would know what to do.
His legs trembling, he went to the door and listened
again. What if it were out there now, waiting for him?
He listened as hard as he could, but heard nothing.
Carefully, doing his best to make no noise, he
twisted the doorknob and pulled the door open a
crack.
The hall was pitch dark, and his grandmother seemed to reach
out of the blackness, trying to wrap her icy fingers around
his throat.
He shrank back, panic closing in on him.
But he couldn't stay where he was. Not anymore.
Then he knew what to do.
If he turned on all the lights in his room and
opened his door wide, he'd be able to see what was in
the hall.
He turned the switch on the wall, and the chandelier
over the center of the room came on. He opened the
door again. Though the crack was only an inch wide,
it was already better. Slowly, carefully, he widened
the crack, and the shaft of light widened.
He looked both ways, peering into the dark shadows
beyond the light. Then, taking a deep breath, he
sprinted down the hall and burst through the door
to Julie's room, hurling himself into her bed and
pulling the covers up tight. Instantly, Julie
sat up.
"Jeff?" she asked. Pulling the covers away from
him, she glared down at him. "Jeff! What are you
doing?"
Jeff swallowed the lump in his throat, and tried not
to let his voice quaver. "Gh-Ghost," he
managed. "There's a ghost in the graveyard,
Julie!"
Julie stared at him. "What are you talking about?"
"I
saw
it," Jeff insisted. "I woke up, and I knew
something was wrong, and when I looked out the window, I
saw it!"
"What
did you see?" Julie demanded.
"A
ghost!
It was all white, and it was just sort of floating
around!"
Julie rolled her eyes. "That's dumb. There's
no such thing as ghosts, and you know it."
"I saw it!" Jeff insisted. "If you don't
believe me, just look!"
Suddenly Julie thought she understood. "You think you
can make me get out of bed and go look out the window just
so you can laugh at me? Well, you can't, so just go
back to your bed, or I'm going to call Mom and
Dad."
Jeff stayed where he was, his face set
stubbornly. "I don't care," he said. "I know
what I saw."
Julie hesitated. Always before, the threat to call
their parents had put an end to Jeff's games. But
this time he really looked scared. At last, sighing
heavily but still curious, she got out of bed and went
to the window.
The cemetery lay serenely in the moonlight,
empty of anything but the crypt and a few headstones.
"There's nothing there," Julie said. "There is
too," Jeff said, staying where he was. "There
isn't,"
Julie insisted. "If you don't believe me, come
look!"
There was a long silence, and finally Jeff
left the bed and approached the window cautiously.
Before he looked out, he slipped his hand into his
older sister's. Then, at last, he screwed up his
courage and looked once more into the moonlit stillness
of the night. The graveyard was empty.
He caught his breath, his eyes flooding with tears.
"But it was there," he said. "I saw it. I know I
did."
Finally, convinced that whatever he'd seen had truly
frightened him, Julie led her brother back to bed.
"Well, whatever it was, it's gone now. But if you
want to, you can sleep with me tonight, all right?"
Jeff nodded solemnly, and let Julie tuck
him in. A minute later she got into the other side
of the bed and switched off the light. For several
minutes the room was silent. Then the hair on
the back of Jeffs neck stood on end and he felt
a shiver run down his spine.
"Boo!" Julie cried, grabbing him from behind.
Jeff shrieked, then, despite himself, began
to giggle. But long after his giggling had subsided and
Julie had fallen asleep, the image of what
he'd seen in the graveyard stayed in his mind.
It
had
been a ghost, and it
had
been real.
And if he'd stayed in his room, it would have come for
him.
"I did
too
see something!" Jeff flared. His jaw set
stubbornly and his eyes narrowed to angry slits as
he glared at his sister across the kitchen table.
But Julie only shrugged, and poured some molasses
onto the stack of pancakes Ruby had just set in
front of her.
"I didn't
say
you didn't see something," she replied,
deliberately using the exaggeratedly patient tone
she knew would make Jeff even madder. "All I
said was that you didn't see a ghost. There's no such
thing as ghosts."
"How do you know?" Jeff demanded. "Just because you say
so doesn't make it so!"
"And just because you say so, doesn't either."
Ruby came over with an enormous plate of food
and sat down to join the children. "What you two
arguin" about so early in the morning?" she asked.
Before Jeff could say a word, Julie cut him off.
"Jeff thought he saw a ghost last night. Did you
ever hear anything so dumb?" But instead of nodding, as
Julie had expected, Ruby-turned to look at
Jeff, her eyes glistening brightly.
"Down in the graveyard?" she asked. "By the
crypt?"
Jeff's eyes widened with surprise, and he
nodded. "It was all white," he breathed. "Almost like
it was floating, or something."
Once again Ruby nodded. "That would have been Miz
Helena," she said quietly. "I thought she'd
turn up."
"Grandmother?" Jeff asked.
But before Ruby could reply, Julie broke out in
laughter. "Oh, come on, Ruby, you've got to be
kidding!"
Ruby swung around, and when her eyes fixed on
Julie,
there was a darkness in them that made the laughter die on
the girl's lips. was "Round here, we don't kid
'bout things like that."
"B-But there's no such things as ghosts," Julie
repeated, but her voice had lost most of
its conviction.
"Aren't there?" the old woman asked. "Well,
maybe where you come from there aren't. But things ain't the
same down here. And if Jeff says he saw a
ghost last night, I'd be inclined to believe him if
I was you."
Jeff, emboldened, gazed up at Ruby with awe.
"Did you ever see a ghost?"
Ruby's lips pursed for a moment, then, once more,
she nodded. "I reckon I have," she said. "Fact
is, I don't think there's many people on this island who
haven't. Not if they've been here after someone dies,
leastways. Happens every time. Happened when your
grandfather died-I saw the specter myself."
Julie, her breakfast forgotten, looked out the
window. Though the morning sky was bright and the heat was
already beginning to make the air shimmer, she realized that
she was shivering as she looked down the slope toward the
family graveyard. For just a moment she almost
imagined she could see-
No! She shook the strange sensation off and turned
back to Ruby. "I still say there isn't any such
thing as ghosts," she insisted, but suddenly wondered
whom she was trying to convince-Ruby or herself.
Ruby peered at her through placid eyes.
"You can believe what you want," she said. "It
don't make no difference. I know what I've
seen. And if Miz Helena came back last
night, it wouldn't surprise me at all. There's
people around here say all the Devereauxes come back.
Some folks say they never leave this island at all,
and that some nights-when the moon's just right-you can see
all of 'em, wandering around the island."
Jeff's eyes were as large as saucers now. "But
what do they want? What are they doing?"
Ruby shrugged elaborately. "Who knows?
Maybe they just lookin" around, seem' to it that
everything's all right." Her
eyes narrowed then, taking on a faraway look, and the
pitch of her voice dropped. "Or maybe they
want something," she went on. "With the dead, you never
know. But I know they're here, and I know when a
Devereaux dies, he always come back, at least
once."
"Wow," Jeff breathed. "Wait'll I tell
Toby about this!"
"Tell him about what?" Kevin asked, coming in from the
dining room and taking the last chair at the table.
"The ghost!" Jeff exclaimed. He was already on his
feet, picking up the plate in front of
him and carrying it over to the sink. "I saw Grandmother
last night! Isn't that neat?" Then, before his father could
say anything, Jeff was gone, banging out the back
door and skipping down the steps two at a time.
Kevin watched him go, then turned to Ruby. "Mind
telling me what that was all about?"
"You heard him," Ruby replied, pushing herself up
from her chair and setting about fixing a stack of
pancakes for Kevin. "Miz Helena. She come
back last night, and Jeff saw her."
Kevin's expression tightened angrily. "For
Christ's sake, Ruby! You aren't still scaring kids
with those old stories, are you?"
Julie looked sharply at her father. "You mean
you've heard it before?"
Kevin's head bobbed a single time. "Not since I
was Jeff's age. She scared me half to death after
my father died, telling me he'd come back and if I
wasn't good, he'd punish me." His eyes shifted
back to Ruby, and he noted her spine stiffen as she
expertly flipped the pancakes. "And I won't
have you scaring Jeff like that, Ruby."
Ruby spoke without turning around. "Didn't look
to me like he was what you could call petrified," she
muttered.
"He probably wasn't, now," Kevin replied.
"But what about tonight? Or tomorrow night? I lost a lot
of sleep over those stories when I was his age, and
I'd just as soon he didn't have to."
"All's I did was tell him what I know,"
Ruby said stiffly as she set the plate in front
of Kevin. "I don't see as how the truth can
hurt anyone."
"But it's not the truth," Kevin shot back. "It's
nothing but an old wives' tale."
Ruby turned to stare at Kevin, her eyes boring
into his. "For someone who ain't been around here for an
awful long time, you sure seem to think you know what's
goin' on," she said. "But let me tell you
somethin', young man," she added in a tone Kevin
hadn't heard since he was a boy. "You don't know
nothin'! You hear me? You don't know nothin'!" And
then, back erect and head held high, she
disappeared through the swinging door to the butler's
pantry. A moment later Julie and Kevin could
hear her angrily banging drawers closed.
Julie giggled softly and glanced at her father out of the
corner of her eye. "For a second I thought she was
going to spank you."
"For a second I did too," Kevin
agreed. Then his grin faded and his expression grew
more serious. "Did Jeff really believe her?"
Julie shrugged. "Who knows? He probably
did-she almost had me convinced until you came in."
"Well, if she tells you any more stories,
don't believe her," Kevin replied. "Ruby's
a wonderful woman, but she's as full of
superstition as everyone else around here."
Julie started to nod, then her eyes clouded. "But
what if it's true?" she asked. "I mean, if
everybody believes the same thing, there has to be a
reason, doesn't there?"
But before Kevin could answer, Anne came into the
kitchen. "There's a phone call for you," she said.
"A boy. Someone named Kerry Sanders?"
Julie flushed red, then nodded eagerly. "I met
him yesterday," she said, her voice tinged with
excitement. "He said he was going to call this
morning. He wanted to know if I could go to the beach with
him and some other kids. Can I?"
Anne shrugged. "Why not?" When Julie was gone,
she turned to Kevin. "S. Anything been going on
this morning?"
Kevin shook his head. "Nothing worth talking about,"
he told her. "Just the staff, telling
local ghost stories to the kids."
Sam Waterman prided himself on his ability to read
the outcome of any meeting before he went into it. A
lot of it, he knew, came simply from age-the
older you got, the more you knew, and he was nearly
eighty now. But there was more to it than that: he'd always
had a knack for reading character, and that had always given him
a little extra edge-if you knew whom you were dealing with,
you knew how to approach him.
Today, however, he had no idea what he might be in
for, and as he steered his car out onto the causeway
to Devereaux Island, he shoved a Turns into his
mouth to try to quench the ember of worry that had been
burning in his belly all morning. The trouble was,
he didn't know Anne Devereaux at all, and even
Kevin, whom Sam had known since the day he was
born, had become an enigma.
Part of it was the way Kevin talked now, in the harsh
tones of a Yankee. Not a trace of the gentle
drawl of South Carolina was left in his voice, and
even his manner had changed. There was something that Sam
could only call "clipped" about Kevin's manner.
But, of course, the years in the North, where things
moved so much more rapidly than they did in
Devereaux, would have caused that. Sam
chuckled softly to himself as he pulled onto the
island. Hell, in Devereaux, things hardly moved
at all! But still, he was about to toss something
into Kevin's and Anne's laps without a clue as
to how they might react to it, and Sam didn't like that
at all.
Without thinking about it, he slowed the car, as if the few
extra moments of delay might help the situation,
but he still arrived at the mansion before he was quite ready.
Still, there was nothing to be done except get on with it.
If truth be known-and Sam was well aware that the
truth was seldom, if ever, known-he should have come out
here right after breakfast and gotten it over with. Nothing
was going to change, and it might have saved a couple of
cents on the Turns bill. Sighing heavily, he
reached for the accordion file on the passenger seat,
then got out of the car and made his way up the steps.
As he was crossing the veranda, the front door
swung wide and Marguerite came out. As always,
she
looked cool and fresh in the summer heat, but today
Sam thought her eyes looked a bit clouded and her
smile of welcome seemed just a little uncertain.
Maybe she knows, he thought, but then dismissed the
idea from his mind. Helena Devereaux had
never told anyone but him what she planned to do with
her estate, and had sworn him to secrecy too.
"It's not just a whim," she'd snapped when he
suggested she discuss her plans with her only
daughter. "Marguerite can't deal with things-never has
been able to."
"Afternoon, Marguerite," Sam said now, noticing that
whatever Helena had thought of her daughter,
Marguerite certainly seemed to be dealing with things in
a manner to be proud of. Even at the funeral
she'd conducted herself with a remarkable calm. No, there
wouldn't be any hysterics here. "Everybody ready
for the reading?"
Marguerite stepped back to let the old lawyer
precede her out of the sweltering heat and into the
relative coolness of the house. "The children are out with
their friends, and Kevin and Anne are waiting in the
study."
Sam nodded briefly, and turned left into the west
wing. At the end of the corridor was a large room with
windows on all three sides, where the heads of the
Devereaux family had always carried on the vast
preponderance of their work. Sam, though he'd never
asked Rafe Devereaux, had always wondered if the
placement of the study was symbolic, since
it was one of only two rooms in the house that offered
a full view of all the Devereaux holdings.
The other room was the master suite, directly above
the study.
Anne and Kevin stood up as Sam entered the
room, and after greeting them, he immediately went around the
desk and seated himself in the worn leather chair that had
been there for the better part of two centuries. But the
chair was as well made as the house, and didn't so
much as creak as it accepted his weight. Sam
carefully fit his wire-rimmed glasses over his
nose, then slid a thin sheaf of papers out of the
accordion folder. "Shall we begin?" he asked,
peering at the three Devereauxes over the tops of his
glasses. When no one objected, he began
reading.
Ten minutes later it was over, and, as Sam had
expected, a numbed silence hung over the room.
Sam occupied himself during the silence by speculating
on which of them would speak first. He had finally settled
on Kevin when Anne's voice, tight with
outrage, exploded shrilly through the tense silence.
"That's absolutely outrageous! She can't have
left it all to Kevin! She
can't
have!"
"She not only can," Waterman observed mildly,
"she has."
"But it's not fair," Anne protested. "What about
Marguerite? She took care of Helena all her
life! And now she gets nothing? Nothing at all?"
Her eyes were flashing with indignation, and she reached out
to grasp Marguerite's hand. "How could she do that?"
To everyone's surprise, it was Marguerite who
answered her. "It's the way we've always done
things, Anne," she said. Though her eyes were
glistening damply, her voice held steady. "Our
land has always passed to the oldest son. It was always
the only way we could keep the land together. Daddy
always said if you divide the land, you lose it. So, of
course, it goes to Kevin now. I suppose I
should have known, shouldn't I?"
"Does it really matter?" Kevin asked archly,
speaking for the first time since Waterman had finished
reading the will. "Apart from the island, and the town itself, is
there anything left?"
"A couple of hundred acres," Waterman
replied. "But it's not good for much-mostly swampland
that no one wants."
"But we can sell the holdings in town, can't
we?" Anne asked. "And split the money with
Marguerite?"
"Possibly," Waterman agreed. "But it won't
be simple- the leases don't run out for several more
years, and there's a codicil."
"A codicil?" Kevin echoed. "You mean there's
more?"
Waterman nodded, licking his lips nervously.
"It's part of the will. I tried to talk Helena out of
it but I couldn't. In fact, since she knew I was
opposed to it, she had another lawyer draw it up."
He faced Kevin squarely now. "I assume
you're
aware of how much your mother wanted you to come back here?"
Kevin nodded, but frowned in puzzlement. What was the
lawyer getting at?
"Well, I'm afraid she's found a way. Although
she's left everything to you, she's also stipulated that you
must live here at Sea Oaks and manage the
estate, and I quote, "to the best advantage of the
Devereaux family and the citizens of Devereaux,
South Carolina." End of quote."
Kevin's frown dissolved, to be replaced by a
relaxed smile. "Then we don't have a problem.
All I have to do is take Anne and the
kids home, and Marguerite gets everything, right?"
"Wrong," Waterman replied. "Give your mother a
little more credit than that. She may not have been kind, but
she wasn't stupid either. If you refuse to live
here and manage the estate, then everything goes to the
Fortress. Everything-the land, the house, the bank
accounts, the stocks-the whole lot. If you won't
live here, then Marguerite can't, either."
A second shocked silence fell over the room.
Marguerite's fingers tightened on the arms of her
chair, but she said nothing. Anne looked dazed, as
if she couldn't quite comprehend what had transpired.
But Kevin's face was ashen, and his jaw was clenched with
fury. It took nearly a full minute before he was
finally able to speak. "I gather you've already found
there's no way to break that codicil?"
Waterman spread his hands helplessly. "It's very
long, it's very complicated, and it's very complete.
She's covered every eventuality either she or the
Charleston attorney could think of, and as far as I
know, it will hold up. I even thought of burning it,"
he added. "But it wouldn't have done any good. The
original isn't even in my hands."
Anne blinked as if coming out of a deep sleep. "But
it's obscene," she breathed. "After everything
Marguerite's done for her, she leaves her nothing,
and now she wants to force Kevin to change his whole
life too!"
Waterman sighed heavily. "I agree with you," he
said. "I did my best to talk her out of it, but she
wouldn't budge And," he added, "it's not forever." His
lips stretched into a
thin, humorless smile. "Actually, it would have been
better if she'd made it forever. That, a court would
have ruled was unreasonable. But she got around that. You
have to stay ten years. You have full control of the land, but
if you sell any of it, the sales can't become
final until the ten years are up. After that, you can do
what you want."
"Generous of her," Anne remarked, making no
attempt to conceal her bitter sarcasm.
"Not generous," Waterman contradicted quietly.
"It was as far as she could go and make it stick. And
she told me that she thought ten years was enough anyway.
She said if she could get you back for that long, you'd
stay on of your own accord."
Marguerite rose unsteadily to her feet and limped
heavily across to Kevin. She put her hands on his
shoulders and bent down to kiss his cheek. "I'm
sorry," she whispered. "I'm so sorry.
I didn't know anything about this. Nothing at all."
Kevin covered his sister's hand with his own. "It's
all right," he told her. "I'm not sure what we
can do about all this, but there has to be a way to sort it
out. And we'll find it."
Marguerite managed a smile and bobbed her head.
"I'm sure we will," she agreed, her voice
quavering. "But right now I'm a little tired. If
you'll all excuse me?" She glanced at Sam,
almost as if asking permission to leave. When he said
nothing, she turned and moved haltingly out of the study,
pulling the door closed behind her.
"How could Helena have been this cruel?" Anne
asked when Marguerite was gone.
Waterman shook his head and began packing the papers
back into the accordion file. "I don't know,"
he said, though he wasn't sure Anne's question had
required a response. "It just comes down to a question
of control, I suppose. She never liked being out of
control. She hated being sick the last years, and she
hated having to be taken care of. Maybe she
focused it all on Marguerite in the end."
"But what are we supposed to do?" Anne asked,
her voice taking on a plaintive note.
"Surely Kevin isn't really expected
to stay here."
Once again Waterman's lips curled into a thin
smile. "What the two of you do, of course, is
entirely your own decision. But while you think about
it, don't forget Marguerite." His eyes met
hers. "And the rest of us," he added. "Don't forget
the rest of us either. Whatever you decide, everyone in
Devereaux is going to have to live with."
Five minutes later the attorney left, his car
kicking up a thin cloud of dust as he drove away
from Devereaux Island. Kevin and Anne watched
until he was gone, his car disappearing across the
causeway. Then, together, they turned and went back
into the shadowy darkness of the mansion.
But it's not a mansion,
Anne silently reflected as she closed the
front door.
It's not a mansion at all. It's a prison.
Marguerite paused at the top of the stairs to catch
her breath and wait for the white-hot pain in her hip
to ease a little. The pain had begun as she'd listened
to Sam Waterman read the will, but she'd done her
best not to show it. Instead, she'd simply gripped the
arms of the chair harder and harder, until the ache in
her hands and fingers took her mind off the
pain in her hip.
She'd never thought about the possibility of having
to leave Sea Oaks before. Always, since the days after
the accident- when she knew she would never be able to dance
again-she had assumed she'd live out her life
quietly here, with her mother, in the familiar
surroundings that had been the only home she'd ever
known. Now, as the reality of her mother's will began
to sink in, she realized that it wasn't just Sea
Oaks she'd taken for granted; it was her mother too.
And until just now, listening to Sam's voice as he
read, she hadn't truly realized that her mother was
gone, that she would never again hear the angry rasping of the
buzzer, never again face her mother's angry countenance
as she made the newest of her ever-increasing demands
on Marguerite.
But Marguerite had accepted the demands willingly,
accepted the constant interruptions in her day almost
eagerly. Taking care of her mother, as her mother had
taken care of
her, had been the center of her life for more years than
she cared to remember. And they hadn't been bad
years for her, despite what everyone else thought.
And, of course, Marguerite knew what they thought,
had long ago learned to read the thoughts behind the
words when people spoke to her.
"How
is
your mother," said in the most solicitous tones andwiththe
most sympathetic of expressions, meant, quite
simply, "When is the old hag going to die?"
"How are you?" meant "How can you stand to put up with that
nasty old woman?"
Marguerite had always appeared to accept the words at
face value, never betrayed her resentment at other
people's assumption that she must have hated her mother. For she
did not hate her mother; indeed, she loved her mother,
explaining the older woman's ever-growing bad temper
as nothing more than a result of advancing age and
retreating good health. Who, confined to a bed, wouldn't
become irritable after a while?
And besides, Marguerite owed Helena far more than she
had ever paid. Hadn't she disappointed her mother so many
years ago, when she'd been clumsy enough to fall down
the stairs and end the dream Helena had nourished for
her since the day she'd been born?
Hadn't she turned, in that single moment, from the
object of her mother's hopes into a burden her mother
had been forced to bear?
And now her mother was gone, and even though
Kevin and his family were there, the house would, for
Marguerite, be forever empty.
Except, of course, for her girls.
She still had them. Would always have them, or others like them.
And Julie.
She mustn't forget Julie. There was so much of herself
in Julie.
She started toward her room, a small smile
playing around her lips as she remembered watching
Julie dance. It was almost like watching herself again. . .
.
A sudden movement at the end of the corridor caught
her eye. Then she realized that someone was in her mother's
room.
Frowning, Marguerite started along the hall, her
lame leg dragging slightly, her step uneven, one
hand brushing lightly against the wall to hold her
balance. The door to the master suite was open, and
Marguerite stepped through, then stopped.
The door to the immense walk-in closet where her
mother's clothes hung neatly on padded hangers was
thrown wide open, and Ruby was taking the garments off
the hangers one by one, folding them, and packing them
away into large cardboard cartons. Marguerite's
eyes widened as she realized what Ruby
was doing, and she gasped. Ruby turned to look at
her, then went back to her work.
"I guess we can send these to the thrift shop," she
said, surveying the long row of gowns. "I'm not
sure who'd buy them, but I "spose there's always
someone-
Her words were cut off as Marguerite snatched the
dress she was holding out of her hands.
"How dare you?" Marguerite demanded, her eyes
flashing with anger. "How dare you touch my mother's
things?"
Ruby, startled, stepped back, nearly stumbling
over one of the boxes. "Miss Marguerite, you can
see plain as day what I'm doing. I'm packing
up Miss Helena's things, just like I packed up
Mr. Rafe's after he died." She reached out
to take the dress from Marguerite, but Marguerite
jerked it away.
"No!" she exclaimed, clutching the dress close
to her breast. "I won't let you! Not yet!"
Ruby started to protest, but changed her mind when she
saw the angry glow in Marguerite's eyes. She
backed slowly away. "I'm sorry, Miss
Marguerite," she said. "Maybe I should've
waited 'til tomorrow."
As quickly as it had come, the anger seemed to drain out
of Marguerite, and she relaxed slightly. But she
did not give up the dress. "Yes," she said at
last. "Tomorrow. Maybe you can begin the packing tomorrow.
Or the day after. But not today." Her eyes took on
a pleading look. "Please, Ruby?" she asked.
Ruby's tongue flicked over her lips for a
second and her
eyes hooded. But at last she nodded. "All
right," she said. "I'll wait a day or two. These
dresses ain't going any further out of fashion
than they already are." She turned then and started out of the
room, but at the door she looked back.
Marguerite was in the dressing room now, standing in
front of a mirror. Her mother's dress held up
against her body, she stared at her image in the
glass for a moment. Then, a mysterious smile
spreading across her face, she bowed deeply in the
style of a prima ballerina.
But the lameness in her leg made the bow clumsy, and
pitifully grotesque.
Ruby hurried out of the room.
Julie lay on her back, her right arm shielding
her eyes from the sun. She could feel a slow
trickle of sweat running down her side,
and knew that soon she would have to go into the water, if
only to cool off a little. The problem, though, was that
she wasn't sure she had quite enough strength to make the
few yards from her towel to the water's edge. The heat
had closed around her like a blanket, wrapping her so
tightly she could barely breathe. But around her the rest
of the kids-the kids who had grown up here-didn't
seem to be affected by it at all.
There were ten of them altogether, and Julie had decided
early in the afternoon that she liked all of them except
Mary-Beth Fletcher. And she'd tried to like
Mary-Beth, too, even after the way Mary-Beth
had acted at the dance class a week ago. But it
hadn't been easy, because each time she'd started
to approach Mary-Beth, the other girl had suddenly
gotten involved with someone else and acted as if
Julie weren't even there.
And then, an hour ago, she'd been sitting with
Kerry, exploring the contents of the picnic basket
that Ruby had packed for her, when Mary-Beth had
dropped down onto the edge of Kerry's towel.
Julie had offered her a sandwich, but Mary-Beth
had shaken her head.
"We don't eat like northerners down here," she
said, stretching out each vowel in an
exaggerated drawl. "You go on and make a pig of
yourself if you want to though. I'm sure it's just fine
by me!"
Julie had felt herself redden with embarrassment, but
had
said nothing, and a few minutes later, her flirting with
Kerry getting her nowhere, Mary-Beth had wandered
away.
Now Julie could hear Mary-Beth's voice again,
this time talking to a couple of her friends. For a moment
Julie was certain that Mary-Beth thought she couldn't
hear her, but then she realized that exactly the
opposite was true: Mary-Beth had raised her
voice to make certain that Julie heard every word.
"I think maybe I'll quit dance class,"
Mary-Beth was saying.
"Quit?" Julie heard Jennifer Mayhew
ask, her voice clearly reflecting her dismay.
"Why?"
"I don't know," Mary-Beth replied in
calculatedly offhand tones. Though Julie's
eyes were closed, she could feel Mary-Beth staring
at her as she continued. "Up till last week
Miss Marguerite never had any favorites or
anything like that, and it was fun. Now it looks
like all we're going to do is sit around and watch that
Yankee trash jump around while Marguerite
drools like an idiot and tells us all how
wonderful her niece is. Who needs it?"
Jenny Mayhew gasped indignantly.
"Mary-Beth, that's not true, and you know it! Miss
Marguerite isn't like that at all, and it's not
Julie's fault if she's better than the rest of
us. I should think you'd want to learn from her."
Julie could almost see Mary-Beth's simpering
smile. "Well, aren't you the goody-goody all of a
sudden!"
Then Julie heard another voice. "Jenny's not
a goody-goody, and none of the rest of us are either. If you
want to quit because you know you aren't any good, why
don't you just say so? You don't have to blame
Julie, or claim Miss Marguerite's
different."
Mary-Beth's voice turned defensive. "I
didn't say I was going to quit," she protested.
"I just said I
might.
I'm just thinking about it is all. How come you're all
jumping on me? And if you're all so crazy about
Julie, why don't you go talk to her?"
Suddenly Julie could stand it no more. She sat up,
blinking in the brightness of the sun, and turned to Kerry,
who was
sitting up on his towel next to hers, his strong jaw
set in anger, his clear blue eyes flashing
dangerously.
"Come on," she said. "Le
t's go in the water. If
I stay here another five minutes, I think I'm
going to pass out." She tried to stand up, but fell
back onto the blanket, her legs weak with the heat.
But as she heard Mary-Beth start giggling, Kerry
reached down and took her hand, the strength of his
powerfully built body easily pulling her upright.
"Just start moving," he said softly enough so no one
else could hear him. He grinned encouragingly,
brushing a lock of his curly blond hair off his
forehead. "It's only a few yards, and as soon as
you get in the water, you'll be fine."
A wave of dizziness swept over Julie. For a
moment she thought she was going to faint, but Kerry's hand
tightened on hers, and she let him lead her quickly
down the beach. Feeling the coolness of the water close
over her feet, she let go of Kerry's hand and
plunged into a large wave that was rushing toward shore.
Instantly her head cleared and she felt the
sticky layer of perspiration wash away. She swam
underwater for a few strokes, then broke the
surface, rolled over on her back, and looked
around for Kerry. He surfaced only a few feet
away and grinned at her. "Feel better?"
Julie nodded. "I thought I was going to pass out.
How does everybody stand it?"
"The heat, or Mary-Beth?" Kerry teased.
"The heat," Julie replied. "Who cares what
Mary-Beth says?"
Suddenly Kerry yelled at her, and Julie
turned around just in time to see a breaker building up
right behind her. Taking a deep breath, she grabbed her
nose and ducked down just as the wave broke over
her, and a moment later felt the water rush past her.
"You get used to the heat," Kerry told her after
they'd both come to the surface again. "Another couple
of weeks and you won't even notice it anymore."
He grinned mischievously. "Same with
Mary-Beth-another couple of weeks and you won't
notice her anymore either. Besides, she's just messed
up 'cause I invited you today."
Now Julie thought she understood. "Was she your
girlfriend?"
Kerry shook his head. "No way." "But
she wishes she were?" Julie asked, and Kerry's
face reddened with embarrassment.
"You want to talk all afternoon, or swim?" he
demanded, splashing water in her face.
Julie splashed him back, and then all the rest of the
kids except Mary-Beth Fletcher plunged into the
water to join in the melee. Before long the group
divided itself into two sides, but the sides kept
changing as alliances were abandoned the moment an
opportunity for a good dunk came up. And then, comou
of the laughter, Julie heard Kerry's voice
shouting to her. "Julie! Look out!"
She whirled, but it was already too late. From out of
nowhere an enormous wave had built up, and before
she could dive into it or duck beneath the surface, the
undertow had her in its grip and she felt her legs
slide out from under her. She gasped for breath just as the
wave hit her, knocking her flat then tumbling her
along the bottom like a piece of waterlogged wood.
She struggled against it, fighting to regain her footing,
but then she felt her feet tangling in seaweed, and the
first twinges of panic closed around her heart.
It's all right, she told herself. I can swim, and
it's only a wave, and the water isn't even over
my head. All I have to do is let myself
go, then stand up!
But how long could she go? Her lungs were bursting now,
and she knew she couldn't hold her breath more than a
few more seconds.
And the wave seemed determined to keep her at the
bottom.
She lunged hard then, and her breath gave out. The
spent air poured out of her lungs, but it was going
to be all right! She felt her head break the
surface and her feet connect with the bottom. She
opened her mouth wide, taking in great gasps of
air.
And water.
Another wave had already built behind the first, smashing
into her face, flooding her mouth, choking her throat
with brine. She was coughing as she went under for the second
time, and this time she knew she had no reserves of
air to sustain her.
She was going to drown!
Panic overwhelmed her, and she began thrashing against
the churning water, fighting against the current, searching
for a foothold on the bottom.
Against her will, her lungs began to take in water.
And then, as she felt herself begin to black out, strong
arms snaked around her body and lifted her
out of the water. She struggled for a moment, then heard
Kerry's voice.
"It's okay! You're okay, Julie, I've
got you!"
Still coughing and choking, she threw her arms around him and
clung to him as he waded through the surf, and up the
beach. Finally he laid her on her towel, then
dropped down next to her, rolling her over onto
her stomach and pressing down hard on her back.
Saltwater spewed out of her lungs and disappeared
into the sand.
A moment later it was over and Julie lay still, her
chest heaving as she took in breath after breath of pure
fresh air. It felt like hours before she finally
trusted herself to roll over and look up at the
circle of faces above her.
"wh-What happened?" she asked.
Kerry gazed back at her, his blue eyes filled
with worry. "It was my fault," he said. "I should
have warned you. It was a rogue wave. They come in like
that every now and then. Everything's real calm, and then all
of a sudden a big one comes, and if you're not ready,
it just knocks you out. Are you all right?"
Julie hesitated, then nodded. "I-I think so."
She managed a weak grin. "But I sure
thought it was all over for a second. If you hadn't
gotten hold of me . . ." She fell silent,
shuddering even at the thought, then realized she was shivering
with cold despite the heat of the afternoon. "I-maybe
you'd better take me home. ..." With the rest of the
kids crowding around, Kerry picked
her up and carried her to his car, a battered and
rusty Chevy convertible whose top was little more than a
series of shreds held together-by a mass of silvery
duct tape.
"Maybe we'd better get someone else's car,"
he suggested, his voice anxious, but Julie shook
her head.
"It's all right," she said. "I like your car."
"Then you're nuts," Kerry replied, but still grinned
at her. "But that's okay-I like nutty girls."
Slamming the door after making sure she was safely
inside, he ran around and clambered into the driver's
seat.
Neither of them heard Mary-Beth Fletcher's parting
shot: "Why don't you just drive her right on back
up North, where she belongs? And if you like her so
much, go with her!"
Toby Martin stared suspiciously at Jeff.
"What if we get caught?" he demanded.
They were inside the fort they'd finished building that
afternoon-a shaky lean-to next to the garage, constructed
out of rotting lumber scavenged from the collapsing
slave quarters-and hammered together with a cache of rusty
nails they'd found in the barn. There was a small
door just big enough for them to crawl through, and it hadn't
occurred to either of them that a window might have relieved
the stuffy heat inside. But if they even felt the
heat, neither was about to admit it. Since they'd finished
the fort an hour ago, they'd been inside,
securely hidden away from the world outside, talking
about what Jeff had seen in the cemetery the night
before.
"We won't get caught," Jeff insisted.
"I'll sneak out after everyone else has gone
to sleep, and we'll meet here. Then we'll watch
the graveyard all night."
Suddenly, from outside, they heard a noise, as if
something had moved in the underbrush. "What was that?"
Jeff whispered. "Is there someone out there?"
Toby shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know.
What'll we do?" His
"Let's go look," Jeff decided. He
dropped to his hands and knees and wriggled through the
tiny hole in the wall. A moment later
Toby followed him.
"What was it?" Toby asked. "Did you see
anything?"
Jeff shook his head, his eyes searching the brush for
any sign of movement. A few feet away he
spotted a rabbit low to the ground, holding
absolutely still. "Look!" he whispered, nudging
Toby's ribs. "Over there! I'm gonna see
if I can catch him."
Toby's eyes followed Jeff's, but it took a
moment before he, too, spotted the rabbit.
And another moment before he realized why the rabbit
wasn't moving. "Wait!" He yelled, but it was
too late.
The ominous buzz of a rattlesnake hummed in the
air, and Jeff froze, only his eyes moving as
he searched for the source of the warning rasp.
It was only three feet away, a large, pink
timber rattler, its thick coils wrapped
tightly, its head bobbing dangerously as the rattle
on its tail quivered with menace.
"Don't move!" Toby warned. "That's why the
rabbit was holding still. If you don't move, it can't
see you!"
"But . . . what are we going to do?"
Jeff whimpered. His knees felt weak and he was
sure he was going to collapse any second.
"I'll get someone," Toby said. "But if you
move, he'll kill you for sure!" Leaving Jeff
alone with the writhing creature, he turned and dashed
up the driveway toward the house, screaming for
help. The back door slammed open just as Toby
got to the steps, and Kevin emerged.
"A snake," Toby screamed. "A big
rattler's got Jeff down by the garage. Quick,
Mr. Devereaux. Quick!"
Racing past the terrified boy, Kevin hurtled
down the driveway to the garage, pausing only
to snatch up a rusty shovel that leaned against the wall
just inside its open door. A second later he
found his son, still rooted to the spot, his face pale,
his whole body trembling with fright.
"It's okay," Kevin said. "I'm here now, and
it's going to be okay. Just stay still, Jeff. Can you
do that?"
Jeff, too terrified even to speak, said nothing.
Kevin circled slowly around until he was behind the
snake, then began approaching it, moving slowly and
carefully, trying to make no sound that would alert the
serpent to the danger from the rear. Step by step
he drew closer, his eyes locked on the weaving
head of the snake, which still stared at Jeff, its tongue
flicking in and out as it tried to locate its prey.
Kevin raised the shovel, poising it to strike the
moment he was close enough.
His foot came down on a twig, which snapped
loudly. The rattler twisted and struck instantly,
and Kevin leaped aside, bringing the shovel down with
all the force he could muster. The blade of the shovel
sank into the earth just as the snake's head struck it,
and Kevin could feel the vibration of the blow as it came
up the handle. Only slightly stunned from the
impact, the snake recoiled, preparing to strike
again. But this time Kevin was faster.
The blade of the tool sliced through the snake's body
just behind its head, and the creature collapsed in
mid-strike, its coils thrashing on the ground for a
moment before it died. Jeff, screaming, threw himself
into his father's arms. "It's all right," Kevin
told him. "You're okay, and the snake's dead.
It's all over."
"It was going to kill me, Daddy," Jeff sobbed.
"I didn't even see it. It was just there!"
"I know," Kevin told him. "That's the way they
are. You have to keep your eyes open all the
time and make sure you look before you take a step.
But you're okay."
Anne appeared around the corner of the garage, stopping
short when she saw the still twitching remains of the
rattler. "My God," she breathed, her eyes
wide with horror. "What happened?"
"Nothing," Kevin assured her. "Jeff just ran
into a snake, but he did exactly the right thing. In
fact," he added, "I probably didn't even
need to kill it. In another few seconds it would have
lost interest and gone away. It was probably more
frightened than Jeff."
Anne stared at Kevin indignantly. "How can you
say that? It could have killed him!" She gathered her
son into her arms and held him close. "Honey, are
you all right?"
Jeff nodded, and wriggled out of his mother's arms. Now
that it was over and the danger had passed, he was
fascinated with the snake's body. "Can I keep it,
Dad?" he asked, poking at the six feet of
rattler with a stick.
Kevin chuckled, and used the spade once more to cut
off the rattles. "Take those-when I was your age,
I must have had a couple dozen of "em."
"Awesome," Jeff said. He squatted
down, gingerly picked up the rattle, then shook it.
There was a slight buzzing sound, and Jeff dropped
the rattle as if it were red-hot, then
self-consciously picked it up again. "You got one
of these?" he asked Toby, who was standing a few
yards away.
Toby nodded. "I have five. And one of 'em's
even bigger than that."
"Really?" Jeff asked, his voice filled with
awe. "Can I see?"
"Sure," Toby replied.
"When? Now?"
But before Toby could reply, Anne intervened. "Not
now," she said. "Right now, I think you'd better
both go in the house."
"Aw, Mom," Jeff began, but Anne shook her
head.
"Maybe you're all over this, but I'm not. And
until I am, I want you where I can see you,
all right?"
Knowing better than to argue with her, Jeff started
toward the house, Toby trailing along behind.
Anne, though, stayed where she was, staring at the
snake with revulsion. Finally, she met Kevin's
eyes.
"How did you stand it?" she asked. "How can anyone
stand it? The heat, the alligators, the
mosquitoes, and now this!"
Kevin only shrugged. "Except for the
alligators, what's so different than home? We
get some pretty awful heat, and in case you
didn't know it, we have rattlers too."
Anne's mouth fell open. "Oh, come on,
Kevin-"
"But it's true," Kevin insisted. "There are
timber rattlers all over the east. The only
reason we don't see so many of them is because of all
the development. And it wouldn't take much to clean them
out of here."
Anne's eyes narrowed and a frown creased her
forehead. "Clean them out? What are you talking about?"
Before Kevin could say anything, there was a loud
honking, and they turned to see Kerry Sanders's car
roaring down the dirt road from the causeway, a
plume of dust spewing up behind him. It was when he
slammed the brakes on as he reached the front of the
house that they realized something was wrong.
Hurrying up the drive, they reached Kerry's car just
as he was helping Julie out of the passenger seat.
Her face was pale, and her hair, a
stringy mass of tangled locks, hung limply
over her shoulders.
Anne stared at her daughter in shock. "Julie?
Are you all right?"
Julie nodded, but wrapped a towel around herself.
"I'm all right. I just got knocked over by a
wave and started choking."
"Knocked over?" Anne repeated, her voice
rising, "Honey, you look like you almost drowned."
"It's not that bad-" Julie started to object, but
Kerry cut her off.
"It was pretty bad. She got hit by two
waves, but I got to her in time. She's okay, but
she says she's cold-"
"Shock," Kevin said. "Come on, honey, let's
get you into bed and warmed up."
Anne stared at her husband. How could he take it
so lightly? First a rattler threatened Jeff, and
now Julie was brought home half drowned! And he
was acting as if nothing had happened! What would it
take for him to see that the best thing they could do was
simply pack up their clothes and go back where they
belonged? She opened her mouth, about to speak her mind,
then suddenly thought better of it. Later, when they were
alone and Julie was over the worst of her
fright, she would talk to Kevin about it. And he would
understand.
But a niggling doubt kept picking at her. What
if he didn't understand? What if he was actually
thinking of staying here? What would she do?
She didn't know.
Picking Julie up, Kevin strode up the front
steps, Anne running ahead of him to open the door.
But just as he got to the threshold, the door opened and
Marguerite appeared. She stepped back to let
Kevin and Anne pass, but blocked Kerry's way
as he tried to follow. He stopped in confusion.
"C-Can I come in?" he finally asked.
Marguerite ignored his question. "What's happened?"
she demanded. "What has happened to my niece?"
As clearly as he could, Kerry explained. "It was
an accident," he finished. "I tried to warn her,
but it was too late.
But Marguerite didn't let him finish. "How
dare you?" she asked, her eyes glittering with anger.
"What do you mean, an accident? There are no such
things as accidents, young man. We entrusted Julie
to you, and what happened? You bring her home half
drowned!"
Kerry's face reddened, and he took a
step backward. "I-I'm sorry, Miss
Devereaux," he began, but once again Marguerite
cut him off.
"Sorry? You're
sorry!
My niece is a very special person, Kerry.
She's a dancer who has a brilliant career
ahead of her. Today all that could have been taken away
from her because of you, and all you can say is that you're
sorry?"
Kerry felt his temper rising. "Well, what do you
want me to say?" he demanded. "It wasn't my
fault, and I tried to warn her, and I got her out
of the water and brought her home! What else was I
supposed to do?"
"You should never have let it happen in the first place,"
Marguerite declared. "You're just like all the rest of the
boys-no sense of responsibility at all! And
how dare you speak to me the way you just did?"
The rest of Kerry's control snapped. "Me speak
to you?"
he shouted. "What about the way you were talking to me?
Now I see why Mary-Beth wants to quit your
stupid classes. If you talk to the girls the way
you talk to me, I'll bet they all
quit!"
Marguerite lurched backward in the face of
Kerry's anger and had to grasp the doorjamb
to keep from stumbling. "Quit?" she gasped. "I
don't understand-what are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about Mary-Beth Fletcher," Kerry
said, his voice still quivering with anger. "She was
talking about quitting your classes today, and everyone
else was trying to talk her out of it. But now I see
why she wants out." Turning, he stormed off the
veranda, slammed back into his car, started it, and
gunned the engine. Then he popped the clutch. The
wheels spun in the grass for a moment before they
caught, then left deep ruts as the car skidded
across the lawn, slewed onto the road, and disappeared
in a cloud of dust.
Marguerite, stunned, stood on the veranda until
long after Kerry's car had disappeared from view.
What had he been talking about? Mary-Beth was going
to quit her lessons? But it wasn't possible.
She couldn't leave Marguerite. She couldn't!
Then, as the thoughts tumbled through her mind, Marguerite
felt a touch on her arm.
She spun around, half expecting to see her mother
standing there.
But, of course, it wasn't her mother-her mother was dead.
She had to remember that and stop thinking that Helena was
going to come back.
"R-Ruby?" she asked, her eyes blinking as they
flooded with hot tears. "Oh, Ruby, what am
I going to do? If Mary-Beth leaves me-"
"Now, now," Ruby soothed. "Don't you even
think about that. We don't have to worry about
Mary-Beth Fletcher. I always said she'd come to a
bad end, and if she quits your lessons, I say
we're well rid of her."
But Marguerite shook her head. "No," she
breathed. "You
don't understand, Ruby. She can't leave me. I
love her, Ruby. I love her, and she can't
leave me. ..." Her voice trailed off and she
took an unsteady step, leaning heavily on Ruby
to hold her balance. "She can't ..." she said once
more.
"Then she won't," Ruby said firmly, leading
Marguerite back into the house and closing the door
behind her. "We'll fix it, Miss Marguerite.
There's always ways of fixin" things."
Marguerite let herself be led into the small parlor,
and settled into a chair, where she sat in
silence for several minutes. "Yes," she said at
last, coming out of her reverie. "We'll fix it,
won't we? There are ways of fixing everything."
Kevin waited until dinner was over and Ruby had
begun clearing off the large dining room table before he
brought up the idea that had been growing in his mind ever
since Sam Waterman had left a few hours
earlier. His whole family had known something was up,
and all through the meal they wanted to know what he was
smiling about. He hadn't told them, waiting until
just the right moment. But finally, with a soft breeze
wafting gently through the open French doors and the scent
of wisteria perfuming the air, he decided the time was
right. He turned to Julie, who was sitting at his
right scraping up the last crumbs of Ruby's
rhubarb pie. "What would you think," he asked,
drawing each word out for the maximum effect, "of living
here? I mean on a permanent basis?"
Julie stared at her father in shocked surprise, and
her brow furrowed slightly. "You mean not go back
home at all? Just stay here?"
"Well, of course we'd go home," he told
her. He glanced toward Anne, and the first pang of
doubt suddenly came over him, for instead of smiling
encouragingly at him, she seemed to be
stiffening in her chair at the opposite end of the table.
He turned his attention quickly back to Julie.
"We'd have to pack up, sell the house, and take
care of a lot of details. But what I want to know
is how you feel about living here."
Now Julie looked dazed. "I-I don't know,"
she stammered. "I mean-well, I just haven't thought
about it, that's all."
"I think it would be neat!" Jeff declared, his eyes
sparkling with excitement.
Ill
"And I," Anne said from the end of the table, her cool
voice washing the glitter from Jeff's eyes, "would
like to know what on earth you're talking about."
Kevin shifted his eyes to his wife and silently
took a deep breath before he spoke. "I've just
been thinking about our problem," he said. "And it
occurs to me that even though Mother was trying to control me
with her will, she might have done us all the biggest
favor of our lives."
Anne's eyes flashed briefly toward
Marguerite, who was sitting quietly, her own
eyes fastened on her brother. "All of us?" she
asked, her skepticism clear in her voice.
"I'm not sure I'm following you."
"An inn," Kevin said, deciding it was time to lay his
cards on the table. "We all know I've always
wanted to run my own place, and it seems to me that
Sea Oaks is perfect. It's way too big
for a family, but we've got nine bedrooms- every one
of them with its own bath-and plenty of space down here
for public rooms. Not to mention the rest of the island.
There's more than enough land for a golf course,
condominiums, swimming pools, and tennis courts-the
whole works!"
Anne stared at him as if he'd lost his mind.
"Kevin, what are you talking about? It sounds like
you're thinking of turning this place into another
Hilton Head!"
"Exactly!" Kevin exclaimed, the enthusiasm
for the project that had been building in him all afternoon
spilling out. "Why not? I'm not saying it wouldn't
take a lot of work and a lot of money, but everything
we need to start is right here. We've got one of the
best beaches on the whole coast, a house that's
perfect for a small hotel-at least to start with- and
all the land we need! And we already own it. And think
of the benefits to the town-my God, if it's any
kind of a success at all, land values would
skyrocket, there'd be more jobs than we have
people to fill them-"
But Anne didn't let him finish. She stood up
abruptly, her face expressionless. "I think you
and I had better talk about this later, when we're
by ourselves," she said. "If you'll excuse me ..."
As her family sat in silence, she left the
dining room, and a moment later her footsteps on the
stairs echoed through the house. It was Julie who
finally spoke.
"You goofed, Dad," she said. "How come you didn't
at least talk to her about it first?"
Kevin knew his daughter was right, but the whole idea
of the inn had seemed so perfect to him that he'd allowed
himself to hope that Anne would see it too. But he also
knew Anne hated surprises, and, even worse,
hated the idea of having decisions made for her.
And the way he'd been talking ... He dropped his
napkin onto the table and stood up. "I'd better
go talk to her."
"Well, I still think it would be neat," Jeff said
after his father was gone.
Julie hardly even heard her brother. Instead,
she was looking at her aunt, who was sitting
perfectly still in her chair, her eyes almost blank.
"Aunt Marguerite?" Julie finally
asked. "Do you know what this is all about? Why is
Dad talking about turning your house into a hotel?"
Marguerite shook her head as if trying to clear
something out of her mind, then managed to smile at her
niece. "It's . . . well, it's not really my
house anymore, darling," she said. "It's your
father's now. And, well, there are some problems." As
simply as she could, Marguerite explained the terms
of her mother's will to the children. When she had finished,
Julie was filled with indignation.
"But it's not fair!" she declared. "How could she do
that?"
Marguerite shrugged. "I know it doesn't seem
fair, darling, but life never is, really, is it?
And what your father is doing is trying to find a way for
us all to deal with Mother's will." Her eyes drifted
around the room, lighting for a moment on each piece of
furniture, then moving on. Finally she sighed
quietly. "But a hotel," she mused. "I
don't know-to fill the house with strangers-well,
it just seems such a peculiar idea."
Now Julie cocked her head thoughtfully. "But it
isn't, really, Aunt Marguerite. Daddy's
right-this house would make a wonderful inn. And
places like this are what everybody wants
to find now. Daddy says everyone's tired of new
hotels. They want to stay in places that have
history, and are really old-fashioned, and-" She
fell silent with sudden embarrassment at her thoughtless
remark, but her aunt only smiled at her.
"Yes, the house
is
old-fashioned," she said. Then she brightened a little.
"And certainly the kitchen is big enough to feed an
army. Way back in my grandmother's day it wasn't
at all unusual for there to be twenty or
twenty-five people here for meals." Marguerite's
face began to light up as she remembered the past.
"Even when I was a girl, we still had balls here.
Everyone would come from miles around, and we'd hire
extra staff, and the house would be all decorated like
something out of a fairy tale. We'd have a little
orchestra in the ballroom, and we'd dance all
night." Her eyes, sparkling now, came to rest on
Julie. "Wouldn't it be wonderful if it could be like
that again?" she asked. "Why, it would be just like it used
to be, before-" Abruptly she stopped talking and the
light faded from her eyes. "Before what?" Julie
asked.
But Marguerite only shook her head.
"Nothing," she said. "It's just, well, sometimes I
let my mind drift, that's all. And I mustn't do
that."
"Why not?" Jeff asked. "I do it all the time.
I like to lie on my back sometimes, and look up at
the sky, and pretend I'm a bird, or a cloud,
or something. What's wrong with that?"
"Nothing, I suppose," Marguerite said, but her
voice was vague, as if she were thinking about something
else. "But you can't let yourself do it too much. If
you do, you can forget what's real and what's not. And then
..." Her voice trailed off, and once more her
features took on the faraway look they'd had
before. Jeff, who'd been watching her as she spoke,
looked nervously toward his sister. But when he started
to say something, Julie shook her head.
"Come on," she said. "We better go help Ruby
do the dishes."
A few minutes later, when they were in the kitchen,
Jeff looked up at Julie, his eyes serious.
"What's wrong with
Aunt Marguerite?" he asked. "How come she was
talking so weird? And what's wrong with pretending?"
But before Julie could answer, Ruby spoke.
"Nothing's wrong with pretending. But your
aunt wasn't pretending. She was remembering. And
whenever she remembers all the good times she had, she
remembers the bad ones too."
Jeff glanced at his sister then back to Ruby.
"Bad times?" he asked. "What do you mean?"
Ruby seemed about to speak, then appeared to change
her mind. "Nothing," she said. "I guess I was just
talking."
"How am I
supposed
to feel?" Anne demanded. "This afternoon I had to deal
with your mother's insane will, my daughter nearly
drowning, and my son being attacked by a
rattlesnake. And what happens at dinner? You
act as if the most wonderful opportunity in the world
has just dropped into your lap!" Her anger growing,
she stood in the center of the bedroom, her eyes
flashing. "And you didn't even talk to me about it!
That's the worst of it-you just made up your mind what you
wanted to do, and now you expect me to go along with it!
Well, I won't, Kevin. I simply won't
do it."
Kevin moved toward her, but Anne stepped back,
effectively ducking away from his touch. "I'm
sorry," he said. "Honey, I know I
should have talked to you about it, but the whole idea just
seemed so perfect that I couldn't imagine you wouldn't
see it too."
But Anne wasn't mollified. "Perfect? For
Heaven's sake, Kevin, do you have any idea what
it would cost? Where are we supposed to get the money
for this crazy idea?"
"We have the house-" Kevin began, but Anne cut
him off.
"Which is mortgaged to the hilt. We'll be lucky
to break even on it, and you know that as well as I do!"
"This house," Kevin said hastily. "I think I can
mortgage it, but even if I can't, I think
I've found a way around the will."
Anne shook her head. "You heard Mr.
Waterman. There
isn't any way around the will. If there were, he'd
have found it."
"But that's just it. It's not quite going around it. I think
I can sell options to buy when the leases run out.
I can sell them to the tenants-as many of them as want
to buy their land-and I'll bet I can sell the rest
to outside developers. Same thing with the land on the
island ..."
Anne stared at him as if he'd gone
crazy. "But you can't do any of that," she objected.
"You can't sell anything for ten years, and you can't
even do that unless you stay here. And if you think I'm
willing to do that-"
"Wait," Kevin pleaded, holding up his hand. "Will
you please just wait and think about it? I know I was
wrong not to talk to you about it right away, and I
didn't really mean to present it the way I did.
But I still think it's a way we can turn Mother's will
to our own advantage. All I'm asking you to do is
think about it. Can't you at least do that?"
Anne opened her mouth to voice still another
objection, then changed her mind. What was she doing?
Making her own mind up as unalterably as she thought
Kevin had made his? She took a deep breath,
then forced a small smile. "All right," she
agreed. "I'll think about it. But I want to think
about it myself, without you trying to talk me into anything."
"Just let me tell you how I think I can work it,"
Kevin began, but Anne shook her head.
"We'll talk about that tomorrow. Right now, I have to think
about whether or not I can even live here. And there are
the kids to think about too. What about school? I
don't know much about South Carolina, but I know they
don't spend a lot on education down
here."
"I went to school here," Kevin pointed out.
"You went to the Fortress, and you know perfectly well
you hated every minute of it." Suddenly she grinned,
almost in spite of herself. "Pretty clever of your mother
to threaten to leave everything to the Fortress, wasn't it?
She must have known you'd do almost anything to keep that
outfit from getting their hands on this place."
The corners of Kevin's mouth twitched slightly.
"Nobody
can say Mother wasn't smart," he agreed. "But I
hadn't really thought much about that aspect of it."
"Well, you'd better," Anne sighed, "because I have
to tell you I think there's a pretty good chance
they're going to get it." The grin faded from her
face, and she met her husband's eyes. "I love
you very much, Kevin," she said. "But I don't know
if I can live here. I promised to think about it, and
I will. But what if I decide I can't? What
then?"
Kevin's stomach felt hollow. What, indeed, if
she said she couldn't live here? What would he do? It
came as a jolt when he realized he didn't know.
He didn't know what meant more to him-his wife, his
family, and the life he'd lived for twenty
years-or this ancient mansion-the symbol of the
unhappy years of his childhood, and now the
possibility of a future he'd never been able to do
anything but dream about. His mind raced, but before the right
words came, it was already too late.
"Well," Anne said quietly, her voice
trembling, "I guess I have my answer, don't
I?"
It was past midnight, but the temperature had
dropped only slightly and the light breeze that had
stirred the air earlier had died completely. A
heaviness lay over the house, and as Anne sat in the
dimly lit living room, she felt the atmosphere
closing around her, suffocating her. Outside, the
night buzzed with the whirrings of insects, and she could
hear them batting at the window, trying to get to the
beckoning light of the table lamp.
She'd been sitting alone for hours now. Until
ten-thirty, when the children had finally gone to bed, she'd
felt their eyes on her, watching her warily.
They'd already made up their minds, she knew. They
wanted to stay.
And why shouldn't they? For Jeff the island was
paradise on earth, acres and acres of wilderness
to be explored, his own private beach, a
house that was more like a castle to an eight-year-old.
In his mind, everything about Devereaux and Sea Oaks
was a fantasy come true.
For Julie it was much the same. She'd already made
friends, friends she seemed to like better than the kids
she'd known all her life. And, of course, there was
Kerry Sanders-tall, blond, and blue-eyed, and
he had already saved Julie's life. Even alone
in the semidarkness Anne had to smile at the knowledge of
how Julie must feel right now. Kerry,
obviously, was destined to be the first big love of
Julie's life, and Anne could well imagine the
heartbreak Julie would go through if she were forced away
from him. But it was a heartbreak she would get over,
no matter what she thought right now.
Anne had felt Marguerite's eyes on her,
too, though Marguerite had done her best to appear
totally neutral. But what would Marguerite do if
Anne convinced Kevin not to stay here? How could she
live without the house and the income from the land and whatever
holdings Helena might have managed to cling to over the
years? She'd probably have to live with them in
Connecticut. Marguerite would hate it. All of
them, eventually, would hate it. But what about me?
Anne thought. She'd spent an hour wandering
through the enormous house, trying to imagine herself living
in the huge expanse of rooms. She'd run her
hands over the furniture-furniture that had been in
the Devereaux family for generations-and tried to imagine
it all as hers. She couldn't.
She wasn't a Devereaux-at least not a Devereaux
of Sea Oaks-and never would be. You had to be born
into the ability to be comfortable in surroundings such as these,
and she wasn't. She had grown up in a small
town in upstate New York, in a tiny
five-room house her parents had barely been able
to afford. From there it had been an apartment in New
York shared with three other girls, and then she had
married Kevin, never once understanding the kind of
background he had come from. He'd talked of his
family so little, and when he'd talked of them at
all, it was with a bitterness that made Anne's heart
ache. She'd known he'd grown up in military
school-and hated every minute of it-and moved north at
his first opportunity. And never, not once, had he
intimated
he might be willing to move back to South Carolina
under any circumstances at all. Yet here the
circumstances were.
Of course, they wouldn't be living in the
mansion, she reminded herself. At least not all of it.
And it wouldn't be a mansion anymore. It would be a
business, and Kevin, she knew, was perfectly
capable of running it.
