by Nora Roberts
“Oh, but—” Nell turned. “You have a place of your own. With us.”
“Let’s not make this sticky.” It was too late to regret she hadn’t arranged to speak to Mia privately. “I was just thinking it’d be cool to have a little place to myself, and since Mia’s got one going begging—”
“On the contrary,” Mia said smoothly. “Neither I nor my possessions need to beg.”
“You don’t want me to do you a favor?” Ripley lifted a shoulder. “No skin off mine.”
“It’s so considerate of you to think of me.” Mia’s tone was candy-sweet. Always a bad sign. “But as it happens I just signed with a tenant for the cottage not ten minutes ago.”
“Bullshit. You were just up in your office, and Nell didn’t say you were with anyone.”
“On the phone,” Mia continued. “With a gentleman from New York. A doctor. We’ve signed a three-month lease for the cottage via fax. I hope that relieves your mind.”
Ripley wasn’t quite quick enough to mask her annoyance. “Like I said, no skin off mine. What the hell’s a doctor going to do for three months on Three Sisters? We’ve got a doctor on-island.”
“He’s not a medical doctor. He’s a Ph.D.—and as you’re so interested, he’s coming here to work. Dr. Booke is a paranormal researcher, and he’s eager to spend some time on an island conjured by witches.”
“Fucking A.”
“Always so succinct.” Amused, Mia got to her feet. “Well, my work here is done. I must go see if I can bring joy into someone else’s life now.” She strolled to the door, waited a beat before she turned. “Oh, he’ll be here tomorrow. I’m sure he’d love to meet you, Ripley.”
“Keep your weirdo spook hunters away from me. Damn it.” Ripley bit into her cream puff. “She’s eating this up.”
“Don’t go anywhere.” Nell lifted her order. “Peg comes on in five. I want to talk to you.”
“I’ve got patrol.”
“You just wait.”
“Damn near ruined my appetite,” Ripley complained, but managed to devour the cream puff.
In fifteen minutesshe was stalking outside again, Nell glued to her side.
“We need to talk about this.”
“Look, Nell, it’s no big deal. I was just thinking—”
“Yes, you were thinking.” Nell yanked her wool cap down over her ears. “And you didn’t say anything to me, or to Zack. I want to know why you feel you can’t stay in your own home.”
“Okay, okay.” Ripley put on her sunglasses, hunched her shoulders as they started down High toward the station house. “It just seems to me that when people get married, they need privacy.”
“It’s a big house. We’re not in each other’s way. If you were the domestic type, I could see you feeling displaced because I have to spend so much of my time in the kitchen.”
“That’s the least of my worries.”
“Exactly. You don’t cook. I hope you don’t think I resent cooking for you.”
“No, I don’t think that. And I appreciate it, Nell, I really do.”
“Is it because I get up so early?”
“No.”
“Because I took one of the spare bedrooms for an office for Sisters Catering?”
“No. Jeez, nobody was using it.” Ripley felt as though she was being systematically pounded with a velvet bat. “Look, look, it’s not about cooking or spare rooms or your baffling habit of getting out of bed before the sun rises. It’s about sex.”
“Excuse me?”
“You and Zack have sex.”
Nell stopped, cocked her head as she studied Ripley’s face. “Yes, we do. I don’t deny it. In fact, we have quite a lot of sex.”
“There you are.”
“Ripley, before I officially moved into the house, Zack and I often had sex there. It never seemed to be a problem for you.”
“That was different. That was regular sex. Now you’re having married sex.”
“I see. Well, I can assure you the process works in almost exactly the same way.”
“Har-har.” Nell had come a long way, Ripley mused. There’d been a time when even the hint of a confrontation would have had her backing down.
Those days were over.
“It’s just weird, okay? You and Zack are into the mister and missus thing and you’ve got me hanging around. What if you wanted to do the horizontal tango on the living room rug, or just have dinner naked some night?”
