It’s too late, he’s dead, and there’s nothing to do about it now.
“I’d better bury him,” she said.
But she made no move to do that.
After all, the Pikes or Spikes or whatever hellish creatures had done this would probably come back and relished their great victory. Great warriors they were, with their triumph over gentle and lonely Gerald Ainsley. If she cut down and buried the display of their prowess, they would know that someone else was on the Key.
After long moments, she remounted her bicycle and turned her back on her dead friend.
It was only logical.
“Please, Mom? Please?”
“No.”
“Please, Vic? Please?” Tessa Kai echoed Dancy’s childish plea, her eyes twinkling.
“No.”
“Mama Vic,” Dancy sighed, “you’re just no fun anymore.”
Victorine started to snap at her. But seeing her pretty heart-shaped face upturned, her sparkling blue eyes, her face alight, she thought, Isn’t this what I’m trying to do? Make her and Mother happy?
So why should I insist that they be clench-jawed and strung piano-wire tight like I am? Isn’t that why I didn’t tell them about Gerald, why I’ve tried to minimize . . . everything?
Still . . .
“Dancy, I know it’s hard. But I just don’t think it’s a good idea for you and Mother to go outside yet,” Victorine replied as casually as she could.
“But it’s such a beautiful day, and so warm! And it’s clear, so clear we can see to the Yucatan peninsula, practically! We’d hear those nasty Pikes or Spikes coming hours away.” Dancy’s pert nose wrinkled. “And I swear I could smell the Pikes as soon as they came over the bridge.”
Victorine frowned.
Dancy drooped. “All right, Mother, I understand. But do you suppose we could eat out on the balcony? It’d be almost like a picnic.”
“You know the sea gulls would swarm. We might as well hang a sign out on the balcony.”
Defeated, Dancy nodded and turned away.
Tessa Kai stepped in front of her daughter, glaring up at her, bristling. “Victorine Flynn Thayer, you are a good mother to Dancy and a good daughter to me. But I am still your mother, and I’m pulling rank this time. We’ve been imprisoned in this apartment for almost three weeks now. We need to get out.”
Victorine was a strong-willed woman, but she was not in the habit of disobeying her mother. She had always honored her parents, and besides that, she did respect her mother’s judgment. Rarely did Tessa Kai disagree with Victorine’s decisions, but when she did, Victorine had always obeyed her.
Now, though she felt thoughtless rebellion, she did consider the circumstances. Dancy had been looking—not panicky, or frightened out of her wits—but just pinched and pale. Her wide eyes seemed too big for her face. Dancy had always been an affectionate child, but since the blackout she had been positively clingy to her mother and grandmother. Today, when Tessa Kai had suggested that they go down to the beach for a picnic, Dancy had been more animated than at any time in the last three weeks. Some semblance of a pale pink blush had colored her cheeks, and her eyes had sparkled.
Victorine reluctantly admitted to herself that maybe such signs of life in her daughter were worth the risk. “All right, you two tyrants,” she finally muttered.
Dancy grabbed Tessa Kai’s hands and they whirled around, laughing. Victorine grumbled on, “But listen to me, little girls. There are some conditions.”
“All right, grumpy old bear,” Tessa Kai teased. “Anything to get out of this place and in the sun and sand and sea!”
“No swimming!” Victorine ordered. “It’s warm today, but the water will be cold, and we certainly don’t need to get sick!”
“But Mom, these birdbaths we’re taking—” Dancy begged.
“No swimming,” Victorine said flatly. “You’ll dress warmly, and you’ll wear two pairs of thick socks and your Wellies. No wading, either.”
“She’s right about that, Dancy-doodle,” Tessa Kai said lightly. “The sun’s warm, but the water, and that light north wind coming in, is cold. No swimming and no wet feet.”
“All right,” Dancy grumbled.
“And both of you do me the courtesy of not tramping all over the beach,” Victorine said, with mock sternness. “We can take short walks, but only below the tide line.”
“But why, Mom?” Dancy asked.
Victorine’s face fell. Now that she’d decided to take this risk, she was determined to make it as much lighthearted fun for Dancy as she could.