But they'd still have to live here, and Kevin would have to work
twenty-four hours a day, at least for the first few
years, and the children would have to go to school here, which, as far as
Anne was concerned, was almost as bad as not going
to school at all.
And in the end there was a good likelihood they would wind
up broke, despite all of Kevin's
expertise. In the hotel business it happened all
the time.
And on top of all that there was the heat, the humidity,
the unending insects, snakes, alligators-
No!
She almost screamed the word out loud. It was
impossible, all of it. But how was she going to tell
Kevin? And how was he going to react?
She closed her eyes for a few minutes, letting
her mind drift, unwilling to deal right now with the
possibility that her marriage could be dealt a
fatal blow.
And all because of a vicious old woman's spiteful
will. This was Helena's fault-all of it.
The clock ticked loudly, then struck the half
hour, and Anne knew she should go to bed. Her mind was
beginning to get fuzzy, and her emotions were taking
over.
She didn't know at first why she was certain she was
no longer alone in the room. It was just a feeling she
had. She kept her eyes closed, listening.
Something creaked softly, something more than the constant
shifting of the old house.
Whoever was in the room had come closer. But why
didn't he speak? Anne's heart beat a little
faster. She should open her eyes and look around.
She couldn't.
She had to.
The floorboards creaked again.
Steeling herself, Anne opened her eyes.
A few feet away, a figure stood, clad in
white, staring at her.
Helena!
Anne gasped, sitting bolt upright, her heart
pounding. But then the figure moved and she heard a
voice.
"Anne? It's me. Marguerite. I-I thought you
were asleep, and I didn't want to wake you."
Anne laughed weakly as her heart
settled back into its normal rhythms.
"Marguerite! I'm sorry. You frightened me half
to death. I guess I
was
asleep, but all of a sudden I had this creepy
feeling, and when I saw you, I thought you were
Helena's ghost." She paused, giggling
self-consciously. "Come back to haunt me, I
suppose." She swung her legs off the couch and
reached over to turn up the lamp. "What are you doing
down here? I thought you'd gone to sleep hours ago."
"I couldn't sleep," Marguerite admitted,
stepping out of the shadows and settling into the chair
opposite Anne. "I was lying up there, thinking about
Mother's will, and I kept getting more and more frightened."
She gazed at Anne, her eyes wide. "I can't
talk to Kevin about it-he already has so much to think
about. But I'm scared, Anne. I don't know what
to do."
"Scared?" Anne repeated. "Scared of what?"
Marguerite bit her lip and looked away for a
moment, but then her eyes came back to Anne.
"I'm afraid he's going to go away again," she
said, her voice barely more than a whisper. "And if
he does, I don't know what I'll do.
I won't have anyplace to live, and no money.
I-I just don't know what to do. And I know it
isn't your worry-I know it
shouldn't
be your worry. But-But-"
"But of course it is my worry," Anne said
immediately, her heart going out to her sister-in-law.
"Whatever happens, it concerns all of us, and we
all have to know how you feel too."
Marguerite blinked in the lamp light. "But that's just
it, don't you see? I don't know how I feel.
I can't imagine living anywhere but here, but I
don't want you to do something you
don't truly want to do. Oh, Anne! Kevin
is all I have left. He and the children, and you. And I
know how unhappy he used to be here. But if he
goes now, and I lose the house-" Her voice
broke and she buried her face in her hands. Anne
moved to her side and put her arms around the distraught
woman. When Marguerite looked up again, her
face was streaked with tears. "I can't lose it,
Anne," she said, her voice choked. "I just can't.
Please-you have to stay. You all have to. I-I need
you!"
Anne tried to swallow the lump growing in
her throat, and when she was finally able to speak, her
voice was shaking. "We'll work it out,
Marguerite," she promised. "One way or
another, we'll work it out. But you won't be alone.
All right?"
Marguerite hesitated, then nodded and dabbed at her
eyes with a handkerchief. Finally she got to her feet
and moved unsteadily toward the entry hall and the
stairs. "I'm sorry," she apologized. "I
feel like a perfect fool, really. But I couldn't
help myself. I just had to come down and talk to you.
I-I hope you don't mind too much."
"Of course not," Anne assured her. "Just go
back to bed and try to get some sleep, and I'm
sure that by tomorrow we'll all know what we have to do.
I'll think about all of it, I promise."
Marguerite smiled. "That's good," she said. "I
used to do that myself sometimes." She glanced around the
large entry hall and shuddered. "Of course, sometimes
I couldn't even think straight, not with all the
memories here. So sometimes I'd take the car and go
away for a while. Just get off the island for a little
while, do you know what I mean?"
Anne nodded, then waited while Marguerite
slowly climbed the stairs, finally going
back into the living room to turn off the lamp. But
to her surprise, Ruby was standing in the dining room
door, her fingers clutching at a robe she had put
over her shoulders. The old servant stared at her
for a long moment, then shook her head.
"She got you," she said softly. "She got the
whole lot of you, and she'll never let you go."
Instantly, Anne was certain she understood.
"She's dead,
Ruby," she replied. "She's dead and buried, and
there's nothing she can do to any of us. Whatever we do,
it will be because we want to, not because of Miss
Helena, or her will."
But once again Ruby shook her head. "You'll
stay. You'll all stay. That's the way she wants
it, and she'll find a way to get what she wants."
Then, leaving Anne standing alone in the living room which
was still dominated by the portrait of Helena
Devereaux, Ruby turned and plodded heavily back
through the dining room toward her own small room behind the
kitchen.
The morning sky was slate gray, with thick clouds
swirling up out of the southeast. Ruby, standing at the
kitchen counter putting the finishing touches on a
breakfast tray for Marguerite, glanced out
the window and shook her head dolefully. "Seems like
they might have warned us about this one," she grumbled.
"Looks like its gonna be bad today. Don't
expect Miss Marguerite will be down at all."
Julie looked up from the magazine she was leafing through
while she ate her breakfast. "But what about
class?" she asked. "And she was up earlier,
wasn't she?"
Ruby shrugged dismissively. "Alls I know is
that when it gets like this, her leg gets real bad. And
if her leg gets bad, I don't know how she can
teach her class. Besides," she added, nodding
pointedly toward the storm brewing outside, "if this
keeps up, nobody's gonna get across the
causeway anyhow." She picked up the tray and
started toward the kitchen door, but Julie
promptly rose to her feet.
"I can take it up," she said.
Ruby hesitated a split second, the wrinkles
in her brow deepening slightly, then smiled and handed
the tray to Julie. "Well, I 'spose she
might just like that."
Balancing the tray carefully, Julie backed through
the swinging door to the butler's pantry, then went through
the dining room and living room toward the main
staircase. As she started up, she heard her mother's
voice from the library in the far wing.
"Kevin, you can't expect me to make up my mind
about something this important overnight! My God,
first you spring this idea on me out of the blue, then you
expect me to know how I feel about it the next day.
It's just not fair."
"Honey, I'm not asking you to decide right now.
I'm just asking you to let me explain it to you-
"No!" Anne exploded. "You don't have
to explain it-I'm perfectly sure that whatever
plan you've come up with is perfectly reasonable.
What I'm not at all sure of is whether I can
live here. And I'm almost positive it would be
wrong for the kids."
"But they
want
to stay- " Kevin began, but Anne cut him off.
"And Jeff would like it to be Christmas every day too!
For God's sake, Kevin-they're
children!
You can't expect them to know what's right for them!"
Before her father could say anything else, Julie
hurried up the stairs, unwilling to hear more. By the
time she'd gotten to the top of the stairs and
started down the hall toward Marguerite's room, the
orange juice had slopped over the top of the
glass, splashing onto the pile of toast next to the
two fried eggs Ruby had put on Marguerite's
plate. Her eyes stinging as she tried to control her
emotions, Julie pushed the door to her aunt's
room open, and slipped inside. Marguerite,
dressed in a red satin robe, was sitting in a
chair near her bed, her lame leg propped up on
an ottoman. She smiled at her niece as
Julie came into the room, but when she saw the
glistening in Julie's eyes, her smile faded
away. "Julie, what is it? What's wrong?"
Julie sniffled as she set the tray on the table
next to her aunt. "Nothing, really, I guess.
I just heard Mom and Dad, that's all. They're
fighting about whether or not we can stay here."
Marguerite's eyes closed for a second and her
head swung sadly back and forth. "I knew it,"
she said softly. "I knew there'd be trouble. I
thought-well, never mind what I thought." Then she
smiled again. "Aren't you nice to bring up my
breakfast. But you didn't need to do it-Ruby could have
brought it."
"I wanted to," Julie protested.
"I-I'm sorry your leg hurts this morning.
Ruby told me it always gets worse when there's a
storm."
Marguerite managed a resigned smile. "There's
nothing to
be done about it. But if I take it easy for an
hour or so, I should be fine by the time my girls get
here."
Julie glanced nervously out the window. The wind
seemed to have picked up, and the pines were starting
to whistle, a low, keening sound that made Julie
shiver. "Will they really come today? Ruby says-"
Marguerite brushed her words aside with an airy
gesture. "Ruby's a terrible worry wart who's
always sure the end of the world's just around the corner. And
this is just a little squall. You watch-by ten o'clock every
one of the girls will be here. And my leg will be fine."
Julie frowned uncertainly. "Maybe I should
call Jenny and tell her not to come. She could call
everyone else and-
But Marguerite shook her head. "That's
absolutely ridiculous. If I didn't think
I could handle it, I'd tell you so. And I
certainly wouldn't want any of the girls to come out here
if it were dangerous. But I'll be fine,
and the storm will pass through. You should get downstairs and
finish your breakfast. You can't dance right after you've
eaten, you know. You'll wind up with a cramp."
Julie started out of the room, but Marguerite stopped
her. "And Julie? Don't worry about your mother.
I'm sure in the end she'll do what's right. We just
have to let her work things out for herself. All right?"
Julie nodded uncertainly and left the room. As
she started down the stairs, she braced herself for the
angry sound of her parents' voices, but all she
heard from the library was silence. When she got to the
kitchen, though, she found her parents on either side
of the breakfast table, their faces stony. Neither of them
spoke to her when she came in, and when she looked
at Ruby, the old woman shook her head
warningly. Quickly Julie backed out of the kitchen and
started retracing her steps. But as she got to the
stairs, Jeff came hurtling down. Julie
grabbed him as he started to dart past, swinging him around
to face her. "If you're going to the kitchen," she
said, "you better not. Mom and Dad are in there, and
they're having a fight. Right now they aren't even
speaking to each other."
Jeff's eyes widened in surprise. "Mom and
Dad never fight!" he declared.
"Well, they're fighting now," Julie insisted.
"And we better stay out of it. Okay?"
"But I'm hungry," Jeff complained, jerking his
arm free from his sister's grip. "What am I
supposed to do, starve to death?"
Julie rolled her eyes. "Do what you want. But
if Mom and Dad start yelling at you, don't come
running to me."
Jeff glared scornfully at Julie. "I
won't!"
But five minutes later he crept into Julie's
room, his face pale. "They're yelling at each
other," he said, his voice quivering. "Mom says
she won't ever live here, and Dad says we have
to. What are we going to do?"
Julie shook her head. "I don't know," she
said. "I guess there isn't anything we
can
do, except wait and see what happens."
"Well, it's not fair," Jeff replied. "All
of us want to stay here except Mom. What's
wrong with her?"
All Julie could do was shake her head and shrug.
At ten o'clock, just as it began to rain, Alicia
Mayhew pulled her station wagon up in
front of Sea Oaks and four girls poured out of
it, hurrying up the steps to the wide veranda that
fronted the old mansion. Jenny was about to make her
own dash for the front porch when her mother glanced
apprehensively at the lowering sky. "Maybe I
ought to wait," she fretted. "It's looking pretty
bad."
"What good will it do to wait?" Jenny asked. "If
it gets much worse, you'd just have to stay here with the rest
of us. And if it doesn't get any worse, you can
come and pick us up."
Alicia reached over and squeezed her daughter's
hand affectionately. "I just want to be sure you
don't try to walk home in this. Or any of the other
girls, either. Promise?"
"I promise," Jenny groaned. "Now will you stop
worrying and go home? Everything's going to be fine."
She jumped out of the car, slammed the door, then ran
up the steps to the cluster of girls who were waiting for
her. She waved once to
her mother, then pressed the bell, certain that her mother
wouldn't drive away until she and the other girls were
inside the house. Sometimes, she reflected as she
waited for Ruby to open the door, her mother acted as
if she were still five years old. A moment
later the door opened, and Jenny turned to wave
once more. As she'd expected, the station wagon was just
beginning to move down the driveway. Then, as a
sheet of lightning flashed across the sky, instantly
followed by a clap of thunder, she ducked into the house,
closing the door behind her. The other girls were already
starting up the stairs toward the third floor.
"Where's Julie?" Jenny asked, and Ruby jerked
her thumb toward the ceiling.
"In her room, I guess. And I'm not sure but
what you girls wasted your time this morning. Miss
Marguerite's not feeling so good today."
Jenny grinned mischievously. "She'd have to be
dead before she'd miss a class." At that moment, as
if to prove the truth of Jenny's words,
Marguerite appeared at the top of the stairs, her
back erect as always, her hair pinned up into a
sleek chignon, a loose smock covering her
leotard.
"And if you don't get up here and start warming up,"
she said, her eyes darkening as she regarded Jenny,
"you'll be dead before the lesson is over."
As Jenny hurried up the stairs, Marguerite
moved easily along the second-floor landing, her
limp barely discernible. Ruby watched
until Marguerite had disappeared from view, then
started back toward the kitchen. But it was strange,
she thought. For the last twenty years Marguerite's
limp had gotten much worse when the weather turned
bad. And this morning, when she'd found Marguerite
already in the kitchen even before she herself was dressed,
she'd been able to read the pain in Marguerite's
face, and her leg had been so stiff she'd hardly
been able to climb the stairs. Yet now Marguerite
seemed to be perfectly fine.
A strange day, she decided as she pushed through the
kitchen door. A very strange day.
The house seemed to be closing in on Anne. All
morning, from the moment she'd awakened from a restless
sleep, she'd felt the pressure all around her.
It wasn't just Kevin, pressing her to make up her
mind before she'd truly had a chance to think things through.
It was the children too. She'd seen Julie's face
during that quick moment when she had appeared in the
kitchen, then backed away. Julie's eyes had
rested on her for a moment, and Anne had been able
to read the message all too clearly. "Why are you
fighting with Dad?" Julie's eyes had said. "Why
can't you do what the rest of us want to do?"
Then Jeff had come in, his face
anxious, his eyes beseeching her. Just in time for him
to hear her sounding like some kind of a shrew.
She'd almost given in then, almost agreed to Kevin's
plan, despite her grave misgivings. And she
had agreed to let him take her through the house,
listening carefully to his plans for converting the mansion
into a small hotel.
But all she had seen in room after room was an
unending amount of work that needed to be done, and an
equally unending stream of bills that would have to be paid.
And in the end where would they be? Trapped on a tiny
island.
That's when it had all closed in on her, and the huge
rooms had become tiny, pressing in on her until
she wanted to scream.
They were back in the library now, and Kevin was going
over lists of figures he'd drawn up,
estimating the cost of everything and trying to show her how it
could all be paid for. But she couldn't hear him
anymore, and not because of the storm howling outside, the
wind whipping through the pines and magnolias, threatening
to rip them up by the roots and fling them across the lawn
and into the sea beyond. Even the house was shaking every now and
then as the gusts battered against it. But it wasn't the
storm that had made her deaf.
It was the house-closing in-and her own mind, screaming
at her to get away, to think about it all somewhere
else, someplace where she would be alone, where she
couldn't see and feel everyone's eyes watching her,
waiting for her to
make up her mind. Then she remembered
Marguerite's words from last night: "... sometimes
I'd take the car and go away for awhile. Just get
off the island for a little while ..."
"I'm leaving," she said suddenly.
Kevin looked up at her, startled. "Leaving?" he
echoed, his voice hollow. "But I thought-"
Anne shook her head. "Not permanently. But I
have to get out of here. I have to get out of this house and off
this island, and be by myself for a while." Her eyes
flooded with tears. "I don't even feel like I can
think anymore. I know what you want, and I know
what the kids want, and Marguerite too! But I
don't know what I want, Kevin! And it seems
like every minute that goes by, I hate it here even more.
And I don't even know why I hate it!" Her
voice had taken on an hysterical edge, the words
tumbling unbidden from her mouth. "I know it's a
wonderful house, and I know it could be made into a
beautiful inn! And I know you could do it! But
I feel like I'm completely out of control. It's
like your mother's got you, even though she's dead. She's
got you, and the kids, and Marguerite, and now she
wants me too! I know it sounds insane, but that's
the way I feel! I feel like I'm going crazy,
Kevin. I just have to get away. Now!"
Kevin reached out to take her by the arm, but she twisted
away from him. "No!" she screamed. "Don't try
to stop me! Don't even speak to me! Just let me
go!"
Kevin stared at his wife. Her face was pale, her
hands were trembling, and there was a wildness in her eyes
he'd never seen before. He reached out to her again, but again
she avoided his touch.
"Please," she said, her voice dropping to a
whisper. "Just let me go. Just let me get out of
here for a few hours." She turned away from him,
hurrying out of the library. When he caught up with
her, she was already in the foyer, struggling into a
raincoat, searching in her purse for her car keys.
She had the door halfway open when he reached out and
pushed it closed.
"Not now," he said. "Honey, you have to wait-the
storm's too bad. You won't even be able to get
across the causeway-"
Anne shook her head. "I have to," she said. "I
have to get out of here, and I have to get out now. If I
can't get off this island, I'm going to go nuts."
Her eyes locked on his. "I have to do this,
Kevin. I'll be back in a few hours, or
I'll call you. But I have to go now." Pulling the
door open, she clutched the raincoat around her and
stepped out onto the veranda. The rain, driven by the
screaming wind, lashed at her, but she ignored it,
leaning into the storm and stumbling down the steps. A
moment later she disappeared around the corner of the
house, and a minute after that Kevin saw their station
wagon, with Anne at the wheel, move quickly down
the driveway toward the road. Helplessly he
watched her go until the storm had swallowed up the
car.
He was just closing the disfront door when the sky
seemed to explode with lightning, instantly followed
by a clap of thunder so loud it made the windows
rattle. And as the thunder faded away, the lights
suddenly went out, plunging the house into a darkness
almost as deep as night.
Damn, Kevin cursed softly to himself. Pushing the
door closed against the force of the storm, he started
toward the stairs to the basement. Perhaps it
wasn't the electricity that was gone at all-perhaps it
was only the main fuse to the house, overloaded by the
bolt of lightning.
In the ballroom the music from the phonograph
suddenly stopped. The bright lights of the chandeliers
flickered once, then went out. The full fury of the
storm was lashing at the house now, and one of the girls
shrieked as the electricity gave out.
"It's all right," Marguerite said, her voice
calm. "It's just a storm, and we've all gotten
through them before. I'm sure the lights will be on in a
minute and we can go on with our class."
"Why don't we just quit now?" Mary-Beth
Fletcher asked, her voice taking on a
belligerent tone. "All we've done anyway is
sit here and watch Julie dance. I don't even
know why we came today."
The rest of the girls fell silent, all of them
watching Marguerite, but after only a second's
hesitation she smiled at Mary-Beth. "I think
maybe you're right. Maybe we ought to quit for the day
and go downstairs and see if Ruby has anything
to eat. How does that sound?"
The tension caused by Mary-Beth's words broke, and the
girls began unlacing their toe shoes and
drifting toward the door, groping their way through the
darkness, toward the stairs. But when they finally got
to the first floor and the rest of the girls started toward the
kitchen, Mary-Beth stopped. "I'm going home,"
she announced. "I'm not hungry, and I'm sick
of watching Marguerite gush over Julie, and I'm
sick of these stupid dance classes."
Jennifer Mayhew glared at Mary-Beth. "Will you
be quiet? Do you want Miss Marguerite to hear
you?"
"Who cares?" Mary-Beth shot back. "She
doesn't care about us anymore. All she cares
about is her Yankee-trash niece, and I'm so
sick of
her I
could throw up! So I'm going home."
"But you can't," Jenny protested. "You won't be
able to get across the causeway."
"Well, I'd rather get washed off the causeway
than stay here," Mary-Beth replied. She began
pulling on her raincoat as Marguerite started
making her slow way down the stairs from the
second-floor landing. By the time she got to the entry
hall, Mary-Beth was ready to go.
Marguerite stared at her in surprise.
"Mary-Beth? Where are you going?"
"Home," Mary-Beth said, her eyes fixed on the
floor. "I decided I'm going to quit dance
class and I don't want to stay here any longer.
So I'm going home."
Marguerite's face clouded. "But-But I don't
understand. I thought you liked dancing-
"Maybe I did," Mary-Beth replied, her
voice sullen now. "But I don't anymore. And
I don't like Julie, either. So I better go."
She turned toward the door, but Marguerite stopped
her.
"Mary-Beth, you can't leave now. Not in this storm,
and not like this." Her voice took on a pleading
note. "Please.
Stay at least until the storm passes. And
let's try to talk about this. You can't leave this way.
You just can't."
But Mary-Beth shook her head. "I'm not afraid
of the storm, and I'm not going to change my mind," she
said, her voice rising in anger. "Why can't you just
let me go?" She turned, pulled open the front
door, and strode out into the storm. Marguerite,
stunned, watched her go, then, her hand
unconsciously going to her right hip, which was
suddenly burning with pain, went to the closet and
pulled a mackintosh off one of the hooks.
Julie, who was still standing in the foyer, stared at her
aunt. "Aunt Marguerite, what are you doing? You
can't go out there. Let me do it. Jenny and I can go
after her."
Marguerite shook her head. "I have to do it," she
said calmly. "I have to do what's right." She smiled
at Julie, her hand already on the door, and at
Jenny, who had just come in to the entry hall. "I
won't be more than a few minutes," she promised.
"I'll just find her and bring her back." A moment
later Marguerite, too, disappeared into the storm.
Anne braked to a stop at the end of the causeway,
peering intently through the windshield. She could see
practically nothing, for even with the wipers on high, the
rain was far too heavy for them to be effective.
Finally she rolled down the window and leaned out, gazing
ahead toward the narrow strip of roadway that led to the
mainland.
The wind was shrieking up the coast from the south now, and a
constant spray of saltwater, driven off the heaving
sea, stung Anne's face and clouded her vision.
But the causeway still looked passable, though even as
she watched a wave crested then splashed
across the road. She closed the window and put the car
in gear, then pressed on the accelerator, nosing the
car out onto the narrow span.
She was a quarter of the way across when the engine started
to cough. Quickly, she pressed the gas pedal to the
floor. The car shook for a second, then the engine
caught, hurtling the car forward into the cloud of
spray.
And then, when she was halfway across, the engine coughed
again, sputtered, and died. Anne slammed on the
brakes, but their power had gone when the engine had
stopped, and it took all her strength to bring the station
wagon to a stop. Slamming the gear shift lever
into park, she twisted the key, but nothing happened.
Then she remembered, and quickly turned the key back
then forward again.
The starter ground, but the engine refused to catch. She
waited a moment, then tried again.
Still nothing.
The wind suddenly increased, and Anne felt the car
sway slightly, and move an inch or two. A
wave-larger than the rest-rose up from the south and
smashed into the causeway, briefly flooding the
road before washing on over to the north.
Anne twisted the key again. Once more the
starter ground fruitlessly.
Without realizing quite what she was doing, Anne shoved the
door open and made her way around to the front of the
car, clinging to whatever handholds she could find.
Fumbling, she reached for the catch that would release the
hood. A moment later she was staring stupidly at the
tangle of wires and hoses that ran around the engine
like a maze.
None it it, she realized, meant anything to her. She
had only a vague idea of how a car worked, much
less of where to begin looking for the problem.
And then, as she stared blankly at the engine, another
wave broke over the causeway, its force nearly
knocking her from her feet. Gasping at the shock of
it, Anne slammed the hood shut and made her way
back to the driver's door.
A third wave struck her as she reached the door,
and both she and the interior of the car were soaking wet by the
time she got in and managed to pull the door closed.
She sat for a moment, staring out through the windshield.
The storm was building fast now, and the waves were washing
over the road one after the other, keeping it constantly
flooded.
The car had to start-it had to! There was no way she
could walk through the storm. If the wind
didn't blow her off the road, the waves would
overwhelm her.
Panic starting to grow within her, she twisted the key
once more.
The starter ground, but more weakly this time, and she
realized the battery was wearing down. But the engine
didn't catch.
Frantically her eyes searched the dashboard,
looking for some clue as to what was wrong. Then she
saw it.
The gas gauge seemed to pop out at her, far larger
than it really was, as if she were viewing it through a
telescope.
Empty.
The needle, which should have been on the full mark, was
resting all the way over on the opposite end.
But it was impossible. The car had been full only
two days ago. She'd filled it herself, and it had
hardly been driven since.
And then, slowly, the truth began to dawn on her.
Someone had drained the tank.
Drained it!
But it was impossible. It made no sense! Why?
The panic that had been growing inside her burst
loose now, and she leaned on the horn,
silently screaming for someone to hear it, for someone to come
to her rescue. But she knew it was impossible.
Even she could barely hear the faint sound of the horn
above the screaming roar of the storm, and the rain and spray
were so heavy now that she could see neither end of the
causeway.
She tried to regain control of herself, tried to force
herself to be calm.
It would pass. It was only a summer squall,
though it seemed to carry the force of a hurricane with
it. And when it passed, she would simply get out of the
car and walk the rest of the way to the village.
But the storm wasn't passing.
Instead its force continued to build. When she looked
out to the south, the waves seemed mountainous.
And then, like a supernatural force, an enormous
wave bore down on her, its swell rising ever
higher until it crested, looming over the causeway
for what seemed to be an eternity, then, finally,
breaking.
It hit the car broadside, with the force of an
oncoming locomotive.
The car shuddered, and Anne felt it slip
sideways. For just an instant she thought it was going
to hold, for there was the slightest hesitation
before the inertia of the car finally gave way to the power of the
wave.
And then, as if it had been seized by a huge hand, the
car was picked up by the water and rolled.
A second wave, on the heels of the first, finished
the job, rolling the car once more until it toppled
over the edge and slid down the embankment.
Anne screamed as the car hit the water, and braced
herself against the shock. Then the water closed over the
automobile as it continued to roll, seized by the
current and the storm-driven waves.
She had to get out, had to escape from the car before it
filled with water.
She tried to shove the door open, but it was held
tight by the weight of the water outside. She thought
furiously now, and then knew what she had to do.
Against every instinct in her mind and body, she had
to roll the window down and let the water pour in
until the pressure was equal. Only then would she
be able to escape, either by forcing the door open or forcing
herself through the open window.
Taking a deep breath, she began to crank the
window.
Water gushed into the car, sluicing over her with what
felt like the power of a firehose. She
turned away from it, her breath coming in gasps now as
she felt the water rising around her. The car seemed
to be flooding much too quickly, far faster, indeed,
than she'd thought possible.
Suddenly the car stopped rolling, and Anne realized
it was lying on its side, the open window up. She still
had a chance! And then, in front of her, the
windshield shattered, caving in with a sudden rush as the
sea began its final invasion of the automobile.
Anne screamed once more, then gasped for a final
breath before the last of the air was forced out of the car. Now!
She had to get out now or it would be too late. She
shoved at the door, and it moved slightly, then
stuck.
The window!
She clawed at the open window, then shoved with her
feet braced against the passenger door.
Up! She had to push straight up!
Her arms and head passed through the window, then her
body. She twisted, trying to pull her legs after
her.
She was going to make it. Only another second and
she would be free.
And then she felt it happen: something wrapped itself
around her ankle and jerked tight.
She knew what it was, knew instinctively, without
even thinking about it.
The seat belt.
The wide strip of webbing that was meant to save her
life. But it had turned on her now, twisting around
her ankle, entangling her, holding her under the
water's surface.
Her breath was burning in her lungs, but she reached
down, fumbling with the thick strap, trying to find enough
slack to free her snared leg.
The pressure kept building in her lungs, and the
current of the heaving sea battered at her, pulling
her fingers-fingers that felt clumsy and useless-away
from the stiff material. At last her body
revolted and her lungs spewed out her breath, then
drew in the first agonizing draft of saltwater.
She'd lost.
At the very last moment she'd lost, and now she was going
to die.
Water filled her lungs, and her body quickly
leeched the last of the oxygen out of her blood.
A strange euphoria began to come over her, and
suddenly she began to think of the sea as a friend.
A gentle friend, in whose softly swaying arms she was
going to be borne away.
Her panic drained away then and she let herself
relax, giving herself up to her new, and final, friend.
The pain was burning furiously in Marguerite's
hip now, but she did her best to ignore it, leaning
into the wind, shielding her eyes from the lashing rain as
best she could. She was on the road, slogging through the
mud that sucked at her feet and threatened to bog her
down entirely, but she had to go on. And then, barely
visible through the torrent, she could just make out another
figure.
"Mary-Beth!" she shouted, her words instantly lost
in the howling wind. "Mary-Beth, wait! Please
wait!" Whimpering against the pain in her hip and the almost
complete numbness in her lame leg, she redoubled
her efforts, breaking into an awkward run as she
tried to catch up to Mary-Beth Fletcher. When she
was still ten yards away, she called out again.
"Mary-Beth! Wait!"
Mary-Beth hesitated, then turned around, and a
moment later Marguerite caught up with her.
Gasping for breath, Marguerite put out a hand
to steady herself, but Mary-Beth backed away, and
Marguerite almost lost her balance. "Mary-Beth,
please," Marguerite gasped. "You can't go home
now- it's too dangerous. Come back to the
house."
Mary-Beth hesitated. She knew she'd made a
mistake almost as soon as she left the mansion, and the
wind had nearly knocked her down. But she'd made
up her mind and wasn't going to change it. She just
couldn't bear to go back to the house now and see the other
girls looking at her, teasing her about losing her
nerve.
Especially Julie. Julie, who'd come out of
nowhere and instantly made friends with all of
Mary-Beth's friends, danced better than
Mary-Beth would ever be able to, and then taken
Kerry Sanders away from her too. No, she
wasn't about to go back to Sea Oaks now. Not ever.
She glared at Marguerite, her eyes flashing with
anger. "I'm not going back," she shouted, her
voice rising to carry above the storm. "Never! I
hate you, and I hate Julie, and I'm leaving.
And no one can stop me!" Once again Marguerite
reached out to her, but Mary-Beth twisted away,
clutching at the coat flapping around her legs. "I
hate you," Mary-Beth lashed out once more. "I
hate all of you, and I never want to see any of you
again!" Then she was gone, the storm closing around her.
Marguerite stood in the middle of the muddy
road, stunned by the girl's angry words, fiery
pain throbbing in her hip, her heart pounding.
Mary-Beth was leaving.
Leaving, and never coming back.
But she couldn't-she couldn't do that. She couldn't just
turn away from Marguerite. It wasn't possible.
There had to be a way to bring her back-there had to!
Once more she leaned into the storm, staggering against the
wind now, pushing herself on. She had to get
to Mary-Beth before she reached the causeway. If she
didn't-
She put the thought out of her mind, unable to accept the
idea that one of her girls might, indeed, leave her
forever.
Mary-Beth stared at the heaving sea. The waves were
huge, surging over the causeway with a raw,
terrifying power that made her cringe. She couldn't
possibly make it across. And the wind seemed to have
risen even higher, threatening to lift her off her
feet and hurl her into the churning sea.
A bolt of lightning flashed across the sky, and
Mary-Beth screamed out loud as the crash of thunder
rolled over her. She could feel its power against her
chest, and clamped her hands over her ears until it
had passed on, rumbling away, the sound
lost in the screaming wind. She was crying now, wishing
she'd never left the mansion, wishing she'd gone
back with Marguerite when she had the chance. But it was
too late now. She'd never be able to make it back
to Sea Oaks-she was-too tired from fighting the
storm. She had
to find shelter, find someplace to wait until the
storm eased up.
There was a stand of pines fifty yards away, bending
in the wind, a high-pitched keening springing from the
trees, storm-lashed needles. If she could just get
there, get to one of the trees, get a little protection
from the storm. Holding her arms up to deflect the
rain, she lurched toward the trees one step at a
time.
Then she was there, huddling against one of the tree
trunks; even the slight protection it offered a
welcome haven from the maelstrom. She leaned against
the tree, exhausted, her breath coming in short
gasps, her heart still pounding.
Sea spray was mixed with the rain here, and she could
taste the sharp tang of salt on her tongue. But
at least she was safe.
Another bolt of lightning rent the sky, and a sharp
crack- louder than a rifle shot-sounded
above her. The tree she was leaning against split along
its full length, knocking Mary-Beth to the ground.
Almost instantly mud oozed through her coat and
clothes, and she felt its cold sliminess against her
skin.
She was sobbing now, crying brokenly as she wriggled
away from the split tree, then pulling herself up
to lean against the trunk of another. It wasn't just the
storm that threatened her now. It was the woods too.
Around her she could hear branches breaking loose in
the wind, crashing to the ground.
If one of them hit her-
She pulled herself to her feet. She had to get
away, find someplace safe. Or someone-
Tripping, stumbling, she made her shambling way out
of the stand of pines. Shreds of moss, ripped loose
from the trees and driven by the storm, lashed her face,
and once more she held her hands up in a futile
effort to protect herself.
And then, with the instincts of a trapped animal, she
sensed a presence nearby.
She stopped, listening carefully, but could hear nothing
but the storm.
"H-Help!" she called out, her words sounding
puny against
the raging of the wind and crashing of the surf. "Please-
someone help me! Please!"
And then, emerging from the storm, she saw a figure
approaching her. It was only a faint outline at
first, but she began calling out once more. The figure
seemed to hesitate a moment, then started once more
toward her.
Mary-Beth fell to her knees, exhausted not only
by her battle against the storm, but her fear, as well.
But in a minute it would be over. Whoever was out
there-whoever had come to rescue her-would be with her in a
few more seconds, and she would be safe.
She gasped once more, struggling to control herself,
to put down the last of the panic that had engulfed her
only seconds ago. And then, finally, she looked
up.
Looked up, ready to see a familiar face
smiling down at her, ready to have the last of the terror
fall away.
Looked up to see an enormous rock, held high
by two trembling hands, descend down upon her,
crashing into her face.
She never knew whether the last sound she heard was the
sharp crack of a branch breaking above her head or the
equally sharp crack of her own skull,
splitting and caving in under the force of the stone as it
smashed down upon her.
Julie flinched as yet another bolt of lightning
slashed across the sky and the house trembled under the force
of the thunder that followed immediately after. She tried not to show
her fear as she gazed at Jennifer Mayhew, who
seemed completely unworried by the fury of the storm.
"Where are they?" she asked. "Shouldn't they have been
back by now?" Though it seemed to Julie as if an
eternity had passed since her aunt, followed a
few minutes later by her father, had gone out into the
storm to search for Mary-Beth Fletcher, it had
actually been no more than thirty minutes.
But Jennifer didn't seem concerned. "They're
fine," she said. "We get lots worse storms
than this. Wait till later on, when the
hurricanes come. That's when it really gets
scary."
Tammy-Jo Aaronson rolled her eyes. "If
it gets any worse than this, we're going to blow
right into the ocean," she said. Nervously, she glanced
into the shadowy corners of the dim living room. "I
wish the lights would come back on. I hate it when
this happens."
The other two girls in the room snickered
softly. "Afraid Miss Helena's going to get
you?" Allison Carter asked, her voice mocking.
Instantly, Julie's eyes shifted to Allison.
"Why did you say that?" she asked, her voice
quavering as she remembered the tale Ruby had
told on the morning after her grandmother's funeral.
Allison grinned wickedly. "Everyone knows about the
Devereaux ghosts," she said. "They always come back,
and I heard that they're worst of all during storms.
And when it gets real bad, they come up out of the
cemetery and creep around in the house."
Jeff, who had been sitting quietly on the end
of a sofa, stared at Allison, his eyes wide.
"wh-What do they want?" he breathed.
Allison turned to Jeff, and her voice dropped
to a hoarse whisper. "Little boys," she said. "Little
boys like you. And you'll never know when they're going
to come. In fact," she added, letting her eyes dart
toward the corners of the room, "they could be here right
now, just waiting for you to wander away by yourself."
"Stop it!" Tammy-Jo Aaronson demanded.
Then, as her friends all began giggling at the fear
apparent in her voice, she tried to put on a
brave face and managed to force a laugh. "That is
so stupid- " she began, but then fell
silent, her face draining of color as the French
doors rattled loudly.
"wh-What's that?" Jeff stammered, sliding off the
sofa and edging closer to Julie.
Another bolt of lightning flashed. Outside the
French doors, silhouetted against the thin curtains
stretched over the glass, they could see a figure
working at the handle.
One of the girls uttered a strangled whimper, and
Jeff pressed up against his sister, his arms sliding
around her waist. Then, as the thunder faded away, they
heard a voice call out.
"Julie? Darling, unlock the door. I'm going
to drown!"
The tension in the room broke instantly as they
recognized Marguerite's voice. Julie ran
to the door, twisting at the lock, then holding the
door against the wind as her aunt slipped inside,
her mackintosh dripping wet.
"The front door was locked, and I forgot my
key. Didn't you hear me ringing the bell?"
Julie stared at her aunt for a second, then began
to giggle. "How could we hear it?" she asked. "The
electricity's out, remember? There isn't any
bell. But where are Dad and Mary-Beth?"
"I couldn't make Mary-Beth come back,"
Marguerite said. "I tried to talk to her, but she
wouldn't listen. She-" She cut her own words off and
stared at Julie. "Your father?" she asked. "Why
would I have seen him? Isn't he here?"
Julie shook her head. "He went after you," she
explained. "He was worried about you being out in the
storm and-
Before she could finish, the front door opened, then
slammed shut again, and Kevin, his clothes soaked and
smeared with mud, appeared in the wide double doors
between the foyer and the living room. He stared at
Marguerite, his chest heaving as if he'd been
running. "You're here," he finally managed, his
voice gasping. "My God, I feel like I've
been all over this island. Where were you?"
Marguerite frowned. "On the road, of course.
But Mary-Beth wouldn't come back. She said she
wanted to go home."
"In this?" Kevin asked, gesturing toward the storm
outside. "My God, nobody could get across the
causeway right now. It's completely flooded."
The girls exchanged nervous glances. "But then where
is she?" Allison finally asked. "If she's not
on the island, and she couldn't get off . .
." Her voice trailed off as she slowly realized
the implication of her words.
"Now, let's not get ourselves worked up,"
Marguerite said quickly as she saw the girls" fear
increase. "Kevin couldn't have searched the whole
island-he hasn't had time. And she might have been
able to get across. We-well, we'll just have to wait
here, won't we? We'll wait here, and the storm will
pass, and then we'll find out what's happened."
"I bet I know what happened," Jeff said, his
eyes staring up at his father. "I bet the ghosts got
her. I bet the ghosts came and found her and took
her away."
Kevin stared quizzically at his son. "Whatever
made you think of that?" he asked.
Jeff turned to stare at Allison Carter. "She
told us," he said. "She said all the Devereaux
ghosts come when there's storms."
Allison laughed out loud. "But I was only
kidding," she told Jeff, and turned to Kevin.
"Really, Mr. Devereaux, it was just a joke."
"But what if it wasn't?" Jeff asked. "What
if it's true? What if Grandmother came back and
took Mary-Beth? What if she killed her?"
A shocked silence fell over the room.
"That's a terrible thing to say, Jeff," Marguerite
said, her voice taking on a hard edge that made
Jeff shrink back. "You should be ashamed of yourself,
even thinking such a thing!"
Jeff stared at his aunt for a moment, blinking, then
burst into tears and fled up the stairs.
The storm was over, and a strange calm had settled
over Devereaux Island. Everywhere, the land was littered
with fallen branches and wind-scattered debris. The
sea, still heaving in the aftermath of the storm, was covered with
whitecaps, and a heavy surf pounded steadily at the
wide expanse of the beach. But the sky was clear, a
deep blue tinged gray only to the north, where the
storm was receding over the horizon. The wind had
dropped to a stiff breeze, but even that was waning, and
already the familiar heat was beginning to build. Steam
rose from the land in a misty fog as the rainfall
evaporated beneath the power of the sun.
Alicia Mayhew had come and gone, and the mansion was
empty now of the girls who had waited out the storm for
four long hours. Thirty minutes earlier, just as
Alicia had arrived, the electricity had come
back on and the phone began to work again.
Kevin had stopped Alicia on the veranda, just as she
was ready to leave, and asked her if she'd
seen Anne anywhere in the village, or perhaps their
car.
Alicia had shaken her head. "But if I'd been
her," she told Kevin, "I'd have headed inland."
She shook her head in wonder as she remembered the
power of the storm that had kept everyone in Devereaux
shut up in their homes for most of the day. "I've
seen squalls before, but that one was something else." Her
eyes took on a look of worry. "I hope
Mary-Beth is all right."
Kevin managed a grin. "From what Marguerite
said, she must have been okay. She was mad about something,
and she wasn't about to come back here."
Alicia's brows arched knowingly. "That girl's always
mad about something. This time I suspect it had to do with
your daughter. Mary-Beth's had a crush on
Kerry Sanders for months now, but since he met
Julie, he hasn't had eyes for anyone else.
Well," she finished, glancing at her earful of
teenage girls, "I'd better get home. Let
me know when you hear from Anne, will you?" she added as
she started down the steps. "I'd love to hear what
she thinks of our little squalls."
Kevin shrugged ruefully. "I'm afraid it'll just
add fuel to her fire. She's determined
not to stay down here, and after this, I can't say I can
blame her too much."
Alicia Mayhew turned back, surprised.
"Stay here? You mean you're thinking of moving back?"
Kevin nodded. "It's all up in the air right now,
but there seem to be a lot of good reasons to stay. It
all depends on Anne. ..." His voice
trailed off, but Alicia nodded with instant understanding.
"She thinks we're living in the back woods, and that
we're culturally deprived, right?"
Kevin reddened slightly, but nodded.
"Well, I can't blame her," Alicia sighed.
"I guess we were, for a hundred years there. But
things have changed." She smiled encouragingly. "Why
don't I talk to her?" she suggested. "Maybe
I can convince her at least to give us a try."
"I'd appreciate that," Kevin replied, as the
phone in the entry hall rang shrilly. "I'd
better get that. It might be Anne now." He
waved to Alicia, and as she hurried down the steps,
he went into the house and picked up the phone.
"Hello?"
"Kevin? It's Muriel Fletcher. Is
Mary-Beth still there?"
Kevin felt a tightening in his stomach.
Mary-Beth should have been home hours ago. Then,
speaking from one of the extensions upstairs, he heard
Marguerite's voice.
"Muriel? You mean Mary-Beth isn't home
yet?"
"No. She's there, isn't she?"
"n-No," Marguerite replied, and Kevin could
hear the sudden worry in her voice. "She-well,
I'm afraid she re
fused to stay. She was upset about something, and decided
to walk home."
"Walk?" Muriel sounded shocked. "In that
storm? My God, Marguerite, how could you have let
her do something like that?"
Marguerite's voice was trembling. "I tried
to stop her, but I couldn't, Muriel. She just put
on her coat and walked out. I followed her and
tried to talk her into coming back, but I couldn't.
She-well, she ran away from me."
"Oh, Lord," Muriel groaned. It wasn't
surprising, really. Her daughter had always had a
short temper, and even Muriel had had problems
keeping her under control.
"I tried to find her again, but by the time I got to the
causeway, she was gone," Marguerite
went on. Then her voice took on a more hopeful
note. "It didn't look too bad, really. The
storm seemed to be letting up a little. But she must have
gotten across. Otherwise, she would have come back to the
house, wouldn't she?"
Muriel hesitated, trying to put herself into her
daughter's mind. "No," she said at last. "She
probably wouldn't. Not if she was angry. She'd
have stayed outside by herself before she admitted she'd
made a mistake."
"Well, I'm sure she's all right,"
Marguerite insisted. "Perhaps she went to see one of
her friends."
There was another short hesitation, but when Muriel
Fletcher spoke again, Kevin could hear her concern.
"Maybe so," she said. "Anyway, I'll call
around. And Kevin? Are you still there?"
"I'm here," Kevin replied.
"Would you mind taking a look around the island? I know
it's a lot to ask, but-"
"Of course I will," Kevin replied. "I'll
call you back in an hour or so."
He hung up, and a moment later heard his sister's
irregular step as she made her way down the
second-floor hall to the head of the
stairs. She looked down at him, her face a
mask of worry. "I shouldn't have let her leave,
Kevin," she said. "If something's happened to her, it
will be my fault. I shouldn't have let her leave."
"Hold on, Margie," Kevin replied,
unconsciously using the nickname he'd called her
when he was a child. "We don't know that anything's
happened to her at all. I'll go out and have a look
around-" But before he could finish, he heard a car
door slam outside, and a moment later, the sound of
heavy feet on the veranda. The bell rang just as he
pulled the door open.
On the veranda, his expression somber and his eyes
grave, stood Will Hempstead. Instantly Kevin
knew something was drastically wrong, and he
instinctively took a step backward.
"It's Anne, Kevin," the police chief said.
"There isn't any easy way to tell you this. Her .
. . well, her body just washed up on a shore little
bit north of town. We don't . . . well, we
don't exactly know what happened yet, but . .
."
Hempstead's voice droned on, but Kevin heard
none of it. It wasn't possible. Anne couldn't be
dead-she couldn't! She'd just gone for a
ride, just wanted to be by herself. She was coming back.
She was coming back any minute now, and she wouldn't be
angry anymore. She'd be smiling at him, and
telling him she'd finally thought it all through, and-
But she wasn't coming back. Something had happened, and
she was never coming home to him, or to the children, again.
He dropped onto the wooden chair near the door
and buried his face in his hands, his body wracked by the
first sobs of his grief.
Even the creatures of the night seemed to have fallen
silent.
The air was still, and the last of the storm-driven surf had
long since died away. Only a gentle lapping
sound drifted through the darkness, and Kevin, alone now
in the room he had shared with Anne, sat by the window,
staring out. His mind felt numb, unwilling to accept
the truth of what had happened. He kept feeling a
strange urge to talk to Anne, to call out to her as
if she were in the bathroom, preparing herself for bed.
Twice he'd heard a sound and looked up
eagerly, ready for the door to open, for Anne to come
into the room. But each time he'd caught himself.
It wasn't Anne.
It would never be Anne again.
They'd pieced together what must have happened.
She hadn't even made it across the causeway. The
wind and the sea had taken her, washing the car off the
road, trapping her inside. But she'd gotten
free, almost.
Will Hempstead's words still rang in his mind. "We
found the car. She'd gotten out of it. Almost made
it. But from the marks on her body it looks like the
seat belt wrapped around her ankle and held her
under. So stupid. So goddamned, fucking stupid!"
Kevin almost wished Will hadn't told him. In a
way, it would have been easier if he could have believed
she died instantly, knocked unconscious before she
drowned. But to have been fighting to the very end, to be so
close to surviving-
He shuddered, and tried to fight back the tears that
overwhelmed him. Unable to stop himself, he gave in,
sobbing silently for a few minutes until the
wracking wave of grief ebbed once more. He opened
the window, sucking the heavily perfumed air deep
into his lungs.
It was the scent that did it, the strong odor that
suddenly carried him back to his youth, the days before
his father had died, when life had seemed wonderful
to him. But then, when he was six, his father had fallen in
the barn, broken his neck and died. After that
everything changed.
His mother had suddenly turned all her attention
to Marguerite. And Kevin couldn't blame her
really, not now. Not from the perspective of his own
maturity. After all, Marguerite had been so much
like their mother. Her beauty, her grace, her talent .
. .
Marguerite had suddenly filled his mother's life, and
in her determination that her daughter should have the career she
herself had missed, she had turned away from Kevin
himself. Turned away from him, and finally sent him
away to military school. To the Fortress, where he
had spent nine miserable months
each year, only to be sent away each summer to a
camp in Maine.
Home-home at Sea Oaks-only for
Christmas.
It shouldn't have been home anymore, not after all these
years. And yet, as the gloriously sweet smells
of the southern summer filled his lungs, he knew that
it was home.
It was his mother he'd hated, not this place.
He wished Anne could have understood that, understood that the
hatred for his home that he'd always expressed had
never truly been directed toward the town,
or the island, or the house.
Only toward his mother.
But his mother was dead now.
And so was Anne.
All he had left was Sea Oaks. Sea
Oaks, and his dream. The dream he'd hoped Anne
would share with him and help him make into reality.
Slowly, as he gazed out over the island and felt the
house around him, he realized that his decision was finally
made. For without Anne, there truly was no longer a
choice. He was needed here, and his roots were here, and
here, with his children and his sister, he would stay.
Stay, and survive.
But Anne, he knew, would never leave him. Nor,
he realized, would the fact ever leave him that after
twenty years of happiness, their last moments together
had been moments of anger. Anger, and bitterness.
That, he knew, was something he was going to have to live with the
rest of his life.
"I'm sorry," he whispered into the night. "Oh,
Anne, I'm so sorry. If only-"
But he didn't finish the sentence, for there were no "if
onlys" left. All that was left was reality, and the
strange emptiness within him.
Marguerite moved slowly down the hall,
trying not to disturb the silence in the house. She
paused outside Kevin's
door for a moment, listening. There was silence, but as she
was about to tap softly at the door, the stillness was
broken by the strangled sound of an uncontrolled
sob, and Marguerite hesitated.
What could she say to him? What could she say
to relieve the pain he must be feeling? Nothing.
Her hand, poised a few inches from the door,
dropped to her side, and she moved on.
The pain in her hip had eased this afternoon, and her limp
wasn't too bad. It was the passing of the storm, of
course. Her limp was always better after the storms
had passed.
She came to Jeff's door, listened again, then let
herself inside without knocking. The boy lay in his bed,
his eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling. She
crossed to the bed and leaned down, gently stroking his
cheek. He turned his face away.
"I'm sorry, darling," Marguerite said, lowering
herself gingerly to the edge of his bed. "I'm so sorry
about what's happened."
Jeff looked at her with angry, tear-filled
eyes. "It's not fair," he said, his voice
quavering. "Why did Mommy have to die?
It's just not fair!"
"I know," Marguerite crooned, reaching out to touch
him again. "I know how you feel, and I want you
to know-"
But once again Jeff turned away from her, pulling
the covers over his head and curling himself into a tight
ball. "Leave me alone!" he cried, his voice
muffled by the blankets. "You're not my mother! Just
leave me alone!"
Marguerite's hand jerked back as if she'd been
stung. She sat still for a second, wondering what
to do, then sighed heavily and got to her feet. She
reached down to pat the boy once more, but he shook
violently under the covers, wriggling away from her
touch. A moment later, nodding vaguely to herself,
Marguerite left the room, silently closing the
door behind her.
She walked slowly along the corridor, coming at
last to Julie's room. She paused a moment,
listening again, then rapped softly at the door. There
was a moment of silence,
then she heard Julie's voice, clear, but
strained: "C-Come in." Marguerite placed
her hand on the knob, twisted it and pushed the door
open. Julie, her eyes red with tears,
sat on the bed, a pile of pillows supporting her
slumped back. Marguerite stood still for a moment,
her heart reaching out to the girl.
Like me, she thought. She looks so much like me when I
was her age.
She took a step forward, then another, then was beside
her niece. She felt Julie's arms slip around
her neck, felt Julie's face press against her
bosom.
"What am I going to do?" Julie sobbed, tears
flooding down her face. "Oh, Aunt
Marguerite, what's going to happen? I-I feel
so sad and so-so alone. I can't stand it, Aunt
Marguerite. I just can't stand it. . . ."
"Hush, darling," Marguerite whispered
into Julie's ear. "It's going to be all right.
I'm going to take care of you, my darling. I'm
going to take perfect care of you, and you're never going
to be alone again. Never, ever again."
Slowly, she felt Julie relax in her arms,
and the girl's sobbing began to ease. Marguerite
rocked her for a moment, very gently, and a small
lullaby drifted from her lips.
She stayed there for hours, long after Julie had
finally fallen asleep, watching her
niece, reaching out now and then to stroke her cheek,
to brush a strand of hair away from her brow.
It was going to be all right, Marguerite thought
silently to herself as dawn finally began to break. She
would take care of them all now; take care of
Kevin and Jeff.
And Julie.
She would take care of Julie, just as Helena had
taken care of her.
Yes, everything was going to be fine now. . . .
For two weeks a strange sort of paralysis
hung over Sea Oaks, as if Anne's death had
drained the energy out of the mansion. A cold numbness
had engulfed Kevin, and for the first few days after the
funeral-a small funeral, since few of the people in
Devereaux had come to know Anne in the short time she'd
been there-he found himself doing nothing at odd times of the
day. He would begin some small task, perhaps nothing more
than clearing the overgrowth from a section of the garden,
when he would suddenly become aware that time had
passed-time he had spent in some private world, a
world in which his wife still dwelt, still stood close to him,
almost close enough to touch. But he couldn't touch her, not
quite, for even in those times of silent, unmoving
retreat, he could never quite reach her. They were
painful times, for when they ended, Kevin would find that his
memories had only left him more bereft, and as he
continued whatever small chore he had assigned
himself, he would be acutely aware of the emptiness within
him. And yet, as the days went on, he knew he
had to stop retreating, stop blaming himself for the argument
that had hung unresolved between him and Anne when she
died. He still had his children, and Marguerite, and Sea
Oaks. Slowly, each day, he forced himself to do a
little more, to turn more of what little energy he had toward the
real world, and less toward the private world of his own
grief.
Now, his own wounds slowly healing, he could also see
the progress in the mansion. The grounds around the
house, so long left unattended, had been cleaned
out, and the gardens once more looked as if they had been
planned and cared
for. The peeling paint had been chipped away and
carefully sanded, so that the house was ready for the painters
who would begin working in another week or two. But
what he really needed to do was begin working on the
interior, something he had been almost unconsciously
putting off. It wasn't that he didn't know
exactly what he wanted to do, for he did. In his
mind's eye he had already decided
exactly how each of the rooms should look, and even the
renovations of the third floor, where he, Marguerite,
and the children would eventually be living, were laid out in
perfect mental detail, ready to be committed
to paper by the architect from Charleston he had
commissioned only yesterday. And yet, despite his
mental planning, he had still delayed the actual work
inside the house, for each day, as he moved from room
to room, he could almost hear his mother's voice,
whispering to him:
"This is my house. You have no right to change it. It
should stay just as it is, just as I left it."
The practicalities of the situation-the fact that
Marguerite, he, Julie, and Jeff were each
occupying rooms, and that Marguerite had begged him
to put off doing anything to the nursery or their mother's
suite-had been only an excuse. There were still
three other rooms he could work on, rooms as
badly in need of stripping and sanding as the outside of the
house had been. Indeed, some days, after he'd
finished work and spent a few minutes wandering through the
mansion, he had wondered if it was truly possible
for him to accomplish what he'd set out to do.
And yet, after long conversations with Sam Waterman,
he knew that it was. Between them they'd come
up with a scheme that would make all the financing he
needed available to him, so long as he stayed at
Sea Oaks. In the end they had had to take out a
performance bond, guaranteeing his compliance with the
residency clause of the will. Everything he owned beyond the
estate now had a lien against it; every asset he had
would be held in escrow for ten years. In return
he was able to sell options on the land on the mainland,
exercisable in ten years, which would raise more than enough
cash for the renovations necessary to the mansion and enough capital
to tide him over until the hotel began showing a
profit.
And the profit, he was pleased to discover when he finished
his financial projections, was going to be far beyond
what he'd initially hoped for. Since he owned the
island free and clear and would have no mortgage debt
to service, even a forty percent occupancy of the nine
bedrooms he would start with would put him at the
break-even point. After that it was clear profit. And
so in two weeks the crews would come in to begin the
renovations to the interior.
This morning he had to talk to Marguerite about his
plans. He could put it off no longer.
And he could put the children off no longer either. He
knew he'd been neglecting them, forcing them
to deal with the loss of their mother as best they could while he
nursed his own wounds. It hadn't been fair, and
yet, in the first days of wrenching grief, he'd been
able to do nothing else. Still, he'd been aware of what
was happening, of how each of them was dealing with the
tragedy.
Julie, almost overnight, had seemed to grow up.
Even on the morning of Anne's funeral there had
been a maturity about her he'd never seen before.
Without anyone asking her, she'd begun looking after
her brother, making sure he took his bath each
day, seeing to it that his room was reasonably clean and
finishing the job herself, just as her mother had. At the
funeral she'd stood next to Jeff, holding his
hand, kneeling beside him to comfort him when his tears had
finally gotten the best of him. And that night, when
Kevin went upstairs, he'd found Julie coming out
of Jeffs room. She'd just tucked him in, she'd
told him, and read to him. Forcing a smile, she'd
added self-consciously that she hadn't done it just for
Jeff-it made her feel better too. And yet,
sometimes when he watched Julie covertly as she
sat quietly reading a book or watching
television, he'd been able to see the hurt in her
eyes, the grief she was trying so hard
to control. Once, when they were alone together in the
library, he'd tried to talk to her, but after only a
few words she'd shaken her head. "I don't want
to talk about it," she'd said. "Not right now. Maybe
in a few days. But right now, if I talk about
Mom, I'll cry, and if I start crying, I
won't be able to stop. And then Jeff will start crying,
too, and I won't be able to
take care of him." Her eyes had met his. "I
have to take care of him, Dad. Mom would have wanted
me to."
Now, as he started up the stairs in search of
Marguerite, Kevin knew that Anne would have wanted
him to take care of Jeff too. And in that he'd
failed. But he didn't know what to say to Jeff.
How could he explain to his son that he'd let the
boy's mother go out into a storm that he knew was
dangerous, that he, Kevin, had let her die?
Jeff would hate him for that-almost as much as Kevin
hated himself-and he couldn't bear the idea of that. And so
he'd found himself almost avoiding his son, and watched the
child retreat within himself. In the last few days, in
fact, Jeff had said practically nothing to Kevin,
only telling him where he was going when he left the
house and what he was going to do. But it's
going to change, Kevin told himself as he knocked
on Marguerite's door. The real work on the house
is going to start, and all of us are going to begin a new
life. And it's going to work.
"Come in," Marguerite called softly, and Kevin
pushed her door open to find his sister still in her
dressing gown, sitting by the window with a book in her
lap. She looked up and smiled at him
apologetically.
"I know I should have been dressed hours ago," she
said. "But it's so hot, and I don't really have
anything to do that I can't put off for a day, and I just
thought-
"I'm afraid I have something that can't be put off,"
Kevin broke in, perching on the edge of
Marguerite's bed. "It's the renovations. They have
to begin in two weeks."
Marguerite gazed at him blankly. "Only two
weeks? But I thought-well, I suppose I thought
it would be months."
