Precipice

by Tom Savage

  She went over to stand at the foot of the grave, staring down at the words. The name, the dates, and the quotation she had chosen, the final couplet of his beloved Shakespeare’s eighteenth sonnet:

  So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

  So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

  The breeze preceding the approaching storm whisked past her as she stood there in her green silk Lunch With The Arts Council dress, the cold, wet wind whipping through her hair and stinging the back of her bare legs. When there was a lull, she went around to kneel down on the soft grass beside the grave and reached out to place the little bouquet in the center of the mound. A large rock lay nearby; she picked it up and rested it gendy on top of the bunched, rubber-banded stems. A little security, she thought. These flowers will remain here for a while, at least.

  The house was behind her, invisible through the trees. There was no one on the rocks below or on the points and beaches she surveyed from the cliff. Looking out over the angry, windswept sea, she was not surprised to find it devoid of life. Small-craft warning. There was nobody anywhere. She might have been the only living thing in the world, alone here with her husband. It was a melancholy feeling, but not a particularly unpleasant one. There was something almost cozy, reassuring, about it. She knelt there for a long time, looking at the headstone, out over the water, up at the imminent sky. After a while she began to speak.

  “Lisa mentioned you again yesterday. I heard her telling Diana about the time you took her downtown during Carnival. About the Ferris wheel, and the cotton candy in her hair, and how you brought her home and washed her up before I found out about it. You always did spoil her so. She doesn’t really care for Adam; I’m aware of that. She’s always going on about you, though. I hope it isn’t wrong of me not to discourage that. . . .

  “I wonder what you’d make of Diana if you were here. I think she has a lot in common with you. The two of you have the same kind of power, I think: the ability to change everything around you for the better. I don’t know what to call that, exactly. The power of positive thinking, good vibes—something awful and insufficient like that. But my life was better with you, and I think it’s going to be better now that she’s here.

  “So I’ve come to a decision. I’ve decided to make a go of it with Adam, and to see that Lisa has everything. And I want Diana around—for a while, at least. I think she needs someone to love her. I’ve been doing a little matchmaking. He’s a nice young man named Bob Taylor—no relation, as he’s always so quick to point out. He rather reminds me of you. They’re perfect for each other, really. I hope they realize that. Love is not an easy thing to come by.”

  She looked out from the clifftop at the clouds sinking lower over the water. Another cold, damp breeze washed past her.

  “I have to go now,” she said. “I’ll be back to see you soon.” Kneeling down toward the stone, she whispered, “Love you.”

  She reached over briefly to caress the flowers with her hand. Rising to her feet, she heard the distant laughter of her daughter and her friend—guardian, benefactor—as they came up from the beach and crossed the lawn. Just in time, she thought; a few more minutes and they would have been forced to seek shelter in the cottage. It isn’t safe there. Glancing guiltily down at the grave, she told herself for the thousandth time that she really should see about having it demolished. Sorry, darling, she thought as she turned to go, but it is really for the best. . . .

  The first large, heavy drops of rain smashed down onto the flagstones as she hurried across the patio and into the house.

  For the tenth time in the last hour, Margaret reached for the phone, picked it up, and almost immediately replaced it in its cradle. She sat on the burgundy velvet couch, huddled in the sweater she’d finally thought to fetch from the downstairs closet, staring down at the notepad on the coffee table before her.

  She couldn’t do it.

  On an impulse, she stood up and walked into the kitchen. The rain poured down onto the lawn outside the big window over the sink. She stood there looking out, listening to the constant splashing against the other side of the panes. She dropped her gaze to the neat row of shiny tins on the counter. The largest held flour, the next sugar, the next coffee. She was actually reaching for the third container when her arm, as if of its own accord, dropped listlessly to her side. I don’t want coffee, she thought. I don’t want anything. I’m stalling.

  Do it, she commanded. They can’t have you arrested for calling. They won’t even know who you are unless you tell them.

  I can’t.

