Children of the Storm Page 6

  "I'm glad they scared us out of New Jersey," Alex said.

  "Oh?"

  "Yeah. It's prettier down here."

  "Lots prettier," Tina added.

  "I'd hate to be killed in New Jersey," Alex said. "Down here, it would be better."

  Sonya chose not to question this rather macabre statement, but went quickly on with the lesson, drawing the boy's attention to the West Coast, as far away from New Jersey as she could lead him.

  By four-thirty each afternoon, finished with lessons, they were ready for a swim, a game of tag, a walk about the island-always with Rudolph Saine in tow, his burly arms, like the arms of a gorilla, swinging loosely at his sides, his scowl permanently in place, his broad face creased like putty that had been scored with a sculptor's blade.

  He carried a holstered revolver under his left armpit.

  Sonya pretended not to notice.

  And still, nothing untoward happened.

  Monday afternoon, when she had been on Distingue for nearly a week, Sonya was given the last half of the day off, for Joe Dougherty wanted to take his kids to Guadeloupe for a couple of movies and-he told her, shuddering as if the prospect utterly repelled him-supper at their favorite greasy hamburger emporium. "I think we set the best possible table here at Seawatch," he told Sonya. She agreed. "But," he said, "the kids tell me that our food 'stinks' in comparison to the hamburgers and French fries on Guadeloupe."

  "Better not let Helga hear them say that."

  "Never!" he vowed. "I'd rather lose my fortune than lose Helga and her cooking!"

  Because Bill Peterson was to take the Doughertys to the main island, and because he would wait there for them, Sonya was left to entertain herself for the remainder of the day. Bill asked her to come along and promised her a thorough tour of Pointe-a-Pitre, but she said she preferred this chance to get familiar with Distingue.

  At two o'clock in the afternoon, when she would ordinarily have been coaxing the children into getting settled for their second study period, Sonya set out from Seawatch to walk the length of the island and then home again. She wore white shorts and a lightweight yellow blouse, sandals that consisted of little more than a sole and a strap to hold them to her feet. Despite the giant, orange sun and the cloudless heavens, she felt cool and happy, looking forward to the expedition.

  She lifted her long, yellow hair and tucked it behind her ears, to keep it from blowing around her face in the gentle breeze that came in from the open sea. She felt fresh, clean and very alive.

  Several hundred yards from the house, she stopped at a turn in the beach to watch a bevy of sand crabs at play. When they saw her, or sensed her, they bolted up onto their tall, multi-flexed running legs and, looking very silly, skittered for cover, dropping onto the sand and, in an instant, disappearing from sight.

  She studied several parrots that flitted from palm to palm, birds Joe Dougherty had imported and nourished to give the island a sense of color and life.

  She also studied the arrangement of coconuts at the crown of a number of fruit-bearing trees, wondering if there was any chance of her climbing the bowed bole and retrieving one of them. She decided against such a reckless foray, so long as she was on her own.

  She had gone almost two thirds of the island's length when, so suddenly that she let out a terrified squeal, someone stepped out of the palms along the beach and said, "Hello, there!"

  "Who-"

  He was tall, about Bill Peterson's age and size, though his hair was dark, as were his eyes, and he was more thoroughly, richly tanned than Bill, as if he had been born and raised in the open air, under clear skies. He was not so handsome as Bill, but more rugged, earthier in a way that made him look somewhat older than he really was.

  "Ken Blenwell," he said, stepping in front of her and grinning broadly.

  She remembered the man whom she had seen when they took a boat tour around the island, the man standing on the Blenwell pier and watching the Lady Jane with field glasses. So this was what he looked like close up.

  "Do you have a name?" he asked, still grinning.

  "Oh, of course!" she said, embarrassed by her lapse. "You startled me so, that I sort of lost track."

  "Sorry about that."

  "I'm Sonya Carter."

  "What a lovely name!" he said.

  "Thank you."

  "Were you coming to see us?"

  His teeth were exceptionally white, strong and broad, like the teeth of a healthy animal.