Kevin's shoulders moved in a helpless gesture.
"I can't wait for months. But I have a problem."
He explained his plans to her, leading her through the
changes he envisioned for the first floor and the new
construction on the third. "The problem is this
floor," he finished. "I'm not asking you to give
up this room-at least not yet-but I have to start doing
something with the rest of it."
Marguerite blinked. "But there's the Rose Room,
and the Green Room-"
"And the nursery and Mother's rooms," Kevin broke
in,
deciding to confront the issue head on. Marguerite
paled slightly, and Kevin could see her body
tense. "I can't do it one room at a time. The
expense would be astronomical. Which means that we're
going to have to clean out Mother's things. As for the nursery .
. ." he began, then deliberately let his voice
trail off. Not once since their mother had died had
Marguerite been willing to discuss the ruined
nursery. But it could be put off no longer.
Marguerite was silent for a moment, then winced as a
burst of pain shot from her hip down the length of her
crippled leg. She did her best to ignore it,
then finally came to a decision and stood up, her leg
threatening to give way beneath her. "I know you've been
wondering about the nursery," she said at last. She
took a deep breath, and when she spoke, her eyes
avoided her brother. "I did it. I ... well,
I suppose I always hoped that someday I
might get married and have a baby, and . . . well,
I guess that room was my way of keeping my
hopes alive. I-I just started working on it one
day. First I was just going to paint it, but then it just
kept on going, and after a while I'd made
curtains and furnished it and gotten it all ready."
Her eyes suddenly came to rest on him, glistening.
"And then Mother destroyed it. She said it was just a
fantasy and I had to forget about it. So she ruined it
one day." Her voice began to tremble. "She
broke all the furniture and shredded the upholstery
and smashed the pictures. And then she locked it up
and forbade me ever to go into it again."
Kevin gazed unbelievingly at his sister. "And you
didn't?" he asked, his voice betraying his
incredulity.
But Marguerite only shook her head. "I-I
couldn't," she admitted. "I suppose I thought that
after mother died I might put it back together again."
She fell silent for a moment, then went on. "But
I'm almost fifty, aren't I? I'm not going to get
married, and I'm not going to have a baby, and I'm not
crazy. So take the nursery and do what you want with
it. It's time I gave it up completely."
Kevin swallowed the lump that had risen in
his throat. "I-I'm not sure what to say-" he
began, but Marguerite held up her hand in
protest.
"Don't say anything. I feel foolish enough as it
is. Ruby and Mother understood, of course, and I
hope you can too. But it's over now. I'm not going
to get married, and everything is going to change, and I
have to change too." Her eyes met his again, and
Kevin thought he saw something strange in them for a
moment. It was a quality of fear, or desperation, but
almost as soon as it came into her eyes, it was gone.
"What about Mother's rooms?" he finally asked, his
voice low.
Marguerite hesitated only a moment, then nodded.
"I'll take care of it," she said. "I'll start
this morning."
Kevin stayed a moment longer, thinking there was something
he should say to his sister, some gesture he should
make to let her know he understood how much she was
giving up, but in the end he could find no words.
Saying nothing, he kissed her, then left her
alone.
When he was gone, Marguerite stood still for a moment,
feeling his kiss on her cheek, then unconsciously
brushed it away. Her hip throbbing now,
she hobbled to the door and made her way down the
hall to her mother's rooms. She went into the little
parlor first, moving slowly through the room, her fingers
brushing over the polished mahogany of the
furniture, pausing for a moment at a large
rosewood music box which she could still remember from
her childhood. How she had loved to tip its lid
open and watch the slowly turning metal disk as the
soft melody resonated off the sounding board. She
almost opened it now, but then turned quickly away, her
eyes blurring with tears. She moved on, then, into the
bedroom, automatically making minor adjustments
to the clutter on the dresser top, putting things as
her mother had liked them. At last she found herself in
Helena's dressing room, standing in front of one
of the large closets, her eyes wandering over the long
row of dresses-long out of fashion- that her mother had
always refused to dispose of.
Suddenly, not certain what she was doing or why, she
reached out and took one of the dresses off the hanger.
She remembered the dress well. It had been one
of her mother's favorites-a party dress, one her
mother had worn when Marguerite was only a little
girl. Made of silk, it was
an emerald green and had been cut on the
bias, so it had clung to Helena's body in
voluptuous folds, falling almost to the floor.
Holding it to her body, Marguerite turned to face
the mirror. The dress draped against her, she stared
at her own image.
She could see the resemblance, even after nearly
half a century. In the mirror was a woman who
looked now very much as her mother had looked then.
Taking off her dressing gown, Marguerite slipped
the dress over her head.
Jeff stood in the corridor, peering through the
slightly open door to his grandmother's room in
rapt fascination. He wasn't sure how long
he'd been watching. In fact, he hadn't really
started out to watch at all. He'd been headed
downstairs, on his way to meet Toby Martin, when
he noticed that the door to his grandmother's room was
ajar and had come to see why.
And there was Aunt Marguerite, standing in front of the
mirror, holding an old-fashioned dress up and
staring at herself. Then, as he watched, she'd put it
on, moving slowly as she stared into the mirror.
Finally, unaware of him standing just outside the door,
she went to his grandmother's dressing table and started
combing her hair, piling it up on top of
her head and shoving it full of large hairpins.
It made her look strange, and Jeff was beginning
to feel he shouldn't be watching at all when he felt
a hand on his shoulder.
He jumped violently, about to yelp in surprise,
when Ruby's hand clamped over his mouth and she spun
him around to face her.
"What are you doin' up here?" Ruby demanded, her
voice low, but nonetheless clear.
"n-Nothing!" Jeff said as the old woman's hand
fell away from his mouth. "I wasn't doing anything.
I was just-"
"Just spying on your auntie," Ruby finished for
him, her
voice a severe whisper. "Didn't your mommy
ever teach you not to do things like that?"
Jeff tried to twist out of her grip. "I
wasn't," he protested. "I just saw something in here
and came to see what it was."
Ruby regarded the boy carefully for a moment, then
released his shoulder from her grasp. "All right," she
said. "But you run along downstairs and mind your own
business."
A vast surge of relief flowed through Jeff as he
realized he was going to face no punishment.
He scurried along the hall, then disappeared down
the stairs.
But Ruby remained where she was, her eyes glued
to Marguerite as the other woman sat in front of the
mirror, her hands flying as she arranged her hair
in imitation of the style that had been Helena's
favorite so many years ago.
Kevin pushed his chair back from the kitchen table,
took his plate to the sink and scraped the remains
into the strainer, then rinsed the plate before putting it
into the big commercial dishwasher that had been installed
the day before, and which Ruby had been complaining about ever
since. "Don't see why we need it," she'd
grumbled even as the plumber had been hooking it up.
"Plenty of people around here wouldn't mind washing dishes,
if they got paid for it." Now, as Kevin dropped his
plate into the gleaming stainless steel machine, she
pointedly looked the other way.
"I have to go into town to see Sam," Kevin spoke.
"Anyone want a ride?"
Jeff shook his head. "Me and Toby are gonna
work on the fort."
was "Toby and I," was Kevin corrected
automatically. "Julie?"
"Some of the kids are coming out to the beach," she
said. "Jenny, and Kerry, and I don't know who
else."
"Our beach?" Marguerite asked, her brows arching.
Julie, her own eyes suddenly worried, turned
to her aunt.
"Isn't it all right?" she asked. "I mean, after
Grandmother died you said-
"Of course," Marguerite broke in. "I
didn't mean it that
way. You know your friends are welcome. It's just that-"
She hesitated, her eyes going to Kevin as if for
help, but when he didn't seem to sense what she was
getting at, she turned back to Julie. "Well,
I just wondered if you should be seeing Kerry again, so
soon after ..." She couldn't quite bring herself to finish
her thought, and her voice trailed off, but Kevin
suddenly understood.
"I think it would be good for her," he decided. "We
all need to keep busy, and see people, and if Julie
can have a good time with her friends, she certainly ought to."
"But so soon ..." Marguerite repeated, and now
Julie looked pleadingly to her father.
"It's not too soon," Kevin told his sister.
"Things aren't the way they used to be, and life goes
on." He smiled warmly at his daughter.
"You have a good time," he told her. "And if you
want to ask Kerry to stay for dinner, do. It would be
good for all of us to have some company for a change."
"Can I ask Toby?" Jeff asked, his voice
eager, and Kevin actually found himself laughing for the first
time since Anne had died.
"You bet," he replied. "Ask anyone you
want." He glanced at his watch then, and started
toward the door. "If I don't get out of here,
I'm going to be late." But Marguerite stopped
him before he could leave.
"Kevin, I-well, I've been thinking. About
Mother's rooms. I know what I said this morning, but
I've changed my mind."
Kevin's eyes clouded. "Changed your mind? But
I thought we'd agreed. Marguerite, I need the
rooms. I-
"I know you need the rooms," Marguerite
interrupted. "But I can't let you have Mother's. Not
yet. I... well, I just can't." She hesitated
briefly, then went on. "I've decided to move
into Mother's rooms myself, Kevin. You can have my
room, and the nursery. With the other rooms, that will make
five. Surely that's enough for now, isn't it?"
Kevin looked sharply at his sister. "You
don't have to give up your room. Not yet,
anyway. I thought we'd decided- "But I want
to give it up," Marguerite insisted. "I'll just
move into Mother's rooms for a while. It'll give
me time to go through her things and decide what to do with them.
Then, by the time the third floor's ready, I'll be
ready too. It'll work out fine. Really it will!"
Kevin thought about it for a moment, then shrugged. "If
it's really what you want," he agreed. Then something
else occurred to him. "What about the chair lift?"
he asked. "Is there any reason not to get rid of
it? It's an eyesore, and that generator Mother had
installed in the closet could go downstairs to run the
furnace if the electricity goes out."
Marguerite hesitated a moment, then shrugged.
"I-I guess
it doesn't matter," she said at last. "Do
whatever you want."
Then Kevin was gone, and a moment later Julie,
too, left
the kitchen, heading upstairs to get ready for her afternoon
at
the beach.
Jeff stuffed the last of his sandwich into his mouth, then
slid off his chair and started toward the back
door, but before he could even open it, Marguerite
spoke.
"Where do you think you're going, young man?" she asked.
The cold sharpness in her voice made Jeff
freeze in his tracks and slowly turn around.
"Out-Outside," he stammered. "Toby's meeting
me at our fort."
"Is he?" Marguerite asked. "Well, I'm
afraid he's going to have to wait. You have some work to do,
don't you?" Jeff stared blankly at his aunt.
"What?" he asked. "You can clear off this table, and
help Ruby with the dishes."
Jeff blinked. What was she talking about? He never
did the lunch dishes. He and Julie helped with the
dinner dishes, but Ruby always did the lunch dishes
herself.
"It's all right," he heard Ruby saying. "Let
the boy go, Miss Marguerite. There's not much of a
mess, and I can-
"No!" Marguerite snapped, her eyes never
leaving Jeff. "It's time he learned to do a few
things around here. He's already spoiled, and I don't
see-"
Jeff's temper suddenly snapped, and he glared
angrily at his aunt. "I'm not
spoiled!" he yelled. "And you're not my mother, and you
can't tell me what to do!"
Marguerite rose to her feet, her own eyes
flashing. "How dare you speak to me like that?" she
demanded. "How dare you?" She took a step toward
Jeff, but he backed away.
"Don't you come near me!" he yelled. "You're
crazy! That's what you are. I saw you this morning,
and you're crazy!" Then he pushed his way through the
screen door and fled down the back-porch steps,
running down the hill until he disappeared into the
thick stand of moss-covered pines.
When he was gone, Marguerite stayed where she was for a
moment, then turned and limped stiffly toward the
butler's pantry and the rest of the house beyond.
Ruby, her eyes clouded with worry, watched her
go, but said nothing.
Maybe I'm wrong, she told herself as she began
clearing up the lunch dishes and loading them, without
thinking, into the dishwasher. Maybe it's nothing at
all. Maybe she's just on edge.
And yet, as she went about her chores, she knew she
wasn't wrong, and that Marguerite wasn't simply
on edge. No, it was more than that.
Perhaps a lot more.
Julie lay on the sand, Kerry sprawled out beside
her. It was a quiet day, for all the kids gathered
on the beach were friends of Mary-Beth Fletcher's, and
as they had gathered on the island, each of them had
wondered what might really have happened to her. But
none of them had felt much like talking about it, and in the
end they had decided not to talk about Mary-Beth and
to try to have a good time.
The sun beat down on Julie, but instead of making
her feel weak, it felt good against her skin. She
could almost feel her tan deepening beneath the light coat
of coconut oil she'd smeared on an hour ago.
Around her she could hear quietly laughing voices,
and a little earlier she had even caught herself laughing as
Kerry plunged for a Frisbee somebody had thrown,
missed, and dropped face first into the sand.
Aware of someone kneeling down next to her, she
opened her eyes, squinting up at Jennifer
Mayhew.
"I
love
this beach," Jenny shouted happily. "It's clean,
and it's wide, and there's nobody here!"
Julie giggled. "Well, we better enjoy it
while we can, "cause I heard Dad
talking to Mr. Waterman the other day. They were
talking about a golf course and condominiums and all
kinds of things."
Kerry sat up, his brows furrowing thoughtfully.
"Does your dad really think it'll work?" he
asked, with concern. "My dad says he can't
imagine why anybody would want to come out here. I
mean, all it is is a bunch of flats."
Julie shrugged. "What's Hilton Head like? It
was the same thing. And if Dad says it's going
to work, then it's going to work." She grinned at
Kerry. "Besides, you grew up here- everybody
hates where they grew up. Or at least they do if
they've got any imagination. But look at this beach.
Jenny's right-it's great! And when we get done with the
house, it's going to look just like it used to, only
better." She giggled. "Maybe we could even
restore the old slave quarters and turn them
into rooms."
Kerry looked shocked for a second, then realized
she was only kidding. "Well, I hope it works,"
he said. "And so does everybody else," he added,
scrambling to his feet and brushing the sand off his chest
and legs. "At least your dad's trying to do something with
this place. Everybody thought your grandmother just
didn't care."
Julie's smile faded away. "I don't think
she did," she said. "I think she wanted everything
to stay the way it was, and never realized that everything
had changed anyway. She even treated Ruby like
she was still a slave," she added, her eyes rolling
scornfully. "I don't even see why Ruby
stayed around."
Kerry grinned mischievously. "Same reason,"
he teased. "She just doesn't know she's
not
still a slave."
"That's terrible," Julie shouted, slinging a handful of
sand at Kerry, then jumping up to chase him down the
beach. "If I thought you meant it, I'd never speak
to you again."
"And if I had meant it, you shouldn't ever speak to me
again," Kerry replied, letting Julie catch up
with him. "Come on. Let's take a swim. And this
time, watch out for the waves. I don't want to have your
aunt mad at me again."
They splashed through the water, diving into the gentle
breakers that were washing up onto the beach, then began
swimming out past the surf line. Soon they were in
gently swelling water, and if Julie
put her feet down, she could just touch the bottom,
feeling the now-familiar grass brushing against her
legs. She floated on her back for a while,
closing her eyes against the sun, then shrieked as
Kerry sneaked up on her, ducking her beneath the
surface. She came up spluttering, and spotted
him swimming away from her. Kicking hard, she chased
after him and had almost caught up with him when she felt
something bump against her leg.
She let out a shout, more from surprise than anything
else, and Kerry instantly stopped swimming and
turned back. "What is it?" he called.
"I don't know!" Julie shouted back. "Something
just bumped into me. Like a fish or something!"
"I bet it was a turtle," Kerry told her.
"They come in to feed on the grass, and they lay their
eggs on the beach. If it bumps into you again, try
to grab it."
"Grab it?" Julie exclaimed. "Are you nuts?
What if it bit me?"
Now Kerry was laughing. "They don't bite. They
just try to swim away, and if you lift them out of the
water, they keep on flapping their legs. They're
funny!"
Julie's eyes narrowed suspiciously.
"If you're lying to me-" she began, but before she could
finish, she felt the light bump again. Without thinking
it through, she reached down into the water and felt for
whatever had hit her.
Her hands closed on an object, firm, but not quite
hard. She frowned while trying to bring it to the
surface, but for a moment it stuck. Then it gave
way and came up, breaking the surface.
It was not a sea turtle, but Julie knew immediately
what it was. It was Mary-Beth Fletcher.
Her face was bloated, and much of the flesh had long
since been torn away by feeding sea creatures.
What was left of her hair was a tangled mass which
seemed to wrap itself around Julie's hands, as if
seeking to grasp onto her.
Both her eyes were gone, and the empty sockets stared
vacantly at Julie. Even as she watched, a
worm wriggled out of the depths of Mary-Beth's
skull, then fell into the water.
Screaming, Julie tried to hurl the corpse
away, but the hair was twisted around her fingers and she
couldn't shake her hands loose. Then, as her stomach
began to churn and her screams grew into an
hysterical wailing, Kerry was beside her, tearing at the
tangled hair that trapped her hands, pushing
wildly-almost futilely-at Mary-Beth's
hideous remains as they bobbed grotesquely in the
calmness of the summer sea.
Julie never knew exactly how she got to shore.
The small sitting room adjoining Helena's
bedroom gleamed softly in the diffused light that
poured through the sheers over the windows, and Marguerite
smiled softly as she surveyed her work. Every piece
of furniture had been polished to perfection, the
last of the accumulation of dust wiped away. She'd
done her best to cover the most worn areas of the
Victorian sofa with an assortment of the shawls her
mother had loved so much, but had been unable to do anything
about the peeling wallpaper. Perhaps, if she looked
hard enough, she could find the same pattern somewhere in
one of the decorating shops in Charleston. But still, for the
first time in years the room looked exactly as she
remembered it from the days of her childhood.
It had always been her mother's favorite room in the
house, and now that it had been cleaned and polished,
Marguerite could understand why. Part of it was the light.
The room faced away from the afternoon sun, and the
indirect light seemed to make the rosewood and
mahogany of the furniture glow as if lit from within.
Nor was this room ever as hot in the afternoon as
the rest of the house. But it went beyond the light and the
temperature-there was an old-fashioned
atmosphere, as if somehow the passing years had been
shut out. In this room-like her mother before her-
Marguerite could almost imagine that nothing had changed
at Sea Oaks, that outside the cotton fields
were in full bloom, covering the island in white, and that
the fields went on, sweeping across the mainland as far
as the eye could see. She could almost feel the house
around her humming with life as servants went about their
business, preparing for a ball.
Perhaps there would be music tonight.
She pictured the ballroom, its chandeliers
sparkling brilliantly as all the friends of the
Devereauxes danced the long summer night away. And
then, at dawn, a breakfast would be laid out, the
dining room table laden with omelets, melons, and
great bowls of strawberries.
She could almost hear the music now, the thin strains of
soaring violins-
Marguerite was suddenly jerked out of her reverie. It
wasn't music, it was something else. She listened
sharply and heard it again. The same sound.
It wasn't violins.
It was a siren-a siren coming closer. She
went to the window, pulled the curtain aside and leaned
out. Far in the distance, just leaving the village, she could
see an ambulance, closely followed by the black
and white shape of the town's only patrol car. As
she watched and listened, the ambulance turned onto the
causeway and the sirens grew louder.
Marguerite's heart skipped a beat as she thought of
Julie, who was spending the afternoon on the beach with her
friends.
Her friends, and that boy-She remembered what happened
the last time Julie had gone to the beach with Kerry
Sanders.
Her heart pounding now, she hurried out into the
corridor and began a painful progress toward the
stairs. "Kevin!" she called. "Kevin, where are
you? Something's happened!"
By the time she reached the top of the stairs, Kevin was
looking anxiously up at her from the entry hall.
Next to him was Joe Briggs, the contractor he'd
hired to carry out the renovations. Ignoring Joe,
Marguerite's eyes fixed on her brother.
"There's an ambulance coming," she cried, her voice
shaking. "Something's happened to Julie! I know it!"
She started down the stairs, clinging to the rail to keep
her balance, but by the time she got to the
bottom, Kevin was already gone, dashing outside through
the French doors in the dining room, Joe Briggs
right behind him. As Marguerite came into the dining room
herself, Ruby emerged from the kitchen.
"What's going on?" Ruby demanded. "Where are they
going?"
"The beach," Marguerite gasped. "Help me,
Ruby. Something's happened at the beach. There's an
ambulance coming, and Will's car, and-" She broke off,
reaching out to Ruby. "It's Julie! I just know it's
Julie. Help me, Ruby. I have to get down
there."
Immediately Ruby was at her side, taking her arm
to steady her. "Now just calm down, Miss
Marguerite," Ruby admonished her as they left
the house and started making their way down the rise
toward the stand of pines. "Nothin's happened
to Julie. If anything had happened to her, Kerry
Sanders would have been here first thing!"
But Marguerite barely heard Ruby's words. The
sound of the wailing siren filled the air now, and she
could see the ambulance and police car bumping across the
ground on one of the overgrown roads that had served the
island years ago, when the fields were under
cultivation.
Her hip was throbbing with pain, but in her hysteria she
ignored it, half leaning on Ruby and half
pulling her as she hurried toward the beach.
Abruptly the siren was cut off. Marguerite
felt a cold knot of fear tighten in her belly.
It's too late. It's too late, and Julie's
already dead.
"Hurry!" she yelled, breaking into an ungainly
run, her right leg held stiff against the pain that
threatened to topple her at every step.
Muttering to herself, Ruby did her best to keep up
with her frantic employer.
They broke through the pines and were on the beach,
Marguerite's eyes searching the knot of teenagers
who crowded around Will Hempstead. Then she saw
Julie, crumpled on the sand, Kevin beside her,
holding her. On her other side was Kerry Sanders,
crouched on the sand, watching helplessly as Julie
sobbed into a towel that covered her face. But where were the
men from the ambulance?
Frantically Marguerite searched for them, then found
them. They were not with Julie.
They were a few yards farther down the beach, pulling
something out of the surf.
Then, it wasn't Julie.
Marguerite took a deep breath, released it, then
let the tension flow out of her body along with the
expelled air before moving again.
A minute later she dropped to the sand, pulling
Julie into her arms, cradling the sobbing girl's
head against her breast. "My darling," she breathed.
"My poor darling. What is it? Tell me
what's happened?"
Julie said nothing, only shaking her head as her
sobs built, and pulling her legs up against her
chest. Her whole body quivered as if she'd been
seized by a chill, and her arms wrapped around
Marguerite, clinging to her with a passion that grew out of
terror.
"It's Mary-Beth Fletcher," Kevin told her,
his voice tight, eyes slightly glazed. "They
found her. She was in the water, and she bumped up
against Julie. Julie-she-" His voice broke and
he shook his head.
"Julie pulled her out, Miss Marguerite,"
Kerry Sanders finished, his eyes avoiding hers.
"I thought it might be a turtle, and she was trying
to catch it." Marguerite's eyes widened in
horror. "Dear God," she breathed, and her arms
tightened protectively around her niece.
"It's all right," she whispered into Julie's ear.
"It's going to be all right, my darling. I'm here,
and I won't let anything hurt you. Nothing at
all ..." Still rocking Julie gently, she fixed
her eyes darkly on Kerry Sanders. "Go home,"
she said, her voice taking on a harsh edge. "Just go
home, and leave us alone."
The words struck Kerry almost like a physical blow.
He stayed where he was for a moment, then got to his
feet and started walking uncertainly away. Then
Kevin was beside him, laying an arm across his shoulders.
"It's all right, Kerry," he said, leading the boy
a few yards down the beach. "She's just upset, and
worried about Julie."
Kerry looked at Kevin and shook his head. "It's
not that. She did the same thing when I brought Julie
home the day the wave hit her. She acted like it was
my fault. And maybe she was right that day. Maybe
I should have been watching more carefully. But-" His
voice broke, and he struggled to
control the tightness in his throat. "But what was I
supposed to do today? I didn't know Mary-Beth
was- " He fell silent, unable to finish the
sentence.
"Of course you didn't," Kevin assured
him. "And when she thinks about it, Marguerite will
understand it wasn't your fault."
But Kerry shook his head. "No, she won't," he
said, his voice carrying a bitterness beyond his years.
"She always liked me, before Julie came. But now
everything's different- now she acts like she hates
me. But I didn't do anything, Mr. Devereaux."
"No one says you did," Kevin told him. "You
might as well go home now, and come out tomorrow, or the
next day. Everything will be fine-you'll see."
But Kerry didn't go home. Instead, he moved
farther down the beach to join his friends as they watched the
medics wrap Mary-Beth Fletcher's corpse in
a sheet of plastic, then load it into the ambulance.
Only when they were done with Mary-Beth did they
finally turn their attention to Julie, giving her a
shot to counteract the effects of her shock, then
loading her onto a stretcher to carry her home.
Finally, as the medics left the beach, with Marguerite
following closely behind, Kerry found himself standing
next to Jennifer Mayhew. "What happened
to Mary-Beth?" he asked. "Does anybody
know?"
Jennifer shook her head. "I heard Will
Hempstead talking to the driver. He said
he doesn't think they're going to be able to find out.
He says ..." Jennifer paused a moment, and when
she spoke again, her voice was steady, though her
face was still pale. "He says she was in the water
too long and there's-there's not enough left of her to tell
what happened."
"Shit," Kerry said softly and shook his head.
"Come on. We might as well get out of here." But
as he and Jennifer were walking toward his car, the
sheriff stopped him.
"Kerry?" he said. "How come Bobby Hastings
came all the way into town to call me? How come he
didn't just go up to the mansion?"
Kerry just stared at Hempstead. It was Jennifer
Mayhew who finally answered his question. "He was
scared," she
said, her voice almost shy. "We were all scared, and
Julie was crying, and Bobby didn't know what
to do."
"And I was afraid of Miss Marguerite,"
Kerry blurted, his eyes on the ground. "I was
afraid she'd be mad at me and think it was all my
fault. And I was right. Anyway, I told
Bobby to go get you."
Hempstead's eyes narrowed. "You were
afraid of Marguerite?" he echoed. "But that's
crazy. She likes all the kids. She always
has."
Now Kerry faced him. "The girls," he said.
"She likes the girls, Mr. Hempstead. But she
doesn't like me."
He turned away and started once more toward his car.
A moment later Jenny Mayhew followed him.
"I bet Aunt Marguerite killed her," Jeff
said. He and Toby Martin were back at their fort,
guiltily consuming the warm Cokes and stale
cookies that Jeff had swiped from the kitchen that
morning. They'd heard the sirens and run down to the
beach to see what was happening, then watched in
fascination as the men from the ambulance pulled the body
out of the waves. They'd tried to sneak up close
to get a good look, but one of the ambulance men had
shooed them away, and after that they'd just hung around,
careful to stay out of the way but trying not to miss anything
that had happened. Once, Jeff had tried to talk
to his father, but his father, too, had brushed him off,
saying he was busy and would talk to him later. And
all Julie's friends had simply ignored him,
acting like he and Toby weren't there at all. So after
they'd taken Julie up to the mansion, and the
ambulance had left, they'd come back to the fort behind the
garage to try to figure out what had happened
to Mary-Beth Fletcher.
Now Toby stared at Jeff, his eyes wide.
"Miss Marguerite wouldn't hurt anybody," he
said. "Why would she want to kill Mary-Beth?"
"Because she's crazy," Jeff replied, reaching into the
brown paper bag to fish out another cookie. "I
saw her this morning, and she was acting real weird.
She was putting on
my grandmother's clothes and combing her hair funny and
everything."
Toby frowned thoughtfully. "Maybe she was playing
dress-up," he said. "My sister does that all the
time."
Jeff made a scornful face. "Your sister's
only five. Aunt Marguerite's a grown-up.
Grown-ups don't play dress-up. Unless
they're crazy. And did you see how she was acting with
Julie?"
Toby's frown deepened. "She was just trying to take
care of her. Julie was crying, wasn't she?"
Jeff's eyes rolled as if Toby were some kind of
an idiot. "She was acting just like she was our mother,"
he said. "And she was doing that to me today too.
She was trying to tell me what to do and everything!"
"So what did you do?" Toby asked.
Jeff shrugged as if what had happened with his aunt
after lunch were nothing. "I told her she wasn't my
mother and that she couldn't tell me what to do."
"Wow," Toby breathed, his eyes wide at his
friend's nerve. "What did she do?"
"Nothing," Jeff announced, though he didn't
add that he hadn't stayed around to find out, but had
instead fled from the kitchen before either his aunt or Ruby
could catch him. "Anyway, I think she's crazy,
and I bet she killed Mary-Beth Fletcher."
Toby looked at Jeff uncertainly. He liked
Jeff a lot-in fact, ever since Jeff had come
to Devereaux, they'd been best friends. But he'd known
Miss Marguerite as long as he could remember, and
she'd never seemed crazy to him. Whenever he or
any of the other kids ran into her in the village, she
always bought them a Coke or some candy or something, and
then sat and talked to them just like they were grown-ups. His
mom always said Miss Marguerite must be lonely out
there in that big old house, and Toby always felt
sorry for her. "How come she'd want to kill
Mary-Beth?" he asked at last.
"How should I know?" Jeff replied,
exasperated. "Nobody knows why crazy people do
things. That's why they're crazy."
"Then I guess you two are about as crazy as
anybody I
know," Ruby said from outside the fort, and the two boys
froze, their faces taking on guilty looks as
their eyes searched for a place to hide the stolen
cookies and Cokes. "Anybody who'd sit in
there in heat like this got to have a few screws loose."
Her face appeared in the tiny crawl hole,
regarding them suspiciously. "So that's where my
cookies and Cokes went," she said. "I got
cold ones in the kitchen, and if the two of you can sit
still for half an hour, I just might make some fresh
cookies. Those should've been fed to the birds two
days ago. Now come on out of there, both of you."
She withdrew her head from the crawl hole, and Jeff
and Toby crept out, still not sure whether Jeff's
thievery was going to be punished or not. But Ruby
only took each of them by a hand and began walking them
up the hill toward the back door.
Fifteen minutes later, as Ruby slid the first
sheet of chocolate chip cookies into the oven, the
door to the dining room opened and Marguerite stepped
into the kitchen.
"I thought I asked you to make some iced tea for-"
she began, but stopped short when she saw what
Ruby was doing. "Cookies?" she asked, her
voice taking on a querulous edge. "For Heaven's
sake, Ruby, Julie can't have cookies! She
needs something cold! I asked you to make iced tea
for her!"
"It's in the fridge," Ruby said placidly,
nodding toward the huge refrigerator. "Seems
to me she won't want it till she wakes up
anyway, and I got a couple hungry boys here
that don't look sleepy at all."
For the first time Marguerite noticed Jeff and Toby
sitting at the kitchen table, and as she looked at
them, Jeff was certain he saw a flash of anger in
her eyes. But then her expression cleared and she
smiled at them. "Well, we certainly don't
want them starving right here in our kitchen, do we?" she
said. She leaned down to kiss Jeff on the cheek,
but he shrank away. "Are you still mad at me?" she
asked.
"n-No," Jeff stammered, embarrassed in
front of his friend, and trying not to let his sudden fear
show in his voice but failing.
"Well, I wish you wouldn't be,"
Marguerite said,
reaching out to stroke Jeff's hair. "I know I
shouldn't have talked to you the way I did earlier, but
I guess I just wasn't feeling quite myself."
Jeff shifted uneasily in his chair and tried
to duck his head away from his aunt's touch. "It's
okay," he mumbled. Then: "Is Julie still
crying?"
Marguerite shook her head. "She's asleep now,
and you and Toby must be very quiet. You don't want
to wake her up, do you?"
Jeff glanced toward Toby. "We're not making
any noise. And anyway, when Julie's
asleep, nobody can wake her up. It's like she was
dead or something."
Marguerite's face paled and the muscles around her
mouth tightened. "What a terrible thing to say! You
mustn't even think such a thing. And after what's
happened-
"Oh, now, he didn't mean anything by it," Ruby
interrupted, her voice smooth. She gently
slipped between Marguerite and Jeff to place the bowl
with the remains of the cookie batter in front of the two
boys. "Now, you go on back upstairs, and soon
as Julie wakes up, you just push the
buzzer and I'll bring up some iced tea and maybe
a cookie or two."
For a moment Marguerite looked as if she was about
to object, but then seemed to change her mind. Then
she was gone, leaving the boys alone with Ruby once
more. Silently Ruby went back to her work, but
Jeff looked at Toby with knowing eyes.
"See?" he whispered. "First she acts all
sweet, then she's mad. She's nuts!"
Ruby turned to face Jeff, her eyes
smoldering. "I didn't say nothin' before "cause
I don't believe in listening in on other folks's
private conversations. But don't you start calling
Miss Marguerite crazy, you hear me? I just
don't want to hear that!"
Jeff, his eyes round, blushed a deep red, then
quickly bobbed his head. A moment later Ruby went
back to her work as if nothing had happened.
Jeff hadn't been able to sleep at all. It
seemed that ever since he'd gone to bed, the house had
been filled with strange sounds, sounds he hadn't
heard before. There was a slight wind blowing, and he
tried to convince himself that what he was hearing wasn't
anything more than the trees brushing against the house, but
he knew he didn't believe it, because
all the sounds hadn't come from outside.
Some of them had come from inside the house itself, and he was
certain he knew what they were.
It was his aunt, moving around the house, stopping
outside his door to listen, then moving on.
He'd been sure of it, listening to the strange,
uneven footsteps that had been indistinct at first,
then clearer. He could picture her, moving along the
hall, leaning against one of the walls, stopping in
front of each door, listening.
What did she want?
Once, when he heard her stop outside his room for
what seemed like an eternity, he pulled the sheet
up over his head, afraid that she was going to come
inside. But then, finally, she'd gone away again, and
after a while he'd tried once more to go to sleep. But
he could still hear her, moving up and down the hall, and
every now and then he was sure he could hear doors opening
and closing.
Now the night seemed to be filled with sounds, and he
could no longer distinguish one from another. But all of
them seemed impossibly loud, and finally he put his
hands over his ears, trying to shut them out.
They were still there.
No, they weren't there at all. He was
only imagining them, like the time he woke up from a
nightmare but the dream seemed like it was still there, and all
the monsters that had surrounded him while he slept were
still coming at him, reaching out for him, even though he was
awake.
Now he could even hear his own heart pounding, but that
seemed to drown out the rest of the noises, and he began
to be afraid that if he couldn't hear them, whatever was
making the noises might be able to sneak up on him.
The door.
Had he locked the door?
He crept out of bed and moved silently across the
floor, then turned the key in the lock. He
froze as the bolt slid home, but suddenly the
sounds seemed to have stopped. Beyond his door the house was
quiet now.
He started back toward his bed, but then a flicker of
movement caught his eye.
He knew what it was even before he went to the window
to peer out into the darkness of the night.
His grandmother's ghost, come back once more.
Unconsciously holding his breath, he crept
close to the window.
There was only a faint glimmer of moonlight, but
even in the near total darkness he could see
the shimmering white figure in the cemetery.
What should he do?
And then he knew.
Ruby.
If he could get downstairs, get to Ruby, she
would know what to do. Last time she had believed him when
he'd told her what he saw, and tonight she would
believe him too.
His sister wouldn't, and his father wouldn't.
Only Ruby.
He went back to the door and listened carefully. From
the hall outside there was only silence. His fingers
trembling, he twisted the key in the lock, then
listened again.
More silence.
He pulled the key out of the lock, then bent over and
pressed his eye against the tiny hole.
A faint glow showed, and he knew that a nightlight
had been left on, so at least he wouldn't have
to make his way through the darkness.
Taking a deep breath, he opened the door,
slipped out of his room, looked both ways, then
ran for the staircase. Before he even had time to think
about what he was doing, he was downstairs, through the
living room and dining room, pushing his way
into the kitchen and Ruby's room beyond.
He tapped softly at her door, and a few
seconds later, tapped louder. At last he
heard her voice. "Who's out there? What's
wrong?"
"It's me," he whispered. "Jeff. Can I come
in?"
He could hear the rustling of a sheet inside, then
shuffling steps before the door finally opened and Ruby
peered out at him, her eyes sleepy. "What's
wrong, honey?" she asked. "What are you doing down
here?"
"It-It's Grandmother," Jeff whispered, his eyes
wide and his voice quavering. "She's in the
graveyard again."
Ruby blinked, then nodded and came out of her
bedroom, closing the door behind her. "Well,
let's you and me have a look," she said, and took
Jeff by the hand. She led him back through the kitchen,
and when they were in the dining room, went to the French
doors and pulled one of the curtains aside. Together
they looked out into the darkness.
The strange white figure was still there, moving slowly
toward the crypt, its arms outstretched.
"wh-What's she want?" Jeff asked,
his voice barely audible.
"The child," Ruby replied, letting the curtain
fall back in place. "They found Mary-Beth
Fletcher today, and she's come for her soul." She
pulled Jeff away from the window and started back
toward the stairs. "Now let's get you back in bed
where you belong. She won't hurt you-it's not you she's
after. So we'll just get you back in bed, and don't
you pay her any mind at all. All right?"
"But-But what if she comes in the house?" Jeff
asked plaintively as Ruby led him up the
stairs. "Why can't I sleep with you tonight?"
"She won't come in the house," Ruby assured
him. "And you don't need to sleep with me, do you?
Aren't you a big boy?"
Jeff bit his lip and let Ruby tuck him
into his bed. "C-Can I leave a light on?" he
begged. "Please?"
Ruby hesitated, then nodded. "Don't see any
harm in that." She went to the closet, opened the
door, and pulled the chain that hung from the bare bulb
on the ceiling. Then she closed the door until
only an inch of light spilled out of the closet
to spread reassuringly across the floor. "How's
that?" she asked.
"O-Okay," Jeff stammered.
Ruby moved back toward the bed and lowered herself into
the chair next to the bed table. "Maybe I'll just
sit here a minute," she said. "No point hurrying
back to bed, now I'm wide awake."
Jeff, relieved at not being left alone but not quite
willing to admit it, said nothing, and a moment later
Ruby began to hum a soft lullaby. After a few
minutes Jeff closed his eyes and let the quiet
song soothe him.
Ten minutes later, when Jeff's deep and steady
breathing told her he was asleep, Ruby quietly
turned off the light in the closet and left the
room, closing the door silently behind her.
She paused in the wide corridor for a moment, then
moved down to Marguerite's door, where again she
paused, this time to listen.
Silence.
Finally she went back downstairs, feeling the
familiarity of the house around her. She moved quickly
now, needing no light to guide her, knowing every inch of the
house perfectly. But in the dining room she paused
once more to look out the French doors toward the
graveyard.
The ghostly figure was still there, moving
strangely in the faint light of the moon, moving with a
strange rhythm, almost as if it were dancing.
Ruby finally returned to her bed, but that night
sleep did not come easily back to her. She kept
wakening from strange dreams, dreams out of the past-the
past she had hoped was long forgotten.
Julie lay in her bed the next morning, only a
sheet covering her. She wasn't certain what was
causing the strange fogginess in her mind-the
suffocating heat, or the pills the doctor had
given her the day before and insisted she keep taking through
today. She had awakened twice during the night, each
time with the hideous specter of Mary-Beth hanging in
the darkness, empty eye sockets staring accusingly
at her. It had taken all of Julie's willpower
to keep from screaming out loud, and the second time it
happened, just before dawn, she wanted to go down the
hall to her aunt's room. But she had decided it
was a childish urge, and forced herself to stay where she
was, finally falling asleep again only when the gray
light of the rising sun washed the last remnants of the
vision of Mary-Beth from the dark screen of the night.
Now she lay in the damp heat of the morning, a
sticky film of perspiration covering her body.
Outside she could hear a mockingbird
singing, and every now and then there were footsteps in the hall.
Her father had come in earlier, and her aunt, but neither of
them had stayed more than a couple of minutes, telling
her she should go back to sleep. But it was too hot
to sleep, and besides, there was the dream of Mary-Beth.
The memory still sent chills through her body,
despite the enervating heat.
When she heard a car pull up the driveway, she
automatically glanced at the clock.
Five minutes before ten.
Of course. There was to be a dance class today, and the
girls were arriving.
She pushed the sheet away and sat up, swinging around
to
place her feet on the floor. But even before she
tried to stand, a wave of dizziness overcame her and
she had to lie back down. She was just sitting up again
when there was a soft tap at the door and she heard
Jennifer Mayhew's voice calling softly through the
thick wood.
"Julie? Are you awake?"
"Come in," Julie called back, surprised at
the weakness of her own voice.
The door opened and Jenny, dressed for dance
class, peered inside. Her eyes widened
as she stared at Julie. "You look just awful," she
breathed, then flushed with embarrassment.
But Julie only smiled, though the smile felt as
weak as her legs. "I don't feel real good
either," she admitted. "When I heard you guys coming
up the driveway, I thought I'd get dressed, but
I can hardly even stand up."
Jennifer came into the room and closed the door behind
her. "Are you sick?"
"I think it's the pills Dr. Adams gave me.
They make me all woozy and put me to sleep, but
every time I fall asleep, I dream about
Mary-Beth. And it's so hot." She glanced at
Jenny out of the corner of her eye. "Did . . .
did everybody come?"
"Three of us did," her friend replied, instantly
understanding what Julie was really asking. "Me,
Allison Carter, and Tammy-Jo." She made
a sour face. "Charlene said she couldn't ever come to the
island again. She came over to my house last night
and carried on like it was the end of the world."
"She was Mary-Beth's best friend," Julie pointed
out.
"But she didn't even
see
Mary-Beth," Jenny retorted. "As soon as you
started screaming, she went all to pieces, and she
wouldn't go anywhere near Mary-Beth when they pulled
her out of the water. But the way she's been carrying
on, you'd think it was her that found Mary-Beth, not
you!"
Julie shuddered as the memory suddenly came
flooding back to her, and Jenny flushed again and wished
she could take back her words. But before she could say
anything else, the door opened and Marguerite
appeared.
"Ten o'clock," she announced to Jenny. "Time for you
to
be getting upstairs." Then she smiled
affectionately at Julie. "And you should be
asleep."
"It's too hot," Julie replied. "Can't I
come upstairs and at least watch?"
Marguerite shook her head. "Dr. Adams
wants you in bed all day today. But if you're better
tomorrow-"
"I'm not sick," Julie reminded her aunt.
"It just scared me, that's all. And the pills make
me feel strange-"
"If Dr. Adams wants you to have them,
then I'm sure there's a reason," Marguerite
interrupted with a sudden severity that Julie had never
heard before. But before she could protest any further,
Marguerite had left her room, beckoning Jenny
to follow her.
"I'll come back after class," Jenny promised.
Then Julie was alone again.
A few minutes later she heard the faint sounds
of the piano upstairs as Marguerite began to play.
The heat in the ballroom was nearly suffocating,
though the French doors to the balcony stood wide
open. Not a breath of air was moving, and the faded
draperies hung limp, their thick, velvet
folds only adding to the heavy closeness inside the
large room. The three girls at the barre did
their best to keep up the pace of their warm-up
exercises, but Jenny Mayhew was beginning to think
she might faint. And besides the penetrating heat of the
morning, the class seemed wrong today.
It wasn't simply that Julie wasn't there. More
than that, the girls were feeling Mary-Beth
Fletcher's absence. Mary-Beth had been absent
from the class last week, too, but then there had been
at least the possibility that Mary-Beth was still
alive, even though no one really thought so.
After yesterday even that possibility was gone.
Nor had Marguerite even mentioned Mary-Beth
Fletcher. She had simply led Jenny up the
stairs to the ballroom, where the other two girls were
waiting, seated herself at the piano and had begun
playing the music that always accompanied
the warm-ups. But as she played, Jenny was certain
that the beat was faster than usual, and she was finding it
difficult to keep up as she moved skillfully through
the five positions.
"Right arm a little lower, Jennifer!" she heard
Marguerite call as she turned into fourth position
and felt the familiar ache in her legs as she moved
her right foot forward exactly twelve inches,
placing it precisely in line with her left, heel
to toe. "That's right. Fifth position!"
Automatically Jennifer's right foot moved back
to touch her left, and her right arm swept upward so
her fingers almost met above her head. "Straight!"
she heard Marguerite call. "Keep your legs
straight!"
"But it's too hot," Allison Carter complained,
her arms dropping to her sides and her legs relaxing
into a more normal position.
"It's hot under the lights of the stage,"
Marguerite replied, never skipping a beat.
"Half of the dance is simple endurance, and if you
can't develop that endurance, you'll never be a
dancer."
Now Tammy-Jo Aaronson let her arms drop,
too, then collapsed into a chair, wiping her face
with a towel. "But I don't want to be a dancer,"
she complained. "All I ever wanted to do was learn a
little bit about it and have fun. But it's not fun
anymore!"
Marguerite stopped playing and slammed the lid of the
piano shut. The loud report of the heavy piece of
wood startled Jenny Mayhew, and she felt a
sharp twinge in her Achilles tendon as her left
leg jerked reflexively. She dropped to the
floor and immediately began massaging her ankle.
"Fun?" Marguerite demanded, her voice growing
strident. She rose from the piano bench and limped
toward the three girls, who were now exchanging
worried glances. "Who ever told you dancing was
fun? Ballroom dancing is fun, and I
suppose for some people dancing to rock music is even
fun. But the ballet is not fun! It is an art,
and it takes years of discipline to perfect. Years!
Do you think I enjoyed it when I was your
age?" She paused for a split second, her eyes
flashing. "Of course not," she went on. "But I
knew why I
was going through it. I knew why my legs hurt and my
feet were sore and my ankles swollen. But I
never complained. Never!"
Jenny May hew, her ankle forgotten in the face
of Marguerite's sudden wrath, scrambled to her
feet and instinctively moved closer to Allison and
Tammy-Jo, who were watching the teacher with frightened
eyes. But Marguerite seemed not to notice.
"I worked when I was your age," Marguerite went
on, her voice echoing shrilly in the expanse of the
ballroom. "It didn't matter how hot it was,
or how tired I was, or how much my legs
hurt. I kept dancing, because I had to! I had
to!"
"Well, I
don't
have to!" Tammy-Jo said, her voice breaking as
her eyes filled with tears. "I don't want to be
a dancer, and I never did. I only came because of
my friends. And look what happened. Mary-Beth's
dead, and Charlene won't come anymore, and I
don't blame her! It isn't any fun
anymore, and I'm going home."
Marguerite froze, her face pale as she stared
at the girls. "But you can't- " she began, her
voice dropping to a whisper. Before she could finish,
Allison Carter was on her feet too.
"She can too," she said. "And so can I." Her
face stormy, she turned to Jenny. "I'm going with
Tammy-Jo," she said. "It's too hot, and
I'm tired, and I don't want to stay." She
untied the ribbons of her dancing shoes, pulled them
off, and shoved them into her tote bag. A minute
later she was lacing up her sneakers and shrugging into the
T-shirt she'd worn over her leotard that
morning. By the time she was done, Tammy-Jo
Aaronson, too, was ready. "Are you coming?"
Allison asked Jenny as she and Tammy-Jo
started toward the door.
"I-I don't know. ..." Jenny stammered, her
eyes shifting unhappily between her friends and
Marguerite.
Marguerite, her face ashen now, her whole body
trembling, reached out toward Jenny, as if trying
to touch her. But there was something in her eyes-a strange
burning light-that made Jenny shrink away.
"I-I'm sorry," she whispered. "I
have to go with them." Her voice took on a pleading
note, as if she were begging Marguerite to understand.
"They're my friends," she finished, her own voice
trembling now. "I have to go-" Her voice broke,
and she felt the hot sting of tears in her eyes as she
pulled her dancing shoes off and shoved her feet
into a worn pair of loafers. Then, feeling ashamed
of what she was doing, she hurried out of the ballroom,
catching up with Allison and Tammy-Jo when they were
halfway down the stairs. When they came to the
second-floor landing, she looked uncertainly at
the closed door to Julie's room. "Shouldn't we
say good-bye to Julie?" she asked, but
Tammy-Jo shook her head.
"I just want to get out of here. I knew Charlene was
right-we shouldn't have come at all today."
Turning away from Julie's room, the three
girls hurried down the last flight of stairs and out
the front door.
In the ballroom Marguerite stood perfectly still,
staring at the empty chairs where only a few moments
ago her students had been sitting. "You can't," she
breathed, her voice barely audible. "You can't
leave me ... you can't."
She blinked, and felt a wetness that made
the room blur around her, so that she was forced to shut her
eyes tightly against the tears. When she opened them a
moment later, her vision had cleared.
Everything had changed.
A cool breeze floated in from the open windows,
and the sheer curtains, snowy white and freshly
pressed, billowed gently. The room sparkled with
light, and around her people were dancing. But there was no
music.
Drifting as if in a trance, she moved over to the
old phonograph and took a record from the top
of the stack next to it. A moment later, as the needle
began scratching its way through the worn recording,
Marguerite heard the room fill with the clear strains
of an orchestra.
Slowly, alone in what appeared to her to be a
crowded room, she began to dance. . . .
Jeff looked sullenly around the dimly lit
basement of the mansion. It seemed like he'd been down
here forever, helping his father go through all the junk that
appeared to fill every corner. The heat outside had
penetrated even the cellar, and dust hung in the
air, choking Jeffs lungs. "Why do we have to stay
here?" he asked, looking up at his father. "I hate
it!" "I thought you liked it," Kevin
replied. "When we first talked about staying here, you
wanted to."
"That was before," Jeff said. "When Mom was here, it was
fun. But it isn't any fun anymore." His
voice began to crack, and he rubbed his fists in his
eyes. "It's too hot, and Mom's dead, and I
hate it here. I want to go home!"
Kevin set down the large box of cast-off clothes
he had just picked up to carry upstairs, and knelt
down so his eyes were level with his son's. "Hey,
champ," he said, his voice gentle, "I know it's
tough. I miss your mom, too, you know. We all
do. But there isn't anything we can do about that. Even
if we went back up North, that wouldn't bring her
back."
Jeff sniffled, then wiped his nose with his sleeve.
"I know," he mumbled. "But I still hate it here."
He was about to say something else, when the door at the
top of the stairs opened and Ruby called down.
"Will Hempstead's here," she said. "Wants to talk
to you."
Kevin glanced up with a flash of irritation and almost
told Ruby to tell the police chief to come back
later. Then he thought better of it and stood up,
giving Jeffs head a quick rub. "How about
that?" he asked, forcing a light tone into his voice.
"Just as we're getting sick of being stuck down here,
Mr. Hempstead comes along. Come on, let's go
see what he wants." He started up the stairs,
and Jeff, only somewhat mollified by escaping the
hot confines of the basement, trailed along.
They found Hempstead in the library. When he
turned to face Kevin and Jeff as they came in,
his eyes were grave.
"Will," Kevin greeted him, extending his hand and
trying
not to show the sudden twinge of anxiety he felt at the
expression on the police chiefs face. "Good
to see you."
The police chief shook Kevin's hand
perfunctorily, then dropped it. "Thought I'd come
out and tell you the autopsy on Mary-Beth
Fletcher's done." He paused then, nodding toward
Jeff, and didn't go on until Kevin had sent
the boy out of the room. But neither of the two men noticed
Jeff leave the door to the library ajar. "Couldn't
tell much, really," he said when they were alone.
"She'd been in the water too long and-well, you
saw her. Anyway, the final report's going to show
that it was an accident. If the storm was
strong enough to take a car off the causeway,
Mary-Beth wouldn't have had much of a chance at all."
"Then it's over," Kevin replied, relaxing.
Hempstead shook his head. "I wish it were. But with
this kind of thing-well, I'm afraid there's some
talk going around."
"Talk?" Kevin echoed. "What kind of talk?"
Hempstead shifted his weight uneasily from one
foot to the other. "Well, I'm afraid it's about
Marguerite. There're some people saying that since
Marguerite was the last person to see Mary-Beth,
and since they'd had some kind of fight-"
"It was hardly a fight," Kevin interjected.
"All Marguerite was doing was trying to talk
Mary-Beth into waiting out the storm. Surely people
aren't saying-"
Hempstead cut him off with a gesture. "In towns
like this there's no telling what people'll say.
That's why I wanted to come out and talk to you about it.
You might hear some gossip, and I just wanted you
to know that that's all it is. There isn't any evidence
that anyone did anything to Mary-Beth, and I
certainly don't even intend to talk to Marguerite
about it. I've known her too long, and I know she'd
never do anything to any of the kids. The whole
idea's just plain ridiculous. But there's always a
few gossips, and they always have to find something to talk
about."
Kevin nodded. "You're sure you don't want
to talk to Marguerite?" he asked. "She's
upstairs."
Hempstead shook his head. "No use upsetting
her," he said.
The two men left the library, and Kevin frowned as
he saw Jeff scuttle out of sight. But he said
nothing, instead walking the police chief out to his
car. They chatted briefly, then Kevin stepped
back as the black and white car pulled down the
driveway and onto the road to the causeway. As
he started back into the house, Jeff came out to the
veranda.
"Can't we go to the beach, Dad? How come we have to work
all the time?"
Kevin cocked his head and winked at his son. "Because
if we don't we'll all starve to death. Now, come
on. We're almost finished down there, and once
we've got all the junk cleaned out, we'll
knock off. Okay?"
Jeff silently followed his father back to the
basement, but as Kevin once more began
hauling crumbling cardboard boxes toward the foot
of the stairs, he said, "I bet everybody's right.
I bet Aunt Marguerite
did
kill Mary-Beth Retcher." He clapped his hands
over his mouth as he realized he'd just admitted his
eavesdropping.
Kevin turned to stare at his son. "Aside from the
fact that you shouldn't have been listening to a private
talk, what on earth would make you say something like
that?"
Jeff glared up at his father, his eyes stormy.
"Because she's crazy," he said. "She's crazy, and
I bet she killed Mary-Beth, and killed
Mommy too!"
"Jeff!"
But Jeff wouldn't be stopped. "Well, it's
true!" he yelled. "I saw Aunt Marguerite
in Grandmother's room, and she was acting real crazy.
And when you're around, she always acts like she likes
me, but she doesn't. When you and Julie aren't
around, she yells at me and tries to boss me
around, and tries to act like she's my mom! But she's
not. She's a crazy person, and I bet she
killed Mom and Mary-Beth. And I bet
she wants to kill me too!"
Before he even thought about what he was doing, Kevin's
hand lashed out and struck Jeff across the face.
"Don't you ever talk that way again," he said.
"Aunt Marguerite loves you very much, and she'd
never want to hurt you!"
"It's not true!" Jeff shouted, tears streaming from
his eyes, his hand pressed to his stinging cheek. "She
hates me, and
she's going to kill me!" As Kevin raised his hand
once more, Jeff shrank away, taking a step
backward. Losing his balance, he fell over,
screaming in pain as his head struck one of the posts that
supported the floor above.
His anger draining away as suddenly as it had come
over him, Kevin stared helplessly at his son for a
second, then reached down and picked him up. Jeff
was screaming now and blood was streaming from a cut on the
back of his head. Kevin charged up the stairs,
Jeff clasped to his chest, calling out for Ruby.
By the time he got to the top of the stairs, Ruby was
there, waiting for him. Her eyes took in the situation
at once.
"Take him to Dr. Adams," she said. "Go on,
take him now. I'll call ahead and
tell him you're coming."
"He-He fell," Kevin stammered, his face
pale as he still held his son. "I was yelling at
him, Ruby. I-I even hit him, and he fell
down and hit his head."
Ruby brushed his words aside. "Don't tell
me. Just get him on into town and get that head sewn
up. And don't worry-cuts on the head bleed like
crazy, but there ain't nothin" to them. Now, get
along with you." She hustled Kevin out the door, then
hurried to the phone as Kevin loaded Jeff
into Marguerite's Chevy and started toward the
village.
Julie woke up from a restless sleep and heard the
car pulling away from the house. For a moment she thought
it must be Mrs. Mayhew taking the girls home,
but when she got out of bed and moved shakily to the
window, she saw her aunt's car with her father at the
wheel, moving toward the causeway. And then, as the
sound of its engine died away, she heard the faint
notes of scratchy music drifting down from the
ballroom above.
Her friends must still be in the house, and the lesson was
running overtime.
She put on her bathrobe and went to the
door. Her legs felt stronger now, but her mind was
still fogged from the pills. Outside her room she
leaned against the wall for a moment,
waiting for a slight dizziness to pass. Then she
started along the hall, toward the stairs to the third
floor.
She climbed the stairs slowly, pausing several
times to catch her breath, but at last she reached the
top and the small foyer that led through double doors to the
ballroom.
Both the doors were closed, but she could hear the
music clearly now.
Putting her hand on one of the doors, she pushed it
open and stepped inside, expecting to see Jennifer,
Allison, and Tammy-Jo on the floor, while
Marguerite stood near the barre, watching them
carefully, offering small corrections and words of
encouragement.
Instead she saw that the room was empty save for
Marguerite herself, who was in the middle of the floor,
her eyes closed, her arms held aloft as she
moved her body through a series of halting dips and
turns.
Her right leg, made stiff by the long-ago accident,
jutted out from her hip at an unnatural
angle, and as she moved, her whole body jerked
grotesquely as the lame leg refused to do her
bidding.
Julie gasped, and her hand flew to her mouth as she
watched the strange parody of a dance. But then, as she
was about to slip away, Marguerite's eyes suddenly
opened.
"Come," Marguerite said, her voice echoing in the
empty room. "Come and dance with me."
She moved toward Julie, her arm extended, and
clasped Julie's hand in her own, drawing her out
onto the floor.
"Position one," Marguerite commanded.
Automatically Julie's feet turned outward,
heels together, and her arms fell gracefully to her
sides, her elbows bent so that her curving fingers
nearly met.
Marguerite, her stiff leg resisting her mind's
commands, tried to force herself into the position, but her
body twisted around on her left leg and she staggered
before Julie caught her arm.
"You can't, Aunt Marguerite- " she began, but
her aunt ignored her.
"I must," she breathed. "I must dance. It's all
I have . . . all I ever wanted."
Once again she tried to force herself into
the graceful pose, and a searing pain shot out from her
hip as her body protested. Her eyes welled with
tears.
"Don't, Aunt Marguerite," Julie
protested. "You'll hurt yourself. wh-Where are the
girls? Jennifer promised-"
"They'll be back," Marguerite said. She took
a step forward, then turned, her left knee bending
as she dropped into a stiff curtsey, while her
crippled right leg, twisted at an odd angle,
stretched out behind her. "I know they'll come back.
They won't leave me. I know they won't."
Julie's mind struggled in the fog of the sedative.
Come back? But where had they gone? What was wrong?
What had happened?
She was still trying to make sense of the strange scene in
the ballroom when she felt a hand on her arm. She
turned to see Ruby looking at her, her eyes
filled with worry.
"You shouldn't be up here," the old housekeeper said.
"You should be in your room, honey. You should be resting."
Julie shook her head as if trying to clear it of the
strange fog. "But what's wrong?" she asked.
"Where are my friends?"
