by Rachel Lee
Somehow, he didn't doubt that.
"Tomorrow, then."
"Yes," she said. "Tomorrow."
* * *
Dawn was still up when Tim returned home. She was sitting curled up on the living room love seat, turning the pages of a hardcover thriller. She looked up as he entered, gave him a smile and said, "Steve called. He sounded upset. Something about your father."
"Yeah."
Tim never quite knew how to react to his wife these days. She knew he'd gone out to meet Wendy Morgan, and she didn't say a word. Instead, she continued to smile at him as she always had, continued to care for him as she always had, all except for the sex. She'd turned off that tap years ago. But nothing else had changed.
This wasn't the reaction he'd expected, those long years ago when his eye had begun to stray. She ought to be furious, brokenhearted…something. Something that would make him feel like a heel. Something that would tell him she cared. Instead, she just smiled and went on. And he was left wondering exactly what he was to her. The thought made him angry.
She nodded and started to go back to her book. Then she looked up again. "Oh! Your mother called. She wants to know if you're coming to your father's birthday party."
"Oh, hell, she knows better than that."
"Well, that's what I told her, but I promised to come myself." Her head bowed again, her attention returning to the book.
For some reason tonight he didn't want life to go on the way it had been. He wasn't willing to let her be sweet and selfless and go back to her own activities, even though his back was raw from Wendy's nails and his shirt betrayed him with blood streaks.
"Every damn streetlight went off in town," he said.
She looked up, her expression pleasant. "Really? I didn't notice anything here."
"It was just the streetlights. Nothing else."
"How strange." She waited.
Sometimes he wanted to shake the passivity out of her, and now was one of those times, but he restrained himself. "Yeah. Could hardly see to get on and off the boat."
"But you managed?"
And there it was again. Intellectual curiosity, without a hint of emotional involvement. Had he managed to have sex with Wendy Morgan, despite the power failure? As if she were asking if he'd managed to pick up a gallon of milk at the store on the way home. Well, fuck that.
"Oh, yeah, we managed. God, did we manage," he said, and gave a sniggering laugh that sounded as if it had issued from someone else.
The memory of what he'd done with Wendy crept through him like the hot glow of heroin. It was as if some other presence had taken him over. Powerful. Strong. Ruthless.
Dawn's smile faded. "Is something wrong, Tim?"
Part of him wanted to tell her the truth, to describe the scene in vivid detail, to see shock and horror crease her smooth, sweet face. Somehow he held the words back. There would be an opportunity to deal with this unfeeling bitch. But this wasn't that time.
"Did Steve say what was going on?"
"No," she said, shaking her head. "But he sounded really upset. You know your father."
"Yeah," he said again, laughing harshly. "Oh, yeah, I know my father. I better call Steve."
He strode past her to his home office. The bland smile was still fixed on her face when he shut the door. He never heard her start to cry.
* * *
Gary, too, was awake when Wendy returned. He was in his study, wearing headphones, eyes closed, listening to the lilt and flow of the local Creole dialect, occasionally jotting notes on a yellow legal pad, but more often simply sitting, nodding, the occasional smile dancing across his features as he listened to the history of an island he had come to call his home.
The image left Wendy feeling empty. Or perhaps it was the fuck-and-duck way Tim had claimed her tonight. For the first time in the year-long affair, she hadn't come home feeling satisfied in body, heart and soul. Instead, she'd come home feeling…dirty.
A part of her longed to say something about it, but she guessed that was part of any relationship with any man. It couldn't always be wine and roses. Sometimes, with any man, it was vinegar and thorns. She supposed it was that way for men sometimes, too. Making love couldn't always be that shimmery, sparkling, neural fireworks display of adolescent romantic fantasies. Once in a while, it just didn't click. Tonight was one of those times. It didn't mean Tim didn't love her, or that they weren't soul mates. Really, it didn't.
