“Did you tell your brothers where you were going?”
“Don’t have to, they’ve seen me out on the ice.”
Patience knows where we are, Lori thought.
She looked at the time. At least four hours until dark. Plus, it would probably take several more hours for anybody to reach them. Assuming anyone would volunteer to go to the Isle of Demons—in the dark.
The best Noah could hope for still meant staying buried in snow under the vehicle for six or seven hours. She knelt down beside him.
“Are you cold? Do you need anything?”
“Not too cold yet. But thirsty. There’s a bottle of Mountain Dew under the seat.”
She found the green plastic bottle under a rag and took off the cap; Noah took it with his free hand. She helped him put the bottle to his mouth.
“Better already,” he said, handing her the bottle. “The bad news is I can’t take a piss.”
She had to laugh in spite of herself.
“I made sandwiches. Are you hungry?”
“A little. But maybe wait an hour to stretch our provisions.”
He spoke calmly, as if he’d already accepted his fate. What choice did people here have? Mortal danger lurked everywhere. You could get lost in a snowstorm, capsize on the ocean, be stranded on an ice floe, drive into a moose, meet up with a polar bear, die of injuries before you could get to a distant hospital.
They don’t rebel against their conditions, Lori thought, they submit to them.
By contrast, she found that hard. She stomped impatiently back and forth like a tiger in a cage. What rotten luck! She was finally on the Isle of Demons and she couldn’t explore it.
She squatted down next to Noah.
“Are there any traces of Marguerite on the island?”
“Who?”
“Marguerite, the French countess or whatever she was.”
“Not that I know of. There are a few deserted houses and sheds on the other side. Folks used to fish here in summer.”
“I guess they weren’t afraid of demons.”
“Maybe they were, but they had to keep their families alive.”
A lull in the conversation.
She was aware they’d have to talk for hours to pass the time. It was difficult enough to chat with Noah, let alone when he was trapped under a snowmobile.
Or maybe not. Here, he was at her mercy. The idea terrified and invigorated her at the same time.
A question slipped past her lips before she’d really decided to ask it.
“Were you and Jacinta Parsons friends?”
He moved his head, and his helmet shifted.
“What?”
“Were you friends with Jacinta Parsons?”
“Why do you ask?”
There was no going back now.
“Somebody told me.”
It took him a while to answer.
“I knew her sister.”
“Her sister was your girlfriend?”
“Why do you want to know?”
Yes, why? What was Jacinta Parsons to her? Why was she interested in Noah’s relationship to her? What business did she have rooting around in old sorrows that people here didn’t want to remember, upsetting these folks who had welcomed her without pretense?
Because things like that didn’t simply go away. Because they left traces. Traces in people’s faces, in their eyes, in their body language. Eyes that looked the other way when Lori’s camera emerged, smiles that turned sad, backs bent as if under an invisible burden.
That’s what she couldn’t say to Noah. She’d have bared too much of herself. But what justification could she offer?
Noah saved her from her dilemma.
“I hear something,” he shouted.
“What?”
“A motor . . . can’t you hear it?”
She strained to listen into the stillness that a slight wind barely disturbed. Yes, there was something! A low drone.
“A snowmobile!” she shouted, her eyes scanning the surroundings.
Noah raised his free hand.
“Yes, got to be a snowmobile.”
“We need to make some noise!”
“Don’t have to. They’ll just follow our tracks.”
They stopped talking and concentrated on the approaching sound. All of a sudden, a snowmobile materialized at the foot of the slope and stopped.
“We need help!” Lori bellowed, waving her hands.
But the driver had already spotted them. He made a wide circle, gunned his machine, sped up the shoulder of the hill with a roar, and came to a halt on the flat part of the ridge. Then he dismounted and took off his helmet.
Archie.
He quickly sized up the situation.
“I’m so glad you’re here; it’s much too heavy for me,” Lori explained, but Archie ignored her.
“How’d this happen?” he asked Noah.
“Skis caught in some branches under the snow.”
“Anything broken?”
“Don’t think so.”
Archie turned to Lori.
“Come over to this side and hold on tight right here.” He pointed to the steering handle. “I’ll lift up the machine.”
Lori followed instructions. Archie took off his gloves, grabbed hold of the snowmobile with both hands, heaved, and stood it upright. Lori could hardly believe how strong he must be.
Noah moved his limbs, his face calm. Archie picked him up under the arms and helped him to his feet.
Noah put his full weight on his feet, took a few steps, and stretched his upper body. He took his helmet off and rolled his head in a circle. Archie watched him without uttering a word.
“Well?” Lori asked.
Noah shrugged.
“Everything’s OK, far as I can tell.”
Archie picked up the ax and started chopping the branches.
“Move it forward a little,” he said.
Noah got on the machine and started it. It made the curve without any trouble.
Archie’s face beamed with satisfaction. Without looking at Lori, he told him, “You go on ahead. Best she comes with me.”
It seemed like a power play to Lori, but she didn’t dare protest. Noah made no objection either.
Archie put on his gloves. “Now do you believe the island’s cursed? You should never come back.”