“We’ve actually done the first, but now I’ll give some serious consideration to the second. Ripley.” Nell touched Ripley’s arm, rubbed lightly. “I don’t want you to move out.”
“Jesus, Nell, it’s a small island. It’s not like I’d be hard to reach wherever I landed.”
“I don’t want you to move,” she said again. “I’m speaking for myself, not for Zack. You can talk to him separately if you want and get his feelings about it. Ripley . . . I never had a sister before.”
“Oh, man.” She cringed, scanning the area from behind her dark glasses. “Don’t get mushy, not right out on the street like this.”
“I can’t help it. I like knowing you’re there, that I can talk to you whenever. I only had a few days with your parents when they came back for the wedding, but knowing them now and having you, I have a family again. Can’t we just leave things the way they are, for now, anyway?”
“Does Zack ever say no to you once you turn those big blue headlights on him?”
“Not when he knows it’s really important to me. And if you stay, I’ll promise that when Zack and I have sex, we’ll pretend we’re not married.”
“It might help. Anyway, since some jerk from New York snagged the cottage right under my nose, I’ll have to let things ride.” She let out a pained sigh. “Paranormal researcher, my butt. Ph.D.” She sneered and felt marginally cheered. “Mia probably rented the place to him just to piss me off.”
“I doubt it, but I’m sure she’s enjoying that side benefit. I wish the two of you wouldn’t jab at each other so much. I’d really hoped, after . . . after what happened on Halloween you would be friends again.”
Instantly, Ripley closed in. “Everybody did what had to be done. Now it’s over. Nothing’s changed for me.”
“Only one phase is over,” Nell corrected. “If the legend—”
“The legend is hooey.” Even thinking of it blighted Ripley’s mood.
“What we are isn’t. What’s inside us isn’t.”
“And what I do with what’s inside me is my business. Don’t go there, Nell.”
“All right.” But Nell squeezed Ripley’s hand and even through the gloves that both women wore, there was a spark of energy. “I’ll see you at dinner.”
Ripley balled her hand as Nell walked away. Her skin still hummed from the contact. Sneaky little witch, Ripley thought.
She had to admire that.
Dreams came latein the night, when her mind was open and her will at rest. She could deny by day, close herself off, stand by the choice she’d made more than a decade before.
But sleep was a power of its own, and seduced the dreaming.
In dreams, she stood on the beach, where the waves rose like terror. They pounded, black and bitter, on the shore, a thousand mad heartbeats, under a blind sky.
The only light was the snake-whips of lightning that slashed each time she raised her arms. And the light that came from her was a furious gold edged with murderous red.
The wind roared.
The violence of it, the sheer, unharnessedpower of it, thrilled her in some deep and secret place. She was beyond now, beyond right, beyond rules.
Beyond hope.
And part of her, still flickering, wept grievous tears for the loss.
She had done what she had done, and now wrongs were avenged. Death to death to death. A circle formed by hate. One times three.
She cried out in triumph as the dark smoke of black magic streamed inside her, smearing and choking out what she had been, what she had
vowed. What she had believed.
This, she thought as her cupped hands trembled at the force and the greed, was better. What had come before was pale and weak, a soft belly, compared to the strength and muscle of what was now.
She could do all and any. She could take and could rule. There was nothing and no one to stop her.
In a mad dance she spun across the sand, above it, her arms spread like wings, her hair falling in coils like snakes. She could taste the death of her sister’s murderer, the bright copper flavor of blood she’d spilled, and knew she had never supped so well.
Her laughter shot out like bolts, cracked the black bowl of the sky. A torrent of dark rain fell and hissed on the sand like acid.
He called her.
Somewhere through the wild night and her own fury she heard his voice. The faint glow of what had been inside her struggled to burn brighter.
She saw him, just a shadow fighting through the wind and rain to reach her. Love warred and wept in a heart gone cold.
“Go back!”she shouted at him, and her voice thundered, shook the world.
But still he came on, his hands reaching toward her—to gather her in, to bring her back. And she saw, just for an instant, the gleam of his eyes against the night, that was love, and fear.
