by Andre Norton
THE OPAL-EYED FAN
ANDRE NORTON
The Opal-Eyed Fan Copyright © 1979, 2016 Andre Norton
eBook edition published 2016 by Worldbuilders Press, a service of the Ethan Ellenberg Literary Agency
Cover art by Matt Forsyth
For Iris, Mildred, Kay, and Jane, who helped
bring Persis and her times to life for me, and to the
staff of the Winter Park Library who hunted
references with such diligence and good will
Though Lost Lady Key does not exist, features of two coastal islands and one key are combined to furnish its checkered history. On Sanibel a mysterious race built a city of canals and mounds composed of shells and rammed earth, as well as shell-paved roads. These unknown people are rumored to have been exterminated by an uneasy combination of Spaniards and imported Seminoles, leaving only evidences of a civilization somehow linked with that of the Mayans of South America.
Captiva, Sanibel’s twin island, is supposed to have served as a prison for women taken during the pirate raids of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.
But Indian Key provided the house with its escape route through the sea turtle pens, its master who refused to acknowledge the power of Key West, and its doctor who pioneered in growing tropical fruits in Florida. An Indian massacre in the middle 1800s brought an abrupt end to this small empire—the fabulous house (known for its luxury, up and down the coast) was burned. A pall fell over the site and no attempt was made to rebuild or reuse the land.
It is for you—a gift,” the old woman said.
“A gift?” Persis echoed.
“A gift of blood. To your hand only will it go. And in your hand it will bring life—and death. She wished it so.”
“She–?”
Askra was already shuffling toward the outer door.
Persis plucked gingerly at the box, not liking the feel against her fingers. It unrolled slowly and then she saw the fan. There was no mistaking the opal-eyed cats carved upon it.
She slammed the lid back on the box. She did not believe in witches or curses, but that did not matter. She knew that what she now held in her hand was an instrument of evil. . . .
CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
1
T he room was dusky dark, but it was quiet. Where was the wind—that threatening, screaming wind which had engulfed the whole world, whipped the sea mountain high?
Persis Rooke turned her head slightly, though she did not yet open her eyes. Here was no musty odor underlaid with the stench of bilges. Rather, a faintly spicy fragrance. Her mind seemed as sluggish as her body, and the latter bore painful bruises that made her wince as she shifted position a little.
She stretched out her hands. Under them was the smoothness of linen. Was this a dream? She did not want to open her eyes and find herself once more wedged into the narrow ship’s bunk. She lay still, grateful for the silence, the feel of the linen, and tried to remember as she slowly, at last, opened her eyes.
This was—a room! Not the tiny stifling cabin into which she had barely been able to squeeze herself and her belongings. She lay on a real bed—she must be in a house—on land!
A drapery of netting hung about the bed, making the rest of the room dim and misty looking in the morning light. Solemnly, as she had sometimes done as a child, she gave the skin on her right wrist a sharp pinch. The resulting pain was reassuring. She was awake. Now Persis braced herself up on the wide expanse of the bed to look around. Her head whirled a little and she fought that giddiness stoutly.
She must remember—She had been on a ship, there had been a grating crash as the Arrow had brought bow up on a reef. Then—
The wrecker!
Persis shook her head in spite of the giddiness that it caused. She felt the warmth of the returning outrage. That—that pirate! The one who had loomed out of the storm to where she clung to a rail, had shouted some incomprehensible words at her, and then carried her, in spite of her screams and her attempts to fight free, to toss her down into the small boat below, her hair streaming about her, the protests battered out of her by the wind along with the air from her lungs. She had been so angry at his high-handedness that she had almost lost her fear. But after she was in the boat—
Persis shut her eyes again. No, it was very queer. She thought she would never, never forget that pirate’s face, his treatment of her as if she were a bale of goods. But later—there was just nothing.
Uncle Augustin!
What had happened to Uncle Augustin?
Persis, now thoroughly aroused, slid to the edge of the bed, hooked fingers in the netting, and jerked it along until she could find an opening in it. That sense of duty long drilled into her was completely awake. She hardly glanced about the shadowy room where only an edging of light showed around the massively shuttered windows. She must find her uncle. He had been only a feeble shadow of himself before the storm. Perhaps—
She looked around a little wildly; she simply could not go charging out of this room wearing only her night rail. And that, she noted now, was not one of her own fine lawn ones, but a garment too big and of coarser stuff. Where was her clothing?
At least that wind was gone. But under her feet the floor still seemed to sway as if it were the deck of the lost Arrow. She made her way to the nearest window by holding on to the edge of the bed as a support.
To throw open the shutters was a task she fumbled over, though she was usually quick with her fingers. Then she looked out into a still morning. At first nothing was visible but the crowns of palms. Then, by leaning forward on the broad windowsill, she discovered that she was on the second story of a house which had been, in turn, erected on a mound of—shells? Could they be shells? How could so substantial a dwelling have been placed on a foundation of shells?
There was water below, and a wharf on which were piled boxes and barrels and—yes—her very own trunk!
