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SAMANTHA CHAUVET HEARD the girls long before she saw them. There were three of them down on the beach below the cliff where she was walking, their laughter echoing off the rocks as they sat on the warm sand.
It was a beautiful day, the sunlight sparkling on the water and a blue sky reflecting off the surface, and there weren’t many like that on Porcher Island. It was located only a hundred miles or so south of Alaska, and while there was seldom snow, on most days there was rain. It was why she had come here. Not that she liked the rain. She didn’t, but most of the other people in the group she had so carefully cultivated had problems with their health, among them an allergy to the sun’s rays. They needed the clouds to protect their skin and Samantha needed the people. It had taken time for her to recognize and acknowledge that fact and it hadn’t been easy. At first all she had known was that they needed her. After all, none of them came from families like hers, families with pure bloodlines that could trace their ancestry back for generations. None of them had the same superior genes. None of them had her intelligence, or her looks, or her money. If only . . .
If only the accident that had taken her leg hadn’t happened. But it had, and she needed these people even if they came from families she would not usually associate with. If she was going to be able to use the masks and the totems and the other things she had asked Martin to bring her in order to punish the people who had teased and bullied her because of her leg, she needed them all.
The accident hadn’t been her fault of course—she had only been three at the time—and it certainly hadn’t been the fault of anyone in her family. Some ignorant peasant had been driving the truck that crashed into the car she and her nanny had been riding in and her leg had been crushed. Her parents had told her she was lucky to have survived, and her father made sure the peasant would never hurt anyone again, but even with all their money and position they hadn’t been able to save her leg.
***
THE LEADER OF THE GROUP of girls she was watching had two legs, both of them long and smooth and attached to a sleek, lithe body. Samantha guessed she had either come off a visiting yacht or was on a tour and had rented the boat in Prince Rupert. Other than the people living in Samantha’s small community there were less than thirty people living on Porcher, and all but one of them lived in Oona River, on the east coast and made their living from fishing. None of them looked anything like this.
When the girl turned to smooth more sun tan oil or her body, gold glistened on her neck, one of her wrists, and an ankle. In fact everything about her looked golden: her skin, her hair, even her bikini. The surge of jealousy Samantha felt was familiar and she didn’t fight it. She welcomed it. She even encouraged it. It was what drove her. What she used to focus her energy.
That’s how I was meant to be, she thought. I was supposed to look like that. If only the accident hadn’t happened . . .
There might be nothing she could do about the accident, but she had decided several years ago there were things she could do to those who had tormented her as she was growing up and the thought of those things made her smile.
***
“HEY, SUZE! NEED A HAND?”
The question came from one of the girls and something about the way it was said told Samantha there was more to it than just the words. It sounded odd. Sarcastic maybe. Said with a sneer. And it was followed by a chorus of snickers.
The cruel tone was so familiar that for a moment Samantha thought they were talking to her, but that was impossible. They were looking in the opposite direction and hadn’t seen her where she stood in the shadow of the trees far above them. She turned to follow their gaze and saw there was someone still aboard the boat they had arrived in, which lay at anchor in the lagoon. It was another girl and she was moving awkwardly along the deck, leaning against the cabin to support herself as she trailed an arm that ended above the elbow. Her hunched shoulders and bent head said she was used to being left out. Used to being taunted, just as Samantha had so often been taunted.
Samantha turned her attention back to the girls on the beach and mentally added them to the list she had been working on for years. She didn’t know who they were, and didn’t care. It wasn’t necessary to have names and addresses. Those were only for people who lacked her abilities and her resources. People who didn’t have access to the power she was soon going to wield. All she had to do was wait for Martin to bring her the last of the talismans and jujus she had asked for and she would be ready. She almost laughed aloud at the thought.