“My daddy says next time he has two dollars he’s coming to your house!” “Stop it!” the girl screamed. “Don’t you say that! It isn’t true! It isn’t true!” Suddenly she raised the cane, took it in both hands, and began swinging it As it whistled in the air, the children’s taunts jabbed at her.
“Your mama’s a whore!”
“Your papa doesn’t care!”
“I heard he collects the money!”
“When I’m sixteen, can I visit your mother?”
The girl, her black dress swirling around her, the ribbons on her bonnet flying about her head, began moving toward the voices, the cane in her hands whipping back and forth, trying to silence their taunts. She stumbled, began to fall, then caught herself. All around her the voices sounded in her ears, ignoring her blindness now, and concentrating on the sins of her mother.
It wasn’t true.
She knew it. Her mother wouldn’t do what they were saying she did. Why would they say it? Why? Why did they hate her? Why did they hate her mother and her father?
The cane moved more and more wildly, thrashing the air harmlessly as the children danced out of range, their laughter increasing at the specter of the unseeing victim, flailing at nothing, helpless, unable either to defend herself or to flee.
They began closing in around her as she backed away from them, holding the cane in front of her as if to fend them off.
The ground leveled under her feet, and she knew she was back on the trail. She tried to turn, but without the help of her cane she had no idea in which direction she was going.
Around her the four children came closer, their taunts growing more vicious, their laughter more hideous, enjoying their game.
The girl kept backing away. Then she felt something under her right foot. A rock. She started to move her foot, but suddenly the obstruction fell away from her. Unsure of what had happened, she put her foot where the rock had been.
Now there was nothing there.
Too late she realized where she was.
She remained balanced for a second, a look of terror on her face.
The cane in her hands moved wildly as she tried to find some leverage.
Then, as her balance left her and she began to feel herself falling, she let go of the cane. It dropped to the path. The four children stared at each other for a moment, then their eyes went to the cane that lay on the trail. At first none of them moved. Then the oldest among them stepped forward, picked up the cane, and threw it into the sea. As far as they were concerned, she had simply disappeared.…
She knew what was happening, knew she was going to die. Time seemed to slow down for her, and she heard the surf, its crashing coming ever closer to her. She was going to die! Why? What had she done? What had her mother done? None of it was right. None of it should have happened.
The roar in her ears was no longer the surf. Instead, she heard the voices of the children, taunting her, screaming at her, echoing through her mind, crashing in her head.
For the first time in her life, anger entered her soul. It was wrong, all of it. She shouldn’t have been blind. She shouldn’t have had to listen to what the children told her. She should have been able to see everything for herself.
See it, and make it right.
And avenge it.
Her fury grew as she tumbled toward the sea, and by the time the waters closed around her, she was no longer aware of what was happening to her, no longer aware that her life was ending.
All she knew was her anger.
Her anger, and her hatred.…
BOOK ONE. PARADISE POINT
CHAPTER 1
The August sun was shining brightly when the Pendletons arrived at Paradise Point, and as they drove slowly through the village, all the Pendletons found themselves looking at it with new eyes. Always before, it had been merely a remarkably pretty village. Now it was home, and June Pendleton, her bright blue eyes glistening with eagerness, found herself suddenly more interested in the location of the supermarket and the drugstore than in the carefully restored façades of the inn and the galleries that surrounded the square.
Paradise Point was aptly named, and it seemed to the casual visitor that its setting was its primary reason for being. The village nestled high above the Atlantic, perched on the northern arm of twin outcroppings of land that cradled a small cove. Too small to serve as more than a temporary anchorage for small boats, the cove lay nearly hidden from the sea. The arms that guarded it had a selfish quality to them: they embraced the cove, cuddling it close into the surrounding forest, leaving only a narrow gap of surging water as a lifeline to the ocean. As long as there had been men to watch the roiling waters of Devil’s Passage, there had been a village of one kind or another on the Point.
The present village had overlooked the cove and the sea for nearly two hundred years, and by common consent of all who lived there, it remained a village. There was no industry to speak of, no fishing fleet, and only a handful of farms carved out of the inland forests. But Paradise Point survived, supporting itself by the mysterious means of tiny villages everywhere, its modest production of services surviving in large part on the summer people who flooded in each year to bask in its beauty and “get away from it all.” Scattered through the village were a handful of artists and craftsmen, sustaining themselves by the sale of a trickle of quilts, moccasins, pottery, sculpture, and paintings that drifted out of Paradise Point in the backseats and luggage compartments of those not fortunate enough to live there.
Dr. and Mrs. Calvin Pendleton were about to become part of Paradise Point, and they counted themselves very much among the fortunate. So did their daughter, Michelle.
Not that they had ever planned to move to Paradise Point. Indeed, until a few months before they arrived, it had never occurred to anyone in the family that they might live anywhere but Boston. Paradise Point, to the Pendletons, had been a beautiful spot to go to for an afternoon, just a couple of hours northeast of the city, a place where Cal could relax, June could paint, and Michelle could entertain herself with the forest and the seashore. Then, at the end of the day, they could drive back to Boston, and their well-ordered lives.
Except that their lives had not stayed well ordered.
Now, as Cal turned right to leave the square and start along the road that would take them out of the village and around the cove toward their new home, he saw several people stare at the car, smile suddenly, then wave.
“Looks like we’re expected,” he observed. In the seat next to him, June moved heavily. She was in the last weeks of pregnancy, and it seemed to her that it would never end.
“No more impersonality of the big city,” she replied. “I suppose Dr. Carson has the welcome wagon all lined up to greet us.”
“What’s a welcome wagon?” Michelle asked from the backseat. Twelve years old, Michelle presented a sharp contrast to her parents, who were both blue-eyed blondes, with a nordic handsomeness to their features. Michelle was just the opposite. She was dark, her hair nearly black, and her deep brown eyes had a slight tilt to them, giving her a gamin look. She was leaning forward, arms propped on the front seat, her shiny hair cascading over her shoulders, her eyes devouring every detail of Paradise Point. It was all so different from Boston, and, she thought, all perfectly wonderful.
June moved to face her daughter, but the effort was too much for her distended body. As she sank back into her seat she reflected that it might be difficult to explain the old small-town custom of welcome wagons to a twelve-year-old city child anyway. Instead, as they passed the Paradise Point school, she touched her daughter’s hand.