Also, there were people. Persis watched three dark-skinned men trundle a large box by wheelbarrow back toward a building of which she could see only a bit of roof. The three wore breeches cut off at the knees, leaving their brown legs bare, and their shirts were much patched, faded, and salt stained.
Wreckers—like that brute aboard the Arrow.
Persis felt distaste and a touch of fear. Though Uncle Augustin had said that the wreckers of the Keys saved lives and goods, she remembered talk in New York of their greediness, tales of conspiracy between some captains and the Key men to lose ships on marked reefs. They were certainly not very far removed from the pirates who had earlier made these same waters their own and had had hiding places hereabouts.
But what had happened to Uncle Augustin?
Now that there was more light, Persis saw a wrapper lying across a chair by the bureau. As she snatched that up, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror on the wall. It was a very ornate mirror, perhaps better suited for a formal parlor, deeply framed in gilt which was a little dimmed. But the dimming had not extended to the glass.
What a miserable sight she was!
No neat braided knot to top off her coiffure, no carefully disciplined bunches of side curls, just a mass of tangled brown hair sticky and matted, as she discovered when she poked and pulled at it. She looked like one of those noisom
e hags illustrating one of Mrs. Radcliffe’s weird stories. Persis was no beauty, but she had never allowed herself to be untidy. Now her reflection appalled her. She was startled by a tap at the door and whirled about to call:
“Come!” Then she added, “Molly!” with deep relief, running to throw her arms about the woman who entered, a liberty Molly would never have allowed normally. For she was as set in her idea of the perfect lady’s maid as Persis was schooled to be the lady in charge of Uncle Augustin’s household.
“Miss Persis, you’ll catch your death!” Molly freed herself and shook out a light cloak from the bundle she carried, putting it around the girl’s shoulders. “It’s a mercy we ain’t all at the bottom of that there sea, so it is!”
“Where’s Uncle Augustin?”
“Now you have no call to fret, Miss Persis. He’s as snug set as a baby in a hearth cradle. Shubal has took him some soup and he swallowed near all of it. That the good Lord brought us safe to land is a mighty mercy—”
“But where are we?”
“This is Lost Lady Key, leastways that is what they call it. And you’ve been sleeping right in Captain Leverett’s own bed. This is his house.”
“Who is Captain Leverett?” Persis’ head ached. If Uncle Augustin had his faithful Shubal in attendance, she need not worry about him for the moment. Molly’s calm had its effect, for she was acting as if it were the most natural thing in the world for Persis Rooke, a most respectable lady, to wake up in the bed of an unknown captain in a house she did not even remember entering.
“Why he’s the one who rescued us. It was he as got you into the boat so his men could bring us ashore. Don’t you remember that, Miss Persis?”
The pirate—oh, she remembered all right! Persis set her teeth. It was not likely she’d ever forget being thrown about. Molly could talk of being saved, but surely one did not have to be treated like that!
“It was a bad reef the Arrow got hooked on,” Molly continued. “Though Captain Leverett thinks they might be able to pull the ship off once she’s lightened of cargo. They’ve been bringing in stuff out of the hold since last night.”
“Wreckers!” Persis sniffed.
“We was right glad to see them, Miss Persis. It’s these wreckers as save ships, lives, too. And Captain Leverett, he’s a proper gentleman. Gave orders to get the doctor for Mr. Augustin. There’s a real doctor living here, though he don’t do much doctoring anymore. Seems he’s more interested in planting things to watch ’em grow, or so Mrs. Pryor says. But he ain’t forgot his doctoring when there’s a need for it. He said as how Mr. Augustin has had a bad shock, and the wetting didn’t do him no good neither. He looked at you, too, Miss Persis. Seems like when you fell into the boat you got a knock on the head. But he said that was no great matter—just to let you sleep it off.”
“I—” Persis pushed impatiently at her tangled hair. The past few days had been a bad dream. First the awful seasickness which had kept her captive in her cabin in spite of all her will to conquer it—then the terror of being tossed about in the storm—the final shuddering crash—
“You’ll be all right, Miss Persis. And Miss Lydia, the Captain’s own sister, is lending you some clothes. I’ll go and get ’em. That there dress you had on is ruined. But first—” Molly went out to get a tray on which was a mug, with a saucer set on top of it, and alongside a respectable silver spoon.
“They’ve a real good cook here,” the maid announced. There was satisfaction in her praise, for Molly and Uncle Augustin’s cook were old enemies, enjoying a feud Persis sometimes suspected was highly satisfactory to both. “This broth has real body to it. You get that inside you, Miss Persis, and you’ll feel a lot better. You look washed out.”
Persis averted her eyes from the mirror. Washed out was a very mild term for what she saw there now.
“I look worse than that,” she agreed with dismal frankness as she picked up the spoon. The liquid in the mug did smell good and, for the first time in days, she felt hungry instead of squeamish.
“My trunk is down there—” she gestured to the window. “Can you get them to bring it up? I’d rather wear my own things.”