  "Us?"

  "My grandparents and me," he said. "The Blenwells? Down at Hawk House?"

  "Oh," she said, "no. No, I was just out for a walk, getting to know the island. Am I close to Hawk House, then?"

  "Quite close, yes."

  "I was enjoying myself so much," she said, "that I didn't realize how far I'd come."

  He stood before her, his bare feet planted wide apart in the warm sand, almost as if he were there to stop her from proceeding any farther. He said, "Well, this makes two disappointments in less than a week."

  "Oh?"

  "When you came around the point in Lady Jane, with Peterson, I thought you were coming to pay us a visit then. But you went right on by, leaving me disappointed." His grin no longer seemed as pleasant as it first had; it seemed positively threatening. Or was that her imagination? Yes, it must be that: imagination, exaggeration. He was still smiling; he seemed personable and charming.

  "That was you on the pier, with the binoculars?" she asked.

  "You know it was."

  "I suppose I do, yes."

  "Will you accept my invitation to visit us?" he asked, looking down on her. He was quite tall.

  "I'd like that."

  "Now?"

  She hesitated, then said, "I don't see why not."

  "Wonderful!"

  He stepped out of her way, walked up beside her and took her arm, as if he thought she might turn and run unless he had a good hold on her. His grip was firm; he appeared inordinately strong.

  They walked along the beach together. From a distance, they might have looked like any happy-go-lucky couple. Up close, the observer would have seen the lines of tension around the girl's eyes, would have seen something-something not quite identifiable, but unsettling, in the big man's dark face.

  "You like the island?" he asked.

  "It's beautiful," she said.

  "It is that. Someday, I hope to own it."

  "Oh?"

  "Unless, of course, your employer, Dougherty, refuses to sell his portion. But I'm confident that, given time, he'll come around to my offer. It's more than adequate. He could turn a neat profit with what I'm willing to go for it."

  "But I doubt he needs the money," she said. She didn't know why she felt like needling the man, but she couldn't resist the chance.

  "Everyone needs the money-or thinks he does. Millionaires are no different; Dougherty is no different." As the beach turned and Hawk House came into view, he let go her arm. "What strikes you most about Distingue?"

  "Too many things to choose one," she said. "The beaches are so pure white."

  "That's because they're white volcanic beaches. The sand was formed at the most terrific heat- oh, ten or twenty thousand years ago, and maybe longer. Surely, longer."

  "And the palm trees," she said, motioning to the lovely green giants to their left where they closed in on Hawk House. "I wanted to climb one of the coconut palms for some fruit, but I was afraid that I'd fall and couldn't call for help."

  "We'll get some coconuts later, together," he said.

  "I like the parrots, too," Sonya said. When she talked, she felt more at ease. "They're so pretty and bright. And when they make that cawing, trilling noise, they make me think I'm in some old movie about Africa or South America."

  He said, "I hate the parrots."

  "For heaven's sake, why?" she asked.

  "The noise they make is raucous, bothersome," he said.

  She looked at him, saw that he was serious. His jaw was set tight, almost as if
he were gritting his teeth.

  "But-"

  He interrupted her: "I'd exterminate them if I owned the island myself."

  "They're so pretty," she insisted.

  "But they don't belong," he said. "They're not a natural lifeform to Distingue. Doughtery imported them for his own amusement."

  "So?"

  "They simply don't belong," he repeated, giving each word the same, harsh force.

  "By that reasoning," Sonya said, "you could argue for the extermination of the people on Disingue. We aren't indigenous to the island either.

  We don't belong, naturally speaking. Why not exterminate us too?"

  "Maybe you have something there," he said. He grinned at her, but she could not be certain if the grin were genuine.

  "Here we are," he said, taking her arm again. "Watch your step."

  He lead her onto the front porch of Hawk House, opened the door, and lead her into a gloomy entrance hall that smelled of furniture polish and old lace curtains.

