The Daughters of Eden Trilogy

by Michelle Paver

  ‘Belle—’

  Belle slammed the door shut.

  Drum leaned against it. ‘I won’t let them out till it’s over,’ he said. ‘I promise.’

  Belle bit her lower lip hard. ‘Thank you,’ she said when she could speak.

  She started for the main doors, but he held her back. ‘Belle, you can’t—’

  ‘Yes I can,’ she said fiercely. ‘I’m not mad, Drum. I know what I’m doing. If I take your horse and go by the backroads, I can reach Eden before it hits.’

  ‘But you don’t know that. I can’t let you—’

  ‘You haven’t got a choice!’ she cried. ‘Now stay here as you promised, and look after them! I’ve got to go and find my father.’

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Lightning flickered out at sea as Belle urged her mount past the Maputah works. The wind screamed in her ears. Palm fronds whipped past her. The sky was as dark as dusk, and she knew that it wouldn’t be long before the full force of the hurricane hit.

  But as she bent low against the gelding’s neck, a strange, fierce exultation surged through her. Whatever happened now, she was free. She’d given the envelope to Mamma. She’d lanced the boil.

  ‘It helps so much that you know,’ Margaret had said. ‘That you don’t mind.’

  ‘Of course I don’t mind,’ Belle had told her. ‘It wasn’t your fault.’

  It wasn’t your fault. How simple. How true.

  She felt as if a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders. She felt powerful and ready for anything . . .

  Now she had to find Papa.

  She clattered into the works yard and skittered to a halt. ‘Papa!’ she shouted.

  No answer. Urging the big gelding forward, she checked the boiling-house and the distillery, the steam engine shed, the trash-house, and the carpenters’ and coopers’ sheds. Nothing. Good. That must mean they’d already taken cover.

  But as she turned to go, a horseman appeared at the gates, blocking her way. To her astonishment, she recognized Cornelius Traherne.

  His face was chalky white, and beads of sweat stood out on his forehead. A palm frond flew past his face, but he didn’t even flinch. His pale blue eyes were fixed on Belle.

  She dug in her heels to ride past him, but he moved his mount sideways to block her.

  ‘I won’t let you do this,’ he said. His voice was oddly flat, and hardly audible above the scream of the wind.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ she cried. ‘Get out of my way. I have to—’

  ‘You could never bring me down. I’m too strong for you. I’ll always be too strong.’

  ‘Have you gone mad?’ cried Belle. ‘We’re in the middle of a hurricane! My father might be lying somewhere, injured in the road – and you’re worrying about your reputation?’

  ‘I won’t let you bring me down,’ he said again, still in that dead, toneless voice.

  ‘I don’t care about bringing you down!’ shouted Belle, fighting to keep control of her mount. ‘All I ever wanted was to be free of you!’

  A furious gust of wind lifted a panel of zinc on the boiling-house roof, and Traherne’s horse squealed. ‘I’ll crush you,’ he said. ‘I’ll crush you like a cockroach.’

  Belle reined in her mount. ‘Cornelius,’ she said, and the very act of speaking his name increased her sense of power. ‘Can’t you see that it’s over? Can’t you understand? It’s no longer our “little secret”. People know. I’m free. You don’t matter any more.’

  For the first time something flickered in the pale goat eyes.

  And as Belle faced him, she saw him with startling clarity: no longer the monster of her nightmares, but a lonely, vicious old man with a festering darkness at his core.

  ‘Now get out of my way,’ she told him. She dug in her heels and put her mount forward.

  Traherne moved to cut her off, but her gelding was too fast, and she shot through the gates. As she thundered down the road towards Eden, she heard a grinding roar behind her, and looked back to see a part of the boiling-house roof peel off and go crashing to the ground. The works yard, the gates, Traherne – all disappeared in a choking cloud of dust.

  She dug in her heels and rode on.

  But behind her, as the dust thinned, Traherne staggered out of the gates: limping, dust-covered, but still grasping his horse’s reins. Yanking them savagely to bring the animal about, he reached into his saddlebag with his free hand and pulled out a revolver.

  The giant bamboo was whipping about like grass as Adam urged his hired mount up the Eden Road.

