Second Sight

by Philip R. Craig

  She wasn’t as old or as fat as I had, for some reason, expected. In fact, she looked to be no more than thirty. She had an angular face, with high cheekbones and a magnificently long, slightly off-center nose. Her black hair was braided and wrapped around the top of her head. She wore a sleeveless pale orange blouse and tight-fitting blue jeans, with enormous silver hoops in her ears and a silver-and-turquoise necklace around her neck and many silver bracelets on her wrists and rings on her fingers.

  “I’m Princess Ishewa,” she said in a soft, low-pitched voice. “Please come in.”

  She held out her hand, and I took it. It was small and soft, and she held on to mine longer than a normal handshake would warrant.

  “I’m Brady,” I said.

  “Please sit down,” she said. “Try to relax. I’m not going to hurt you.”

  “I am relaxed,” I said.

  She smiled. “No, you’re not. I’ll get you some tea.”

  I shook my head. “No, thanks.” I sat at the table.

  She ignored me. There was a hot plate on a table, and she poured from a kettle into a tiny cup and put the cup in front of me. “Try it.”

  I took a sip. It was sweet and herbal, with a little after-bite to it. “It’s good,” I said. I drained the cup.

  She sat down across from me. “You’re not here on vacation,” she said. “You’re on a mission. It’s a serious mission.”

  “I want you to know,” I said, “I don’t believe in fortune-telling.”

  “Oh, I know that,” she said. “I wasn’t telling your fortune. I was observing.”

  “So how—?”

  “You’re carrying a briefcase.” She smiled.

  “Well,” I said, “you’re right. I am on a serious mission. I don’t really care about my fortune. But there is a fortune I do care about. Can you tell a person’s fortune from her photograph?”

  “Maybe. But let’s start with you.”

  “I told you—”

  She reached across the table. “Give me your hands.”

  I shrugged. “Why not?”

  I held out my hands, and she turned them palms down and held them in hers, palm to palm. “Usually,” she said softly, looking down at our hands, “people come to me with problems and questions. They want answers. They want to know about money or love or health. You don’t have any of these questions.”

  “I really don’t want to know my future.”

  “There is a lot of change happening in your life,” she said. “For a long time there has been no change. Now there is. Or there soon will be. You are worried about it.”

  I said nothing. But I thought about Evie. We’d been talking about living together. That would be a gigantic change in my life, and I was apprehensive about it.

  “It has nothing to do with money,” she continued. “Or health. This change. It is love. You find yourself loving someone. It makes you uncomfortable.” She looked up at me.

  I shook my head. “I don’t—”

  “No,” she said, “I’m not asking you to confirm what I’m saying. I know this to be true. I will not tell you what I see if you don’t want me to.”

  “Please,” I said. “Don’t.”

  Her hands moved over mine. “There is something else.” She hesitated, then slid her hands up over my wrists and back down again. She looked into my eyes for a long moment. Then she let go of my hands and stood up. “Let me get you some more tea.”

  She took my cup, refilled it, put it in front of me, and sat down.

  “You said there was something else,” I said.

  “It’s not clear,” she said. “Shall we explore it?”

  “It’s about me?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t want to explore it.”

  “As you wish.” She smiled at me. “You have a photograph, you said?”

  “I do.” I reached down, unsnapped my briefcase, and took out a picture of Christa. I put it on the table in front of the princess. “I’m looking for this girl.”

  She looked at the picture. “This is not your daughter,” she said.

  “No. You can see she looks nothing like me. She’s the daughter of my friend. She ran away two years ago. I think she’s here, on the island.”

  Princess Ishewa moved her fingertips over Christa’s picture. She gazed up at the ceiling and was silent for a long time. Muted voices came in through the curtained doorway to the shop, and the bells and flutes played softly in the candlelit room. I could smell the melting candle wax and the faint aroma of herbal tea and something else—a musky scent, perhaps the princess’s perfume.

