Chapter Six
Eden had trouble following Azalea’s conversational style and she’d certainly never met anyone like her before, yet she found herself liking the white-haired First Nations woman with her dangly feather earrings. Besides, she’d been brought up to respect her elders, so she told Azalea the truth, phrased in a way she hoped wouldn’t alienate her. “Neither a politician nor a bureaucrat. I work with a foundation that funds some wonderful charities and nonprofit organizations. As for uptight, I guess sometimes I am.” She gave a tentative smile. “Takes all kinds, doesn’t it?”
A twinkle sparked in Azalea’s eyes. “Guess it does, clever girl.”
Clever girl was a step up from uptight girl, Eden figured. “But the thing with marijuana,” she went on, “isn’t about me being uptight but that it reminds me of my mom’s cancer. She used medical marijuana during her treatment.”
“Cancer, Big C, disease of modern society,” Azalea said, sinking down onto a cushion on the floor with an agility that belied her age. “Cancer grows, cancer flows, terrorist cells taking a body hostage.” She blinked and stared at Eden. “I’m sorry about your mother.”
“Thank you. I am, too. You’re right about those terrorist cells, and it’s not only the body they prey on, it’s also the mind. For a person who’s always been strong to suddenly feel sick and have no control over what’s happening . . . well, it can be devastating.” She swallowed and focused on the positive. “But Mom’s doing better. She’s finished a bunch of nasty treatments and I’m convinced she’s going to get well.”
“Believe in it, make it so,” Azalea commented.
Eden nodded strongly. “That’s exactly what Dad and I think.”
Beside her, Aaron settled back on the couch, seeming to relax. He must be relieved she hadn’t come on all lawyerlike. She was a little surprised herself how comfortable she was starting to feel. This interview was so unlike the focused conversations she’d had with the B and B owners, Forbes Blake, and the retired RCMP officer.
Speaking of focused, it was time to get to the point. “Actually, it’s because of Mom that I came to Destiny Island. A long time ago her older sister disappeared, and it seems she came here. Mom would really like to find her.”
“Wishes aren’t horses, people can fly, they can disappear into the mystic. And why not?”
Was Azalea implying that Lucy had a good reason to leave and might not want to be found? “I know that sometimes people have good reasons for leaving,” Eden said. “My grandparents were strict. Too strict for an independent, free-spirited teenager like my aunt. They issued an ultimatum and she refused to knuckle under, so she ran away.”
Eden leaned forward as she went on. “But after a few months, she wrote. Maybe she was hoping to reconcile or maybe she was taunting them. I have no way of knowing. Anyhow, she told them she and her boyfriend had joined the commune here. My grandparents would have seen that as immoral, not to mention disrespectful to them. It seems they never responded. From then on, they acted like she’d never existed. I loved my grandparents—who are both dead now—but I have trouble forgiving them for that.”
Azalea let her breath out slowly after a long toke. Eden really didn’t like that aromatic scent with its unhappy associations. She was glad the yurt door and a window were open, keeping air circulating.
“Don’t expect they’d care much about forgiveness,” the older woman said. “Leopards and spots and zebras and stripes.” With a faraway expression in her eyes, she said, “Forgiveness is about the forgiver, anyhow. Peace in your soul, piece of your soul, hole in your soul.”
Eden wondered about this woman’s story and if she was relating to Lucy. “You were a member of the commune, too, weren’t you, Azalea?”
“Flowers in my hair. Music, sweet music, sweet smoke in the air.”
O-kay. “You may have known my aunt.” She had a feeling dates wouldn’t mean much to Azalea but gave them anyhow, as she took out her phone and scrolled to her photos. “She came in the spring or summer of 1969. I don’t know how long she stayed at the commune.”
