by John Saul
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.
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 anyb
ody 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 Ru
by 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.
