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A person could go a little silly here. Had Doris gone a bit weird living by herself on Liberty Island? Of course, she wasn’t alone all the time. As a younger woman, Doris had traveled for three or four months every year, usually in the winter. Then there were the many visitors she encouraged. Every summer, Eva’s family had spent several weeks on the island. She remembered her father holding forth in the porch swing, admiring the view, a bottle of rum on the floor and a thick paperback turned over beside it. Or, if the tide was right and he felt like it, he’d be out in Doris’s rowboat, fishing for sand dabs and rockfish.
Eva’s mother, Felicity, gossiped with her older cousins and whoever else happened to be visiting, pulled weeds in Doris’s garden, and, if they came in August, helped her pick blackberries and put up her garden produce.
Eva recalled helping her mother and Doris, or playing with her sisters in the treehouse behind the garden. Was it still there? When there were other cousins around, they’d played house and cowboys, pirates and princesses—
What in the world? Eva stopped at the window over the sink, spoon forgotten in her hand, dripping soup onto the old linoleum floor.
There in the distance, halfway to where the ground began to rise to Abel’s Peak, was a small child and Andy and—and some kind of enormous black dog!
Eva rushed to the door and flung it open. “Andy!”
She caught her breath, wishing she hadn’t shouted, not wanting to frighten the child but…there was no one there. She blinked and rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand, like a cartoon character.
No child. No dog. Just the old donkey clip-clopping over the rocky ground as he trotted toward the house.
EVA WENT TO BED that night thoroughly rattled. The wind had come up in the evening and she could hear loose shingles banging on the roof. She hoped it wouldn’t rain, and if it did, she hoped the leaks weren’t near her bed. If necessary, she’d move to the other bedroom across the small landing at the top of the stairs.
Eva had always prided herself on being a calm, sensible woman. She had grown up the unflappable one in a chaotic family. Her father, a professor of literature at the University of British Columbia, spent every spare moment on whatever boat he happened to own at the time, ignoring his wife and drinking too much. Felicity Haines, a sad, gentle person, had died of an aneurysm when Eva was twelve, and Eva still missed her desperately. Kate, her oldest sister and very much her father’s daughter, had sailed away on a tall ships adventure when she was eighteen, had settled in Africa and was doing something noble for world peace, Eva believed. She hadn’t seen Kate for three years. Her other sister, Leona, had married a farmer and now raised ostriches, organic field peas and children—five of them, at last count—in Alberta.
Eva, the youngest by six years, had steered a steady course, graduating from high school with honors, working in a doctor’s office for two years and then taking a degree in education. She’d just finished her first year as a substitute teacher in three different elementary schools in Burnaby. The two terms with grade one and two classes had convinced her she’d made the right career choice. She’d adored her little gap-toothed charges and was almost sorry when June was over. In the fall, she hoped to land a permanent job, preferably in the Lower Mainland or Vancouver Island and preferably teaching kindergarten, although it didn’t much matter, and she’d sent résumés all over the province.
It would be nice, though, to settle somewhere near her father, who was alone and sometimes lonely, she thought, retired and living on his houseboat on the Fraser River. Now that Eva was an adult and entirely independent, she’d grown fond of Jack Haines, willing to forgive him the excesses that had alarmed her as a child.
At twenty-five and a trained teacher, Eva Louise Haines was definitely not the sort of person who imagined things. She did not see dogs and children and then, the next minute, not see them. There was nothing wrong with her eyes.
The child had been there most definitely. Red shorts, a dirty once-white T-shirt, no shoes. Dark hair, lots of it, a large black dog. Maybe strayed from a party of picnickers that had landed on the island that afternoon while she was away? She’d been surprised to see that Andy was with them, especially considering the presence of the dog….
She’d seen them. Obviously, the child and the dog had run away before she could open the door to call the donkey. They’d disappeared into the Lord forest on the other side of the creek, not into thin air. Campers, picnickers, boaters, whatever—someone besides her was on the island. That little boy or girl belonged to someone.
Eva finally dozed fitfully, wishing yet again that she’d brought Freddie. First someone—or something—watching her. Now children and dogs that were there one minute and gone the next.
