by John Saul
Alicia Mayhew was one of the first to arrive at the mansion, but as she brought her car to a halt on the lawn, she found herself strangely reluctant to go inside, for as long as she remained outside, she could still hold onto a tiny, fraying thread of hope that perhaps Jennifer was all right after all. But at last, steeling herself, she walked up the steps and crossed the veranda.
The front door stood open, almost as if to welcome expected guests into the house, but as Alicia stepped into the entry hall, she froze, her eyes fixed on the bloodstained floor, now lit by a floodlight that had been plugged into the generator beneath the stairs.
A thick, orange extension cord snaked up the staircase, and Alicia, a strange detachment spreading through her mind, found herself following it.
She came to the third floor and paused outside the open double doors. Another floodlight stood in the center of the ballroom, its garish brilliance filling the room with a cold and shadowless light. As Alicia blinked in the glaring brightness, she heard a low moan and a muffled sob.
Holding her emotions in check, she stepped into the ballroom.
Even while two state troopers worked taking pictures of the macabre scene in the ballroom, Edith Sanders, her face streaked with tears, was already kneeling on the floor next to Kerry, her arms around her son as if she were trying to lend her own warmth to his cold body. Hal Sanders, his eyes vacant, his expression slack with shock and grief, stood next to his wife, one hand resting gently on her shoulder.
Alicia had started to turn away, uncomfortable at intruding upon their grief, when her eyes found Jennifer, sprawled out on the floor, her eyes wide as she gazed sightlessly up at the ceiling. Alicia felt her blood chill as she looked at her daughter, and then her knees buckled beneath her. She would have collapsed to the floor if Will Hempstead’s arms hadn’t reached out to her, supporting her as he eased her into a chair.
“I’m sorry,” he breathed. “I wish you hadn’t come here. There’s no reason why any of you had to see this.”
“Sorry?” Alicia echoed, her voice bleak. “If you’d listened to me this afternoon—” But then she fell silent, unable to go on.
“I know,” Hempstead finally said as the silence in the room grew heavy. “But I couldn’t imagine that Marguerite could do anything like this.”
Alicia, whose eyes had remained fixed on her daughter’s corpse, slowly turned to face the police chief. “Why?” she asked. “Why did it happen?”
Hempstead shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said at last. “And I’m not sure any of us will ever know.”
Alicia’s eyes hardened, and when she spoke again, her voice was bitter. “Where is she?” she asked.
Hempstead licked his lips nervously. “In her room,” he said. “Frank Weaver’s with her. She’s been sitting there most of the night. She hasn’t spoken at all since I took her out of here. She’s just sitting there, staring off into space. I—well, I’m not sure she even knows what happened.”
“Doesn’t know?” Alicia asked hollowly, her suddenly dull eyes scanning the carnage in the room. “How can someone do this and not know they’ve done it?”
Once again Hempstead shook his head. “I can’t tell you, Alicia,” he replied. Then he drew her to her feet. “I’m taking you downstairs,” he said. “I’ll find someone to take you home—”
“No,” Alicia interrupted. “I want to stay here with Jennifer. I can’t stand her being here like this, all by herself. Please?” she asked, her eyes pleading with Hempstead. “Let me stay with her.”
Hempstead hesitated, then nodded, and a moment later Alicia Mayhew, her eyes glistening with tears, eased herself onto the floor and silently took her daughter’s cold hand in her own.
An hour later the ambulances were gone, one of them carrying the bodies of Kevin Devereaux and Ruby Carr, the other bearing Kerry Sanders and Jennifer Mayhew. The crowd on the lawn in front of the mansion had fallen silent as each of the bodies was borne out of the mansion. A few minutes later a ripple of whispered words passed from one pair of lips to another.
Marguerite Devereaux was being brought out of the house.
No one was certain what to expect, and once more a silence fell over them. And then the front door to Sea Oaks opened one more time, and Will Hempstead stepped out onto the veranda.
On his arm was Marguerite.
She stood still on the veranda for a moment, the rays of the rising sun falling full on her face.