  When she finally spoke, it was in a soft, faraway whisper, and I had to bend toward her to hear her words.

  “I see bright lights,” she murmured. “Bursting, fiery lights. Green and red and blue lights, exploding lights, and a single large eye watching them. An eye…in the sky. Loud sounds. This girl, she is surrounded by the lights and the sounds. There are other people with her. Much noise, much chaos, many spirits colliding.” She looked up at me. “You are there. You—” She stopped abruptly and looked up at me. “That is all,” she said.

  “Please go on,” I said.

  She shook her head. “I see no more.”

  “This is bad?” I said. “What you are seeing?”

  She pushed Christa’s picture away from her. “Nothing is bad, nothing is good. It is as the gods make it to be. And so we adore it.”

  “But these lights,” I said, “these noises. Are they—?”

  “My vision is gone,” she said. “It was a glimpse. I can tell you nothing more.”

  “Chaos,” I repeated. “Spirits colliding. A big eye in the sky. I don’t like the sound of that.”

  Princess Ishewa looked up at me and smiled. “But you don’t have faith in my gift.”

  “Well, not really, but…”

  “Then it means nothing,” she said. She tapped Christa’s photo. “I have not seen her. I know your mission is a good and important one. I hope you find her.”

  “Will you keep the picture, let me know if you do see her, or if…if you have another vision?”

  “I will have no visions without your presence,” she said. “But I will keep the picture.”

  I wrote my name and the Jacksons’ phone number on the back of it, then stood up. “What do I owe you?”

  “You owe me nothing.”

  “But surely—”

  “I have given you the gift of my vision. A gift does not create a debt. One must not sell the gift the gods have given. In my people’s tradition, we give and we accept, we do not buy and sell.”

  “Then I will give you a gift,” I said. I took out my wallet and put five twenty-dollar bills on the table.

  She glanced at the money, then came around the table and stood in front of me. She reached up and held my face between her hands. She was standing very close to me, and her musky perfume seemed to fill my brain. “May the gods walk beside you,” she whispered.

  I covered her hands with mine. “And with you,” I said.

  And then I got the hell out of there before I started chanting in tongues.

  Chapter Nine

  J.W.

  Evangeline’s face was white as bleached flour, and her eyes were wide. She turned as I came toward her and ran back to the house. I caught her at the door. She tried to jerk her arm free from my grasp.

  “Let go! We’ve got to find her!”

  “Calm down,” I said. “You couldn’t have looked through the whole house. Do that now. I’ll check the garage. What sort of car does Hale Drummand drive?”

  “I don’t know! It’s something he brought with him. A Chevy or a Ford, maybe. It’s blue. Let go of me!”

  I let her go and she ran into the house, not bothering to shut the door behind her. I heard her calling for her daughter.

  I went up the short flight of steps that led to the open breezeway between the house and the garage. The door leading into the garage was unlocked. I checked it and then wen
t inside. In the far stall was a blue Volkswagen sedan. I looked inside the car, then popped the trunk. Nothing looked out of place.

  There was no attic room above the garage, so I went back to the house. The breezeway door to the house was locked, so I went to the still-open front door. As I checked that door, I could hear Evangeline’s voice upstairs calling for Janie. I went inside and crossed to the back door. It was locked.

  I examined it, then found the basement stairs, flipped a light switch, and went down. I turned on more lights. It was a large basement divided into rooms: a shop with a bench and a collection of power and hand tools, a laundry room, a furnace room, a rec room with a full-size pool table in the middle, storage rooms. I surveyed all of them and looked in every closet and cubbyhole. Nothing. I checked the bulkhead door. It was locked on the inside.

  I turned back upstairs, dousing lights as I climbed. On the ground floor I went through every room and looked in every closet. Nothing. I made my way to the second floor and met Evangeline coming down from the attic. She looked ill with worry.

  “They’re not here. Where can they be? They should be here! I’ve looked everywhere!”

