traveled a bit in my time."
"Warren-"
"And I am just drunk enough to be glad he's in the ocean."
"Oh, Warren," she said, shaking her head slowly. "Oh, Warren, dear Warren, he's not there, he's behind you."
A gnarled black hand from the dark grabbed his shoulder, and as he whirled to look behind, the razor she held measured the length of his exposed neck.
Then she left him upright in the shadows and walked back to the shack.
Hearing nothing but the wind, and her singing, and something behind her, drinking.
PART TWO
OCTOBER: FRIDAY
ONE
Another warm day, too warm for October, an August day misplaced in the middle of autumn. The rainstorm was gone, sweeping out to the Atlantic and up toward New York. What was left was the sun that turned the shallows turquoise, brightened the pines' green, shifted red leaves to vermilion and brown leaves to tan. The sea scent was strong, the breeze a welcome cooling, and Thursday a memory buried in a back closet.
It should have been perfect.
It should have been a quiet time of remembering, perhaps regretting, and looking forward to winter and the peace that it brings, forgetting for the moment that spring will start it all again.
But there'd been too many dreams spawned after midnight, too many arguments over a sun-bright breakfast, too many doors slammed and engines raced-and an unnerving feeling that an island four miles long and two miles wide was suddenly an island that had grown much too small.
***
The school on Haven's End was less than twenty years old and took care of the island's children until they were ready for high school across the bay in Flocks. The building was unimposing by any mainland standards: a single-story brick and gray-glass building raised on a high concrete foundation to keep the rooms from flooding when the occasional hurricane shrieked up the coast. Double doors at the entrance, high taxus and laurels to camouflage the concrete, and massive full pines at each of the front corners. The only sign it might be an official structure was the flagpole by the steps-tall, white, with a gleaming brass ball at the top gripped in the brass claws of a spread-wing eagle. Ocean Street ended almost at its front steps, as if the school were a monument facing a pitted tarmac mall, and behind were the woods that thickened toward the cliffs.
The morning blue, the noon sun, were slowly fading behind a haze.
At precisely two-thirty Colin was positioned in the entrance foyer, smiling and nodding as the children swarmed past him toward two days of freedom. Their shouts were infectious, their laughter a potion, and he rolled his shoulders with impatience to get on with the weekend while his left hand drummed a march on the flat of his thigh. Like his students, he felt that today was too beautiful to be spent inside. Heresy, he knew; a teacher's dedication supposedly knew no weather. But after the previous night's funeral he thought it a miracle the storm hadn't lingered to drench the town in stereotypical gloom. As it was, he'd had a difficult time of it from the moment he'd arrived. The kids and his colleagues seemed touched with electricity, a curious sort of tension that made them jump when spoken to, kept their eyes on the windows, had their attention wandering throughout their lessons-the kind of intangible crackling that preceded thunder.
He suspected the mood was caused by the Screamer. In the lounge, a colleague, Rose Adams, had detailed the effects of such a blow in '74. It had swept in before dawn, tides five and six feet above normal, streets flooded, windows shattered, more than a dozen automobiles pushed down Bridge Road straight into the bay. Luckily there'd been a warning, and most of the islanders had taken off for the mainland. Of those who'd remained, one had drowned on his lawn, another
"Warren-"
"And I am just drunk enough to be glad he's in the ocean."
"Oh, Warren," she said, shaking her head slowly. "Oh, Warren, dear Warren, he's not there, he's behind you."
A gnarled black hand from the dark grabbed his shoulder, and as he whirled to look behind, the razor she held measured the length of his exposed neck.
Then she left him upright in the shadows and walked back to the shack.
Hearing nothing but the wind, and her singing, and something behind her, drinking.
PART TWO
OCTOBER: FRIDAY
ONE
Another warm day, too warm for October, an August day misplaced in the middle of autumn. The rainstorm was gone, sweeping out to the Atlantic and up toward New York. What was left was the sun that turned the shallows turquoise, brightened the pines' green, shifted red leaves to vermilion and brown leaves to tan. The sea scent was strong, the breeze a welcome cooling, and Thursday a memory buried in a back closet.
It should have been perfect.
It should have been a quiet time of remembering, perhaps regretting, and looking forward to winter and the peace that it brings, forgetting for the moment that spring will start it all again.
But there'd been too many dreams spawned after midnight, too many arguments over a sun-bright breakfast, too many doors slammed and engines raced-and an unnerving feeling that an island four miles long and two miles wide was suddenly an island that had grown much too small.
***
The school on Haven's End was less than twenty years old and took care of the island's children until they were ready for high school across the bay in Flocks. The building was unimposing by any mainland standards: a single-story brick and gray-glass building raised on a high concrete foundation to keep the rooms from flooding when the occasional hurricane shrieked up the coast. Double doors at the entrance, high taxus and laurels to camouflage the concrete, and massive full pines at each of the front corners. The only sign it might be an official structure was the flagpole by the steps-tall, white, with a gleaming brass ball at the top gripped in the brass claws of a spread-wing eagle. Ocean Street ended almost at its front steps, as if the school were a monument facing a pitted tarmac mall, and behind were the woods that thickened toward the cliffs.
The morning blue, the noon sun, were slowly fading behind a haze.
At precisely two-thirty Colin was positioned in the entrance foyer, smiling and nodding as the children swarmed past him toward two days of freedom. Their shouts were infectious, their laughter a potion, and he rolled his shoulders with impatience to get on with the weekend while his left hand drummed a march on the flat of his thigh. Like his students, he felt that today was too beautiful to be spent inside. Heresy, he knew; a teacher's dedication supposedly knew no weather. But after the previous night's funeral he thought it a miracle the storm hadn't lingered to drench the town in stereotypical gloom. As it was, he'd had a difficult time of it from the moment he'd arrived. The kids and his colleagues seemed touched with electricity, a curious sort of tension that made them jump when spoken to, kept their eyes on the windows, had their attention wandering throughout their lessons-the kind of intangible crackling that preceded thunder.
He suspected the mood was caused by the Screamer. In the lounge, a colleague, Rose Adams, had detailed the effects of such a blow in '74. It had swept in before dawn, tides five and six feet above normal, streets flooded, windows shattered, more than a dozen automobiles pushed down Bridge Road straight into the bay. Luckily there'd been a warning, and most of the islanders had taken off for the mainland. Of those who'd remained, one had drowned on his lawn, another
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