She had fretted so over those dresses since Uncle Augustin had suddenly decided to make this trip to the Bahamas where it was supposed to be so very much warmer, that the heavy silks and woolens one needed in New York would not be proper. She had had such a difficulty shopping for muslins, a light silk or two at the beginning of the fall season. The whole contents of that trunk were the result of much time and effort. And she had had to be very careful in the cost of her selections because Uncle Augustin’s affairs were in such a muddle after the disastrous fire last year when half of the city had gone up in flames.
“Them things’ll all need washing and tendin’ to,” Molly announced. “So you’ll have to wait on wearin’ ’em.” She eyed her mistress measuringly. “Miss Lydia, now, she’s a might fuller at the waist—for all her lacing—but not too much.”
Persis sighed; now she was going to hear Molly’s standard comments on her own deficiencies.
“I know I’m as thin as a rail. But I’m just made that way, Molly, no matter how much I eat. All right—it’s plain I’ll have to wear something and if Miss Leverett is kind enough to offer, I must be gracious enough to accept.”
But she was not. Persis hated the thought of wearing someone else’s clothing. Such a small thing to trouble her when she ought just to be glad they were safe. One thing she was sure of—to go to sea again (if the Arrow was ever patched up or they were offered other transportation) was going to require all the fortitude she could summon.
Two hours later she was more at ease with herself and her world. A slim black girl brought in cans of hot water and Molly had washed all the salt stickiness out of her hair, brushing and toweling it dry. She was laced into a muslin far more elaborate in trimming than any from her own trunk. In fact, suited for at least a formal tea drinking.
The gown was lemon colored (to compliment her own brown hair and rather sallow skin) with the fashionable full sleeves, tight from shoulder to elbow and then billowing out in twin puffs of undersleeves of lace. A cobweb-fine lace edged the cape-wide bertha. And the neckline had a turndown collar finished off with a bow. There was even an apron of sheer muslin with a deeply ruched border.
Molly had skillfully braided her hair into the upstanding loops on the top of her head, though her side curls in this humid damp were more flyaway wisps than proper ringlets. Yet this time Persis faced the mirror with hardly any more assurance. She did not think all these frills became her. Her face was too thin, her high-bridged nose too sharp. Yes, she had the look—the slight look—of a schoolmarm.
“Uncle Augustin—” Duty nipped her again.
“Still sleepin’, Miss Persis. Shubal is sittin’ there right beside him should anything be needed. But no harm your lookin’ in on him.”
Molly opened the door of the chamber and pointed to another directly across the hall.
“Miss Lydia and Mrs. Pryor—they are down on the veranda. You go down them stairs and straight ahead–”
Persis nodded, tapped lightly on her uncle’s door. Shubal peered out at her, his gray whiskers a disorderly fringe about his meager face. He waved her in, but set his finger to his lips in warning.
Here was another huge bed with netting falling from the tester above. Against the pillows which supported his head and shoulders (her uncle had to sleep nearly upright since his illness) the old man’s face was clay-white. His thin hair stood up like the crest of one of those strange birds sailors sometimes brought home, and his mouth hung open a little as he breathed in shallow puffs. His eyes were closed.
And it was the eyes which had and did make Uncle Augustin so alive as a person. Their bright, inquiring blue had been the first thing Persis had noticed when he had brought her to live with him after he retired from traveling in foreign parts.
Somehow she had never thought of him as being old, though he had been t
he eldest of a long family and her father was the youngest of the lot. Now when she looked at that pinched and weary face, the eyes shut, a stab of fear chilled her. She could not believe in a future which did not include Uncle Augustin—his wry humor, his keen wit, and his always interested mind. Though he had also had a reserve, so that her affection was born of duty and appreciation, not love.
Not many men of his age would have taken an orphaned niece of eight into their house. He had given her every comfort but had always kept her at a distance, forging a barrier Persis never tried to pierce.
However, her situation was hardly different from that of Sally Madison or Caroline Briggs, who had shared her studies at Miss Pickett’s Academy for Young Ladies and had been her closest friends. For both Sally and Caroline seemed to fear their fathers and hold all older gentlemen in awe.
But Uncle Augustin, as remote as he was, was always there. He shared no confidences, of course. She had been astounded when he had first told her of his decision to sail to the Bahamas. Though she had guessed that the situation of Rooke and Company, as a result of the fire, had been a worry which had brought on his first attack.
He had appeared to recover so well from that. Then he said a voyage to a warmer climate was all he needed to put him on his feet again. Persis suspected that more than his health had occupied his mind during the past few months. Mr. Hogue, the lawyer, had come so many times to the house.
And there had been that hunt through the attic storeroom for a certain box. Which, when found, contained little more than a packet of old letters. Yet Uncle Augustin had been delighted with those.
Shubal touched her arm and motioned to the door. She nodded and went out, the manservant following her. He had always been as silent as Uncle Augustin, but his lips were trembling now and he kept glancing back, which added to Persis’ uneasiness.
“He—he looks worse!” she blurted out.
“It’s the Lord’s good mercy he ain’t dead!” Shubal’s voice quavered. “His heart—the doctor fears for him—I know it. Though he said naught to me. You must speak with him, Miss Persis. Perhaps he’ll tell you the truth.”