She walked past the door of Gary's office, neither furtively nor lingeringly. She figured either would draw attention. Instead, she simply walked past as if she'd been right there in the house with her husband for the past three hours, instead of out on a boat, her thighs clenched around another man, clawing his back until he bled, making his eyes shine and his face contort in climax.
She tried to concentrate on that part, and not the aching, swollen crease across her buttocks where he'd ground her onto the bedrail. She turned on the shower and winced as she kicked off her shoes, then again as she bent over to slide her jeans down her legs.
"You're hurt," Gary said behind her.
Wendy nearly jumped out of her skin. "Damn. You scared me, honey!"
"You're hurt," he repeated, his eyes flicking down to her bottom.
"I fell," she said.
Gary shook his head slowly, sadness in his eyes. "No, you didn't. He hurt you."
She didn't know what to say. A million glib lies flickered through her mind, but she knew he would see through any and every one of them. She looked at the floor. Took a slow, deep breath. Saw his feet as he approached, saw his hand rise toward her face. She flinched, but he simply raised her chin with his fingers until their eyes met and she saw his tears.
"I love you, Wendy Marie Morgan."
Of all the things he could have said, that hurt the worst. Because she knew, absolutely without question, that he meant it. And because she knew, absolutely without question, that she couldn't return those words. She would be lying. And he would know it. From the quiver in his jaw, he already did.
"You want me to leave," she said softly.
"No. I don't." He paused for a moment, as if studying her features. "Wendy, if I wanted you to leave, I'd have said something months ago. I've known. I've known all along. I accept the way things are with us. I know I'm not like him, whoever he is. I know I can't do for you what he does. I can live with that."
She didn't know what to say and tried to stammer out words, but he put a fingertip to her lips and pressed on.
"What I can't live with, my darling, my Wendy, what I can't live with is you being hurt. Those bruises. That's what hurts me. That he's hurting you, and you're going to take it and lie about it and let it keep happening. That hurts me, because I wonder what I did wrong, how I made you feel so small, so insignificant, so unworthy, that you would let someone hurt you like that. I can't live with that."
The words tore through her heart like a ragged shard of glass, leaving a wound deeper than she could ever have imagined. She knew that someday he would find out. She'd planned on it, sooner or later. She would leave him, and Tim would leave Dawn, and she and Tim would be together. She'd rehearsed all the ways she might break the news to Gary. She'd rehearsed all the ways he might reply. But never had she imagined this.
"Gary…" she began.
"No," he said. "Just promise me this. Don't let him hurt you again. That's all I want you to say. Nothing else. Not one word more. Just promise me that."
She nodded. "I promise."
He turned and walked back to his study. And she stepped into the shower, feeling lower than she ever had in her entire life.
* * *
Gary sat in the study, listening to the wavering but rapturous voice of Loleen Cathan. Yet not listening. He knew a better man would have handled it differently. A better man would have thrown her out. A better man would have left. At the very least, a better man would have demanded that she end it. He was not that better man.
He heard her sobbing in the
shower, despite the rush of the water. He felt guilty, but he knew there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it. He'd seen it in her eyes when he'd said "I love you" and she couldn't answer. He'd known her body was no longer his. Now he knew the rest. Her heart was no longer his, either. All that remained was a shared house. A shared closet. A shared bureau. A shared bed.
Lost in his thoughts, he almost didn't hear the phone ringing. Finally the persistent chirp dragged him out of his well of self-pity, and he picked up the receiver.
"Hello?"
"Gary? It's Steve Chase."
"Yes," he said.
"It's Alice Wheatley," Steve said. "She's dead. Just like the Shippeys."
The shock and fear were apparent in Steve's voice. Well, that was Steve. He would be shocked and afraid. For such a powerful man, he was practically afraid of his own shadow. But Gary felt something entirely different. Gary felt…vindication.
"Then she is real," he said.
"That's it?" Steve asked, incredulity in his voice. "Three people dead, and that's all you have to say?"