Ruby gently eased Julie toward the door.
"They're gone, child. The class is over for today, and
they've gone home."
"But-But Aunt Marguerite ..." Julie's
eyes searched Ruby's face, imploring her.
"Ruby, what's wrong with her? She's acting so
strange. She's-"
"Shh," Ruby said, holding a finger to her lips.
They were in the foyer now, and Ruby pulled the door
closed behind them, then led Julie to the stairs.
"She'll be all right," she said, though her voice was
trembling. "We just have to leave her be, that's all."
"But what's wrong with her?" Julie insisted. "Why
is she acting like that?"
Ruby sighed, then shook her head. "Things have been
hard for her," she said at last. "She's like you,
honey. She's just lost her mother. And there's
Mary-Beth too. Miss Marguerite sets a
lot of store by her girls, you know. And to lose one
like that ..." Her voice trailed off as they came
to Julie's room. Ruby guided her back to her
bed, tucking the sheet around her once more, then patted
her hand reassuringly. "Now, don't you worry about
her. She'll be all right, and so will
you. You just go to sleep, and when you wake up,
you'll have forgotten all about it."
She waited a few minutes, and then, once more, the
sedative overcame Julie, and her eyes closed.
Only when she was certain that the girl was asleep
did Ruby leave the room. But instead of going
back downstairs to her work, she climbed back to the
third floor and opened the door to the ballroom just
wide enough to peer through.
Marguerite, her eyes closed, was still hobbling around
the dance floor, her arms held high as if she were
embracing an invisible partner.
The sense of unease she'd tried to conceal from
Julie flooded back to Ruby. As she started
back down the stairs, she tried not to think of what
she knew she must do.
But perhaps this time it wouldn't be so bad.
Perhaps this time Marguerite wouldn't need to be locked
up.
Julie woke up late in the afternoon, her body
sticky with sweat and her mind vaguely disoriented.
At last she rolled over to look at the clock on
her bedside table, and was shocked to see that it was
nearly six. It seemed only a few minutes
ago that she'd fallen asleep-could it really have been
seven hours? But it must have been-the strange
fogginess she had felt this morning was gone, so the
pills must have finally worn off. She lay in bed for a
few minutes, waiting for the last vestiges of sleep
to clear out of her mind, then got up and went to the
window. Her father was down by the barn, his shirt off and his
skin glistening as he wielded a rusty scythe against the
overgrown weeds that choked the small paddock beside the
barn. Julie called out to him, and he looked up and
waved.
"How you feeling?" he shouted, his words drifting up
on a gentle breeze coming in from the sea.
"I'm fine!" Julie called back. "I'm going
to take a shower and then I'll be down." Before her father
could protest, she turned away from the window and went
to the bathroom. She stripped off her limp
nightgown, turned on the cold water, took a
deep breath and stepped into the cool spray. The
shock instantly cleared her mind of the last traces
of sleepiness, and as she felt the clean water wash
the perspiration from her skin, her memories of the
morning came back to her.
Jenny Mayhew had been there, and some of the other
girls, but she couldn't quite remember what she and
Jenny had talked about. And then, a little later,
she'd gone up to the third floor.
But it had been strange.
Her friends were gone, and Marguerite had been dancing
by herself. But there had been something strange about her
aunt, almost as if Marguerite hadn't known quite who
she was.
She frowned, lathering herself with soap, and tried
to remember more. But there didn't seem to be any more.
Just a sort of half memory, like a dream.
Her frown cleared and she grinned to herself. That was it-it
had been a dream. Aunt Marguerite couldn't
dance, and surely if she'd really gone up there,
Marguerite would have known who she was. It must have
been the pills, and the music.
She stepped out of the shower and toweled herself dry, then
went back to her bedroom and found a clean pair of
jeans and one of her father's old shirts. Dressed
she went downstairs to the kitchen, where Ruby was
fixing supper. The aroma of Cajun food filled
the room, and Julie lifted the lid off a pot on
the stove to peer at the gumbo bubbling inside.
Ruby glared at her disapprovingly.
"What are you doing up? You're supposed to be in
bed."
Julie shook her head. "I'm not sick. I
feel fine, and I'm not taking anymore of
Dr. Adams's pills. All they do is make
me woozy and give me nightmares." She pulled
open one of the drawers near the door to the butler's
pantry. "Is it time to start setting the table?"
Ruby shrugged. "It isn't gonna set itself. But
only do it for three. Your aunt won't be down for
supper."
Julie's brows knit into a frown. "Is something
wrong?"
"Seems like not much is right today." Ruby's eyes
rolled heavenward. "You in bed after yesterday, then your
brother bumpin" his head, and now Miss
Marguerite, gone to bed with her hip."
Julie's frown deepened. "wh-What happened?"
she said, the dream she'd had that morning suddenly coming
back to her.
Ruby shook her head dolefully and began peeling
radishes into the sink as she spoke. "Seems to me
you ought to know-you were there. Fool woman was try in'
to dance. She
knows she can't do that kind of thing no more. But some time
there's just no talking to her. Just like her mother, sometimes."
A chill went through Julie. Then it hadn't been a
dream. But why hadn't her aunt recognized her?
"Ruby? Is ... well, is there something
wrong with Aunt Marguerite? I mean, besides her
hip?"
Finally Ruby turned to face Julie, but her
eyes were opaque. " 'now what makes you ask a
question like that?"
"It's just-" Julie began, then fell silent,
uncertain how to explain what had happened. "It's
just that this morning, when I went upstairs, it seemed
like something was wrong. Aunt Marguerite looked
sort of well, sort of strange, I guess.
She was talking to me, but it seemed like she didn't quite
know who I was. You know, like I was someone else or
something."
Ruby said nothing for a moment, then turned back to the
sink. "I guess maybe sometimes the pain gets
to be too much for her," she replied at last. "But
if I were you, I wouldn't worry too much about it.
She'll be all right."
"Maybe I should go up and see her."
Ruby shook her head again. "Just let her be. When
her leg starts hurtin" her, all she wants is
to be left alone. I'll take a tray up to her
after a while, and by morning everything will be fine again."
The back door opened then, and Kevin, mopping the
sweat off his torso with a T-shirt,
stepped into the kitchen. He stopped short when he
saw Julie, then cocked his head and looked at her
critically. Finally he grinned. "Well, at least
you're back in the land of the living. Have you seen your
brother yet?"
Julie shook her head. "Ruby says he bumped
his head."
was "Bumped" hardly describes it," Kevin
replied ruefully. "He fell in the basement and
cut himself. There was blood all over the place.
Didn't you hear him screaming?"
Julie shook her head.
"Well, you were the only one in the county who
didn't, then. Anyway, he's fine now." He
winked. "Of course, I had to bribe him with a
movie tonight."
Julie brightened. "Can I go too?"
"Are you sure you feel up to it?" Kevin asked, his
eyes narrowing. "Dr. Adams said you should take it
easy."
Julie rolled her eyes in exasperation. "I'm
all right," she insisted. "It's not like I'm sick.
And I hate those pills." She turned on her
most appealing smile, and knew immediately the argument was
over. "Please?"
Kevin shrugged. "Fine with me. It's time the three
of us did something together." He started out of the room,
then turned back, his grin in place again. "And when
Jeff comes down, be sure to fuss over the size of
his bandage. But don't believe him when he tells
you I was beating up on him."
"Beating up on him?" Julie repeated. "Why would
he say that? You never beat up on us."
"Well, I'm afraid I did give him a
whack," Kevin said, his voice more serious. "Not much
of one, but it startled him and he tripped. But to hear
him tell it, we're talking major child abuse."
Julie giggled. "I'll tell him about the time you
spanked me with the ruler after I broke your new
fishing rod. He'll think one whack is nothing."
"Thanks, I guess," Kevin said darkly, then
disappeared through the door.
Two hours later, with Jeff wearing a new
baseball cap to cover up the large plaster bandage
over the stitches on the back of his head, the three of
them set out for the movies.
"You're sure it's all right?" Kevin asked
Ruby as they were heading out the back door. "If
Marguerite's not feeling well-"
"She'll be fine," Ruby assured them.
"I've been taking care of her since she was a
baby, and I don't figure I can't take care
of her now. You all get along and have a good time."
She waited by the back door until they were gone,
then went to the counter and began preparing a tray for
Marguerite. At last, uncertain about what she would
find upstairs, she picked up the tray and pushed
her way out of the kitchen.
Marguerite sat stiffly on the bench in front of the
vanity table, examining her image carefully in the
mirror. Her hair, swept up in back, was
arranged on top of her head in a clean, spiraling
twist, held in place by a large, ornately
carved tortoiseshell comb. Her eyes were heavily
shadowed, the lids edged in black, the lashes themselves
coated with a thick layer of mascara. Her lips were
crimson, the brilliant red made even brighter by the
pale powder with which she had coated her face. Just below
the right corner of her mouth she had placed a single
dark spot.
Now, satisfied at last with her face, she reached
for her mother's jewelry box and began to go through the
pieces one by one. She remembered them all,
remembered them from her childhood, when she had stood
silently by the door to this room, watching
Helena get ready for one of her parties.
Sometimes, if she'd been very, very good, her mother would
let her try on some of the jewelry. Marguerite
could still remember the string of jet she had loved so
much, winding it three times around her neck, then staring
in rapture at the glistening black beads, which
seemed to catch the light and throw it back in her
eyes, almost making her blink with their brilliance.
But her mother had always made her take off the
necklace. Now there was no one who could make her
take it off. She found it at the bottom of the box
and gently separated it from the other pieces in which it
had become entangled, then held it to her throat.
Finally, her fingers trembling, she wrapped it around
her neck, fastening the clasp with the ease of habit,
even though it had been more than forty years since the
necklace had last been against her skin.
Suddenly the door opened, and she felt a flash of
anger. She glanced up in the mirror and saw
Ruby standing at the door, her eyes wide as she
stared back at Marguerite.
"What are you doing here?" Marguerite demanded without
turning around.
Ruby flinched, but then stepped forward. "I brought you
a tray of supper, Miss Marguerite,"
she said. "I thought you might be hungry."
Marguerite was silent for a moment, her eyes still
fixed on
Ruby's reflection. When at last she spoke,
her voice held an edge of petulance that sent a
chill through the old housekeeper. "Where is Julie?
Why didn't Julie bring my tray?"
Now it was Ruby who was silent. She set the tray
down on the table by the window, then turned to look at
Marguerite once more. "Julie's gone to the
movies," she said, keeping her voice level.
"She went with her father and her brother."
Marguerite's jaw tightened and her eyes narrowed.
"She didn't ask me if she could go-" she began,
but Ruby cut her off.
"She's not your daughter," she said, her voice low
but firm. She took a step forward. "And what do you
think you're doing? Why are you wearing all that
makeup? You tryin' to make yourself look like your
mother?"
Marguerite said nothing, but her face grew even
tighter.
"You don't want to do that," Ruby went on, her
voice taking on a soft, soothing tone. "You want
to be yourself, Miss Marguerite. You want
to be the nice woman you are. You don't want to be
Miss Helena, do you?" She was behind Marguerite
now, her hands on Marguerite's shoulders, rubbing
gently. "Why don't you just come over and sit by the
window for a while and have a little supper. I made
gumbo for you. You know how much you love gumbo. Just
come on over and have a little somethin' to eat, and you'll be
fine. Just fine . . ."
For a second Ruby thought she felt Marguerite
relax beneath her touch, but then Marguerite whirled on
the stool, knocking Ruby's hands away. Then her
own hand snaked up, slapping Ruby hard across the
face.
"How dare you talk to me like that?" she hissed, her
voice taking on all the venom her mother's had once
been able to command. "You mind your manners, Ruby!"
Ruby gasped and stepped back, her right hand going
to her cheek, rubbing at the stinging bruise she felt
already beginning to swell. "Don't you hit me," she
said, her voice dropping. "I've taken care of you
for a long time, and I'm gonna go on taking care of
you. But I ain't gonna let you hit me, and I
ain't gonna let you talk to me that way. You're not
your mother, and don't you forget it. And don't you start
thinking Julie's your daughter either. You
think I'm going to let you start in with her the way your
mother started in with you? "Cause if that's what you
think, you better think again!" Marguerite was on her
feet now, her eyes blazing, her hip throbbing
madly. But she ignored the pain as her hand closed
on a heavy perfume bottle. In a single, quick
motion, she lifted it off the table, hurling it at
Ruby.
Ruby dodged the bottle, and heard it crash against
the wall. She stepped forward now, her own hand coming
up to strike Marguerite across the face. "I told
you not to do that," she said, her voice dangerous.
"What you want? You want to be locked up again?
Is that what you want? Because I'll do it." "Stop
it," Marguerite hissed. "Just stop it, and leave
me alone. I'm fine. I'm just fine!"
"Fine?" Ruby echoed. "Is that why you moved in
here to Miss Helena's room? 'Cause you're
fine? That's why you got all that makeup all over
your face, just like Miss Helena used to wear when you
were a little girl? And look at your hair! Just like
hers! You ain't fine, Miss Marguerite!"
"Don't talk that way," Marguerite cried, her
hands covering her face. "Mama loved me. Just
get out of this room and leave me alone!"
Ruby shook her head. "I can't do that, Miss
Marguerite. I can't never do that. Who's going
to look after you? You're going into one of your bad times,
Miss Marguerite."
"I'm not," Marguerite wailed, her words choking in
her throat. Sobbing, she lurched across the room and
fell onto the bed, burying her face in the
pillows. Ruby was suddenly beside her, her hands
gently stroking Marguerite.
"That's right," she said. "You let it out. You know you
can't keep everything bottled up-you know what happens
to you."
Marguerite rolled over, away from Ruby's touch,
then glared furiously at the old woman. "There's
nothing wrong with me," she spat. "Nothing wrong with
me except you. Staring at me all the time, looking
at me like you think I'm crazy! But I'm not!"
"Now you calm down," Ruby replied. "You just
get hold of yourself before I have to tell your brother
what's
happening to you. He don't know nothing about your bad
times. But you think he'll stay here with those kids if
I tell him about you?"
Marguerite cowered on the bed. "He-He won't
believe you-" she began, but Ruby shook
her head.
"He'll believe me," she said, her voice like
ice. "Maybe nobody would have believed me twenty
years ago, but times have changed, Miss
Marguerite. I couldn't stop your mother from doin"
what she did, but I can stop you from being' just like her.
And I'll tell Mr. Kevin if things get bad
with you. I'll tell him, and he'll believe me if
I show him the room downstairs where Miss Helena
locked you up. You see if he doesn't believe
me! You see how long he stays here!"
"No," Marguerite sobbed, her voice breaking
now. "I'll be good, Ruby, I promise.
Don't tell him-please don't. I-I couldn't
stand it if you told him and he went away." Her
eyes suddenly darted around the room, as if she were
searching for something. "Why do they always go away?" she
sobbed. "Mother went away, and Mary-Beth. Even
Anne wanted to go away." She fell back against
the pillows, her body heaving.
Suddenly, with numbing clarity, Ruby understood.
"You killed them, didn't you?" she breathed. "You
killed Anne, and you killed Mary-Beth Fletcher
too."
"They were going to leave me," Marguerite
sobbed. "They were going to leave me. I couldn't let
them, Ruby. Don't you understand? I just couldn't let
them leave. ..."
Ruby backed away from the bed, stunned. So it was
true. She'd thought of it before-just a fleeting thought that
she'd instantly rejected, unwilling to face the
possibility that Marguerite could have done such a thing.
But she'd known.
She'd known, and had done nothing.
But now she had to do something. She had to get help,
get help for Marguerite, and for herself. If she
didn't-
"I'll call Dr. Adams," she said softly.
"I'll just call the doctor, and he'll come out.
He'll take care of you."
She turned away and started for the door, then heard
Marguerite moving. She turned then, but it was already
too late. Her eyes burning madly,
Marguerite was upon her,
hurtling herself toward Ruby, her hands outstretched,
her fingers curled into angry claws. Ruby gasped
and tried to duck aside, but Marguerite lurched
into her, knocking her off balance. She stumbled and
fell to the floor, feeling a sharp pain in her
ankle.
Then Marguerite was upon her, scratching at
Ruby's face, pummeling her fists against the
housekeeper's head.
Ruby tried to defend herself, tried to use her arms
to protect herself from Marguerite's fury, but it was
impossible.
Marguerite stared unseeingly down at Ruby's
face. She had to stop her, stop her before she told
Kevin, and Kevin took Julie away from her. And
he would too.
He'd take Julie away from her, just like her mother
took her baby away from her, and took her dancing
away from her-took everything away from her, until there
was nothing left of herself except a shell.
An empty shell.
All those years of feeling dead inside.
All those years of having nothing.
Nothing except a few hours each week with her
girls, who came to her for dancing lessons.
But they left too. They grew up, and went on with
their lives, and left her alone with her mother.
And even her mother had left her.
Taken everything she had, then left her.
But no one else would ever leave her again. Not
Ruby, or Kevin, or Julie.
Certainly not Julie.
Whatever happened, she'd keep Julie.
Just as her mother had kept her.
Except that Ruby wanted to ruin it all. But it
wouldn't happen. She wouldn't let it happen. Her
fingers sank deep into Ruby's hair, and closed
into fists.
Her arms stiff, she began rocking back and forth,
smashing Ruby's head against the floor over and over
again.
Dimly, as if from a great distance, she could hear
Ruby's screams, but she ignored them and kept
rocking.
It was like riding a rocking horse.
She could remember it from when she was a tiny little
girl.
You had to sit straight and hold the reins just right. And
then you started rocking, and the horse's head would go up
and down, up and down.
Up and down.
There was a strange, compelling rhythm to it, almost like
swaying to a melody-punctuated by the hollow thump
of Ruby's head striking the hardwood of the floor.
Ruby was silent now, and her arms had dropped
away from their futile struggle against
Marguerite. Then, slowly, her energy beginning
to drain away, Marguerite stopped rocking and let
go of Ruby's hair. She looked down once more.
Ruby's eyes were closed, and for a moment Marguerite
was certain she was dead. But then she felt Ruby's
chest heave slightly under her weight.
She had to do something.
If Kevin came home and found Ruby-
Downstairs.
She had to get Ruby downstairs, where Kevin
wouldn't find her.
She got up, heaving herself off Ruby's inert
body. Her hip felt almost numb now, as if the
pain had finally burned itself out, and she dragged herself
to the chair where one of her mother's dressing gowns lay.
She slipped into the robe, then used the belt to tie
Ruby's hands together.
Grasping the belt with both her own hands, she hauled
Ruby to the door of her room and out into the
corridor. She paused for a moment, trying to catch
her breath, then started slowly toward the head of the
stairs, moving Ruby a few feet at a time.
Once, she thought she heard Ruby moan, but
decided it must have been something else, for as she stared
down into the unconscious face, she saw
no sign of movement. Indeed, she thought Ruby
looked almost peaceful. . . .
She came to the head of the stairs and worked Ruby around
so that she was sitting up, her back resting against the
wall next to the chair lift that hadn't been used
since her mother had died. She bent over then,
slipping her hands under Ruby's armpits. Taking a
deep breath, she heaved upward and to the right, and then
Ruby's bulk shifted onto the chair.
Using the free end of the belt, she tied Ruby to the
chair,
then turned the power switch on. Below her, in the
closet, she could hear the faint hum of the lift's
machinery. She pressed the button, and a metallic
clanking sound echoed in the entry hall. There was a
rattle, and the chair slowly began to descend the
wide staircase.
Marguerite moved stiffly beside it until it came
to the bottom, automatically shifted itself
into neutral, and fell silent. Untying the belt from
the chair, she let Ruby slip back to the floor,
her eyes still closed.
She grasped the belt around Ruby's wrists once
more and dragged her toward the stairs to the basement. It
was easier now, for the floor of the entry hall
was polished hardwood and there was less resistance than
there had been on the carpeting upstairs. She came
to the narrow door to the basement, opened it, poised
Ruby at the top of the stairs, then pushed.
Ruby rolled down, her body tumbling
grotesquely, then sprawling out on its back at
the bottom.
Her breath coming in gasps now, Marguerite made
her way to the foot of the basement stairs, stepped
over Ruby, and pulled the string on the overhead
light fixture.
A harsh white light from an unshaded bulb filled
the basement, momentarily blinding Marguerite. But
then her eyes adjusted to the light and she gazed around
until she saw what she was looking for.
A small door, almost invisible, in the far corner
of the basement.
Dragging Ruby behind her, she started toward the door.
When she was in front of it, she stopped.
It had been years since she had been down here.
Years since the weeks-or had it been months?-after
the accident, when her mother had kept her locked up
down here, locked up in the dark, locked up until
she understood that she had been sick and that without her mother
she would never have gotten well at all.
She could still hear her mother's voice coming through the door,
hanging in the darkness.
"I could have sent you away. I could have sent you away
forever. But I didn't. I love you. I love you,
and I kept you at home, where you belong."
Where you belong . . . where you belong . . .
The words still echoed, and as she reached for the doorknob,
her fingers trembled.
At her feet, Ruby moaned softly.
Marguerite twisted the knob, but the door wouldn't
open.
Then she saw the heavy padlock, hanging from its
hasp.
Her right leg half dragging now, she made her way
up to the kitchen and found Ruby's key ring hanging
on the hook just inside the kitchen door. Snatching
it off the hook, she hobbled back to the basement.
She began fumbling with the keys, searching for the right one.
And then, after what seemed an eternity, one of the
keys slipped into the lock and it fell open in her
hands.
She opened the door.
The room inside was tiny.
A wooden bed with a thin cotton pad was against one
wall, a wide shelf opposite it-the
shelf where, while she'd been sick, she'd eaten the
meals that Ruby brought to her twice a day.
All she could remember of the room was the feel of that
hard bed where she'd lain, hour after hour, week after
week, waiting to get well, waiting for the pain
to stop.
And finally the worst of the pain
had
stopped, and she'd come out of the room in the basement and
never gone back to it.
But it had always been there, waiting for her. . . .
Ruby moaned again, and then her eyes flicked open
for a moment. "No," she mumbled. "Oh, no,
please ..."
Marguerite stared down at her, then leaned over and
grasped the housekeeper's hands once again. Pulling
hard, she hauled Ruby over the threshold and,
ignoring the pain in her leg, lowered herself to the
floor.
She wrapped the free end of the soft satin belt
around Ruby's neck and began to pull it tight.
Tight, and then tighter . . .
Ruby's eyes popped open and began to swell out of
their sockets. One of her hands came up, groped
toward
Marguerite, then fell away. Her fingers twitched
for a second, then were still.
"It's going to be all right now," Marguerite
whispered softly as she put the lock back on its
hasp and snapped it closed. "Everything's going to be
all right. I'll have my home, and I'll have my little
girl to take care of me, and nobody will ever leave
me again. Never, ever again ..."
An hour later Marguerite, dressed in one of her
mother's favorite gowns, the string of jet beads around
her neck, was back in the ballroom. Humming
softly to herself, she raised her arms and bowed as
gracefully as she could to the dancing partner only she
could see.
"I dance well," she breathed as she let herself be
taken into the invisible arms. "But not as well as my
daughter. My daughter is going to be a star
someday." She smiled gently, a faraway look in
her eye. "I'm going to see to that. Yes, someday
Marguerite is going to be a star. ..."
Kevin steered Marguerite's old Chevy off the
causeway and turned left up the road toward the
house. The car, coughing in protest as he pressed the
accelerator, lurched forward, and Kevin shook his
head dolefully. "We're going to have to get
a new car," he said to no one in particular. "This
one's about to fall apart."
"Can we get a convertible?" Jeff immediately asked from
the backseat. "They're neat."
"I think another station wagon might be a little more
practical," Kevin replied. Glancing ahead,
he frowned. Silhouetted against the clear sky,
Sea Oaks loomed like a dark and heavy mass,
leavened only by a single light from the west end of the
second story. "How come Ruby didn't leave the
lights on for us?"
"Why would she?" Julie asked. "This is the first time
we've gone out at night."
A couple of minutes later Kevin pulled the
Chevy into the garage, switched off the wheezing
motor, and swung the splintering door closed.
Julie and Jeff were already in the kitchen when Kevin
caught up with them, and Jeff was rummaging through the
refrigerator, searching for something to eat.
"Not now," Kevin told him, pushing the
refrigerator door closed. "It's past eleven,
and you've already had a chocolate malt. Time for
bed."
"Aw, Dad," Jeff moaned. "Ruby said she was
going to make a pie tonight. Can't I have just
one piece?"
Kevin glanced quickly around the kitchen, then glared at
his son with mock severity. "If Ruby had wanted
you to eat
her pie, she would have left it out for you. Now, off with
you!" He smacked Jeff's bottom gently, and the
boy scooted out of the kitchen. When he was gone,
Kevin smiled at Julie. "How about you? If I
can find that pie, want to split a piece with me?"
Julie shook her head. "I shouldn't have had that
sundae. I'll swell up like a balloon."
"Suit yourself," Kevin replied. He checked the
back door to make certain it was locked. "If
you're going up, make sure your brother brushed his
teeth, will you?"
"Who has to make sure? He never brushes them
unless I stand right there while he does it."
Kevin turned to look at Julie, his head cocked
slightly, as if he was seeing her for the first time. "And
you do that?" he asked, his voice choking with sudden
emotion.
Julie shrugged, then nodded, blushing slightly with
self-consciousness. "S-Someone has to do itea8she
said, her voice trembling.
Kevin bit his lip, then put his arms around
his daughter, holding her close. "I know," he
murmured. "But it should be me, not you. I guess I
haven't been-
Julie squeezed him hard, and spoke before he could
finish. "I know how much you miss Mom," she said.
"We all miss her. And I don't mind looking
after Jeff. You have to look after all of us, and take
care of this place and everything. What was I supposed
to do?" she asked, looking up into her father's eyes.
"Ask you if you wanted me to help with Jeff?"
"But you're only fifteen-"
"Almost sixteen," Julie reminded him. "And
sometimes, since Mom died, I feel like I'm
thirty. All of a sudden everything's different, and I
can't act like a baby anymore. But Jeff's
only eight. Someone has to look out for him."
Kevin's throat constricted, and for a moment he thought
he was going to cry. "Thank you," he whispered, his
voice hoarse. Together they moved out of the kitchen and
through the house to the bottom of the stairs. "I'll
check around down here, then come up," he said. He
chuckled, but there was a hollowness to his laugh. "I
was going to say I'd tuck you in, but I guess you
don't need that anymore, do you?"
Now Julie truly did blush, though her
father couldn't see it in the darkness of the house. "It's
still kind of nice," she said, "every once in a while,
anyway." Kissing her father on the cheek, she
skipped up the stairs.
Kevin moved through the house slowly, checking the
windows and doors. But as he went from room to room,
he had a growing sense of unease, as if something in
the house weren't quite right. When he came back to the
kitchen for one last look, he knew something was
amiss.
The dinner dishes, though neatly scraped stacked, and
ready to be put into the dishwasher, were still on the counter
next to the sink, and in the sink, soaking in cold,
soapy water, were the pots and pans. Kevin stared
at the mess for a moment, then crossed the kitchen and
tapped softly at Ruby's door.
He waited a long moment, but there was no answer.
He tapped again, louder this time, but when there was still no
answer, he twisted the knob and pushed the door
open. Ruby's bed, still made up, was empty.
Frowning, he closed her door, walked quickly through
the house, mounted the stairs, and strode down the length
of the hall to the closed door to what had been his mother's
room. A light shone under the door, so he knew
Marguerite was still awake.
He rapped sharply.
"Come in," he heard Marguerite call. Opening
the door, he stepped into the bedroom. Marguerite,
lying in bed with only a sheet thrown over her
nightgown clad body, smiled at him. Her eyes
were twinkling, and her hair, cascading down over her
shoulders to frame her face, made her look oddly
young. "I heard the children come up," she said. "Did you
have a good time?"
Kevin nodded. "Fine," he said. Then: "Are you
feeling better? You look like you are."
Marguerite's smile broadened, and she stretched
languorously in the bed. "I feel wonderful,"
she said. "The pain in my hip's almost not there tonight.
I almost feel like I could dance again. I've just been
lying here feeling good about everything. Didn't you ever
feel that way?"
"But where's Ruby?" Kevin asked, ignoring his
sister's questions. "The kitchen isn't cleaned up, and
she's not in her room."
The smile faded from Marguerite's lips and her
eyes darkened. "She's gone," she said, her voice
taking on a slight edge. "She got a call just
after you left. Some family problem, she said.
Anyway, she brought me up my supper and
then just took off!"
"Ruby?" Kevin said, his voice doubtful. "That
doesn't sound like her. Even when I was little, she was
always here-"
Marguerite cut him off with an impatient
gesture. "Well, that was a lot of years ago,
wasn't it? Back then you could count on people." She
sighed heavily. "Sometimes I don't know what
I'm going to do about her. It seems like she gets
worse and worse. To take off tonight, when I
wasn't feeling well-I swear, Kevin, sometimes
I wonder if we shouldn't just fire her and try
to find someone reliable. Mother always said-"
"Mother always said something bad about everyone," Kevin
broke in. "And we certainly aren't going to fire
Ruby."
Marguerite suddenly relaxed. "No, of course
we aren't," she agreed, her voice gentle again.
"And I suppose everyone has a right to have family
problems now and then, don't they?" She reached out
to Kevin, squeezing his hand gently. "And it's not as
if I don't have anyone to take care of me, is
it? There's you, and Julie ..."
Kevin nodded. "And Jeff."
Marguerite laughed lightly, her voice
tinkling like a tiny bell. "Of course," she added.
"And Jeff. I mustn't forget him, must I?"
"As if he'd let you," Kevin replied. He
bent down and brushed his sister's cheek with his lips.
"Well, I'm glad you're feeling better,
anyway. Have a good night's sleep, and I'll
see you in the morning. But right now I'd better get
downstairs and clean up the kitchen."
"You don't need to do that," Marguerite protested.
"Julie can take care of it in the morn-"
But Kevin shook his head firmly. "I'll do it
tonight. Julie's
got enough to do, especially if Ruby's going to be
gone for a while. See you tomorrow."
Then he was gone, and Marguerite stretched
luxuriantly once more.
She
did
feel good tonight, she decided. In fact, for the first time
in years and years, she felt truly wonderful. .
. .
Julie wasn't certain exactly what it was that had
awakened her. Indeed, she wasn't quite sure she had
been asleep at all. After she'd put Jeff
to bed, she'd come to her room, put on her
pajamas, then sprawled out on top of the covers
to read for a while. Though she'd opened the window
wide, the slight breeze there had been earlier had
died away, and the humid air hung heavily around
her, making it impossible to concentrate on her
book. Finally she'd put it aside, lying on her
back to stare at the ceiling as she let her mind
drift. A little later her father had come in.
"Why didn't you tell me?" Julie complained when
he'd told her of Ruby's absence. "I could have
helped you with the dishes. All I've been doing is
lying here pretending it's cool." She grinned at
him. "But it doesn't work. The more I think about it,
the stickier I get. Did Ruby leave any
lemonade in the refrigerator?"
They'd gone downstairs together, then sat in the kitchen
talking for a while, until Kevin finally found himself
unable to stifle any more of his yawns. "Some of us
didn't sleep all day," he'd remarked as he
put the glasses in the dishwasher.
For the next hour or so Julie had lain once more
on her bed, trying to drift into sleep but unable to.
The insect noises seemed to be amplified tonight,
though the sea, nearly silent, was only a soft and
distant lapping. Twice she heard an owl
hooting softly in the darkness, and once, a little while
ago, a sudden silence had fallen in the night, as
if a dangerous presence had come near. But then,
slowly, the crickets had once more begun their soft
chirruping, and then the frogs had joined in the chorus,
until once more the air vibrated with their sound.
Now, wide awake, Julie was almost certain she
would get no sleep tonight.
She took a deep breath, rolled off the bed, and
wandered over to the window. The moon was low, a
brilliant silver orb hanging over the sea, its
reflected light streaming across the surface of the
water like a shimmering highway.
Far out, a boat crossed the path of the moon, and
Julie watched it until it disappeared, swallowed
up in the darkness of the horizon. Then, out of the comer of
her eye, she saw a strange movement.
She frowned, shifting her gaze, but at first saw
nothing. Then, slowly and indistinctly, she began
to make out a form moving through the moss-hung trees
near the cemetery.
It was nothing, she told herself, for when she looked
directly at it, it disappeared entirely. It was
only when she looked away that she could see it again,
all but indistinguishable at the very edges of
her vision. She turned away and forced herself to go
back to her bed, but the memory of the strange vision
stayed with her, and try as she might, she couldn't
convince herself that it had been nothing.
Jeff's words came back to her, echoing in her
mind. "I know I saw something, and I know it was a
ghost!"
At last, almost in spite of herself, she got up again
and went back to the window.
The figure was clear now, for it had emerged from the
trees and moved into the graveyard.
The moon shone full on it, and it glimmered brightly
as it dipped and turned among the graves, at last
coming to rest beside the crypt, where it sank down, huddling
against the ground.
Julie felt her heartbeat quicken, and suddenly the
heat of the night seemed to drain away as a chill
passed through her body. She watched, frozen, for a
moment, then tore herself away from her window, hurried
out of her room and down the hall to Jeff's room.
Without knocking, she pushed the door open, went to her
brother's bed and shook him.
"Jeff?" she whispered loudly. "Jeffy, are you
awake?"
The little boy stirred, then opened his eyes and
gazed
sleepily at the indistinct figure of his sister.
"What's wrong?" he mumbled. "What do you
want?"
"The ghost," Julie whispered, her voice
trembling now. "I think it's out in the graveyard
again."
Instantly Jeff came fully awake. He
slid out of bed and darted to the window. He gazed out
for a moment, then beckoned to Julie. "It's her,"
he whispered. "It's Grandmother. his
Almost reluctantly, Julie joined her brother
at the window and peered out into the night. The strange
ghostly figure was still in the cemetery, moving slowly
among the grave markers, almost as if searching for
something.
"B-But it
can't
be a ghost," Julie whispered hoarsely. "There
aren't any such things."
"Then what is it?" Jeff challenged. "I'm
telling you, it's Grandmother's ghost, and Ruby says
it's here because somebody died."
"No," Julie protested. Now that she wasn't
alone, her fear seemed to abate. "I
don't believe it. It's something else. It has
to be-"
"It's not!" Jeff declared. Then he turned to stare
at his sister, his eyes challenging. "If it's not a
ghost, why don't you go down there and find out what it
is?"
Julie swallowed, trying to clear the lump from her
throat. "I-I don't want to," she said.
"You mean you're afraid to," Jeff crowed.
"Well, aren't you?" Julie demanded. "I don't
see you running down there to find out what it is, either."
The two of them stared at each other for a moment, and
finally Jeff looked away. "wh-What are we
going to do?" he asked, his voice drained of the
bravado of a moment ago.
"We'll get Dad," Julie decided.
"He'll know what it is."
Together they left Jeff's room and crept down the
corridor to their father's room, letting themselves in without
bothering to knock. A moment later Kevin switched
on the bedside lamp and blinked at his children, who
stood before him with pale faces and frightened eyes.
Julie, who had seemed so mature only two
hours earlier, now looked almost as young as Jeff.
"What is it?" Kevin asked. "What's
wrong?"
"G-Grandmother," Jeff stammered. "She's in the
graveyard again."
Kevin frowned at his son. "Now come on," he
said. "I thought we went all over that-"
"But it's true, Dad," Julie broke in.
"I-I saw it too. I don't know what it is,
but there's something in the graveyard, and-" She fell
silent, suddenly feeling foolish. "Well, it
looks like a ghost."
"Well, it isn't," Kevin sighed, swinging himself out
of bed and jamming his arms through the sleeves of his
robe. "It might be a deer, or someone trying
to play a trick on you, but it isn't any ghost."
"Whatever it is, it's not a deer!" Jeff said.
"Come on. You can see it from Julie's room."
His children behind him, Kevin crossed the hall
to Julie's room, went to the window and peered out into the
darkness.
The graveyard was empty.
He turned to the kids, his brows arched skeptically.
"Well?" he said, tipping his head toward the window.
"Take a look and please tell me what you
see."
Reluctantly, Julie and Jeff
approached the window and looked out. Moonlight still
illuminated the island, and the gravestones stood out in
stark relief. But except for the crypt and the
surrounding headstones, the cemetery was empty.
Julie's eyes searched the pines where she had first
seen the strange figure, but now there was nothing there
except the hanging moss draping the limbs, and the
deep shadows cast by the trees themselves. "B-But I
saw
something," she insisted, her voice trembling.
"Dad, I know I did. We both saw something."
"You imagined you did," Kevin corrected her.
"But whatever happened, there certainly isn't anything
out there now. So I want both of you back in bed.
Okay?"
Julie, chagrined, nodded mutely and went back
to her bed. But Jeff didn't move. Instead, he
stared at his sister with pleading eyes.
"C-Can I sleep with you tonight?" he asked.
"Oh, for Heaven's sake," Kevin began, but
Julie didn't let him finish.
"It's okay, Dad. Really. I don't mind
if he sleeps with
me."
Kevin started to object, then shrugged his
shoulders. "Okay," he said. "Suit yourselves. But
no more nonsense tonight about ghosts, all right? See you
in the morning." Without waiting for either of his children
to reply, he left Julie's room, closing the
door behind him. Five minutes later he was once
more sound asleep.
But in Julie's room both the children lay awake,
listening to the sounds of the night, their nerves on edge.
"We saw it," Jeff finally said, his voice echoing
oddly. "I know we saw it, and I know what it
means. It means somebody's dead."
Julie said nothing, but for the first time, she didn't
argue with her brother about what he'd seen, or what
it might mean.
After all, tonight she'd seen it too.
Kevin and Julie were already in the kitchen when Jeff
came downstairs the next morning. He slid
onto his chair and stared with disgust at the bowl of cold
cereal in front of him. "Where's Ruby?" he
demanded. "How come we aren't having eggs and
pancakes?"
Kevin, his mind already involved with the complexities of the
estimates on the remodeling of five of the upstairs
bedrooms, glanced at his son. "Ruby's not here,"
he explained. "Which is why we're all
eating cold cereal without complaining."
Jeff made a face. "I hate this junk." He
poked at the cereal with his spoon, then reached out and
slid the sugar bowl across the table. Spoonful
by spoonful he began emptying its contents onto his
cereal, then added some milk. As he spooned the first
scoop of the sticky mess into his mouth, he peered
guiltily at his father out of the corner of his eye, but his
father didn't appear to notice what he was doing.
"I bet
Ruby's dead," he suddenly announced, and Kevin
laid aside the estimate he was studying. "I beg
your pardon?" he asked.
Jeff stared solemnly at his father. "I bet
Ruby's dead," he repeated. "I bet that's why
Grandmother came back last night." Kevin's eyes
narrowed slightly. "I'm not following you."
Jeffs expression turned exasperated. "Ruby
says the ghosts always come right after someone dies. So
if Grandmother came back last night, and Ruby's
not here, that means she's dead."
Kevin shook his head tiredly. "Well, if she's
putting ideas like that into your head, maybe she'd
better not come back at all," he observed
wryly.
Jeff's exasperation deepened. "How can she come
back when she's dead?" he demanded.
Kevin took a deep breath, got to his feet, and
added his cereal bowl to the collection of dishes next
to the sink. "Look," he said, his tone finally
betraying annoyance. "I'm going to explain this to you
one more time, and then I don't want to hear any more
nonsense. Whatever you saw in the cemetery last
night-or thought you saw-it wasn't a ghost. Not of
your grandmother, or of anyone else." Jeff stared up
at his father, his lips forming a tight line, but he said
nothing. "There are no such things as ghosts. And as for
Ruby, she had a problem with her family and had to go
take care of it. I'm sure she'll be back today,
or maybe tomorrow. But she's not dead. Clear?"
Jeff, knowing from his father's tone that he'd better not
argue, nodded. "I guess," he agreed, sliding
off his chair, but his voice carried no conviction.
Kevin, thankful for even that small a concession,
gathered his papers together and started out of the kitchen.
"I'll be in the library for a while," he told
Julie. "If you need help with anything, just
holler."
"We'll be okay," Julie replied. When her
father was gone, she tossed Jeff the
dishrag. "Wipe the table, okay?"
Jeff shrugged, but said nothing, and began carefully
wiping off the scarred top of the kitchen table. Without
looking up, he spoke again.
"Know what I bet?" he asked, his voice low, so
his father wouldn't hear him.
"What?" Julie asked, knowing that no matter what
she said, Jeff was going to tell her anyway.
"I bet Aunt Marguerite killed Ruby,"
Jeff went on. Now he looked up, his eyes
wary as he glanced at the kitchen door. "I bet
that after we went to the movie last night they had a
big fight, and Aunt Marguerite killed Ruby
and buried her out on the island somewhere."
"Jeff!" Julie exclaimed. But before she could
say anything else, Marguerite spoke, her
voice cold.
"That's a disgusting thing to say, Jeffrey."
Jeff whirled. To his horror, his aunt was standing
just inside the kitchen door, staring down at him, her
eyes blazing angrily. He gasped and took a
step back.
"If I ever hear you say such a thing again,
Jeffrey, I shall have no choice but to-"
But Jeff was already gone, slamming out the
back door and streaking down the hill toward the
grove of pines. Marguerite, her hand suddenly
going to her hip, limped to the door. "Come back!"
she shouted. "You come back here!"
"He didn't mean it, Aunt Marguerite,"
Julie pleaded. "Really he didn't. He's just
a little boy, and he's always making up stories like that.
But he didn't mean it."
Marguerite, her back stiff, said nothing for a
moment, but then she turned and smiled at Julie.
"Perhaps he didn't," she agreed. "But I'm
afraid I've never quite understood small boys."
She paused then, and when she spoke again, her voice
had taken on a strangely distant tone. "Perhaps
Mother was right," she said, her brows knitting
thoughtfully. "She always said little boys were more trouble
than they're worth. And I'm not sure she was
wrong. No," she finished, "I'm not sure she was
wrong at all."
"Well, I know how we can find out," Toby
Martin told Jeff. They were scuffing along the
beach, and Jeff had just finished repeating to Toby
what he'd already told his father and sister-that he
didn't believe his aunt's story about where Ruby
was. "Let's go see Emmaline.
She'll know where Ruby is."
Jeff squinted in the bright sunlight. "Who's
Emmaline?"
"Ruby's sister," Toby replied, his eyes
rolling as if he couldn't imagine anyone in
Devereaux not knowing Emmaline Carr's identity.
"She lives out past Wither's Pond. Come on."
They left the beach and made their way through the maze of
paths that led across the island, then came to the
causeway. Jeff paused for a moment, frowning
uncertainly. "Maybe I better tell my dad
where I'm going."
Toby looked at him scornfully. "You're not
going anywhere. Just into town. Who cares?"
Jeff considered it for a moment, then shrugged. They
wouldn't be gone very long anyway.
At the mainland end of the causeway Toby turned
left. They walked for a while along the main street
of Devereaux, then Toby turned right on Atlanta
Avenue and started inland. The village seemed
to peter out after only a couple of blocks, giving
way to an area of small farms, each of them no more
than a few acres surrounding a sagging farmhouse,
many of which looked abandoned. Finally Toby turned
off the road entirely, following a
footpath that led through a thicket of mossy pines, and
past a stagnant pond covered with a thick layer of
green slime. Jeff stared at it for a moment, but when
a large snake suddenly dropped out of a tree
to disappear below the water's surface, he ran
to catch up with Toby. Then, in a small clearing
carved out of the thicket, they came to a house.
Except as far as Jeff could see, it wasn't
really a house at all. It was no more than a
shack, really, built out of weathered boards, its
floor supported a few feet above the ground by a
crumbling foundation. It had a rusting tin roof, and there
were torn screens over the glassless windows. The
door stood open, but no light emerged from within.
Jeff stared at the sagging cabin in awe. "You mean
someone really lives here?" he asked.
Toby shrugged. "Lots of people live in places like
this." He took a step forward and shouted toward the
cabin, "Emmaline? You home?"
There was a long silence, and Jeff glanced nervously
around the little clearing. The image of the snake was still
vivid in his mind, and he could almost feel one of the
serpents slithering out of the trees, drawing closer
to him. "M-Maybe we better go back," he
whispered. "I don't like it here."
But Toby shook his head vehemently. "We came
to talk to Emmaline, and we're gonna talk
to her," he insisted, then his voice rose to a shout.
"Hey, Emmaline! Come on out!"
There was another silence, then Jeff heard the sound of
feet shuffling across the floor. A moment later a
gnarled old woman dressed in a thin cotton
dress that looked as if it might once have been
blue, but was now washed and bleached to a
grayish-white, appeared at the door. A tattered
apron was tied around her waist, and a bandana around her
hair. Her feet, bare of any socks or
stockings, were shoved into a pair of frayed mules.
Jeff couldn't tell exactly how old she might
be, but her face was deeply lined, and when she peered
out at him, her eyes narrowed to suspicious slits.
"Who's that?" she demanded, her voice rasping and
rattling in her throat. "Who's yellin' at me?"
Even Toby drew back, but then he tried to make
himself look braver than he felt. "It's me.
Toby Martin."
The old woman's lips tightened and she raised her
arm to shake a trembling finger at Toby. "Don't
you get in no
mischief out here," she warned. "I may be
old, but I ain't dead yet!" Then her eyes
shifted to Jeff. "Who be you? Don't believe I
recognize you."
"J-Jeff," Jeff stammered. "Jeff
Devereaux." Emmaline's brows rose slightly.
"Well, ain't that somethin'. A Devereaux comin'
all the way out here just to visit old Emmaline."
She fell silent for a moment, and when she spoke
again, her voice sounded almost angry. "What you be
wantin'?"
"W-We're looking for Ruby," Jeff
quavered, fighting his urge to turn around and run
away from the crumbling shanty and its strange
occupant.
"How come you lookin' here? She don't live here."
Jeff felt a lump rise in his throat. "Aunt
Marguerite said-he began, but the old woman cut
him off.
"Who cares what she says?" Emmaline demanded.
"She's just plain crazy, and that's the truth, no
matter what folks around here think!"
The two boys exchanged a nervous glance. "But she
says Ruby went to see her family," Jeff
finally managed to say.
Emmaline's black eyes glittered.
"Ruby ain't got no family "'cept me, and
she's not been here for months and months." She
raised her hand again and beckoned the two boys
forward. "You might as well come inside," she
muttered. "If you ain't come to throw rocks, least
I can do is give you some tea or somethin"."
"W-We better not," Toby breathed, the last of
his air of nonchalance disappearing as he glanced
nervously at the darkness within the little cabin.
"Scared?" Emmaline asked, her lips spreading
into a twisted grimace of a smile which exposed dark
gaps between the few teeth that still remained in her gums.
"n-No," Toby lied.
"Then come in," Emmaline demanded. "You want
to know all about Miss Marguerite Devereaux, you
got to come inside. I ain't standin' out here all
day."
She turned away and disappeared back into the shack,
leaving Toby and Jeff to stare uncertainly at each
other. "What should we do?" Jeff finally asked.
"Will she hurt us?"
"I-I don't know," Toby replied.
"Nobody hardly ever even talks to her
anymore." A look of sudden determination came
into his eyes. "If we run away now,
we'll never find out where Ruby went," he
decided. "Come on."
Almost against his will, Jeff let himself be led inside the
cabin. There was an old easy chair-its upholstery
torn and its stuffing bursting out-anda scarred wooden
table with three chairs. But the cabin appeared to have
been swept out that morning, and as Jeff gingerly
perched himself on one of the chairs at the table, he could
see a bed, neatly covered with a patchwork quilt, in
the other room. "All's I got is some tea,"
Emmaline muttered, putting a steaming cup in
front of Jeff and sitting down opposite him,
her eyes squinting as she examined him in the shadowy
light. "So you're Jeff," she said, easing herself
into the chair opposite the boy. "Well, I
guess Ruby wasn't too far wrong about you.
Bright as a new penny, is what she said, and that's
about what you look. 'Course, I don't rightly-"
"I thought you said you hadn't seen Ruby," Jeff
asked.
"Didn't say that. All's I said was she warn't
here. Ain't seen her for a couple of weeks now."
"Then where would she have gone?" Jeff piped.
Emmaline pursed her lips and her scowl deepened.
"Well, now, I don't rightly know.
Fact is, I ain't seen her at all for a
week."
Jeff turned to Toby, his eyes shining
triumphantly. "See? I told you Aunt
Marguerite was lying! I bet she
did
kill Ruby!" Then he clapped his hands over his
mouth and looked fearfully up at Emmaline. But
to his surprise, Emmaline didn't look
angry. Instead, she was nodding almost thoughtfully.
"I knew somethin" like this would happen," she said,
half to herself. "I told her and told her to watch out
for that sweet-actin' Miss Marguerite, but she
wouldn't listen. Said Miss Marguerite was all
better now and wouldn't hurt nobody!"
Jeff's eyes widened. "B-Better?" he
asked. "What was wrong with her?"
Emmaline's lips narrowed into a thin, hard line.
"Near's I can tell from what Ruby told me,
your auntie was crazy as a
bedbug, a long time ago. It was that accident that did
it. If it was an accident."
Now Toby, too, was listening in fascination to the old
woman. "You mean when she broke her hip?" he
asked.
"That warn't the half of it," Emmaline observed.
"Fact is, she was in a family way when she
fell down them stairs, and she lost the baby. And
that's what drove her crazy- t'warn't her hip
at all!"
"C-Crazy?" Jeff whispered, all of his own
suspicions about his aunt suddenly congealing into a
tight knot of fear. What if everything he'd said was
actually true?
"Don't suppose nobody told you that,"
Emmaline continued darkly. "Miss Helena sure
never told anyone, and neither did Ruby, "cept
for me. Said no one else would believe her, and I
'spect she was right, the way things was back then.
Anyway, Ruby told me a long time ago what
happened. They kept your auntie locked up out
there."
"Aunt Marguerite?" Jeff breathed.
"wh-Where?"
"Down in the cellar. Miss Helena wouldn't even
take her to the hospital after she fell down the
stairs. Told Ruby she'd let Miss
Marguerite die before she let anyone find out she was
pregnant. So they just put her to bed, but then she
lost the baby and just went crazy. That's when
they locked her up down in the basement. There's a
little tiny room down there- way at the back-that you
can't hardly see. And that's where they kept her till
she calmed down." Her voice took on a distant
tone then, and her eyes clouded as if she were looking
into the past. "Miss Marguerite was a little
spitfire before that," she said. "Never knew a girl
with so much spirit. Always in one kind of a scrape or
another. But then afterwards- " She fell silent, then
poured herself another cup of strong tea from the dented
pot at her elbow. "Well, after that she just turned
real sweet. Butter wouldn't melt in her mouth, and
everybody started thinkin' she was some kind of saint."
She shook her head, her eyes narrowing. "But not
me. I always told Ruby that people don't get over
somethin' like what happened to her-it just festers inside
"em, and finally they come apart. And you mark my
words," she finished, her eyes suddenly fixing on
Jeff. "Your auntie's
gonna come apart some day, and if somethin" happened
to Ruby, you can bet she done it."
Ten minutes later Jeff and Toby left
Emmaline's tiny shack in the woods and started
back toward the village. "Did you believe her?"
Jeff asked when they were well away from the
little clearing.
Toby shrugged. "I don't know. Lots of folks
think she's kind of nuts. She sure looks like she
is."
Jeff nodded, but his brows knit into a deep frown.
"I still gotta tell my dad," he said as they
came to the outskirts of Devereaux. "But I bet
he won't believe me. Will you come with me?"
Toby shook his head. "Not me," he said. "I'm
not ever goin' out there again."
Jeff gasped. "You think Emmaline's right,
don't you?" he demanded. Toby said nothing, scuffing
his feet unhappily in the dirt. "But what am I
going to do?" Jeff wailed. "If you won't even
come with me-" Abruptly he fell silent as he
saw his aunt's battered Chevrolet parked in
front of the general store. "I bet Dad's in
there," he yelled, breaking into a run. "Come on!
Let's find him."
But Kevin wasn't in the store. Instead they found out
he'd gone upstairs to Sam Waterman's office;
When they went up to the second floor, though, the
lawyer's secretary wouldn't let them into her
employer's office.
"Whatever you need to tell him can wait,"
she declared. "I'm sure it can't be a matter of
life and death, now can it?"
Jeff tried to tell her that that was exactly what it
was, but she only smiled tolerantly and pointed
to a chair.
"If you want to wait, you can sit there," she said,
turning back to her typewriter. "But I won't
tolerate any fidgeting, or any noise."
The two boys settled down to wait, and the minutes
dragged by, each of them longer than the one before.
Kerry Sanders pulled his car up in front of Sea
Oaks and stared nervously at the old mansion.
Maybe he should have
called before he came out, but he was almost sure that if
Marguerite Devereaux answered the phone, she
wouldn't let him talk to Julie at all. So
instead, he'd just gotten into his car and crossed the
causeway, deciding that even if Marguerite
wouldn't let him see Julie, at least he might
be able to find out how she was. To his surprise, it
was Julie herself who answered the door when he rang
the bell a few seconds later.
"Hi," she said, her eyes sparkling happily as
she recognized Kerry on the veranda.
"Hey, you okay?" Kerry asked, his
voice reflecting his concern.
Julie nodded, and held the door wide. "I'm
fine. Come on in." But as Kerry stepped into the
entry hall, he saw Marguerite at the foot of the
stairs, staring at him with cool disapproval.
"I-I thought maybe I could take you to the beach, or
something," Kerry stammered, his eyes flicking past
Julie toward her aunt.
"The beach ..." Julie echoed, her eyes clouding.
"Not the one out here," Kerry said hastily. "The one
on the channel. You've never been there, have you?
There's hardly any surf at all, and the beach is
kind of narrow, but-
"I'd like that," Julie said, her expression
clearing. "I'll go tell Aunt Marguerite-"
Just as she turned, Marguerite spoke, her voice
carrying clearly from the foot of the stairs. "If you
feel good enough to go to the beach, you should feel good enough
to practice your dancing," she said coolly.
"Surely you don't have time to waste with the likes of
him." Her lips tight, she nodded toward Kerry,
but pointedly avoided using his name. Kerry, his face
flushing, said nothing.
Julie's smile faded. "But it's too hot
to dance," she argued. "And didn't Dr.
Adams say I should take it easy? I'm just going
to lie on the beach for a while. I won't even go in
swimming."
"I just don't think you ought to," Marguerite
insisted. "After what happened day before yesterday-"
"But that's over," Julie replied. "And I
didn't go anywhere yesterday, except to the movie with
Daddy. Please? Just for a little while?"
Marguerite looked as though she were about to forbid her
to go at all, but then seemed to think better of it.
"Well, I don't suppose I can stop you," she
sighed. "But promise me you won't go into the water.
If anything were to happen to you, I don't know what
I'd do." Her voice cracked. "I know it sounds
silly, but just promise me. Please? I-I think
of you just as if you were my own daughter, and I worry
about you-"
"I promise," Julie said, snatching at the
opportunity before her aunt had a chance to change her
mind.
Kerry waited in his car while Julie ran
upstairs to find a towel, but as he sat beneath the
blazing sun, he could sense Marguerite's eyes still
on him, almost feel the hostile vibrations emanating
from her. At last Julie emerged from the
house and jumped into the seat beside him. Kerry started the
engine and drove quickly down the driveway to the
road. When he spoke, his eyes stayed on the
road, avoiding Julie. "Can I ask you something
without you getting mad at me?"
Julie glanced over at hm/her eyes puzzled.
"Sure," she said. "Why should I get mad at
you?"
"I don't know," Kerry admitted. "It's . .
. well, it's about your aunt."
"Aunt Marguerite? What about her?"
"It's the way she's acting, I guess," Kerry
said, his face reddening slightly. "I mean-well,
she always used to like me, but ever since I've been
hanging around with you, it seems like she hates me. But
I haven't done anything." Finally he looked over
at her. "It just seems like she's acting kind of
weird, that's all."
Julie suddenly remembered the incident yesterday
on the third floor-the one that at first she'd thought was
a dream. "I-I don't know," she finally
admitted. "Sometimes she seems kind of strange
to me, too, but then she seems to be just like anyone
else." Haltingly, she tried to tell Kerry what
had happened the day before. "It was really
weird," she finished. "But I was so fogged out from the
pills, I'm not even sure what really happened."
"So what are you going to do?" Kerry asked, slowing the
car as they approached the causeway. "Did you
talk to your dad about it?"
"It didn't seem like any big deal," Julie
replied, shrugging. "But I keep thinking about it, and
I keep thinking about the way Aunt Marguerite
acts when I'm dancing. She seems to think I should
be a big star or something, and I don't even want
to be."
They saw a figure waving at them, and as Kerry
brought the car to a halt, Jenny Mayhew ran up,
panting. "I was just going out to your place," she said,
grinning at Julie. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," Julie assured her. "But how come
you didn't stop in to see me after class yesterday?"
Jenny's grin faded and she suddenly looked
uncomfortable. "Didn't Marguerite tell you?"
she asked.
"Tell me what?"
Jenny's eyes dropped. "We didn't stay for the
whole class," she said. "It was real hot, and
Miss Marguerite was making us work real hard,
and-well, Tammy-Jo got kind of mad,
and we all went home early." Her eyes met
Julie's once more. "That's really why I was going
out to your place," she added. "To apologize
to Marguerite."
"Apologize to her?" Kerry asked. "Why? If
it was too hot up there, she should have sent you all
home anyway."
Jenny shook her head. "Maybe she should. But she
said we shouldn't worry about the heat, and I guess
she was right. If you want to dance, you can't say you're
not going to do it just because it's too hot!"
Julie giggled. "But that's what I just did," she
said. "She wanted me to practice my dancing, but
I told her it was too hot and that I was supposed
to take it easy." She glanced at Kerry, then
giggled again. "No wonder she was mad at you.
Everybody left yesterday, then today you came and
took me away from her too."
"I didn't take you away from her," Kerry
protested. "For Christ's sake, just because she's your
aunt doesn't mean she owns you."
"Well, sometimes she acts like she owns me,"
Julie replied. "She acts like she has my
whole life planned out for me-
"Julie!" Jenny exclaimed. "That's not
true. She's just proud of you "cause you dance
better than any of the rest of
us."
"But I don't care," Julie said, her voice
taking on a note of exasperation. "Dancing's
fun, but it's not my whole life. Sometimes Aunt
Marguerite acts like it should be. In fact, that's
what Kerry and I were talking about just now."
Jenny frowned. "What are you talking about? You mean
you're going to quit too?"
Julie realized she hadn't really been thinking about
that at all, but now she shrugged nonchalantly. "I
might," she said. "But so what if I do?"
"But she counts on you," Jenny told her. "She
counts on all of us. I don't really care about
dancing either, but I love Miss Marguerite, and just
having all of us around makes her so happy."
