Chapter 47
Rose couldn’t believe it. They were here. All of them. She crouched in the bushes outside Pam’s back porch and listened, the house swimming in and out of the thick white fog that was blowing across the island. She could hear them cackling away in there. Were they laughing at her?
It was still so hard to believe that they were here. And now, of all times. She’d found out while sitting out on the porch, taking a rest after another fruitless search for her cell phone. She’d been sitting there trying to remember the last time she’d talked to Dr. Omin. How many days had it been? But the blank spaces were becoming numerous in her days, making it harder and harder to keep track. She had to talk to him soon, the world was shifting too quickly, time like a wild dizzying ride.
Phil was gone, had taken their small rowboat and then was gone somehow. How he’d gotten a ride, she didn’t know. But she had ventured across the channel in their boat to check the parking lot and their station wagon was still there. He probably called a cab on his cell. She remembered standing by their car and staring at it, then she looked up, something catching her eye. Abruptly, there was one of her blank-outs, and the next thing she knew she was walking back into their house on Captain’s. She’d felt a stinging in her hands and lifted them up in front of her face, surprised to find her palms red and sore with a painful welt by her right thumb. What had happened?
Yesterday, well, she was pretty sure it was yesterday, she’d done another search for her phone. She knew she should just leave the island, get home and see Dr. Omin, but she was afraid. Afraid of finding their house in Sea Cliff empty, Phil truly gone. She was also genuinely afraid of driving, that one of those blank moments might hit her as she steered onto the highway, causing her to lose control of the car. There was also the stubborn part of her that didn’t want to leave and end her holiday early. This was her time, the one she counted on all year, her time to rest and relax. Besides, her phone had to be somewhere in the house. If she could just find it and call Dr. Omin, she’d be fine.
Sitting on the porch wrapped in a big woolen blanket and mentally retracing her steps, trying to envision the phone’s location, she had seen the phantom-like figure appear out of the rain-darkened morning, coming from around the bend of the boardwalk and heading north. Tall and dark-haired, the person reminded her of Michael. “Michael?” she said with a little gasp.
Then she laughed a little, feeling silly. Of course not. He was gone long ago, the only boy who had ever really seen her, really loved her. Every other man had been after a little t-and-a when she was young, but not Michael. He didn’t touch her, not even once. He respected her that much. That was the worst of it, that such a gentleman existed and then that tramp, Keeley, destroyed his good name. She’d birthed and raised a bastard child and led everyone to believe it was Michael’s, easily done when he wasn’t around to set the record straight. Keeley was disgusting. It was all so unfair.
Rose watched the stranger’s approach with trepidation. Who was it, then? It wasn’t Hannah – although she was also tall, the girl had a distinctive hourglass figure and a wild head of long wavy dark hair. Really, the girl looked nothing like her diminutive blond mother. The figure stopped in front of the Delaney house and stared up at it. That was when she realized that the stranger was Zooey Delaney. Rose hunkered down in her seat and watched Zooey. What was she doing here? Probably visiting Hannah. But if there was one of them, that coven of witches, the others weren’t far behind. She leapt to her feet. No! Not now! They had the island the rest of the year, they couldn’t have it now, too.
Her movement had caught Zooey’s eye and the woman turned and looked in her direction. Rose made herself stand very still. Then Zooey looked away down the boardwalk in the other direction. No, she hadn’t seen Rose. Rose sank back down in her chair and waited. Was she going to come here, investigate? Zooey was looking back at Rose’s house now. Rose held her breath. Zooey turned and started walking away, heading down-island. Rose let out the air she had trapped in her lungs. Then Zooey started running. What a strange one that woman was. Running away as if something was chasing her. Well, maybe Rose should give chase, chase them all off.
Rose squatted in the bushes and listened to the party-like sound of the women in Pam’s house. Rose couldn’t resist coming here this morning, needed to know if she was right about the others. She was both satisfied and outraged by the confirmed fact of it, the sound of their chatter and movements in the house. She watched Hannah and a young man leave, take one of the three boats the gang of them had tied up at Pam’s dock. She had craned her neck around the corner of the house when they’d left, but she couldn’t tell where they went, the boat fading into the fog.
She wanted them all to disappear. More than that. She wanted them dead. Especially Keeley.
She shook her head. It was wrong to think like that.
She heard her father’s voice in her head. “Winners don’t just lie down and lose. They do whatever it takes to win. Whatever it takes.” Her father and mother had been hard cold people, but she appreciated their tough-love as she grew older, especially now. It had made her strong, a winner. Except when it came to Keeley. Keeley, that slippery snaky woman, always managed to triumph over Rose, to wrest every prize out of her grasp. Keeley clearly did it on purpose, knocked Rose down just for the pleasure of seeing her fall.
Rose shook her head again. No, she wouldn’t let it happen. She wouldn’t let these women force her off Captain’s this time. She stopped coming to the island every summer in order to avoid them. Now they were here in October, taking the last slice of time worth anything, a month she’d once resigned herself to but had grown to love. She couldn’t take this lying down. She couldn’t lose again.
The sky was starting to grow lighter, the fog burning off. She knew she had to go soon or risk being caught and the last thing she wanted was for them to know she was watching them. Had Hannah said anything to them about her? Would she, after what had been revealed? She prayed not. No, this time they wouldn’t see her coming. This time, things would be different.