Tracing the muscles on his chest with a finger, she thought aloud, “The face of the man on the bank, the one who shoots my mother is that of the Reverend Thawley. The man I always believed to be my father.
"What if this isn't a dream but a memory? Mama had been trying to get me to safety.” The words 'go to the lights baby' echoed in her mind.
"On the boat,” Rizal shifted, laying her back against the down-filled mattress, sliding a leg over hers, protecting her body from her thoughts, “Hooker told me that your father sent you here as an enticement to our native vampire. That ‘like calls to like.'” She gasped and tried to sit up, but he pressed her back against the cushions. “You were to be used as a lure even if it meant your death.” He palmed the side of her face lovingly.
"I'm safe in the light,” Margaret smiled watching the banked embers in his gaze warm. “You are my light."
"Then it is time for you to vanish as your mother did."
Chapter Eleven
When the insects boiled out of the dark horizon, Sir Joseph lit a torch in hopes of keeping them away from the rough campsite. He hadn't expected to see glints of reflected light in the distance. Looking at Margaret's sleeping form, he hoped that she was low enough to the ground to emerge relatively unscathed, at least until his return. He promised himself he wouldn't get carried away a second night in a row. It was embarrassing enough, a peer of the realm chasing will o’ the wisps all night long while the girl he was supposed to be watching walked the country lane searching for their missing steed.
Tonight—tonight he vowed to get things right. With the time it took the poor girl to arrive and his own scheduled trip to India, he only had this night and perhaps another to indulge his long-time friend's insanity. If nothing happened, the way he suspected it wouldn't, then no harm would be done the girl beyond a few sleepless nights in distressing places. The girl would simply be shipped back home with his letter attesting to her overwhelming normalcy and the accompanying missive to the Society reaffirming what they all long suspected, Skertchley had been led a merry chase by the locals.
Stalking through the high grass as silently as a man of his age, bearing and size could, he admitted the truth to himself. He had used all of the props from Skertchley's accounts to show his willingness to be tempted, to buy into the myth and last night he suspected his “guide” had been only too happy to lead him astray in the woods. Why else would poor Margaret have been left to retrieve the startled pony, an animal trained by the very People of the Horse to stand by his master?
Last night he played the fool. This night he'd either catch his tormentors in the act or sit and watch the poor girl sleep on her meager travel rug. He risked a look back, she was still deeply asleep, unmoving in the dark. Guilt crawled through his system as he found the edge of the creek bank in the dark. Ahead he could make out the sound of voices but not what was being said. Nervously, his fingers fiddled with the hilt of the kris at his side. What he wouldn't give for one of those vaunted American revolvers that had gained such popularity, but no, he'd thought only of blending with the natives, and selected a Filipino blade.
A sudden disturbance and muffled cry caught his attention and he startled, moving forward towards the sound. Standing in the stream was his “guide” Kanani, holding a funny-looking lantern and wearing a most ludicrous getup of white and black greasepaint. Before the words “ah ha!” could even register in his brain, he noticed the silent shadowy forms surrounding them both. Native freedom fighters, the ones the Americans had warned him about, daubed in more subtle camouflage than stage paint, stood silent, holding assorted weapons, some ancient scimitars, others crude field tools, others gleaming and new, like the sharp barbed bow tip currently aimed at Kanani's throat.
"Help! Help me!” Kanani screamed. Without thought, Sir Joseph waded in, pulling his kris and lashing out at the closest shadowy form. The warrior sidestepped and the thick blade thunked deep into the bole of a palm tree. Feverishly, he tried to yank it free as he watched the shifting forms in the muted light from the ridiculous lantern. All he could hear was the buzz of insect wings and the panicked wheezing of his lungs.
A sharp blow fell behind his ear and he turned, stunned. His brain registered the impact, but not the pain as he pirouetted with uncanny grace to face the scarred face of Kanani before everything slowed and dimmed. The ground reached for him like the embrace of a friend and he fell insensate.
"Hooker.” Hands shook his shoulders, pulling him here and there, “Sir Joseph!” A cool, wet rag washed his face and his eyes fluttered open to piercing light. “He comes around I think,” the voice sounded familiar.