Her hair, pulled back and coiled perfectly into the elegant French twist that she had worn for years, glistened brightly in the sunlight, and her face, free of any trace of a wrinkle, seemed far younger than her nearly fifty years. She was wearing a formal gown of pure white, with a cascade of sparkling rhinestones swirling over its bodice. The full skirt, overlaid with a cloud of tulle, dropped to her ankles, and from beneath the skirt the toes of white silk shoes peeped out.
But as she gazed out over the crowd of people she had known all her life, her eyes were vacant and empty.
“It’s time to go, Miss Marguerite,” Hempstead whispered so softly that nobody but she could hear him. She hesitated only a split second, then took his arm and, her step even and graceful, moved serenely across the veranda.
She paused, curtseyed low, and with Will Hempstead at her side, moved down the steps and across the lawn to the waiting police car.
Emmaline Carr closed the door of her tiny cabin in the clearing behind Wither’s Pond and began making her way along the path to the road that would take her into the village. She, like most of the people in Devereaux, had been up all night long. She’d first walked into the village several hours ago, when the wailing of sirens had rent the peace that followed the storm.
She’d known what it meant at once, for all that day—ever since Jeff Devereaux and Toby Martin had come to visit her—she’d had a certain feeling that at last the evil seeds that Helena Devereaux had sown so many years ago had finally borne fruit. She’d known that her sister was dead, but even in her own mind she didn’t blame Marguerite. As far as Emmaline was concerned, Marguerite was just as much a victim as Ruby, and as she’d walked toward the village, all she felt for Marguerite was pity.
She’d moved silently through the crowd gathered at the mainland end of the causeway, listening quietly as bits and pieces of news filtered through—coming over the radio from the island to the state police car, then spreading through the crowd. As dawn began to break, and the stream of automobiles moved out to the island, she had turned away, returning to her cabin to sit alone and think.
Finally she’d made up her mind.
She’d changed her clothes, putting on her best dress—the black one with the white collar and the mother-of-pearl buttons—tucked her good shoes into her large handbag, and slipped her feet into a pair of rubber boots. Then, as the sun came up and the heat of the morning began, she started toward town again.
Water dripped from the moss that covered the trees, and everywhere wisps of steam rose from the sodden ground. Emmaline could hear the brush moving as small animals abandoned the protection of their burrows to forage in the undergrowth, and occasionally she saw a snake slithering out of her path. She moved stolidly onward, ignoring the aching of her legs and the tiredness in her bones.
At last she came to the tiny clinic—only five rooms carved out of what had once been the plantation offices, but which had long since been divided into small stores, most of which lay vacant. She paused on the sidewalk for a moment, taking off her muddy boots and putting on the sturdy black shoes she wore only to church on Sunday. Leaving her boots outside, she stepped into the waiting room of the clinic.
Jeff Devereaux, his clothes filthy and his face smudged with dirt and tears, sat alone on a sagging vinyl-covered sofa, his eyes fixed on the floor. Emmaline watched him for a moment, then moved across the room and settled herself on the sofa, slipping her arm around the boy.
Jeff looked up, but there was no surprise in his eyes when he saw Emmaline. “She killed them,�
�� he said, his voice desolate. “She killed my dad, and Ruby, and Kerry, and Jennifer.”
“I know,” Emmaline crooned, drawing him closer. “But it warn’t her, not really. It was your grandmother that did it, and you mustn’t hate your auntie.”
Jeff’s chin trembled. “But she did kill them,” he said. “And she almost killed Julie too. I hate her. I hate her, and I hope they kill her for what she did.”
“There, there,” Emmaline murmured, hiding her own anger in an effort to comfort him. “You mustn’t say that. You have to forgive people for their sins, because sometimes they just can’t help themselves. And that was the way your auntie was. She just couldn’t help herself.”
Jeff bit his lip, but then gave in to his tears once more, burying his face in Emmaline’s bosom. She sat silently, holding him and gently patting his back until his sobs eased, then hugged him tight for a moment. “You stay here,” she said. “I’m gonna find out how your sister is and then I’ll be back. And don’t you worry, you hear me? ‘Cause from now on I’m gonna take care of you.”