  * * *

  SEVEN

  Kenneth Blenwell escorted Sonya along the dimly lighted main hall to a set of sliding doors, pulled these open in one smooth movement and ushered her into a drawing room where the only light was that which somehow managed to break through the drawn halves of the heavy, blue velvet drapes-and that eerie blue light which a black-and-white television set puts forth. The only signs of life in that room, at first, were those glimpsed from the non-life on the television screen: the movement of the actors, camera changes, the tinny voices and the melodramatic background music that rose and fell like the sea.

  "Grandmother, Grandfather, I've brought company."

  The volume on the television went down, though not off altogether, as someone with a remote control device reacted to Kenneth's statement.

  "This is Sonya Carter," Kenneth said.

  "A lovely name." The voice had been that of a woman, but thin and weak, almost a whisper.

  "Thank you," Sonya replied.

  By now, she had located the old couple. They sat in two ridiculously overstuffed chairs, about ten feet from the television set, their feet propped up on ottomans, utility tables beside them, cocktails set out on the tables. Grotesquely, it seemed as if they were rooted to the spot, that they had not moved in years. They would remain there, even as corpses, until they had rotted and turned to dust.

  "Bring her closer!" Walter Blenwell snapped. The old man's voice was as brittle as his wife's was soft. "Let's see what manner of young lady you've got here!" Though it seemed bo be meant kindly, each thing he said sounded like an imperious command made by a humorless potentate.

  "Hello, Mr. Blenwell," Sonya said, stepping into the light thrown by the television set.

  "Well, a pretty lady," Walter said.

  "Thank you."

  Both the old man and the old woman were in their seventies, somewhat emaciated, their faces lined so heavily that they reminded her of pieces of tablet paper crumpled in the fist and then clumsily straightened out again. The blue light from the television did nothing at all to make them look younger; the unnatural color gave them the appearance of frozen bodies, touched by a coat of frost, eyes glittering icily.

  Kenneth had brought two chairs, one of which Sonya took, gratefully. With the television light framing her, almost silhouetting her, she felt as if she were on display.

  "Tell Winnie that we'd like new refreshments," Lydia Blenwell said.

  "Will do," Kenneth said.

  He departed, leaving Sonya alone with the old people.

  "Refreshments will be simple," Lydia said. "Neither of us is up to real entertaining any more."

  "Speak for yourself," Walter snapped. "I believe I could still enjoy a good dance or two, a real formal ball."

  "Yes, you might go to the ball in a carriage," Lydia told him, leaning forward in her chair, smiling, "but you'd have to come home in an ambulance."

  Walter snorted.

  Sonya thought the old couple were merely amusing each other, and that the jibes were not meant seriously, but she could not be certain, and she felt out of place.

  "How do you happen to know Kenneth?" Lydia asked.

  She had once been a very pretty lady, Sonya could see, but now her eyes looked gray, flat and dull, her hair wiry and unkempt. Her face was criss-crossed with wrinkles, and these were especially concentrated around the eyes and mouth, an unfortunate condition which gave her the look of a cunning weasel and the pursed lips of an habitual gossiper. At one time, her question would have seemed like only a polite conversational initiative, but now it sounded half-quarrelsome, nosey.

  "I met him on the beach," Sonya said.

  "Guadeloupe?"

  "Well, not exactly," Sonya said.

  Kenneth had come into the room again and taken his seat next to Sonya. He said, "We met outside, a couple of hundred yards from the house, just a half an hour ago."

  "What do you mean?" Lydia asked, not comprehending, her pursed mouth in a tight little bow.

  "She's working for the Doughertys," Kenneth explained.

  "Those people!" Walter snapped.

  "I'm tutoring their children," Sonya said.

  "How do you stand to work for him?" Lydia asked.

  "Mr. Dougherty, you mean?"

  "Of course, him."

  "He treats his people well."

  Walter snorted derisively. "We haven't much in common with the Dougherty family."

  "You might even say that we're-at odds with them," Lydia added.

  "The young lady can't help about that," Kenneth said. "We can hardly blame her for what the Doughertys have done."

  Neither of the old people said anything to that.

