EPILOGUE
She’d made a mess of things, Catherine thought as
she rode in Earl’s motorboat to Echo Island.
With all her good intentions, in trying
to save her charges from heartache, ridicule, and pain, Catherine
had fouled up.
In the two months since Justice had
died, their life at Siren Song had never returned to what Catherine
proclaimed was normal.
The gates of Siren Song were closed and
locked again; the work and rules restored. But there was a
restlessness with the girls, and Catherine knew the order she had
preached, had tried to instill, was forever broken. Ravinia was
chomping at the bit to leave; the others would follow.
They had seen Rebecca with her husband
and little girl, had witnessed firsthand Harrison Frost’s
dedication to Lorelei. They’d all been swept away by the fantasy
and romance that he’d risked his life for her.
As Earl guided the boat to the small
dock here on Mary’s island of exile, her “Elba” she’d once said,
Catherine wondered what she would say to her sister, how she would
explain her change of heart. Could she admit that she’d been wrong?
That perhaps Mary should return to Siren Song and, as far as anyone
knew, from the grave? Of course that wouldn’t work. There were laws
about those kinds of things . . . laws similar to faking someone’s
death, she supposed. And now that Lorelei spent more time with her
sisters, and that fiancé of hers had a nose for news . . . no, it
would never work.
She would have to think of something
else.
The sound of the sea was louder here,
the tides splashing around the rocks and shoals. Mary had always
said she’d found it comforting.
Catherine wondered.
But if she was happy, so be it. Of
course, Mary had always been delusional. . . . It ran in their
family. . . .
“I shouldn’t be too long,” she said to
Earl as he cut the engine and tied up. “Half an hour,
maybe.”
He nodded. “I’ll wait. Got my
pole.”
With his help, she climbed onto the
dock, and left him opening his cooler of bait. Holding her skirts
so that the hem of her dress wouldn’t skim the dirt and bird
excrement on the old boards, she bustled to a sandy, overgrown path
that wound a hundred feet to Mary’s home. The cottage was little
more than a one-room cabin, even more austere and cut off from the
world than Siren Song. It was a wonder no one had ever found her
here. . . . But then, Catherine knew from her own experience that
even the most bizarre circumstances did exist . . . how else to
explain all the gifts the girls had received.
There were rumors in town of a hermit
who lived on the island, an old hag that ran sightseers off, but if
anyone had made the connection between the recluse and Mary Beeman,
Catherine didn’t know about it.
She swatted at a fly as she walked,
felt a bead of sweat on her brow. It was late summer now, going on
September, the August sun hot against her face.
A fly? she
thought. Out here?
Odd.
Then again, what wasn’t odd these days?
Everything about her sister had been “out of sync,” “a little off,”
or “odd” since her birth. Upon her exile, the cover story was that
Mary had fallen to her death on one of her solitary walks, while
the woman sometimes seen on Echo Island was the bereaved, reclusive
wife of one of the lighthouse caretakers from Whittier Island who
had died, but no one really paid attention. Everyone today was all
caught up in their own lives, too interested in themselves to do
more than gossip about the weird old lady of Echo
Island.
Catherine hurried on. Squinting against
a lowering sun, she noticed that Mary’s garden, usually so perfect,
was untended. Beach grass had taken over, and the tea roses were
leggy, the blooms dried and dying. “Mary?” she called as she walked
to the door and saw the boxes of supplies on the porch. The
cardboard was sun bleached, the fruit and vegetables gone bad, the
stink of rotting meat overpowering.
What the devil?
“Mary!” she called again and pushed on
the door. How long had it been since she’d been here?
It was unlatched and from within the
stench was worse. It hit Catherine with the force of a malodorous
tidal wave. The buzzing of swarming flies competed with the sound
of the surf. Catherine’s stomach revolted as her eyes grew
accustomed to the darkened interior. On the bed was a corpse, what
was left of her sister, little more than dried, rotting flesh and
exposed bones. Mary’s face was unrecognizable, her eyes gone, two
dark exposed sockets where those beautiful blue orbs had once been.
Her hair was long and splayed around a skull of darkened, dried
skin, her teeth exposed as she had no lips, her cheeks gone. She
looked like a zombie with a ghoulish, wicked grin.
The hilt of the knife rose from her
chest. The skeletal fingers of Mary’s right hand surrounded it, as
if she’d tried to yank the blade out and failed. Hanks of old flesh
hung from her fingers and arm.
A scream boiled to the heavens. A wild
shriek of pure fear.
It took Catherine a moment to realize
it came from her own lips.
“Holy mother of God!” she whispered,
retching, backing away.
But the vision of Mary was burned in
her brain as she scrambled backward, nearly tripping over her own
skirts. Trying not to scream, she turned and ran for the
door.
What in God’s good name had happened to
her sister?