  Why had Belle left Burntwood and started for Eden? The telephone line had gone dead just as Drum was about to tell him, leaving him with nothing but an overpowering dread, and the conviction that he had to find her, hurricane or no, before – as Miss Monroe had chillingly put it – she did something foolish, and took the law into her own hands.

  Precisely why Belle might ‘do something foolish’ to Cornelius Traherne was a revelation the old witch had thoroughly enjoyed making just as Adam was about to leave.

  ‘Of course,’ she had said, her voice dripping with distaste, ‘in the case of my great-great-grand-niece, it is no more than conjecture. But conjecture based upon a lifetime’s observation of the man himself, and upon the girl’s visit to me many years ago . . .’

  When she’d finished telling him, she’d sat very straight on her chair and watched him struggle to take it in.

  Conjecture it might be, but he knew she was right.

  Belle had been a child. A child of thirteen. And Traherne had done that . . .

  In moments, everything fell into place. Her self-destructive streak. Her conviction that she belonged in the slums. Her fear of Traherne . . .

  Miss Monroe had made him promise to bring down Traherne if she didn’t live to do it herself: a promise, he’d told her, that he hardly needed to give, since he would do it with pleasure. ‘Then be sure to act with despatch,’ she had told him, the blue gaze glittering. ‘I have not, as you know, been honoured with a visit from the girl herself, but from what I have gathered, I believe she may do something foolish. Perhaps even take the law into her own hands.’

  What did she mean? Was she simply making more mischief, or did she know something, or think she knew something? Adam didn’t intend to take any chances.

  A telephone pole flew past him, and he ducked just in time. Keep your mind on what you’re doing, you fool. The aim is to find Belle, not get yourself killed.

  But as he urged on his flagging mount, he couldn’t help thinking back to that day on the beach at Salt River, seven years before. The dark, unsmiling child walking towards him across the white sand. The silver-haired old gentleman strolling beside her, holding a parasol over her head. Claiming his own. As they’d drawn nearer, the child had raised her head and looked at Adam, and he’d caught something in her eyes: an appeal? Or was his memory coloured by what he’d just learned? It didn’t matter. What he did vividly remember was that he’d just had an argument with Celia, and hadn’t wanted company – that he’d turned on his heel and walked away.

  Well not this time, he told himself grimly.

  As he galloped down the iron-hard road, a rider cantered out from a cane-track, leading a struggling grey mare behind him. He was riding fast, without looking where he was going, and it was all Adam could do to avoid a collision.

  ‘Watch where you’re going!’ the man yelled angrily.

  ‘Same to you!’ Adam flung back.

  ‘Good God,’ cried the rider, breaking into a wolfish grin. ‘Is that you, Palairet?’

  Adam took another look, and recognized Ben Kelly, whom he’d last bumped into two years before at battalion HQ. Kelly was in shirtsleeves and covered in red dust, but, bizarrely, he seemed to be enjoying himself. With his black eyepatch he looked like a buccaneer.

  ‘I need to get to Eden,’ said Adam. ‘Please, Kelly, get out of my way.’

  ‘You won’t make Eden on that nag,’ Kelly pointed out. ‘She�
��s knackered. Or hadn’t you noticed?’

  Before Adam could reply, Kelly had brought his horse alongside him. ‘You any good at riding bareback?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Take the grey, she’s got plenty of go in her, which is why I’ve just had to chase her halfway across Trelawny to bring her home.’

  No time to argue. Besides, he was right. Quickly, Adam slipped off his hired nag, untacked her, and sent her clattering off down the road to Town. While he did so, Ben Kelly somehow managed to keep his own seat, avoid flying branches, and maintain control of the grey mare until Adam had jumped on her back. ‘So why Eden?’ he said as he tossed Adam the reins.

  ‘I need to find Belle.’

  To his surprise, Kelly barked a laugh. ‘In a hurricane? Bloody hell, Palairet, your timing’s even worse than mine!’

  Adam did not reply.

  ‘Come to think of it,’ said Kelly, turning thoughtful, ‘you’re not the first idiot I’ve met who’s out for a ride. I ran into Cornelius Traherne a while back. He was heading for Eden too.’