  She measured coffee into the filter tray, attached it to the automatic coffeemaker, and poured water into the well at the top. Then she flicked the switch at the base of the appliance and walked back into the living room.

  I must.

  She reached for the phone, paused momentarily, grasped it firmly in her hand, raised it, and dialed. No need to refer to the notepad again; she’d memorized the number.

  It rang three times. In those few seconds, she thought seriously of putting the receiver down again. Maybe there was no one there to answer phones at this hour. Even if they answered they wouldn’t tell her anything. There must be regulations about that sort of thing, especially with a stranger on the phone. Besides, instructions might have been left prohibiting the disclosure of any information about—

  There was a sudden click and, before she could expect it or be even remotely prepared for it, a cool, efficient female voice spoke softly in Margaret’s ear.

  “South Bay Gables. May I help you?”

  Kay hadn’t played Scrabble in years. She’d even forgotten that she owned the game. Fred had loved it and sometimes they’d even allowed little Lisa to play with them long past her bedtime. The three of them would make popcorn and drink ginger ale and laugh together for hours, seated around the card table in the corner of the living room, late into the night. Or on rainy afternoons, when the view of the harbor and the rest of the island was obscured, as it was now.

  Kay watched, amazed, as the beautiful young woman across from her put down her tiles, move after move, spelling out the most brilliant words. And they always seemed to end up on the red squares, tripling their value. Even Lisa, usually so ebullient, maintained a respectful silence. It was uncanny: the young woman could take the most ordinary letters—the same ones Kay and Lisa had in their trays—and arrange them into anything she wanted.

  The ceiling fan whirled lazily above their heads. Jumbi, anesthetized by the inaction of the silent humans above her, stretched out to her full length on the cool floor beneath her young mistress’s feet.

  Kay Prescott looked around her, satisfied. Her daughter was absorbed. Her house on the cliff was watertight. Her husband would be relaxing at his clubhouse, safe from the storm. Her other husband had fresh flowers on his monument. And her champion, her knight in female armor, was winning the game.

  Margaret wandered back into the kitchen. The downpour outside continued unabated. Perhaps it would rain all right, she thought.

  Saturday. Five days. . .

  The carafe in the coffeemaker was steaming, filling the room with a rich aroma. She stared, perplexed, wondering how the coffee happened to be there. She must have made it herself, she supposed, but she could not remember doing so. She pulled the sweater closer about her shoulders.

  The woman on the phone had been remarkably forthcoming. She had not even asked who Margaret was, or which patient she wanted to see. She had simply told her, in that soft, efficient institutional drone, that visiting days were Saturday and Sunday, from one o’clock until dinnertime. If visitors wished to arrive at any other time, arrangements must be made with the patient’s attending physician. The woman had not actually used the word patient; she referred to South Bay Gables’ inmates as “residents.” The next time “residents” could “receive guests” was Saturday at one o’clock. Margaret had thanked her and hung up.

  She reached for her mug and poured coffee. Holding it u
p before her, she smiled, remembering. It had been a birthday gift from her niece. Across the white china was printed the caption World’s Greatest Mom, in black letters. Beneath the words was an enormous red heart. It was her most valuable possession. She would trade her house for it, and her car and her stock portfolios and her bank accounts. She would trade everything for this one silly, ordinary object and what it represented.

  “I love you,” the young woman had said as she handed Margaret the present. Strange, Margaret thought now: there are some people who can say that with such sincerity, with a complete lack of affectation. The people who mean it, who have no trouble whatsoever vocalizing their emotions. And yet this same straightforward, honest person was now living a lie. She’d dyed her hair and adopted a new name, assumed a new identity. Now she was Diana Meissen, alias Selena Chase, alias—

  Margaret paused, staring down at the bright-red valentine that adorned her priceless cup.

  Alias who?

  It was there, in that book, or so she supposed. Dr. Stein had mentioned it, referred to it, several times. And never, not once, had she thought to ask the obvious question.