He shook his head to clear it but sharp, stabbing pain lanced from the back of his scalp to his eye. Groaning, he gingerly reached a trembling hand to the aching spot.
"No,” strong but gentle fingers caught his hand. “We bandaged the wound.” This time he opened his right eye and forced it to focus. Rizal. Rizal Malihim.
"Thank God,” he wheezed, his voice dry and strained. “What happened? Margaret ... where's Margaret?"
He tried to flounder to a sitting position but couldn't seem to make heads or tails of his arms and legs. Words flowed over him in a crazy jumble and hands eased him to a seated position. He felt sick to his stomach, as if he'd drank a quart of ale and chased it down with a pint of cooking oil.
The cool, wet rag returned to his face and Sir Joseph nearly wept for joy at the feeling. Everywhere it touched felt better, but once it was gone, the pain returned.
"My men are out looking for Margaret, she was not with you when they accidentally collected you and Kanani. I am sorry friend,” Rizal's voice was tense and tired. “The men were on watch last night for looters. When the insect swarms come, the villagers flee the insects, and looters take advantage. My men were not apprised of your coming until this morning when I arrived."
He heard water, the sound of rinsing and felt the cool balm of the damp cloth again. Slowly things were coming into focus, making better sense. He'd been forcibly detained because the men thought he'd been a looter. “When I get my hands on Kanani—"
"Easy, sir. Kanani has been dealt with. I chained him myself and sent him to my father for judgment. Truly, the man was only supposed to lead you where you wished, not act the idiot in the woods dressing up like a spook. One we've worked long and hard to erase from memory."
Sir Joseph peered at the younger man one-eyed; he looked grim and exhausted. A young boy hovered at Rizal's elbow with a cup. Despite the sloshing in his stomach, his mouth desperately needed moisture. As if sensing his need, the youth proffered the cup. Hand shaking, he gratefully sipped at the cool water.
"I can understand,” he sighed, “the old tales only bring about pain and misery. Look how superstition ruined life for poor Miss Thawley."
He looked around again. His vision was still flaky, everything seemed over bright, but he could make out that he had been left in the center of the village. When he tried to rise to his feet he discovered his ankle had been shackled to the hitching post.
"Again, my apologies,” Rizal muttered reaching for the rough, heavy band of steel and freeing Sir Joseph from the device with a curious twist of his hands.
"Where is Miss Thawley?” Surely she should have been spotted and rounded up by the over-eager scouts, but he didn't see her anywhere.
Rizal's worried dark eyes stared into his as long fingers grasped his face turning his head this way and that. This time the accompanying pain was more like small hammers smacking the bones of his skull from the inside.
"I told you, Sir Joseph, my men never found her last night. All they recovered was her valise, her travel chest of clothes, and her sleeping rug. Right now they are searching the wooded areas in case she heard the commotion and ran to hide."
"Oh dear God, let the poor girl be alright,” he prayed fervently.
"Come, Sir Joseph,” the tiredness fell away from Rizal's voice, “you expect me to believe you had a care for the girl. She honestl
y believed she had been sent on a great adventure to help you. That wasn't why she was sent at all is it?"
Despite the guilt eating him alive and the pain making his head feel deformed, he stonewalled with a harrumph. Alistair Thawley had been his friend for far too many years to air dirty laundry in front of strangers.
"Hooker, don't ignore me,” the voice turned menacing. “Did you know that Maggie had nightmares of water? Water she nearly drowned in when her father, the man you are protecting, shot and killed his wife."
Stunned beyond belief, all he could do was sit gaping open-mouthed at the young man before him. Alistair couldn't have done such a thing could he?
Too many things fell into place and he closed his eyes against the grief welling up inside his chest. It wasn't until rumor of Phoebe's death carried to the village that the constable went out to investigate. The girls were in mourning and Alistair just sat in his study compiling notes.