Tessa Kai, with a quick glance at the deep worry on her daughter’s face, spared her. “Because, Miss Fit, if those stinking Pikes see your tiny little footprints all around the condo, they might decide there’s a fairy around here dancing in the light of the full moon, and come looking for her.”
Dancy’s eyes grew wide and stark again, but only for a moment. “Oh, I see,” she said quietly, then smiled again. “It’s all right, Mother. Don’t worry. I’m not scared.”
Victorine smiled weakly back at her, but Tessa Kai thought, I wish you weren’t so scared, Vic . . . Of the three of us, you are both the strongest and the weakest. I’ve never understood this in you . . . until now.
“I’m hungry,” Dancy announced, pulling the sleeve of Tessa Kai’s sweater. “And I’m thirsty, and I want to go outside and play!”
“Dress first, like I told you,” Victorine said. “Then we’ll eat, drink, and be merry!”
Dancy dashed off to her bedroom, and Tessa Kai smiled as she watched her. “Victorine, you are a wonderful daughter, and I love you with all my heart. But that child has been my delight. She’s filled my life with joy, and the only sadness she’s brought me is that your father didn’t live to see her and know her.”
Victorine was unaccustomed to such outward expression of emotions from her mother. Both of her parents were warm and loving in their demeanor, but neither of them was very physically affectionate. Rarely did they express emotions in words, though Victorine had always known a security in their love and support. Because her ex-husband had been a touchy-feely sort of man, Victorine had taught herself to be more physically affectionate both with him and Dancy. But still, she had never felt comfortable talking about her emotions, either good ones or bad ones, and she felt awkward now. “I’ll go on down and build the fire and take the food,” she murmured, dropping her eyes. “Do you think you and Dancy can manage the basket and blanket?”
Tessa Kai nodded, smiling up at her daughter with understanding and a hint of regret. “Of course. I’m old, not crippled.”
“You’re not old, you’re seasoned,” Vic retorted automatically, an old joke between them. “And make sure Dancy dresses warmly.”
“Yes, Drill Sergeant,” Tessa Kai responded.
Victorine dressed, marveling again at the oddities that her mother had stashed over the years. Tessa Kai had come up with a box of old cable-knit fishermen’s sweaters, not old enough to be made of natural fabrics like cotton or wool, but still bulky and floppy and warm. With an undershirt, they were usually more than enough for the mild winters on the coast. Almost smiling, Victorine put on two pairs of thick socks and pulled on her “Wellies.” Her father, while traveling in England, had bought several pairs of the sturdy rubber boots, which had been long absent from America’s cyber-stores. Even though her father had died seventeen years ago, Victorine still missed him. Her mother’s words about him—he had died in a helicopter accident—had wrenched Victorine, though she hadn’t shown it. She’d been pregnant with Dancy when Victor Thayer died, though she didn’t find out she was expecting until three weeks after the accident. It had been a terrible time for her and her mother, so Dancy’s arrival had indeed been like the only light in their lives. Sometimes it still seemed that way, especially to Victorine. It had never occurred to her, and did not even now, that she, her mother, and Dancy had formed a tight circle that had excluded her husband, Indie Galloway. By the time he des
erted Victorine, he was barely a part of her life or thoughts.
Her thoughts now, however, were centered on the logistics of having a picnic on the beach when murderous gangs might be lurking around. The sheer insanity of the situation didn’t escape Victorine’s notice, but with a tight control she dealt with the problem as if it were what to serve at a dinner party for six third ministers, or how to decorate a condo for a high commissar and his consort’s month-long Diversionary Retreat.
Grabbing the two heavy iron Dutch ovens that Tessa Kai had always used to cook, her backpack bulging, Victorine headed down to the beach. Before she did anything, she took a pair of fine binoculars she’d stolen from the deserted commissary and checked out the beach. The binoculars were hardly needed. The day was so clear and fine she could see for miles both east and west. Cautiously she went out on the road and checked up and down. There was not a sign of a living human being. As had so often happened in the last days, the reality of their isolation made Victorine feel a frisson of dread, but she smothered it quickly. Businesslike, she went to the maintenance room and got her supplies.
