by Amy Cross
Part Two
I
“Kill it!” he screamed, swinging the wrong end of a mop past her head and smashing several cups off the table, as the rat scurried to safety behind a fridge in the corner of the room.
“Ephram -” Kate started to say.
“Get around the back!” he yelled, grabbing her arm and yanking her over to the other side of the fridge, before running back to get into position and raising the mop. “Okay. Flush it out! Flush it!”
“What?”
“The rat! Flush it out and I'll finish it off!”
Kate stared down at the gap between the fridge and the wall. Although she had no doubt that the rat was hiding behind there, she had absolutely no idea how she was supposed to 'flush it out'. Seconds later, she spotted movement, and the rat peered up at her. Before she could tell Ephram what she was seeing, however, she spotted more movement, and several tiny baby rats came crawling into view. Although Kate had said that she'd help with the rat-catching, she was suddenly struck by a moment of doubt as she saw the faces of the little rat babies. Then again, she figured that maybe she should be less sentimental; after all, if that was one thing every historian knew, it was that rats spread disease.
“You see it, don't you!” Ephram suddenly shouted, running around to her side and swinging the mop handle down hard, missing the rats by inches.
Before he could try again, the rodents bolted out from the other side and disappeared into a hole in the wall.
“Damn them to hell!” he shouted, whacking the end of the mop helplessly against the wall before turning to Kate with an exhausted look in his eyes. “I really thought I had them this time,” he added breathlessly. “Then again, it doesn't really matter. Kill one, and ten more turn up the next day. This island is becoming overrun. Soon it will be an island of only rats!”
“It can't have happened so quickly,” Kate replied, somewhat stunned by the scene she'd just witnessed. “Can it?”
Ephram glared at her, which was enough for her to realize that she'd perhaps asked a dumb question.
“You will notice the lack of chickens,” he continued. “They were all eaten by the rats. Now I have to keep my new chickens in a coop in the back yard. It's no fun for them, and I miss having them under my feet, but there is nothing I can do. At first, it took five or six rats to kill one chicken. By last week, I was seeing one rat kill one chicken. The rats are getting bigger and tougher. They're not even scared of me anymore!”
“Have you considered getting an exterminator?” Kate asked.
“They're everywhere,” he replied. “The only option would be to tip everything into the sea and start again. No-one wants to start throwing poison around, so we try to do the best we can, but there's not a person on Thaxos who isn't bedeviled by the damn things.” He paused again, with a hint of irritation in his expression. “Well, maybe one person. His Lordship, the man who brought them here in the first place, sits so high up in his mansion, I doubt the rats have reached him yet. They're probably too busy down here. For the moment, they go after our livestock and our pets, but mark my words. Soon, it will be a child, and then no-one will be safe!”
Kate watched as Ephram dejectedly put the mop back in the corner. The change in his character was both extreme and shocking, and she was still struggling to come to terms with the fact that this was the same man she'd first met just three months ago. It was as if, while she was away, everything had turned sour. Even the shop seemed darker and more chaotic than usual, and Ephram himself seemed to have aged a decade in just a short space of time.
“Why are you here?” he asked, slumping down onto the stool behind the counter. “This is no place for a holiday, not these days.”
“I already told you,” she replied. “I got a job.”
“A job? What kind of job could you possibly get on Thaxos?” He stared at her for a moment, and then finally he realized. “Oh. No, Kate. Please, don't tell me -”
“He needs an archivist,” she replied defensively. “The terms he offered are better than anything I'd get in London right now, and he's even allowing me to live up at the mansion. It's a six month deal at first, but...”
As she spoke, Ephram started shaking his head disconsolately.
“It's a perfect job for me,” she continued, hoping to make him see things from her point of view. “I get to study the history of the Le Compte family, which is fascinating enough on its own, but I also get to study those stones on the north of the island. I really feel as if this could be the turning point for my career. If I knuckle down and work hard, I could end up with a publishable paper. Maybe even a book!”
“So you want to be famous?”
“I want to work, and I want it to be something interesting that could lead somewhere.”
“But that place,” he replied. “Kate, please, just turn around and leave Thaxos. Forget that this place ever existed.”
“It can't be that bad,” she told him.
“Can't be that bad? We are overrun with rats, half the island has been fenced off, there is a motor vehicle rampaging through the streets at all hours, and the people living up at that mansion...” He paused again, with a hint of fear in his eyes. “It's not right. Not natural. He never comes down here to the town, but he sends his people from time to time. I've never seen such lost, empty souls in my life. Working for Baron Edgar Compte seems to drain them of their humanity. If they had any to begin with. And meanwhile that big black boat keeps coming back every couple of weeks, and God alone knows what is being unloaded each time. Probably something even worse than rats.”
“Are you sure you're not exaggerating just a little?” she asked.
He shook his head.
“Edgar Le Compte isn't a -”
“And my grandmother is dying,” he said suddenly.
Kate stared at him, unable to quite take in the news.
“She never really recovered from that night,” he continued, with a teary, lost look in his eyes. “I looked after her as best I could, I even took out a loan and paid for a specialist to come from the mainland, but it was as if she'd lost the will to keep fighting. Every day, she faded away just a little more, until I realized there was no way back for her. I would have done anything, even sell the store and my home, if I'd thought there was any treatment that could help, but her heart just can't be repaired. She never leaves her bed, and the doctor says she has maybe a few weeks left at most.” He made the sign of the cross on his chest. “At least she'll soon be in peace. She doesn't have to see the full extent of the misery that has spread here.”
“I'm so sorry,” Kate said after a moment, feeling genuinely shocked. “I don't know her very well, but I know how much she means to you.”
Ephram looked down at his hands, as if for once he was speechless.
“Has Edgar Le Compte been to visit?” Kate asked.
Ephram turned to her, with a look of horror in his eyes.
“I mean,” she stammered, “he -”
“Why would that so-called man come to see my grandmother?” Ephram asked, with the indignation having returned to his voice. “And if he did show his face, why would I let him through my door? Just because my grandmother and his grandfather were briefly courting once, there's no reason for our families to have anything to do with one another.” He paused for a moment, glancing across the shop. “Family,” he muttered finally. “What family? Look at me, I have nothing now. Even my chickens are locked away.”
“I just thought that Edgar knew your grandmother from before,” Kate said, thinking back to the tender moment she'd witnessed at the mansion.
Ephram shook his head.
“Are you sure?” Kate asked. “Maybe he -”
“Edgar Le Compte – the current Edgar Le Compte, at least – was born far away from Thaxos and only came here for the first time three months ago. There would have been absolutely no reason for him to give her a second thought. It was his grandfather who knew and courted my grandmother.”
“Of course,” Kate replied, even though she was still trying to work out exactly why Edgar had seemed so concerned about the old woman, and so familiar as he spoke to her.
“Is there anything,” Ephram continued, “that I can say that might persuade you not to go up to that godforsaken house on the hill?” He stared at her with desperate, pleading eyes. “Please, Kate. You have no idea what you're facing if you go back there! No matter how you think things will go, I can assure you that they will be a thousand times worse. God has forsaken this island and Edgar Le Compte is the cancer that will kill us all.”