by Mari Labbee
Bri cut him off. “I’ve got the flashlight and candles in the kitchen. Remember, when I first moved in, there was no power the first couple of days. No big deal.”
“I’ll take a look at the circuit breakers. Maybe I can get the power back on,” he said.
Matt went outside to the electrical box. It had a new door, and all the breakers were neatly labeled, Thank You Charlie, he thought. He tripped the breakers. Nothing happened. He thought about the generator back in his storage locker at the marina and kicked himself for not having thought to bring it. He looked at the sky. The wind had picked up and blew in from the sea, rattling the windows and moaning as it whipped past the house. It would begin raining again soon.
Back inside, Matt asked her again. “Are you sure you’ll be OK here tonight?” But he didn’t wait for her answer; instead, he took a key from his key ring and held it out. “This is the key to the Audrey Natalia. You can stay on board while I’m gone. I’ll call the guard to let him know you’re coming.”
Bri shook her head. “I’ll be fine. Really. You have to get going.”
He looked at her.
“Go,” she said.
She took him by the shoulders and gently pushed him out the door.
Just outside of Portland, traffic on the interstate came to a dead stop. Matt checked his cell and searched the radio dial for traffic news about what had turned the interstate into a parking lot. The truck hadn’t moved in twenty minutes, and the drizzle that had plagued him since he left Jackal’s Head Point had just turned into real rain, the kind that would change this situation from impossible to nightmarish. Maybe he should have waited until tomorrow morning or another day for a flight. One more night probably wouldn’t have made a difference, and he could’ve stayed with Bri and made sure she was OK.
There was a vague sense of unease, coming from somewhere deep in his subconscious. He couldn’t pinpoint it, but something was bothering him. Frustrated, he tried to find a station on the radio that might have some information when finally he found one.
“The spill that happened earlier this afternoon won’t be cleaned up until morning. Interstate’s is a mess, folks; best to avoid it altogether. Highway Patrol is diverting everyone off at different exits, but that’s gonna take some time. Weather’s picked up too. It’s not going to be an easy night for you folks headin’ out…”
Matt cursed and hit the steering wheel with the heel of his palm. At least he knew what was causing the backup, but now he had to get out of this.
Bri was strangely calm. She knew almost everything now, everything except why Rosabel had thrown herself from the lighthouse. Had she actually thrown herself off, or did someone throw her off? That much wasn’t clear, and it was a question she kept returning to.
The power had come back on about an hour after Matt left, and when it did, Bri filled the bathtub with hot water. She would soak until the knots in her back and shoulders unraveled. She wasn’t afraid anymore of the dream that might come and actually welcomed it. She was ready for whatever the Bennett sisters might have in store for her, and hoped that after tonight, all of it would end.
The bathroom was softly lit with candlelight from the candles she had set on the sink. Bri sank into the warm water. She thought about Matt and how forlorn he looked when he left tonight—it made her smile to think of him. Would he be different when he returned from Iowa? She hoped not. The soft patter of rain against the windows relaxed her, and she closed her eyes. Outside, storm clouds swallowed the full moon.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
Madeline had gone about her day as she had every day since they arrived. She kept her eyes only on the task at hand and never let them wander. She kept her mouth shut and her mind empty, thinking only simple thoughts, reciting a simple song her mother sang to her as a child, over and over. Keeping all thoughts out of her head was important. It was exhausting not to think, but her mind must remain empty.
Outside her room, it was deathly quiet. She picked up the lone chair in her room and quietly wedged it against the doorknob of her door as she had been doing of late. Then she tiptoed to the wardrobe in the corner of her room and carefully opened one of the doors. The hinges began to squeak, and she stopped, cocking an ear toward the door, listening—nothing. She continued.
On the top shelf behind a small stack of books that Rosabel had given her to read, Madeline reached for a small bundle of fabric. She pulled it out slowly, careful not to make any noise.
It would have been better to do this during the full moon, but she couldn’t wait; there was no time left. Though not as strong as it would be if done during the full moon, it would still be strong enough to protect Rosabel. Yes, she would have to do this tonight, because after what she saw this afternoon, it might be too late.
This morning, just as she was walking back from hanging the laundry, she found Rosabel out of bed, carrying her breakfast tray, headed to the kitchen. She was deathly pale, with eyes ringed in shadow. Madeline immediately set the laundry basket down and walked to her.
“I’ll take that. You just shoo back to bed,” she had commanded when she saw Rosabel shuffling along.
“But I wanted to go…” Rosabel pointed a thin finger to the open door. “The sun might do me some good.”
“You’ll faint down dead in heat like this and then be no use to anyone. Best to faint in your own bed and not the bushes outside,” Madeline said. Then she set the tray on the dining-room table, and with both hands, she turned Rosabel around and walked her back upstairs.
“I do not know why I am feeling so ill today,” Rosabel said as Madeline put her back into bed.
Once tucked in, Madeline opened all the windows to let the breeze in.
“Oh, that is nice,” Rosabel said. “I should have thought of that. What would I do without you?”