IN THE MORNING, Eva took a brisk walk to the western end of the island. She often walked that route along the shore, looking for things the tide had yielded overnight. Sometimes there was an odd-shaped bit of driftwood or an old running shoe or a clock, washed up from who knows where. Once she’d found a coconut. It amused her to imagine how these things had ended up in the water. That coconut—had it arrived at Liberty Island after months adrift from Tahiti or had it rolled off a yacht deck from a grocery bag? Often, sadly, all she found was garbage—soft drink bottles and plastic bags, chunks of Styrofoam and torn fish net.
This morning, what she wanted to find was evidence of whoever had brought the child and dog. But there was nothing. No spent campfires on the beach, no tracks in the sand, no dinghy pulled up on the beach or launch anchored offshore. The visitors had most likely left the island before nightfall.
Somewhat relieved, Eva spent the rest of the morning in the small parlor, sorting through stacks of music books and sheets of looseleaf with snatches of songs penned on them. Doris had been an accomplished musician in her youth. According to Eva’s mother, she was a fine pianist with a lovely voice, who’d had a brief career as a professional singer. Why had a woman as talented and beautiful and flamboyant, by all accounts, isolated herself on Liberty Island at thirty-six years of age, after her husband’s death? Eva wished she’d paid a little more attention to her mother’s stories.
By noon, Eva had filled only one box for the thrift store at Sechelt. She kept stopping to play one or another of Doris’s little songs on the ancient Mason & Risch piano, which, from the sound of it and the sticking E and F keys, hadn’t been looked after in years. By two o’clock, when she’d resolved to go for a swim, she’d filled three boxes to give away and another box of photos and personal items.
Funny how Jack Haines, who’d been so indifferent to his own wife while she was alive, was so solicitous of his wife’s elderly cousin now. Guilt, maybe? Her father’s lack of interest in his family had always hurt Eva. She was glad their relationship was steadier now. Of course, with Kate and Leona far away and their mother dead, who did Jack Haines have to neglect anymore? Just her. And, these days, he tended to lean on her instead. She didn’t mind.
Dependable Eva.
Andy accompanied her to the water’s edge. Normally, when the tide was out, as it was now, Eva would have gone to the pools on the other side of the island, a place mysteriously known as The Baths when she was a child. The pools were in a sort of no-man’s-land between the Bonhomme and Lord properties. After the strange experience of yesterday, plus the feeling she’d had that she was being watched, Eva didn’t want to walk through the tangle of dark woods between the house and The Baths.
Silly, she knew. As a result, she had to wade a considerable distance over rocks and barnacles before the water was deep enough to swim. Then she forgot all about Andy and his mysterious friends, putting in, first, her usual swim between the shore and Angler’s Rock, a large outcrop that marked the entrance to Doris’s little harbor even at high tide; then she spent a pleasant half hour climbing around, looking for the Coast Salish petroglyphs she remembered from long-ago outings. One day, before the summer was over, she intended to bring paper and charcoal and take rubbings of the figures, which were old, possibly ancient images pecked into the surface of the rock by Indians who’d inhabited the area.
Andy cropped the short grass just up from the beach as Eva swam in. She raked back her streaming hair as she emerged and, peering through the clear, green water to avoid stumbling, navigated carefully over the kelp stones and mussel-encrusted rock on the bottom of the small bay. There were very few sandy beaches in the Gulf Islands.
When she looked up, the visitors were back, regarding her from the top of a large boulder at the tide line, fifty feet from the old wharf. The little girl—or was it a boy?—had on blue shorts today and a red-and-white striped T-shirt. No shoes, as yesterday. The sudden appearance of the pair surprised Eva, but at the same time she felt huge relief.
So she wasn’t losing her mind. And the child obviously had someone taking care of her, providing clean clothes. The family must be camped on the other side of the island….
“Hello!” Eva called and waved. There was no response. She veered toward the boulder, still stepping carefully. He—or was it a she—couldn’t be more than four or five years old.
The big black dog bounded toward Eva then stopped stiff-legged and barked. It wasn’t a friendly bark, either. Andy butted his head comically against her left hip, nibbling at her swimsuit, seeking the treats she usually had for him. For once, Eva wasn’t amused.