Sir Joseph had stood at the constable's side, wanting to help his friend but unable. At the time, he had believed that grief had addled his friend's wits, warping his wife's disappearance into her death. Searches yielded nothing, not a hint of her fleeing, or a scrap of cloth in the woods surrounding the manor. Through it all Alistair remained stolid, unruffled, shepherding his daughters from the house to church and back with regularity, as he went about life as if nothing untoward had happened.
After a few weeks, tutors had been hired to take Phoebe's place, as daytime guardian of the girls. “If that be true, then the girl must be taken back to England to offer testimony against her father. This wrong must not be allowed to stand."
Tears trickled down his face as he remembered poor simple-minded Phoebe dancing and singing among her flowers.
"Hooker, you truly are a fool.” The cold words shook him out of his reverie. “He laid his plans many months ago. Do you think that you were the only one to know of her arrival? This country is unsettled, we just emerged from throwing off the Spaniards and are now fighting to be free of the Americans. There are pirates and looters. A single letter in the wrong hands and she is gone forever, just like her mother."
Icy fingers gripped Sir Joseph's heart. “Help me to my feet lad! We must be about working to find the girl.” He pushed down the nausea and closed his eyes as the earth titled beneath his feet. It was imperative they find Margaret, the sooner the better.
* * * *
Stalking the haphazard path through the jungle put Sir Joseph in mind of the night his lady wife insisted they go to the symphony to hear the works of Charles Gounod. The hunt began quietly, creepy with furtive movements, then crashing to a crescendo as birds and animals screamed and careened from the underbrush while they steadfastly trailed scuffled foot tracks and tell-tale drag marks.
The wind whipped through the dense green canopy, offering relief from the oppressive heat and humidity and laying a whip to the backs of the searchers. Wind meant rain and rain would obliterate the scant trail found leading from the clearing where Margaret had slept. He was too hot, too tired, and too numb from the constant upheavals of flora and fauna to feel anything but joy in the wind.
Stopping to take a drink of the tepid water in his canteen, Sir Joseph felt his guilt morphing into anger. Why hadn't the girl fought back? Why hadn't she called out? With all of the natives beating the brush for looters and pirates from the outer islands, a single cry would have ended all of this nonsense. No sooner had the irritated thoughts filtered through his mind when one of the men called out in excitement. Impatiently he blundered through the thick vegetation to the spot where Rizal hunkered in the path.
On the floor of the forest was a small spattering of blood. Knuckling sweat from his eyes, Sir Joseph looked to either side of the game trail they'd been following. There, a shaking hand reached for the saw-toothed leaf of a palm and grasped the frond. The vibrant green was edged in red-black blood. Terse instructions were fired at the men who surrounded Rizal as he stood, staring bleakly ahead.
"Sir Joseph, there is a small cove ahead where the villagers do some fishing. Perhaps it would be better for you to return to my father's house instead of seeing what may lie ahead."
Rizal wouldn't meet his eyes, but the incredible toll of whatever the men reported must have been great. He watched as the younger man aged ten years, his fingers caressing an oddly-shaped sword at his hip.
"I must see this through to the end,” Sir Joseph croaked out.
Another wave of guilt twisted his stomach. He hadn't realized how much Rizal had come to care for Margaret in the small time they had spent together. Perhaps all the tales of love at first sight weren't as fatuous as he had always believed.
Slogging those last few hundred yards through the jungle were the roughest. The ground turned rocky underfoot but the foliage never lessened. It was there and then, instantly, it was gone. If it weren't for the storm clouds massing on the horizon, the transition would have blinded him as he looked ahead to the thin spit of land exposed by the tides. Though the water was returning, he could clearly see where the miscreants had pulled in a dinghy and dragged the young woman aboard. His blood ran cold as he watched Rizal pick up a sodden slip of material. It was drenched in blood and seawater.
"Without a boat, there is nothing more to be done here,” his voice was deadly solemn, matching the dull-eyed stare.
"Surely they couldn't have taken her far?” Sir Joseph protested, following Rizal's rapidly retreating form as he disappeared back into the jungle.