Eden rose to show Azalea the only two pictures her mother had been able to salvage when Eden’s grandparents purged the house of all traces of Lucy. One showed two brown-haired girls in shorts sitting on a flower-bordered lawn. “The one facing the camera is my mom. The one in profile is her sister.” She scrolled to the second photo, a more formal one showing a teen with a rather round face, her hair almost to shoulder level and flipped up at the ends, with a line of bangs across her forehead. “This is a school photo taken three years before she left.”
As the older woman studied the photos, Eden said, “My aunt’s name is Lucy Nelson.”
Azalea glanced up, her eyes brightening. “Lucy in the sky with diamonds, kaleidoscope eyes.”
“That was a Beatles song, wasn’t it?” Her father’d been a Beatles fan back in the day, and every now and then pulled out some of his old music and the turntable he’d had as a teen. Her mom wasn’t a fan, saying she’d been too young to relate. Eden wondered if her aunt had liked the Beatles’ music and enjoyed having her name in one of their songs.
“Beatles, Stones, sticks and stones, broken bones.” Azalea shook her head and rose.
As Eden again took her seat beside Aaron, the white-haired woman wandered back toward the kitchen, muttering, “Bruises and broken bones, time to fly away.”
Aaron leaned forward, his bare forearm brushing Eden’s, warming her skin and making it tingle. “Bruises and broken bones at the commune, Azalea?” he said. “Merlin’s, uh, magic kingdom not so magical after all? Some of the birds had to fly away? Maybe Lucy?”
Eden caught her breath. Was this what Azalea had been getting at? Would Aaron’s attempt to use the woman’s own kind of language get through to her, so that she’d provide some actual information?
Azalea turned, the hand holding the joint raised. “Lucy’s in the sky with diamonds.”
“No diamonds,” Eden said patiently. “Just my aunt Lucy who came to the commune when she was seventeen along with her boyfriend. Did you know Lucy or Barry? It would mean a lot to my mom if you did.”
“Lucy without diamonds? But Lucy and diamonds go together.” Her eyes looked unfocused, maybe from the marijuana or because her mind was back in hippie times. “And Barry, hairy, quite contrary.” She gave a snorty kind of laugh. “Bull seals barking at each other. Flower children tripping out, far out, blowing our little minds. Groovy scene, love-in, good loving, bad loving at the Enchantery.”
“The Enchantery?” Eden asked. Had Azalea picked that up from Aaron’s comment about Merlin’s magical kingdom, or had it been the name of the commune?
“Shh,” Azalea said, a finger to her lips. “Can’t call it that, secret name, no one’s supposed to know.”
Eden didn’t point out that the other woman had just said it herself.
Azalea pinched out the half-smoked joint and laid it down. “Chickens, chickadees, children, always hungry.” She took a quick path to the open door of the yurt.
Caught by surprise, Eden and Aaron rose more slowly and followed her. By the time they stepped out into the sunshine, Azalea was going into the chicken coop, her long braid flicking behind her.
“Have we been dismissed?” Eden asked.
“I’d say so.” Aaron put his arm around her shoulders. “Guess that wasn’t so helpful.”
She let herself lean against his muscled body. Why did he feel more strong and masculine than Ray or any other man she’d ever dated—and why did that physicality appeal to her? “It’s hard to tell what’s real and what’s a flight of fantasy. You know her better. What do you think?”
“I think maybe those parents who contacted the RCMP had it right and the commune was cultlike, called the Enchantery, with Merlin as the leader. He kept tight control over the members, using drugs and some kind of brainwashing, and they weren’t supposed to talk about the Enchantery with outsiders. He abused some of the women.”
“If Lucy was there . . .” God forbid her aunt had suffered abuse.
“Seems to me Azalea didn’t know, or at least remember, Lucy or Barry.”
“That’s what I thought, too. Her only association with the name Lucy is an old song, and Barry just sends her off on one of her wordplay things.” She sighed, pressed herself into his comforting warmth for a moment, and then stepped away and walked toward the Jeep. “Well, that’s another name to cross off the list. Oh, I forgot to mention, Rachelle called and said she’d spoken to her parents, and neither of them ever went to the commune. Once in a while they’d see members in the village, but they didn’t know any of them. They promised to ask their friends.”