"What else is there to say?" Gary replied. "We knew from the beginning that this was a possibility."
"It was a legend," Steve pressed on. "Like the Loch Ness monster or Bigfoot. That's hardly what I'd call a possibility."
Hardly surprising. Steve could believe in the power of ones and zeros in a bank's computer, but not the power of an evil soul, caked on this island like residue on a pot after water boiled away. An evil soul like Annie Black could not be expunged merely by killing her body. Tendrils of her black heart clung to the people, to the folklore, to the black, crystalline soul of the island itself. She was as much a part of this place as the volcano. He wouldn't be surprised if it was her fire that churned deep within that mountain.
"Well," he said, "now you know."
"Yes," Steve said. "And this can't go on. We have to stop the search, before more people die."
No, Gary thought. That wouldn't do at all. Some things were more important than life itself. Knowledge. Accumulated wisdom. And they were parties to a knowledge, to a power, that most people could never imagine. To harness that knowledge, that power…that would make a life spent in the dusty corners of libraries worthwhile.
He couldn't remake the child he'd been or the man he'd become. But neither could he walk away from this.
"We'll have to discuss this," he said, a cold calm in his voice. "We'll find a way."
"It's insanity," Steve said, and hung up the phone.
No, Gary thought as he hung up. It's not insanity. It's destiny.
If Wendy wouldn't love him, perhaps Annie would.
* * *
Markie lay in her bed, watching the glowing red digits on the clock: 4:00 a.m. Beside her, Kato sat on the bed. He hadn't slept, either, and had only left his post beside the kitchen door when she'd called him to bed. Normally he would curl up beside her, his head tucked on his haunches, his warm breath on her face as she dozed off. Tonight he sat erect, looking at her window, stopping only to nuzzle her face when thoughts of Alice came to her mind and the tears flowed.
"She didn't deserve to die, Kato."
He glanced at her, golden eyes whispering, I know.
"I don't know what to do."
His brow furrowed a bit, as if he was sorting through her words and her expression to find her meaning. Then he turned and carefully laid a huge paw on her shoulder.
Sleep. I won't let anything hurt you.
She put a hand over his paw, felt the rough pads with the stiff tufts of fur between them, the delicate strength of the fine bones in his foot, calm and still.
"I love you."
His nose lowered to hers, and his tongue darted out for a quick kiss. I love you, too. Sleep now. I'm here.
She felt her thoughts float away, carried on a dark wind to a distant night. Ebony faces flared in anger around a burning pyre, chanting, spitting into the flames, flames that rose and danced until liquid gold poured out and flowed over the black earth. Through it all, she felt a distant anchor, soft and firm, holding on to her soul with vigilant, golden eyes. Those eyes were all that stood between her and the hissing, crackling pyre. So far, they held it at bay.
So far.
12
Markie woke abruptly from sleep, her heart hammering. Kato was lying beside her, head up, as if he hadn't slept a wink. Beyond the window, the faintest hint of day grayed the sky.
"God!" What had she been dreaming? Something awful, she was sure. She was soaked in sweat, her sheets tangled around her legs.
Kato gave one of his quiet whimpers, one that indicated he felt her distress.
Markie threw back the sheets, struggling to pull her legs free, hardly aware that Kato trotted after her as she went into her small bathroom.
She splashed cool water on her cheeks, then looked at her gaunt face in the mirror. Alice…
The memory of what she had seen last night was dancing on the edge of her memory like some ghastly puppet, just as Alice—
She jerked her mind away from that and looked down at patient, protective Kato. "Let's go for our run."
His tail gave a single whisk across the floor, indicating approval. She dressed swiftly in shorts and a cotton tank top. Bare feet slid into her running shoes, and she tied them snugly.
Kato was becoming eager, his claws clicking happily on wood flooring. Apparently whatever had kept him so disturbed last night had faded from his memory. Or had faded away. The last thought caused her to stop just as she was reaching for the handle of the front door, Kato's leash in her other hand.