"Except for yesterday," Julie reminded
Jennifer. "It doesn't sound like anyone was having
a very good time."
Jenny's eyes rolled scornfully. "Well, that
was Tammy-Jo's fault, not Miss
Marguerite's. For Heaven's sake, they'd just found
Mary-Beth the day before. Nobody was feeling very good.
Maybe we shouldn't have been having a
lesson at all." She stepped back from the car, but
her eyes remained fixed on Julie. "And if you
decide to quit going to her classes, I think
you're mean."
"I didn't say I'd decided," Julie
protested. "I just said I was thinking about it, that's
all."
"Well, let me know when you make up your mind,"
Jenny said, her eyes flashing angrily. "It's
starting to look like I'm going to be the only one
left, isn't it?"
Before Julie could say anything else, her friend was
gone, walking quickly up the road toward Sea
Oaks.
"Maybe we should go back," Julie fretted as
Kerry put the car back in gear. "I don't
want Jenny mad at me."
But Kerry shook his head. "She'll be all right.
Marguerite's always been crazy about her." He
let the clutch out and started across the causeway. A
few minutes later they were lying side by side on the
beach bordering the channel. "Now,
isn't this better than spending the afternoon up in the
ballroom?" Kerry asked.
"Mmm-hmm," Julie sighed. Then she
sat up and stared out at the sea, a shiver running through
her as she remembered what had happened two days
ago. "But I'm still not going in the water. I don't
know if I'll ever want to again."
Marguerite was sitting on the veranda in front of
Sea Oaks, staring unseeingly out over the island.
She shouldn't have let Julie go off with Kerry
Sanders like that, she thought. She should have kept her
home, the way her own mother had tried to keep her
home when she was Julie's age. But she'd been like
Julie, headstrong and willful, and look how she'd
ended up. Her mother had tried to stop her, tried
to save her, but she hadn't listened-
A figure was coming along the road from the causeway,
and Marguerite stood up, taking a step forward.
Pain shot out from her hip-the pain that had been throbbing
for more than an hour now, ever since Julie had
left. But now Julie was coming back.
And she was alone!
She moved across the veranda and down the steps to the lawn
as the figure drew nearer.
But it wasn't Julie. It was Jennifer
Mayhew.
Marguerite's hip sent a sharp, jabbing needle
shooting down her right leg, and as she
remembered what had happened in the ballroom
yesterday, remembered the girls-
her
girls-running away from her, the fingers of her right hand
began massaging her aching muscles.
She turned away, starting back up the steps to the
veranda.
"Miss Marguerite?" Jenny called. "Miss
Marguerite, wait!"
Marguerite stopped, but stood where she was, her
back still toward Jenny.
"I-I came to apologize," Jenny said, and the
unhappiness in her voice made Marguerite turn
around to look at her. Her eyes were glistening with
tears. "I-well, I wanted to tell
you I'm sorry I left with Tammy-Jo and
Allison yesterday, and that even if Julie
decides to quit, I won't."
She ran forward and flung her arms around
Marguerite. But Marguerite still didn't move.
"Julie?" she breathed. "What are you talking
about?"
Jenny tipped her face up. "I was just talking
to her," she said. "She was on her way to the beach with
Kerry Sanders, and she said she was thinking about
quitting dancing."
Marguerite's eyes glazed over, but when she
spoke, her voice was calm. "I'm sure you must
be mistaken," she said. "Julie won't give up
the dance. It means everything to her-everything."
"But she said-"
Marguerite placed a gentle hand over Jenny's
mouth, cutting off her words. "I'll talk to her,"
she said. "When she comes home, I'll talk to her,
and I'm sure we can straighten out whatever's
wrong." Then she smiled at Jenny. "But since
you're here, why don't we go up to the ballroom.
I can give you a lesson, just the two of us, to make
up for yesterday."
Jenny blinked in surprise. A lesson now? But
she didn't have her leotard, or her shoes, or
anything else she needed. "I-I don't know," she
said. "I told Mom I'd be home-"
"But you must," Marguerite insisted. "You've come
all this way, and-Km all alone. You mustn't go right
now." Her voice took on a pleading note. "You
mustn't."
Jenny hesitated, and for the first time noticed something
odd in Marguerite's eyes. Though Marguerite was
looking at her, Jenny had the strangest
feeling that she wasn't really seeing her.
"Please," Marguerite said. "Just for a little while."
There was a tone of pathos in Marguerite's voice
that twisted Jenny's heart, and she mutely nodded.
"Let me have your arm," Marguerite said as she led
Jenny into the cavernous stillness of the great house.
"I'm afraid my hip's a bit bad this morning.
..."
Her voice trailed off, and her right hand clutched
at Jenny's left arm, her fingers squeezing so
hard Jenny winced in pain. They started up the
stairs, moving slowly. At the second-floor
landing Marguerite stopped to catch her breath.
"M-Maybe you should have used the chair lift,"
Jenny suggested, but Marguerite shook her head.
"I'm not dead yet," she said, her eyes taking on
a look of almost grim determination. "And if I
can't walk, then I can't even hope to dance, can
I?" Renewing her grasp on Jenny Mayhew's
arm, she mounted the stairs toward the third floor.
Ten minutes later Jenny knew she'd made a
mistake. Ever since they'd come into the ballroom and
Marguerite had put a scratchy record on the
old phonograph, a growing sense of worry had
begun to creep up on her.
Marguerite's eyes looked even stranger now, and
instead of watching Jenny dance and gently correcting
her when she made a mistake, Marguerite herself was
dancing, moving stiffly around the room in a limping
parody of a waltz, her arms held high, her head
tipped back with her eyes closed, as if she were being
held in the arms of an unseen partner.
Finally, her unease growing into the beginnings of fear,
she edged toward the door. Instantly Marguerite
stopped dancing, and her eyes, glowing with a strange
light, fixed on Jenny. "Don't go," she said.
"You can't go now."
Jenny's heart began to race and she felt dizzy.
"I-I have to," she whispered. "I didn't really
come for a lesson today. I don't have my shoes, or
my leotard, or-"
"But it doesn't matter," Marguerite said.
"All that matters is that you dance." She crossed the
room, her right leg moving stiffly, her body
twisting oddly with each step. "Dance with me," she
commanded, her hand grasping Jenny's and pulling her out
onto the floor. "Listen to the music, and dance.
..."
Clutching Jenny's hand in her own, Marguerite
forced herself into the first position of ballet,
her unseen partner of a moment ago apparently
forgotten now. "Position one!" she commanded, twisting
her lame leg outward, the veins of her forehead standing
out as she fought against the pain the movement caused in her
malformed hip. "Turn your feet out, Marguerite!
Out!"
Jenny stared at Marguerite, stunned. What was
happening? Didn't Marguerite even know who she
was?
"Position two!" Marguerite demanded. Her arms
came up, but her right leg, throbbing with pain now,
refused to move. Jenny watched in horror as
Marguerite battled against her own disfigured body.
"Stop it," she cried, her voice breaking as a
sob rose up in her throat. "Please stop it,
Miss Marguerite. What are you trying to do?"
Marguerite's hand snaked up, slashing across
Jenny's face. "Do not speak," she hissed.
"When I am teaching you, you will not speak!"
Her voice had taken on a strangely familiar
tone, but for a moment Jenny couldn't place it. And
then she remembered.
How many times had she heard that voice echoing through this
house, calling out, demanding, commanding? But it wasn't
Marguerite's voice at all.
It was her mother's voice-Miss Helena's
voice-calling out to Marguerite, demanding her
presence, commanding her every action. But now Miss
Helena's voice was coming out of Marguerite's own
throat.
"No," Jenny whimpered. "Oh, no . . ." She
started toward the door. "I-I have to go," she
whispered. "I'm sorry ..." "No!"
Marguerite screamed. "You can't go. Not now! You
can't leave me! I forbid it!"
Her tears flowing now, Jenny fled from the
ballroom, lurching toward the head of the stairs. And
then, just as she got there, she heard Helena
Devereaux's voice once more, crackling out of
Marguerite's throat. "You won't leave! I will
not permit it!"
At the same instant that the words slashed at her
ears, she felt two hands against her back and a great
weight, pushing her forward.
She teetered for a moment, tried to grab for the
banister, but missed.
Then she was tumbling, plunging head first down the
steep staircase.
She hit the bottom, but the sound she heard-the last
sound she would ever hear-" not that of her head
striking the wooden floor of the landing. Instead, it was the
sharp crack of her own neck breaking.
"But I'm tellin" you, Dad, that's what she said.
Isn't it, Toby?" Jeff looked
expectantly at his friend, as if Toby's
corroboration would convince his father. The three of them were
sitting in the back booth at the drugstore. An
uneaten hamburger sat limply in front of
Jeff. "How come you won't believe me?"
Kevin shook his head tiredly. He'd already
explained to Jeff three times that Emmaline
Carr's story was just too strange to be believed.
Marguerite locked up in a hidden room in the
basement? It was ludicrous! But what wasn't
ludicrous was the fear in Jeff's eyes.
"Look," he said at last. "How's this? We'll
all go out to the house, and I'll ask your aunt about
it."
Jeff's jaw set stubbornly. "Toby won't go
out to our house anymore," he announced. "He's
too scared of Aunt Marguerite. And I'm scared
of her too."
"But that doesn't make any sense," Kevin
insisted. "Your aunt loves you. She wouldn't hurt
you for anything in the world."
"Yes, she would," Jeff argued, his eyes stormy.
"She's only nice to me when you're around. If
I'm all by myself with her, she acts like she hates
me."
Kevin took a deep breath, knowing that once Jeff
had made up his mind, he wasn't about to change it.
"Okay," he sighed. "I'll tell you what-you go
home with Toby for a while, and I'll go out to the
island by myself. I'll have a talk with your aunt and
see if I can find out where Ruby really is."
"Will you come and get me later on?" Jeff asked
uncertainly.
Kevin shook his head. "You managed to walk all the
way out to Emmaline's house. You can manage
to walk back home." He slid out of the booth and
dropped twenty dollars on the table. "You guys can
pay the bill out of that, and there's enough left over for a
movie. Okay?" The two boys, their eyes
fastened on the ten dollar bill, bobbed their heads
mutely. "And be home by supper time," Kevin
admonished his son. "By then I'll have this all
straightened out."
He strode out of the drugstore into the dusty heat of the
afternoon. The clouds from the southeast were drifting over the
village now, and the temperature seemed
to have dropped a degree or two, but Kevin's
shirt still clung damply to his body as he
climbed into his sister's Chevy and started the engine.
It's the heat, he decided as he crossed the
causeway toward the island. The heat gets to people after
a while, and they start imagining things. But a story
about Marguerite being locked up down in the basement
of Sea Oaks? Alone in the car, he shook his
head.
He found Marguerite sitting on the veranda, sipping
a glass of lemonade. She smiled as he came
up the steps, and when she rose to her feet, her
limp was almost imperceptible.
"Still getting better?" Kevin asked, and
Marguerite nodded, her smile broadening.
"I don't know what it is." She glanced up at
the sky, then shrugged. "Usually it gets so much
worse when a storm's coming. But today it seems just
fine. I suppose I should count my blessings,
shouldn't I?"
Kevin's brows arched. "I wish more people in this town would
do that," he observed. "Instead of making up stories
about other people."
Marguerite's smile faltered. "Making up
stories? What sort of stories?"
Kevin hesitated, wondering how to begin. "Well,
Emmaline Carr, for one. It seems Jeff and
Toby went out to see her today."
"E-Emmaline?" Marguerite said, with the trace
of a stammer. "Why would they want to go out and see
Emmaline? Everyone knows she's strange in the
head. Living in that
shack, with no water or electricity ..." Her
voice trailed off and her head bobbed
sympathetically. "Sometimes I feel so sorry for
her," she went on. "Except for Ruby, she
doesn't have anyone else in the world."
Kevin frowned. "But then Ruby doesn't have
anyone but Emmaline, does she?" he asked.
Marguerite blinked. "I-why, I don't know.
..." Then her voice took on a note of
impatience. "Kevin, what are you trying to get at?
Did Emmaline say something to Jeff?"
"I'm afraid she did," Kevin replied.
Slowly he repeated the story Jeff had told him
a few minutes ago. As he spoke, the last
traces of Marguerite's smile disappeared and her
eyes began to blaze with indignation.
"But that's terrible," she said when Kevin was finished.
"How could Emmaline say such things about
me? I've never done anything to hurt her-nothing at
all. Why, she must have scared poor Jeff half
to death."
"But where is Ruby?" Kevin finally asked. "If
she didn't go to Emmaline's, where
did
she go?"
Marguerite's right hand fluttered at her bosom.
"Well, I'm sure I don't know," she
replied. "Perhaps she was lying to me. She's like that, you
know. Mother always said you couldn't trust a word Ruby
said. Not a word- " Abruptly she fell silent.
As Kevin turned toward the front door, she
asked, "Where are you going?"
Kevin turned to look at his sister, his eyes
troubled. "Nowhere," he said. "I'm just going to have a
look around the house, that's all."
He stepped into the gloom of the house, closing the
door behind him. He paused for a moment, feeling the
atmosphere. For a moment he noticed nothing
different: the house seemed as it always had. But then,
as he started through the living room toward the dining room
and the kitchen beyond, he began to feel a strange sense
of something being amiss.
Somehow, though he knew he was alone in the
house, it did not feel empty. There was a sort of
presence in the house, and as he crossed to the dining
room, his neck began to tingle. He stopped
walking, spinning around as if expecting to catch someone
staring at him.
But the room was empty.
And then he knew what it was. The portrait of his
mother still hung above the fireplace, and it was his mother's
eyes he'd felt watching him, as if she were still
alive and in the room. He paused for a moment, staring
at the portrait.
It looked so much like Marguerite that a chill passed
through him. His mother and his sister, he realized, could almost
have been the same woman, they were so much alike.
Except that they weren't. His mother had been hard,
cruel, and unloving. Even now he could remember the
dream he'd had-the dream of being locked away in a
tiny room, with his mother coming to kill him.
A tiny room.
That's what Jeff had said was in the basement-a tiny
room, where Marguerite had been locked up.
He shook his head. It was crazy-it made no
sense. He chuckled out loud, deciding the heat was
now getting to him, too, but his small laugh echoed
hollowly in the expanse of the room,
mocking him.
Turning away from the portrait of his mother, he
hurried on to the the kitchen.
Dirty dishes were piled in the sink, and the remains of
Marguerite's solitary lunch still sat on the
kitchen table, as if his sister expected Ruby
to reappear at any moment to clean up the mess.
Then Kevin's eyes fell on the door to Ruby's
room.
Uncertain what to expect, he strode to it and opened
the door.
It was exactly as it looked last night-the bed still
neatly made up, Ruby's nightgown still hanging from
a hook on the open closet door.
But then Kevin noticed some other things-things he
hadn't noticed last night.
On the table in the corner behind the door, he saw a
tray.
On the tray a supper was laid out-a plate of
gumbo, cold and congealed, and a small salad, its
lettuce limp and already beginning to shrivel.
A supper, as if Ruby had been about to eat alone
in her room when-
When what?
Kevin rejected the thought flitting around the
edges of his mind, and continued his inspection.
On the shelf high up in the closet, he found a
suitcase, its top still thickly coated with dust.
No empty hangers hung on the clothes bar, nor
did anything seem to be missing when Kevin
inspected Ruby's drawers.
Suddenly the nightgown hanging from its hook stood out
from the scene.
If Ruby had gone somewhere, wouldn't she have taken
her nightgown with her? Wouldn't she have taken
something
with her?
And she certainly wouldn't have left a full meal,
uneaten, sitting on a table in her room.
A knot of fear congealing in his belly, Kevin
left her room and retraced his steps back through the
dining room and living room.
His mother's eyes seemed to bore into him as he passed
the portrait, and he quickened his step until he
came into the entry hall. Marguerite was standing just
inside the front door, and as Kevin started toward
the door below the main stairs-the door that led to the
basement-she spoke, her voice quavering.
"wh-Where are you going?"
Kevin turned to face her, his eyes
meeting hers. "Downstairs," he said.
"B-But you mustn't," Marguerite whispered.
Once more her hand was fluttering at her bosom, but
suddenly it dropped to her hip, and when she took a
step forward, her limp was suddenly more pronounced.
"Please, Kevin-don't go down there."
The knot of fear tightened its grip on Kevin, but
he shook his head. "I have to," he said. Then he
pulled the door open, tugged the string overhead, and
started down to the cellar, the white light of the naked
bulb overhead glaring coldly. He was already at the
bottom of the stairs when he heard Marguerite's
uneven footsteps as she slowly followed him.
He stared at the door numbly for a moment. It was still
half hidden, almost lost in the shadows behind the
furnace, and he understood now why he hadn't seen
it before. Until a couple of days ago it must have
been completely lost behind the mass of cardboard
boxes that had been stacked there. He must have
uncovered it himself just yesterday.
Indeed, if he hadn't let himself become so angry
with Jeff, he surely would have seen it.
He could feel Marguerite now, just a few steps
behind him, and hear her breathing coming in strange,
half-strangled gasps. He turned
to her, but her face was lost in shadow, the naked bulb
above the stairs forming a brilliant halo behind her
head.
"What's in there, Marguerite?" he asked,
deliberately keeping his voice low. But still his words
seemed to echo ominously, hanging heavily in the
air.
"n-Nothing," Marguerite stammered. "There's
nothing in there, Kevin. Really-
"Then open it," Kevin said. "If there's nothing in
there, then there's nothing to hide, is there?"
Marguerite seemed to shrink back. "No," she
whispered, her voice taking on a childish whine.
"I can't go in there. Please don't make me.
Please?"
Kevin's heart began to race, and the cold knot of
fear in his belly turned to ice. "Why?" he
asked. "Marguerite, why can't you go in there?"
"I can't," Marguerite pleaded. "It's where
Mama kept me. It's where she kept me during the
bad times, when I was sick. Don't make me go
in there, Kevin. Don't make me."
Taking a deep breath, Kevin stepped to the door and
tried the lock. It held firm, hanging from its
hasp and glittering dully in the light from the
bare bulb.
"I need the key, Marguerite."
Marguerite bit her lip, and took an unsteady
step backward, her hands clasped behind her back.
"I-I don't have it," she whispered. "Ruby has
all the keys. I wasn't ever allowed to have them.
..."
Dear God, Kevin thought. What did Mother do
to her? But he said nothing. Instead he stepped around
Marguerite and hurried up the stairs.
In the kitchen he began rummaging through the drawers,
searching for the ring of keys that Ruby always kept
close at hand. And then he heard the door swing
open and turned to see Marguerite, her eyes
glistening strangely. Next to her, on a hook just
behind the door, hung the ring of keys. He stepped
forward and took it in his hand.
"No," Marguerite begged, the word strangling in her
throat. "Don't go back down there, Kevin.
Please don't."
Part of Kevin wanted to give in to his sister,
to put the keys back on the hook and never go into the
basement again. But he couldn't do that. Whatever was down
there, he had to see it. He shook his head and stepped
around Marguerite, starting back toward the
stairs.
His back was already to her when she took the butcher
knife out of one of the open drawers, concealing it in the
folds of her skirt.
As she started once more after Kevin, the burning pain
from her hip washed over her in throbbing waves, each
one worse than the last. Descending the stairs, she
had to clutch tightly to the railing, for her right leg,
totally numbed by the pain now, was almost useless.
Kevin fumbled with the keys, trying one and then another.
Most of them wouldn't go into the lock at all, and the
ones that would, refused to twist as his fingers worked at
them.
He was only vaguely aware of Marguerite now,
only half sensing her presence as she stood behind
him, her eyes, smoldering darkly, fastened on his
fingers as he worked.
He tried the next to the last key, and suddenly the
lock fell open in his hands.
He stared at it vacantly, a fragment of his mind
wishing that none of the keys had fit.
Then, his hand trembling, he lifted the lock from its
hasp and pushed the door open.
It swung slowly, creaking on its hinges, and from
over his shoulder a shaft of light from the bare
bulb above the stairs illuminated the tiny cell.
The first thing he saw was Ruby.
Propped up on the wooden cot, her eyes wide
open and staring blankly at him, she still had the belt
of Marguerite's robe knotted around her neck.
One arm was outstretched, and her fingers seemed to be
reaching out to him, pleading with him for help.
On the floor, her body twisted, lay Jennifer
Mayhew. Her eyes, too, were open, staring
sightlessly upward. Her head was wrenched back against
one of her shoulders, and her arms sprawled
lifelessly outward, the fingers of her left hand
barely brushing against one of Ruby's legs.
"My God," Kevin groaned, involuntarily
stepping back, then turning to face Marguerite.
"What have you done?"
Marguerite stared at Kevin, her eyes wild.
"Ruby was going to tell," she murmured. "She was
going to tell on me, and make you go away. And
Jenny was going to leave me. You understand, don't you,
Kevin? I would have been all alone. ..."
Kevin stared at her, shock numbing him. Then he
stepped toward her.
"You're going to tell too," Marguerite suddenly
cried. "You're going to tell, and take
Julie away from me!" She raised her right arm,
and the blade of the knife glittered evilly in the
glare from the light. "I won't let you!" she
screamed. "I won't let you take Julie. I
won't!"
She hurtled herself forward, and Kevin, his body
refusing to obey his mind, stared at her mutely,
watched helplessly as the knife arced through the air.
The blade slashed into his chest, but for a moment he
felt nothing at all. And then, as hot blood
began gushing out of the wound, a strange heat seemed
to emanate from the hardness of the blade in his body. His
eyes widened and he began to sink to his knees, then
felt himself twist around as Marguerite jerked the
knife free.
Then he felt it again, a searing pain this time as the
knife stabbed into his back. He tried to roll
away, tried to call out his sister's name, but it did
no good. And then, as the knife slashed into him once
again, he
remembered the dream-the dream he'd had when he was a
boy, and then again only a few weeks ago.
The dream, in which his mother was going to kill him, and he'd
tried to call out to his sister.
He looked up now, and saw his mother's
face looming above him.
Except it wasn't his mother at all. It was
Marguerite.
And he was calling her name, but no sound came out.
Only a hot, salty stream of blood boiled from
his lips.
His lungs were filling with blood now, drowning him.
He was dying, and there was nothing he could do to save
himself.
As his life ebbed away, he thought about the dream
once more, the dream he had been certain held some
deep meaning.
But the meaning hadn't been deep at all, for the dream
had not even been a dream.
Instead, it had been a premonition, and now he was
living it out.
It had been a premonition of his own death, down here
in this dark and hidden room, and now it seemed as if
he'd been waiting all his life for this moment when his
mother would come to kill him.
Except it wasn't his mother at all.
It was his sister, who had somehow in her own madness
become his mother.
Become his mother, and now become his children's mother too.
And as he died, he knew that she would kill
them, just as she had killed him.
For him, the nightmare was over.
For his children, it had just begun.
Alicia Mayhew glanced at the clock on the
dashboard of her car, then up at the lowering sky. It
was nearly three o'clock, and she'd distinctly told
Jenny to be home no later than two. They were
due at Alicia's brother's home in Charleston
in thirty minutes, and even if she found Jenny within
the next couple of minutes, they would still be late.
And the storm wouldn't help, either. If Jenny got
caught out in the rain-
She braked the car to a stop, for across the street
Kerry Sanders and Julie Devereaux had gotten out
of Kerry's worn convertible and were struggling to put the
top up. "Julie?" Alicia called.
"Julie!"
Julie looked up, then smiled and waved to Mrs.
Mayhew. "Hi!" she called back.
"Have you seen Jenny?"
Julie shook her head. "Not since this morning.
She was going out to see Aunt Marguerite."
Alicia frowned uncertainly. "But she said she was
going out to see you-
"We saw her on the road, right at the end
of the causeway," Julie explained. "But it was
mostly Aunt Marguerite she wanted to see.
Isn't she home yet?"
Alicia's lips tightened and she shook her head
impatiently. "I guess I'd better run out
there," she sighed. She shifted into Drive, pressed
the accelerator, and the car moved forward just as the first
drops of rain began to fall. She waved to Julie
and Kerry, but neither of them saw her as they struggled
to get the torn top to Kerry's car up before the rain
began in earnest.
Why, she wondered as she started out onto the
causeway, couldn't kids ever learn to keep track
of time?
It was going to be all right now, Marguerite
Devereaux told herself as she gazed into the mirror of
her mother's vanity. Everything was going to be fine.
Kevin wasn't going to leave-not ever again-and she was
safe. Sea Oaks was hers now. Sea Oaks, and
Julie, and . . .
She paused.
And Jeff, she finished.
She mustn't forget Jeff. But he wasn't part of
it-he didn't belong here, any more than Kevin had
belonged here. It should be just her and Julie.
Herself and Julie, just as it had been her mother and herself
for so many years.
She would have to decide what to do about Jeff. Perhaps
she should ask her mother.
She gazed into the mirror once more, examining her
carefully applied makeup. It had taken her
nearly an hour to get it exactly right, but her
brows were finally tweezed to a thin line and darkened
nearly black with one of her mother's eyebrow
pencils. Her cheeks, heavily rouged, seemed
to glow beneath a thick layer of almost white powder, and
her lips were covered with a smear of bright red.
Carefully she wrapped one of her mother's old rats
into her hair so that it formed a thick roll over her
forehead. The rest of her hair, cascading in soft
waves down to her shoulders, softened her face,
framing it so that the rouge-enhanced planes of her
cheekbones stood out dramatically. At last
satisfied, she went to the closet and selected one
of her mother's favorite dresses. Bright red, it
had wide shoulder pads and a tapering bodice held
snug by a wide, black patent-leather belt. As
she slipped the dress carefully over her head, she
remembered the last time her mother had worn it, more than
forty years ago.
It had been a day much like today. A storm had been
threatening, and her mother had been expecting guests for
tea. Marguerite had hovered in a corner of the
room, watching her mother dress, until Helena had
finally noticed her and sent her upstairs
to practice her dancing. "We have a recital tomorrow,
and you want to be perfect, don't you?"
Just as Julie should have been practicing her dancing
today, she reflected as she inspected herself in the
full-length mirror on the closet door, instead
of running off with that boy. She would have to do something about
that-
The sound of the front door bell drifting up the
stairs interrupted her reverie. Marguerite waited
for a moment, certain that Ruby would answer it. But
then, shaking her head slightly as she remembered that
for now, at least, she would have to take care of such things
herself, she checked her reflection in the mirror
once more and hurried toward the top of the stairs. The
pain in her hip had eased once again, diminishing
to an annoying ache, and as she started down the stairs,
her right hand rested only lightly on the banister.
As the bell sounded for the second time, she drew the
door open and gazed out at her unexpected
visitor. "Alicia," she said, her
lips widening into a smile of welcome. "Why,
what a surprise. Won't you come in?"
Alicia Mayhew stared at Marguerite. What
on earth had she done to herself? Her face was covered
with a harsh mask of makeup, and that dress . . .
Alicia hadn't seen a dress like that since she was
a little girl, when her mother and all her mother's friends had
worn the same kind of clothes that Joan Crawford
had worn in the movies. "I-I just came out to see
if Jennifer was still here," Alicia stammered. Then,
realizing she was staring at Marguerite, she
self-consciously forced her eyes away, looking
into the depths of the house. But Marguerite didn't
seem to notice that she had been staring.
"Jennifer?" she asked, her voice taking on a
note of concern. "Here?"
Alicia nodded. "I just saw Julie and Kerry,
and they said Jenny was coming out to see you. She was
supposed to be home an hour ago."
"Well, I don't know what to say," Marguerite
replied, holding the door wider. "I've been here
by myself all day, ever since Julie left." She
smiled, the understanding expression of one worried mother
to another. "I don't know what to do with her sometimes.
There's so much she needs to do, but she just
seems to want to run off with Kerry all the time."
Alicia shook her head distractedly, only half
hearing what Marguerite was saying. "But Julie was
so certain she was coming out here ..."
"Well, I'm afraid she must have changed her
mind," Marguerite said. "But I'm certain she'll
be here tomorrow."
"T-Tomorrow?" Alicia echoed. "I-I'm afraid
I don't understand."
"For the recital," Marguerite told her. "You
mean Jennifer didn't tell you about it? But I've
been planning it for weeks and weeks ..."
Alicia cocked her head slightly. "I-I'm
afraid Jennifer didn't say a word about it," she
said. "And I don't see how she can be here, since
we're supposed to be in Charleston tonight and tomorrow."
Marguerite's face crumpled in disappointment for a
moment, but then her smile came back. "But I'm
certain she'll be here," she said. "I know she was
counting on seeing my little girl dance, and I can't
imagine she'll miss it." She reached out and
squeezed Alicia's hand reassuringly. "You come
back tomorrow, and see if I'm not right."
"But I need to find her today-" Alicia began, but
Marguerite shrugged helplessly.
"Perhaps she went to visit Allison or
Tammy-Jo," she suggested. "You know how
teenagers are-you never quite know what kind of trouble
they're going to get into."
Alicia hesitated, and a small sigh escaped her
lips. "I suppose you're right," she agreed.
"Well, I'm sorry to have broken in on you like this-"
"But it's all right," Marguerite assured her.
"You know I always love to have company." She held the
door a little wider and glanced anxiously up at the
sky and the slanting rain. "You're sure you won't
come in? It looks like it's going to be pouring in a
few more minutes."
Alicia shook her head. "I'd really better not.
I've got to find Jenny and get down
to Charleston." She hurried down the steps and across
the driveway to her car, shielding herself from the rain as
best she could. Slamming the door, she started the
engine, turned on the wipers, and put the car in
gear. But before she pulled away from Sea Oaks,
she glanced
up once more at Marguerite still standing at the door.
What on earth had gotten into her, dressing herself that
way? She looked so strange. . . .
But she didn't have time to worry about
Marguerite Devereaux right now. Not until she found
Jenny, anyway. And when she did find Jenny-
She glanced at her watch once more. It was nearly
four now, and the storm seemed to be getting worse.
If she didn't find Jenny soon, there would be no
point in starting for Charleston at all. The storm
would put an end to that. She pressed the accelerator
hard, and the wheels of her car spun free on the
slickness of the road, already turning to mud.
Marguerite watched Alicia go, then started back
into the house. Suddenly she stopped, her eyes
fastening on her car, which was standing next to the house, its
windows wide open. Rain was beginning to blow into it, and
soon it would be soaking wet. She hurried inside
and reached for her keys, which should have been on the hook just
inside the coat-closet door.
But they weren't there.
And then she remembered. She'd given them to Kevin
that morning. But where was Kevin?
The basement. That's where he was, down in the
basement with Ruby and Jennifer. . . .
She hurried downstairs and was back a few
minutes later, the car keys clutched in her hand.
Taking an umbrella against the rain, she hurried
outside and backed the car into the garage, then
swung the heavy wooden door shut. Just as she got
back to the house, the first bolt of lightning flashed in
the sky to the southeast, followed a few moments later
by a low roll of thunder.
The wind began to pick up, and as Marguerite
closed the front door, the moss-hung pines around
the old house began to moan softly to each other.
Jeff pounded up the road from the causeway, his
shirt pulled up over his head to protect him from the
rain. It was
coming down hard now, and the wind was starting to whip the wet
cloth into his eyes, nearly blinding him. But he was
almost home, and he could see the lights already on in the
big house at the top of the rise. He ran even
faster, then slipped as he turned the corner into the
driveway, sprawling out into the sticky mud.
Picking himself up, he tried to scrape the mud off
his pants, then gave it up and started running again.
A minute later he burst into the house, slamming the
front door behind him.
"Dad?" he yelled. "Dad, I'm home!" He
leaned against the wall, panting, then began pulling off
his muddy shoes. But as he set them down next to the
front door, he suddenly became aware of the
silence in the house. He listened
carefully, then again called out for his father.
There was no answer.
"Dad?" he said once more, his voice dropping as
he felt the first stirrings of fear deep inside him.
"wh-Where are you?"
There was still no answer, and the silence in the house began
to close in on him. He took a step toward the
staircase, then froze as there was a sudden clanking
sound, followed by the scrape of gears meshing. As he
watched, the chair lift from the second floor began
making its slow descent.
Jeff swallowed hard, but the lump in his throat
only grew as he saw the lift come slowly down the
stairs. Then it came around the curve, and he found
himself staring up at his Aunt Marguerite.
Except it didn't look like his aunt.
The woman in the chair had her hair combed
strangely, so that it looked old-fashioned, and her
face was covered with makeup. He frowned then, and his
heart began to race as he realized who his aunt
looked like.
His grandmother.
She wasn't as old, and she wasn't as wrinkled,
but the face was the same, and when she looked at him,
it was like looking into his grandmother's eyes.
"wh-Where's my dad?" he managed to whisper as the
chair lift came to a halt and Marguerite rose
to her feet and stepped off it.
"He's not here," Marguerite told him. "He had
to go back to town for something." She took a step
toward him, and Jeff shrank away from her.
"He didn't either," Jeff replied, his voice
trembling now. "He was going to come back here and find
out what you did to Ruby."
"Ruby?" Marguerite echoed, her voice sounding
hollow in the large space of the entry hall. "Why,
Jeff, darling, what are you talking about? I
didn't do anything to Ruby."
"y-Yes you did," Jeff quavered.
"Emmaline told me, and I told my dad. I
told him all about you."
Marguerite's eyes narrowed. "All about me?" she
repeated. "But there's nothing to tell. And you shouldn't
tell stories, Jeff. Don't you know what
happens to small boys who tell stories about people?"
She took a step toward him, and Jeff cowered
back against the door.
"You leave me alone," he whimpered. "Just leave
me alone!"
"Now, now," Marguerite said, her voice
suddenly soothing. "Why would I want to hurt you?
Aren't you my little boy now? Don't I love you?
Why would I want to hurt you?"
She was close to Jeff and reaching out to him, and Jeff
could feel his heart pounding.
"No!" he shouted. "Don't you touch me!"
His sudden yell startled Marguerite, and she stepped
back. Instantly Jeff darted around her and raced
toward the stairs, his feet drumming on the
hardwood. Then he was on the stairs themselves, bounding
up them two at a time, his heart thumping in his chest.
He got to the second-floor landing, then raced down
the hall to his room, slamming the door shut behind
him and twisting the key in the lock. Only when he was
certain the door wouldn't open did he run to his
bed and throw himself on it, wrapping himself in the quilt
folded at the foot of the bed. For a few minutes
all he could hear was the racing of his own heart and the
panting gasps of his own breath, but after a while his
heartbeat slowed and his breathing returned to normal.
He listened for a few minutes, certain that any
second he would hear his aunt's strange,
lopsided gait as she came after him.
But the seconds dragged on, turning into minutes, and
Jeff heard nothing.
Once again the house seemed filled with a strange and
ominous silence, broken only by the sound of the rain
outside as it slashed against the windows.
Kerry Sanders pulled the old convertible to a stop in
front of Sea Oaks. The rain was coming down in
sheets now, and a steady stream of water was running through
a tear in the canvas, draining onto the backseat.
He glanced over his shoulder in disgust. "Guess
nobody's gonna ride back there for a while."
Then his gaze shifted to the house. "Want me to come
in with you?"
Julie shook her head. "I don't think you
better. You know how Aunt Marguerite feels."
"She's not gonna be mad at you, is she?" Kerry
fretted. "I guess maybe I should have brought you
back earlier-"
"It's all right," Julie insisted. "It isn't
even five yet. It's not like we stayed out till
midnight or something. And Daddy should be home,
anyway, and he'll fix it with Aunt
Marguerite." She put her hand on the door
handle, but didn't open it. Instead she turned
once more to Kerry. "Do you think Mrs. Mayhew
found Jenny?"
Kerry shrugged. "I don't know. But it
sure sounds like something weird is going on-I mean,
when we saw Jen, she was coming out here."
"M-Maybe she changed her mind," Julie
suggested. "Maybe after what I said about Aunt
Marguerite ..." Her voice trailed off, but her
eyes, too, went to the house, where a single light
glowed from the living room window. Other than that, the
house seemed dark.
"You're sure you don't want me to come in?"
Kerry said again. "I mean, if you're scared of your
aunt-"
"No," Julie decided. "I'm not scared of her.
She just wasn't feeling well yesterday, that's
all." As if to emphasize her words, she opened the
car door, but Kerry took her hand
and pulled her toward him. Before she knew what was
happening, he was kissing her.
She stiffened, then felt a tremor run through her
body as his lips caressed her face. He held
her close for a moment, then suddenly released her, and
when she looked at him, he was blushing with
embarrassment.
"I-I don't know why I did that," he said, and
Julie put a finger over his lips.
"It's all right. I'm glad you did."
She smiled at him as she slid out of the car. "But
let's hope Aunt Marguerite didn't see
us," she added, giggling softly. "See you tomorrow!"
She slammed the car door and ran to the house,
ducking her head low against the rain.
Neither she nor Kerry saw Marguerite standing
stiffly at one of the living room windows, her eyes
smoldering darkly. By the time Julie was inside the
house, Marguerite had moved back to the large
wing-back chair near the fireplace, where she had
been sitting when she heard Kerry's car grind up
the drive.
Julie shoved the front door closed behind her and
did her best to dry her hair with the beach towel. But
as she threw her head back and ran her fingers through
her damp hair, she paused, standing perfectly still.
Something in the house had changed.
It felt emptier than usual, as if something were
missing.
It felt wrong.
Tentatively she took a step toward the double
doors to the living room. Seeing Marguerite
sitting on the chair by the fireplace, she let herself
relax slightly.
"Aunt Marguerite?" she asked,
unconsciously dropping her voice to little more than a
whisper. "I'm home."
For a split second she didn't think her aunt
had heard her, but then Marguerite stood up and
turned to face Julie. "I know," she said. "I
saw you just now."
Julie felt herself flush, and bit her lip.
"Where's Dad?" she asked. "And Jeff?"
Marguerite hesitated. "Your father had to go back
to town," she said. "And Jeff's upstairs,
sulking." She stepped for
ward then, and for the first time the light from the lamp fell
full on her face.
Julie gasped. "Aunt Marguerite," she
breathed. "wh-What's wrong? You look- She had
been about to say "terrible," but suddenly caught herself.
"Do you like it?" Marguerite asked, her right hand
moving up to lightly brush against her own cheek.
"I-well, I didn't have much to do today, and I thought
I might just try something new."
"It-It's different," Julie managed. "I
guess I just wasn't expecting it, that's all."
"And I think it suits me," Marguerite went
on, almost as if she hadn't heard Julie. "It's
the way Mother used to look, and she was so
beautiful." Her voice took on a faraway
tone. "So very beautiful. And I look so much like
her." Her eyes, which had been flickering about the
room, suddenly came to rest on Julie. "And so
do you," she breathed, her voice barely audible now.
"You're so much like Mother . . . and like me. ..."
"I-I'd better go up and see Jeff," Julie
stammered. "What happened? Why is he mad?"
Marguerite stiffened, then seemed to relax. "I'm
not sure," she said at last. "I suppose I must
have said something to him, though I can't imagine what. But
he's a little boy, isn't he? And I've never
understood little boys. I think when Kevin gets
back, I shall have to talk to him about Jeff. I'll have
to decide what to do with him. ..."
Her last words were spoken to herself, for Julie was
hurrying up the stairs to the second floor. A
moment later she knocked softly on her brother's
door.
"Jeff? It's me-Julie. Can I come in?"
There was a short silence, then she heard Jeff
scuttling across the floor. There was a click as the
key turned in the lock, then the door opened a
crack and Jeff peered fearfully out at her. When
he recognized his sister, he opened the
door to let her in, then closed it again, relocking
it.
"Jeff!" Julie exclaimed as he tried the
door once more before turning to face her. "What's
wrong? Aunt Marguerite
says you're sulking. And how come you've got the
door locked?"
"Because she's crazy!" Jeff said. "She killed
Ruby, and she killed Daddy, and she wants
to kill me too." He hurled himself into Julie's
arms, clinging to her. "Didn't you see her?" he
sobbed. "Didn't you see what she looks like?"
"Oh, good grief," Julie said, picking her
brother up and carrying him to the bed, then plumping him
down against the pillows. "Of course I saw her.
And she does look a little strange, but that's just because
she was experimenting with her hair and makeup."
"It's not!" Jeff insisted. "She looks just like
Grandmother, and she came down in the chair lift and
stared at me all funny. I'm scared of her!"
"Well, you don't have to be," Julie insisted with a
lot more conviction than she felt. She remembered
her shock when she'd first seen the lamp light strike
her aunt's face. And Jeff was right-in a
strange way, her aunt
did
look very much like their grandmother. "And what do you mean,
she killed Daddy and Ruby? Ruby went to visit
her family, and Dad's in town. She just told me
so."
"That's what she told me too," Jeff wailed.
"But it's not true. I saw Daddy in town and
told him all about Aunt Marguerite, and he was
coming out here to-
He fell silent as there was a loud rapping on the
door.
"Julie?" they heard Marguerite's voice
calling from the other side of the door. "Are you in
there?"
"y-Yes, Aunt Marguerite," Julie
called back.
"Well, I need you, dear. I'm trying to get
supper ready and I need you to help me. And maybe
Jeff could set the table. I'd like to have it all ready
by the time your father gets back."
Julie looked at Jeff, who was still cringing against the
pillow. Once again she remembered the strange
feeling she'd had when she'd come into the house a few
minutes ago.
And yet just now-when her aunt had
spoken-there'd been nothing odd about what she'd said.
How could Jeff even think she might have killed their
father, or Ruby, or anyone
else? It just wasn't possible. She got off the
bed, making up her mind.
Going to the door, she twisted the key and pulled the
door open. Marguerite stood in the hall, looking
worried.
"I don't know what we'll do if your father can't
get home," she fretted.
Julie frowned. "Not get home?" she asked.
"Why wouldn't he be able to?"
Marguerite was silent for a moment, then nodded toward
the window. "The storm, dear. If it gets much
worse, there won't be any way to get to the island
at all. Then the three of us will be all alone here."
As if to punctuate Marguerite's words, a bolt
of lightning flared in the sky outside and a sharp clap
of thunder shook the house.
And the wind began to howl.
Alicia Mayhew flinched as a sheet of lightning
crackled across the sky, immediately followed by a roar of
thunder that made her car tremble. She leaned forward,
straining to see through the rain that pounded the windshield, but
it was useless. All she could see beyond the
impotently flapping wipers was a deluge of water
that was already beginning to flood the street. Then, barely
visible to her right, she saw the indistinct shape of the
tired wooden building that served as the Devereaux town
hall. Sighing with relief, she angled her car into a
parking space in front of the hall, then braced herself
for the quick dash from the car to the building itself. Taking a
deep breath, almost as if she were preparing to dive
into a swimming pool, she opened the car door and
jumped out, already dashing toward the town hall as she
slammed the car door shut. "Damn," she swore
to herself as her left foot slid out from under her on the
slick sidewalk. A sharp pain shot up her
leg, but she caught her balance, ignoring the pain
until she was inside the building and the door was
closed behind her, cutting off the noise of the raging
storm.
Stopping to catch her breath, she massaged her sore
ankle for a moment, then gingerly tested her weight on
it. Nothing seemed to be broken, and the pain didn't
increase as she tried to walk, so she hobbled
awkwardly down the hall to the police department, which
comprised only two rooms, neither of which included a
jail. In the event anyone in Devereaux had to be
incarcerated, Will Hempstead simply
drove him down to the county seat at Beaufort.
Alicia fleetingly wondered what on earth
Hempstead would do in the event that someone needed to be
locked up during a storm like this.
As if he'd read her mind, the police chief
grinned up at Alicia from the chair upon which he was
perched, tipped so far back the chair threatened
to fall over, his feet propped comfortably on his
desk. "Hope you don't want anyone busted today,
Alicia. Even if I wanted to, I don't
see how I could make it to Beaufort through this."
Alicia shook her head. "It's Jennifer," she
said, glancing at Hempstead's deputy, Frank
Weaver, who was sitting at an adjacent desk.
She turned back to Hempstead, imploring now.
"I can't find her, and I'm worried. I-well,
I'm almost certain something's happened to her."
Hempstead's feet dropped to the floor and he
brought his chair upright as he leaned forward, the
twinkle in his eyes gone. "What do you mean,
"happened"?" he asked.
"I-I don't know," Alicia stammered. She
perched nervously on the edge of the chair opposite
Hempstead, then speaking slowly and choosing her words
carefully, tried to explain exactly what
had happened. Even as she told him, she realized
that she sounded more like a dithering worrier than a
legitimately concerned parent. Still, Hempstead
listened patiently, and when Alicia was finished, he
glanced at the clock. It was barely six p.m.
"So she was due home by two-thirty?"
Alicia nodded.
"And you went looking for her around three, is that right?"
Once again Alicia nodded.
"Been home since then?" Will Hempstead asked, his
voice dry. "Or given a call?"
Alicia's eyes narrowed slightly. "Of course
I have, W. I'm not a fool, and you know it. I've
called home from everywhere I've been, and
Jennifer's not there."
Hempstead glanced out the window at the raging storm.
"Well, if she got caught out in this, she could have
holed up most anywhere-" he began, but Alicia
shook her head.
"I don't believe that. She was already late before the
storm even started. And that's not like Jennifer, W.
She's always on time, always exactly where she's
supposed to be." Her voice had taken on a
nervous shrillness, which she struggled to control. Finally
she met Hempstead's eyes. "If you
want
to know the truth," she said, "I'm afraid something
might have happened to her out at Sea Oaks."
"Sea Oaks?" Hempstead asked, and though he
kept his voice neutral, Alicia could see a
shadow come over his eyes. "I'm not sure I'm
following you, Alicia."
Alicia ran her fingers impatiently through the wet
strands of her graying hair, pushing a few wisps that
had fallen over her forehead back into place.
"I'm talking about Marguerite," she said, her
eyes locking on Hempstead's once more. There
wasn't anyone in town who didn't know Will
Hempstead had once been in love with Marguerite
Devereaux, and a lot of people still thought he carried a
torch for her. "She-well, when I was talking to her,
she looked very strange."
"Strange?" Hempstead asked, his voice suddenly
cool. "Just what do you mean by "strange"?"
"n-Not anything she said," Alicia replied.
"At least I didn't think so-not at first. But she
was wearing a dress that was so old it must have been her
mother's." She tried to describe how Marguerite
had looked, but finally shook her head. "I can't
really tell you. She-well, she looked like
she was dressed up for some kind of part."
"But what did she say?" Hempstead pressed.
Alicia bit her lip. "Not much, really. Just that
Jennifer hadn't been there, but that she was supposed
to be there tomorrow. She said she was having some kind of
recital or something and-"
"And you thought that was strange?" Hempstead
interrupted, his voice clearly reflecting his
doubt. "For Christ's sake, Alicia, she's a
dance teacher. She has recitals all the time. How
many times have you been out there for them? Five? Ten?
Dozens?"
Alicia sighed heavily. "I know all that, W.
But, well, this was different. For one thing, Jennifer
never mentioned a recital to me, and she would have if
there'd been one scheduled. She wouldn't have wanted
to miss it, and she didn't say anything when I
suggested we go up to Charleston to see my brother
for a couple of days."
"And that's all?" Hempstead asked.
Alicia shifted uncomfortably. "And there's
Muriel Fletcher," she breathed, this time unable
to meet Hempstead's eyes when she spoke.
"Ah," Hempstead grunted. "I was wondering when
you were going to come to that." He leaned forward
now. "Look, Alicia, I know everything that
Muriel's been saying about Mary-Beth, and I'm
telling you, there's not a shred of evidence to back her
up. If you want, you can look at the coroner's
report yourself. All we can tell for certain is that
she drowned, and that she banged her head on something.
But it could have been anything, Alicia. Most
likely she smashed her head on a rock when she
got swept off the road. But-"
"But you're not going to do anything," Alicia finished
for him. "That's what it boils down to, isn't it,
Will?"
Hempstead shrugged helplessly. "What do you want
me to do, Alicia? Jennifer's only been gone a
few hours. Hell, she hasn't even missed
dinner yet! Legally, I can't even take a
missing-person report till day after tomorrow." He
nodded toward the window. "And you don't really
expect me to try to go out to Sea Oaks in that, do
you?" The windows rattled as a gust of wind buffeted
the building, and Hempstead turned back to face
Alicia. "I'm sorry," he said. "The best thing
you can do is go home and start calling everyone you know.
The odds are Jennifer lost track of time, and when
she realized she was late, she holed up
somewhere. Hell, she's probably been trying
to call you all afternoon."
Alicia took a deep breath, then stood up.
"All right," she said, struggling against the anger rising
within her. "I'll go home. But I know how you feel
about Marguerite Devereaux, W. Everybody in town
does. And just because you're in love with her, it
doesn't mean she couldn't have done something." Picking
up her purse, she left the office. When she was
gone, Hempstead turned to Frank Weaver.
"I don't know," Hempstead sighed. "What's the
town coming to when people start thinkin' someone like Marguerite
could hurt anybody?"
"So what are you going to do?" Weaver asked.
"Check around, I guess. Won't hurt to go
talk to a few
people-see if I can figure out what happened
to Jenny. But I'm sure not going to try to go out to the
island in this mess. Even if I wanted to, I'm
not sure I could make it."
Then, shrugging into a bright yellow slicker, he
followed Alicia Mayhew out into the storm.
"Isn't this nice?" Marguerite asked as she
settled herself into a chair at one end of the long dining
room table. Julie and Jeff were seated
on either side of her, the best silver and china in the
house carefully arrayed at each place. The storm
was howling outside, and the evening was almost as dark as
night. But the chandelier above the dining room table
glowed brightly, and the old Waterford crystal on the
table seemed to come alive with refracted light.
"How come there's no place for Dad?" Jeff
demanded, but when he spoke, he kept his eyes on
his sister.
"I already told you," Marguerite said, her voice
taking on the trace of an edge. "Since he's not
home now, I don't think we can count on him coming
home. After all," she added, "we wouldn't want the
same thing to happen to him that happened to your mother, would
we?"
Jeff's eyes widened, and even Julie flinched.
"But why hasn't he called?" Julie asked.
"If he couldn't get back, he'd callus,
wouldn't he?"
"Perhaps the phones went out," Marguerite suggested.
Instantly Jeff slid off his chair and ran through the
living room to the foyer, where he picked up the
phone.
"It works," Jeff called. "I'm gonna call
the police."
"The police!" Marguerite exclaimed. "For
Heaven's-" But before she could finish her sentence, a
bolt of lightning struck, instantly followed by a
crash of thunder so loud it shook the house. Jeff
dropped the phone and jumped back, and then, as the
thunder faded away, the lights suddenly went out and the
house was plunged into near blackness.
In the dining room Julie ran to a window and peered
out. A moment later another bolt of lightning shot
across the sky and she could see what had happened.
Halfway down the drive a tree, smoke still
drifting from its top, had fallen across the power
lines. "It's not going to come back on," she told
her aunt. "The lines are down, and there's a tree
lying across the driveway."
Marguerite took a deep breath. "Very well,"
she said. "It certainly isn't anything for us to get
upset about. We have plenty of candles."
"The phone doesn't work now, either," Jeff said as
he came back to the dining room. He looked at his
sister with frightened eyes. "What are we going to do?"
"We're going to go on with our dinner," Marguerite
stated. She found a box of matches on the
sideboard and began lighting the candles in the twin
candelabra on the table. A few seconds
later the room was bright again, this time with the warm glimmer
of the candles.
"I think this is rather nice," Marguerite said as she
reseated herself. "It reminds me of when I was a
girl. I remember once when I was your age,
Julie. We had a storm just like this one, and the lights
went out that night too. Mother and I sat here all
by ourselves, eating our supper."
Julie frowned uncertainly. "Where was Dad?" she
asked. "Wasn't he here?"
Marguerite's eyes clouded, then she smiled
thinly. "Oh, no," she said. "By then he was gone.
It was just Mother and me, and after dinner we went up to the
ballroom." She closed her eyes, and her voice
took on a strange, lilting melody as she
reminisced about the times so many years ago. "Mother was
young then-younger than I am now. And she'd dance and
dance, and I would watch. So beautiful-it was all so
beautiful then, before ..." Her voice trailed off.
Jeff glanced uneasily at his sister.
"What's wrong with her?" he whispered. "How come
her eyes are shut?"
Marguerite's eyes suddenly snapped open, and she
turned to glare at Jeff. "What are you doing
here?" she demanded, her voice rasping
harshly. "Why aren't you at school?"
The color suddenly drained from Jeffs face and his
eyes widened with fear.
"This-There isn't any school, Aunt
Marguerite," Julie said. "It's summer
vacation, remember?"
Marguerite didn't seem to hear her. Instead, her
eyes fixed balefully on Jeff. "I didn't
tell you to come here," she hissed. "When I'm
ready, I'll send for you."
Jeff slid off his chair, his whole body
trembling with fright. Without saying a word, he fled from
the room, charging up the stairs.
There was a long silence at the table, then Marguerite
slowly turned, blinking, to look at Julie.
"Where's Jeff?" she asked. "Isn't he going
to finish his dinner?"
Julie stared at her aunt. "B-But you just told
him you didn't want him here."
"Not want him?" Marguerite echoed. "But darling,
of course I want him. He's my little boy,
isn't he? Why wouldn't I want him?"
Julie felt her heart skip a beat, and her
throat tightened. "But you said . . . you wanted to know
why he wasn't in school."
Marguerite paused, and once more her eyes clouded.
Then her expression cleared. "But, of course," she
said. "He's almost nine, isn't he?"
Julie hesitated before nodding uncertainly. What
was her aunt talking about?
"Then, of course, I'm right," Marguerite went
on. "It's time for him to go, isn't it? I shall have
to send him away, and then things will be the way they're
supposed to be." She smiled then, her eyes fixing
on Julie. "After Jeff is gone, it will be just you
and me, won't it? Just the two of us, like it's
supposed to be. . . ."
Still smiling, as if enjoying some secret only she
held the key to, Marguerite went on eating her
supper.
Alicia Mayhew paced nervously in the living
room of her small house on Macon Street.
It was eight o'clock now, and still there was no sign of
Jennifer.
She'd long since run out of people to call; indeed, she
felt
as if she'd talked to everyone in town. And all of
them had said the same thing.
First there had been Marian Phillips, Charlene's
mother. "I don't know about the other girls,"
she'd said. "But after what happened out there the other
day, Charlene says she'll never go back to the island
again, and I don't really blame her."
Paula Aaronson had gone further. "Apparently
there was some kind of a problem yesterday at their
lesson. Tammy-Jo said Marguerite was acting very
strange. The girls left early yesterday, you
know."
"Left early?" Alicia had repeated. It was the
first she'd heard of it. "But why?"
"I don't know, really. Tammy-Jo simply said
that Marguerite was, well, "weird" was the word
she used. Of course, Marguerite's had a lot of
shocks lately, and I suppose Tammy-Jo could
have been exaggerating."
"But what about the recital tomorrow?" Alicia had
asked.
"Recital? Why, I don't know. Just a moment."
There had been a long silence, and then Paul; had
come back on the line. "Tammy-Jo doesn't know
anything about a recital, and she says if there is
one, she isn't going."
"I see," Alicia had breathed, then called up
Diana Carter. But Allison's mother had not heard
anything about a recital. Nor had she
seen Jenny.
Now, with no one left on her list, she
reluctantly dialed the Fletchers' number, and a
moment later recognized Muriel Fletcher's
voice, sounding strained, coming over the line.
"You already know what I think," Muriel told her,
barely able to keep her voice under control. "And
don't tell me what Will Hempstead thinks, because
I already know. But he's in love with Marguerite, and
always has been."
"I know," Alicia agreed. "But it just seems so
unbelievable. To think that Marguerite might have- "
She fell silent then, but Mrs. Fletcher finished
her thought.
"That Marguerite might have killed her?" she asked,
her voice trembling. "That's what I thought at
first. But the more I think about it, the more I wonder.
Mary-Beth was impetuous, but she wasn't stupid.
If it hadn't been safe to cross the
causeway, she wouldn't have tried. She'd have stayed
on the island."
"But why?" Alicia pressed. "Marguerite loved
Mary-Beth. She loves all the girls-"
"Except that she's changed," Muriel said. "Will
Hempstead won't believe me, but it's
true. Mary-Beth was going to quit going
to Marguerite's classes, you know. She didn't
even wanted to go that day, but the rest of the girls
talked her into it. And she and Marguerite had a
fight, you know. She'd said she was quitting, and
Marguerite tried to talk her out of it."
Alicia felt a knot of fear forming in her
stomach. Only that morning, before she'd left to go out
to the island, Jennifer had talked about how the other
girls were feeling.
"I don't think I'd go back either, except it
would hurt Miss Marguerite so much," Alicia
recalled her daughter saying. "But Tammy-Jo's
right. It
isn't
as much fun as it used to be, and Miss Marguerite
is
more interested in Julie than she is in the rest of
us."
"Well, of course she is," Alicia had
observed. "Julie's her niece, and she dances
better than the rest of you."
But now, remembering that conversation, an unbidden thought
crept into the back of her mind.
What if Jennifer had changed her mind and
told Marguerite she'd decided to quit the
class? No! She forced the thought away. "If you
ask me," she heard Muriel Fletcher saying,
"there's been something strange about Marguerite ever
since her mother died."
"But she's dealt with it so well," Alicia
replied. "Which is exactly what I mean,"
Muriel went on. "For Heaven's sake,
Alicia, Marguerite lived with that miserable woman
her whole life, and for the last twenty years Helena
treated Marguerite like dirt. You'd have thought she'd
have been tickled pink when Helena died, even if
she was her mother. But what did she do? First she acted
as if nothing had happened at all, and then I heard
she started talking about how much she missed Helena and
what a wonderful mother she'd been!"
"But that's not so strange," Alicia pleaded, her
voice taking on a desperate note. "Lots of
people do that."
"Well, perhaps they do," Muriel said, her voice
crisp. "But all I know is that the more I think about
it, the more certain I am that there is something very, very
wrong with Marguerite Devereaux. And in my heart
I'm absolutely certain she's responsible for
Mary-Beth's death."
Suddenly there was a flash of lightning and a crash of
thunder, and then, as the lights in the house flickered, the
phone went dead in Alicia Mayhew's hand.
"Damn!" she swore out loud. "Damn, damn,
damn!"
She rattled the hook on the phone for a moment, but
already knew from long experience that the phone would be dead
for the rest of the night. Indeed, they'd be lucky if the
lights didn't go out too. Finally, frustrated,
she dropped the receiver back on the hook and went to the
window to stare out into the raging storm.
The wind still seemed to be growing stronger, and the rain was
coming down in torrents. If Jennifer was out there
somewhere . . .
Then her eyes filled with tears as she realized that
deep down inside, she didn't truly believe that
Jennifer was anywhere out in the storm.
Deep in her soul she was certain that Jennifer had,
indeed, gone to Sea Oaks that morning.
And for some reason Alicia could not yet understand, she'd
never left.