As Aaron opened the door for her, she asked, “Why did you choose Azalea first?”
His lips quirked. “Partly ’cause I was curious how you’d react to her. She’s pretty cool in her own admittedly unique way.”
“True. She’s certainly different from anyone I’ve ever met.”
“Maybe I figured if you could deal with Azalea, you’d be okay with any of the other island eccentrics I introduce you to.” He went around and climbed into the driver’s seat.
“I hope Lucy didn’t turn out like Azalea. That would be a shock for Mom.”
“Could be worse.” He started the Jeep and got it turned around. “Azalea’s healthy and happy, not harming a soul.”
“Not helping a soul either.” Both her parents, like Eden, believed strongly in trying to make the world a better place.
“You’re wrong about that. She gives stuff away to people who can’t pay or have nothing to barter.”
Eden’s teeth rattled as the Jeep jounced over the near-nonexistent road. “I’m sorry. I judged too quickly.”
Aaron shot her a quick glance. “You do realize your mission for your mom may not turn out with a happy result? Lucy might not be a person your mother would want to know. And have you considered the possibility that she might be dead?”
Eden’s chin came up. “I won’t dwell on thoughts like that. Mom needs this. It has to come out well.” His lack of response suggested that he disagreed, but she wasn’t going to argue the point. “Is there anyone else we could see today?”
“We have a dinner invitation.”
“Oh! Why didn’t you tell me? I’d have brought something dressier to change into. Not to mention a hostess gift.”
“You look great, and we can stop to pick up a bottle of wine if you want.”
“Yes, please.” As the Jeep turned onto an actual paved road, she asked warily, “Is this another aging hippie like Azalea?” It took a lot of mental energy to be around someone like her.
Aaron chuckled, a rich sound that moved over her skin like a warm breeze. “Aging hippie, but not like Azalea. She’s on your list: Marlise Kulik.”
“Could she be my aunt?”
“No, sorry. I told her about your mission and she said her name’s always been Marlise, and she and her sister, who lives in Kelowna, are in touch often. She said she’d think back to the commune days to see if she remembered anything that might help you.”
“I look forward to meeting her.”
“You’ll meet Lionel, too. We’re dining at his house.”
“They’re the couple who are, uh, friends with benefits, right? Who don’t want to live together?”
“That’s them.”
And Lionel was Aaron’s mentor. “I’m looking forward to meeting them. They speak like normal people, don’t they?”
He threw back his head and laughed. “Yeah. And they both have sharp brains. But still, they’re islanders. Don’t go all lawyerlike on them.”
“I’ll try to refrain.”
Aaron pulled into the parking area in front of a small store called We Got It. “We can buy wine here. The owner prides himself on carrying the essentials of life: food staples, a bit of fresh produce, basic bathroom stuff.” Mischief tweaked his lips. “Condoms.”
“If you’re buying condoms, I’m not coming in with you.”
He gave a snort of amusement. “You’re acting like a teenager. Anyhow, I’m not buying them. I already have enough.”
Enough for what? Were they really going to have sex? She accompanied him inside. We Got It had an old-fashioned country store feel to it. While Aaron went to choose wine, she got sidetracked by a big bulletin board plastered with notices of items for sale or wanted, services offered or sought, upcoming meetings and events, even a birth announcement complete with a photo of a bald, beaming infant. She decided there’d be nothing lost, tomorrow morning, in creating a poster with the photos of Lucy and asking anyone who had information to give her a call. Hopefully, the GPS on her phone could lead her back to this store.
Aaron returned with a bottle of Destiny Cellars riesling and another of zinfandel, saying that Marlise and Lionel liked them both. The wine wasn’t cheap and she insisted on paying. “The whole purpose of the dinner is so I can get information. Besides, you bought dinner last night. This is the least I can do.”