“Hey!” she called again, waving her hand and smiling. “Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you.”
The child raised one hand in a hesitant response to Eva’s gesture and then slipped off the rock. Eva stumbled forward, cursing the pebbles that hurt her feet and slowed her progress. Where were they—behind the boulder? Across the creek? Into the woods on the other side?
If not, they’d vanished into thin air again!
Eva didn’t know what to do. This was just too strange. Who was this little kid, out yesterday and today just—just wandering! Where was the mother? The father?
She needed to get dressed quickly and do some exploring. Find out, once and for all, where these people were camped and why no one was keeping an eye on this child.
EVA USUALLY RINSED OFF in the small, cramped bathroom off the kitchen, the only one in the house. Doris’s bedroom had been downstairs, too, a more convenient arrangement for an elderly woman. Today, though, Eva just grabbed a towel from the bathroom cupboard and hurried up the stairs to her small bedroom under the eaves.
She stripped out of her bathing suit and toweled off, glancing out the small, paned window toward the sea. The rough, line-dried cotton almost hurt her skin. Andy had followed her and was grazing on the sparse grasses that grew between the house and the beach. No sign of the other two, though…
Eva’s heart was racing. Ordinarily, she was a person who very much minded her own business. Live and let live, was her guiding principle. It had helped her survive a difficult family, demanding employers and several classes full of fractious six- and seven-year-olds.
Doris Bonhomme owned half of this island. As her agent, in effect, Eva had a duty to make sure that everything was all right, and that included checking up on any small visitors who might be lost or need her assistance.
Even if she hadn’t been standing in for Doris, she would have wanted to get to the bottom of this.
Eva pulled on a pair of khaki shorts and a long-sleeved T-shirt and grabbed a tube of sunscreen from the top of the small antique dresser. She had sneakers by the kitchen door.
She paused before she left the room, catching a glimpse of herself in the spidery, ghosted mirror over the dresser—face hot, eyes bright, wet hair hanging in dark, thick ropes. She was actually going to the other side of the island….
The forbidden side.
Eva ran down the steeply pitched stairs in her bare feet.
“Hi.”
The child—a little girl—was in her kitchen!
CHAPTER THREE
EVA WAS SO SURPRISED she didn’t even notice that the sunscreen had slipped out of her hand and bounced down the last two steps onto the floor. The dog, who’d accompanied the girl into the house and parked himself at the door, growled menacingly.
“Oh, don’t mind him. He’s just my silly old dog. He’s Bruno,” the girl said airily, favoring Eva with a casual wave of her small hand. “He’s ’bout as scary as a fruit fly, that’s what Auntie Aggie says. Who’re you? Are you the old lady? You’re old but you don’t look that old—”
“I-I’m Eva,” Eva said, bending down to pick up the sunscreen. The dog, apparently a Newfoundland, now that she saw him up close, rumbled again and Eva gave him a hard look. He flopped onto the floor, stretched his massive black head over his paws and sighed. “What’s your name?”
“Fanny. Do you live here?” Fanny gazed admiringly around the kitchen, although Eva couldn’t see what there was to admire. “I thought somebody named Doris lived here. She’s the old lady, I guess. That’s a nice mirror.” She pointed to the spidery, cracked, unframed mirror over the dry sink. “I always wanted to go in this house but I’m not allowed.” She leaned toward Eva and covered her small mouth with her hand for a few seconds, then whispered loudly, “I’m not sup-posed-ta be here so don’t tell anybody, okay?” She frowned at her dog, too, but the Newfoundland ignored them both.
“Would you like some lemonade?” The girl and her dog were her first visitors.
“Got any pop?” The girl looked hopeful. Her skin was a pale mocha, not from the sun. She was obviously of mixed racial heritage—Caucasian? Caribbean? Hawaiian?—fine-boned and fragile-looking, but judging from the way she talked, probably older than she seemed. Her eyes were big and honey-brown, her hair a riot of ringlets and curls. “I like pop!”