  I’d seen no sign of forced entry at either door or of damage at any of the windows on the ground floor, but I didn’t mention that I’d looked for any. “Drummand’s car is still in the garage,” I said. “He and Janie are probably outside somewhere and they’ve lost track of time. Come on. We’ll find them.”

  “I’ll kill Hale Drummand for this!”

  “Let’s find him first,” I said.

  We went out the back door and down the steps on the pond side of the veranda. I looked at the dock and the small boats.

  “The canoe’s missing,” I said. “They’ve probably gone for a paddle on the pond.”

  “Damn him! He should be back by now! Hale knows I want her here when I get home!”

  I was looking out over the pond. A small wind rippled its surface. About a quarter of a mile to the east a forested point of land cut off my view of the pond’s far end. I saw no sign of human beings. “You’re home a little early today,” I said. “Have they ever been late before?”

  “No, never.” She ran her hands over her head, knocking her wig askew. She yanked the wig off and threw it on the ground.

  “Let’s take the motorboat,” I said. “We’ll probably meet them heading home.”

  It was a small boat with a small motor. We put-putted to the east until we rounded the point. There was no sign of a canoe on the water.

  I was beginning to feel calm and cold, the way you sometimes do when something bad has happened and there’s only so much you can do about it. Time had slowed down; my thoughts and actions seemed to be occurring at about three-quarter speed.

  Then I saw the canoe on the shore of the point of land that jutted into the pond. I ran the motorboat alongside it. Evangeline leaped out of the boat and ran into the woods shouting Janie’s name before I got the motor turned off.

  I went to the canoe and saw no sign of anything being amiss. Two paddles and two life jackets lay inside it, and it was pulled well up onto the shore so there’d be no chance of it floating away.

  There was a picnic basket in the bow of the boat. I opened it and found empty soft drink cans and sandwich-size plastic bags along with a partially filled potato chip bag that had been clipped shut with a clothespin. Whatever had delayed Hale Drummand and Janie’s return to the house had occurred after lunch.

  The footprints on the sandy shore were too confused for me to make much of them other than that they were all adult size. There were no small ones.

  From the woodlands that reached down to the shore, I could hear Evangeline’s voice growing fainter as she moved inland, away from the water.

  I stood and looked around the pond, wishing that I’d been smart enough to bring my binoculars.

  To the east, in the distance, there were two or three houses near the shore. Pond People, surely. Such homes could be found near every pond on the south shore of the island. I turned and looked out at the barrier beach separating the pond from the Atlantic. I saw no boats or people.

  Then some movement caught my eye. I looked again and my heart gave a small leap. I could barely hear Evangeline now, and I didn’t want to waste time catching up with her and bringing her back, so I got the outboard going and motored across to the barrier beach. The closer I got, the better I felt, for there, growing larger in my vision, was a small girl in a bathing suit watching me approach.

  I cut the motor and coasted to the shore, where I pulled the bow up onto the sand.

  The girl watched me with wary, pale blue eyes, as if she was preparing to run away. She had Evangeline’s blonde hair.

  “My name is Jackson,” I said. “I work for your mother. You’re Janie, aren’t you?”

  She nodded.

  “Your mother is over there,” I said, pointing across the pond. “She’s looking for you in the woods. She’s worried about you. I’ll take you to her.”

  “My mom doesn’t want me to go with strangers.” A smart kid.

  “Good advice,” I said. “If you’d rather stay here until we get back, I’ll go get your mother and bring her to you.”

  “Hale told me not to go with anybody but him. He said he’d come back and get me. He told me to lie on the beach and to stay out of the surf until he came. But he’s been gone a long time. Where is he?”

  She seemed agitated but also vaguely trusting, as if she wanted me to tell her that everything was okay. The trouble was, I had a feeling it wasn’t.

  “I don’t know where he is,” I said. “The canoe is over there where your mother is looking. Is there anyone here with you?”

  She shook her head.

  “Stay right where you are, then. I’ll go get your mother.”