From the store they drove east, past cottages with artisan signs and fields with crops, sheep, and cattle. One place even had alpacas, which Aaron told her produced wool weavers valued. The bucolic feel of the area relaxed her, and it was a surprise when the scenery changed again and they drove into a forest of tall evergreens. “For one small island, there’s a lot of variety in terrain,” she commented.
“Wait until you see the rest of it. Especially the beaches.”
The road here was single lane and paved, though the pavement was well-worn. They passed a couple of long, dirt-track driveways that disappeared off into the woods, and then Aaron turned onto the next one. A few hundred yards along, the road ended in a gravel cul-de-sac, where he parked beside a battered old black truck and a yellow Volkswagen Beetle—one of the original ones, nicely maintained. Behind a screen of leafy green trees, she glimpsed a wooden A-frame house. A medium-sized brown dog of no discernible breed came slowly down the gravel walk from the house, tail wagging amiably. The white around its muzzle told her it was elderly.
“Hey, Chester,” Aaron greeted the dog, bending to give him a good rub.
Eden leaned down, extending her hand, and when Chester sniffed it and wagged his tail, she, too, stroked him. Unless the dog was Marlise’s, Lionel didn’t live entirely alone.
Aaron took a small cooler out of the back of the Jeep, Eden carried the bag with the wine, and Chester followed as they walked along the gravel path to the door.
The house wasn’t large and the weathered wood suggested it had been here quite a while. The yard, if it could be called that, featured only a few randomly planted rhododendrons, flowering in shades of pink, purple, and orange-yellow. A man’s home, not a woman’s, but attractive in its own way, like a small oasis only semicarved out of the surrounding wilderness.
The front door had a dog door in it and a tarnished brass bell hanging beside it, which Aaron rang. A male voice hollered, “We’re decent. Come on in.”
As they entered, with Chester choosing to stay outside, a woman came toward them. Like Azalea, she was slim, tallish, and tanned, though the wrinkles fanning from the corners of her eyes were less sharply etched. In every other way, she was Azalea’s stylish opposite. Her hair, a mixture of blond, brown tones, and silvery gray, was short and fashionably layered. She wore a silk-screened blouse in shades of blue and silver over narrow-legged jeans, and her feet were in jeweled sandals. Her jewelry—dangly earrings and a pendant necklace—was silver with deep blue stones Eden thought were lapis lazuli.
Marlise and Aaron embraced, and then she held out her hand to Eden. “Hi, I’m Marlise. Welcome to Destiny Island.”
“Thank you. And thanks to you and Lionel for the dinner invitation.”
“It’ll be casual. I hope that’s okay.”
“Of course.” She held out the bag. “Here’s my contribution.”
“Wonderful. Come on through to the kitchen.”
Aaron picked up the cooler again and followed Marlise. Eden trailed behind, casting a glance around. The front room was small, with a single bed shoved against one wall, a desk under the front window, and a couple of oil seascapes. On the other side of a narrow hall was a closed door, and a flight of wooden steps led to the second floor.
She entered the kitchen, which was larger than the bedroom/office. Big windows drew her, and she walked over to see the view. “Wow.” The house stood near the edge of what looked like a cliff. In front of her, past a wood-slatted deck, was a weathered rock outcropping, and beyond it the intense, almost indigo bluish-green of the ocean, broken by white curls lacing the tops of waves. A stunning tree framed the view, its trunk and limbs curved in graceful, feminine lines. The bark was orange-brown, lighter than cinnamon, and the leaves were a deep, shiny green.
A male chuckle, raspier than Aaron’s, broke the spell, and the man said, “Not much I can do to compete with a view like that.”
She turned, embarrassed, to see a stocky, gray-haired guy in jeans and a plaid shirt, his grin a flash of white against skin the color of black coffee. “I’m so sorry. That was rude of me. You must be Lionel.” She walked toward him to shake his hand.
“And you’re Eden, Aaron’s new friend.” Dark brown eyes studied her from behind horn-rims.