Alicia numbly dropped onto the sofa in her
tiny living room and prepared herself to wait for whatever
news might eventually come. And yet, even as she
began her vigil, she already knew how it was
going to end.
She was going to be told that her daughter-her beloved
Jennifer-" dead.
"Noooo!"
She screamed the word out loud, a wail of despairing
anguish. But even had the storm not been raging
outside, there would still have been no one to hear her, for
since Jennifer's father had died ten years earlier,
Jennifer had been all Alicia had in the world.
After tonight she would have nothing.
Unless . . .
Unless she was wrong.
She had to be wrong, she told herself. She had
to hold onto hope, had to cling to whatever scrap of
faith she could muster that Jennifer might still be
alive.
She had to weather the storm.
Jeff clutched the quilt around him, but even the
warmth of its down filling couldn't abate the chill that
had seized his body. He wasn't certain how long
he'd been huddled on the bed, how long it had been
since Julie had come in and tried to tell him he
shouldn't worry, that everything was going to be all right.
But it seemed like forever, and the candle flickering in its
holder on his bed table had burned
halfway down. When he'd first fled to his room from
the dinner table, he'd been certain that his aunt would
come for him right away. He'd cowered in his room, his
ear pressed to the door, listening for her footsteps
on the stairs. But after a while, when he'd heard
nothing, he finally retreated to the bed, his entire
body trembling with an icy fear.
She was going to kill him.
He was certain of it now. She didn't want him
here, and she was going to send him away.
But why? He hadn't done anything. He hadn't
done anything at all!
A bolt of lightning split the sky, and for a second
the room was filled with brilliant white light.
Then the clap of thunder crashed into the house as the light
faded away, and Jeff whimpered softly, huddling
deeper into the quilt. The rain, which had been beating
steadily against the windows-driven almost horizontally
by the wind-grew even heavier for a moment, then
abruptly stopped. The silence left by its cessation
had a strange hollowness to it, made all the more
eerie by the wailing of the wind, crying through the trees like
the lost souls of the damned.
And then, above the wind, Jeff finally heard the sound
he'd been waiting for.
Uneven footsteps moving up the stairs.
Pulling the quilt tight around him, he slid off the
bed, crept to the door, and pressed his ear against the
wood.
He could hear it more clearly now, and as the ominous
rhythm grew louder, he could picture his Aunt
Marguerite, her right hand on her hip, her left
grasping the banister, pulling herself step by step toward
the second floor.
Then he heard her come to the landing, and there was a moment
of silence even more terrifying than the soft thumping of
her crippled leg. But the silence ended, and cold
sweat broke out on Jeff's body as he heard the
footsteps approach his door.
She was outside now, he was certain of it. And once
more the heavy tread had stopped.
What was she doing?
He gasped-a choking whimper-as the doorknob
turned only a few inches from his eyes. Shrinking
back, he stared at the key in the lock.
Had he locked the door?
He searched his mind frantically, but couldn't
remember. He'd turned the key too many times,
each time trying the door, but then, a moment later,
doubting his own memory and checking it again.
What if the last time he'd unlocked the door, and
forgotten to check it?
The knob kept turning, and then he heard a soft
click as the latch slid free of the strike plate.
The door moved a fraction of an inch, and Jeff
pressed his hand to his mouth to keep from screaming out
loud.
The door stopped moving, and there was a barely
perceptible pause before unseen hands suddenly
rattled the door, the sound resounding through the room with the
intensity of drums.
"Why is this door locked?" he heard his aunt
call, and there was something strange about her voice as it
penetrated the thick oak of the door. "I've told
you I won't have you locking this door, young man!
Open it this instant!"
Jeff shrank back from the door once more, the
quilt sliding off his shoulders and dropping to the
floor. His eyes flooded with tears, and he backed
away across the room.
"Do you hear me?" Marguerite's voice grated.
"Open it!" Once more the door rattled loudly, and
Jeff leaped toward the bed, seizing one of the pillows
and pressing it against his chest.
The door rattled once more, then there was a
moment of silence. Suddenly, miraculously, he
heard footsteps again, getting softer as his aunt
moved away from his door.
He rushed back to the door and once more pressed his
ear to the wood. Where was she going?
The footsteps seemed to be receding down the hall.
Was she going to her own room? He counted her steps,
his heart racing.
Four.
There was a pause, and he strained to hear the sound of a
door. But a moment later the steps began again.
. . . seven . . .
Another pause, another silence.
... ten ...
. . . fifteen steps.
A door opening and closing.
Thirty feet.
But that was just since he'd been counting. How many steps
had she taken before?
But it didn't matter, for he knew where she'd
gone.
She was in his grandmother's room. But what was she doing,
and how long would she be in there? He stood frozen by the
door, not knowing what to do.
Minutes ticked slowly by, and his
heartbeat began to ease, but the same thought kept
churning through his mind.
She was going to come back for him. He had to get out,
had to hide. . . .
Julie-he had to get to Julie.
With trembling fingers he reached for the key, but just as he
touched it, he heard a door far down the hall
close with a soft but distinct thump.
And then, once more, the uneven footsteps as
Marguerite made her way back down the
corridor.
But this time she didn't pause at his door. Instead
the footsteps began to fade away again, and finally he
heard her on the stairs once more. And then he
knew.
She was going back downstairs to get the keys.
He could see them in his mind's eye, hanging on the
hook by the kitchen door.
One of them would fit this room.
His heart was pounding again, drowning out the sounds of the
storm outside. He could no longer hear
Marguerite's footsteps.
Now!
He wrestled with the key, and the bolt slid free.
Jerking the door open, he suddenly
stopped.
The corridor should have been completely dark. Instead
it glowed softly with flickering candlelight.
That was what the pauses had meant. His aunt had
stopped to light the candles that always stood on the
small tables scattered along the length of the broad
corridor.
The mere presence of the soft light eased his fear
somewhat. He started toward Julie's room, then
stopped as an idea came to him.
Conquering the last of the panic inside him, he took
the key out of the lock, closed his door, then locked
it from the outside. Slipping the key into his
pocket, he raced down the corridor to Julie's
room and tried her door.
To his relief, it was unlocked, and he pushed through
it, then shut it quickly and twisted the key beneath the
knob.
"Jeff?" he heard Julie ask. "What are you
doing?"
He turned, his face pale. In the dim light of a
small oil lamp, Julie was staring at him
curiously.
"She-She went back downstairs," Jeff
managed to say, his voice quavering. "She
went down to get the keys, and then she's going to come
back. She's going to come back and kill me!"
Sobbing, he hurled himself into his sister's arms.
"What are we going to do?"
"Shh," Julie soothed, stroking her brother's
hair with gentle fingers. "She's not going to kill
you-"
"She is!" Jeff insisted, his eyes imploring his
sister. "She hates me, and she's going to kill
me!"
Julie bit her lip. What could she say to the
terrified boy? Even she had been frightened at the
dinner table, when her aunt had started talking so
strangely. But then Marguerite seemed to calm
down, and she'd thought maybe-just maybe- everything was
going to be all right after all. "She's not going
to kill you," she insisted once more, struggling to keep
her own voice even. "All we have to do is wait for
Dad to come home, and everything will be all right. You'll
see."
But Jeff shook his head. "He's not coming home,"
he sobbed. "He's not ever coming home, 'cause
he's already dead. And she's going to kill us too!"
Harold Sanders frowned as the loud banging on the
front door was repeated. Who the hell
would be out in weather like this? Carrying his beer with him, he
went to the door, opened it a crack-bracing it against
the wind with one foot-and peered out. Standing on the
front porch, water streaming off his yellow
slicker, was Frank Weaver. Harold's frown
deepened, and he pulled the door open far enough for the
deputy to slip through.
"What the hell's goin" on, Frank? It's not
fit for man nor beast out there tonight."
"Might have someone missing, Hal," Weaver
replied. "Got a few questions I'd like to ask
Kerry, if it's all right with you?"
"Kerry?" Hal Sanders repeated, taking on a
guarded look. "You're not tryin' to say my boy's
in trouble, are you? "Cause if you are, you're
gonna have me to deal with first!"
Edith Sanders, wiping her hands on her apron,
came in from the kitchen just in time to hear the last thing her
husband said. "Don't be silly, Hal," she
told him. "Kerry's never been in trouble in his
life, and you know it. I'm sure there's some
mistake." She turned to Weaver, her eyes questioning.
"Now, take it easy, both of you," the deputy
assured
them. "It's not Kerry we're worried
about. But Jennifer May hew hasn't turned up
at home, and near as I can tell, she ain't
anywhere in town, either. But I hear Kerry talked
to her this morning, and I just want to hear what he's
got to say." The elder Sanders's expression
immediately cleared, and as Edith called upstairs to her
son, Hal offered the deputy a beer. Weaver
shrugged. "Don't mind if I do." He was just
popping the tab of a Bud when Kerry Sanders
appeared in the kitchen door.
"Mr. Weaver?" Kerry asked. "What's wrong?
Has something happened to Jennifer?"
"Well, now, I don't rightly know," the deputy
replied. "But I can tell you Alicia
Mayhew's pretty het up. She says you
talked to Jenny this morning."
Kerry nodded. "Julie and I both did. We were
just coming across the causeway, and she was coming the other
way. She was going to see Julie's aunt."
Weaver nodded. "Did she say why?" Kerry
nodded, then repeated the conversation he and Julie had
had with Jennifer. When he was finished, the deputy
looked troubled.
"And you're sure she actually went on up to the
mansion?" he asked.
Kerry shrugged. "I guess so. She said she was,
and she was walking that way when we left. And if she
hadn't, she'd have found us at the beach, wouldn't she?"
"Who knows?" Weaver asked rhetorically. Then:
"What about Marguerite Devereaux? Did you see
her when you were out there?"
Kerry hesitated, then nodded, his face coloring.
"I saw her," he said, his voice taking on a
slight bitterness the deputy immediately seized upon.
"Something wrong between you and Marguerite?" "I-I
didn't think so," Kerry stammered. "At least,
there wasn't until I started hanging around with
Julie. Ever since then, it's like she hates me
or something." "So she
was
acting strange?" Weaver pressed. Kerry
swallowed nervously. "I-I'm not sure. She
didn't want Julie to go to the beach with me. She
kept talking about
how Julie didn't have time to waste like that. She said
Julie should be practicing her dancing."
"Hunh," the deputy grunted. "Well, I
don't suppose we can hang her for that, can we?"
Kerry's brows furrowed. "What's going on?" he
asked.
The deputy shrugged. "Don't know as anything is,
really. But Alicia says Marguerite looked
real strange when she was out there, and kept talking about
a recital tomorrow. Said she was sure Jennifer would be
there. But Alicia never heard about it before, and now she
says the more she thinks about it, the more worried she
gets."
"Does-Does she think Marguerite might have done
something to Jenny?"
"Well, now, I guess she does," Weaver
replied.
For the first time since Kerry had come into the kitchen,
Hal Sanders spoke. "So what are you doin" here,
Frank? How come you're not out on the island, having
a look around?"
Weaver turned to stare at Hal. "You kidding?" he
asked. "You seen what it's like outside? No way
am I going to try to get out there tonight."
"But-But what about Julie?" Kerry asked.
"What about her?"
"If something's wrong with Marguerite-"
"If something's wrong with Marguerite, which isn't
really likely, all things considerin', it'll keep
till morning," Weaver said. "And Kevin's out there
too. He can take care of things." He
finished his beer, then crumpled the empty can with a quick
squeeze of his right hand. "Well, I'd better be
gettin' back to the office. Will's gonna want
to know what I found out."
He shrugged back into his slicker, and a moment
later was leaning his heavy frame into the storm as he
hurried back to his car. Harold Sanders, who had
walked to the front door with Weaver, waited until
the police car was gone before he went back to the
kitchen. But when he got there, he noticed that something
was bothering Kerry.
"What is it?" he asked, laying a hand on his
son's shoulder.
"I just don't like it," Kerry said. "I didn't like
it when I
dropped Julie off this afternoon, and I still don't. I
keep having a feeling that Jenny's mother's right, and
there's something going on out there."
Hal gave Kerry's shoulder a squeeze, then
slapped him gently on the back. "Well, whatever
it is, it can wait till morning, as Frank said.
And it's none of your business anyway," he added.
But Kerry shook his head. "I just wish someone would go
out there and take a look around," he said.
"But you heard Frank," Hal replied.
"You can't get out there."
Kerry nodded absently, and started back upstairs.
But as he got to his room, he made up his mind.
Perhaps the cops wouldn't try to go out to the island tonight, but
that didn't mean he couldn't.
Grabbing his keys from his dresser and pulling a
slicker out of the closet, he headed back
downstairs.
Marguerite, oblivious to the storm, opened the
kitchen door and stepped out into the driving wind. It was
completely dark now, and the rain had started again, lashing
out of the sky, plastering her hair to her face, and
washing her makeup away in smearing rivulets of
color that looked almost like bloodstains against her
pale skin. Her hip was burning with pain, and every step
was a nightmare of searing needles being driven through her
right leg. But she shut the pain out of her mind and
groped her way down the steps. The path down the
gentle slope was a sea of mud, and she could feel
it squishing between her bare toes as she limped on.
She'd taken off her mother's dress, replacing it
with a long white robe that had also been her mother's.
Its soft chenille clung damply to her body, and
it felt heavy on her shoulders, but she plodded on,
oblivious to it all, until she came to the
gates of the small cemetery.
A bolt of lightning flashed down from above, and
Marguerite flinched, then covered her ears against the
crash of thunder that threatened to overwhelm her. But as the
explosion of sound died away to a boiling rumble, she
lifted the latch of the gate, opened it, and stepped through
into the graveyard itself. She moved forward numbly,
her right leg dragging through the mud now. With each step
her legs threatened to give out beneath her, and she had
to steady herself, reaching out to the weathered grave markers as
she staggered toward the crypt.
At last she was there.
Her fingers reached out, brushing against the cold marble, and
then, fumbling in the pocket of her robe, she brought
out a large key. She inserted it into the slot in the
heavy door of the crypt and turned it. A moment
later the door swung open.
"M-Mama?" Marguerite asked. Her voice was
tiny, childlike, and as she reached for her mother's
coffin, her fingers trembled. "I-I'm sorry,
Mama," she whimpered. "I didn't mean to do
it-I didn't mean to do any of it. But the bad times
came again, Mama. The bad times came, and you
weren't here to take care of me. And they were going
to lock me up, Mama. They were going
to lock me up and leave me alone, and I couldn't
let them." Her eyes filled with tears, but the rain
washed them away as quickly as they came. "I know
I'm a bad girl, Mama. I know I'm the
worst girl in the whole world. But I didn't want
to be, Mama. I didn't ever want to be." She
sniffled, and her hand moved slowly over the coffin,
caressing it. "All I wanted to do was dance,
Mama. I wanted to dance, and I wanted to please
you, and I never could. And so you left me. They were
all going to leave me, Mama. They were going to leave
me and lock me up, and I couldn't stand it. But I
don't know what to do, Mama. Tell me?
Please, Mama . . . tell me what to do." Her
voice broke then, and she felt a strangling in her
throat. "Tell me, Mama. You're all I have.
You're all I ever had. ..."
She was silent then, and the storm whirled around her. But
she felt none of it, for deep within her own mind,
all her energies were concentrated on bringing her mother
back to life. And slowly, very slowly, Marguerite
submerged her own personality, and, out of the depths of
her subconscious, resurrected her mother's soul.
"Look!" Jeff cried out. He was at the window of
Julie's room, his face pressed against
the glass. Sheets of water poured down the windows,
and for a moment all Julie could see were formless streaks.
But then, as lightning glowed briefly in the distance,
she saw the pale form in the cemetery, near the
crypt. "She's back," Jeff whispered.
"Grandmother's back. It-it means someone else is
dead."
"No," Julie insisted, but as she peered
frantically out into the storm, her heart began
to race. And then, as both the children pressed against the
glass, the whole universe seemed to light up with the
power of a thousand searchlights. A sheet of
brilliant light flashed across the night sky, the
darkness washed away in a shadowless glare.
And in the graveyard the ghostly figure looked up.
Julie and Jeff gasped in shock as they
recognized the visage of their aunt shining palely
in the bright glare, her face framed by a sodden mass
of hair, her right hand pressed against her hip while
she leaned her weight against her mother's crypt.
And then the light was gone as a wave of thunder rolled
across the sky, shaking the mansion to its foundations, making
the windows rattle in their frames.
"It's her," Jeff whimpered. "It's not Grandmother
at all. It's Aunt Marguerite."
"It's always been her," Julie breathed, her
voice quavering in the pitch-black darkness that
followed the lightning. "There isn't any ghost-"
"But she always comes after someone dies-" Jeff
whispered, then fell into a shocked silence as he
realized what he'd said. When he was finally able
to speak again, his voice was barely audible. "She
did
kill them," he whispered. "That's why she's out there
now. She killed Daddy."
"No," Julie wailed, her voice taking on a
note of desperation. "We don't know that. Jeff,
Daddy didn't even come home tonight-"
But her words died on her lips as another flash of
lightning struck outside, lashing down from the sky
to split open the
roof of the garage. At the same moment a gust of
wind screamed through the pines, and suddenly the wooden
doors of the garage flew open, jerked off their hinges
and were sent tumbling across the driveway, smashing against
the house itself.
And inside the garage, briefly illuminated
by flickers of lightning, Jeff and Julie saw their
aunt's battered Chevrolet. Mutely, they stared
at each other, both of them instantly knowing
what it meant.
Their father had, after all, come home that day.
Come home, and never left again.
Marguerite stood in the rain, feeling the cool
water washing over her face. It felt good. Felt
so good to be alive again, and whole. And there was so much
to do. . . .
A flash of lightning blazed across the sky, and she
peered up to the second floor of the house.
A face was pressed against one of the windows-the face
of a little boy.
But that wasn't right.
There shouldn't be a little boy in the house.
Only herself. Herself and her daughter. And
Marguerite was safely locked up in the little room
of the basement, where she would stay until she was willing
to listen to reason. Imagine, blaming her mother for what
had happened to her-
But what was Kevin doing up there? She'd sent him
away- sent him away months ago, when she'd
decided what had to be done about Marguerite. But
now he was back, and if he found his sister-
She began stumbling toward the house, the mud dragging
at her right leg, threatening to throw her off balance.
And her hip hurt. But why should it hurt?
There was nothing wrong with her-had never been anything
wrong with her!
She concentrated on the face in the window, though the
lightning had long since faded and even the thunder was no
more than a distant drumroll. But she could see it
still.
Kevin's eyes, staring at her, accusing her.
But not for long. He should have stayed away, stayed in
school, where she sent him. He wasn't supposed
to come back yet-"n't supposed to come back for a
long, long time, when everything that had happened would be
long forgotten.
But if he found his sister-found her locked up down
in the cellar-
No! He wouldn't find her-she wouldn't
let
him find her! She'd stop him-stop him any way
she could.
All her mother's hatred burning brightly inside her,
Marguerite struggled on toward the house, and when she
finally reached the kitchen and leaned against the door she'd
closed behind her, it was more than the storm that she shut
out.
Along with the wind and thunder and lightning, she closed the
last vestiges of her own personality out as
well.
Though it was Marguerite's body that began making its
way toward the stairs in the entry hall, it was
Helena Devereaux's spirit that pressed her onward.
There was a sudden lull in the storm outside. The
wind dropped off, and the rain slackened to a soft
drizzle. And then, out of the strange silence that fell
over the house, the ominous sound of Marguerite's
uneven gait resounded hollowly as she began
to climb the stairs.
Jeff-cowering back against the window, his eyes round and
terrified-gazed up at his sister. "What are we
going to do?" he whispered. "She's coming!"
"Maybe she's not," Julie whispered back, but
her voice held no conviction, for she was now as
frightened as Jeff.
They heard Marguerite reach the top of the stairs,
then pause. A moment later the footsteps began
again. Holding their breaths, Julie and Jeff
listened.
And the footsteps grew quieter; Marguerite was
going the other way. Finally, after what seemed an
eternity, they heard the door at the far end of the
hall open and close, and they knew that their aunt had
gone back to her mother's room.
"What should we do?" Jeff pleaded.
Julie's mind churned. Outside, the wind was coming
up again, and once more the rain pounded on the windows.
A bolt of lightning rent the night, followed by a
sharp clap of thunder. She looked fearfully toward the
window, not certain what was more frightening-the idea of
staying in the house with her aunt, or going outside
to face the wrath of the storm. "I don't know,"
Julie said at last. "M-Maybe she's
forgotten about us. Maybe she went to bed."
Jeff pressed his ear against the door, listening, but
could hear nothing above the renewed fury of the storm.
And then
there was a sharp knock on the door and Jeff leaped
back, his face turning ashen.
"Open this door!" Marguerite commanded, and both children
knew at once that something in their aunt's voice had
changed. It had risen sharply from its usual tone,
and taken on a rasping harshness. "How dare you try
to lock me out! How dare you!"
The children watched as the knob turned back and forth and the
door rattled in its frame as Marguerite shook
it. Then the rattling suddenly stopped and there was a
moment of silence.
"W-What's she doing?" Julie
stammered.
Then a faint tinkling sound drifted through the door, and
they both knew.
"It's the keys," Jeff wailed, and as if
to confirm his words, they heard a metallic scraping
and saw the key to Julie's door drop to the floor
as another key slid into the slot from the other side.
Jeff held his breath once again as Marguerite
tried to open the lock.
The key didn't fit, and a second later they
heard it being withdrawn, only to be replaced
by another.
"We have to
do
something," Jeff wailed. He was sobbing with terror
now, his eyes darting back and forth between his sister and the
lock that was the only thing between him and his aunt.
Once again Julie wracked her brains, and then
knew what she had to do. Her legs trembling, she
crossed the room and picked up the key that lay on
the floor. A moment later, as Marguerite withdrew
the third key from the lock, Julie quickly inserted
her own and twisted it a quarter of a turn.
"What are you doing?" Jeff demanded, his voice
strangling on the panic that threatened
to overwhelm him. "Don't unlock it!"
"I'm not," Julie whispered back. "I just
turned the key a little bit so it won't fall out.
But now she can't get one in from the other side!
We're safe!"
As if to prove her words, there was a scraping sound from
the other side of the door, and the key that now protruded
from the lock beneath the doorknob wiggled but didn't
drop out.
A moment after that Marguerite began pounding on the
door, shouting her (demands that the door be opened at
once.
Her eyes wide with terror, Julie grasped her
brother's hand in her own and backed away from the
door.
The pounding went on, and Marguerite's furious
voice continued to rave, but her words were indistinct
now, lost in the raging fury of the storm.
"We're safe," Julie whispered. "It worked-she
can't get in!"
They sat on the edge of Julie's bed, huddled
together, trying to shut out the manic pounding at the door.
And then, as suddenly as it had begun, the pounding
stopped. Julie tensed, waiting for it to begin again, but
the seconds ticked by and all they heard was
the raging of the storm.
"wh-What's she doing?"
"I don't know," Julie whispered, her mind
racing. Then, in a flash, she knew.
Her little bathroom that connected to the room next
door! Was the other door locked? She didn't
know!
Yelping as she realized that her aunt must have
remembered the connecting bath, too, she let go of
Jeff and raced to the bathroom door. She twisted
the knob and pushed, but the door stuck for a moment.
She hurled her weight against it then, and it flew
open.
Ten feet away, at the other end of the small
bathroom, was the other door. There was no key in this
lock, only a small knob that threw a bolt.
If she could just get to it in time-
She threw herself toward the door, her fingers reaching
for the knob.
Too late.
Just as she reached it, the door opened.
Marguerite, her face lit eerily by the small
hurricane lamp in her hand, stood staring at
Julie, her eyes smoldering with madness.
Kerry heard the murmur of his parents'
voices in the parlor as he slipped through the kitchen,
then pushed the back door open to duck out into the rain.
The wind, coming straight out of the east now, drove a
stinging lash of rain into his face, and he tucked his
head low as he ran the few steps to his car and
jumped into the driver's seat. He slammed the door
shut and twisted the key in the ignition.
The motor ground for a few seconds, coughed, then
caught, and he pumped the accelerator a few times,
then put the car in gear. Backing down the
driveway, he slewed the car into a sharp turn,
slamming the transmission into low gear, then letting the
clutch pop. The rear tires, already nearly bald,
lost their grip on the wet pavement, and the car skidded
wildly for a moment before Kerry regained control of
himself and eased up on the gas pedal. The engine
slowed, and a moment later he felt the tires catch.
The car surged down the street.
He was on the main highway, approaching the
intersection with the causeway road, when a gust of
wind suddenly clawed at the torn canvas top of the
car. There was a loud tearing sound, and suddenly the top
was gone, nothing left of it but tatters of canvas
lashing wildly in the wind. The rain poured down on
Kerry now, but he ignored it, squinting his
eyes against both the dark and the rain as he struggled
to see ahead.
The intersection loomed up, and he pulled the car
into a shuddering right turn. Once again the tires
threatened to lose their grip on the pavement, but
Kerry eased up on the gas, and the wheels held
steady. And then the causeway was ahead of him, all
but lost in a wind-whipped lather of rain and foam.
He slowed the car, leaning forward to peer through the
windshield, but could see nothing. Finally he brought the
car to a halt, then stood up, thrusting his head and
shoulders through the scraps of canvas that still clung to the
metal skeleton of the convertible top.
A bolt of lightning flashed, and for a split second
Kerry could see the causeway clearly. It was
awash with water, but he was almost certain he could see
the pavement all the way across to the island. He
dropped back into the driver's seat,
then hesitated as he remembered what had happened
to Anne Devereaux only a few weeks ago. But
this storm was different, he realized.
The storm that had claimed Anne, and Mary-Beth
Fletcher, too, had boiled up from the south, the
winds running parallel to the coast, pushing water
ahead of them. Those surges had built up
the waves that broke over the roadway, sweeping
Anne's car with them.
But tonight the wind was shifting wildly, right now it was coming
out of the east, so that it was the island itself the pounding waves
were battering. Here, in the temporary shelter of the
mass of Devereaux Island, there was a momentary
respite from the most dangerous waves.
Making up his mind, Kerry put the car in low gear
and eased the clutch out. The battered convertible
trembled as a gust of wind hit it, then began moving
slowly out onto the causeway.
Julie stared at her aunt, her heart beating
wildly. Marguerite seemed to have aged in the hour
since Julie had last seen her, and there was a
haggardness about her face that even the thick layers of
fresh makeup didn't cover.
Her eyes, heavily circled with dark shadow,
burned brightly, and her whole face seemed to glow in
the candlelight like some strange Halloween mask that was
lit from within.
She wore one of her mother's dresses, with a red
skirt that flowed nearly to the floor, and a black
lace bodice, buttoned to the neck, with long
sleeves that ended in festoons of more lace around her
wrists. The string of jet beads hung around
her neck, their facets glinting brightly as they
caught the light of the candle.
"How dare you?" Marguerite demanded, her eyes
fixing furiously on Julie. "When I tell you
to do something, I expect to be obeyed!"
Julie shrank back, but Marguerite's right hand
snaked out and grasped her by the wrist. "I-I'm
sorry, Aunt Marguerite," Julie whispered.
"I-I couldn't hear you."
"Couldn't hear me?" Marguerite parroted, her
voice taking on the mocking edge of sarcasm that had
been one of her mother's most effective weapons.
"If you couldn't hear me, it was because you weren't
listening, wasn't it?" When Julie's response
was not instantaneous, Marguerite's grip on her
niece's wrist tightened. "Wasn't it?" she
demanded once more.
"I-I guess so," Julie stammered. Her mind
was reeling now, as panic welled up inside her.
What could she do? Her eyes searched the tiny
bathroom frantically, searching for something-anything-she
could use as a weapon. But Marguerite jerked on
her arm, whirling her around to push her out of the bathroom
and into the bedroom, where Jeff, nearly paralyzed with
fear, stood at the head of Julie's bed,
his arms wrapped around the bedpost.
"You," Marguerite said, her voice dropping
sharply, her eyes fixing accusingly on the terrified
child. Jeff shrank back against the wall.
Dragging Julie with her, Marguerite crossed the
room, her right leg moving stiffly, only barely
supporting her weight. Setting the hurricane
lamp on the bed table, she grasped Jeff's arm and
started toward the door, "Open it!" she commanded,
shoving Jeff forward. A small cry of pain
escaping his lips, Jeff fumbled with the key, then
managed to twist it in the lock and pull the bedroom
door open. Pushing the children ahead of her, never
releasing her grip on their arms, Marguerite herded
them into the candlelit hallway. "What am I going
to do with you?" Marguerite mumbled as she limped
painfully down the long corridor.
"D-Don't hurt us, Aunt Marguerite,"
Julie managed to gasp, and slowly Marguerite's
head swung around and her eyes fixed on Julie.
Her lips twisted into a strange rictus of a
smile.
"Hurt you?" she asked. "I won't hurt you, my
darling. Why would I hurt my darling little girl? I
love my little girl. My little girl is
all I have and all I love-"
She stopped abruptly and her eyes clouded as she
stared at the closed door to the nursery. Once again
her hand tightened on Julie's wrist, her fingers,
like claws, digging deeply into
the flesh of Julie's arm. "Open the door," she
whispered, her voice suddenly trembling as her
breath began to come in panting gasps.
Silently Julie obeyed her aunt's
instructions, removing the heavy ring of keys from the
pocket of Marguerite's dress, then trying them
one by one in the door until finally one of them fit and
she felt the bolt of the lock click back. Her
hand shaking, she turned the knob of the nursery door
and pushed it open.
With sudden violence Marguerite hurled Jeff into the
little room. Losing his balance, he sprawled on the
floor and screamed with pain as he felt a sharp
twist in his ankle. Ignoring his cries,
Marguerite pulled the door shut, locked it, then
dropped the keys back in her pocket.
"wh-Why did you do that?" Julie quavered. "Why
did you lock him in there?"
Marguerite gazed at Julie contemptuously.
"What would you have me do with him?" she said.
"He's just like all little boys. Always poking their
noses in where they're not wanted, always in the way."
Then she was moving again, part of her weight leaning
heavily on Julie, dragging her right leg forward
until it was even with her left, then striding ahead
on her left leg, only to drag the right one forward
once more. When they came to the landing, she paused,
drawing in deep gasps of air as she tried to catch
her breath. "Upstairs," she said at last, and with
renewed strength began climbing the flight of stairs
that led to the ballroom.
Julie, her mind almost numb with fear now, let
herself be guided up the stairs and into the ballroom
itself. Marguerite reached into the pocket of her dress
and brought forth a box of wooden matches. Striking
one, she lit a stub of a candle that stood on top
of the piano and turned to glare at Julie. "Are you
ready?" she asked.
"R-Ready? For what, Aunt Marguerite?
wh-Why are we up here?"
"To dance!" Marguerite spat the words at Julie.
"We have to rehearse, my darling. You don't want
to look bad tomorrow, do you?"
Julie stared blankly at her aunt. What was she
talking about? Tomorrow? There wasn't anything
happening tomorrow, was there?
As if reading her thoughts, Marguerite's eyes
narrowed. "Don't you remember? You have a recital
tomorrow. All your friends will be here, and you are going to dance
for them!"
She seated herself at the piano and opened the lid over
the keyboard. For a moment Julie wanted to flee,
wanted to run out of the ballroom, down the stairs and
out of the house. She could hide in the storm, hide
all night if she had to-
And then she remembered Jeff. If she left,
what would her aunt do to her brother?
She couldn't leave, not as long as Jeff was locked
in the nursery.
A moment later, as Marguerite struck the first
chords on the out of tune piano, Julie forced her
feet into the unnatural pose of the first position of
classical ballet. . . .
Kerry was almost across the causeway when the wind
suddenly shifted and the car shuddered as a mass of air
struck it. Hands tightening on the wheel, he slowed
the car to little more than a crawl. He was feeling his
way along the narrow strip of pavement, the
blacktop completely invisible beneath the torrents of
rain and wind-whipped foam. The headlights
glowed brightly, but the glare of the rain nearly blinded
him, and the windshield wipers were useless. Just as he
felt the tension inside him reach the breaking point,
he felt a slight bump as he left the
blacktop of the causeway and dropped onto the
dirt road of the island. He pressed the
accelerator then, and the car shot forward before skidding
madly in the soft mud of the road.
He fought the car, spinning the wheels back and forth,
and the tires found a grip on a patch of gravel.
The car moved forward a few yards, but Kerry
slammed on the brakes.
Just ahead of him a huge pine branch, its layer of
moss stripped away, lay across the road, blocking
his way. Cursing
out loud, he set the brake and got out of the car,
stumbling through the rain and mud. He glared angrily
at the branch for a moment, kicking out at it with a shoe
that was heavy with mud. Then, regaining control over
himself, he bent down and grasped the branch with both
hands. Straining, he tried to lift it free from the
sucking mud, but it wouldn't budge. "Shit!" he
exploded once again. Sighing heavily, he found the
end of the branch where it had torn loose from the tree
and began dragging it to the side of the road.
For a moment he thought this, too, was going to be
futile, but then the branch gave slightly, there was
a strange sucking noise, and it pulled free.
He dragged it off the road into the brush. His hands
sticky with fresh sap now, and his clothes covered with
mud, he returned to his car.
Slowly and carefully he began making his way along
the road once again, the car slipping from side
to side, threatening to lose the road entirely on every
curve. At last he came to the driveway of
Sea Oaks and started up the gentle rise toward the
mansion itself.
He could see it now, looming against the sky. Here and
there, glimmering through some of the windows, he thought he could
make out the flickering light of candles.
Perhaps, after all, everything was going to be all right.
Fifty yards from the house he came to the tree that
had fallen across the driveway. Abandoning the car,
he began walking the last few yards.
Marguerite saw the bright flickering of lights
playing across the ceiling of the ballroom and abruptly
stopped playing. Julie, caught in midstep by the
sudden silence, faltered, then caught herself just before she
would have collapsed to the floor. She turned to look
at Marguerite, and for the first time saw the glow
of lights streaming up through the French doors that opened
onto the balcony above the veranda. "wh-What is
it?" she asked. Her heart was pounding again, but this time
with excitement.
Someone had come-someone had come to help her! She
ran to the window, pressing her face to the glass as
she tried to peer out into the storm.
The twin headlights nearly blinded her, but she
didn't care. Someone was here, and she was going to be
all right!
She felt Marguerite's hand close on her
shoulder, and a split second later felt herself being
spun around. There was a sharp crack as
Marguerite's right hand slashed across her face, and
Julie's eyes stung with sudden tears.
"How dare you?" Marguerite hissed. "How dare you
invite a beau out here at this hour? What will people
say?"
Her fingers closing around Julie's arm, she started
toward the door, dragging Julie after her. Julie
tried to struggle, but Marguerite turned, her free
hand slashing across Julie's other cheek. "Did you
think I wouldn't know?" Marguerite raged, her
voice shaking with fury. "Do you think I haven't
always known what you were doing with that boy?
Filthy, that's what you are. A filthy, degenerate
slut! And after all I've done for you!"
"No," Julie wailed. "I haven't done
anything, Aunt Marguerite."
"Liar!" Marguerite screeched, slapping Julie
yet again. "I'll teach you to lie to me!" Twisting
Julie's arm up behind her back, Marguerite
pushed her toward the stairs, and Julie had to grasp
tightly to the banister to keep from falling as she
stumbled down to the second floor.
They came at last to the landing, and Marguerite pushed
her again, propelling her along the corridor until
they were at the nursery. Never releasing her grip on
Julie, Marguerite fumbled in her pocket for the
key ring, then began trying the keys in the nursery
door. At last she found the right one.
Shoving Julie through the door, Marguerite pulled
it closed again and locked it once more.
Breathing heavily, but knowing what she must do,
Marguerite slowly made her way toward the head
of the main staircase.
As soon as he heard the lock click on the
nursery door, Jeff ran to his sister, dropping
down on the floor next to her. "What happened?
What did she do to you?" he whimpered.
"She-She was making me dance," Julie told him.
"She kept talking about a recital tomorrow." She
sat up, rubbing gingerly at her left knee, the
skin of which had scraped away when she hit the
floor. She winced at the stinging in the raw flesh,
then got to her feet and rushed to the window. "There's a
car outside," she told Jeff. "Someone's come
to help us!" She pressed her face to the glass, but
the headlights were gone and the sky outside was once more
pitch black. "Where is it?" she pleaded.
"Didn't you see it, Jeff?"
Jeff shook his head. "I didn't see anything."
"But it was there!" Julie insisted. "It was coming up the
hill, and you could see the headlights on the ceiling."
A flash of lightning suddenly shot across the sky, and
Julie saw what she was looking for. In the
driveway, just beyond the fallen tree and only partly
visible around the corner of the house, was a car.
Kerry Sanders's car.
She gasped, instinctively clutching Jeff's hand
as thunder rolled over the house. "It's Kerry!
He's here, Jeff. We're going to be all right!"
As the thunder died away, there was another flash of
lightning, and she could see Kerry himself. His shoulders
were hunched against the storm, his head low as he
fought his way uphill, his feet slipping on the
slick drive, his clothes drenched and smeared with
mud. A wave of relief flooded over Julie,
replaced a split second later by renewed
panic.
"We've got to warn him!" she cried. She began
struggling with the window, trying to lift it.
"The lock!" Jeff screamed. "You have to open the
lock!"
Julie stared dumbly at her brother, then understood
what he was talking about. With fumbling fingers she
groped at the latch between the two halves of the
casement, whimpering with frustration when it refused
to turn.
"The other way!" Jeff yelled. "You're turning
it the wrong way!"
Shoving his sister aside, he reached up and hooked his
thumb around the tab on the latch, then pulled to his
right. Instantly the latch came free, and he tried
to raise the window. "Help me!" he shouted when the
wooden frame held fast. But even with Julie's
help, it did no good. The wood of the window
frame, soaked with rain, had swollen into a tight
seal, jammed tight within its casement.
"What are we going to do?" Julie
moaned. A sheet of lightning briefly
illuminated the night, and she realized she had only
a few seconds left. Kerry was almost to the corner
of the house now, and in another moment would start toward the
front door.
"Bust it!" Jeff exclaimed. He ran to the
small rocking chair and began dragging it. "Help
me!"
Julie stared dumbly at her brother for a moment,
then understood. Grabbing the rocking chair, she pulled
it next to the window, lifted it by the arms, took a
deep breath, and smashed its runners into the casement.
There was a crash as the old wood exploded outward
and shards of glass dropped to the floor. A few
long pieces, tapering to evil points, still remained,
and Julie battered at them with the chair until they were
gone. Then, ignoring the wind and rain lashing through the
gaping hole where the window had been, she leaned out,
raising her voice to scream into the wind.
"Kerry! Kerry, wait!"
But even as she shouted, she knew it was useless. Her
words seemed to evaporate into the chaos of the storm,
sounding muffled even to herself. And when the next flash of
lightning came, and she could no longer see Kerry
Sanders, she knew she had failed. Sobbing
with fear and frustration,
she turned away from the window. "What are we going
to do?" she gasped, her voice choking. "She's
crazy, Jeff. And she's going to kill Kerry!
I know she is!"
Jeff, his eyes desolate, could only gaze
mutely back at his sister.
Kerry darted up the steps, then paused on the
veranda. Water poured off him, and he shivered as the
wind whipped around him. Through the windows in the front
of the house, he could see a few candles flickering
brightly. And yet there was no other movement inside the
house.
But they must have seen his headlights coming up the road.
Why wasn't Julie already at the front door,
waiting for him?
He'd been right-something
was
wrong.
He tried to swallow the fear rising like bile in the
back of his throat. What should he do?
Part of him wanted to turn away, to go back to his
car and start back to the mainland. But it was too late
for that-the wind was coming steadily out of the south again, and
waves, piled high by the force of the gale,
would be breaking over the road, making it impassable.
Besides, even if he could get back to the mainland, by the
time he found help and returned to the island, whatever
was happening inside the house would already be over and done
with. Screwing up his courage, he crossed the veranda
and pounded on the front door.
Marguerite stood uncertainly at the foot of the
stairs. The hollow pounding on the front door
seemed to batter at her, and she whimpered softly
to herself.
He shouldn't have come-he knew he was supposed to stay
away. Hadn't she warned him what would happen if
he kept coming out here, sniffing around her daughter like a
rutting dog? And he was nobody-nothing but a
sharecropper's son whose father had worked for her husband.
How
dare he think she would ever allow him to marry her
daughter? As if she would ever allow Marguerite
to marry anyone!
The pounding continued, and she could hear him shouting now,
calling out, pleading to be let in.
Slowly a smile came to her lips.
She would let him in, all right. But it would be the
last time.
Turning away from the stairs, she began
hobbling slowly toward the kitchen.
Kerry's fists were beginning to hurt from pounding on the
door. What was happening? Why wasn't someone
answering? Couldn't they hear him? He shouted
Julie's name, but the wind seized his words,
scattering them into the trees. He moved down the
veranda and peered in the living room windows.
The room, barely illuminated by five candles on
the large coffee table in front of the fireplace,
seemed empty. But just as he was about to turn away and
go around to the back of the house, he saw movement in the
dining room. A second later he recognized
Marguerite's uneven gait as she stepped through the
large double doors that separated the living room from the
dining room. He rapped on the glass and shouted
once more. He saw Marguerite pause and look
uncertainly around. He rapped harder, and then,
suddenly, she saw him. For a moment her expression
froze, but then she nodded to him and a half smile
curled around her lips.
She pointed to the front door.
The tension drained out of Kerry's body as he
hurried back to the door. He'd been wrong!
He'd been wrong about all of it. They were in the
kitchen, that was all. And Julie was fine.
He waited impatiently, shivering in the wind, and
at last heard the rattle of the lock as Marguerite
opened it. Then the door itself opened and Marguerite
stood framed by the oversize doorway, her face
lost in the shadows.
"So you've come," Kerry heard her say.
"I was worried-" Kerry began, and abruptly
fell silent.
There was something strange about Marguerite's voice.
There was a hardness to it he'd never heard before.
Indeed, she hadn't really sounded like Marguerite at
all. For some reason it reminded him of old
Helena Devereaux's harsh, demanding voice.
"M-Miss Marguerite?" Kerry stammered
uncertainly. "Are you all right?"
A bolt of lightning flashed across the sky then, and in
the brilliant glare of its light, Kerry saw
Marguerite's face clearly.
It was a grotesque mask of makeup, smeared and
blotched, made even more hideous by the black lace
of her bodice. In the white glare of the lightning she
seemed a hideous creature out of a nightmare, and
suddenly Kerry's fear flooded back in an icy
chill.
She was staring at him now, her eyes
glittering insanely. "Why wouldn't I be all
right?" she demanded.
Kerry shrank back. Something
was
wrong-something was far more wrong than he had even
imagined. This wasn't the Marguerite Devereaux he
had known all his life, not even the Marguerite who
had seemed to turn against him in the last two weeks.
This was someone else, someone he didn't know at
all.
"Scream," Jeff told his sister. "If you
scream loud enough, he'll be able to hear you when she
opens the door."
Julie stared numbly at her brother. If Kerry
couldn't hear her from outside, through a broken window,
how would he ever hear her through the thick door of the
nursery, and all the way downstairs?
But she had to try-she had to do something. If she
didn't-A
vision of her aunt's face flashed into her mind, the
twisted mask of fury that had distorted
Marguerite's features even beyond the strange
makeup that had ruined her beauty.
Hurling herself toward the door, she began pounding on
it, and both she and Jeff raised their
voices to the loudest scream they could muster.
The roll of thunder following the bolt of lightning
faded away, and Kerry was about to run from the veranda.
Then he heard the scream-muffled almost to the point of
inaudibility-and took an instinctive step forward.
Instantly, the knife Marguerite held concealed in
the folds of her skirt came up. Kerry
recognized it too late.
He froze in mid-step, his eyes wide as he
watched the knife arc down toward his chest. Each
instant seemed to hang before him like an eternity, and his
mind churned with confusion.
What was happening? Was she trying to kill him? But
she couldn't be-she
wouldn't
be! Why? What had he done to her?
Even as the knife descended upon him, he realized
the truth. It wasn't Marguerite at all who was
killing him. It was someone else, someone she'd
dredged up out of the depths of her mind, and it was that
person who was killing him.
She was not Marguerite, and he was not Kerry. Instead
he had got caught up in a mad fantasy, and
none of it was real.
Except the knife.
The knife was real, and Kerry felt himself in
suspended animation as it sank into his chest. He
felt the cold metal slip between his ribs, felt his
lungs tear as the blade ripped through them.
He felt the knife being torn out of him, and he
staggered, his legs betraying him as shock began
to move out from the wound, paralyzing his limbs, sapping
the strength from his body.
Then the knife struck again, and this time he felt it
enter his heart.
He pitched forward, his vision going black as he
died. The last thing he saw was the scarlet gash of
Marguerite's mouth, twisted into a vicious parody
of a victorious smile.
Marguerite's heart pounded with wild elation as she
watched the life drain out of the face in front of
her. The eyes were opened wide, and she'd seen every one
of the fleeting
emotions that had passed through them. First the fear, the
shock as he'd recognized who she really was.
He'd almost gotten away from her then, almost turned
to flee out into the night, where she knew she'd never be
able to follow him-not with the strange burning in her hip
that kept her from walking properly. But then she'd
heard her daughter screaming from upstairs,
and seen the boy turn back.
His eyes were puzzled then, as if he didn't know
what he'd done, why she had to punish him-punish
him and her daughter too. But then the puzzlement had
vanished as she'd raised the knife, and he'd stared
at it in fascination as she plunged it into his chest
then jerked it out only to strike once more.
Then, finally, the light in his eyes had gone out, and
she'd known he was dead, known it even before his body
pitched forward and she stepped aside to let it fall
to the floor at her feet.
She smiled once again as the force of his fall drove
the knife even deeper and its point, covered with his
blood, emerged out of his back.
Her fingers, twitching with pleasure, went to her
bodice, and she felt the warm stickiness of his
blood on the lace of her blouse. But that was all
right. She could change her clothes if she wanted
to-upstairs, hanging in her closets, were racks
and racks of them. And it had been so long since
she'd worn them, so many years since there had been a
ball upstairs.
She stepped over the body at her feet and pushed the
door closed against the storm. She could still hear her
daughter screaming and pounding her fists against
the door upstairs.
As well she might, considering what she'd done.
She would have to be locked up again, just as she'd been
locked up before, in the little room down in the cellar.
But there was so much to be done first. So very, very much . .
.
Humming softly to herself, Marguerite bent down and
grasped Kerry Sanders's arms, then began dragging
him across the floor of the entry hall toward the
bottom of the stairs.
Blood, still oozing slightly from his wounds, smeared
across
the floor, but Marguerite didn't notice it at
all. Finally reaching the foot of the staircase, she
paused for a moment to catch her breath. Then she threw
the switch to activate the chair lift.
Nothing happened.
She frowned uncertainly, then remembered. Of
course it didn't work-the electricity was off. She
chuckled hollowly then, remembering that they'd thought of
this years ago, her daughter and herself, when she'd been
confined to the second floor. It was Marguerite who
had come up with the idea.
"We'll put in a generator," she'd said. "Just a
little one in the closet under the stairs. Just in
case."
And tonight, finally, the case had come.
She picked up the hurricane lamp that stood on
the newel post and went to the door beneath the stairs.
Inside, tucked away in a corner, was the
generator. She stared at it for a moment.
Would it even work? If it had been left to that
worthless Ruby to look after, it probably wouldn't.
She studied the directions printed on the orange
metal of the machine's gas tank, then fumbled for a
moment as she searched for the choke. Finally, bracing
herself uncomfortably, she pulled on the rope that
emerged from the side.
On the third pull the little motor caught, coughed,
then fell into an uneven idle that smoothed out when she
adjusted the choke.
She turned one more switch and the machinery of the chair
lift hummed into life.
She left the closet and returned to the foot of the
stairs. She pressed the button, there was a
familiar clanking sound, and the chair began descending
toward her from its place at the second-floor
landing.
Julie and Jeff, their throats sore and their
voices hoarse, finally stopped screaming.
The nursery was cold now, and the wind was whipping the
curtains beside the broken
window, but they were oblivious to it all, their ears
pressed to the door as they strained to hear what was
happening downstairs.
The wind slackened for a moment, and suddenly in the
empty silence that replaced the howling of the storm, they
heard the sound of machinery.
"wh-What's she doing?" Jeff whispered,
fearfully clutching Julie's hand.
"I don't know. It sounds like the chair lift. But
it can't be-there isn't any electricity."
Then Jeff remembered the generator his father had shown
him in the closet under the stairs.
"But why?" Julie asked after he had told her about
it. "What does she need the lift for? She never
uses it-she hates it."
"How should I know?" Jeff complained. "And where's
Kerry?"
But Julie made no answer to Jeff's question, and
he didn't ask it again, for both of them were already
certain that Kerry was dead.
They didn't know how, and they didn't know why, but
they were both absolutely positive that it had
happened.
Their Aunt Marguerite had killed him.
The chair lift rattled to a stop at the bottom
of the stairs, and Marguerite leaned down, sliding her
hands under Kerry Sanders's arms. Her right leg
sprawled awkwardly across the floor, she rested her
weight on her left leg, crouching low to keep her
balance. Finally, straining with the effort, she pushed herself
upward, lifting Kerry's limp body into the chair.
She held it in place for a moment, catching her
breath, then let
go-The body swayed, nearly falling off the chair.
She caught
it at the last moment, then paused, uncertain what
to do.
And then she knew.
Grasping the handle of the knife that still protruded from
Kerry's chest, she pressed her weight against it,
driving its sharp end into the banister at Kerry's
back. Then, leaving the
body pinned to the stair rail like an insect on a
board, she gathered her skirts around her and hurried
down the stairs to the cellar, carrying the hurricane
lamp with her.
In a few moments she was back, a long length of
clothesline clutched in her free hand.
Setting the lamp back on the newel post, she
began wrapping the rope around Kerry's body, tying
it tightly against the back of the chair. When she was
finally satisfied, she jerked the knife free of the
banister and Kerry's body settled slightly, his
shoulders drooping, his right arm falling from his lap so that
his fingers almost brushed the bottom stair.
Once again Marguerite pressed the button, and the
chair began moving slowly upward, its gears
grinding loudly as it bore its grisly cargo
aloft.
Marguerite, one hand clutching Kerry's shoulder for
support, mounted the stairs next to the lift,
keeping the sedate pace of the chair, oblivious to the
small rivulet of crimson blood that ran down
Kerry's arm and dribbled in large droplets onto
the carpet that covered the stairs.
They came to the second-floor landing, but instead of
stopping the chair there, Marguerite let it continue,
jerking around the corner to the second flight, then
grinding in protest as it hit the rust that had gathered
on the upper set of rails during the years of
disuse.
A high, keening wail accompanied the chair on its
final ascent, and then it clanked loudly as
it came to a stop once more.
Marguerite struggled with the rope, her fingers slipping
off the blood-covered knots. But slowly she began
working them loose, and at last the rope came free
and Kerry's body tumbled to the floor. Grasping his
hands in her own, she began dragging his corpse into the
ballroom.
Julie and Jeff stared at each other in horror.
They'd listened in silence as the chair lift had
ground upward, then felt a moment of relief as it
had clanged to a stop. But a few minutes later
they'd heard a soft thump above them, as if
something had fallen. Their eyes met, and though neither of
them said a word, they both knew what had happened.
It was Jeff who finally dared to speak, as the wind
outside began to scream once more through the pines and a
renewed torrent of rain battered at the house.
"She killed him," he whispered, his voice choking
with terrified sobs. "She killed him, and she took
him upstairs, and she's going to kill us too."
Julie was unable to make any reply at all, for
she knew that what her brother had said was true.
And then, after what seemed like an eternity of silence
from beyond the nursery door, the machinery suddenly came
back to life and they heard the chair lift
begin its slow descent once again.
The storm seemed to find new strength, and once more the
night was shattered by jagged daggers of lightning and the
house shuddered under the force of the thunder that followed each
flash. A tall pine only ten yards from the house
shrieked in protest as a bolt of lightning struck
its top, splitting its trunk to the root. Julie
screamed out loud as the thunderclap crashed in her ears,
then shrank back, clutching the small coverlet from
the broken crib tight around her.
"We've got to get away from here!" Jeff shouted
over the roar of the storm.
"How?" Julie sobbed. "There isn't any way
out."
But Jeff was already at the smashed window, squinting
into the darkness as he tried to find a means of
escape. As another bolt of lightning slashed through
the storm, he saw a way. Eight feet away,
toward the corner of the house, a thick mass of
wisteria climbed the wall. Here on the second
floor there was a narrow ledge, no more than six
inches wide, which ran the full length of the house.
If he could get onto the ledge and cling to the house
itself as he inched his way to the vines-
"I can do it!" he yelled. "I know I
can!"
His shout of bravado roused Julie. Still clutching
the quilt around her shoulders, she moved toward the
window.
"Look!" Jeff whispered, his voice quivering with
excitement now instead of fear. "There's some vines
there. All I have to do is go along the ledge."
"But you can't," Julie protested. "There's nothing
to hang onto."
"Yes, I can," Jeff insisted. "There's all
kinds of cracks in
the siding. And if I can get out of the house, maybe
I can get across the causeway too."
The memory of her mother flashed into Julie's head.
"You can't get across. Not in this-"
"Kerry got across," Jeff replied, his jaw
setting stubbornly. "If he could do it, so can I."
He climbed up onto the windowsill and swung his
legs out, then rolled over so he was on his stomach,
his head and shoulders still inside the nursery. He
felt with his toes, then found the ledge. A moment
later, his weight on the ledge but his balance
maintained only by his hands clinging to the sill, he
grinned at his sister. "See? It's easy."
"Don't!" Julie wailed. "You'll
fall, Jeff."
"I won't either," Jeff told her. "And even if
I do, I bet it won't hurt me. All it is
is mud down there, and I've jumped off higher
stuff than this."
He began edging his way toward the vines then, moving
his feet slowly and carefully, testing the strength of the
ledge with every step before trusting his weight to it. In a
few seconds he was away from the window, only his
right hand still clinging to its broken frame. He winced as
he felt a fragment of glass slash his fingers, but
let out no cry. Then, with his left hand, he began
groping for a finger hold on the wall itself.
His heart sank for a moment as he felt nothing but the
smooth surface of the siding, but then, barely within
reach, he found a small crack. His fingertips
dug in, andwiththe wind lashing at him, he took a
deep breath, let go of the window frame, and began
inching his way once more along the ledge.
He froze as the sky lit up around him, then
pressed his body to the wall as a rumble of thunder
made the house shake beneath his feet. As the thunder died
away, he began creeping once more toward the vines.
He was three feet away when his left foot
slipped and he felt himself lurch downward,
the palms of his hands scraping across the wet siding.
Just before his balance completely gave way, his fingers
found a crack and he clutched wildly, his heart
pounding, his breath frozen in his lungs. Trembling,
he
found his foothold once again, then moved quickly,
scuttling like a crab to the relative safety of the
vines.
His clothes were soaking wet, and he huddled in the
vines for a moment, waiting for his heart to slow and his
breathing to return to normal. At last he gripped
the thick trunk of the ancient wisteria and abandoned the
ledge.
Instantly he felt the vine tearing away from the
wall, its tendrils loosing their grip on the old
wood of the siding. Half climbing, half falling,
he slithered to the ground. Just as his feet touched the
wet earth, the mass of vines fell away from the
house, collapsing in a tangled heap on top of
him. He thrashed helplessly for a moment, but the vines
seemed only to tighten around him, and he felt fingers
of panic reaching out to him.
Marguerite emerged from the ballroom, humming
softly to herself. She paused at the top of the stairs
for a moment, her eyes darting around the small
foyer outside the double doors as if she were searching
for something that wasn't there. Then her tuneless melody
suddenly stopped and she murmured out loud, her words
instantly lost in the moaning of the wind outside.
"My guests-I must attend to my guests."
Seating herself on the chair lift, the bloodstained
rope coiled neatly in her lap and the hurricane
lamp held high, she pressed the button on the
arm of the chair. The lift jerked once, then began
its stately descent to the first floor.
When it came to a stop two minutes later,
Marguerite stood up, staggering slightly as her
lame hip protested, then caught her balance and
went to the cellar door. Opening it, she held the
lamp high as she started down the stairs, a soft
glow of candlelight filling the dark reaches of the
basement, casting eerie shadows on the walls and
floor. Coming to the bottom of the stairs, Marguerite
moved deliberately toward the small, nearly
hidden chamber at the back, then reached into her
pocket and fished out the key ring.
A moment later the lock snapped open and she pushed
the door wide.
Holding the lamp high once more, she peered
vacantly at the carnage within.
"It's time to go upstairs," she said softly, a
smile playing at her lips. "In a little while the
recital will begin."
She glanced around, and finally set the hurricane
lamp on a stack of cartons midway between the little
room and the base of the stairs. Bending down, she
grasped Kevin's legs and began pulling him to the
stairs. His body was already beginning to stiffen, andwiththe
pain in her hip and leg increasing every moment, the job
was almost more than she could accomplish.
But she had to do it, had to get him upstairs, had
to get him to the ballroom. She labored on, and
dust swirled up from the cellar floor, caking onto
the blood that covered her clothes, settling in her
hair, making her eyes sting. But at last Kevin's
body lay stretched out on its back, propped against
the wall.
Returning to the tiny room, Marguerite began the
labor of dragging Jennifer Mayhew's corpse
to the bottom of the stairs, and then Ruby's. She
went back to the room then, and carefully locked the
door. Satisfied that it was secure, she moved
back to the bottom of the stairs and tried to lift
Kevin's body up onto the stairs themselves.
It was impossible.
Marguerite whimpered in the dim light as frustration
and fury welled up in her, making her whole body
tremble. She kicked out at the corpse, her right
foot stiffly lashing into its side, then winced as a
stab of pain shot through her leg. "Damn you," she
whispered. "Damn you, damn you, damn you!" Her
mind churned with rage, but as an idea formed in her
mind, the anger drained away.
Stepping over Kevin's body, she stumbled up the
stairs and found the coil of rope on the chair
lift, just where she'd left it. A few seconds
later she was back in the basement.
She twisted Kevin's body around until his feet
rested on the bottom step, then tied one end of the
rope around his ankles, twisting it tight and tying it
off as best she could.
Then, chuckling softly, she went up the stairs
once more, playing out the coils of rope as she went.
At the top of the stairs she had one more flash of
panic: What if the rope wasn't long enough?
Her heart racing, she quickened her uneven step, then
sighed in relief as she reached the chair lift.
There were still two feet of rope left. Muttering
quietly, she tied the end of the rope to the lift,
straightened up and pressed the control
button once more.
The chair began to move, and the rope, curving around the
newel post, then snaking along the floor to the
cellar door, grew taut.