She rose to her feet, and Jeff, nodding mutely, stayed where he was. Emmaline went to the partition that separated the waiting room from the office and rapped sharply on the glass. A harried-looking nurse glanced up from a typewriter, then slid the partition open. “Unless it’s an emergency—” she began, but Emmaline shook her head.
“I need to know about Julie Devereaux,” she said.
The nurse looked at Emmaline uncertainly, her brows gathering into a doubtful frown. “I’m sorry, Emmaline, but since you’re not a relative …” Her voice trailed off, and she shrugged helplessly.
Emmaline’s eyes narrowed. “I’m her nanny,” she said, her tone almost daring the nurse to challenge her. “She and the boy ain’t got nobody else but me, and I mean to find out what’s goin’ on with her.”
The nurse still hesitated. Emmaline’s tone softened. “Please, miss,” she said. “You know who I am, and you know my sister did for Miss Marguerite all her life. And she raised Mr. Kevin up, too, till Miz Helena sent him away. But Ruby’s dead now, and there ain’t anybody else to do for the little ones. Please?”
Still the nurse hesitated, then seemed to come to a decision. “Of course,” she said, getting up from the desk and coming around to open the door for Emmaline. “She’s in here,” she went on, leading Emmaline down the hall. “Try not to disturb her. She woke up a few minutes ago, but I think she went back to sleep.” Then, for the first time, she smiled at Emmaline. “You’re the only one who’s come, you know,” she said. “Everyone else in town—”
“Everyone else has their own worries right now,” Emmaline finished for her. “And they going to blame the children, just because their name be Devereaux. I mean to see to it these children aren’t hurt any more than they already been. Ain’t much, but it’s what Ruby would have wanted me to do.”
The nurse held the door open, and Emmaline stepped through. “I’ll speak to the doctor,” she said as she closed the door. “I’m sure he’ll understand.” But as the nurse moved away from the little room where Julie lay, she wasn’t sure Emmaline had even heard her words. The old woman was already bent over Julie’s sleeping form, her fingers gently stroking the unconscious girl’s forehead.
The doctor came in a few minutes later. Emmaline, sitting close by the bed, her gnarled old hand covering Julie’s smooth young fingers, looked up, her eyes silently asking her question.
“She’s going to be all right,” the doctor said softly. “Both her hips are broken, but we can fix that. She’ll take a long time to recover and need a lot of help.”
“I can give her that,” Emmaline replied. “You just let me know what needs to be done and—” She fell silent as she felt a tiny motion beneath her fingers. The doctor immediately forgotten, she looked down at Julie’s face just as the girl’s eyes blinked, then came open. Julie looked up at Emmaline, her eyes twin pools of dark terror.
“It’s all right,” Emmaline whispered, bending her head low to whisper in Julie’s ear. “It’s all over now. You gonna be all right. Emmaline’s here to see to that.”
Julie’s jaw worked for a moment, and she managed to speak, her voice croaking softly out of her dry throat. “But who … who are you?”
“I’m Emmaline,” the old woman replied. “Didn’t Ruby ever tell you about me?” Julie was still for a moment, then her head moved a fraction of an inch. “Well, don’t you worry ‘bout that. Alls that matters now is that I’m here.”
There was a sound in the hall outside the room then, and Emmaline looked up. Her dark eyes narrowed to slits as she recognized Marguerite Devereaux sitting in a wheelchair, Will Hempstead behind her. “What she doin’ here?” Emmaline demanded, her voice low, but heavy with indignation. “After what she done, why ain’t she in jail?”
“She doesn’t know what happened,” Hempstead replied. His attention shifted to the doctor next to Julie’s bed. “She doesn’t know anything anymore. We have to keep her here until they can send a team down from the hospital in Beaufort.”
Bitter words formed on Emmaline’s lips, but before she could speak them, Marguerite’s empty eyes suddenly seemed to focus. As her gaze narrowed, a hard glint of anger flashed briefly.
“Ruby!” she said, her mother’s voice rasping from her throat, her head jerking angrily toward the doctor. “Who is this man? What is he doing here? How many times have I told you that Marguerite mustn’t have any visitors?”