She hoped she measured up to whatever he was looking for. “Thank you for inviting me for dinner.”
“Aaron says you’re not the typical tourist.”
Marlise chimed in. “Tourists rarely get invited to islanders’ homes.”
“Should I ask why?”
“We have a love-hate relationship with them,” the woman said. “Destiny Islanders are possessive about this place. We figure we’re the only ones who truly understand and appreciate it. Besides, we think of the stores, marinas, parks, and so on as ours. In tourist season, day-trippers flood in on each day’s ferry, families come to camp, visitors fill the B and Bs and resorts, and boaters clog the marinas and harbors. In off-season, you walk down the street and recognize ninety percent of the people you see. In tourist season, it’s the opposite.”
“But,” Aaron said, “the island’s economy is based in large part on tourism. Hence the love part of the equation.”
“I’ve only been here a couple of days, but I can see the island’s appeal.”
Lionel gave her that assessing gaze again. “The superficial appeal. There’s a whole different appeal when you live here and a winter storm takes out your power lines.”
“Or when you break your ankle and a neighbor you’ve been squabbling with shows up with casseroles and beer,” Marlise said. “For us longtimers, our relationship with Destiny is like a marriage that’s stood the test of time. Or”—she winked at Lionel—“a non-marriage that’s stood the test of time. There’s frustration and crankiness sometimes, but there’s a bond, soul deep, connecting you.” Cocking her head, she asked Eden, “Do you understand what I mean?”
“It sounds like me and my little sister,” she said wryly.
Aaron gave a snort and Marlise laughed and said, “I think you’ve got it. Of course, not all islanders feel that way. Some hate being cut off from the world or have itchy feet or are drawn to cities or job opportunities. A number of our young people leave.” She glanced at Aaron. “But a lot return. And some visitors do fall for the island’s quirky lifestyle and decide to build their lives here. The population’s always a bit in flux.”
Eden nodded, and Marlise said briskly, “Why are we all standing here in the middle of the room? Eden, you go sit at the kitchen table and enjoy the view. Aaron, if you’d be so kind as to open that lovely wine and pour for us? Lionel and I will finish the dinner preparations.”
After offering to help and being waved aside, Eden obeyed instructions. The others got to work with amiable teasing but a fair degree of efficiency. The kitchen was hardly modern, but it had the basics, along with a few relatively gourmet touches like an espresso machine.
It turned out Aaron’s cooler held crabs bought fresh that afternoon at the dock, which he nonchalantly tossed in a huge pot of boiling water. Eden had a horrible feeling those crabs had been alive, but she didn’t look too closely nor ask.
Lionel took place mats, napkins, and cutlery out to a table and chairs on the deck. Marlise, standing at the counter, assembled a giant salad. A delicious yeasty smell came from the oven, and when a timer went off, Marlise took out two loaves of Italian bread. In an amazingly short time they were sitting down outside to eat. It wasn’t chilly yet, but the approach of evening lent a crispness to the air that had Eden and Marlise donning cardigans.
After Eden inquired about the beautiful orange-barked tree and was told it was an arbutus, they all began dismembering their crabs and dunking pieces of meat in melted butter. “This is the east side of the island, isn’t it?” she asked. “So we won’t see the sunset?”
“Right,” Lionel said. “Except we often get a kind of echo of it. A pink glow in the sky, a reflection in the ocean.”
“The sunrises are incredible, though,” Aaron said. “Moonrises too.”
Eden realized he’d never said where he lived. Lionel had been his mentor, so was it possible Aaron roomed with the older man? The deck was large, running past the kitchen and outside what was obviously another room. The house was big enough, just barely, to hold two people. “Do you live here, too?” she asked.
“Close enough.” He pointed past one end of the deck to a trail that ran off into the trees. “That’s the path that leads down to the beach, and another branch of it goes to my place.”
Lionel must have had another cottage on his land or perhaps let Aaron build one. What a generous guy. The two men might call themselves loners, but in the half hour she’d been with them she’d seen the clear affection between them.