The machinery of the lift ground in protest for a moment,
then, from the cellar, there was a sharp thumping noise,
then another. As the lift moved up the stairs toward
the second floor, Kevin Devereaux's body
moved up from the basement, his head bumping loudly on
each step. As the chair reached the second-floor
landing, Kevin's corpse emerged feet first from the
cellar door and began dragging across the polished
wood of the foyer. When it came to the bottom of the
stairs, Marguerite stopped the chair lift and
reversed its action. The rope went slack, and by the
time the chair reached the foot of the stairs once more, the
rope was free from Kevin's legs.
Grasping him under the arms, Marguerite heaved him
onto the chair, then held him in place as she
began wrapping coils of rope around him as she'd
wrapped them around Kerry Sanders thirty minutes
earlier.
At last, her brother's body tied securely to the
chair, she pushed the button once more, and with her hand
resting lightly on the corpse's arm,
began accompanying the body on its slow ascent.
"You're going to be so proud of her," she said.
"I've taught her so much while you've been gone.
She dances like the wind on a meadow, Kevin. Have you
ever seen the way the breeze makes the leaves dance
on a beautiful fall day? It's charming,
absolutely charming. And that's how she dances now.
I've devoted my life to her, you know. My whole
life. But it's been worth it, every minute of it. And
you're going to see. You're all going to see. And
you'll be so proud. So very, very proud.
"As proud as I am . . ."
The lift came to the second-floor landing, turned
jerkily, then started up the last flight. And all the
way Marguerite, her hand still resting on the bloody
remains of her brother, kept chatting on, as if
entertaining an honored guest.
Stop! Jeff commanded himself, and with an effort of sheer will
made himself lie still for a moment. Then, beginning with his
right arm, he began working himself free of the clinging snare
in which he was entangled. He didn't know how long
he'd been lying there, but it seemed like hours. The
rain was still pouring down on him, but the screaming of the
wind through the pine trees seemed to have eased
slightly, and there was less lightning.
His right arm finally came free of the vines, and then he
began stripping the clinging foliage away from his other
arm and his legs. When at last he could move
freely, he began methodically working his way through the
tangle, gently pushing the vines apart until there was
a hole through which he could crawl. At last he
emerged from the collapsed wisteria, his hand sinking
deep into the muddy garden that edged this side of the house.
"Jeff? Jeff!"
He barely heard his name at first, then heard it again
and looked up. Above him there was nothing but blackness,
but he thought he could make out his sister leaning out the
window and staring down at him.
"Are you all right?" he heard.
"I'm okay," he called back. "I made it."
Then, before Julie could say anything else, he
dashed off into the night, using his memory more than his
eyes to follow the path down past the garage and into the
undergrowth beyond. If his aunt found out he'd gotten
away, the first place she'd look for him was on the
road. But out here, in the middle of the island, she'd
never find him.
He ran as fast as he could, dodging through the clumps
of vines and stands of pines, his heart pounding and his
breath
coming in loud, rasping gasps. Finally, his energy
gone, he had to stop.
He slumped to the ground, his whole body aching, and
tipped his face up so that the rain sluiced over him,
washing away the sweat that had broken out all over his
body. At last his panting slowed and he got back
to his feet.
He took a step forward, then stopped, frowning
uncertainly in the darkness. Where was he?
There was a flash of lightning in the distance, and in the
brief moment of illumination he gazed frantically
around, trying to get his bearings. But nothing looked
familiar, and as the lightning died and a low rumble of
thunder rolled across the island, he realized he was
lost.
The tendrils of panic reached out to him again, but once
more he fought them down. He'd been out poking around the
island every day, and he knew all the paths-every inch of
them. How could he be lost?
Then, a few yards away, he thought he heard a
sound-the snap of a twig, then an angry hissing-as
if something were moving through the brush.
He froze, listening, trying to convince himself that it was
nothing but the wind.
But the wind had suddenly died away, and the
rain was pouring straight down on him. He heard the
sound again.
Whatever it was, it was moving toward him. He began
running again, weaving his way through the trails, no
longer caring which way he was going as he remembered the
alligators that floated like logs in the ponds of the
island, or lay basking in the sun, their heavy-lidded
eyes half open as they waited for prey to stumble
into their path. Then he was out of the tangle of brush and
into a stand of pines. He broke out of the pines and
hurtled out onto the road. His feet hit the mud,
skidded out from under him, and he sprawled headlong into the
mire.
Sobbing now, he got to his feet and tried
to scrape some of the mud off his clothes, then wiped his
face with a filthy arm. But he knew where he was now,
and taking a deep breath, began slogging along the
road toward the causeway.
Hal Sanders pulled his car up in front of the town
hall and jumped out, slamming the door behind him even
as he dashed for the front door. He was almost
surprised to find it unlocked- from what Frank
Weaver had said earlier, he half expected Will
Hempstead to have locked up and gone home for the evening.
Hal had left his house as soon as Edith
discovered Kerry was missing, sure he knew where his
son had gone. But when he'd gotten to the causeway
and seen the waves crashing over it, he'd been
certain that Kerry wouldn't try to cross it- nobody
in his right mind would. So he'd begun driving around the
town, looking for his son's car, certain he would
spot it at any moment, either in front of the
drugstore, or parked in the driveway of one of his
friend's houses.
But as the minutes had ticked by and there had been no
sign of Kerry's car, his worries had slowly
grown. And along with worry about his son, had come
anger toward Frank Weaver and Will Hempstead.
If they'd done their jobs, Kerry would be home right
now.
Finally he'd decided to go to the police station. He
found Hempstead and Weaver, their feet propped up
on Hempstead's desk, a plate of cold French
fries sitting untouched between them. Hempstead's
feet dropped to the floor as Hal came into the
office, water dripping from his slicker.
"What are you doing out tonight?" Hempstead asked
cheerfully. "Decide to take some swimming
lessons?"
"Lookin' for Kerry," Hal replied, his
voice tinged with anger. "And if anything's happened
to him, I guess I have you to thank, don't I?"
Hempstead rose to his feet, his genial smile
fading. "Kerry?" he echoed. "What're you talking
about, Hal?"
"Frank was over to the house earlier," Hal
explained. "He got Kerry all riled up about
what's goin' on out on the island, and I think
Kerry decided to go have a look." His eyes, glaring
darkly, shifted to the deputy. "Since Weaver here
was too chicken to do his own job."
"Now, you just wait a minute-" Weaver began, but
Hempstead cut him off.
"Now calm down, Hal," he said, "and tell me
what's goin' on. You think Kerry tried to go out to the
island?"
Sanders took a deep breath, then slowly exhaled.
When he finally trusted himself to speak, he nodded.
"It's the only thing I can figure," he
explained. "I took a look at the causeway,
and it's a mess out there. So I figured Kerry
must've gone over to one of his friends, but now I've
been all over town and I can't find his car."
"Did you go home?" Weaver asked,
unconsciously echoing Hempstead's
advice to Alicia Mayhew only a few hours
earlier.
"No, I didn't," Sanders spat. "I came
here to tell you I'm damned mad that you guys left
a sixteen-year-old kid to do your jobs, and that
I'm goin' back out to the causeway. And as soon
as I can, I'm goin' out to the island to have a look
around."
"Now wait a minute- " Hempstead began, but
Sanders shook his head.
"You guys find Jennifer Mayhew?" he demanded.
The two policemen glanced at each other, and
Sanders knew the answer before either of them spoke. "So
you're just sittin" around here waiting for the storm
to stop. Well, I'm not. Now it's my kid that's
out there somewhere, and you guys can help me look for him
or not. But don't forget," he added, "there's an
election coming up next year, and this time you might have
someone running against you, W."
Hempstead eyed Sanders warily for a moment, then
made up his mind. But it wasn't the threat of a
fight at election time that decided the issue for him.
It was worry.
Now there were two kids missing, and both of them had
set out for Devereaux Island. And Hal
Sanders was apparently determined to follow them.
"We'll go along," he said, reaching for his own
slicker, then tossing another to Frank Weaver.
"But when we get to the causeway, I'm the one
who'll decide if we try to cross it or not.
If Kerry already tried, he either made it or he
didn't. But I'm not going to watch you go
into the sea, too, Hal. If it's too bad, we
wait for the storm to pass, and that's that."
Hal Sanders glared at the police chief. "If
we wait for the storm to pass," he said darkly,
"it'll probably be too late. For all we know,
it already is."
Marguerite barely felt the exhaustion that permeated
her body; indeed, as the night had worn on, she
felt an increasing sense of well-being. At last
everything was once more going to be as it should be. She was
oblivious to the storm now, her entire being occupied
with her preparations for what was to come.
The chair lift clattered to a halt for the final time,
and she unbound Ruby's body, letting it slide
to the floor in front of the doors to the ballroom.
Coiling the rope neatly, she laid it carefully
on the seat of the lift, then bent down, unheeding the
burning pain in her right hip. She slipped
her hands under Ruby's armpits and, still bent over,
hobbled backward into the ballroom, where she placed
Ruby's body with the others. She straightened up,
smiling softly as she surveyed her work.
But something was missing. Something-some small detail-
wasn't quite right.
And then she remembered. She hurried down to the
second floor and along the corridor to her mother's
rooms. In the small parlor, still sitting on the
mahogany gateleg table, she found what she was
looking for.
The music box.
It was large, nearly two feet square, and there was
a small crank protruding from one side of its
rosewood case. She touched it lovingly for a
moment, then turned the crank. At last, almost
reverently, she lifted its lid.
Inside the box a large metal disk began
to rotate, and a soft and gentle melody filled the
air. It stirred memories in Marguerite's
mind, memories of times when she had been a little
girl and her mother had played the music box for her and
begun teaching her how to dance.
She frowned, for something in the memory was hurtful.
And then she remembered.
Her mother had made her dance to the soft strains of the
simple waltz for hours sometimes, until her legs
ached, and she was afraid she might collapse from
exhaustion. But when she'd complained, her mother had
only rewound the box, driving her oh ... on.
...
"I never did," Helena's rasping voice
screeched from Marguerite's own lips. "You were
lazy. If you'd had your way, you never would have danced
at all!"
"No," Marguerite's own voice pleaded, "I
wasn't lazy, Mama. I just-
Her voice shifted again, this time in mid sentence.
"Don't you dare contradict me, young lady!"
Helena's voice shrieked. "After everything I've
done for you! Don't you dare!"
It was Helena's hand that snaked out and slammed the
music box shut, cutting off the gentle melody,
but Marguerite's own voice that whimpered quietly
in the silence. "But I tried, Mama," she
whispered. "I just-I'm sorry, Mama. . . ."
Her mind felt fragmented now, and she stood still,
holding her head with her hands, feeling as if she
might explode. Her madness battled within her and
her body contorted, her torso twisting
painfully as she tried to writhe away from the pain
inside her head. And then the pain began to numb her
mind as she fought against the memory of her mother that had
come alive within her as she'd stood by the crypt
earlier that night.
She'd loved her mother-all her life she'd loved
her mother. And if it hadn't been for the accident the
night she fell down the stairs . . .
She floundered then, trying to remember that night.
What had happened? What, truly, had happened?
"You want to know?" her mother's voice cackled. "I
can show you, you know. I can show you all of it!"
"No!" Marguerite breathed, but even as she uttered
the word, she surrendered her mind to her mother.
The pain in her head ceased, and as if in a trance,
she moved
out of the small parlor, crossed the bedroom into the
dressing room, and pulled open a large shallow
drawer, nearly five feet long and three feet
wide. A ball gown lay in the drawer, its
color long since faded with age, its hems
frayed. But now, in the dim light of the single candle
that lit the room, it looked to her as if it were brand
new. It was a beautiful dress, made of
emerald-green satin, with a bodice worked in
pearls of the palest pink. She reached out and touched the
dress, and three of the tiny pearls tore loose from
their rotting threads, rolling unnoticed into the corner
of the drawer.
Slowly, her eyes never leaving the ball gown,
Marguerite began stripping off her bloodstained
clothes until she stood in only her bra and
panties.
She began searching then, searching for the petticoat that
would hold the gown's skirt out and rustle softly as
she moved. She found it at last and put it on, then
gently removed the gown itself from the drawer.
She stepped into it, easing her arms through the sleeves,
then carefully buttoning up the high bodice. The
top of the gown, made from the sheerest lace, tore in
her fingers, but she didn't see the tiny rents in the
fabric, didn't see the pearls that had fallen
away from the scalloped pattern over her bosom.
She went to her vanity then and began repairing her
makeup. She added color to her cheeks and lips,
then patted a layer of powder over the heavy grease.
She leaned forward, brushing mascara onto her
eyelashes and covering the smudges below her eyes with
heavy shadow. At last she turned her attention
to her hair, braiding it into two long
plaits which she coiled high on top of her head,
held in place with two silver combs.
At last she stood up and moved to the tall mirror
in the corner of her dressing room.
Through the mists in her mind she stared long and hard at
the reflection in the mirror, and saw the image of
Helena Devereaux, exactly as she had looked that
night so many years ago, when all of her dreams for
her daughter had been shattered, finally and forever.
She went back to the parlor then and picked up the
large rosewood music box. Carrying it almost
reverently, she left
the suite of rooms at the end of the corridor and
started back toward the staircase. She was moving
easily now, and the pain in her hip had ceased. Her
limp, too, was gone, and she walked with an even
step, moving regally through the house, the hem of her
dress barely touching the floor. At last she
came to the stairs and started up.
Julie listened at the door of the nursery, her
face glistening with tears, her whole body trembling
with fear and the exhaustion that the hours of terror had
brought with them. It seemed as if the sound of the chair
lift would never end. Four times it had moved back
and forth between the first floor and the third. But
what could her aunt have been doing? And then, a little
while ago, she'd heard Marguerite's uneven
tread coming down the stairs and moving along the
corridor toward her grandmother's room.
She'd listened for a long time then, her fear growing as
the silence in the house dragged on.
Once, for a few short moments, she thought she heard
the faint sounds of music, but then the wind had come up
again and drowned it out. And, of course, it was
impossible anyway-the electricity was off.
But now she heard footsteps in the hall once more.
Even footsteps, not the strange, ominous sounds of
her aunt, moving stiffly, dragging her right leg behind
her. She wanted to cry out to whoever was there, scream
to them for help. But something stopped her, something held
her back.
Then she heard the footsteps fade away as whoever
was in the house went upstairs, and she hurried to the
broken window, leaning out into the darkness.
She didn't know how long it had been since Jeff
had run off into the storm. It seemed like
hours-seemed like an eternity. But perhaps it had only
been minutes.
The storm seemed to be easing off. The wind was dying,
and even the rain had slowed to a gentle
drizzle. She felt a flicker of hope.
Maybe he would be able to get across the causeway
now.
And then she gasped in sudden terror as she heard the
soft click of the lock on the door opening, followed
by the creak of the door itself. She turned, and stifled a
scream.
Jeff stumbled along the road, feeling his way in the
darkness. There were only brief flashes of lightning
now, and they were far in the distance, lighting only the
clouds from which they sprang, to be followed long
seconds later by the low rumble of thunder. The road,
nothing more than a track of deep mud, sucked at
his feet, and every step was an agonizing labor.
To his left, the pines, groaning under the weight of
rain-soaked moss, seemed to reach out to him like beggars
in the night, trying to touch him, grasp him.
And to his right, the sound of the heaving sea, breakers
crashing even in the channel, made him shrink back.
He was crying now, half out of fear, half out of
frustration and exhaustion. His eyes searched the
mainland, but there was only darkness there, and finally he
gave it up, keeping his head down as he trudged
through the rain, his clothes clinging to his skin, his whole
body shaking with a chill that seemed to have entered
his bones.
The sound of the sea grew louder, and he looked up
to find himself almost to the apron of the blacktop road
over the causeway. He broke into a staggering run,
his breath coming in raling gasps as he sucked in the
night air.
And suddenly he was there-he'd made it!
But a moment later, as he stared at the causeway,
his instant of elation faded away and he began sobbing
once again.
Heavy waves were bearing up from the south, building
high as they ran up into the shallows adjoining the
causeway, then towering in great masses of black
water before they crashed over the road in a maelstrom
of churning foam. Then the water drained away,
leaving the blacktop exposed for only a moment before
the next wave flooded the road again.
For a fleeting second Jeff considered the
possibility of dashing the length of the causeway between
waves, but knew
it was impossible. He couldn't even see the other
end, and long before he'd made it even halfway
across, the water would overwhelm him. He sank to the
ground, a feeling of defeat flooding over him.
Until the waves calmed down, there was no
way of getting any help at all.
"You're not ready," the angry voice of the apparition
at the door of the nursery rasped. "Don't you know
your guests are waiting?"
Julie shrank back against the wall. She knew
who it was, recognized her aunt's face even
under the thick layers of smeared makeup. And she
recognized the voice too.
But it wasn't her aunt's voice; there was no
trace in it anywhere of the gentle, melodious tones
of Marguerite Devereaux. But still Julie
recognized it.
Her grandmother's voice.
Her grandmother's face too.
She recognized it clearly, now, as the memory of
her first glimpse of her grandmother came back to her:
that hideous mask of lipstick and rouge, coming down the
stairs on the chair lift, smiling at her.
But this face wasn't smiling at all. Lit from below
by the lamp in Marguerite's hand, eerie shadows
played across the grotesque visage, and
Marguerite's eyes, glazed over with insanity,
glittered evilly in the flickering yellow light.
A lump of fear rose in Julie's throat, and
her fingers turned to ice as terror gripped
her.
Marguerite moved forward, and Julie's eyes
widened.
There was no trace of her limp at all.
Then there was no one else in the house-no one had come
to help her after all.
Do what she says,
a voice inside her whispered.
Do exactly as she says.
Marguerite's right hand snaked out and slapped
Julie across the face. "I told you to be ready
at eight, didn't I?" her voice rasped. Then
it rose to a furious shriek. "Didn't I?"
She thinks she's Grandmother,
Julie realized with sudden clarity.
She think's she's Grandmother and that I'm her.
"I-I'm sorry, Mama," she murmured,
instinctively mimicking the form of address her aunt
had always used with her grandmother.
"Sorry?" Marguerite echoed, her voice edged
now with Helena's acid sarcasm. "Come!"
Her fingers taking on the strength of talons, she
grasped Julie's arm and jerked her roughly toward
the door. Outside the nursery, she marched Julie
down the corridor to the room that she herself
had occupied until only a few days ago.
Pushing the door open, she shoved Julie inside,
hurling her against the bureau against the wall. Julie
winced as her hip smashed into the hard oak, but
managed to repress the moan that rose in her
throat.
"Open it!" Marguerite snapped.
Julie tried to speak, but had to swallow hard
to clear her throat before any words would come out.
"y-Yes, Mama," she whimpered. Her fingers
groping, she found the pulls and drew out the drop
drawer. Inside she found a neatly folded
leotard.
"Put it on," Marguerite commanded.
Her fingers trembling, Julie fumbled with the
buttons of her blouse, then stripped off her blue
jeans. Finally she began working her legs into the
leotard, then her arms. At last, shivering in the thin
garment, she turned to face Marguerite.
"Get your shoes."
Uncertainly, Julie started toward the closet, and
when her aunt said nothing, opened the door wide.
In the dim light from the lamp in Marguerite's hand,
she could barely make out a tall rack, each shelf
of which was covered with worn toe shoes.
Numbly, she reached out and took a pair, then
sank to the floor as she put them on and wrapped their
satin ribbons around her ankles.
The shoes were too small, and already she could feel them
pinching her toes. She looked up, but Marguerite
was staring at her coldly.
"Upstairs," she said. "Our guests are waiting."
Her heart beating wildly, Julie let
Marguerite guide her to the bottom of the stairs to the
third floor.
What guests?
she asked silently.
What is she talking about? There's no one in the
house but us.
But it wasn't true.
Her father was in the house somewhere, and so was Kerry
Sanders.
And they were both dead.
Her aunt was going to kill her-too. She knew it
now, knew it with a calm certainty that seemed to drain
the panic out of her body. Unless . . .
Unless she did exactly as Marguerite told her
to do, and acted as if nothing were wrong.
She started up the stairs, her eyes fixing on the
closed doors to the ballroom.
She was vaguely aware of something on the stairs, of a
reddish smear on the floor of the ballroom's
foyer. But she refused to look at it, refused
to risk losing the strange composure-born of pure
terror-that had come over her.
"Open the doors," Marguerite commanded.
Julie reached out, pushed gently, and the doors
swung silently open on their heavy hinges.
Beyond the doors, the ballroom was pitch black.
"There are candles on the piano," Marguerite said.
"Light them, my dear."
She handed Julie a small box of wooden
matches, and Julie obediently took them and moved
through the darkness, toward the piano. Keeping her back
stiff and doing her best not to let her fingers shake,
she began lighting the tapers in the enormous
candelabra that sat on top of the piano. As she
worked, she sensed Marguerite moving around the
perimeter of the room, and slowly, as both of them
continued to light candles, the room began to glow with
light.
"Now turn around," Marguerite told her when the
last candle was lit. "Turn around and greet our
guests."
Steeling herself, Julie slowly turned
away from the piano.
And a scream, unbidden and uncontrollable, tore from
her throat. High-pitched, agonizing, it echoed through
the room,
bouncing off the walls to crash back into her own ears,
deafening her.
Against the wall, four corpses were seated
grotesquely in four red velvet chairs.
Kerry, his body pinned upright on the first chair by the
knife that was still protruding from his chest, stared at her
with sightless eyes. His mouth hung open, and a few
drops of blood still dripped from his chin onto the
crimson stain that covered his chest.
Next to him was Ruby, her eyes bulging, her
flesh swollen around the red silk sash knotted around
her neck. Her legs splayed out in front of her
and her arms hung at her sides, her fingers curled
into gnarled claws.
Jennifer Mayhew was beside Ruby. A dark
bruise was spread over her forehead, and more bruises
stained her cheeks. Her lower lip, half torn from
her face by Marguerite's vicious kicks, had
left her mouth no more than a bloody pulp, but her
eyes, too, were open. They seemed to stare
directly at Julie, and there was something
accusing in their dull lifelessness, as if somehow what
had happened to her might have been Julie's fault.
And finally she saw the body of her father. Covered with
blood, his body was slumped over in the fourth
chair, almost as if he were asleep. And yet there was
a stillness to him, a devastating look of abject
defeat, that would have told Julie he was dead even
without the bloodstains on his clothing.
Her scream died away, and the icy chill in her
fingers spread through her body, numbing her. Her mind
seemed to close down, and when at last she heard her
aunt's voice once more, it came from a great distance
away.
"It's time," Marguerite told her. "Time to dance
for our guests."
She heard the piano then, the first notes of a
familiar melody whose title her numbed mind
refused to remember, and even in her shock, she
felt her legs and arms move into the first position.
It was a nightmare-it had to be. They couldn't all be
dead-it was impossible. Her mind rejected what her
eyes beheld, and she barely felt her body moving
from one
position to the next. She rose up on her toes,
oblivious to the pain from the tight slippers,
and spun into a pirouette.
The beat of the music picked up, and she whirled across
the floor, her arms moving by pure instinct and years
of training.
And she could feel the dead eyes on her, following
her every move, watching her, reaching out to her.
They're not dead!
the voice in her mind screamed.
I'm going to wake up, and they're going to be here,
watching me, smiling at me.
She kept dancing, afraid to stop, afraid that if
she stopped, she would find that the nightmare had not ended
at all, that everything around her was real.
And then, as she danced close to Jennifer Mayhew,
she suddenly saw her best friend move.
She froze in mid-step, her eyes watching in
fascination.
And slowly Jennifer's body moved again, leaning
forward as if she were trying to stand up.
The motion speeded up, and Jennifer fell face
forward, sprawling out on the floor, her right arm
outstretched, her finger reaching toward Julie.
Julie's shock broke then, and she screamed once
more, covering her face with her hands as she staggered
toward the door of the ballroom.
Abruptly, the music stopped, and an eerie
silence fell over the room. Julie got to the
door, jerked it open, and lurched into the foyer at the
top of the stairs. She was at the stairs themselves,
clutching at the banister to keep from collapsing, when
she heard her aunt's voice once more, rasping with the
furious anger of her grandmother.
"Do you think you can leave?" the raging voice demanded.
"Do you think I'll let you throw away everything?
All my life I've depended on you. I've
trained you, loved you! I've driven you on-made you
practice every day! I've taught you everything! And
what are my thanks? You, wanting to run away with that
filthy young man. Giving yourself to him, like a whore in
the streets!" Her voice rose, screaming
into Julie's ear. "Well, I won't have it!
You'll never leave me! You'll stay with me forever, do
you hear me?" And then, as she cowered away from her
aunt, Julie felt
Marguerite's hand against her back and felt the
violence of the shove that threw her off balance, twisting
her hands loose from their grip on the banister.
She screamed once as she began the long tumble down
the flight of stairs, then the pain in her body cut
off the scream in her throat, and she was
silent as she rolled over and over, her head striking
some of the stairs, her spine twisting violently as she
struck first the wall, then the posts that rose from each
step to support the banister. At last she came
to a stop, sprawled brokenly at the bottom of the
stairs. The last thing she saw as blackness began
to close around her was her aunt's face, looming
above her, her lips twisted into an evil smile.
"You'll never leave me," she heard the voice
mutter once again. "You belong to me, and I'll never
let you go."
And then, blessedly, Julie slipped away into the
comforting darkness.
Hal Sanders edged his car out onto the causeway,
abruptly braking to a stop as a cresting wave
broke against the rock levee, then surged across the
road, draining away to the north. "Damn!" He
uttered the word loudly, his fist slamming in frustration
against the hub of the steering wheel. There was a sharp
rapping on the side window, and he rolled it down
to see Will Hempstead, a large flashlight in his
hand, shaking his head.
"Not gonna be able to make it for a while yet," the
police chief said. "But the storm's passing and the
water should settle down pretty quick."
"Pretty quick might not be good enough," Sanders
replied, his voice bitter. His eyes squinted as
he peered through the windshield, straining to see through the
blackness and the drizzle. His headlights glared
brightly, but the rain quickly diffused their beams, and he
could see no more than a few yards. But then the
drizzle eased off, and Hal clicked the beams to the
high position. As a blue light glowed softly on
his dash, the headlights shone out the length of the
causeway, and for just a moment Hal thought he saw
movement at the other end. But in a second it was
gone. The drizzle turned heavier, and once more the
lights dissolved into a hazy brilliance. But Hal
was already out of his car.
"You got a searchlight, don't you?" he demanded,
striding toward the black and white hatchback
Subaru parked a few yards away from his Ford.
"Sure do," Hempstead replied.
"Turn it on," Sanders said. "I saw something over
there.
It was just for a second, but I'm sure there's something
on the island."
Inside the small squad car Frank Weaver
snapped on the powerful searchlight mounted on the roof
and began playing it out over the water. Its
halogen beam cut through the rain with a white
brilliance, and a moment later they could see the tops
of the pine trees on Devereaux Island.
"Lower, damn it," Sanders shouted, his eyes searching
the opposite shore. "For Christ's sake,
Frank, if anyone's out there, they aren't going to be
climbing trees!"
"Give me a chance, will you?" Weaver muttered,
twisting the control knob on the roof of the car. It
moved jerkily for a moment, and the beam shot skyward,
losing itself in the clouds, then came disback down
to sweep the water. Then he steadied it, and found the
end of the causeway. For a split second there was
nothing, then a figure appeared in the beam, waving
frantically.
"That's Jeff!" Will Hempstead shouted. "What the
hell-He fell silent as the distant figure, still
waving, started moving forward, out onto the causeway.
Snatching at the microphone that hung from the radio,
Hempstead switched on the bullhorn mounted just behind
the spotlight.
"Stay where you are!" he shouted. "Don't try to come
over here!"
But even as he spoke, he saw a wave flood
across the causeway, and a moment later the
small figure of Jeff Devereaux disappeared.
Jeff had seen the headlights pull up to the
opposite end of the causeway, and began jumping up
and down, waving his arms and shouting at the top of his
voice. But his voice sounded like no more than a
whisper even to himself, and he was almost certain he
couldn't be seen in the misty glow of the headlights.
Then the spotlight beam came on and a moment later
found him. Shouting again, he waved frantically and
instinctively ran toward the beacon of light.
The wave hit him at the same time he heard the
faint sound
of a voice calling to him through the bullhorn. He
lost his balance, stumbling, then went under. He felt
himself being carried off the roadway, dragged over the
rough rocks and hurled into the channel beyond. He
thrashed wildly in the water for a moment, then his feet
found the bottom and he pushed up, his head popping
through the surface a second later. Treading water,
he twisted his head around, searching for his bearings.
A second wave washed over the causeway, and a
cascade of churning foam broke over him for a
moment. But then he saw the spotlight shining on the
trees beyond the road, and struck out for the shore a few
yards away. Though the sea was choppy here,
he was on the lee side of the causeway and the fearsome
waves to the south couldn't reach him. A moment later,
with both his shoes lost in the channel, he scrambled
out of the water and back up to the mud of the road.
"Jeff!"
He heard his name plainly, turned to wave to the car
on the opposite side, then realized they couldn't
see him, for the beam of the searchlight was playing over the
channel now.
"I'm here!" he screamed. "I'm on the road!
Over here!" He waved frantically, but the
seconds ticked by as the spotlight crisscrossed
over the choppy water. Suddenly it moved up and
raked along the road, passing right over him. A
second later it was back, full on him, and he
began waving again.
"Stay where you are!" he heard a metallically
amplified voice shout. "Don't try to come across!
You can't make it! We'll get to you!" There was a
long pause, and then the voice came again. "Jeff,
if you hear me, stop waving. Stop waving, count
to three, then wave again, just once!"
Jeff hesitated, struggling to control himself. Then,
in the glowing illumination of the searchlight, he stopped
waving.
"One . . . two . . . three . . dis8he said out
loud.
Almost tentatively, he held up one hand and
waved. A moment later his hand dropped back to his
side, and, sobbing, he collapsed into the mud of the
road.
"All right," Hempstead said as they watched Jeff
drop to the ground. "Let's get going. Hal,
move your car out of the way." As Sanders hurried
back to his car and began backing it away from the end
of the causeway, Will Hempstead slid into the
driver's seat of the squad car and jammed the
transmission into low gear. He was just starting to move
forward when the back door was jerked open and Hal
Sanders scrambled in.
"Don't even try to argue with me, Will," Sanders
said. "My son's out there somewhere, and I'm going with
you."
Hempstead said nothing as he moved the car into position
at the end of the causeway. "Play the light out to the
south," he finally told Frank Weaver. "I
want to see what's coming."
They watched the water for five long minutes,
gauging the force of the waves, searching for a pattern.
"Looks like the fifth one's the worst,"
Weaver finally said. Hempstead nodded in silent
agreement, then waited for the next large wave
to break.
"Let's go!" he declared, his right foot pressing
down on the accelerator. Even as the water from the
wave began draining away, the car was moving onto the
causeway.
They had gone only twenty yards when the first wave
hit them. Hempstead slowed the car to a crawl as
water surged over the wheels. The car shuddered
slightly but held the road, and as the water drained
away, he pressed the gas pedal once again. They
made another twenty yards before the second wave
struck, and thirty more before the third.
When the fourth wave struck, Hempstead felt the
squad car slew to the left, and for a moment thought he was
going to lose control entirely. But then the wheels
found purchase on the wet pavement again and the
vehicle steadied. But already they could see the fifth
wave building.
Hempstead veered the car around to the right, threw it in
reverse, and spun the wheel the other way.
"What the hell are you doing?" Hal Sanders yelled
from the backseat.
"Shut up and hang on!" Hempstead
shouted. He slammed the transmission into the park
position, and jerked hard on the emergency brake.
Dead ahead of them the wave rose up out
of the night, an angry mass of green water glowing
in the headlights. Then it broke, smashing into the
front of the car, white water churning past them,
surging over the windshield.
The car shuddered once again, slid backward, and the
engine died. Then, once more, the water drained
away.
They were still on the road, but with thirty yards between them
and the island. Hempstead twisted the key in the ignition
and the starter motor ground noisily.
But the engine didn't catch.
The next wave broke, passing harmlessly beneath them
as Hempstead tried the engine again.
"Grab the radio, Frank. Hal, there's a
rope behind you. Let me have it!"
As Frank Weaver took a portable VHS
radio out of the glove compartment and slid it into a
plastic bag, Hal Sanders groped in the space
behind the backseat and found the coil of rope.
As the series of waves built up, each one
stronger than the last, Hempstead tied one end of the
rope around the steering column and threw a
bowline into the other end. "I'm gonna try to make
it across right after the next big one," he said.
"I'll tie the rope to a tree, and you guys can
use it as a safety line."
The fifth wave of the series built in front of
them, then crashed over the car, and once more they felt
the light sedan slide backward toward the edge of the
road. As the water receded, Hempstead leaped out
of the car, shoved the coil of rope through the open window,
and dropped the loop formed by the bowline over his head and
shoulders. Ducking his head against the wind, he
scuttled along the blacktop, then braced himself as
the next wave struck. For a moment he lost his
footing, but his toes found a rock at the edge of the
road, and a moment later he was back on his feet.
By the time the next wave broke, he'd made it to the
island, where he jerked the rope free from his waist and
tied it to a tree. Waving frantically, he
signaled the two men. "Now, goddammit!" he
yelled. "The next big one will take the car!"
As he watched, the back door of the squad car
flew open and Hal Sanders emerged. Just as Hal
grabbed the rope and
started stumbling along the road, Frank Weaver
dashed around the front of the car and started
following Hal.
The third wave knocked Hal off his feet, but he
clung to the rope as the water swirled over him, then
regained his footing. Gasping and choking on the
saltwater that had surged into his mouth when he
fell, he collapsed onto the apron of the
causeway, Weaver stumbling over him.
They pulled themselves to their feet just in time to watch the
fifth wave hit the police car.
The car completely disappeared under the force of the water,
and the rope, still tied to the tree, went taut, then
snapped with a report as loud as a gunshot.
When the water had drained away, the causeway was
empty. Nowhere was there any sign of the squad car.
"Jesus," Hempstead whispered in the darkness. But
before either Frank Weaver or Hal Sanders could say
anything at all, Jeff Devereaux was upon them,
clinging to Hempstead with muddy arms.
"She killed them!" Jeff shouted. "She killed
Dad, and Kerry, and Ruby, and everybody!"
A chill went through Hempstead, and he dropped
to his knees, grasping the terrified boy by both
shoulders. "Now take it easy," he said. "Calm
down, and tell us exactly what's happened."
Still sobbing, Jeff began brokenly to tell
them what had happened that night.
Julie drifted back into consciousness slowly. Her
whole body hurt with a dull, throbbing pain that
seemed to have no center at all, but spread through every
bone and muscle in her being. Her mind seemed to be
swimming in darkness, and for a while-she didn't know how
long-she lay without mo 		ving, her eyes closed, trying
to remember what had happened.
She'd been in the nursery and her aunt had come, but
it hadn't really been her aunt at all.
And she'd put on a leotard, then gone upstairs
to the ballroom.
Her friends were there, waiting for her. Kerry and Jenny,
and Ruby.
Even her father.
She'd seen them, sitting on chairs in the
ballroom, watching her dance.
Except-
She struggled with her memory, knowing there was something
she'd forgotten, something important.
And then it came back to her.
All of them were dead.
She whimpered as a helpless desolation engulfed her
soul, then rolled over.
An explosion of agony tore through her and
she screamed, then tried to stifle the sound as the
scream itself produced yet another spasm of pain.
"Help me," she moaned softly, her eyes
burning with tears. "Oh, God, won't someone
please help me?"
Then, dimly at first, she heard a movement from
above. She blinked, and struggled to keep her eyes
open. Candlelight flickered around her, and far up the
stairs she saw another light, a brighter one.
She gasped, shrinking painfully back as she
recognized her aunt at the top of the stairs, the
hurricane lamp held in her left hand.
Limping painfully, her right hand grasping the banister
to steady herself, she began making her way slowly down
the stairs.
"Don't," Julie moaned when Marguerite was
finally on the landing, looming over her, staring down at
her with vacant eyes. "Please don't hurt me
any more, Aunt Marguerite."
"Hurt you?" Marguerite echoed, her voice
strangely hollow, as if Julie's words had no
meaning to her. "But I couldn't hurt you, my darling.
I love you. But you've had a terrible accident."
Julie swallowed, wincing at the pain even that
simple action caused. "I-you-"
"You fell down the stairs," Marguerite told
her. She was smiling gently now, her carmine lips
twisting oddly. "Just like I fell down the stairs.
That's what Mama told me. She
told me I was clumsy and that I tripped. She
said it was an accident, and that it was my fault. But
I didn't believe her." She frowned, as if
trying to reach into her memory. "I thought she pushed
me. I thought she was angry, because of the baby."
"B-Baby?" Julie whispered, struggling to cling
to her consciousness. What was her aunt talking about?
"You didn't know, did you?" Marguerite said
vaguely. She wasn't looking at Julie
anymore, and her eyes had taken on a furtive
look. "I didn't tell anyone. Mama said
everyone would hate me if they knew what I'd
done. She said it was better if I pretended none
of it ever happened. But I couldn't pretend. I
wasn't good at it." A tiny laugh emerged from her
throat. "That's why she locked me up. She kept
me downstairs until I learned to pretend. And
I pretended that none of it ever happened. I
pretended that I was never pregnant, and that Mama
never pushed me down the stairs at all. And I
loved Mama. All my life I loved
Mama, and did everything she wanted me to do."
Julie tried to listen, tried to make sense out of the
words, but the agony in her body muddled her mind.
"But Mama left me," Marguerite went on.
"They all left me. Even though I pretended,
they still hated me and left me." Her eyes came
back to Julie again. "You're like them, aren't you?
You're going to leave me, too."
"n-No ..." Julie breathed, suddenly certain
of what was going to happen next. But it was too
late. Marguerite's eyes had begun sparkling with
her madness again.
"Don't lie to me," she snarled, lashing out at
Julie, her foot sinking into the girl's stomach.
"Don't ever lie to me!"
Julie gasped, curling up in a tight ball,
struggling to breathe as the pain wrenched at her. But
Marguerite's foot struck again, and Julie
instinctively rolled away from it, trying to shield
herself with her arms.
"Like all of them!" Marguerite screamed. "You're
just like all the rest of them. I've done everything for you,
but you want to leave, too, don't you? Don't you?"
Her foot struck Julie again, and Julie writhed
on the floor, trying to escape her
aunt's wrath but unable to move because of the
pain. "Well, I won't let you! You'll never
leave me. Never!" She kicked Julie once more,
and Julie felt herself falling again, tumbling down the
main stairs this time. Knives were stabbing into her body
now, but the pain was so powerful that she couldn't even
scream out against it.
Let me die,
she thought.
Oh, please, God, just let me die. .
. .
And then, once more, she fell into unconsciousness.
She dropped down the last steps limply, like a
broken doll, and finally came to rest on the floor
at the foot of the stairs, in a pool of Kerry
Sanders's blood.
Marguerite, still at the top of the stairs, gazed down
at her, then shook her head sadly. "It's your
fault," she breathed. "It's all your fault, my
dear. But I can't help you now. I have my guests
to think of, don't I?" She was silent for a moment,
then nodded her head vaguely. "Yes. I have my
guests."
Turning away, humming softly to herself, she started
back up to the ballroom. By the time she
reached it, Julie, still lying at the bottom of the
stairs, was forgotten. Once more Marguerite was lost
in the eddying whirlpool of her memories and her
madness.
Will Hempstead stopped short.
Ahead of him the mansion loomed at the top of the
rise upon which it had been built. The windows of the
third floor sparkled brightly with candlelight.
A memory stirred in him, a memory from his youth,
when he'd been no more than eighteen years old.
There had been a ball at Sea Oaks that night,
and Marguerite had wanted him to come. But Helena
had forbidden it, telling Marguerite that he would never
be welcome here and forbidding her ever to see him again.
But he'd come anyway, and stood outside, in the
deep shadows of the moss-draped pines.
It had been a hot night-hot and humid-and on the
third floor the French doors had been thrown
wide. He'd stood
hidden in the trees and watched the dancers through the open
doors, heard the gentle strains of the orchestra,
heard the laughter of Helena's guests as they
drifted out on the balcony high up above the
house's great portico. At last, as the hour
grew late, he'd left, knowing deep
inside him that in the end this house-and Helena-would
defeat the love that was all he had to offer
Marguerite.
The rain had stopped now, and as Will Hempstead stood
looking up at the great house, that evening came back
to him. It was that night, he remembered, when
Marguerite had fallen down the stairs. It had
happened late, after all the guests had left.
She'd been tired, Ruby told him later, and
missed her footing.
Missed her footing and plunged down the stairs,
smashing not only her hip, but every dream she'd ever
had.
They were going to go away together, or so they'd planned.
But even before the accident, Will had decided that was never
going to happen. Helena would see to that. And then,
ironically, she hadn't had to, for the fall had put
a stop to all Marguerite's dreams. Not only the
dreams of dancing, but the dreams that included Will
Hempstead, as well.
Tonight, as the storm moved north and stars began to peep
through the thinning clouds, the house looked much as it did
then.
Except that tonight, as he gazed up at the softly
glowing ballroom, only one figure
danced.
The figure of Marguerite Devereaux, her arms
held up as if she were holding an invisible partner,
her body moving with the strange jerkiness of a
marionette as she tried to dip and sway in time
to whatever music she might be hearing.
"Better let me have the radio," Hempstead said
quietly, his eyes still on the ballroom windows.
"wh-What's she doing?" Jeff quavered, clutching
tightly to the police chiefs hand.
"It's all right, son," Hempstead told the
terrified boy. "She can't hurt you now. You're
going to be okay."
He took the radio out of the plastic bag and
switched it on, tuning it to the channel that was
constantly monitored by one
or another of the town's volunteer firemen. His
voice heavy, he began calling out the codes for an
emergency.
"And I'm going to need an ambulance," he said after
he'd told the fire chief where he was. "Maybe
two. I lost my car coming across, so be careful.
Don't even try it until you're sure it's
safe!"
He snapped the radio off, and then, with
Hal Sanders and Frank Weaver a couple of
paces behind him, started up the hill.
Will Hempstead stared at the front door of the mansion
for several long seconds. He felt a deep
reluctance to take the final step of pushing it open,
for already he was certain that a tragedy had taken
place within the house that night and that it would be years
before anyone in Devereaux would ever forget it. At last
he reached out and twisted the knob. The door was not
locked, andwitha gentle push it swung back to reveal
the entry hall, dimly aglow with the light of a single
sputtering stub of a candle on the newel post.
Then he saw the crumpled form of Julie's body,
curled at the bottom of the stairs, and his heart
sank. Already they were far too late.
"Julie!" Jeff cried out. Dropping his grip
on Hempstead's hand, he ran to his sister,
dropping down on the floor beside her. "Julie!"
he sobbed again. Then he looked up, his eyes-
large and glistening with tears-fixing on the police
chief. "She's dead," he wailed. "Aunt
Marguerite killed her!"
Hempstead hurried across to the sobbing child and knelt beside
him, his fingers gently touching Julie's neck.
Almost immediately he found her pulse.
"She's not dead," he told Jeff, and as if
to affirm his words, a low moan drifted from
Julie's lips, and the fingers of her left hand
twitched spasmodically. "Find a blanket,"
Hempstead told Hal Sanders. "And a pillow.
Quick!"
Sanders disappeared into the living room and a moment later
was back, carrying an afghan that had been draped
over the back of the sofa and a small pillow he'd
found on one of the wing chairs. Hempstead, working as
carefully as he knew how, eased Julie's right
arm out from under her body
and gently straightened her legs. For a moment he
considered moving her into the living room, but then
rejected the idea, afraid that her back might
already be broken. If he risked moving her, he
might only compound her injuries.
"Kerry-" Hal Sanders said, his eyes fixed on the
dark bruises that covered Julie's face.
"He's got to be here."
Hempstead stood up, and when he spoke again, his
voice took on a note of authority. "I want
you to stay here, Hal. Take care of Jeff, and if
Julie wakes up, don't let her move." Then
he turned to Frank Weaver, a nod of his
head directing the deputy's attention to the smears of
blood that led from the foot of the stairs toward the door
to the cellar. "Take a look down there," he said.
"I'll go upstairs."
Frank Weaver stared down the steep flight of
stairs that led to the basement, the bright beam of his
flashlight playing over the smears of drying blood
that seemed to be everywhere. The steps were sticky with
blood, and even the wall adjacent to the steps was
stained a brownish red. Placing his feet carefully,
avoiding the worst of the mess, he started down into the
basement, stopping when he reached the bottom of the
stairs. Ahead of him, its door standing wide open,
was a small room, and Weaver frowned in the gloom
as a thought drifted through his mind.
Looks like a cell.
Steeling himself, he strode toward the little room.
It was empty, but as Weaver played his light over
it, he felt a wave of nausea. There seemed
to be blood everywhere-on the floor, on the wooden
cot against the wall, even on the door itself. What the
hell had gone on here? And where were the people whose bodies
had to be the source of the carnage around him?
He turned away and hurried back up the stairs,
but as he started up the main staircase,
Hal Sanders stopped him, his face ashen and his hand
trembling on Weaver's arm.
"Kerry," he asked shakily. "Is-Is he down
there?"
Weaver said nothing, only shaking his head. Then he
hurried on up the stairs.
On the second floor he saw the glimmer of Will
Hempstead's flashlight flickering through an open
door at the end of the hall. Quickening his step, he
moved along the length of the corridor and stepped into the
bedroom.
"The basement's a mess," Weaver told the
police chief. "Blood all over the place, but
no bodies."
Hempstead nodded grimly, then played the
flashlight over a heap of clothes on the dressing
room floor. "Same thing up here," the police
chief said. "There's bloody clothes all over the
place. The window in the nursery's smashed, just like
Jeff said," he added. Taking a deep breath, he
started toward the door. "We better go up there and
see what she's done. But from what I've seen so
far, it's going to be one hell of a mess."
Together the two men started down the corridor, but on
the stairs to the third floor Weaver stopped
abruptly, listening.
Drifting down from the open doors to the ballroom
above, he heard the faint sound of music. The
melody was one he'd never heard before, a strangely
haunting tune that tinkled softly in the otherwise
silent house.
"You hear that, Will?" Weaver whispered. For a moment
he wasn't sure the police chief had heard his
question, but then Hempstead nodded.
was "The Last Good Night," " he whispered
softly. "It was always her favorite song."
A great melancholy settling over him, the police
chief slowly climbed the remaining steps to the
ballroom.
Will Hempstead stepped through the double doors of the
ballroom. It was stiflingly hot, for the windows were
closed tight, but all the candles still burned brightly.
A layer of pale smoke floated near the ceiling,
swirling gently as Marguerite, her eyes closed,
her head thrown back, slowly danced to the eerie
melody of the music box. For several long moments
Hempstead's eyes fixed on her
uncomprehendingly. Then, as Frank Weaver
swore softly, he tore his eyes from Marguerite
and saw the four corpses, all of them
except Jenny Mayhew still upright on their chairs.
"Jesus," he breathed. The word seemed to grow in
volume as it echoed in the large room, and
Marguerite's eyes snapped open.
Turning, she looked directly at Will
Hempstead, the scarlet slash of her mouth spreading
into a welcoming smile.
"Will," she said. "How nice of you to come. I've
missed you so much, you know."
With a tiny curtsey she closed her eyes once more
and resumed her dance.
"Crazy," Weaver muttered. "She's just gone
completely wacko!" He started toward
Marguerite, but Will reached out, his fingers clamping
tight on his deputy's arm.
"No," he said, his voice quiet but his tone leaving
no room for argument. "It's all over now,
Frank. There's nothing more she can do. Let her
finish."
Weaver froze, staring at Marguerite for a moment,
then stepped back.
As the music went on, weaving a mournful spell in
the candlelight, Hempstead's vision blurred and his
eyes began to sting with tears. In his mind the
grotesque, twisted vision before him-the
strange, hobbling figure in the ill-fitting and
faded dress, with its bizarre, distorted mask of
Helena's evil face-faded away, and in its
place came a memory of the Marguerite Devereaux
he had fallen in love with so many years ago.
The Marguerite he saw then moved gracefully,
her body swaying with the rhythm of the music, her fingers
trailing in the air with a perfect symmetry that
reminded him of a flower dancing on the breeze.
Soft and perfect, her smile was gentle and her
eyes sparkled with a happiness that reached out to Will,
gladdening his heart.
Hempstead could even see himself, waiting as
Marguerite spun toward him, reaching out to him as he
had once reached out to her-
And then, as the music box abruptly stopped and a
silence fell over the ballroom, the vision faded
away, and Will Hempstead's eyes cleared. Before
him, a few yards away,
Marguerite was curtseying low, her head bent
demurely, her right hand on her skirt, her left
daintily touching her bosom.
At last she rose to her feet, and her head came
up so that her eyes met Will's. For a moment Will
wasn't certain she even saw him, for there
was an empty hollowness in her eyes that he'd never
seen before. And then, once more, her mouth twisted into a
parody of the sweet smile of her youth.
"Was I all right, Will?" she asked, her voice
childlike and trembling with anxiety.
Will swallowed the lump that rose in his throat, then
walked toward her, his hand outstretched. "You were fine,
Miss Marguerite," he said, his voice breaking.
"You were just fine. But I think it's time to go now."
Marguerite's smile faded, but then she nodded
vaguely and took the arm that Will offered her.
Pressing close to him, leaning her weight against the
strength of his body, she started toward the door, then
stopped and turned toward the row of chairs against the
wall.
"Thank you," she said softly. "Thank you all for
coming to watch me dance. But it's late now, and I have
to go." Once more she curtseyed low. "Good night,"
she breathed, then turned away, and with Will Hempstead
at her side, drifted out of the candlelit
ballroom.
The first gray light was streaking the horizon over the
sea when at last the ambulances, followed by a long
cortege of the townspeople's cars, crept slowly
across the causeway and along the road toward
Sea Oaks. Hours earlier a helicopter- its
rotor clattering loudly in the night-had swept low
over the channel, put down on the lawn in front
of the mansion, and then, a few minutes later, had
risen once more into the night sky. As it moved back
across the channel, a murmur had rippled through the
gathered crowd as word was passed along that Julie
Devereaux had been taken off the island. A few people
were certain she was dead, but most of them knew that
whatever had happened, Julie must have survived.
If she hadn't, there would have been no need for the
helicopter. But when the helicopter didn't
return, a numb silence had fallen over the crowd
as they realized that the other children who had gone out to the
island that day must have perished.
Alicia Mayhew was one of the first to arrive at the
mansion, but as she brought her car to a halt on the
lawn, she found herself strangely reluctant to go
inside, for as long as she remained outside, she could
still hold onto a tiny, fraying thread of hope that
perhaps Jennifer was all right after all. But at last,
steeling herself, she walked up the steps and crossed the
veranda.
The front door stood open, almost as if
to welcome expected guests into the house,
but as Alicia stepped into the entry hall, she
froze, her eyes fixed on the bloodstained
floor, now lit by a floodlight that had been
plugged into the generator beneath the stairs.
A thick, orange extension cord snaked up the
staircase, and
Alicia, a strange detachment spreading through her
mind, found herself following it.
She came to the third floor and paused outside the
open double doors. Another floodlight stood in the
center of the ballroom, its garish brilliance filling
the room with a cold and shadowless light. As Alicia
blinked in the glaring brightness, she heard a low moan
and a muffled sob.
Holding her emotions in check, she stepped into the
ballroom.
Even while two state troopers worked taking
pictures of the macabre scene in the ballroom,
Edith Sanders, her face streaked with tears, was already
kneeling on the floor next to Kerry, her arms
around her son as if she were trying to lend her own
warmth to his cold body. Hal Sanders, his eyes
vacant, his expression slack with shock and grief,
stood next to his wife, one hand resting gently on
her shoulder.
Alicia had started to turn away, uncomfortable at
intruding upon their grief, when her eyes found
Jennifer, sprawled out on the floor, her eyes
wide as she gazed sightlessly up at the ceiling.
Alicia felt her blood chill as she looked at
her daughter, and then her knees buckled beneath her.
She would have collapsed to the floor if Will
Hempstead's arms hadn't reached out to her,
supporting her as he eased her into a chair.
"I'm sorry," he breathed. "I wish you hadn't
come here. There's no reason why any of you had to see
this."
"Sorry?" Alicia echoed, her voice bleak.
"If you'd listened to me this afternoon-" But then she fell
silent, unable to go on.
"I know," Hempstead finally said as the silence in the
room grew heavy. "But I couldn't imagine that
Marguerite could do anything like this."
Alicia, whose eyes had remained fixed on her
daughter's corpse, slowly turned to face the
police chief. "Why?" she asked. "Why did it
happen?"
Hempstead shook his head. "I don't know," he
said at last. "And I'm not sure any of us will ever
know."
Alicia's eyes hardened, and when she spoke again,
her voice was bitter. "Where is she?" she asked.
Hempstead licked his lips nervously. "In her
room," he said. "Frank Weaver's with her.
She's been sitting there
most of the night. She hasn't spoken at all
since I took her out of here. She's just sitting
there, staring off into space. I-well, I'm not sure
she even knows what happened."
"Doesn't know?" Alicia asked hollowly, her
suddenly dull eyes scanning the carnage in the
room. "How can someone do this and not know they've done
it?"
Once again Hempstead shook his head. "I can't
tell you, Alicia," he replied. Then he drew
her to her feet. "I'm taking you downstairs," he
said. "I'll find someone to take you home-"
"No," Alicia interrupted. "I want to stay
here with Jennifer. I can't stand her being here like this,
all by herself. Please?" she asked, her eyes
pleading with Hempstead. "Let me stay with her."
Hempstead hesitated, then nodded, and a moment later
Alicia Mayhew, her eyes glistening with tears,
eased herself onto the floor and silently took her
daughter's cold hand in her own.
An hour later the ambulances were gone, one of them
carrying the bodies of Kevin Devereaux and Ruby
Carr, the other bearing Kerry Sanders and Jennifer
Mayhew. The crowd on the lawn in front of the
mansion had fallen silent as each of the bodies was
borne out of the mansion. A few minutes later a
ripple of whispered words passed from one pair of
lips to another.
Marguerite Devereaux was being brought out of the house.
No one was certain what to expect, and once more a
silence fell over them. And then the front door
to Sea Oaks opened one more time, and Will Hempstead
stepped out onto the veranda.
On his arm was Marguerite.
She stood still on the veranda for a moment, the rays of the
rising sun falling full on her face.
Her hair, pulled back and coiled perfectly
into the elegant French twist that she had worn for
years, glistened brightly in the sunlight, and her
face, free of any trace of a wrinkle,
seemed far younger than her nearly fifty years.
She was wearing a formal gown of pure white, with a
cascade of sparkling rhinestones swirling over its
bodice. The full skirt, overlaid with a cloud of
tulle, dropped to her ankles, and from beneath
the skirt the toes of white silk shoes peeped out.
But as she gazed out over the crowd of people she had known
all her life, her eyes were vacant and empty.
"It's time to go, Miss Marguerite," Hempstead
whispered so softly that nobody but she could hear him.
She hesitated only a split second, then
took his arm and, her step even and graceful, moved
serenely across the veranda.
She paused, curtseyed low, and with Will Hempstead
at her side, moved down the steps and across the lawn
to the waiting police car.
Emmaline Carr closed the door of her tiny cabin
in the clearing behind Wither's Pond and began making her
way along the path to the road that would take her into the
village. She, like most of the people in Devereaux, had
been up all night long. She'd first walked into the
village several hours ago, when the wailing of
sirens had rent the peace that followed the storm.
She'd known what it meant at once, for all that
day-ever since Jeff Devereaux and Toby Martin
had come to visit her-she'd had a certain feeling that
at last the evil seeds that Helena Devereaux had
sown so many years ago had finally borne fruit.
She'd known that her sister was dead, but even in her own
mind she didn't blame Marguerite. As
far as Emmaline was concerned, Marguerite was just as
much a victim as Ruby, and as she'd walked toward
the village, all she felt for Marguerite was
pity.
She'd moved silently through the crowd gathered at the
mainland end of the causeway, listening quietly as
bits and pieces of news filtered through-coming over
the radio from the island to the state police car, then
spreading through the crowd. As dawn began to break, and the
stream of automobiles moved out to the island, she had
turned away, returning to her cabin to sit alone and
think.
Finally she'd made up her mind.
She'd changed her clothes, putting on her best
dress- the black one with the white collar and the
mother-of-pearl buttons-tucked her good shoes into her
large handbag, and slipped her feet into a pair of
rubber boots. Then, as the sun came up and the heat
of the morning began, she started toward town again.
Water dripped from the moss that covered the trees, and
everywhere wisps of steam rose from the sodden ground.
Emmaline could hear the brush moving as small
animals abandoned the protection of their burrows
to forage in the undergrowth, and occasionally she saw a
snake slithering out of her path. She moved
stolidly onward, ignoring the aching of her legs and the
tiredness in her bones.
At last she came to the tiny clinic-only five
rooms carved out of what had once been the plantation
offices, but which had long since been divided
into small stores, most of which lay vacant. She
paused on the sidewalk for a moment, taking off her
muddy boots and putting on the sturdy black shoes
she wore only to church on Sunday. Leaving her
boots outside, she stepped into the waiting room of the
clinic.
Jeff Devereaux, his clothes filthy and his face
smudged with dirt and tears, sat alone on a sagging
vinyl-covered sofa, his eyes fixed on the floor.
Emmaline watched him for a moment, then moved across the
room and settled herself on the sofa, slipping her arm
around the boy.
Jeff looked up, but there was no surprise in his
eyes when he saw Emmaline. "She killed them,"
he said, his voice desolate. "She killed my
dad, and Ruby, and Kerry, and Jennifer."
"I know," Emmaline crooned, drawing him
closer. "But it warn't her, not really. It was your
grandmother that did it, and you mustn't hate your
auntie."
Jeffs chin trembled. "But she did kill them," he
said. "And she almost killed Julie too. I hate
her. I hate her, and I hope they kill her for
what she did."
"There, there," Emmaline murmured, hiding her own
anger in an effort to comfort him. "You mustn't say that.
You have to forgive people for their sins, because sometimes they
just can't help themselves. And that was the way your auntie
was. She just couldn't help herself."
Jeff bit his lip, but then gave in to his tears
once more, burying his face in Emmaline's bosom.
She sat silently, holding him and gently patting
his back until his sobs eased, then hugged him
tight for a moment. "You stay here," she said. "I'm
gonna find out how your sister is and then I'll be
back. And don't you worry, you hear me?
'Cause from now on I'm gonna take care of
you."
She rose to her feet, and Jeff, nodding mutely,
stayed where he was. Emmaline went to the partition that
separated the waiting room from the office and rapped
sharply on the glass. A harried-looking nurse
glanced up from a typewriter, then slid the partition
open. "Unless it's an emergency-" she began, but
Emmaline shook her head.
"I need to know about Julie Devereaux," she said.