Out of the sky came a lance of fire. Even as she screamed, as that light inside her leaped, it speared through him.
She felt his death inside her. The pain and horror of what she’d sent out springing back, times three.
And the light inside her winked out. Left her cold, cold, cold.
Two
He didn’t lookso very different from the other passengers on the ferry. His long black coat flapped in the wind. His hair, an ordinary sort of dark blond, flew around his face and had no particular style.
He’d remembered to shave and had only nicked himself twice, just under the strong line of his jaw. His face—and it was a good one—was hidden behind one of his cameras as he snapped pictures of the island using a long lens.
His skin still held the tropical tan he’d picked up in Borneo. Against it his eyes were the luminous golden brown of honey just bottled. His nose was straight and narrow, his face a bit thin.
The hollows in his cheeks tended to deepen when he lost himself in work for long periods and forgot regular meals. It gave him an intriguing starving-scholar look.
His mouth smiled easily, sensually.
He was somewhat tall, somewhat lanky.
And somewhat clumsy.
He had to grip the rail to keep a shudder of the ferry from pitching him over it. He’d been leaning out too far, of course. He knew that, but anticipation often made him forget the reality of the moment.
He steadied himself again, dipped into his coat pocket for a stick of gum.
He came out with an ancient lemon drop, a couple of crumpled sheets of notepaper, a ticket stub—which baffled him, as he couldn’t quite remember when he’d last been to the movies—and a lens cap he’d thought he’d lost.
He made do with the lemon drop and watched the island.
He’d consulted with a shaman in Arizona, visited a man who claimed to be a vampire in the mountains of Hungary, been cursed by a brujo after a regrettable incident in Mexico. He’d lived among ghosts in a cottage in Cornwall and had documented the rights and rituals of a necromancer in Romania.
For nearly twelve years, MacAllister Booke had studied, recorded, witnessed the impossible. He’d interviewed witches, ghosts, lycanthropes, alien abductees, and psychics. Ninety-eight percent of them were delusional or con artists. But the remaining two percent . . . well, that kept him going.
He didn’t just believe in the extraordinary. He’d made it his life’s work.
The idea of spending the next few months on a chunk of land that legend claimed had been torn from the mainland of Massachusetts by a trio of witches and settled as a sanctuary was fascinating to him.
He’d researched Three Sisters Island extensively and had dug up every scrap of information he could find on Mia Devlin, the current island witch. She hadn’t promised him interviews, or access to any of her work. But he hoped to persuade her.
A man who had talked himself into a ceremony held by neo-Druids should be able to convince a solitary witch to let him watch her work a few spells.
Besides, he imagined they could make a trade. He had something he was sure would interest her, and anyone else who was tied into the three-hundred-year-old curse.
He lifted his camera again, adjusting the framing to capture the spear of the white lighthouse, the brooding ramble of the old stone house, both clinging to the high cliffs. He knew Mia lived there, high above the village, close to the thick slice of forest.
Just as he knew she owned the village bookstore and ran it successfully. A practical witch who, by all appearances, knew how to live, and live well, in both worlds.
He could hardly wait to meet her face-to-face.
The blast of the horn warned him to prepare for docking. He walked back to his Land Rover, put his camera in its case on the passenger seat.
The lens cap in his pocket was, once again, forgotten.
While he had these last few minutes to himself, he updated some notes, then added to the day’s journal entry.
The ferry ride was pleasant. The day’s clear and cold. I was able to take a number of pictures from different vantage points, though I’ll need to rent a boat for views of the windward side of the island.
Geographically, topographically, there’s nothing unusual about Three Sisters Island. Its area is approximately nine square miles, and its year-round inhabitants—largely in the fishing or the retail and tourist trade—number less than three thousand. It has a small sand beach, numerous inlets, coves, and shale beaches. It is partially forested, and the indigenous fauna include whitetail deer, rabbit,raccoon. Typical seabirds for this area. As well as owls, hawks, and pileated woodpecker in the forested regions.
