“Sebastian Dushayne was assigned here as a soldier when the castillo still housed warriors, though they were English soldiers and not the Spaniards who had first built it. Captain Dushayne fell in love with a local girl. Her mother was the village healer. Not me,” Esmé hastened to add. “Despite the mother’s misgivings, which were far more insightful than most people’s, she allowed her daughter, Angelique, to marry Sebastian.”
Esmé sipped her tea and added more spirits.
“Sebastian Dushayne wanted Angelique. He said he loved her, but he wanted her beauty, her sweetness, her pure heart. And it was a fine match. Her goodness tempered his carnal wants and his commanding presence made Angelique aware of the value of a forceful personality.”
Isabelle settled back into the cushions of the sofa to find comfort where she could. This story was not going to have a happy ending.
“After a great storm swept the region, Angelique told her husband that she must go to help her sister on another island. Sebastian allowed it but insisted that she come back quickly, afraid that separation would be too great a test of his vows. Can you see that his love was mixed with too great a need to control?”
Isabelle saw that in him still. The way he told people what to do, never asked a question, demanded rather than suggested.
“Finally, when she had been gone too long, Sebastian Dushayne insisted his wife return. Despite the fact it was the month of the worst storms of the year, Angelique tried to obey him and was lost at sea. Of forty people, only three women survived and one man of God.”
“Man of God?” Isabelle straightened.
“Yes.” Esmé nodded. “Father Joubay took a place in the dinghy. If he’d given the spot to Angelique, she would have lived.”
“Oh, dear God.” Isabelle raised her hand to her mouth.
“The healer cursed both Joubay and Sebastian Dushayne to an eternity of suffering for causing the death of her beloved child. Joubay was forbidden on the island, the one place he wanted to live more than anyplace else, until he could undo his wrong. Dushayne was given total control of this island, but only this island. He was condemned to live here, unable to leave the island, for as long as it took for him to win the love of another woman as pure of heart as Angelique.”
“This is true? You swear it?” Even if Esmé swore, Isabelle was not sure she would believe it.
“Yes, Isabelle, I swear on my skill as a healer. And what I have told you is not even the hardest part to believe.” Esmé pushed her tea away and closed her eyes for a moment.
“This happened in the fall of 1810. Sebastian has been living here, frozen in age and time, for almost two hundred years.”
Isabelle stood up, knocking over the mug. “That cannot be.”
“Yes, it is. I swear it on Angelique’s grave. Sebastian can use the modern version of anything already invented in 1810. He can read any book he chooses and wear any style clothing he prefers, but he cannot use electricity or the telephone or any other modern convenience.”
“What happens if he tries?”
“Whatever it is does not work, or bursts into flame, or disintegrates.”
Isabelle allowed herself to believe it for a moment. The castillo was lit by candles. She had seen no sign of a computer or a telephone. There were no battery-operated radios or even an old-fashioned boom box, and that was odd for a man who loved singing.
“But worst of all, Isabelle, Sebastian Dushayne cannot leave this island for even a moment. Over the years the strip of land that connects the fort here to the main part of the island has been eroded by storms, so now even the islanders can only leave at low tide.”
“But people can come here from the big hotel on the main island?”
“Yes, Sebastian holds his version of a nineteenth-century soiree, which draws tourists to the castillo and they are only too happy to fill his needs. He is a man of broad sexual tastes and greatly interested in experimentation.”
“Stop!” Isabelle insisted. “I do not want to hear any more. I do not believe you. You’re insane or trying to manipulate me.”
“Think what you will, innocent,” Esmé said with a shrug. “But you cannot stay pure of heart around someone like the man he has become, and that is what you must be to save him. A conundrum, is it not?”
Standing up, Esmé ignored the spilled tea and took Isabelle’s arm. “Think about it, dear girl; sleep and pray to your God. Joubay found his answer in you. Who knows? It could be that I am mistaken. If that is so, and I am wrong, we will become enemies. My mission in life, as the healer’s descendant, is to see that Sebastian Dushayne is punished into eternity.”
Isabelle must have looked as stunned as she felt. “You would murder me?”
“Murder you?” Esmé’s shock was sincere. “Never. But there are other ways to make you unwelcome here. Please, don’t let it come to that. Avoid him. He deserves his misery.” The healer patted her arm as she showed her to the door. “For two hundred years. This has been going on for two hundred years. You are not the first innocent and you will not be the last.” Esmé pushed her out the door with a gentle shove and clicked it shut.
Home was five doors down, and even though Isabelle walked very slowly it was not nearly a long enough walk to sift out the truth of the healer’s story.
Hanging her dress on one of the hooks, she brushed her teeth halfheartedly and climbed into bed. Sleep was impossible, but Isabelle felt safest in her snug bed tucked into the alcove.
The sheets were soft with many washings and as white as island sun and lemon could make them.
Relaxing a little, Isabelle began to pray. If she did not actually fall asleep, she did begin to dream. Father Joubay came to her and sat on the edge of her bed, which was, suddenly, aboard a ship being tossed about in an insane sea.
“We are safe,” he assured her. “He is the one in danger.”
In the way of dreams she could see a man swimming, struggling against the waves, but swimming away from them and not to them.
“It really should not be hard to believe that a devil’s curse could hold this man and this curve of land in thrall.” He picked up a wooden cross from the shelf at the head of her bed and held it to his heart. “Isabelle, you believe in the miracles that are in the Bible.”
She nodded and Father Joubay went on, pressing his advantage. “You have seen miracles in your work. Why is it more difficult to believe in the curse of evil?”
“You called it the devil’s miracle.”
“Yes. Like the planes that destroyed the World Trade Center. Like the nightmare of slavery in America or the children who destroyed innocence at Columbine High School. Those were calamitous events and millions of people felt their impact.
“But there are many other curses like the one that Sebastian must endure, curses that do not impact the whole world.” He took her hand. “We could have been spared every one of those events, great and small, if one person had done the right thing.”
“What right thing?”
“Only God knows who or what would have led to a different ending to those tragedies, but there is always someone who could have changed what happened.”
“But no one stopped the Oklahoma City bombing or the Holocaust.”
“That’s true. But someone changed the heart of the man who would have destroyed the San Francisco Bay Bridge and the men set on destroying the Tokyo water supply. A beautiful sunrise convinced your mother not to abort you.”
“Yes, I know that story but not the others.”
“No one knows of those others because they never happened and never will. Goodness in some form changed a heart and drove all thought of hatred from them. And, you, Isabelle, are the one who can change Sebastian Dushayne’s life.”
“You ask too much of me.”
Father Joubay stayed silent, and Isabelle knew what he was waiting for.