The nurse looked at Emmaline uncertainly, her
brows gathering into a doubtful frown. "I'm sorry,
Emmaline, but since you're not a relative ..."
Her voice trailed off, and she shrugged
helplessly.
Emmaline's eyes narrowed. "I'm her nanny,"
she said, her tone almost daring the nurse to challenge
her. "She and the boy ain't got nobody else but
me, and I mean to find out what's goin" on with
her."
The nurse still hesitated. Emmaline's tone
softened. "Please, miss," she said. "You know who
I am, and you know my sister did for Miss
Marguerite all her life. And she raised Mr.
Kevin up, too, till Miz Helena sent him
away. But Ruby's dead now, and there ain't
anybody else to do for the little ones. Please?"
Still the nurse hesitated, then seemed to come to a
decision. "Of course," she said, getting up from the
desk and coming around to open the door for Emmaline.
"She's in here," she went on, leading Emmaline
down the hall. "Try not to disturb her. She woke
up a few minutes ago, but I think she went
back to sleep." Then, for the first time, she
smiled at Emmaline. "You're the only one who's
come, you know," she said. "Everyone else in town-"
"Everyone else has their own worries right now,"
Emmaline
finished for her. "And they going to blame the children, just because
their name be Devereaux. I mean to see to it these children
aren't hurt any more than they already been. Ain't
much, but it's what Ruby would have wanted me to do."
The nurse held the door open, and Emmaline
stepped through. "I'll speak to the doctor," she said
as she closed the door. "I'm sure he'll
understand." But as the nurse moved away from the little
room where Julie lay, she wasn't sure
Emmaline had even heard her words. The old
woman was already bent over Julie's sleeping form,
her fingers gently stroking the unconscious girl's
forehead.
The doctor came in a few minutes later.
Emmaline, sitting close by the bed, her gnarled
old hand covering Julie's smooth young fingers,
looked up, her eyes silently asking her question.
"She's going to be all right," the doctor said
softly. "Both her hips are broken, but we can
fix that. She'll take a long time to recover and
need a lot of help."
"I can give her that," Emmaline replied. "You just
let me know what needs to be done and-" She fell
silent as she felt a tiny motion beneath her fingers.
The doctor immediately forgotten, she looked down at
Julie's face just as the girl's eyes blinked,
then came open. Julie looked up at
Emmaline, her eyes twin pools of dark terror.
"It's all right," Emmaline whispered, bending her
head low to whisper in Julie's ear. "It's all
over now. You gonna be all right. Emmaline's here
to see to that."
Julie's jaw worked for a moment, and she managed
to speak, her voice croaking softly out of her dry
throat. "But who . . . who are you?"
"I'm Emmaline," the old woman replied.
"Didn't Ruby ever tell you about me?" Julie
was still for a moment, then her head moved a fraction of
an inch. "Well, don't you worry "bout that.
Alls that matters now is that I'm here."
There was a sound in the hall outside the room then, and
Emmaline looked up. Her dark eyes narrowed
to slits as she recognized Marguerite Devereaux
sitting in a wheelchair, Will Hempstead behind her.
"What she doin" here?" Emmaline demanded, her
voice low, but heavy with indignation. "After
what she done, why ain't she in jail?"
"She doesn't know what happened," Hempstead
replied. His attention shifted to the doctor next
to Julie's bed. "She doesn't know anything
anymore. We have to keep her here until they can
send a team down from the hospital in Beaufort."
Bitter words formed on Emmaline's lips, but before
she could speak them, Marguerite's empty eyes
suddenly seemed to focus. As her gaze narrowed, a
hard glint of anger flashed briefly.
"Ruby!" she said, her mother's voice rasping from her
throat, her head jerking angrily toward the
doctor. "Who is this man? What is he doing
here? How many times have I told you that Marguerite
mustn't have any visitors?"
Emmaline said nothing, for Julie's hand had
tightened on her own, and when she looked down,
Julie had twisted her head so that she was staring at
her aunt. Her face was ashen, but the terror in her
eyes was suddenly gone.
As Julie's eyes locked with her aunt's, her
expression slowly began to change. She frowned, as
if something were happening inside her that she didn't
understand. And then, so quickly that Emmaline wasn't
sure she'd seen it at all, Julie's
eyes flashed with a hatred so pure it seemed as though
the room itself had chilled. Emmaline shivered, but when
she looked back at Julie, the girl's
expression seemed merely puzzled.
At last Julie's head dropped back to the
pillow and she stared once again up at the ceiling.
"Just take her away," she whispered. "I don't
want to see her anymore. Please ..."
As Julie's eyes closed, Emmaline turned
back to Marguerite. Her forehead, too, was
furrowed with uncertainty, and there was an oddly
curious look in her eyes, as if, deep within her,
something was awakening, or a memory was stirring. But the
vacant look of a moment ago was gone.
She remembers,
Emmaline thought to herself as Will Hempstead wheeled
Marguerite on down the hall.
She remembers it all, and she knows what she did.
Will Hempstead pushed the wheelchair into the next
room, where the nurse stood waiting. But as he
started to ease the chair through the door, Marguerite
put out her hand to stop
him, her eyes searching his beseechingly. "No," she
said, her voice once more her own. "I-I can't
stay here. I have to go home. There's so much
I have to do. Mama needs me, and there are my girls
to think of. I can't leave my girls, you know. I just
can't!"
Will Hempstead said nothing, a hard knot of sorrow
constricting his throat.
"It's all right, Miss Devereaux," the nurse
said. "We have a lovely room for you, and we're
going to take such good care of you." Gently removing
Marguerite's hand from the doorframe, she pushed the
chair into the room and helped Marguerite out of it.
Her fingers working quickly, she unzipped the back of
Marguerite's dress, and as the gown crumpled to the
floor, slipped a robe over her shoulders.
"Now, let's get into bed," she crooned, easing
Marguerite onto the metal hospital bed, and
pulling the sheet over her. "Doctor will be in in a
minute, and everything will be fine." She gestured Will
Hempstead back into the hall, then pulled the door
closed behind her, never noticing that even as she put
Marguerite into the bed, the other woman's eyes,
glistening with tears, never left the ball gown lying in
a shapeless mass on the floor.
Five minutes later, when the doctor slipped
into Marguerite's room to administer a sedative, it
was already too late.
The belt of her robe knotted tightly around her
broken neck, Marguerite's body swung from the
sprinkler pipe that ran across the room just below the
ceiling. A few inches above the ruined dress, her
feet dangled helplessly, still clad in the white
silk dancing slippers.
EPILOGUE
Jeff Devereaux paused at the end of the causeway,
sitting in the small convertible that had been Julie's
present for him on his eighteenth birthday. He
gazed in something like wonder at the mansion that still
dominated the island, though now it was far from being the
only residence there. In fact, there were more than a
hundred condominiums dotting the shore now, clustered
in low groupings that blended well into the stands of pines
that still remained after the golf course had been carved out
of the undergrowth. The swamp had been tamed, turned
into a series of water traps on the golf course,
and a small creek connected the chain of ponds,
eventually draining into the sea at the south end of the
island, where a marina was now in the process of being
built. Even from here Jeff could hear the rumble of the
dredging machinery as a cove was cut to protect the
small craft that would one day be moored there from the
tropical storms that swept in from the sea
each year, threatening the island but never destroying it.
Indeed, it seemed to Jeff as if nothing could ever
destroy the island, and now, ten years after that final
night of terror when the pieces of his aunt's life
had shattered forever, he was no longer even certain he
wanted the island destroyed.
But it hadn't always been that way.
When Emmaline Carr had finally taken him back
to Sea Oaks, he'd shrunk away from the house, his
whole body shivering with fear. But Emmaline had led
him inside, talking to him constantly, her low voice
reassuring him as she led him from room to room, showing
him that nothing of his aunt or his grandmother remained.
Even the chair lift was gone.
Finally, his heart thumping wildly, Emmaline had
taken him up to the ballroom. He hadn't wanted
to go, not after the stories he had heard about what Will
Hempstead found there, but Emmaline had shown him that
it was just a room. The floor had been scrubbed
clean, and the furniture-even the piano-removed.
In the bright daylight it had been nothing more than a
large and empty room.
"It's only a house," Emmaline explained to him
that evening as they sat in the kitchen eating the supper
she'd cooked. "Ain't nothin' here for you
to be afraid of. Ain't no ghosts-"
"But Ruby said- " Jeff protested, and
Emmaline had cut him off.
"Ruby always had stories," Emmaline said
firmly. "But that's all they was-just stories.
All you saw out there was your auntie, and now she's
been buried." Then she'd looked directly at
him, her dark eyes deep and holding a warmth
Jeff hadn't felt since his mother died. "This is
your house now, Jeff. Yours and Julie's. Bad
things happen in lots of houses, but that don't mean
we can just tear them down. We got to go on livin"
in them and try to make "em better, that's all. And
that's what we're goin" to do here. In a little while
we're goin' to bring your sister home and you and me are
gonna make things all right for her again. And everything
else, we're gonna put behind us."
Jeff hadn't quite understood at the time. And for a while-
for more than a year-he'd had terrible nightmares in the
house, dark dreams in which he heard his aunt's
limping footsteps prowling the hall outside his
door, and saw her feverish eyes glaring at him out
of the blackness. But always Emmaline had been there.
Eventually the dreams had stopped.
And the house had changed, for Sam
Waterman had gone ahead with all of Kevin's
plans, acting as trustee for the Devereaux estate.
By the end of the first year the mansion had been remodeled
and a manager hired, along with a chef and a small
staff.
Devereaux Inn was an instant success, and by the third
year the development of the rest of the island had begun.
In the fourth year, when he was twelve and Julie was
nineteen, he'd gone away to private school.
"Don't believe in that," Emmaline had protested
when he and Julie had first talked to her about it.
"Seems to me a boy your age ought to be at home,
where someone can look after him. And your grandma sent your
papa away to school," she added darkly.
"It's not the same," Julie argued. "Daddy
didn't want to go away, and nobody's sending
Jeff away. It was his idea. He wants to go."
Emmaline's eyes had shifted suspiciously
to Jeff. He was tall for his age, and looked
closer to fifteen than twelve. Nor was his
maturity only on the surface. Emmaline had
long suspected that Jeff had grown up on that
night he'd had to escape from the house to save his
sister's life.
"It's true," he'd said. "When I'm
twenty-one I'm going to have to take care of this whole
place. Mr. Waterman can't go on taking care of
us for the rest of our lives, and if I'm going to know
what I'm doing, I need a good education." When
Emmaline's expression hadn't changed, he'd
pushed harder. "I've already skipped a whole
grade. And there's a school in Charleston I can go
to. I can come home on weekends and Christmas and
summer vacation and-
"And so you'd better go," Emmaline had agreed,
at last convinced that it had, indeed, been Jeff's
own idea. But she'd made him promise that if he
didn't like it, he'd come home again. He'd
promised, but, as all three of them had known when he
made it, had never felt like invoking it.
Now he'd graduated, and in the fall would be starting
at the University of Texas to study hotel
management. But for this summer he was back once more
at Sea Oaks. He drove slowly up the paved
road that now wound along the edge of the golf course,
giving up the car to one of the parking attendants at the
entrance to the mansion itself. Julie, her eyes
glistening with happiness, was waiting for him on the
veranda, Emmaline at her side.
Julie hurried down the steps, her limp
barely perceptible, and threw herself into her brother's
arms. He was six inches taller than she now, and
her arms barely reached around his
broad chest, but she squeezed him tight, then
looked mischievously up at him.
"You didn't drive too fast, did you?" she
asked. "I didn't get you that car to kill yourself
in."
"You shouldn't have gotten it at all," Jeff
replied, his brows arching in mock severity. "I can
think of a hundred things we need to spend money on
around here-"
"And we are!" Julie exclaimed. "Everything that
needs to be done gets done, and you know it. And if you
don't think we can afford a nice car for you, you can go
over the books yourself."
"All right, all right," Jeff protested, knowing as
well as she did that the resort was making everyone in
town as rich as they wanted to be. "Let go of me so
I can kiss Emmaline, and then I want to know
everything that's happening."
The three of them had gone through the entire mansion, and
only Emmaline had found anything to criticize.
But both Jeff and Julie had long since realized
that no matter what they did, the
housekeeping staff would never come up to Emmaline's
standards. Finally, when her sharp eyes found a single
smudge on one of the brass sconces in the new
dining room in the east wing that had been completed the
winter before, Jeff had had enough. "Why don't we
all go out and inspect
your
house?" he suggested, and Emmaline glared at him
as if he were still eight years old.
"This ain't no shack behind Wither's Pond," she
observed. "And you ain't so grown up I can't give
you a good spanking, either!"
Finally the three of them had retreated to the third
floor of the original house, where an apartment had
been built in the space that had once been the
ballroom. They settled themselves on the balcony
outside the open French doors and gazed out over the
island, silently taking in all the changes that had
occurred over the last decade.
"It's not like it was when we first came here, is it?"
Julie
finally asked after Emmaline had gone inside to leave
them
alone. Her voice was quiet, and trembling
slightly as she
remembered those first weeks on the island.
Jeff shuddered as the old memories stirred in him,
then
shook his head. "And the more it changes, the better I
like it." He turned to face his sister. "Are you
sorry we stayed?"
Julie was silent for a moment. For her, coming back
to the house had been even worse than for Jeff.
She hadn't been able to walk at all for the first few
months, and the only thing that had made it even
slightly bearable was that Emmaline had set up a
bed for her in the little room off the kitchen, so that even
at night she was never alone.
Whenever she awoke at night from the dreams,
Emmaline was always there, already awake, willing to stay
up with her all night if necessary, often bringing Jeff
down, too, the three of them sitting up as she and
Jeff fought the fears the darkness always seemed to bring.
But slowly her wounds had healed, and as she began
to learn to walk again-Emmaline spending endless hours
exercising and massaging her legs- the scars in her
mind began to heal over too. "No," she said at
last. "Emmaline was right. If we hadn't come
back, we probably wouldn't ever have gotten over
what happened."
"Have you gotten over it?" Jeff asked pointedly.
Julie's eyes clouded for a moment and she bit her
lip. "I-I don't know," she confessed. "Can
anyone really ever get over something like that?" Then she
brightened. "I've started dancing again. Did I
tell you?"
Jeff shook his head.
"Oh, it's not much. But there's an exercise bar in
the gym in the golf club, and one day when I was down
there, I just couldn't resist." She grinned
ruefully. "I'm never going to play Lincoln
Center, but I enjoy it." Then her eyes met
Jeff's. "I'm even thinking of starting to teach."
A cold finger reached out of the warm evening and touched
Jeff's spine.
Jeff woke up in the darkness of the warm spring
night, uncertain about what had disturbed his sleep.
He lay in bed for a few minutes, listening to the
quiet of the house. It had to be after two, for there was
no music drifting up from the lounge and no laughter
from the garden around the swimming
pool that now lay behind the building. And yet, very
dimly, barely audible above the chirpings of the frogs
and insects, he could hear something.
A tinkling sound, like a music box.
He got out of bed, slipping his arms into the sleeves
of a light robe, and stepped out onto the balcony.
Moonlight glimmered on the smooth surface of the
sea, and he could hear the gentle wash of waves against
the beach.
And the melody of the music box was louder.
Almost against his will he turned to gaze down into the
family cemetery, surrounded now by a low
wrought-iron fence, protected by a locked gate from
the wanderings of the hotel's guests. For a moment he
saw nothing, but then his eyes adjusted to the darkness and
he saw once more the pale, ghostly figure he
hadn't seen in more than a decade.
But this time, he knew, it was not the ghostly image of
his grandmother, or even of his aunt.
He watched sadly, his eyes filling with tears, as
his sister moved stiffly around the marble crypt in which her
ancestors were interred.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John Saul is the author of twenty-seven
novels, each a million-copy-plus national
bestseller:
Suffer the Children, Punish the Sinners, Cry for the
Strangers, Comes the Blind Fury, When the Wind
Blows, The God Project,
Nathaniel, Brainchild, Hellfire, The
Unwanted, The Unloved, Creature,
Sleepwalk, Second Child, Darkness, Shadows,
Black Lightning, The Homing, Guardian, The
Presence, The Right Hand of Evil,
and The Blackstone Chronicles. John Saul
lives in Seattle, Washington.
ENTER THE TERRIFYING WORLD OF JOHN
SAUL
A scream shatters the peaceful night of a sleepy
town, a mysterious stranger awakens to seek
vengeance. . . . Once again, with expert, chillingly
demonic skill, John Saul draws the reader
into his world of utter fear. The author of countless
novels of psychological and supernatural
suspense-all million copy
New York Times
bestsellers -John Saul is unequaled in his
power to weave the haunted past and the troubled present
into a web of pure, cold terror.
THE GOD PROJECT
Something is happening to the children of Eastbury,
Massachusetts . . . something that strikes at the
heart of every parent's darkest fears. For Sally
Montgomery, the grief over the sudden
death of her infant daughter is only the beginning.
For Lucy Corliss, her son Randy is her
life. Then one day, Randy doesn't come home.
And the terror begins . . .
A horn honked, pulling Randy out of his reverie, and
he realized he was alone on the block. He
looked at the watch his father had given him for his ninth
birthday. It was nearly eight thirty. If he
didn't hurry, he was going to be late for school.
Then he heard a voice calling to him.
"Randy! Randy Corliss!"
A blue car, a car he didn't recognize, was
standing by the
curb. A woman was smiling at him from the driver's
seat. He' approached the car hesitantly,
clutc! his lunch box.
"Hi, Randy," the woman said.
"Who are you?" Randy stood back from the car,
remembering his mother's warnings about never talking
to strangers.
"My name's Miss Bowen. Louise Bowen. I
came to get you."
"Get me?" Randy asked. "Why?"
"For your father," the woman said. Randy's heart beat
faster. His father? His father had sent this
woman? Was it really going to happen, finally? "He
wanted me to pick you up at home," he heard the
woman say, "but I was late. I'm sorry."
"That's all right," Randy said. He moved closer
to the car. "Are you taking me to Daddy's house?"
The woman reached across and pushed the passenger door
open. "In a little while," she promised. "Get
in."
Randy knew he shouldn't get in the car, knew he
should turn around and run to the nearest house, looking for
help. It was things like this-strangers offering to give you
a ride-that his mother had talked to him about ever since he
was a little boy.
But this was different. This was a friend of his father's. Her
brown eyes were twinkling at him, and her smile
made him feel like she was sharing an adventure with
him. He made up his mind and got into the car,
pulling the door closed behind him. The car moved
away from the curb.
"Where are we going?" Randy asked.
Louise Bowen glanced over at the boy sitting
expectantly on the seat beside her. He was every bit
as attractive as the pictures she had been shown,
his eyes almost green, with dark, wavy hair framing
his pugnacious, snub-nosed face. His
body was sturdy, and though she was a stranger to him,
he didn't seem to be the least bit frightened of her.
Instinctively, Louise liked Randy Corliss.
"We're going to your new school."
Randy frowned. New school? If he was going to a
new school, why wasn't his father taking him? The
woman seemed to hear him, even though he hadn't
spoken out loud.
"You'll see your father very soon. But for a few days,
until he gets everything worked out with your mother, you'll
be staying at the school. You'll like it there," she
promised. "It's a special school, just for little
boys like you, and you'll have lots of new friends.
Doesn't that sound exciting?"
Randy nodded uncertainly, no longer sure he should
have
gotten in the car. Still, when he thought about it, it made
sense. His father had told him there would be lots of
problems when the time came for him to move away from his
mother's. And his father had told him he would be going to a
new school. And today was the day.
Randy settled down in the seat and glanced out the
window. They were heading out of Eastbury on the road
toward Langston. That was where his father lived, so
everything was all right.
Except that it didn't quite
feel
all right. Deep inside, Randy had a strange
sense of something being very wrong.
For two very different families haunted by very
similar fears, THE GOD PROJECT has
only just begun to work its lethal conspiracy of
silence and fear. And for the reader, John Saul has
produced a mind-numbing tale of evil unchecked.
NATHANIEL
Prairie Bend: brilliant summers amid
golden fields, killing winters of razorlike
cold. A peaceful, neighborly village,
darkened by legends of death . . . legends of
Nathaniel. Some residents say he is simply
a folk tale, others swear he is a terrifying
spirit. And soon
-
very soon
-
some will come to believe that Nathaniel lives .
Shivering, Michael set himself a destination now and
began walking along the edges of the pastures, the
woods on his right, climbing each fence as he came
to it. Sooner than he would have expected, the
woods curved away to the right, following the course
of the river as it deviated from its southeastern flow
to curl around the village. Ahead of him he could
see the scattered twinkling lights of Prairie
Bend. For a moment, he considered going into the
village, but then, as he looked off to the southeast,
he changed his mind, for there, seeming almost to glow in the
moonlight, was the hulking shape of Findley's
barn.
That, Michael knew, was where he was going.
He cut diagonally across the field, then darted
across the
deserted highway and into another field. He moved
quickly now, feeling exposed in the emptiness with the
full moon shining down on him. Ten minutes later
he had crossed the field and come once more to the
highway, this time as it emerged from the village. Across
the street, he could see Ben Findley's
driveway and, at its end, the little house, and the barn.
He considered trying to go down the driveway and around
the house, but quickly abandoned the idea. A light
showed dimly from behind a curtained window, and he had a
sudden vision of old man Findley, his gun
cradled in his arms, standing in silhouette at the
front door.
His progress slowed as he plunged into the
weed-choked pastures that lay between the house and the
river, but he was determined to stay away from the fence
separating Findley's property from their own until
the old man's barn could conceal him from the same
man's prying eyes. It wasn't until he was
near the river that he finally felt safe enough to slip
between the strands of barbed wire that fenced off the
Findley property and begin doubling back toward the
barn that had become his goal.
He could feel it now, feel the strange sense of
familiarity he had felt that afternoon, only it was
stronger here, pulling him forward through the night. He
didn't try to resist it, though there was something
vaguely frightening about it. Frightening but exciting. There
was a sense of discovery, almost a sense of memory.
And his headache, the throbbing pain that had been with him
all evening, was gone.
He came up to the barn and paused. There should be a
door just around the corner, a door with a bar on it.
He didn't understand how he knew it was there, for
he'd never seen that side of the barn, but he
knew.
Around the corner, just as he knew it would be, he
found the door, held securely shut by a
heavy wooden beam resting in a pair of wrought-iron
brackets. Without hesitation, Michael lifted the
bar out of its brackets and propped it carefully
against the wall. As he pulled the door open, no
squeaking hinges betrayed his presence. Though the barn
was nearly pitch dark inside, it wasn't the kind of
eerie darkness the woods by the river had held, at
least not for Michael. For Michael, it was an
inviting darkness.
He stepped into the barn.
He waited, half expectantly, as the darkness
seeped into him, enveloping him within its folds. And
then something reached out of the darkness and touched him.
Nathaniel's call to Michael Hall, who has
just lost his father in a tragic accident, draws the
boy further into the barn and under his spell. There
-
and beyond-Michael will faithfully follow
Nathaniel's voice to the edge of terror.
BRAINCHILD
One hundred years ago in La Paloma a
terrible deed was done, and a cry for vengeance pierced the
night. Now, that evil still lives, and that vengeance
waits . . . waits for Alex Lonsdale, one
of the most popular boys in La Paloma.
Because horrible things can happen-even to nice kids like
Alex . . .
Alex jockeyed the Mustang around Bob Carey's
Porsche, then put it in drive and gunned the
engine. The rear wheels spun on the loose
gravel for a moment, then caught, and the car shot
forward, down the Evanses' driveway and
into Hacienda Drive.
Alex wasn't sure how long Lisa had been
walking-it seemed as though it had taken him forever
to get dressed and search the house. She could be almost
home by now.
He pressed the accelerator, and the car picked up
speed. He hugged the wall of the ravine on the first
curve, but the car fish tailed slightly, and he had
to steer into the skid to regain control. Then he hit a
straight stretch and pushed his speed up to seventy.
Coming up fast was an S curve that was posted at
thirty miles an hour, but he knew they always
left a big margin for safety. He slowed
to sixty as he started into the first turn.
And then he saw her.
She was standing on the side of the road, her green
dress glowing brightly in his headlights, staring at him
with terrified eyes.
Or did he just imagine that? Was he already that close
to her?
Time suddenly slowed down, and he slammed his foot
on the brake.
Too late. He was going to hit her.
It would have been all right if she'd been on the
inside of the curve. He'd have swept around her, and
she'd have been safe. But now he was skidding right
toward her . . .
Turn into it. He had to turn into it!
Taking his foot off the brake, he steered to the right,
and suddenly felt the tires grab the pavement.
Lisa was only a few yards away.
And beyond Lisa, almost lost in the darkness, something
else.
A face, old and wrinkled, framed with white
hair. And the eyes in the face were glaring at him with
an intensity he could almost feel.
It was the face that finally made him lose all
control of the car.
An ancient, weathered face, a face filled with
an unspeakable loathing, looming in the darkness.
At the last possible moment, he wrenched the wheel
to the left, and the Mustang responded, slewing around
Lisa, charging across the pavement, leading for the
ditch and the wall of the ravine beyond.
Straighten it out!
He spun the wheel the other way.
Too far.
The car burst through the guardrail and hurtled over the
edge of the ravine.
"Lisaaaa
..."
Now Alex needs a miracle and thanks to a
brilliant doctor, Alex comes back from the
brink of death. He seems the same, but in his heart
there is a coldness. And if his friends and family could
see inside his brain, they would be terrified. . . .
HELLFIRE
Pity the dead . . .
one hundred years ago eleven innocent lives were
taken in a fire that raged through the mill. That day the
iron doors slammed shut-forever. Now, the powerful
Sturgiss family of the sleepy town of Westover,
Massachusetts is about to unlock those doors to the
past. Now comes the time to
pray for the living.
The silence of the building seemed to gather around her, and
slowly Beth felt the beginnings of fear.
And then she began to feel something else.
Once again, she felt that strange certainty that the
mill was not empty.
"D-Daddy?" she called softly, stepping through the
door. "Are you here?"
She felt a slight trickle of sweat begin
to slide down her spine, and fought a sudden trembling
in her knees.
Then, as she listened to the silence, she heard something.
A rustling sound, from up above.
Beth froze, her heart pounding.
And then she heard it again.
She looked up.
With a sudden burst of flapping wings, a pigeon
took off from one of the rafters, circled, then soared
out through a gap between the boards over one of the windows.
Beth stood still, waiting for her heartbeat to calm.
As she looked around, her eyes fixed on the top
of a stairwell at the far end of the building.
He was downstairs. That's why he hasn't heard
her. He was down in the basement.
Resolutely, she started across the vast emptiness
of the building. As she reached the middle of the floor,
she felt suddenly exposed, and had an urge
to run.
But there was nothing to be afraid of. There was
nothing in the mill except herself, and some birds.
And downstairs, her father.
After what seemed like an eternity, she reached the top
of the stairs, and peered uncertainly into the darkness below.
Her own shadow preceded her down the steep flight of
steps, and only a little spilled over the staircase
to illuminate the nearer parts of the vast basement.
"Daddy?" Beth whispered. But the sound was so
quiet, even she could barely hear it.
And then there was something else, coming on the heels of her
own voice.
Another sound, fainter than the one her own voice
had made, coming from below.
Something was moving in the darkness.
Once again Beth's heart began to pound, but she
remained where she was, forcing back the panic that
threatened to overcome her.
Finally, when she heard nothing more, she moved slowly
down the steps, until she could place a foot on
the basement floor.
She listened, and after a moment, as the darkness began
closing in on her, the sound repeated itself.
Panic surged through her. All her instincts told
her to run, to flee back up the stairs and out into the
daylight. But when she tried to move, her
legs refused to obey her, and she remained where she
was, paralyzed.
Once again the sound came. This time, though it was almost
inaudible, Beth thought she recognized a word.
"Beeetthh ..."
Her name. It was as if someone had called her name.
"D-Daddy?" she whispered again. "Daddy, is that
you?"
There was another silence, and Beth strained once more
to see into the darkness surrounding her.
In the distance, barely visible, she thought she could see
a flickering of light.
And then she froze, her voice strangling as the sound
came again, like a winter wind sighing in the trees.
"Aaaammmyyyy ..."
Beth gazed fearfully into the blackness for several
long seconds. Then, when the sound was not repeated,
her panic began to subside. At last she was able
to speak again, though her voice still trembled. "Is
someone there?"
In the far distance, the light flickered again, and she
heard something else.
Footsteps, approaching out of the darkness.
The seconds crept by, and the light bobbed nearer.
And once more, the whispering voice, barely
audible, danced around her.
"Aaaammmyy ..."
For Beth Rogers, the voice seems like a
nightmare, yet not even a little girl's fears can
imagine the unearthly fury that awaits her in the
old, deserted mill. Soon all of Westover will
be prey to the forces of darkness that wait beyond those
padlocked doors.
THE UNWANTED
Cassie Winslow, lonely and frightened, has come
to False Harbor, Cape Cod to live with her father
-
whom she barely
knows
-
and his family. For Cassie, the strange,
unsettling dreams that come to her suddenly are merely
the beginning .
. .
for very soon, Cassie will come to know the terrifying
powers that are her gift.
Cassie awoke in the blackness of the hours before
dawn, her heart thumping, her skin damp with a cold
sweat that made her shiver. For a moment she didn't
know where she was. Then, as she listened to the
unfamiliar sound of surf pounding in the distance, the
dream began to fade away, and she remembered where
she was.
She was in False Harbor, and this was where she lived
now. In the room next to her, her stepsister was
asleep, and down the hall her father was in bed with her
stepmother.
Then why did she feel so alone?
It was the dream, of course.
It had come to her again in the night. Again she had seen
the strange woman who should have been her mother but was not.
Again, as Cassie watched in horror, the car burst
into flames, and Cassie, vaguely aware that she was
in a dream, had expected to wake up, as she had
each time the nightmare had come to her.
This time, though she wanted to turn and run, she stood
where she was, watching the car burn.
This time there had been no laughter shrieking from the
woman's lips, no sound of screams, no noise
at all. The flames had risen from the car in an
eerie silence, and then, just as Cassie was about to turn
away, the stranger had suddenly emerged from the car.
Clad in black, the figure had stood perfectly
still, untouched by the flames that raged around her.
Slowly, she raised one hand. Her lips
moved and a single word drifted over the crowded
freeway, came directly to Cassie's ears
over the faceless mass of people streaming by in their cars.
"Cassandra . . ."
The silence of the dream was shattered then by the blaring of a
horn and the screaming of tires skidding on pavement.
Cassie looked up just in time to see a truck
bearing down on her, the enormous grill of its
radiator only inches from her face.
As the truck smashed into her she woke up, her own
scream of terror choked in her throat.
Her heartbeat began to slow, and her shivering stopped.
Now the room seemed to close in on her, and she
found it hard to breathe. Slipping out of bed, she
crossed to the window at the far end of the narrow room and
lifted it open. As she was about to go back to bed, a
movement in the darkness outside caught her eye.
She looked down into the cemetery on the other side
of the back fence. At first she saw nothing. Then she
sensed the movement again, and a dark figure came
into view. Clad in black, perfectly silent, a
woman stood in the shadows cast by the headstones.
Time seemed to suspend itself.
And then the figure raised one hand. Once more
Cassie heard a single word drift almost
inaudibly above the pounding of the surf from the beach a
few blocks away.
"Cassandra. . ."
Cassie remained where she was, her eyes closed
as she strained to recapture the sound of her name, but
now there was only the pulsing drone of the surf. And when
she reopened her eyes a few seconds later and
looked once more into the graveyard, she saw nothing.
The strange figure that had stepped out of the shadows was
gone.
She went back to her bed and pulled the covers
close around her. For a long time she lay still,
wondering if perhaps she'd only imagined it all.
Perhaps she hadn't even left the bed, and had only
dreamed that she'd seen the woman in the graveyard.
But the woman in the graveyard had been the woman in
her dream. But she didn't really exist.
Did she?
Cassie's dreams will alienate her from the other
kids, as will her strange bond with crazy old
Miranda Sikes-for both feel
unwanted.
And in the village of False Harbor, nothing will
ever be the same as John Saul spins his
supernatural spell.
THE UNLOVED
The splendid isolation of a picturesque island off
the South Carolina coast seems like paradise, but for
Kevin Devereaux
-
who returns with his family to help care for his aged
and ailing mother, Helena
-
homecoming will mean a frightening descent into his
darkest nightmares . . .
"Why are you here?" he heard her demand. "You know
I don't want you here!"
He tried to think, tried to remember where he was.
He looked around furtively, hoping the woman
wouldn't see his eyes flickering about as if he might
be searching for a means to escape.
The room around him looked strange-unfinished-the
rough wood of its framing exposed under the tattered
remains of crumbling tarpaper. He'd been in this
place before-he knew that now. Still, he didn't know
where the room was, or what it might be.
But he knew the woman was angry with him again, and in
the deepest recesses of his mind, he knew what was
going to happen next.
The woman was going to kill him.
He wanted to cry out for help, but when he opened his
mouth, no scream emerged. His throat constricted,
cutting off his breath, and he knew if he couldn't
fight the panic growing within him, he would strangle
on his own fear.
The woman took a step toward him, and he cowered,
huddling back against the wall. A slick sheen of
icy sweat chilled his back, then he felt cold
droplets creeping down his arms. A shiver passed
over him, and a small whimper escaped his lips.
His sister.
Maybe his sister would come and rescue him.
But she was gone-something had happened to her, and he was
alone now.
Alone with his mother.
He looked fearfully up.
She seemed to tower above him, her skirt held
back as if she were afraid it might brush against him
and be soiled. Her hands were hidden in the folds of the
skirt, but he knew what they held.
The axe. The axe she would kill him with.
He could see it then-its curved blades glinting in
the light from the doorway, its long wooden handle
clutched in his mother's hands. She wasn't speaking
to him now, only staring at him. But she
didn't need to speak, for he knew what she
wanted, knew what she'd always wanted.
"Love me," he whispered, his voice so
tremulous that he could hear the words wither away as
quickly as they left his lips. "Please love me .
. ."
His mother didn't hear. She never heard, no matter
how many times he begged her, no matter how often he
tried to tell her he was sorry for what he'd done.
He would apologize for anything-he knew that. If
only she would hear him, he'd tell her whatever she
wanted to hear. But even as he tried once more, he
knew she wasn't hearing, didn't want to hear.
She only wanted to be rid of him.
The axe began to move now, rising above him,
quivering slightly, as if the blade itself could
anticipate the splitting of his skull, the crushing
of his bones as they gave way beneath the weapon's
weight. He could see the steel begin its slow
descent, and time seemed to stand still.
He had to do something-had to move away, had to ward off
the blow. He tried to raise his arms, but even the
air around him seemed thick and unyielding now, and the
blade was moving much faster than he was. . . .
He opened his mouth and, finally, screamed-
The horror is a dream, only a dream. Or so
Kevin thinks. Until Helena, suddenly,
horribly, dies inside the locked nursery. And
now there is no escape, as tortured spirits from the
sinister past rise up to tell the true terror
of the unloved.
CREATURE
A terrible secret lurks beneath the wholesome
surface of Silver-dale, Colorado, where
well-behaved students make their parents and teachers
proud, and the football team never
-
ever
-
loses. But soon, some of the parents in Silverdale
will begin to uncover the unimaginable secret that can
turn a loving child murderous .
"It's two in the morning, Chuck. And Jeff
isn't home yet." Chuck groaned. "And for that you
woke me up? Jeez, Char, when I was his age,
I was out all night half the time."
"Maybe you were," Charlotte replied tightly.
"And maybe
your parents didn't care. But I do, and I'm about
to call the police."
At that, Chuck came completely awake. "What
the hell do you want to do a thing like that for?" he
demanded, switching on the light and staring at
Charlotte as if he thought she'd lost her mind.
"Because I'm worried about him," Charlotte flared,
concern for her son overcoming her fear of her
husband's tongue. "Because I don't like what's been
happening with him and I don't like the way he's been
acting. And I certainly don't like not knowing where he
is at night!"
"Maybe he stayed overnight with a friend," Chuck
began, but Charlotte shook her head.
"He hasn't done that since he was a little boy. And
if he had, he would have called." Even as she
uttered the words, she knew she didn't believe
them. A year ago-a few months ago; even a
few weeks ago-she would have trusted Jeff to keep
her informed of where he was and what he was doing. But now?
She didn't know.
Nor could she explain her worries to Chuck,
since he insisted on believing there was nothing wrong;
that Jeff was simply growing up and testing his wings.
As she was searching for the right words, the words to express
her fears without further rousing her husband's anger,
the front door opened and Jeff came
in.
He'd already closed the door behind him and started up the
stairs when he caught sight of his parents standing in the
den in their bathrobes, their eyes fixed on him.
He gazed at them stupidly for a second, almost as
if he didn't recognize them, and for a
split-second Charlotte thought he looked stoned.
"Jeff?" she said. Then, when he seemed to pay no
attention to her, she called out again, louder this time.
"Jeff?"
His eyes hooded, her son turned to gaze at her.
"What?" he asked, his voice taking on the same
sullen tone that had become so familiar to her
lately.
"I want an explanation," Charlotte went on.
"It's after two a.m., and I want to know where you've
been."
"Out," Jeff said, and started to turn away.
"Stop right there, young man!" Charlotte commanded. She
marched into the foyer and stood at the bottom of the
stairs, then reached out and switched on the chandelier that
hung in the stairwell. A bright flood of light
bathed Jeff's face, and Charlotte gasped. His
face was streaked with dirt, and on his cheeks there were
smears of blood. There were black
circles
under Jeff's eyes-as if he hadn't slept in
days-and he was breathing hard, his chest heaving as he
panted.
Then he lifted his right hand to his mouth, and before he
began sucking on his wounds, Charlotte could see that
the skin was torn away from his knuckles.
"My God," she breathed, her anger suddenly
draining away. "Jeff, what's happened to you?"
His eyes narrowed. "Nothing," he mumbled, and once
more started to mount the stairs.
"Nothing?" Charlotte repeated. She turned
to Chuck, now standing in the door to the den, his eyes,
too, fixed on their son. "Chuck, look at him.
Just look at him!"
"You'd better tell us what happened, son,"
Chuck said. "If you're in some kind of trouble-"
Jeff whirled to face them, his eyes now blazing with the
same anger that had frightened Linda Harris earlier
that evening. "I don't know what's wrong!" he
shouted. "Linda broke up with me tonight, okay? And
it pissed me off? Okay? So I tried to smash
up a tree and I went for a walk.
Okay?
Is that okay with you, Mom?"
"Jeff-" Charlotte began, shrinking away from her
son's sudden fury. "I didn't mean ... we
only wanted to-"
But it was too late.
"Can't you just leave me alone?" Jeff shouted.
He came off the bottom of the stairs, towering over
the much smaller form of his mother. Then, with an abrupt
movement, he reached out and roughly shoved Charlotte
aside, as if swatting a fly. She felt a sharp
pain in her shoulder as her body struck the wall, and
then she collapsed to the floor. For a
split-second Jeff stared blankly at his mother,
as if he was puzzled about what had happened to her, and
then, an anguished wail boiling up from somewhere deep
within him, he turned and slammed out the front door.
Secret rituals masked in science . .
.
hidden cellars where steel cages gleam coldly
against the dark
... a
cry of unfathomable rage and pain
. . .
In Silverdale no one is safe from
. . . Creature.
DARKNESS
The Andersons left the town at the edge of the swamp
long ago, meaning never to return. There was something not
quite
right about the vast cruel lowlands of Villejeune .
. . something murky, menacing, hostile
... an
influence too malevolent to be natural.
Darkness wrapped around Amelie Coulton like a
funeral shroud, and only the sound of her own
heartbeat told her that she was still alive.
She shouldn't have come here-she knew that now, knew it
with a certainty that filled her soul with dread. She should
have stayed at home, stayed alone in the tiny shack that
crouched only a few feet above the dark waters of the
swamp. There, at least, she would have been safe.
She would have been safe, and so would the baby that now
stirred restlessly within her body, his feet kicking
her so hard she winced with pain.
But Amelie hadn't stayed at home. Now,
huddled silently in the darkness, she could feel
danger all around her, danger she knew her baby
could feel, too. . . .
As Amelie watched, the Dark Man held out his
arms.
"Give me what is mine!" His voice
boomed across the water, the words striking Amelie like
hammer blows.
Silently, Tammy-Jo placed her newborn
babe in the hands of the Dark Man, who turned and
laid the baby on the altar like an offering, unfolding
the blanket in which it was wrapped, until its pale
body was uncovered in the candlelight.
From the folds of his robes the dark man withdrew an
object. Amelie couldn't quite make it out, until
the light of the tapers reflected from it as from the blade
of a knife.
"Whose child is this?" the Dark Man asked, the blade
held high above the baby's naked body.
"Yours," Tammy-Jo replied, her voice
flat, her eyes fixed on the Dark Man.
Though his face was invisible, the girl in the canoe
shivered as she felt the Dark Man's cold
smile. .
She wanted to turn away, but knew she couldn't.
Fascinated with the black-clad image of the Dark
Man, she watched unblinking as he raised the
instrument in his hands high, poising it over the tiny
infant on the altar. The candlelight flickered, and
tiny brilliant stars flashed from the tip of the
instrument.
It began to arc downward.
It hovered for a moment, just over the child's breast.
There was a short scream from the infant as the tip of the
blade entered its chest, a scream that was cut off
almost as quickly as it began.
The glinting metal sank deep into the child's body.
Involuntarily, a shriek rose in Amelie's
throat, a small howl of pure horror that she
cut off almost as quickly as the Dark Man had cut
off the infant's scream.
The Dark Man looked up, gazing out over the fire
and the water, and Amelie imagined that his unseeable
eyes were boring into her, fixing her image on his
mind.
My baby,
she thought.
He wants my. baby, too.
Silently she dipped her paddle into the water and
backed the canoe away. But even as she moved
noiselessly through the black shadows, she could still feel
the eyes of the Dark Man following her, reaching out
to her, grasping at her.
No.
Not at her.
At the baby within her.
As she turned the canoe, intent on fleeing into the
darkness, she heard the Dark Man speak once again.
"George Coulton," the heavy voice uttered.
"When will you bring me what is mine?"
There was a moment of silence before Amelie heard her
husband reply. When at last he spoke,
George's flat, expressionless voice was clear.
"The night he's born. The night he's born,
I be bringin' him to you."
Now the Andersons' return has completed a
circle of destiny begun long ago. Now they must
face a deadly drama of unholy ceremony and
secret horror, of ancient greed preying upon young
life, of unutterable depravity. For, like the other
children of Villejeune
-
children without mercy or tears
-
sixteenyear-old Kelly Anderson is about to be
drawn into a darkness so terrible it spares no life,
no soul.
  John Saul is "a writer with the touch for raising
gooseflesh," says the
Detroit
News,
and bestseller after bestseller has proved over and
over his mastery for storytelling and his genius at
creating heart-stopping suspense. Enter his chilling
world, and prepare to realize your own hidden fears ...
  Available wherever Bantam paperbacks are
sold!
And now, turn the page for an exciting preview of
John Saul's masterpiece of terror,
SHADOWS.
They call it The Academy.
Housed in a secluded, cliff-top mansion
overlooking the rugged and picturesque Pacific
coast, it is a school for special children. Children
gifted-or cursed-with extraordinary minds. Children
soon to come under the influence of an intelligence even
more brilliant than their own-and unspeakably evil.
For within this mind a dark, ingenious plan is taking
form. A hellish experiment meant to probe the
ultimate limits of the human brain.
A novel of unrelenting, nerve-jangling
suspense,
Shadows
is John Saul's most terrifying tale to date
. . . now, here is a chilling glimpse of what
awaits you in the ...
SHADOWS John Saul
Amy looked up at the clock on the wall.
Only five more minutes until her last class
of the day ended.
She wished it would go on for the rest of the afternoon, right up
until dinnertime, for every minute that went by brought her
one minute closer to the experiment.
"But he
said
you don't have to do anything you don't want to do,"
Josh had insisted when she'd talked to him an hour
ago, during the break between history and math. "What
are you so scared of?"
Instead of answering his question, Amy had said nothing at
all, for the image in her mind was still the one of the cat in
the cage, wired to the computer, being subjected
to electrical shocks, frightening sounds, and the stinking
odor of the skunk.
Her trepidation hadn't been eased at all when
Mrs. Wilson, her math teacher, had handed her a
note at the beginning of the hour, instructing her
to appear at the gym at three-thirty.
The note had been signed by Dr. Engersol.
Why did he want her at the gym? Was that where the
experiment was going to be held?
"Amy? Amy, are you listening at all?"
The voice of Enid Wilson, the math teacher,
punched through the worries that were churning through the little
girl's head. Startled, Amy automatically sat
up straight in her chair.
"Haven't you been listening at all, Amy?"
Mrs. Wilson, a tall, angular woman whose
gray hair was pulled back into a severe bun
pinned at the back of her neck, was glaring at her
over the rims of her glasses. The stridency in her
voice made Amy cringe.
"I-I was thinking about something else," she said, her
voice trembling.
"Obviously," Enid Wilson replied, her
voice crackling. "But when you're in my
classroom, I
expect you to pay attention to me." She rapped the
pointer in her hand on the chalkboard behind her. "Can you
solve this equation, or not?"
Amy stared at the complicated algebraic equation that
was written out on the board, knowing that she should be able
to solve it in her head. She concentrated, her eyes
squinting and her brow furrowing as she began to do the
calculations, visualizing the numbers in her mind as
clearly as if she were working with a pencil and a
scratch pad.
"Come now, Amy, it's not that difficult," Mrs.
Wilson prodded. "It's really nothing more than a
simple reduction!"
Amy swallowed hard, trying to clear the lump that had
suddenly formed in her throat. In her mind, the
numbers faded away, and she lost her place in the
equation. "I-I can't do it," she breathed.
The teacher's eyes fixed on her, making her want
to sink through the floor. "Then perhaps you can do some extra
homework this evening," Mrs. Wilson told her
while the rest of the class tittered at her discomfort.
"If you're not going to pay attention in class,
you'll simply have to do the work in your room." Smiling
thinly, Mrs. Wilson addressed the rest of the
class. "Work out the first fifteen problems at the end
of Chapter Three," she told them. "Amy
Carlson will do the rest of them for you."
Amy's eyes widened. If Chapter Three were like
the first two, there were fifty problems to be solved.
And she had a chapter of history to read, and a story
to write for Mr. Conners. How would she ever do it?
And all because she hadn't been able to solve one
stupid equation!
The bell rang. As the rest of the students
hurried toward the door, intent on getting out into the
afternoon sunshine, Amy lingered where she was. When the
room was at last empty save for herself and the teacher,
Mrs. Wilson finally gazed questioningly at her.
"Is there something you want to talk to me about, Amy?"
she asked.
For a second Amy wondered if it would do any good
to tell Mrs. Wilson how much other studying she
had to do that night. She decided it wouldn't. Mrs.
Wilson wasn't like Mr. Conners, who was always
willing to listen to his students' problems. Mrs.
Wilson didn't seem to care how much work they had
to do for their other classes. "It's simply a
matter of planning your time," she'd told Brad
Hinshaw last week, when he'd complained that the
assignment was too long. "You're all gifted children,
and we're here to challenge your intellects, not
coddle the habits you developed in public
school. I know everything has always been easy for
all of you, but life isn't like that. You must learn to do
what is asked of you without complaining."
"She's sure a bitch," Brad had muttered as
they'd left her room that day. When some of the other
kids had giggled, Mrs. Wilson had recalled
them to the classroom and demanded to know what
they were laughing about.
And then she'd doubled Brad's assignment.
"n-No, Mrs. Wilson," Amy finally said as
the teacher's eyes bored into her. "I'm okay.
I'm sorry I wasn't paying attention."
Enid Wilson's lips relaxed into a semblance
of a smile. "Very well," she said. "Your apology
is accepted. As," she added, the smile disappearing,
"will your homework be tomorrow. Now I suggest you get about
your business. Dr. Engersol doesn't like to be
kept waiting, you know."
Nodding quickly, Amy pulled her book bag out from
under her desk and left the room. Emerging from the
building, she turned left and started toward the gym
on the other side of the campus.
She paused in front of the door to the women's
locker room, screwing her face into her habitual
tight squint of concentration.
What if she changed her mind
right now!
Was it possible the experiment had already started?
She glanced around. There were a few of the college
students lying around under the trees and walking along the
sidewalks, but no one seemed to be paying any
attention to her.
And she didn't have that creepy feeling on the back
of her neck that she always got when she felt like she was
being watched.
Sighing, she decided the experiment hadn't begun
yet, and walked on into the locker room. It was
empty except for Hildie Kramer, who stood
up as Amy came into the humid room.
"I was starting to wonder if you were going to show up at
all," Hildie said, smiling. "Dr. Engersol
wants you to put on a bathing suit and go out by the
pool."
Amy's lips pursed. "The pool? Is that where the
experiment is?"
Hildie nodded. "Do you have your own bathing suit
here?"
Amy shook her head. "It's in my room.
Nobody said I should bring it. Should I go get it?"
She had already started toward the door when Hildie
stopped her. "It's all right, Amy. We have
plenty of bathing suits. I'll bring you one."
Amy went to her locker and started undressing, and a
minute later Hildie reappeared, carrying with her
one of the shapeless maroon tank suits with which the gym
was stocked. "Yuck," Amy said, eyeing the suit with
distaste. "I hate those things!"
Hildie chuckled. "Doesn't everyone? But I
tried to find one that doesn't look too worn-out."
Amy took the suit from Hildie, then finished
stripping off her clothes and pulled it on. Poking
her arms through the straps and wriggling, she pulled the
piece of material over her body, then looked
hopefully up at Hildie. "Is it really
awful?"
Hildie cocked her head critically. "Well,
I don't suppose you'd win the Little Miss
America contest,
but it could be a lot worse. At least it fits, and
it doesn't have any holes in it. Ready?"
"I guess," Amy agreed. She followed
Hildie through the locker room to the showers, then into the
foot bath that filled a shallow pan sunk into the
concrete in front of the door to the pool. Suddenly
Amy's nerves got the best of her. She gazed
pleadingly up at Hildie. "Can't you please
tell me what the experiment is?" she begged.
Hildie's warm laugh filled the locker room, the
sound itself making Amy feel a little bit better.
"Why don't you just stop worrying about it?" she
asked. "You know I'm not going to tell you anything about
it, except that it's not going to hurt you at
all. And if you don't want to take part in it, you
don't have to. As soon as you know what it is, you can
turn around and walk away, if that's what you want
to do."
Amy took a deep breath and considered the situation.
Should she trust Hildie? Hildie had been on
her side over the animal experiments, after all.
So whatever this experiment was, it couldn't be too
bad. She stepped through the door to the pool.
And stopped, startled by what she saw.
At the far end of the pool, a curtain had been
hung, so the diving boards were completely invisible.
Ten feet away from her, sitting near the pool, was
a chair. Next to the chair was a table on which sat a
computer and what looked like some kind of headset.
There were video cameras in various places around the
pool, all of them trained on the empty chair.
Dr. Engersol was sitting in a second chair,
facing the computer screen. Seated around him were the other
members of the seminar.
Did they all know what was going to happen? Was she the
only one who wasn't in on it?
She felt betrayed.
Her first impulse was to turn around and run back through
the door, but her friends were already watching her,
staring at her as if they were sure she was going to chicken
out before it even began.
And it wasn't just her friends.
Her eyes shifted away from the group of children gathered
around the computer to the small grandstand that faced the pool
from the other side.
Sitting on the benches were at least fifty of the
college students, and they were watching her, too.
Amy felt herself burning with embarrassment. were all
these people really here just to watch her? But why? What was
going to happen?
Behind her, she heard Hildie's voice. "Are you
all right, Amy? Do you want to go ahead?"
What Amy wanted to do was fall through the concrete and
have the earth swallow her up. Why were all these people here?
Why wasn't it just the kids in the seminar, who were at
least people she knew? And what would happen if she
turned around and ran back into the locker room?
They would laugh at her.
All of them. They would know she was a coward, and even
though they might not laugh out loud, inside they would be
laughing at her.
Tonight, in the dining room, she would hear the clucking as
all the rest of the kids made chicken sounds.
Even her friends would laugh at her, and she
would feel just like she had back in public school,
when everyone acted as if she was some kind of freak or
something.
No!
She wouldn't let it happen. Somehow, she would get
through it.
She took a deep breath, then slowly let it out.
"I- I'm okay," she managed to say, but even
she could hear the trembling in her voice. "I just
didn't-who are all those people?"
Hildie smiled reassuringly at her. "They're
from one of the psychology classes. Dr. Engersol
invited them to watch the experiment."
"But he didn't
tell
me," Amy wailed.
Sensing what was going through the little girl's
mind, Hildie knelt down and took Amy's hands
in her own. "It's all right, Amy. Nothing's going
to happen to you. They're just here to watch. They're not
going to say anything, or do anything. It's going to be
all right."
"wh-What am I supposed to do?"
"Just go over and sit in the chair," Hildie told
her. "Come on. I'll go with you."
Holding Amy's hand, the housemother led her over to the
chair, and Amy perched nervously on its edge.
Then, at last, Dr. Engersol explained what was
going to happen.
"We're going to attach electrodes to you, Amy,"
he explained. "But they don't do anything except
measure your physical responses. I promise
you, you won't feel anything at all. All we're
going to be doing is recording changes in your
heartbeat, and your breathing, and your brain-wave
patterns. The cameras will be recording your facial
expressions and any movements of your body. So
all you have to do is sit there."
"But why me?" Amy asked. "What am I
supposed to be doing?"
"You'll see in a minute," Engersol told her.
"And remember, you can leave anytime you want to, just
like I promised."
And have everyone laugh at me,
Amy thought silently.
She sat still on the chair as Dr. Engersol
attached the electrodes to her body. Soon she was
even more festooned with wires than the cat had been that
morning. At last Dr. Engersol placed a
helmet over her head, and she felt a
mass of tiny points press against her scalp.
"Does that hurt?" Dr. Engersol asked her.
"It shouldn't, and if it does, I can make
adjustments so it won't. The electrodes should touch
your head, but there shouldn't be much pressure."
"I-It's all right," Amy managed to say. Then
her eyes met Engersol's, and he could see the fear
in
them. "Something's going to happen, isn't it?" she
asked. was Something awful."
"Nothing awful at all," Engersol reassured
her. He checked over the electrodes once more,
then went around to the computer screen. On its display,
Amy's respiratory rhythm, heartbeat, and
brain-wave patterns were clearly visible,
reflecting a body under a certain amount of mental
stress.
But nothing out of the normal ranges.
"All right," he said. "We're about to begin. All
I'm going to do is ask you to make a decision."
At the far end of the pool the curtain was suddenly
pulled away. Next to the high diving board, a
scaffolding had been erected. From the scaffolding
hung the knotted rope, the same one she had tried
to climb in the gym last week.
Tried to climb, and failed.
"I want you to pick one of them, Amy," Dr.
Engersol told her. "Which would you rather do? Climb the
rope? Or jump off the high diving board?"
Amy stared at him. Was he kidding? Did she really
have to do one of those things?
But he'd said she didn't! He'd said she didn't
have to do anything at all! All she had to do was sit
here.
Her heart sank.
Already she could hear the laughter that would erupt from her
friends when they figured out she was terrified of both the
rope and the diving board.
The cat.
He was doing to her what he'd done to the cat this
morning.
A double negative.
Make a choice between two things she hated, or let
everyone know how terrified she was.
Let them know, and put up with them teasing her.
Scaredy-cat, scaredy-cat, Amy is a
scaredy-cat!
Though no one had uttered the words, she could already hear
them ringing in her ears.
She tore her eyes away from the rope and the
diving board and looked at the faces of her
classmates,
who were gathered around the computer, some of them watching the
screen, some of them watching her.
Jeff Aldrich was grinning, already figuring out how
scared she was.
What would he do? Would he just tease her?
Or would it be worse? Maybe he'd hold her out
the window, dangling her above the sidewalk, threatening
to let her fall.
Her thoughts began to race. What was worse? To have
everyone laugh at her and tease her, or to make a
choice and try to get through the terror that always seized
her when she was more than a few feet off the ground?
But Dr. Engersol had told her she just had
to choose! She didn't actually have to do anything!
Except it wouldn't be enough. If she said she'd
chosen one or the other, and then didn't go through with it,
they'd all know!
Trapped.
Even after all his promises, he'd trapped her.
Which?
The rope?
She remembered freezing up there, terrified that she
was going to fall, clinging to the rope until the
coach climbed up and got her.
And she hadn't even been able to make herself climb the
ladder to the high board.
A ladder and a rope! How could she be afraid of a
stupid ladder and a dumb rope!
But what if she fell?
If she fell off the rope, she'd break a leg
at least.
But she might not fall off the ladder, not with bars
to hang onto and steps for her feet. And when she
got to the top, all she had to do was walk out to the end
and jump off.
Just the thought of standing on the narrow board three meters
above the pool made her stomach feel hollow and her
groin tighten with fear.
But it was only ten feet! What could happen to her?
Surely being terrified for a few seconds was
better than having everyone laugh at her because she was
chicken.
"I-I made up my mind," she whispered. "I'm
going to jump off the diving board."
Immediately, Dr. Engersol left his chair and came
to remove the helmet from her head while two
graduate students detached the electrodes from her
body. But the cameras, which had been
recording her every facial expression, every movement of
her body, were still running.
And everyone was still watching.
She approached the ladder that led to the diving board and
gripped the handrails tightly. She put her foot
on the bottom step and started climbing.
She was halfway up when she looked down, and
froze.
Do it! she told herself. Just climb up, walk out
on the board, and jump.
Then, as she stared down at the concrete beneath her, her
terror of heights welled up in her and she knew
she couldn't do it.
Don't look, she commanded herself.
She forced herself to look up, and there, looming above
her, was the board itself.
No!
She couldn't do it, couldn't possibly walk out on
it! It was too narrow. She'd fall before she took
even a single step.
As she felt the last of her nerve slipping away from
her, she began to sob. Tears streaming down her
face, she scrambled back down off the ladder and
fled toward the locker room, covering her face with
her hands, already imagining she could hear the
laughter following her. Then she was inside the locker
room, scurrying across the empty shower room. By the
time she came to her locker, the bathing suit was already
half off, and she jerked it the rest of the way, hurling
it into a corner and pulling on her clothes as fast as
she could. Leaving her locker standing open, sobs of
humiliation racking her body, Amy Carlson fled
from the gym.
By the time Hildie Kramer came looking for her, the
locker room was empty, but Hildie was almost
certain she knew where Amy had gone.
As she, too, left the gym, every trace of the warm and
kindly expression she habitually wore when she
spoke to either the children or their parents was gone from her
face, replaced by a look of harsh determination.
Before anyone else saw Amy Carlson again,
Hildie Kramer intended to find her.