  ‘Traherne?’ cried Adam, reining in his horse. ‘When? When did you see him?’

  ‘Half an hour? Why?’

  The pieces were falling into place, and Adam didn’t like the picture they made. Miss Monroe must have done something to tip off Traherne, and somehow he’d got wind that Belle had left Burntwood, and was heading for Eden . . .

  ‘I think he’s after Belle,’ he said.

  Kelly didn’t waste time asking questions. ‘Well come on then,’ he said, yanking his mount’s head round. ‘What are we waiting for?’

  Ben will have taken shelter in the cellars, Sophie told herself as she followed Mrs Herapath through the crowded church. She tried and failed to picture her husband sedately taking cover. It wouldn’t be like Ben. He would take some stupid risk, and get himself—

  A gust of wind rattled the windows, and further down the nave a woman cried out in alarm. She was instantly hushed. An old man chided her not to frighten, they all right in the house of the Lord. In other words, there might be a hurricane outside, but there was no need to panic.

  It was so dark that the lamps were being lit, and soon the scent of kerosene was mingling with the sweet-onion smell of perspiration. But there was also a heartening aroma of coffee and spiced johnny cake. After all, people still had to eat.

  St Peter’s was packed, and Sophie had been one of the last to arrive. She’d been surprised at how shaken she felt, and how reassuring it was to see Mrs Herapath’s formidable bulk bearing down on her.

  ‘So nice that we chanced to meet,’ said Mrs Herapath in her cut-glass tones as she sailed through the throng like a brightly coloured galleon with Sophie following in her wake. ‘I’ve made myself a little encampment by the old Mordenner tomb, attracted quite a collection of waifs and strays. Here,’ she told Sophie over her shoulder, ‘you can look after Max.’ She indicated a small red-haired boy who was sitting in the shadow of a large roll-top tomb, trying to read a book about parrots.

  He seemed faintly familiar. With a jolt, Sophie recognized Sibella’s little boy. ‘Hello, Max,’ she said, surprise momentarily elbowing out her worry over Ben. ‘What are you doing in Jamaica?’

  ‘We’ve only just arrived,’ said Max shyly.

  ‘His guardian left him with me for safekeeping,’ said Mrs Herapath, as if Max was a library book.

  ‘Adam Palairet?’ exclaimed Sophie. ‘He’s here?’

  ‘I didn’t know you knew him,’ said Mrs Herapath. Casting a wary glance at Max, she added in French, ‘Extraordinary man. Said he had to “find someone”, and simply rode off! In this!’ She waved a plump hand at the storm-dark windows. ‘It’s always the quiet ones who surprise one, don’t you agree? They never—’

  She was interrupted by a crash and a splintering of glass, and the scream of the wind grew suddenly louder.

  Craning their necks they saw, just below the transept, the branches of a tree poking through one of the upper windows of the church. The people underneath had been liberally showered with leaves and broken glass, and were now brushing themselves off, shaking their heads regretfully at their spoiled food. Some glanced up at the branches in the window, and crossed themselves.

  Clutching his book against him like a shield, Max looked from Mrs Herapath to Sophie, then back again.

  Aware of his scrutiny, Mrs Herapath affected not to find anything amiss, and calmly started taking off her hat.

  ‘What was that?’ Max asked politely.

  ‘Only a tree, dear,’ said Mrs Herapath through a mouthful of hatpins. ‘One of the duppy trees in the churchyard has fallen over, the poor thing. Happens all the time. Nothing to worry about. It’ll simply let in a welcome breath of fresh air.’

  Max studied her for a moment. Then, reassured, he went back to his book.

  Mrs Herapath caught Sophie’s glance and rolled her eyes. ‘Incredible,’ she said in French, ‘how much faith they have in adults at that age.’

  ‘Incredible,’ echoed Sophie. She’d just been thinking how reassuring she, too, found Mrs Herapath’s beribboned bulk.

  A terrific flash of lightning and a peal of thunder – and rain began to hammer on the roof.

  Sophie thought of Ben, and told herself firmly that he must have taken cover by now.