  She set the cup down on the counter and left the kitchen. Then she ascended the stairs and walked slowly down the hall toward the blue bedroom.

  The Scrabble board had been put away, Diana having won three games out of three. Now they were all in Lisa’s bedroom, trying to make method out of madness.

  “Do you need this?” Kay asked, holding up a red jumper.

  Lisa groaned.

  “No, Mother,” she enunciated carefully, turning back to sift through an assortment of carefully preripped jeans.

  Diana, who was folding a multicolored sweater into a suitcase, smiled over Lisa’s head.

  “That’s for school, Kay,” she said kindly, “not for a week with her cousins in Connecticut.”

  Kay shrugged and dropped the jumper on a chair, unable to fathom the secret code that Diana seemed to have mastered, as she had mastered Scrabble. The young woman knew instinctively what Lisa would and would not want to take to the States. She was so efficient, Kay observed, so tuned into the world of a young girl, as she was tuned in to Kay’s own wants and needs: it was almost magical. Mary Poppins, she thought.

  Diana glanced up from her labor. “Don’t forget the CDs.”

  Lisa’s eyes widened. “Oh, yeah. Thanks. Janie would kill me if I forgot those.”

  Kay watched, fascinated, as Lisa dropped what she was doing and reached over to pick up a small pile of plastic boxes on her dresser. Diana knows everything, she thought. Everything about my daughter’s world. I, on the other hand, do not.

  With a laugh and a final shrug of bewilderment, she walked out of the bedroom and went downstairs, leaving the experts to their work.

  Margaret had brought the book down to her office. Her niece’s bedroom was now the scene of her crime, as she considered it, and she no longer felt comfortable there. She got a fresh cup of coffee from the kitchen and sat down at her desk.

  It was nearly dusk, she realized. As if that mattered: the sky had been so dark all afternoon that the world outside her windows would slip almost imperceptibly into night. The heavy rain was still clattering against the house, showing no sign of letup. She had added her heaviest bathrobe to the layers of clothing in which she was now bundled. Even in midsummer, she thought, I am always cold. An uncomfortable byproduct of advancing age. With a sigh, she reached for the book and began her search.

  She found the chapter she wanted, then the subsection. The passage she sought had been highlighted with a yellow felt-tipped marker. She read through it once quickly, then went back and reread the final part more carefully. As she read, she was aware of an odd sensation: the temperature of the already chilly room seemed to be lowering. That cannot be, she reasoned. The coldness is not in the room, but in me. In the marrow of my bones.

  Artemis/Diana, daughter of Zeus, goddess in three forms. By her common name, she was goddess of the hunt. As Selena/Luna, she was goddess of the moon. But according to Edith Hamilton, the later poets had assigned this elusive deity a third, paradoxical identity. This name was so famous, so universally recognized, that there had been no need for the Romans, after the Greeks, to come up with another. It was the same in both religions.

  A flash of lightning lit up the gray landscape outside, and the thunderclap that followed shook the house. She stared down at the information, trying to grasp it, to comprehend. The coldness pressed in, freezing her heart.

  The third identity, the final form of the divinity.

  The goddess of darkness and of dark things, commandress of the night. Her time was midnight; her familiar, the cat; her domain, the deepest, most secret, most dangerous recesses of the human soul. Down the centuries, all those who worshipped Evil called out her sacred name.

  Hecate.

  FOURTEEN

  MONDAY, AUGUST 26

  (CONTINUED)

  ADAM STOOD in the shadows of the rainy nighttime beach, watching his next victim dress for dinner. The sliding glass door leading to the small second-floor balcony afforded an excellent view of the brightly lit room, and the curtains had not been drawn. The possibility of a Peeping Tom—or, he mused, a Peeping Adam—had not been entertained. The weather and the usual emptiness of this place after sundown had assured a false sense of security—definitely false, for here, against all odds, he was.