Returning to the beach, she smoothed out a nice level place with a shovel to put the blanket and build a fire. Then she built a shallow pit and ringed it with old bricks. With mathematical precision, she laid out a fire of odd pieces of driftwood, old dune fencing, pieces of wooden pallets that she’d scrounged. Frowning with disgust, she laid what looked like ugly pockmarked pieces of red mortar on top of the wood.
“Stupid Proto-Syn lava rocks, my eye,” she grumbled to herself. “No telling what they really are. Melt and smolder more than glow.” Still, they did retain more heat than small pieces of old dried wood that burned fast and hot and then were gone. The fire lit easily. She placed a piece of a lacy wrought-iron fire screen over it, then set the two pots and an old tin coffeepot on top with satisfaction.
Tessa Kai and Dancy came running up, Tessa Kai breathlessly protesting and Dancy teasing her. “I’m so hungry, hurry up, T. K.!”
“It’s not time to eat yet, little bird, so you just go amuse yourself for a bit,” Tessa Kai retorted. “Shoo! You wanted to come outside, now here you are! Run and play!”
Dancy turned in a circle, twice, her arms held out and her face lifted up. Then she ran along the beach, waving her arms at the precocious sea gulls that were already gathering. “I’m here, I’m here, and I’ve got a treat for you, you rascals . . .”
Victorine frowned. She didn’t want Dancy going too far.
“Relax, Vic, you’ll be able to see her even if she runs five miles,” Tessa Kai declared. “What a perfectly glorious day! Let the child breathe, for heaven’s sake.”
Victorine sank down on the blanket, sighing. “I know, I’ll try.”
Tessa Kai lifted the top of one of the pots, sniffed suspiciously, and asked Victorine, “You didn’t do anything to this, did you?”
“No, Mother, I didn’t even open it up to see what it was,” Victorine answered, with amusement. Victorine was an indifferent cook at best, while Tessa Kai was a throwback to the days when women cooked from scratch, never knowing exactly how much of anything they used, and everything they cooked was wonderful. Victorine’s cooking was the only thing Tessa Kai ever reproved her about, for Dancy’s sake, which was unnecessary because Tessa Kai cooked for the three of them. She always had.
“Good,” Tessa Kai grunted, unaware of Victorine’s dry amusement at the not-so-subtle criticism. “This—this—dog food is going to be bad enough as it is.”
“It’ll be wonderful, as your cooking always is, Mother. It surely does smell good.”
“Hmph.”
Victorine shaded her eyes to watch Dancy. She did look wonderful, like an art montage on Cyclops. Dancy was wearing Victorine’s bright red jacket with her red Wellingtons, and she was surrounded by hundreds of sea gulls, that wheeled and cried as she threw them old bread crumbs and pieces of stale crackers. As far as the eye could see, an empty white beach stretched behind her, with a cheerful blue sky and the luscious azure-and-jade sea framing her. The sight filled Victorine with such fierce longing to protect her, and sorrow for the hardships and dangers they were facing, that she almost choked.
For perhaps the thousandth time since the blackout, fear and panic rose in Victorine. What in the world am I going to do? How do I handle this? What’s the best thing for us? Her eyes fell on the piece of fire screen that she was using for a grill. She’d taken it from a condominium complex down the beach, between Summer Sea and Gerald’s White Dunes. It was named Perdido Quay—Lost Key—and it was an elegant high-rise with twelve floors. Lost Key was closed except for the three months of summer, when the first ministers and congressmen and foreign heads of state sometimes vacationed there. It had never been as popular as Summer Sea, however, mainly because there had never been a concierge as dedicated to maintaining the facility and providing the quality of service as Victorine did at Summer Sea.
But the twelfth-floor penthouses are marvelous . . . and they have fireplaces, Victorine reasoned. Cooking . . . it’s such a terrible hardship. They’d been building small cooking fires in one of the vacant units between Victorine’s condo and Tessa Kai’s. It had Mexican tile, and Victorine had simply outlined a circle on the floor with bricks. They opened the balcony doors to let the smoke out. When it was visible, Victorine had to stand and fan vigorously to dissipate it so the telltale smudges couldn’t be seen against the clear skies.