Lori just thanked him profusely for his speedy help.
As she got on the snowmobile behind Archie, she wondered how he’d gotten there so quickly. Had he seen them on the ice? Was he so convinced that something awful would happen on the Isle of Demons? Whatever the reason, Archie must have had a single thought: to go after them as swiftly as he could.
CHAPTER 13
Needless to say, news of the incident spread through Stormy Cove like wildfire. Lori avoided inquiring eyes by holing up inside, editing photos on her laptop. She especially didn’t want to see Patience because she suspected her neighbor might be miffed that she’d ignored her warning.
Even so, Patience popped in the next morning with freshly baked muffins.
“You must have gotten a proper scare,” she said with a look of concern. “So lucky that Archie found you.”
Lori made coffee and asked, “How did he know we needed help?”
Patience, in her element, proclaimed, “Archie knows everything.”
She eyed the can of condensed milk Lori was putting on the table.
“Do you have any milk powder? That’s what I take in my coffee. Most folks here do.”
“Really? No, sorry, I’ll get some right away.”
“So many new things to get used to, eh? By the way, did you know Noah broke three ribs? He was in the hospital yesterday because every breath hurts.”
Lori looked at her in surprise. “Is he still in there?”
“No. You can’t do anything for broken ribs; they’ve got to heal by themselves.”
She cast an inscrutable glance at Lori and then attended to her coffee.
“I
t’s not your fault—anything can happen on a snowmobile. Ches and me were out on the Barrens once when the motor conked out. We had to walk six miles in the snow to get home. It was almost dark when we got back.”
Lori studied the pale, round face before her and was awash in gratitude. No blame. No schadenfreude. No “I told you so.”
Instead, her neighbor said, “You should go visit him.”
“Is that how it’s done here?” Lori teased, but Patience was serious.
“He probably feels . . . He might have the idea you think badly of him.”
“Why should he? You said yourself it could happen to anybody.”
“Maybe men here are different from men in Vancouver,” Patience said, finishing her coffee. Then she stood up.
“People have to see that you stand by him.”
Now Lori understood. This was about Noah’s reputation in Stormy Cove. Other men might look on him as a failure.
She connected the dots. Noah wanted to show everybody that the Isle of Demons was a place like any other and that only cowards would be afraid to go there. And then he of all people had to be rescued there. So now it was up to Lori to restore Noah’s manly honor. It was, in a manner of speaking, required of her.
Patience had demonstrated great empathy in educating her about this.
She took her neighbor’s arm in a spontaneous gesture.
“Thank you for the muffins . . . and everything.”
Patience turned red and sped down the stairs.
Lori saw how her story had swept through the village when she went to buy wine. Mavis glanced up quickly and brushed her hair back on both sides with a lascivious motion, then tossed her head so that her hair framed her face again. Her lips were red and moist.
“Just so’s you know: he prefers white.”
Lori wanted to storm out of the store. She went back to the wine shelf to stall for time and take some deep breaths.
Lori, swallow your pride. You’ve got to live with these people for months. You have to rely on them. Chalk it up to an exotic experience, a grand adventure.
Mavis popped up beside her.
“I recommend Footloose; it’s not expensive and won a prize.”
Lori took her up on it.
Driving along the bay, she reflected that her day had been like a black-and-white photograph. The leaden gray of the sky gobbled up the few colors visible in the village. She recalled a vacation she’d taken in Mexico, the sparkling green and blue and orange and red. It’s funny how people in Mexico or Newfoundland don’t fight their environment; they mirror it.
She remembered reading that the houses used to be painted in red ochre made from soil mixed with cod oil. But Selina Gould had told her the vinyl facades in Stormy Cove were now white, because it was the cheapest color.
As white as the church, whose sign proclaimed a new piece of wisdom today: “If you can’t sleep, don’t count sheep—talk to the shepherd.”
Noah’s house was white too, and she noticed a silver-colored car parked in front. Just as she was considering coming back later, a slim woman came out the side door of the house and walked past Lori’s car, not without giving her a quick, curious look.
So I’m not the only lady caller, Lori thought.
She went in without knocking, wiped off her muddy boots, and found Noah at the sink, dish towel in hand.
“I thought you were in too much pain for things like that,” she remarked by way of a greeting, setting the wine bottle on the table. “Well, then, I’ll just take my present right back.”
Noah hesitated before flashing her a grin.
“Sure, the bottle, not the contents. I need it for a disinfectant.”
“I hear you’ve got three broken ribs?”
“Just one. It’s not so bad. Can’t do any heavy lifting. Have a seat. Glass of wine?”
“Why not. But be warned: when I drink wine, I can’t stop talking.”
Noah was about to open the bottle, but Lori took it away from him.
“You’re not supposed to work, and don’t you forget it.”
She filled two water cups—no wine glasses at Noah’s. Mavis was right: the wine wasn’t bad at all. And in Stormy Cove, no less, where they all drank beer or rum. Noah very calmly went back to the dishes. She was fascinated by the way he dried a perforated spoon. He pushed the towel into every little hole and over the spaces in between, then checked the spoon in the light from the window before going over the handle once again. Then he hung it on the wall where it would have dried just as well without the towel.