Rounding on the older man, Rizal spit out, “There are eight islets around this single island. There are more islands in the Sulu Sea than that. Then you have Bataan, Corregidor, Mindoro, Luzon, the Visayan chain, Leyte, and Cebu.” He advanced, poking a harsh, bloodstained finger in the old man's chest.
"That doesn't include the mainland or any of the smaller islands surrounding each. In our waters, we have the Americans, Spaniards, and scores of traders from Singapore, Asia and India. Do you know the value of a white woman as a slave in those countries? Or what worth her hair and skin would have for an Arab sheikh? She is gone!"
* * * *
"I hate to say I tell you so, my friend, but,” Hari expansively shrugged, “I did tell you that you needed more men with you."
"This is so hard to accept.” Rubbing his forehead with a clean handkerchief, Sir Joseph felt the actuality of the situation sink in. “I wouldn't have thought things so perilous here. The Spanish reigned for many years and now the Americans—"
"Have granted us our freedom.” Rizal walked into the antechamber carrying a letter loaded with ribbons and stamps. “They have agreed to respect the right of the islands of the Sulu Sea to remain with our Sultanate."
Sir Joseph looked blankly at the piece of paper that essentially left his failed expedition at the mercy of the tribal chief. No wonder the Americans never established a base or sent soldiers, he thought as his mind tried to process the new information.
"This means,” Hari said the words not unkindly, “that your hopes of more travels on my island are dashed, my friend. I welcome your visits, but nothing else. My island needs no more tall tales told of it. Write the girl's family and your society of the truth of what happened, how you were led astray by a foolish man and that the girl was lost to slavers. Should anything else be written, it would mean your life to return."
"It would mean your life anywhere in the Muslim world you traveled,” Rizal added with a dark look. “I will escort you to the docks."
Nodding almost absently, Sir Joseph rose and bowed a quick goodbye. He still had his photos of the island, the notes he had taken and more importantly the ones Margaret had written to send as an offering to her father along with her trunks of clothes. The trip to the docks passed in a daze as he mentally made lists of things that needed doing before joining his men off the coast of India.
In no time, he was standing on the small clipper that brought him, rather them, to Cagayan, staring at the desolate little desk where Margaret had sat so primly m
aking notes. Heavily, he dropped to the squat chair, ignoring its groans and protesting squeals as he pulled parchment from a bag at his feet.
Quickly he penned a letter to the Royal Society explaining about the subterfuge and the man's arrest. He also took time to explain how swarms of insects drove people from their homes at certain points of the rainy season. The hardest part was admitting his foolishness in indulging in Skertchley's primitive wards and how he fell victim to a patrol looking for looters.
He never made mention of the presence of Margaret Thawley. She had been part of his personal quest only at the insistence of her father. The Society would have been scandalized; the consequences of her presence would have been a death knell to his last planned safari into India.
With an economy of motion, he blotted the letter, folded it and slipped it into a thick envelope already inscribed with the London address for the Society. Once he reached the mainland, he'd drop it at the post station. Now for the hardest letter, he mused, staring at the unblemished parchment.
Unbidden, he thought of his own daughters and his eyes stung with tears. Granted, he might not have been home as often as other men, but with each, he had a close and loving relationship. He never saw the same between Alistair and his girls, on the few occasions he stopped. In fact, Alistair never even bothered to introduce his friend to his offspring.
The only way he knew of the quiet eldest was from catching sight of her huddled under the stairs to Alistair's office, one quiet rainy day. Instead of being worried about the noticeably sad child, Alistair flew into a rage, talking about her mother's unnatural dalliance with a vampire leading to the girl's weird behavior.
* * * *
31 October, 1899
Sir Rev. Alistair Thawley,
My deepest condolences to you my friend, I've sad news to report. No, your fears were not confirmed, this island has no vampires anymore than your daughter being a creature of the night. Due to circumstances beyond my control, slavers captured your daughter and carried her off. We've searched and sent out word, I even posted a reward of my own accord, but there hasn't been a single sighting of the lass. Given evidence at the site where she was taken, she may not have survived the abduction and may indeed be in the arms of the Sulu Sea.
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