Talk over dinner was relaxed: the food, the island, places Eden should see, the climate here and in Ottawa. Eden got Lionel to tell her about teaching Aaron to fly, which he did with enthusiasm, saying Aaron was a natural. She heard about Marlise’s experiences as a social worker, and how she played the cello in a chamber quintet. By the time the four crabs had been reduced to a pile of shells and both bottles of wine had been consumed, the air had cooled off enough that Eden suppressed a shiver.
Marlise rose. “We’ll have dessert in the front room.” She began to clear the table.
The others followed her example and then she took their requests for coffee or tea and shooed them all out of the kitchen. Eden discovered that the other room on the ocean side was a living room. It, too, had large windows, and a big fireplace made of unevenly shaped rocks, along with an overstuffed couch and a couple of chairs. Chester lay curled up in a dog bed by the fireplace.
Lionel opened a window a couple of inches. “Get a fire going, Aaron. If there’s any problem with the wood, you know who to blame.” As he gestured Eden to the couch and seated himself in one of the chairs, Lionel told her, “The boy cuts down the trees and chops up the wood.” He held up a gnarled hand. “Damned arthritis. I can do most things, but chopping’s a hard one.”
Marlise entered the room holding a tray. She put it on a coffee table made from a wooden burl and handed out their drinks. “Back in a minute.”
Aaron’s fire had caught, and he pulled the screen across the fireplace and came to sit beside Eden, his thigh brushing hers and sending sexual awareness rippling through her.
Marlise returned, this time with bowls full of something pink and smelling of fruit, with vanilla ice cream on top. “Strawberry-rhubarb crumble, made with fruit from my garden.”
Eden took a bite and sighed with pleasure. Because she so rarely ate dessert, this was a special treat. “What a wonderful meal.” Glancing at her host, she asked, “Lionel, how long have you been on Destiny Island?”
“Since the end of ’69.” He put down his coffee, spooned up some dessert, and chewed and swallowed. “You’re too young to know what it was like back then. I was an American, my country involved in that crazy war in Vietnam, boys going off and getting killed. And for what?”
“You’ve probably heard of the draft,” Marlise said. “It was a lottery. Who’d be sent off next to be killed? Only the boys, of course. And all because of a war that many, many people considered to be immoral. There were a lot of protests. Pacifists sticking flowers in rifle barrels. Maybe you’ve seen some pictures.”
“I learned a bit about it in school,” Eden said.
“What she’s leading up to,” Lionel said, “is that a lot of the boys who were drafted, or might’ve been, didn’t stick around. They left the country, and most came to Canada. Draft dodgers, they called us.”
Us. So that’s what had brought him here.
“Some folks called us cowards and worse,” Lionel said. “Looking back, I can’t say I’m sure why I did it. I could tell myself it was the moral thing. I could espouse pacifism, which I do mostly believe in. But at that moment in time, maybe I was just scared of getting my ass blown off in some foreign country.”
Marlise leaned forward to touch his hand. “If it had been a different kind of war, you would have gone. I know that, Lionel Williams, even if you don’t.”
“I know it, too,” Aaron put in.
“Well,” Lionel said, “it’s the past. I came north from California, across the border, heard about the Gulf Islands, and found myself on Destiny. Stayed. Found work doing this and that, learned how to fly the same way Aaron did, from an old geezer with time on his hands. Bought myself a little Cessna, built this place. Settled in.” He shot Eden a level gaze through his horn-rims. “I was never a hippie. Never set foot on that commune.”
He could have said that right at the beginning, but instead he’d chosen to tell her his story. She appreciated his trust and knew it was due to Aaron’s befriending her.
“But I did,” Marlise said. She put down her bowl, the dessert only half-finished. “Aaron told us about Lucy. I’ve searched my memory, but I honestly can’t remember anyone at the commune by that name.”
Discouraged, Eden sighed. Had her aunt vanished into thin air?