“Sorry,” Eva said, opening the refrigerator. “Just lemonade.” She reached for the pitcher, then realized the girl had moved deftly under her arm and was standing in front of her, gazing at the refrigerator’s contents.
“Too bad,” the child said, glancing up. “I like lemonade, all right, but I really like pop and I’m not allowed to have any. It’s nice in here! I like fridges. What’s that? Is that wine? My dad likes wine.”
She pointed to a large green bottle of Perrier.
So does my dad, Eva thought. “No, it’s water. Fizzy water. Do you want some with your lemonade?”
The girl considered, one finger on her lower lip. “Sure!” she said, brightly, then added, “I mean, yes, please!”
Eva poured two glasses, three-quarters lemonade, the rest Perrier, leaving the refrigerator door open. Who’d have dreamed the contents of an ordinary fridge could be so entertaining? Then she returned the bottle and pitcher to the fridge, shut the door and handed the child a glass.
“Cheers!” Fanny held up her drink, then laughed. It was a magical sound, sheer delight, and Eva couldn’t help responding with a smile of her own. “Now we can be friends! People friends,” the child added mysteriously. She sniffed at her drink cautiously and wrinkled her nose before taking a sip.
“To people friends.” Eva clinked her glass gently against the child’s. She supposed that was in contrast to dog friends. “Are you visiting the island with your family?”
“Oh, no. I live here.” The girl gestured with one hand. “It’s really my island. Mine and my dad’s. You’re the one who’s the visitor, right, Bruno?” The dog opened one eye briefly and shut it again.
“You live here?” Eva stared. “Where?” If the child was staying on this island, if her parents were squatters or summer campers, that might account for the feeling Eva’d had of being watched for the past week. This child, who seemed to pop up out of nowhere, had probably been observing her from various hiding places. Or her parents or caregivers had. Eva felt a shiver trickle down her spine.
“Over there,” Fanny said, waving vaguely in the direction of the creek. She marched to the cabinet beneath the mirror and wrenched open a drawer. “Boy, it’s fun talking to you! Is that your lipstick?” She smiled and held up a tube, then pulled the top off. “Auntie Aggie has lipstick but she never puts it on unless she’s going to the store or the doctor or something. Can I put some on?”
Before Eva could stop her, the girl had drawn a big red arc across her mouth. “That’s not my lipstick, it belongs to the old lady who owns this house. But,” Eva finished lamely, “I guess she wouldn’t mind if you tried it out.” The drawer still held an assortment of Doris’s cosmetics, brooches and hairpins, most destined for the trash when Eva got around to cleaning it out. Anything of a personal nature that Doris wanted had already been taken to her new home at Seaview Lodge.
“Lift me up.” Fanny held her arms out to Eva. “I want to see how I look.”
Eva obliged, feeling the thin warmth, the litheness of the squirming child in her arms as she held her up to the mirror. A small brown face gazed back at them both, the small, pursed mouth ribaldly framed in what Eva had always thought of as an old lady color—not orange, not red, not coral. Something useful that “went” with everything.
“Oh! It’s funny!” Fanny laughed and drew the back of her hand across her lips, smearing the lipstick. Eva laughed and briefly hugged her tight before putting her down.
Whoever this child was, wherever she’d come from, Eva was utterly charmed.
“I suppose you’ve got jewels and beads and earrings and all kinds of pretty things. Maybe you could let me play with them some—hey, is this your piano?” Fanny had headed into the small parlor. “We have a piano. Dad’s teaching me to play.” She sat on the wobbly stool and plunked out “Old Macdonald Had a Farm.” Eva clapped and the girl’s eyes shone.
“Let’s go into your yard now,” Fanny suggested. “We could have a picnic for the birds with stuff out of your fridge.”
“Hold on.” Eva decided it was time to get some answers. Someone would—should—be looking for Fanny soon. “Do you live with your mom and dad?”
“Just my dad,” the girl said, shooting a look Eva’s way as she examined the covers on several magazines piled on the sofa. “And Auntie Aggie and Uncle Matthew and Bruno and the squirrels and George the big black bird that lives in our tree and—”
“Are you camping? Do you live in a tent or a boat?”