She smiled at Madeline, who returned the smile with a wink.
Back downstairs, Madeline picked up the tray that she’d left on the dining-room table and continued on to the kitchen, but she froze at its threshold.
Minkah stood by the kitchen window in the dappled light quite oblivious to anything around her; so engrossed she was in her activity. There was no confusing what Madeline saw.
Minkah had never been an example of fastidiousness but even that had deteriorated lately. There in the golden light of early afternoon, Minkah stood looking down at herself. Her blouse open to the waist, she was examining everything there was to examine. She had not heard Madeline, who now stood dead-still, watching.
For a few moments, Minkah continued what she had been doing, but then to Madeline’s utter astonishment, Minkah touched herself in a most indecent way. That was when Madeline put one foot behind the other and backed away slowly, careful not to make a sound.
Seeing Minkah got Madeline thinking about the changes she had noticed in recent days, troubling changes.
Minkah and Malik were…not quite themselves. And Madeline suspected an ungodly thing had been done. What she witnessed in the kitchen with Minkah cemented her worst fears. She knew right then that time had run out. She hoped tonight’s work would be strong enough to hold.
She laid the fabric bundle on her bed and tugged on the twine that held it together until it came undone.
She placed the white candle on the table by her bed and then arranged the other items around it. She uncorked the small vial of fragrant oil, poured it over the candle, and then lighted it. Next, she unfolded a square of paper, and holding it in front of her, she blew the white powder inside into the flame, sending a smoky plume into the air above it. She arranged four pebbles around the smoking candle. The smooth surface of each pebble bore a different carved symbol. Next, she coiled a long chain with a small medallion around the candle, careful to keep it within the circle of pebbles. The medallion was etched with the same symbols as the pebbles.
Madeline poured the oil over the pebbles and the chain with its medallion. Then with the palms of her hands facing heavenward, she stood before the smoking can
dle and began to recite ancient words that she hadn’t spoken in a very long time. She whispered the words, swaying, as the candle burned down.
For some time now, she knew she would be leaving, but she didn’t want to leave Rosabel with no protection. The time to go had arrived. It was dangerous for her to remain—they would figure her out soon enough if she stayed.
This would be the last thing she would do before going away.
As he had been doing of late, Malik went off to hide in the deepest part of the woods, where he wouldn’t be disturbed. He would be there for hours. The body that was now his was a wonder, and he delighted in exploring it. It was a marvel, and he could not get enough of it.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
Elias sat in the parlor, looking out the window and wondering what had become of his life. His vacant stare landed on nothing in particular. He could have been staring at the wall instead of out the window, and his expression would have been the same.
The tremor in his hand was not so bad this morning, and his face, though gaunt and stretched, still showed evidence of the handsome man who had once been, but it hardly mattered. He had been sitting there contemplating, and worrying. There was so much to worry about; he knew how bad things could get. Rosabel—he worried desperately about Rosabel, and now he worried about their unborn child. He could not see his life beyond this worry, and this was working on him.
Why had Madeline left? Rosabel was not the only one who had come to rely on her steady, calm demeanor. Rosabel had been not just confused but heartbroken for weeks now, wondering how Madeline could have gone without a word. She had disappeared soon after the thing he saw in the woods. He wasn’t exactly sure of what he had seen. No—he knew what he had seen. He just did not understand it or what it signified, but he was aware that it was bad, and it had implications for all of them. Had Madeline seen it too? Did she become frightened like him—too frightened to stay? The next thought chilled him; had she actually gone, or did something else happen? Terrified, he pushed the thought away. She left of her own accord.
His stomach turned, and he felt sick, powerless, and impotent. How could he stop what might be coming? Unlike Madeline, he could not go. He had to stay—for Rosabel, for their child.
She had seen him, seen him in the woods, watching them from behind the tree. He had only been there a moment, but that was long enough. The voices had led him out there, and when he came close, he had hidden behind the tree. There they were, the three of them, standing around a fire—Malik and Minkah naked and clutching each other. Isabel was naked too. Swaying with her hands high above her head as she danced and whispered in a language he had never heard. If he hadn’t stepped on the branch, he might have seen it all. Isabel had come after him with teeth bared like a wild animal. He felt her hand brush the back of his neck as he turned and ran. He ran blindly through the woods, and just before he reached the house, he ran right into Rosabel. Why had she been there? Had she seen? He ran a hand through his hair.
Since his return, the horrible memories of what he had escaped came back. No matter the fight he put up, the corrupt images lived in what was left of his mind. He had not shared the events of his disappearance with anyone, not even Rosabel; he could not. Her image had kept him alive all that time he spent on the plantation. He never wanted to be back there, not even in his mind.
He knew that his death would come the day Indigo tired of him. He had no idea how this had happened. How had he become imprisoned? What had become of his men? He was confused and weak, but his half-dead brain knew one thing above all: escape was his only hope. So on the day he learned that a Spanish ship had docked at New Quay, he took that chance. A great chance that might lead to death, but death was not feared at this juncture.