Lori took off her down jacket, then her thick sweater; her blouse was warm enough. Newfoundlanders heated their homes to beat hell. Noah had on a T-shirt with a frayed collar, she noted. She pointed to his glass.
“Don’t let the wine get warm; it’s pretty good.”
He sat down and took a swallow. His fingers rubbed at the Formica tabletop as if trying to remove a spot. Dark stubble graced his cheeks, chin, and neck. His voice sounded rough.
“Is this what they drink in your world? Movie stars, politicians, rich people?”
The newspaper article. Justin Timberlake.
“What else in the Cape Lone Courier caught your eye?”
“It said you had some pictures in Playboy.”
“Did you also see that they weren’t nudes but portraits of a young woman writer who’d published a short story in that issue?”
“Yeah, I know they weren’t nudes. Though nobody here would be upset by that. We don’t live on the moon.”
Lori had no illusions on that score, certainly not since that energetic threesome in Bobbie Wall’s B and B.
Lori thought she detected a mischievous tone in his voice, a change of mood she hadn’t counted on.
“To answer your question: white wine is supposed to be more to your taste, if I’ve been correctly informed.”
“Who informed you about what, exactly?”
“That you like white wine. One of your old girlfriends told me.”
He frowned. Then his face relaxed.
“Mavis, eh?”
Lori cocked an eyebrow, and his mouth expanded into a gentle smile.
“She was messing with you.”
“What? You don’t like white wine?”
“Not particularly. I’ll take beer.”
“Why would Mavis do a thing like that? I—”
“Newfie humor . . . playing a joke on somebody. Me and white wine. She’s going to get a lot of laughs with that story.”
Lori felt duped. “Sounds like I’m going to have to play my own pranks on a few people. We’ll soon see about that special sense of humor.”
He tapped his fingernails on the tabletop. Lori looked at his muscular lower arms with their bulging veins. She felt a sudden longing to be taken into those arms.
She was pleased when he took another drink and said, “Ah, it’s nothing. They’re sure to gossip about me anyway.”
“What do they say about you?”
He smiled again, but his lips trembled slightly.
“Aha, the wine’s taking effect! You’re starting to talk.”
“Certainly,” Lori replied, “somebody has to drink it since you’d rather have a beer.” She had revenge in mind. “Mavis told me that Una Gould had a soft spot for you and that you went out with Will Spence’s sister and then had two other girlfriends before you started flirting with Mavis. Oh, yes, and while we’re at it, Jacinta Parsons’s sister was in there too, or have I been misinformed?”
Noah rubbed his stubbled chin and stared at the table in silence. Then he got up and began to scour a dirty pan with a dishrag—to Lori’s mind, a completely inappropriate cleaning method. She’d have liked to shove a scrubbing brush into his hand. But it suited him, somehow, she reflected. He pitted gentle against tough.
Noah said nothing for some time. Her impulse was to get up and walk away.
But then the photographer in her took over. Sitting tight was half the battle. Patience. Ride out th
e suspense. Let pauses sink in. No eye contact. Don’t push. Just wait quietly.
“When you’re fishing on a big boat,” Noah began, “you’re five, six weeks at sea. Two, three days at home, and then it starts all over again. Aren’t many women who . . . go along with that. Particularly young women. They want to go out, to a dance, the pub—not mope around the house.”
He held the rag under the tap, wrung it out, rinsed the pan, and resumed his scrubbing.
“They meet another guy or move on—to the city, looking for work or they go to school, or train for something . . . And when you get back off the ship, your girl’s up and left. So you look for a new one.” He cleared his throat. “Ever since fisheries here have been having a rough time of it, girls don’t want to marry a fisherman anymore. They’ve got other options.”
He paused to inspect the pan. And to buy time.
“Sure there are girls who want me. But I don’t want just anybody. My brothers bug me and say I need somebody to do laundry and clean house and cook. But I don’t need a woman for that; I do it myself. I want somebody interesting.”
Lori poured herself another glass. It dawned on her that this guy was revealing things about himself that he’d kept carefully buried.
“Una . . .” He snorted. “Una chased everybody. Really. All the people around here can confirm that. Just the way she was.”
Lori moved her glass in little circles on the table. She bit back the opinion that Una’s behavior might have been seen differently if she’d been a man.
“You knew Jacinta’s sister.”
“Yes, Glowena.”
“How old were you two?” Lori softened her voice, not wanting him to feel interrogated, but aware this might be her best chance to learn about that time.
“Glowena was seventeen, I was a year older.” He turned around and leaned back against the kitchen counter, his hands grasping the edge. “I really liked Glowena. We . . . we spent a lot of time together. She was always in a good mood, not like me.”
He glanced over at Lori, who listened, impassive.
“When Jacinta disappeared, then . . . then everything changed. Glowena pulled away. Worried about her family. Hardly ever saw her. Even when we were together, we weren’t very happy, as you can imagine. Glowena blamed herself for Jacinta.”
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