  He measured the height of the balcony with his eyes: eight, perhaps nine feet, no more than that. Modern construction, he thought, smiling. He could leap and swing himself up with little difficulty. And the sliding door, he could see from here, was slightly ajar. Excellent.

  The slick, belted black raincoat and black fisherman’s cap served double duty, keeping him relatively dry as they hid him from the light. He stood next to a large palm, ready to crouch behind it should the need arise, should his quarry glance down toward him.

  As it turned out, he had no cause for worry. The clothes were donned, the lights extinguished, the room emptied. He watched the distant figure emerge from the building and cross the parking lot, illuminated by the nearby streetlight. After a moment there came the roar of an engine. By the time the two little red taillights began to move toward the street, Adam was already out of the shadows and heading swiftly for the red Nissan that waited in a dark thicket beside the road some fifty yards away.

  He would watch and wait, and when the time was right he would strike. A great deal depended on his victim’s plans for the rest of the evening. Oh, well, waiting was half the fun. . . .

  There was only the one long, relatively straight road leading away from the beach, and at this hour it was practically deserted. Picking up the trail was a snap. The lone set of taillights receded before him, glowing steadily ahead like a beacon, urging him to follow.

  She was wearing a skin-tight, strapless, knee-length, blood-red dress—what Robin believed was called a sheath—and her dark hair fell loosely around her bare, tanned shoulders. She grinned across the tiny patio table, jangling gold earrings and bracelets. The vague, tantalizing scent of flowers that he had come to identify exclusively with her floated toward him on the cool air of the dark, wet, torch-lit terrace.

  The rain had stopped just as they arrived at the restaurant, so the outdoor tables and chairs had been quickly wiped off and the torches lit by industrious employees to allow the dinner crowd to spill out of the bar and take advantage of the momentarily clear evening. The illuminated swimming pool gleaming in the darkness and the silent white facades of the guest-house buildings on two sides enveloped them, cutting them and this place off from reality. Above all, the massive round stone tower mere yards away completed the impression of an otherworldly, fairytale garden. The pianist in the room behind them was playing “Isn’t It Romantic?”—a rhetorical question at best. The sparkle of the flickering torchlight on the drenched flagstones and palm fronds surrounding the table; the golden glow on her face; the laughter in her eyes; the moist, full, pink promis
e of her lips: he had almost been beguiled into some hazy, trancelike state.

  Almost.

  “Penny,” she said, lifting her champagne glass.

  He blinked and focused on her. “What? Oh—I was just trying to remember the last time I did this.”

  She grinned again. “Did what?” She managed to make it sound charmingly suggestive.

  “Oh, you know, this.” He waved a hand to encompass the terrace and the pool and the large open doors leading in to the noisy bar. “A restaurant, with a woman. . . .”

  “About three weeks ago, if I remember correctly.”

  He had the grace to blush. “Oh, that. Yes. . .

  They smiled together, remembering his imposition at Bolongo. Then they’d had lunch on the beautiful beach; now they would dine at this beautiful hilltop guest house. Their meals together, he mused, were nothing if not picturesque.

  Blackbeard’s Castle dominated the top of Government Hill on the west side of town, and the dining deck above the bar, where they would soon be shown to a table, commanded a stunning view of the harbor at night, the lights against the black background stretching out below them. Floodlights concealed in the foliage around the patio dramatically underlit the huge, conical brown stone structure here in the center of the compound, the one that gave the place its name. Far from being a castle, it had once been a sugar mill, one of several to be found in various spots on the island. But that was prosaic: sugar mills, in St. Thomas, were a dime—or perhaps a doubloon—a dozen. As for the great pirate’s involvement with the site—well, what the tourists didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them. Romantic legends sprang up so readily in this part of the world: the locals could just as easily have claimed that Beethoven had composed his Fifth Symphony in the shadow of this edifice, named it Ludwig’s Casde, and created the same effect. It would have been accepted as gospel—as, indeed, everyone accepted the concept of this mill’s having once been a den of thieves.