There is one village. The majority of the residents live in the village proper or within a half-mile radius, though there are some houses and rental units farther afield.
There is nothing about the island’s appearance that would indicate it is a source of paranormal activity. But I’ve found that appearances are unreliable documentary tools.
I’m eager to meet Mia Devlin and begin my study.
He felt the slight bump of the ferry’s docking, but didn’t look up.
Docked, Three Sisters Island, January 6, 2002.Glanced at his watch.12:03 P.M. EST.
The village streetswere storybook tidy, the traffic light. Mac drove through, circled, logging various spots on his tape recorder. He could find an ancient Mayan ruin in the jungle with a map scribbled on a crushed napkin, but he had a habit of forgetting more pedestrian locations. Bank, post office, market. Ah, pizzeria, hot damn!
He found a parking place without trouble only a stop down from Café Book. He liked the look of the place immediately—the display window, the view of the sea. He fished around for his briefcase, tossed the mini-recorder inside, just in case, and climbed out.
He liked the look of the store even more on the inside. The cheerful fire in a stone hearth, the big checkout counter carved with moons and stars. Seventeenth century, he decided, and suitable for a museum. Mia Devlin had taste as well as talent.
He started to cross to it and the little gnomelike woman sitting on a high stool behind it. A movement, a flash of color caught his attention. Mia stepped out of the stacks and smiled.
“Good afternoon. Can I help you?”
His first clear thought was, Wow.
“I’m, ah, hmm. I’m looking for Ms. Devlin. Mia Devlin.”
“And you’ve found her.” She walked toward him, held out a hand. “MacAllister Booke?”
“Yeah.” Her hand was long and narrow. Rings sparkled on it like jewels on white silk. He was afraid to squeeze too hard.
“Welcome to Three Sisters. Why don’t you come upstairs? I’ll buy you a cup of coffee,
or perhaps some lunch. We’re very proud of our café.”
“Ah . . . I wouldn’t mind some lunch. I’ve heard good things about your café.”
“Perfect. I hope your trip in was uneventful.”
Up till now, he thought. “It was fine, thanks.” He followed her up the stairs. “I like your store.”
“So do I. I hope you’ll make use of it during your stay on the island. This is my friend, and the artist of our café, Nell Todd. Nell, Dr. Booke.”
“Nice to meet you.”
She showed her dimples and leaned over the counter to shake his hand.
“Dr. Booke has just arrived from the mainland, and I imagine he could use some lunch. On the house, Dr. Booke. Just tell Nell what you’d like.”
“I’ll take the sandwich special, and a large cappuccino, thanks. Do you do the baking, too?”
“That’s right. I recommend the apple brown Betty today.”
“I’ll try it.”
“Mia?” Nell asked.
“Just a cup of the soup and the jasmine tea.”
“Coming up. I’ll bring your orders out.”
“I can see I’m not going to have to worry about my next meal while I’m here,” Mac commented as they took a window table.
“Nell also owns and runs Sisters Catering. She delivers.”
“Good to know.” He blinked twice, but her face—the sheer glory of it—didn’t dim. “Okay, I just have to get this out, and I hope you’re not offended. You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve seen in my life.”
“Thank you.” She sat back. “And I’m not the least bit offended.”
“Good. I don’t want things to start off on the wrong foot, since I’m hoping to work with you.”
“And as I explained over the phone, I don’t . . . work for audiences.”
“I’m hoping you’ll change your mind after you get to know me better.”
He had a potent smile, she decided. Charmingly crooked, deceptively harmless. “We’ll see about that. As for your interest in the island itself, and its history, you won’t lack for data. The majority of the permanent residents here are from families who’ve lived on Sisters for generations.”
“Todd, for instance,” he said, glancing back toward the counter.
“Nell married a Todd, just a little under two weeks ago, in fact. Zachariah Todd, our sheriff. While she’s . . . new to the island, the Todds have, indeed, lived here for generations.”