  “Do you drive her car?”

  “Yes. I saw you yesterday when I brought her home. Did you see me?”

  A nod. “Yes. I don’t want to be alone anymore.”

  “You can come with me if you want.”

  She thought and made her choice. “I better get my blanket and my water bottle and my sun shade. Hale will be mad if I don’t have them.”

  She went out of sight over a dune and immediately returned carrying the blanket and bottles. We put them in the boat, boarded, and went back across the pond.

  As we neared the point, Evangeline came out of the woods and saw us. She ran to the beach and when the boat nosed onto the sand, she waded out, took Janie in her arms, and carried her ashore. Her cheeks were stained from tears and the sleeve of her blouse was torn.

  “Oh, Janie! Where have you been? Are you all right?”

  Janie waved toward the barrier beach. “I’m fine, Mom. I was right there where we had lunch. I was getting scared, though. I thought Hale had forgotten me. But when Jackson came, I remembered him from yesterday, so I came with him. I think I got some sunburn even though I used sunscreen.”

  “Oh, dear, I think you’re right. Wrap this around you.” Evangeline put the girl down and put the blanket over her shoulders.

  I sat on my heels, bringing my eyes down to Janie’s level. “Tell me if this is what happened: This morning you and Hale decided to go for a ride in the canoe and take a lunch. Is that right?” She nodded. “Was it his idea or yours?” I asked.

  “He said it would be fun to have lunch on the beach, so that’s where we went. We both paddled. I was in front.”

  “And you did have lunch. I saw the basket in the canoe. Then what happened?”

  “Then we played tag with the waves, but Hale wouldn’t let me swim because they were too big, so we swam in the pond. Then we watched birds through his field glasses.”

  “When did he leave?”

  “When we watched the birds. He was watching them and then he said he had to go across the pond but that he’d be back, but he never came back.”

  “Did he look toward this beach just before he left you?”

  “Yes. Then he said I should st
ay there until he came back, but he didn’t come back.” Her lower lip began to quiver.

  “And you stayed right there and didn’t go into the surf. Good girl.” I stood up and looked as far as I could into the woods. I saw nothing but trees. “Let’s get back to the house,” I said to Evangeline. “We’ll leave the canoe in case Drummand needs it to come home.”

  “He’ll be looking for another job the next time I see him!” she muttered, jaw clenched.

  “Don’t make up your mind about that just yet,” I advised.

  She opened her mouth, then shut it again when she looked at my face.

  We all piled into the boat and the sound of the motor kept us from speaking until I tied up at the Carberg house’s dock.

  “We have to talk,” said Evangeline, as we went inside. “You’re thinking about something and I want to know what it is.”

  I didn’t stop walking. “Put Janie in the shower and then get some more lotion on that burn of hers. Then put her into something other than a bathing suit and pack yourselves a couple of overnight bags. I’m going to check the map in the truck. We’ll talk then.”

  I didn’t wait for her to reply, but went out to the Explorer and from the glove compartment retrieved the island map I’d loaned her the day before. I’ve lived on the Vineyard for years, but there are many parts of it that I’ve never seen. I unfolded the map and studied the depiction of the island’s south shore to double-check a memory that was dancing around in my brain.

  I located the driveway to the Carberg house and, sure enough, there was a parallel road to the east, going from the highway down to the pond on the far side of the point where we’d found the canoe. It was an old lane that had probably originally been used to link the pond and fields, long since overgrown, to the main road.

  I hadn’t been back in the house for long before Evangeline and Janie came downstairs. I was glad as well as a bit surprised to see that they carried small suitcases because Evangeline wasn’t a woman who took orders. She was used to giving them.

  “What’s this all about?” she snapped.

  “Hale Drummand is missing,” I said, “and I don’t want you two to be alone in this house. Right now I’m going to check out that point of land and I want you with me when I do it. After that, if we can’t find someone to stay here with you, I think you should bunk somewhere else for a while, until we can get this situation sorted out.”