“A boat?” She giggled. “We have a big house and I have my own room and a playhouse in a tree and everything.” Fanny frowned at Eva as though she was particularly dense. “I told you, this is my island. Mine and my dad’s.”
“But where is everyone? Who’s looking after you now?”
“Bruno.” Fanny was obviously surprised by the question. “I’m not supposed to go anywhere without Bruno. He’s my good old dog, aren’t you, Bruny?” The Newfoundland had accompanied her to the parlor; he glanced adoringly at the girl as she patted his broad head. “And Auntie Aggie looks after me, too. She looked after my dad when he was little. And sometimes Uncle Matthew and my dad look after me, too, but my dad works a lot and I’m not supposed to ’sturb him—”
The sudden sound of a mechanical doorbell clanging, a horrible rusted sound that blended with a loud series of barks from Bruno, made Eva jump. Doorbell? She didn’t even know there was one.
“Yikes!” The child’s eyes were huge. “I bet that’s Uncle Matthew.” She tore through the French doors that stood open to the back garden. Her dog bounded after her.
“Anybody here?” An angry male voice preceded another insistent buzz, followed by the hammering of fists on the door. “Open up!”
Fanny—
Eva ran to the door, putting her hand on the knob just as it burst open.
“You see a little girl around here?” A man stood in the doorway. His eyes, blue-green as the sea, blazed into hers.
“Yes! I mean—no!” Eva swallowed. She hadn’t heard the entire story from Fanny yet. She didn’t have a good feeling about any of this. If this was the uncle who was in charge, why did he allow the child to wander—
“Which is it?” His eyes darted around the kitchen and he took a step forward. Eva grabbed his arm and he stared down at her. “Yes or no?”
“I haven’t invited you in, sir,” she managed to say through clenched teeth. His arm was rock hard. He was tall and strong and looked to be in his mid-thirties, handsome in a careless way, with several days’ growth on his face and unruly sunbleached brown hair. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”
He shook off her hand. “Where’s Fanny?”
“She’s not here,” Eva burst out, truthfully, adding, not so truthfully, “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
Then she yelped as he pushed past her and strode into the parlor. Outraged, Eva was right on his heels, relieved to glance out into the sunny overgrown garden behind the house and see neither girl nor dog.
“I swear I heard the damn dog bark,” the man muttered, almost to himself. He stepped to the open French doors. “Fanny! Where are you?”
Eva held her breath. There was no answer. She didn’t think there would be.
Without a backward glance, the man stepped into the yard and purposefully set off toward the tumbledown fence that surrounded the yard and garden, Doris’s pitiful attempt to keep out rabbits and other marauders. “Fanny!” He vaulted the fence and continued toward the creek.
Eva was torn. On the one hand, if this was Fanny’s Uncle Matthew, everything must be okay. He was just searching for the child, who had obviously strayed without telling anyone where she was going. Eva couldn’t blame him for being a little angry.
On the other hand, she didn’t like his attitude, charging into her house the way he had….
Making up her mind, she ran after him. He had several minutes’ head start and she saw him break into a lope thirty yards beyond the fence and veer toward one of the shallower creek crossings. He was fit and he clearly knew where he was going. And he had shoes on.
Eva didn’t. Ouch! She stumbled on a rocky patch of ground, wishing she’d taken the time to retrieve her sneakers, which were still standing by the kitchen door. Too late now. If she didn’t hurry she’d lose him—she’d lose them both—and, just in case the little girl needed her, Eva wanted to be on the scene when the man caught up.
If he did.
Secretly, Eva was rooting one hundred per cent for Fanny and the Newfoundland dog….
BY THE TIME Eva crossed the creek, stepping from rocks at the Bonhomme side, onto a slippery half-buried log festooned with algae, then onto several water-polished stones on the Lord side, Fanny’s uncle had disappeared into the woods. She hurried along a faintly visible path etched into the stony soil.
“Excuse me?” she called, realizing how hopelessly ineffective her query was. “Yoo-hoo! Hello?”
All she heard back, faintly, was the sound of the man’s voice calling the girl’s name again, then whistling, presumably for the dog.