Fireplace . . . you could still see the smoke . . . unless . . . I wonder about some kind of turbine on top of the chimney, that would turn with the heat?
Victorine frowned darkly. But Tessa Kai . . . how in the world would she cope with twelve flights of stairs? Seven is bad enough! Anger grew in her then, an aimless but savage fury for what had happened to them. Their lives had been turned upside down, they’d been deprived of everything: a sense of security that had always seemed to be their birthright, the essentials of life, freedom from personal danger, even the freedom to go outside on their own property. It was outrageous, and Victorine could hardly contain the bitterness she felt.
Glancing at her daughter’s dark face, Tessa Kai said quietly, “You know, Victorine, there’s something that I’ve been meaning to talk to you about for the last few weeks.”
With difficulty, Victorine pulled herself out of the blackness of her thoughts. “Oh? What’s that, Mother?” she asked politely.
“It’s about the Lord,” Tessa Kai said, not without discomfort. “You know that your father was a much stronger Christian than I. And after he died, well, I just sort of . . .” She shrugged, then spread her hands. They were old hands, but still lithe and pretty. “But now, since these terrible days have come, I’ve come back to Him. It was hard. I felt”—she smiled with irony—“sort of like the soldier in the foxhole. You know what I mean. Like: ‘I know I’ve been ignoring You for years now, Lord, but now I’m in trouble, so I want to come back so You can take care of me.’”
Victorine dropped her eyes. “I see.”
Tessa Kai took a deep breath. “Do you?” She waited.
Shifting restlessly, Victorine muttered, “I don’t know. What’s your point, Mother?”
“The point is, do you see? Do you know what the Lord’s answer to my shamefaced little confession was?”
Finally Victorine answered, “No, I don’t suppose I do.”
Tessa Kai smiled. “It was just two words: ‘Welcome home.’”
Victorine said nothing, and still didn’t meet her mother’s steady gaze. She was making meaningless little tick marks in the soft white sand.
“That’s all He’s ever said to me. I mean, that’s all the words I’ve heard clearly in my head, I guess you’d say. But I know He’s real, Victorine, and I know the Holy Spirit is in my heart, and in my soul, and in my very breath. So when I tell you that I’m not frightened, that’s what I mean. I’m not. I—I—worry, I suppose you’d say, and I’m concerned, and I try to—figure out how to—fix things. But I’m n
ot afraid, not at all.”
Victorine was quiet for a long time. Then, in a voice so low and strained that Tessa Kai could barely hear her, she asked, “And Dancy? Is she afraid, or is she—like you?”
Softly Tessa Kai answered, “Victorine, I think you don’t understand Dancy, much as I’ve never completely understood you. There’s nothing wrong with that, you know. It doesn’t mean that I love you, or you love Dancy, any less. In fact, sometimes I think that means that the love you have for someone you can’t always comprehend is deeper, more dedicated, than the love you have for someone with whom you have a perfect rapport. Anyway, to answer your question, Dancy is at peace. Yes, she’s afraid, in a way, because she’s just a child and doesn’t have the mental stamina and stability that the simple process of living gives an adult. But still, Victorine, she has a very close relationship with Christ. There’s something even I can’t quite . . .”
Now Victorine looked up sharply. “What do you mean?”
Tessa Kai frowned, then dismissed her words. “Oh, nothing, Vic, you know I think she hung the moon and stars. Anyway, what I wanted to say to you is that I’m worried about you.”
“About me? Why? I’m doing just fine.”
“Are you?” Tessa Kai said mildly. “Well, anyway, there’s just one other thing I wanted to say to you. It’s sort of a message, I guess you’d say, from the Lord.”
“Oh, Mother, please—” Victorine was now embarrassed.
“No, let me finish. It’s just this: Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.” She finished awkwardly, “I wrote it down for you. Here.”
Victorine took the plain white sheet of paper and stuck it in her pants pocket. “Thank you, Mother.”
“You’re welcome, Victorine. And I love you very much.”
The Beginning of Sorrows Page 36