It had faded away. It wasn't that Kato had forgotten. She closed her eyes, drawing a deep breath of air and realized that the morning felt lighter somehow. As if some oppression had lifted. Apparently Kato felt it, too.
Uneasiness returned, but different from what she had been feeling last night. Different because last night it had seemed to surround her from without. Different because this time it was definitely coming from the course of her thoughts. Self-generated.
Shaking her head, trying to dislodge thoughts she didn't want to have, she opened the door and stepped out with Kato.
The sky had lightened some more. Still night, still predawn, but not for long. She patted her thigh to remind Kato to heel, and the two of them set off south down the tree-lined street leading toward the marina. Toward the water.
Kato loped easily beside her. Her pace didn't even begin to test his speed, but it was a good pace for her, enough to work up a sweat and make her muscles burn a bit by the time she got home. Kato probably could have run twenty miles with barely a pause, and it touched her that he tolerated these brief, tame outings when he probably would have preferred to be allowed to roam free all over the island.
"I guess that's the price you pay for hugs and regular meals," she murmured to him, her feet pounding a steady rhythm on pavement.
He looked up at her briefly, his golden eyes seeming to agree.
By the time they reached the marina, the first pink streamers were beginning to glow above the eastern water. It always thrilled Markie to see sunrise here. Unlike back in the States, where it was a dusty sort of red, here the clouds gleamed with colors that looked as if they were made of metal. No dust, no exhaust fumes, dulled them. Nor could any camera truly capture them.
Near the marina, she and Kato turned right and began to pass Federal Plaza and its imposing stone structures—the police station, administration building and Government House—to the boardwalk and the park beyond. The masts of sailboats caught the first reddish light and stood out against the dark gray southern and western sky. The water itself, far from its usual blue, looked like beaten silver with just a hint of fire. It was calm out there this morning. Calm enough to be a lake rather than an ocean.
At the park they turned again, heading toward the beach and its wide strip of faintly pink coral sand. Once there, Kato would be free of his leash to romp as much as he pleased. While there was no one about, Markie didn't
have to worry about someone becoming frightened of the unleashed wolf. Kato seemed to understand and accept the rules: stay on the sand and at the water's edge, avoid people.
Sometimes he treated the sand as if it were snow, and this was one of those times. He rolled in it, then plowed his nose into it, flinging sand everywhere. Someday, Markie promised him, I'm going to take you someplace with snow to play in. A silly promise to make to a dog who had never seen the stuff and seemed quite happy to play in sand.
His burrowing nose brought up some sand crabs, and he stalked them playfully, never hurting them, never getting his nose close enough to feel one of those clamping claws. It was just a game to him. Markie could only guess how the crabs felt.
The red was beginning to seep through the water as the sun rose higher, now a sliver of yellow-red metal above the water, with an arc of fiery clouds above it. The color oozed across the sand like spilled water paints, running into peaks, rolling away from deep depressions. The water, too, was changing color, becoming darker, less gray, more mysterious.
Kato tossed another snoutful of sand into the air, then sneezed, clearing out the rest of it. Looking back at her over his shoulder, he gave her a happy grin.
That was when she realized she was crying. Crying for Alice. She would have loved to be here….
It was a long time before Markie could force herself to head back home. By then the sun was higher, stinging her delicate skin with its strength.
Here the sun was always powerful, never weak. But now the night seemed powerful, too.
* * *
It was just after nine when Dec rang her doorbell. She came to the door, Kato at her side, her features looking much the worse for wear. She smelled fresh, though, from a recent shower and shampoo.
"Rough night?" he asked.
"Is it that obvious?"
"No worse than it is on me, I'm sure."
She looked at him for a moment. "No, you look fine. Um, would you like to come in?"
"Thank you." He held up a brown paper sack. "I come bearing bagels."
She smiled. Even haggard, it was a beautiful smile. "I have coffee. And I might have some smoked salmon in the fridge."