  Sonya felt distinctly uncomfortable in that darkened room, as if the walls were drawing closer and the air, despite its coolness, was pressing down on her like a sentient being; she imagined that she could feel walls and air hard against her back, on her shoulders, weighting down on her scalp, crushing. Why on earth had Kenneth Blenwell insisted on her coming to the house when he must have known she would not be much appreciated by his grandparents?

  At that moment, a woman in her sixties, dressed in a wrinkled maid's uniform, pushed a serving cart into the drawing room. Cups and saucers rattled on it.

  The maid-a rather dumpy woman with a wounded look, wheeled the cart into the center of the gathering, trundling it across one of Sonya's feet and nearly catching the other as well, offering no apology and giving no sign that the incident had even transpired.

  She said, "Mrs. Blenwell, I ain't used to havin' guests at this hour of the day, people to make ready for and what all."

  "We're not used to having guests at any hour of the day, are we, Hattie?" Walter Blenwell cackled.

  "Just the same-" the maid began.

  "Here we go, Hattie," Kenneth said, rising and taking hold of the cart. "I'll carry on from this point."

  Without a word, but with a quick and unfriendly glance at Sonya, the woman turned away from the cart, dusted her hands on her unclean dress, and waddled out of the room.

  Kenneth poured the brandy in the four snifters, then the steaming coffee, served everyone in relatively short order. Though the ritual had not taken more than three or four minutes, Sonya felt as if the maid had left the room hours ago.

  "Any more threats over there?" Walter asked, after a terribly protracted silence while everyone sipped alternately at their brandy and coffee.

  "Any what?" Sonya asked. She had not been expecting him to speak to her again, and she hadn't been listening.

  "Come on, girl, you know what I mean! Threats! Have there been more threats against the children?"

  She cleared her throat and said, "No, not any more."

  "You do know about the threats?"

  "Oh, yes," she assured the old man. "I know about them."

  "Terrible thing," Lydia said.

  "Yes."

  "And it's most terrible," Kenneth said, "because it brought them here to Distingue months ahead of sche
dule-and it's keeping them here for a lot longer than they usually stay."

  He did not seem to realize or care that his thoughtlessly antagonistic comments about the Doughertys put Sonya on the spot. She could hardly, after all, join in a conversation denouncing her employer.

  "Threatened to cut their throats, didn't he?"

  "I suppose," Sonya said.

  "He did," Walter said. "He threatened to cut their throats from ear to ear. But there was more than that."

  "I'll say there was!" Lydia wheezed.

  She was leaning forward, as if the talk of blood had given her more energy than she'd known at one time in years.

  "Torture and mutilate," Walter said, shaking his grisly old head, his white hair blued by the television. "Threatened to torture and mutilate them as well as kill them."

  Sonya swallowed all of her brandy, trying to still her nerves, which were as jittery as a congregation of frogs.

  "What kind of a man, do you suppose, would even consider doing something as unspeakable as that?" Lydia asked Sonya. From the old woman's pursed lips and anxious expression, Sonya could only surmise that she was eager as a schoolgirl to meet this marvelously daring soul, whoever-or whatever-he was.

  "I don't know," Sonya said. "A monster of some sort, a-madman." She took a sip of her coffee.

  "More brandy, Sonya?" Kenneth inquired.

  "No. No, thank you."

  "I believe the man also threatened to disembowel them," Walter said. "Didn't he, Kenneth?" The old man held his coffee cup in both shaky hands.

  "He was not so civilized as to word it that nicely," Kenneth said. "He promised, instead, 'to open the kids' guts,' quite a more forceful way of putting it."

  The walls drew nearer.

  Despite the air-conditioning, Sonya was perspiring.

  She put her cup down.

  "Worse than that, though," Walter said. "The man promised worse than that."

  "The eyes," Lydia added. "He promised to do something with their eyes. I don't remember just what."

  Before any of them could tell her just what the man had threatened to do with the Dougherty children's eyes, Sonya said, "How did you learn all of this?"