For several days he played his part, and then the morning came. He mumbled that he was going for a walk; the servants who heard him didn’t react, mostly because they didn’t care. He never ventured beyond the house, but today he walked past the workers in the house, shuffling and mumbling. They didn’t suspect. The mumbling, drooling fool, they thought, and they never even looked back at him when he left the house without his boots.
A sweat-soaked barefoot run through the jungle that never slowed to less than a sprint got him into town. A bloodied cloth around his neck that he pointed to whenever the Spanish sailors asked him questions got him on board the ship. He did not know one word of Spanish, but his actions made it clear that he was a seaman, and from the looks of the ship and its crew, they were not picky about who they took on.
They would not be setting sail for another day, and for that one day and one night, every sound sent him jumping. He half expected to see the giant Malik or, worse, Indigo herself, standing on deck, ready to take him back to the plantation and certain death. How long would it be before they missed him? Were they looking for him already? Sometimes it would be days before they came by his room to check on him, but several of them saw him stumble out, so they would most likely be looking for him in the jungle behind the plantation.
He could not risk being recognized while the ship was still in port. If any of the servants from Fig Field were in town picking up supplies that would be the end of it. He remained below deck, where he volunteered for the vilest work, hidden and out of sight.
The ship finally set sail. He watched the island recede until it dropped below the horizon. Only then did he shed tears. He did not care where the ship was sailing to because from wherever that was, he would find his way home.
On the third day out, they spotted an English ship, the Horizon. The Spanish ship fired the first shot, and then all hell broke loose. After an endless pummeling from the Horizon, and just before the English boarded, Elias cornered the Spanish captain and his lieutenant below deck.
The English captain and crew were puzzled at seeing him, a Spanish sailor, holding a knife to the neck of his captain, but then Elias spoke, to the great surprise of both, but mostly to the Spaniards.
To the matter at hand then—the glory of this capture. It was Elias’s, of course, but the English privateer would have this prize. They rewarded Elias with part of the spoils on board—the tropical woods in the cargo hold were his as long as no mentions of his existence or heroics on board were ever uttered.
But this freedom was short-lived. Across time and space, like an unseen hand, Indigo was always with him. All the wretched creatures of that cursed plantation lived in his dreams. It was a lifetime ago that he had felt the heat of that place. How the sweat trickled down his back, down his legs, and into his boots. He recalled the incessant shrieking of those wild birds flying through the house. Time melted and vanished, never to be recovered.
And Alexander…what had become of that unfortunate man? He shuddered to think what manner of death had found him.
And now Indigo had somehow become Isabel; what curse had befallen him, all of them? If lightning had struck him on that day when he saw that cursed creature on his threshold with her arms around his beloved, it would have had the same effect.
His heart had stopped, and he had to will himself to breathe. A vise closed around his throat, and he could swear it was her hand reaching across to twist it.
Only when the two women stood next to each other did he see the resemblance in the two. Why hadn’t he seen the resemblance when she was Indigo? Rosabel had never mentioned a sister, thinking her dead. Elias wished she were dead.
Surely Isabel recognized him. He was a danger to her charade, as he knew her secrets; he would have to be wary and be on guard at all times. Since arriving, though, Isabel had been gracious and sweet. Just a matter of time; stripes do not change.
He thought of killing them—her and her two minions, Malik and Minkah—but how to go about it? Poison? An accident? While they slept? He hated to admit it, but he was no killer—couldn’t even think like one.
This morning he contemplated it again, thinking of the many ways he might be able to carry it out.
“Hmm. I shall have to mind my step a
t the edge of the cliff…and I will be cautious of what I eat so as not to get sick….”
He flinched when he heard her voice.
The statements were delivered with a steady gaze from wolf-like eyes that sent a familiar shiver through him. He had been unmasked; he should have known better.
Isabel stood at the threshold of the parlor, watching him, and after a moment, she stepped inside. On most women, it would be a burden, but her heft just made her more commanding.
With measured footsteps, she passed close by him. “You haven’t touched your tea,” she said sweetly.
Elias looked down and was surprised to see the untouched cup of tea on the table beside him, not remembering how it had come to be there. He cleared his throat and squeezed out a reply.
“I…I suppose I’ve had enough.”
Isabel admired the red-silk walls and the mantelpiece that she seductively brushed with her hand before finally arriving at the chair across from him. His eyes never left her.
“Yes, yes, I suppose you have,” she said, settling into the chair, sighing dramatically as she leaned back into the plush cushion.
The twinkle in her eye shone brighter as she saw the fear in his eyes. It was always there—that glee—but when met with fear, it glowed like an ember. She spoke softly and sweetly, as if to a child, which magnified the menace. He steeled himself.
“Would…would you like some tea?” he asked.
She looked into his eyes. He had become good at guarding them, she thought.
“No, but thank you. It is so nice to have a refined man in the house. One who offers a lady the respect she deserves.” She sighed again as she looked out the window. “The rain is coming.”
Elias did not reply. His gaze remained fixed on her.
She arched an eyebrow. “Are you feeling well, my dear brother?”
I am not your brother, he thought.