  People began to pray in earnest. Mrs Herapath studied them curiously, for she herself had given up Christianity when her husband died, in favour of spiritualism. Raising her eyeglass to squint at the duppy tree in the window, she leaned over to Sophie and shouted in her ear, ‘I can’t help thinking that a spot of obeah might be rather more appropriate!’

  Up at Arethusa, they’d finished closing the shutters, and everyone was already down in the cellars. Everyone except Evie.

  At the cellar door, Isaac called to his wife to come quickly, but she said no, she had something to see to first. One look at her face, and he wisely decided not to argue.

  So now here she was in the darkened house, like the last person left alive on a sinking ship, while outside the wind howled and the rain hammered on the roof.

  Running to her room, she snatched her bankra and her obeah-stick from beneath the bed, and let herself out onto the back porch. A crazy thing to do: in seconds she was soaked to the skin, and it was all she could manage to stay standing in the onslaught. But she had to be outside to do obeah.

  Curiously, though, she wasn’t frightened at all. She was in a power to work her turning-spell. Not to take vengeance against Cornelius Traherne, oh no, she wasn’t about to go breaking her promise to her mother; but to turn him away from doing harm to Belle.

  A glare of lightning lit up the trees bent almost to the ground, and in the flashing light the serpent carved about her mother’s obeah-stick writhed.

  Squatting in the porch, Evie reached into her bankra and pulled out the handkerchief of Cornelius Traherne that she’d confiscated from Belle seven years before. Quickly she twisted it into a coil and tied it round the neck of the serpent; then she smeared it with the paste she’d prepared of grave-dirt and asafoetida mixed with lime juice, and a few other things too, besides.

  Then, bracing herself against the wind, she held the obeah-stick high, and began to chant. Power surged through her like a lightning flash.

  Lightning lit up the old guango tree that guarded the turn-off to Eden great house. In the glare, Belle saw that the wind had completely stripped it of its leaves.

  The house was in darkness. Shingles were flying off the roof like arrows. ‘Papa!’ she shouted. ‘Papa!’

  She couldn’t get through to the front of the house. The path that led to the verandah steps was blocked by the remains of the bath-house roof. Digging in her heels, she put her horse at the wreckage. They sailed over. She cantered into the garden.

  A flash of white by the verandah – and there he was, in his shirtsleeves and soaked to the skin, as she was, but unhurt, thank God.

  When he saw her, he froze. ‘Belle? What are you doing he
re?’

  ‘I had to find you!’ she shouted above the scream of the wind.

  Grabbing the bridle, her father pulled her out of the saddle and into his arms.

  Suddenly she was shaking so hard that she could hardly stand. ‘I had to find you,’ she mumbled into his chest.

  ‘I thought you were at Burntwood,’ he said, holding her tight. ‘I thought you were with Mamma and the twins.’

  ‘I was – they are – they’re in the cutwind – but I—’

  A terrific gust of wind nearly blew them off their feet, and above their heads part of the verandah roof lifted and blew down, blocking the way to the cellars at the other side of the house.

  The horse reared. Papa grasped the bridle with one hand, and put the other arm round Belle. ‘Come on,’ he shouted in her ear. ‘No time to get to the cellars! I know where we can go.’

  A gust of wind dashed what sounded like an entire tree against the outside of the cutwind. It didn’t even shudder.

  Inside there was an air of cramped and sweaty companionship. No-one was unduly alarmed. Some of the nurses were humming cheerful hymns, and several were also fingering little charm-bags at their necks, just for good measure. The twins were digging each other in the ribs and giggling. Everyone knew they would be safe in the cutwind. In the hundred and seventy years since it was built, it had weathered more hurricanes than anyone could remember – and protected the rest of the great house, too. Burntwood might have a reputation for being ‘bad luckid’, but no hurricane could bring it down.

  A laundrywoman lifted the lid off a basket on her lap and started doling out squares of cornmeal pone and wangla nut brittle. She offered a piece of pone to Madeleine, who managed a tight smile, but shook her head.

  It was just over an hour since Belle had pushed her into the cutwind. Had she reached Eden safely? Had she found Cameron? It seemed too much to hope that they would both survive. Madeleine shut her eyes and tried to picture them at Eden, safe and well. If she’d been a believer, she would have prayed.