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