Emmaline said nothing, for Julie’s hand had tightened on her own, and when she looked down, Julie had twisted her head so that she was staring at her aunt. Her face was ashen, but the terror in her eyes was suddenly gone.
As Julie’s eyes locked with her aunt’s, her expression slowly began to change. She frowned, as if something were happening inside her that she didn’t understand. And then, so quickly that Emmaline wasn’t sure she’d seen it at all, Julie’s eyes flashed with a hatred so pure it seemed as though the room itself had chilled. Emmaline shivered, but when she looked back at Julie, the girl’s expression seemed merely puzzled.
At last Julie’s head dropped back to the pillow and she stared once again up at the ceiling. “Just take her away,” she whispered. “I don’t want to see her anymore. Please …”
As Julie’s eyes closed, Emmaline turned back to Marguerite. Her forehead, too, was furrowed with uncertainty, and there was an oddly curious look in her eyes, as if, deep within her, something was awakening, or a memory was stirring. But the vacant look of a moment ago was gone.
She remembers, Emmaline thought to herself as Will Hempstead wheeled Marguerite on down the hall. She remembers it all, and she knows what she did.
Will Hempstead pushed the wheelchair into the next room, where the nurse stood waiting. But as he started to ease the chair through the door, Marguerite put out her hand to stop him, her eyes searching his beseechingly. “No,” she said, her voice once more her own. “I—I can’t stay here. I have to go home. There’s so much I have to do. Mama needs me, and there are my girls to think of. I can’t leave my girls, you know. I just can’t!”
Will Hempstead said nothing, a hard knot of sorrow constricting his throat.
“It’s all right, Miss Devereaux,” the nurse said. “We have a lovely room for you, and we’re going to take such good care of you.” Gently removing Marguerite’s hand from the doorframe, she pushed the chair into the room and helped Marguerite out of it. Her fingers working quickly, she unzipped the back of Marguerite’s dress, and as the gown crumpled to the floor, slipped a robe over her shoulders. “Now, let’s get into bed,” she crooned, easing Marguerite onto the metal hospital bed, and pulling the sheet over her. “Doctor will be in in a minute, and everything will be fine.” She gestured Will Hempstead back into the hall, then pulled the door closed behind her, never noticing that even as she put Marguerite into the bed, the other woman’s eyes, glistening with tears, never left the ball gown lying in a shapeless mass on the floor.
&nbs
p; Five minutes later, when the doctor slipped into Marguerite’s room to administer a sedative, it was already too late.
The belt of her robe knotted tightly around her broken neck, Marguerite’s body swung from the sprinkler pipe that ran across the room just below the ceiling. A few inches above the ruined dress, her feet dangled helplessly, still clad in the white silk dancing slippers.
EPILOGUE
Jeff Devereaux paused at the end of the causeway, sitting in the small convertible that had been Julie’s present for him on his eighteenth birthday. He gazed in something like wonder at the mansion that still dominated the island, though now it was far from being the only residence there. In fact, there were more than a hundred condominiums dotting the shore now, clustered in low groupings that blended well into the stands of pines that still remained after the golf course had been carved out of the undergrowth. The swamp had been tamed, turned into a series of water traps on the golf course, and a small creek connected the chain of ponds, eventually draining into the sea at the south end of the island, where a marina was now in the process of being built. Even from here Jeff could hear the rumble of the dredging machinery as a cove was cut to protect the small craft that would one day be moored there from the tropical storms that swept in from the sea each year, threatening the island but never destroying it.
Indeed, it seemed to Jeff as if nothing could ever destroy the island, and now, ten years after that final night of terror when the pieces of his aunt’s life had shattered forever, he was no longer even certain he wanted the island destroyed.
But it hadn’t always been that way.
When Emmaline Carr had finally taken him back to Sea Oaks, he’d shrunk away from the house, his whole body shivering with fear. But Emmaline had led him inside, talking to him constantly, her low voice reassuring him as she led him from room to room, showing him that nothing of his aunt or his grandmother remained.